When the Lady Narantha emerged from the bushes, glaring at him mutely, Florin murmured, “Please follow me”-and walked into the stream.
Narantha looked incredulous. “What are you doing? ”
Standing knee-deep in the Dathyl, the forester replied, “Always do this when leaving a forest camp. Doing so makes it harder for the more intelligent monsters to track you from your cookfires to wherever you next sleep. Elsewise, they’ll soon be biting out your throat.”
The flower of the Crownsilvers looked down at the unfamiliar and overlarge boots on her feet, her lips drawn back in distaste. “It’s going to be cold and wet,” she snapped. “I hate being wet.”
“Best get it over with quickly, then,” Florin said briskly. “Always face what you mislike, do battle with it, and get it done: all the more time then for what you prefer, yes?”
Narantha glared at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Humiliating me every chance you get, mocking my ignorance of forest ways, as much as telling me I’m utterly useless. I hate you. Gallant men of Cormyr — true men of Cormyr-never stoop to treat a lady so.”
Florin glanced up at the sky. “The day,” he told it conversationally, “does draw on. We have to cross an owlbear’s hunting ground to get out of this forest; it’d be a real pity for us both if night found us when we were just passing its lair.”
“ Stop spinning dire tales!” Narantha spat. “You’re lying! Just making things up, to try to scare me into obeying you! Well, I won’t, so there! There must be a bridge across this stream somewhere-or you can chop down a tree and make me one! Yes, sirrah! Hear now my command: fell a tree, right here, and-”
Florin strode up out of the water, gallantly cupped her elbow in his hand, and escorted her-straight into the Dathyl. When she started to struggle, seeing where he was heading, his gentle grip turned to iron, and he towed her into the water until she was stumbling, flailing, and almost immediately shrieking as her foot threatened to come out of her right boot, leaving it behind, deep underwater.
“Stamp down hard,” he commanded quietly, “or you’ll be out of those boots-and crawling for days through the forest. If the beasts let you live that long.”
He kept hold of her-which was a good thing, considering how many hidden holes and rocks she seemed to stumble over, unintentionally almost sitting down twice-and took her on a long and very wet stroll down the stream before climbing out onto some bare rocks, with a grimly dripping Narantha beside him.
Something seemed to shift, along the side of a tree ahead of them, and Florin called something soft in a liquid, shifting-sounds tongue Narantha had never heard before. She thought she heard the merest whisper of an answer before Florin dragged her back into the stream and walked on, around another bend.
This time she did fall, snatching her hand away from him and promptly losing her footing. She came up coughing, spitting, and very wet, and made no protest when he gently claimed her arm again. Her teeth were chattering by the time they stepped out of the Dathyl once more.
“What was that you said?” she asked, miserably, folding her arms across her breast to try to cover herself from him in the drenched ruin of her nightrobe. “And to whom?”
“A polite greeting, and assurance we meant no harm. To the one whose home we almost blundered into.”
Narantha waited, shivering, until it seemed clear the tall forester wasn’t going to say anything more. “I’ve never heard that speech before,” she blurted, finally. “What was it?”
Florin gave her a raised-eyebrow look. “You’ve never heard Dryadic? With all the schooling nobles get?”
“We nobles do not,” Narantha told him icily, “anticipate dealing overmuch with dryads when debating great matters of the realm. Now if you speak to me of Elvish, I can write that, and speak it… a little.”
Florin merely nodded.
“Well, sirrah? Can you?”
Florin nodded again. His attention seemed to be on the trees around them, as if he were searching for something.
After a few breaths, he nodded in satisfaction, as if he’d been shown something by an unseen hand. Collecting her hand again, he set off through the trees in a slightly different direction, his strides slow and deliberate.
“Was that really a dryad?” the noblewoman asked, curiously, as he towed her along. “I–I didn’t really see.”
Florin nodded. “And that unseeing,” he said gently, “is why you’d be dead before nightfall, if you took to wandering around this forest alone. Don’t leave my side, if you want to see your grand houses again.”
Narantha opened her mouth to say something really rude-then shut it again without uttering a sound.
Florin’s sword was in his hand, and she hadn’t even seen him draw it. “Ah… is there danger?”
“Always,” he replied shortly, stalking on through the trees. Narantha tramped after him, her boots squelching.
“Why is your sword all dirty like that?” she asked, after they’d walked for what seemed an eternity. “My father’s blades- all Crownsilver swords, and all those I see at Court, too-shine bright silver; they gleam like mirrors.”
Florin nodded. “My life may depend on a foe not seeing sunlight-or moonlight-reflecting from my steel. So I rub it with a tree gum we use to quell rust, as well as shine. The swords you describe are meant to impress. I’ve never had a need to impress anyone, nor had anyone standing around to be impressed, come to that. Swords don’t impress many Cormyrean farmers… nor rangers.”
His words done, he fell silent again, leaving the noblewoman listening to silence-except for the thuds and crashings of her own clumsy progress-and expecting more. Didn’t this lout know how to spout gallant converse? To pass the day away with clever words?
No. Of course not. He was an unlettered, graceless, backcountry lout who knew a trick or two and so thought himself better than-than his betters. The sooner she was out of his clutches and seeing him flogged for his impudence by a few furious Purple Dragons…
She turned her ankle for about the dozenth time, and slammed the side of her head hard into a sapling as she started to topple. Clawing her way down the tree until she caught her hands in enough branches to stop her fall, she gasped angrily, “Are you expecting me to walk all the way to Suzail?”
Florin gave her a puzzled frown. “Why not? How else do you usually move yourself around?”
“Horses,” Narantha told him, seething, as she dragged herself back upright. “Coaches. River-barges. Palanquins. That’s right: servants carry me.”
They trudged on for a few more paces before she snapped, “Well? Aren’t you even going to offer to carry me?”
Florin waved his sword. “This requires one of my hands. Moreover, this pack is already heavier than your entire body; can’t you manage to carry yourself around?”
Narantha had no answer to that, and trudged along in silence as they crested a little ridge, still deep in the forest, and found a rather slippery way down its far side.
“I’m appalled,” she announced, reaching more or less level ground again-and wondering why so many trees seemed to feel the need to fall over, and keep right on growing sidewise, in a tangle no forester could have nimbly won past. “Appalled, do you hear me?”
Florin did not reply, so she was forced to explain. “I’m appalled at the thought you expect me to walk most of the length of the kingdom!”
Florin turned his head away. She suspected-correctly, though she could not be sure-that he was hiding a grin from her, and snarled, “Don’t you dare ignore me, ignorant, lowborn lout!”
Florin towed her along even faster, setting a swift stride that forced her to trot to keep up with him; when she tried to slow, he kept firm hold of her hand and started to drag her.
“You’re hurting me!” she shouted, truly furious again. “You cruel, coarse ballatron! You titteravating cumberworld! You-you gidig nameless-kin bastard! ” Florin made no reply, and the flower of the Crownsilvers abruptly fell silent, her panting telling him why: she’d run out of breath to curse him.
Keeping his face set hard to keep the widening grin within him entirely off it, he quickened his pace still more.
“Slow down, knave!” the noblewoman snapped. “I can’t-can’t-”
“Catch your breath while you’re yelling at me? I’m not surprised. But we dare not slow down. Not while
