The Decoy Princess

by Dawn Cook

  I looked at the empty tables. “Supper?” I asked as I set two coins down, glad Kavenlow had insisted I handle the money when in the streets and so I knew how much was needed.

  “Help yourself to what’s in the pot,” he said, nodding to the hearth behind me.

  “I left so quickly,” I stammered, embarrassed, “I don’t have a bowl.”

  Saying nothing, he leaned to reach behind a counter and pull out a wooden bowl and flat length of wood that might be considered a spoon—if one was desperate.

  “She pays for that!” the unseen woman shouted, and the man’s shoulders hunched.

  I took them, feeling ignorant. “Would it be possible to have a bath?” I asked.

  “I ain’t doing any bath!” the woman exclaimed. The bar wench suddenly found something to do, vigorously scrubbing at a far table with her back to us.

  I brought out two more coins. It was twice as much as I paid for dinner. My mother’s blood still stained my hands; I would give him the entire bag if needed. “Shut your mouth, woman!” the man yelled over his shoulder.

  “I ain’t doing any bath!” she insisted.

  “You’ll do a bath,” the man bellowed. “Shut yer mouth!” He turned to me, and I gritted my teeth to keep the tears from starting. “It’ll be a while. You want it in a room?”

  Head down, I nodded, though I wasn’t planning to sleep in it, and he reached behind him to draw a tankard of dark liquid. “Here,” he said, handing it to me. “Take your pick of the rooms in back. The second one has a lock, ma’am.”

  My face went cold. “Thank you,” I managed, a sick feeling thundering down upon me. I was so alone. There was no hidden escort, no friendly guard behind me. I was alone after sunset with a bag of money in a tavern two streets up from the docks, dressed in rags and covered in pig grease. The only thing that could make this worse was if it started to rain.

  Knees feeling like wet rags, I crossed the room to a table near the hearth and sat with my back to the wall. I set the heavy tankard down, and with Kavenlow’s bag over my shoulder, I found the pot held a fish stew. The thought of eating was repellant, but having nearly passed out from hunger, I took some. Eyes were on me. I didn’t like it. I’d never eaten by myself before.

  The men turned away as I sat down. Slowly my fear eased, warmed away by the creamy soup. The spoon was hard to manipulate, and I felt like a fool as I struggled to keep anything on it. I found my appetite quickening—until I realized the gelatinous blob I was pushing around in my mouth in question was probably twin to the fish eye that was now staring up at me.

  Gagging, I hunched over the bowl and spat it back out. My face was warm as I looked up, but no one seemed to have noticed. I stifled a shudder and pushed the bowl away, my gaze falling upon the old man eating. He didn’t seem to care that his soup was looking back at him, but I did.

  The gaming table grew noisy, and my attention went to them as they played three rivers. The oldest man at the table was graying at the temples and had a kind, noble-looking face despite the weary slump that put him as a laborer of sorts. He was dressed simply but clean. A stick was tight between his teeth, and he shifted it from one side of his mouth to the other.

  Closest to the hearth was a soft-spoken man, tight with both his money and opinions. He was dressed like a merchant with clean boots and a good cloak.

  The last had his back to me. He wore a nondescript shirt and trousers of brown cloth. Unlike the other two, he had no beard, and his brown hair was cut severely short as the younger sentries like to keep it. His jests were quick, as was his speech, and he seemed to be winning a lot. I watched him pull a few coins to himself with pleasant, encouraging words to the others. His hands were too clean to be a laborer, and his clothes weren’t good enough for a merchant’s. Soldier? I thought, but dismissed it as his build—though nicely muscled and sturdy with a broad back and trim waist—was clearly used to casual exertion rather than the discipline of swinging a sword. He had a dagger, though, its outline showing at the top of his ragtag, thin-soled boots.

  Then I saw him draw a card from his collar and replace it with one from his hand, disguising the action as a stretch. My breath hissed in. He was a cheat! That’s what he was!

  Outraged, I felt my cheeks warm, then checked my upward motion. What the chu pits was I doing? I was worried about a thieving cheat when my life was balanced between my quick feet and Garrett’s anger?

  Chilled by the thought of Garrett’s soldiers, I pushed my bowl farther away and looked into my bag to estimate what I could purchase. There was enough for supplies but not a horse, too. They were expensive in a coastal city where the little fertile land was used for growing food for people. They would be even more costly with half the city surging through the gates.

  How was I going to get a horse? Worried, I took a sip from the tankard, almost choking at the acidic taste. It was near spoiled. God help me, this was the worst meal I’d ever not eaten.

  I spat the ale back and frowned as the cheat laughed at something the merchant said. My gaze rose, lighting upon the money on the table. My eyes narrowed in speculation.

  I could play cards. Kavenlow had taught me. As a rule, he cheated. The first time I caught him, I swore I’d never play against him again. He had laughed uproariously—which made me so angry I could have had him stuffed and turned into a rug—then changed the stakes. If I caught him cheating, I got his dessert. If he won without me spotting the deception, he got mine. It had been a very enjoyable winter.

  The flash of pleasant memory died. Depressed, I wound a stray curl back around my topknot. I would find Kavenlow. But I needed a horse.

  Leaving my uneaten soup, I rose with my tankard and bag and approached the table. The talk fell to nothing as the men looked up. I flushed for my forwardness; I hadn’t been introduced, but I didn’t think it mattered. “Three rivers?” I said. “May I join you?”

  The silence grew uncomfortable. The merchant glanced at the innkeeper, and he shrugged. It was the cheat who broke the tableau by shoving a bench away from the table for me. I ignored it, my face warming. Immediately the merchant rose with a quickness undoubtedly born from pandering to customers. The other two men got to their feet as well.

  “Let me help you, madam,” the merchant said, taking my tankard and setting it on the table before assisting me onto the rough bench with a practiced ease. “My name is Trevor.”

  “Thank you, Trevor,” I said, breathing easier now that someone had finally said something. I eyed him speculatively as I adjusted my filthy dress. “I believe I have visited your shop on high street. You sell threads and cords, yes?”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said with a smile. He didn’t recognize me, and for the first time all night, I appreciated the fact.

  “Collin,” the second man said. His stick shifted between his teeth as he sat back down.

  The cheat had hardly risen from his bench and was already back to shuffling the cards. “Ma’am,” he said, giving me no name, and I nodded at him.

  “I’m . . .” I hesitated, not knowing what to call myself. “I find I’m in need of a distraction tonight, with all the excitement in the streets. What version are you playing?”

  As one, the men relaxed. “Stones dam the river,” the cheat said, sliding a card to me. “Forest blocks the sun.”

  I nodded. I’d played that. Pulling an appropriate coin from the bag atop my lap, I set it in the center of the table with the rest. I took up the cards and bit my lower lip. Play circled from me to the cheat, exactly how I wanted it. If I couldn’t win what I needed, I could blackmail the cheat into losing to me. That is, if I could catch him cheating and show him I could prove it.

  There would be two circles of the table, each of us trading cards with a visible waste pile or the unseen remainder of the deck. At the end, each could fold and lose their coin, or throw in another to buy the chance to win it all. The strongest hand won. It was a simple game.

  We played our first turns in silence. My dislike of the
quiet prompted me to turn to the merchant, the most refined of the three. “Trevor,” I said, eyes watering as I pretended to sip the awful ale. “You sell that marvelous thread made by insects, don’t you?”

  “Yes ma’am.” He discarded a sword card into the up-facing pile. “I don’t think I will be selling much silk for a time. I would be wise to shift my inventory from domestics to the thicker cords that can be used in ropes for warships, but I have yet to find a supplier.”

  “Warships!” I said, my surprise genuine. How could he have even guessed such a thing? It had only been this morning that Garrett began his bid for my lands.

  “Rumors,” Collin growled around the stick between his teeth. “Costenopolie won’t go to war over a damned-fool marriage.”

  I blinked. But my unease went unnoticed as the merchant took up his tankard and said, “No, but the Misdev dogs might. May they rot in hell.”

  With loud agreements, the other two men raised their drinks in salute. All three took a draught, slamming their tankards onto the table with undue force. I watched Collin in fascination as he didn’t have to take the stick from his mouth to manage the lip of the cup.

  “You deal in cords and string?” Collin questioned as he picked up the merchant’s discarded sword card and put down a red pawn. “I make twine for nets.”

  The two exchanged shrewd looks as I chose an unseen card. Anything was better than the pawn I discarded. It was a black stone, useless with the cards I had, but I kept it, casting aside a valuable queen. I had three reasons for giving it away. One, it would imply I had an excellent hand and perhaps I could bluff my way to winning. Two, if I was right, the cheat would take it, squirreling it away for future use. Or three, it would lead the table to believe I was a simpleton. Any of the results would be favorable. My heart gave a pound as the cheat hesitated for the barest moment before picking up it up.

  Collin leaned toward the merchant, his eyes carefully away from the man’s cards. “With incentive, I could pull my workers from nets and shift them to ropes. Ropes will be in high demand if we war with Misdev.”

  “To the Misdev dogs!” the cheat said loudly. “May they rot in hell.”

  “May they rot in hell!” the men returned. The man eating soup weakly joined in, and I belatedly raised my tankard, pretending to drink the swill. Excitement tingled my toes as the cheat slipped the queen into his sleeve and replaced it with another while we drank. It was very quick, and I never really saw it, but my games with Kavenlow assured me that’s what happened.

  “Pay the pot or fold?” the cheat asked, his brown eyes innocent as he discarded.

  Collin chewed furiously on his stick before tossing in a coin.

  “Fold,” said the merchant, placing his cards unseen on the table.

  “Me, too,” the cheat said, unable to show his cards and risk someone recalling he ought to have the queen I had thrown away.

  Immediately I put a coin in to join Collin’s to further the illusion I was foolish. After losing the queen, I had a very bad hand. Collin won, and he gathered the coins, looking pleased.

  The cards went to the merchant, and he shuffled them. “I’m surprised you aren’t at your shops,” I offered as he slid my cards to me. “The town seems to think it’s noon at midnight.”

  “People fleeing war do not buy spools of flax,” he said shortly.

  “All this talk of war is foolish,” the cheat said. “What does it matter who she marries?”

  His stick clamped between his teeth, Collin picked up a card and threw a black wolf down with enough force to almost send it off the table. “I’d rather the princess marry a goat keeper than one of King Edmund’s spawn,” he muttered. “My grandfather came back with his hand black and stinking from the last Misdev war. He lived long enough to touch the sea, then died among the nets he could no longer even mend. And what did he die for? A strip of forest.”

  The bitterness in his voice surprised me. “It wasn’t for a strip of forest,” I said as I took up the wolf. “He died to keep the Misdev devils out of our harbors.”

  “May they rot in hell!” the men shouted, and I found myself joining them. My attention wandered as I realized my father almost put King Edmund in our harbors, the very thing my grandfather had fought so hard against. Distracted, I never caught the man cheating, and he won.

  “And what do you do, sir?” I asked the cheat as Collin dealt a new hand.

  “I’m in trading,” the young man said without hesitation, his eyes on his cards.

  My eyes flicked over him. “Trading?” If he was in trading, I was a dock whore. Which I wasn’t. So far. Despite what I presently looked like. “What do you trade in?”

  He glanced at me. “Black sheep. When I find a farm with such an animal, I buy it.”

  “Black sheep,” I repeated. I discarded a priest, taking up the red sun. I was betting the cheat would take the priest. Instead, he chose from the unseen pile.

  “And what is it you spend your daylight hours upon?” the cheat said sarcastically.

  My mocking mood went bothered as I realized I didn’t do much of anything. “Purchasing,” I said. “I purchase large amounts of goods for sundry reasons.”

  “You tend house,” he said, his tone making it an insult.

  “You would be surprised at the amount of planning that goes into one,” I said hotly. “But you wouldn’t appreciate it, seeing as you don’t stay in one spot for the span of a moon’s life—chasing black sheep as you do.”

  The merchant glanced at Collin. “Ah, I’m sure you keep a fine house, ma’am.”

  “Then why is she leaving it?” the cheat asked.

  “The Misdev curs,” I answered, unable to keep my eyes from dropping.

  “To the Misdev curs!” the cheat asserted.

  “May they rot in hell!” the other men returned.

  I watched closely as they drank, but the cheat didn’t shift his cards. I wondered if he knew I was watching. On my final turn, I was lucky in picking up a river card. I had a strong hand containing all the elements. No longer needing my king, I discarded him. The cheat’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he picked it up. I waited for him to pocket it, but when the game ended and I had won, he still held all his original cards.

  It was my turn to deal, and I almost missed his treachery in the rush of cards upon the table. The cheat only returned four. The fifth went into his boot as I pretended to slop my ale and Trevor solicitously blotted it up. My eyes narrowed. I was sure it had been the king. It was the only good card he had held.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, intentionally shuffling the cards so they threatened to spill from me. “My—husband used to play a game with me when we were first wed.” I grimaced, putting a tone of irritation in my voice. “We used to play for sweets. Of late he refuses to play anything with me at all. I still recall it fondly, though. Do you know spit in the wind?”

  The table went still in speculation. The pot built upon itself quickly in this game, reaching dangerous proportions with four or more players. I knew the cheat would be unable to resist. The two honorable men looked at each other, clearly unwilling to take advantage of a woman with a tankard of ale in her. But the cheat nodded. “I know it,” he said. “I’ll play one hand. More would be too rich for me tonight.”

  “Well,” Collin hedged, “if it’s just one hand.”

  “One hand,” the merchant agreed.

  I dealt out the six cards per player, a thrill of warmth starting in my middle. Taking a steadying breath, I picked mine up, planning out how to use them. My pulse increased as I anticipated the end, and I concentrated on keeping my breathing even.

  There was a jingle as we all contributed a coin. Spit in the wind was too fast for sleight of hand. The cheat’s cards would stay right where they were. Everyone simply played the card of his choice. The highest card won, pulling in the coins along with the cards. The winner then had not six cards to chose from but nine. The losers had five. Play repeated with additional coins being bet until on
e person had all the cards—and all the money. The winner would have taken six coins and turned it into twenty-four at the very least. I had an even chance of walking away with the pot. I would either win it outright or blackmail the cheat into losing it to me.

  The cheat won the first round, then I won the second. The merchant won the third, setting everyone to seven cards except for Collin, who had three. “I’ve got fish offal for a hand,” the man said, knowing he couldn’t come back from such a low position. Spitting his stick onto the floor, he threw his cards on the table. “I’m done. I’ll buy my cards out.”

  I stifled a smile. I had been hoping he’d do that. What it meant was he would contribute three coins to the table, one for each of his remaining cards, instead of playing to the end. My pulse hammered as the coins hit the table. I had to win this.

  The cheat won the next, and I the next two, then the cheat again. It brought the merchant down to three cards to the cheat’s and my nine each. “That’s as far as I’ll go,” the merchant said, easing his cards down and emptying his tankard. Three more coins joined the center of the table. He remained watching, as did Collin. Both wanted to see the end.

  Together the cheat and I laid down our chosen cards. My jaw clenched. I hardly bested his by the color, and the man’s mocking brow shifted to concern.

  The merchant leaned toward Collin. “When this is done, I’d like to talk with you. I might be willing to loan you money to hire more workers if they make cord for my shops.”

  Collin’s eyes went distant in thought. “I’ll starve if we go to war and I’m making nets.”

  I was ahead by two cards. I should act before I got behind, making his concession look forced. “Do you think it will come to war?” I said, surprised at the quaver in my voice.

  Immediately the merchant became reassuring and jovial. “Not at all, milady,” he said, his reassurance falling flat on me. “King Stephen dislikes war as much as the merchant guild. Princess Contessa will be wed in such a manner that no one will think to go to war. I can’t see the king abandoning his comfortable slippers to put on boots and march or sail away. Still, it is best to be prepared, eh?”