John Flanagan - The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

'I'm not a planner,' he had said to himself. 'I'm a doer.'

Today, Halt and the Arridi Wakir were supervising the placement of the retaining wall Selethen had suggested. Evanlyn was cloistered in another long discussion with Shigeru. The Emperor was interested in learning about the social structure in Araluen. It was a far less oppressive hierarchy than the one that had existed in Nihon-Ja for centuries and he thought he might be able to use it as a model for his new society.

Horace and Alyss, finding themselves with no pressing duties, had taken the opportunity to have a few hours off together. The two were old friends. They had grown up together as orphans in the Ward at Castle Redmont and they were at ease in each other's company. They had taken their midday meal to a rock outcrop above the valley, where they could relax and look down upon all the work going on. The sounds of hammering and sawing, and the cries of the Senshi drill masters, mingled together and drifted to them.

'You know,' Horace said, 'when we were riding home from Macindaw that time, I thought I was going to have to take you two and knock your heads together. It was so obvious that there was something going on and neither of you would admit it.' He smiled at the memory. He was delighted with the relationship that had developed between Alyss, whom he thought of as a sister, and Will, his best friend.

'Yes,' Alyss said, 'each of us was afraid to say anything in case the other person didn't feel the same way.'

Horace laughed quietly at the memory. 'Trouble is, you two think too much. I said that at the time. I believe if you feel that way about someone, you should just come out and say it.'

'Is that right?' Alyss said and Horace nodded, doing his best to look wise and knowledgeable.

'Always the best plan,' he said definitely.

'So, how're things between you and the princess?' Alyss asked abruptly and was delighted to see that Horace's face went a shade of pink as he hesitated to answer.

'Well…ah…what do you mean, me and the princess?' he managed to blurt out after a few seconds. But the hesitation told Alyss all she needed to know.

'Oho!' she said. 'I thought as much. Why, she could barely keep her hands off you when we first arrived! She was all over you like a coat of paint.'

'She was not!' Horace insisted.

'Oh, come on! I'm not blind. She went rushing to you, threw her arms around you and hugged you.'

'So did you,' Horace pointed out but she waved that aside.

'I didn't re-crack any of your ribs,' she said. 'Besides, do you think it's completely normal for the Crown Princess to set off across the world on a quest to find one knight who's gone missing?'

He dropped his gaze and she saw a shy grin forming on his face.

'Well, maybe, since you put it that way…'

Alyss hooted with delight. 'So there is something between you! I knew it! I told Will but he wouldn't believe it.'

'Well, let's not make too much noise about it, all right?' Horace said. 'It mightn't come to anything. It's just that, before I left Araluen, we had been…seeing quite a bit of each other.'

'I guess that's why Duncan sent you away,' she teased and was instantly sorry when she saw the doubt cloud his face.

'Do you think so? That did occur to me. After all, she's the princess and I'm a nobody…'

She took his arm and shook it, annoyed with herself for putting this doubt in his mind.

'Horace! You are definitely not a nobody! How could you say that? Duncan would be happy to have you paying court to his daughter!'

'But I was an orphan. I've got no noble background…' he began but she cut him off.

'Duncan doesn't care about that! He's no snob. And you are a hero, don't you realise? You're the foremost young knight in the Kingdom. He'd be delighted to have you as a son-in-law.'

Now panic flared in Horace's eyes at her words. 'Whoa! Not so fast! His son-in-law? Who said anything about being his son-in-law?'

'It was just a passing thought,' Alyss said. 'Figure of speech. Nothing more than that.' Horace relaxed a little but she smiled inwardly. If Horace seriously had no thoughts in that direction, he would have simply laughed off the idea. I knew it, she thought. I wonder if he knows it too?

Looking for a way to change the subject, Horace cast around and his gaze lit on Will. The young Ranger was lower down the valley, sitting on the ground, deep in conversation with a group of the older Kikori.

'What's he up to?' he asked.

There was a lot of gesticulating and sketching on the ground with sticks. Hands would wave, voices would babble, adjustments would be made to whatever was drawn and then the group would reach agreement, nodding and laughing, slapping each other on the shoulders as they reached a common point of view.

Alyss was still smiling to herself over what she considered to be Horace's slip. 'Don't know. He's been quiet for the past two days. Wanders off a lot by himself. Something seems to be wrong. I've asked him but he shies away from the subject.'

But Horace had seen this sort of behaviour from his friend several times before and he knew what was happening.

'There's nothing wrong,' he said. 'He's planning something.'

In the small cabin she shared with Alyss, Evanlyn was hunched over a map drawn on a sheet of linen paper, chewing distractedly on one of the fine brushes that the Nihon-Jan used as pens. It was late. The single lantern on the table left dark shadows in the corners of the room, and was really inadequate to allow her to read the finer details of the map. She had contemplated lighting another lantern but Alyss was curled up on her mattress against one wall and Evanlyn didn't want to disturb her.

The two girls had spent more time in each other's company since arriving at Ran-Koshi. They were the only two females in their group, and now that they were surrounded by an even wider group of warriors and timber workers they tended to be thrown together. There were women in the Kikori settlement, of course, but they treated the two foreigners with awed respect, and the language differences, along with the heavy regional accent of the Kikori, made it difficult to become close to them.

It couldn't be said that Alyss and Evanlyn had become good friends. But they were both making an effort to get along with each other – aside from the occasional moment of friction. Had they been close friends, Evanlyn probably would have lit another lantern. But, because they tended to tiptoe round each other, she didn't want to give Alyss any cause for complaint.

She rubbed her eyes and leaned closer to the map. She wished she had a normal-height table and a comfortable chair. These low Nihon-Jan tables and benches were hard on the knees and the back. She heard a rustle of bedclothes as Alyss turned over.

'What are you doing?' the tall girl said. Her voice was thick with sleep.

'Sorry,' Evanlyn said instantly. 'I didn't mean to wake you.'

'You didn't wake me,' Alyss replied. 'The light did.' Then, realising that Evanlyn might take this as a sign that she was annoyed, she added quickly, 'That was a joke.'

'Oh…well, sorry, anyway,' Evanlyn told her. 'Go back to sleep.'

But Alyss was sitting up. She shivered in the chill mountain night and hastily draped a Kikori sheepskin coat around her shoulders. Then, disdaining to rise, she moved on all fours across the room to sit beside Evanlyn.

'Light another lantern,' she said. 'We'll go blind trying to read that in the dark.'

Evanlyn hesitated, but Alyss gestured impatiently for her to do as she suggested.

'You might as well,' she said. 'I'll never get back to sleep wondering what you're doing.'

Evanlyn nodded and lit a second lantern, pulling it close to the first so that the light was doubled. Alyss moved a little closer and studied the map with her.