"My Prince?"Baron Harmin was presently unoccupied and happened to be turned towards Leal when the latter had spoken. The younger man modulated his voice but could do nothing about the scowl that had once again formed between his brows.
"It is nothing, my lord," he said. "Only that it had occurred to me, I might be out of my depth in this place."
The possibility was rankling, but the more he revised his previous interpretations of recent events using the fresh information he"d gathered, the less sure of himself he felt. What he thought was a grueling but straightforward enough path to attain his personal desires might actually be a lot more complicated – perhaps even d.a.m.n near impossible to attain without using force.
The sandy-haired Baron was a sharp man. Leal did not doubt that he"d also been closely following the day"s events, and despite not having access to the information he did, the older, scholarly man might be doing a better job of coming to the right conclusions.
For instance, that the Princess and the Lord General"s daughter had always been contingency plans – backups who had long ago been set in place just in case the worst ended up happening. And wouldn"t you know it, it did.
That begged the question, why keep this secret hidden for so long only to be ham-fisted about the revelation of its parts at the first opportunity?
This was the reason Leal had started to doubt himself. Before, his answer to that question would have been that the Lord General had simply committed a grave mistake. But what if the man did NOT, after all, make a careless gamble out of desperation?
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When he followed this new thought, a peculiar sense had invaded him. He"d been a.s.suming that the game started when Lothar and Prince Dieter died, but now it felt as if he"d stumbled across a chess match that had already been going on for years.
"Please, Your Highness," Baron Harmin replied in an amused tone that contained no meanness in it, "I beg to disagree. And to put it mildly, through no fault of our own, we all just caught our neighbor at a very bad time."
Leal snorted. "Putting it mildly indeed. But I"m almost certain Father had intended for us to witness it all – and to give our neighbor a hard time while we"re at it."
"Would that your ident.i.ty had remained hidden," the Baron replied with a sigh. "I doubt His Majesty had accounted for the rest of what has happened where you"re concerned."
With a trace of resignation, Leal chuckled. "Now I"M begging to disagree." From the corner of his eye, he observed the placid and good-humored Baron, whose own eyes were occupied with roaming over the people who"d remained. They were s.h.i.+ning in evident fascination over what he was seeing – more gossips and cloaked conspiracies, most likely. In dry amus.e.m.e.nt, he said, "I"m glad you seem to be enjoying yourself, at least."
An acknowledging smile appeared in Baron Harmin"s face, and he kept looking at the scenes before him. "They are so different from us," he said. "For the most part. They are so…"
"Restrained, but willfully."
The other man laughed. "I"d choose another word, but that applies too. If not for the requisite cattiness, I"d forget they are also n.o.bles. Most of our unrestrained brethren do not even have the first notion of what "self-control" means."
"Wish you"d been born an Arnican instead, my lord?" Leal teased.
"Good G.o.d, yes," the Baron readily answered. This time, they both let out a brief laugh that had a trace of wistfulness to it. There were moments when Leal had that wish too.
"These n.o.bles," he went on, "they are careful not to take their power for granted. Unlike…"
For a spell, Leal found himself torn on whom to compare them to – "us" or "me" – but he never got the chance to finish. From the wide break in the surrounding trees, a man"s voice echoed and increasingly became louder. Those who still had their wits about them turned in varying degrees of alarm to watch the man, the servant that Leal had seen with the Lord General before, running straight to his liege, who had already gotten on his feet beside the blanket where his wife lay.
Leal and the others with him were still standing just outside the royal tombs – there were only about a dozen of them, and the majority had stayed because he himself did so. He was too far away to hear what was being said, and he did not have a good vantage point to use his below-average lip-reading skills. Fortunately or unfortunately, it soon became easy to guess what had happened.
The tail end of the procession was also returning, trying to remain dignified in their haste but unable to hide the panic or worry in their faces. Once they"d reached those who"d remained in the meadow, even the Lysean party obtained a clearer idea of what"s going on right before a dull sound of shouting from afar pierced and permeated the already-disturbed air on top of the hill.
This was then followed by the return of Queen Heloise. The others at the head of the column were also with her, but the majority of the soldiers – Royal and household alike – were glaringly missing.
Leal watched the monarch, who seemed more annoyed than afraid, talk to the one Guard that remained by her side. The rest were either left downhill with the other soldiers to contain the situation or, as he very well knew, still hovering just outside the group around the Lyseans whom they"d been charged to protect.
At the same time, he listened to every stray word said in his hearing.
"…calling for Lysean blood…"
"…heard we"re not going to war…"
"…Queen won"t declare…"
"…coward…"
"…royals are Lysean-lovers…"
"…think Princess Hilde"s already betrothed to HIM…"
"…blood…"
Pretty soon, Leal had difficulty catching anything else distinctly. While not every Arnican who"d previously ventured to engage with the Lyseans drew away, subtly or otherwise, they were all clearly waiting on which direction the wind would eventually blow before making their decisive moves. For the moment, those who were still near Leal and his lords had fallen silent.
The Viscount and the Barons drew closer to their Prince. Leal felt that the air between them was charged with tension.
Almost as if he knew what was coming next, Baron Harmin said under his breath, "Is there a way we can send for our own soldiers?"
"How?" asked Baron Marmion in a complaining tone, which failed to cover the fear he was truly feeling. "We left the Viscount"s servant at the Palace too."
"He"ll be torn apart on sight if we were to send him, in any case," Leal interjected calmly. He tried to come up with a solution before the problem Baron Harmin had sensed arises, but nothing occurred to him and his time ran out.
The Queen"s Guards, perhaps in answer to a signal, had surprised most other witnesses when they saluted the Lyseans before leaving their positions to return to their liege. That verdict was so blatant and absolute, no one could possibly mistake it for anything else.
The Arnicans near them did not flee, but they made sure to edge ever so slightly away. A few merely turned their bodies just so, showing their backs to the condemned foreigners.
This was not to say that they agreed with the Queen"s move. One of the four men was still royalty, and while the neighbors had habitually provoked each other into open warfare over the centuries, this method was too extreme even to some of the hardcore haters. Battling two enemies on two separate fronts was already not a laughing matter, and any conflict becomes even less enjoyable to resolve when they know in their core it was their fault.
Still, with all that said, Arnicans would put themselves first and their personal convictions about external matters second. He was unable to help feeling betrayed, but Leal understood: few people in that meadow were in any position to a.s.sert anything. With the exception of the Queen, they were all equally defenseless.