Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [57]
“Maddyn's the only man in them,” Elyssa said. “If it troubles your heart so much, you can wait down here alone.”
“What? I can't do that, either. I at least am mindful of my rank.”
Elyssa made a growling sound under her breath and started up the stairs. Lilli followed, and, eventually, so did Degwa. They held their lanterns up while Elyssa first knocked on the door, then pounded on it. No one answered. Elyssa risked pushing it open a few feet.
“Maddyn?” she called out. “Maddo, are you in there?”
No voice answered, not a single sound—Elyssa took Lilli's lantern, opened the door full, and walked a few steps in, holding up the light. The long row of bunks stood empty; only one had blankets upon it, and those had slipped halfway to the floor.
“Well,” Elyssa said. “He's not here.”
Elyssa turned and rejoined them on the landing. Behind her Lilli heard Degwa gasp as if in sudden pain.
“What is it?” Lilli said.
Degwa laid her hand on her forehead and looked tragically up at the stars. Elyssa shut the door behind her, then scowled at Degwa.
“I know what you're thinking,” Elyssa said. “Don't.”
“There's some good reason for all of this,” Lilli put in. “He may have seen her walking and gone after her to guard her.”
Degwa pursed her lips and glared, but she did drop her tragic pose.
“Let's go,” Elyssa said briskly. “And let's start calling for her. No one's going to hear us way out here.”
They hurried down the stairs, then stood hesitating. Which way to go? Finally Elyssa chose a direction, farther past the barracks into the close-packed outbuildings.
“Lyrra!” she called out. “Bellyra—Your Highness! Lyrra, Lyrra, where are you?”
When no one answered, they walked on. As they turned the corner round a storage shed, they saw bobbing candlelight, hurrying toward them.
“Lyss!” It was the princess's voice. “Is that you?”
“It is!” Elyssa called back. “And thank the Goddess we found you.”
In the light of the lanterns, the princess looked exhausted, her face bright as if with fever. She was wearing an old dress, torn down one side, with a sleeveless shift over that, a pairing that made her look like a kitchen lass. Her hair hung down in untidy strands; her silver clasp dangled at her neck, in danger of slipping free entirely.
“My apologies,” Bellyra said. “I just had one of my moods. I had to get outside, I simply had to.”
“I wish you'd wake us, Your Highness,” Degwa said. “We'd be glad to accompany you.”
“And ruin your sleep?” Bellyra gave her a watery sort of smile. “But you see, when I go off alone, I can forget for one lovely moment that I'm doomed to be queen.”
Lilli stared, openmouthed, then glanced at Degwa and Elyssa to find them doing the same. Bellyra smiled vaguely at them all. She reached up with her free hand and slid the silver clasp out of her hair.
“I was about to lose this, wasn't I?” Bellyra said. “Well, my ladies, let's go back to the women's hall.”
Maddyn slept late the next morning. He woke from dreams of holding Bellyra in his arms to find the barracks flooded with the full heat of a summer's day. He sat up, as muzzy-headed as a sot, and remembered that his dreams weren't only idle fancies.
I could have loved you so much if only we weren't who we are. She had in truth said those words; she had said them to him. Had she meant to make him happy by the saying of them? He doubted it. She must have known that they would cut him to the heart, as sharp as a silver dagger. She was too clearheaded not to know. The happiness—if he could call it that—came from realizing that she'd wounded herself just as deep.
Maddyn dressed and went into the great hall. The fort-guard had already eaten and gone. He wheedled a bowl of porridge and some ale out of a servant girl and took the food to a table next to the door to eat it, where a slight breeze struggled to lift the worst of the day's heat. He'd just started on the bread when Prince Riddmar came racing down the staircase, leaping from broad stone stair to stair and laughing at nothing in particular. In but a few weeks, if all went well, he'd be invested