I bounced a little on the hard seat. “What did those men say to you?” I demanded. “Did they tell you whatever Dannette’s dreadful secret is?”
“I suppose.”
“What is it? Tell me.”
He gave me another look, this one considering and troubled. “I’m not sure it’s my place to repeat it.”
“Are you going to make me ask her?”
He thought it over and then, in a voice completely devoid of emotion, he said, “It seems that when she lived in Borside, Dannette was found in a compromising situation—with another woman. There was a scandal because the girl was the daughter of a prominent local lord. Apparently this was not the first time Dannette had been known to take women as intimate companions.”
It took me a moment to comprehend exactly what he meant with his delicate phrasing. Then I said, “So?> She prefers women. Who cares?”
I could tell I had surprised him, but I didn’t know why. “You seem singularly free of shock,” he said. “You live a life so sheltered that I would have thought you would find the concept hard to grasp and perhaps revolting.”
I shrugged. “My father’s apothecary and her assistant have been sharing quarters since I was born,” I said. “And there are days I like them better than anyone else at the palace. But I don’t see why anyone would care—me or you or those men who assaulted Dannette or anybody.”
“No,” Harwin said, clucking to the horses to encourage them to improve their speed, if only a little, “neither do I.”
“I would have thought you would be even more conventional than I am,” I said. “And yet, you don’t seem offended.”
He considered a moment. I had always found it irritating that he often paused to think over his replies, but now I found myself respecting his unwillingness to give an easy or incomplete answer. “I have seen too much damage caused by individuals who were certain that theirs were the only ideas with merit,” he said at last. “It has engendered in me a passionate desire to extend tolerance to anyone who does not seem to be harming anyone else by his or her actions. I am not always quick to adopt new or unfamiliar behaviors—but I am slow to condemn them.”
I sat back against the bench. “But that’s admirable!” I exclaimed. “Why do you say it so apologetically?”
I thought I caught the faintest trace of humor on his face. “Perhaps because you dislike so many of my opinions that I always feel apologetic when I am talking to you.”
I felt a hot blush spread over my face. “No—not that—well—I think perhaps I have not always extended tolerance to you,” I said in a rush.
“You think me dull and lumpish, and you think that being married to me would seem like a lifetime sentence in prison,” he said calmly.
“No!” I exclaimed, feeling even worse. Because of course he was exactly right—except it didn’t seem quite so true as it once had. “It’s just that—perhaps I am silly and shallow, as Gisele has said—”
“But you’re twenty-one and you think life should offer a little excitement and romance,” he said, nodding as if that was a perfectly legitimate expectation. “And I do not seem to embody those traits.”
I didn’t know how to answer that, so I unwrapped my meat pie and took the first bite. Neither of us made the obvious remark. Darius embodies both those traits, and quite beautifully, too.
“Well,” Harwin said, clucking at the horses one more time, “perhaps this trip will give you as much excitement and romance as you can handle, and then you might assess how much of it you really want in your life.”
I thought he was probably right on both counts.
We didn’t stop again until nearly nightfall, when Gisele circled back for us on Harwin’s horse. We had long ago lost sight of the faster carriage, but Gisele had moved between the two vehicles a couple of times during the afternoon. By the pleased expression on her face, I could tell she relished the freedom of riding in the open air.
“Darius has found an inn for the night. It’s not very big, so there might not be three open bedrooms—but he’s reserved a private dining room,” she told us. The chill afternoon wind had whipped color into her face and she looked very pretty. I wondered how my father could prefer Mellicia to Gisele. “I think he doesn’t want to expose Dannette to any more chance travelers who might recognize her.”
Harwin glanced around. We were in farm country now, and no mistake. Stretching in every direction for limitless miles were flat, brown fields filled with the dying clutter of harvested crops. “Might there be many people here who know her?”
Gisele nodded. “His grandmother’s house is half a day’s ride away, he says.”
“I thought he couldn’t afford a private dining room,” I piped up.
Gisele looked genuinely amused. “I think he’s found a way to pay for it.”
Indeed, twenty minutes later, after we’d found the quaint little inn, turned our horses over to the grooms, and strolled inside, we found Darius in the taproom performing tricks. He turned one man’s hound into a tomcat and then changed it back. He passed his fingers over a woman’s dull gray hair and made it a vibrant gold, not neglecting to make her eyebrows match. He waved his hand over the back wall of the taproom, and it ran with vivid autumn colors, cranberry, then ochre, then frosted pumpkin. The patrons were murmuring their delight, while the proprietor stood behind his bar, nodding and smiling. It certainly looked like a performance that merited some remuneration in return.
“The servants are already settled in the kitchen, but we’re down this way,” Gisele said, leading us through a narrow hallway to a small, smoky room. The ceilings were low and the paneling was so dark as to create an air of foreboding, but the prospect of a private meal among the five of us made the room seem welcoming and warm. Dannette was pacing between the table and the far wall, a matter of about six steps, and she turned jerkily to face us as we stepped through the door.
Afraid of what Harwin might think of her, afraid of how much he had told me, afraid of how she might be judged.
I crossed the room to kiss her on the cheek. Then I took hold of both her shoulders and held her at arm’s length to inspect her. The look on her face was one of profound relief, and she couldn’t quite keep the tears from spilling over.
“You should have told me,” I said. “All this time I was thinking how you might make the perfect wife for Harwin, and now I have to abandon those excellent plans.”
She laughed a little too long at such a feeble joke, and it was clear she was still feeling shaky. She accepted Gisele’s hug with melting gratitude, but continued to watch me over the queen’s shoulder. “I don’t know that I trust your judgment in matters of the heart so much that I would let you pick someone out for me,” she said, attempting to tease in return.
“She is singularly blind to both good and bad qualities in other people,” Harwin agreed. “But now and then she allows her natural intelligence to assert itself, so I don’t quite despair of her.”
I gave him a mock scowl, though I thought his assessment was fairly accurate. “I’m hungry,” was all I said. “I hope Darius ordered food before he went off to astonish the masses with magic.”
“I believe he did,” Dannette said, wiping her eyes and attempting to restore herself to her usual state of sunny serenity. Just then the servants’ door opened, and two scrawny young housemaids stepped in, bearing platters. “And here it is.”
There was the usual jumble of scraping chairs and bumping bodies as the servants set the table and we found our seats. Gisele asked Harwin something about driving the wagon and he answered, while Dannette began pouring water into all our glasses.