Donald did not want to wait for the rain to stop, although Kwestor said it would in a few hours. He had already spent more time than he intended in Gondford, and a part of him wanted to spend even more. For reasons he could not fully understand, Millie fascinated him, and his libido urged him to get to know her better. It did not stand a chance, though, because his sense of duty and adventure teamed up on it, brought in some emotional lawyers to inflict guilt, and closed the case, leaving him anxious to get back on the road to the Warden.
A cold, drenching rain fell with little wind, which might have prevented so much of it from getting down their necks and under their clothes.
Millie and her father walked with them as far as the bridge spanning the river. Despite the rain, some of the booths for the Harvest Festival remained open. The proprietor of one of the stands selling barbequed chicken and lamb-on-a-stick had somehow managed to get its grill lit, and the smell of cooking food spread out through the still air between the raindrops, tempting them, although their host had provided a hearty breakfast only an hour before.
Millie walked beside the prince, close enough for their rain soaked ponchos to touch. They talked little until they reached the bridge. Stopping at the edge of the stone structure, they watched for a moment as it channeled the downpour into the rapidly flowing river. Millie took Donald’s hand and asked, “You will stop and see us, see me, when you return won’t you?”
She could not know for sure he intended to come back this way. They never talked about their plans in front of their hosts. When the subject came up, Donald simply said they were on official business and could not discuss it. He told his traveling companions this obfuscation lowered the risk of word of their mission reaching the Gotroxians. He also personally liked the aura of secrecy this added. He believed it presented him as an important man of mystery to the mill owner’s daughter, although he did not share this thought with them.
He indulged his imagination for the moment, allowing it to interpret his current exploits as an adventure to save the kingdom, and his imagination appreciated it. At this point, it provided him a fantasy of returning this way to Millie’s open and eager arms with the explicit provision that this time they would actually have some time alone. So far, they never had. Someone always seemed to be nearby. He appreciated that Kwestor only wanted to watch out for him, but why did he have to watch so closely all the time?
“I will certainly try to.”
Their goodbyes said, Donald, Kwestor, and Muce slogged onward over the slick, puddled road, through the stoutfolk part of Gondford, and well beyond. After about three hours, the rain stopped and the clouds drifted away to share their life giving moisture with some other unappreciative beneficiaries.
The prince recalled Kwestor’s morning prediction that the rain would stop later in the day. “How can you judge the weather the way you do?” he asked the ranger.
Kwestor’s reply suggested he found nothing remarkable about this ability. “By noticing the look of the sky, the feel of the wind and the smell of the air. The same way all the other animals do.”
“Could you teach me?”
“I doubt it.”