John Flanagan: The Royal Ranger

As they entered, Cassandra rose from her seat and moved to embrace them both.

“It’s so good to see you!” she exclaimed. She could not have meant it more. The responsibility of running the Kingdom was a heavy burden and Halt and Pauline were more than friends. They were lifelong supporters. Halt, in particular, had spent many years as her adviser and protector in dangerous situations, from Skandia to the mountains of Nihon-Ja.

Horace waited until his wife had welcomed them, then he embraced them both in his turn. Halt studied him carefully.

“How’s life in Castle Araluen?” he asked. Horace’s honest face looked a little rueful.

“It’s fine,” he said. “But I miss the old days.”

“You mean the old days when you could skive off with this rascal to all corners of the earth and avoid responsibility?” his wife put in.

“Exactly,” Horace said in a tone so heartfelt that they all laughed.

Halt turned his gaze on the princess. “I seem to remember you doing a certain amount of skiving off yourself.”

She waved a hand in a negative gesture. “Let’s not discuss that now,” she said.

There was a light tap on the door that led to Madelyn’s rooms.

“Come in,” Cassandra called, and the door opened to admit the young princess.

“Halt. Lady Pauline. How wonderful to see you.”

Madelyn hesitated for a second, then, seeming to come to a decision, crossed the room and embraced them both. While she was hugging Pauline, Halt happened to glance at her parents. As he did, he sensed the unmistakable tension in the room. Cassandra, who had never been able to hide her feelings from Halt, had a slight frown, and Horace was looking decidedly uncomfortable. Madelyn stepped back from hugging Pauline and nodded a greeting to Gilan.

Horace cleared his throat awkwardly. “Very well, Madelyn,” he said. “You’ve said your hellos. Now off you go.” He gestured towards the door leading to her apartment. Maddie smiled at the new arrivals, and retraced her steps.

“We’ll talk later,” Halt called after her. He had an easy relationship with Maddie and had served as her confidant many times in the past.

She gave him a sad little smile. “Of course,” she said, and closed the door.

Halt looked curiously at his two old friends. “Trouble in paradise?” he said gently.

Cassandra gave an annoyed shrug. “Oh, she’s just so exasperating, Halt!” she said. “She’s headstrong and irresponsible, and so infuriating. And if you try to speak to her about it, she huffs and sighs and rolls her eyes so that you simply want to strangle her!”

Halt rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Sounds serious,” he said. “Huffing and sighing and eye rolling, you say? I’ve never heard of a teenage girl behaving like that.”

“You can joke about it, Halt,” Horace put in. “You don’t have to put up with it. She’s had Cassandra worried sick. She sneaks off into the forest at the dead of night, alone. We’ve restricted her to her quarters for two weeks. Maybe that will teach her a lesson.”

Halt’s expression told his old friend that he doubted it. A headstrong girl like Maddie would only become more stubborn with that sort of restriction.

Horace saw the sceptical expression and felt he had to add more. “She’s taking risks and she just assumes she can take care of herself. That forest can be dangerous!”

“But basically, she’s a sensible girl, isn’t she?” Halt asked. “And I imagine she could look after herself. She’s good with a saxe. I taught her, after all. And I hear she’s pretty good with that sling of hers.”

“Who told you that?” Cassandra said sharply. Halt spread his hands in a defensive gesture.

“Your father might have mentioned it. I was chatting with him an hour ago.”

“Father talks too much,” Cassandra said, a scowl crossing her face.

Halt smiled tolerantly at her. Over the years, he’d learned that parents tended to be the toughest critics of their own children. Grandparents and uncles—and he classed himself as an honorary uncle to Maddie—tended to see the fuller picture, and be able to discount any minor aberrations in behaviour, gauging them against the child’s overall reasonable nature.

Pauline knew it too. But she also knew that nothing could be more annoying to parents than an outsider telling them that an errant child wasn’t anywhere near as bad as they were making out.

“Perhaps it’s none of our business, Halt…” she began.

“No. It’s all right,” Cassandra said.

“What does she do in the forest?” Halt asked her.

“She tracks animals. And she hunts.”

“Is she any good?”

Cassandra shrugged uncertainly. Horace answered before he could stop to think.

“Apparently yes. She never comes back empty-handed. But she gives the game to the castle guards.”

Cassandra looked at him. “How do you know that?” she demanded.

Horace looked confused. He dropped his gaze from hers. “I… err… I may have heard some of the guards discussing it.”

“And you didn’t choose to share this with me?”

“I didn’t think there was any point. I knew you’d just get angry about it.”

“And you were right! If you’d seen your way to—”

Pauline clapped her hands sharply. It was a measure of her personality and self-confidence that she would call the Princess Regent to order in such a peremptory fashion. And a measure of Cassandra’s regard for the tall, blonde Courier that she would accept such brusqueness.

“Horace! Cassandra! That’s enough!” They both stopped and looked at Pauline and she continued in a milder tone. “You’re not the first parents to be driven crazy by a teenage daughter. And you won’t be the last. It’s difficult, I know. But don’t let it become too big a thing. Keep it in perspective. You need to maintain a united front, not bicker among yourselves.”

The two looked meekly down at their shoes. Halt smiled to himself again. They looked like naughty children rebuked by a stern parent.

“And it seems to me,” he said, “she’s not the first princess to go off in the woods at night looking for adventure.”

Cassandra screwed up her lip. “Oh, don’t you start.”

“Basically Maddie’s a good kid,” he continued. “She’s smart and brave and resourceful. Because that’s the way you’ve raised her.”

“Well,” said Gilan, a little impatiently, “if that’s settled for the moment, perhaps we could discuss the reason I asked to see you all.”

They turned to face him, wondering what he was going to say. They didn’t have long to wait.

“It’s Will,” he said. “I’m very worried about him.”

“It’s been eighteen months since Alyss’s death,” Gilan said. “In that time, can any of you remember seeing Will laugh, or even smile?”

Sadly the others shook their heads. They exchanged uncomfortable looks. Then Pauline spoke.

“It’s heart-breaking. He was always such a cheerful, happy person. Always grinning, always joking. These days, it’s as if a light has been extinguished inside him.”

“Of course, we can’t expect him to just shake off the effects of losing Alyss in a few months,” Halt put in. “She was his soul mate, after all, and losing her was a terrible shock to him.”

Alyss’s death had been the result of a terrible, tragic mischance. She had been returning, with a small escort, from the Celtic court, where she had been overseeing the renewal of the defence agreement between Araluen and Celtica. It was a routine trip and a routine mission. But on the way home, she had chanced upon a situation in Anselm, one of the southern fiefs.

For some months, a gang of criminals, led by a former mercenary named Jory Ruhl, had been preying on villages in Anselm and its neighbouring fiefs. They would capture children then demand ransom payments from their parents. Since villagers weren’t usually wealthy people, often the entire village would be forced to contribute to the ransom.