The Battle for Skandia (33 page)

He spoke this last to the mail-clad knight beside him and Will recognized Sir Rodney, head of the Battleschool at Castle Redmont. He realized that the knight was anxiously scanning the faces on the deck of the wolfship.

“Yes, yes, my lord,” he agreed distractedly. Then he seized Will's other arm and said urgently, “Will, I thought Horace was with you. Don't tell me something's happened to him?”

Puzzled, Will looked to where Horace was shaking hands with the Skandian crew, farewelling friends among them before he came ashore.

“That's him there.” He pointed Horace out for Sir Rodney, and had the satisfaction of seeing the knight's jaw drop in surprise.

“My god! He's turned into a giant!” he gasped. Then Horace recognized his mentor and marched briskly through the crowd, coming to attention and saluting, his fist to his right breast.

“Apprentice Horace reporting, Battlemaster. Permission to return to duty, sir?” he said crisply.

Coming to attention himself, Rodney returned the salute.

“Permission granted, apprentice.”

Then, formalities over, he seized the muscular apprentice in a bear hug and danced him around a few undignified steps, all the while crying:

“Damn me, boy, but you've done us all proud! And when the devil did you get so tall?”

Once again, the crowd cheered with delight. Then, all at once, a silence fell over them and Will turned to see the reason. Erak Starfollower, Oberjarl of the Skandians, was stepping ashore.

Instinctively, those nearest him drew back a little. Old habits died hard. Will, not wishing to see his friend insulted, started forward impulsively, but there was one other in the crowd who was quicker off the mark. Duncan, King of Araluen, stepped forward to greet his Skandian counterpart, his hand extended in friendship.

“Welcome to Araluen, Oberjarl,” he said. “And thank you for bringing my daughter safely home.” And with that, the two leaders shook hands.

Then the cheering started again, this time for Erak and his crew so that the Skandians looked about them with delight. And that, thought Will, was going to make it a little harder for them to raid here again in the years to come. Duncan let the cheering go on for a little while, then held up his hand for silence. He scanned the faces on the dock. Then, not seeing the one he looked for, he let his gaze switch to the wolfship.

“Halt,” he said softly, finally seeing him, wrapped as ever in his Ranger's cloak and standing alone by the great steering oar. The King held out a hand and gestured to the dock.

“Come ashore, Halt. You're home.”

But Halt stood awkwardly, unable to mask the sadness that he felt. His voice broke as he began to speak, and he gathered himself and started again.

“Your . . . your majesty, the year of banishment still has three weeks to run,” he said at last.

A low buzz of comment ran through the crowd. Will, unable to restrain himself, reacted in total surprise.

“Banishment? You were banished?” he said incredulously. “Why?” he said. The word hung in the air. Duncan shook his head, dismissing the matter.

“A few incautious words, that was all. He was drunk and we've all forgotten what he said and I forgive him, so for god's sake, man, come ashore.”

But Halt remained where he was. “Your majesty, nothing would make me happier. But you must uphold the law,” he said in a low voice. Then another speaker chimed in: Lord Anthony, the King's chamberlain.

“Halt is right, your majesty,” he said. Anthony was a well-meaning man, but he tended to be a little pedantic when it came to interpreting the law. “After all, he did say you were the issue of an encounter between your father and a traveling hatcha-hatcha dancer.”

There was a gasp of horror from the crowd.

Duncan, smiling thinly, said through gritted teeth: “Thank you for reminding us all, Anthony.”

But then a peal of helpless laughter rang out and Princess Cassandra doubled over, hooting in a most unroyal fashion. Every eye turned to her, and slowly, she recovered enough to speak.

“I'm so sorry, everyone. But if you ever knew my grandmother, you'd understand why my grandfather might have been tempted! Grandma had a face like a robber's dog—and a temperament to match it!”

“Cassie!” her father said in his most disapproving tone, but she was holding her sides and laughing again and he couldn't keep a smile from forming at his lips. Then he felt Lord Anthony's disapproving stare on him and he recovered, nudging Cassandra until her laughter subsided into a series of choked snuffles and snorts. The laughter had been infectious, however, and it took a while for the assembled crowd to come to order. Throughout all this, Halt remained standing stiffly on the deck of the wolfship.

Duncan turned to his chamberlain and said, in his most reasoning tone: “Surely, Anthony, it's within my powers to pardon Halt for the last three weeks of his sentence?”

But Anthony frowned and shook his head. “It would be most irregular, your majesty,” he said heavily. “Such a thing would set unfortunate precedents in law.”

“King Duncan!” boomed Erak, and instantly he had the attention of everyone there. He realized he'd spoken a little more forcibly than he'd intended—he was still getting the hang of these formal occasions. Now he continued at a more moderate level.

“Perhaps I could request that you grant this pardon—as a gesture of goodwill to seal the treaty between our two countries?”

“Good thinking!” muttered Duncan. He turned quickly to Lord Anthony. “Well?” he said. The chamberlain pursed his lips thoughtfully. It was never his wish to deny the King what he wanted. He merely tried to do his duty and uphold the law. Now he saw a loophole and seized upon it gratefully.

“Such a request wouldn't set any precedents, your majesty,” he said. “And this is a very special occasion, after all.”

“So be it!” said Duncan quickly, and turned to face the figure on the wolfship. “All right, Halt, you're pardoned—so for god's sake, come ashore and let's have a drink to celebrate!”

Halt, tears in his eyes, set foot on Araluen soil once more, after eleven months and five days of banishment. As he came ashore to the renewed cheers of the crowd, those around him saw another man dressed in a gray-green cloak, who slipped forward and pressed something into his hand.

“You might be needing this again,” said Crowley, Commandant of the Ranger Corps.

And when Halt looked down, he saw a thin chain in his hand, with a silver oakleaf insignia on it.

And then he knew he was really home.

 

Something was afoot, Will knew. After the first round of celebrations, and after Erak and his crew had set sail once more for Skandia, with the administrative details of the Araluen archery force deployment agreed for the following spring, there had been much consultation and discussion between the King and his advisers, including Halt, Crowley, Baron Arald and Sir Rodney.

During this period, Will and Horace were left pretty much at a loose end, although there was no shortage of admirers who would greet them as friends and sit spellbound as they told the story of their time in Skandia and their fierce battle against the Temujai. But even such adulation palled after a while.

Horace, now that his adventures as the Oakleaf Knight were over, had reverted to the plain white surcoat of a warrior apprentice.

Evanlyn, of course, had reverted to her true identity as Princess Cassandra. She was whisked away to the royal family's apartments in one of the towers of Castle Araluen, and whenever Will saw her, she was surrounded by a retinue of knights and ladies-in-waiting. She was also, he realized, a beautiful young woman, immaculately dressed and at ease among the young nobles and ladies who surrounded her.

Saddened, he felt the distance between them growing wider as he came to terms with the fact that his companion through so many adventures and dangers was, in reality, the highest-born woman in the kingdom, whereas he was the orphan child of a sergeant in the army and his farm girl wife. On those increasingly rare occasions when he did speak to Cassandra, he became awkward and stilted. He was tongue-tied in her presence and tended to mumble formulaic replies to her attempts at conversation.

His reaction frustrated and infuriated Cassandra. She was making a genuine attempt to restore their friendship to its former basis, but she was too young to realize that all the trappings of royalty and wealth, things she took for granted and gave no account to, could only serve to distance Will from her.

“Doesn't he see that I'm the same person I always was?” she asked her mirror in frustration. But, in fact, she wasn't. Evanlyn had been a frightened girl, her life at constant risk, reliant for months on the wits and courage of her young companion to keep her safe. Then she in turn had become the savior, the one who nursed a confused, frightened boy back to health.

Cassandra, on the other hand, was a beautiful, perfectly groomed princess, whose station in life was so far above Will's as to be unattainable. One day, he realized, she would rule as Queen, in her father's place. It wasn't her personality that had changed. It was her position. And both she and Will were too young and inexperienced to overcome the inevitable strain that such a social gulf put upon their relationship.

Oddly enough, at the same time, she found herself becoming more closely aligned to Horace. Accustomed to the formality of life as an apprentice knight and the strictures and protocols of court life at Castle Redmont, Horace was unfazed by Cassandra's rank. Of course, he deferred to her and treated her with respect. But then, he always had done so. Horace's simplistic and uncomplicated approach to life led him to accept things as they were and not seek complications. Evanlyn had been his friend. Now, Princess Cassandra was too. There were certain differences in the way he might be expected to approach her and address her, but this sort of formality had been part of his training.

When she finally broached the subject of the widening gap between herself and Will, Horace merely counseled patience.

“He'll get used to the way things are,” he told her. “He's a Ranger, after all, and they're sort of . . . different . . . in their ways. Give him time to adjust.”

So Cassandra bided her time. But Horace's comment about Rangers stayed with her and she determined to do something about that situation.

And there was, she knew, a perfect opportunity for that in the very near future.

 

Duncan had declared a formal banquet to celebrate the safe return of his only daughter, and invitations had been carried to the fifty baronies in the kingdom. It would be a massive event.

It took a month for the invited guests to assemble, and then the immense dining hall in Castle Araluen saw an evening unrivaled since Duncan's coronation, twenty years prior.

The feasting went on for hours, with the castle servants laboring under trays of roasted meat, huge savory pastries, steaming fresh vegetables and confectioneries designed to dazzle the eyes as much as the taste. Master Chubb, the Kitchenmaster at Castle Redmont and one of the finest chefs in the kingdom, had traveled to the capital to oversee the affair. He stood in the kitchen doorway, watching in satisfaction as the nobles and their ladies devoured and destroyed the fruits of the kitchen staff's labors for the past week, and idly cracking his ladle on the head of any unwary waiter or kitchen worker who came within reach.

“Not bad, not bad,” he muttered to himself, then directed another servant to take yet another special dish for the enjoyment of “young Ranger Will,” as he termed him.

Eventually, the massive feast was over and the entertainment was due to begin. The King's harper was nervously tuning his strings—the heat of the packed dining hall had caused them to stretch unevenly—and mentally reviewing the lyrics to the heroic ode he had written, celebrating the rescue of the Princess Royal from the jaws of death by three of the kingdom's worthiest heroes. He was still wishing that he had managed a better rhyme for “Halt.” The best he had come up with so far was to affirm that he was a man “well worth his salt,” which seemed, in the face of things, to be underselling the value of the legendary Ranger.

Before he was called upon, however, King Duncan rose from his seat to address the huge crowd. As ever, the vigilant Lord Anthony was on hand, and at his monarch's signal, he pounded his steel-shod staff on the flagstones of the dining hall.

“Silence before the King!” he bellowed, and instantly, the babble of talk and laughter in the huge room fell away to nothing. All eyes turned expectantly to the top table.

“My lords and ladies,” Duncan began, his deep voice carrying seemingly without effort to every corner of the hall, “this occasion is one of great pleasure for me. For a start, we are here to celebrate the safe return of my daughter, Princess Cassandra—an eventuality that brings me more joy than you could possibly comprehend.”

The hall rang with cries of “Hear! Hear!” and enthusiastic applause.

“The other source of pleasure to me tonight is the opportunity to reward those who were responsible for her safe return.”

This time, the applause was louder and more prolonged. The audience was delighted to see Cassandra safely back with her father. But they knew the main business of the evening was the rewarding of the three companions who had brought her there.

“First,” said Duncan, “would the Ranger Halt please step forward.”

There was a murmur of interest in the crowd as the slightly built figure, for once without the anonymity of his gray-and-green cloak, stood before the King. Several of those at the rear of the hall stood to get a better view. Halt's reputation was known throughout the kingdom, but relatively few of those present had ever seen him in the flesh. That was due in no small part to the Ranger predilection for secrecy, of course. Now there were more than a few expressions of surprise at the legendary Ranger's diminutive size. Most of those present had formed a mental picture of a longbow-wielding hero of majestic build who stood just under two meters high.