Queen of Sorcery

Ce'Nedra's chin lifted arrogantly. "The orders came from me, Jeebers," she told him. "My father had nothing to do with it." Jeebers went deathly pale and he nearly collapsed.

"What idiocy made you decide to run away from your father's palace?" Barak demanded of the tiny girl. "All Tolnedra's probably looking for you, and we're caught right in the middle."

"Gently," Wolf said to the hulking Cherek. "She may be a princess, but she's still a little girl. Don't frighten her."

"The question's to the point, though," Hettar observed. "If we're caught with an Imperial Princess in our company, we'll all see the inside of a Tolnedran dungeon." He turned to Ce'Nedra. "Do you have an answer, or were you just playing games?"

She drew herself up haughtily. "I'm not accustomed to explaining my actions to servants."

"We're going to have to clear up a few misconceptions before long, I see," Wolf said.

"Just answer the question, dear," Aunt Pol told the girl. "Never mind who asked it."

"My father had imprisoned me in the palace," Ce'Nedra said in a rather offhand way, as if that explained everything. "It was intolerable, so I left. There's another matter, too, but that's a matter of politics. You wouldn't understand."

"You'd probably be surprised at what we'd understand, Ce'Nedra," Mister Wolf told her.

"I'm accustomed to being addressed as my Lady," she said tartly, "or as your Highness."

"And I'm accustomed to being told the truth."

"I thought you were in charge," Ce'Nedra said to Silk.

"Appearances are deceiving," Silk observed blandly. "I'd answer the question."

"It's an old treaty," she said. "I didn't sign it, so I don't see why I should be bound by it. I'm supposed to present myself in the throne room at Riva on my sixteenth birthday."

"We know that," Barak said impatiently. "What's the problem?"

"I'm not going, that's all," Ce'Nedra announced. "I won't go to Riva, and no one can make me go. The queen in the Wood of the Dryads is my kinswoman and she'll give me sanctuary."

Jeebers had partially recovered. "What have you done?" he demanded, aghast. "I undertook this with the clear understanding that I'd be rewarded - even promoted. You've put my head on the block, you little idiot!"

"Jeebers!" she cried, shocked at his words.

"Let's get off the road a ways," Silk suggested. "We've obviously got quite a bit to discuss, and we're likely to be interrupted here on the main highway."

"Probably a good idea," Wolf agreed. "Let's find some quiet place and set up for the night. We'll decide what we're going to do and then we can start out fresh in the morning."

They remounted and rode across the rolling fields toward a line of trees that marked the course of a winding country lane about a mile away.

"How about there?" Durnik suggested, pointing at a broad oak which stood beside the lane, its branches beginning to leaf out in the late afternoon sunlight.

"That should do," Wolf said.

It was pleasant in the dappled shade beneath the spreading limbs of the oak. The lane was lined with low stone walls, mossy and cool. A stile stepped up over one of the walls just there, and a path meandered across the field from it toward a nearby pond, sparkling in the sun.

"We can put the fire down behind one of the walls," Durnik said. "It won't be seen from the main road that way."

"I'll get some wood," Garion volunteered, looking at the dead limbs littering the grass beneath the tree.

They had by now established a sort of routine in the setting up of a night's encampment. The tents were erected, the horses watered and picketed, and the fire was started all within the space of an hour. Then Durnik, who had noticed a few telltale circles on the surface of the pond, heated an iron pin in the fire and carefully hammered it into a hook.

"What's that for?" Garion asked him.

"I thought some fish might be good for supper," the smith said, wiping the hook on the skirt of his leather tunic. He laid it aside then and lifted a second pin out of the fire with a pair of tongs. "Would you like to try your luck too?"

Garion grinned at him.

Barak, who sat nearby combing the snarls out of his beard, looked up rather wistfully. "I don't suppose you'd have time to make another hook, would you?" he asked.

Durnik chuckled. "It only takes a couple minutes."

"We'll need bait," Barak said, getting up quickly. "Where's your spade?"

Not long afterward, the three of them crossed the field to the pond, cut some saplings for poles and settled down to serious fishing.

The fish, it appeared, were ravenous and attacked the worm-baited hooks in schools. Within the space of an hour nearly two dozen respectable-sized trout lay in a gleaming row on the grassy bank of the pond.

Aunt Pol inspected their catch gravely when they returned as the sky turned rosy overhead with the setting of the sun. "Very nice," she told them, "but you forgot to clean them."

"Oh," Barak said. He looked slightly pained. "We thought that well, what I mean is - as long as we caught them" He left it hanging.

"Go on," she said with a level gaze.

Barak sighed. "I guess we'd better clean them," he regretfully told Durnik and Garion.

"You're probably right," Durnik agreed.

The sky had turned purple with evening, and the stars had begun to come out when they sat down to eat. Aunt Pol had fried the trout to a crisp, golden brown, and even the sulky little princess found nothing to complain about as she ate.

After they had finished, they set aside their plates and took up the problem of Ce'Nedra and her flight from Tol Honeth. Jeebers had sunk into such abject melancholy that he could offer little to the discussion, and Ce'Nedra adamantly announced that even if they were to turn her over to the Borunes in the city, she would run away again. In the end, they reached no conclusion.

"We're in trouble no matter what we do," Silk summed it all up ruefully. "Even if we try to deliver her to her family, there are bound to be some embarrassing questions, and I'm sure she can be counted on to invent a colorful story that will put us in the worst possible light."

"We can talk about it some more in the morning," Aunt Pol said. Her placid tone indicated that she had already made up her mind about something, but she did not elaborate.

Shortly before midnight, Jeebers made his escape. They were all awakened by the thudding of his horse's hooves as the panic-stricken tutor fled at a gallop toward the walls of Tol Borune.