As Pelmen stripped the horse of its saddle to get at the Ognadzu colors and remove them, Bronwynn wandered beneath the trees. She doffed her sandals, and tested the tall, moist grass with the soles of her feet. She was amazed at the greenness of the greens, and wondered idly if her father had ever seen anything so beautiful as this land.
Her father. He needed to know that she was safe. “How are you taking me home?” she called to Pelmen.
He put a finger to his lips to warn her to silence, then smiled. Pelmen had a toothy, attractive smile. It encouraged trust in the trusting, and suspicion in the suspicious. He walked toward her, pulling another apple from the tree. Then, dropping full length on the grassy rug beside her, he began to munch the fruit.
“Well?” she added, more softly, but with just a touch of royal impatience.
“How—meaning in what direction, or by what means?” he asked.
“Either,” Bronwynn shrugged. “Both.” Pelmen took another bite, then rolled over onto his back. He chewed for a moment, then spat out a seed. “The fact of the matter is, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know! Then where are we going!”
Pelmen thought about that for a moment. “Away,” he then said simply.
“That’s no answer!” Bronwynn stamped. “On the contrary, my Lady. In this case, it is the very best answer—for right now.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Events have been put in motion, my Lady, events in which you play an important role. We must balance these actions with some unexpected reaction, or evil plans may succeed.”
“What plans? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know myself, my Lady. But since these plans have already included your abduction and captivity, I would guess that you would prefer they be foiled.”
“So take me home then.”
“And let you be kidnapped again?”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“I don’t know.” Pelmen smiled. “Perhaps a great deal.” He took another bite out of the apple, and Bronwynn began judging the distance between herself and the horse.
“My father always said you were crazy, Pelmen. He didn’t know the half of it.” She strolled casually toward the stream, watching out of the comer of her eye as the horse dropped his head down to drink.
“Your father and I have had our disagreements, it’s true.” Pelmen nodded, gazing at the blue sky between the leaves above him. “My major argument with Talith as an audience is that he always tends to believe he knows what you are going to say before you say it—and then replies to what he thinks you’ve said, rather than to what you’ve actually said.
He takes it into his mind that he knows more about what’s going on than anyone around him… which of course leaves all around him free to do anything they wish. He is suspicious of his friends, and trusting of his enemies.”
“Mmm-hmmn,” she agreed, bending down to the stream to take a cupped handful of the icy water. She judged herself to be twenty feet from the horse. Pelmen, behind her, was at least another twenty feet farther from the horse than she, and was lying on his back. Could she make it to the beast and onto it before Pelmen could react and catch her? “Of course,” Pelmen continued, “since he rarely listens to what others are saying, he’s frequently surprised by what others do. He is chagrined when others seem to read his mind. But it is just that Talith is so obvious in what he thinks!”
“Yes, sometimes,” Bronwynn said absently, moving a step closer to the horse.
“It appears perhaps you take after him.”
“Why do you say that?” Bronwynn asked politely.
She had decided that three more steps would put her close enough to make her dash.
“Because you’re obviously planning to try to steal the horse, and don’t realize that any fool could tell.” Pelmen rolled onto his stomach and smiled at her shocked expression. “As I can,” he concluded. She gave Pelmen her full attention now, and tensed her muscles, ready to make the attempt anyway. “Go ahead, my Lady, if you desire. But don’t be surprised if the road back to your father proves difficult to find and dangerous to travel.”
“There are paths through the mountains,” she said defiantly. “Our slave raiders travel them regularly.”
“So do raiders from Ngandib-Mar—or had you forgotten that slavery cuts both ways?”
“I could find the path and hide, until the golden warriors of Chaomonous approach, and then show myself!”
“I don’t believe even you are that naive, my Lady. The warriors of Chaomonous, while raiding for slaves, certainly don’t advertise who they are by wearing golden mail. They disguise themselves. But assuming you should make contact with raiders from your own land—how do you think they would respond to you?”
“They would recognize me as their Princess!” Pelmen chuckled. “Why are you laughing? Are you laughing at me?”
She stomped angrily.
“Bronwynn, can you imagine the reaction of a normal, sane warrior of Chaomonous to a dirty little girl he has captured in the mountains of Ngandib-Mar, when she claims to be his Princess? Few warriors have even seen you from a distance, my Lady. They wouldn’t recognize you.”
“But they will come looking for me! They know by now I’ve been kidnapped. My father will send his whole army after me!”
“I question that. He doesn’t know you have escaped. I’m sure he will make some attempt to get you back, but most of his efforts will be aimed at the house of Ognadzu.”
Bronwynn looked at him. “You mean he won’t send soldiers after me?”
“He doesn’t know you’re here. How can he?”
“Well—where does he think I am then?”
“Surely he believes by this time you are being held captive at Flayh’s mansion in Lamath. That’s where we were headed, you know. He will probably attempt to work through the house of Uda to get you back, by force, or ransom, or—some way.”
“But I’m not there! They’ll tell him, won’t they?”
“Why should they?
And have all Ognadzu family members in Chaomonous slaughtered in retribution?”
“That is what my father would do.”
Bronwynn sat in the grass and tried to reason what course of action she should take. The sun was dropping behind the western mountains, and a cool breeze shook the leaves above them and caused several apples to drop. “I have it,”
she announced. “We go to Uda—here, in Ngandib-Mar. They do have a house here, don’t they?”
“Many of them,”
Pelmen affirmed. “And that would be good thinking. Except…”
“Except what?”
“Why should you expect Uda to be any more trustworthy than Pezi’s house of Ognadzu? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the elders of Uda to play one side against the other while perhaps making their own deal for your sale to, say, the ruler of Ngandib?”
“This is all too complicated!” Bronwynn moaned.
“Not yet, my Lady,” Pelmen said. “No, as yet it is relatively simple. You are free. Things would be far more complex at this point were that not the case. And, while it might not be of great note to you, I, too, am free—for which I am most thankful. And even if it seems frightening to you at the moment that no one else .knows our whereabouts, I am delighted with the situation. I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible.”
“But where will we go?” the girl pleaded with him, and immediately wished she had said nothing. Bronwynn had heard herself speak, and felt she had sounded like a frightened child. That was not at all the way the Princess, daughter of Talith, should sound.
But Pelmen was kind, and he smiled a genuine, cheery smile. “Away,” he answered again. Seeing the fear and concern dance across the girl’s face, he went on to add, “I am not without friends in this foreign land, my Lady. In fact, it isn’t foreign to me.”