"I do not think it wise to have her entire guard unarmed," Frost said.
"Nor I," Doyle said, "but she is the queen and we will follow her orders."
Frost's handsome face closed down into tight lines. If he'd been human, he'd have had frown wrinkles by now, but his face was unlined and always would be.
"Frost's clothes are fine for a welcome home banquet, but why are you and Rhys dressed so..." I spread my hands helplessly trying to find a phrase that wasn't an insult.
"The queen designed my outfit personally," Rhys said.
"It's lovely," I said.
He grinned. "Just keep saying that as you meet the rest of the guard tonight."
My eyes widened. "Oh, please. She isn't taking hormones again, is she?"
Rhys nodded. "Baby hormones and her sex drive goes into overtime." He looked down at his clothes. "A shame to be dressed up with no place to go."
"Very punny," I said.
He looked up at me with a genuinely unhappy face. He hadn't meant the play on words to be funny. His sad face made the smile fade from mine.
"The queen is our sovereign. She knows best," Frost said.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
The look on Frost's face when he turned made me regret the laugh. I saw those grey eyes unguarded for a split second, and what I saw in them was pain. I watched him rebuild his walls, watched his eyes close down, so that nothing showed again. But I'd seen what lay beyond his careful facade, his expensive clothes, his fastidious attention to detail-his rigorous morality and his arrogance. Some of it was real, but some of it was a mask to keep things locked away.
I'd never liked Frost, but having that one glimpse meant I couldn't dislike him anymore. Damn.
"We will speak no more of this," he said. He turned and moved down the hallway, back the way they'd come. "The queen awaits your presence." He walked away without looking back to see if we were following.
Rhys came up beside me. He slid an arm across my shoulders and hugged me. "I'm glad you're back."
I leaned into him briefly. "Thanks, Rhys."
He gave me a small shake. "I missed you, Green-eyes."
Rhys even more than Galen spoke modern English. He loved slang. His favorite author was Dashiell Hammett; his favorite movie, The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart. Rhys had a house outside the mound city. He had electricity and a television set. I'd spent quite a few weekends at his house. He'd introduced me to old films, and when I was sixteen we'd gone to a film noir festival at the Tivoli in St. Louis. He'd dressed in a fedora and a trench coat. He'd even found me period clothes so I could hang on his arm like a femme fatale.
Rhys had made it clear on that trip that he thought of me as more than a little sister. Nothing we could get killed over, but enough that it was a real date. After that, my aunt made sure we didn't spend much time together. Galen and I teased each other unmercifully in a very sexual way, but the queen seemed to trust Galen, as did I. Neither of us quite trusted Rhys.
Rhys offered me his arm.
Doyle stepped up to my other side. I thought he would offer his own arm so that I would be wedged between them. Instead, he said, "Go down the hallway and wait for us."
Frost would have argued or even refused, but not Rhys. "You are the captain of the Guard," he said. It was the answer of a good soldier. He walked around the corner and Doyle moved, moving me with him, a hand on my arm, to watch him move far enough away not to overhear us. Then Doyle edged us back, out of sight of Rhys.
His hand tightened on my upper arm. "What else are you carrying?"
"You trust me to just tell you?" I asked.
"If you give me your word, I will take it," he said.
"I left in danger of my life, Doyle. I need to be able to protect myself."
His hand tightened, and he gave a small shake. "It is my job to protect the court, especially the queen."
"And it's my job to protect myself," I said.
He lowered his voice even further. "No, that is my job. The job of all the Guard."
I shook my head. "No, you are the Queen's Guard. The King's Guard protects Cel. There is no Guard for the princess, Doyle. I was raised very aware of that."
"You always had your contingent of bodyguards, as did your father."
"And look how much that helped him," I said.
He grabbed my other arm, drawing me to tiptoe. "I want you to survive, Meredith. Take what she gives you tonight. Do not try to harm her."
"Or what? You'll kill me?"
His hands relaxed, and he set me down flat-footed on the stones. "Give me your word that that was your only weapon and I will believe you."
Staring up into his so sincere face, I couldn't do it. I couldn't lie to him, not if I had to give my word about it. I looked at the floor, then back up at his face. "Ferghus's Balls."
He smiled. "I take it that means you have other weapons."
"Yes, but I can't be here unarmed, Doyle. I can't."
"You will have one of us with you at all times tonight-that I can guarantee."
"The queen has been very careful tonight, Doyle. I may not like Frost, but to an extent I trust him. She's made sure every guard I meet is one I either trust or like, but there are twenty-seven queen's guardsmen, another twenty-seven king's guardsmen. I trust maybe half a dozen of them, ten at the outside. The rest of them frighten me, or have in the past actively hurt me. I am not walking around here unarmed."
"You know I can take them from you," he said.
I nodded. "I know."
"Tell me what you have, Meredith. We'll go from there."