Exile. Part 16

"And what did the king do with the names?" he prompted softly.

"He called in the men on the list," she said, her voice shaking. "They all told the same story ... were stripped of their jobs, and allowed to leave."

But?

She continued, "They bought their freedom by telling the king the names of the aristocrats who had given money to their cause. Colonel Lorance was the greatest contributor."

The metal p.r.o.ng fell from Robert's fingers.

His mother's eyes turned gray with tears. "He was charged with attempting to incite public rebellion," she whispered. "And he was executed."

There were worse things than disapproval, Aurelia told herself, as she steeled her will and entered the gap at the edge of the sliding barn door. She had faced intimidation before, but unlike with the Lion and Lord Lester, she cared what Mr. Vantauge thought. This man, above all others, Robert admired most.

A high wall of tightly stacked hay bales blocked her path, rising clear to the loft and dropping down in steep double steps before her to the earthen floor. The potency of straw and dust clung to the air, and her sinuses stung as she eased her way along the narrow path to her right, then cornered the bales and found herself blinded by a slashing wall of sunlight. She winced, opened her eyes, and tried to regain her bearings, then plunged through the radiance.

Mr. Vantauge stood with his back to her, both hands planted against the far log wall, as if he were trying to push it away. The stance, the set to his shoulders, the dropped head-everything about him screamed that he wished to be left alone.

She was intruding. She knew that.

But sometimes intrusion was necessary. "You aren't happy to have me here," she said, entering the pungent corner inhabited by the barn's lone dairy cow.

He did not move, failing to react when taken by surprise.

A rare skill. No wonder her father had a.s.signed him his post.

"I admit I can't even milk a cow." She let her gaze fall on the welcome barrier of the b.u.t.termilk-colored animal. "And I've never worked on a farm. I suppose most people on the frontier would be less than pleased with a guest in the midst of harvest."

"What do you know about frontiersmen?" Mr. Vantauge pushed his way off the wall.

"They're stronger than the people in central Tyralt," she said, stepping closer to the cow. "Maybe because of what they go through to get here. Or how desperate they have to be to come in the first place."

"Don't heroize them." He hefted a shovel at his side and turned to face her. "They're rougher too, harsher ... and less tolerant."

"Yes, but they know what they want-what's important."

"And what is that?" The shovel's point hit the earth.

"Freedom."

His brown eyes drilled into hers. All his other features-his build, his hair, his hands, the muscles in his face-all these Robert had inherited. But not the eyes. There was nothing calm or comforting in those dark spheres. They were direct. Jaded. And hostile. "Does that frighten you?" he asked.

"No." She stroked the cow's warm b.u.t.termilk side. "Of course not. It's what we have in common. I needed the freedom to go on this journey, to explore my country and see who the people are."

"It frightens your father," he said.

She considered the statement. Her father had never cared for anything that challenged tradition. "Maybe."

"Definitely." He scooped a pile of fresh manure with the shovel, walked past the cow and her, and pitched the manure out the window, then flung the shovel to the ground. "How will you rule if what the people want is to be free of your control?"

"I don't want to control them. I want to help them." She thought about the kuro boy back in Transcontina. She had begun to understand, after the rigors of crossing the Gate, how children could be desperate enough to sell themselves for survival. But she could never accept any law that allowed people to become property. "And to ensure they protect and respect one another."

"Ah," said Mr. Vantauge, plucking a low stool from beneath the window. "By virtue of the crown."

Her temper rose at his sarcasm. "The people of Tyralt ultimately control their own destiny."

He froze. "You realize it's treason, what you just said."

It wasn't. It was common sense. "The role of a leader is to help guide that destiny, not shape it."

"And a leader ..." He quoted her statement from breakfast haltingly. "Is not defined ... by a crown."

"Exact-"

"My son told you that."

Had he?

Mr. Vantauge slammed the stool into the dirt. "And is that why you're here? To find out where he got his ideas?!"

Her eyes widened. No, of course not. She raised her hands to her hips. "Robert is more than able to make up his own mind."

"Then why is he obeying your orders?" He shoved the stool with his boot.

"I asked him to come on this expedition," she said. "I didn't order him."

"Why?" he demanded. "Why did you ask my son?"

She staggered back from the question. There was more to the answer than he had a right to know. But she would not lie to this man. "Because"-the reasons spilled out of her-"he's not afraid to argue with me or ask what I think; he'll tell me when I'm being stupid or foolish or blind; and he doesn't patronize me. He respects my ideas and isn't afraid of a challenge. We can fight ... and still forgive each other. And he"-she blushed-"he looks at me with those eyes, and I know I can trust him."

The truth.

She knew now, as she had not a month ago, that Robert's thoughts of leaving her at the Fortress had not been betrayal. He could make hard decisions-ones she might not agree with-but he made them for the right reasons. And up on the high jagged Gate, she had learned to admire that quality.

Something shifted in Mr. Vantauge's stance. His voice and head were low as he slid the squat stool over beside the dairy cow. "And you think it wise to continue your expedition, despite the obvious danger?"

"Wise?" She knew this question mattered to him, his son's safety. Still, all she could do was answer honestly. She shook her head. "But it isn't about me"-she paused-"or your son. It's about Tyralt. There is so much I need to learn."

His head came up, a new light glowing in those direct brown eyes. The line between his lips cracked, and the hardness in his chin relaxed. "Well, Aurelia." He said her name for the first time, then gestured at the stool. "I imagine I could teach you something."

Robert struggled with the revelation of his great-grandfather's death as he helped his mother clean up the rest of the breakfast, his mind swirling like the darkening dishwater in the bucket around her hands. How had he managed to grow up in the palace never hearing about Colonel Lorance's execution? Could such a thing be hushed? "Was it public?" he asked at last.

"Very," his mother replied softly "To send a message."

"Then why haven't I ever heard of it?" He tried to hand her the heavy cast-iron skillet.

But she rejected it. "You were so young at the time, and then"-she shook her head, motioning at a knife-"other events overshadowed it."

What could overshadow an execution? "Which events?"

"The death of the crown prince."

He dropped the iron pan.

"And the queen's disappearance," his mother added.

Yes, he supposed those would overshadow the death of a minor lord, though not, judging by the pain on his mother's face, for his parents.

"And yet you stayed at the palace until I was fourteen," Robert said, sc.r.a.ping the skillet with the knife. The crusted grime on the bottom of the pan refused to break free.

"It wasn't easy for your father to leave."

No, it wouldn't be. Not with Uncle Henry there, and the Vantauge family legacy.

"But something changed?" Robert asked.

"The king started to ask about your training."

He stopped sc.r.a.ping to look at her. "Mine?"

Her face muscles were tight. "The thought of you in that web of deceit made up your father's mind. And we left."

No wonder his father had been so angry when Robert had decided to return to the palace.

His mother wrenched the skillet from her son's hands and began sc.r.a.ping it herself. "Your father is afraid the princess will drag you back into that same web, Robert. She is her father's child. She was raised to expect things, and while she may be embarking on this expedition with the best of intentions, there's more than enough evidence of danger."

"And you think I should leave her to face it alone?"

"She's a princess, Robert."

How many times was he going to have this conversation? "Aurelia needs my help."

"She could find someone else, and I know it's not easy to accept, but eventually, she will." Mrs. Vantauge wiped the skillet with a rag, then dropped the pan on the table.

Robert stared at the black iron circle. Could Aurelia make other friends? He didn't doubt it. Could she find another guide? Perhaps. Could she one day develop a relationship with another man that was stronger than the one she had with him? Yes. But curse it if he was going to step back and let it happen!

"If you really believe in this cause, Robert, your father and I can understand. If you need to travel and go on this expedition for your country, then go. We won't stop you. But don't do it for this girl. Don't convince yourself she needs you more than any other person she could hire off the trail. Your father just wants what's best for you. He doesn't want to receive a letter someday saying that you've been executed in the street."

The image was vibrant. Red. Like the blood pooling beneath Chris's chest. But Robert saw another vision as well-that of the murderous flames devouring the princess's tent.

Her life meant more to him than his own.

The cabin door swung open, shattering the harsh vision, and in its place entered Aurelia. Laughing. And smelling like the barn. Her eyes were glowing, her hair loose. In her hand, she carried a metal pail. Hefting the container, she showed Robert the inches of foaming white milk. "I think I squirted as much on my smock as I did in the pail," she said.

Then Mr. Vantauge emerged behind her. Gone were the stiff, hard eyes and the rigid bearing. His warm chuckle rippled through the cabin, and he clapped his hand on Aurelia's shoulder. "Well, that's a start. You should have seen my shirt the first time I tried it." He grinned up at his wife and son. "I'm telling you both, she'll make a frontier girl before the week is out."

Chapter Fourteen.

HARVEST.

IT WAS THE MOST GLORIOUS WEEK OF AURELIA'S life. After that first morning, she was treated not as a t.i.tle but as herself, a young woman who wished to learn all she could about the golden, ruthless landscape around her.

And she was taught to gather wheat. Six days she spent in the fields, beside Mary Vantauge, pitching and tossing the golden stalks severed by the scythes. Talking, laughing, asking questions. And feeling truly useful. Though no one appeared to trust her with a blade.

Ironically, the knife Robert had thrown her in the Asyan remained tucked in the waistband of her skirt, the hard sheath pressing into her stomach every time Aurelia bent to lower the pitchfork. But she refused to remove the weapon, finding comfort in its discomfort.

Like the bittersweet pain of her time with Robert's parents. With Mr. Vantauge, who never mocked her questions but taught her how to gather eggs and feed the chickens, to hitch the workhorses to the wagon and drive it through the fields, and to heave the wheat in a giant net up to the barn loft.

And with Mrs. Vantauge-Mary, she had asked Aurelia to call her after that first disastrous breakfast-who thought to explain the tiny everyday things without being asked, suggested rest before Aurelia ever had to beg for it, and dispensed kindness throughout the long hard hours of work. It was Mary, Aurelia learned, who was the source of her son's deepest strengths: his warmth, his patience, and his compa.s.sion.

How Robert could bear to leave this place, Aurelia could not fathom. His parents were all she had ever wished for in her own. And still more. They spoke to Robert as if his viewpoint mattered. His time, his effort, his work. And even though he had told her he preferred the horse-training aspects to the farming, it was clear he had played an integral part in the building and running of the entire homestead.

She should not have been surprised.

It had been evident to her, for some time, that Robert was no longer a boy, but a man.

A fact that did not preclude him from capturing her at the well the morning after the cutting was finished. His right arm circled her waist. "Close your eyes."

"Robert, what-"

"Trust me," he said, lowering his voice.

Did solemn vows include being captured before breakfast? But the feel of his touch, absent since her arrival here, was hard to refuse. She followed his wishes.

His hands urged her to the left, sliding around her as he circled in front, then took both her palms and guided her forward. "Don't worry," he said. "I won't let you fall."

Fall? What term would he use for the tumbling in her stomach? The long wild gra.s.ses snagged at her feet, and she tried to focus on her steps, but her mind caught on the calluses of his palms, the strength of his grip, and the knowledge that her skin had missed his. She tripped, losing her equilibrium. And felt his chest against her own, his hands on her shoulders.

"Are you all right?"

Mm-hmm.

Again he took her hands, pulling her forward.

"Robert-" She had no idea what she was going to say.

But a rustling in the gra.s.s told her they were no longer alone.

He circled behind her, his hands rising to her closed eyelids, and turned her slowly toward the sound. "Did you think I'd forget?" his breath whispered in her ear.

"Forget what?"