Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [120]
"Raise an army?" she asked reluctantly.
"Any further delay could be disastrous," he observed. "You know that the northmen are on the march!"
"I'll notify the lord generals," she said. "They'll have all the cantrevs mustered. It'll take a few days."
"The captains will do quite well," the priest noted. "You can be certain that the war will begin with a vigorous attack."
"I'm concerned about my cantrev," Blackstone announced. "I have to be there in case that column comes over the mountain."
"Yes," agreed Malawar. "You should go."
"Can you stay here for a time?" Deirdre asked Malawar. "As a guest of the castle? I have chambers that are ready even as we speak. You'd be very comfortable."
"I don't doubt that in the least, my lady. But, alas, comfort is not a luxury I can currently afford. No, I have to leave you. There are other matters to which I must attend. I will return to you before the moment of decision."
"As you will," Deirdre concluded unhappily. Before she had completed the last word, her mysterious companion had faded to nothing before her eyes.
"I hate it when he does that!" growled Blackstone, gesturing at the place where Malawar had disappeared. "It gives me the shivers, thinking he might be anywhere, whenever he wants to be there!"
Deirdre paid little attention. Instead, she stared at the place where Malawar had been and thought about the eternal hours that must pass before she would see him again.
* * * * *
Darkness of his second night in the highlands found Hanrald seeking shelter in a low vale protected from wind and rain only by the craggy tors on all sides. During his wanderings since the death of his horse and the fight with the trolls, the knight had realized that he was totally lost.
A small, dark pond indicated the possibility of fish. Hanrald, who had grown up in country well-laced with trout streams, was able to tickle a fat rainbow from the water by lying very still above an overhanging bank and holding his hand in the water. When one of the trout unknowingly swam across his fingers, he flipped it out of the water and quickly bashed its head on a rock.
No trees grew in his rocky vale, but he found enough dried brush to build a small fire. He decided that if his fish could not be called cooked, neither was it entirely raw-and never had he enjoyed a meal so much.
Leaning back against the rock that he would use as his pillow, the knight placed his drawn sword across his lap, where he could raise it with an instant's notice. He stared at the fading embers of his fire, and his mind turned-as it did so often-to the Princess Alicia.
Where was she? During his days of wandering, Hanrald had become convinced that she would no longer be found in the highlands. Nevertheless, he had no regrets about making his impetuous search, for during this time, he had clarified much in his own mind. Solitude, he decided, did that for a man. It allowed his mind to look at things with a clarity that was often denied by the bustle of society.
Foremost among his realizations had been a full understanding of his own loyalty. He was devoted to his king, and if this meant a betrayal of his own family, then so be it. Such a betrayal could only come about because of treachery on his father's part, and Hanrald felt fairly certain that such treachery figured prominently in the earl's plans.
The knight's thoughts turned to his father, the Earl of Fairheight. Since Hanrald's first awareness, he remembered striving to please the man, but always he fell short of Blackstone's harsh goals. The older Currag and Gwyeth, dark and brooding like the earl, had been his father's favorites in everything.
Gradually, however, the young knight had realized that the differences between them ran much deeper. Of course he had heard the rumors spread by the servants and old guardsmen, the claims that the earl's wife had been unfaithful and Hanrald was not his true son after all. But he had always dismissed that speculation as mere gossip, else he couldn't imagine why Blackstone would