To Stand Beside Her (44 page)

“I think after the weekend I will try it out down on the training grounds,”
Leila
said to him.
Anatolio
had been waiting for her to get healthy to learn more.
She was the most amazing courier he had ever met and wanted to learn as much as he could from her.
Anatolio stayed in the shadows as Phillip came running up the stairs.

“Mom, mom,” he called.
“Dad said I can get my own horse.”

Leila quickly diverted the excit
ed
boy as he came close to tripping on the last step to the patio she was standing on.
“So you ha
ve gotten the hang of riding?” s
he asked
s
i
t
ting
down.

“It’s so much fun,”
Phillip
said
,
sitting
down on the bench beside her.
“Dad said that since I only go two days a week for lessons, I should practice here at the palace.
So at the end of next week, I get to pick one out.”

“That’s great,” she said.
Phillip was given the chance to be a child again.

“Will you come with me?” Phillip
asked.
“Dad said you would know more about horse
s
than he does.”
Leila doubted she knew more than Nalick
,
but
he always wanted her included in everything
.

“Of course,” she said.

Nalick arrived back and sent Phillip downstairs to study.

“Roger is worried about you,”
Nalick
said
as soon as Phillip was out of hearing distance
.

“Roger has never stopped worrying about me.
Why do you think he made a deal with you?”
Leila replied.
She was not worried.

“You don’t exactly always put yourself in the best situations,” Nalick commented.

“Well
,
I don’t think you regret that quality about me,” she smirked.
He couldn’t argue with her on that point.

“We will need to find
more
guards,” he said
,
changing the subject.
“Now that Nikias is working with me, and there are the children to also watch over.
I doubt Theo, Macarius, and Javed will be enough.”

“Actually
,
I think Anatolio will be enough,”
Leila
said.
“And I would not let anything happen to the kids.”

“I am more worried about things happening to you.” Nalick brushed the hair from her face.
“Until I get more guards for you can you please stay within the palace unless I am with you,” he begged.
Leila nodded.
She did not want to worry him any more than he already was.
He picked her up and placed her on his lap
so that he could hold her close
,
if only
for
a moment
.
“Besides,
” he continued,
“
the week after the wedding we are going to head up to the
North Country
, so you only have to stay inside for a few weeks
.”

Leila stared at him.
She had not heard any plans of going north from anyone.
“What do you mean?”

“Roger sent me a note from your parents last week asking if we could go up north after the weddi
ng and get married in your home
town.
They said they have a surprise for us.
I just sent back a reply yesterday that we will gladly visit as long as they don’t mind three extra kids running around.”
Nalick laughed at Leila’s surprised expression.
She had not heard from her parents in over a week and assumed that was because they were coming to visit soon.
“You forgot to write them about the kids, didn’t you?”
Nalick said.

“So
,
we are going to actually have a wedding there also?” she asked
,
contemplating a change in plans
.

“Yes, if it is alright with you,” he said.

“But what about your priests?
I can’t believe they would be all right with you getting married in another religion,” she said.

“Well,” Nalick paused.
“It was actually their idea.
Seems
that
they feel that we would upset your
G
od if we didn’t get married there also
,
and it would bring bad luck upon our family.”
Leila shook her head.
She could not understand how the priests would actually support it
,
bad luck or not.
“
T
hey asked your home town priest to talk to your parents about officially getting married there.”

Leila did not understand what he meant.

“So the wedding here won’t be official?” she asked confused.

Nalick could not help but laugh at the concern in her innocent eyes.
He had not meant to confuse her.
“The wedding here is official.
Trust me.
Not that it matters as in the eyes of Lior law,
as
you are already the queen.
What I meant was
my
priests ask me not to consummate the marriage before we are
also
married by your priests.”

Leila blushed
.
His touch made her heart race enough
;
she had not
even
considered what it really meant to be getting married.
Nalick smiled as she turned several shades of red.
The one quality that he loved more than anything about her was her innocence.
She was experien
ced beyond her years in so much
but not in love.
Leila tried to stand so that he would not see her embarrassment
,
but he held onto her tightly.
She had not thought very far ahead of what saying yes to marriage meant and with the whirlwind that ensued, she had not had time to ponder it.
Leila was thankful for the interruption as Tim came running into the garden.

“Dad, dad,”
Tim
called
,
forcing
Nalick to let Leila stand.
Nalick had been trying to find the courage to talk to her
,
but he had once again lost his nerve as Tim approached.
Nalick
didn’t like keeping a secret from her, but he could not find words to start the conversation he needed to have with her.

“I need to talk to you alone
sometime
,”
Nalick
said as the running boy leapt onto his lap and began to talk.
Leila nodded
before slipping away
.
She had had enough embarrassment for one day
,
and
she was ready to quickly run away and hide.

Leila returned to the full courtyard with Anatolio to train
,
and the men that were lounging around waiting for her cheered as she entered.
The men
could see she was dressed to train with them
,
and they were all excited to see her work.
As usual
,
beyond the men she was training a crowd had formed to watch.
She noticed Nalick sitting near the back of the crowd but she did not see Theo with Phillip.
Phillip watched wide-eyed as his new mother easily taught the men below how to fight.
Leila
was a courier and told him she could take care of herself, but he never imagined she was so good.
Phillip
watched as she finish
ed
up her session with the men for the day.

“Now
,
most of you are quite young,”
Leila
said to the fourteen men.
Judging from their faces, she guess
ed
they were all her age or younger.
“For the next few years, you will mostly go against people larger in size.
In my case, it is almost all the time
.
”
T
hey laughed.
“So
,
I figure the move you should work on next is a way to counter the fact that someone is twice your size.
Since I’ve done enough beating up on Anatolio for the day, I figure my future husband who is hiding at the back of the crowd could help.”
The crowd watching her heard and all turned to the back and saw their king.

Nalick
moved through the bowing crowd and
stood face to face with
Leila
.
Slowly she demonstrated to them
the move she had just described
,
and Nalick
immediately
recognized it as the way she easily beat him when he tried to fight her.
The smile on his face told her he remembered the move.
Each man studied it again as she showed them and then she was finished for the day.
As the crowd departed and Leila was left standing with Nalick and Anatolio, Nalick finally realized
that
Phillip and Theo were also in the crowd.

“Did you know?”
Nalick
asked Leila.

“After you started to walk up here I saw him,”
Leila
replied as Theo and Phillip began walking towards them.

Phillip stared at Leila and didn’t know what to say.
Leila
chuckled realiz
ing
he was tongue tied.
“Now do you believe me?” she asked
Phillip
.
He nodded.
“The reason I could go on all my runs and not worry was because I can take care of myself.”
Nalick nodded
also
.
S
he could take care of herself
,
but he just worried to what exten
t
people would try to get a hold of her.

Chapter 2
5

Leila rode her horse between the temporary guard
out of the city to get Phillip and his new horse
,
and Anatolio followed at a distance as normal.
She had sent Javed
and Macarius along with Phillip and had to make due with several unknown men.
As the
group
approached Lady and Lord Pillas’ manor, something was not right.
Leila
entered the courtyard
,
and no one greeted them. Leila cautiously got off her horse and was quickly surrounded by the men with her. Annoyed, she whistled and Anatolio quickly joined them and threw a small weapon to her. The men near her moved as she walked to the house.

Carefully
,
Anatolio opened the door, and Leila followed him in.
T
he front room
was
in complete disarray.
Leila
scanned the room and found no one inside. Nikias indicated to Nalick’s guards to go in opposite directions as he, Theo, and Anatolio stayed at Leila’s side.
S
he
first
walked to the kitchen.
Where would their wine cellar be?
s
he wondered. Anatolio
thought the same thing,
and immediately he led her to the right of the kitchen.
Leila
saw a pantry door that had been blocked from the outside. Leila put her ear to the door and could hear voices inside. Nikias and Anatolio broke the door so that they could open it
,
and below, Leila could see Lady and Lord Pillas along with their staff sitting at the bottom of the stairs, but Phillip, Javed, and Macarius were not with them.