Ladies, Lords, & Liars

Chapter Fourteen: Aimless Wandering

After reading a chapter or two more of the book, Aeric realized suddenly that it wasn't holding his interest very well anymore.

   So far, the only thing he'd discovered to be consistently interesting was the garden. He hadn't failed in that regard yet, and he hadn't even fully explored the whole place, either. To add to that, he was starting to develop a headache. Fresh air would probably help.

   He left the room and followed the same route he'd been taking since arriving to get into the front hall. For the first time, he heard the sound of multiple voices coming from the various rooms that branched off from the large room. Finally, the palace didn't seem abandoned.

   He prayed no doors would open as he made his way across the hall to the greenhouse door.

   The voices continued, uninterrupted as he hurried to the door and ducked through. No one appeared. He breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he was safely in the humid, warm environment of the exotic plants and glass walls of the greenhouse.

   He kept going at a more relaxed pace now that he was out of probable discovery range, and he was soon walking through the garden.

He decided to take a different route than usual, and he veered off to the left, down a narrower path bordered on both sides by tulips growing as thick as weeds. An occasional vine-covered tree cast patches of shade over parts of the gravel path.

   A bird startled by his appearance took wing and frantically flew into the blue expanse of sky.

   Several other birds from nearby perches heard its escape and followed suit.

   After a few minutes of walking, he came to a crossroads. At the fork was the largest tree he'd ever seen. Its bark was a glistening silver-white and the leaves were a dark, glossy green. The boughs were each as wide as trees themselves, and the leaves had to be a couple of feet long at least. It stretched up so high into the sky that the topmost branches were completely lost from sight.

   It was certainly unlike anything he'd ever seen before.

   He shook himself from his awed observation of the towering tree and picked a path at random.

   He was closest to the rightmost path, so he headed that way and continued to wander around. Every time he turned, he simply walked down a random path. He had no direction in particular that he wanted to head in, nor any destination to reach.

   He looked up at one point and realized that he was getting very close to the towering wall of blue rock that was the cliff at the rear of the castle, and he steered his steps away. He didn't want to hit a dead end.

   His little detour led him into a wide, grassy grove. The ground was covered in pale pink blossoms from various fruit trees scattered around the space. The tiniest purple flowers he'd ever seen covered the grass like sprinkles, mixing with the pink of the fruit blossoms.

   Another bird was startled from its perch, and it flew noisily to a tree that wasn't even much further away. It thought it was safe, but if he was a skilled bowman and he had the weapon with him, he could have easily shot it out of the tree to cook up for his supper.

   He smiled to himself. The bird was much too small to hunt at any rate. It probably just had bones and feathers on its tiny little body. He never had been and never would be much of a hunter, anyway.

   He ambled around the grassy area before discovering another path off in a different direction. Ferns and some sort of bright yellow flower he'd never seen before were covering either side with dense growth. Out of every place he'd yet seen, this place seemed the wildest. But when he peered closer at the foliage, he saw that they were all neatly trimmed back and kept at bay. No dead leaves were present in the whole place. He wondered how the gardeners managed to keep it so spick and span.