“I, as you well know, did not expect a single person in my chambers tonight and I find not one, but two. So now I entertain any possibility! Open the door and let them in, please.”
Quentin stepped to the door and opened it. He was not prepared for the greeting he received.
“Quentin, my love. You are here!” Instantly Quentin’s arms were thrown wide as he swept up a young woman in a long white woolen robe and buried his face in her hair.
“Bria! I did not know how much I missed you until this moment.”
The two lovers clung in a long embrace, breaking off suddenly when they remembered that they were not alone. Quentin set his lady back upon her slippered feet and drew her into the room. Durwin and Toli smiled as they looked on.
“What brings you to this hermit’s chambers so late at night?” Quentin asked in mock challange.
“Why, I was passing without and I fancied I heard voices. I fancied one of them was yours, my love.”
“Ah! Your lips utter the answer my ears long to hear. But come, I have much to tell you. Much has happened since I was with you last.”
“Not here you don’t!” replied Durwin. “In a very short time this chamber will ring with the snores of the sleeping! You two doves must take your cooing elsewhere.” He beamed happily as he shooed them out the door.
Quentin and Bria walked hand in hand along the darkened passageway and out onto the same balcony the Princess and Durwin had occupied only a night before.
As Quentin opened the balcony door, the faint light of a glowing sky met his eyes. Dawn’s crimson fingers stretched into the sky in the east, though the sun lingered below the far horizon and one or two stars could still be seen above.
“I have missed you, my darling,” sighed Bria. “My heart has mourned your absence.”
“I am here now, and with you. I find my greatest happiness when I am at your side.”
“But you will leave again-too soon, I fear. My father has a task for you, and we will be separated again.”
“Do you know what it is?”
Bria shook her head.
“Then how do you know it will take me away from you so suddenly?”
“A woman knows”
“Well, then, we will have to make each moment we are together so much the sweeter.” So saying, Quentin pulled her to him gently and kissed her. She wound her arms around him and rested her head upon his chest.
Quentin looked at the placid sky as its rosy red brightened to a golden hue. The mighty ramparts of Askelon Castle gleamed like burnished gold, magically transformed from their ordinary state of dull stone by the dawn’s subtle alchemy.
“Quentin-” Her voice was small and frightened. “What is happening? I am afraid, though I do not know why. The King holds his own counsel and will see no one. And when I ask him about affairs in the realm, he only smiles and pats my hand and tells me that a Princess should think of only happy things and not concern herself with mundane matters.
“I am worried for him. Oh, Quentin, when you see him you will know-he is not well. He is pale and drawn. Some dark care sits heavily upon his brow. My mother and I know not what to do.”
“Calm yourself, Bria, my love. If there is anything I may do to ease his mind, count on it that it shall be done. And if medicines have any effect, Durwin will know it and will avail.
“And yet, I must confess that I am troubled, too. But by nothing so easily explained-would that it were. I would give a fortune to any who could calm the turmoil I feel growing inside me.
“There is trouble, Bria. I feel it, though all about me appears peaceful and serene. I start at shadows, and night gives no rest; it is as if the wind itself whispers an alarm to my ears, but no sound is heard.”
Bria sighed deeply and clutched him tighter. “What is happening? What will become of us, my darling?”
“I do not know. But I promise you this: I will love you forever.”
They held each other for awhile, and the new sun rose and filled the sky with golden light.
“See how the sun banishes the darkness. So love will send our troubles fleeing far from us-I promise.”
“Can love accomplish so much, do you think?” Bria said dreamily.
“It can do all things.”
SIX
“GOOD THEIDO, I say we should turn back. We have already come too far, and it is past the time when we should have been in Askelon. The King will be fearing our disappearance soon, if not already.”
“But we have not seen what we came to see: the enemy, if there is one. We would be remiss if we returned now. Our task is not completed.”
Ronsard sat hunched in the saddle, one arm resting on the pommel, the other bent around behind him as he pressed his hand into the small of his back. “If I do not get off this horse soon, I may never walk again.”
“Since when have you become fond of walking? The Lord High Marshall of the Realm should set a better example for his men,” joked Theido, swiveling in his saddle to cast an eye upon the four knights behind.
“My men know me for what I am,” said Ronsard. “But I jest not when I say that we should return at once. It is no light thing to keep a King waiting.”
“Nor is it meet to bring him useless information-the one would foil his purpose as easily as the other.” Theido turned his horse and brought himself close to Ronsard. “But I will tell you what we shall do, so that I may hear the end of your complaining. We will send one of the knights back with a message of what we have discovered so far, and of our intention of continuing until we are satisfied.”
“Fair enough. Also relay that we will return at the earliest we may, by the most expeditious means, with a full report.”
“Agreed.” Theido turned his sun-browned face toward the place where the knights waited, resting their mounts before continuing on their journey. “Martran! Come up here.” He signaled one of them.
The knight approached his leaders on foot and saluted. “Martran, you are to ride to the King at once and deliver this message: we are continuing on our mission and are sorry for the delay in returning to him sooner. Tell him also that we will come hence as soon as we are satisfied that we have obtained that which we seek, or have some better report to give him. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the knight crisply.
“Repeat the message,” ordered Ronsard.
The knight repeated the message word for word with the same inflection given the words as Ronsard himself had used. “Very well,” said Ronsard. “Be on your way. Stop for nothing and no one.”
The knight saluted again and walked back to his horse. He mounted and rode off at once, without looking back.
“Now then,” said Theido, snapping his reins impatiently, “let us go forth.”
Ronsard raised himself in his saddle and called to the remaining knights. “Be mounted! Forward we go!”
Since leaving Askelon they had ridden further and further south, first to Hinsenby and then along the coast as it dipped toward the Suthland region of Mensandor. They had passed through Persch and a host of peasant villages unnamed on any map.
Now they approached a rocky stretch of coastland which rose in sharp cliffs at the brink of the sea. This was where the Fiskill Mountains spent themselves in their southernmost extremity. The crags marched right down to the sea, and there the land dropped away as if it had been divided by the chop of an axe. The sea lay crowded with jagged teeth of immense rocks, some as big as islands, though they jutted sharply out of the ocean’s swell, bare and lifeless, uninhabited except as roosts for myriads of squawking sea-birds.
A narrow, treacherous track climbed upward through the cliffs and entwined itself among the tors. Now it cut through a wall of rock so narrow that a man’s outstretched hands touched either side, and now it swung out upon the sheer cliff face where one misstep would send horse and rider hurtling down into the churning sea.