Kreki said in a quick, breathless voice, “We do not know anything about Prince Mathias, except that he disappeared ten years ago. But Magister Glathan is dead. Word is, Commander Randart had him shot in the back. Crossbow. After a truce.”
Atanial covered her face with her hands, then heaved a sigh. “All right. I’ll wait outside.”
She pushed through the back of the pantry. Nobody stopped her. She nearly ran into one of the servants, a pretty young girl with a long red braid busy scooping dried peas into a cup. Atanial excused herself, then slipped through the empty kitchen to the door.
Outside, the rain had stopped. A fresh, cool breeze soughed through the line of pines planted on the ridge at the edge of the property, just beyond the fruit trees.
Atanial stepped out, breathing deeply. Her feet throbbed dully, but the acute pain of walking had lessened.
A faint glow worried at the extreme edge of her vision. She looked up. In one of the recessed attic windows flickered the warm, golden flames of two candles. Cozy. She wished she were in the bedroom behind that window, whether guest or servant’s room, large or small. All she wanted was a nice, soft bed—
“Your highness,” Kreki whispered from the kitchen door. “They want to talk. Our passwords, signals, what we’re doing.”
Passwords and signals. Why did that seem wrong? Atanial frowned. The vague sense of disquiet was too quick, undefined. Her mind was too tired and scattered. Her aching feet—Math—Magister Glathan’s death—and riding over it all, Sasha and this mysterious pirate—
“Here we are.” Kreki opened the pantry again. “You might remember Fereli Kinn, the royal wardrobe mistress.”
The gray-haired woman rose. “Forgive me, highness,” she said gruffly.
“You thought I abandoned you.” Atanial summoned a smile. “And in a sense I did. I beg your pardon. I take it the queen couldn’t protect you either?”
“The rumor is she’s mad.” Mistress Kinn flushed, curtseyed, sat. “So the king turned us all off, except for her three personal maids. No one’s seen her since, except once a year, standing by the king, on Oath Day.”
“I don’t think you knew Arlaen Sharveshin.” Kreki indicated the older man. “He was a herald-scribe in our day. His son Tam is in the king’s guard now, as our ears.”
Atanial noted Tam’s brown tunic.
“We meet here when we dare,” Kreki said. “And exchange news.”
“Like? I mean, what is the most important thing facing you now?”
An exchange of looks. Kreki leaned forward. “The mustering of the army. We don’t know if the king intends some terrible purge here, or to invade elsewhere.”
The man spoke up, a low rumble. “My son hears rumors of a possible invasion of Locan Jora. Take our lands back.” The boy inclined his head.
“But we haven’t any word for sure. We cannot get close enough to Randart. He keeps only his own picked men around him. The king is guarded by Randart, by the royal mages, and finally by the royal valet, Chas.”
Atanial breathed out slowly. “I remember Chas. I caught him in our rooms at least a couple of times, going through Math’s things. He seemed to have plausible excuses.”
“He’s a very tricky spy. So anyway, we keep trying to find out the plans. We fear, from the mustering of supplies and the way training has been going, that this is not a vague future plan. It has a date. Probably next spring, judging from the cloth stockpiled in the border castles.”
When no one had anything to add, Atanial turned to her own issues. “Tam, you’re in the guard. What can you tell me of this pirate holding my daughter?”
“Nothing.” Tam spread big, callused hands. “Nobody can figure out where Zathdar came from. He was suddenly there, some years back, attacking the king’s fleet. Breaking trade holds.”
Kreki said to Atanial, “What I was just reporting to the others is this. I received two notes from my son. One two nights ago. Hastily written and sent by mage-box. It was only two lines, to tell me that their particular group had been discovered long ago by the king, but they had left the tower after a fight. Your daughter and the pirate defeated the guards.”
Atanial gripped her fingers together. “That sounds like Sasha.”
“I received another note, even shorter, last night. Again just two sentences. The king apparently knows about the resistance group run by my nephew Nadathan, who is also a mage student. The other stated that the pirate—he calls himself a privateer—declares that his family name is Jervaes.”
“Common name deriving from Sartoran origin,” Arlaen rumbled. “Various versions all over the southern continent here.”
“At least that sounds somewhat civilized. I mean, he offered a family name, right? Didn’t call himself Slubbertegullion Squid-Guts or Bloody-Skull Liver-Squisher, right?” At the others’ puzzled looks, Atanial sighed. “So no one knows his motive, beyond piracy?”
No one spoke.
“Another thing to find out.” Atanial’s stomach growled. When would that dinner arrive?
“We thought we ought to tell you the passwords and signals,” Kreki began.
“Oh! Like the one in the attic window?” Atanial pointed upward. That was what had tweaked at her.
The others gazed in dismay.
If only she wasn’t so hungry! It was hard to think. “Two candles? Window?”
Arlaen rubbed his jaw. “We did not post any candles.”
Tam lunged to his feet, his face blanched. “Not our signal.”
Arlaen’s eyes widened in horror. “We have a spy here.”
Kreki glared at the others. “Who is the traitor?”
They stared back, their faces shocked, angry, puzzled.
Arlaen whispered, “Tam. He has to get out.” He gripped hold of his son and muscled him, protesting (“Let me fight! Let me fight!”) toward the door. Then he stopped short, Tam stumbling with a subdued, “Ow!”
Arlaen said, “What if the spy is out there? How can I get Tam out?”
“It could be anyone. Even the servants,” Atanial added, remembering the young woman just outside the cellar door when she left previously. But no one pays attention to servants, Math’s voice came, with gentle irony, out of the past, the time they all disguised as cooks when Randart had driven them into a trap . . . “The girl with the red curls. Servant. Pouring peas. She didn’t act surprised when she saw me. Did you tell her anything?”
Kreki breathed out. “No. But Marka has been with us for at least five years.”
“So how much does she know? You say your nephew was betrayed. And I overheard that Canardan was hot on your boy’s heels when he came to Earth. Well, your son told me so himself. Though I didn’t believe him at the time.”
Arlaen gazed at his son in dismay. “They’ll put Tam here up against the wall.” His voice lowered, rough and husky. “They’ll have to.”
His agony was the agony of any parent. What happens to your child happens to my child, Atanial thought, but her mind moved rapidly to memory, and then to action. “Tie up that red-haired girl and take her clothes. Tam, you are about to turn into a girl. Fast.” The order was out before she could stop herself.
This time everyone sprang to action, the men vanishing through the doorway.
Kreki thrust a wad of papers into Fereli’s hands. “We have to burn these.” She scratched a light, dropped the flame onto a ceramic bowl, and they began ripping.
Aching feet forgotten (well, not actually, but ignored) Atanial slammed through into the pantry, then stopped short at the barrels. She’d left her sword in the wagon back at Lark’s house, and had forgotten about it. Now she had no weapon but the knife, and that she was reluctant to use unless her life was definitely threatened.
Math had said once, I’ll keep training Sasha, but no steel in her hands until she knows the cost. Flour and pepper, yes. We’ll teach her to blind them and run.
Blind them and run. Atanial was beginning to sort through the bags when Kreki banged out of the pantry, b
earing a long, wicked knife, and marched into the kitchen.
Her nerves firing with warning, Atanial followed her through another narrow storage room, this one full of bed and bath linens, and up a creaky old stairway. Kreki’s speed increased until she was almost running. When she reached a narrow doorway, she burst into Marka’s tiny bedroom, saw the two candles in the window still burning and raised her knife.
The red-haired girl lay on the woven-rag-rug floor with her hands bound and her mouth gagged. Kreki brought the knife down. Atanial froze in the doorway, a squawk of protest forming in her throat. Then Kreki’s hand came up, brandishing the red of a long, curling braid.
Atanial leaned against the wall, and even the Sharveshins, in the middle of ransacking the girl’s clothes trunk, reacted with relief. Tam sank onto the bed, and Arlaen pressed back against the slanting attic so he would not make a shadow on the window.
Kreki squatted down next to the terrified girl. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you now, you despicable traitor,” she uttered in a trembling voice.
Atanial looked at Tam, who uncertainly clutched a gown. Her mind was moving again, more rapidly than before. Kreki was clearly too angry to think. Tam’s gaze averted from the girl on the floor. If she was a spy and he was a spy, had there been some quiet time between two attractive young people, both willing to hear and receive information, perhaps while exchanging kisses?
Atanial watched Marka’s tear-filled eyes flicking between Kreki’s knife and the boy on the bed, and knew she had it.
She cleared her dry throat, wishing they’d actually gotten to eat that dinner. Or at least sample some ale. “Marka must have had a reason.” She smiled ruefully down at the girl. “Of course she had a reason. I’ll bet it was a good one, too. She doesn’t look like she did it for evil reasons.”
Now Atanial had all their attention.
Atanial knelt next to Marka, who studied her with the tense forehead and squinted eyes of pain, anger, fear. Confusion.
“Let’s have that gag off,” Atanial murmured. “You won’t yell, will you? You don’t want to die, and no one wants to kill you.”
A tiny nod.
Atanial took out her own knife as Kreki gripped hers upraised in silent warning. The girl gasped, working her lips and tongue as Atanial said, “Your reasons might have to wait. But here’s the important thing. Do you really want to see Tam dead?”
“N-no.” Marka gulped on a sob.
Tam opened his mouth, but his father gripped his shoulder in warning.
Atanial said, “They probably have us surrounded by now, don’t they? You comforted yourself with the fact that they have orders to capture us. But think about it.”
“They wouldn’t—they promised—”
“My dear, you’ve been living a lie. Surely you can understand that they might lie to you? Just like they asked you to lie to the Ebans and the others?” Atanial glanced Tam’s way.
Marka licked her lips, fresh tears coursing down her cheeks. “You think they have orders to kill me?” Her chest heaved with sobs.
“If the orders came through the War Commander,” Kreki said decisively. “Yes. He hates spies, though he uses them.”
“The king?” Atanial asked softly, wondering how much Canardan had changed.
Kreki shook her head. “He hates actually doing away with people. Which is the only hope we have,” she added with irony.
Atanial turned back to Marka. “But Tam, they would execute right away, because he’s in the guard. Do you want that to happen?”
“No.”
“All we need are the passwords to get Tam through the line,” Atanial said, and Kreki gasped. She hadn’t thought of passwords, but she had not spent as much time around Randart as Atanial had, back in the old days. He’d always used codes and passwords.
Fresh tears welled in Marka’s eyes, dripping into her ears.
Atanial brushed the tears away. “We’re going to leave you here, but hidden, so they won’t find you. After we leave, you can get yourself free, and away. And do whatever you need to do. But at least get Tam through that line, or he will be dead by morning.”
“Hackleberry,” Marka whispered, her anguished eyes lifting toward Tam. “The password is hackleberry.”
Atanial looked up at Tam. “Take Lark with you.” She nipped the braid from Kreki, shook it so it unraveled, and pulled a sash from the half-spilled contents of the trunk. “That around your head tying on the hair, a bonnet over your head. The skirt on your waist. Get through the lines now. With Lark. She’s got to get home and warn her family.”
Tam and his father fixed on the sash and hair in a matter of heartbeats, and then Tam dashed out, wrestling the skirt into place.
Atanial used another sash to bind Marka’s mouth, but far more gently.
“All right, the rest of us have to cause as much confusion as we can so Tam and Lark can get through.”
They left Marka on the floor, her candles still burning in the window. She promptly wriggled under her bed to hide.
Atanial did not see Tam or Lark as she made her way through the house to the front door. The front parlor was dark, which gave her eyes time to adjust. She eased the door open a crack and peered out. At first the night looked peaceful, but as her night vision got better she saw movement among the pines, and heard a sudden rustle in the orchard.
The king’s men were advancing into position.
She shut the door as Kreki joined her. “What did you see?”
“We’re surrounded.”
Kreki breathed out a shuddering sigh.
“What are we facing here?” Atanial asked. “This was a meeting in a private home, no weapons present.”
“What I fear is that he’ll have us handy to blame for all the current problems,” Kreki said. “Economy is in ruins, trade by sea impossible.”
“Due to this Zathdar, no doubt, who has my daughter. Well, one thing at a time. Here’s what I think. You tell me if it makes sense. If Canardan can make me vanish without anyone knowing, whether by death, magic or throwing me into a deep dungeon, his life is much easier.”
“Just what I was thinking.” Kreki determinedly kept her voice calm.
“So everyone out there needs to know who I am. Warriors gossip same as anyone else. Gossip is on my side. Second thing, we must buy that boy time to get through the line and well away before they discover the ruse. So . . . why not playact a pair of stupid old women too dumb to see the danger?”
“No playing on my part. I should have been more careful. I should have suspected something like this. It’s been too easy.” Kreki’s fingers trembled as she brushed her hands down her apron. “Let’s get busy.”
She clapped, and a small glowglobe lit the parlor.
Atanial opened the front door wide, making sure she stood directly in the center, so her entire body was silhouetted. She lifted a hand and made a business of peering outward.
Kreki came up next to her, polishing a candlestick on her apron. “What is it, your highness?” she asked in a carrying voice.
“I thought I saw something. A light.”
“Impossible. Everyone is here. Must be a gleam from the stars, reflecting on the leaves of the peach trees. Do you have peaches in the other world?”
“Oh yes. But not as good as the ones here! My husband Mathias once told me peaches were brought through the World Gate.”
“But which way, your highness?” Kreki shrilled. “From your world?”
“Now, that I do not remember.” Atanial laughed as she leaned out, looking around dramatically under her hand, though the light glowing directly above them made it nearly impossible to see anything.
But she heard rustles. One by the barn, another out by the pines. The crack of a twig.
“Rain is gone.” Kreki lifted her hand and began peering upward with theatrical earnestness. “Will be a lovely walk if you decide to move on tonight.”
“But my feet hurt,” Atanial fog-horned, lifting her bandage
d foot. A flutter behind her ribs had to be squelched. She must not laugh. But this was almost fun.
“Oh, Princess Atanial,” Kreki exclaimed, loud enough to be heard from the pine ridge.
“That’s what I get for marching for days after years of no walking at all. But I met so very many nice people on the way, who seemed glad I have returned. If only I’d thought of it years ago!”
“Oh! How many did you meet? I know all the valley families.”
“Too many to count! Oh, but I am so very hungry—”
“Dinner,” came a wry voice from out of the darkness, “can be ordered day or night at the royal castle. That’s the good thing about royal castles. Welcome back, Sun.”
Both women whipped around. Atanial bit her lips against a curse, even a retort. The king himself! She was supposed to be surprised. Were those kids through the lines yet?
“Who is that?” she called uncertainly, doing the peering business again. “Canardan? My goodness, is it really you?”
“I’m here to personally convey a royal invitation, Sun.” Canardan Merindar strolled toward the house, stopping just inside the circle of light.
He was taller than Atanial remembered, his hair a dark auburn, the waves ruddy in the light. He had certainly not gone to fat.
She lifted her voice. “I am here to get my daughter. If you try to stop me, well—” She spread her hands.
“But we can find your daughter together.” Canardan lounged a step closer. “Come along, Sun. You really don’t want trouble any more than I do.”
He used the name “Sun” with a humorous, intimate tone that Atanial disliked just a little more each time she heard it. “No,” she responded cordially. “I do not. Therefore, if you let these people go on their merry way, then I won’t make any trouble. It’s not their fault I seem to have come at the wrong time and headed straight for the wrong place. No one here knew I was coming, I promise you that.”
Canardan sighed. “Take ’em.” He waved a lazy hand toward the house.
A gaggle of old folks had a snail’s chance in the salt mines against a determined band of trained warriors, particularly determined under the ironic eye of their king. But at least it was the king, and not War Commander Randart, which meant they had a better chance of staying alive. And so they gave the escaping young pair their very best effort to prolong things by running around, yelling and ramming into walls, furniture, warriors and each other.
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