Agent of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  MUST TELL JULIA SOMETHING, she tapped out. Maybe this would change Uncle’s mind; Julia would never believe Telaine had enough unbreakable social obligations to keep her away when Julia needed her so badly.

  It took a while for the response to come, but it didn’t make Telaine feel better: FAKE ILLNESS TWO DAYS DIAGNOSIS LUNG FEVER GO SOUTH TO RECUPERATE YES PEOPLE GET LUNG FEVER IN SUMMER AND HISTORY MAKES IT BELIEVABLE. STOP LOOKING FOR EXCUSES AND GET TO WORK.

  She stared at the tape for a full minute, then tore the tape off and removed the folded paper from the duplicate key, spun the Device’s wheels a few times to clear the private code, and tucked the tape into her reticule. History indeed. Lung fever had killed her mother and was extremely communicable; Julia wouldn’t challenge her and risk exposing herself and her unborn child to the disease. The logic didn’t make Telaine feel any less sick at lying to her cousin.

  She got into her patiently waiting coach and handed the tape to Posy, who read it without comment as the coach rattled off down the street. “What do you think?” she asked when Posy finally lowered it to her lap.

  “I don’t like it. I can’t go with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Longbourne’s a small town, not much more than a village. It’ll look funny if you come with a maid.”

  “Couldn’t we be traveling companions?” Telaine pleaded. Posy had been her partner and companion for eight years. Telaine had never gone on an assignment without her.

  Posy shook her head. “Think straight. To make this work, you got to look like you’re going one way when you’re really going somewhere else. I’ve got to be your double.”

  Telaine looked Posy up and down, skeptically. “You’ve got four inches on me and I weigh at least ten pounds more than you do.”

  “Not really a double. It’ll be hard, but we can figure it out. I’ll go south to Eskandel the way you planned and you’ll sneak north to Barony Steepridge.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing!”

  “Stop whining,” Posy said, and Telaine, startled, shut her mouth. “If you don’t know enough after eight years to make this work, then I sure failed. You can work a crowd, you can make people talk, you can move quiet and pick locks—least I hope so, don’t know when you practiced last—”

  “I did all right last night!”

  “There you go, then. You’re smart and you figure stuff out fast. All you need is a cover and a way to get the Baron’s attention, and you’ve got those already.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Posy smiled wickedly. “You’re too young to remember Harstow at court. He’s obsessed with Devices. He was never happy that he couldn’t build ’em. If a Deviser shows up on his doorstep, well, you might have to beat him off with a stick.”

  “And my identity?” It came to Telaine in a heartbeat. “Everyone knows who Princess Telaine North Hunter is,” she breathed. “But almost no one has ever heard of Lainie Bricker.”

  Chapter Four

  Telaine stepped off the coach and took in a deep breath of warm, fragrant air. Cranky Mister Dalton had insisted on traveling with the windows up, no matter how hot and smelly that made the interior of the coach. Now Telaine reveled in the scents of hot bread and flowers from the bakery and florist across from the coaching yard.

  Ellismere was a pretty place, not what she’d expected of the frontier. For one thing, it was nearly the size of Ravensholm, though its buildings were planed lumber instead of stone and the roofs steeper and shingled with slate. Most of the buildings were half-framed and painted in lovely muted colors, not drab white. She looked down the street at the town hall, which looked like a tiny fortress except for the pansies growing in beds all along its walls. It was unexpectedly civilized. Maybe Longbourne wouldn’t be as rustic as she feared.

  She set down her bag outside the coaching ticket office. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman behind the counter, “I’m going up to Longbourne. Can you tell me where to find the coach?”

  “No coach,” the woman said, smiling pleasantly in a way that blunted the sting of her curt words. “There’s a wagon leaves from the hitching station every other day around noon. You’re in luck, this is one of those days. But you’d better not dawdle.”

  “Where is it?”

  The woman leaned out of the window and pointed up the street. “Go that way, then turn left at the sign of the blue owl and straight on to the end of the road. It’s on the right.”

  “Thanks. How about the telecoder office?”

  “That’s on the route. You’ll see the sign.”

  Telaine nodded and shouldered her bag, heading off the way the woman had indicated. People smiled and nodded at her as she walked. She smiled back, feeling the expression come naturally. She hadn’t felt much like smiling the whole trip. She’d thought she was prepared to be a nobody, but the first night they’d stopped at an inn where no one offered her the best room in the house and she’d actually been angry about it. She’d had to remind herself, alone in her tiny room with the none-too-clean bed, that Lainie Bricker would be grateful to have a room to herself, but it didn’t keep her from shedding a few self-pitying tears she was embarrassed about the next morning.

  Now she breathed in the clean, fresh air and smiled more widely. She no longer hesitated when someone called her by her new name, she’d become accustomed to the coarse fare most places along the coaching route served, her boots didn’t chafe as much as she’d feared, and braiding her hair every morning had become second nature. This assignment wasn’t going to be so terrible.

  It turned out the hitching station was an inn and stable actually called the Hitching Station. It stood three stories tall, freshly painted in pale green with white trim that reminded Telaine of the east wing dining room. Delicious aromas of roast beef wafted from the open door, but Telaine bypassed it and went around to the stable yard, scuffing up dust as she went. With luck, the wagon would still be there; she was already a day later than Uncle had promised the mysterious Mistress Weaver, and another day’s delay…well, it wouldn’t make much difference, but Telaine wanted to make a good impression. Punctuality would help.

  The stable yard fit neatly into an L formed by the back of the inn and the stables perpendicular to it. It seemed unusually quiet to Telaine, but she was used to the bustle of the palace stables, people and carriages coming and going at all hours. An old wagon, splintered and worn, that sagged dangerously at the rear stood near the center of the yard. Beyond the wagon, a couple of enormous horses tethered to a waist-high rail fence nosed the ground, looking for something to eat. The lean woman brushing one of the animals paid no attention to Telaine as she approached.

  “Excuse me,” Telaine said. “I was told this is where I can get the wagon to Longbourne.”

  The woman turned her head away from Telaine and the horses and spat. “This is it,” she said, nodding at the broken-down contraption.

  “Oh. Is it…leaving soon?” It looked as if nothing could induce it to move.

  The woman shrugged. “Be leaving soon’s Abel gets his ass off that bar stool. Takes him a while to recover from the trip down mountain.” She spat again and resumed grooming the horse.

  “Oh,” Telaine repeated. “Is that…will he take long?”

  “No idea,” the woman said.

  Telaine looked into the wagon. It was half-full of boxes and bags and wrapped parcels. A satchel bearing the emblem of the Royal Mail lay on the wagon’s seat where anyone could walk off with it. As she was trying to decide where to put her own bag, a couple of men came around the corner. One, a tall, middle-aged man with a blond beard and thin, elastic arms that seemed only loosely connected to his body, had his hands on the second man’s shoulders, steering him around unseen obstacles.

  The second man was at least forty years older than his guide and as lean as if he’d been dried in the sun for a week. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved for two days, and what was left of his white hair stuck out in all directions.


  “Edith, get the horses hitched, Abel’s ready to go,” the middle-aged man said. He glanced at Telaine and said, “Can I help you with something, miss?”

  “I’m going up to Longbourne,” Telaine said. “Where do I pay my fare?”

  “No charge,” the man said. “Longbourne pays Abel here a flat fee no matter what he hauls. You got family up mountain?”

  “Going to stay with my aunt, Mistress Weaver. I’m a Deviser.” She was in the habit now of adding that little piece of information every time she introduced herself. It didn’t hurt to spread the word, even among people who weren’t likely to tell the Baron, and it gave her a warm feeling to identify herself that way.

  “Mistress Weaver, huh? Good luck with that. She’s a tough lady. But you didn’t hear it from me. She’d never let me forget I said it.” He winked and extended his hand. “Josiah Stakely, miss.”

  “Lainie Bricker.”

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Bricker. Abel, Miss Bricker’s going up with you. You want to make room on the seat?”

  Abel, who’d climbed onto the wagon, squinted down at her. “You want to go up?” he said, sounding as if that were the strangest thing he’d ever heard of.

  “I’m Lainie Bricker,” she said. “I’m a Deviser. Going up to stay with Mistress Weaver. She’s my aunt.”

  Abel stared at her in incomprehension. She was about to repeat herself when he said, “Come on up then,” and shoved the mail bag under the seat. Telaine hauled herself onto the wagon and settled her bag on her knees. “Never heard of Agatha Weaver havin’ no niece,” Abel muttered, but he made a clucking noise at the horses and they turned out of the stable yard, making a wide circle. Telaine waved at Stakely and Edith, then had to grab the edge of the seat to keep from being bounced off as they drove away from Ellismere.

  The road soon went from paving to hard-packed dirt the horses and wagons turned into puffs of dust. There was little to see here except long grasses, the pale line of the road, and the approaching mountains, and Telaine heard no noises beyond the wheels creaking and the horses’ hooves striking the hard ground. It was eerie, like being inside an invisible dome that blocked every sensation except the warm rays of the sun that were making Telaine sweat. Abel drove in a silence that matched their surroundings. Telaine examined him covertly and wondered if he were as drunk as he’d looked. Did he even remember she was there?

  She tried out a few conversational gambits in her head, but discarded them. Her life as the Princess hadn’t prepared her to talk to anyone like Abel. Now that seemed like an oversight. She wasn’t sure if that life had prepared her to talk to whatever kind of woman Mistress Weaver was. A tough lady, Stakely had said, and she had the feeling he’d only been partly joking. Telaine wondered what pressure her uncle had brought to bear on Mistress Weaver, whether the woman even wanted her there. This could turn out to be unpleasant—but that didn’t matter, because she was in Longbourne as an agent of the Crown, not a Deviser, not as someone’s niece.

  After a long, silent hour, the wagon entered the pass and began its slow ascent. The road was narrow, barely more than a ridge jutting out from the side of the mountain, and Telaine edged closer to Abel, away from the steep drop-off. From her position, it looked as if the wheels were perched on the edge of the cliff, mere inches from plummeting over. Just how drunk was the driver? But his hands on the reins were steady, the horses unfazed by the slope, and gradually she convinced herself they weren’t all about to fall to their deaths and was able to admire the view.

  Evergreen trees, varieties she couldn’t begin to name, surrounded the road. Where the path narrowed further, she dared look down the side of the mountain at even more trees growing on the steep slopes. Some of their trunks lay parallel to the mountainside as if someone had shaped them from clay, bending them near the roots. Scruffy yellow grass covered the slope surrounding the trees, bent and broken by the passage of animals, though Telaine had trouble imagining what animals could cling to the mountainside, some of which was nearly vertical.

  “I hear water. Is there a river nearby?” she said.

  “Comes from the slopes of Mount Ehuren,” Abel said, rousing from his silent stupor to nod in the direction of the distant peak. “Can’t see the river from here.”

  It was an obvious statement, but more than she’d gotten out of Abel the whole ride, so Telaine let it go and contented herself with inhaling the scent of cool water, even though it made her thirsty. Birds darted from treetop to treetop, calling to one another, and small gray squirrels scurried across the way and scampered up the dark, rough trunks.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how long the journey was, because she was superstitiously afraid if she took out her watch, it would leap out of her hand and fling itself over the cliff. But after about two hours, they came out of the pass and saw the valley stretched out before them, tall grass blowing in the breeze. Telaine drew in a deep breath. She’d never seen anything so beautiful as the groves of aspens stretching out into the distance, their leaves golden in the afternoon light, or the dark evergreens providing a background for them to shine against. The smell of water came to her again, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed the cool breeze brushing her skin as the wagon jounced along. At least her undesired field assignment had brought her someplace lovely.

  Another hour passed before she saw signs of civilization. In the far distance, buildings clustered, becoming less densely packed as the town spread out on both sides toward the valley walls. At the limit of her vision, Telaine could barely see the road emerge from the town and wind its way farther up the valley. Her heart beat faster. Longbourne. The last five days had been nothing more than practice for this.

  They didn’t so much enter Longbourne as be absorbed by it, a few houses here and there becoming many houses cheek-by-jowl and then being supplanted by larger buildings Telaine supposed were businesses. Many of the buildings were single-story and made of stone, fist-sized irregular pieces mortared together. Some had upper stories of wood. Almost all had steeply-sloping roofs of dark blue slabs of slate fitted tightly together, and all had paned glass windows, if small ones.

  There were plenty of people on the main road—street? Whatever it was, it was paved with gravel that crunched under the horses’ feet. They stopped to stare at Telaine as Abel drove past; she smiled at each of them and was surprised to see most of them turn away. Shy, or unwelcoming to new folks? That’s not why you’re here, Telaine. Lainie.

  Abel came to a stop at a crossroads where the only two major streets in the entire town met. A gazebo sat in the middle of the intersection, all carved white wood and tiled roof, with red and white petunias growing in a bed encircling it. It seemed out of place, like a—well, like a frilly socialite in a village square. She sympathized with it.

  “This is it,” Abel said, then hopped off. Telaine climbed down and pulled first her bag, then the mail bag from beneath the seat. She went to hand the mail bag to Abel, but he’d already trotted away. There were a few people standing near, but none of them seemed inclined to unload. Reluctantly, she left the mail bag on the seat and picked up her bag.

  Here at the center of town there were any number of well-kept buildings, a general store, a dressmaker’s shop, but nothing that was obviously Mistress Weaver’s establishment. Down the road past the gazebo, she saw a small group of men standing beside a short rail fence. She smelled hot metal and heard a rhythmic tap, tap, tap. The forge. She might as well ask for directions there, since no one else seemed willing to meet her eyes.

  She knew the men noticed her approach by the way they didn’t look at her. Come on, boys, I invented that technique. “Good afternoon,” she said politely as soon as she was close enough. “I’m looking for Mistress Weaver’s establishment.”

  “Establishment? Well, ain’t we lah-di-dah!” said one of the men, a tall, burly fellow in his thirties. All four laughed. So did Telaine, hoping to project a hapless innocence. Antagonism wasn’t the response she’d expected.

  “You’r
e right there, I don’t have any idea what to call it!” she exclaimed. “My name’s Lainie Bricker. My aunt Mistress Weaver’s waiting on me. Can one of you tell me where to find her?”

  “Don’t know as Mistress Weaver’s exactly waiting,” said another man, this one in his late forties or early fifties, with an L-shaped scar across his cheek and graying hair tucked up under a brimless knit cap. “Sounded like she wasn’t waiting so much, eh, fellows?”

  “Don’t tell me she’s given up on me already? I’m only a day late! Help me out, please?”

  “Happen you’re not much welcome here,” said the first man. “Don’t know as Mistress Weaver were much excited to see you, eh?”

  “If you go now, happen you’d make it back down the mountain ‘fore dark,” said Scarface. He took a step toward her. “If you go now.”

  There was a loud hiss, and a cloud of steam blew between Telaine and her antagonists. Telaine looked over at the blacksmith, who had been silent this whole time. He was unexpectedly young, no older than herself, and not tall, but he was well-muscled and the look in his brown eyes was calm and direct.

  “If you go back that way,” he pointed, pushing light brown hair off his forehead with the back of his free hand, “there’s a store with a needle and thread on a sign above the door. Next house south of that is Mistress Weaver’s place. Happen you’ll find her there, this time of day.”

  “Thank you,” she said, trying not to sound as relieved as she felt.

  The blacksmith nodded. “Welcome to Longbourne, Miss Bricker. And”—he turned back to the group of men, who seemed abashed—“happen you fellows might find something more useful to do than making wind with your mouths.”

  Telaine shouldered her bag and marched away. Reticence, she’d expected. Dislike, not a surprise. But outright hostility? What kind of place had her uncle sent her to? Fitting in might not be a priority, but she couldn’t investigate freely if she was fighting the townspeople all the time. Did they treat all strangers this way, or was she a special case? Those men knew she was coming, so Mistress Weaver had mentioned it…but would she have outright told the townsfolk that Telaine, Lainie, wasn’t welcome? Those men hadn’t been lying when they’d suggested as much.