The aide held open the door and the gray-haired mage dropped unceremoniously into a chair to recover from the sickening wrench of being yanked out of one space and thrust into another. As soon as he drew a deep breath and looked up, Canardan forestalled the usual amenities and said, “Let’s take a walk. You get over it faster. Report as we go.”
Zhavic was not about to say anything to a king about his theories on recovery from magic transfer. “Very well, your majesty.” He struggled to his feet again, breathing deeply against a surge of reaction nausea. “You wished me to report when War Commander Randart departed. He has just done so.”
Canardan nodded and walked out of his private chamber.
With a rustling of papers and a thumping of feet, all the aides and runners in the outer office leaped up and bowed. Canardan waved a hand in a big circle, acknowledging and sending them back to their tasks. A very long time ago he’d loved these signs of respect. Showed in outward form everyone knew who was king. Now he wanted them back at work. Work that was always behind.
Through the barracks command office he paced, and again the leaps—this time military salutes—the wave of the hand. Into the hall looking onto the back court, and there she was, with the kitchen helpers.
Atanial was laughing, wisps of her hair coming down around her face and shoulders as she churned butter. He grinned, remembering when she first came, and she’d shown a tendency to go around to the servants and lecture them on workers’ rights and women’s liberation, asking excruciatingly personal questions with the earnest air of a crusader. Math’s pride and embarrassment. And her delight and then chagrin when she discovered that whatever “rights” she’d been extolling had long been a part of life here. Delight, chagrin, but no pride, no affront. Skewed as some of her notions were, she really had been an idealist.
“She obviously has no communications device,” he said to Magister Zhavic.
“No, we’re fairly certain now that the magical object she keeps hidden has to be her World Gate transfer, given her by Magister Glathan.”
“As long as she cannot get to the old castle tower she cannot use it, so we can safely let it be, I think.” Canardan knew he was disappointing his head mage, who badly wanted that little bit of powerful magic to use for his own purposes. Canardan regarded it as safer where he knew the mages couldn’t get their hands on it, but he could if he really had to.
He watched Atanial working away, laughing, chattering, as everyone went about their business. At the sight of her shapely arms, her long body, the familiar tightening of desire wakened, to be quashed. Don’t look at her, look at what she’s doing. The problem was, she wasn’t really doing anything but talking and being her usual friendly self.
Impulse again. “I think I’m going to give her a party. No, let’s make it a grand ball, a masquerade. She used to love those. My chief allies will like it, she can think it’s a courting gesture if she likes, but I want them all to see her being obedient and content under my hand.” Another thought occurred. “Yes. And let’s have Jehan here. That will be the excuse, the two of them meeting. He’s supposed to be good with women, maybe he can win her over for us. Find out where the daughter might be, or at least find out more about her. Let’s do it. End of the week.”
Zhavic said, “Is that enough time?”
Canardan gave him a wry look. “Whenever I want is enough time. Go back to the harbor. You know your orders. Tell my son I want him here as soon as possible. I’ll go get the heralds sending runners out to my other guests. It’s a good way to shift the gossip away from whatever happened at those damned games as well.”
Zhavic, seeing that the king had quite decided, bowed and left, sourly thinking of all the extra work that would fall on the mages, warding the castle, the guests to get ready so hastily, and all of it because the king had rediscovered his twenty-year-old hankering for that troublesome woman.
Canardan had already forgotten the mage. He watched Atanial straighten up, arching her back. Was the daughter as smart, as incomprehensible? She couldn’t be as beautiful, not if she’d inherited Math’s and Ananda’s wild wooly hair, the Zhavalieshin bird beak of a nose.
Atanial wouldn’t talk about the daughter at all. Any questions he asked, she deflected.
Well, maybe it was time to ask again, but not by himself. Jehan, worthless in matters military and diplomatic, ought to be able to manage sweet-talking a woman about her marriageable daughter.
As for him, he might begin their first dance by asking why she liked churning butter.
He walked on, the morning sunlight in the windows outlining his form, shadowing it to silhouette, and outlining it again. Everybody down below in the courtyard had seen him appear in the hall above. They all knew he was there and had redoubled their efforts.
Atanial finished stretching her back and watched him until he vanished into the heralds’ wing. If he’d noticed her down here, what did he think? Oh, he noticed. Just as his servants and guards were aware of his presence, very little escaped his eye, she’d learned that much. So if he did ask, she’d tell him it was fun.
It wasn’t fun, but the talk was. The butter churning, she’d discovered, was a splendid upper-body workout without being obvious. She didn’t dare demand a sword-fighting session. Canary seemed to be on the watch for her to try something stupid like trying to kiss up to the guards; anyone she spoke to at length was rotated elsewhere.
I wish I had a plan of action, she thought as the second pastry cook tested the butter for color, consistency and taste.
Guilt tightened her throat, made her stomach roil.
Everyone seems to assume I’m happy to be here. I’ve given in, given up. But what else can I do? Yelling about treachery and treason and betrayal would win me a free ticket to a cell all to myself.
No, now she was on sure ground, even if only a few inches of it. Make trouble, and Canary removes the troublemaker. And she wouldn’t get anywhere near her friends in the detention wing. Friendliness hadn’t accomplished it, but threats and heroic speeches definitely wouldn’t.
The kitchen workers headed back inside. Instinct so far had prompted her to make friends with everyone, but then that was an easy plan because she would have done it anyway.
Instinct, not duty. She winced, a sudden memory throwing her back to her very first days in this palace, when the old king was alive, and Math running around doing his jobs. You don’t need to wear those tight dresses with all the frills, she’d said to one of the young aristocrats at her first ball. Women are as good as men, and no one will be convinced of it while we’re serving as male sex objects in clothes like this.
But I want to be what you call a “sex object” if by that you mean I dress to attract, was the reply. I want the attention of the man of my choice. And I want him to dress to attract me. What would be the fun of flirting at a ball if we all dressed in sacks?
Atanial laughed at herself as she made her way upstairs. How long ago that was! Surely Canary didn’t give her this much freedom because he thought she’d go right back to lecturing everyone on self-actualizing and consciousness-raising…or did he?
At least if he thinks I’m a fool he won’t see me as a threat.
Fool. Threat.
She frowned, thinking over the queen’s words.
As she lowered herself into her bath, she thought wistfully, a threat would have a plan of action. All I’ve got is a silly reputation.
Her mood was somber when she emerged from the bath. Feeling she’d betrayed Mathias, Sasha, almost everyone with her total lack of success at coming up with a working plan, she reached for the first gown in the chest, then paused when she saw the heavy cream-colored linen paper resting on her little table by the door.
After pulling her robe back on, she retrieved the note. It was sealed with a silvery wax imprinted with the royal cup. She slid her finger carefully under it, her nails still soft from her bath.
She frowned at the script she hadn’t read for years.
His
Majesty…invites you to honor him with your presence…masquerade ball…week’s end…in order to meet his son and heir, Prince Jehan.
Canardan had written this invitation by his own hand.
Zhavic winced away from the brilliant sunlight of a rain-washed morning. Transfers always gave him a headache. At least there didn’t seem to be any trouble. He squinted against the dancing points of light reflecting off the deep blue waters of Ellir Harbor, where the fleet was pulling their anchors up and lowering sail. The tide was on the ebb.
His mage-apprentice on duty, a trustworthy, sober girl, had informed him as soon as he entered the mage room in the command tower that Prince Jehan had been seen disembarking from his boat after dawn at the height of tidal flood.
“Send someone—no, better go yourself. Find him, request him to meet me, everything polite. King’s orders,” Zhavic said, and the girl was gone with two quick steps and a swing of rust-colored braids.
Zhavic sent the senior cadet on duty at the door to fetch him some breakfast. He knew by the time anyone found wherever Jehan was moping about and he actually made his way up, the mage could eat a good meal and maybe get rid of the transfer malaise.
While he waited for his food, Zhavic stood at the window and watched Randart’s fleet begin its slow departure. He had a mage safely aboard—and at Randart’s request, which was far better than having to try to arrange a covert role. Zhavic had chosen a quiet, steady, untoward mage, her area of expertise being woodwork. The commander would not suspect her of other orders.
Everything was as it should be.
Sunlight reflecting off the glass in a merchant’s window below in the street lanced at his eyes and he turned away, thinking of Randart’s brother in the command suite directly overhead, probably dealing with the results of the disastrous games. The king had been disappointed, but Zhavic, in the safety of an empty room, could permit himself to smile. What could be better for keeping those Randarts busy? One off chasing pirates, the other facing an academy of angry youths who’d been trounced by those mysterious boys from the hills.
Magister Zhavic’s breakfast arrived moments later, brought by a breathless weed of a cadet. The boy set the tray down, bowed and backed outside the door to his post, and that, too, made Zhavic smile. The cadets as well as their masters were all afraid of mages. Good. Healthy attitude.
He’d not taken two bites before he heard the familiar lounging footfalls of the prince. He sauntered in, dressed in his usual brown velvet, his eyes tired, his face tense. Zhavic, looking for mere sulkiness and perhaps the nausea of a hangover, thought he saw the signs. Drunk again. Typical.
But then, if Math turned out to be dead, a future drunken king would be so easy to guide.
Zhavic smiled a welcome. “I am sorry to disturb you, your highness. It was at your father’s request. First, would you care for refreshment?”
“No thank you.” Jehan seemed to gather himself inwardly, then he looked up. In his hands he carried something with ribbons dangling. Seeing the mage’s gaze go to it, Jehan snapped open a fan with expertise. “I brought this for the queen. Do you think she’ll like it?”
“Queen Ananda…seems to have departed. No one knows where. Your father has given us to understand that she retired into the countryside.”
The prince’s eyes narrowed. For a moment he almost looked intelligent. But then a hangover would probably look the same. “I see. But he doesn’t actually know that?”
“No. No one knows where she went. However, your father requests me to convey his wishes. He is giving a masquerade ball at week’s end for Princess Atanial. It is his desire to introduce the two of you to one another at this event, which is intended to honor you both. He desires your presence directly back in the capital.”
The prince turned his head toward the window, as though the emptiness out at sea would fill the emptiness of his head, the mage thought wearily.
Then Prince Jehan gave Magister Zhavic an airy salute. “It shall be as he wishes. I will depart at once.”
Chapter Three
Jehan’s boat vanished in the fleeing darkness of the west along the coast.
I stepped out onto the deck of the yacht. No one in sight except for two figures at the wheel, who looked up.
I said to Owl, “Can we talk?”
He led the way to the cabin, where my coverlet was still spread on the obviously unused bed. I gathered it into my arms, hugging it close. Then I faced Owl. “You’ve got a couple of choices here. Either you’re going to have to put me in irons, and I’m gonna fight you every inch of the way, or else let me dive over and drown. Because I’ll keep trying to get to shore. Or you can give me the rowboat and let me go.”
“I’ll tell Zel to fetch your gear,” he said.
Oh. Okay. That was…easy.
I retreated, feeling inexplicably awful. I was still wearing clothes belonging to Kaelande, the Colendi cook. I skinned out of those, put on my shirt and trousers, and shoved Kaelande’s things through the cleaning frame. It was disguise time for me—a thought that gave me pause, seeing as how I’d just been dinging Jehan for his false faces. But I shook it away. He was a prince, after all. I was a fugitive.
Owl rejoined me and gave me my little box of mementos and coins. I checked. Everything was as it should be. “Ready.”
Owl indicated the yacht’s tiny hold. “He wanted me to offer you your choice of weapons. Anything you think you might need.”
“That’s all right. Please let me take the boat.”
“I’ll row you ashore.”
“That’s all right—”
Owl raised a hand. “The launch is already there. I would really rather not be stranded here without a boat, leaving him with two to bring back.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I have some shopping to do before the tide turns anyway. You can go your way, I’ll go mine.”
I felt highly uncomfortable, but was too tired to do much beyond climb down and take my place in the boat. We scarcely spoke on the long row in. When we came to the dock, Owl said, “Farewell, Princess.”
“You too,” I managed, and I climbed up the barnacle-dotted ladder between the tide-marked pilings, and hastened down the dock without looking back.
Once I reached the street, though, I did look back. Not once but several times. I bobbed and weaved, trying to stay as unobtrusive as I could. My rain-washed hair was drying in a massive cloak of frizzy curls, but I left it that way. If they were still going by the description of me at the old castle, they were seeking a woman with braids. Just once I’d wear it down, but next time I was in public it would vanish under a sober cap, foiling any possible new descriptions going out.
I made my way up the street, so tired by now that the sunlight sparkling off glass and metal along the market street seemed to jab my eyes. But I made it to what I was seeking, an unobtrusive-looking inn, where I paused in the doorway, doing one last sweep for long white hair and brown velvet.
Though I didn’t know it, Jehan was at that moment galloping to the southwest toward the capital at the head of an honor guard containing his father’s servant and Randart’s handpicked spy.
Satisfied that Jehan was not lurking somewhere about, I entered the inn. They had rooms to spare (in fact they were all empty, what with the fleet having sailed) and so I bought myself a night, stopped only long enough to help myself from the magic-cleaned water bucket they put out for guests, and then I retreated to the bed and was soon asleep.
I woke at dawn the next day, feeling more human, if not in a better mood. But the inn provided a breakfast of fresh buttered biscuits with honey, crisped potatoes with cheese and eggs, and plenty of hot liquids to drink. My mood altered gradually from Just kill me now to Well I might as well live as my body responded to the food like a dry garden under a fresh rain, and by the time I was done eating I had a plan of action.
The idea was not to draw attention to myself. So I was quite methodical. I straightened out my clothes (which looked better afte
r a trip through the cleaning frame), braided my hair tightly in a single tail down my back like I saw both women and men wearing, and made my way back down to the moneychangers. This time I cashed in three of the smaller stones, each at a different booth, so no one would remember a handful of jewels or vast amounts of money and equate it with a tall woman yadda yadda.
After each stone, I moseyed up the street, past handwoven fabrics of every imaginable type and color, baskets, shoes, gear. I stopped to make carefully planned, sober, unostentatious purchases.
After that I retreated to the inn and changed. When I emerged again, my braid was wrapped round my head under a plain scarf of blue, I wore a long robe of pale blue heavy cotton over riding trousers of forest green.
By the end of the day, as vendors were finishing, I made my last purchases, a sword and a horse, having spotted what I wanted earlier. But now, in the flurry of closing, the tired vendors seemed to be distracted. After a very short dicker and a good price, I found myself the owner of an older cross-country mare who seemed to be mild and well cared for.
I bought her a good saddle pad. Onto it I hooked my new tote bag carrying all my goodies wrapped round my rolled coverlet, which in turn held the box of mementos. On the other side of the saddle pad, I’d hung the saddle sheath containing my new sword, a good dueling rapier.
As the sun began to set, I rode quietly out of the harbor city with the departing marketers. My mare ambled not ten paces from the top of Market Street, where I’d confronted Zathdar—Prince Jehan—what seemed a hundred years ago. Was it really only two days ago?
No answer.
I rode until well past dark, stopping in a small market town that had its own inlet to the sea. The inn was full of merrymakers celebrating a wedding, but they had a few hammocks slung for desperate travelers and I slapped my cash down before anyone else could claim one. For an extra charge, a stablehand tended to the mare’s food, another got out curry brushes and a third checked her feet.