Tanalasta motioned the peasants to their feet, then turned to Harvestmaster Owden, who was climbing out of the carriage behind her. “Do you think your assistants could do anything to save these fields, Harvestmaster?”

Owden glanced toward a large, ox-drawn wagon following a few paces behind the princess’s carriage. A dozen monks in green woolen robes sat crammed into the cargo bed among shovels, harrows, and other implements of Chauntea’s faith. They were eyeing the blighted fields and muttering quietly among themselves, no doubt as concerned as Tanalasta by what they saw.

Owden motioned his assistants out of the wagon. “It will take a few hours, Princess.”

“A few hours!” Merula hoisted his considerable bulk through the carriage door with surprising ease. “We can’t have that! The royal magician-“

“-need not know,” Tanalasta finished for him. “Unless he is spying upon us even as we speakin which case you may inform him that the Crown Princess will spend the afternoon walking.”

Tanalasta eyed the Purple Dragons guarding her carriage, one company mounted on their snorting chargers ahead of the procession and the other bringing up the rear, lances posted and steel helmets gleaming in the sun. At the end of the official column followed a long line of merchant carts taking advantage of Tanalasta’s escorts to ensure a safe passage through the mountains. Sighing at the futility of trying to find a little privacy with her suitor, Tanalasta turned to Dauneth.

“Will you join me, Warden?”

Dauneth nodded somewhat uncomfortably. “Whatever the princess wishes.”

Trying not to grind her teeth in frustration, Tanalasta took Dauneth’s arm and led him past the long file of riders to the front of the column. Though her shoulders were draped in a silken cape of royal purple, underneath she wore a sensible traveling smock and a pair of well-worn walking boots, and it was not long before they reached the foot of Worg Pass. She sent the company captain ahead with two scouts and instructed the rest of the company to follow twenty paces behind, but she could not quite make her getaway before Merula the Marvelous came puffing up from behind.