Страница 36 из 137
“You’re probably right,” Leeana said, although he had the distinct impression she was agreeing with him more to keep him from worrying than because she actually thought he was correct. “At the same time, though, if Father resists an offer of marriage which so much of the Council will consider is a reasonable way to resolve the succession concerns, it will give his enemies one more club to beat him with. And you know as well as I do how many clubs are already beating on him.”
“That I do,” he conceded. “Though I’m thinking he’s unbowed yet, mind you.”
“So far, at least,” she agreed.
“So what’s really upset you so, lass, isn’t that you’ve any least fear your da will be after forcing you to marry this fellow, whoever he might be. It’s that if he isn’t forcing you to, he’ll find himself losing allies on the Council.”
“Yes.”
“So he might,” Bahzell said. “Yet I’m thinking as how your father’s one of the most ca
“I know he will,” Leeana replied, and smiled tremulously, her eyes bright once more. “I know he will.”
“Have you seen Leeana yet this morning, love?”
Baroness Hanatha looked up at her husband’s question and gave him a small, sad smile.
“No, I haven’t,” she said.
“She’s not taking this well,” Tellian said fretfully, and Hanatha actually laughed.
“ ’Taking this well’?” she repeated. “My dear, that has to stand as the understatement of at least the last decade!”
“Well, I know that,” her husband said a bit irritably. “But at least she understands I’d never constrain her to marry anyone—least of all someone like Blackhill!”
“What the heart knows isn’t always what the mind knows, when you’re fourteen,” Hanatha said gently. “And much as I love you, and as good a man as you are, you’re still a man, dear.”
“Which means what, aside from the obvious?” his tone was definitely testy this time.
“Which means that ultimately you can’t really understand what it means to know every single important decision in your life lies in someone else’s hands.”
Hanatha’s voice was neither angry nor condemnatory, but it was flat, and Tellian looked at her sharply across the breakfast table.
“Leeana knows how much you love her, just as I know how much you love both of us,” his wife told him in a gentler tone. “But the fact remains that we live our lives as we choose only on the sufferance of your love. She’s constrained in ways no son of yours would be. In many ways that makes her love you even more, you know.”
The baron looked puzzled, and she shook her head sadly.
“Of course it does. She knows how much freedom she’s been allowed. And she knows how fiercely you’d protect her. She knows how much you’re prepared to sacrifice for her, and she loves you for that. Yet in the end, Tellian, she also knows how much it could cost you … and she can never forget that she can never truly hold those decisions in her own hands. That she has her freedom only because someone else gave it to her, not because she can secure it—forge her own life—on her own. So is it really any wonder she’s not ’taking this well’?”
“No,” he said softly, looking down at the eggs and ham on his plate. “No, it’s not, of course.” He poked at the food with his fork for a moment, then selected a fresh, flaky biscuit and began spreading butter across it. “Do you think I should discuss it with her again?” he asked after a moment.
“No,” Hanatha said. “Not right now, at any rate. You two have already said all that needs saying. Whether you’ve both heard exactly what the other one was really saying may be another matter, but until her emotions—and yours, sweetheart—have had some time to settle down, you’re not going to be able to make things any clearer. Best to give her some time to herself. Let her cope with it on her own terms.”
“You’re probably right,” he conceded thoughtfully. He bit into the biscuit and chewed slowly, then frowned. “On the other hand, the fact that she isn’t here for breakfast might seem to indicate she isn’t coping with it very well yet,” he observed.
“I don’t expect her to cope with it for at least a day or so,” his wife said. “In fact, before she went to bed last night she told me she intended to take Boots out for a ride early this morning. A long ride.”
“How long a ride?” Tellian looked up again, his expression concerned, and Hanatha shrugged.
“Probably all day,” she said frankly. “That’s why I’m not surprised she didn’t join us for breakfast. She intended to make an early start, so she probably dropped by the kitchen when the servants were having breakfast and wheedled something out of Cook, like she used to do when she was a baby.”
“What about the Mayor’s banquet?” Tellian frowned. “You know we’ll have to leave for it by midafternoon.”
“I told her she didn’t have to attend,” Hanatha said. “It’s not as if there’ll be anyone else there her age, you know. You and I may have to suffer through it, but there’s no real reason she ought to be forced to do the same thing. Besides, I know what it’s like to need to spend some time away from parties and banquets.”
“Still …” he said slowly.
“She said she wanted time to think, and she thinks best in the saddle. Like someone else I know.” She smiled, and despite his manifold worries, Tellian chuckled.
“At any rate,” she continued, “I didn’t really have the heart to tell her no. I did ask her if she intended to take her armsmen along. I didn’t come right out and tell her that if she didn’t, she wasn’t going anywhere, but she’s not exactly a dummy, your daughter. She only made a face and said she knew perfectly well that she wasn’t going riding unless Tarith did, too.”
“Tarith, all by himself, isn’t exactly her armsmen,” Tellian observed.
“I thought about pointing that out to her,” Hanatha agreed. “On the other hand, you didn’t pick Tarith as her armsman when she was two whole years old because of how incompetent he is. As long as they stay on our lands, he should be able to look after her just fine. And,” for just an instant all of her own loving concern for her daughter put a quiver into her voice, “I wanted to give her at least that much, Tellian. It’s not all that much of a victory over tradition and convention, but at least we can let her have that much.”
The baron looked at his wife and started to speak. Then he stopped, his own eyes just a bit misty, and nodded.
He sat there for a moment, then drew a deep breath, shook himself, and smiled at Hanatha.
“You’re right, of course, love,” he said. “On the other hand, this is Leeana we’re talking about. You know—the daughter who broke her arm when she tried to walk all the way around the north tower across the battlements? The one who took her pony across a three-rail fence when she was nine? The one who—”
“All right. All right!” Hanatha laughed and threw a balled-up napkin at him. “And your point is?”
“That as soon as I finish eating, I’m personally going down to the stable to make sure Tarith’s horse is gone, too.”
“Milady Baroness! Milady Baroness!“
Hanatha Bowmaster came awake almost instantly in response to the imploring whisper. It was dark, without even a trace of gray dawn glimmering through her window. She sat up, and Marthya stepped back from the edge of her bed.
“What is it?” Her voice was husky with sleep, but she kept it low enough not to disturb her husband.
“It’s—it’s Lady Leeana,” the maid said wretchedly, her lamp quivering in her hand. “Her bed’s not been slept in, Milady!”