“How can I help you, my lord?”
“Do you have any lamp oil?” Although the hay would burn well once it got started, Dirk wanted to make sure the fire could not be extinguished before they got a chance to get past the roadblock.
“Don’t get much call for lamp oil these days, sire,” the storekeeper told him, scratching his stubbled chin. “What do you need it for?”
“I thought I might set fire to those hay wagons out in the street,” Dirk told him.
The storekeeper stared at him for a moment and then roared with laughter. “Oh! That’s a good one, sire! Very good!”
“So? Do you have any lamp oil or not?” Dirk asked again with a smile.
Still chuckling to himself, the man nodded and disappeared through a curtain behind the counter. He came back a few moments later with a small jar full of viscous yellow liquid.
“It’s rare these days, lamp oil is,” the man told him as he placed the jar on the scrubbed wooden counter.
“How rare?” Dirk inquired, silently groaning as he recognized the opening gambit of the merchant’s haggling routine.
“I couldn’t part with it for less than twenty silver dorns, milord.”
“Twenty dorns for that?” Dirk scoffed. “That’s extortion!”
“A man has to eat, sire.”
“For that much, you could feed half of Avacas! I’ll give you five coppers and not a single dorn more.”
“Fifteen is as low as I can go, my lord, without selling one of my children into slavery,” the man lamented.
“Eight. And you can throw in a flint and tinderbox.”
“Twelve, and my babies will still starve at that price.”
“Ten.”
“Done!” the merchant cried happily.
Dirk handed over the ten copper dorns and took the jar and tinderbox with him. He stopped just outside and surreptitiously worked the stopper loose from the jar. Glancing up the street he couldn’t see Reithan, Tia or Eryk nearby, so he squeezed back between the wagons and began to walk toward the hay carts.
The jostling crowd pushed him up against the lead wagon. He tipped the jar over the edge as he walked alongside, emptying the contents into the dry hay as he went. When he reached the end of the wagon bed, he dropped the empty jar into the hay and pulled the tinderbox from his pocket. He glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention to him, but in the dense crowd nobody cared what he was doing. The lamp oil caught on the third strike. He blew on the flame gently for a moment to make sure it was well alight, then walked away as casually as he could manage.
He spied Reithan, Tia and Eryk ahead of him. Tia was looking around nervously, just as the first cries of alarm went up. Once it caught properly, the hay roared like a furnace behind him. He could feel the heat searing the back of his neck. With an anxious look at the roadblock, Eryk handed him the reins to his horse.
Reithan smiled as he looked back toward the roaring fire that was causing a general panic a little farther up the street. “When you create a diversion, you really create a diversion, don’t you?”
An errant clutch of flaming straw landed on the wagon behind the first one and it too, began to burn. By now the soldiers manning the roadblock had noticed the fire and were calling out for someone to put it down. They didn’t abandon their posts immediately, but Dirk knew it wouldn’t be long. The houses here were close together, and many of them were constructed of wood. A fire might destroy a quarter of the city if it raged out of control for long enough. Eryk fidgeted behind him, his head swiveling back and forth from the fire to the roadblock.
“If you try a bit harder, Eryk, I’m sure you could act even more suspiciously,” he remarked.
“I’m thorry, Lord Dirk.”
The officer manning the roadblock ordered his men forward to help put out the fire. The soldiers hurried past them without so much as a glance in their direction.
“Now!” Dirk hissed, grabbing Tia’s mount by the bridle. He didn’t trust her to get the dun moving on her own. He pushed his horse forward, careless of the people in his path, ignoring the curses they hurled at him as he forced his way forward.
They reached the roadblock, and the one man left on guard, but he was too engrossed in the excitement going on farther down the street to notice them. A few more shoves and curses and they were on the open road. Dirk kicked his horse forward and gave the chestnut its head, still towing Tia’s mount behind him.
Chapter 77
The Calliope’s sails snapped in the crisp breeze as Senet dwindled to a blur on the horizon. Although she had never stopped calling Kalarada home, Alenor had been away from the Dhevynian capital since she was eight years old, and she found the thought of returning oddly discomforting. People she remembered as being young would have grown older; others she might not recognize at all. Alenor realized with some dismay that the friends she had left behind would have moved on to other things. Their lives had continued without her.
She was returning home a stranger.
The last day had passed in a blur of misery and unhappiness for Alenor. The welcome news that she was finally allowed to return home had been overshadowed by recent events, and most of them were directly related to Dirk Provin. She could not understand why Dirk had slept with that damn Shadowdancer. But she didn’t believe Dirk had raped her, any more than Prince Antonov did. And she was hurt beyond words that Kirsh was so upset about Marqel he was willing to fight Dirk over her. She could not imagine what had driven Dirk to murdering Johan Thorn, or come to terms with the fact that he was Johan’s bastard son.
Perhaps worse than that, she could not understand why her mother had so willingly agreed to abdicate the throne of Dhevyn in favor of her daughter.
“Alenor.”
She turned to find her mother climbing the companion ladder to the foredeck. Rainan smiled as she approached.
“You must be pleased to be heading home,” she remarked as she stopped beside her.
“Very pleased,” Alenor told her mother. Her tone belied her words.
The queen looked at her with concern, then smiled suddenly and spoke up for the benefit of the sailors around them. That was the worst of it. They were on Antonov’s ship with his crew, his people, watching their every move, listening to their every word. There was no chance to let down her guard. No chance to talk to her mother. Here in the bow, where the wind whipped away their words as soon as they were uttered, was the closest thing they had to privacy.
“Look, there’s Alexin! Captain, come here! We’d like to thank you personally for the sterling job you did protecting us in Senet.”
Alexin Seranov was on the main deck, talking to one of his men. At the queen’s summons, he dismissed the guardsman and headed forward. A few moments later Alexin climbed the companion ladder and approached the queen and her daughter with a low bow. He was a tall man, with warm brown eyes and a ready smile, and looked very smart in his blue-and-silver uniform. Alenor had grown to like him a great deal in the short time of their acquaintance. Her mother seemed to trust him, too, which was a little odd. There was still a fair amount of residual resentment in Dhevyn over Alexin’s father so readily denouncing his brother in order to inherit his duchy. There weren’t many people left in Dhevyn who were willing to trust a Seranov.
“Your majesty. Princess Alenor.”
“Captain.”
“Mother seems to think your efforts in Avacas require special commendation, Captain,” Alenor remarked, thinking the praise a little undeserved. If Alexin had done his job properly, he should have stopped Dirk from killing Johan Thorn.
For a moment, the young man’s eyes clouded and Alenor wondered if he was thinking the same thing.
“I’m not sure I’m worthy of any praise, your highness.”
Rainan glanced around to ensure none of the Senetian sailors could overhear them.
“You did everything you could, Alexin,” the queen assured him quietly. There was more to her words than a simple expression of gratitude.
“But not as much as I would have liked, your majesty,” Alexin replied.
“I think we all find ourselves in that position, Captain,” the queen agreed.
“Mother—” Alenor began, a little irritated to think that with everything about to befall them, all her mother could do was think of stroking the ego of a guardsman who had barely even done his job.
“And have you worked out a way to get me out of it?” Rainan said, ignoring Alenor’s interruption.
Alenor looked at her mother in surprise. She had thought the queen quite accepting of the whole idea of abdicating in favor of her daughter.
“I suspect the Lion of Senet is too clever to leave a legal loophole for you to wriggle through.”
Rainan nodded in agreement, turning to study the smudge on the horizon that was the coast of Senet. “Then what do we do, Alexin? I’m damned if I’m going to hand over my kingdom to a Latanya to rule as regent.”
“Maybe we can stall for a time?” he suggested.
“How?” the queen asked.
“Kirshov,” Alenor said with quiet conviction.
“Kirshov Latanya is at the root of the problem, Alenor,” her mother remarked. “The Lion of Senet wishes to appoint him Regent of Dhevyn.”
“Dirk said Kirsh didn’t know anything about this.”
“I’m not particularly interested in Dirk Provin’s opinion, Alenor,” Rainan said frostily.
“This is nothing to do with Dirk, Mother. My point is that Kirsh has his heart set on joining the Queen’s Guard. He’s obsessed with the idea. He doesn’t want to rule Dhevyn. He wants to be in the guard.”
“His father has his heart set on Kirsh becoming regent,” Alexin reminded her.
“What if we could stall it, though? Isn’t there some way we can convince Antonov that Kirsh needs to serve some time in the guard first?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Alexin conceded. “And once he’s there, it wouldn’t be difficult to arrange some sort of accident...”
“No!” Alenor cried in horror. “That’s not what I meant!”
Rainan smiled faintly. “Appealing as it might be, Captain, I don’t think we should tempt fate quite so blatantly as that. For the time being, Kirshov Latanya must remain alive and healthy, I fear. But you may have hit on a solution, Alenor. If I can convince Antonov that Kirsh won’t be accepted as regent until he’s spent some time in the guard, we might be able to delay the abdication by a few months at least.”
“And how does that help us?” Alenor asked. “In a few months, we’ll still be right where we are now.”
“A lot can happen in a day, Alenor,” Rainan sighed wearily. “The whole world could be a different place in a few months.”
Alexin nodded thoughtfully. “You speak of the Provin boy?”
Rainan leaned against the railing. “Who would have guessed that Johan and Morna had a son?”
“Is he likely to claim the throne?”
“Dirk would never...” Alenor began, but her voice trailed off. She never thought Dirk could kill a man, either.
Rainan shrugged. “I have no idea about the workings of that young man’s mind. Or what his relationship to Antonov is. They seemed very cozy right up until he murdered my brother.”
“I think he did the only thing he could, your majesty,” Alexin suggested.
“Really? If Dirk Provin wanted to help Dhevyn, he could have plunged that dagger into Antonov’s throat, not Johan’s.”
Alexin shook his head. “He’d never have come within spitting distance of Antonov armed with a naked blade, your majesty, before someone brought him down. As it was, he saved the life of my cousin, prevented Neris Veran’s daughter from falling into Belagren’s hands, stopped Johan from revealing if Neris still lives and his location, and he got us out of Avacas before Antonov could force the wedding between Alenor and Kirshov to take place. That’s a pretty tidy day’s work, in my book.”
“Then you don’t think Dirk betrayed us?” Alenor gasped. The relief she felt was palpable.
“I think it was the single most courageous act I’ve ever seen, your highness.”
The queen did not appear convinced. “Even so, Belagren’s interest in the boy concerns me almost as much as Antonov’s obvious fondness for him. She wants him to join the Shadowdancers. She didn’t even care that he was Morna’s son. I think the High Priestess wants Dirk Provin very, very badly.”
“For what?” Alexin asked.
“The next Neris Veran...” Alenor said. “Antonov called Dirk that once. The next Neris Veran.”
“And what did Neris Veran ever do,” Rainan scoffed, “other than start a war, then throw himself off a cliff to avoid facing the consequences?”
“If he’s as smart as Neris Veran, why does Antonov want him?” Alexin asked. “You’d think it would only be Belagren who needed his talents.”
“Antonov wants him because of who he is,” Alenor said. “Belagren wants him because of what he is.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Rainan sighed. “It’s a two-headed monster we’re fighting. On one hand, we face Antonov and his desire to conquer Dhevyn, and on the other, we face Belagren and her cult of Shadowdancers. The two of them feed off each other. I don’t see how we can fight one without bringing down the other. And if Dirk Provin has thrown his lot in with either Antonov or Belagren . . .”
“Mother, why don’t you just tell them both to get out of Dhevyn?” Alenor snapped impatiently.
“I wish I could, Alenor,” the queen sighed, taking the suggestion quite seriously. “But I would be on my own. There’s not an island in Dhevyn strong enough to defy the Lion of Senet, and with my luck, the Age of Shadows would return the very next day, and I’d have Belagren and the whole damn kingdom ready to string me up.”
“You don’t believe that Belagren really brought back the Age of Light by making Antonov kill his son, do you?”
“I suppose not,” the queen admitted. “But I’ll not make the same mistake that Johan did. Until and unless we can prove otherwise, the vast majority of people will continue to believe in the Goddess, and there is nothing any of us can do to change their minds.”
Chapter 78
They made it to Paislee in nine days. Dirk and Reithan pushed the horses hard, and they frequently rode through the bright ruddy nights, past small campsites set up by the numerous travelers on the road. Tia wished they’d let up the pace a little. There had been no sign of pursuit, and the long hours in the saddle had chafed her inner thighs raw. However, other than checking her hand occasionally, neither Reithan nor Dirk apparently had any thought for her pain or discomfort.
Eryk chatted away constantly, but the others didn’t talk much as they rode. Dirk appeared to have things on his mind, and Reithan seemed content with his own company. Tia hoped Dirk might be tormenting himself over the terrible thing he’d done, but she wasn’t quite ready to press him on the subject.
The problem of what to do about Dirk Provin plagued Tia constantly. Her personal vow to destroy him for killing Johan had, by necessity, been postponed for the time being. She was honest enough to admit (at least to herself) they might never have escaped Avacas without his help.
But she had another reason to delay her desire for vengeance. Dirk’s accusation in the palace haunted her. You and Reithan came here to kill Johan! he’d said. And now, because I saved you the trouble of doing it yourself, you think you can condemnme with a clear conscience. The words rattled around in her head like a neverending echo. He was right. She and Reithan had come to Avacas for exactly that reason. Had Dirk not intervened, she might be facing the same dilemma as Dirk.
Or maybe I wouldn’t, she decided, because when it came to the crunch, I don’t think I could have gone through with it.
Lexie had warned her about that.
“There’s a stream up ahead,” Reithan said, interrupting her train of thought. “We should rest the horses. The second sun will set soon. We could use the rest.”
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br /> Tia nodded in agreement and followed Reithan, Dirk and Eryk off the shoulder to a small stream some distance from the road. She dismounted stiffly and led her horse to the water to allow her to drink.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began, finally deciding to broach the subject that had been gnawing at her all day. She wasn’t expecting a positive response, but she still felt that she had to ask.
“That must be a new and novel experience for you,” Dirk muttered as he helped Eryk down and led his chestnut to the stream beside her. He was always like that, bitter and sarcastic—even when she was trying to be civil. “Eryk, go see if you can find some firewood.”
“How much, Lord Dirk?
“As much as you can carry.”
The boy scuttled off into the undergrowth in search of kindling, leaving the others to tend the horses.
“I was wondering what you’re going to do once we get to Mil?” Tia asked.
Dirk continued to ignore her in favor of his horse.
“Are you going to tell everyone who you are?” she persisted. “What you did?”
He glanced at her with genuine amusement. “Are you serious?”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I haven’t decided.” He turned his back on her again and continued to unsaddle his horse.
“Tia, we can settle this some other time,” Reithan suggested, as he pulled the saddle from his own mount.
“No, Reithan, we can’t,” she declared. “This needs to be settled before we get anywhere near the Baenlands. I want to know what he’s planning to do.”
“I’m not actually ‘planning to do’ anything,” Dirk told her.
“You said you wanted to join us.”
“Actually, I asked you to take me to Mil. I don’t recall volunteering for anything.”
“So you expect our help and offer nothing in return?”
“I just can’t win with you, can I?” Dirk said. “First you’re violently opposed to me going anywhere near Mil. Now I’m in trouble because you don’t think I’m dedicated enough to your cause.”
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