“It’s very good for one’s soul to help an enemy, is it not?” I asked my father a trifle musingly, as we walked towards our carriage, which was waiting out in the square with several others.
He glanced down at me and half-smiled. He looked away again, as if to hide it, and I saw the sharp jerk of his head as something caught his eye. The next moment, he cannoned into me, throwing me violently forward. My reeling mind tried to identify the ‘thwack’ sound that still echoed around the square, even as I clutched him, trying to support him as he slumped to the ground. I flung myself down beside him, trying not to see that bolt, that deadly bolt protruding from his chest. His head had fallen sideways and I brushed aside a tangle of black hair, calling his name desperately. His eyes were open and glassy, and they stared lifelessly through me.
I awoke screaming soundlessly, my hands batting at the enveloping blankets as though they were what might have been. I emerged at last into the faintly moonlit darkness of my bedchamber, breathing raggedly and trying to quell the sobs that rose in my throat. Raven ran to my shoulder and rubbed her face against my cheek, crooning softly in comfort. I raised a hand to stroke her cool aliveness, struggling to get my breathing under control. A dream. Just a dream.
That could so easily have been.
I swallowed hard, struggling to push it away. But the memory of that glassy stare was not going to leave me quickly and foolish as it was, the dream had left every nerve screaming that my father was in danger. After some minutes, it became too much, and I got out of bed and put on my chamber gown. I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk going back to sleep just yet, even if I could. And I just wanted to check.
I stopped and bit my lip. My father was fine. A dream was just a dream and the danger it spoke of was past. But still, his arm must be hurting him; he might not be asleep. Perhaps I could get him something.
It was a good enough excuse, anyway, and I hurried out into the corridor without any further ado. Raven wound herself in a fold of my gown and lay down, for the night was cold.
I reached my father’s room and knelt briefly to check for light under the door. Nothing. I would not knock and wake him, then. I turned the door handle as quietly as I could and peered in. It was dark, but enough light from the cloudless full moon outside seeped around the curtains to illuminate the room dimly. I could make out my father’s form in the bed, his breathing deep and steady. I could smell willow tea in the air. Willow tea was the best thing for pain, I knew. Releasing a breath I had not even known I was holding, I backed out of the room and closed the door silently.
Burrowing under my own covers, Raven cupped to my chest, I felt increasingly furious with myself. Reason and the evidence of my eyes had shown me that there was nothing whatsoever the matter, yet the feeling of dread continued wholly unabated.
~+~
“I’m just going for a stroll this morning, stretch my legs,” my father told me. “You can ride Hellion, but the head groom must ride with you.”
“I’ll take Hellion out later,” I replied, “and walk with you now.”
So we strolled gently around the gardens, a groundsman sauntering some distance behind with his yew bow over his shoulder, thus removing the need for the Duke to carry the heavy crossbow.
“He’ll probably know by now that he’s failed, and he’ll know that we’ll know it was him,” my father told me gravely. “He’ll be truly desperate and he may try again. We must both be very careful.”
“For how long?” I inquired meaningfully.
“Until my arm is better,” replied the Duke, significantly.
We walked along the top of a steep, long rise. An oak tree stood at each end, and the Duke stopped under one of them and crouched down. Staring rather absent-mindedly at the house, his fingers picked up one acorn after another, quickly discarding most of them.
“What are you doing?” I asked, after watching him for a moment.
He started and looked quickly at the acorns. “I’m just finding one that will grow strong.” He picked up one from the small pile he’d been keeping. “See how healthy this one looks?”
I pursed my lips as he took his acorn and continued along the rise. Certainly it looked healthy, but so did all the others and he hadn’t been looking. I crouched down and picked up an acorn, turning it in my fingers. This one seemed all right—I put it aside. This one looked a bit rotten. That one looked very good; a perfect specimen...but as soon as my fingers touched it I somehow knew that it was rotten, rotten inside, in the core, and it would never grow. My fingers recoiled from it. Did the back of my neck prick slightly? So. That must be it.
I rose and walked on after my father, my heart pounding with sudden excitement. It was not just me then, in the whole of anywhere, who felt these things. My father must feel them too. But I didn’t say anything. Even if my own experiences hadn’t impressed it so firmly on me that such things should never ever be mentioned, my father’s evasion made it clear that he also did not want to speak of it.
My father had paused to bury his acorn carefully in a little rockery that stood in the middle of the rise. It looked quite new, so I guessed that we stood on Gallant’s Rise. But we walked on in an easy silence, without any mention of Warrior.
I pondered as I walked, though. My father spoke with certainty of the existence of elfin and dragons, and I rather thought he shared my strange senses. Perhaps I could tell him about Siridean. Might he even be able to explain what had happened, how Siridean had died?
But no sooner had the impulse formed, than it withered again, as long-held caution reasserted itself. What had happened with Siridean was so very, very…strange…and ultimately very, very incriminating. The two logical conclusions were surely that I’d imagined it all—that I was insane—or that I’d killed him myself—and simply sought to cover it up with an outlandish tale.
Surely my father would not think either—I’d told him all the worst things I’d done, after all…
And yet.
And yet quite apart from my life-long conditioning to never, ever, ever mention anything at all uncanny, the thought of planting even a seed of doubt, a seed of distrust, in my father’s mind was too horrible.
I wasn’t risking my new-found relationship with my father for something that was past and gone. I’d lived with the not-knowing all these years. I could go right on not-knowing.
~+~