Part 22 (1/2)
”Then I'll be waiting for you there. I'll work on the defenses with the others while I do.”
There was a momentary pause as the two stared at each other, neither knowing what more to say. ”Don't worry,” the Gray Man said finally. ”I'll bring her back safe and sound.”
The boy did not respond, but in the following silence Sider Ament could all but hear the words he was thinking.
You'd better.
TWENTY-FOUR.
JUST TWO DAYS AFTER VISITING HER GRANDMOTHER, Phryne was summoned before her father and told that the restrictions placed upon her were being lifted. Her father did not seem either happy or unhappy about this decision, simply resigned. His explanation, however, said everything that needed saying.
”Your grandmother seems to feel that you've been punished enough,” he began after sitting her down across from him. ”She has sent me repeated notes to that effect. She wants me to put you back to work in a more useful way; she wants me to give you a fresh chance to demonstrate your sense of responsibility.”
He paused. ”I agree with her thinking, which is saying something. Mistral Belloruus hasn't exactly endeared herself to me over these past few years. She would have me be a widower in mourning for your mother until I die, and even your mother, could she communicate as much, would disagree with her. Life is for the living, and the living have an obligation to carry on.”
He paused again, suddenly uncomfortable with what he had said. ”Not that I didn't love your mother more than I will ever love any other woman, Phryne. No one will ever replace her in my heart. You might think otherwise, but that's how it is.”
She did think otherwise, but she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. She loved him enough for that.
”So I am giving you back your old life, free of any restrictions,” he continued. ”With the understanding that you will not violate my trust and will exercise good judgment when temptation suggests you do otherwise. No running off on some wild impulse, no throwing caution to the winds to satisfy curiosity, and no going outside the valley for any reason whatsoever. Are we agreed?”
She nodded. ”We are.”
”This is important, given what I am about to ask of you. Are you certain you can live by these rules?”
”I can live by them.”
”Good. Then we will put the last two weeks behind us, and hope that Sider Ament finds a way to rescue that unfortunate Glensk Wood girl from the Trolls.”
She cringed inwardly as he said it, but kept her face expressionless.
”As I said, I have something I want you to do. No more work at the healing center for now. Let's leave that to Isoeld.”
She cringed anew. That and a few other things she couldn't bring herself to mention.
”I want you to go back up to Aphalion Pa.s.s,” he finished.
She started, surprised. ”But I thought you just got through saying you didn't want me to-”
”Go out of the valley,” he finished. ”That is exactly right. I don't. What I want you to do is go up to the pa.s.s and find out how things are going. Talk to the Orullians and ask them what they think. They're both up there, helping with the barricades. Take a good look around. I need an independent judgment of matters, and you are the most independent-minded person I know. Which is to say, among other things, that you are good at seeing what others miss because you keep an open mind.”
He saw the look of uncertainty that crossed her face. ”I mean all this as a compliment, Phryne. You won't tell me something just to try to please me. And the truth is what I need. How is the work coming? How strong do the defenses look? What is the att.i.tude of the Elves working on the barriers, now that they know the protective wall is down? That's what I want here. The truth of things. Will you go?”
She rose, walked over to him, bent down and kissed his cheek. ”Of course I'll go. Thank you for trusting me to do this.”
”Who do I trust, if not you and Isoeld?” he said.
She bit off the reply that was on the tip of her tongue and listened to the rest of his explanation. One of the conditions of her going was that Elven Hunters acting as escorts and bodyguards would accompany her. She agreed without argument; she understood why her father would think it was too dangerous for her to make the journey alone. She was somewhat mollified when he added that she would be allowed to choose their route both coming and going so long as her escort did not think it presented any danger. She would make her own conclusions and deliver her own report when she returned. She was to take no more than three days to do this.
”This is all the time I can give you,” he finished. ”The deadline for this meeting with the Trolls expires in eight. I will need the balance of that time to muster and dispatch a force adequate to hold the pa.s.ses. I will have to tell our people something soon. I can't put it off any longer, much as I might like. Time slips away from us, Phryne.”
She wouldn't disagree, and since it didn't do any good just talking about it, she left things where they were and went off to pack. Shoving clothes and personals into her backpack, she had a momentary twinge of regret that her companions of the last trip would not be going with her, especially Panterra Qu, about whom she had not stopped thinking since he had departed Arborlon more than a week ago with the Gray Man. Certainly thinking about Pan was preferable to thinking about her stepmother, but her thoughts were generated less as a matter of choice than of fascination. Even now, she remained intrigued with this boy, and although she had tried repeatedly she could not explain it.
She sighed, pondering on it anew as she stood there in her bedchamber, staring at her backpack. Some of her odd attraction to Panterra had to do with his unavailability, she knew. He was human, she was Elven, and the two did not mix when you were a member of the royal family. He was unavailable to her, and that made him desirable. Some of it had to do with the singular nature of his profession, how remote he kept himself from the rest of the world, how isolated he was. How he could do what he did and be happy, living on his own with no one to talk to but Prue Liss, separated from the rest of his people, immersed in reading sign and interpreting the behavior of nature's creatures.
She knew plenty of Elven Trackers, understood their lives and their need to live free. She had talked with some and listened to their explanations. But Panterra Qu was different, and she could not explain how. Something in the way he viewed the world. Something in the way he spoke and moved. Something in the Tracker part of him that made her feel he could manage in any given situation-which was part of why she had been so quick to cajole him into investigating the campfire that had led to Prue Liss's captivity.
Something in the way he looked at her.
She stopped suddenly, just at the end of closing up her backpack and preparing to set out, struck by a shocking possibility.
Was she in love with this boy? Was that what this was?
She rolled her eyes at the very idea of it and went out the door and down the walkway to the quarters that housed the Elven Hunters. Once there, she inquired after her escort and found that they had a.s.signed Rendelen and Dash to go with her, two who had accompanied her on previous outings in the valley. The former was a veteran, small and tough and smart. The latter was younger, bigger and full of good cheer. They greeted her with friendly waves, their packs already in place, ready to leave.
The morning had not yet reached midday when they set out for Aphalion Pa.s.s.
As they walked to the edge of the bluff and started down the Elfitch, she was surprised to find Arik Sarn coming up. The Troll was carrying writing instruments and paper, his head lowered, his mind elsewhere. He did not see her until he was almost on top of her, and when he did he was visibly startled.
”Princess,” he greeted in his guttural voice, bowing deeply.
Too deeply to suit her. She still didn't like him. But it didn't much matter because she hadn't seen him once in the time he had been there. Until now, of course.
”Good morning to you,” she said in reply. ”Taking a walk?”
”Just to the ramp's end and back. I've come from your gardens. We have no such flowers where I live.”
”They are beautiful,” she agreed. ”The gardeners work very hard to keep them so.” She glanced at the notebook. ”Writing something down about those flowers?”
”Drawing them,” he said. He showed her several pages of very good sketchings of early-spring flowers. He smiled. ”Helps me pa.s.s the time. We don't have these plants outside.”
She found it surprising that he liked to draw flowers, but who could tell about Trolls? She left him there with a smile of encouragement and a wave of her hand. She could feel him studying her back.
With Dash and Rendelen as companions, she walked through the remainder of the day at a steady pace, pa.s.sing out of Arborlon and down through the Eldemeres, making her way across the lowlands to the forest that lay just at the base of the mountains leading up to the pa.s.s. The day was cloudy and gray, but the air was warm and the ground soft and dry. As nightfall approached, the trio made camp and ate dinner, and then afterward sat around a small fire drinking ale and telling stories. Phryne might have been born to a privileged and high-ranking family with expectations for her future, but she had not been raised that way. In fact, she had pretty much spurned all of it since she was very young, insisting that she be allowed to spend her time with whomever she wished-which in her case meant with the rough-and-tumble boys and girls being raised as Elven Hunters and Trackers. Her mother and father, seeing how set she was on choosing her own playmates and lifestyle, gave up on trying to manage that aspect of her life early on, settling instead for teaching her what they thought important about deportment and manners and court life in the privacy of her own home. She endured their lessons stoically and structured her life pretty much as she chose.
That became more the case than ever after the death of her mother, when her father, alone now and preoccupied, let her go her own way. Had he known half of the things she did during that time period, even a quarter of the escapades in which she had engaged or the dangerous situations into which she'd put herself, he would have locked her away until she was old enough to know better. Phryne, as her grandmother correctly surmised, had never been very good about knowing better, only knowing what she wanted.
So jos.h.i.+ng and teasing with Rendelen and Dash came naturally, just three Elves of similar background and shared worldview, sitting around a fire and pa.s.sing the time.
Only one area was taboo. No mention was made of the King's personal life or his young Queen. Even Elven Hunters were astute enough to know that this was forbidden territory when it came to Phryne Amarantyne.
They slept soundly until the sunrise woke them, then set out to finish their journey. They climbed into the mountains, bright sunlight was.h.i.+ng the landscape as yesterday's weather moved on, the clouds and mists of early morning dissipating, the skies turning clear and blue. By midday, they had reached the slopes leading up to the pa.s.s and were met by sentries keeping watch. Within another hour, they had ascended the final section of their climb, moved into the near end of the pa.s.s, and could hear the sounds of construction ahead.
The first thing Phryne noticed as they entered the split and saw the first of the staging areas was how close the fortifications were to the near end of the pa.s.s. Within minutes, she could see the defenses themselves, braced across a narrows where the cliff walls offered sheer drops of more than two hundred feet. She had envisioned the defenses being set farther in toward the far end of the pa.s.s, thinking the Elves would want to fight for every inch of the twisty pa.s.sageway if the first set of defenses was breached. Clearly, someone had decided otherwise.
She had her chance to discover whom as Tasha caught sight of her from where he was working on fas.h.i.+oning logs into b.u.t.tresses for the walls and hailed her over.