by Sharon Green
“More than clearly enough,” Elissia responded stiffly without turning again to look at the man. He was nothing but an unreasonable savage, and arguing with him would have been a waste of breath. Instead of arguing Elissia would take her food back to her apartment, and as soon as she’d eaten she would change her clothes and leave. When he found her gone he could whistle, but she’d be too far away to hear it. After all, even if he hated the idea, what could he possibly do about it?
Chapter 3
copyright 1999, 2002 by Sharon Green
Derand was almost too annoyed to want to eat, which was something of a surprise. He never lost his appetite over anything, but the girl had almost made it happen. At first it had looked as though hearing about the end of their marriage wasn’t going to make a difference to her, but then they’d been told about what had happened to Gardal. That had made a difference, and more quickly than Derand would have believed possible
“She’s gone again,” Ostrin said when Derand brought his own plate to the table after refusing the help of a servant. “But at least she took her food with her.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing,” Derand said, stopping in the middle of picking up his fork to consider the matter. “She said she understood that I wanted her to stay here, but she didn’t actually say she’d obey me. You don’t think she’d go so far as to leave anyway, do you?”
“Of course not,” Ostrin assured him quickly, looking as though he actually believed what he said. “She may be a bit undisciplined in general, but she certainly knows she’s required to obey her husband. And she looked a good deal better toward the end, didn’t she?”
“Yes, and I don’t understand why,” Derand said, beginning to taste the food he’d chosen. “When you first told her that the marriage might be over, it didn’t seem to pull her completely out of the depths she’d fallen into. Only the attack against Gardal did that, and then she was right back to the way she was originally. Isn’t there ever going to be a middle ground with her?”
“I’m the last one to ask about that,” Ostrin said with something of a smile. “I haven’t understood my daughter since she first began to walk and talk. I’m sure she loves me and knows that I love her, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“Which isn’t nearly far enough,” Derand said with firm decision. “As soon as we’re through eating and talking about the problem of Gardal’s rescue, I’ll go to her apartment and sit her down for a conversation. I may even use the promise of letting the marriage be annulled to get her to talk to me, but that might not be the truth. Depending on what I learn, the marriage will probably remain in effect – especially now.”
“What do you mean, especially now?” Ostrin asked, apparently having no idea what Derand was talking about. “Why are you acting as if something has changed?”
“Only because something has changed,” Derand responded, annoyed with himself for expecting Ostrin to understand on his own. The girl might have understood, but her father was too kindly a person to think that way. “If your heir has been taken captive, that puts your daughter in a very difficult position.
Killing Gardal will mean that you need Elissia to secure yourself another heir, and whomever you marry her to will be that heir. If someone ends up married to her even without your permission, that someone will then be considered your heir – especially if you have a fatal accident shortly after the marriage ceremony is completed.“
“But you’re married to her,” Ostrin protested, now looking even more confused. “How can anyone think about marrying her when she’s already your wife?”
“Not many people seem to know about that marriage,” Derand pointed out. “If they did, Elissia would never have found it so shocking. Someone would have mentioned it to her long ago, so we have to assume that whoever took Gardal prisoner also doesn’t know. Which is encouraging for the hope that he’s still alive.”
“You believe he’s still alive?” Ostrin asked, his open, honest face showing the painful beginnings of hope. “I’ve been saying he is, but somehow I can’t make myself believe it.”
“Oh, they definitely wanted him alive,” Derand hastened to assure the man, not having realized that he’d missed this point as well. “If they’d decided to have him killed right away, they would have done it during the attack. They seem to have some use for him, maybe even beyond the possibility that your daughter isn’t as easily available as they think she is. No, at the moment he’s safe, but how long that continues remains to be seen. We have to get him away from the ones holding him, and that as quickly as possible.”
“You sound as though you have a plan to find and free him,” Ostrin said, for the moment apparently having forgotten about his food. “Please tell me if that’s so.”
“I have a plan of sorts,” Derand stressed, refusing to mislead the man. “I’ll have a better idea once I can look around the place where he was taken, but I do have an idea to find out where he is. And before you ask, I’ll say I’d rather not discuss it. You can’t be disturbed over something you don’t know about.”
Ostrin opened his mouth, apparently ready to insist, but then he simply shook his head.
“I believe I’ll take your advice about that,” he allowed with a sigh. “They say that desperate situations call for desperate measures, but I’ve never been very good about being able to do that. I don’t want to abandon my beliefs, but with my son’s life at stake”
Derand nodded his understanding, and they both went back to eating. It isn’t easy to abandon the beliefs of a lifetime, but the fate of your child often outweighs a consideration like that. Afterward you’re always a different person, so Ostrin was wise to stay out of it. What Derand planned to do was perfectly within his nature and usual doings, so there would be nothing of the traumatic happening to his sense of self.
They took their time finishing their meal, and then Ostrin went to see if his wife was awake. The woman usually took refuge in sleep if something disturbing happened, he told Derand, and he had no intention of waking her. She needed the refuge, and would probably continue to need it until Gardal was safely home.
Derand himself went back to his own wife’s apartment, taking his time walking while he tried to decide what to say to her. The girl was back to being argumentative and aloof, and hearing the wrong thing could turn her more than stubborn. She’d need to be closely guarded while he was gone, and he didn’t want her trying to avoid that. If the one responsible for taking Gardal got his hands on her, Gardal’s life would be measurable in minutes.
Walking into the apartment showed Derand two of the servants, one tidying and the other standing ready to do whatever would be necessary. When the man saw Derand heading for the girl’s bedchamber, he took a step forward.
“May I be of service, Your Majesty?” he asked with a bow. “Her Highness isn’t available at the moment.”
“She’ll have to make herself available,” Derand disagreed as he slowed his step. “I have something to discuss with her, which she already knows. And she’s not Her Highness any longer. As my wife, she’s Her Majesty.”
The man started as though he’d forgotten about that, but Derand had stressed the point for a reason. If Gardal’s kidnappers had spies in the household, word about Elissia’s being married would reach them most easily through the staff. Gardal would then be in a much safer position, and the situation would give him a better chance to find where Gardal was being held.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” the servant said with another bow. “Referring to her as a princess has become a habit over the years. But the fact remains that she isn’t available. She left the apartment a short time ago.”
“Left to go where?” Derand asked at once, an empty feeling suddenly appearing in the pit of his stomach. “She was supposed to stay here and wait for me.”
“Most likely she misunderstood, Your Majesty,” the servant responded, his tone trying to soothe. “From the clothing she wore she apparently intended to go riding, but not
among others. She would never have dressed like that if others were involved.”
“Dressed like what?” Derand asked through his teeth, trying to hold tight to his temper. There was no misunderstanding involved, not in any direction. “Do you mean she wore her riding skirt?”
“No, Your Majesty, not a riding skirt,” the servant said. “She wore trousers and a tunic, along with an old cap. She sometimes goes out that way when she wants to be alone. People don’t recognize her, so she has time to herself.”
“Was she carrying anything with her this time?” Derand put next, his suspicion growing stronger.
“Something like a large pouch or a set of saddlebags?”
“Why, yes, it so happens she was carrying saddlebags,” the servant admitted, his expression showing surprise. “How did you know?”
“Just a lucky guess,” Derand growled, fists on his hips as he fought not to curse out loud. That miserable female had taken off on her own, disobeying him without a second thought. “Send someone to alert my men. Tell them we’ll be leaving here in about ten minutes, and they’re to meet me at the stables.”
The servant bowed his acknowledgment of the order even as Derand strode to his bedchamber and inside. It would take only five minutes to pack his belongings, and the other five minutes would be enough to tell Ostrin what was happening. He would ride after the girl at a gallop, and when he caught up with her she would not be very anxious to sit a saddle again for quite some time.
Once Elissia was through the gates of her city and on the road to Ramsond, Waysten’s city, she urged her horse into a gallop. The gate guards hadn’t recognized her with her hair stuffed up under the cap, and neither had anyone else. Her clothing was loose enough to give the impression that she was a boy, and she’d taken the trouble to move and sit her horse the way real boys did. It was something she’d practiced, and it had never come in handier than today.
“Which means I ought to be well ahead of that savage,” she murmured to herself as the wind tried to pull the cap from her head. “He’ll probably follow when he finds me gone, but by the time he gets to Ramsond I’ll already have the information I need.”
And her father would undoubtedly have the guardsmen she’d asked for waiting outside the city. She’d left a note for her father telling him that she would return with Gardal, and had asked that guardsmen be sent to help her free him. Gardal was her beloved brother, and she couldn’t have just waited for someone else to try something on his behalf. Especially since that someone else wasn’t likely to know the best way to find things out. Or to get around the unvoiced accusation leveled against him.
“He’s a fool if he thinks that that’s all there is to it,” Elissia murmured again, wondering how he’d accomplished as much as he had. If Waysten had gone to the trouble to suggest that the savage was responsible for Gardal’s kidnapping, there would certainly be other things that had been – and would be – blamed on him. Expecting to just ride in and ask about what he wanted to know Elissia shook her head. A man like Derand du Bahr shouldn’t be that innocent.
But he also seemed to be innocent in other ways, Elissia realized as she finally slowed her horse. They were far enough away from the city gates that continuing to gallop would do no more than waste the strength of her horse. She’d left her favorite stallion behind, knowing he would bring too much attention to her. Instead she’d taken a mount that looked like he might be used as a plow horse, his roughly uneven brown coat giving no hint of the stamina and heart it hid. She would let him rest in a trot for a while before they galloped again, and that way she would make very good time.
“All right, so I can’t distract myself completely by thinking about my horse,” Elissia muttered, finding it impossible to be dishonest with herself. Derand du Bahr had turned out to be something of a surprise when she’d stopped to think about it, mostly while she’d been changing her clothes and packing. The suspicion had suddenly come to her that he’d deliberately refrained from trying to share her bed the night before. She would have preferred to think that his actions had been her father’s idea, but unfortunately that didn’t fit. Leaving her alone in her misery had been his doing alone, and she really didn’t understand that. He couldn’t possibly have any feelings for her, not when their marriage had been their fathers’ doing and not his own, and yet the way he acted
Elissia shook her head to dismiss the entire question, knowing that none of it really mattered. The man might have stayed away from her the night before, but this morning he hadn’t hesitated to give her orders in a matter that concerned her more than it did him. And he’d also lied to her about not ending their non-marriage. Her father would never have mentioned an annulment if the decision hadn’t already been made, so who did he think he was fooling by pretending it hadn’t been? And that was probably why he’d stayed away from her, to be certain there would be no difficulties about the annulment.
The sudden realization refused to make Elissia feel as good as it should have, so she pushed it out of her thoughts. She had more important matters to concern her at the moment, like the finding and rescuing of her brother. That was enough to take anyone’s full attention, and she meant to make sure that it took all of hers. Other thoughts could be left for another time, when she had nothing better to do than think about where she would go when she left her father’s palace. And she would leave, just as soon as Gardal was safely home. Her father had suffered enough because she’d refused to see the obvious.
The rest of the afternoon went by in something of a blur, and dusk had already fallen when she reached the roadside inn. Impatience wanted her to pass it by, but that wouldn’t have been very intelligent. She could be expected to keep going in order to lose any pursuit there might be, so stopping instead became the wiser decision. And riding at night could bring unnecessary trouble, in addition to tiring her mount to the point of losing him for good. No, she did have to stop, and would be sure to get back on the road as early as possible.
A stable boy came out to take her mount when she rode up, and she gave the boy a copper along with the instructions that the horse was to be ready at dawn. She’d gathered some gold, silver, and copper to make the trip more easily accomplished, but she’d have to watch her expenses. She hadn’t had much in the way of coin, not having seen a need for it. Now that the need was perfectly clear, she didn’t have the time to accumulate more.
Elissia sighed to herself as she carried her saddlebags into the inn, making sure to walk in the proper way. She also roughened her voice after making it higher, wanting people to think her a boy trying to pretend he was a fully-grown man. The innkeep seemed to accept that with nothing more than an indulgent smile as he gave her the key to one of his cheapest rooms. Elissia hid her own smile as she followed one of the inn girls toward the back of the inn, where her room was located. Cheap was exactly what she’d wanted, and as tiny as the room turned out to be it also had a stout lock. It would serve as a place to sleep until it was time to be on her way again.
After leaving her saddlebags in the room, Elissia locked the door and retraced her steps to the front of the inn. She needed to get something to eat, and once she had she would go straight to bed. Morning would come early, and she meant to be ready for it.
The inn’s dining room had a fair number of people at tables, but it was still possible for Elissia to find a small table of her own. She ordered tea to drink while she waited for the food, which wasn’t long in coming. Obviously it had been kept warm rather than being freshly cooked, but it wasn’t bad in spite of that. The meat of the stew had been chopped into thin slivers that were tender and tasty, and even the vegetables benefited from the thick brown gravy. The bread was soft enough and came with plenty of butter, and if it wasn’t fancy at least it was filling.
Elissia was almost through eating when the sound of someone’s gasp made her look up. She expected to see something dropped or spilled, and it took a moment to realize that the gasp had come because of two men who were standing in th
e room rather than sitting. One stood near the curtained and draped windows and the other at the door leading into the kitchens, their black leather and armor making it perfectly clear what they were. By then Elissia had realized that they couldn’t possibly be alone, so she didn’t bother to look around. Swallowing frustration and anger wasn’t as easily done as swallowing food, but she did it anyway as she pretended to go back to her meal.
“Your obedience to orders needs some serious practicing,” a voice said dryly from her left. “This isn’t what I call doing it right.”
“It feels right to me,” Elissia commented after taking a sip of her tea, making no effort to look up at the man. “If you don’t agree, I’ll just have to keep doing the same until I have it down.”
“That isn’t as funny as you seem to think it is,” he growled, then reached down to wrap a big hand around her arm. “Let’s go to my room and discuss it.”
He pulled her out of her chair with almost no effort, and Elissia had no choice about letting herself be dragged after him. The way every man in the dining room paid close attention to his meal said none of them was prepared to interfere, so making a scene would have been worse than useless. She was pulled out to the inn’s entrance area and then to a set of stairs and up them, a clear indication that her pursuer had already taken rooms there.
When they reached a door about half way down the hall her captor paused to unlock it, and then she was pushed inside. It was immediately clear that this wasn’t one of the inn’s cheap rooms, as there were another two doors besides the one they’d entered by. And the room itself was three times the size of her own, which probably meant that one of the other doors led to servant’s quarters. As the savage closed the door behind them Elissia saw the two men from the dining room, now stationing themselves outside the door in the hall.