It wasn't an urgent message. There were no important instructions to follow. It was simply designed to bolster her spirits and let her know she hadn't been forgotten.
There was a strange, veiled reference that had puzzled her. It read, We have a guest from the land of Cobblenosskin.
She frowned over that for several minutes. The name was vaguely familiar, and she searched through her memory for it. Then it came to her. Cobblenosskin had been a character in a fairy tale she and Will had been told when they were children in the Ward at Redmont. He was a mischievous gnome who lived in the wild mountains of Picta, far in the north. It was not a reference that would be immediately apparent to anyone unfamiliar with the old tale – Keren, for example. Will was obviously taking precautions against the possibility that the message might accidentally fall into his hands. But she took it to mean that, somehow, Will had captured someone from Picta – and the only possible candidate she could think of was the Scotti general who had visited Macindaw a few days previously.
At least, that's what she hoped it meant. "He's a talkative fellow," the message went on to say. If her suspicions were correct, it meant that Will and his allies had learned the details of Keren's plan.
And that was reason to smile indeed.
But even more so was the other obscure fact contained in the message. For the most part, it was a chatty, gossipy piece – as far as that was possible within the limitations of a brief coded message – designed to keep her spirits up and to remind her that she had friends close by. And now she knew that there was more than one old friend out there in the forest. Since she had assured Will that the stellatite was effective in countering Keren's mesmerism, he had felt it was safe to include another fact.
Love from Tug the last line of the message read, and from Kicker and his big friend.
Kicker…
She had heard the name before. Obviously, Will thought it would mean something to her. Was it an animal of some kind? It sounded like an animal's name. A dog? Not with that name. Dogs didn't kick. Horses kicked. And then, once again, the meaning was clear. Kicker was the name of the battlehorse Horace rode. Horace was here!
She thought about it now, hugging the news to herself like a warm cloak. Will and Horace working together – Will with his wits and intuition and quicksilver mind, and Horace, dependable, determined, perhaps one of the most accomplished warriors Araluen had seen in years. She had no doubt at all that the two of them would manage to defeat Keren and any number of Scotti.
She almost felt sorry for the usurper. Almost. She smiled again, then heard the key turning in the lock.
She glanced quickly at the fireplace, reassuring herself that the page was completely burnt. She poked at the coals with a fire iron to crumble the blackened sheet to powder, then rose hurriedly, dusting her hands as the door opened.
It was Keren, of course, and her hands automatically went behind her back, her fingers searching for and finding the shining black pebble that permanently nestled in the cuff of her sleeve. But there was no sign of Keren's blue gem, and she relaxed. He had come for another one of his chats.
"You're looking cheerful this morning, my lady," Keren said. She realized she was still smiling, still feeling the warmth that the message had brought her. It would be a mistake to try to hide the fact now and adopt a hangdog, miserable air; Keren would be immediately suspicious. He would want to know what she had to be cheerful about in the first place. Instead, she widened her smile and gestured to the window.
"It's a beautiful day, Sir Keren. Even a captive can't help having her spirits lifted by such a sight."
And, indeed, she was right. The sky was a brilliant blue, shot with a piercing light and with not a cloud in sight. The frigid air had a clarity to it that brought the most distant objects into sharp focus. The wild beauty of the woods and the snow-covered fields that surrounded the castle seemed close enough to touch.
Keren smiled at her and moved to the window to study the view for himself. He put one foot up on the low windowsill. For a moment she had the awful fear that he might lean his weight on the bars that she was gradually weakening with the acid Will had left behind. But at the last minute, his hand went to the stonework surrounding the window.
"It is beautiful indeed," he said, his expression softening for a few seconds. "I think this is the loveliest time of all in this country."
There was that trace of sadness in his voice again, a tone she had become accustomed to in their recent meetings. She knew he was torn by his treachery. It couldn't be easy on one hand to love the country as much as he seemed to, and on the other, to be prepared to hand it over to its traditional enemies.
Of course, she knew, it made no difference to the land. It would be beautiful and wild and rugged, no matter who controlled it. Still, the emotional impact must be enormous, and Keren must know that somehow, things would never be the same again. But he had made his choice, and there was no point appealing to him now to turn back from the path he was following. She watched impassively as he straightened, taking his foot down from the sill, and turned to her. He made a visible effort to push the melancholy away, grinning at her again.
"You're an amazing girl, Alyss," he said. "You can remain positive and cheerful even when everything has gone against you."
She shrugged. "There's no point in worrying over things that can't be changed, Sir Keren."
He made a disclaiming gesture with his hand."Please, let's not be formal. Call me Keren. We may be on opposite sides, but there's no reason why we can't be friends."
No reason, she thought, other than the fact that I'm a King's officer and you're a traitor to your country. But she didn't voice the thought. There was no sense in alienating Keren by slapping aside his overtures of friendship. Angering him would gain her nothing. Befriending him, on the other hand, might gain her a lot – particularly in terms of information. She smiled back at him.
"On such a beautiful day, how could I disagree?" she said, and his own smile widened in return. She thought she saw a sense of relief in him as well, as if he had been hoping that his offer of friendship would not be rejected out of hand.
"You know, I've been thinking," he said finally."Have you considered what might happen to you when the Scotti arrive?"
Alyss shrugged. "I imagine I'll remain here in the tower," she said. "I assume that you weren't planning on handing me over to them?"
For a moment, she felt a cold chill of fear. Perhaps that was what Keren was planning. She hadn't really thought about what might happen to her. After all, she was assuming that Will – and now Horace with him – would effect a rescue and get her out of this place. Keren looked slightly wounded at the suggestion, and her fear was quickly allayed.
"Of course not!" he said with some vehemence. "There's no way I'd hand a lady of your quality over to those barbarians."
"Your allies," she reminded him dryly.
He shrugged the comment aside."Perhaps. But only from necessity. Not choice."
"Do you think they speak of you in such glowing terms?" Alyss asked him.
He met her gaze frankly. "I'd be surprised if they didn't," he said. "There's no love lost between us. This is a practical arrangement only. I don't pretend it's any more than that. They need me, and they're willing to pay me well for my services. I'll get a share of all the booty they take out of Araluen."
"It must be daunting," she said, with a certain amount of genuine sympathy, "to view a future where you have no close friends, only companions created by necessity."