The Decoy Princess

by Dawn Cook

  Slipping awkwardly on the stone beach, I went to Duncan. “Is Tuck all right?” I asked, but he didn’t answer, the back of his neck going red as he continued to fuss over his horse. Chu, I thought. He was worse than Heather, thinking he could punish me by ignoring me.

  Frowning at his infantile behavior, I led Pitch and Jeck’s horse into the stream that bisected Brenton. My skirts tied high to keep them from going damp, I dumped water over the horses using the bowl from my pack to get rid of the salt. I used the remnant of my stockings to dry the back of Jeck’s horse before arranging my pack and riding pad on him.

  Duncan said nothing, keeping with his cold silence. He stomped into the stream, sitting up to his armpits to let the current wash out the salt. Dunking himself, he slicked his hair back as he came up. Still dripping, he splashed off Tuck and led him up the steep embankment to the street. I followed, and we silently headed into town. There was no dock, but there was probably a tavern where I could ask after Kavenlow.

  I didn’t look back at the Sandpiper. My chest was tight with a confused frustration. With Captain Borlett’s letter, I had freedom. I had no earthly reason not to abandon my position as the princess’s double. Except that to flee would allow Garrett to live. And I wanted him dead.

  “Look at her,” Duncan said crossly to Tuck as we found our place among the noise and stink of people again. “Did I tell you she made me carry fourteen buckets of water across the deck of that burning ship? Madam princess wants to burning wash her hair. Madam princess wants to burning wash her clothes. It’s burning unfair. And what’s worse, she didn’t even let me watch her win it. She burning well cheats, Tuck. Otherwise, she would’ve let me watch.”

  “I didn’t cheat,” I said, frustrated. I still thought it was the kiss, not the cards.

  “Hear that bird singing, Tuck?” Duncan mocked. “Have you ever heard such an annoying twitter in all your life?”

  I frowned. Duncan’s feet squished in his wet boots, keeping exact time with my pace.

  “No one wins at cards that often unless they cheat,” he continued, speaking to his horse but talking to me. “She cheats, Tuck, sure as you’re a gelding, poor sod. But how she does it, I can’t tell.” He was silent for three heartbeats. “If she told me, I might talk to her again.”

  “Duncan . . .” My shoulders slumped. “I don’t cheat. I grew up playing cards with someone who does. I had to learn how to read people just to win my fair share. The captain was good, but he was careless. He touched his beard when he had to think about which card to throw away. He leaned forward when he thought I had a better hand than his, and he took a drink when he pulled a card higher than a sword. If you would spend as much time watching your opponent as you do the cards, you wouldn’t have to cheat.”

  “Listen to her,” Duncan said to Tuck as he squashed the biting fly that landed on his horse’s neck. “Such pretty stories.” He glanced at me, his infant beard making his ire look ugly. “You make a good storyteller, Tess. Ever think of changing your profession?”

  Ignoring that, I angled to a hard-packed dirt yard that was as indicative of a tavern as much as the sign above the door. “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to,” I said, tired of inns and ale and loud voices of men raised in tone-deaf salutations of friendly women with full tankards and ample breasts.

  Duncan pushed Tuck’s head out of the way so he could see me. “Do you have enough for something to eat?” he asked, apparently having forgiven me already at the prospect of food.

  “You spent the last two days in the galley, and you’re hungry?” I said feeling a jolt of nervousness. “Jeck’s behind us. We find out if or when Kavenlow was here. Then we leave.”

  “Yes,” he drawled. “I can hardly wait to watch you go in there and ask if they’ve seen a wise old man and a princess.”

  My brow furrowed. “You have to go through Brenton to get to Bird Island. Either he’s in front of us or already on his way back. I have to know which direction to take.”

  “And Captain Jeck will do the same thing, won’t he,” he said. “He’s either chasing behind us by boat, or waiting for us to walk right into him on the way back.”

  For a moment, I could only hear the pounding of my heart in my ears. Why hadn’t I thought that far ahead? “Shut your mouth, Duncan,” I said, the pit of my stomach cold.

  “For a talented woman, you aren’t very bright.”

  My lips tightened, and I tied Jeck’s horse and Pitch to the post outside the inn. The stable was nothing more than a shaky-looking lean-to propped against a tree. I glanced back at the bay, fighting a pang as I found the Sandpiper in full sail heading toward open ocean without me. The fear—the need to be moving that had been absent from the time I has set foot on the Sandpiper —filled me again. I didn’t want to advertise my presence, but I had to know if Kavenlow had been here. Garrett’s reinforcements would reach the capital soon. I was running out of time.

  Duncan entered the inn ahead of me. I followed, a small sound of disgust slipping from me as I took a shallow breath. The place stank of soured fish and musty potatoes. Even Duncan wrinkled his nose as he looked to the hearth and the cluster of too-thin men drinking. I took in the slovenly dressed woman draped across the loudest man and grimaced. The inn was nothing like the Three Crows. Not having any competition, the inn did very little to attract customers. “It’s a wonder anyone is here at all,” I muttered. “It reeks of fish.”

  “Oh, someone new. Whatcha want?” a woman said as she came out from a back room. Her eyes roved over Duncan’s damp attire. “A late noon meal? Perhaps a room? Eh? Yes?”

  My heart gave a pound as Duncan eyed me in speculation. “Two ales, please,” I said, laying out the proper amount of money. Maybe ale would soften him where my words couldn’t. It would distract him, if nothing else.

  Her brow rose at my accent. Duncan took the first tankard. Holding my breath, I tried a tentative sip, my eyes meeting his when I found it surprisingly pleasant. Duncan’s gaze slid from mine to the men by the hearth. “I’ll be over there till you’re done,” he said shortly, drifting toward them as if flotsam on the tide.

  “Yes, go,” I encouraged, thinking if he was over there, he wouldn’t foul up my careful questions over here. “Ma’am,” I said, “you brew a good ale.”

  She sent her gaze over me again, clearly wondering what I was doing here. “My husband, he taught me,” she said, dragging a rag over a table as she pretended to clean it. “It brings the ships in when nothing else will, it does. You out from the capital?”

  I thought back to the bitter ale in the casks on the Sandpiper and nodded. “We’re just off the Sandpiper.”

  “You and your husband, there?” she interrupted, nodding toward the hearth.

  “Ah, yes,” I stammered. “I was wondering—”

  “Tymus is taking on passengers?” she blurted. “That’s not like him.”

  Tymus? I thought, not liking that Captain Borlett and this woman were on a first-name basis. “It took a fair amount to convince him,” I said. “I’ve been trying to meet up with someone. An older man, well-dressed? He was headed this way.”

  The woman brushed her hands on her skirts, her eyes roving over the patrons. “I didn’t hear the call of a boat coming in. Where’s Tymus’s crew? Is it a big cargo? Any fabric?”

  “No,” I said in exasperation, realizing I had lost what little control I had. “No cargo. He’s already headed out. He only stopped to let us off.”

  “Oh.” The woman slumped. She eyed Duncan across the room. “He made you swim?”

  “Just—my husband.” Her eyebrows rose, and I surged ahead. “I was hoping you might be able to help me find my father. He might have my sister with him?” The lies came out so easily, it was frightening.

  “You don’t know if your sister was with him or not?” She looked at me as if I was stupid. Flushing, I glanced at Duncan, his hands waving in conversation. I didn’t like that tart of a woman touching his shoulder. Neither di
d the man whose lap she was currently sitting in.

  “Ah-h-h,” I said, remembering the innkeeper had asked me something. “He’s fetching her back to the capital. He wouldn’t have gone by boat, and I don’t know if I passed him in my rush to catch up with him.”

  She nodded knowingly. “Oh. Old man with graying beard? Attractive, if you don’t mind me saying so? Dressed up real fancy?”

  I felt a wash of relief. Garrett’s assassin hadn’t found him. “Yes, that’s probably him.”

  “Aye,” the woman said, wiping out a bowl with the corner of her apron. “You just missed them. He came through two days ago off the Sea Mist. He bought the Ellisons’ horse and rode out of town like the devil himself were after him.”

  “Two days!” I exclaimed softly. I would never have guessed he would cross the bay.

  “Shame you didn’t come in earlier,” the woman said. “He left this morning.”

  My head rose, and I looked at her in confusion. “But you said . . .”

  “With your sister and her man,” she added, and my brow smoothed in understanding. Kavenlow was on his way back to the capital. Then I hesitated. Her man?

  “They spent the night,” the chatty woman was saying. “Took my two best rooms. She’s a beautiful little thing, ain’t she? Hair long enough to sit on, and as fair as sunlight on water.”

  I grimaced, touching my dull-brown hair. “Yes. That’s—her.”

  “I can see why your father dotes on her,” she said. “Never left her alone. Kept everyone away. Waited on her hand and foot. I hardly saw the frail wisp. She looks a mite ill, the tiny thing. So sad and melancholy. Was she away for her health?”

  “She’s fine,” I said, trying to hide my anger. Kavenlow waited on her? He wasn’t a servant. My growing aversion for the princess shifted to a real dislike.

  “It was a sight. The both of them tending her as if she was a queen,” the woman said.

  “Queen. Yes,” I muttered.

  “I tell you, if my husband had given me half that attention, I might have worked harder at keeping him alive when he fell sick.”

  Ill with jealousy, I put my ale down. “Yes. Thank you. I have to go now.”

  “I expect if you hurry, you might find them yet tonight. Wagons are slow things.”

  A wagon! I thought. No wonder she was taking so long to get to the palace. Little princess perfect couldn’t ride. She needed a wagon. “I expect so,” I said, no longer trying to hide my bitterness. “Thank you.”

  “Good luck finding your father and sister.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” I turned away before she could say anything else, stomping across the room to Duncan. I stood behind his chair, seething. The men ignored me, making me even angrier. “Come on, Duncan,” I said, tugging at his sleeve. “We have to go.”

  Duncan rose with a mocking slowness, tipping his hat at the unsavory woman in parting. She all but leered at me, thinking I was his jealous wife, no doubt. Why would I be jealous of her? She had dirty feet the size of a duck.

  “They were here last night,” I said as I pulled him to the door.

  Duncan tilted the bottom of his tankard to the ceiling and finished his ale in one swill. “I know,” he said when he came up for air. “Chu, that’s good.”

  “How did you find out?” I said, glancing behind me as the group sprawled about the hearth laughed, probably at me.

  “Thadd likes to roll the dice.”

  “Thadd? Who’s Thadd?” I took his empty tankard and set it on a table as I hustled him back out into the sun and to the horses.

  “Thadd is her goat boy,” he said. “A sculptor, really. He’s delivering a statue. That’s why the wagon.”

  “Goat boy?” Bewildered, I squinted at him in the bright glare.

  Duncan untied Tuck and belched, earning my disgust and the admiration of the boy nearby throwing pebbles at the chickens in the road. “Yeah. Goat boy. You know, the hero in the stories who helps the princess save the kingdom.” Smirking, he added, “He’s sweet on her. Poor sod. I wonder if he knows who she really is?”

  Goat boy? Deep in thought, I swung up onto Jeck’s horse and arranged my dress and cloak. What was the princess doing with a sculptor?

  We headed out of town at a fast pace. Behind me I heard small belches coming from the stableboy as he tried to outdo Duncan. “Look what you started,” I said, disgusted.

  Duncan grinned, his nasty red and black beard looking awful. “Don’t you know how to show the proper appreciation for such a fine ale as that? Who ever heard of an assassin who didn’t know how to belch?”

  My stomach tightened, and I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone had heard him. “You’re a stark-raving idiot, you know that?”

  “And you’re an assassin, Tess,” Duncan said cheerfully, as if he rather liked the idea. “Not a thief or a cheat. You’re an assassin. And together, we’re going to make a fortune. After you save the kingdom and all.”

  “Some cheat you are,” I scorned. “One ale, and you lose what little sense you had.”

  “I’m not drunk,” he claimed, and the clear look in his eye made me believe it. “Think about it. What else are you good for?”

  What else, indeed? I thought as we left the smelly harbor of Brenton behind, slipping into a mile-eating canter headed back to the capital. I wondered what it said that the skills of a princess and that of an assassin were so alike that no one had noticed the difference.

  Twenty-one

  What am I going to do about the princess? The thumps Of Jeck’s horse’s hooves pounded the thought into me as we cantered up the path to the capital. Though rutted with the imprints of hooves and wheels, the trail was blessedly empty. Jeck’s horse never stumbled, and the gentle motion that usually soothed me only made things worse. Each hesitation of hoofbeats seemed like the gathering of breath, tightening me until I was ready to break. My mind kept circling back to the question I had blinded myself to. What am I going to do about her?

  If the princess took the throne, I’d never be able to convince King Edmund that I was justified in killing his son for the murder of my parents. Only if I was a fellow sovereign would he listen to me. Only by taking the throne could I find my revenge for the murder of my parents.

  “But it’s not my kingdom,” I whispered, hearing my voice quaver.

  It should be, a selfish thought whispered. A tremor took me, and I hid it by tapping the horse with my heels to get him to step it up. She might be heir to the throne, but she would lose it in three years, taken by Misdev or any of the other kingdoms watching the wealth pass through our harbors. War would erupt up and down the coast whether I killed Garrett or not. Captain Borlett would carry soldiers, not grain. People would starve. People would die.

  I angled Jeck’s horse to a branch impaling one of Kavenlow’s leaves. It ripped from the branch with a wet sound, and anxiety tightened my stomach. They were close. Perhaps as little as just out of sight. Fingers trembling, I dropped the leaf.

  “Duncan,” I said as I pulled Jeck’s horse to a standstill. “We’re stopping.”

  He brought Tuck to a neck-arched halt, his shoulders bunching as he reined the horse in. “Now? Look at those ruts. They’re right in front of us.” His eyes were wide in the early dusk under the trees.

  “It’s getting dark,” I said. “They’ll have stopped, too. We’ll catch up with them tomorrow.” Face flaming at his questioning silence, I dismounted and walked Jeck’s horse and Pitch off the trail to a small clearing beside the path.

  “All right,” he said slowly and dismounted. I could feel his eyes on me as I wound the reins of Jeck’s horse into a bush and started up the trail. I had to see her. I had to see the princess. Perhaps she wasn’t as frail and stupid as the woman had made out.

  “Tess? Where are you going?”

  Duncan’s voice brought me spinning around. “To find something to eat,” I lied, not knowing why I did. “I’ll be right back.”

  He scratched a finger through his vile, sp
arse beard. “You never have before.”

  My lips pressed together, and I belligerently tossed a stray curl out of my eyes. “Would you rather have me try to cook again?”

  Misdirected anger made my words harsh, but instead of reacting in turn, he stared at me. “What about your horses?”

  “Oh,” I said, returning. “Yes.” With abrupt motions, I removed the riding pad and packs from Jeck’s horse. Leaving them where they lay in the dirt beside the trail, I dusted my hands and backed up three steps. “There,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

  I strode down the path. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked, but I wouldn’t turn around. My pulse quickened. “Hey!” he called, and I spun. My hands dropped from my topknot to catch the water sack he tossed me. “See if you can find running water, too.”

  “Yes. Fine,” I said, hastening down the trail. As soon as I was around a bend, I gathered my skirts and went faster. My tension didn’t dissipate with the motion; it worsened.

  A low murmur of voices pulled me to a standstill. One was high-pitched, the other low. Hunched, I edged off the trail and continued. My heart pounded, and my hands trembled. I smelled the smoke from their fire before I saw them. In a low crouch, I crept forward. The canes of wild berries caught at my skirt and hair, and the sharp stabs of thorns were like guilty accusations for my spying. I stifled a cry as my sleeve ripped to leave a long scratch in my arm. I brushed at the pain, a sliver of motion making me go still.

  Shifting a small branch, I peered through the vegetation. My eyes narrowed. A young woman sat on a log beside a fire, huddled under a thick woolen cape. Her arms were wrapped around herself. She looked cold and lost. And beautiful.

  The tips of her yellow hair brushed the ground as she sat. It was straight where mine was curly. Her skin was sun-starved while mine was dark. She looked unfit for anything useful, with ample curves where I only had suggestions. She smiled up at the short, powerfully built young man who draped a blanket over her shoulders, and I hated her. I was no princess. This is a princess, I thought as I wiped a hand under my nose. I was a fool to ever think I had been one.