Once a Princess

  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 gotten safely under her bed by the time she heard the smashing and banging 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 wee. 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 and the house was silent.

  Marka was alone. Wondering if she would ever stop crying, she went back to working steadily at the knots.

  Dawn painted the world in dreary blue streaks as she passed through the ruined rooms. She paused in the kitchen to grab some of the spilled food, drink from the water barrel, then eased out into the vegetable garden, where cold air promised rain. Her newly bare neck was chilled, 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 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.

  ———

  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. She was 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.

  ———

  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 friends scowl. “What now?”

  “Currier 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. “Damm! How does a pirate ship ‘slip’ inside a blockade?’

  “My scouts think he might have mingled 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 pr 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 growned 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 unravelling under his fingers. It would take a grand gesture of kingly proportion to wrest triumph out of disaster. One possible gesture was 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. He had begun to suspect she was aboiding him, but that was all right. He was still considering what to be done.

  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 f 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 worsened with 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 that 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 the 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 out 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.

  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 knew. “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 be 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 twenty 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 knew, 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 favour of Math.”

  “You did? We never heard that!”

  “Of course not. You only suffered the results. I thought I could deflect Canarda 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 brothers 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 ironic, 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 had not proved easy for Canardan. Things have gone wrong for him, especially in the last 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. 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 for a long moment. “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 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 insight.

  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 Carary’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 marvellous bath.

  She could get up and look now, 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 flowers 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 very day.

  It was time to face the enemy guns.

  “Please tell him I’d be delighted. Or better, why don’t you escort me? Through I remember the castle fairly well, I don’t know which room 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 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 sam 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 two decades ago.

  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.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Lovely! So catch me up on the news.” She tipped her head and charmed him by plopping her elbows on the table.

  “Local news
?” he asked with some irony.

  “Oh, no world news. What have I missed?”

  “You missed a couple of brushes with Norsunder.” He pour out perfectly steeped Sartoran tea for her himself. “all the mages are yammering about a real strike one of these days. But they’ve been yammering for th past decade, and nothing has happened yet.”

  “That sounds nasty.” She cradled the fine porcelain cup in her fingers, sipped, smiled over the gold rim of the cup. “Tell me something nice. What is the news in Sartor?”

  “From what I’ve heard, Shontanade Lirendi is busy courting Yustnesveas Landis.”

  “If I knew that Carlael of Colend had a son, I had forgotten. I hope hi is not as mas as his father,” Atanial said.

  “No. Not in the least. He is also a throwback to Matthaias the Magnificent.” Canardan added sardonically, “Even my cloud brained son noticed when I sent him west to Alsais to get some diplomatic experience. Said every female within riding range is in love with him, and half the men as well. Certainly every princess of eligible age seems to be waiting for him to throw the rose which leaves the rest, like my boy, out in the cold.”

  “If he’s that beautiful, what are the chances with Yustnesveas of Sartor?”

  “Well no one knows. But there’s been some diplomatic fluttering about the fact that she’d never leave Sartor, and he’d never leave Colend, so the only solution is those two combining kingdoms into one of the biggest empires this world has ever known, even in the old empire days.”

  Atanial whistled as she set down the cup and lavishly piled crispy edged oatcakes onto her plate.

  “But there are those who don’t think anything will come of it.” He helped himself, and for a short time there was no sound but the distant chatter of birds as they ate. Then he lifted his fork, watching appreciatively as she got a second helping. “you still have a splendid appetite, I see.”

  “Of course,” she said equably. “When the food is as good as this. And when I’ve gone without as many meals as I have.” She gave him a mocking salute with her teacup.

  He grinned. “Tell me about your girl. She a good eater as well?”