As soon as the door closed behind them a general chatter arose, each exclaiming over whatever they had seen that had impressed them most.

“I thought the princess looked very…” Estha paused thoughtfully. “Very much like someone who could be a good friend. Do you think we’ll see much of her, Mother?”

“I can’t think that we won’t, at least from a slight distance. I’ve not heard if she is easy to be acquainted with, though, we shall have to see. What is it, Eilma?”

“…The lady in the beautiful red velvet gown!” Eilma’s eyes glowed. “She had on a necklace, of… were those pearls, Mama?”

“I didn’t notice, dear.” Mother could always reply calmly to a thousand questions at once. “Now where is it you will sleep?”

“I’m sleeping next to Estha.” Their littlest sister grinned. Estha had been gone from home a great deal of the time the past few years, learning the craft of weaving the stout, sturdy woolen cloaks that were warm, dry, and lasted a lifetime. It was now a novelty to have her among them again, and close enough to sleep within arm’s reach.

Jithra leaned close to Fia’s ear.

“Come out into the garden with me,” she whispered, “…it will only take a minute. I want to show you the fountain.”

It would take a bit of time while everyone else was organizing and getting ready for bed, so Fia ran quickly after her out into the gardens that lay beside their rooms.

She followed her younger sister’s hurrying steps through a maze of gardens and gates heading towards a summerhouse. The airy arches of the structure looked inviting even in the cool night, but the object that caught Fia’s attention stood along the flat wall on one side.

The fountain was cut of white marble, gleaming dully in the moonlight, the shadows throwing the carved figures at the top into high relief. Men and horses, a few young boys, and a dog or two were all shown as if at the moment of victory. The assemblage was arranged so that the buglers blew streams of water into the air, and at the near edge a mule carrying water bags seemed to be losing its footing. The mouth of each bag had been carved so that it looked like they had slipped in the excitement and now poured a rippling stream of water over the rocky marble cliffs beneath them.

From there three tiers of water cascaded down into each other, to a wide pool. Then it ran away at last in a tiled trench curving through the gardens, making an easy distance for watering the plants.

The theme depicted the final moment in Lorsia’s founding history. The king and his retinue had reached the point of Lowrie’s Spear. The horses reared back from the sheer cliff beneath them, all crowded onto its brink, their eyes and ears alert, eager, and wishful of going backward. It was an effective compilation, Fia noted with pleasure. Even if the original scene was sure to have been a lot less dramatic… there was no way in the world anybody would take a horse out to Lowrie’s Spear. Not ever. And everybody knew that the king and his company had walked up there on their own two legs.

Still, the horses were well done and gave the right impression of grandeur and majesty in this historic moment, now captured for the whole of time.

The entire fountain glowed a little in the moonlight and the effect was quite breathtaking. The girls paused in the silent gardens and listened to the gurgle and play of the water as it leaped from bugle and bag, then down from tier to tier.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Jithra breathed.

“Yes, it is.” Fia nodded.

Her sister went on. “I knew you’d want to see it!”

“Yes.” Fia’s eyes were fixed on the marble face of the king. It almost looked as if he could have turned his head and looked at her then and there.

“Well, we’d better get back,” Jithra said, and they turned and ran light-footed through the moonlit garden pathways, feeling almost elvish, though those beings had long ago quitted this world.

The full leaves of the vines running rampant over the garden wall flickered softly in the half-light of the waxing moon; the shadows lay deep and black in all the shady places. It was a beautiful, breathtaking night, a little breeze from the mountains carrying a chill that ran down your spine and half raised the tingling sensation on your arms. It was just the sort of night that encourages the imagination to run wild, and anything might happen, to anybody. Fia shivered with delight.

They paused near a carved stone bench that sat against the low, illuminated wall, silvery white in the play of the moonbeams with the pencil-thin shadows around it as black as soot. The vines were kept trimmed back from it, or they would have overgrown it completely; as it was it presented a charming scene.

“I wonder why they have a bench against so low a wall,” Fia remarked. “It rather compromises the purpose of a wall.”

“Oh,” her sister replied, “it’s tall enough. Nobody could get over it.”

“Indeed they could! Why, I could. Using the bench as a step up, it’d be no difficult matter to be over the wall in a trice.”

Jithra laughed, a sound so humored that Fia felt that she needed to prove her point. With a quick run she topped the bench with a bound. Not letting the momentum wane, her hands found the wall’s rim and she twisted her torso upwards. With a scrabble and a hitch she made it to the top, half sitting, half draped, on the well-built stone.

She grinned down at her sister and laughed quietly. The excitement of the night had gotten into her blood and was coursing through her veins like tiny sparks.

“All right,” Jithra said wryly and twisted her face. “You’re an excellent wall-jumper.”

“Any thief would be,” Fia reminded her. “Or any dangerous character worth his salt.”

“Well, it’s probably just a decorative wall, anyway.”

Fia twisted her head around to look behind her.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re right. There’s a much taller wall right over there, and I don’t think anyone could scale that one. They’d have to be much better than I can even imagine.

“Anyway,” she resumed, righting her head. “It was fun. Down I come now.” She flipped her foot back under her in preparation for descent. With a sudden catch she found it had tangled amongst the vine, and she gasped as she swayed dangerously out. Grasping a handful of vine behind her she pulled herself back, but too quickly.

She had overcorrected and the next instant found herself in a heap at the bottom, on the other side from their garden.

“Fia!” hissed a disembodied voice through the wall. “Are you all right? Fia?”

“Yes.” She untangled herself and pushed herself to her feet. A quick glance around showed an ironwork gate standing in an arch in the wall on her right. She had noticed it before, from the other side, and knew that it led to the same collection of gardens they had been in.

“How are you going to get back?” came the whisper.

“There’s a gate,” Fia answered, and finished brushing herself off. Her sister ran around and was waiting at the gate when Fia came up to it, and was already worried when she couldn’t work the latch.

“Here,” Fia said. “I’ll do it.” She put her hands through and wrenched on it. “It must be a little stuck,” she said when it didn’t come. She put her arms through the grating again and they both pushed together, but it didn’t move.

“Locked.” Jithra said.

It was true. There would be no easy way out of this predicament. Fia looked back down the length of the narrow garden. The other end held a simple archway, vines tendriling down its sides, and no gate.

“I’ll go out through there,” she said quickly. “There’s sure to be a way around, even if I have to knock on someone’s door. It’s all part of the castle gardens, it all has to be joined together somewhere.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“I’ll come back and you can go get someone. Just let me try to get out quietly, without embarrassment, first.”

She nodded. “I’ll wait.”

Fia hurried to the opposite archway and found that it led into a wide yard filled with grape arbors. The vine-laden supports were nearly large enough to be small trees, the many-pointed leaves of the grape vines rustling and moving as if they were a whole forest. She started out, keeping the wall on her left hand, looking for an unlocked gate or archway, or a bench that she could climb back in on. But the wall ran smooth and solid.

At last across the way she saw a wide-open looking passage, large enough for entire throngs to pass through, which she supposed they did when it was harvest time. She was unwilling to go farther and farther from her original garden, but it was the best way that she could see, and so she took it.             

A tangle of gardens and pathways can take on frightening aspects in the dark to a stranger lost among them, and as Fia pressed on in search of another entrance, the strangeness began to creep upon her.

She chewed her lip and looked quickly both ways down an alley covered in waving vines, casting black shadows in the faint moonlight. Was she getting closer to her family’s quarters, or further away? If only she’d not tried to be clever and ended up falling off the wrong side of that dratted wall! So much for impressing her little sister.

Daring feats simply didn’t end well for this country lass. She grimaced and made a mental note to stick to her books and jeweler’s wax in future, and let Jithra be the active one.

Taking a deep breath, she hurried through the archway and then the next, worry beginning to set in. There must be a way back into the palace somewhere! But no, all she saw were more arbors, and more vines and more… wait!

She stopped stock-still and her heart leaped into her throat as she glimpsed a shadow pass across an open space of moonlit wall.

“Now, now,” her inner voice reasoned, despite her widening eyes, “don’t go making things up!”

She jumped sideways and shot a glance back down the way she’d come. Maybe if she retraced her steps… but that would only put her further behind and later than ever, and she must be near the side entrance into the wings of the palace.

She licked her lips and gulped.

“Nothing’s there,” her inner voice said smugly. “I’ll prove it.”

Swiftly she wove through the arbors towards the spot where she thought she had glimpsed something. The closer she got the less sinister everything looked. She let her shoulders relax. She’d been letting the night and new surroundings get to her.

Perhaps it had been merely some gardener’s boy coming back from a nearly unremembered duty. Or had it been sheer imagination alone?

That would be enough to account for a great deal, right there.

Suddenly her heart stopped, and she stared fixedly at the space between the arbors. It hadn’t been a shadow this time, nor could it even remotely be construed a gardener’s boy. It was a man, clothed in dark garments, a black scarf of flimsy material hiding most of his face. His gait was purposefully soundless, and the intensity in his movements made her blood chill.

“Then, who had been the first shadow?” Her mind raced, for this man was plainly following someone.

The shiver that ran across her skin had nothing to do with the cool breeze coming down from the mountain as her eyes searched the arbors ahead for another glimpse of the first shadow.

What if they needed warning? Thoughts of intrigue hemmed around her, the turmoil in the neighboring kingdom of Othira made every whisper ominous. With the noise of her footsteps covered by the sound of the wind rustling the leaves, she hurried lengthwise through the arbors, desperately hoping to discover the identity of the followed.

Then she saw it: an open doorway in the wall and a slight figure robed in a dark color, perhaps blue or green. The hood was pulled over the head, but as the figure turned and glanced back, Fia saw a twinkle of silver at the throat and the flash of a lovely face.

The Princess Illyria! Fia’s breath came in sharply. That twinkle was from the necklace the princess had been wearing a few hours ago in the royal dining hall. The priceless work of the Olayin jewelers was too fine a thing to be worn on a casual outing.

But what was the princess doing, hurrying through her own gardens like a thief? And who was the man that followed her so stealthily?

Fia looked for him quickly, but saw nothing. He must have shrunk back into the shadows.

Then, just as quickly as the princess had paused, she turned again and was gone through the doorway into the night.

Fia stood rooted to the spot. Oh, what was she to do? Ought she to return? But she was lost! By the time she got back, found someone, told the story, and returned, the two would both have disappeared to who knows where. Perhaps the princess was being lured out with foul intent.

That man who followed… Fia knew in her bones he was up to no good.

And then there he was, just now, a flit of darkness in the doorway and then gone.

Her mind quit trying to decide. She flew the rest of the way and only slowed down at the door.

Looking cautiously through, she waited with bated breath. She was now looking out over the hillside of the vineyards below the palace, where the grapes for the best tart wine of the country were grown. Rows and rows of vines ran away down the gentle slope, but Fia was watching for a movement that would tell her where the princess and her pursuer had gone.

There! Down that aisle of tall trellises she caught the shift of a black shadow and knew it was the scarved man. She gulped nervously and prepared to be stealthy herself. She was rather good at these games of stealth at home.

But never had it been for real. What might happen if she were caught she had no clear idea, but she was quite certain that it would be horrible.

In a quick little dash she was out into the moonlight and then among the shadowy vines, and then it was down to the careful business of creeping quietly along, keeping to the blackness of the shadow, and keeping an eye on one’s quarry. If they stopped she needed to stop, and if they turned she needed to know where. Stealthily the three hurried through the length of the vineyard, and Fia’s mind was wondering mightily what all this was about long before they arrived at the end.

She had not seen the princess for a long time, but then the cloaked figure suddenly rose out of the shadows ahead and seemed to melt through the gate of the vineyard’s high fence. Fia paused, watching for the man.

It seemed forever before she heard anything, and she began to think he might have been warned of her surveillance.

Panic nearly crashed over her, but before it could engulf her another shadow rose without a sound exactly where the princess had been, and also folded through the gate. Fia breathed deeply and let the panic roll away.

Then she realized she was faced with a decision. She did not know what lay beyond that high fence, but she did know that it could be real trouble if she got caught mixed up in something that they would probably feel was none of her business.

What if he had stopped just the other side of it? She could almost feel those wiry arms encircling her as she walked straight into him. And after he caught her, then what? She couldn’t answer, and didn’t even feel qualified to try.

But she couldn’t go back.

Then she spotted her solution. There along the fence grew a tall oak, far enough down that someone could climb it without being in hearing distance of the gate. And if she hurried she could climb up, drop down to the other side, then come carefully back and discover what they were up to without them discovering her. But she would have to be fast.

Like a shot she was up and away, running softly through the grape trellises, hurrying up to the fence. Her knowledgeable hands felt good against the roughened trunk and she tried her best to keep her skirts out of the way. Now she wished she had worn something a little less pretty. She was glad though, that it was her dark purple dress, and not the pale yellow which would stand out like a lantern in the tree.

She made it to the branch overhanging the other side, and then froze as still as a mouse, her eyes straining through the darkness at the scene ahead.

There in the half-moonlight Princess Illyria was coming towards her. That the princess had gotten so close and not heard Fia’s clambering could only be applied to the wind, which had taken a sudden gust. But it died down now, and left Fia immobile on her branch. The cloaked figure of the princess kept coming on, and then stopped not a stone’s throw away. Just within the shadow of the oak she stood as still as a stone and waited.

What is she waiting for? Fia wondered, and then nearly jumped out of her skin as a third figure stepped out of nowhere. He was tall and walked with the grace of a rider; a hood covered his head and face. Soon he had joined the princess beneath the oak.

Fia furrowed her brow. Did she recognize his way of moving from somewhere? She squinted, but couldn’t decide in such poor light.

Slowly, her heart sank. Whatever the princess was up to, it didn’t look dangerous anymore, and Fia’s “help” wouldn’t be appreciated. This was certainly not a proper meeting, and spying witnesses must be seriously unwanted. She winced at this new perspective on her actions.

Illyria spoke in low tones with the hooded man, and Fia clung to her branch and looked for the man in the scarf, but could find no sign of him.

Then, as suddenly as he had come, the figure near the princess was gone again, and Fia could not see where he went. The princess hesitated for a moment, then she turned and went silently back along the path. Fia half expected the follower to leap out, but the princess passed swiftly to the gate and disappeared from view.

Fia sat her oak branch in uncertainty. Where had the first man gone?

Or the second one, for that matter?

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