Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [172]
Kieri stared. He had been so sure they were all decades younger; he had struggled so hard against what he felt. “How old—?” His voice stuck in his throat.
“Fifty winters,” she said. She stopped, and he turned to face her. “My mother died two years ago; my father has gone back to the Ladysforest. He was glad to hear I had been chosen King’s Squire. He said, ‘So you’re finally growing up.’ Though he had not said so, I think he believed my time in the rangers was as much a girl’s whim as Elis’s horse farm.”
Kieri felt his heart pounding suddenly, felt the heat of his blood racing. Arian? Could it be? And if so … what did she want?
“You sent Garris away,” he said, hoping it was true.
“Yes. I said it might be a delicate conversation that no one should overhear.” Arian looked across the wide courtyard to the stables.
“You have ambushed me again,” Kieri said. “Hooked my ankle just as you did this morning—”
“I was hoping for your heart,” she said. “But if it feels like an ambush, Sir King, I release you at once.”
“I am all undone,” Kieri said. “I had thought—among the rangers, the Squires, there might be women who desired me—”
“Might!” she said. She laughed at him, now, dark eyes alight with it. “My lord king, you little know what you inspire, if you think they only might desire you.”
“And you?” He could scarcely breathe enough to say the words.
“From the day I first saw you,” she said. “I knew it was unseemly, and knew I should, to save you embarrassment, turn right ’round and ride away. But you chose me for a Squire, chose me for those skills I admire in myself. The more I knew of you, the more … the more I respected, admired you. You have no idea … but my lord, if my interest does not please you, do not fear I will press it on you. I can stay, as your Squire, and say no word more, or go, if that is your pleasure, without complaint. I am not a girl of twenty or thirty, unable to manage my behavior, or a spoiled princess. What say you?”
Kieri stared, unable to look away. She was nothing like Tammarion to look at—dark hair instead of light, dark eyes instead of Tammarion’s fire-blue, taller, a broader face—and yet—“I can scarcely say anything,” he said. His voice came out gruff; he cleared his throat. “I never thought—” His voice betrayed him again. Her face changed expression, closing again to the mask of a Squire on duty. He reached for her hand. “No—no, do not go. Stay. Please—I must tell you—and I cannot tell you at this moment—but stay.”
Her eyes lit up again; she had seen or heard something he did not know he had conveyed—but he meant it.
Garris, coming back from the stables, whistled a phrase of “Nutting in the Woods” and shook his head at them. “So that’s how it is,” he said. “And you have to stand out in the courtyard, like a—”
“Don’t say it,” Kieri said. He felt light as a bubble. “Do not say a word.”
“I don’t have to,” Garris said, “with every window on this side of the palace full of faces.”
Kieri glanced up; the faces disappeared in a rush; curtains fell. He looked at Arian; she was flushed but laughing, shaking her head.
“You are not embarrassed?” he asked her.
“Me? Oh, my lord—Sir King—I am too happy to be embarrassed by anything.”
He laughed too, until a strong nudge by the taig broke into his laughter. “That’s good because we must go somewhere. Now.”
Her eyes widened. “Now?”
“The King’s Grove. Or so the soles of my feet tell me—the taig is waiting.”
“Oh—Oh! I feel it!”
“And possibly my grandmother.”
Now she paled. “Now? The Lady?”
“I think so,” Kieri said. The taig and his grandmother’s command drew him. “Garris—we’re going to the King’s Grove—call another—” And he tugged gently at her hand. “Come, Arian, if this is what you want. If not, tell me now.”
“It is … I’m just … I have no breath.”
“Nor I.”
By the time they reached the gate,