Still, Luke wanted to stay in the king’s good graces, especially if, as the pale-haired woman had said, King Garren resented the peace accord between their kingdoms. Besides that, Luke had left his horse at the outpost with his men. Fier was closer to where he’d killed the bear, and the skin was heavy. He didn’t want to carry it any farther than he had to.
That was the excuse he gave himself for bringing the hide east instead of west. Luke should investigate King Garren’s resentment of the peace treaty, and what better way to do so than with a sudden unannounced visit? If Luke caught the king off guard, he might discover far more than if he gave the crafty leader time to plan ahead.
And the pale-haired woman was somewhere in the fortress. She’d saved his life, and he had yet to learn her name. After seeking her for so long, he couldn’t bear to let her simply run away, not without at least trying to follow. She drew him as fire drew fluttering moths.
The men at the gate of the base fortifications looked somewhat surprised to see him, but they recognized him and didn’t try to stop him, instead simply waving him in. Luke had considered the woman’s warning, but it was absurd, really. King Garren knew better than to attempt to take him prisoner, especially given that Garren’s son Warrick was currently a guest inside the walls of Castlehead in Lydia—a visit both diplomatic and personal. Warrick had become engaged to Luke’s sister, Elisabette. The two were smitten with one another, and Warrick often visited their castle.
If Garren attempted to hold Luke against his will, King John could retaliate and hold Warrick for exchange. Surely Garren understood that any assault against Luke would endanger his own son and heir. The pale-haired woman failed to understand the complexities of the political situation. There was no threat against him here.
Rather, her warning made him determined to learn for himself Garren’s thoughts on the peace accord. The Illyrian king had deceived them too many times before. His word could not be trusted. Was the king plotting to take back the borderlands Illyria had ceded? If so, the Royal House of Lydia needed to know, and the fastest way to find out was for Luke to visit in person.
Luke was a prince. The pale-haired woman didn’t seem to know that, but as such, he was practically untouchable. He was certain that Garren would not be so foolish as to risk starting another war, not with Rome and Constantinople obliged to defend their provinces.
Luke located the main palace but found the great hall deserted. He left the bearskin on a bench, added a few logs to the sputtering fire, then decided to take a look around.
He found valerian roots hung to dry in the kitchen and recognized the pale-haired woman’s basket. She had to be nearby, then. But where? He looked out the back door in time to see her clomping in clogs across the yard, carrying a heavy pail.
Luke grinned at the sight of her slender figure, her long pale hair trailing in a pair of messy braids speckled with leaves and bits of twigs from her flight through the forest. Rather than risk startling her, he followed her quietly.
* * *
Evelyn hated carrying the slop to the pigs. The creatures were nearly large enough to slaughter, though the lean winter had left them hungry too often. Pigs were dangerous when they were hungry. They’d eat anything, alive or dead, even their own young. She’d known men missing ears and fingers from getting too close to hungry pigs. Though a stone wall separated the swine from the rest of the castle yard, their muck had seeped to the mud beyond the wall, making the ground all around dangerously slippery.
Evelyn tromped toward their enclosure, sticky mud threatening to suck the cumbersome pattens from her feet. The heavy bucket only made it that much more difficult to walk. Perhaps she ought to have split the scraps into two loads, but that would have meant making two trips or carrying the buckets on a yoke on her shoulder, which made navigating the narrow gaps between buildings even more challenging. And besides that, the yoke hurt.
The bucket handle cut into her hands and Evelyn shifted the weight. She could smell the pigpen long before she could see it, the odor sharp enough to sting her eyes. Rather than think about it, she pictured the man from the forest, his broad shoulders, his bright smile. The memory was enough to make her chores tolerable and even bring a smile to her lips. God had preserved the man’s life, after all. Perhaps God would see fit to free her from her servitude.
Evelyn reached the stone wall and balanced the bucket on the edge. The trough below on the other side had been licked nearly clean by the hungry animals, with nothing left but a slimy film of splattered mud and pig filth. Grasping the handle, she tipped the pail.
A large hog got his feet up in the trough, nosing the bucket so that it nearly tipped backward. Evelyn caught it before the contents spilled, lifting it high, almost above her head, out of reach of the ravenous pig. More animals swarmed toward her, climbing onto the trough, fighting to get close to the bucket.
Evelyn shoved one hand under the base of the pail, held the slippery handle tight in her other fist and swung the whole thing forward, tipping it toward the pigs.
With a grunt, one tusk-nosed swine clambered into the trough and perched its forelegs atop the stone wall. Evelyn tried to back away, but the heavy pail swung forward, its momentum too much for her in the slippery mud.
She had nothing to hold on to. The pig got a mouthful of the loose fabric of her apron. The creature pulled her toward the wall, the trough, the pen. Evelyn scrambled for a foothold in the slippery mud. She screamed, but the pigs only squealed that much louder. No longer concerned about the bucket, she flung it toward the trough, hoping the pigs would take the bait and leave her alone.
But the momentum of her toss carried her forward. She pushed away, batting at the hog in front of her, praying it would move back instead of biting off her fingers.
The swine saw the bucket and turned its back to her just as Evelyn, all balance lost in the slimy mud, toppled screaming into the trough after him. The pigs saw her fall and turned. Evelyn tried to stand to leap out of the way, but her hands and feet slipped, the slick muck resisting her grip as the swine advanced.
Evelyn felt a tug on the back of her dress. For an instant she feared a pig had gotten behind her and taken a bite, but strong arms pulled her up and back and set her dripping in the mud. She looked about for her pattens and saw them in the trough—a lost cause, as the pigs were already eating them. Then she looked up at her rescuer.
The man from the forest stood over her, the bright sunlight setting his tanned skin nearly aglow. Somehow he’d managed to lift her out without getting any muck on himself. In fact, other than the stain of fresh blood that colored his habergeon, he looked clean and fresh.
Evelyn looked down at her dress, which was caked with the most awful stench of filth. She felt her cheeks flame red—not just because he’d seen her lowly servant’s state but because he’d witnessed her fall. But her horror ran far deeper than that.
“What are you doing here?” She looked around quickly but saw no one. Perhaps there was still time for him to escape unseen, before he was captured. “You must leave immediately.”
The man shrugged off her concern. “I have yet to learn your name.”
“You won’t learn it here.” She resigned herself to ruining her shoes in the mud. They were half-ruined already, and the man’s safety was a far greater concern than her shoes. “Follow me. This way.” If they hurried, she might be able to sneak him out the postern gate before anyone realized he was among them. She took a few steps in that direction, then looked back to find he hadn’t budged.
And she’d finally made it out of the deepest mud. She wasn’t fain to tromp back through it again. “Please—whoever you are. I’m trying to help you.”
The man shook his head, looking far too sure of himself, his air dangerously confident.
She took a reluctant step back toward him. “I saved your life once before—you said you owed me for
that. Do me this one favor, then, and follow me.”
Her words penetrated the armor of his self-assurance. The man tipped his head, signaling deference to her, and moved toward her around the worst of the muck.
Relief gripped her with such a strong hold she wondered at the ferocity of its power. She told herself her reason for helping him was no different than it had ever been, but her heart betrayed another reason. Did she care about him?
As one Christian cared for another. That was all. Surely that was all. Whatever prayers she’d prayed for his recovery, the man was impossibly stubborn. Once she got rid of him, she’d do well to forget all about him. What was he thinking, coming here after she’d done her best to warn him away? The man must be daft.
She slipped into the narrow pathway between the stables and the rear wall. To her relief, the man quickly joined her, though she realized an instant too late the space was barely wide enough to accommodate both of them.
He stood so close she could smell the clean scent of the woods on him even over the odor of the pigs that clung in dripping mud to her clothes. Evelyn told herself her embarrassment didn’t matter nearly as much as the man’s safety. Still, she wished she didn’t smell so awful.
“The postern gate is this way.” She pointed eastward along the wall. “I’ll take you as far as the gate and watch to be sure you escape safely, but I can’t risk being seen helping you escape.”
“I don’t believe that’s necessary.” His eyes narrowed slightly.
Evelyn looked up at him, distracted by her wonder that he lived, that he was here talking to her, close enough to touch. His white teeth flashed in the sunlight as he spoke, framed by that smile that was almost a smirk. What had he said? “What’s not necessary?”
“Endangering yourself for me. I came to see King Garren. He’ll receive me.”
“He’ll imprison you.”
“That would be politically unwise.”
Evelyn opened her mouth to assure the man that many of the king’s decisions could be described as such. In fact, King Garren tended toward unwise decisions as a rule. But before she could speak, a familiar scream rang out from the kitchen.
“Cook.” Evelyn saw the man’s concerned question clearly on his face. “Probably saw a large rat or—”
“A bear!” The cook’s shrill scream echoed against the stone walls.
“—a bear,” Evelyn finished.
“My bear.” The man turned back toward the great hall.
“You brought—?” Evelyn started to ask, then realized the answer. “The pelt?”
“With the head,” he explained, quickly skirting the worst slime of the barnyard. “It adds value.”
Evelyn’s stomach swirled with sickening fear as she followed him back to the kitchen and through to the great hall. There was no stopping him—he’d gotten too much of a head start, and he was vastly bigger than she was. Even if she threw herself on him to stop him, she’d only succeed in smearing him with pigs’ muck. The man seemed determined to walk straight into danger.
Perhaps if he was so determined, she ought to let him do as he pleased. He could find out for himself the wisdom of her warnings. She adopted that approach often enough with her brother, Bertie—not that he ever seemed to learn, no matter what chastisements he brought upon himself.
Evelyn entered the great hall behind the man to find a crowd converging around the pelt. The bear sat atop a bench in a heap, its teeth bared, the head balanced above clawed paws in such a way that even if Cook had not smelled heavily of drink, she might nonetheless have been excused for thinking it a live bear.
Certainly some of King Garren’s men looked determined to give the creature wide berth.
The man from the woods stepped boldly toward it, grasped it by one furry shoulder, and unfurled it gracefully, the furry hide rippling impressively in spite of the lack of light in the hall.
“Oh!” Cook shuddered and hid her eyes.
King Garren bellowed a laugh, his mood considerably better than it had been during Evelyn’s encounter with him earlier that morning.
“A gift for you, King Garren.” The man bowed with a flourish and held out the weighty pelt. “A symbol of Lydia’s commitment to peace in the borderlands. Any threat to the peace between us shall be similarly—” the man paused a moment, eyes twinkling “—disemboweled.”
Still chortling, King Garren advanced with one hand outstretched cautiously, as though the hollow creature might bite him yet. He felt the fur, relaxing visibly when the animal made no move to attack. “Quite the surprise, Prince Luke—your visit and your gift.”
Evelyn shuffled backward toward the kitchen, her heart hammering inside her. Prince Luke? She recognized the name—the man had been discussed often enough in the great hall, though from the words she’d overheard, she’d expected an awful half demon of a man. But the figure holding the bear pelt spoke eloquently and graciously, visibly charming King Garren, who was not easily charmed.
“You’ll join us for a luncheon banquet in honor of your visit.” King Garren’s words weren’t presented as a question. Evelyn’s heart sank at the invitation, her eyes still riveted on the prince. Cook was in no condition to prepare a banquet, certainly not on such short notice. Evelyn would have to do most of the work herself, but first she’d run to find the serving girls—she’d need all the help she could get.
“Gladly.” Luke accepted the invitation with a slight bow, a sign of deference to the host.
Evelyn could only stare as she continued to back toward the kitchen doorway to find the servant girls. This man was Prince Luke? His behavior was certainly princely, even if his garments were those of a woodsman. She’d suspected him to be a nobleman of some rank, given her grandfather’s insistence that she save his life when he’d lain injured in the hut in the woodland village.
But a prince! He’d touched her hand. He’d pulled her out of the pigpen. Embarrassment scratched its way up from the pit of her stomach to her throat. He’d seen her covered in muck. How could she face him again?
“Biddy!” King Garren shrieked in that awful, goading tone he’d surely perfected with the sole intent of humiliating her.
She’d have dived out of sight if there had been anywhere to hide, but she was only halfway to the kitchen and the crowd still hovered near the bearskin across the room. There was nothing for it but to respond, or she’d find herself chastised in front of the prince.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” She crossed her ankles and curtsied.
“Bring the prince a drink.”
Evelyn nodded, risking the briefest glance at the prince in time to see him staring at her, his mouth set in a grim line that looked distinctly displeased.
Chapter Three
Evelyn hurried away, her ears burning with shame. If only God had seen fit to free her from her servitude before the prince had arrived to witness her humiliation.
And what was he doing in Fier? King Garren hated the man—no matter that he smiled charmingly now. He had ranted many times against the rulers of Lydia, especially since the peace treaty barred him from the borderlands. Though he greeted the prince warmly today, King Garren could be as deceptive as any thief.
As Evelyn searched the shelves for the best cup, she couldn’t help wondering if Prince Luke was as great a deceiver as King Garren. She might have hoped that as a Christian, the Lydian would be an honest man, but her experiences with royals in the region had taught her they weren’t to be trusted. What was the Lydian prince up to?
For his sake, she hoped he had a plan. Otherwise Prince Luke should not be here, certainly not alone and unguarded. She’d tried to warn him away when she’d thought him merely a soldier of mysterious importance. But if this man really was a prince of the Lydian people, then he was in even more danger than she’d originally thought.
Evelyn tr
ied to stay in the kitchen, but Cook was not up to serving the meal, and the serving girls, once she finally found them, weren’t much help. Judging by the way they gawked and giggled, the girls found the visiting prince quite handsome.
It didn’t surprise her that her grandfather had invited the prince to dinner. How better to entrap the nobleman than to get him to let down his guard over the course of the banquet? No doubt King Garren realized Luke was strong enough to fight off half a dozen soldiers at once if they tried to pounce. No, her grandfather was a crafty man—spineless and deceitful, but cunning when it came to deception.
The best Evelyn could hope for was to go unnoticed, to follow the prince’s movements closely and see where her grandfather chose to imprison him. If she knew the king—and after five years in his household, she knew him well—he’d put the prince in the tallest tower. It was either that or the dungeon, but it would be vastly easier to trick the prince into walking up than down. Then it would be only a matter of getting the door locked securely after him.
She hovered near the hearth with the excuse of stoking the fire, listening carefully as the prince casually asked her grandfather a series of prying questions—about the size of his army and cavalry, his contact with Constantinople, his feelings about the peace accord.
She noted the king downplayed the number of men he had trained and ready, stationed on this very mountainside. Prince Luke’s right eyebrow twitched upward slightly, the only indication that he doubted Garren’s claims, unnoticed by the king, who had always had trouble making eye contact when lying.
Though she found herself almost impressed by Prince Luke’s insightful questions, the fact that he’d asked so boldly only increased her fear for his safety and her confusion over his intentions. The prince seemed to be up to something. Was he spying on them? Distracting them while his men launched a surprise attack? Either he knew what he was doing, in which case he should be feared, or he was unaware of King Garren’s hate for him, too ignorant to be properly afraid. Surely her grandfather wouldn’t let the man spy on them so blatantly, then return to Lydia unopposed to report on what he’d learned.
The Secret Princess Page 3
