CHAPTER FOUR

She stared out of her bedroom window at the moonlit desert. Shadows drifted across the pale sand, from one shaded hollow to the next clump of dry brush. Almost she could pretend the shadows had direction, intention. It was a game she often played. She ought to be in bed; she heard two o'clock strike. The location and acoustics of the big clock that stood in the front hall were such that it could be heard throughout the large house it presided over—probably even in the servants' quarters, although she had never had occasion to find out and didn't quite dare ask. She had often wondered if it was perversity or accident—and for whatever reason, why wasn't it changed?—that the clock should so be located as to force the knowledge of the passing of time upon everyone in the Residency, every hour of every day. Who would want to know the time when one couldn't sleep?

She had had insomnia badly when she was fresh from Home. It had never occurred to her that she would not be able to sleep without the sound of the wind through the oak trees outside her bedroom at Home; she had slept admirably aboard the ship, when apprehensions about her future should have been thickest. But the sound of the ceaseless desert air kept her awake night after night. There was something about it too like speech, and not at all like the comfortable murmur of oak leaves.

But most of that had worn off in the first few weeks here. She had had only occasional bad nights since then. Bad? she thought. Why bad? I rarely feel much the worse the next day, except for a sort of moral irritability that seems to go with the feeling that I ought to have spent all those silent hours asleep.

But this last week had been quite as bad—as sleepless—as any she had known. The last two nights she had spent curled up in the window-seat of her bedroom; she had come to the point where she couldn't bear even to look at her bed. Yesterday Annie, when she had come to waken her, had found her still at the window, where she had dozed off near dawn; and, like the placid sensible maid that she was, had been scandalized. Apparently she had then had the ill grace to mention the matter to Lady Amelia, who, in spite of all the alarums and excursions of the week past, had still found time to stop at Harry's room just at bedtime, and cluck over her, and abjure her to drink some nice warm milk (Milk! thought Harry with revulsion, who had given it up forever at the age of twelve, with her first grown-up cup of tea), and make her promise to try to sleep—as if that ever had anything to do with it—and ask her if she was sure she was feeling quite well.

"Very well, ma'am," Harry replied.

Lady Amelia looked at her with concern. "You aren't fidgeting yourself about, mmm, last week, are you?"

Harry shook her head, and smiled a little. "No, truly, I am in excellent health." She thought of the end of a conversation she had heard, two days past, as Dedham and Peterson left Sir Charles' study without noticing her presence in the hall behind them. " … don't like it one bit," Peterson was saying.

Dedham ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped head and remarked, half-humorously, "You know, though, if in a month or a year from now, one of those Hillfolk comes galloping in on a lathered horse and yells, 'The pass! We are overwhelmed!' I'm going to close up the fort and go see about it with as many men as I can find, and worry about reporting it later." The front door had closed behind the two of them, and Harry proceeded thoughtfully on her way.

"I hope you are not sickening for anything, child," said Lady Amelia; "your eyes seem overbright." She paused, and then said in a tone of voice that suggested she was not sure this bit of reassurance was wise, as perhaps it would aggravate a nervous condition instead of soothing it: "You must understand, my dear, that if there is any real danger, you and I will be sent away in time."

Harry looked at her, startled. Lady Amelia misread her look, and patted her hand. "You mustn't distress yourself. Sir Charles and Colonel Dedham will take care of us."

Yesterday Harry had managed to corner Jack when he came again to closet himself with Sir Charles for long mysterious hours. Harry had lurked in the breakfast room till Jack emerged, looking tired. His look lightened when he saw her, and he greeted her, "Good morning, my dear. I see a gleam in your eye; what bit of arcane Damarian lore do you wish to wrest from me today?"

"What was it exactly that you said to Corlath that morning, just as he left?" replied Harry promptly.

Jack laughed. "You don't pull your punches, do you?" He sobered, looking at her quizzically. "I don't know that I should tell you—"

"But—"

"But I will. In the days of Damar's civil wars, a man pledged himself so, to his king, or to the particular claimant he wished to support. It was a particularly dangerous and unsettled time, and so the ritual swearing to one's leader meant rather a lot—more, for example, than our Queen's officers taking an oath to her, as we all must do. The phrase still carries weight in Hill tradition … but you see, my giving it to Corlath was a trifle, hmm, unprofessional of me, as Homelander protecting the Homelander Border from Corlath. A calculated risk on my part … " He shrugged. "I hoped to indicate that not all Homelanders are … unsympathetic to the Free Hillfolk, whatever the official attitude is."

Harry lay down in her detestable bed after Lady Amelia left her, and dozed, after a fashion, till midnight; but then the darkness and peacefulness wakened her, and she came again to her window-seat to watch the night pass.

Two-thirty. How black the sky was around the stars; nearer the horizon were longer flatter glints in the darkness, unsuitable for stars, and these were the mountains; and the desert was shades of grey. Without realizing it, she drifted into sleep.

There was the Residency, stolid and black in the moonlight. Faran and Innath would stay here, with the horses; it was not safe to take them any nearer. He would go the rest of the way on foot. Safe! He grinned sourly behind the safety of the grey hood pulled over his face, and slid into the shadows. The adventure was upon them, for good or ill.

"Sola, not an Outlander," Faran had begged, almost tearfully; and Corlath had flushed under his sun-darkened skin. There had been certain romantic interludes in the past that had included galloping across the desert at night; but he had never abducted any woman whose enthusiastic support for such a plan had not been secured well in advance. Corlath's father had been a notorious lover of women; unsuspected half-brothers and half-sisters of the present king still turned up occasionally, which kept the subject in everyone's mind. Corlath sometimes thought that his own policy of discretion in such matters only made his people nervous because they didn't know what was going on—or if anything was. For some time now there hadn't been, but by the gods, did his own Riders really expect him to break out by making an ass of himself over an Outlander—and now of all times?

But, on the other hand, he could not well explain his reasons—even to himself—although his determination was fixed, as he had unhappily realized the moment the words were out of his mouth. But he hated to see his people unhappy—because he was a good king, not because he was a nervous one—and so, while he could rightfully have told Faran to let it be, he had given as much of an answer as he could.

"This is an affair of state," he said slowly, because he could not quite bring himself to say that his kelar was concerning itself with an Outlander, even to his Riders, who were his dearest friends as well as his most trusted subjects. "The girl will be a prisoner of honor, treated with all honor, by me as well as by you."