Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [97]
“You must rescue Ganlin, too,” Elis said. “I know she’ll want to come—”
“I will talk to Ganlin tomorrow,” Kieri said. “In the meantime, tell your guardians you tried to charm me, but I was cool. Can you do that?”
“Yes!” she said with far too much enthusiasm. He gave her a quelling look, and she reverted to the sulky Elis he had seen before.
They walked back across the garden, chatting only of flowers and inconsequentials. Her guardians waited at the garden door, glowering because the two King’s Squires would not let them out.
“We had a pleasant walk,” Kieri said. “Princess, thank you for your time.” He bowed; she curtsied, eyes downcast.
The next day, Kieri escorted Ganlin around the rose garden at the same hour. “Did Elis pass you word about our talk yesterday?” he asked. He already knew, from the Squires, that notes had gone back and forth.
“She said not to be afraid of you,” Ganlin said. She gave him a glance under long lashes. “She said there was hope.”
“I know what her hopes are,” Kieri said. “But not yours. You are friends of old, I understand.”
Ganlin flushed. “We are. She is what I wish I were.”
“You are very like,” Kieri said.
“She is stronger and braver,” Ganlin said.
“You were limping the night you arrived,” Kieri said. “Were you injured on the way?”
“No, Sir King. I fell from a horse years ago—they said I might not walk again, but now it’s only when I’m tired that I limp. And I love to ride, like Elis.”
“That sounds like bravery to me … to ride again after a bad fall.”
“Outside is always better,” Ganlin said. “Well—except when it rains.”
“You were going to go to her when she had her horse farm?”
Ganlin hesitated, then nodded. “I would try, at least. She was going to be in the north of Pargun, next to the grasslands, but in the forest so there would be wood for the barns and house. But to get there from home—alone—I said I would, somehow, but—but I wasn’t ever sure.”
“It would be a difficult journey,” Kieri agreed. “Tell me, Ganlin, if I told your guardians I did not want to marry you, what would happen to you?”
She scowled. “They would take me home. No one there suits me, or wants me, really. I have a horse—a real horse, a big gray—and I can ride. But Elis said if she’s sent home they’ll lock her up, and without her I don’t know what I’d do. Where could I go?”
“Would you want to stay here if you did become my queen?”
“Here in the palace or here in Lyonya? I do not want to be mured inside walls forever, even with a garden as lovely as this.” She waved an arm at the roses. “I want to ride, to walk in the woods—”
“To practice swordcraft?”
“That, too. I liked it, learning—but it’s—I don’t think I could be a soldier, the way Elis wanted to be. It’s not just my hip and leg—it’s the thought of killing people.”
Kieri nodded. “And yet, Ganlin … not all who train as knights become soldiers.”
“No?”
“No, not here in Lyonya. I told Elis, and I tell you, that if you wish to learn knightly skills and manners, as would suit men and women of high birth, I know where you can get such training: in Falk’s Hall.”
“Men and women?”
“Yes. I was sent there, as Lord Halveric’s squire; one of my captains was a Knight of Falk, who is now a duke in Tsaia. And the King’s Squires are Knights of Falk as well.”
“Do—do women who become Knights ever … ever marry?”
“As they choose,” Kieri said. “One of the peers of this realm, a widow with children and grandchildren, is a Knight of Falk.”
“I would like that,” Ganlin said. Unlike Elis, her color did not come and go as readily; Kieri suspected that the pain of her injury had taught her a control Elis had yet to learn. “If you send Elis there, can you send me?” Then she frowned. “But how? Our guardians will not allow it, I’m sure.”
“I’m thinking,” Kieri said. “And I will ask the Knight-Commander’s advice. In the