Sasharia en Garde

  I gulped down more punch, feeling hot and a little dizzy as everyone started talking, the adrenaline-comedown sort of chatter I remembered from my competition days. “Didya see. . . ?” “. . . and then I took my sword and . . .” “He was goin’ for Sage, so I grabbed up a stool and . . .”

  Everyone wanted to air their own bit, to praise the others and be praised, and—as the punch loosened tongues—more of the compliments came my way.

  I smiled and saluted and returned compliments about skirmishes I couldn’t possibly have seen, because the flushed, smiling faces and bright eyes surrounding me so plainly expected it. And deserved it, too. They’d won. We were safe.

  But as the talk got wilder, the compliments sent my way took on a certain familiarity of expression. “Thought you’d finally take action,” the cook said, giving me a friendly nudge with a powerful arm. I nearly fell face-first into the tureen.

  “Knew you’d come out fer yer Dad,” the forecastle captain boomed from the other side of the table. “He never forgot us that haven’t any titles, no he did not.”

  And after a general (though less energetic) “Hear him, hear him!” one of the top hands thumped her mug onto the table.

  Then red-haired Robin declared, “When you raise your banner, Princess, we’ll be right behind you.”

  I tried to force a smile, and shot a suspicious look at Zathdar. He had been watching me. He gave his head the smallest shake, turning his thumbs outward, and I knew he hadn’t said anything to the crew.

  They didn’t act like people ordered to drop hints about my princessly obligations, and anyway, it was all coming back to me, how people thought here. When you were born to a title, you had a responsibility along with the title. Your job was politics.

  I left as soon as I could, aware of Elva’s unhappy face over at a side table, where she sat with Zathdar’s navigator and bosun. She followed me in silence.

  I tramped wearily to my cabin, Elva behind me, wincing as she flexed her fingers. Titles—expectations—obligations—politics chased round in my head like dizzy mice.

  A long drink of water, then I lay down, shut my eyes and firmly told myself that answers were my dad’s job. I just had to find him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  While Atanial was on her way with her royal escort to the royal castle at Vadnais, back at the Ebans’ home Marka, at last free of her bonds, crept downstairs. She’d wriggled safely under her bed by the time she heard the smashings and bangings of searchers in the lower rooms. She hadn’t known who was searching the house, but those words the tall, beautiful woman with the accent had said echoed over and over in her mind, Living a lie.

  Then the tromping feet came upstairs. Two pairs appeared in her doorway, and one pair kicked roughly at her trunk. A young man said in a bored voice, “Here’s the room with the signal. But the girl is gone.”

  “As well,” someone else said.

  As well. She knew what that meant. They’d had orders to kill her.

  Tromp, tromp, tromp. The heavy boots clattered down the stairs. The crashes and bangs below ended. The door slammed on a silent house.

  Wondering if she would ever stop crying, Marka resumed working steadily at the knots.

  Dawn painted the world in dreary blue streaks when she finally passed through the ruined rooms. She paused in the kitchen to grab some of the spilled food, drink from the water barrel, and then eased out into the vegetable garden, where cold air promised rain. Cold air chilled her newly bare neck, and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks at the thought of her shorn hair—and Tam bearing it away. Maybe flinging it with disgust into a fire. Stop it. Get home, warn Mama and the others.

  She thought of Mistress Eban’s absent kindness. She thought of Tam, his grin, his hands. His kisses. Her beautiful hair that he used to run his fingers through, calling it ribbon-silk . . .

  Her chest ached with the sobs that boiled up, but she couldn’t let them escape. At least she had never told the king’s man Tam’s name, or anything about him. She could be glad of that. She would have to be glad of that.

  She crossed the boot-trampled vegetable garden and scurried up the trail through the orchard, leaving barely a rustle.

  o0o

  Atanial slept through the next few days, only rising to drink some healer’s tea she found waiting (the smell had woken her up), eat the meals she found on a tray, and go right back to sleep. Each time she woke she rediscovered that she lay in a room, not a cell. The bed was clean and comfortable. Everything else could wait.

  She let another week go by while she avoided the king’s messengers, either pretending to be asleep, or claiming she still was unwell, as she recovered her strength and wondered what to do.

  o0o

  Then came the morning that Commander Randart entered the king’s outer chamber, pushed past the scribes and runners, and scowled at the crowd around the king.

  Canardan bustled his bureaucrats through the immediate business, and dismissed the rest with a laugh and a joke.

  When the last had departed, the king motioned for Randart to shut the door. He sighed inwardly at his old friend’s scowl. “What now?”

  “Courier from Ellir.” Randart sank into one of the cushioned interview chairs. “Zathdar seems to have slipped inside the blockade.”

  Canardan slammed a hand down on his desk. “Damn! How does a pirate ship ‘slip’ inside a blockade?”

  “My scouts think he might have mingled in with the fishing fleet coming back from northern waters. Though no one reported any vessels standing out or otherwise drawing attention.”

  Canardan sat back, his breath hissing. “What else?”

  “Zathdar reappeared on the other side of Mais Island.”

  Canardan pressed his hands to his eyes. “No. Don’t tell me.”

  Randart waited, smiling grimly while the silence lengthened.

  “All right.” Canardan sighed, flinging his hands outward. “Tell me.”

  “The report is sketchy. Just arrived by transfer note.” Only small pieces of paper fit into the magical notecases, which made for very short reports. “But he seems to have cut out the Skate. Took it just long enough for his rabble to strip it of supplies while he tried to pry details of the mission from Bragail.”

  Canardan laughed somewhat bitterly. “I wish him joy for his efforts. Bragail has too many secrets buried to hand any pirate a shovel.”

  “Except, if I read this aright . . .” Randart held up a folded bit of paper. “Zathdar began by flinging at least a couple of those secrets in his teeth.”

  Canardan leaned forward, hand out. “Let me see that.” He frowned down at the paper . . . The pirate said 2 words, “Chwahir” & “Glathan,” so the cptn. endorsed Z’s order to leave them alone in t/cabin. We went below, under swords of pirates. “Glathan. I suspect we will never cease to regret that.”

  Randart shrugged. “Only way to deal with mages.”

  Canardan rubbed his eyes, trying to press back the pangs of a burgeoning headache. The kingdom was unraveling under his fingers. It would take a grand gesture of kingly proportion to wrest triumph out of disaster. One possible gesture lay sequestered upstairs, having been left until her blistered feet had healed enough for her to walk.

  Giving Canardan time to consider what to say when they did meet again. He’d been reflecting on those blistered feet from a cross-country run that everyone in the castle—the kingdom—apparently knew about before he did.

  Bringing him to the present. “What about my son? No message from him?” Canardan flicked his solid-gold notecase.

  “Yes, the courier had word about him as well. He sent one of his runners straight to Ellir, promising that the prince would be back by the beginning of the midsummer games.” Randart added wryly, “You haven’t heard from him directly because he seems to have been caught napping by some highway robbers along his path in the south, and he was robbed of everything, including his notecase.”

  Canardan groaned. The headache was worsening wit
h every word he heard.

  “Well, he did send his guard to the World Gate tower, so he cannot be blamed for a shortage of personal protection,” Randart offered, inwardly despising that absurd order about not killing the enemy until they killed first. For Randart, there was no consideration for fellow countrymen, much less pirates or brigands. If you stood against him, you were an enemy. Enemies deserve death. Clear and simple.

  Canardan snorted. “No, he can be blamed for being an idiot who cannot defend himself against a couple of bush skulkers. But he will be a married idiot as soon as we lay hands on Math’s girl. We’ll make it a grand festival, with public pardons handed out like roses.”

  Randart did not hide his surprise, or his displeasure.

  “Carefully chosen ones,” Canardan said swiftly, mistaking the direction of Randart’s ire. “Anyway, as soon as Jehan shows up in Ellir, we’ll know where he is. Send a message to him to stay put for the midsummer games. He can wine and dine the winning cadets, he can hold musical parties, he can visit every poet and painter in the city, but he is to stay put.”

  “I’ll send a dispatch as soon as we’re done.”

  “We’re done. Go yourself. Hunt down that pirate. I don’t care if you use the entire fleet. The Chwahir plan is a disaster, blockading doesn’t work, and we can’t even get our trade protected, so you, my friend, are going pirate hunting, and when you do find them, kill them all. Make certain not one is left alive to come back here and blab all over about our villainy. Against pirates.”

  Each considered how unfair that was.

  “The only one I want left alive is the girl, and you bring her directly to me,” the king ordered.

  “Consider it done.” Randart got up and left.

  o0o

  That night, Atanial awoke abruptly, aware someone was in her room.

  If that’s Canary, I will scream so loud they’ll hear me in Sartor. She sat bolt upright in bed and yanked the covers to her neck.

  A shape passed before the faint starlight glowing in her window, a female shape. Stout, with an ill-confined cloud of frizzy hair.

  “Ananda?” she whispered, astonished.

  “Yes,” came the queen’s soft voice. “No, do not light a candle. I am believed to be sleepwalking. It’s part of my madness.”

  Atanial gave her eyes a vigorous rub, then she patted the bed, which was large enough to sleep a family comfortably. “Come. Talk to me. I’m glad you’re still alive.”

  “Oh, he would never dare touch me,” Queen Ananda said dryly. “After all, it’s my name that brought him the crown, even if he put his Merindar chalice on all the shields and carriages. He’s no Zhavalieshin. Neither is his boy. Though I wouldn’t mind if Jehan were,” she added in a reflective voice.

  “Jehan?” Atanial prompted as the bed shifted and the queen settled, hands clasped around her knees. “Tell me about him.”

  The two women regarded one another in the pale starlight. The queen knew she was unprepossessing, but then she’d always been unprepossessing: short, plump, her hands broad, her nose a hawk beak, her hair an uncontrollable frizzy mat of yellow. Her brother Mathias was the tall, well-made version of frizz and nose who’d gone away and come back with this stunning beauty from another world.

  “I know him little. What I do know, I shall tell you anon.”

  Atanial heard the hesitation in her voice and misconstrued the reason. She exclaimed impulsively, “First I want to say this. I never saw you after your father’s memorial. This is years of your time too late, but I apologize if I ever made you suffer.”

  “No,” the queen murmured. “You didn’t. I knew what Canardan was after when he flirted with you. I only fooled myself once, when I believed his blandishments during our courtship. But I didn’t know what real love was until I saw you with Math.”

  Atanial bowed her head until her brow rested on her knees, which she’d brought up under the covers. Her voice was muffled. “Then my flirtation with Canary must have looked doubly bad to you.”

  “I could see you keeping it light and merry.”

  “Yes. And no. He is amazingly attractive, or at least was.” Atanial sighed. “So flirting with him was fun. Dancing close to the fire. I thought you didn’t care, I thought you didn’t notice, I thought I could in some way help Math. And oh, I have to admit I liked the danger. But he burned me good, right along with Math.”

  The queen nodded. “I know that, and I have my own confession to make. I believe it is my fault that you and Math had to run. You see, I told Canardan the night my father died that I was going to renounce the crown in favor of Math.”

  “You did? We never heard that!”

  “Of course not. You only suffered the results. I thought I could deflect Canardan from taking power, but I had misjudged everything. Including his reasons for marrying me.”

  “Oh, Ananda. I’m so sorry. So that’s behind the mad-queen story?”

  “When he said I went mad with grief over my father’s death and my brother’s treachery, for five years he made sure I saw no one in order to deny it. I did not have the wit or ability to resist. So life went on, passing me by. I became a nonentity.” The queen shrugged, her voice briefly caustic, reminding Atanial momentarily of Math. “Maybe I deserved it a little, though I never asked to be born to a title. But I finally realized that the guise of madness was a convenience for us both. He gets the power he wanted, and I have my freedom within these walls. However, taking power has not proved easy for Canardan. Things have gone wrong for him, especially in the past few years. Ever since Jehan came back. Canardan’s become very determined as a result.”

  Atanial said abruptly, “Bringing us back to Canardan’s boy. Is he good to you, at least?”

  “Jehan’s not really a boy. Though everyone thinks of him as one. It’s that white morvende hair, the dreamy manner, the boyish preoccupation with fashion. He does have a tendency to veer off and follow bards if they sing well enough, I hear, or artists if they’re pretty and paint well, but yes, he’s always been kind to me.”

  “Then I won’t hate him. But if I can find a way to defeat Canary, I will.”

  The queen paused, staring ahead. “Canardan’s got the castle on double watches. Everyone, everyone, knows you are back. And that you are here. So you have become a royal guest. Which is why you are in the royal-guest wing here, though no one at all sleeps in any of the rooms either side of you, and the tower is guarded at all the stairways. It’s also warded, I believe.”

  “Thank you for the warning.”

  The queen rose. Her voice was soft and dreamy. “He’s going to offer you everything. Including my life. He would keep that promise.”

  She drifted to the door.

  “Ananda, wait,” Atanial whispered, not daring to raise her voice.

  But the queen had had her say. She vanished, and by the time Atanial had wrestled out of the covers, run to the door and cautiously eased it open, no one was in sight.

  Atanial wandered back to the bed. That was weird, that was definitely weird. She sensed the woman had more to say, but if so, why not say it?

  Because she thinks I might buy Canary’s line. Even at the price of her life.

  It was jolting, uncomfortable, and if looked at a certain way, kind of insulting, but Atanial would not let herself go there. She herself had misjudged the queen in the past, so she had to accept without rancor that that was a two-way street.

  Atanial threw herself on the bed, knowing she should arm herself with sleep, but that seemed impossible. She wiggled her toes. Her feet did feel a lot better, thanks to the salve they’d given her after that first marvelous bath.

  She could get up and look around, except if she lit a lamp in order to check Queen Ananda’s words, who might be watching?

  Remember, you are a prisoner.

  She dozed eventually, but that thought was still with her when she woke. Pearly blue early morning light pooled on the spectacular rug in several shades of green and gold with highly stylized flo
wers interwoven.

  Atanial threw back the coverlet and padded to the wardrobe. Her feet no longer hurt. The wardrobe was almost as large as the bedroom, into which someone had brought quite a number of trunks.

  Canary had had an entire day to set up this pretty prison before he’d closed his trap on the Ebans. She needed to remember that, too.

  But, she thought happily when she threw back the first trunk and saw the gorgeous silk inside, there was no reason she needn’t take any armaments offered her.

  It was a stylishly gowned Atanial, her hair pinned up with pearls, who received the runner come to invite her to breakfast with the king, as he had every day.

  It was time to face the enemy guns.

  “Please, tell him I’d be delighted. Or better, why don’t you escort me? Though I remember the castle fairly well, I don’t know which rooms he uses.”

  The young man blushed as he bowed.

  Atanial placed her hand confidingly on his arm and tripped along the hall. She mentally counted up all the armsmen she saw, sure there were some out of sight.

  Prisoner, she thought, at the same moment Canary glimpsed her floating down the big marble stairway to the terrace where he had the servants set up a breakfast. Nothing private. Not that there was any privacy when every single pair of ears was cocked in this direction, and every pair of eyes jostling to catch a glimpse of the famed princess. Let them see a kingly welcome.

  With covert appreciation he noted that only her face had aged, but its lines were those of intelligence, of laughter, of hard-won experience. Her hair was the same sun-lit yellow as the old days, and her body under that blue silken stuff formed the same strong, enticing curves that had caught his eye when they were all much younger.

  He forced his gaze away and smiled, and she smiled, and he indicated the table, beautifully laid out with the best gold-edged porcelain, the best golden utensils, a crystal vase with fresh-picked rose buds.

  She sat, arranging her skirts.

  He waited for the silent servitors to set out the platters of hot food. Then he waved them away.