Princess Annie (32 page)

Annie lingered while the crowd reluctantly dispersed. Finally, only the magistrate, the jurors, Rafael and Mr. Barrett remained. While Annie did not think it would be appropriate to approach the prince just then, she couldn’t bring herself to leave his range of vision, either. It might have been nothing more than romantic whimsy on her part, but she felt that somehow her presence encouraged Rafael, and even lent him strength.

Seeing that her mistress wouldn’t be moved, Kathleen found chairs for them both. They sat in silence while the judge and jurors conferred among themselves. Rafael and Mr. Barrett stood a little apart, listening but offering no comment.

Within the hour, a decision was reached and, though Annie and Kathleen were too far away to hear what it was, Rafael’s expression was grim as he took it in. He nodded and then the small group separated and dispersed.

As Rafael approached, Annie rose from her chair.

Kathleen squeezed Annie’s hand and said, “I’ll be in the chapel, miss.” With that, she hurried out.

Annie swallowed, searching Rafael’s face as he drew nearer. Most probably, there would have been no trial if she and Phaedra hadn’t defied the rules and gone to the marketplace that afternoon. Annie felt a certain remorse for that, although the raid would surely have taken place anyway. In that event, of course, Covington and the others would most likely have escaped punishment.

Finally, Rafael stood in front of her. She wanted to touch him, but resisted the urge and simply waited for him to speak.

“Covington and most of the other men will be held in the dungeons for six months or until the keep is taken over by the rebels, whichever comes first,” he said, in a grave, hollow tone. “Maitland will be sentenced to hang for the murder of the student.”

Annie squeezed her eyes shut for an instant against the images her imagination readily provided, but it didn’t help. She could envision Maitland swinging from a gallows too easily, and knowing that Rafael half-expected to meet the same fate at some point made the thought still worse.

She and Rafael had not discussed his views on the subject of capital punishment, but she sensed that he had serious reservations. “Will you permit the sentence to be carried out?”

Rafael shoved a hand through his already rumpled and somewhat shaggy hair. Annie had the peculiar thought that the prince would need barbering, if he wanted to present a proper appearance at his sister’s wedding. “I have no choice,” he said. “The decision was the peoples’ to make, and they’ve done so.”

Annie was again prompted to touch Rafael, and this time she did, laying her fingers lightly to his cheek. “I’m so sorry that all this is happening,” she said, in a broken whisper. “It must be like wandering in a nightmare.”

He smiled solemnly and turned his head just far enough to kiss her palm, and she felt the now-familiar shock of pleasure race through her bloodstream. “It will pass, Annie,” he replied. And then he stepped back a little way, a wry expression sparkling in his eyes as he took in her servants’garb. “I do believe you are a peasant at heart, for all the money and prestige that accompany the name of Trevarren.”

The sound Annie made was part laugh and part sob; she wanted to fling herself into Rafael’s arms and beg him to forget Bavia and go away with her. She knew he couldn’t grant her wish, though, so she refrained. “Yes,” she said instead. “I guess we Americans are all peasants, at our roots, whether or not we have money.”

Rafael took her arm, and they walked together into the sunlight that splashed over the courtyard and made a spray of diamonds of the water spewing from the fountain. They sat down on the familiar bench, both oblivious to the soldiers, crofters and wedding guests moving busily around them.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you about the fever,” Rafael began, and when Annie started to protest that she was in no danger, he stopped her with a raised hand. “I know better than to tell you to stay away from the village,” he said, with good-natured resignation. “What I want is your assessment of the situation.”

Annie felt a rush of pride, for in her experience, men seldom asked for a woman’s“assessment” of anything. She considered the facts carefully before answering. “The fever doesn’t appear to be fatal. People come down with it quickly, but they also recover in good time. What worries me is the lack of sanitation facilities in the village—there are open pits of sewage, and that could result in another and much more serious epidemic.”

Rafael listened intently, as he would to Mr. Barrett or to his advisors, and Annie was deeply moved. She believed that he loved her, though he might not have realized that yet, and he had treated her with respect for the most part. This was something more than courtesy, however, and Annie cherished it.

“The men can shovel lye into the pits and build temporary latrines farther from the village,” he said. He smiled, looking up at the towering keep and narrowing his splendid eyes against the bright sunlight. “In times of old,” he confided, “the facilities were suspended over the moat.”

Annie shuddered, but his smile was still infectious, if a bit wan, so she returned it. “So there were no alligators guarding the castle, like in fairy tales?”

Rafael gave a comical shudder. “In that water? Even sea monsters couldn’t have lived in that stuff, Princess.”

There was a sweetness in simply sitting in the sun with Rafael, and talking of silly things, that made Annie’s heart ache. The memory of that interlude would be, Annie knew, as precious to her as those of their lovemaking.

Her eyes brimmed with tears, though she refused to let her smile falter. “Being here, in this keep—it’s like traveling back in time or slipping into the tale of some medieval troubadour. What’s happening to us now couldn’t occur anywhere else on earth.”

Rafael took her hand, almost shyly, as though he had never touched her intimately with those same fingers, never driven her into a delirium of pleasure with his caresses. “Therein lies the problem,” he said, in a sad voice. “The days of castles and kings are over. The world is changing, Annie, in ways you and I can’t begin to guess. And Bavia has no place in modern society.”

Annie felt another swell of emotion. Rafael was right—progress was inevitable. Still, Annie didn’t like to think of a world with no castles and kings—and no princes. “It doesn’t seem fair,” she said at last, in a soft and tremulous voice. “There are still dragons, after all. And evil knights. They simply come in different guises now.”

Rafael smiled and kissed the tip of her nose, and the gesture, innocent as it was, sent a soft, unruly passion spinning through Annie’s being. “That’s true of princesses, too,” he said. “Some of them dress like servants and insist on looking after ailing peasants, but they have royal hearts all the same.”

Too soon, the enchantment was broken.

A clamor of excitement exploded within the keep, overshadowing and then drowning out the normal din of creaking wagon wheels, horses’ hooves on the cobblestones, swords clashing as soldiers practiced for war. Even before Edmund Barrett bounded into the courtyard, Rafael was on his feet.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“There’s a rebel battalion on its way, Your Highness, riding bold as brass along the coast road!”

Rafael turned to Annie and she braced herself, expecting him to order her into hiding and therefore ruin the effect of having asked her opinion, just minutes earlier, about the fever raging in the village. He took her elbow and spoke in a low, earnest voice.

“This will probably be nothing more than a minor skirmish, if there’s any fighting at all,” he said, “but if things go wrong, will you look after Phaedra? I don’t have to tell you that she isn’t strong or particularly courageous, despite all the mischief.”

Annie felt a spilling sensation in the region of her heart. She nodded and, though she wanted to touch Rafael’s face or only his arm, she refrained. She was afraid such a contact might weaken him, and for the same reason, she refused to cry.

With that, Rafael turned and strode away with Mr. Barrett, toward one of several sets of stone stairs that led to the battlements. Annie watched their progress, shading her eyes with one hand. Soon, they disappeared into one of the towers.

Annie watched soldiers scurrying back and forth along the parapets for a few moments, wishing with her whole heart that she could see what they saw from their high vantage point. She bit her lip, hands resting on her hips, as she pondered the situation.

Following Rafael and Mr. Barrett up the stairs was out of the question; she would only be underfoot on the battlements, where everyone had a task to perform. Still, she wanted to see the approaching rebels and gauge the danger in her own mind.

Her gaze strayed to the abandoned tower she’d climbed once before, with its crumbling ledge and long, narrow windows. Since the coastal road and the lake lay in opposite directions, there would be no need to venture out onto the parapet this time; she’d be able to see plainly without endangering herself.

Determined, Annie set off for the oldest part of the keep, going unnoticed in all the excitement and confusion, and within five minutes she was hurrying along the passageway toward the tower steps. Breathless with haste, she burst into the round, shadowy chamber, pausing just over the threshold to collect herself. As her eyes adjusted to the change of light, she made out the shapes of objects, which was odd, since she was certain the room had been empty before.

“Hello?” she inquired.

No one answered, but the shapes Annie had seen before solidified into recognizable articles—a pile of blankets, a basket, a water jug and a crude wooden basin. She took a step nearer, crouched and raised the cloth that covered the contents of the basket to see brown bread, cheese and several apples beneath.

For a few moments, Annie’s curiosity was such that she forgot the rebels riding toward the keep. Someone was obviously living in that room, but why would anyone want such Spartan accommodations, when the castle had more bedchambers than most grand hotels?

Annie rose to her feet, frowning, the answer only too clear in her mind. Whoever was using that chamber was doing so because they did not want to be seen.

She glanced uneasily toward the doorway, but it was empty. Though Annie strained her ears, all she heard was the distant shouts of Rafael’s soldiers and the heavy thudding of her own heartbeat. She went to the window and peered out. For an instant, the dazzling dance of sunlight on the blue-green sea practically blinded her. She blinked and then shivered, certain that the unknown occupant of the tower chamber would return while she had her back to the door.

Annie drew a deep breath and let it out slowly in an effort to calm herself. Then, after only one furtive glance back over her shoulder, she turned her attention to the rebels riding along the ancient track that wound beside the sea. There were over a hundred of them, by her estimate, and while they were plainly a ragtag bunch, most were mounted. Even from that distance, Annie could see that they were armed with rifles and sabers, and several cannon-bearing caissons rolled behind the troops, drawn by mules.

Bitterness burned the back of Annie’s throat, and she swallowed. The walls of St. James Keep were ancient, and there were surely weak places, easily found if one simply walked or rode along the outer perimeter. Her imagination was vivid, and she could picture the cannons aligned on a hillside, hammering away at the old stones until they gave way.

She thought of the secret gate and the cave that lay beyond it. If she, on an afternoon’s lark, had uncovered the passage with such ease, surely a clever rebel could do the same from the outside.

Annie knew, with the clarity of hindsight, that she should have told Rafael about her discovery, so that guards might have been posted, or the gate sealed. In all the excitement, however, she’d never gotten around to mentioning what she’d found.

She went to another window and tried to see the gate, but her view was obscured by the trees in the orchard. As far as she could tell, there were no rebels advancing on the keep from that direction, but they might have been creeping along the outer wall instead of riding boldly down the road like their counterparts.

Gnawing at her lower lip, Annie tilted her head back to gaze up at the conical ceiling, wondering if she’d be able to see farther from the roof of the tower. There were plenty of cracks and crevices in the stone walls, she recalled, that would serve well enough as handholds. If she could just scramble up the roof and get a good grip on the spire …

Annie shook her head, dismissing her own thoughts. The last time she’d made an attempt like that, she’d been fine one moment and frozen with fear in the next, and Rafael had risked his life to save her. There was no rescuer at hand, should her courage fail again—indeed, her folly would probably go undiscovered until after she’d fallen and splattered herself all over the courtyard like an overripe tomato.

The thought of it made Annie wince. She turned away from the window and caught a fleeting glimpse of a small, robed figure standing in the doorway.

“Wait!” she cried, and dashed across the dusty floor. From the stairs, she heard someone running lightly along the passage, but by the time Annie reached the opening, the visitor had vanished. He or she could be behind any of the dozen doors lining that particular hall, and Annie knew all the chambers were abandoned. She had no wish to pursue the tower resident through curtains of cobwebs and the nests of rats.

She put the experience on a mental list of things to mention to Rafael and soon forgot it. By the time Annie gained the main courtyard, it was jammed with those residents of the keep who had not been felled by the fever or pressed to man the battlements. According to Kathleen, who soon materialized at Annie’s side, the rebels had ridden right up to the base of the drawbridge, which hadn’t been raised or lowered in two hundred years. Even now the rebel soldiers were training their cannons on the entrance of St. James Keep.

Annie squinted, searching the battlements for Rafael. She soon spotted him looking down upon the walkway above the great wooden gates, and even at that distance, with his back turned to her, she read controlled fury in the angle of his head and every line and sinew of his body. He shouted something to the would-be invaders which Annie found unintelligible and the rebel leader replied in kind, his voice ringing with defiance.