Princess Wars

by J. D. Rogers

  "What have you done to her?" the man from the Far Lands roared when he saw me. He seemed both angry and embarrassed.

  "I told you what to expect," Ezerra said.

  "I can't learn anything when she's in this condition. I need to talk to her when she's coherent. And what's with that slave collar around her neck. I demand that you remove it at once. I won't have her subjected to that kind of humiliation."

  I wasn't sure why it would bother a slave owner to see me like this, but I might be able to use it to my advantage. If the man could talk Ezerra into removing the collar from around my neck, that would get me close enough to ring her neck.

  "You're in no position to be giving me orders," Ezerra spat.

  "Considering the money your king was paid, I'd say I'm in a perfect position to be giving you orders. I demand that you remove that collar from around her neck. Immediately."

  Ezerra scowled, but reached into her black robe and pulled out a key. She turned toward me and smiled. "Why don't you come over here, Little One. I'll remove the pretty gold collar from around your neck, so you can look at it whenever you want. You'd like that wouldn't you?"

  I mumbled yes, then pretended to struggle to my feet. Once I was standing, I staggered toward Ezerra, all the while maintaining the same drunken smile that I wore last night. As I moved toward her, I reached behind me, making it look like I was trying to fix the tie that kept my ponytail in place.

  I stopped within an arm's reach of Ezerra and kept my hands behind me, holding my hair. Ezerra used the key to unlock and remove the gold collar from around my neck. When she finished, she turned toward the man from the Far Lands. "Satisfied?"

  She was within arm's reach and her back was to me. I figured I would never have a better opportunity, so I grabbed the bone handles of Talia's choking device, stretched the silk cord taunt, and whipped it over Ezerra's head and around her neck. I pulled the cord as tight as I could, hopped on the crone's back, and rode her like a wild mustang.

  She whipped around, first to the right, then to the left, trying to buck me off. I hung on by digging my knees into her bony hips. When that didn't dislodge me, she tried to pull me off by reaching behind her head and grabbing me by the hair. When she yanked on my hair, I tightened the silk cord around her neck. She released my hair and tried to slip her fingers between the cord and her neck. I responded by pulling the cord even tighter.

  Ezerra staggered around the room a few steps, her arms waved wildly in front of her, gurgling sounds bubbled out of her mouth. Finally, she collapsed to the floor, landing flat on her face. I rode her all they way to the floor, then continued to choke her, even as she lay limp.

  "I believe she's dead, Your Highness."

  It took me a second to realize who was speaking. It was the man from the Far Lands. He was standing by the door, watching me. He didn't seem the least bit bothered by the fact that I had killed Ezerra.

  "You were faking," he said, still speaking Gibean, the language of the traders. "You weren't affected by her powder."

  "That's because I never ate the food she prepared for me." I climbed off Ezerra and rolled her onto her back. Her mouth was open and her tongue was hanging out. Her eyes were open, but there was no life in them. She was dead. I killed her and I wasn't sorry for it. I felt no remorse whatsoever. The world was a better place without her.

  I didn't turn my back on the man from the Far Lands, mostly because I didn't trust him. "So, you came here to buy a princess."

  "Did Ezerra tell you that?"

  "Ezerra told me nothing."

  "Then how did you . . . . "

  "That's none of your business," I said, interrupting him. "Is it true? Are you here to buy a princess?"

  "I came here to FIND a suitable princess."

  "Find or buy. What's the difference?"

  "I was told the King of the Sugar Islands could provide me with a princess, for a price. That there was a country in this part of the world that threw princesses away like they were yesterday's garbage."

  "What do you consider a suitable princess, Slaver?"

  The man looked at me indignantly. "I am not a slaver. I'm the Royal Chancellor to the Queen of Vassa. Sir Edgerton Hooks, at your service." He bowed, a very formal bow.

  "Then your queen is a slaver."

  "My queen is dying. Without an heir."

  "You came here to buy an heir?" I was dumbfounded.

  "The laws of succession state that a king or queen can adopt an heir so long as that heir is of royal blood. You are of royal blood."

  Edgerton reached into his waistcoat, pulled out a palm-sized crossbow, and shot me in the right shoulder. The bolt from the crossbow was no bigger than a dart, and while it stung, it wasn't life threatening by any means.

  "You're going to have to do better than that." I pulled the dart out of my shoulder and tossed it on the floor. I snapped the choking device taunt and marched toward him. I had killed once today. I could do it again.

  "I'm sorry, Your Highness," Edgerton said. "But I promised my queen I would return with a princess."

  A wave of dizziness washed over me and I found myself struggling to stand, struggling to stay awake. I had just enough time to realize that the dart-sized bolt had been drugged. Then I lost consciousness.

  Chapter 11

  It was dark when I woke. No, not dark. Something coarse and heavy surrounded my head and body, blinding me. It felt like a rug. I was lying on my stomach, on the back of a horse. A horse moving along at a leisurely trot. My feet hung over one side of the horse. My head hung over the other side. Rawhide bound my hands behind my back and secured my ankles together. A leather ball stuffed inside my mouth, then tied behind my head, gagged me.

  How I ended up that way was easy. Edgerton Hooks, the Royal Chancellor of Vassa, knocked me out with a poisoned dart. I remembered that much.

  I needed to know more, so I closed my eyes and pictured Edgerton in my mind. His short, stocky body. His plump round head that was bald on top and gray on the sides. His neatly trimmed gray beard. His mostly black clothing. That was when I saw him riding a horse.

  It was night, but the sky was clear and a three quarter moon lit the countryside. He was traveling alone with a pack horse. Draped and tied over the back of the pack horse were three rolled up rugs. One of which contained me. Probably the one in the middle, judging by how it hung. To the northeast, I could see a hill containing lights. We were too far away to tell what the lights were, but I had little doubt that it was the Western Palace and the fort that surrounded it.

  What bothered me the most wasn't that Edgerton had managed to slip me out of the palace unnoticed. What bothered me was that he was traveling through hills occupied by wild men. Man eating wild men. I needed him to free me, so I could protect myself from the wild men. The only way I could think of doing that was by letting him see my ghost image. I concentrated on Edgerton being able to see me, picturing my image floating in front of his horse. It must've worked because Edgerton let out a yelp.

  "Oh my god!" he said. "I've killed the princess."

  Edgerton drew his horse to a stop, dismounted, and hurried to the pack horse. He untied the middle carpet from the back of the horse and laid it on the ground.

  The image of Edgerton faded and I found myself back inside the rolled up carpet. A second later, I felt myself being turned over and over as Edgerton unrolled the carpet. A second after that, I felt the cool night air and saw the stars directly above me.

  "Thank God, you're alive," Edgerton said, looking down at me. "I was afraid that I had killed you."

  I wanted to demand that he release me, but the gag in my mouth prevented that. Instead of trying to talk through the gag, I remained quiet. Hoping that he would release me if I was passive enough. He didn't untie my hands, but he did untie the gag.

  "We're a good twenty miles from your palace," he said. "So it won't do you any good to yell for help."

  Edgerton removed the gag from my mouth. I took a minute to flex my jaw, whic
h had grown stiff from being held open for so long. When I tried to talk, I couldn't. My mouth and throat were as dry as the desert.

  "Water," I finally gasped. "Please."

  "Yes, of course."

  Edgerton hurried to his horse and came back with a leather flask. He held my head with one hand and held the flask to my mouth with the other. I drank until water trickled down the sides of my mouth. While Edgerton returned the flask to his horse, I pulled myself to a sitting position.

  "You do know about the wild men that live in these hills," I said. "They're cannibals."

  Edgerton nodded. "I'm aware of them. I also know that they don't come out at night. For some reason, they're afraid of the dark. Once the sun goes down, they huddle in their little caves in the hillsides and stay there until morning."

  He moved to the pack horse and tossed the other two carpets on the ground. He then came back to me and untied my ankles.

  "How did you get out of the palace?"

  "Same way I got in. By posing as a rug merchant from Gibney." Edgerton smiled. "One of the advantages of being fat and old is that nobody sees you as a threat."

  "Would you untie my hands."

  "I'm sorry, Your Highness. I can't do that right now. Perhaps later."

  He grabbed my arm, pulled me to my feet, and marched me over to the pack horse.

  "Could I at least have a cloak? This outfit doesn't provide any protection from the night air."

  I was still wearing the yellow slave girl outfit. Not surprising since there wasn't anything else in my suite that he could've put on me. Edgerton untied the black wool cloak he was wearing and tied it around my shoulders. The heavy knee length cloak provided just enough protection against the night air. Edgerton and I were about the same height so the cloak was just the right length.

  "You can ride the pack horse," he said.

  He grabbed me by the waist and set me on the pack horse, so I was sitting sidesaddle. He was a lot stronger than he looked, leading me to believe there was more muscle underneath his clothes than fat.

  "I can't ride like this. I'll fall off."

  "Then straddle the horse."

  "Even riding that way, I'm not sure I'll be able to stay on. Can you at least tie my hands in front of me?"

  "I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I can't risk letting you run away."

  Edgerton mounted his horse and continued west. The pack horse's reins were tied to his horse, so I had no choice but to swing my leg up and over. It wasn't easy to ride with my hands tied behind me, but we were moving at a leisurely pace and I was in no danger of falling off.

  As we rode, I wondered why I was fighting Edgerton. If he had come to me a week ago, telling me that the Queen of Vassa was willing to make me her heir, I would've went with him willingly. But a lot had happened in the past week. Salisha was dead. Iderra was heading for Sorea. I learned that mother made me the heir hopeful. And I had eliminated Ezerra, the one person that stood between me and control of the Army of the West.

  Of course, there was no guarantee the Army of the West would support me for queen. And even if they did, there was no guarantee they would be willing to fight Bedonna, the palace guard, and whoever else rallied around her. There was also no guarantee that if I led the Army of the West against Bedonna, half of them wouldn't defect to her camp. Nor was there any guarantee that if Bedonna and I went to war, I would win. Maybe I would be better off on the other side of the desert, in this country called Vassa.

  "Edgerton?"

  "Yes, Your Highness."

  "Is your country at war?"

  Edgerton laughed. "Hardly."

  "Tell me about it."

  "We're one of five small countries sandwiched between much larger countries. Those five countries are known as the Finger States. We're the third of the Finger States, counting from west to east, or east to west. A large river divides the country in half and connects us to the other Finger States. It's very green, with rolling hills, but no mountains."

  "Do the people like your queen?"

  "Yes. She is quite popular."

  "Does someone covet her throne?"

  "The King of Dunre has issues with her. Dunre is the large country to our northwest."

  "Do you worry about his invading your country? Taking it by force?"

  "We have an alliance with the other Finger States. To invade one of us is to invade us all. Wars are not common in our part of the world. Most political maneuvering is done through marriage and assassination."

  "What will you do with me if your queen doesn't find me suitable?"

  Edgerton laughed. "I don't believe that will be a problem, Your Highness."

  "But if it is?"

  "If you so wish, we will return you to Adah. Or you may choose to remain in Vassa as a princess in exile. The choice will be yours. Whether you assume the throne of Vassa or not, I suspect you'll have plenty of marriage proposals. Political alliances through marriage are very common in my part of the world."

  "I'll be a princess without a country. I can bring nothing to an alliance save myself."

  "A baron or duke seeking to elevate his status can help himself immensely by taking a princess for a wife, even a princess without a country."

  "Will your people accept a queen born in another country?"

  "That will depend upon your ability to win them over."

  So I had a choice to make. Try to escape, so I could fight a war with Bedonna. A war I might lose. A war which would cost lives even if I won. Or go willingly with Edgerton, to a land I knew nothing about, but which wanted me bad enough to kidnap me.

  I couldn't just walk away from my homeland, from the people that were counting on me and had taken an oath to serve me. If Edgerton gave me an opportunity to escape, I would take it. However, that opportunity might not arise. Which meant I had to prepare myself to live in a new country.

  "I know nothing about your part of the world," I said. "You'll have to teach me its history. You'll also have to teach me to speak your language."

  "We can start right now," Edgerton said. "We speak one language west of the Great Desert. It's called the Common Tongue."

  Edgerton started with simple phrases. I repeated the phrases until I knew them by heart. By sunrise, I knew a couple dozen words in the Common Tongue.

  We reached the edge of the desert just as the sun rose over the mountains. The red sand of the desert washed up against the brown hills, much like the ocean washed up against the shore.

  "Where are we going?" I asked, as we turned south.

  "I have a ship waiting for us."

  "We're going all the way to Queen's Town?"

  Queen's Town was a small port a couple hundred miles south of us, located at a point where the mountains, desert, and ocean all met. It was too small to attract Bedonna's attention, so I'd be safe there as long as we didn't linger.

  "Heaven's no," Edgerton said. "I have a sand ship docked about ten miles south of here."

  "What in the world is a sand ship?"

  "Are you familiar with the catamarans of the Sugar Islands?"

  "Yes."

  "It looks a lot like them, except it glides over the sand on polished boards called skis."

  "I've never heard of such a thing. Is it wind powered?"

  "It has one mast and five sails. The mast, as well as the rest of the ship, is made from a wood called bamboo. It's light but strong."

  "What if the wind doesn't blow?"

  "Then we pull the ship until the wind does blow."

  "Your people use these desert ships?"

  "Not my people. They're used by the people of a country called Landish. The Great Desert occupies the eastern third of their country and they use it to sail north and south. It took me awhile to find a ship willing to sail across the desert." Edgerton laughed. "Most of the desert sailors didn't even think people lived on this side of the continent. They thought we were on a fool's journey to the end of the world."

  "How do you know they'll still be waiting for us?"<
br />
  "I left a couple of soldiers with them, to make sure they didn't leave prematurely."

  Some movement to our left caught my attention. At first I thought it was a herd of deer, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was a band of wild men. Even from a distance, I could tell that they were small, the largest being no bigger than me. They were naked and hairy. Not as hairy as I thought they would be, but hairier than normal men. I didn't expect them to look as human as they did, but except for their small size and excess body hair, they looked very human.

  "We're being watched," I said. "On the hill to our left."

  "They won't bother us. According to the troops at the fort, they think people on horseback are some sort of two headed animal. Here, watch this."

  Much to my chagrin, Edgerton pulled up both of our horses. He dismounted and walked toward the wild men, waving his hands in the air. The wild men turned and ran away from him as fast as they could go. Edgerton laughed until they were out of sight, then returned to his horse and mounted it.

  "As I said. They think men on horseback are two headed animals. When we dismount and walk toward them, they panic. They think we're some kind of animal that can split in two. They may be a big threat to each other, but they're not much of a threat to us. Especially when we're on horseback."

  We resumed our journey south. Occasionally, a group of wild men appeared on a hillside. They watched us, but made no move to get closer. They weren't nearly as scary as the stories led me to believe. If anything, they seemed more frightened of the world than the world was frightened of them. Of course, if I were out here alone, and on foot, they might seem a lot scarier.

  Eventually, a ship's mast came into view. It seemed odd, seeing a ship's mast this far from water, but there it was. As we got closer, I could see that the ship was indeed similar in design to the catamarans used in the Sugar Islands.

  The twin hulls found on the catamarans had been replaced by two giant boards with curved ends. Three planks, which were actually bamboo poles tied together, connected the two boards. Skis if you preferred. Bamboo support poles about three feet long raised the planks above the skis. A mast rose from the center of the middle plank with rigging for two square sails and three jibs. Two large nets filled the space between the three planks. As far as I could see, there was no tiller, no way to steer the ship other than to point it in the direction you wanted to go.