He turned and walked back to his own cabin. There was nothing he could do but withdraw—and listen from a distance and be ready to act if it seemed she was in danger.
He sat on his doorstep in the darkness, hearing occasional phrases in Narf's unrelenting abuse. One was: "So prim you had to countermand my order for a key to that lock—then you went out to play with that second lieutenant...."
Alonzo materialized out of the darkness, coming as silently as a shadow. He was no longer the bumbling clown. The idiotic grin was gone and his eyes were green fire, slanted and catlike, his teeth flashing white in a snarl as he looked back toward the sound of Narf's voice.
"She are my Princess Ryra," Alonzo said. "He are cursing her. If he ever hurt her, I wirr tear out his throat and his river."
"He won't hurt her, Alonzo," Hunter said, wishing he could be sure. "He'll only use words on her."
"He never ask her why she run away—he onry curse her and threaten her because she embarrass him."
"Embarrass him?"
"He and Sonig, they see you coming out of the forest with your arm around her. They watch with high-power grasses."
"But there was nothing wrong in that—"
"That are what Princess Ryra say. She say you onry put your arm around her because she are stirr scared of the tigers. And then he say, what about the other? And he cawr her awrful bad names."