For Love and Glory

XLII

Once more she spoke alone with her father atop the watchtower of Ernhurst.

They could have been as private in his study, and warmer. The northern half of Asborg had slanted into winter. But when she told him that this mattered greatly to her, he made a slight gesture, she nodded, and they clad themselves for outdoors and went up. She wondered fleetingly how much their race lived by such unspoken symbolisms. And what of other races?

The air rested quiet and keen beneath an enormous blue. Breath smoked. Paler blue shadows crossed snow lately fallen and still pure. The forest afar stood in its coppery-umber phase. The village and its works showed themselves as knife-sharp. The line of sea to the south sheened too bright to look at for long. A flight of swartwings passed high overhead. Their cries drifted down, a faint steely ringing.

He regarded her for a silent span before he smiled. It didn’t mask the trouble in him. “Well, what’s your newest recklessness?”

“None,” she declared. “Not my style. Really.” While she would never outright lie to him, she could make her own interpretations of the truth, couldn’t she? “I’m still alive.”

“Frankly,” he said low, “I’ve paid my thanks to God for that.”

“You know I don’t charge blindly ahead. I like living.”

“Especially living on the edge.”

“Once in a while, maybe. Though that’s more fun to remember than experience.” Don’t get sidetracked. Persuade. “Daddy, some risks have got to be taken. Else we’ll never gain anything.” And we can lose what we do have to those who will take them.

“Knowledge, or treasure, or achievement—” Davy sighed. “You are what you are, darling.”

“I think the House has benefited a little.”

“More than a little. Which I almost hate to admit.”

Lissa gave him back his smile, hers less rueful. “You mean you’re conceding me a point in advance?”

“I suppose so. Go on.”

“You do trust me,” she murmured.

“Yes.”

She locked his gaze onto his. “I’m about to ask you for the most faith ever.”

He waited.

“I have a journey to make that I can’t tell you or anyone about, not yet,” she said. “I can only give you my word of honor that it’s not crazy, it may have a tremendous payoff, and, win or lose, I ought to come safely home. But it’s urgent.”

“What do you want from me?”

“The use of the Hulda.”

She saw him stiffen, heard him catch his breath. “What? Where are you going?”

“Nowhere like those black holes, I swear. However, yes, there are unknowns, there will be surprises, it calls for a ship that can cope.”

“Recruiting a crew—”

She shook her head. “That’s taken care of. I’m sorry, Dad. I wish—” in a tidal rush she felt how deeply she wished it, and for a moment her eyes stung—“I wish I could say more. I just can’t. I—we—have to leave in a hurry. No time to collect the three or four who could fit in with me. Not here on Asborg,” as slowly as such things always moved. The more so when the objective would raise a sensation she could ill afford.

Again Davy studied her before he said, slowly, “I might make a guess or two.”

It angered Lissa to feel the blood hot in her face. “We know what we’ll be doing, and we’re able to,” she snapped. “Don’t you believe I’ve learned a few things in my life?”

“You have,” he whispered. “Enough?”

Her heart and her tone melted. “I’ll communicate along the way. Our encryption. The trip shouldn’t take very long, actually. Afterward, oh, yes, you’ll have the story, you and Mother and the whole family and the world!”

“Hulda isn’t mine, you know,” he said, “any more than Dagmar or— She belongs to Windholm.”

“Of course. But you have authority to order a special, short, inexpensive mission, without giving notice, when a ship is currently idle.”

If he knew what she intended, quite possibly his sense of honor would require that he consult his associates in the planetary governance, which would bring on the questions and debates and long-winded arguments that would eat up what time remained. She couldn’t chance it.

“I’ll have to answer to the council,” he reminded her.

“That’ll be then,” she said, “and you’ll give them a blaze of a good answer.”

“Meanwhile,” and she heard the pain, “I’ll have to pray for that. Pray for you, Lissa.”

“Oh, Dad!” she cried. Hardly thinking, she came into his embrace and laid her head against his shoulder. Yet soon she was crooning, “You will. You’ll trust me. You always have.”

At what cost to him? The question pierced. But she’d make it up to him, she’d make him proud and glad, truly, truly.