Bartholomew didn't give them long to process his story. He set the cup down and folded his hands, readying himself to continue.
"It didn't end there," he said. "If it had, I could have handed them off to a quiet life and closed the book on the whole incident, maybe checking in a few times every year to make sure that they were okay. But news has a way of traveling fast when someone like the Lycan King loses face so publicly."
"Holy shit, this is better than some of the stories we heard growing up!" Maeve gasped.
"Not really the time or the place for those kinds of comments," Ann hissed back.
"And since when did that ever stop me?" Maeve pouted sulkily as she slunk back to a corner of Ann's mind to watch in a petulant silence.
"How fast?" Adam asked, oblivious to Ann and Maeve's internal conversation
"Two days," Bartholomew answered. "That's how long it took for the first message to reach us. A runner from the Enclave that was trusted and known for his silence caught up to our patrol. He didn't even speak in camp. He came to my tent after dark, put a coded strip of paper in my hand and left. They were assassination orders, authorized by the Lycan King, with the Queen and both heirs named as targets. The instructions were explicit. No capture. No witnesses."
Ann's jaw gaped at the audacity of the Lycan King.
"And the court? Surely they had a say?"
"They were split," Bartholomew said. "Some called it necessary to restore order and pointed out the fact that he had many sons. Losing a wife and a few sons wouldn't stop him from obtaining more. Others…well they kept their heads down. One of our contacts inside the court sent a second note to keep us updated on events. He told us that the king was furious that no one had dragged the queen back, and that he'd noticed a 'soft-hearted guard' missing from his post."
Ann's lips flattened into a tight line.
"Let me guess, 'missing' didn't mean on holiday."
"No," Bartholomew said quietly. "It meant the king realized what had happened and made an example of him. I'll spare you the details, it should be enough to know that your instincts are correct."
Silence settled over them for a moment and Ann shifted position, trying desperately to relieve the ache that was currently travelling up her calf.
"So what did you do?" she asked, hlaf as a distraction for herself and half because she wanted to know more.
"What I could," he replied. "We changed our route and avoided the main roads. We moved by day through places a Lycan would normally avoid, favouring fractured ravines, scrub fields and stopping only on abandoned farmsteads where there would be nothing worth eating if we were tracked. We left false trails along the way where we could and took shortcuts through the human towns. It bought us time at least."
"And the Queen?" Ann asked, "What happened to her?"
"She stayed focused and silent for the most part, completely dedicated to the ruse that I had concocted for her.," Bartholomew said. "She only spoke to the children when necessary and Greyson watched everything with a keen eye. He copied how the scouts walked, where they put their feet, how they breathed when they were tired. The toddler clung to a strip of her cloak and slept whenever he could. The poor conditions meant that he got sick quite quickly, every night his little chest rattled and she stayed awake by his side. Really…we needed a doctor, but a doctor meant questions that we couldn't answer without putting a town at risk."
Adam nodded once as he mulled his words over.
"So you went straight for the Enclave."
"We did," Bartholomew said. "I sent two riders ahead with an urgent message. By the time we reached neutral ground, a covered wagon was waiting to meet us. I put the Queen and the younger boy inside with a midwife and a healer to do what they could on the rest of the journey. We didn't stop in any settlement. We took them to one of ours."
Ann's eyes flicked to the files that she had printed off to confront him with, but she had a feeling that they wouldn't be needed.
"And what about the house?"
Bartholomew inclined his head as a small smile danced across his mouth.
"You've seen the maintenance logs and the panic room…even the tunnel. It was already under construction for another project but we accelerated the build, reallocated the building to the Queen and her youngest son, and sealed the approvals. The order on that seal is mine. The location is human, quiet, and looks like every other cottage for two streets either way. We placed eyes in the bakery and the smithy to keep watch every day and the guard rotation went through the Enclave to avoid any scent ties back to a single pack."
"Who paid for it?" Adam asked.
Bartholomew's mouth tipped in a rueful line.
"The Enclave did. And, where signatures were needed, I did. If anyone asked later, and a few did, I called it a test site. 'Rural placement pilot for mixed-population builds.' No one wanted to argue with paperwork that dull." he chuckled.
"Clever old goat," Maeve murmured under her breath.
"It was necessary," Bartholomew replied. "The king's men passed within a mile of that town twice in the first month. They knocked at three doors. Not hers. Our people kept them politely occupied with poor directions and tea that never emptied. When the hunters left, the baker delivered bread to the cottage as if she'd been doing it for years."
"And Greyson?" Ann asked. "You said earlier that you didn't put him there."
Bartholomew nodded. "I spoke with his mother the night we reached our way-station. The boy was asleep with his brother, and she sat next to him with one hand on each of them. She didn't ask me if they were safe. She asked me what would happen when the king calmed down."
"What did you tell her?" Adam asked.
"The truth," Bartholomew said.