The Burning Bridge

10

T HE GIRL WAS SMILING AT HIM AGAIN. H ALT SENSED IT. I T was as if he could actually feel the smile radiating at him. He knew if he were to glance sideways at her, where she was riding just a few paces away from him, he would see it once more.

But he couldn't help himself. He looked and there it was. Wide, friendly and infectious. In spite of himself, it made him want to smile back in return and that would never do. Halt hadn't spent years cultivating a grim, unapproachable manner just to have it dispelled by this girl and her smile.

He glared at her instead. Alyss's smile widened.

"Why, Halt," she said cheerfully, "what a grim face that is to ride alongside."

They had left Castle Redmont the previous day for the short ride to Cobram Castle. He had agreed readily when Lady Pauline had asked him to escort Alyss on her first assignment-in point of fact, he would have agreed to most things suggested by the head of the Diplomatic Corps. Of course, as a Diplomatic Courier, Alyss rated an official guard of two mounted men-at-arms, and they rode a few yards to the rear. But Pauline had suggested that Alyss might need advice or counsel in dealing with Sir Montague. Halt had agreed to provide it if necessary.

What Lady Pauline hadn't mentioned was Alyss's innate friendliness and the fact that she was so eminently likable. And cheerful, he thought, and that reminded him of someone else. He had been missing Will's lively presence over the past week or so, he admitted. After years of living by himself, attending to the secret and sometimes frightening business of the kingdom, he had enjoyed the light and laughter that Will brought to his life. Now Will was far away, on his way to the Celtic court, and Halt himself had sent him there. He realized that the boy's absence left a void in his life. Reluctantly, he told himself that he must be growing old-and sentimental.

Now here was this girl, barely sixteen but already poised and sure of herself, chiding him gently for his black mood and grim countenance and fixing him with that damned smile.

"And such a silent face as well," she mused to herself. He realized that he had been ill-mannered and she didn't deserve that.

"My apologies, Lady Alyss," he said curtly. Traveling on official business, Alyss was entitled to be addressed as "Lady Alyss." She frowned at his formality.

"Oh, come now, Halt. Is that any way for friends to speak to each other?"

He glanced at her now. The smile was still lurking there at the corners of her mouth. The frown was an artifice. She was gently teasing him, he realized, and he determined that he would not give her the satisfaction of rising to her bait.

"Are we friends, Lady Alyss?" he said, and she inclined her head thoughtfully. The action reminded him of Lady Pauline and he realized how much this girl was like her mentor. He remembered Pauline when she was much younger. It could have been her riding beside him, he thought.

"I would hope so, Halt. After all, I am a friend of Will's and I'm apprenticed to one of your oldest friends, I believe. Doesn't this give us some kind of:special relationship?"

"I am your escort, Lady," he replied and his tone left no doubt that the conversation should end there.

With most people, that would have been the result. Halt could be quite a forbidding figure when he chose. And many people clung to the belief that Rangers dabbled in black magic, and so, were people who should not be annoyed. Obviously, however, this girl wasn't one of those people.

"As you say, you're my escort. And I'm very grateful that you are. But that's not to say that we can't be friends as well. After all, it's quite daunting to be on my first assignment." She paused, and then said quietly, "I'm not altogether sure that I'm up to it, as a matter of fact."

"Of course you are!" Halt said immediately. "Pauline knows her business. If you weren't 'up to it,' as you put it, she would never have entrusted the mission to you. She thinks very highly of you, you know," he added.

"She's an amazing woman," Alyss said, and the admiration in her voice was obvious. "I've looked up to her for years, you know. She's succeeded so well in what is generally regarded as a man's world."

Halt nodded agreement. "Amazing is a good word for her. She's courageous, honest and enormously intelligent. Smarter than most men too. Baron Arald saw those qualities in her years ago. She was the one who convinced him that women are more suited to the diplomatic role than men."

"I've heard people say that. Why does he think that way?"

Halt shrugged. "He feels women are more inclined to talk things through, whereas men tend to resort to physical methods more quickly."

"So, for example, Lady Pauline would never resort to throwing someone into a moat if they were being objectionable?" she said, and Halt glanced up at her sharply. Her face was totally deadpan. Pauline had trained her well, he thought.

"No," he agreed. "But I didn't say that she's always right. Some people deserve to be thrown into moats."

He realized now that he had been chattering on with her for some minutes, in spite of his determination to maintain his usual grim, tight-lipped manner. She had drawn him out like an angler luring a fish to the hook, he realized, and he wasn't sure how she had done it. And now she was smiling at him again. He harrumphed noisily and turned away to scan the woods on either side.

This far to the west, there was little danger to be expected. And his horse Abelard would alert him if there were any enemies or wild beasts lurking in the bushes nearby. But scanning the terrain gave him an opportunity to break off the conversation.

Alyss watched him curiously. She had seen him around Redmont for years, of course. But when Lady Pauline had introduced them the day before, she had been surprised to realize that he was at least a head shorter than she was. A lot of men were, though. She was an exceptionally tall girl and she carried herself erect. But Halt had an amazing reputation-a seven-foot-tall reputation, she mused. He was famous throughout the kingdom and one tended to think of him as a larger-than-life character. Seen close-up, he was surprisingly small in stature. Like Will, she thought, and that set her to wondering.

"What qualities does a Ranger need, Halt?" she asked.

He glanced back at her. Once bitten, twice shy, he thought. She wasn't going to draw him out into an extended conversation again.

"A propensity for silence is a good one," he said, and she smiled, genuinely amused at something.

"Somehow I can't see Will managing that," she said. She and Will had grown up together as orphans in the Castle Ward. He was probably her oldest friend. In spite of himself, Halt's lips twitched in what was almost a smile.

"No. He does tend to chatter, doesn't he?" he agreed. Then, realizing that she might think he was criticizing the boy, he continued quickly, "But that's part of being a Ranger as well. He's always asking questions. He's always curious, always ready to learn more. A good Ranger needs that. Eventually, he'll learn to curb his tongue a little."

"Not entirely, I hope," said Alyss. "I can't imagine Will becoming grim and forbidding and taciturn, like"-she hesitated and amended what she was about to say-"some people."

Halt raised one eyebrow at her. "Some people?" he repeated, and she shrugged.

"Nobody particular in mind," she said. Then, changing tack, she said, "He's very brave, isn't he? I mean, you must be proud of what he's done."

Halt nodded. "He has true courage," he said. "He can feel fear, he can be afraid. But it doesn't stop him from doing what he has to. Mindless courage isn't any sort of real courage at all."

"You've trained him well," Alyss said, but Halt shook his head.

"The training is important. But the qualities have to be there from the beginning. You can't teach courage and honesty. There's a basic openness and lack of malice in Will."

"You know," she said confidentially, "when I was a child, I always said I was going to marry him."

Inwardly, he smiled at her words. When I was a child. She was barely more than a child now, he thought. Then he changed his mind. She was a Courier. A Diplomatic apprentice. She wore the bronze laurel branch and that meant she was very much more than a child.

"You could do a lot worse," he said finally, and she glanced across at him.

"Really?" she said. "Do you think diplomats and Rangers make a good match, Halt?" Her tone was just too innocent, too casual. He knew exactly what she was getting at and this time he wasn't going to be drawn. He was not going to discuss any relationship that might or might not have existed between himself and the beautiful Lady Pauline.

He met her gaze very evenly for some moments, then said, "I think we might stop here for lunch. This is as good a place as any."

Alyss's mouth twitched with a smile again. But this time it was a slightly rueful one.

"You can't blame a girl for trying," she said.