He turned to me, raising an eyebrow, a slight lift to one side of his mouth.
“So, you’re not impressed with her, then?”
I shrugged, struggling to put my feelings into words I was allowed to say. “She wasn’t doing particularly well under Eldon’s curse before Princess Celine turned up. She was just as enmeshed by it as everyone else, and rapidly losing herself to it. If it hadn’t been for Princess Celine, Princess Giselle would have been as helpless in the castle as the rest of them. I guess I’ve been waiting to see how she does without Princess Celine to help her.”
“And here’s your chance,” Philip said.
This time I didn’t manage to keep the wince internal. So far I had only succeeded in losing my entire party and making even me question if I really knew what being a princess was all about.
“You don’t think she’s doing well?” He watched me far too closely. “You blame her for the attack and the missing members of your party?”
I forced a smile. “It’s still early days. I suppose I’m just waiting to see how it all works out.”
“I hope you don’t blame yourself,” Philip said, a trace of concern in his voice. “It’s not your fault—or the princess’s either. The guards who survived said they only did so by running once you had all disappeared. They lost the battle, and running was the only thing that saved you all. There was nothing you could do—your attackers would have killed all of you if you’d stayed. One of the remaining guards hid in a tree and saw the enemy. They carted off their own dead rather than leave any clues to trace them. They clearly knew what they were doing.”
It took me a moment to assimilate these further details. It made sense they would have needed a cover story to account for the lack of actual attackers.
“You seem to know a lot about it,” I said after a moment.
He smiled, not in the least discomfited. “You know what it’s like in the servants’ wing of a palace. You’d have heard about it yourself except you’re still getting to know people.”
I wasn’t nearly as confident of that as he seemed to be. I was still something of an outsider among the servants, despite my enjoyment of their camaraderie. Being a princess might not be all about a life of luxury, but it seemed neither was being a servant merely about sharing the food and housing of one.
“They probably all think me terrifying,” I said flatly.
He chuckled. “Maybe some. But I suspect more were motivated to keep their silence by sympathy. No one wanted to be the one to bring you bad news about your traveling companions.” He paused. “But evidently you did hear the news. So you must be better connected than you fear.”
I looked away, toward the geese. Let him wonder where I heard the information. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him the truth. It seemed that, for some reason, he had decided I was mentally stable after all, and I didn’t want to disabuse him of the notion by mentioning Arvin as my source.
He lingered into the afternoon, telling me more tales of his boyhood, although I noticed he said little about his recent history and nothing about the tasks that should have been filling his day. He made no mention of the day before, either, or what he had done instead of eating with me.
I let him draw out a couple of tales of my own childhood, carefully choosing ones that gave no indication of my location or status. He confessed that he was also the baby of his family, which immediately explained a number of the scrapes he had gotten himself into. I had also trailed around after my older brother and sister, although I had far too much sense to attempt physical feats beyond my capability.
When I informed him of such, he laughed and told me I sounded just like his sisters.
“Women of depth and wisdom, I’m sure,” I told him gravely.
He laughed again. “They certainly like to think so. And I’m entirely happy to leave such things up to them.”
I rolled my eyes, before fixing him with an inquiring look. I didn’t want to drive him away, but I couldn’t refrain from asking any longer.
“Is today your half-day off?”
I flushed faintly when I realized how my question sounded. I had meant to probe about his daily activities, but I sounded as if I was asking if he had chosen to spend his free time with me.
“I don’t have regular half-days off,” he replied. “Since I work when I’m needed. So I’ve learned to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.”
It wasn’t exactly an answer to either my actual query or my inadvertent one, but I wasn’t going to push further.
“I should be getting back, though.” He pushed himself to his feet while I tried to decide if it was reluctance I could hear in his voice.
Sternly, I told myself that it didn’t matter. Philip didn’t appear to be connected in any way with Sierra, which meant I had no reason to engineer further time with him. The fact that the afternoon had been far more pleasant than I had imagined any day here being shouldn’t weigh with me.
After he left, I was abstracted, thoughts racing through my brain almost too fast to pin down. Just because Philip wasn’t working with Sierra didn’t mean no one else was. In fact, I knew that some at least of her traitorous guards had arrived at the palace. Were they staying with the Arcadian guards in the barracks?
The guards had their own mess hall, but there seemed to be plenty of off-duty interaction between them and the servants. Many of them had appeared at the first strains of music the other night. I tried to recall the faces of the guards who had traveled with us. Would I recognize them if I saw them in the dining hall?
Before I had the opportunity to consider the matter any further, one of the geese let out a loud honk, and the others quickly joined in, the cacophony growing in volume as many of them reared up and flapped their wings aggressively.
Chapter 9
I leaped up and spun, my staff gripped in front of me as I looked for the source of their alarm. It seemed too great a commotion for a single fox, although it was getting to the time of day when one might well appear.
Dark figures moved through the park, apparently having abandoned stealth in favor of speed when the geese sounded the alarm. They carried naked swords, and their attention was focused on me. I dropped instinctively into a defensive stance, my staff held out in front of me. But I could feel my awkwardness, my fingers longing for a sword.
I still had the knife in my boot, but the longer reach of the staff would serve me better now. There were three of them—and possibly more—and if they got close enough for me to use my knife, I was already lost.
As they approached closer, I glanced frantically around. The hour was late enough that no riders were in sight. Unfortunately, there was also no obvious shelter.
My eyes fell on a large rock, a short way behind me. It had a similar flat top to the rock I had sat on the first day in the park. I ran for it, willing to briefly expose my back for the advantage of higher ground.
Reaching it, I scrambled up, slipping on my skirts in my haste. I found my footing just as the first of the men reached me. He was swathed head to toe in black, a length of material wrapped around his face as well. He hesitated at the base of the rock, staring up at me.
Keeping my stance balanced, I struck out with the staff, whacking him across the side of the head. His sword, not positioned for an attack from above, was too slow to catch my staff. He swayed and dropped to a knee, cursing loudly and clutching his head with his free hand.