In the Enemy's Service (Annals of Alasia Book 2)

by Annie Douglass Lima

  The wounded guard was continuing to improve, able to sit up in bed for a stretch of nearly an hour on end now, as long as he leaned on a pillow against the wall. Yesterday he had even stood up and taken a few steps for the first time since the Invasion, supported by Tonnis on one side and Anya on the other. She had cheered when he had successfully shuffled out into the hallway and back again with their help.

  When the four of them heard the sound of the front door opening, all but Wennish jumped guiltily to their feet and hurried out of his room. But it was only Sethius, the Alasian who sharpened swords and repaired weapons for the Malornians in the smithy just behind the palace. He hurried to meet them in the back room, his expression betraying his excitement.

  “What is it?” Eleya demanded.

  “Some of us have been talking, and we think this could be our chance,” Sethius explained, his eyes alight with intensity. “Nearly all the soldiers are gone. We outnumber those who are left ten to one at least. We could overpower them, take back control of the palace. Will you join us?”

  Anya stared at him, her eyes wide. “A revolt against the enemy!” It was like something from an adventure story.

  Tonnis and Eleya exchanged glances, but they didn’t look nearly as enthusiastic. “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Tonnis told him seriously.

  “Why not? We’ll probably never have a better chance. We have to seize the opportunity!”

  “Captain Almanian and the others could be back any time,” Eleya pointed out. “You remember what he told us at the beginning: anyone who harms one of them will be killed, and not only the person who does it, but two or three others as well. What about Jommal? Would you risk your apprentice’s life for this?”

  Sethius shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t like that part, but Jommal has said he’s willing to take the risk. He was one of the first to volunteer. The boy’s as good with a blade as I am, and we’ve got a couple of old daggers that the soldiers don’t know about hidden by the forge. It’s now or never!”

  There was a rustle from behind them, and Wennish appeared in the doorway of his room. He was pale, leaning heavily on the doorjamb, but he looked just as excited as Sethius. “I volunteer too!” he exclaimed breathlessly. “Give me a sword and I’ll join you in teaching those villains a lesson.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Eleya snapped. “For one thing, nobody has a sword to give you, and for another, you’re not in a position to teach anybody anything. Go back to bed before you collapse on the floor. We haven’t worked so hard to keep you breathing these last ten days just to have you throw your life away in some pointless attempt at heroism.”

  “It isn’t pointless,” Sethius argued. “We’re fighting for the cause of freedom!”

  “But for what purpose?” Tonnis demanded. “Even if you succeed, what then? When the captain and his men return, they’ll find a way to get back into the palace.”

  Eleya nodded. “There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of Malornian soldiers in Almar. All Almanian has to do is gather them all together and storm the gates. The best you can hope for is a long siege, but eventually we’ll run out of food and we’ll all have to surrender or starve to death.”

  “So you aren’t going to join us?” Sethius sounded disappointed but not discouraged.

  “No, we aren’t,” Tonnis told him firmly, “and neither is Wennish here.” He gave his patient a stern look. “But if any of you are wounded in your attempt, you know where to come.”

  “I wish we could join in,” Anya couldn’t help murmuring wistfully after Sethius had hurried out.

  “So do I,” muttered Wennish. “That sort of thing is my job, really. I should have been the one to organize a revolt.” But he had grown even paler and was starting to sag, clinging to the doorjamb with an effort.

  “Back to bed with you this instant,” Eleya ordered briskly, and though he grumbled under his breath, the guard did not struggle as she and Tonnis half-carried him back to his bed and then shut the door firmly behind him.

  “And you, girl,” Eleya ordered next, pointing a stern finger at Anya. “One more word about joining them and I’ll lock you in there with Wennish. Now come over here and help me grate up some more comfrey root. We’d better get ready to receive casualties.”

  Anya kept listening, her eyes darting from the window to the door every time she thought she heard a sound from outside, but there was no hint that anything out of the ordinary was going on. No angry shouts or clashing of weapons such as always accompanied a battle in stories. Maybe Sethius and the others had changed their minds. Or perhaps they were still finalizing their plans.

  She ran to the window in the front room to watch when she saw Lieutenant Talifus come stomping across the courtyard again, obviously still in a bad temper. He looked angry, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and his expression was not urgent the way it surely would have been if anything serious were happening. He walked past the clinic and shouted something she couldn’t hear to the soldiers on guard up on the walls. As he strode back toward the palace again, he caught sight of her through the window and stormed over, flinging open the clinic door. “What are you staring at?” he snarled.

  Anya shrank aside. Tonnis and Eleya were watching from the other end of the room, and they, too, drew back in the face of his anger. “Nothing, sir,” Eleya murmured meekly.

  “We were just wondering what was happening, sir,” Anya added. “Where did everyone go in such a hurry earlier?”

  Talifus hesitated for just an instant, and then jerked the door all the way open and barged into the relative warmth of the front room, shoving past her and slamming the door shut behind him. Anya nearly tripped over her lacy skirts as she jumped back, whipping her fingers out of the way just in time, watching as he stomped across the room and plopped himself down on the desk in the corner.

  “It’s not fair,” he complained, crossing his arms on his chest and glowering at the three of them. Anya had to stifle a smile. He looked and sounded almost exactly like her brother when he was whining about some punishment Father had given him for staying out too late or neglecting his chores.

  “What isn’t fair?” she inquired as the lieutenant pushed himself to his feet again and began to pace back and forth across the front room.

  “He keeps doing this to me,” the soldier grumbled, slamming his fist against the wall and then whirling around and striding back the other way as though the opposite wall deserved his attention next. “Every time something important happens, I’m kept out of it. I’ve been a perfectly good officer, far better than that incompetent Lasden, but what do I ever get from Almanian but ‘that will be all, Lieutenant,’ and ‘you’re dismissed, Lieutenant’?”

  Talifus gave a wordless roar of frustration and swung his foot at the side of the desk as he passed. There was a cracking sound, which seemed to please him, and he kicked it again on his way back in the other direction, producing a louder crack.

  “That’s Dal’s desk,” Tonnis objected. “He won’t thank you for breaking it for him.”

  The lieutenant glared at him and kicked the desk even harder on his next pass. “Almanian never gives me any important jobs,” he continued angrily, as though he hadn’t heard the doctor’s protest. “He doesn’t trust me.”

  Eleya, still watching from the doorway that led to the back room, raised her eyebrows sarcastically. I wonder why, she mouthed silently.

  Anya stifled a giggle. No one else trusts you, either, she mouthed back, and Eleya smiled in agreement.

  Talifus, still pacing and oblivious to their communication, swung back his leg again and gave the desk another mighty kick, this one producing a splintering sound. “What did he think I was going to do?” he demanded of no one in particular. “Start fighting on the Alasians’ side out there?”

  Anya pricked up her ears. “What exactly is happening?” she asked again.

  “Some sort of civilian uprising,” the lieutenant grumbled, still pacing. “People throwing rocks and att
acking soldiers a couple miles down the main road. Apparently reinforcements were summoned from all over Almar, but do I get to come join in the excitement? ‘No, Lieutenant Talifus, you stay here and guard the palace.’ As if anything’s going to happen to the palace while they’re gone. So my three men and I have to sit around here and do nothing with a handful of Malornian privates while Lasden and the rest of them get to go be the heroes. They’ll be back any time now talking about what a fine job they did quelling the uprising, and those of us who could have done it just as well won’t get any honor or credit.”

  Sighing angrily, Talifus plopped himself down heavily on the desk again. With a crunching sound, it promptly crumpled beneath his weight, leaving him sprawled in a pile of splintered wood on the floor.

  Tonnis gasped and Eleya clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a laugh. Anya, not so self-controlled, let out a shriek of laughter before she could stop herself.

  That was a mistake, and she knew it even before the lieutenant struggled to his feet and lunged toward her. “I’ll teach you to laugh at me, girl!”

  “Ow!” Anya cried as he seized her by the arm. “I-I wasn’t laughing at you, sir. I was – I was laughing at the desk.”

  “Liar,” he snarled, drawing back his fist.

  “Stop it!” Tonnis shouted in alarm, hurrying toward him.

  “Don’t, Lieutenant, please!” exclaimed Eleya at the same moment, also rushing forward. Anya screamed as Talifus boxed her ear, not so much because of the pain as because she wanted him to think it hurt worse than it did.

  Tonnis grabbed Talifus’s arm, but the soldier shook him off. “Stay out of this.” He gripped Anya by the shoulders, shoving her against the wall. “You impudent girl. Don’t ever laugh at me again.” He drew back his fist once more, and though both Tonnis and Eleya were clutching at him, he got in one more hard blow, to her nose this time.

  Anya had never had a bloody nose before. She gasped in surprise, forgetting to scream, as she felt the blood trickle over her lips and down her chin. Lowering her eyes, she saw the red stain slowly spreading over the silver-white satin of her gown.

  “Let that be a lesson to you,” Talifus growled, rubbing his knuckles in a satisfied sort of way.

  “Shame on you, Lieutenant,” Eleya exclaimed, wrapping her arms protectively around Anya, blood and all. “Taking out your anger on a child like that. Your problems aren’t her fault.”

  At that moment, a wordless shout rang out across the courtyard, and they all jumped. Talifus whirled around. “What was that?”

  The shout was followed by a series of angry cries and then a clashing noise, and then another. There was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen through the window, however. With an oath, the lieutenant jerked the door open and sprinted through it, drawing his sword as he ran toward the palace.

  “Don’t even think of going out there,” Tonnis warned Anya sternly. He shut the door. “Come into the back and we’ll do something about that bleeding.”

  “You’ll be fine. You’ll be just fine. Everything will be all right,” Eleya assured her nervously, leading her into the other room with an arm around her shoulders.

  Anya had no doubt that she would be fine. Her nose and ear really didn’t hurt that much, and she supposed she had gotten off easy, all things considered. What she really wanted to know was what was happening and whether Sethius and the others were succeeding in their attack against the soldiers. That was the real issue.

  Ten minutes later, they still had no answer. Tonnis had laid out bandages and healing herbs and the needle and thread that he used for stitching wounds shut, and Eleya had brewed up some sharp-smelling drink from a handful of dried leaves and another from a few spoonfuls of gray powder. Anya stood at the window with a cool wet cloth to her nose, chewing her thumbnails distractedly and wishing that something would happen outside. But if there was any action in the courtyard, it was not where she could see it. Perhaps the noises had been to draw all the soldiers into a trap. Maybe the Alasians had set up an ambush in some corner of the palace and lured the Malornians into it.

  “You’ll be all right now,” Eleya announced as she had been doing every few minutes, though Anya knew her minor injury was not the real source of her friend’s anxiety. “At least it isn’t broken. Just don’t blow your nose or sneeze for a couple of hours or the bleeding will likely start up again. It’s a pity about that lovely gown, though. Why don’t you come upstairs and put on one of my dresses just for now, and we’ll see if we can scrub the bloodstains out?”

  “I don’t want to go upstairs,” Anya protested, still glued to the window. “Something might happen here while I’m gone. I don’t want to miss it.” The gown was probably ruined anyway, and there were bigger things to worry about than clothes.

  It didn’t actually seem as though anything were about to happen, though. But maybe Anya could use the opportunity to go and do something exciting herself. “Let me run to the palace,” she begged. “I won’t go anywhere near any trouble. The few soldiers who are left will be busy with whatever’s going on, and I can sneak into the captain’s office. This might be my best chance to try to find out useful information.”

  “Certainly not,” Eleya retorted. “If you go out now, you could end up getting killed.”

  “But there’s nothing happening between here and the front door of the palace,” Anya protested, pointing. “Look, I can see all the way across the courtyard. Whatever’s going on must be somewhere else. There’s no one out there.”

  “She has a point,” Tonnis put in, to Anya’s surprise. “We may never have a better chance, what with so many soldiers away at once.”

  “Don’t you start encouraging her,” his wife scolded. “You know as well as I do what could happen.”

  “I’ll go with her.” Tonnis held up a roll of bandages. “If anyone sees us, we’ll just say we heard the sounds of fighting and thought there might be injuries we’d need to tend.” He turned to Anya. “We’ll check and make sure the hallways are clear, and then you can stand watch at a window while I go into the captain’s office. Tell me if you see anyone coming.”

  “I want to be the one to go in,” Anya protested. She was hoping to find information about her father as well as anything that might help the prince. “I’m quicker, and I’ve been in there before, so I know where the captain keeps things. Besides, standing watch would be a more dangerous job, because you’re more likely to be seen. Please let me do the safer part.” She gazed up at Tonnis with pleading eyes, and he gave in, as she had known he would.

  “Well, I suppose it makes sense, if you put it that way. All right, let’s go.”

  Eleya was staring at her husband in disbelief. “I don’t know which of you is worse. I can’t believe I’m letting you do this.”

  Tonnis kissed her. “We have to, Eleya. I don’t really want to, but it’s for young Jaymin; for Alasia.” He opened the front door.

  The courtyard was unnaturally deserted. Even the soldiers usually on duty at the gates had disappeared, apparently to join in the action, and Anya paused to stare at the unguarded exit in a moment of hope. But no, the gates were bolted fast; even from here she could see the large iron locks.

  She hurried after Tonnis toward the palace, glimpsing no one on the way, though from somewhere out of sight she could hear shouting and occasional muffled thuds. The fighting must be going on inside; perhaps people were pounding on doors to try to get in or out. Her pulse raced faster, but the sounds seemed to be far away.

  When they reached the stairs to the second floor, Tonnis stopped halfway up. “I’ll wait here and watch. I don’t know if anyone besides Captain Almanian would have reason to come this way, but if I even see somebody approaching along the downstairs hallway, I’ll call to you. We should hide just in case.”

  This sounded like an unnecessary precaution to Anya, who saw no reason to worry unless a soldier actually climbed the stairs and marched toward the captain’s office. Tonnis is not the adventurous type
, she reminded herself; and noting his worried look, she squeezed his hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry; we’ll be fine.”

  “I hope.”

  Anya scurried the rest of the way upstairs and then down the hall, relieved when the door to the office opened easily. She had been afraid it would be locked, but on closer inspection, the only lock was a bolt that could be drawn from the inside.

  But now she faced another problem. It’s dark in here. Of course. There were no windows here in the middle of the palace. By the light from the torches mounted in brackets along the hallway walls, she could make out the desk itself, but she wouldn’t be able to read anything on or in it. A large lamp hung from the ceiling, but it would take too long to light and then to extinguish later, and it was too high for her to reach anyway. She needed a candle.

  Where would the captain keep candles? Lamp or not, there must be some in here, but Anya didn’t recall seeing any the last time she’d been in his office.

  Maybe there was one in the bedroom. Anya’s father always kept a candle on the nightstand beside his bed so he could read before he went to sleep.

  Anya groped her way through the dim office toward the door at the other end. It was closed, and as she fumbled with the handle, she had a horrible thought that the captain might be in there, taking a nap or reading or just waiting, and when she walked in –

  But that was silly. She had seen him leave earlier. Drawing a deep breath, Anya turned the handle and tiptoed inside.

  The bedroom was even darker than the office. Anya shuffled forward, banging her knee painfully against the corner of the bed. Was there a nightstand? Running one hand along the edge of the mattress, she felt her way until she bumped into a dresser. But there was nothing on top. Anya opened the drawers one by one, feeling faintly guilty, but her hands encountered nothing but folded clothes inside. Perhaps she would have better luck on the other side of the bed.