Homage and Honour

by Candy Rae

  * * * * *

  Quest (6)

  Philip, Ruth and Tana made good time as they journeyed to the woods where Tavei and Andrei were waiting. They travelled by night through the desert, land uninhabited by virtue of its harshness and lack of water, and resting by day. They neither sensed nor saw any pursuit.

  On the fourth evening Tana could see the beginnings of the woods. The scrub becoming more pronounced as they cantered throughout the night-dark.

  “Tavei and Andrei are close,” Tana announced to the other two.

  “You can sense them?” asked Philip, surprised.

  “Yes. They are at the edge of the treeline. We go that way.” She disengaged her hands from the reins and pointed. Tana couldn’t wait to dismount her horse and begin to ride Tavei again. Horseback riding was so uncomfortable.

  “I agree,” announced Ruth, her voice filled with a longing long suppressed.

  “Is Andrei mind-linking with you?” asked Tana.

  Ruth nodded, “he is there waiting for me. I can feel it; it’s so wonderful.”

  “If you try to broadcast your thoughts to him,” Tana warned, “all within telepathic range will be able to overhear. So be careful. Keep your emotions under control.”

  “Can all humans do that? Broadcast?” asked Philip with interest.

  “Not consciously, no,” answered Tana, “not unless you are vadeln-paired but the Lind can pick up emotions. So can the Larg. I have no way of knowing if there are any Larg around. I am trying to suppress my longing to see Tavei again and Ruth must try to do the same.” Turning to Ruth she repeated, “try to keep your emotions under wraps.”

  “I will try. Do you think we are being hunted?” she asked as she nibbled at some dry trail rations.

  “I would be very surprised if we are not,” Philip said, “hopefully, it will take them a while to connect the two disappearances and when they do, they will be searching for two, a man and a girl; not one man and two others. They will not expect either that we have taken the route over the desert and they know not that we are meeting two Lind.”

  “We will be able to go much faster alindback,” added Tana, “and if Philip changes mounts every few bells we will be able to conserve the energy of the horses that bit longer. It is lucky that this oasis is empty as well. A short rest now and then the last run.”

  “Canter,” he corrected her.

  “Canter then if you want to be pedantic about it.” She eyed her present saddle with disfavour; compared with the comfortable and supple zarova leather saddle the Lind wore, it was purgatory to sit on it.

  After resting, they remounted and set off on the last stage of their journey to where the Lind waited.

  As they reached the trees Tana’s eyes began to sparkle, “there are not two Lind waiting but three!” she exclaimed. “They have met up with one of the Avuzdel on his way home.” She dismounted from her exhausted horse’s back and began unfastening her packs. Ruth slid down from where she had been riding pillion behind Philip. After a moments thought Tana undid the girths and removed the saddle.

  “Avuzdel?” asked Philip, to whom the word was new.

  “A spy,” Tana answered him, “he will have been trying to find out what the Larg are up to. Tavei says that he has agreed to carry you to the coast. An honour no less. Not many will permit a human to ride them that are not their vadeln except in times of peril but his decision is worrying. I wonder what he has learned that has made him agree. Perhaps the Larg are closer than we thought. Try to keep your minds a blank you two.”

  Tana unbridled her mount then slapped at her rump. “Off with you now,” she said.

  Philip was copying Tana’s actions and unsaddling his gelding. After a moments thought he removed the bridle as well and watched him walk off into the wood-gloom behind Tana’s mare with a pang of regret. The gelding was a very old friend and he would miss him a lot.

  Ruth wasn’t being much help. She was in a state of quivering excitement as she sensed Andrei getting closer.

  “Tavei is taking steps to block them though even he and I will keep our mental distance from now on.”

  “I can see them,” cried the excited Ruth.

  “I’m coming north with you,” announced Philip in a rush, “but you knew that already didn’t you?”

  “I knew that you couldn’t go back,” she answered with an arch look and a wicked grin, “no matter what you were telling me. That first night out you should have returned then you could have made an excuse and pretended that you had gone out looking for us but you did not.”

  While Ruth was murmuring sweet nothings to Andrei and Tana was welcoming her Tavei, Philip was staring at the large dun-coloured Lind that was to be his mount with dubious trepidation, why he was quite as big, bigger even than the horses of the Royal Ceremonial Troop!

  This, his first experience of riding one of the fabled Lind was to be one he would remember for as long as he lived. He wrapped his legs tightly round its barrel and took hold of the silken ruff hair as Tana had instructed.

  “Hold on tight,” the Lind rumbled.

  “Don’t try to direct him,” ordered Tana, “let him make the decisions. He is not a horse.”

  “No reins,” Philip agreed.

  “And keep your heels to yourself, “this is no battle ride, it is a run. There are some spare harnesses at the dom where we will rest. You’ll find it easier then.”

  They were off. Philip, with a shock, realised that the Lind did not walk, trot, canter and gallop like a horse, they ran a mile-devouring lope that conserved energy and was surprisingly smooth. He began to relax and prepared to enjoy himself. Glancing over at Ruth he realised the girl was in a seventh heaven of delight. The princess had always been an excellent horsewoman, unusual for a female in Murdoch.

  As the night wore on Philip’s last doubts about his decision to go north disappeared. He would not have missed this for all the kala on the planet.

  The Lind had not questioned him being there either. He had sensed not a glint of suspicion, merely acceptance that he was a friend of Tana and Ruth and that he had helped them get away.

  As promised, they reached the dom without incident. Tana told him that most of these hidden doms were located on high ground and within thick woods. They struggled up the almost sheer slope to reach the top.

  “We will be safe here,” announced Tana, echoing Philip’s thoughts, “these woods go on for miles, right up to the coast where the boat will come for us. Once we have rested and eaten we will go on.”

  “Where are we exactly?” asked Ruth with interest. She had settled herself down beside Andrei, the very picture of contentment. Philip had never seen her look so alive and happy.

  “We are on the eastern fringes of Graham. There are few farms around here, forestry is the main occupation. The villages are set beside the rivers so that the wood can be transported easily. We’ll stay away from these areas and ride through the middle. The Lind are at home in the trees.”

  “Didn’t you come south the same way?”

  “We came over the Islands.”

  “In the winter!”

  “It took some doing,” admitted Tana, “the seas were rough and I wondered from time to time if we would survive the experience. I’ve never felt so wet and cold in all my life, not even when I had a duty stint in the mountains during midwinter and it is a journey I will never repeat, however many princesses need rescuing!”

  The six wound their way through the forest until they reached the inlet where the boat awaited them (Beth would have recognised it).

  As Philip dismounted and thanked the Lind (he never did learn his name) for permitting him to ride him, the male cocked an ear at the Lord Marshall’s son.

  “Tavei tells me that you are a warrior,” he said.

  “Tavei is right,” Philip confirmed.

  “You come with us to Vadath.” It was a statement of fact.

  “If you will have me.”

  “Vadath will have you,” the Lind repli
ed, “I think you will do well there.” He then moved away from Philip and padded to the water’s edge.

  The sail north was, like their run north, without incident. Philip stood at the stern of the boat and watched as the coastline faded into the distance. He would not return to his homeland, that part of his life was over, he was going to Vadath, his welcome uncertain, to a country which was as different as it could be from everything that he knew. As he stood thinking, long after the coast-haze had vanished, he wondered what was happening back at the Palace.

  Guard Sergeant Donald had seen Tana in her guise as the Graham messenger leave the Palace without much thought. His Captain and Count Graham kept in regular touch with one another, had done since boyhood. He supposed the lad was carrying his Captain’s letter of reply.

  He had also accepted the fact that Captain Ross would be absent most of this day and the next, having a message to deliver from the Queen to her daughter the Duchess Annette Baker at the Baker manor some miles south-west of Fort.

  He went to bed that night little thinking what the morrow would bring.

  * * * * *

  Molly, Princess Ruth’s maid, arrived at her charge’s room with the breakfast tray. Opening the door, she peeked round to see if she could see the princess. The bed was empty but that was not unusual. Ruth often went for an early morning stroll in the gardens.

  Molly sat down to wait.

  She waited then waited some more.

  No Ruth appeared.

  Now, Molly was not the brightest of girls, she didn’t try to look for Ruth but, having decided that she must do something, did a spot of tidying and got Ruth’s clothes ready for when she returned.

  She laid out an appropriate dress and hunted for the matching slippers but as time passed she began to feel uneasy. Where was her Highness? Molly began to think that something was very wrong. She opened the dress closet and mentally catalogued its contents. If Princess Ruth had got up and dressed herself before taking her matutinal stroll, what had she put on?

  The three riding habits were on their hangers. The day dresses were all hanging limp to the right of the rail. The formal court dresses were all present and there was no way Ruth could have laced them up herself.

  Why, the Princess must have gone out wearing only her undergarments! Wild and unconventional Princess Ruth might be, but to go out thus!

  Molly was now thinking very fast for her. She counted the dresses again just to be sure then sat back on a nearby chair to consider the conundrum.

  She looked under the bed, though why she thought Ruth was likely to be there no-one afterwards could guess and peeked into the water closet. No Ruth.

  Thus it was that, after a while, Molly went to seek the Housekeeper to ask her what she should do.

  “She is not in the gardens, nor has she gone for a ride,” announced the Palace Seneschal to the Housekeeper, “her palfrey is in its stable and none of the staff there has seen her.”

  “She can’t have gone far,” announced the Housekeeper. “Have you told the Guard?”

  “I have,” the Seneschal answered, turning to Molly.

  “When did you last see her girl?”

  “Last night sir.”

  “Did she say anything to you about what she might be planning for this morning?”

  “Only that she intended to sleep late and that I was to attend later than usual.”

  “It is now almost the twelfth candlemark. You should have come to tell us before this.” The two people responsible for the smooth running of the palace looked very worried as they gazed around Ruth’s bedroom looking for inspiration. Molly began to panic. What if they blamed her?

  Housekeeper and Seneschal looked at each other.

  “Has she been kidnapped?” she mouthed.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Princess Ruth has not been seen since last night, there is no sign of her in the palace grounds. I will have to inform the Queen but let us first see if Molly here can tell us anything more.”

  Was there anything amiss with Princess Ruth last night?” asked the Housekeeper.

  Molly thought hard.

  “She said that she wasn’t feeling well before bed,” she offered.

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know,” stammered a confused Molly, “she never said.”

  “Did you tidy up this morning when you came in?” asked the Housekeeper, her glance sweeping round the room again.

  “Molly nodded, “yes I had to, it was such a mess. There were clothes all over the bed, the floor too.”

  Knowing Molly of old and being careful not to confuse her, the Housekeeper asked another question. “What clothes did you put away?”

  “Everything,” Molly answered proudly, “just as you taught me.”

  “Very good,” the older woman encouraged, “now look at them all again. Tell me what dress is not here.”

  Molly looked and after much concentrated effort she faced her superior again.

  “All of them are here Housekeeper.”

  “Look harder girl, she must be wearing something. This is important. What is she wearing on her feet, that might tell us something?”

  Molly looked again.

  “Housekeeper, her riding boots are missing!” she exclaimed.

  “Her riding habits?”

  “Still there but she can’t have gone for a ride in only her boots and undergarments.”

  The Housekeeper agreed, however unconventional the queen’s younger daughter, she would not have gone for a ride thus and she remembered the pony was still in its stable.

  “I’ll go and ask the horse staff to check again, perhaps she’s taken another mount,” announced the Seneschal.

  “Stay here,” commanded the Housekeeper to Molly as she followed him outside.

  Within the candlemark the entire palace area was being searched by the guard, the servants and anyone else who could be dragooned into the hunt. Speculation was rife, but the common consensus was that Ruth had either been kidnapped or murdered, though why, no-one had any idea.

  Some thought that Ruth had run away for the simple reason that she had been wearing her riding boots. No kidnapper or murderer would have waited until she had got them on before acting and so intense had been the search that, had she been murdered, some trace would have been found. That left kidnapping but there was no sign of a struggle.

  The fact that Ruth had been wearing the boots led credence to the Housekeeper’s idea that she had run off. Further investigation by that lady revealed that a page’s livery was missing, one of the larger, plain daytime sets that Ruth could have fitted into easily.

  When she reported this to the Seneschal he, in fact, looked more relieved than anything else. At least, he told her, the Princess was not dead and she would be found soon and brought back.

  “How are Their Majesties taking it?” she asked.

  “Upset, distraught.”

  “You think the distress is real?”

  “I have no doubt on that score.” He patted her on the shoulder. “The Queen is indeed most upset, keeps talking about the death of her daughter.”

  “She thinks the Princess is dead?”

  “Her grief is very real.”

  “I don’t think the girl is dead,” was her flat response. “I think she has run off. She did not like the thought of marriage.”

  “Then good luck to her,” he replied. The Seneschal did not like the heir to the Duchy of Brentwood. “We will say nothing of this. Answer any questions made to you with care and don’t volunteer any information. I liked young Ruth, however unprincess-like she was. She was not happy here, why add to her problems and bring her back? Let her have the life she has chosen if she has, as I suspect, run away.”

  Housekeeper Martina was fair affronted but he persuaded her to do as he asked.

  Thus it was that those searching for the missing Princess continued to think that she had, in all likelihood, been kidnapped although why she had been wearing her riding boots no
-one could fathom. It wasn’t until many years later that the Seneschal learnt the truth of the matter and was glad (privately) that he had made his decision.

  When Captain Philip Ross failed to return from his errand the following day, the searchers put two and two together and made four of it. It was realised that Princess Ruth had in all likelihood run off with the Lord Marshall’s son but by then it was too late to go after them.

  Where they had gone no-one could discover. It was as if the two had disappeared into thin air. Anne and David announced publicly their condemnation of what they called ‘the unfortunate love affair’ and were profuse in their apologies to Ruth’s deserted fiancé.

  Tom Brentwood was the most put out. He had now lost yet another bride.

  * * * * *

  Lokthed (Third Month of Winter) - AL166

  Quest (7)

  The six intrepid travellers, which included one Avuzdel male who didn’t want to miss any of the fun, arrived at Vada late one wintry afternoon. Tana and Tavei were full of trepidation about what Susa Lynsey and Bernei would say. They had, when all was said and done, gone absent without leave.

  “I’ll be Orderly Officer for umpteen tendays,” she confided to Philip, “if not months. We’ll certainly be doing the most onerous and unpleasant jobs around Vada from now on and that after the punishment itself.”

  “You have done a great deed bringing Ruth here,” Philip tried to comfort her, “surely your General will understand?”

  “The title is Susa,” Tana answered in a prim voice.

  “I will try to remember,” he grinned, “old habits die hard.”

  Philip had worries of his own. Despite Tana’s assurances, he was wondering how Tana and Tavei’s superiors would react to his presence. He was after all, or at least had been, a member of another country’s army. He was also trying to get his head round the fact that Lind and Human were equals here in Vadath and that it made no difference whether one was male, female, Lind or human.