Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian (52 page)

“And a last word of advice,” he added. “When I was wooing Bethany’s mother, I’d sing to her. As a matter of fact, my proposal was a love song I sang to her. Bethany always loved hearing that story. I think she has her heart set on hearing her suitor sing his proposal to her someday. Just something to remember.”

“Thank you sir,” Alec said faintly, wondering how the conversation had gone so far beyond anything he had expected, and yet had actually accomplished so much. “I’ll go visit with her now, if it’s alright.”

“Go right ahead,” her father said, and Alec gratefully withdrew from the room. He walked further down the hallway until he found the room where Bethany, her mother and Aristotle sat calmly talking.

“Alec, are you alright? You look pale,” Bethany’s mother said.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Alec murmured as he took a seat on the sofa next to Bethany. Still rattled by his interview with her father, he reached out and held her hand, causing her to smile demurely.

The four of them soon sat down to dinner with her brother and father.

“I plan to go visit Lord Bayeux tomorrow morning,” Alec answered a question about his plans on their trip.

“The old man’s health is failing,” the mother said. “We haven’t seen him in months.”

After dinner they all retired to the parlor again and later went to bed.

Alec arose early the next morning and crept downstairs to saddle up Walnut. He departed as the sun rose, and followed the directions he had received to arrive at the estate of Lord Bayeux an hour later.

“May I see his lordship?” Alec asked a servant.

“He’s likely to still be eating breakfast,” the man said politely.

“I’ve traveled from Oyster Bay to meet him, and I have a long trip back today, so I hope to see him as early as possible,” Alec said, and explained his orphanage origins, and then waited for the servant to take his message inside. A few minutes later he was ushered inside and through the house to a small table on a sunny patio in the back, where an impeccably dressed man sat alone.

Alec looked at a frail man, whose body still reflected a formerly hale and hardy build. “Do you like to ride horses?” the elderly man asked as Alec arrived.

“I have a horse of my own, Walnut, who I’ve ridden from Bondell to Stronghold to Goldenfields and the Pale Mountains, then back again,” Alec replied. “He’s a smart horse and a good friend.”

“Your mother loved horses,” the elderly man replied. He slowly stood upright. “I am Lord Bayeux.”

“My name is Alec,” his visitor replied.

He reached out and shook his host’s hand, sending a strong dose of healing energy into the man’s body. Bayeux looked at him with startled eyes. “What was that?”

“I am an ingenaire, a healer ingenaire,” Alec told him. “I gave you some energy to strengthen your heart, to improve your kidneys, and to restore your lungs. What you feel most immediately is the improved heart functions.”

They both sat down. “You can do that with just a touch of a hand?” Bayeux asked in astonishment.

“I can now,” Alec told him. “I’ve learned and practiced a great deal in recent years.”

You look like your mother,” Bayeux told him.

Alec pulled the jeweled pendant up over his head. “The nun at the orphanage told me that you said this belonged to her.”

“It did,” his host replied as he took it in his own hands and watched the morning sun make it sparkle. “She stayed here for nearly a year, from the time she was early in her pregnancy to the time you were a few weeks old, and she always wore this bauble.

“It was a gift from your father, according to what she told me,” he answered. “I never heard her say who your father was, but I always suspected it was Prince Enguerrand, who spent a lot of time up here at one of the king’s estates along the river.

“Esquiline was a very beautiful girl, and quiet, almost shy until she trusted a person. A friend of the prince, who was also a friend of my son, brought her here and asked that she be provided with a suitable home. Of course I had no hesitation about agreeing, and she moved right in, but it took her several weeks before she would really open up and talk with me. We often had breakfast together right here on the patio, right before she would take a horse out for a ride through the country, right up until late in her pregnancy,” Bayeux narrated his memories.

“She had her son, you, in the early winter, and she was back on horseback within two weeks,” he continued. “And about a month later her horse came back without her. It was wet, and we went down to the river immediately to look for her. And we found her, dead on the ground, with no good idea of what accident had happened. And soon after that the prince had an accident as well, and I was left with you and no idea about what to do or who to give you to.” Bayeux was telling the story for the first time in many years, and his memories boiled out with emotion.

There was a long, silent pause. “So I took you down to the orphanage in Frame, because it was considered the best in the land, and I gave them some money, and you grew up there, apparently pretty well,” he finished his tale.

Alec sat silently for a minute as he thought about his mother riding through this countryside. “Was she happy?” he asked at last.

“She was happy riding a horse, and she was happy singing a song, and she was happy when you were born and she had a baby to love,” Bayeux said kindly. “She was happy, but not in the boisterous, loud way. She had a calm, quiet happiness that she brought to a room when she entered it. Her smile was warm and generous, and it made people happy when they saw it.”

Alec sat in further silence, putting together the words of Lord Bayeux with the words of ghostly prince Enguerrand. He raced to a conclusion, then raced away from it.

“Are you alright?” Bayeux asked gently after several minutes.

“I believe you have told me that my mother was a wonderful person, and that my father was the prince of the land, making me heir to the throne,” Alec said cautiously.

“That is precisely what I believe, but I have no proof,” Bayeux told him. “And what do you say to that? Who wouldn’t want to be handed the crown and given the palace in Oyster Bay?”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t,” Alec answered softly.

“You may be smart enough to be a prince if you know you don’t want to be one,” Bayeux said. A servant came to the table bearing a plate of food for Alec. “Please eat and enjoy,” the lord suggested. “I enjoy looking at you and seeing the play of your face, and the resemblance to your mother; I saw your smile once just now, and for just a second, it was like seeing your mother back here on the patio, sharing joy. It makes me feel younger. Well, it and your remarkable healing ability.”

Alec ate, and they continued to talk about his mother for another half an hour. “Excuse me, my lord, but I must return to my friends. I thank you for letting me barge in on you like this, and for sharing your memories of my mother,” he said as he stood.

“Thank you for giving me such a vivid reminder of your mother, and the happiness she brought to our home during her stay here,” Bayeux replied, and as they shook hands, Alec extended more of his healing energy to the nobleman to strengthen his muscles and reduce his infirmities.

He remounted Walnut and rode solemnly back to Bethany’s home, where he found she and her family seated around their own breakfast table. “Come sit with us anyway!” Bethany cajoled when he told them he had already eaten.

“How is Lord Bayeux?” her father asked as Alec took a seat next to Bethany.

“He seems well,” Alec responded. “We talked about my mother, who lived at his home when I was born, before he took me to the orphanage. It was the first time I ever heard anyone talk about her, and it gives me something to think about and imagine.”

Aristotle arrived, and enjoyed a plate of breakfast with the family, and when he was done he looked at Alec. “We need to start our return, don’t we? We all have a lot to do when we get back.”

“You can’t leave already!” Bethany’s mother tried to protest, but the three travelers were soon packed and back on their horses.

As they rode along, Aristotle pulled close beside Alec. “You learned a lot, didn’t you?”

Alec nodded. “And how do you feel about it, about being the true heir?” Ari pressed.

“How did you know?” Alec cried loudly enough that Bethany looked up from where she was studying the passing fields as they rode by.

“I’ve suspected since I first met you, Alec,” Ari told him. “An old prophecy hinted that there could be a hidden heir with peculiar abilities, and those words popped right to the front of my mind the night we met at the carnival.

“So what will you do now?”

“I don’t know,” Alec answered. “I don’t know if I want to be heir.

“If I return to Oyster Bay and declare myself to be the heir, I’ll never be able to go free. I’ll be trapped there at the palace forever,” he said. “I know it’s a wonder that I’ve managed to get out as much as I have while I’m protector of the crown, and that’s only because of the extraordinary circumstances we’re in.

“When the day comes that the wars are over and the Dominion is safe, I want something more,” he added.

“More than what, Alec?” Bethany interrupted, riding up from behind. “What are you talking about?”

“When we’ve defeated the Michian invaders, I want to be free. I don’t want to live in the palace and make all the decisions and dance at all the balls,” he replied. He looked into her eyes. He sensed that Ari was dropping behind them now, as trees began to line the sides of the road. On an impulse, he knew he had to bring up something else.

He frowned as recollected Bethany’s father’s advice about singing. He knew his voice was not good; he’d never been invited to be part of the orphanage choir. Taking a deep breath, he decided he’d pick the most romantic song he could remember snippets of:

He sang, then faltered, as he saw Bethany looking at him incredulously. “Your father,” Alec began in a normal voice. “He said that you loved the stories about how he wooed your mother by singing to her,” his voice trailed off as he saw the amusement in her eyes.

“What are you talking about?” she asked between laughs.

“Your father told me that he sang to your mother all the time when they dated as a young couple, and when they told you those stories, you were enchanted with the idea of a singing, er, ah, boyfriend,” Alec lamely explained.

“He was pulling my leg, wasn’t he?” Alec at last understood as he saw the expression on her face.

“Yes, dear, he was,” Bethany said affectionately, as she patted his hand.

Despite the setback and loss of dignity, Alec decided to try one more time. “You remember once you said you’d wait for me forever,” Alec reminded Bethany a minute later as they rode along the quiet path through a forest. Her face assumed a more somber expression.

“I should have said I’d wait for you forever, if you wanted me to,” Bethany edited herself. “And after so long, it seemed you didn’t want me to, although I know different now, and even understand it mostly.”

“Well, I do want you to. Or maybe I should say, I don’t want you to wait any more,” he replied.