Tia raised the bow and began to draw back slowly.
“I’m surprised to see you, Raban,” Reithan replied, walking forward to meet him. “I thought you’d be too busy inventing new and ever more imaginative ways to kiss Antonov’s arse.”
The heir to Grannon Rock walked back to one of the riders and handed him the falcon, before turning to help Alenor out of her saddle.
“I would not be here but for Alexin and Raban’s assistance, my lord,” Alenor said as she dismounted. “I rather think the question is not so much if I can trust him, but if I can trust you.”
Reithan bowed to Alenor. “I didn’t mean to offend you, your highness. It’s just the last time we were forced to rely on Raban’s assistance, we barely escaped with our lives.”
“That wasn’t my fault, Reithan,” Raban said.
“So you keep saying,” Porl remarked skeptically.
Alenor glared at Reithan and Porl as she removed her hat. “Is this your idea of a meaningful dialogue? You endanger us all by asking for a meeting just so you can argue with my escort?”
“Of course not, your highness,” Reithan said.
“I only agreed to this meeting because Alexin thinks you can help us,” Alenor explained, fidgeting with her riding crop, the only sign of her nervousness.
“We’d very much like to help, your highness,” Reithan agreed. “If you’ll let us.”
“How?”
“Stopping the Lion of Senet gaining control of Dhevyn would be a good start,” Porl suggested.
“And how do you plan to do that?” Alenor asked, a little impatiently. “Do you have plans to assassinate him? Or Kirshov, perhaps? I won’t be party to anything that involves needless bloodshed.”
“One could argue that killing a Latanya doesn’t really qualify as needless,” Porl remarked with a faint grin.
Alenor glared at him. “If that’s all the help you can offer me, then I should never have come! Perhaps my mother was right. You Baenlanders are nothing but trouble.”
“Your highness, we want the same thing you want,” Reithan assured her, with a rather irritated glance at the scarred pirate.
“But how do I know I can trust you, Reithan Seranov? The last time we met you were a prisoner of the Lion of Senet and slated for torture and execution. Now here you are, alive and well, trying to draw me into a plot to overthrow him. What proof do I have that he didn’t break you? How can I be sure you’re not simply an agent sent by Barin Welacin to test my loyalty?”
Dirk listened to the conversation, thinking Alenor had grown up a great deal in the two years since he had seen her last. She seemed much more confident, much more sure of herself. Or it might just be the riding habit she wore. It made her look much older than her fifteen years.
“I should put this arrow through her,” Tia muttered beside him, her arm trembling from the effort of keeping the string taut for too long. “That would solve most of our problems right there.”
“Don’t even joke about it, Tia,” he said softly, not sure if she was serious.
Below them, Reithan studied the princess for a moment, and then he glanced up at the window where Dirk and Tia were concealed, before turning back to Alenor.
“Perhaps if I can’t convince you of our sincerity, your highness, someone else can?”
Tia slowly let the string go slack and turned to Dirk. “That sounds like your cue, long-lost cousin.”
“Just watch who you’re pointing that bow at,” he warned as he turned for the stairs. “I don’t want you shooting me by accident.”
She smiled. “If I ever shoot an arrow into you, Dirk Provin, it won’t be by accident.”
“... and I can’t imagine what either of you can say that will convince me you can be trusted,” Alenor was saying as Dirk emerged into the sunlight from the ruins.
“Then why did you come?” Dirk asked, walking toward the small group gathered in the shade of the massive oak tree.
The dappled light danced over Alenor’s face as she looked up at the sound of his voice. “Dirk?”
“Hello, Alenor.”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then rushed across the small distance that separated them and threw her arms around him, sobbing with relief at the sight of him.
“Well, I guess this means you’re glad to see me,” he remarked, hugging her tightly.
Alenor sniffed and looked up at him, wiping away her tears. She held him at arm’s length for a moment, drinking in the sight of him. “Oh, Dirk, what happened to you? Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you let us know you were alive? You’re so tall now, and so ... We must get a message to Elcast. And Kirsh! Oh . . . poor Kirsh ... did you hear what happened to him?”
“It seems Kirsh got drunk and copped a beating down near the docks a couple of days ago,” Raban explained before Dirk could betray them by not looking surprised.
“Is he all right?” Dirk asked, genuinely concerned.
“He’ll live,” Raban assured him.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Dirk,” Alenor sighed, and then turned to the others with a commanding air. “I wish to speak to my cousin, gentlemen. Alone.”
“Your highness—” Raban objected, but Reithan cut him off.
“Leave them be, Raban. Let her talk to Dirk.”
“And while they’re talking, you can explain how it wasn’t your fault you set the excise men onto us,” Porl added.
Alenor slipped her arm through Dirk’s and led him away from the house, still clutching her wide-brimmed hat. They walked toward another large shady oak some fifty feet from the ruin. Alenor stopped when they reached the tree and sat down on the grass. Dirk glanced back at the house warily.
“They can’t hear us from over there,” Alenor said.
Dirk was actually more worried that they were still in range of Tia’s bow, but he could hardly tell Alenor that. He sat down beside her, placing himself between Alenor and the lodge.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” she said, putting aside the hat and taking his hands in hers. He was surprised at how small her hands were. Far too small to carry the burden she must soon assume. “I’ve missed you so much, Dirk. You must promise me you will never, ever leave me again.”
“You know I can’t promise that, Alenor.”
“I know,” she sighed. “But it’s nice to pretend for a moment. Are you really a pirate now?”
“Not really. More an occasional drug runner, sometime goatherd and full-time chess player.”
“You disappear off the face of Ranadon for two years to play chess?”
“I have a worthy opponent,” he explained with a smile.
“Who? Misha used to claim that the only person who’d have a chance at beating you in chess would be ...” she faltered for a moment, then nodded in understanding. “Neris Veran.”
“If Reithan realized I’d let it slip that Neris still lives, we’d be lucky to leave here alive.”
“Well, I’m not going to tell him. Are you?”
“No.”
“Then we have nothing to worry about, do we?”
“Nothing to worry about?”
She smiled wistfully. “Like I said. Sometimes it’s nice to pretend.”
“Why did you come, Alenor?” he asked curiously.
She let go of his hands and looked out over the rolling fields that stretched away toward the hills in the distance, a sea of golden grass that rustled and whispered in the slight breeze as if each seed-head had a secret to share with its neighbor.
“Do you remember when we first met on Elcast? I told you I was going to put an end to the Landfall Festival.”
“I remember.”
Alenor smiled thinly at her own foolishness. “I had this idea that it would be easy. Well, not easy, perhaps, but at least possible.”
“And now you think it’s impossible?”
“Now I’ve learned the meaning of the word compromise,” she corrected. “It’s all I hear. We have to give in
a little bit here, Alenor, a little bit there, Alenor, just to hold on to the little bit we have left, Alenor. But it’s eating us alive. Every little piece of Dhevyn that we surrender to Senet is gone forever, and when I marry Kirsh . . .”
“You risk losing it all,” Dirk finished for her. “I thought you loved him.”
“Unfortunately, Kirsh doesn’t seem to reciprocate my feelings with quite the same enthusiasm,” she said with undisguised bitterness. “He’s found someone else he finds more ... appealing.”
“Marqel the Magnificent?” Dirk asked intuitively.
She looked at him in surprise.
“I saw her the other day in the temple,” he explained. “I wondered what she was doing here on Grannon Rock.”
“I’m not even going to ask what you were doing in a temple, Dirk,” she said with a faint smile, and then sighed. “But you’re right. She’s with him now, I suppose, nursing him back to health.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Alexin asked me the same thing.”
“What did you tell him?”
Unaccountably, Alenor blushed and looked down at her hands. “You don’t want to know.”
He waited for her to say something further, but she seemed reluctant.
“You can’t stop the wedding, Alenor,” he said gently, guessing that was at the core of her torment. She had loved Kirsh all her life, and now, when he was within her grasp, she realized that she loved a dream, an illusion. The Kirsh that Alenor had loved as a child probably never even existed.
“Why can’t I stop it?” she demanded petulantly. “If I don’t marry Kirsh, then he can’t become regent and—”
“And Antonov will have your mother executed and the whole of Dhevyn under martial law while you’re still trying to return the wedding gifts.”
“So that’s it? You think I should just marry Kirsh and let him ruin what’s left of Dhevyn in his father’s name?”
“I don’t think Kirsh would deliberately ruin Dhevyn, Alenor.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t. It’s killing me to think that I’m a party to this. I want to end it. I want it over and done with!”
“Then marry him. Let him have Marqel as his mistress.”
“Are you mad? You think I should allow Kirsh to take my kingdom while he entertains himself with that ... that ... whore?”
“I think, Alenor, that if Kirsh is busy entertaining himself with that whore, then he’s going to be far too busy to do anything but sign whatever you put in front of him. You can’t fight them from the outside, Alenor. The only way to win this is to keep what little power you have. I’m sure Johan Thorn would have been the first to tell you how little real impact you can make from exile.”
Alenor was silent for a long moment, then, slowly, tentatively, she smiled. “You really are quite devious, aren’t you, Dirk?”
“Don’t take such a step lightly, Alenor,” he warned. “People can be very cruel. You may find the humiliation of having your husband openly flaunting a mistress more than you can bear.”
“I could bear it. If I knew there was an end in sight.”
“What do you want of us?”
“The Baenlanders? It’s odd thinking of you as one of them. I don’t know what I want, Dirk. A magic wand would be nice. Something I could wave over Dhevyn and make everything right again.”
“Damn,” he said with a smile. “I left my magic wand back in Mil.”
“What am I going to do?” she asked, as if he knew the answer. “I can’t do this on my own.”
“Reithan was hoping to find a way to delay the wedding, too.”
“Then he’s more guilty of wishful thinking than I am. Antonov will make certain that it goes ahead. Anyway, I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s not such a bad idea that my mother abdicates. She is far too willing to give in to Senet. But then I look at why she gives in so easily and I realize I probably won’t do any better. I can’t fight Antonov any more effectively than my mother can.”
“You’re never going to win Dhevyn back by fighting for it, Alenor. Even Johan understood that.”
“Then how do I do it?”
“You have to expose Belagren. That, in turn, will destroy Antonov.”
“Far easier said than done,” she pointed out with a frown. “Unless your new chess partner happened to mention when the next Age of Shadows is due.”
“If only,” Dirk said with a short, skeptical laugh.
“Why can’t you do it, Dirk?”
“Me?”
“You’re as smart as Neris, aren’t you?”
“No!”
“Don’t be so modest. Why don’t you go to Omaxin and work it out? If we knew that one thing, we could crush Belagren in a matter of days.”
“I really don’t think it’s that simple, Alenor.”
She smiled at him and squeezed his hand comfortingly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even ask it of you. You must be out of your mind over your mother.”
“What’s my mother got to do with it?”
She stared at him with a puzzled frown. “Surely you know what’s going to happen on Landfall?”
When Dirk responded with nothing more than a baffled shrug, her eyes filled with tears.
“Your mother was arrested at Wallin’s funeral, Dirk,” she said. “I thought someone would have told you. Antonov and Belagren are going to burn her at the Landfall Festival tomorrow.”
Chapter 27
Tia watched Dirk and Alenor for a long time as they sat under the tree not far from the house, lost in a conversation that excluded all others. The cousins’ obvious closeness irritated her. The princess had greeted Dirk like a long-lost lover; all his past deeds apparently both forgiven and forgotten. She could not understand what it was about Dirk Provin that made people react to him like that. She couldn’t understand why he engendered such a feeling of trust in others, when his actions should attract quite the contrary.
Alenor was holding both his hands in hers as they spoke. What’s he telling her? she wondered. What is she saying to him? Are they just catching up on old times, or are they plotting something? She was suspicious of Alenor, even more so of Dirk. How did one trust a girl in love with the Lion of Senet’s son, and friends with the man who had killed Johan Thorn?
There was simply no way to tell what they were discussing, so she moved back to the window near the front of the lodge and looked down on the others. The two guards Raban had brought with them were still mounted, one of them holding the falcon on his left arm. Raban, Reithan and Porl were standing under the tree talking.
“. . . it’ll take place in Kalarada,” Raban was telling Porl and Reithan. “The invitations have already gone out.”
“Was there any mention of the abdication?” Porl asked. Tia guessed they were talking of Alenor’s upcoming wedding to Kirshov Latanya.
“No. But don’t get your hopes up,” Raban warned. “It could just mean that Antonov wants to spring it on the guests at the wedding, before anyone has time to object.”
“It’s an open secret though, surely?” Reithan suggested.
“Yes and no. I mean, the rumors are fairly accurate, but for the most part, Rainan hasn’t been acting like she’s about to abdicate, so people prefer to believe that she won’t.”
“Is there any chance that she won’t?”
Raban shook his head. “Alexin thinks not, and from what I’ve seen since she’s been here in Nova under my father’s roof, I’m inclined to agree with him. Rainan is cautious—cautious to the point of being ineffectual, actually. Our young princess over there has more spunk in her little finger than her mother ever had.”
Reithan glanced over at the couple under the tree and suddenly straightened as he saw Dirk and Alenor heading back toward them. Alenor was holding Dirk’s hand and had obviously been crying. Tia looked at Dirk and experienced a moment of dread. He had an oddly familiar expression on his face. It was that same flat, dangerous look in those steel-gray eyes that she had
seen the night he killed Johan Thorn.
Cautiously, Tia nocked her arrow again.
“Your highness,” Raban said with a bow as they approached. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, my lord,” the princess replied. “Dirk and I just had some catching up to do.” She turned to Reithan and Porl. “Dirk tells me you were hoping to find a way to delay the wedding.”
“That’s right, your highness,” Reithan agreed. “We thought that—”
“It can’t be done,” Alenor announced. “Nor do I think it should be done.”
“But your highness—”
“None of us is in a position to challenge Senet, Reithan, and one furtive meeting does not constitute an alliance. You have no plan. We have nothing but a common purpose. Noble as that might be, it’s not going to free Dhevyn.”
“But once Kirshov is regent,” Porl pointed out, “it will be too late to do anything.”
Alenor glanced at Dirk before she answered. Tia saw the look and wondered about it. What had they cooked up between them?
“You let me take care of Kirshov. I believe I know him better than you.”
“Well enough to control him?” Porl asked.
“And even if you can control Kirshov Latanya, your highness,” Raban added, “you’ll still have all his lackeys to deal with.”
“Then find a way to free Dhevyn, gentlemen. Come to me with a plan that has a hope of succeeding and we have ourselves an alliance. Until that day, don’t make my life any more difficult than it already is. We should get going, Raban. We can’t afford to be away from the rest of the hunting party for too long.” The princess turned to Dirk and smiled at him warmly. “Good luck, Dirk.”
Good luck? Why was she wishing him luck?
“Remember what I said,” he answered cryptically.
“I will,” she promised. Alenor stood on her toes and kissed Dirk’s cheek, then put on her wide-brimmed hat and tied it under her chin before allowing Raban to assist her into the saddle. Once she was mounted, she gathered up her reins and looked down at Reithan and Porl. “I appreciate that your people want to help Dhevyn, but good intentions alone are not enough. Get a message to Alexin or Raban if you have something constructive to offer, and I promise I will get a message to you if a solution somehow magically presents itself to me. In the meantime, let’s not endanger everyone by meeting like this again, unless the risk is truly worth it.”
Eye of the Labyrinth Page 17
