“What is going on?” Magret asked, now wide awake, throwing open drawers and thrusting clothing into two saddlebags. She paused and straightened, midthrust. “You’re not eloping, are you?”
“The opposite. The Bayars mean to force me into a marriage with Micah Bayar,” she said, omitting the fact that the queen was in on the scheme.
“That’s crazy talk,” Magret said, continuing her frenetic preparations. “You can’t marry a wizard. They know that.”
“They may know that, but they’re doing it anyway. They’ve got a speaker and everything, and afterward they mean to carry me off to Aerie House.”
“What?” Magret’s voice rose, and Raisa shushed her frantically.
“Micah’s just outside the door. He’s waiting for me.”
Magret glared at the door. The argument was still going on in the corridor. “I don’t like wizards, I never have.” Magret carried clan blood and, with it, an inborn suspicion of wizards. “You don’t mean to go with him, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I’m leaving. I need you to keep him out as long as possible so I have a head start.”
“Your Highness, I don’t like the notion of you climbing down off the balcony, I really don’t. You’ll break your neck.”
“There’s another way. Through the closet. You’ll see.” Raisa went into the closet, dug out her boots, sat on the floor, and yanked them on.
“Through here?” Magret peered into the closet. “A tunnel, then?” Raisa nodded, and Magret said, “I’d always heard there was one, somewhere in this part of the castle.”
“It lets out in the glass house,” Raisa said.
Magret’s eyes kindled with pride. “You’re just like she was,” she breathed.
“Like who was?”
“Like Queen Hanalea herself.” Shyly, Magret drew back her sleeve, exposing her inner arm. On it was a tattoo of a howling wolf against a rising moon.
“You’re a Maiden?” Raisa spoke louder than she intended, and now Magret was the one shushing her. The howling wolf was the emblem of Hanalea’s Maidens, a mysterious organization of women dedicated to the warrior queen’s memory.
“I am,” Magret said. “They meant to force her into marriage with a wizard, and she wouldn’t stand for it. Said ’twas better to be a maid than married to a demon.”
Well, Raisa thought. There’s more to Magret than meets the eye.
“Where will you go, Your Highness? The queen must be informed,” Magret said.
“She will be, don’t worry,” Raisa said. She hesitated a moment. “Lord Bayar has my mother spelled, I’m afraid. She’s agreed to the marriage.”
“Blood and bones of the queens,” Magret swore. “The scoundrel. I haven’t liked this business going on, no I haven’t. I always said your da should spend more time at home.”
Tears came to Raisa’s eyes. She was touched that her nurse believed her, that she was on her side. She’d begun to think she was losing her mind.
“Will you be needin’any money?” Magret asked. “I have a little put by, you know.”
Raisa kissed her formidable nurse on the cheek. “I’ll be fine.” She lifted her mattress and pulled a small velvet pouch from underneath. “My emergency fund,” she said. It was the money she’d made working the markets during the summer. Princesses weren’t supposed to make money. She’d put it away to avoid any arguments. She tucked her dagger into her belt and slung the saddlebags over her shoulders.
Someone pounded on the door. “Hurry up, Rai—Your Highness,” Micah shouted. “Everyone’s waiting.”
“You be quiet, Young Bayar,” Magret shouted back. “Don’t be shouting in the hallways like a besotted sailor! The princess will be ready when she’s ready.”
Before long, everyone will be awake, Raisa thought.
“Thank you, Magret. I’m off. Tell Micah we’re still looking for my necklace if he knocks again. When he forces his way in, tell him I went off the balcony.”
Magret yanked down the curtains surrounding Raisa’s bed and began ripping them into strips. “I’ll make you a ladder, throw him off the scent,” she said grimly.
Grabbing a torch from the sconce on the wall, Raisa pushed her way into the closet, sliding between silks, satins, and velvets. She shoved aside the panel and entered the damp stone corridor, sliding the panel closed behind her. She prayed that Amon was waiting in the garden for her. With her luck, he’d given it up and gone home.
She ran as fast as she could, banging her elbows into the stone walls at the turnings, alert for the sounds of pursuit behind. How long could Magret hope to hold Micah off? Would he fall for the balcony ruse? She shuddered at the notion of being chased through the narrow twisting corridor.
The climb up the narrow ladder to the garden house was scary, as it always was, with the added burden of the saddlebags bumping against her sides. Finally she reached the top and pushed at the stone cover.
To her vast relief, someone gripped it from above and wrestled it away. Then Amon’s face appeared in the opening, taut and grim. “Where have you been?” he said. “I was beginning to think you’d come back and gone to bed without telling me.”
But still you stayed, Raisa thought with a rush of gratitude. Thank the Maker for Amon Byrne.
Amon gripped her hands and hauled her up through the opening, setting her down next to him on the garden house floor. “I’ve been crazy with worry up here. I had a feeling that…” He swallowed hard. “Well, anyway. What’s going on?”
Raisa opened her mouth and words poured out, in seemingly random order. “Lord Bayar has put a spell on the queen. I don’t know how. It’s as if the binding isn’t working. They’ve got a stash of magical pieces that predate the Breaking.”
“A spell?” Amon said. “What does he…?”
“He means to marry me off to Micah and name him king,” Raisa said. “They’ve got a priest and everything. Mama’s going along with it. I’d be married already, but I insisted on coming back to my room first. It won’t be long before they know I’m gone.” She grabbed his hand as if she could drag him away. “We’ve got to leave. Now.”
“But…?”
“I know. I’m not allowed to marry a wizard. But the Bayars don’t like the old rules. Seems they’re too confining. I’m going to have to leave the city until we can sort this out.”
Not just the city, Raisa thought. The queendom. She couldn’t take refuge with the clan. That would start a war between her parents and make the Fells vulnerable to invasion from the south.
Amon took her saddlebags and slung them over his own shoulders. “Let’s go. We’ve got to clear the drawbridge before they sound the general alarm.”
They clattered down staircase after staircase, incredibly loud in the early morning stillness, encountering the occasional sleepy-eyed upstairs servant. Each time, Raisa turned her face away, hoping to go unrecognized. It would cause talk at any time—the princess heir sneaking through back hallways with a soldier the morning after her name day party. They would be remembered, and it wouldn’t be long before the Bayars would know she hadn’t gone over the balcony, that she’d been seen with Amon Byrne. She didn’t wish it on Amon, to have the Bayars for enemies, but she was glad to have him at her side.
She needn’t have worried. Just like before, no one recognized the princess heir in breeches and tunic.
Down on the ground floor, the corridors were broader and there was even more traffic about. They forced themselves to walk, so as to be less conspicuous, though Raisa’s every nerve was firing. They passed through the Great Hall, where petitioners were already gathering in hopes of an interview with the queen.
They walked through the huge arch that led onto the drawbridge, passing under the portcullis. Raisa put a little space between her and Amon so they wouldn’t look like they were together. She might be a clanswoman, on her way back from a delivery to the castle. Amon might be a soldier on the way to his post.
They were midway across the river when she heard a
clamor of bells and duty officers calling to one another. With a harsh metallic squeal, the portcullis descended until it slammed into the dirt.
They know I’m gone, Raisa thought.
The guardsmen loitering at the far end of the bridge looked up in curiosity.
“Corporal Byrne!” one of them called to Amon. “What’s going on?”
“Maybe some poor crofter stole a loaf of bread from the princess’s party,” Amon said, rolling his eyes.
The soldier laughed. “They sure seem tizzied up about something,” he said, peering toward the castle.
“Showing off for the southern royalty, no doubt,” Amon said, without pausing. “I’m leaving so that I don’t have to polish any brass.”
Once clear of the bridge, Amon pulled Raisa aside, toward the guard barracks and stables that crouched at the far end of the bridge. “Let’s go to the stables,” he said. “We’ll want horses.”
They were crossing the stable yard when Raisa heard a rattle of hooves on cobblestones, someone riding into the compound excessively fast. Amon pushed Raisa behind him and drew his sword.
Two riders thundered in, wrenching their mounts to a halt just in front of the stable doors.
“Raisa?” One of the horsemen swung down to the ground. He was sweaty and blood-stained, one arm wrapped in linen, his face stubbled. He pulled Raisa into his arms. “Raisa, thank the Maker.”
It was her father.
Joy mingled with surprise and worry, crowding her heart so she thought it might burst. “Father! You’re hurt! What happened? Where have you been?”
“It’s thanks to Captain Byrne it’s not worse,” Averill said, nodding at the other rider. “We were ambushed just west of Chalk Cliffs. Ten armed men. They did their best to kill us, but Captain Byrne seems to have a third eye. He spotted the ambush before they closed on us.”
Byrne handed off his horse to the stable boy. The captain too was much the worse for wear. Dried blood trickled down his face from a wound over his eye, and he favored his right leg.
“They were masked, but they rode military mounts, Your Highness,” Byrne said grimly. “Same as we use in the Guard. I’m thinking they were Guard-trained.”
“So the Guard has been compromised,” Raisa said bluntly.
Captain Byrne hesitated, then nodded. “Aye.”
“I’m sorry, Raisa,” her father said. “I meant to be there for your ceremony. It seems someone had other ideas.”
“Gavan Bayar,” Raisa said with conviction. “It must have been.”
Byrne and Averill stared at her, questions in their eyes, but before they could speak, the rattle of chains drew Raisa’s attention back to the castle. “Bloody bones!” she said. “They’re raising the drawbridge. We’ve got to go on before they finish searching the castle and realize I’m gone.”
“What is going on?” Captain Byrne demanded. “What’s happened?”
In a few terse sentences, Amon explained the situation.
Byrne shouted for the stable boy, who reemerged from the tack room, blinking away sleep and confusion.
“Ready four fresh mounts,” Byrne said. “Two saddled, two on lead lines. Pack bedrolls and provisions. Not next week! Now!” he roared when the boy didn’t move immediately. The boy scurried away.
“Will you go to Marisa Pines?” Averill asked. “That’s closest.”
Raisa shrugged. “We could go there tonight. But we can’t stay there long. It’s still within the realm. If the queen demands my return, the clan will refuse, but she won’t let that stand. She cannot. I’ll have to leave the Fells until things settle.”
“I don’t like it,” Captain Byrne growled. “There’s no place safe. Arden’s in chaos, Bruinswallow and We’enhaven are likely to be drawn in, even if you could get there. And Tamron’s no fit place for the princess, even if it wasn’t three days’ hard march from Arden. There’s pirates on the Indio who would hold you to ransom if you went that way, and—”
“Sir? What about Oden’s Ford?” Amon broke in. “No one would dare bother her there. Especially if no one knows who she is.”
The two men stared at Amon for a long moment.
“The boy makes sense,” Averill said finally, nodding.
“How would she get there?” Captain Byrne said, looking less enthusiastic. “They’ll be waiting to intercept her at Marisa Pines Pass.”
Amon nodded. “That’s what they’d expect because it’s closest. She could go west to Demonai and pick up provisions, clothing, and fresh horses.” He looked at Averill, who nodded assent. “Then she’d cross at Westgate and travel down through the Shivering Fens to Tamron and east to Oden’s Ford.”
“The Fens?” Captain Byrne frowned. “That’d be rough traveling. They’re nearly impassable this time of year. And I’ve been hearing rumors of trouble with the Waterwalkers.”
“There’s a way,” Amon said. “The road’s not bad now, if you know where you’re going.”
Averill nodded agreement. “It’s better that Raisa stays out of Arden—there’s too much bloodshed there at present. Too much chance she’ll be captured or killed. At least the Waterwalkers respect Hanalea’s line. In Arden, they refer to our queens as witches.”
Who are the Waterwalkers? Raisa thought, looking from Averill to Byrne. I am Hanalea’s line, and I’m still the last to know anything.
“Lord Demonai, with all due respect, I cannot send the princess heir into the Fens unprotected,” Captain Byrne said. “The queen would be right to demand my head.”
Amon cleared his throat. “Da. Sir. We could escort Raisa to Oden’s Ford,” Amon said. “The Gray Wolves, I mean. It’s nearly time for us to return to Wien House anyway. All of the fourth-year cadets will be expected to travel together—that won’t draw any attention. I know the Fens; you know Lord Cadri’s family, and I’ve stayed with them before. The princess can travel with my triple as a first-year plebe.”
“You’re just fourth-years,” Byrne said, shaking his head. “Hardly more than boys. It’s too dangerous for everyone involved.”
Averill put his hand on Captain Byrne’s arm. “Edon, I think maybe the boy’s idea is a good one—for two reasons. First, my daughter’s best protection is to go unnoticed. I’ve traveled in the south as a trader, remember. We could send a whole salvo of guards with her, but they could still be overwhelmed by a larger force. There are armies of mercenaries, hundreds strong, roaming the countryside.
“Secondly, the queen can’t know we’ve had a hand in this, especially you. If you send any of the Queen’s Guard with the princess, Marianna will know you were involved. That’s treason, in her eyes. You can’t offer much protection to Marianna if you’re in jail. And she needs your protection more than ever.”
Byrne turned to Raisa as if she might be an ally. “What happens to your marriage prospects, Your Highness, if you’re discovered traveling with a triple of soldiers?” he said bluntly.
“If I stay here, I’ll end up married to a wizard,” Raisa said, equally bluntly. “What happens to my prospects then?”
Captain Byrne turned back to Averill, seeming to prefer to debate him than the princess heir. “Where would she stay at Oden’s Ford? She can’t live in the barracks. She needs someplace safe to lodge until we can get this sorted out.”
“Why couldn’t I stay in the barracks?” Raisa interjected. “Why couldn’t I lodge there as a new cadet?”
Captain Byrne made a pained face. “Your Highness, that’s impossible! The princess heir living with pack of soldiers?”
“Hanalea was a warrior queen,” Raisa said. “She killed the Demon King and led an army against the usurper when she wasn’t much older than me.”
“That was a long time ago,” Byrne said. “Queens these days are less…warlike,” he said. He looked at Amon. “Do you really think nine cadets could keep a secret like this, all the way to Oden’s Ford?”
“They can’t give it away if they don’t know about it,” Amon said. “We’ll pretend she’s the
daughter of some Chalk Cliff noble. They already know her as Rebecca Morley. We’ll say her father asked if she could travel with us to study at the Healer’s Hall at Oden’s Ford. She’ll travel in the guise of a plebe, for her own protection.”
“There’s a temple at Oden’s Ford,” Averill said. “The princess could lodge there as a new dedicate. You know, this could be a blessing in disguise. Oden’s Ford is a crossroads of ideas. She could learn a lot while in residence there.”
“She’ll be vulnerable to kidnappers, fortune hunters, and younger sons,” Byrne countered.
“Not if they don’t know who she is,” Averill said. “Besides, the Peace of Oden’s Ford will protect her. Even with the wars going on all around, it’s held for more than a thousand years.”
“She can’t stay away for too long,” Byrne said. “There’s always the risk that Bayar will convince Marianna to name Mellony heir.”
“We can debate all this later,” Raisa said, glancing back toward the castle, still buttoned up tight as a flatland corset. “Once they’ve searched the castle, they’ll be crossing the bridge. Captain Byrne, please tell the other cadets to meet their corporal at Demonai Camp. Corporal Byrne and I will ride on ahead.”
Byrne stared at her a moment, then inclined his head. “Understood, Your Highness,” he said, a faint smile overlaying his worry lines. “Corporal Byrne, a moment, please.” Byrne drew his son aside, and the two joined in a brief intense conversation that ended in an embrace.
While they’d been talking, the stable boy had led the horses out. Byrne sent the boy off to bed.
Raisa chose the smallest horse, a mare, and untied her reins from the rail. She turned to Amon. “Give me a leg up, if you please?”
Amon boosted her into the saddle and adjusted the stirrups to her small stature.
Byrne gripped Amon’s hand in a soldier’s double grip. “Keep her safe,” he said, looking his son in the eyes. “And bring her back to us.”
Amon nodded, then mounted up himself.
“Travel safely, daughter,” Averill said, tears pooling in his eyes, then streaming unmoated down his face.
The Seven Realms- The Complete Series Page 37