Sasharia en Garde

  “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 after 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 hand-woven 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, and 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?

  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 stable hand tended to the mare’s food, another got out curry brushes, and a third checked her feet.

  Satisfied that the mare, at least, would sleep in a good mood, I retreated up to my hammock, and despite the singing, rhythmic stomping, roars of laughter from below, and the sounds of people breathing, sighing, rustling around in the attic around me, I dropped into sleep.

  The next day, I began my long journey toward Ivory Mountain, where I hoped to find my father.

  Chapter Four

  The lookouts on the towers at the royal castle in Vadnais sent runners below to announce that the prince was arriving.

  More correctly, the dust from the road was spotted by the guards on the walls just about the same time two outriders appeared on foam-flecked horses.

  By the time Jehan and his honor guard trotted tiredly through the outer gates and up the streets to the castle, the brown and silver banner indicating the Crown Prince in Residence hung below the king’s banner, limp in the humid air.

  A small army of stable hands waited to take the drooping animals in hand as the guards dismounted, everyone weary from the grueling pace the prince had kept. (Why did they volunteer for honor-guard duty? Hadn’t everyone said he always stopped at every inn to get drunk and flirt with the prettiest girls around?) But no one was more weary than Jehan, who hadn’t let himself sleep more than a couple of hours at a stretch for several days.

  His mood was vile. Not because he was hot and tired, but because he had tried to outrun his thoughts. He knew better. But the chattering voice in his head had kept pace right with him, whispering all the things he should have said to Sasha to convince her, leaving him with the even more depressing retort: Doesn’t matter. She wouldn’t have believed anything I said.

  That was the worst of it. She didn’t trust him, didn’t believe him. He’d never cared what anyone thought before. There were six people who knew his secret identity—well, nine, with Sasha and the Ebans—but somehow, in a matter of days, Sasha’s opinion had come to matter the most.

  Canardan, glancing out of one of the windows above the military courtyard, was shocked at the grim tension in Jehan’s face. He sent a runner to bring his son upstairs at once, and so Jehan appeared in his private room not long after, bowing his head in salute, his tangled white hair imprinted with the dust of the road.

  “Jehan?” Canardan said, puzzled. He’d never seen his son this—this angry, no, this present. His mood altered to uneasy question.

  “You summoned me, Father.”

  “You seem to have ridden as if all Norsunder was on your heels. What did Zhavic say to you?”

  Jehan blinked, seemed to gather himself, then his face smoothed into a semblance of his customary lack of discernable expression, despite the dust smudges. “A party. I must get to my tailor. I would not dishonor your guest by appearing in last winter’s masquerade costume.”

  Canary was relieved, and irritated. “So you nearly ran the horses to death to get to your tailor?”

  “We changed mounts at dawn. Had a race the last way, but it began to get hot,” Jehan said, with his usual maddening habit of answering someone else’s question, and not the one his father had asked. “The horses were all right, hot but not blown,” Jehan added, and Canary nodded. That was true enough.

  So Jehan wasn’t angry, only overheated from the summer sun. Probably had an aching head. Canardan had had enough of those of late, and not just from the weather. “Well, get yourself some fresh clothes. Eat. I want your report on what happened at the games.”

  Jehan bowed and
left, determined to get a grip on his mood before he faced his father again. He could see questions there.

  As soon as he was gone, Canardan turned to his chief valet, a slight man of indeterminate age who went unnoticed by all who did not know him. The other servants, who did, were afraid of him. “Chas. Make certain he and the princess do not meet. Unless I am there to witness it.”

  Chas did not speak, only bowed and effaced himself, smiling as soon as he was alone. He seldom spoke, but when he did, the other servants listened, for they never knew when it was his will or the king’s being expressed. Either way, whatever they said or did was sure to reach royal ears.

  While Jehan was taking a cool bath, Atanial moved from the upper reaches of the castle to her own rooms. She’d heard the horns, and watched from the window at the staircase as the boys assigned to banner duty put up the prince’s flag in the place she used to see Math’s hanging.

  She went out onto the nearest balcony that overlooked the courtyard, but all she’d seen was dust and milling horses and military people, with stable hands dashing about in between. Once she thought she caught sight of white hair gleaming in the sunlight, but almost immediately the figure vanished below.

  She crossed back to her room and summoned her maid. “If the prince has a free moment, I would very much like to offer him some refreshments.”

  “If it pleases you, your highness,” the girl said nervously. “I can ask permission.”

  Atanial smiled. “Whenever the king wishes.”

  Interesting. So Canary didn’t want them meeting on their own, then. But what did that mean?

  Now, for the first time, Atanial looked forward to the ball whose preparations had thrown the entire castle into a state of madness.

  She went to the window, looking down into the garden court.

  All the servants had brought in relatives to help clean and decorate the ballroom with the summer blooms raided from gardens outside the city. The air smelled day and night of baking, and everywhere one encountered the sounds of brooms wisping, the squeak of vigorous polishing, the slosh of windows being washed. The one time she ventured into the anteroom to the great chambers, a horde of little girls leaped to their feet, flowers drifting into piles on the floor, half-fashioned garlands dropping, as they curtseyed then stared at her in dismay. She made a hasty retreat.

  She moved to the balcony again. In all this craziness I bet I could slip away.

  Okay. Then what?

  Trouble for all the servants, that’s what. And maybe threats against those in the dungeon or wherever Kreki and the others were stashed. Meanwhile, exactly what would she be doing, other than lurking around the countryside?

  No, much as she longed for it, escape right now would be a bad move. She longed to get away and find Sasha, but she would not risk others.

  Besides. She remembered the glimpse of white hair in the courtyard below and remembered what Ananda had said about Jehan. She had to talk to him.

  o0o

  Jehan longed to be standing on the captain’s deck of the Zathdar. He longed to be asleep on the Dolphin.

  He longed to be anywhere but here.

  But there was no leaving, and certainly no sleep. He bathed, dressed, and drank the hot steeped listerblossom brought to him by servants familiar with his tastes. That at least reduced the headache, at least.

  He dressed, making certain his magic-transfer notecase went directly from the pile of dirty clothes into his new, because the moment he left, someone—probably Chas—would be searching his things.

  Standard, all of it. Meanwhile his father awaited him for lunch. After that everyone would be expecting him to fuss over his clothes, so he had to find the energy to give them what they expected.

  The lunch was being served on the shaded private balcony overlooking the back garden, where stooped backs worked among the roses and other flowers, busy trimming, weeding, sprucing up. Some of the flowers looked withered. There’d been no rain here for almost three days now, and dust rose everywhere, shimmering light brown in the dazzling sunlight, settling to the distantly heard dismay of sweepers, dusters, cleaners.

  “Welcome back, my boy,” Canardan greeted him.

  “Thank you, Father.” Jehan bowed.

  They sat down to eat, and Jehan faced his father’s searching gaze. “Tell me about the games,” the king said.

  “Shambles.” Jehan broke a biscuit fresh from the oven. “We had four outsiders join at the last moment, who took all the prizes they competed for. Then they vanished before the awards.”

  Canardan rubbed his jaw as Jehan dug into his meal. “What happened to Damedran?”

  “Thumped repeatedly. But that did not prevent him from riding in the relay even so.”

  “And still he lost?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who were they, any idea?”

  Jehan had thought this aspect out very carefully. “I know one of them from my training days in the west. He recognized me. Came up beside me when I was going down to visit my yacht, said something about assessment. Said word is out west, Norsunder will be moving against the world soon. Said we should be better trained in defense tactics.”

  There it was, the truth.

  Canardan waved a hand impatiently. “Every court is yipping about Norsunder. I did it myself when I pressed the guilds to up their tax share to me.”

  “You hold that view despite these warnings?”

  “What warnings? It’s all rumor, innuendo, nonsense. Excuses for other plans. If Norsunder’s mages do start sniffing around, we have Zhavic and Perran to ward ’em. Last I heard, no one has actually seen the Norsundrian army for years, except down there at the southern base, which concerns itself with Sartor and its environs. I want Locan Jora back. We need it. They interfere with Colendi trade, causing me to spend time and energy with these constant negotiations. That’s enough to worry about.” His voice sharpened, warning that he would no longer listen, only demand.

  Jehan deferred yet again, hating himself, the situation, and the entire world. But as usual, hid it. “I had commissioned a gift for the queen. Magister Zhavic told me she vanished. What does that mean, vanished?”

  “I don’t know myself. One morning she wasn’t in her rooms, and no one had seen her depart.”

  “Magic?”

  “Could be, though Zhavic went over her chambers himself, and insisted he found no traces of transfer. But then the magic would . . .” He waved his hand. “Dissipate? Sounds like fog, not spells. Anyway, the residue of major transfers only lingers for a time, they all say. And we don’t know when she left. She stayed in her rooms, never came out except to walk in the gardens.”

  Jehan nodded, satisfied that the queen had gone of her own free will, however mysteriously, and had not been conveniently dispatched. Now that there was a potential queen around.

  Speaking of whom, it was time to mention her. “When do I meet Princess Atanial?”

  “Officially, at the ball. But if you like I can invite her to supper. She has nothing else to do. I caught her, I might add, having made straight for those fools around that troublemaker Kreki Eban. Who is sitting down in the lockup right now, with the rest of them, awaiting my pleasure.”

  “What is your pleasure?” Jehan asked.

  “That they all drop dead. But they won’t. I don’t know what to do about them. I can’t figure out if I should hope someone runs a rescue raid so I have an excuse to kill them all, or if I should make them disappear. But whether there was dirty work or not, you can be certain rumor would smear me. As usual. So they sit there. And Atanial up here. None of them making trouble.” Canardan grinned.

  “I am to understand you summoned me here to meet her?”

  “To talk to her.” The king threw up his hands. “You like women. You chase women. They must like you, or you wouldn’t catch them. Atanial is likable, but too old for you to chase. Talk to her instead. Ask about her daughter. What she looks like, what she’s been taught. Where she might be. I want that da
ughter here, and I want you to court her.”

  “Court her?” Jehan repeated, aghast.

  “Court and marry. Zhavalieshin name and ours twined, very romantic and might just settle down this curse-blasted kingdom.”

  The headache was back, worse than before. “What if she won’t have me?”

  “Of course she will,” his father countered. “You have success with all these artists, surely you can romance her. You’re handsome, you’re rich, you’ve got a title. If she’s romantic, you give up your artists for a little while. If she’s sensible, you don’t even have to do that.”

  From a certain point of view, it sounded reasonable. Kings and queens negotiated just such marriages all the time. But Jehan never felt farther from his father’s view of the world than at this moment.

  “Do you know where she is?” he asked, thumbs at his temples.

  “No, but if the pirate’s got her, Randart will soon take care of that. If not, the mages will track her down on land.”

  “What if she won’t cooperate?” Jehan asked.

  Father and son eyed one another, striving to understand—and to convince the other.

  Was that irony in his Jehan’s voice? Canardan eyed his son, then shrugged. Imagination. Maybe the boy hesitated for his usual stupid reasons. She might not be pretty, or more important, might not like art. “She’ll cooperate.”

  They both knew he’d use persuasion, and then threat.

  The rest of the lunch was about details—the ball, taxes, decisions. Jehan perceived with a sinking heart that Canardan did not expect any intelligent response. He probably did not want it. He only wanted acquiescence, and that Jehan gave him with his usual air of absence.

  Seeing it, his father relaxed. When Canardan was finished, he rose. It was time to get on with his busy day, and for his son to carry out his assigned tasks.

  Jehan crossed the long halls to his seldom-used rooms, now filled with people patiently awaiting him: the two tailors, a model his height and build, a dozen apprentices standing ready with swatches of cloth, and servants hovering at the back.