Oakleaf Bearers

24

E VANLYN HAD BEEN WAITING FOR H ALT AND W ILL TO LEAVE Ragnak's War Council. As the two gray-cloaked figures, in company with the burly Jarl Erak, emerged from the Great Hall and walked across the open ground that fronted it, she started forward to intercept them. Then she stopped, uncertain how to proceed. She had been hoping that Will might come out by himself. She didn't want to approach him in front of Erak and Halt.

Evanlyn was bored and miserable. Worse, she was feeling useless. There was nothing specific she could do to contribute to the defense of Hallasholm, nothing to keep her mind occupied. Will had obviously become part of the inner circle of the Skandian leadership, and even when he wasn't in meetings with Halt and Erak, he was off practicing with his bow. It sometimes seemed that he used his practice sessions to avoid her. She felt a little flare of anger as she recalled his reaction when she asked him to teach her to shoot. He'd laughed at her!

Horace was no better. Initially, he'd been happy to keep her company. But then, seeing Will constantly practicing, he'd felt guilty and began spending time on the practice field himself, honing his own skills with a small group of Skandian warriors.

It was all Will's fault, she thought.

Now, as she watched him talking with his old teacher, and saw the two of them stop as Will made a point, she realized with a sense of sadness that there was a part of Will's life from which she would always be excluded. Young as he was, he was already a part of the mysterious, close-knit Ranger clan. And Rangers, she had been told since she was a small child, kept themselves to themselves. Even her father the King had been frustrated from time to time by the closemouthed nature of the Ranger Corps. As the realization hit home, she turned sadly away, leaving the two Rangers, master and apprentice, to their discussion with the Skandian jarl.

Morosely, she kicked at a stone on the ground in front of her. If only there were something for her to do!

She stood uncertainly, undecided about where to go next. She turned abruptly to see if Will and Halt were still where she'd last seen them. They had moved on, but her sudden turn brought her into unexpected eye contact with a familiar, though unwelcome, figure.

Slagor, the thin-lipped, shifty-eyed wolfship captain whom she had first seen on the rocky, windswept island of Skorghijl, had just emerged from one of the smaller buildings that flanked Ragnak's Great Hall. He stood now, staring after her. There was something in his look that made her uncomfortable. Something knowing, something that boded ill for her. Then, as he realized she had seen him, he turned away, walking quickly into the dark-shadowed alleyway between the two buildings. She frowned to herself. There had been something suspicious about the Skandian's manner, she thought. Half because she wanted to know more, and half because she was bored, with nothing constructive to do, she set out after him.

There had been something in the way he looked at her that told her it might be better if he didn't know she was following him. She moved to the end of the alley and peered cautiously around, just catching sight of him as he turned right at the rear of the building. She paralleled his path, moving cautiously to the next alley, pausing, then peering around again. Once more, she caught a quick glimpse of Slagor and she guessed from his general direction that he was heading for the quays, where the wolfships docked. Realizing that her own actions might appear highly suspicious, she glanced quickly around to see if anyone might be watching her. Apparently not, she decided. Still, she crossed back to the far side of the street before following in the pursuit of the wolfship skirl.

As she slid unobtrusively from building to building, she saw him several more times, confirming her first impression that he was heading for the docks. That was logical. Presumably his ship was among the fleet moored there. Probably Slagor had some ship's business to attend to, she thought. The suspicious manner that she had noticed was probably nothing more than his normal shifty-eyed demeanor.

Then she cast the doubts aside. There had been something else: something knowing. Something calculating.

Evanlyn was, naturally, constantly aware of her precarious position here in Hallasholm. Ragnak might have no interest in punishing a recaptured slave. But if her real identity were to become known, his reaction was a foregone conclusion. He had vowed to kill any member of the Araluen royal family. Now it seemed important to her to find out what had been behind Slagor's look. She quickened her pace and hurried down one of the narrow connecting alleys, emerging in the broad waterfront thoroughfare that Slagor had taken.

He was twenty meters ahead of her as she peered cautiously around the end of the building. His back was turned and she realized that he had no idea that she had been following him. To the left, the masts of the moored wolfships formed a forest of bare poles, bobbing and swaying with the movement of the water. On the right of the street were a series of waterfront taverns. It was toward one of these that Slagor was hurrying now, she realized.

Some instinct made her ease into a doorway as the skirl reached the tavern entrance. It was as well she did, for he turned and looked back the way he had come, apparently checking to see if anyone had followed him. She frowned to herself as she shrank into the shadows of the doorway. Why should Slagor be nervous, here in the middle of Hallasholm? Certainly he was one of the less popular wolfship captains, but it was unlikely that anyone would actually do him harm. There was obviously something going on, she thought, and she determined to get to the bottom of it. Close by, moored to one of the timber quays, she saw Slagor's ship, Wolf Fang. She recognized it by the distinctive carved figurehead. No two wolfships had the same figurehead and she remembered this one all too well from the day when Wolf Fang had come limping into the anchorage at Skorghijl. With it had come the news of Ragnak's Vallasvow against her father and herself, so she had good reason to remember the grotesquely carved icon.

For a moment, she hesitated in the doorway. Then, the door behind her opened and two Skandian women emerged, shopping baskets in hand. They stared at the stranger on their doorstep and she hurriedly apologized and moved away. Behind her, she heard the angry comments of the women as they headed for the market square. She was too obvious here, she realized. Any moment, Slagor might emerge from the tavern and see her. She glanced uncertainly at the ship, then came to a decision and, moving at a half run, she made her way down the waterfront to the quay where Wolf Fang was moored. It was reasonable to assume that Slagor might come here eventually, and then she might get an inkling of what he was up to.

There was an anchor watch aboard, of course. But it was just one man and he was at the stern, leaning on the bulwark and staring at the harbor and the sea beyond. Crouching below the level of the high prow, she approached the ship and vaulted lightly over the railing, her soft-shod feet making virtually no sound as she landed on the planks of the deck. She dropped immediately into the rowing well, set below the main deck, where the rowing crew would normally sit to wield their heavy, white oak oars. The area was deserted at the moment, and she was concealed from the sight of the solitary guard at the stern. But it was only a temporary hiding place and she looked now for a better one.

Right at the prow of the ship was a small triangular space, screened by a canvas flap. It was large enough to accommodate her if she crouched, and she moved quickly into it now, letting the canvas screen fall back into place behind her. She found herself sitting on coils of stiff, coarse rope, and something hard jabbed into her side. Shifting to a better position, she realized that it had been the fluke of the anchor, and the coils of heavy rope were the anchor cable. With the ship moored alongside the quay, they weren't in use. This would be as good a hiding place as any, she thought. Then she wondered if she might not be wasting her time here. Odds were that Slagor had simply come this way to visit the tavern and that after he'd drunk his fill of the harsh spirits the Skandians favored, he'd probably head on back to his lodge.

She shrugged morosely. She had nothing better to do with her time. She might as well give it an hour or so and see if anything transpired. What that anything might be, she really had no idea. She'd followed Slagor on an impulse. Now, following the same impulse, she was crouched here, waiting to see what she might overhear if and when he came aboard.

It was warm in the confines of the forepeak and, once she'd moved a few of the coils, the rope made a relatively comfortable resting place. She wriggled herself into a better position and rested her chin on her elbows, peering through a small gap in the canvas to see if anything was happening outside. She felt the footsteps of the sentry as he crossed to the landward side of the ship, giving up his scrutiny of the harbor, and heard him call to someone on the shore. There was an answering voice but the words were too muffled for her to make out. Probably just a casual greeting to a passing friend, she reasoned. She yawned. The warmth was making her drowsy. She hadn't slept well the night before, thinking about Will and how their friendship seemed to be eroding with every passing day. She tried to dislike Halt, blaming him for the sudden estrangement between them. But she couldn't. She liked the small, roughly bearded Ranger. There was a dry sense of humor about him that appealed to her. And after all, he had rescued her from the Temujai reconnaissance party. She sighed. It wasn't Halt's fault. Nor Will's. It was just the way things were, she guessed. Rangers were different to other people. Even princesses.

Especially princesses.

She woke suddenly, thinking she was falling. She hadn't realized that she'd drifted off to sleep, lying here on the coils of rope. But she knew what had woken her. The deck beneath her had dropped suddenly as Wolf Fang heaved herself into a short head sea. Now she could hear the creak and thump of the oars in their rowlocks and she realized, with a terrible sinking feeling, that Wolf Fang had put to sea and she was trapped on board.