hardening device she had spent many hours practicing in the reflection of a forest pond. “I’m hardly the porcelain doll you knew a year ago.”
Dauneth’s face reddened. “Of course not. I didn’t mean-“
“You should have seen me at Huthduth,” the princess continued, her voice now light and cheerful. “Clearing stones out of fields, leading plow oxen, harvesting squash, picking raspberries, hunting wild mushrooms…”
Tanalasta paused, thinking it better not to add “swimming naked in mountain lakes.”
Merula the Marvelous raised an eyebrow, and she felt a sudden swell of anger. Could the wizard be reading her thoughts?
“You were hunting wild mushrooms, milady?” asked Dauneth. “In the forest?”
“Of course.” Tanalasta returned her gaze to Dauneth, still struggling to decide how she would deal with the wizard’s intrusion. “Where else does one hunt for mushrooms?”
“You really shouldn’t have,” Dauneth said. “The mountains around Huthduth are orc country. If a foraging mob had come across you…”
“I wasn’t aware that protecting me was your purview, Dauneth. Has the king told you something he has yet to share with me?”
Dauneth’s eyes betrayed his surprise at the woman returning from Huthduth. “No, of course not. The king would hardly confide in me before his own daughter, but I do have a… a reason to be concerned with your safety.”
Tanalasta said nothing, allowing Dauneth a chance to make himself sound less presumptuous by adding some comment about a noble’s duty to safeguard a member of the royal family. When the Warden remained silent, she realized matters were worse than she had expected. With King Azoun turning sixty-three in two days and Tanalasta on the far side of thirty-five and still unmarried, people were starting to wonder if she would ever produce an heir. Certain individuals had even taken it on themselves to hurry things along-most notably the Royal Magician and State Pain-in-the-Princess’s Arse, Vangerdahast. The crafty old wizard had no doubt arranged to celebrate the king’s birthday at House Marliir for the purpose of advancing Dauneth’s courtship.
That would have been fine with Tanalasta, who knew better than anyone that her time to produce an heir was fast running out. In the past year, the princess had grown more conscious than ever of her duty to Cormyr and Dauneth had proven himself both a loyal noble and a worthy suitor in the Abraxus Affair fifteen months before. Nothing would have made her happier than to summon the good Warden to the altar and get started on the unpleasant business of producing an heir and the princess had made up her mind to do exactly that when she received word of the celebration in Arabel.
Then the vision had come.
Tanalasta quickly chased from her thoughts all memory of the vision itself, instead picturing Merula the Marvelous trussed naked on a spit and roasting over a slow fire. If the wizard was spying on her thoughts, she wanted him to know what awaited if he dared report any particular one to the royal magician, Vangerdahast would hear of her vision soon enough, and Tanalasta needed to be the one to tell him.
Merula merely continued to glower. “Something wrong, milady?”
“I hope not.”
Tanalasta drew back a window flap and turned to watch the High Heath glide by. It was a small plain of golden checkerboard fields divided into squares by rough stone walls and dotted with thatch-roofed huts. The simple folk who scratched their living from the place had come out to watch the royal procession trundle past, and it was not until the princess had waved at two dozen vacant-eyed children without receiving a response that she realized something was wrong.
She turned to the Harvestmaster beside her. “Owden, look out here and tell me what you think. Is there something wrong with those barley fields?”
The thin priest leaned in front of her and peered out the window. “There is, Princess. It’s too early for such a color. There must be some sort of blight.”
Tanalasta frowned. “Across the whole heath?”
“So it appears.”
Tanalasta thrust her head out the window. “Stop the carriage!”
Merula scowled and reached for his own drape to countermand the order, but Tanalasta caught his arm.
“Do you really want to challenge the command of an Obarskyr, wizard?”
The wizard knitted his bushy eyebrows indignantly. “The royal magician’s orders were clear. We are to stop for nothing until we have cleared the mountains.”
“Then proceed on your own, by all means,” Tanalasta retorted. “Vangerdahast does not command me. You may remind him of that, if he is listening.”
The carriage rumbled to a stop, and a footman opened the door. Tanalasta held out her hand to Dauneth.
“Will you join me, Warden?”
Dauneth made no move to accept her hand. “Merula is right, milady. These mountains are no place-“
“No?” Tanalasta shrugged, then reached for the footman’s hand. “If you are frightened…”
“Not at all.” Dauneth was out the door in an instant, jostling the footman aside and offering his hand to Tanalasta. “I was only thinking of your safety.”
“Yes, you did say you have reason to concern yourself with me.”
Tanalasta gave the Warden a vinegary smile, then allowed him to help her out of the coach, prompting a handful of peasants to gasp and bow so low their faces scraped ground. Outside, it was a warm mountain afternoon with a sky the color of sapphires and air as dry as sand, and the princess was disappointed to note they had already crossed most of the heath. The foot of Worg Pass lay only a hundred paces ahead, where the barley fields abruptly gave way to a stand of withering pine trees.
Tanalasta motioned the peasants to their feet, then turned to Harvestmaster Owden, who was climbing out of the carriage behind her. “Do you think your assistants could do anything to save these fields, Harvestmaster?”
Owden glanced toward a large, ox-drawn wagon following a few paces behind the princess’s carriage. A dozen monks in green woolen robes sat crammed into the cargo bed among shovels, harrows, and other implements of Chauntea’s faith. They were eyeing the blighted fields and muttering quietly among themselves, no doubt as concerned as Tanalasta by what they saw.
Owden motioned his assistants out of the wagon. “It will take a few hours, Princess.”
“A few hours!” Merula hoisted his considerable bulk through the carriage door with surprising ease. “We can’t have that! The royal magician-“
“-need not know,” Tanalasta finished for him. “Unless he is spying upon us even as we speakin which case you may inform him that the Crown Princess will spend the afternoon walking.”
Tanalasta eyed the Purple Dragons guarding her carriage, one company mounted on their snorting chargers ahead of the procession and the other bringing up the rear, lances posted and steel helmets gleaming in the sun. At the end of the official column followed a long line of merchant carts taking advantage of Tanalasta’s escorts to ensure a safe passage through the mountains. Sighing at the futility of trying to find a little privacy with her suitor, Tanalasta turned to Dauneth.
“Will you join me, Warden?”
Dauneth nodded somewhat uncomfortably. “Whatever the princess wishes.”
Trying not to grind her teeth in frustration, Tanalasta took Dauneth’s arm and led him past the long file of riders to the front of the column. Though her shoulders were draped in a silken cape of royal purple, underneath she wore a sensible traveling smock and a pair of well-worn walking boots, and it was not long before they reached the foot of Worg Pass. She sent the company captain ahead with two scouts and instructed the rest of the company to follow twenty paces behind, but she could not quite make her getaway before Merula the Marvelous came puffing up from behind.
“I trust… the princess will not object to… company,” Merula panted.
“Of course not. Why should she?” asked Owden Foley, appearing from the other side of the horse column. The weatherworn priest winked a crinkled eye at the princess, then looped his hand through Merula’s arm. “My friend, what an excellent idea to join them. We could all do with a nice, brisk walk. Nothing like a stroll to get the heart pumping and keep the fields in water, is there?”
