Sasharia en Garde

by Sherwood Smith

  Nad pursed his lips in a soundless whistle, knowing how very dangerous it was to transfer anywhere you either hadn’t a Destination made safe for transferring, or had laid a token down somewhere in preparation.

  “And the prince has a spy with us,” Nad prompted. “That’s what your note said.”

  “Here’s what I didn’t tell anyone.” Devli leaned close. “The pirate Zathdar is none other than Prince Jehan.”

  Nad’s jaw dropped.

  “I swore on my honor not to tell, and they let me go. They didn’t have to, but he believed me. But I’ve always told you everything, because we’ve been like brothers. I won’t tell anyone else, and I haven’t. So you have to promise, too. And keep it.”

  “I swear.”

  Devli let out a shaky sigh. “He’s on our side. I’m convinced he’s telling the truth, though he’s living a lie. He wouldn’t tell me everything.”

  Nad gave a single nod. If the prince had suddenly and readily supplied answers to all Devli’s questions, that would have been suspicious. “What convinced you?”

  “He wants Prince Math back, and before spring.”

  “So he believes the invasion rumor is true?”

  “Yes.”

  “And so he’ll turn against his father?”

  “Said he wants to avoid that. Wants Prince Math back, who is the only one who can stop the invasion, and find some solution with King Canardan.”

  “If.” Nad winced. “If. Two big ifs. What are we supposed to do?”

  “Find out who is spying, and what they are reporting. Learn what we can of Magister Zhavic and Magister Perran’s orders from the king, though I know Magister Wesec is trying to do that.”

  Neither had to express what they thought of adult efforts to do anything. They liked Magister Wesec. She was an excellent teacher and a fine mage, but it seemed odd that she couldn’t keep out spies, or break the king’s mages’ wards. But then neither could the king’s mages break her wards, and everyone knew they tried.

  Adults were just incompetent sometimes.

  “And stand ready to aid in the search for Prince Math.”

  Nad thought rapidly as rain poured between the warped shingles and down the back of his neck. He still wasn’t convinced about the royal heir. But these two orders, they did not require any action from him that was morally reprehensible. Everyone in the resistance wanted to know what Zhavic and Perran were doing on the king’s behalf. Everybody dreaded hearing that the king’s mages were no longer claiming to be neutral, but had allied with the war commander.

  Devli said, “Prince Jehan said we ought to find that acceptable to conscience and vows.”

  Well, if that was true, it argued for a good prince, didn’t it?

  Nad still wasn’t sure. But he could think it all through later. “What about Prince Math’s daughter?”

  “Zath—the pr—he took her away. I don’t think she wanted to stay with him. My sister certainly didn’t. And there’s the other trouble. My sister.”

  Nad blinked rain from his eyelashes. “Elva knows?”

  “She discovered the ruse on her own. But she wouldn’t believe him and went back to sea.”

  Nad winced, thinking of his stubborn cousin. “Won’t help the prince if she’s blabbing his secret all over. Trouble indeed. Royal trouble.”

  “She won’t,” Devli said. “Promised. What worries me is that she hired out onto a ship that got commandeered into Randart’s fleet. Which is right now chasing the pirate ships. Zathdar’s pirate ships.”

  “Zathdar who is really Prince Jehan.”

  “Right.”

  A silvery bell chimed inside, calling the mage students to study. In silence the two young men climbed down, separated and returned to the house via different doors.

  o0o

  And in Vadnais, thunder rolled across the sky, cursed by the musicians, flower arrangers, cooks, and servers who had been hired by the ambassador of Colend for the river-barge party she had planned as a return gesture for the lovely masquerade ball.

  Overlooking the bend in the river where the barges rocked—the blossoms from their ruined garlands strewn over the quay in multicolored profusion—was the old audience hall, opened up today because of the mass of petitioners who had arrived on orders of the Guild Council. Safety in numbers was the whispered word, and so they stood all round the walls in a room still slumberous with yesterday’s heat as the storm flashed and rumbled, making it impossible to hear the king and the Chief of the Guild Council.

  Canardan, oppressed by the heat, the smells of too many close-packed bodies in the still room, and above all by the fact that he could not get around the fool treaty, wished Randart were here to clear them all out at the point of a sword. He wished even more fervently that his son and heir would not slouch over there watching the rain beat against the windows, his profile so obviously bored.

  “Yes,” Canardan said heavily, before yet another guild master or mistress could belly forward and launch into a bad reading of four or five close-written pages, borrowing the most tedious phrases from old history books. “I see your point. And I promise there will be a hearing, attended by guild representatives as well as those of government, mage and military.”

  The Chief of the Guild Council bowed. The guild masters and mistresses bowed. Canardan nodded, bending forward to lay his seal on the hot wax of the proclamation the scribe had written.

  He noticed, distracted, that Jehan had slipped out, and shook his head. If only the boy had a head for governing.

  The room began to empty. Suddenly stifled beyond bearing, Canardan rose, unlatched one of the long mullioned windows and let the wind blow in to cool his face, not hearing the muffled exclamations and curses of his scribes who dashed about trying to catch the flurry of papers that had taken to the air.

  Chapter Eight

  Lightning flickered and thunder rumbled like an avalanche of mountain-sized boulders across the sky as Prince Jehan ran up the backstairs, pausing long enough to note where everyone was.

  Chas, as he’d hoped, had marshaled all the royal servants to straighten the king’s rooms which, because the king had commanded all his windows to be opened that morning, were a welter of puddles, papers, and anything else that was not too heavy for the wind to smite spinning into chaos.

  Jehan paused at his own rooms long enough to motion for Kazdi, bent on the same task, to follow. The boy left the other servants working, shutting the door to the outer parlor on his heels.

  “Guard the stairs,” Jehan murmured.

  Kazdi frowned. “Decoy?”

  “Do it. Use the rock collection.”

  The boy zipped inside the room, emerging with a silver bowl of exquisite crystal stones, which he scattered all over the landing, resting the bowl inside the door. Then he took up a stance from which he could see in all directions while Jehan raced up the marble stairs four at a time and down the hall to the tower where Atanial had been isolated. He stopped at the landing of her own stairway, where he suspected the spy-wards bordered—the larger the wards, the harder they were to maintain. He whistled the calls of night birds until apparently she recognized one of them as an anomaly and came herself to investigate.

  She ran toward him, fists pressed together under her throat. “What is it?”

  “Stop there.”

  She jolted to a stop, her hands flinging out wide as she pressed herself against the wall.

  “It’s the wards,” he finished.

  “I get it.” Her brow cleared. “If I cross, the mage spies know. Or if you cross.”

  “Right. Chas is busy cleaning up the mess in the king’s rooms and making sure none of the other servants get a look at his papers. We probably have a few moments to talk.”

  Atanial clasped her hands again. “You saw Sasha. She’s really all right?”

  “She’s fine, as of last night. Riding west of Ellir. Listen. My father agreed to a hearing for the conspirators.”

  Atanial did not waste time quibbli
ng over the term. “And?”

  “And so it frees you, do you see it?”

  She frowned down at her tightly clasped hands, then looked up, eyes narrowed. The expression, so much like her daughter’s when she reached a conclusion, acted like a hammer inside his chest.

  She said, “He can’t use their lives against me, not now. Is that it?”

  “Yes. I will see what I can do to get you out.”

  “Tell me more. Tell me what’s happening.”

  “The cadets from Ellir Academy are on their way to their siege. Most of the harbor guards from three harbors are marching inland, ostensibly to war games.”

  “That much I gathered. What does it mean? It’s not really war games at all?”

  “Oh, they’ll play their extended war game through the harvest season, right enough. But the games will go on so long that they will be caught by surprise by the first snow, in which case they’ll have to winter along the border—”

  She drew in a breath. “I see.”

  “—where supplies will be carried over the next two months, stockpiled against spring, as harvest goods are carried in all directions. They can then launch an invasion over the border at the first snowmelt.” Because she not only seemed to comprehend, but was waiting for more, he said swiftly, “Leaving the harbors and coastline all but unguarded. Randart is busy making sure the coast is safe by his definition right now.”

  “Pirate hunting, right?”

  “The excuse is pirate hunting, but what he’s really going to do is clear the seas of anyone he deems inconvenient.”

  Atanial said, “I don’t understand. So you rescued Sasha from the pirate?”

  “I am the pirate.”

  She pressed her knuckles against her forehead.

  “I’ve been—”

  “Wait. Wait. What were you doing before we showed up in this world?”

  “Raiding the coast to keep the army pinned down there. Well away from the border.”

  “And dropped everything to chase after my daughter?”

  “I found out about Prince Math’s ten-year spell at the same time as Zhavic and Perran did. I couldn’t get to your world to warn you, but I got to the old castle in case they brought either of you back.”

  She let out a long breath. “Our timing,” she said with Sasha’s crooked smile, “could hardly have been worse. Though it was not our fault we’re here in the first place.”

  “Yes,” he said, because there was no time for anything but the truth.

  “Does Sasha know that?”

  “No.”

  Atanial rubbed her eyes again. “I see. She wouldn’t listen.”

  “It was a matter of trust.”

  “I know. I’m afraid that’s my fault—”

  A soft whistle from below caused her to freeze, poised for flight.

  Jehan motioned her back to her rooms, and they parted, both frustrated to the max.

  Voices echoed up the marble stairwell. They belonged to Chas and Kazdi. The boy was busy shuffling gap-mouthed around outside the prince’s rooms, cleaning up the stones.

  “. . . where is the royal heir?”

  “Haven’t seen him,” Kazdi replied in his adolescent honk. “We’ve been here trying to restore order. The windows were open, and—”

  The voices faded behind Jehan as he soft-footed down the hall in the other direction. He slipped into the dusty royal guest chambers, unused for years, and through the servants’ door there, as Chas reached the landing where he’d been before—to find it empty.

  Chas cursed, ran back downstairs and dispersed with a few curt words his other trusted spies, who had been ordered by Randart to know where the prince was at all times.

  When at last they found him, he was sitting peaceably at a table in the heralds’ archive where the air was still and cool and the storm a rare low mutter. He was busy translating an old Sartoran treatise on the symbolism of flowers. He began a long, cheerful explanation of the treatise to Chas. “Do you not think this a fine gift for the Colendi ambassador when she reschedules her barge party?”

  Chas bowed, effaced himself, and placed a servant on watch in the outer chamber. Idiot!

  Hours later Jehan finally was able to get to his rooms and grab a moment of privacy. Not that he expected any messages. Surely the entire kingdom had been grounded by the storm.

  But there was one. From Owl.

  Lost her in the storm.

  Chapter Nine

  Oh, nice going, Sasharia Disaster Zhavalieshin. I stared in dismay at the cheerful faces surrounding me.

  There was absolutely no chance of escape. The mare drooped in exhaustion, and I shivered so violently I didn’t think I could walk, much less ride.

  They were waiting for an answer, and I hadn’t even heard the question.

  Not that it wasn’t easy to guess what they wanted to know: Who are you and where are you going?

  What kind of lie could I possibly tell now that wouldn’t just cause more questions? Various stupid scams flitted through my mind, but it was one of the warriors that actually gave me my out.

  “Maybe she’s a foreigner,” one muttered.

  “That would explain her getting on the military roads,” a woman as tall as me spoke next, tossing back her short, curly auburn hair. “A foreigner wouldn’t know about the laws.”

  “Likely blundered over at the river bend,” a fellow behind me said. “It’s the only place the two roads are close. Mare probably found the better footing, and there she goes.”

  So far, they weren’t suspicious or angry, only curious. Or resigned, as they briefly disparaged the “river-bend turn,” one of them adding in a sour voice, “You know who’s gonna be detailed to build a wall between the two roads.”

  I worked my numb lips, gesturing with my cold hands. They all fell silent. Marshaling all my knowledge of cartoon-character fake accents, I said, “Sheep. Shi-i-i-ip?” I mimed going up and down on waves. “Sailor.” I hit my tunic front with a loud, wet smack. I scowled. “Pie-rats.”

  “Pirates!” the tall woman exclaimed. “Wager you anything they got hit by Zathdar’s gang.”

  The others all made noises of agreement.

  She turned back to me. “But what are you doing inland?”

  I stared, uncomprehending, and one of the fellows said in a loud, distinct voice, as if loudness magically translated into other languages, “Where-do-you-come-from-and-why-are-you-here?”

  I dismounted, my sodden clothing slapping against my limbs. I patted the horse, and pointed outside. “Home. Road.” I pointed west, waving my hand in a circle that encompassed most of the broadest continent in the world.

  “Her ship must have been grounded by pirates. Or they were raided, and the crew turned off.” The woman addressed me slowly and loudly. “Where you from? Not Locan Jora—”

  “Naw, they talk like us,” someone else said.

  “Not Colendi either, I know a Colendi accent,” a younger guy spoke up.

  “Oh, well, your kingness,” the big guy behind me retorted, and they all laughed.

  “But I do! I got a cousin in service inside the—”

  “Stow it. And your cousin too. She’s no Colendi, or where’s her coach and eight matched horses, diamonds and the like?”

  “They’re not all toffs. That’s not even possible. My cousin’s a cook—”

  “All Colendi swank,” the woman said, and the others made derisive noises of agreement.

  The young guy sighed, eyes rolling up toward the ceiling.

  Then they all started guessing, naming kingdoms—Devrea, Arland, Sarendan, Gyrn, Deshlen. Recalling some of the names I’d seen on that exquisite map aboard the ship while practicing the Khanerenth alphabet, I waited until they reached a couple of countries a bit farther west, and when one said, “Melia!” and another, “Couldn’t be Tser Mearsies?” I nodded violently, pointing somewhere between the two.

  Triumph turned into a sick hiccup when the big guy came round front. He was a full head t
aller than I, broad face like granite, and a pleasant, helpful expression as he said, “Doesn’t Farhan speak Mearsies?”

  I tried to hide my dismay.

  The woman thumped him on the arm with her fist. I was surprised she didn’t break her knuckles. “Don’t you remember? Farhan got orders to run with one of the siege attack teams.”

  They expressed sympathetic disappointment on my behalf. I beamed, unable to hide my relief, and they took it as a complete lack of comprehension.

  “Never mind,” the youngest one declared to me, loudly and distinctly. “Come. We show you. Eat. Dry out.”

  “Ee-e-e-et. Dry-y-y-y ou-u-u-ut.” I nodded like one of those bobbing toy things some people put in the back windows of their cars.

  They surrounded me, everyone using loud voices, as if I were deaf and stupid. I shrugged, smiled, and hefted my pack over my shoulder.

  The warriors led me through a side door into a long hall that smelled of old cabbage, the oil they use on their weapons and wet wood. When we reached a big office, they all straightened up.

  The woman seemed to be taking a silent vote with her eyes—she was chosen—so she motioned me into the big room, where we found an older man seated behind a desk, a woman maybe ten years older than I at the wall, in the process of sticking pins in a big map. They turned around. After a quick exchange, the commander gave permission to house me until morning in the women’s barracks, adding, “Make certain she gets to the civ road at first light.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Next upstairs, where ten or twelve bunks lined the walls of a steep-roofed room. “Here’s where you sleep.” My guide pointed to the single bed with no gear hanging next to it and no chest neatly stored beneath it. As I hesitated, thinking of my wet pack, she took it out of my hands, which were beginning to tingle as they warmed, and yanked it open. “Here, let’s spread your things out. See? Spread. Out. Make sure dry.” She gestured with one hand, as she pulled things out with the other, hesitating when she saw the rolled firebird coverlet. She whistled. “Where did you get that?”