The Caravan Road (15 page)

             
Alec had not returned to Vincennes since Caitlen’s funeral, thirty years earlier, and the sights along the road began to bring back strong feelings of fond moments he had enjoyed with the princess who had become his wife, the empress.

             
“What troubles you, my lord?” Availlie asked as they entered the city gates, past heavy formations of guards.  The people in the streets looked poorer and more downtrodden to Alec than he had remembered the city’s residents looking during Caitlen’s reign.

             
“Tight security at the gates,” Alec observed as he pointed back behind them.

             
“Your plan will allow us to get past that though,” she pointed out.

             
“Oh, I agree, we’ll get past the guards, one way or another.  But a city shouldn’t have so many armsmen needed to control the traffic at the gates, unless it’s at war.  And Vincennes shouldn’t feel it’s at war with Valeriane at this point.”

             
They entered the city as sundown began, and didn’t reach the vicinity of the palace until long after dark.   “It’s a huge city, my lord,” Arden observed.  “How do they feed all these people?”

             
“The merchants bring in food on ships and wagons that come from all over the empire,” Alec replied, then pointed towards a nice hotel on the edge of the square they had entered.  “We’ll try to stay there.  We’re only two minutes away from the palace.  Let’s see what rooms are available.”

             
The innkeeper greeted them politely, and accepted Alec’s silver coins to secure three rooms for the night.  “You look familiar, my lord,” the innkeeper commented as he studied Alec’s face.

             
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Vincennes,” Alec evaded.

             
“My memory goes back a long way,” the innkeeper answered with a smile, tapping a finger against the gray hair at his temple.

             
“We’ll head to the dining room for dinner.  Would you like a bath brought to your room?” Alec turned to Availlie, seeking to change the topic.

             
Her eyebrows rose in surprise.  “If my lord feels I need to bathe, then I’ll do so,” she said with the same knowing smile she always shared with Alec, a smile that Alec found both friendly and enigmatic.

             
“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” Alec answered.  “I just know that many ladies of quality appreciate the opportunity to freshen up,” he explained.

             
“Your lord knows women well,” the innkeeper said in a loud aside to Arden.

             
“We’ll go wait in the dining room and relax,” Alec told Availlie.  “You come down when you’re ready.”

             
He didn’t really expect that Availlie would find the bath as relaxing as Caitlen, or Jeswyne, or even Bethany would have.  All had been ladies of the court, whereas Availlie was a warrior, a woman who Alec sensed seldom displayed her soft side.  “Come along Arden,” he directed his young follower, and they left the front desk as the innkeeper gave directions for the tub and buckets of hot water to be delivered to the lady’s room.  Alec looked back over his shoulder and saw Availlie looking at him from the bottom of the stairs, with another of the indecipherable expressions that so characterized her.

             
“You’ve never been in Vincennes before?” Alec asked Arden as they sat at a table.

             
“No, never,” Arden replied, as he ordered a pint of ale.  “Valeriane’s the biggest city I’d ever been in.  I’ve mostly stayed in Valer, or gone hunting in the mountains.”

             
He drank his ale hurriedly as soon as it was delivered, while Alec sipped redberry juice, and promptly ordered a second ale.

             
“Tomorrow, we’ll sneak into the palace, and go down to the prison cells in the basement.  I don’t suspect that they’re keeping a captive prince in a dungeon cell, but we need
to make sure.  We can question
the guards and find out where the prince is being held, then go find him,” Alec explained a few minutes later.

             
“You know the palace well enough to find your way around?” Arden asked owlishly, sloppily slamming his mug down on the table as he finished the third pint as quickly as the first two.

             
Alec looked at the boy and shook his head, knowing that the boy was learning a lesson the hard way.  He stopped talking, and watched as Arden slumped forward, and folded his arms on the table in front of him as his eyes closed.

             
“Come on, let’s get you up to your room,” Alec said, sliding an arm around Arden’s shoulders and raising him out of his seat; he regretted that he hadn’t said something to stop the boy.  He guided the young Ajax to the front desk and got the key to his room, then took him upstairs and put him in bed, lending a touch of healing energy so that the boy would not waken with too terrible a headache.

             
As he left the room, the door across the hall opened, and Availlie stepped out.  She’d managed to shed her military appearance to a degree that astounded Alec.  Her hair was unbound for the first time since he’d met her, and sprung out from her scalp.  She wore no sword or knives, nor even a jacket over her blouse.

             
“I have to tell you, that bath was amazingly relaxing,” Availlie spoke.  She reached over and gently took Alec’s arm.  “Since you’ve made the innkeeper believe I’m something that I’m not – a lady, the type of woman who would certainly carry no weapons! – you’ll have to continue the charade and escort me to the table.”

             
Alec grinned at the Ajax maiden.  “A lady is certainly capable of wielding weapons, and I suspect that there’s no charade involved in your case.  You strike me as a noble person, whether you have the title of nobility or not.”

They walked downstairs and into the dining room, taking their seats at the table.  Availlie raised her eyebrows.  “Where is our young companion?”

“He is indisposed this evening, and went to bed early,” Alec said without offering any clue about the self-imposed nature of the indisposition Arden suffered.

Availlie ordered white wine, while Alec continued with his redberry, and they dined on savory dishes cooked in the Vincennes way, with heavy use of seasonings and herbs.

“You know the palace well,” Availlie stated.  “What will be the most elegant part we pass through?”

Alec looked at her, thankful that she had broached a simple subject, one that would allow him to talk
with confidece
t in his facts.  He was feeling tongue-tied in a way he hadn’t felt in centuries, not since he was a young boy, as he looked at the beauty Availlie was displaying.

“We’ll not see many of the best features of the palace if we find the prince in the dungeons,” Alec replied.

“The stories in Valer say that you were married to the empress a century ago, and were ancient when you married her.  You look younger than I do.  What is the truth?  Is it the Sleagh Maith blood that you carry?”  she asked.

“I have lived many lifetimes of men,” Alec agreed, not wanting to say that he believed he was over four hundred years old, not while talking to this woman tonight.  He’d not felt any interest in a woman since Caitlen’s death.  “My body does heal itself, as the Sleagh Maith do,” he agreed.

“Would you like a sip of my wine?  It’s very good.  It goes well with the fish,” Availlie held her flagon towards Alec, so that the impression of her lips upon the glass rim was poised closest to him, and gently caressed his lips as she slid the vessel to his mouth and tilted a refreshing stream between his lips.

“Let me order a glass for you to enjoy on your own,” she motioned for the waiter, and held her glass up for him to see the need.  “So you do not dispute that you look younger than I do?” she gave Alec an arch smile.

“I would say that your beauty is timeless,” Alec tried to find a gallant answer, knowing that he had fallen into a trap.  He recollected an experience with Caitlen, when he had changed her hair color to make her look more mature, then heard her complain that people thought she was older than him.  Alec reached over to place his hand on Availlie’s forearm, letting a particular stream of his healing energy remove the delicate wrinkles from her face, as well as darken her hair, unbeknownst to her, restoring the color of her youth, which he discovered to be a rich chestnut.

“Let’s ask the waiter who looks older,” he suggested, and motioned the man over again.

The waiter did a double-take at the sudden appearance of the dark-haired lady who sat where the silver-haired woman had sat before.

“Tell us, who looks older,” Alec asked the man.  “And be honest.  There will be no hard feelings.”

“Clearly my lord, this young woman is not as old as you, not that you look more than hale and in your prime,” the waiter said.  Alec flipped a coin to the man.  “Well stated.  You’re a natural diplomat, I can tell.”

“He’s a clever man, there’s no doubt,” Availlie agreed, “though truth isn’t necessarily a part of any man’s composition.”

The waiter bowed and departed.  “Such a cynic!” Alec stated as he sipped the wine the waiter had brought for him.   “What experience have you lived through to give you such a sour taste for men?”

“Only life,” Availlie answered, holding her own glass in front of her mouth, showing no evidence of her feelings.

Her right hand left the glass to swat at something that distracted her from the corner of her eye, and her fingers drifted through the air, then drifted back.  She swatted again, her fingers again stirring through empty air, then returning.  A third time she sought to dismiss the dark movement in the corner of her eye, and her fingers came to pinch a strand of her newly darkened hair, pulling it forward into her field of vision.

Her left hand continued to hold the wine glass in
the
air in front of her face, slowly drifting downward as she focused all her attention on the long tress of brown hair that her fingers caressed above her shoulder.  After several long seconds, the left hand brought the wine glass back to her mouth as she continued to stare at the hair, and she unknowingly gulped down the contents of the glass.

“How did that happen?  How did this happen?  Did you do this?” she asked, without looking at Alec.

“When I was younger, when my hair was still dark, I had suitors.  I had many suitors.  I was considered something of a catch.  I was sure that I was better than all of them, and sometimes I proved it on the practice mats,” she seemed to be speaking to herself.

“Then my hair started to change, and it happened quite rapidly – just a couple of months was all it took.  And when I woke up in the morning and looked at my silver hair I didn’t feel any different; I was still the very same person.  I liked the same flowers and ate the same cake for dessert, and I treated everyone else just the same,” she let the hair drop, and turned to look at Alec again.

“But the men who had followed me no longer came to see me.  Not the same men.  Not the men I secretly wanted to come see me.  Instead they stayed acquaintances, when we happened to see each other, and other men started coming more often, men who I thought I was too good for.

“And after a while, as I refused them and waited for the right men to approach me, it came to happen that no men came any more.  So then, left without a mate, all my time and all my attention was focused on being the captain of the Select.”

Alec listened to the wistfulness in her voice, and he reached out with his Spiritual energy to feel the loneliness in her soul, and the embarrassment she felt in revealing herself to him.

I think we are all lonely sometimes, and as you suspect, it is only because we lock ourselves away from the companions that await us in this world
, he spoke from his soul to hers, without touching her, sharing his sympathy.  The wine, he realized, had made him less inhibited about expressing himself to her, and had led him to reveal the Spiritual ability to communicate under circumstances in which he ordinarily wouldn’t do so.

“It truly was you, wasn’t it?” Availlie asked out loud.  “You are the one who had all the talents needed to defeat Hellmann, I forgot.  You can change my hair, my very body, you can place yourself inside my mind.  I’m just a puppet for you to play with, aren’t I?”

“I apologize for entering your mind,” Alec spoke.  “You are the farthest thing from a puppet; on the contrary, you are one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a long, long time.”

They each picked at the food in front of them as the waiter came back to their table and poured more wine in their empty glasses.

“It is just as you said a minute ago.  You are still the same person you were before, regardless of the color of your hair.  You are a lonely but very self-sufficient person.  All those men who stopped following you because your hair color changed – the greater loss was theirs for not having you as a part of their lives.

“I’ll be happy to change your hair color back if you like,” he said, and raised his hand to touch her, to make the switch.  “It looks nice with the way you’ve loosened it, instead of keeping it bound so tightly.”