Kitabı oku: «The Secret Princess»

Chapter One

Lydian Borderlands, AD 802, spring

The woods grew thick at the base of the mountains. Even in daylight, the branched canopy blocked out the sun, providing darkness and shadows to hide the predators of the forest: wild boar, black bears and Illyrian war scouts.

Prince Luke of Lydia crept silently through the predawn darkness with only his prayers and his wits to guide him, unable to distinguish deep shadow from deepest shadow. He found the rustle of the undergrowth and the damp scent of the rich earth far more useful navigational tools this far from Lydia. King Garren’s fortress of Fier lay in the mountains ahead, less than an hour’s walk from this valley. It was dangerous territory, but Luke had an important mission.

Spring had left winter behind. The Mursia River churned with the melting mountain snowpack behind him. The sun rose ever earlier, fading distant shadows to light, its faint illumination enough for Luke to discern the outline of the rocky outcropping he sought.

Would she come today?

Luke found a smaller boulder and sat down to wait. He’d seen the mysterious pale-haired woman in these woods the week before, near this same rocky outcropping, but in his eagerness he’d moved toward her too quickly, crackling branches beneath his feet, startling her.

She’d run off, dropping her basket in her haste. Luke had left it where it lay and prayed she’d return for the basket and the early valerian roots she’d been harvesting.

At the thought of the woman, Luke remembered the scar high above his hip, from an injury that ought to have killed him. Even his brother, the renowned healer King John, had marveled that the lengthy gash hadn’t claimed his life.

The woman had saved his life after he’d been injured in battle, sewing his injury closed before he bled to death, keeping vigil through the night to be certain the wound stayed clean and free from infection.

Luke needed to thank her, to learn her name, to see her in the clear light of day. Her features haunted his dreams. She had a beautiful, sweet face. Young. Vibrant. Hair so pale it was nearly silver.

No one else knew anything about her. He’d asked the area villagers and the soldiers who scouted these borderlands with him, but they’d never seen her. Some suggested she wasn’t young or beautiful at all, but an old hag, her hair white with age, her features distorted by the delirium of his injury. Others claimed she didn’t even exist—that his feverish mind had imagined a woman when no one was there.

But Luke knew someone had stitched his wound closed. His memories were too deep to forget, though months had passed as he’d searched in vain to find her again. Driven by his quest, he’d traveled deeper into the forest—past the borders of Lydia—into enemy territory.

The week before, he’d caught a glimpse of her through the trees and had held his breath, watching in amazement, half convinced he’d imagined her.

When she didn’t evaporate with the mist as the sun warmed the day, he’d moved closer, so focused on reaching her he’d paid little attention to the path. She must have heard the sound of his approach. For one long moment she’d lifted her head from her work and studied the woods in his direction, her face in clear view.

Beautiful.

Not an old hag. Not an apparition. She’d run with feet fleet as a deer, disappearing in the direction of Illyria, beyond the Lydian border.

He’d returned every morning since then.

Today he waited. Prayed. Songbirds roused and trilled their morning melodies as the fog lifted, mist rising up the mountain to join the clouds and the pink light of dawn.

Luke sat still, silent. He could wait all day. He’d waited most of each day since the morning he’d seen her. It made no difference. With the treaty between the Roman Empire and Constantinople, peace in the borderlands became even more important. The emperor Charlemagne had pledged to fight for Lydia if the tiny kingdom went to war against the Illyrians again. The Byzantine empress Irene had vowed to counter, supporting her Illyrian territories.

If the two empires met in war across these rugged mountains, Lydia would be trampled. His people would suffer. When the walled Lydian city of Sardis had been besieged by Illyrian forces the previous fall, Luke had ridden out to battle beside his brother King John. Both of them had been prepared to die protecting their people.

By God’s grace, it hadn’t come to that. Rab the Raider, who’d deceitfully killed Luke’s father, King Theodoric, was himself killed by his own half brother, Warrick. In the wake of the battle, Lydia, backed by Charlemagne, had forged a peace treaty with Irene of Constantinople. By those terms, the Illyrians were required to give back all the borderlands Rab the Raider had taken from Lydia.

Luke would never forget the horrors of war. He’d seen enough of battle. To keep the peace, he and his fellow soldiers roamed these lands, always alert for any activity that would indicate the Illyrians weren’t keeping their side of the treaty.

So sitting on a boulder in the forest of the foothills fit perfectly within the mission his brother had tasked him with. His job was to watch the border. The rocky outcropping was part of that border. And so he sat patiently, waiting.

A tiny wren perched somewhere above him, its song cheerful and long-winded. Suddenly the bird stopped singing.

Luke sat up straight, gripping his bow with one hand, an arrow ready. Something had startled the bird. Wolves, who prowled at night, would have returned to their dens long before this hour, but bears were common in these foothills and active at this time of day. Lynx and wildcats weren’t uncommon, though bears were a bigger threat this close to the mountains.

The wren sounded a few questioning notes, testing the air, uncertain. It fluttered to deeper cover.

Leaves rustled near the boulder. Luke could hear the sound, but whatever stirred the foliage lay on the other side of the rocks, out of sight.

Long minutes crept by as Luke pondered his next move. It could be a wild boar nosing about for mushrooms among the fallen logs. The hefty horned animals had thick hides and could run surprisingly fast. It was dangerous to meet one alone. One arrow was hardly ever enough to bring down a boar. Yet who could string a second arrow before the speedy animal struck?

The wren began to sing again, tentatively at first but gaining confidence as it continued. Luke hadn’t heard any grunting. Boars grunted. Maybe it wasn’t a boar on the other side of the rocks, then. Could it be an Illyrian war scout? Prior to the battle the previous fall, the Illyrians had been active in the area. If Luke saw their men venturing this far into Lydian territory, he’d alert his men and King John and intervene before the Illyrians could strike.

He prayed the Illyrians had better sense than to venture into Lydian territory again.

Slowly, soundlessly, Luke eased to his feet, creeping up the craggy incline where the rocks provided silent footholds. He’d be able to see better from higher ground. Besides, if the woman had returned, Luke realized he ought to try to get in between her and the route by which she’d escaped the week before. That way, if he startled her, she’d run toward him instead of away.

The wren’s song grew more exuberant. Luke smiled at the sound. The song was a happy one, but more than that, it helped to drown out any noise Luke might make as he crept around the outcropping, pausing frequently, listening, waiting.

The rustling sound continued. Rocks overhung the spot from which the sound emanated, blocking the source from Luke’s view. He paused, wishing the creature would back away far enough for him to see it, but other than the constant rustling, it made no move.

Below him the rocks gave way like a cliff. Luke weighed his options. If he dropped to the ground here, he’d almost certainly spook the creature. If it was a boar or a bear, it might charge him. If it was the woman, she might easily run away. He wanted neither of those options.

That left a long trek out of his way, following the bluff as it bent back toward the mountain. He’d have to turn his back on whatever was making the rustling sound. He’d venture far from the spot before reaching the lower elevation and making his way slowly back, giving the creature plenty of time to disappear.

He didn’t like either option, but the long trek seemed the most promising.

Cautiously, Luke crept along the rocks, ducking branches, choosing his footing carefully.

He’d nearly reached the forest floor when a solid-looking rock proved to be loose, dislodging under his foot, rattling downward as he slipped and scrambled to stay on his feet.

He grabbed for support, clenched a branch in his hand and steadied himself.

The wren stopped singing. The rustling ceased, as well.

Luke froze, held his breath and waited.

Something bolted from the base of the rocks. Unsure whether it was friend or foe, Luke ran for the path, hoping to intercept it, praying it wasn’t a predator. He reached the path and faced the oncoming sound, its source still hidden by the thick brush that edged the winding route. Fitting an arrow to his bow, he raised the weapon and took aim, ready to shoot the moment the animal appeared.

A woman cleared the bend in the path, her lovely face white with fear, hair mostly hidden by a headscarf that was coming loose, revealing a glimpse of pale hair.

He’d found her.

The woman screamed.

Luke lowered his bow.

She stood close enough for him to see the arresting blue of her eyes, her white teeth evenly matched as she panted, looking about for an alternate route of escape, the way blocked by dense brush and brambles.

“Good morning.” He took a step closer. “I didn’t mean to—”

She yelped, covered her face with one arm and ducked into the bushes.

“Please!” Luke dived after her. He couldn’t let her get away, not without learning her name. He needed to thank her. He needed to apologize.

Spiny branches tore at his leather habergeon, grabbing at the quiver of arrows on his back. Luke tucked his bow under his arm and plowed forward, but the woman ahead of him had the advantage of smaller size and a decent head start. Eyes half-closed, arm up to protect his face, he followed the sound of her retreat, calling after her to please stop.

The sound of her flight stopped without warning. Fearing he’d lost her, Luke charged on, relieved when he caught sight of her pale brown headdress and faded gray skirt ahead of him. She’d stopped running and stood utterly still, facing away from him, staring at something ahead of her.

Luke looked past her to the spot that held her attention.

A bear.

Full grown, claws raised, half a charge away and angry.

Luke froze. Once the animal realized they meant no harm, it should lumber off to its den and leave them alone. It stared at the woman, seemingly unaware that Luke had burst forth from the woods behind her. If the bear charged, it would charge at her. She was far too close to it already.

The bear lowered its claws. Luke almost thought the animal might be about to shuffle off, but instead it lunged forward, headed straight toward the woman.

Luke had sighted his arrow in an instant, knowing he’d likely get only one shot. The woman turned and ran, the bear too close, running too fast behind her.

Luke let loose the arrow and fit another to his string without waiting to see how well the first had flown. He raised it and saw to his relief that the bear had stopped running, though it hadn’t fallen. Snarling, the animal raised its head and swiped at the arrow that pierced its neck.

As the bear reared up, Luke shot again, this time sinking the arrow deep in the fur of the animal’s chest. The bear slumped to the ground.

The woman had run off.

Luke took off in the direction in which he’d seen her disappear. He couldn’t lose her, not now, when he’d come so close after such a long search. He rounded a clump of bushes, hoping to catch sight of her far ahead, but she’d turned, looking back at the fallen bear.

She spun toward him as he burst through the bushes.

Fear flashed across her face, but she didn’t scream this time.

“Please don’t run.” He extended one hand in a peaceful gesture.

The woman watched him warily, her mouth open slightly, the fear in her eyes fading to something akin to recognition.

Surely she had to recognize him. She’d saved his life. He recognized her, and he’d been on the brink of death, hardly conscious while she’d sewn his side back together.

“I shot the bear,” he assured her, glancing back to see the bundle of black fur still unmoving in the clearing beyond. The bear had been poised to strike, one swipe away from defacing the woman’s beauty forever. She ought to realize that he’d helped her, even if it was his fault for frightening her into a run toward the bear in the first place.

But when he turned to face her again, she only shook her head.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” Luke began, but the woman cut him off, talking rapidly in a language he didn’t recognize.

It wasn’t Illyrian. It certainly wasn’t Lydian, nor was it Latin. As second in line to the throne of Lydia, Luke was fluent in those three languages.

If anything, the woman’s words sounded like the Frankish tongue Luke’s sister-in-law, Gisela, had spoken as a child. She’d taught him a few words, but that had been weeks and weeks ago. He tried frantically to remember.

“Peace,” he said, cringing as he butchered the accent.

But the woman stopped talking and listened.

“Peace,” he repeated, his inflection perhaps a little better that time. Try as he might, he could only remember one other word. “Cheese.”

The woman made a face, half uncertain, half amused.

“Sorry, that’s all I know,” he confessed in Lydian, then repeated the Frankish words. “Peace. Cheese.”

The woman laughed, her eyes alight.

Luke sighed with relief, though questions filled him. What was this Frankish woman doing here on the borderlands between Lydia and Illyria? Her heritage explained her pale blond hair, a rarity in their part of the world, but her background raised more questions than it answered.

“You are good with languages.” The woman spoke in halting Illyrian. “Do you know any Illyrian?”

“Yes.” Relieved, he switched to the familiar language of his enemies, chastising himself for not trying the tongue sooner in his excitement. “Do you recognize me?”

She looked away, glancing to the carcass of the bear lying still in the clearing, then back in the direction of the village of Bern, where she’d saved his life. She stared that way for some time, not looking at him, nibbling at her lower lip uncertainly. Her dress was coarse, patched, befitting a woman of low station. A puzzle, indeed, for rarely did women of low station travel far beyond their homelands...unless they’d been sold as slaves.

He couldn’t bear the thought that the woman who’d saved him might be owned by someone else—not when he had the means to buy her freedom.

“You saved my life.” He stepped forward tentatively, fearing she might bolt again. “Please allow me to repay you.”

But the woman shuffled backward away from him, shaking her head, her face pale again. “No,” she whispered, “no.”

* * *

Evelyn rubbed her eyes, blinked, looked at the man again. She had to be dreaming. She had to be. She’d dreamed of him plenty of times before, but this dream was different. She was certainly awake this time. This dream felt real.

“You are not the man I helped,” she told him frankly, looking him full in the face and denying the way her heart leaped inside her. Granted, this stranger looked like the soldier she’d sewn together, but plenty of other men looked like him, too, at least at first glance. She’d stared at other men for months, thinking she’d seen him, then feeling foolish for hoping to find him alive knowing she couldn’t possibly see him ever again.

He was dead. He’d died. Her efforts had failed, and the enemy had returned. In the battle that had erupted, the hut where he’d been sleeping had burned to the ground. There’d been nothing left of him but charred bones and ashes.

She’d prayed there had been some mistake. But though her hope-filled eyes had spotted plenty of men who resembled him from afar, on closer inspection none of them were as handsome as the soldier.

“I am,” the man insisted, stepping closer.

Evelyn stumbled backward. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but she didn’t like it. “You can’t be. That man died.”

He stopped advancing, scowled, reached for his shirt. “I’m not dead. You saved my life. I can show you my scar.”

A wall of brambles prevented her from retreating further, so Evelyn turned her head and pinched her eyes shut. She couldn’t see, wouldn’t look, refused to resurrect the grief she’d felt at his death. It hadn’t ever made any sense, anyway, why the death of a stranger should tear so deeply at her heart. Her prayers for his recovery had gone unanswered, but her disappointment shouldn’t have been any deeper than what she felt daily, reduced to the status of a lowly servant in her grandfather’s household.

God hadn’t rescued her from her position. Why did it hurt her heart so much that God had failed to save the soldier? Sorrow had stung her deeply when she’d heard of his death. Thoughts of him could drive her to tears even still. She certainly wasn’t going to revisit those raw emotions, not in front of this stranger. She kept her eyes closed, her head turned away as she sought to control the sadness that rose up inside her.

The sun had warmed the day, and the wren that had sung to her as she’d dug valerian roots hopped closer, singing exuberantly again.

Fingers brushed her hand, the light touch so shocking she nearly screamed again.

“Please.” His voice was low, gentle, far too close to her. “I owe you for my life. What can I do to repay you?”

She shook her head and kept her eyes closed tight. “You are not that man. That man died.”

“How do you know he died?”

“They showed me the charred bones and ashes. There was a battle. The hut burned.”

“The hut didn’t burn. Or maybe it did, but I was gone by then.”

“You were too weak to walk.”

“My men helped me out.”

“Your men?” She peeked back at him, assessing his clothing, trying to determine his rank. He spoke with words that would indicate he had soldiers serving under him. But then, her grasp of the Illyrian language was tentative at best. Surely she’d misunderstood. His dress was no different than a common woodsman’s, not even that of a soldier.

But the man she’d tried to save had been similarly dressed, and they’d told her he was a soldier—and an important one. They’d wanted him to live so they could use him as a tool for bargaining.

She had studied his face in the firelight as she’d prayed for God’s mercy on his life and wondered then what made the man so important that they’d threaten her, a life for a life. If she failed to save him, they’d promised to kill her. When she learned the fire had killed him, she’d half expected to die then, but it hadn’t been her fault, so they’d let her live.

Besides, with her knowledge of healing, she was useful to her grandfather, even if he purposely gave her the hardest, most demeaning jobs at the fortress as she worked to pay off the infinite debt her father owed him.

Fingers brushed her hand again. She froze and pinched her eyes more tightly shut.

He cupped his hand over hers and drew her arm toward him, settling her fingers over the scar. “Do you recognize your handiwork?”

She opened her eyes cautiously, looked at the scar, blinked and inspected it more closely.

He’d been cut from just above his navel to his ribs, saved only by the thick wall of muscle that had kept his organs from being spilled. The scar followed the exact line, etched with feathered strokes marking each neat stitch.

Yes, she recognized her handiwork. She’d prayed over each stitch, over each carefully chosen herb she’d pressed to the wound to ward away infection and speed his healing.

The man had survived.

Did the Illyrians know? Did her grandfather know? Either they truly believed the man had died, or they’d lied to her about his death. But why lie?

No, they must not have realized he’d escaped before the hut burned.

She pulled her hand away from the scar, though he still held her fingers in his. For the first time she examined his face in the full light of day. How could she ever have thought that any other man looked like this man? His clean-shaven jawline was strong with a slight cleft in the middle in his chin. His nose was straight, his brow line high, intelligent, his complexion healthy, cheeks slightly flushed. And his lips...

No, she’d best not look too long at his lips.

The concern on his face slowly spread to a smile. “You recognize me?”

“Yes.” Cautious joy rose inside her as she spoke.

“I owe you for my life. Tell me, how can I repay you?”

Evelyn thought quickly, her happiness at finding him alive tempered by fear for his continued safety. Her grandfather, King Garren, had wanted this man alive so he could barter his life for political gain. He thought the man was dead. If the king learned that the man had lived, he’d only try to capture him again to keep him prisoner or, worse yet, to exact his vengeance for the lands Illyria had lost to the kingdom of Lydia.

She couldn’t let that happen. And yet, this close to the fortress of Fier, he could easily be spotted, recognized and reported to her grandfather. Her mind made up, she met his eyes as she made her request. She’d lost him once before, and it had grieved her in ways she still didn’t understand. She couldn’t risk harm coming to him again.

“You must leave this area immediately and never return.”