The Lady's Man Read Online Free Page A

some more of the rabbit stew, and brought it to her.
     
    It was time for lunch not talk. Time to think about all she'd said and the fact that she herself, the elder and not her daughter as he'd expected, had said it. There was something important in that, though right then he didn't know quite what. Though admittedly he wasn't a member of the Council, she surely knew he would have to report all that had transpired directly to them. So surely it should have been her daughter who spoke to him, given that he was acting as the Council's eyes and ears?
     
    Then there was the fact that she'd said she was to make home in Hammeral. That would raise a few eyebrows upon their return. No one he guessed even knew she was coming. After all, if they had an honour guard would have been sent out to meet them. And she’d said she was to stay with them? Not that she was unwelcome. But while it would be a great honour to have the prophetess among them for however long she chose to stay, it was still a surprise.
     
    It also smacked of something important happening in the world. Something so important that it would shake the elven world. The Prophetess did not lightly leave her home in a major elven city and risk her life to come to a small elven province. Probably it had something to do with the enemy she had mentioned. But the elves had no enemies, and she hadn't chosen to explain her words with him and his soldiers.
     
    He noticed as they ate that the Prophetess' thoughts were on something much further away than the stew in her bowl. This new enemy he assumed, and the battle, for surely there was a battle to come if they had an enemy. He would have been surprised to learn that the object of her thoughts wasn't quite so distant as he thought.
     
     
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    Annalisse ate her stew in silence as was her custom. But as she ate her thoughts were far away from the food. They had also for once turned away from the troubles ahead, and instead were back with the wild heart paladin Yorik, as they had been many times during the previous days. It was more than just the obvious sorrow and fascination she had for the child. It was a feeling that he was important to the troubles coming. That they had not met by chance.
     
    It was strange. When she had foreseen her trip to Hammeral, she had seen no hint of troubles on the journey; only a successful journey and the many tasks ahead to follow. But when the bandits had attacked without warning, all of that had been placed in jeopardy. Especially when the men had been beaten so badly, and the women told they were to be raped in the evening when they set camp for the night, before being branded and sold as slaves. Yet she had still seen no danger even then, and had started to worry her talent was passing.
     
    Then the wild heart Yorik had turned up, less than an hour after their capture, and while others had worried about a possible new nightmare, she herself had quickly realised that he was to be their rescuer. They would be saved. That was his purpose in being there, and moreover the reason that she had not foreseen trouble as she knew he would succeed no matter how impossible the odds or unlikely their rescuer. Had she seen the danger she would have avoided it, and in the process would have avoided meeting their saviour. So the vision had not been given her. And that singular lack of vision had proven prophetic.
     
    One man – a wild heart – against more than two dozen bandits, all armed, and all watching as he approached with suspicion. They, like the elven captain here, had been wary of attacking a wild heart, knowing the likely cost, and so they had let him approach, hoping to persuade him to leave peacefully. But then he had spoken and they had realised the battle was certain. But by then it was far too late. They should never have let him approach. Although mayhap that would have made no difference? They would still have lost and she would still have watched their