Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(28)
Aleksey and I, and perhaps more importantly Faelan, had been meant to be sleeping inside that tent. Who had known of the last-minute exchange?
I turned back to the child. He waggled his wet thumb at me, then slowly slid it once more into his mouth.
Aleksey was pulling me toward the river. I went numbly and allowed him to minister to the wound. I had taught him to treat his burns with water, so he was only repaying the favor. I should have checked to see if any of the other would-be rescuers needed assistance, but I was still numb. I started to shiver, and Aleksey looked at me with a worried and surprised expression.
“Does it hurt that badly? It is not deep, truly. I think your shirt is ruined, though.”
It seemed a good opportunity to put my plan to him, given I could begin by telling him what I had seen and thought. He paled. I could discern this quite distinctly, although I only had moonlight to see him by. He looked back at the still glowing pile that had once been our tent. “No, you must be mistaken. Major Parkinson said they had probably taken a lamp in with them and that they were likely playing cards—both of which are against orders. It was just a carelessly placed flame, Niko….” I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
I then pressed home my advantage. “I want you to take Faelan and Freedom back to the cabin, Aleksey. This night. I cannot watch everyone. That could have been us in there. I did not even think of such a thing. I only left it so we could keep Faelan out of sight for a while. If you leave now, you could catch us back up within four days.” If I kept rambling for long enough, he might agree.
Oddly, he did not reject the idea as quickly as I thought he would, but reject it he did. He stared at the dying embers, watched the blackened forms within being removed, then turned to me. “You know that Faelan is the most important thing in the world to me, don’t you, Niko?” I nodded. I did know this. “Well, you are more so, and I am not leaving you on your own.”
I gave him a look. This is what came of being so uncharacteristically emotional the other night. He probably saw himself as my protector or some such nonsense. But I knew better than to dispute with him. He would not go if he did not want to. We had been through all this kind of arguing long ago when he was a general and a prince and I merely one of his officers.
He still thought himself in charge of me sometimes.
Chapter Seven
IT WAS an oddly moving and somber little burial the next day. Major Parkinson went up in my estimation. He clearly knew the two soldiers well and had something to say of each of them that made their deaths seem very poignant. He stood there in a uniform he had obviously tried to brush and clean as well as he could, and in the early-morning light recited passages from the Bible that he said the boys would have liked. The reverend had not apparently been asked to speak, which was something of a relief for all of us.
Aleksey and I had spent a pretty miserable rest of the night, if truth be told. My arm was hurting, as anyone who has ever been burnt will understand. It was bitterly cold up on our little hill, so neither of us had really slept much at all. Tiredness and pain, therefore, only added to the sense of unreality that morning as we piled some river stones as best we could over the bodies—this was a burial in name only, as the ground was frozen hard and we had nothing to dig with—and said our words.
The child was nowhere to be seen and neither was his mother, two absences I was grateful for.
After the funeral we sat around the breakfast table, making some plans and looking at the major’s maps. They weren’t very accurate, but they showed the coastline, the colony, the falls, and the approximate distance between these. We were on our third day. It was possible that we could reach the extent of our land in another three, and then it was one day to the falls.
We were about to pack up when Aleksey brought up the thing no one had wanted to address: why were the tent fastenings tied on the outside?
It was uncomfortable.
No one wanted to state the obvious, that the two men had been murdered, possibly because they had suffered the misfortune to sleep that night in our tent. The theory seemed to be that it had been a prank gone horribly wrong—that all that had been intended was the men would not be able to leave their quarters to relieve themselves, or when their turn for sentry came, they would have to call for assistance. The fact that it was supposed to be our shelter was somehow lost in this general speculation of a more innocent yet still tragic occurrence. Aleksey wasn’t satisfied, but I could see he just wanted to push on now, possibly so I would not raise once more the suggestion of him turning back with Faelan (who I was sure had been more a target of the foul creature than Aleksey or me), and also because he could see I was in pain, and riding would at least give me something else to think about.
We rode out in front as we had the previous days.
The good weather had broken now, and low cloud had come across the forest, making the day darken and seem colder than it had. Dampness hung in the air, and I could taste its promise of snow. I shivered inside my coat, tried not to think about my burn, and cursed the young man who had persuaded me to come on this journey. As he was riding alongside me, our thighs touching and his hand occasionally straying to pat my leg absentmindedly as if I were Faelan with a sore paw, these curses were mild for me.
Unexpectedly, two things happened that day that changed my mood entirely. The creature of the night had an accident, and a particular friend of mine from the Mik’mac appeared out of the forest’s gloom. I was in an excellent mood after both these occurrences—for a short time.