Beyond the High Road c-2 Page 26

  Tanalasta said nothing, content to see someone else make a fool of herself for a change. The princess could not believe how she had misread Rowen’s emotions. Their kiss had certainly felt sincere enough, but she had read that men experienced such things more with their bodies than their hearts. Was that the root of her mistake? Perhaps she had mistaken simple lust for something more… permanent. The affection she sensed had been no more than a man’s normal carnal attraction, kept in check by Rowen’s honorable nature. The princess almost wished he had not been so virtuous. Had he used her, at least she would have been justified in her anger. As it was, all she could do was feel embarrassed and try to avoid him until he went off to find Vangerdahast.

  Alusair finally stopped tugging on the reins and stumbled around to scowl at the motionless horse-the second that had died in only ten hours of walking. She muttered an inaudible curse, then looked to Tanalasta.

  “You could have said something.”

  Tanalasta spread her hands helplessly. “I thought it might get up.”

  Alusair eyed her sourly, then called the rest of the company with a short whistle. As the troops gathered around, she pointed to the dead horse. “Let’s take off our helmets.”

  The weary men groaned and reluctantly started removing the leather padding from inside their helmets. After the first horse died, they had spent nearly an hour burying it so the body would not attract vultures and betray their route, and no one was looking forward to repeating the experience-especially not with night fast approaching and another thirteen horses ready to follow the first two at any moment.

  As Rowen kneeled to help the others, Tanalasta at first tried to avoid his eye-then realized she could not be so coy. With Alusair’s mind addled by fever and the rest of the company near collapse, a certain amount of responsibility for their safety fell to her.

  Tanalasta caught Rowen by the arm. “Not you.” She pointed toward a hazy line of crooked shadow just below the western horizon. “That looks like a gulch to me. See if there’s a stream in it-and a safe campsite.”

  “Wait a minute.” Alusair was so weak she barely had the strength to signal Rowen to stay put. “Tanalasta, you don’t give orders to my company.”

  “I do when you are in no condition to see to its welfare.” Tanalasta met her sister’s gaze, which was more drained than angry, and waved at the surviving horses. “If we don’t water these creatures soon, we’ll have to bury them all by morning-and then we can start on your men.” She glanced meaningfully toward one warrior still struggling with his helmet’s chin strap.

  “Princess Tanalasta is right.” Rowen’s comment drew a glassy-eyed scowl from Alusair, but he was not intimidated. “Had your wits been clear, you would have had me looking for water two hours ago-and not only for the horses.”

  Alusair frowned, though her expression looked more pained than angry. “That may be, but I am still commander of this company.”

  “Then you would do well to remember that and let Seaburt take care of your fever,” said Tanalasta.

  Because Seaburt and his fellow priest could cast only enough curing spells each day to restore a third of the company to health, any one person could be healed only once every three days. Unfortunately-as Alusair had discovered while trapped in the goblin keep-the illness tended to recur on the second day, and Alusair had steadfastly refused to deprive anyone else by having a spell cast on her out of turn.

  “I may not know the military,” said Tanalasta, still addressing Alusair, “but I do know leadership. As the great strategist Aosimn Truesilver wrote, ‘If a man must send troops into battle, then he owes it to them to be sober at the time.’”

  Alusair scowled and started to argue, but Rowen cut her off. “Princess, you must let Seaburt see to your fever. Everyone will stand a better chance of returning alive if you do.”

  Alusair looked from the ranger to the others. When they nodded their consensus, she sighed. “Very well. Rowen, go and see about that water. Everyone else-why isn’t that horse buried?”

  The company began to scrape at the hard ground with their helmets. Seaburt took Alusair aside and began to prepare her for the spell-the last he would be able to cast until morning. Rowen started toward the western horizon, but stopped a dozen steps away and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the setting sun.

  “Princess Tanalasta, I don’t see that gulch you were talking about. Would you be kind enough to show it to me?”

  Frowning, Tanalasta went to his side and pointed at the hazy line. “It’s there. You can see the shadow.”

  “Of course. I see it now.”

  Tanalasta sensed Rowen watching her and turned to find him looking not toward the gulch, but into her eyes.

  “Forgive the ruse,” he said. “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Apologize?” Tanalasta kept her voice cold. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “I fear I have given you reason to think poorly of me.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve been most valorous. The king shall hear of your service.” Tanalasta paused, then decided a demonstration of her magnanimity was in order. “In truth, I shouldn’t be surprised if you were granted that holding you desire.”

  Rowen’s face fell. “Do you think that’s why I’m here? Because I am chasing after a piece of land?”

  Tanalasta recoiled from the bitterness in his voice, then lowered her chin to a less regal height. “I know better than that. I only wanted you to know I wouldn’t hold my own foolishness against you.”

  “Your foolishness, Princess?”

  “Mine.” Tanalasta looked away. “I have been throwing myself at you like a festhall trollop, and you have been honorable enough not to accept my affections under false pretenses.” She gave Rowen a sideways glance, then added, “Though it would have been kinder to tell me at the start I was behaving like a fool.”

  “How could I do that? It would have been a lie.” Rowen dared to grasp her hand-and when she pulled it away, dared to take it again. “If my feelings are different from yours, it is only because they are stronger. I have been stricken from the moment I saw you.”

  Tanalasta was too stunned to pull her hand away. Once again, he was telling her what she longed to hear, but how could she believe him when his actions spoke otherwise? She shook her head.

  “That can’t be true, or you would never leave me with Alusair-not when Vangerdahast has the resources of an entire kingdom to make certain we never see each other again.”

  Rowen closed his eyes for a moment, then looked toward the horizon. “Perhaps that would be for the best.”

  “What?” Tanalasta grabbed Rowen’s arm. “I will not be taken for an idiot. If you do not wish to court me, then have the courage to say so plainly. I’ve heard doubletalk all my life, and you really aren’t very good at it.”

  Rowen’s eyes flashed at the slight. “I am speaking as plainly as I know how, Princess Tanalasta. My feelings are as sincere as they are powerful, but I am the son of a disgraced house. Any courtship of mine would only weaken the crown.”

  Tanalasta experienced a sudden lifting of the heart as her irritation gave way to comprehension. She stood motionless for many moments, then finally began to see how deeply her harsh words had to have cut the ranger. She stepped closer and said, “Rowen, I’m sorry for the things I said to you. Now that you’ve explained your reservations, I see you have been honest-brutally honest, at least with yourself.”

  “I’m sorry, Princess. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

  Tanalasta cocked her brow. “Really? Then you are prepared to assert your judgment over that of the Goddess?”

  “Of course not, but if you are speaking of your vision, how are we to know I am the one?”

  “I know,” Tanalasta replied. “And so do you.”

  Rowen looked torn and said nothing.

  “Certainly, there will be those who resent my choice,” Tanalasta said, sensing an opportunity to win him over, “but that would be true no matter w
ho I chose. If I picked a Silversword, the Emmarasks would be angry. If I picked an Emmarask, the Truesilvers would disapprove. If I picked a Truesilver, the Hawklins would gossip, and anyone I choose will be a slight to the Marliirs. In the end, I can only follow my heart and take the man I desire, one I know to be honest, loyal, and trustworthy-and that man, Rowen, is you.”

  “Even if it costs you the crown?” he asked. “And though it does not, even if it costs you the loyalty of the great nobles?”

  Tanalasta shrugged. “You are only one of the choices I have made that may cost me the throne-but they are my choices to make, and I am happy to live with the consequences.” She gave him a steady gaze. “If the crown is to rest on my head, having the strength of your character at my side will far outweigh the loss of a noble family’s shifting loyalties.”

  Rowen considered this for a moment, then asked, “But how many of those families can one man be worth?” He shook his head. “Surely, not even half of them. It is well and good for a royal to make her own choices, but she must not be blind to the trouble that follows. People will think of me as no better than Aunadar Bleth, taking advantage of your good nature to restore my family’s standing-and the crown will be the weaker for it.”

  “Is your opinion of me that low?” Tanalasta demanded. “Do you assume people think me capable of attracting only frauds and sycophants?”

  Rowen’s face went white. “That’s not what I mean to-“

  “What else could you mean? Perhaps it’s just as well we haven’t pursued this further.” Tanalasta pointed toward the horizon. “There is the gulch, Rowen. Go and see if it has any water for us.”

  The mare neighed three sharp times and scraped at the ground, nearly crushing Vangerdahast’s foot when one of her hooves caught him across the instep. He cursed and jerked on the reins, forcing her head down below the height of his chest.

  Owden Foley raised a restraining hand. “Gently, my friend. She has been through a lot.”

  “And she will go through a lot more, if she doesn’t start making sense,” Vangerdahast growled. “Tell her that.”

  Owden scowled his disapproval. “I don’t think-“

  “Tell her,” Vangerdahast ordered. “Perhaps it will clear her thoughts.”

  Owden sighed, but turned back to the horse and began to neigh and nicker. The horse’s ears flattened, and she fixed a single round eye on Vangerdahast’s face.

  He narrowed his own eyes and raised his lip in a snarl. The mare looked away and began a quick succession of nickers, punctuated every now and then by a sharp whinny or a neighed question from Owden. When the conversation finally ended, Owden nodded and patted the beast’s neck reassuringly.

  “Well?” Vangerdahast demanded.

  “I coaxed a little more out of her, but horses don’t remember the same way we do.” Owden took the reins from Vangerdahast’s hands. “All she can tell us is that the ghazneths have been hunting her since ‘the dawn before the dawn.’”

  “And?” Vangerdahast glared at the priest.

  Owden slipped between him and the mare. “And that the princess is gone with ‘her stallion.’”

  “Her stallion?” Vangerdahast fumed. “What, exactly, does she mean by that?”

  The ‘gulch’ turned out to be a winding riverbed filled with more willows than water, but there was a tiny ribbon of creek meandering along beneath the bluffs on the far side, and Tanalasta could hear the horses sloshing through its silty currents, doing their best to slurp the rivulet dry. She was kneeling atop a slender tongue of high ground, churning a pile of rotting leaves into a small plot of dirt she was preparing for a faith planting. Though dead-tired from the day’s walk, the work kept her mind off Rowen, and it was well worth the effort to slow her whirling thoughts.

  The princess was more disappointed in him than angry. She knew better than anyone what people thought of her. Many nobles-perhaps most-would accuse Rowen of taking advantage of her gullible nature. But they would think the same no matter who she chose. The only way to change their minds was to be patient and prove them wrong through good conduct, her own and that of her chosen. She was hurt not because Rowen had pointed out how people would perceive their relationship, but because he lacked faith in her to change their minds. If he did not trust her to succeed, how could she trust herself?

  Tanalasta pulled a fist-sized stone from the ground and turned to set it aside at the edge of her plot, where she found a pair of soft-leathered ranger boots standing beside her. Biting back a cry of surprise, she placed the stone with the others, then spoke without looking up.

  “Come to tell me I mustn’t think poorly of you?” Tanalasta crumpled a handful of decaying leaves between her hands, sprinkling them over the surface of her plot. “Or have you decided to chase that holding after all?”

  “I suppose I deserve that.” Rowen kneeled beside her and began to work a handful of leaves into humus. “The truth is, I’ve come to apologize. I spoke like a narrow-minded popinjay.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to disagree.”

  “No. When I said those things, I was being a coward. I was thinking only of myself-of how your favor would affect my reputation.”

  “You said you were thinking of the crown,” Tanalasta reminded him.

  Rowen shrugged. “Perhaps I was thinking of both-or perhaps I was not thinking at all. Either way, I was wrong. It is not my place to decide what is best for the crown. I pray you can forgive me.”

  Tanalasta sank her fingers into the dirt, turning it over and churning the leaf-humus into the soil. As honest and humble as Rowen’s apology was, it did little to quell her anger. He had said nothing about having faith in her ability to win her subjects’ confidence, and what future could she have with a man who did not believe in her?

  “Thank you for clarifying matters, Rowen.” Tanalasta’s voice was sarcastic. “I was afraid that in making a fool of myself, I had also conveyed to you the duties of my station.”

  “Now you are twisting my words, Princess.” Rowen’s face was growing stormy. “I came here to say I agree with you. Why do you refuse to listen?”

  “I have been listening.” Tanalasta started to suggest she had not liked what she heard, then thought better of such an acid remark and shook her head. “I don’t see the point in continuing this, Rowen. Maybe you should leave.”

  Rowen stared at her in disbelief for a long time, then dumped the humus in his hands and stood. “If you wish.”

  “It…” Recalling that dawn tomorrow would probably be the last time she ever saw him, Tanalasta almost said it wasn’t what she wanted-but what good would that do? He still didn’t believe in her. She summoned her resolve and said, “It is.”

  Rowen turned to leave, then suddenly stopped. “No.”

  More confused than upset, Tanalasta looked up. “No?”

  The scout spun on his heel and pulled her to her feet. “The point, Tanalasta, is this.”

  He kissed her hard, folding her into his arms so tightly that he lifted her off the ground. The princess was too astonished to be outraged. She had been imagining a moment like this almost since she met Rowen, and he chose now to take matters into his own hands? His timing was typically, wretchedly male-yet Tanalasta’s body responded just as fiercely as it had at the goblin keep. A sensation of joyous yearning shot through her from lips to loins, and she wondered how such a powerful feeling could be anything but a portent from the goddess. Before she knew it, her hands were at his waist, pulling him closer, and a feeling of sacred warmth flowed down through her body, dispelling her anger and draining her resolve. She longed to embrace the moment, to run her hands over his body and kindle their passion into full flame, but she could not release herself to carnal abandon yet-not while her mind remained so at odds with her heart.

  Tanalasta slipped a hand between them and pushed against Rowen’s chest. The ranger kissed her more deeply, running one hand up to her breast and filling her with waves of seething pleasure. She closed her eyes for
a single heartbeat, then bit his lip-a little harder than necessary to make him stop-and managed to push him away.

  “Rowen!” Tanalasta’s voice had more passion and less anger in it than she would have liked. She gulped down a breath, then gasped, “What was the meaning of that?”

  “I think you know.” Rowen touched a finger to his bleeding lip, then gave her a lean and hungry look. “I wasn’t thinking of the crown princess, but of the woman I’ve come to know and love.”

  “Love?” The word did not feel as hollow as Tanalasta had expected-in fact, it felt all too comfortable. She eyed him warily. “You are the one who has been worried about the effect on the crown. What are we going to do about that?”

  Rowen shrugged and shook his head. “I truly don’t know, and I can’t honestly say I care-as long as you protect me from Vangerdahast.” His tone was only half-joking. “I don’t fancy living out my life as a toad.”

  Tanalasta looked at him a long time, giving her mind time to come to the same conclusion her heart had already reached. The princess knew him too well to believe the ranger had suddenly forgotten his oath to the crown. He had simply come to the same conclusion she had reached a long time ago.

  Tanalasta smiled. “If you think I can protect you from Vangerdahast, you must be love-stricken!” She grabbed Rowen by the front of his cloak and pulled his face close to hers. “But I have read that a princess may kiss any toad she wishes.”

  She licked the blood off his lip, then slipped her tongue into his mouth and gave him a long, burning kiss. He responded in kind, dipping her over backward and gently lowering her to the ground. Tanalasta pressed herself against him, reveling in the waves of desire shuddering through her body. His hands roamed over her shoulders and breasts at will, igniting little blossoms of heat wherever they went, and the last shadow of doubt vanished from her mind. Rowen was the man of her vision. She could tell by the way her flesh came alive at his touch, and she wanted never to be apart from him.