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"So, how do you like the skeletons in our closet?" Water Princess nudges Earth Prince with her elbow.
Earth Prince grins lopsidedly and tilts his head, then, instead of answering, reads from the monument in the old tongue. After a pause, he repeats it, translating. "In memory of a black sheep, of value to our God, if not his family." He looks at Water Princess and ducks his head. "And I said you wouldn't find anyone related here."
She grins in reply, playfully punching his arm.
Her mother murmurs, "Of value to his family. If only he'd known."
"I think he knows, Mom."
"Should I take some pictures? Your family will be interested."
Now Water Princess fixes Earth Prince with an inquiring look and a raised eyebrow.
"Woops. You're brothers will notice that there had to be someone else here and suspect something."
"Well, how about I take some pictures?" Her father holds up his hand-held terminal.
"And I'll be careful to stay out of the frame. I look forward to sharing a laugh about this with your brothers in a year." He laughs ruefully.
"Me too." She smiles wistfully and gives him a quick hug. "Thanks for being so understanding."
Water Princess and her mother stand beside the monument while her father takes a shot. Then he takes a closeup of the epitaph and dates and a few more shots of the rest of the gravesite while Earth Prince stands clear.
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"One timed shot with you and me and Mom. They'll expect it."
"Good idea. We can line up here again by Ilar's stone and put the terminal on that monument over there. Maybe our friends will cooperate and join us."
Water Princess looks around at the boars and snuffles and squeals to them, and the boars respond with snuffles and grunts, moving to gather around the monument.
"At least I can press the shutter button?" Earth Prince offers.
"Thanks. Could you set it up?" Her father hands him the terminal.
The three line up, Water Princess squatting down to give the old sow a caress. Earth Prince sets the hand-held on the other monument and frames the picture. Then he sets the timer and takes his hands off, backing away for the shot.
"Say 'watercress'!"
Water Princess and her parents grin and the boars squeal, and the terminal imitates the sound of a mechanical shutter.
The group picture taken, they take some final quick notes, gather their packs and notebooks, say goodbye to the boars, and leave the clearing.
Earth Prince holds some branches and vines aside for Water Princess's father. "I think I should ask you what kind of parameters you need on that secure channel before we get back to the shop."
The two exchange a look.
"Secure from what, is the problem," Earth Prince points out.
"You have listeners on your network?" Water Princess's father asks as he takes a turn clearing the way.
"Of course. In particular, two of our ministries tend to keep an eye on me. They'll notice an encrypted message. Will that be a problem?"
"Ah. I have a similar problem on the other end -- our international and internal intelligence offices. Sometimes it's convenient to have their attention, sometimes not so much."
"So what's your strategy?"
Now Water Princess holds vines and branches out of the way as she and her mother listen without comment.
"It's primarily a call home, a short status message to my sons and their reply. I'll be using steganography for the important details anyway. But I don't want certain other parties to know the status message has been sent, so I don't want to send it from the cottage we've rented."
"You'll send the message between the photos?"
"Right."
"Was that planned?"
"Side benefit of having a real reason to travel," Water Princess points out.
As the forest thins out, Earth Prince hangs back. "So you guys do a lot of walking to avoid the probability of a bugged car?"
"That's about right," Water Princess's mother confirms.
Water Princess stops and turns to Earth Prince. "While we're talking cloak and dagger, let's make a contingency password."
"I like telepathy, but it's not a good habit to get into relying on it. Hmm. How about my sugar issues for a flag topic?"
Water Princess thinks. "That could usually be worked into a conversation. Then, if we need to say something in code, we can start the message with something about water and end it with something about earth."
"Won't that be kind of obvious?"
"Obvious is less likely to draw attention. We can give a count after the mention of earth, with either an up or down word, so we know which words to pick out."
"Okay."
"Cloak and dagger!" her mother complains as they leave the forest.
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