The Decoy Princess

by Dawn Cook

  Steadying myself, I tried to put an image of a pile of seeds into the sweet-looking rodent’s thoughts. The mouse hunted on, seeming unmoved by my attempt. My vision swam, and vertigo took me as I tried to use my skills past what my venom levels would allow. Ignoring it, I tried again, squinting as I tried to imagine a link between my thoughts and the mouse.

  From my stomach came a pang of want so strong and fast, I almost bent double. I clutched at my middle, breath catching when I realized it wasn’t my hunger but the mouse’s! Thrilled, I shuddered as the eerie feeling of emotions-not-mine trickled through me. It was fascinating, and not at all comfortable.

  Slowly I found the emotions that were mine and focused on them. The pained hurt in my belly grew less, making it easier to sense the mouse. He was hungry and cold, confused by the absence of his littermates. More confident, I again tried to put a thought into his head, overpowering his hunger with the idea that over here, inches from me, was a pile of seed.

  The background noise of the birds disappeared, the scent of earth grew strong. My pulse pounded as the mouse rose up onto two feet and tested the air with his shifting whiskers. He took a humping step, then paused. I forced my excitement down, imagining the pile topped with a strawberry. My mouth watered with the memory of its tart taste.

  The tiny mouse was clearly not old enough to have seen a strawberry before, but it hastened forward, scrambling carelessly toward the nonexistent seed. It halted when it got to the point I had imagined the food, sitting up and twitching its nose. His confusion poured through me, making the space I had put between our emotions turn blurry. Pity went through me, and I was sorry I had tricked it.

  “A mouse!” shrieked the princess, sending the rodent into a crouch. “Thadd! Get it!”

  I sat up. Thadd was standing with his long shirt untucked, wide-eyed and alarmed as he tried to spot the small shadow the princess was pointing at. I sent a thought of safety from birds and nasty princesses under my cupped hand. The mouse darted under the dome my palm made, shocking and delighting me. I could feel him, warm and shivering.

  “It’s in your blankets!” she wailed, twisting her skirt up to show her tiny ankles. God save me, they looked so thin they might break. How could she walk about on them without falling down?

  “I know,” I said, sending soothing thoughts as I cupped my hands to pick him up from the damp ground. “Would you stop shrieking? You’re scaring him.”

  “But it’s a mouse!” she cried, then hesitated when she realized everyone was staring at her. Duncan chuckled. Going red, she spun and stalked into the scrub, balancing perfectly on her tiny, thin, perfect little ankles wrapped in homespun wool.

  “Princess,” Kavenlow called. “Take someone with you. We stay in pairs from now on.”

  “But I need to—” she stammered, her eyes going from Thadd to me. “Come on, Thadd,” she said, flushing even more. “You’ll just have to look the other way.”

  I made an ugly face at her back and cuddled the mouse close. What did I care if little princess perfect ankles would rather have Thadd accompany her for her morning ritual than me, another woman? The mouse nibbled on the flat of my hand, and I cracked my fingers.

  Kavenlow shook the leaves from the princess’s thick bedroll and folded it. He looked fully rested and tidy, though he had slept less than anyone. “A mouse?” he questioned dryly.

  “I want to keep him,” I said, and he sighed as if gathering strength. “It’s not as if he’s going to eat much,” I protested.

  “Let it go, Tess,” he said. Showing me his back, he went to stack the princess’s blankets in the wagon, but my bad humor eased as he muttered, “I suppose I ought to be glad the first animal she charmed wasn’t a moose.”

  I opened my hands, and a whiskered nose poked out, then withdrew. Duncan’s shadow fell over me, and I squinted up. “Let me see?” he asked.

  I smiled, and taking that as an invitation, he dropped down beside me on my blankets. The memory of our kiss shocked through me, and I searched his face with a feeling of guilt. I flicked my attention to Kavenlow, seeing his brow furrowed. Duncan took my cupped hands in his, and jolted, I opened my palms. The mouse sat unmoving for a moment, then washed his whiskers.

  “He’s a sweet little thing, isn’t he?” Duncan said, and I nodded, tense as I noticed how warm his hands were under my fingers. My breath caught, and Duncan’s eyes met mine, drawn by the sound. I froze at the intentness of his gaze. When, then? his eyes seemed to ask.

  “Don’t ask me that,” I whispered, closing my hands to hide the mouse.

  Eyebrows high, he said nothing. His hands cupping mine were very still, and I couldn’t find the will to pull away. My thoughts spun back to his touch, rubbing my shoulder in time with the waves’ motion, and then that kiss pulling from me a want I’d never let myself feel before. My heartbeat quickened. How could I have been so foolish? Why did I hesitate now? Why didn’t I pull my hands away? Chu pits, I’m not the princess anymore. I can do what I want.

  Kavenlow cleared his throat, and my hands slipped from Duncan’s. Unable to bring my eyes to meet his, I opened my hand and watched the mouse dart into the leaves. Duncan rose, and I refused to look as he stretched. How had my life gotten so muddled? No one told me being able to make your own choices would be so . . . so confusing.

  I slowly stood. My back was sore, and my eye where the princess had hit me was tender to the touch. “Pairs, Kavenlow?” I asked. I had my own morning ritual to attend to, and I could do it alone, thank you very much.

  “Even you, Tess,” he said. I looked at Duncan, then sent my eyes pleading to Kavenlow. His jaw grew tense, and his brow furrowed. “Be quick,” he added, and my shoulders eased.

  I touched my topknot, then my whip on my belt, then finally one of the knives that I had taken from Jeck at the small of my back. Reassured, I gathered my skirts and crossed the path to find some privacy.

  My thoughts were a slurry of emotion, giving my steps only half my attention. Duncan was far away and distant from the safe, tidy, fumbling nobles with cold lips and light hands that I had spent time with. He smelled. He was prickly. He shouted at me and told me I was wrong.

  And he pulled from me feelings I thought I had control over with no more than a look. I didn’t know what I was feeling. It wasn’t love. I wasn’t that foolish. Duncan was a cheat—not that it mattered. Did it?

  Almost under my feet, a duck exploded into the air. I gasped and reached for my topknot, then burst into laughter as all thoughts of Duncan were driven away. “Oh, what luck!” I said as I spotted the nest at my feet. Crouching, I felt the warmth of the eggs, wondering how long she had been sitting. It couldn’t have been long; it was early spring. Thinking I’d found a capital-fine breakfast, I piled the eggs into the fold I made of my top skirt, leaving five for the hen.

  “Eggs!” I cried triumphantly as I crossed the trail again and entered the camp. “I found a nest of eggs!”

  The princess had returned with Thadd and had already claimed my usual spot before the fire. “Let me see?” she asked, somehow making it both mocking and demanding. My good mood faltered, and my mood soured. I felt like a beggar beside her. She had been sleeping on dirt same as me. How could she look so clean after sleeping on dirt?

  Sore eye pounding from my tension, I knelt beside her, intentionally putting myself too close to make her move away. She didn’t, but a new color rose in her cheeks as she watched me carefully unload the eggs on my far side. With a hurried quickness, she reached across me for one. “They’re fine,” she said as she gave it a tap with her fingernail. “The hen had just started to sit.”

  I frowned in disbelief. “How can you tell?”

  She ran a quick gaze over me, making me feel even more dirty. “By the way the weight shifts inside the shell,” she said, her scorn thinly veiled. “I grew up on Bird Island. I’d find nests all the time. There’s nothing worse than cracking an egg to find a nestling. Learning what a good egg feels like is easy.”

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bsp; I watched, unbelieving, as she took the eggs one by one and set them on her other side. “What are you doing?” I asked, affronted.

  “I’ll cook them with some of that watercress I saw by the river. Thadd? Would you fetch me some?”

  “Yes, Contessa.” The short bear of a man got to his feet and gestured for Duncan.

  “I can cook them,” I said indignantly.

  Duncan jerked to a stop, halfway out of camp with Thadd. “No, you don’t!” he cried. “Princess? Don’t let her touch those eggs. You cook them. I’ve had Tess’s cooking. Made me sicker than a dog eating five-day-old carrion.”

  Appalled, I looked at Kavenlow, and he shrugged. Apparently he had been successful in clouding Duncan’s memory of the true reason he had fallen into convulsions. But why did my cooking have to be the scapegoat? I turned back to find the princess humming, her motions vindictive as she rubbed a flat rock clean with the water I had been planning on using for my tea.

  “Kavenlow?” I complained as I rose and strode to him. “I want to cook the eggs. I found them.”

  He folded up my blanket and set it beside the princess’s in the wagon. “Do you know how to cook eggs?”

  “It can’t be that hard,” I said. “I eat eggs.”

  He flicked his gaze to the sickening picture of domestic bliss the princess was making beside the fire. “Let her do it,” he said. “She seems to know what she is doing.”

  I turned with a huff and went to brush the horses. I’d let the princess cook the fool eggs. I was willing to wager she’d burn them—or do whatever you do to eggs to ruin them. What would she know about cooking? She had been raised in a nunnery.

  Twenty-five

  The heavy smell Of eggs rose thick as I sat under the wagon and sulked. The princess can cook, I thought bitterly as I choked down the last fluffy, mouthwatering piece of egg. Not only could she cook, but she could cook well, having fashioned a pan from a flat rock and plates from the tightly woven reeds she had sent Thadd to gather while the cattail roots Duncan had dug softened. “The next thing you know,” I grumbled, “she’ll make us forks from sticks and leaves.”

  Kavenlow made a choking cough, and I glanced up. He was tending the horses, and I hadn’t known he was close enough to hear. My attention went back to princess perfect ankles. Duncan was sitting at her elbow, his brown eyes bright and eager as he entertained her with a bit of card play. While she had been cooking, he and Thadd had gone to the river, both coming back refreshed and suspiciously clean-shaven.

  The princess was duly appreciative of Duncan’s sleight of hand. Thadd, too, seemed impressed. He had quietly tended to the princess all morning, treating her as if she might break. The two men had hardly left her side since she cracked the first egg, and it sickened me. Kavenlow didn’t seem to notice them fawning over her, apparently not caring that Jeck might find us at any moment. The sun was well up, and no one showed the slightest concern. It was if we were out for an afternoon of hawking, not running for our lives.

  The princess laughed, and I grimaced at the pleasant sound. I could take no more. Standing, I stalked out of camp, ripping my skirt as I jerked it free from a briar.

  “Tess?” Duncan called. “Where are you going?”

  “To the river,” I said, never slowing.

  “Pairs!” Kavenlow called. “We stay in pairs!”

  Ignoring him, I stormed across the path and into the woods. I bullied my way through the brush, coming to an abrupt halt at the water’s edge with my arms about myself.

  It was quiet, since the morning birds had finally ceased their noise. The sound of the current against the rocks was soothing. Morning air, cold and biting, cooled me. My shoulders eased. I wished I was on the Sandpiper. I would’ve enjoyed seeing Lovrege’s hillsides wreathed in fog.

  Finding peace in being alone, I took off my boots and gathered my skirts. I waded into the river, shocked at how cold it was before remembering it was running with snowmelt. The rocks were slippery, shifting under my toes without warning. I looked toward the unseen camp and wondered if I might chance a bath—seeing as we weren’t going anywhere soon. An urgent need to be clean had filled me. There wasn’t a smudge on the princess. I didn’t understand it. She was the one who had been pounded into the dirt, and I was the one who was filthy.

  Brow furrowed, I decided I’d take a bath even if they were packed and ready to go when I went back for my clean dress. Feeling a stir of self-worth, I waded to the bank.

  There was a rustle in the brush and my head snapped up. My skirts fell as I reached for my dart tube. I had it to my lips when the bushes parted to show the top of the princess’s fair head. Her attention was on the ground. One dart, I thought bitterly. It wouldn’t kill her, but rolling about on the ground in convulsions would get her dirty. I could say it was an accident.

  She looked up. Fear flickered in her blue eyes. They looked like Mother’s.

  Shame filled me, and I tucked the tube away. “Sorry. I didn’t know it was you,” I lied. I pulled my dripping skirts from the water, then let them fall in disgust. Now I was dirty and wet. I looked to the sky and the clouds that ought to be threatening. Rain would top this off nicely.

  “It was my fault,” she said as she stepped to the bank. “I should have let you know I was coming. The chancellor says no one should be alone.”

  My first caustic retort died at her hesitant admission of blame, and I said nothing as she picked her way to the water, mincing in her little black boots. Her heart-shaped face and transparent skin made me feel like a crass bumpkin. I wanted to tell her I never dressed like this, that I normally wore silk and a circlet, that I usually had clean hands and face, that I could do sums and read—that I wasn’t the gutter trash that she thought I was.

  My skirt dragged in the current as I lurched to dry ground. Ignoring her, I picked up my boots to return to camp barefoot. I was as clean as I was going to get. Why wasn’t it raining?

  “Would you—like to use my soap?” she said, and I froze.

  I hadn’t any soap. I had used the last of mine on the Sandpiper. I met her eyes. “Yes,” I said warily, wondering why she was being nice. “Yes, I would. Thank you.”

  Unfolding a cloth, she revealed a thick cut of brown soap, its edges smoothed by use. She set it on the bank and stepped away. I eyed her suspiciously as I took it. Knotting my wet skirts up, I waded back out to wash my face. I set the soap on a rock as I scrubbed, jerking in hurt when I touched my eye. The soap smelled of mint, and I wondered if the nuns had given it to her or if little princess pretty ankles had made it herself.

  Though unable to watch her with lather threatening my eyes, I was painfully aware of her as she took off her boots and stockings to step-hop out over the river across a path of dry rocks. Sitting on the largest, she dipped her feet in. The silence grew.

  The water dripped from me, and the current pulled the ripples away. My face tightened from the cold as I snuck a glance at her. I had escaped guards and a rival player, crossed the bay with money I earned, and made the mistake of kissing a cheat and learning what a real kiss could do to a person. I could pretend to be nice to her.

  I lurched closer, holding the soap like an offering. Her narrow chin looked tense as I set it beside her and backed away. “Thank you,” I said, trying to keep it unsullen. She gave me a nervous smile and started to wash her feet. They were tiny, and turning blue with cold.

  I shifted to find better footing. My toes were going numb. “I’m sorry for—uh—slapping you,” I said, thinking I should exert myself lest I end up making doilies the rest of my life.

  “It wasn’t all your fault.” She didn’t look up, and I wasn’t sure how sincere she was. “I shouldn’t have called you a beggar, and I’m—” Her expression went anxious, looking almost frightened. “I’m sorry for saying they didn’t love you,” she blurted. “It was cruel and untrue. But I . . .” She looked into the woods, her blue eyes going wide. My lips parted in surprise as she pulled her knees to her chin and wrapped
her arms about her legs. Her eyes went dark and watery, and I realized the young woman was on the verge of tears.

  “I was jealous,” she whispered, “and afraid. I wanted to hurt you. You had everything. You knew everything. You came into camp looking so strong; I got frightened. I don’t know how to be a princess. And when I saw you standing there, I realized I can’t do it!”

  I stood, shocked by her admission. She wiped her eyes, the pale skin around them flashing into an ugly red. Sniffing, she managed a weak-sounding bark of laughter. “I was going to marry Thadd, you know. And have children with him, and live in the house his grandfather built for his grandmother, and die there happy. And then last year, a man riding a beautiful horse and wearing the finest clothes I’d ever seen comes to my room and tells me I am a princess? That I have to leave my mountains and go to a city? That a prophesy said I might cause of a war if I didn’t! Do you know what that’s like? To have the fate of the world take your life away from you?”

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve in a very unprincess-like manner, and my heart went out to her. My throat closed in sympathy. I knew. I knew all too well.

  “And then you walked into camp,” she said, her voice bitter with self-incrimination as she looked at the moisture on her sleeve. “I’d never seen anyone like you.” She met my eyes, and I saw the misery in them. “How am I supposed to be like you? You’re so tall and graceful. Even when you had dirt on your face and had torn your dress, you looked like a princess, proud and calm. And you spoke so well. I could tell you were angry, that I was hurting you, but you stayed civil as long as you could. I hated that you knew everything that I didn’t. I had to prove I was better than you, and when I tried, I only proved how low and common I was.” Her gaze went across the river and into the woods. “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes, you can,” I said, shocked to hear the words come out of me.

  She sniffed, looking up. “Chancellor Kavenlow said you could help me.” Fear flickered over her as she met my eyes. “Will you? Please? I can’t ask anyone else. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know anything, and I’m scared someone will find out!”