Puck made a face; helping lovers was far less to his taste than sabotaging them.
"Away, now, to ward!" Brom commanded.
Puck darted away down the tunnel, and was gone. Brom turned back to the long stone staircase that would take him up to the secret door into the royal castle. He still had to command the seneschal to send out a troop of knights to follow an hour's ride behind the prince. As he climbed, he considered Puck's reliability, especially considering the elf's inability to refuse a chance to play a practical joke, should the occasion offer. No, everything considered, Brom decided that he should occasionally go himself, to check up on Alain's welfare and progress.
Tuan had similar concerns, though he wasn't about to voice them to Brom, and certainly not to Catharine—she would have denied his comments hotly, taking them as an attack upon her son and, more pertinently, on her ideas about rearing him. But Tuan was the offspring of a country lord, and had been hardened by combat in the field. He had been worried for some time that his son was becoming a court fop, removed from the realities of life, concerned more with the cut of his hose than the sufferings of the poor or the political machinations of the aristocrats. Everything considered, the chances of any real harm befalling Alain seemed quite small compared to the benefits he might gain from the excursion—not the least of which was the companionship of Geoffrey Gallowglass, who had grown up to be everything Tuan had hoped his sons would be. Admittedly, Geoffrey was several things Tuan would not want Alain to be, too—he had heard tales of the boy's roistering and wenching—but he trusted to Alain's good breeding and inborn sense of rectitude to help him resist those traits.
Above all else was the invaluable knowledge that Alain was travelling with a swordsman who could beat him handily, and who had no more respect for his station than if he had been the lowest beggar on the road. Indeed, if that beggar had been able to put up a good fight with his quarterstaff, it was quite possible that Geoffrey would have had more respect for him than for the Prince. Geoffrey respected the man and his inner qualities, not the station. Tuan wasn't entirely sure that was a good attitude, but in the present circumstances it was ideal.
No, all in all, the King had high hopes for the trip—it might be the making of Alain, both as a man and as a human being.
Still, there was danger.
He couldn't come right out and say any of this to Rod Gallowglass, of course, but he could propose a friendly hunting trip.
"Let us leave the ladies to their own devices for a while," he said as the two of them walked in the courtyard of Rod's castle. "It is too long since we rode the greenwood together, to remember the true troubles of the world."
Rod couldn't remember their ever having gone hunting together, but he knew a cue when he heard one. "After all, what could be more natural than that the King and his Lord High Warlock should go hunting together?"
"My thought exactly!" Tuan grinned. "And on the way, Rod Gallowglass, we might discuss our mutual concernsperhaps even our hopes."
"And just happen to be going in the same general direction as our sons." Rod nodded. "Of course, it would be beneath our dignity to travel with fewer than a dozen knights as an honor guard."
"Quite so," Tuan agreed. "Certes, 'tis true that each of us hath oft gone abroad among the common folk alone, and disguised—but this would be more in the nature of a meeting of state."
"Of course. Any time we get together officially, it's always a meeting of state—and the fate of our children just happens to fall under that heading, too."
"It does. Thou art not opposed to the match, then?"
"Cordelia and Alain? Not at all—though I would have appreciated it if Alain had followed the social formula of asking my permission before he proposed. Might have staved off the current disaster."
"Aye." Tuan nodded heavily. "I have told him aforetime that being royal doth not allow him to trample on custom . .."
"But his mother has told him that princes are above tradition, eh? Well, I think he'll begin to see that customs grow up for reasons." Rod frowned. "But there's another side to it, too, my liege."
"Aye." Tuan's face darkened. "Are they in love?"
"Such a short little word," Rod sighed, "but it can create such difficulties, can't it? Especially if it's not there." Tuan shook his head, perplexed. "How can he have gone to ask her to be his wife, if he did not know her to be in love with him?"
"Oh, they have more or less grown up with the idea that of course they'll get married some day," Rod sighed. "After all, how many young folk of their age are there among the nobility of Gramarye?"
"A hundred, perhaps," Tuan said slowly.
"Yes, and a properly inbred bunch they are! Besides, half of them regard Alain as a hereditary enemy, simply because their fathers rebelled against you and Catharine at one time or another."
"Aye," said Tuan, "and the other half live so far from Runnymede that 'tis a wonder we have seen them once in a year. Still, my boy hath seen other lasses his age. I wonder that his devotion to thy Cordelia hath never swerved."
"It would be normal," Rod admitted, "but Alain is an unusually conscientious lad, and very loyal." He did not add "humorless and dull," though he might have. "He may feel that once he has pledged himself to Cordelia in his heart, he can't even look at another lady."
Tuan shook his head. "If it is not love, then the Archer will smite him soon or late."
"Better to have it sooner," Rod agreed. "I'll tell you frankly that I'm not all that sure that the match would be best for either of them; they may not be right for each other."
"Cordelia is certainly of acceptable rank to be a queen," Tuan said quickly, "and more than acceptable in her own person. Indeed, I would be honored to call her my daughter-in-law."
"And I couldn't ask for a more worthy or more responsible mate for her." Rod tactfully didn't mention that he really didn't want his daughter to marry a selfish prig like Alain. Of course, if she had really been in love, he wouldn't have argued. "However, though they may be of the right quality for each other, they may not be right in personality. After all, so far as I know, neither of them has ever fallen in love with the other."
"Oh, I have seen the odd glance between them," Tuan said, "and the lilt to her voice when she speaks, and the toss of her head."
"Flirting, sure," Rod said, "but even that might have been due more to a shortage of other young folk their own age than to any real interest."
"So we must watch them in more ways than one, eh? Well, I shall tell Catharine of my departure. I doubt not she will be relieved to have some small time to herself."
Catharine might have been pleased if she hadn't seen through the ruse in an instant. Fortunately, the Lady Gwendylon had come to discuss the situation with her. They were sitting in Catharine's solar when Tuan breezed in and dropped his little bombshell.
"Surely thou wilt not be too aggrieved, my love? Thou shalt not? Why, there's a wench for you! Come on and kiss me!"
Catharine's protests were smothered, and by the time she caught her breath, Tuan was out the door and gone. "Oh! The idiocy of men!" she fumed. "Thinks he that I cannot see through his ruse? Hunting, forsooth!"
"In a manner, they do," Gwen sighed, "though 'tis our sons they hunt, not the deer."
"And the dear knows when we shall see them again! Pray they do not let the boys know they are followed!"
"I shall—and I shall pray the same for Cordelia." Catharine turned to her, stunned. "Surely she doth not follow them, too!"
"She doth," Gwen returned. "She hath little trust in her brother."