Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [48]
“And so you can,” she agreed. “There’s how the powers are working together.”
“There’s the powers working with my brain!” he corrected, tapping his finger on his temple. “So you came because your father sent you. But you’ve come back.”
“My father has no need of me just now,” she temporized.
“And neither has mine. I think we have been granted a rare moment of idleness!” he said cheerfully. “Perhaps it’s the fortune of the fool!” Then he laughed. “You’ve no notion how good it is to keep company with someone who understands what I do besides my family.”
She shook her head. “I have the same problem. No one is to know I am my father’s eyes and ears, or they might be more reticent around me.”
He sighed. “Welladay. There you have it. But for now, we are on holiday! So what would you care to do, Katya, Sea King’s daughter?”
She settled her back against the boulder. “I should like to hear you sing.”
It was about the middle of their third day together that Sasha realized that he was courting this young woman. Possibly she had known it earlier, but if so she had given no sign.
He said nothing, however. He didn’t want to do or say anything that might make her take offense, and young women could take offense at the oddest things. She might only want to be friends. Or she might think that he was not courting her, but trying to seduce her—
Well I am, he thought, as he lay in his bed in the inn and stared up at the ceiling in the dark. But my intentions are honorable!
He would not think of what his brothers might say. He would not think of what his Father would do. All of them should know better anyway. The Fortunate Fool always went away from home and returned with an exotic bride, more often than not, it was a magical one to boot! They should all be expecting it by now.
Could he win her?
He certainly hoped so, because he could not imagine feeling this way about any other young lady, ever again. It was not just that she was beautiful, kind, clever, and intoxicating. It was not that he was madly in love. If anything, he was sanely in love. If ever two creatures were suited for each other—
They were out riding at the moment that he came to this conclusion; she was up behind him on a pillion. Now, his regular saddle didn’t have a pillion pad, but true to the nature of his luck, there had been one left behind at the inn so long ago that no one quite recalled who had left it or why. Not that it mattered. It was his luck. So he was able to suggest to her that they go riding inland, and she readily agreed.
This was not a part of Led Belarus where they were likely to run into either trouble or people. It was, in fact, hunting lands belonging to one of the boyars, a man who hated to hunt. The people of the fishing village poached it with impunity. There might be a gamekeeper somewhere about, but if there was, Sasha had never seen him.
Sasha really wasn’t at all sure who or what lived in this forest, besides the possible gamekeeper. He only had one hope—that the unicorns weren’t around.
He felt his heart sink when he caught a flash of white through the trees.
“What’s that?” Katya asked, crushing his hope that she hadn’t seen it.
“I don’t know,” he temporized, because he actually didn’t know, he only guessed it was a unicorn.
“There it is again!” she exclaimed, as the path curved, and there was the briefest possible glimpse of a white flank.
Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. How was he to explain the unicorns to her? Oh he could probably sing them away but—
They rounded another turn in the path, and ahead, the path led straight into a beautiful glade. Sun poured down into the pocket meadow, golden and sweet as honey. The sound of gurgling water was just audible, along with the song of a lark. Lush, deep green grass carpeted the ground, and in the middle of this tiny paradise, haloed by the sun, stood—
A white doe.
Relief made him flush. Thank heavens.
“Oh!” Katya said, as the deer turned her mild eyes on them and nodded. “Oh! She’s lovely!”
She was more than lovely. Sasha quickly ran through all the lore