All eyes turned towards her. There was a moment of silence in the room as those present considered her suggestion. Then the King answered brusquely.
'You will not. It's out of the question.'
Colour rose in Cassandra's cheeks as he spoke. Controlling her anger with a great effort, she spoke very calmly. 'Why? Why should it be out of the question? Our family, our country, owes a debt of honour to Erak. The Skandians are our allies because of him. So why shouldn't I be the one to negotiate his release?'
'Because ... ' The King hesitated and she cut him off.
'You've said that the task requires a seal-bearer. A member of the royal family. Well, I don't see any others around here. Why shouldn't I go in your place?' She paused, then added with greater intensity, 'Dad, this is exactly what we were discussing a few weeks ago. One day I'll be Queen. If I don't start taking on some of these duties now, I'll never be ready to be a real queen — someone you'd be proud of.'
'Cassandra, you will not go and that's an end of it. Now let's stop this discussion. It's embarrassing.'
She sensed the weakness in his argument and knew what was behind it.
'It's only embarrassing because you know you're wrong about this. I owe Erak my life. I have a
right
to help rescue him.'
There was a matching flare of anger in the King's face now and she sensed that she had scored a point. There was no rational reason why she shouldn't undertake the mission. His objection to it was purely personal. It was understandable, she realised. But it was wrong.
'The problem is, Cassandra,' he said, also working to keep his voice calm, 'you're ... '
'A girl,' she interrupted.
He shook his head doggedly. 'That wasn't what I was going to say. I was going to say you're inexperienced and young. You've never carried out negotiations like this.'
'I negotiated the Skandian treaty,' she shot back and he shook his head like a clumsy bear frustrated by a small dog nipping at its heels.
'You had Halt to advise you then,' he said and she answered immediately, giving him no respite, knowing she had to press her advantage if she were to have any chance of winning this argument.
'He can advise me on this,' she said. She looked at the Ranger. 'Halt, you'd come with me, wouldn't you?'
'Of course I would, your highness,' he said. Unlike the King, he saw no good reason why Cassandra should not go on the mission. In Skandia, she had proved to be brave and resourceful. And she was no shrinking violet. She'd shown that in the battle line against the Temujai, when she had calmly directing her group of archers while the fierce horse soldiers overran her position. He had no doubt that she could look after herself.
'Halt ... ' the King began, looking angrily at his old friend. But Lord Anthony now interjected as well. 'Actually, your majesty, there is a certain merit in the idea. The Arridi are a matriarchal society. Succession is through the mother's line. So they have no objection to dealing with women — unlike some countries. That makes the Princess an excellent choice as your representative.'
The King came to his feet abruptly. The heavy high-backed chair he had been sitting in teetered for a moment on its back legs with the force of his movement. Then it crashed back onto a level footing again.
'I will thank you all to stay out of this!' he said, in an rather loud voice. 'This is a family matter. It is between my daughter and myself and it is of no concern to any of you! Is that absolutely clear?'
The last four words were delivered in a shout and there was an awkward silence in the room for several seconds. Then Baron Arald spoke.
'No, your majesty. I think you're wrong,' he said firmly. The King's furious gaze swung to him. Arald met it unflinchingly.
'Baron Arald, this does not concern you. Do you understand?'
Arald shook his head. 'No, sir. I don't. On the contrary, it does concern me. It concerns all of us.'
'I am the King, Baron Arald, and I say this matter is — '
Will watched Baron Arald with some awe. He had seen the burly knight's courage in battle several times but this was something different. This was a far greater form of courage — the moral courage to speak out when your conscience told you to do so.
'And those two statements contradict each other, your majesty. Because you
are
King, this matter cannot be private. Because what concerns you and your family concerns the country. In the past, you've said you valued my advice — '
'Well, I don't value it now!' the King snapped.
Arald shrugged. 'If you only value my advice when I agree with you, you don't value it at all,' he said bluntly. The King flinched as if Arald had struck him. He realised that the other man was right. But still ...
'Arald, you don't understand. You don't have children. She's my daughter and this will be a dangerous journey ...
Cassandra snorted derisively but Arald glanced quickly at her to silence her, then spread his hands in understanding. 'Granted, your majesty. Just as it was dangerous when you led the army against Morgarath. Just as it was dangerous when Rodney and I fought the Kalkara. This is the price we pay for our privileged rank. We enjoy the privileges because, when the time comes, we have to face the danger. And your daughter is no exception. She knew that when she and Will destroyed Morgarath's bridge, and allowed themselves to be captured.'
The King was a relatively young man but at the mention of that terrible time, his face seemed to grow haggard and old. That had been the worst time of his life, he thought. He sat down slowly. Arald softened his tone a little.
'Your majesty, you're right, I have no children so I can't fully understand how you feel. But your daughter is also right. She will be Queen one day and she wants to rule in the fashion you've set. There is a risk in all of this. But Cassandra is willing to take it and so must you be.'
King Duncan looked up and swept his gaze slowly round the room. Cassandra, he saw, was defiant as ever. Arald's face was set and determined. Halt and Crowley's faces were inscrutable in the shadows of their cowls. The two younger men were both a little wide-eyed — obviously uncomfortable at the emotions that had been bared in the room. There was still a hint of admiration in Will's eyes, however, as he continued to stare at the Baron. Rodney was nodding in agreement with Arald's statements, while Gilan made a show of studying his nails. Anthony's face was apologetic but determined. Alyss was obviously trying to mask her feelings, but it was clear that she shared the boys' discomfort.
Pauline alone was composed and calm. There was no sign of agreement in her expression. He sensed a possible ally. 'Gentlemen, Cassandra, Alyss, I wonder would you mind giving me a few moments alone with Lady Pauline,' he said.
There was muttered acknowledgement of his request and the ten other people filed out of the room, leaving the King and the Courier alone. As the door closed behind Will, the last to leave, Duncan turned to the tall woman sitting opposite.
'What am I to do, Pauline? How can I talk sense into them? You have to help me with this.' He did his best to maintain a reasonable, non-argumentative tone.
'Your majesty,' Pauline replied evenly, 'if this is why you asked me to remain, you might as well send me away with the others. I agree with Arald. You are wrong on this.'
'But she's just a girl ... ' he began.
'So is Alyss. Yet I've already sent her on several quite dangerous missions. Is your daughter any more valuable than my assistant?'
'She's the Crown Princess!' he said angrily and Pauline raised an eyebrow.
'And as such, she has a greater duty to the country than a mere orphan like Alyss. The Baron is right. Those of us who enjoy great privilege have the greater duty. And Cassandra's privilege is second only to yours.'
Duncan stood and began to pace around the room. Pauline remained sitting, but she followed him with her eyes.
'When you appointed me to a high position in the Diplomatic Service, did you hesitate because of my gender?'
'Of course not,' he replied. 'You were the best person for the job.'
She nodded acknowledgement of the compliment. 'You are the first ruler to accept women in positions of responsibility, without regard to the fact that they are women. And without worrying that your decisions might place them in danger from time to time.'
'I value ability above all else,' he said. 'Man or woman.'
She spread her hands in a small 'there you have it' gesture.
'Then value it in your daughter. She is an exceptional young woman. And she's not one to sit simpering by the fire while the menfolk do all the dangerous work. She's proved that already. She's already done more, seen more than most men will manage in their entire lives. The girl has a taste for adventure and you won't break her of it. Personally, when I see the character and courage of the person who will succeed you, I thank the good lord for it. You're a good King, your majesty. And she'll be a good Queen. But you have to give her the chance.'
King Duncan's shoulders slumped as he realised she was right. He allowed himself a tired grin in her direction., He spread his hands in a gesture of surrender and returned to the high-backed chair.
'What ever made me think you'd be on my side?' he asked her. Lady Pauline allowed herself a smile in return.
'We're re all on your side,' she replied. 'You were the only one out of step.' She paused, then urged him gently. 'Shall I call the others back in?'
He nodded. 'Why ask me? It's all of you who are making the decisions.'
***
The group filed back into the room, taking their former positions around the desk.
They cast curious glances at Lady Pauline, trying to gauge what had passed while they'd been waiting in the anteroom outside. But the diplomat was skilled in hiding her feelings and gave them no hint as to what had been decided.
Duncan sat, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands, while he marshalled his thoughts. When the usual shuffling and moving and settling into seats was done, he looked up at the group surrounding him.
'Very well,' he said at length, 'I've decided. Cassandra will carry out the negotiations with the Arridi.'
There was a quick intake of breath from his daughter, then she hurriedly rearranged her features, on the chance that he might change his mind. He glanced at her and nodded. Then he fixed his gaze straight in front of him again.
'Halt, you'll go with her as her chief adviser. Help her in the negotiations and protect her.'
'Yes, sir,' Halt said impassively.
'Will, you'll go too, of course,' the King said. 'You've kept her safe before. Do it again.'
'Yes, sir,' Will said, grinning broadly. He had assumed that he would accompany his mentor but one never knew. Then it got even better.
'Horace, just in case they can't manage it between them, you're going as Cassandra's personal bodyguard. Understand?'
'Yes, your majesty,' Horace said, and he and Will exchanged grins. Will mouthed the words 'like old times' and Horace nodded. Cassandra beamed at the two of them and moved a little closer to them. Off to one side, a frown touched Alyss's face.
'Right. Now, in addition to the three of you, I'll want to send a reasonable force as well. Say, twenty armed men from the Royal Guard.' The King paused as Halt raised a hand to interject. 'Yes?'
'Sir, we won't need them,' he began but the King interrupted him.
'This is not a matter of your ego, Halt. I'm not happy about sending my daughter on this mission in the first place and I do insist you need an adequate force to protect her. You three aren't enough in my estimation.'
'I agree, your majesty. But you're forgetting we'll have thirty fully armed Skandians with us as well. They're the best fighting men in the world.'
Horace couldn't help himself. He grunted in agreement, then hastily made a gesture of apology for interrupting. The King looked from Halt to Horace, then back to Halt again.
'You trust them?' he asked bluntly and Halt nodded.
'With my life, your majesty.'
Duncan fingered his chin thoughtfully. 'It's not your life I'm worried about.'
'I'd trust them with my life too, Dad,' Cassandra said firmly.
Halt added further reassurance.
"I'll have Svengal swear a helmsman's oath that he and his men will protect her. Once they've done that, you'd have to kill all thirty of them before you even got near Cassandra.'
Duncan drummed his fingers, considering. Eventually, he gave in. 'All right then. But I want to make sure.' He looked keenly around the room. 'Gilan, you'll go too.'
'Yes sir!' Gilan said eagerly. The prospect of a mission with Halt and Will was very appealing to him. But Crowley was frowning.
'That's highly unusual, your majesty,' he objected. 'You know the old saying: "one riot, one Ranger".'
The saying stemmed from a legendary event in the past. A minor fief had risen up against their cruel and avaricious lord, with hundreds of people surrounding his Manor house, threatening to burn it to the ground. The panicked nobleman's message for help was answered by the arrival of a single Ranger. Aghast, the nobleman confronted the solitary cowled figure.
'They sent one Ranger?' he said incredulously. 'One man?'
'How many riots do you have?' the Ranger replied.
On this occasion, however, Duncan was not inclined to be swayed by legend. 'I have a new saying,' he replied. 'One daughter, two Rangers.'
'Two and a half,' Will corrected him. The King couldn't help smiling at the eager young face before him.
'Don't sell yourself short,' he said. 'Two and three-quarters.'
The following day, the three Rangers, accompanied by Horace and Svengal, were on the road, headed for Castle Araluen.
The others had watched with broad grins as Halt self-.consciously kissed his new wife goodbye. Lady Pauline took their separation philosophically. When she had accepted Halt's proposal, she had known that their life together would be interrupted by urgent missions and sudden departures. Still, she thought wryly, it might have been nice if this particular departure had been a little less sudden, a little less urgent.
Alyss had stood beside her, waving with her as the five mounted figures cantered down the winding road that led away from Castle Redmont. Pauline glanced sidelong at her protegeé and couldn't resist the tiniest vestige of a smile at Alyss's set face.
'Why so glum?' she asked innocently. Alyss looked up at her, grimacing.
'He's going off with
her
again,' the young girl said. No need for Pauline to ask who she might mean. Alyss and Will had been seeing a lot of each other in the past year, she knew. They had become very close. Now it obviously bothered Alyss that Will was setting out on a mission with Cassandra once more. Alyss knew that the Ranger's apprentice and the Princess shared a special relationship. She just wasn't sure how special it might be.
'I've been trying to work out a reason for me to go along with them,' she added, a little disconsolately.
'To keep an eye on your investment?'
Alyss nodded. 'Exactly. I thought I could volunteer to go as a companion to her — and as a diplomatic adviser. I'm good at negotiations, you know.'
'That's true.' Pauline considered the idea. 'In fact, it might have been worth suggesting. I would have supported the idea. Why didn't you?'
Alyss looked away from her now, her eyes intent on the small group gradually dwindling from sight. At least, Pauline corrected, her eyes were intent on one member of the small group.
'Two reasons. I decided Will and Halt and the others didn't need the responsibility of another female to look after. If I were there, it would mean that much less protection for Cassandra. And she is the Crown Princess, after all.'
'And the other reason?' Pauline prompted her. Alyss grinned a little ruefully.
'I thought I might succumb to the temptation of hitting her over the head with an oar,' she said. 'Which would not have been a good career move.'
Pauline grinned in her turn. 'And she is the Crown Princess after all,' she parroted.
The riders had disappeared into the fringes of the forest. Pauline slipped her arm inside Alyss's and led her away from the battlements where they had been standing.
'Don't worry too much about it,' she said. 'Admittedly, there is a strong bond between Will and the Princess. That's inevitable, after all they've been through ... ' Her tone of voice indicated that there was more to be said. It was Alyss's turn to prompt.
'But?' she said.
'But Will made a choice several years ago when he opted to remain a Ranger. He knows that a Ranger's life won't mix with life at court. A Princess and a Ranger just aren't a good match. And it would be twice as difficult when Cassandra eventually becomes Queen.'
'Whereas,' said Alyss, 'there's a lot to be said for Rangers and Couriers marrying?'
Lady Pauline allowed herself a slow smile. 'Oh, indeed. Of course, the Courier has to accept that the Ranger will often be called away on urgent missions.'
'And he'd better accept that I'll have missions of my own,' said Alyss, abandoning the pretence of talking in the third person.
Pauline patted her arm gently. 'That's my girl,' she said.
***
'Why couldn't I go with the others?' Cassandra asked, for perhaps the twentieth time.
She was in the rooms that had been set aside for her use at Redmont, hastily cramming clothes into her leather travelling valises. Duncan raised an eyebrow at her cavalier treatment of the fine silks and satins she was handling.
'Perhaps you should let your staff attend to that,' he suggested, seeing that she would never get the lids closed on the jumble of gowns, cloaks, overdresses, petticoats and scarves that reared up out of the cases. Cassandra made an impatient gesture.
'That's my point. They could have packed all this up. I could have ridden ahead with Will and Horace.'
'And deprived me of a few last days in your company,' Duncan said gently and she instantly regretted her impatience. He was worried about sending her to Arrida, she knew. He had made no pretence that he wasn't. And she knew he would worry from the moment she left until the moment she returned, safe and sound.
As she had the thought, she realised that she would miss his calm and confident presence while she was away. And his warmth. They might squabble from time to time but it didn't change the fact that they loved each other deeply.
She stepped towards her father and put her arms gently around his neck, drawing him to her. 'Sorry, Dad,' she said softly. 'I'd like a few days with you, too.'
'The others have to get the ship ready,' he reminded her. 'Riding back with me won't hold you up in the long run.'
He patted her shoulder. He could feel a pressure building in his eyes as tears started to form. He would miss her. He would worry about her. But above all, he knew, he would be proud of her. Proud of her courage, her sense.of duty, her spirit.
'You'll make a great Queen,' he said.
***
Svengal lay groaning on the turf. His thighs were sheer agony. His buttocks ached. His calf muscles were on fire. Now, after he had tumbled off the small pony he was riding and thudded heavily to the turf on the point of his shoulder, the shoulder would hurt too. He concentrated on trying to find one part of his body that wasn't a giant source of pain and failed miserably. He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the face of the elderly pony that he had been riding as it peered down at him.
Now what made you do a strange thing like that?
the creature seemed to be asking.
Gradually, as Svengal's focus widened, he became aware that other eyes were staring at him. Three Ranger horses, for a start, and above them, three Rangers, all with the same puzzled expression. Only Horace and his larger horse looked vaguely sympathetic.
'You know, it beats me,' Halt said, 'how these people can balance on the deck of a ship that's going up and down and side to side three or four metres at a time. Yet put them on a placid old pony that's as gentle as a rocking horse and they're instantly trying to get off again.'
'I wasn't trying to get off,' Svengal told him. He slowly rolled over and rose to his knees. His muscles shrieked in protest. 'Oh, by the Great Wallowing Blue Whale, why does everything hurt!' he said. Then he continued his original thought. 'That brute of a horse bucked me off.'
'Bucked you off?' said Gilan, hiding a grin. 'Did anyone see Plod here do any bucking?'
Will and Halt shook their heads. To his discredit, Halt was enjoying this just a little too much. During the Temujal invasion, he had been on board a wolfship sent to verify Slagor's treachery. Svengal had been one of the crew members most amused by the reaction of Halt's stomach to the motions of the sea. Halt had a long memory, Will had learnt, when it came to people who laughed at embarrassing moments like that.
'He bucked, I tell you,' Svengal insisted, standing more or less upright and groaning again. He couldn't quite straighten at the waist. 'I felt a distinct movement.'
'He turned to the left,' Gilan told him.
'Suddenly,' Svengal insisted. The Rangers exchanged incredulous looks.
'Plod never did anything suddenly in his life,' Halt said. 'At least, not in the past fifteen years of it.'
'That's why we call him Plod,' Will put in helpfully. Svengal glared at him.
'That's not what I call him,' he said venomously. Again, the three Rangers exchanged amused looks.
'Well, yes, I'll admit we have heard some colourful language this morning,' Gilan said. He turned to Halt. 'Who is this Gorlag character, by the way? And does he really have horns and teeth and long shaggy hair?'
'He's a very useful person,' Halt told him. 'You can invoke him by all of those different features. He's the very soul of variety. One never gets bored with Gorlag around.'
Svengal during this breezy interchange was eyeing the battleaxe hanging from Plod's saddle bow. He wasn't sure if he'd rather use it on the pony, or on the three Rangers who were enjoying his predicament so thoroughly.
Horace decided it had all gone far enough. He slipped from Kicker's saddle and caught Plod's trailing bridle, leading him towards the aching Skandian.
'You three don't have a lot of sympathy, do you?' he asked. The three Rangers exchanged glances again, at each other.
'Not really,' Gilan agreed cheerfully. Horace dismissed them with a wave of his hand and turned to Svengal. 'Come on. I'll give you a boost.' He held out his hands, forming a stirrup to help Svengal into the saddle. The Skandian backed away, holding his aching back with one hand. 'I'll walk,' he said.
'You can't walk all the way to Araluen,' Horace said reasonably. 'Now come on. The best thing you can do when you've had a fall is get back in the saddle again.' He looked at the three Rangers. 'Am I right?'
Three cowled heads nodded. They looked like green and grey vultures, Horace thought.
'Get on again?' Svengal asked. 'On that?'
Horace nodded, encouragingly.
'You're telling me that the best thing I can do, after this fiend from hell has lurched and spun and jumped and broken every second bone in my body, is to get back on and give him another chance at me?'
'That's right. Come on. I'll boost you up.'
Painfully, Svengal limped forward, raising his right foot and placing it in Horace's cupped hands. The next part, the sudden convulsive leap upwards, involving all his thoroughly abused major muscle groups, was going to hurt like the very devil, he knew. He looked into Horace's eyes. Honest. Encouraging. Free of guile.
'And I thought you were my friend,' he said bitterly.