“Delorro!” the troop commander called in a deep baritone as he stalked down the line of sweaty soldiers. Roderic Delorro moved his eyes only, glancing toward the officer. Another promotion?
The commander stopped in front of him. “Report to the master’s station.”
They knew. Goosebumps raised on his arms. “Yes, sir.”
Since the morning drill squad rarely met the evening squad, he had avoided detection—until now.
Roderic bypassed a line of soldiers waiting for the water pump. Quenching his thirst would have to wait. He ducked through the archway into the master’s station where fifty battle shields hung on the stone walls, the heraldry of Lacasse’s knights and soldiers.
Roderic clasped his hands behind his back and stood at ease before his superior officer.
“Do you know why you’re here?” the scruffle-faced colonel asked.
Roderic felt his pulse quicken. “No, sir.”
“Knight Oiseau is sick,” the colonel said. “He recommended you take his place as guard to Princess Adrienne du Parries this afternoon.”
Roderic felt the tightness in his lungs ease. Just an assignment—but as nursemaid to royalty. “Princess Adrienne?” he said.
“Is there a problem, Captain Delorro?”
“No, sir.” He arched his head backwards, relaxing his neck. Better to take the assignment and get out before the colonel began asking questions.
“Good. Saddle three horses and report to the courtyard. Take her horse, Jolie.” The colonel leaned forward. “And, Delorro?”
Roderic’s hair bristled. “Yes, sir.”
“If I could send you on a campaign, I would. You’re ready. There is no reason to drill twice a day.” The colonel stood and planted his hand like a claw on his desk. “How long have you been at this?”
“Eight days, sir.”
“Why?”
I don’t want to think about them. “It helps me focus, sir.”
“You’ve never been in battle, Delorro, but you’re working harder than many men I’ve fought with. You’re the youngest captain we’ve ever had. You should be able to find something else to do, something recreational.”
Roderic shifted his weight. “Thank you, but if you don’t mind me asking sir, what’s preventing me from a campaign?”
“Approval from the king’s council.”
Roderic’s pressed his lips together, saluted, and stepped out of the room. Senseless. Absolutely senseless. His comrades went to battle while he remained at the castle. He went to the stable and saddled the princess’s horse. The last time he’d wrestled a girth strap into place, he’d done it for his father three weeks ago. No word from him since. The princess’s horse followed him to the courtyard, nipping at his arm.
“Stop it!” he shoved it away. Clip, clop, clip, clop, Jolie sidestepped further than anticipated, escaping his grasp. He lunged for the reins, but missed. The horse tossed its head and trotted away. Roderic glanced around the courtyard. Stonemasons leaned against a fence whispering to each other. One of them called, “You’d better get it under control, lad.”
He charged after the bay mare again unsuccessfully.
A stranger with bold gray streaks in his dark hair approached the horse from the other side and cupped his hands around her muzzle. “Whoa, Jolie, whoa.”
Roderic snatched the bridle, securing the horse. “Thank you.”
“Jolie has an adventurous spirit, stirring up trouble. Like her rider, Princess Anne, I should say. Tell me…” he sized up Roderic’s uniform, “…what do you think of the princess?”
Roderic frowned. Did this man know his assignment? “We have not been acquainted long enough, sir.”
“Acquainted? With me or her?”
“Both, and her name is not Anne, it’s Adrienne,” Roderic replied.
The stranger chuckled. “You think she is a hoity-toity lady of the court, and you are probably reviewing your last etiquette lesson. It isn’t necessary. At first, she won’t know how to behave around you, that’s certain. But mark this, you treat her with respect and you’ll learn to like her. Oh, and she prefers to be called Anne.”
“Do you know her?”
“Obviously.”
Small lines deepened in Roderic’s forehead, “Do you know me?”
“I am a friend to your father. We spend many hours debating in the King’s Council Room. Fardius,” he extended a hand.
Roderic pumped it firmly. “Fardius? My father speaks of you often.”
“Does he?” The corner of Fardius’s bearded mouth curled upward.
“I am glad to finally meet you,” Roderic said.
“Likewise. When I found out you were standing in for Knight Oiseau, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see the son of Lucas Delorro. I keep hearing good things about you from the commanders in the guard.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Your father has been gone some time—three weeks now. Do you know when he will return?”
“No, my mother left last week to join him in Calendenia.”
“What?” Fardius stepped closer.
“I thought the council knew.”
“They wouldn’t go to Calendenia. Are you sure?” Fardius demanded, piercing Roderic’s soul with his searching gaze.
“Yes. Of course I’m sure…” Roderic’s airway constricted, his whole chest felt tight as breath would not flow. He had said too much.
The princess stepped into view, striding toward the restless horse next to him.
Fardius clapped an arm around his shoulder. “Here she comes. I’ll speak with you later.” He nodded courteously to the princess and the older lady with her as they approached, and hustled toward the castle.
Roderic scooted out of their way and dipped into a bow.
The wispy feathers on the princess’s hat swayed as she paused in front of him.
He stood upright, and she inhaled sharply. “Where’s Pierre?” she asked.
“Knight Oiseau is sick today.”
The older woman, dressed in the blue gown worn by castle maids, introduced herself. “We were not informed. I am Madame Yvette Veiller, Adrienne’s friend and advisor.”
“Lieutenant Roderic Delorro, a pleasure to meet you.”
He waited for a formal speech from Adrienne, but she said nothing until Madame Veiller nudged her. Then she said, “Thank you for guarding us today. Thanks to you, we’ve escaped dancing lessons.” She blew a wayward feather out of her face.
Roderic’s eyebrows scrunched causing Adrienne’s rate of speech to accelerate.
“If I had no one to guard me, I would spend the entire day in etiquette ruining the minuet. I like to get fresh air now and then. They endlessly practice being genteel, and I get tired of it.”
“So would I,” Roderic replied, helping onto her horse.
A beaming smile lit up her face, but Madame Veiller sent him a chilling glare.
“You would do well to continue practicing being genteel,” Madame Veiller stated, perhaps to both of them.
Roderic walked back to his own steed, and kicked the gravel. First, he had said too much to Fardius about his father’s whereabouts, and then he had sided with the princess against her etiquette instructors. Everything he said seemed destined to get him in trouble.
He mounted his horse and took the point, leading the ladies outside the castle walls, through the mist blanketing the woodland path.
Roderic remained silent, contemplating his conversation with Fardius. What was so alarming? What could he have said differently? Perhaps if Fardius had said, “Your father has been gone some time, three weeks. Do you know when he will return?” and he had replied, “No, but my mother left to meet him a few days ago, so they may return together soon.” Or would it have been better not to mention his mother at all?
“Roderic?” the princess asked.
“Yes?”
“Where are we going?”
“Down this path, I suppose,” Roderic replied.
“Well, not if we are to have anything interesting happen,” she pouted.
“Do you invent interesting events to amuse yourself?”
“I don’t invent anything. But if I did nothing to actively change the circumstances, life would be an endless cycle of days.”
“So what shall we force to happen that will satisfy you?” he asked.
She focused on a fallen log spanning a creek. “I will wager I can cross that bridge with my eyes shut.”
“Princess, that’s not a bridge, it’s a rotted log. You would drown.”
“My name is Anne, not Princess. And I’d swim,” she said, jumping off her horse. She headed across the log with her chin tilted upward and her eyes closed. “Anyway,” she called over her shoulder with her eyes still closed, “my…conservatory is on the other side of this creek. Come if you wish.”
Oh great. Fardius said she liked trouble.
“Pure folly,” Madame Veiller breathed. “Help me get down from this horse and across those rocks.”
“I have a better way, Madame,” Roderic said. He dismounted and glanced back at the princess. She was teetering a bit, but her feet found cautious steps across the log. Roderic led Madame Veiller’s horse across a shallow point in the stream. Then he jogged to catch up with the adventurous maiden.
She stopped at a clearing. An inlet from the creek emptied into a small, beautiful pond. An old tree with twisted bark grew right beside it.
“Would you like to take a swing?” the princess asked, grabbing for a vine. She wrapped her wrist around it, and swung across the pond, mindful of avoiding branches on the other side, and swung back. “It’s great,” she laughed at Roderic’s face.
“Princess, do you think your mother would approve of you swinging around so precariously?”
“I would not,” the nurse put in.
“You need not look so surprised, Lieutenant. I am the youngest of four brothers and sisters, and Mother would probably let me do it as long as I am safe.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Yes, I usually come here with Yvette. Since you are supposed to keep me out of danger, I wanted you to know that if no one can find me, I will be right here. If you bring anyone else here, other than in an emergency, you can count on an enemy,” she said, with a challenge in her tone.
The nurse lifted her hand to her head in dismay.
Roderic mouth twitched, fighting the compulsion to smile. “Big words.”
Anne caught the laughter in his tone. “I’m done here.” She ran toward the log bridge.
“Wait!” He ran after her.
As Anne crossed the log bridge, she slipped on the thick moss growing there and fell into the brown stream.
Roderic ran hard to the creek. She stood up in the shallow brook, grinning sheepishly. Roderic easily crossed the log to the opposite bank. He leaned down. “You can cross it with your eyes shut?”
She splashed him, and then paused, glaring into the forest.
“What’s wrong?”
“I saw something move in the trees.”
Roderic drew his sword. There was a dense patch of woods to his right. He walked along the banking, peering past the trees, waiting. He didn’t see anything.
Anne wiped the water from her face and sloshed to dry land.
Madame Veiller, perched high atop her horse, stopped by the creek. “If Helaine sees you wet, she’ll tell your mother.”
Anne ignored her and waded to shore. Roderic reached his free hand down to assist her out of the creek.
She ignored it and struggled out of the creek on her own. “Nothing? I honestly thought I saw someone.”
“Nothing now. But just the same, let’s get back to the castle.
Anne stomped to Jolie and swung up to the saddle. She set a hurried pace toward the castle. Roderic stopped them when they neared the fortress.
“Why did you stop? We have to get back quickly!” Anne demanded.
“Back gate,” Roderic replied.
He spurred his horse forward, leading the trio in a wide circumference around the castle. The old guard stationed there let them in, staring at the bedraggled noble girl till she was out of sight. Anne dismounted, sputtered a thank you to Roderic, and ran up a flight of stairs disappearing into a building.
Roderic helped Madame Veiller down from her horse. “Will you and the princess need me tomorrow?”
“Yes, thank you, Monsieur Delorro. It was very good of you to spare Adrienne the shame of facing the courtyard in her present condition. A good evening to you.”
He bowed slightly in return. When she had disappeared from view, he took the horses to the stable. If the princess was going to need him tomorrow, he would drill with the night squad. He had to stay sharp. The wind kicked up, chilling him where his clothes were still damp. She had splashed him good.
What had she seen in the woods? He relived the moment, the look on her face. Concerned. Convinced. She’d really seen something.
At the stable he turned in the ladies’ horses and then rode back out. He retraced their route to the fallen log by the creek. He jumped down into the water where Anne had been and then followed the direction of her gaze into the woods. Five trees deep he found a place where the tufts of grass covering parts of the forest floor caved in like a dint in the top of mashed potatoes waiting for gravy. He knelt and touched the soft earth around the place—boot prints with spur marks at the heel.
