He turned and started striding quickly back toward his mount. I heard a tramp of hooves behind us and suddenly Rabbit’s horse was cutting off Mr. Highwayman’s retreat. As he backed away from her, Lucille echoed my own thoughts, “What are you doing? Hello? Archers?”
Krys drew her sword and dismounted, taking a step to be in line with our man’s retreat. “Check behind us, Your Highness.”
Lucille looked back to where our retreat had been cut off. The two mounted men were gone. “What?”
“You seem to be left on your own,” Krys said to the man. “Have anything to say now?”
He sighed and held up his hands. “Perhaps my choice of compatriots was unfortunate.”
Lucille faced him again. “Why did they leave you?”
“Struck by that same prior commitment I mentioned to you, I suspect. Without so much as a good-bye. I suppose I am at your mercy.”
“What prior commitment?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Does all wit escape you, Princess Frank? That is what is generally referred to as a joke. A small bit of levity to lighten a hasty exit.”
“Very small,” Krys said.
“You’ll notice,” Lucille said, “I’m not laughing.”
“You should learn to. It makes inevitable doom much less depressing.”
Lucille drew a dagger from her belt. “You have not caught me on the best of days.”
He backed up a step, stopping when Krys’s sword prodded his side.
Lucille approached him with the dagger. “Do you understand the gravity of your situation?”
“You just told me that the king of the Winter Court has lost his only heir to human hands. The fact that you are not fleeing for your lives tells me that it is you who underestimate the gravity of the situation.”
Lucille brought her dagger up between his legs to press against his inner thigh.
Given the height differential between us, it was the easiest vital spot for Lucille to threaten. Still I mentally winced a little in sympathy for our half-elven highwayman.
He sucked in a breath and said, “That isn’t necessary.”
“Your answer is to run?”
“I doubt that my silver tongue and winning personality would sway the fury of an army of immortals who have not tasted blood in a thousand years.”
“You have not swayed me.” Lucille pressed upward with the blade and said through clenched teeth. “Shut. Up.”
For several moments the only sounds surrounding us were the wind through the branches, distant birds, and the horses shifting their weight. After an extended period, Lucille said, “I have dead. I have wounded. I have villages being attacked under the guise of royal authority. I have a missing spouse and dragon. I have the elf-king threatening war. I have very little patience. Nod if you understand what I am saying.”
He nodded.
“Answer me in as few words as possible.”
He nodded again.
“Your people ran—”
“They weren’t really my people you under—” His words ended with an intake of breath and a tensing of muscles as Lucille increased the pressure on the dagger. “Your Highness?” he said in a breathless whisper.
“Fewer. Words.” Her own words came out in a snarl. “Are they more elves?”
“What?”
“Was I unclear?” She leaned into him, the dagger’s blade pressing into the gap between his groin and his inner thigh, our hand so close that I felt his pulse through her glove.
Lucille?
“No. Just a band of human brigands I—”
“Words.” Lucille snapped.
He stopped talking.
“Uncle Timoras?”
There was a long pause before he asked, “Was that a question?”
Lucille ground her teeth in a manner I found intensely uncomfortable. “He is your uncle?”
“Well, he—” He sucked in a sudden breath and said, “Yes! Yes! Please lower your hand, Your Highness.”
“Why are you in our path?”
“Robbery?” He sounded unsure of himself.
“Why are you in our path?”
“My deepest apologies. There’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Yes?” Lucille’s hissing voice came very close to that of the dragon. “Just a coincidence? One day after the elf-king makes his threats, his nephew shows up?”
“Just lucky, I guess?”
“Enough of this!” she snapped and moved her hand. The would-be highwayman jumped back and stumbled, barely avoiding impaling himself on Krys’s sword as he fell backward against Rabbit’s horse, knocking his broad hat askew as he landed flat on his back.
While he was prone, Lucille leaped on him, landing with her knees on his chest and her free hand on his throat. I felt the fury coursing through her. Not the emotion, but I felt the throbbing temples, the thudding pulse, and the burning copper taste of her breath in her throat. She raised the dagger and a shining long sword blade interposed itself between her dagger and the man’s throat.
Lucille’s head snapped to face Krys. “What are you doing?”
“Calm down. Please.”
Lucille may have been too furious to notice, but Krys’s sword blade trembled and her skin was deathly pale.
“What?” Lucille snarled at her through clenched teeth.
“Please. Take a breath. Think.”
Beneath us a tentative voice spoke up, “Listen to the young lad.”
She stabbed the dagger down, stopping short just before cleaving the bridge of his nose. “You, shut up.”
To Krys, she asked, “Why in the wide world should I calm down? I’ve lost my . . . too much. I’ve lost too much. And this, this worm? He tries to take even more? And listening to him? Gods, it is like chewing on gravel.”
“He’s not a threat now.”
“Really? Timoras’s nephew? How convenient is that? Would you put it past the elf-king to place one of his agents specifically to prevent us from reaching Fell Green?”
“Maybe?” Krys said. “But so ineffectively?”
“See,” he added. “I make a horrible spy.”
“Silence!” Lucille snapped at him. I felt the pulse recede and her breaths came longer, deeper, and cooler. After another moment, her tone was almost conversational. “Why shouldn’t I just put him out of our misery?”
“If he is Timoras’s nephew, he might have some useful information.”
Lucille nodded and lifted the dagger from the man’s face. “That, at least, makes sense.”
Krys added, “And if you parley with the elf-king again, having a hostage might offer some leverage.”
I felt him shaking under Lucille and she turned to look at him. “Why are you laughing?”
He shook his head. “I’d make a poorer hostage than I do a spy.”
“Why?”
“You think he cares what you do to me?”
“He’d go to war over the prince.”
“His full-blooded heir. That means he’s also the queen’s son. What do I matter?”
Lucille climbed off him and stepped back, sheathing her dagger.
He looked from her to Krys and asked tentatively, “So you are not going to kill me?”
“Not at the moment.”
He sat up and felt around behind him, finding his hat and replacing it at a rakish angle. “You have my gratitude, Princess.”
“Wonderful. Get up.”
He did so and Lucille asked, “So, nephew of Timoras, what name do you go by?”
He swung his hat around in a deep bow and said, “May I introduce myself as Robin Longfellow.” He straightened up, beating dust from his trousers with the brim of his hat. “I am in your debt for leaving intact this skin, of which I am so fond.” He replaced his hat and smiled, and I swear t
hat I saw his eyes twinkle.
Despite living a year in the body of a young woman, I had gained no particularly deep insights into the subtleties of male beauty. To this day my classification of my fellow males tends to fall into the same three categories they’ve always had, handsome, average, and ugly as an ogre’s afterbirth.
To me, Robin’s features tread the line between the first two, possibly just edging into handsome. But that smile, the twinkling eyes, and the tilt of his broad hat seemed to have an effect on Lucille. I felt her pulse and the catch in her breath, and I had lived in this body long enough to know the meaning of the warmth we felt in certain places.
She finds this incompetent half-breed wannabe thief attractive?
Whatever she thought of him did not make it into her voice. “In return, perhaps you can explain the astounding coincidence of your presence here.”
“Certainly,” he said. There was such self-assured confidence in that one easy word that I knew that he saw through the tone of Lucille’s words as surely as I had.
And I felt jealous.
Things never go wrong in quite the way I expect.
CHAPTER 10
Our ne’er-do-well highwayman Robin Longfellow had a plausible, if somewhat facile, explanation for his presence on the road to Fell Green. Fell Green was a wizard town, and it existed not quite in the world of men. In fact, Fell Green was as far away from our world as it was close to the elven lands under the hill. That made it a crossroads for traffic from there to here, one of the easier, more well-traveled pathways.
“The reason I felt mirth at the young lad’s suggestion you hold me hostage to my uncle—well, my plans had been to raid my cousin and his entourage.”
“That makes no sense!” Krys snapped incredulously.
“I assure you that Prince Daemonlas, in addition to being narcissistic and given over to unseemly passions, is—pardon me—was a frightfully lazy creature. He would have been quite unwilling to extend the effort to walk through the wilds like his father. He would have certainly traveled the easy route home.”
“No,” Krys said. “You pretty much said it’s the end of the world because the prince got himself killed. And you were going to rob him?”
“Robbing is a different business than killing.”
Krys shook her head in disbelief. She turned her head in our direction. “Now what?”
“Bind him,” Lucille said.
“Your Highness?” Robin objected.
“I don’t trust you, Robin Longfellow.”
“You have my word that I will work no ill against you.”
“That’s good,” Lucille said. To Krys she said, “Relieve him of his weapons, and anything else on his person.”
“But—”
“Robin Longfellow,” Lucille said, “you will stay with us until we reach Fell Green. Please don’t make this any more unpleasant than it already is.”
• • •
The rest of the day we rode with the would-be robber, Robin Longfellow, tied at the wrists and slung over the saddle of his own horse like a sack of grain. Rabbit led the animal by the reins from her own mount. As the day wore on, Lucille would steal glances at the elf-king’s pendant. The sand flowed slowly in the tiny glass.
I felt in the way she bit her lip that even the little that had filled the bottom was too much.
However, between the time lost at Robin’s hands, the exhausted horses, and the fact that the road to Fell Green seemed to have a habit of moving about, we did not reach our destination by sunset. No one said anything, but I knew Lucille felt keenly the fact that, had we been given only the one mortal day, we never would have made it in time.
Once the sun set, we made camp again under the open sky.
Robin looked relieved to be seated in front of the fire, even if Lucille left him bound. Supper consisted of a few dried sausages heated on a rock nestled in the midst of the fire.
The leathery meat was spicy as all hell, and stank of garlic and mustard and a dozen other things. I would have preferred hunger, but Lucille didn’t consult me.
Robin looked across the fire at us and asked, “Is this necessary?” He held up his bound wrists.
“Yes,” Lucille said. “You’re connected by blood to the elf-king. I want you to tell me what he’s planning.”
Robin arched an eyebrow. “My Lady?”
“You heard me.”
“Well, if that’s all. Just untie me and I’m sure I will bring you a report the next time I attend the Winter Court’s council of advisors.”
“I’m not joking,” she told him.
“If you aren’t, then you seem to be aware of a promotion in my status no one has seen fit to share with me. Then again, since I’ve spent the last few decades traipsing across the mortal realms with outlaws, actors, and storytellers, I may have been hard to reach.”
“You know his mind, Robin Longfellow. I would see you share that knowledge.”
Robin sighed and looked into the fire. “That is not a merry subject.”
“If you wanted that, you should have favored the actors over the outlaws.”
Robin chuckled. “You seem to know the theater as well as the elf-king.”
“And you seem to know Prince Daemonlas.”
Robin gave a shrug and a slight nod of the head in acknowledgment. “Of him,” he said. “Perhaps I know of other things you might find of use. But I suspect not. So much of courtly gossip is trivial, and boring. And you, Princess Frank, are not boring.”
I did not like the way he said that.
Lucille pointed her dagger at him. “You are edging close to boring me.”
“Please, as I am your guest, perhaps you might indulge me this tiny bit? Pretend that we aren’t adversaries, just fellow travelers chance met, making our acquaintance.”
“Why?”
“Because it costs you nothing and may make this journey more pleasant.”
Lucille sheathed her dagger and I felt her frown. “I’m not forgetting you attempted to rob us.”
“Which led to no lasting harm but to my own pride. I make my apologies.”
Lucille sighed.
“Is civil discourse such a burden?” he asked.
Lucille shook her head, but I felt her grit our teeth.
While Lucille and Robin spoke, I noticed Rabbit out of the corner of Lucille’s eye. She set a small iron teapot on the hot stone next to the meat. While that heated up, she pulled a small dry green bundle out of her pouch and placed it in the bottom of a battered tin cup. The package looked familiar.
What Brock the barbarian may have lacked in martial prowess, he made up for in herbal lore. He supplied the court with any number of preparations for any number of ailments, and when he packaged his work he often folded his creations up in a single broad leaf of some plant or other. I only saw Rabbit’s little bundle briefly, but the way the dried leaf had been folded was definitely Brock’s work.
The reminder of my burned friend made me a little sick to my stomach. Or it would have if my emotions had any connection to the body I resided in.
If I could only do something.
Waves of self-pity broke over me again, and I lost focus in the depths of my own despair. Words were spoken around me, words I heard but didn’t listen to. Lucille talked to Robin, but I didn’t really see him anymore.
Why should I give the world any attention anymore? I was powerless to affect it.
Somewhere, mixed with the words around the campfire, I heard a voice that didn’t belong. A long, distant sigh of relief.
Ahhh.
My attention suddenly focused on the distant sound. What?
Ahhh!
The relief turned into a startled exclamation. From the edge of Lucille’s field of vision I saw Rabbit sit bolt upright, nearly spilling her foul-smelling tea in her lap.
br /> Rabbit? I called in my mental voice.
Frank?
You can hear me?
How can I hear you? Am I dreaming again?
It’s no dream. It wasn’t the first time either.
You almost sound closer.
You, too.
She stared at Lucille, but Lucille kept grilling Robin the half-elf.
They don’t believe me, Rabbit thought at me as she sipped from the cup. Her voice had surged until it was a near-normal volume.
I have trouble believing it myself, I agreed. I’ve been stuck in Lucille’s body since . . . since it all happened.
I heard something like a sigh.
What?
I probably am imagining this.
No, please, I really am here.
You’re a voice in my head that claims to be Frank Blackthorne. You know how much I want it to be you?
I—
About as much as I want to be able to talk to people again.
Her nonexistent voice echoed in my nonexistent ears.
She was right. It did sound too good to be true. If I didn’t know I was me, I’d have some trouble with it.
It’s me, I thought at her.
Why then? Why can I hear you and Lucille can’t?
Good question. I had repeatedly screamed at Lucille and hadn’t managed to prompt so much as a twitch. Why would Rabbit be more sensitive to my voice than the woman I shared skull-space with?
Frank?
I’m still here.
Why?
I wish I knew. I don’t even know what happened to me.
Rabbit sighed, both in my head, and in the real world.
Maybe, I thought, we can ask a wizard in Fell Green.
Who will talk to them? Rabbit followed the thought with a silent, sad little laugh. You or me?
In my head she sounded a lot older than her years.
I’m sorry.
You don’t need to apologize to me. It isn’t your fault I’ve gone nuts. I guess after all these years I needed someone other than myself to talk to.
I’m not a hallucination, I told her.
Any hallucination worth the crazy would say that. She lifted her cup in a vague toast in Lucille’s direction. Lucille didn’t notice, and kept talking to Robin. I hope we find you Frank, wherever you really are.