Douglas Niles: The Druid Queen

"Please, Alicia, reconsider! Sail with me to the north!" Brandon's arms held the princess against his brawny chest. Though the pressure of his grip was gentle, she felt suffocated, and gently she broke free.

Alicia looked up while the wind blew her bright golden hair back from her face. Her eyes of green searched the ice-blue gaze of the proud northman prince. Framed by high, proud cheekbones, her face tore at Brandon's heart so intensely that it hurt him to see it. At the same time, he found it absolutely impossible to look away.

Only a trace of this anguish showed on the sailing captain's own stern face. Dressed for sea, the northman had tied his long hair into twin braids, donning leather sandals to protect his feet. The day was warm, and so he wore merely a strap of bearskin across his loins.

"I must stay here in Corwell, at least for now, until Deirdre's better or…" She didn't want to voice the alternative.

"The goddess has a way of watching over her own, and your mother is the Earthmother's favored child. Deirdre is in very good hands." The words, soothingly spoken from behind her, told Alicia that Tavish had arrived at the waterfront. The princess felt a measure of relief as Brandon stepped back slightly, reluctant to display his feelings before anyone but his beloved.

The harpist wrapped an arm around Alicia's shoulders and pulled the younger woman close in a hug. Though Tavish neared sixty years of age, she remained as robust as, and a good deal stronger than, most women half her age. The bard's round face was split by her almost constant smile, her ever-present harp slung casually over her shoulder.

"It will be a delight to have music accompany our voyage," Brandon said, warming to the harpist's smile.

"And for my part, I look forward to seeing the lodges of the north again. I've always enjoyed the hospitality of Gnarhelm!"

"My father, I know, will be delighted with your return," the prince said sincerely. "King Kendrick couldn't hope for a more able ambassador!"

"Oh, I'm more of a tourist than an ambassador," the bard said modestly. Though she spoke the truth in bare fact, her presence in the northern kingdom would indeed serve to cement the bonds of peace that had survived for two decades between the disparate human cultures of the Moonshaes.

"Well, you two make your farewells," Tavish said genially. "I'll try to get myself loaded into the boat."

Beyond them, the Princess of Moonshae sat in the calm waters of Corwell Harbor. The planks of the graceful long-ship's hull had been scrubbed until they gleamed, the scrapes from her recent trials fully obliterated. Tavish crossed to the edge of the dock, where a small boat waited to take her and the captain out to the sleek vessel.

"Will her keel hold?" Alicia asked the prince, addressing Brandon's greatest concern during the past week.

"As strong as ever, and six inches wider in the beam!" The northman nodded, his mind reluctantly but inevitably turning to the longship that was his other great love. "But… your staff. Are you sure you want to leave your staff as part of the hull? I know it's a treasured artifact…."

"Yes … it's only right that the blessing of the goddess ride with the Princess of Moonshae," Alicia replied sincerely.

The enchanted shaft of wood, a druid's changestaff given to Alicia by her mother, had become a part of the great vessel when she used it to seal an otherwise fatal breach in the hull. Grown to the size of a small tree trunk, it remained wedged into a wide crack beside the longship's keel. Invisible to outside observation, it provided a smooth outer surface and a perfectly watertight seal beside the central timber of the hull. The ship had suffered grievous damage as Brandon captained the quest to rescue King Kendrick, and she couldn't help but feel that a gift of the staff would begin, in some small way, to restore the balance between her gratitude and guilt.

Yet all of her reflections, even her gift of the staff, Alicia knew, were simply means of avoiding the central issue confronting her now on this dock.

Tell him the truth, a voice whispered inside her head-a voice she forcefully ignored. She couldn't admit even to herself a fact that had slowly been growing in her heart and her mind: that she did not love this generous, handsome man who had risked his life and his ship to aid the rescue of her father.

She wanted to love him-indeed, a part of herself told her that she was obligated to love him. But neither of these altered the simple fact that she did not.

"I–I wish I could stay for the rest of the summer," Brandon said sincerely. "But my father must know of our safe return, and I have already been absent from my own kingdom for too long. You return to Callidyrr in the autumn?" concluded the prince.

"Always in the past we've left Corwell before the gales of Harvestide. I assume Father will want to do the same this year, but I'll send word to you about our plans. It's not as if you're sailing to the ends of the world!"

She wanted to speak lightly, but the words came out more harshly than she intended. She saw the hurt on Brandon's face and tried to ease it by taking his hand. "I will write," she promised.

He nodded glumly, then kissed her. She returned his embrace, but once again she relished a sense of freedom when he released her. Why can't I tell him? The question nagged at her, but she forced it away. She watched him step into the longboat that several kindly fisherffolk had provided. Tavish already sat near the bow, busily tuning the strings of her harp, though she stopped long enough to wave a cheery good-bye to the princess on the pier.

The Prince of Gnarhelm stood tall in the stern of the little boat as he was rowed to his proud longship. Alicia stood watching, waving finally as he climbed aboard the vessel. Wind quickly billowed the longship's sail, and the Princess of Moonshae turned her prow toward the gap in the breakwater. Smoothly she sliced through the waves, shrinking in size as Brandon set a course toward the mouth of Corwell Firth.

By that time, Alicia had already started back to the castle.

Keane saw that the house across from the shrine was indeed a magnificent residence. Set high upon the hill that protected the Upper City, it might have served as a palace to the monarch of some small state. Below swept a vista of the Lower City and its great, encircling arm of the Chionthar River, here widespread and placid, though it had another fifty miles of journey before it reached the sea.

A high wall of whitewashed stone surrounded and screened the grounds, but as he approached the steel-barred gate, Keane saw an expanse of fountains and formal gardens. Several cascading spumes of water splashed merrily, casting streams of spray through the crisp morning air. Detailed mosaics of colorful tile formed a wide walkway leading from the gate toward the columned portico before a grand manor. The house, as white as the walls, gleamed in the morning sunlight.

Though Keane could easily have teleported, levitated, or slipped invisibly into the compound, the nature of his business required him to make a more formal approach. Therefore the tall, lanky wizard wore his finest leather cape, a satin shirt of blue silk, and smooth, high-topped boots of soft doeskin.

A pair of guards in red livery snapped to attention behind the gate as the mage approached. Keane bowed politely before speaking.

"Is the Exalted Inquisitor present? I request the honor of an audience with him."

"The inquisitor is a very busy man," sniffed one of the guards, with a disdainful inspection of the magic-user's finery. "Whom shall we report is calling?"

"I am Keane of Callidyrr, serving as ambassador for His Majesty, High King Tristan Kendrick of the Moonshaes."