“There is a bridge for each of the nine provinces,” she said, “and the flowers in each part of—”
“Enough!” said Diarmuid harshly. She froze in midsentence. He stopped walking and turned to face her on the path. There was a calath bush behind her. She had hidden there, playing, as a child.
He had released her arm when he spoke. Now, after a long, cold glance at her, he turned and began walking again. She moved quickly to keep up.
When he addressed her, it was while staring straight ahead, his voice low and intense. “You are speaking like someone scarcely a person. If you want to play gracious Princess with the petty lordlings who mince about, courting you, it is none of my affair, but—”
“The lords of Cathal are not petty, sir! They—”
“Do not, please, insult us both! That emasculated whipping-boy this afternoon? His father? I would take great pleasure in killing Bragon. They are worse than petty, all of them. And if you speak to me as you do to them, you cheapen both of us unbearably.”
They had reached the lyren again. Somewhere within her a bird was stirring. She moved ruthlessly to curb it, as she had to.
“My lord Prince, I must say I am surprised. You can hardly expect less formal conversation, in this, our first—”
“But I do expect it! I expect to see and hear the woman. Who was a girl who climbed all the trees in this garden. The Princess in her role bores me, hurts me. Demeans tonight.”
“And what is tonight?” she asked, and bit her lip as soon as she spoke.
“Ours,” he said.
And his arms were around her waist in the shadows of the lyren, and his mouth, descending, was upon her own. His head blocked the moon, but her eyes had closed by then anyway. And then the wide mouth on hers was moving, and his tongue—
“No!” She broke away violently, and almost fell. They faced each other a few feet apart. Her heart was a mad, beating, winged thing she had to control. Had to. She was Sharra, daughter of—
“Dark Rose,” he said, his voice unsteady. He took a step towards her.
“No!” Her hands were up to ward him.
Diarmuid stopped. Looked at her trembling figure. “What do you fear in me?” he asked.
Breathing was difficult. She was conscious of her breasts, of the wind about her, the nearness of him, and of a dark warmth at her center, where—
“How did you cross the river?” she blurted out.
She expected mockery again. It would have helped. His gaze was steady, though, and he stayed absolutely motionless.
“I used a mage’s arrow and a rope,” he said. “I crossed hand over hand above the water and climbed a ladder cut into the cliff several hundred years ago. I give you this as between you and me. You will not tell?”
She was Princess of Cathal. “I make no such promise, for I cannot. I will not betray you now in any way, but secrets endangering my people—”
“And what do you think I did in telling you? Am I not heir to a throne, just as you are?”
She shook her head. Some voice within was wildly telling her to run, but instead she spoke, as carefully as she could. “You must not think, my lord Prince, to win a daughter of Shalhassan, merely by coming here and—”
“Sharra!” he cried, speaking her name for the first time, so that it rang in the night air like a bell tolling pain. “Listen to yourself! It is not just—”
And they both heard it then.
The jangling clink of armor as the palace guard moved up on the other side.of the wall.
“What was that?” a gravelly voice exclaimed, and she knew it for Devorsh, Captain of the Guard. There was a murmured reply. Then, “No, I heard voices. Two of you go have a look inside. Take the dogs!”
The sound of armored men walking off jarred the night.
Somehow they were together under the tree. She laid a hand on his arm.
“If they find you, they will kill you, so you had better go.”
Incredibly, his gaze on hers, close and above, was undisturbed. “If they find me, they kill me,” said Diarmuid. “If they can. Perhaps you will close my eyes, as I once asked.” The expression changed then, the voice roughened. “But I will not leave you now willingly, though all of Cathal come calling for my blood.”
And gods, gods, all the gods, his mouth on hers was so very sweet, the touch of his hands blindingly sure. His fingers were busy at the fastenings of her bodice, and dear Goddess, her own hands were behind his head, pulling him down to her, her tongue sought his in hunger long denied. Her breasts, suddenly released, strained towards his touch, and there was an ache in her, a burning, something wild being set free as he laid her down on the deep grass and his fingers touched her here, and here, and her clothes were gone from about her, and his from him as well. And then his body along hers was all the night and garden, all the worlds, and in her mind she saw the shadow of a falcon, wings beating wide, fly across the face of the high moon.
“Sharra!”
From where they were, outside the walls, they heard the name cried out within the gardens. “What was that?” one of them exclaimed. “I heard voices. Two of you go have a look inside. Take the dogs!”
Two men moved quickly to obey the sharp command, jogging urgently in the direction of the western gate.
But only for a few jangling strides. After that, Kevin and Coll stopped running and looped silently back to the concealing hollow where the others lay. Erron, whose disguised voice had barked the order, was already there. The soldiers of Cathal were, at that moment, flanked ten minutes’ walk away on either side. The timing and the plan were Diarmuid’s, worked out as they lay watching and listening to the patrol in the early evening.
Now they had nothing more to do but wait for him. They settled quietly into the dark hollow. A few slept, using the time to advantage, for they would be running back north as soon as the Prince rejoined them. There was no talk. Too wound up to rest properly, Kevin lay on his back and watched the slow transit of the moon. Several times they heard the guards cross and cross again in their circuit of the walls. They waited. The moon reached its zenith and began to slide west against the backdrop of summer stars.
Carde saw him first, a black-clad, bright-haired figure on the top of the wall. Quickly Carde checked right and left for the patrol, but the timing, again, was flawless, and rising briefly to be seen, he gave a thumbs-up sign.
Seeing it, Diarmuid leaped, rolled once, and was up running lightly and low to the ground. When he dropped into the hollow beside them, Kevin saw that he was carrying a flower. Hair dishevelled, doublet loose and half unbuttoned, the Prince’s eyes flashed with an intoxicated hilarity.
“Done!” he said, raising the flower in salute to all of them. “I’ve plucked the fairest rose in Shalhassan’s garden.”
Chapter 7
“He will be found, I promise it.” So he had said. A rash promise, and uncharacteristic, but it had been made.
So at about the time Paul and Kevin began their ride south with Diarmuid, Loren Silvercloak was galloping north and east alone in search of Dave Martyniuk.
It was rare for the mage to be solitary—alone, he was stripped of his powers—but he’d needed Matt to stay in the palace, the more so since word had come of the dead svart in the garden. It was a bad time to be away, but his choices were limited, and so, too, were the people he could trust.
So north he rode, gradually curving eastward through the grain land amid the dry crackle of the ruinous summer. All that day and the next he traveled, and not slowly, for a sense of urgency was strong within him. He paused only to ask discreet questions in the farmyards and half-empty towns through which he passed, and to note again, and despairingly, the impact of famine on those to whom he spoke.