Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [56]
Yet the danger woke him at last as if from one of Nevyn's dweomer spells. If someone came by, if someone saw them—
“My lady,” he whispered. “Your Highness.”
The mention of her rank made her go tense in his arms. She pulled back a little and looked up at him.
“More than half-mad,” she said. “I could have loved you so much if only we weren't who we are.”
He felt the beginnings of tears in his eyes, turned his head fast to hide them, but she reached up with one hand and caught the drops on her fingertips. “Forgive me,” she said. “I never should have—”
Distantly, like the cry of a bird, someone was calling her name—Bellyra, Your Highness, Lyrra, Lyrra, where are you?
“Elyssa!” she said. “I should have known they'd hunt. Maddo, quick—go back inside!”
She scooped up her lantern and trotted off, heading toward the main ward. Maddyn opened the door and stepped in to find a furious Otho.
“Ye gods!” the smith whispered. “If any harm comes to our lady over this, bard, you'd best watch your back.”
“Ah, curse you!” Maddyn snapped. “Do you think I'm the villain in this? Do you think I wanted to reach above me and fill my days with misery?”
Otho considered him for a long moment. “I don't suppose you did,” he said at last. “May the gods have pity on you both!”
Lilli had been sitting up late, studying a page of sigils by candlelight, when Elyssa pounded on her door. She got up just as the serving woman opened it and strode in. She was wearing an ordinary dress over her nightdress, and her blonde hair hung in two tidy braids.
“Forgive me,” Elyssa said. “But I saw the light under the door. Would you help us? The princess has disappeared. We need to find her before some wretched servant or stable man sees her.”
“Of course!” Lilli snatched the lantern from the table. “What do you mean, disappeared?”
“She's off wandering somewhere. She gets so restless at night, you see. During the day she can't seem to stay awake, but then she can't sleep at night, and at times she just goes off somewhere when we're asleep and can't stop her.”
With a second lantern in hand Degwa waited for them out in the hall, and for once she refrained from sneering at Lilli. They hurried down the stairs, then picked their way as quietly as possible through the great hall. A couple of dogs roused themselves, sniffed the air, recognized their scent, and lay back down again. None of the servants woke. They reached the warm night outside safely and put a good distance between themselves and the door before anyone spoke.
“At least the gates are shut,” Elyssa said. “She can't have gone outside the walls. That's one blessing, anyway.”
“It's bad enough as it is,” Degwa said. “Everything's so confusing in this awful old dun, and no one knows the place like she does, either. Well, unless Lilli does.”
“Not truly.” Lilli held her lantern high and peered across the main ward. “I never cared much about ruins and suchlike.”
“I doubt if anyone but our princess ever did or does.” Elyssa paused, thinking. “We can get Maddyn the bard to help us look. He'll keep things to himself, and frankly, I want a man along in case some drunken sentry gives us trouble.”
“True spoken,” Lilli said. “The silver daggers' barracks are over this way. Branoic showed them to me once when the rest of the men were in the great hall.”
Lilli led them through the welter of sheds and outbuildings all the way to the stone wall, where the barracks stood. At the bottom of the stairs Degwa balked.
“We can't go up there,” Degwa whined. “What will people