The innkeeper led us all the way to the left, to a corner area standing apart from the rest of the room. The tables there were crafted rather than thrown together, short lengths of white cloth covered them, and four or five big, well-carved chairs stood together in a corner. My host hurried over to one of the chairs, dragged it to the head of the largest table, tossed aside the plain chair standing there, then bowed to me again.
“Your seat, Highness,” he burbled, thrilled with the entire situation. “Allow me to assist you.
“I will assist her,” Fallan said, totally untouched by the way the small man’s face fell. “You may return to your hearth and have our meal prepared. Those three wenches are to be fed in your kitchens; the fourth will remain here to serve the Princess. My lieutenant and some of my men will accompany you.
Ralnor moved two steps off to wait for the innkeeper, who looked nervous rather than insulted. Fallan’s lieutenant would be there to make sure there was nothing added to our meal that shouldn’t be added, and if something aroused his suspicions he might not take the time to ask questions. The innkeeper nodded his head in resignation, bowed to me again, then led Ralnor and his four mercenaries and the three dark-haired girls toward the door in the far wall. The only one of the girls left was the redhead, and she looked nervous for some odd reason. I went to the ornate chair and took my place, then watched Fallan seat himself to my right, his back to the wall our table stood near. His men arranged themselves very obtrusively around us, and Fallan turned to glance at the still standing redhead.
“Place yourself behind the Princess and to her left, where you may serve her without intrusion,” Fallan directed, stretching out comfortably in his chair. “Yon inn wenches will serve no more than my men and I.”
The girl turned her head to see the three inn girls who were hurrying toward us, two of them carrying wooden trays filled with metal goblets for the men, one of them with a silver tray and a single, intricately wrought gold-colored goblet. The goblet probably was gold, but even, though the redhead quickly rounded the back of my chair to jake it from the inn girl, the thing never reached me.
“The Princess does not take wine at such an early hour of the day,”
Fallan announced, stopping both girls in their tracks. “Return that goblet, and fetch a pot of andilla.”
The inn girl, looking frightened, sketched a fast curtsy and headed back the way she came, leaving the redhead to step back behind my chair. Bellna didn’t understand what was going on any more than I did, which made it my option to comment.
“How thoughtful of you to look after my wants so carefully, Captain,” I commented, finally bringing those eyes directly to me.
“And how clever of you to be aware of them without consulting me.”
“My commission demands both thoughtfulness and cleverness, Princess,” Fallan answered with a faint grin, accepting a copper-colored goblet from one of the inn girls. “You will find that I shall not shirk my duty.”
“Ah, you are aware, then, of your duty.” I nodded in approval, then looked at him with exaggerated sweetness. “Would you, in that event, be so kind as to explain it to me? It has seemed, till now, that the demands of duty have escaped you entirely.”
A small gasp came from behind my chair, echoed in some part by the Bellna presence. Both Bellna and the redhead thought I was pushing it with Fallan, something neither one of them would have done. I was pushing it, but I had to find out what he was up to.
“Appearances are often deceiving, Princess,” Fallan answered with an impassive drawl. “One often finds it necessary to see the last of a series of actions before the first of those actions is clarified. Now comes your andilla.”
Which ended the discussion. The inn girl with the silver tray was back, this time bringing a beautifully designed ceramic pitcher and mug, the pitcher presumably filled with the warm, chocolatey drink called andilla. The redhead stepped out from behind my chair, took the mug and pitcher from the tray, poured me a mugful of andilla, then disappeared behind my chair again. I still didn’t know what Fallan was up to, still didn’t understand why the redhead had to serve me instead of one of the inn girls, and didn’t want any part of the andilla. I could see faint wisps of steam rising from the mug, and didn’t much care for chocolate drinks even when they were cold. I tugged at the high collar of my dress and moved in annoyance in the big chair, but that did me as much good as questioning Fallan had. It was fairly clear that the meal stop would not be a particularly pleasant one.
My guess didn’t prove to be entirely wrong. The men had their wine poured for them, and then the food began coming. Omelets and light soups and thin cuts of meat, lightly fried fowl and vegetables and fresh-baked bread, and all of it was brought to me first. During an assignment I usually believe in eating whenever I can, knowing the next chance I get might be a long time in coming, but that was pushing it even for me. I tasted all of the dishes out of curiosity, finding them underseasoned but otherwise acceptable, then spent some time watching everyone else eat. Fallan’s men did their eating standing up, and Fallan, although seated, spent as much time as they did looking around. Their goblets were refilled almost as soon as they emptied them, but none of them was drinking at all hard. Most mercenaries drank wine the way other people drink water, or at least that was what Bellna believed; true or not true, I could see they were watching their intake. It gave me the impression they were expecting trouble, and that set me to wondering what they knew that I didn’t. Clero’s men could show up at any time, but Fallan and company shouldn’t have known that.
Our meal was just about over when the trouble happened. It was nothing more than a simple scuffle, but it drew the attention of Fallan himself. Two men seated on the other side of the room, merchants or landed gentry by their clothing, tried to come over to my table for some reason or other. Fallan’s men barred their way, telling them to go back to their own table, but the two strangers disagreed. Hard words followed, swords came half out of scabbards, and Fallan, with a snapped order to the redhead to stay behind my chair, got up and joined the party. Once he got there the two men forgot about swords and tried bluster, but it was clear to everyone in the room that the argument was over. Fallan wasn’t the leader of his men because someone had appointed him to the job, and both of the strangers wilted visibly under his stare. I leaned back in my chair again, disappointed to a large degree that the argument wasn’t the prelude to the attack I was waiting for. That attack would put my neck on the line, but it would also give me the chance to get off that planet. Dameron’s so important job was beginning to bore me, and boredom was more dangerous than attack. It made the most alert careless, the fastest sluggish, the brightest uncaring; boredom had killed more agents than weapons and ambush, and I didn’t want my name added to the list. It didn’t help that Bellna was even more bored than I was; that sort of reaction doesn’t need reinforcement.
I suppose I could say that what I did next was an attempt to end the boredom, and to a great extent it would be true. The real truth is that when I get bored, I also get an irresistible urge to liven things up. I’ve had trouble because of that particular urge, but nothing that I didn’t consider well worth the fun involved. I didn’t often indulge the urge during an assignment, but when I saw Fallan watching his men as they escorted the two intruders back to their table on the other side of the inn, the idea came to me all at once.
His goblet stood to my right, still half filled with wine, and it didn’t take very long to empty it down my throat. For a very young wine it wasn’t bad, but drinking it was only half of what I had in mind. The other half was refilling the goblet to its previous level with the andilla I hadn’t touched, the andilla I’d been given because of Fallan. It seemed only fair to return the favor and then see what developed. The Bellna presence giggled nervously as I sat back again, but was too delighted with what she’d-I’d done to really regret it.
The boredom was taken care of, and that was what counted.
No more than another couple of minutes passed before Fallan came back to my side of the table. He stopped behind his chair but didn’t sit, instead looking around before glancing at me.
“It is more than time that we continued on, Princess,” he said, absently reaching for the goblet he’d left unemptied. “There has already been one incident, and the next may be less easily seen to.
It seems I was ill-advised to announce your identity so openly.”
No, don’t tell me! I responded, but only to myself as I stared up at him in silence. He was noticing the obvious pretty damned late, but somehow he seemed more satisfied than contrite. He was still up to something, but questioning him would have been a waste of breath. I sat instead and watched him raise his goblet to his lips as he continued to look around, saw him take a good, healthy swallow-then watched straight-faced as he spit out the unexpected drink. Andilla isn’t bad when it’s warm; cold, it tastes very much like unwashed armpits. Half a dozen men at a nearby table laughed uproariously, obviously having seen what I’d done and eagerly awaiting the trap to close. Fallan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as his eyes moved to me, and Bellna was suddenly all out of giggles.
“I would know the meaning of this gift, Princess,” he ground out, the expression on his face and the blaze in his eyes enough to replace the recent laughter at the nearby table with immediate silence. “has it some significance which eludes me?”
“I merely sought to emulate your actions, Captain,” I answered. in the most innocent tone I could manage, at the same time rising from my chair. “Your anticipation of my wishes was enviable, so much so that I attempted the same for you. Have I failed so dismally, then?”
He stared at me briefly without answering, returned the goblet to the table with a thud, then came closer to take my arm.
“Had you truly sought to anticipate my wishes, you would have bared your bottom, Princes,” he growled very low, his hand closing a bit more on my arm. “Another doing such as this, and I will make the effort for you. For that you have my word.”
“Why, Captain, whatever do you mean?” I asked, oddly feeling the fear Bellna experienced coursing through my body. Fallan’s threat had panicked her, but I knew better. If he had been going to do anything it would have been in the heat of anger, not after he’d had a chance to cool down. Bellna the princess was safe from Fallan the mercenary.
He growled again at my very innocent lack of understanding, but this time wordlessly as he began to guide me away from the table by the arm he held. If Clero’s men took long enough finding me, I’d have Fallan-baiting down to an exact science. It was obvious the man could threaten me as much as he liked, but rousting me around by one arm was as much as he could do. The game should keep me from getting bored again, and should also go some distance toward diverting Bellna from the way she was reacting to Fallan. The presence in my head was sending ripples of excitement through me, more strongly than she had done earlier, a little-girl-crush reaction to Fallan’s being so close. I raised the bottom of my dress with my left hand and tried to ignore those feelings; would have ignored them even if they were my own. The only thing infatuation can do for you on an assignment is end your life rather abruptly.
It wasn’t long before the four girls and I were in the coach, the men were mounted, and we were on our way again. I kept my eyes open and my mind intent on the scenery we passed, but a couple of hours went by and no one jumped out of the shrubbery or fields to attack us. It seemed strange that Clero’s men weren’t all over us yet, but they might have had some delay we hadn’t counted on. I was trying to calculate latest time for them to reach me, when the coach began slowing down. There wasn’t much around, just the road through a forested area, with no inn or other building in sight. . Being the suspicious sort, I immediately began to wonder, but we left the road and came to a full stop and no one came by to mention what was going on. Fallan’s men dismounted and began messing with something ahead of the coach, where I couldn’t see it. I craned around half out of the window for a minute or two, got absolutely nowhere, then noticed that Fallan was on his way over to me. He had dismounted along with his men, and when he reached the coach he pulled open the door next to me.
“The next point on our itinerary has been reached, Princess,” he said, grinning faintly as he held his hand out. “You must now leave the coach for a few moments.”
“Must I, indeed?” I murmured, making no effort to take the offered hand. “And for what reason would I do such an otherwise unnecessary thing?”
“For the reason that you are told to do so,” he answered, all friendliness gone as he reached in and took my arm. “We may not halt here long, else it shall be noticed. We shall make haste, and then we shall once again be on our way.”
Being pulled out of a coach is not the same as being pushed into one; if Fallan hadn’t taken me around the waist as soon as I was in reach and lifted me out to set me on the ground, I probably would have tripped over those idiotically long skirts. Bellna was confused and frightened and flustered and outraged all at once, a reaction I found dizzy-making on top of my own reactions. I don’t like being dragged around and told what to do without explanation or reason, and if it happens I tend to grow short-tempered. If I hadn’t been on assignment, Fallan would have had a serious problem; since I was on assignment, there was almost nothing I could do to show my annoyance. As soon as he let go of me I fought those stupid skirts out of the way, then kicked him hard right in the shins.
“How dare you treat me in so cavalier a manner!” I hissed, showing the fury Bellna would have shown if it had been anyone other than Fallan manhandling her. “When my father hears of this, your company will be disbanded and you yourself ended horribly! Men will shudder at your fate, and women will grow faint! You will be. . .”
“Silence!” Fallan roared, interrupting me just as I was really getting rolling. He’d flinched faintly when I’d kicked him, but aside from that he showed no reaction to my girlish attack at all. What was getting him angry was all the threatening I was doing, which, spite and all, was pure Bellna.