hissed.
'Aye, Milord,' Sir Relhardan said flatly. 'I'll see to it. You've my word for it.'
'I know I do,' Edinghas said in a voice which was more nearly normal. He clasped arms with Relhardan, and then the armsman was jogging purposefully away, shouting for his subordinates as he went, and Edinghas turned back to Alfar.
'I know you're exhausted, and your horse is, too,' he said. 'But we must send word to Baron Tellian. Choose the best horse we have-even my own mount. And then ride, Alfar. Ride as you've never ridden before, and tell the Baron everything you've seen.'
'Yes, Milord. And you?'
'I'll be right here, in this stable, when you return,' Edinghas promised him. 'One way or another, I'll be right here.'
Chapter Thirteen
This time the collision really was an accident.
Bahzell was walking slowly towards his own quarters, cutting across the passage outside Tellian's library, while he considered the baron's response to Sir Yarran's message from Lord Festian. Tellian had spent three days deciding his course of action, and Bahzell hoped it would do the trick, although he had to admit that he still cherished a few reservations. If people like this Lord Warden Saratic were sufficiently determined to undermine Lord Festian's wardenship, they might not take the hint Tellian was about to send their way. Especially not if Baron Cassan was as deeply involved as all the evidence seemed to suggest. In which case, Tellian's decision to dispatch two hundred of his own men, commanded by his nephew, could end up provoking the very confrontation it was intended to prevent.
The fact that Tellian had selected Trianal to command the reinforcements left Bahzell feeling a bit in two minds. The youngster possessed a disposition as fiery as might be anticipated from someone that young. Yet he'd been better blooded than most his age during the previous year's royal expedition against the Ghoul Moor. He hadn't been in command then, but he'd seen the reality of battle and bloodshed, and for all his native impulsiveness, he had a level head. And if he still nursed any reservations about what Bahzell and his uncle were attempting to accomplish, he wouldn't let them get in the way. Trianal's devotion to Tellian was obvious, and he'd amply demonstrated his basic intelligence. More to the point, perhaps, he'd had it explained to him in detail that he was to defer to the judgment of Lord Festian and Sir Yarran, and he was smart enough to do it.
Still, it was enough to make a man nervous, which probably explained why Bahzell wasn't paying as much attention as he might have as he started up the stair outside the library. If he had been, he might have noticed the sound of the light, quick footsteps pattering down it in his direction before the actual moment of impact.
Unfortunately, he didn't, and the shock of the collision was enough to jar his teeth.
His right hand flashed out as Leeana caromed off of him. She'd been moving at something much closer to a run than a walk, and he caught her elbow just before she tumbled headlong off the stair. He didn't have time to be gentle about it, and she gasped in as much unanticipated hurt as surprise as his fingers snapped tight.
'Here now! I'm hoping I've not dislocated your arm, Milady!' he said quickly, setting her back upright.
'N-no,' she said, and his eyebrows flew up and his ears flattened at the strange little break in her voice. She looked away from him as she flexed her wrenched arm.
'I-I'm all right,' she said, still keeping her face averted, but Bahzell had too many sisters to be fooled.
'Now, that you're not,' he told her gently. Her shoulders jerked, and he heard something very like a smothered sob. 'If you're wishful to tell me I should be minding my own business, that's one thing, lass,' he said. 'But if you're wishful for an ear as has nothing better to do than listen to whatever it may be weighs on you so, well, here I am.'
She looked at him at last, unable to resist the gentle, genuine sympathy of his voice. Her jade eyes brimmed with tears, and under them was something more than mere sorrow. It was fear, he realized, and he reached out to her once more. He rested a huge, powerful hand lightly on her shoulder, with a familiarity very, very few Sothoii would have shown to the daughter of such a powerful noble, and met her gaze levelly.
'I- It's just that . . .' She drew a deep breath and shook her head. 'That's very kind of you, Prince Bahzell,' she said, rushing the words ever so slightly as she forced her voice to hold together. 'But it's not necessary, I assure you.'
'And who was it said anything about 'necessary'?' he asked, with a crooked smile. 'But you're the daughter of a man who's after becoming a friend of mine, lass. And even if he wasn't, I know someone as has an over-full heart when I see her. I'm not saying as how you couldn't be dealing with whatever it is all on your own. I'm only suggesting there's no least reason in the world why you should be.'
Her mouth quivered for a moment, and then every muscle seemed to relax simultaneously. She stared up at him, one tear trickling down her cheek, and nodded slowly.
They sat at a stone table on a terrace on the castle's south side. It wasn't exactly concealed, but it was in an out of the way spot where no one was likely to stumble over them. Leeana suspected that Marthya would have been officially horrified at the thought of her creeping off all alone for an 'assignation,' but her maid's reaction was the last thing on her mind.
She felt horribly embarrassed-not at finding herself alone with Bahzell, but for having so little control that she'd been unable to hide her distress from him in the first place. Now she gazed out over the terrace, studying the formal garden below it, and prayed he didn't think she was as foolish and fluttering as she felt.
He simply sat there, on the far side of the table from her, looming like some sort of ogre, but with a calm, unjudging expression and patient brown eyes. He seemed prepared to wait until high summer, if that was how long it took, and she managed to smile more naturally at him as he neither pressed her to begin nor filled her silence with assurances that 'everything will be all right, little girl.'
'I'm sorry, Prince Bahzell,' she said finally. 'I'm afraid I must seem pretty silly, carrying on this way.'
'I'll not say someone as I have to be prying every word out of with a crowbar is 'carrying on,' ' he told her, with a slow, answering smile. 'Upset and unhappy, aye, that I'll grant. But as for the rest-'
He shrugged.
'I think we have different definitions of 'carrying on,' ' she said, but she felt herself relax further, even so. 'I don't usually get this upset,' she continued. 'But Father's had some news that . . . took me by surprise.' She felt her lips tremble again and forced them to be still.
'Aye, I thought as much,' he said as she paused once more.
'It's just that I always thought there'd be more . . . warning,' she said. 'I never expected it to just come out of
'What, lass?' he asked quietly.
'A formal offer of marriage,' she told him. She looked away as she spoke and so missed the flicker in his eyes and the brief twitch of his ears.
'Marriage, is it?' he said after a moment, his deep, rumbling voice no more than merely thoughtful. 'I'm thinking you're a mite young for such as that.'
'Young?' She turned back to him, her expression surprised. 'Half of the noble girls I know were betrothed by the time they were eleven or twelve years old, Prince Bahzell. It's not unheard of for us to be betrothed before we're out of our cradles, for that matter! And at least half of us are married by the time we're fifteen or sixteen.'
Bahzell started to say something, then visibly made himself stop. He gazed at her for a few seconds, then shook his head.
'I suppose I should be remembering the difference betwixt humans and hradani,' he said slowly. 'I hope you'll not take this wrongly, but amongst my folk a lass your age would be little more than a babe.' Something besides distress flashed in her jade eyes at that, and he shook his head quickly. 'I'm not so very much more than that
