My father spread his hands. “There! All problems solved!” he said. “Let us retreat to the dining hall for a grand meal to commemorate this occasion.”
3
The Magical Journey
My betrothed and his sister and I set out the very next morning, waving good-bye to the servants and friends who had gathered in the courtyard to see me off. My father was not among them. I had elected to travel without a maid, since, at dinner the night before, Darius had made some offhand comment about how tiresome it was to always be waiting for women to primp and beautify themselves.
“Especially when they are already beautiful,” he had added, smiling at me.
I had also considerably cut down on the amount of luggage I packed, though even so he had seemed astonished at the number of trunks and boxes I had brought to his campsite. Dannette had merely grinned. “Good thing there’s room in the wagon,” she said.
I had not realized until that very moment that an ordinary farm wagon, and not a luxurious carriage, would be our method of transportation. It was relatively large and well built, with a raised tarp over the bed to shelter all of our possessions, but it was still a wagon. The bench up front was only long enough to hold the driver and one passenger, so someone would have to sit in back among the crates and bundles. When we first started out, Dannette volunteered to take that less desirable spot, and so I sat beside Darius and watched as the countryside unrolled around us.
Which it did very slowly. It turned out that traveling in a heavily loaded wagon behind two horses could not be compared to traveling in a specially built coach pulled by a team. The road seemed rougher than I remembered, and much longer, though the lightly wooded countryside offered a pretty enough colorful autumn landscape. By nightfall we had made it no farther than a crossroads town that I had never bothered to stop at before because it was too close to the palace grounds.
“This looks like as good a place as any to break for the night,” Darius said, and Dannette agreed. I thought glumly if I turned my head and squinted hard enough, I might be able to glimpse the turrets of the palace behind me.
But what did I care how much ground we covered in a day? I had no particular eagerness to make our destination; I just wanted the chance to enjoy the company of my fiancé. In the wagon, it had not been so easy to talk to him as you might suppose, for we spent more of our energy surviving the jouncing than making conversation, and half the time Dannette took the reins while Darius sat in the back. I hesitated to admit it, but our first day of travel had teetered between boring and uncomfortable, and though I was resolved not to complain, I was glad to finally pull off the road.
But I was shocked when we checked into a modest inn and Darius requested only a single chamber. “One room?” I hissed to Dannette while Darius paid the fee. “For all three of us?”
She seemed surprised. “By the time we make it to my grandmother’s and back to the palace, we might be on the road ten days or more. We can hardly afford two or three rooms a night.”
“We cannot?” I said blankly.
I thought she was trying to hide a grin. “Well, Darius and I cannot. If you have brought lavish funds with you, I suppose you could reserve your own accommodations.”
I stared at her. I hadn’t brought any money. I never did. Bills were always paid by footmen and servants. The proprietors this close to the palace would surely recognize my face, but once we made it another fifty miles down the road, would anyone believe me when I claimed to be Princess Olivia? Would they sell me goods on credit and send the bills to my father? Would he pay them?
“No, no,” I said faintly. “I will share the room with you and Darius. We are supposed to be getting acquainted, after all.”
Now her grin was definitely visible. “Nothing like a journey to find out everything you need to know about someone,” she said cheerfully.
After this, I was not as surprised as I might have been to find we were dining in the taproom, and not a private parlor. Still, Darius’s charming smile—and perhaps a little extra magical persuasion—secured us our own table in the corner where we didn’t have to share trenchers with laborers, families, and local shopkeepers.
“To my bride!” Darius toasted me with his beer while we waited for food to arrive.
I’d never had beer before, my father considering it common, and I wrinkled my nose after the first sip. “I don’t like that so much,” I said. “It’s bitter.”
Darius took a few hearty swallows. “Once you accustom yourself to the taste, you find that you like it quite well,” he said. “Plus it gives you a very pleasant”—he swirled his fingers over his blond curls—“feeling in your head.”
Dannette laughed. “It takes a little longer to get drunk on beer than wine,” she interpreted. “But the effects are very similar. I would go slowly, if I were you.”
I tried another sip. Hard to imagine coming to like this. “How many more days to your grandmother’s house?” I asked.
Darius shrugged. “Four? Five? I rarely go straight there—or anywhere—so I’m not sure how long any journey lasts.”
“Where do you live when you’re not traveling?” I said.
Darius laughed. “I’m always traveling.”
My eyes widened. “You don’t have a home? Anywhere? ”
“Well, technically my grandmother’s house is mine, since the estate was my father’s and now belongs to me,” Darius said. “But I consider the wagon my true home. Everything I need I bring with me wherever I go.”
I looked at Dannette. “What about you?” I demanded.
She considered. I had the feeling she was trying to decide exactly how much of a particular story to tell me. “I would just as soon find a place and stay,” she finally said. “But the last place I lived eventually became unbearable. Which is why I have chosen to travel with Darius for a while. I’ll settle down when I find a situation that appeals to me.”
My eyes were big again. “What made your last situation unbearable?”
Darius leaned forward. “Scandals,” he whispered the atrically. “Accusations in the dead of night. Secrets.”
I sat back in my chair, staring at Dannette. Who, after all, was this woman? When it came down to it, who was Darius? What did I know about either of them, really, except that they were attractive and friendly and eager to make the king’s daughter one of their family?
She laughed ruefully and put a comforting hand on my arm. “Don’t let him tease you, Olivia. It is true that there was some turmoil attached to my last situation, but it was all personal and confined to a very few people. We are quite respectable.” She glanced at Darius and back at me, her face amused. This was a woman who found the world around her to be endlessly entertaining, and it was hard not to relax in her smiling presence. “And my brother has developed the most ridiculous infatuation for you. I have never seen him like this with any girl.”
Now he was the one who was blushing and bashful. “It’s true,” he said. “I saw you the day before the joust. You had just come back from a ride, and your hair was all wild and your face was flushed. And when the groom helped you out of the saddle, you kissed your horse on the nose. I was never so charmed!”
I laughed. “Oh, that was Bumblebee, my favorite mount!” I said. I had spent some time during today’s tedious journey wishing I were riding Bumblebee instead of sitting in the wagon. Of course, then I would not have had the opportunity to get to know Darius along the way.
“I got the impression you did not enjoy the second trial that your father set up for your suitors,” Darius went on. “I suppose a girl who kisses horses doesn’t like to see dogs being beaten down by men.”
“I know that these particular dogs are bred to fight, but no, I do not enjoy watching them. I never attend when my father holds matches on the palace grounds.”