Chapter 450: Three Carriages, Three Coachmen

Chapter 448: Three Carriages, Three Coachmen

Lyria’s POV

Lucian paused, then tilted his head in thought.

"And how, precisely, are we to travel into the town itself with so few carriages at our disposal?" he asked.

Duke Thorncrest considered the matter a moment.

"Her Highness might travel with her maids," he suggested.

"The seats available are far too few for all of us," Bridget said.

Marquess Silverwyn frowned.

"What if the five of us travelled together?" he asked, referring to the gentlemen about him.

Duke Thorncrest shook his head at once.

"That too should not suffice. The seats would still want for us all, however we arranged it."

A brief silence fell over the company as they considered this difficulty.

Then, of a sudden, I noticed Dorian approach Duke Valenridge. He spoke softly, though the night was so quiet that we all might hear him regardless.

"Your Grace, what if we guards travelled behind you?" he asked.

Duke Valenridge regarded his guard with a raised eyebrow.

"In wolf form?" he asked.

Dorian nodded.

"It is not as though we have never travelled greater distances so," he said. "And it should lessen the burden upon the carriages, since they are plainly insufficient for the whole party."

Duke Valenridge considered this a moment, then sighed.

"The younger valets might share the last remaining carriage with the maids, then," he suggested.

"I confess I dislike admitting it," Lucian began, "but that is not an ill notion. Though I must observe this is unfamiliar ground to us. I dare not propose you simply travel in wolf form without due caution."

Dorian inclined his head.

"We are guards, Your Grace. It is our very duty to shield our lords from whatever is unfamiliar. You need not trouble yourself over it."

I spoke up then.

"E-even if that is s-so," I said, "I should h-hate for any o-one to be i-injured upon our very f-first night here."

One of the coachmen scoffed at once, upon hearing my words.

I turned towards him, and observed a man of middling years, his face weathered by sun and wind, his hands rough from honest labour, his cap pulled low over his brow.

"Nobles always carryin’ on as if they’re too fine fer their own lands," he muttered, his accent thick and rough, the words clipped and swallowed half away. "Think they know better’n them what’s been born an’ raised ’ere, don’t they."

"I a-apologise if that i-is what you t-took from my words," I said. "I w-was only ensuring that n-no harm should come to my p-people. And, c-contrary to w-what you m-may suppose, that i-includes y-yourself, and the o-other coachmen besides."

He looked at me sharply, but I continued.

"And I m-must apologise once more, for y-you and the others h-hail from Gallowshill, do you not? I o-ought to have a-asked whether it was p-permissible to travel i-in wolf form by n-night, rather than s-speaking out of turn, and s-suggesting your roads m-might prove unsafe."

The man stared at me, his expression one of open astonishment.

He mastered it quickly enough, though not so quickly that I failed to mark it.

Then he touched his cap with one hand, a gesture I suspected was quite plainly born of long habit.

"The fields are safe enough fer travellin’," he said. "Our town ain’t important enough ter be dangerous of a night."

I shook my head.

"That i-is a false notion," I said. "No one i-is unimportant, however s-small their standing. Nor i-is anything whatsoever u-unimportant, for e-everything possesses its own u-use. But I u-understand that the r-roads are safe for travelling. And I m-must thank you for c-coming out this night, for surely you m-might have had other matters to a-attend to, and yet you c-came regardless to collect us. I t-thank you most sincerely."

The man turned towards the others, who stood watching with frowns upon their faces.

Then one of them spoke — a man who had remained quiet until that moment, his dark hair woven into braids, his skin darker than any I had been accustomed to seeing, the colour of melted caramel.

"Ain’t ye vexed, then?" he asked. "That we only brought the three carriages?"

"Why s-should I be v-vexed?" I asked, just as Corvin spoke up in the very same instant.

"I am exceedingly vexed," he announced.

I turned to him sharply.

And the coachman gave a scoff.

"Figured as much," he muttered.

I fixed Corvin with a cold look.

"Had y-you been the one a-addressed?" I asked him, calmly.

I was endeavouring to build bridges, not to destroy them, quite unlike what this particular man seemed determined to accomplish.

"What?" Corvin asked, his eyes wide with shock.

I shook my head. I could not afford to fall into argument with him, and thereby delay our departure further still. For it was plain enough that Corvin’s whole design was to sabotage our endeavour in this competition.

"I h-have no time f-for this," I said, under my breath. "I w-would rather we proceeded n-now."

I turned back to the dark-skinned coachman.

"You a-asked me a question," I said, "and I g-gave you my a-answer."

It was his own affair whether my answer should prove sufficient. Though it had come in the shape of a question, I hoped it conveyed plainly enough that I cared not in the least that only three carriages had been brought for us.

The man only stared at me without a word, and having had quite my fill of this contest of silent stares, I moved with my maids towards the first man’s carriage.

But I paused before entering it.

"I n-never did ask, what a-are your names?"

He stared at me a further while, and I could not begin to count the measure of silence I had endured this very evening, nor the number of stares directed my way.

"Thaddeus," he said, finally. "Thaddeus, Your Highness."

I inclined my head, then turned towards the others.

"Obadiah," the dark-skinned man said.

"Cadmus," the last man offered.

"I a-am Princess L-lyria," I told them, and then entered the carriage.