by Dan Allen
“Guardians of the realm beyond,” she swore. “I can’t believe I’m doing this—I can’t believe I just swore and I’m doing this.”
There was nothing to do but continue. She kept at it, working feverishly, if only to make the horror pass more quickly.
Unable to stop herself with the job half done, the murder of her hair was over in minutes.
The freshly hewn bangs had unkempt ends that played a few inches past her chin. She hadn’t intended it to be that short, though it had to be if she meant to impersonate Ret, which was the only way to get near Verick without him noticing.
“Guardians forgive me,” she whispered as her fingers traced her face, framed by waving lengths of brown hair. Her face seemed to have changed. Hair traced her hollow cheeks and curled under her narrow chin, like falling water dissipating into a mist above her breast. She no longer looked underweight, but capable and intelligent.
She imitated the queenly stare Trinah had given her, arching her shoulders back and lifting her chin.
“Looks good to me,” said a voice from behind her.
Reann’s heart jumped into her throat, realizing she was wearing only a thin slip. She clasped both hands over her chest and whirled around, crashing against the shield. “Wretch! What in the name of—”
“The dress looks all right, too,” Ret said. He had replaced the blanket she had given him with another set of clothes, probably stolen from Kalen or Regimon or another of the stinky servants in the boy’s bunkhouse. “But . . . probably a little too short,” he added. His lips drew to one side as if he were trying not to laugh, leaving him with a distinctly impious smirk.
“Demons, Wretch,” Reann cried. “Look away. This is my under clothing.”
“Oh . . . yeah. Imagine that,” he said, barely containing a chuckle.
“Ret, what do you want?” Reann said. Her eyes flicked left and right for cover but found none. She was now keenly aware of just how much of her legs were showing.
“I . . . uh, need my knife.”
Reann gave him a fiery glare, as if trying to burn some modesty into him.
“Or you can turn back around and keep working on your hair and . . . I’ll just wait here until you’re done.”
“I am not turning back around so you can gawk at my backside.”
“What are you so worked up about? I can gawk at your backside whenever I want.”
“Like when?”
“Like when you’re mopping, you know, kneeling down on the tile and bent over with your arms stretched out like this while you wipe the floor.” Ret bent at his waist mimicking the action.
Reann’s jaw dropped as her face and neck turned as red as a poker right out of the fire. “You don’t.”
She hastily pulled on Ret’s tunic and trousers, cinching it with a bit of rope Ret used for a belt.
“Are you going to keep your hair like that?” Ret said as she stomped over and shoved the folded knife back at him.
Reann stopped.
“Why would you care?”
Ret shrugged. “Maybe give me something to look at besides your—”
Reann swatted at him, but Ret easily leapt clear. She pointed a warning finger as she turned away slowly, making sure his eyes didn’t wander downward.
“What about this mess, Reann?” Ret said. “Are you just going to leave all that hair on the floor like that?”
Reann’s eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you clean it up? You can collect every last hair and weave it into a cute little braid for a shrine next to your bed so you can lay there and stare at it and think about me and my . . . hair.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Don’t you dare!”
Reann burst out of the armor room.
“Wretch!” a voice called.
Oh, that’s me.
She rolled her head around the way Ret did whenever he was called by one of the kitchen staff.
“Get back in the dining room. Dinner is served . . . by you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Reann said lowly, in an easy replication of the boy’s occasionally cracking voice.
She was lucky the staff hadn’t noticed the height difference. Ret had grown recently. It helped that Reann didn’t slouch, and perhaps the staff was still used to imaging him as an impish twit.
Reann certainly was.
Look disinterested, she reminded herself. And don’t do things too politely.
With the freshly cut bangs hanging in front of her face, Reann was scarcely recognizable.
Seven guests milled about the dining hall, drinking from glasses filled with wine from the famous vineyards that crawled over the gentle hills outside the castle walls. Four were nobles passing through on a summer holiday: three boisterous gents and a large lady who clung to her husband as if he were a handbag. Another guest was a surgeon in residence at Erdal. One was a well-to-do merchant in the fur trade. The last was Verick.
“Dinner is served,” Reann stated disinterestedly in an expert imitation of Wretch’s droning voice.
The nobles ignored her announcement, but after a few moments they paused their conversations and invited each other to the set tables. The practice of not providing large tables was general in high society, to avoid the appearance of a head position. Reann seated the four traveling nobles at one round service. The surgeon sat at a small table meant for two and laid the book he had been reading on the opposite chair. Verick and the merchant were left at the third setting.
Reann shuttled bread and poured drinks for the next few minutes. As soon as the gentlemen were eating their main courses, she “spilled” the wine on the floorboards, letting slip a filthy word under her breath that only a boy would use to cinch the ruse.
Returning with a towel, she set to cleaning the floor near Verick and the merchant, her ear inclined to their private conversation.
“Slow business, as usual,” the merchant said. “Nobody wants furs in the summer when I actually have them. And what of your land dispute?”
“The evidence is mounting,” Verick replied politely, “not all in my favor, unfortunately.”
“Come all the way from Treban, have you?” the merchant asked.
“Thereabouts. It’s a small holding,” Verick answered.
“You look about the age to have been in the great navy,” said the merchant.
“Missed that, actually,” Verick said. “I might have been a cabin boy had I sea legs.”
“Great war, it was—epic,” the merchant said, eyes twinkling with reflected glory. “I saw the port of Ruban burn with my own eyes—demons as my witness. It was an awesome sight.”
Reann watched Verick carefully for some telltale reaction that might prove her theories about his identity.
Verick answered in an unamused voice, “Indeed.”
“Here’s the funny part, though,” said the merchant.
Verick’s expression became confused. “How do you mean funny?”
“I heard all about it from a crazy old man down on the coast in Yerban—same name as you, in fact. Verick or Ranville, something like that.”
Verick inclined his head, disclosing nothing.
“This old man was with Toran during the third crusade, after he settled with the Dervites and went off to fight the Hersians down on the Serbani coasts. The old fella was some kind of valet—cupbearer, he called it. Anyway, he survived the ambush at Toran’s harbor since he was on Toran’s own ship—the only vessel that made it out.”
“I’m aware of that incident,” Verick said.
“So you follow me on what happened next. Toran set off and burnt the unprotected Hersian shipyards and then spent a season capturing the very pirate ships that were out looking for him. That was when he intercepted a merchant ship filled with folks from Ruban—all woman and children refugees from well-to-do households. See, folks in Ruba
n knew revenge was coming. They were fleeing to Hersa.”
“Yes, of course. This is all well known.”
“But get a whiff of this.” The merchant stuck his fork in a piece of overdone meat and shoved it in his mouth, speaking as he chewed. “Everyone thinks Toran found out that there were stowaways down in the ship’s stores, the very men Toran was after—filthy traitors all.”
“To the point, man.”
“And then Toran done them in, all wicked and horrible.”
“That is the story,” Verick echoed.
“But where’s the proof of it?” the merchant said, poking his fork forward at Verick as he wiped his hand on his shirt.
Verick stammered, “Well, none of the ship’s passengers ever returned to Ruban, so obviously—”
“There’s a reason for that,” the merchant said with a knowing chuckle. “This old guy told me that Toran didn’t know nothing about the traitors. In fact, all he did when he captured the ship was put the old crew and his own cabin boy on it and send it to Hersa with the Rubani. See, apparently, he was headed for Ruban and didn’t want the cabin boy ruined by seeing so much violence so he put them on the first merchant ship to go ashore.”
“An admirable sentiment,” Verick said in a level tone.
“But the Rubani refugees on the boat were double crossed and sold out as slaves when they arrived at Hersa. Only the old codger escaped to tell the tale.”
“The traitors and the innocents weren’t murdered by Toran?” Verick whispered. He gave a moment’s pause and wiped his lips with his cloth. “They were all sold as slaves?” Verick’s voice was perceptibly anxious.
“That was just the women folk. For them traitors, it was a fate worse than death,” the merchant said heavily, turning his chewing lips into a disgusted frown. “Don’t want to spoil your dinner by saying.”
“Tell me,” Verick ordered, “if you please.”
“Knew you was gonna say that.” The merchant grinned with the look of a peddler who had his buyer hooked. “The refugees on that boat blackmailed that cabin boy into stealing extra food for their stowaways hiding in the smuggler’s cabin, the traitors that led the conspiracy against Toran—you know, Dorgan the Traitor and his folk.”
“Do proceed,” Verick urged. His fist closed tightly on his fork.
“What them Rubani didn’t count on was this cabin boy being all blood-loyal for Toran. The ship was just about twelve days sailing from Hersa—contrary wind that time of year—when a fella on the boat died of flesh-eating fever. So then the cabin boy took a piece of the dead man’s clothes and made a sop of it for mixing with the stowaways’ food. It was a catching fever, by my beard. Those traitors rotted away with the same disease,” the merchant said matter-of-factly, “before the ship set anchor in Hersian waters. The Hersians figured he put a curse on those traitors and sent their rotted skeletons as a warning, but Toran didn’t put a curse on nobody. He had nothing to do with it!” The merchant roared with laughter.
A vein on Verick’s temple rose and his nostrils flared as he cut vigorously into his meat.
“That cabin boy is the greatest danged hero in the entire war—except Toran, of course. And nobody knows where the kid is. That’s what the old cupbearer told me. Ain’t that about the funniest thing you ever heard?”
“I don’t—” Verick began curtly. “Would you care to explain what is so humorous?”
The merchant downed his wine in a gulp and slapped Verick’s knee in jest. “Don’t you see, my friend? The whole legend of the Ruban Payment is a myth. Toran didn’t turn nobody to skeletons. A cabin boy did in all the criminals—the very one Toran was trying to keep from seeing flesh slaughtered. Toran never had no power to curse nobody. He was a fool! But a lucky one, by my beard.”
“Hardly amusing,” Verick noted.
“The craziest part is, Toran got his revenge by showing mercy to the families of the very folks who betrayed him. It’s the greatest twisted irony in the history of the realm. And it’s a fact!” The beefy merchant smacked his fist into the table triumphantly and gave a ceremonious belch.
Verick set his fork against his plate, his face wormed into a look of revulsion.
“Told you it’d ruin your supper. Don’t worry, that appetite will be back once you see some dessert. You, servant boy. Stop your gawking and bring my pie.”
Reann scurried out of the dining hall so quickly she tripped on the peeling floorboard as she came into the serving kitchen. She fell headlong and threw out her hand to catch herself on a shelf. Her fingers landed on the lip of an ornate porcelain plate displayed on the shelf, saving her a faceful of floor.
The dish wasn’t so lucky. It somersaulted through the air, landing with a crash just past Reann’s outstretched hands.
The voice of the merchant boomed out, “That had better not have been my pie!” The nobles all gave amused laughs, audible through the tapestry curtain separating the rooms.
Reann looked at the cracked remains of the decorated plate spread across the floor. As she picked the pieces up, she thought of the cabin boy. He had spent more time as a child with Toran—her own father—than she had. It wasn’t fair. Moreover, in true Toran fashion, he had abandoned the boy to fend for himself just as soon as he had the upper hand on his enemies.
Reann sucked in a breath of surprise. Then her face spread into a platter-sized grin.
“That’s him . . . the witch’s son.” All the pieces fit together: found on the coast, kept by Toran’s side during the war, fiercely loyal to Toran. He wasn’t an infant—the adopted heir!
It was so like Toran that Reann could scarcely believe she hadn’t thought of it before. What was blood to Toran?
“‘Loyalty makes sons and brothers, not blood.’” Reann had heard him say it himself.
She relished the realization as she sorted into her apron the salvageable pieces of the broken platter—a one-of-a-kind plate, in fact. The washwoman had emphasized that point many times, “Toran himself ate from it.” The best Reann could do would be to hide the pieces in her bunk and hope that Effel didn’t find them when she got back.
What Reann relished most of all was the piece of the puzzle the merchant had accidentally put into place. The third heir, her adopted brother, the witch’s son, was born in the Serbani mountains and raised by his adopted father on the coast as a cabin boy.
Reann swelled with pride at her own genius. But even that was swallowed by a burgeoning feeling of love for her still-unknown sibling, one of the chosen heirs with responsibilities and a heritage as grand and as fragile as the exquisitely decorated plate that lay in pieces in front of her.
The platter had been a kind of compass design typical of the five realms, with a symbol at each compass point for each of the four border realms, with Toran’s castle in the center and smaller compass points on the diagonals. Rather than simple symbols, this plate was rich with detail. Painted scenes had decorated the space surrounding the now-shattered compass: A castle—the old one up on the hill that Toran moved to make his new citadel; a ship—Hersian; five wolves in a full moon—the third lying down; a dragon with a tiny rider set between two pointed mountains—not flat-topped like the megaliths of Montas; and a desert hawk with sword in its claws—its eyes are crystals.
Reann’s expression stretched into a look of triumph. This was the platter Toran ate from. It was part of the regular tour for visitors, in fact.
These are clues!
The tapestry flew open behind her and Reann jerked in front of the pieces, shielding them from view.
“Where’s the pie, already?”
Washing the dishes Reann’s head spun from the late revelations: the merchant’s tale, Verick’s strange reaction, and the clues on the broken plate.
Verick’s demeanor hadn’t hid his surprise at the merchant’s tale. Somehow, he was connected to those ev
ents. It was time to confirm her suspicion that Verick was Rubani or, at a minimum, dangerously sympathetic.
She recovered her clothing from Ret, who had taken it with him to his bunkhouse as collateral—or perhaps he had intended to keep it for his shrine. Then she returned to the library, her newly cut hair bouncing along unfettered.
As she perused the books in the history section, a dark thought chilled her. The scattered pieces in her mind arranged themselves into a new portrait of horror. Breathless at the thought, Reann carried her candle soundlessly across the shadowy floor toward the biographies and censuses. The urge to turn and flee grew more uncomfortable in her chest.
She lifted her candle, checking again to be sure that no one else was in the library, yet felt no less endangered.
Reann moved past a movable partition designed to keep guests from disturbing the cache of noble records: lineages, seals, rights, charters, and relics.
Under the light of her candle, Reann ruffled through piles of documents until her fingers brushed a leather-bound book and spied the words Genealogy of Ruban.
Reann opened the volume detailing the ruling families of the Serban’s most remote province. The record was one of the most complete in the pile, except for one recent name which had been deliberately burnt from the final sheet in the book. Reann knew that name—everybody did.
The name Dorgan was infamous in the five realms for treachery.
Reann leaned forward. On the official family tree, near the bottom was a charred mark, a place that once held the name Dorgan. And below that, a thin line led down to one name: Dorian.
I knew it. Dorgan had a son!
A subtle draft in the room gave her a powerful shiver. Reann quickly replaced the book of pedigrees and turned to a wall full of sectioned cubbies stuffed with rolls of canvas, reading titles and pushing them back as if she were sorting vegetables for market. Finally, she found her quarry.
The old leather tie came apart in her hands as she unrolled the stack of canvas sheets. She peeked around the partition to look back at the partly open library door.