Paladin's Prize (Age of Heroes, Book 1) (11 page)

“If you like—or catch a couple of fish. They’re already confined with nets in a section of the brook. But really, you should just relax.”

“I’m happy to do whatever’s helpful. Just give me my orders,” he said with a winning smile.

“No, it’s all right. I’m picky about my cooking. The fire can’t be too high. Trout roasts best on a low flame.”

“Well, if you think of anything that I can do, just tell me. My lady?” he added as she turned around and headed for the pavilion.

“Yes?” At once, she paused, glanced back, and found him gazing at her with a wistful frown. “What is it?”

“I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

She tried to hide her disappointment. “Are you sure you feel well enough? I really think you need more rest.”

“I’m all right. I think a good night’s sleep tonight will have me back to my old self by tomorrow.”

“You can take the bed. I’ll sleep in my hanging chair.”

“Certainly not. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“It’s fine! I take naps there all the time. I’ll be very comfortable. Please, I insist.”

“I’ve already imposed on you so much. As if it wasn’t enough you saved my life.”

“It’s not a problem.” She chuckled and took a step closer. “It’s been nice having you here. You’re welcome to stay.”

“No… I think I’d better be moving on. As long as your neighbors hand over my other horse, I’ll have her hitched and be on my way by midmorning.”

Wrynne smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirts after the long horseback ride and struggled not to argue. “Where will you go?” she asked in a measured tone.

“South to the capital. I think it’s time I go and have a talk with King Baynard.”

She jerked her head up to meet his gaze.
“What?”

“I’m not going to run and hide. I’ve been thinking about it the whole way here, and I’ve concluded that the best course is simply for me to go and meet him face-to-face. I’m sure we can sort this out like reasonable men.”

“You can’t be serious,” she said. “Thaydor! He’s trying to have you killed!”

“We don’t know that for certain. Things looked a bit suspicious at the gates, I grant you, but we have no proof that His Majesty is the one behind it. In fact, he may need my protection. He’s still our king, even if he’s gone off course.”

She stared at him. “Your protection?”

“Between the Silver Sage breathing down his neck and his new mistress keeping him intoxicated round the clock, he may not even know what’s been happening. I might be the only one now who can help him. Free him from their foul influences.”

“But Thaydor—”

“Don’t worry, my lady. At the moment, the only person we can tie to any of this is Reynulf, and if I see him, I’ll know to be on my guard, thanks to you.”

She gazed at him for a long moment. “So you’ve made up your mind to return to the city.”

“Yes.”

“Very well. I’m coming with you,” she informed him, and pivoted to start gathering her things for their departure in the morning.

“Er, my lady, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Too bad!” She spun around and glared at him. “I went to a lot of trouble to save your life! I’m not going to stand by and do nothing while you go and throw it away.”

He tilted his head with a droll expression. “Give me a little credit, Wrynne. I’m not a fool.”

“You give others too much credit! Thaydor.” She took a step toward him. “You’re so good and fair-minded yourself that you can’t fathom those you consider allies being wicked. But they are. I feel it in my bones.”

“I’m not naive,” he said, bristling a bit. “I simply choose not to cast people down without facts, without proof. You cannot come with me, demoiselle. I am sorry.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why not?”

“Because.” He stared at her.

“Because
why
?” she demanded, exasperated. “Are you finally admitting it
is
dangerous?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Well?”

His cheeks flushed. “Are you going to make me say it?”

“Say what?” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can do as I please, anyway. If I want to come with you, then I shall. You have no authority over me.”

“Actually, I do—in the hierarchy of the church, anyway.”

“Oh, pulling rank on me, Paladin? Very nice.”

He shrugged. “Sorry, but it’s for your own good. Besides, your people need you here.”

“And what of the will of Ilios, hmm? Maybe He prefers that I go with you. To protect you!”

His eyebrows rose slowly. He couldn’t hide the grin that crept across his face. “Protect
me
?”

She nearly stamped her foot in vexation. “Well, you have to sleep sometime! I could keep watch. You have no squire now. How will you even put on your armor to fight?”

“If you haven’t noticed, dear lady, my traveling companions have a tendency to die. Besides, you don’t know the first thing about squiring for a knight. You can barely lift my weapons, and I doubt you know the proper way of putting armor on a man.”

“Well, I took it off you handily enough,” she shot back.

His blue eyes flared at this bold reminder of how she had undressed him. Then he looked away and suddenly seemed to lose his train of thought.

Wrynne folded her arms across her chest. A pleased little
humph
escaped her.

He shook his head as if to clear it. “So where do you keep the kindling?”

“I told you, never mind. I can make the fire. Why don’t you see to your horse?”

He looked at Avalanche as though he had forgotten all about him. With a terse nod, he got to work unsaddling his steed. Wrynne remained a moment longer, watching him in dismay.

“I don’t understand,” she said at length. “Am I such dull company? Because I thought it was rather pleasant today, the two of us working together.”

He sent her a piercing glance as he set the saddle down. “That’s the problem. Because contrary to rumor, my lady, I am not a saint.”

Wrynne blinked, finally grasping the source of his objections. “Oh,” she said in a slightly strangled tone. “I see.”

“Do you?” he taunted in a low tone, eyeing her in a most un-paladin-like way, just to make the point. As if she didn’t realize he was very much a man.

She looked away, cheeks burning. It suddenly seemed prudent to stop arguing.

“I’ll go make supper,” she mumbled, but as she hurried off, she felt his eyes on her body all the way to the fire pit that lay between her bower and the stream.

Unnerved, she kept her back to him as she fetched some dry kindling out of the tinderbox and tucked it under a couple of small logs in the fire pit. She fumbled with the flint, hands trembling after his blunt admission.

As she tried to strike a spark, he suddenly appeared beside her, startling her. He leaned down, and stilled her hands with his own much larger ones, gently cupping them with a warm touch.

“Let me do it,” he murmured by her ear. Then he took the flint and the fire steel and set the wood ablaze.

He did not look at her, nor she at him. Acute awareness charged the air between them, but they both stared at the growing bonfire.

“Thank you,” she said after a moment, stealing a wary sidelong glance at him.

He met her gaze and nodded, looking just a little too long into her eyes. He cleared his throat and rose. “What shall I do next?” Hands on hips, he awaited her command.

Heady thought.
Wrynne chased off wayward imaginings. “Oh, nothing. Make yourself comfortable, please. I’ll let you know when supper’s ready.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “It’ll only be about half an hour.”

“If you’re sure you don’t need me, I should clean up my armor a bit before it rusts.”

She sent him a poignant smile at this reminder that he had no squire now to carry out such tasks for him. Thaydor went back into the pavilion and gathered up as much of his armor as he could carry in one armload. Clanking away, he carried it down the stone steps to wash off the caked-on blood and grime in the brook below the waterfall pool.

She shuddered at the memory of how wet and red and sticky it had been on the night she had found him. Then she shook her head, wondering how long it would be before he ended up like that again. How could the man refuse the help she was offering?

At least now she knew why. Of course, he was worried she’d end up dead, like his series of past squires, but there was more to it than that. He desired her, and it disturbed him.

She blushed and thrilled to the thought at the same time. His admission only made her want to go with him all the more. How could she bear to stay here, left behind, knowing he was out there, in danger?

What he felt—what they both felt—was natural enough. The attraction was no excuse for refusing her help when his life was at stake. With unknown enemies out for his blood, who else could he trust the way he could trust her? They shared the same beliefs, the same values…

She blew on the fire and poked at it in frustration, sending Silvertwig a morose look as her familiar flew over to her. Having witnessed their whole exchange, the fairy shook her head and folded her arms across her chest as she hovered in midair.

“Have you ever seen anyone so stubborn?” Wynne whispered, glancing around to make sure her guest was still down by the lower stream. “He thinks he can do everything himself. What does he think, that I’m incompetent? Just a helpless damsel?”

She huffed and rolled her eyes, while Silvertwig lifted her eyebrows as if about to say that Wrynne, actually, was often that stubborn.

Wrynne didn’t give her the chance. “Maybe I ought to remind the great paladin that I had the same basic fighters’ training at the Bastion as every other cleric and layperson. I even have some light armor,” she whispered, “
and
a weapon. Not that I’ve ever had to use it on a living thing. Target practice mostly,” she admitted. “But the point is, I
can
! I was trained for the armies of Light just like him, and I’m willing!”

She shot to her feet and set her hands on her waist, staring at Silvertwig in indignation. “Does he think me a child?”

The fairy shrugged.

“Or does he fear that if he lets me come along, I might try to seduce him? Dent his precious honor? Because that would be absurd.” She scoffed, blushing. “Yes, it’s true that Sons of Might and Daughters of the Rose are often encouraged to, um, marry. But what woman in her right mind would ever marry a knight and worry every day for the rest of her life? Besides, I’m bound by the same standards of behavior as he is. So what if he…fancies me…”

It was almost too wildly flattering a thought for her to wrap her mind around.

“It doesn’t mean we have to act on it. And honestly, even if he lost control, which I doubt would ever happen, I’d rather he ravished me—twice!—than let him go out there with who knows how many people trying to kill him and no one to watch his back!”

“Twice, eh?” Silvertwig chirped with a knowing grin. “Quite a sacrifice, mistress. Really big of you.”

“Oh, shut up,” Wrynne mumbled. “I didn’t mean it like that. He’s important to the whole kingdom. And to Ilios!” she insisted while Silvertwig snickered.

Scowling, Wrynne stomped off, red-cheeked, to catch a couple of fish for their meal.

By the time she had the trout cleaned and roasting on the spit a few inches above the fire, she had made up her mind that she was going to help Thaydor whether he liked it or not. Of course, there was no need to tell him so flat-out. Why alert him of her true intentions when he would only forbid it? She’d simply have to work around his protective nature.

It isn’t lying outright
, she insisted to herself. That would have been a sin. But she was not above, well, finessing him a bit. Delaying full disclosure until it was more difficult for him to say no.

Mother did it all the time with Father, and while the Building Baron almost always blustered in the short term, he always realized later that his wife was right.

Just so would she handle Sir Thaydor.

And she had a fair notion of how to get the stubborn mule headed down the right path, too. He was a hero; let him help her, then. Poor, defenseless damsel that she obviously was in his eyes.

“Supper’s ready!” she called down to him from the top of the waterfall ten minutes later.

“Be right there!” he yelled back.

His handsome, chiseled face wore a troubled look when he joined her on the broad, flat boulder beside the stream where she had set up their picnic a few feet above the waterfall.

“Well, this is very pleasant,” he said with an appreciative glance as he sat down on the edge of the blanket across from her. “It smells delicious, too.”

“Wait until you taste it. Fish from right over there. Vegetables and herbs straight from my garden.” She nodded over her shoulder at it, then smiled at him.

“You spoil me,” he teased.

They said the customary prayer of thanks before meals, then Wrynne poured a wooden goblet full of the rustic local wine and handed it to him. “I only have the one cup. We’ll have to share,” she said with a pert smile.

“You first, my lady.”

“How gallant.”

He chuckled. “You did all the work.”

She took a sip and then handed it to him. “It’s not the fine Aisedorian vintage you’re probably used to, but it’s not half bad.”

“It’s good,” he said after taking a swallow.

They ate, enjoyed the food, and chatted about nothing in particular. When they had finished their plates, however, Wrynne poured them a second cup of wine, noticing he still had those indigo shadows lurking in his eyes.

The wine had loosened her tongue and dulled her inhibitions enough to pursue the matter. “So, tell me. What’s bothering you?”

She could tell he was about to deny that anything was, but when she offered a knowing smile, he frowned and shook his head. “It’s not a suitable topic for the table…even if the table is a rock.”

“We’re done eating. It’s all right now.”