Crown Duel

  oOo

  My next worry was how to get out of the trunk without being discovered. I’d seen how busily all those servants cleaned their carriages as they waited in the rain, so I knew the first thing the Renselaeus lackeys would want to do the moment they stopped would be to rub the elegantly painted canvas with rain-proofing wax polish. Would that mean opening the luggage trunk? My heart was pounding loud enough to be heard at the palace, it seemed, when we finally came to a halt.

  And then came the imperious voice again; I’d discounted the vanity of an old lady. “No, no, leave that. Where are my canopies? Take me across the yard. Yes, all of you. Come, come, don’t dawdle!”

  Footsteps moved away. I had to move right then or risk discovery.

  Shouldering the lid up, I eased out, then fell to the straw-covered ground when I tried to step on my left foot. A few paces away a pitchfork leaned against a wall. I hauled myself to my feet, my heart still thumping near my throat. I lunged my way to the pitchfork, steadied myself on it, and used it as a brace for my left leg.

  A quick look either way, then I was out the stable door and into a narrow alley. I hobbled into its welcome gloom, turned the first moment I could, and kept moving until I was thoroughly lost. I was also soaked right to the skin, and my hands were sore from the pitchfork’s rusty metal. It was time to find a place to hide, and rest, and plan my next move.

  I was on a broad street, which was dangerous enough. As yet there was still some traffic, but soon that would be gone.

  Light and noise drew my attention. Farther down, my street intersected another. On the corner was a great inn, its stableyard lit by glowglobes. As I watched, a loaded coach-and-six slowly lumbered in. Stable hands ran out and surrounded it. I stumbled my way along the wall, and doddered into the courtyard. On one side heaped a great mound of hay, covered by a slanting roof. What a perfect bed that would be! My body was one great ache, and I longed to stretch out and sleep and sleep and sleep.

  I kept my gaze on that hay. Every other step I moved my pitchfork around, as though tidying the yard. No one paid me the least heed as I stepped closer, closer—

  “Boy! You there!”

  I turned, my heart slamming my ribs.

  The innkeeper stood on a broad step, his apron covering a brawny chest. Nearby a soberly dressed man wearing the hat of a prosperous farmer dismounted from a fine mare. “Boy—girl? Here, take this gentleman’s horse,” the innkeeper said, snapping his fingers at me.

  Trying not to be obvious about my pitchfork crutch, I stepped nearer, toward the light. Warmth and food smells wafted out from a cheerfully noisy common room. Clearly this inn never knew quiet, night or day.

  “Hey, is that palace livery? A palace hand, are you? What you doing here?”

  “Errand,” I said, trying desperately to make up a story.

  But that appeared to be good enough. “Look, you, our hands are busy. You trim down this horse and put him with the hacks, and there’ll be a hot toddy waiting inside for ye. How’s that?”

  I ducked my head in the nod that I’d seen the stable hands use at the palace. The man surrendered the reins to me and pulled off the saddlebags, yawning hugely as he did. “Wet season ahead, Master Kepruid,” he said, following the innkeeper inside. “I know the signs…”

  And I was left there, holding a horse by the reins.

  My inner debate lasted about the space of one breath. The mare was as wet as I but otherwise seemed fine; she had not been galloped into exhaustion.

  So I led the mare to the stable entry, my shoulder blades feeling as if a hundred unfriendly eyes watched. Then I leaned against her, standing on my bad foot, which almost gave out. I hopped up—ignoring the sharp pain—and grabbed the saddle horn, threw my good leg over the saddle.… And I was mounted!

  The pitchfork dropped; I gathered the reins and nudged the animal’s sides. She sidled, tossed her head, nickered softly—and began to move.

  Several streets later, I kicked off the awful shoes, and when we had left the last of the houses of Remalna-city behind I decided I’d better get rid of the palace livery in case everyone around recognized it. I was so wet there was no chance of being warm—the tunic was merely extra weight. I pulled it off and balled it up, and when we crossed a bridge topped with glowglobes, I dropped my burden into a thicket near the water’s edge.

  So…where to go, besides east?

  My body needed rest, warmth, sleep; but my spirit longed for home. Once I’d left the city and the last of what light there was, I could see nothing of the rain-swept countryside. The horse moved steadily toward the eastern mountains, which were discernible only as a blacker line against the faintly glowing sky. Gradually, without realizing it, I relinquished to the mare the choice of direction and struggled to keep awake, to stay on her.

  After an interminable ride I tried lying along her neck. Beneath the rain-cold mane her muscles moved, and faint warmth radiated into me. I drifted in and out of dreams and wakefulness until the dream images overlaid reality like dye-prints on silk. I’d slipped into delirium, though I thought I was managing to hold on to consciousness. My perception of the world had gradually diminished to the fire in my leg and the rough horse hair beneath my cheek.

  Dawn began to lift the darkness when the mare walked into a farmyard and stopped.

  I gripped weakly at her mane with both fists to keep myself from falling, and I sat up. The world swam sickeningly. Somewhere was the golden light of a window, and the sound of a door opening, and then voices exclaiming.

  “Heyo, Mama, Drith is here…but there’s someone else on her instead of Papa.” And then a sharp voice: “Who are you?”

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The whirl of the universe had increased, and it drew me inexorably into the vortex of welcoming darkness.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When I first opened my eyes—and it took about as much effort as had the entire escape from Athanarel—someone made me drink something. I think I fell asleep again in the midst of swallowing.

  Then I slept, and dreamed, and slept some more. I woke again when someone coaxed me into a bath. I remember the delicious sense of warm water pouring over my skin, and afterward the clean smell of fresh sheets, and myself in a soft nightgown.

  Another time I roused to the lilting strains of music. I thought I was back at the palace, and though I wanted to go closer, to hear the sound more clearly, I knew I ought to get away.… I stirred restlessly…and the music stopped.

  I slept again.

  Waking to the sound of the bells for third-gold, I found myself staring up at a pair of interested brown eyes.

  “She’s awake!” my watcher called over her shoulder. Then she grinned at me. She had a pointed face, curly dark hair escaping from two short braids, and a merry voice as she said, “Splat!” She clapped her hands lightly. “We were fair guffered when you toppled right off Drith, facedown in the chickenyard mud. Good it was so early, for no one was about but us.”

  I winced.

  She grinned again. “You’re either the worst horse thief in the entire kingdom, or else you’re that missing countess. Which is it?”

  “Ara.” The voice of quiet reproach came from the doorway.

  I lifted my eyes without moving my head, saw a matron of pleasant demeanor and comfortable build come into the room bearing a tray.

  Ara jumped up. She seemed a couple years younger than I am. “Let me!”

  “Only if you promise not to pester her with questions,” the mother replied. “She’s still much too ill.”

  Ara shrugged, looking unrepentant. “But I’m dying to know.”

  The mother set the tray down on a side table and smiled down at me. She had the same brown eyes as her daughter, but their expression was harder to read. “Can you sit up yet?”

  “I can try,” I said hoarsely.

  “Just high enough so’s we can put these pillows behind you.” Ara spoke over her shoulder as she dashed across the room.

  My h
ead ached just to watch her, and I closed my eyes again.

  “Ara.”

  “Mama! I didn’t do anything!”

  “Patience, child. You can visit with her next time, when she’s stronger. If she likes,” the woman amended, which gave me a pretty good idea they knew which of the two choices I was. So much for a story, I thought wearily.

  The mother helped me by lifting my cup for me to sip from, and by buttering bread then cutting it small so I wouldn’t have to tear it. Soon, my stomach full, my body warm, I slid into sleep.

  oOo

  The next time I woke it was morning. Clear yellow light slanted in an open window, making the embroidered curtains wave in and out in slow, graceful patterns. I lay without moving, watching with sleepy pleasure.

  I might have drifted off again when there was a quick step, and Ara appeared, this time with pink blooms stuck in her braids. “You’re awake,” she said happily. “Do you feel better?”

  “Lots,” I said. My voice was stronger.

  “I’ll tell Mama, and you’ll have breakfast in a wink.” She whirled out in a flash of embroidered skirts, then bobbed into view. Lowering her voice as she knelt by the bed-shelf, she said, “Feel like talking?”

  She sounded so conspiratorial I felt the urge to smile, though I don’t think the impulse made it all the way to my face.

  “That thing on your ankle was pret-ty nasty. But we have keem leaves, and herbs from Grandma. Mama thought you were going to die.” Ara grimaced. “At first Papa was mad about the horse, for he had to pay out all his profits to hire another, plus the bother of returning it, but he didn’t want you to die, nor even want to report you—not after the first day. And not after we Found Out.” The last two words were uttered in a tone of vast importance, her eyes rounding. “Luz will tell you he heard it first, but it was I who went to the Three Rings and listened to the gossip.”

  I swallowed. “Luz?”

  She rolled her eyes. “My brother. He’s ten. Horrid age!”

  I thought of Branaric, who had always been my hero. Had he ever thought I was at a horrid age? A complex of emotions eddied through me. When I looked up at Ara again, she had her lower lip between her teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Have I spoken amiss?”

  “No.” I tried a smile. It felt false, but she seemed relieved.

  The mother came in then, carrying another tray. “Good morning. Is there anything you wish for?”

  “Just to thank you,” I said. “The—horse. I, um, didn’t think about theft. I …needed to get out of Remalna-city.”

  “Well, she brought you right home.” The mother’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “I think the hardest thing was my spouse having to endure being chaffed at the inn for losing Drith. He—we—decided against mentioning the theft to anyone as yet.”

  I tried to consider what that meant, and failed. Something must have showed in my face, because she said quickly. “Fret not. No one has said anything, and no one will, without your leave. There’s time enough to talk when you are feeling stronger.”

  I sighed. And after a good breakfast, I did feel a great deal stronger. Also, for the first time, I didn’t slip into sleep. Ara, hovering about, said, “Would you like to sit on my balcony? It faces away from the farm, so no one can see you. I have a garden—it’s my own. All the spring blooms are out. Of course,” she hastened to add, “it’s only a farm garden, not like any palace or anything.”

  “I haven’t had a garden since my mother died. I’d like to see yours very much.”

  “Try walking,” Ara said briskly, her cheeks pink with pleasure. “Mama thinks you should be able to now, for your ankle’s all scabbed over and no bones broke, though they might be bruised. Here’s my arm if you need it.”

  I swung my legs out and discovered that my hair, clean and sweet smelling, had been combed out and rebraided into two shining ropes.

  Standing up, I felt oddly tall, but the familiar ache had dulled to a bearable extent, and I walked without much difficulty from the small room onto a wide balcony. A narrow wicker bench there was already lined with pillows. I sank down and took in the blooming garden. Through some sheltering trees, I glimpsed part of the house, and a bathhouse, and gently rolling hillocks planted closely in crop rows. And beyond, purple in the distance, the mountains. My mountains.

  “This is the best view.” Ara waved her arms proudly. “I tried it from several rooms. See, the roses are there, and the climbing vine makes a frame, and ferris ferns add green here…”

  “Ara, don’t chatter her ear off.” The mother appeared behind us. “Here’s another cup of listerblossom steep. I don’t think you can drink too much of it,” she added, putting it into my hands.

  I thanked her and sipped. Ara stayed quiet for the space of two swallows, then said, “Do you like my garden?”

  “I do,” I said. “Moonflowers are my favorite—especially that shade of blue. They mostly grow white up in our mountains.”

  “We have only blue here. Though I’m getting slips of some that grow pale lavender at the center, and purple out.” She wriggled a little, her profile happy. “I love the thought that I will be able to sit my whole life on this balcony and look out at my garden. “

  “You’re the heir?” I asked.

  She nodded, not hiding her pride. Then, turning a round gaze on me she said, “And you really are the Countess of Tlanth?”

  I nodded.

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Emis over on Nikaru Farm is going to be soooo jealous when she finds out. She thinks she’s so very fine a lady because she has a cousin in service at Athanarel and her brother in the Guard. There is no news from Athanarel if she doesn’t know it first, or more of it than anyone.”

  “What is the news?” I asked, feeling the old fear close round me.

  She pursed her lips. “Maybe Mama is right about my tongue running like a fox in the wild. Are you certain you want all this now?”

  “Very much,” I said.

  “It comes to this: The Duke of Savona and the Marquis of Shevraeth have another wager, on which one can find you first. The king thinks it great sport, and they have people on all the main roads leading east to the mountains.”

  “Did they say anything about my escape?”

  She shook her head. “Luz overheard some merchants at the Harvest—that’s the inn down the road at Garval—saying they thought it was mage work or a big conspiracy. I went with Papa when he returned to the Three Rings in Remalna-city, and everyone was talking about it.” She grinned. “Elun Kepruid—he’s the innkeeper’s son at Three Rings, and he likes me plenty—was telling me all the real gossip from the palace. The king was very angry, and at first wanted to execute all the guards who had duty the night you got out, except the ones he really wanted had disappeared, and everyone at Court thought there was a conspiracy, and they were afraid of attack. But then the lords started the wagers and turned it all into a game. Savona swore he’d fling you at the king’s feet inside of two weeks. Baron Debegri, who’s newly returned from the mountains, said he’d bring your head—then take it and fling it at your brother’s feet. He’s a hard one, the baron, Emis’s brother said.” She grimaced. “Is this too terrible to hear?”

  “No…No. I need…to think.”

  She put her chin on her hands. “Did you see the duke?”

  “Which duke?”

  “Savona.” She sighed. “Emis has seen him—twice. She gets to visit her cousin at Winter Festival. She says he’s even more handsome than I can imagine. Four duels…Did you?”

  I shook my head. “All I saw was the inside of my cell. And the king. And that Shevraeth,” I added somewhat bitterly.

  “He’s supposed to have a head for nothing but clothes. And gambling.” Ara shrugged dismissively. “Everybody thinks it’s really Baron Debegri who—well, got you.”

  “What got me was a trap. And it was my own fault.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Mama says I ought not to ask m
uch about what happened. She says the less I know, the less danger there is to my family. You think that’s true?”

  Danger to her family. It was a warning. I nodded firmly. “Just forget it, and I’ll make you a promise. If I live through this mess, and things settle down, I’ll tell you everything. How’s that?”

  Ara clapped her hands and laughed. “That’s nacky! Especially if you tell me all about your palace in Tlanth. How Emis’s nose will turn purple from envy—when I can tell her, that is!”

  I thought of our old castle, with its broken windows and walls, the worn, shabby furnishings and overgrown garden, and sighed.

  oOo

  After a time Ara had to do her chores, leaving me on the porch with a fresh infusion of steep to drink, her garden to look at, and her words to consider.

  Not that I got very far. There were too many questions. Like: Where did those guards go? Azmus had overcome one, but I didn’t remember having seen any more. Then there were the unlocked doors. The one to my cell could be explained away, but not the outside one. If there was a conspiracy, was Azmus behind it? Or someone else—and if so, who? And more importantly, to what end?

  It was possible that those dashing aristos had contrived my escape for a game, as a cruel cat will play with a mouse before the kill. Their well-publicized bet could certainly account for that. The wager would also serve very nicely as a warning to ordinary people not to interfere with their prey, I thought narrowly.

  Therefore, if I had left any clue to my trail, I had better move on. Soon.

  While considering all this I fell asleep again with the half-filled mug in my lap. When I woke the sun was setting and my hands were empty. A clean quilt lay over me. Somewhere someone was playing music: the steel strings of a tiranthe, and a pipe. I listened to a wild melody that made me wish I could get up and dance among Ara’s flowers, followed by a ballad so sad I was thrown back in memory to the days after my mother died.