Exile. Part 18

"I don't know." His hands fell.

"Is that because you can't figure it out, or you're afraid to ask the question?"

Both. Robert pushed off the rails and whirled, ramming his back against the wood. "I think a man whose daughter has gone missing should come looking for her, and if he does not, there is something wrong."

"Then you believe the king might have ordered the most recent attack?"

He linked his fingers behind his head and pulled his elbows tight. "Aurelia loves her father." He had seen the way her eyes fell whenever the king was mentioned.

"But does he love her?"

An image sprang into Robert's mind, one that had been buried under the harsh memory of his own exile: the king, as he had been that morning in the arena, gray and trembling at the possibility of his eldest daughter's death. "Maybe."

Again silence filled the air as the purple reflection of dawn climbed up the cabin in front of him. "But if the king doesn't know about the recent a.s.sa.s.sination attempt"-Robert dropped his hands and rapped his knuckles against the wood, voicing the fear that had nagged at the fringes of his mind for months-"then his own men are obeying someone else."

"Would they obey his youngest daughter?" Mr. Vantauge did not look at his son, instead continuing to stare through the empty paddock.

Could she have that kind of power? Enough not only to hire ten of her father's own men, but to keep the rest from searching for her sister? Robert pictured the blond fifteen-year-old princess waltzing in her father's arms. "It seems ludicrous." Then he visualized his cousin's death. "But Melony is very persuasive."

"Never ignore the obvious or the unknown."

Robert winced. He had committed both errors when he had returned to the palace. "I had no place pretending I was the royal spy," he said. "You were right."

His father finally turned toward him, one hand closing on his son's shoulder. "No," he said softly, "I wasn't."

The absolution was worse than any reprisal. Robert found himself shaking, his utter failure washing over him. "I almost killed her," he said. Then the words, every flaw, every error he had made on his journey, spilled from his gut. "And after all that," he finished, "look where she is now."

The grip on his shoulder tightened, and his father's other hand flattened against the side of his son's face, forcing Robert's eyes to meet his own. "I am looking, Robert. She is alive, and you have yourself to thank for that. You didn't fail."

"How can you say that?"

But the brown depths were in earnest. "Because you didn't go back to become the royal spy." Mr. Vantauge prompted, "Did you?"

"I went back for her."

The grip on his face released. "And you don't regret that?"

Self-recrimination blew out in the path of defiance. "No!"

The muscles above his father's mouth crinkled, and the brown eyes began to dance. "I never regretted marrying your mother."

Confusion churned through Robert's body. Was his father mocking him? But the words had not condemned. They had, in fact, done the opposite.

"I suppose any woman," his father continued, "who has the guts to travel this far, is worth a trip back to the palace." Warm light flickered from those eyes as they rose up from Robert's face.

His father-his father-approved of his choice.

And then the light went out. A horse snorted.

Still struggling to take in what he had just been told, Robert turned.

And met the flared nostrils of a compact brown mustang. With a man on its back. I should not be seen. Warning ripped through Robert's chest. But the dark eyes in the sun-blackened face sparked with familiarity.

"Zhensen." Mr. Vantauge's voice betrayed no surprise.

"See ya've finished with the cuttin'." The neighbor propped a hand on a muscular thigh.

"I have. And you?"

The man slapped his hat on his knee. "Threshin's done. Grain's sacked and taken to town. Must admit it's a pleasure beatin' ya at somethin', Brian."

Robert began to inch backward.

The dark eyes turned on him. "See yer son didn't leave ya high and dry after all."

"He's done more than his share," said Mr. Vantauge. "I suspect you had a crew of five men to accomplish what we've done with two."

Zhensen didn't take the bait. "Truth to tell, Brian"-his eyes remained on Robert-"I've heard your son has been up to a bit more than workin' harvest. Rumor has it he's been travelin', and not alone."

"My son has been right here for the past two months." Mr. Vantauge lied without flicking an eyelash.

"Mm-hmm, and in Fort Jenkins, Fyonna Township, and Transcontina."

Robert struggled not to cringe. The rumors were specific then. Not general anymore.

"They say Her Royal Highness is on a mission." Zhensen picked a tooth with his thumbnail. "Course, ya' know, folks out here ain't too keen on anyone tellin' 'em what to do; but they're claimin' she ain't afraid of an argument. And just might make some decisions as aren't centered clear over there in Tyralt City. Whad'ya think of that, Brian?"

Mr. Vantauge remained still. "I think that would not be a bad thing, Zhensen."

"Na." The man grinned.

He was not here to judge then? Robert opened his mouth.

Suddenly the neighbor's hand rose, fingers splayed. "And if someone were to ask me about yer son"-the words came fast-"I'd have to say I haven't spoken with him since nigh last winter. Same as I told the stranger askin' round town."

Robert's heart beat cold within his chest.

"What did this stranger look like?" Mr. Vantauge's voice was ice.

"Not from 'round here, that's certain. Long black coat in the heat a' summer." A bounty hunter? "Had a buncha men with him, lingerin' on his tail," Zhensen continued. "Hired guns, maybe. Didn't dress like soldiers. Didn't stand like 'em either, but they were watchin'. Saw everythin'. I'm 'fraid I was in too big a hurry to give 'em good directions."

"Did the man say who he was?" Mr. Vantauge tightened his left hand around a paddock rail.

"Seemed anxious not to."

A hunter. Hired by the palace guard to track us across the frontier. The logic made sense. For someone determined to kill her.

The wood rattled. "How far behind do you think they are, Zhensen?"

The neighbor smoothed his fingers on his hat. "Three, maybe four days, dependin' on how fer they got afore they realized I mixed up east with west. I came pretty fast. Left a wagon behind with my brother. Course if they ran into somebody, they might've turned round quick. But I don't reckon too many folks were headin' down Crossin' Canyon in the middle a' harvest." Zhensen grinned. "You?"

"No." Mr. Vantauge's reply was cool.

The grin sobered, and the hat returned to Zhensen's head. "You be sure and tell your son to stay safe, Brian."

The kindness of the words pierced Robert's chest. And his parents? Were they also to stay safe? Tongues of nightmare still burned within his mind. His eyes shot to his father.

The formal royal spy appeared calm.

I have to trust him. He will keep mother protected. And as long as Aurelia and I are gone, he'll see to it that there is no evidence we were ever here.

As had Zhensen. Robert held out his palm in a gesture of thanks, and the neighbor who had risked his own life for him took it, then urged the st.u.r.dy mustang around and cut a path cross-country. That was it then. Mr. Vantauge's hand closed on his son's shoulder.

Robert knew the a.s.sa.s.sins had traversed the Gate. And he and Aurelia were being hunted once again.

Chapter Sixteen.

SANDSTORM.

AURELIA SAW THE SHADOW ON ROBERT'S FACE AS soon as he entered the cabin. He is afraid. She did not have to ask why. He told her the truth-about the a.s.sa.s.sins. As Robert spoke, she could picture the fall of his thoughts, from fear to guilt to self-recrimination, but she had no time to head off the slide. Because first came the departure, from the most wondrous week she had ever known and the two people who had made that week possible. But this-she knew-was not about her. She forced herself to heed her much-disdained royal training and to make her own farewells with limited fanfare. Then she climbed onto Falcon's back. To watch.

It was hard. To see the long, long handshake between Robert and his father, in which neither seemed able to let go. And the tears of Mary Vantauge spilling over in her last embrace with her son.

Aurelia had no right to those tears. Though she found herself trying to imprint every detail of Robert's parents into her memory. The stiffness in his father's stance, which she now saw as a method of defense. As well as his constant advice. And Mary Vantauge: her blond braids unraveling from the rush, her hands pa.s.sing the basket of parting foodstuffs from palm to palm, her blue eyes peering into the distance. Not south toward the danger, but north, where her son would be. To his future.

The entire leave-taking felt so ...

Final. Because everything is final when you're being hunted.

At last Robert, now in his saddle, accepted the basket from his mother, giving her one more kiss. Then he whirled Horizon, and the stallion took off at a fast canter. Falcon kicked her heels at being left behind.

Aurelia lifted her hand in a wave, calling out her grat.i.tude, then let the filly go.

The horses crested the slope, severing the chance of another glimpse at the Vantauge homestead, and instead of pulling up, Robert bent low. The stallion launched into a gallop, and Falcon accepted the challenge, racing amidst the wild gra.s.ses just as she had upon Aurelia's arrival.

This was about flight, not practical but emotional. Aurelia knew Robert was living and breathing and fleeing the danger behind them. And she knew what it meant. No stops. No idle conversations. And no more kisses. But for the glory of this one amazing week, she had known there would be a price to pay.

They fled north. Fast. For four weeks. And somehow avoided death. Robert had no choice but to maintain their earlier bearing. To the south lay danger. To the east the desert lands were restricted by treaty. And to the west lay only frontier, terrain sure to be known by their hunters.

Robert and Aurelia rose early and camped late, detouring around any settlement that broke their path and around the handful of travelers crossing the same route. He knew the solitude was the ant.i.thesis of the expedition but had promised her it was temporary, that once they reached the desert sands there would be no means for anyone to track them. He could only hope someone from the tribes would cross their path. For there were no towns.

Or maps. This he learned at the small trading post on the northern boundary of the frontier, from a woman behind a bartering counter. "Are ya hopin' ta be cheated?" she asked, then, taking pity on him, offered directions to the nearest oasis. "Though there's no tellin' if it'll be there on the morrow," she said. "The desert has currents. Ya never know when they might change."

For three days he and Aurelia traveled through a wasteland, neither frontier nor desert. No trees or canyons, fields or buildings, but one slope after another of sandy ground invaded by scrub gra.s.s.

And then, at the crest of a hill slightly higher than the others, the gra.s.s gave up. He heard Aurelia gasp at his side. A crimson sea of burnt red sand flared before them. No calm, flat, endless stretch, but a roiling of sculpted arcs. The dunes rose, then dropped in sharp fierce lines, their climax in a long dynamic ridge of defiant waves.

Something in his chest clenched. He had pictured the Geordian like an expanse of golden threshed grain, not this fierce lethal red before him. Scrambling, he reached for his pack. The compa.s.s was not at the top. He rummaged deeper.

"Robert?" Aurelia sounded annoyed. She must have said something to him that he had not heard.

But he continued the search. They could not go on until he found the compa.s.s.

She yanked the pack from his hands and glared. "Would you just stop?!" He could not have responded if he wanted to. "You've been dour for weeks!" she railed. "And I've put up with it because I know you're worried, and I know the danger is real, and we had to hurry. But Robert, it's the Geordian!" She flung her hand at the sculpted ridge. "Just look!" Her voice broke.

"That could be gone by morning," he said, trying to explain why he had been searching for the compa.s.s. "It's not a landmark. It's just sand, Aurelia. It moves."

She hurled the pack at the ground. "Admit it's spectacular!"

He blinked. Of course it was. "It's a challenge."

Her eyes narrowed. "Is that what draws you to it?"

"No." It was the story of his horse that had pulled him toward the Geordian. The possibility that Horizon's sire had come from the legendary herds of the desert tribes. "But that's what draws you."

"Admit it's beautiful!"

She was so adamant. Determined. He could not resist testing her patience a bit further. "It's dangerous."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Oh, I see we've matured a lot on this trip," he said.

"Admit you can't wait to set foot in it."

True. There was something about that unmarred surface, daring him to step where no one had before. People had been living in the Geordian for thousands of years, but never here. Never quite in this exact place, due to the sand's shifting nature.

In answer to her statement, he dismounted, ignoring the fallen pack at his feet, and set one careful step into the crimson sea.

She swung off Falcon's back, landing beside him, then ran out ahead, spinning. Her brown hair flew, her face glowed, her arms rose to her surroundings. Embracing a dream. The ultimate goal, the edge of her kingdom, a place most people had only heard about in legend and myth.

He ran out after her, then raced ahead, skidded on the sand, and fell. She laughed, dodging his reach, and pa.s.sed him. He pulled himself up, raced after her again, and within moments had her in his grasp, dragging her down.

"Admit it's beautiful," she demanded.

His nose was in her hair. His arms around her waist.

A thousand voices scolded him. His mother's. Drew's. And Robert's own. He tried to remember the reasons he had used to convince himself not to pursue her earlier. But the old arguments no longer held up. He was not supposed to love her because it would place her in danger. But she was in danger. Nothing could save her from that. He couldn't love her because she was a princess. Well, maybe he could not marry her. Or plan on the rest of his life at her side. But he was with her now. The only one. The only person in her life to share this moment, her achievement of this dream.

His breath came ragged and his arms ached. "Beautiful."