by Alex Bledsoe
Lila stood and walked a bit unsteadily toward the door that led to the outhouses, clearly unused to whatever she’d been drinking. The man watched her the whole way.
I guess I wasn’t as smooth as I thought, because the bartender suddenly appeared and cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t stare at Ryan’s girl if I was you,” he said.
“If he don’t want people to look, he shouldn’t bring her to town,” I said gruffly. I made myself take a sip of my drink for effect, and immediately wished I hadn’t. It burned all the way down.
“I’ll make sure they put that on your headstone,” the bartender said, and walked away.
I gave the princess time to get settled on her throne, then threw down the rest of the drink and got to my feet. I hoped no one saw how red my face turned from the rum; I couldn’t drink like a young man anymore.
I went out the same door, and in the moonlight saw four outhouses in a row at the end of a narrow stone walkway. Three of them were unoccupied; I threw open the door to the fourth.
Lila looked up sharply from her seat, and her eyes widened in surprise when she realized I was a man. One eye didn’t widen as much as the other, due to the puffy, fading bruise around it. I said, “So this is the real story behind the ‘Princess and the Pea.’ ”
“Who the hell are you?” she cried. She tried to pull down her skirt without standing. Then, more in control, she said, “There’s three empty ones, you know.”
“No, I’m in the right spot, Lila.”
She froze, and glared at me. “I’m not going back,” she said through her teeth.
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that.” I wearily scratched my beard. “So who gave you the shiner?”
“Who do you think?” she muttered. “Would you mind turning around so I can get decent?”
“I didn’t get to be this old turning my back on people. You just go ahead, I promise I won’t enjoy it.” And I didn’t. Battered children don’t do a thing for me.
While she adjusted her pantaloons and skirts I said, “So I guess we have a dilemma.”
“I’m not going back,” she repeated. The bruise around her eye looked about three weeks old, right around the time she disappeared. “You can kill me, but you can’t take me back to that place.”
I hadn’t quite made up my mind how to proceed, but there was no need for her to know that. “I’ve already taken some of their money.”
She reached for a pouch at her waist. “I can pay you twice what they did—”
“Doesn’t work that way.” I took her chin gently and turned her face toward the light. “So who gave you the eye, really?”
“My father,” she spat, and twisted out of my grasp.
“Which one?”
Before she could answer, my luck ran out. The tavern door behind me burst open, and the man who’d sat next to Lila strode out, followed by three other big, slightly drunk guys. I reached over my shoulder and grabbed the handle of my sword; I twisted the hilt, and the knife sprang into my hand. In the same moment I jerked Lila in front of me and put the point of the dagger to her throat. I backed into the outhouse.
“I’m sure you guys know the drill,” I said to the man in front. “There’s no way you can get me before I cut her throat, so don’t even try. Swords and knives on the ground.”
The four men complied at once; as professionals, they knew I was right. To Lila, who was very still in my arms, I said, “You didn’t answer my question. Which one popped you in the eye?”
“That asshole who thought I was his daughter,” she hissed.
“Not me,” the man in front, who the bartender called Ryan, added helpfully. He smiled coldly beneath the distinctive nose that was identical to Lila’s. She looked nothing at all like King Felix.
“That why you ran away?” I asked the girl, although my eyes stayed on the men.
“No, it was because I didn’t get a pony for my birthday,” she snapped. “Yes, it’s why I left. The bastard never let me forget I wasn’t his real child, and after he hit me I agreed with him.”
“And you took her in?” I said to Lila’s true father.
Ryan shrugged. “She’s my daughter. Her mother wasn’t always the queen.”
I nodded, sighed and released Lila. Another job well done; I couldn’t return her to her abusive royal household, and she certainly seemed in no danger here. She leaped into Ryan’s arms. I slipped the knife back into the sword hilt, twisted it so it locked and then crossed my arms. “So that’s that.”
“Not quite,” Ryan said. “You know where she is.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I don’t care.”
“That’s not much of a guarantee. Lila, go tell everybody to come out here.” He gently guided her to one side; the men behind him took her and passed her out of the way back toward the tavern. The last I saw of her was a triumphant, murderous gleam in her eye as she went inside.
Now the outhouse seemed a lot smaller. None of us had weapons in our hands, but I was seriously outnumbered. “You realize this isn’t necessary,” I said. “I really don’t care.”
“Bet he got a fat fee for this,” one of the other men said.
“Bet he’s got it on him,” another agreed.
Oboy. I started calculating the distance between us, deciding whom to go for first, what parts of their bodies to aim at and what my last words were going to be.
“Whoa!” a new voice said. “It’s a whole pissin’ convention!”
A young guy with short, neat hair and clothes far too stylish for Pema stood in the tavern door. “Damn, fellas, I don’t know if I can wait through this line. I gotta whiz like a racehorse.”
“Use one of the others,” Ryan said. “Or a damn tree. This is a private conversation.”
The young guy frowned and took in the five of us. “That a fact?”
“It’s a fact,” Ryan said.
“Okay, okay, I get the hint.” He turned his back to us and undid his pants, apparently intending to piss right there in the yard. When nothing happened immediately, the young man looked up sheepishly. “I think my trouser snake’s got a little stage fright. You guys mind not lookin’ at me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ryan said in exasperation, and for a moment all their attention was off me. I took the chance.
I kicked Ryan in the balls as hard as I could, the effect helped by the little metal toe cap inside my soft-looking boot. As he fell I grabbed the two men directly behind him by the hair and slammed their heads together. The thonk was satisfyingly loud, and they dropped like bags of wet sand.
Piss-boy, who’d been faking drunk, grabbed the last man and dispatched him with three quick blows in a style I instantly recognized. When he looked up from the crumpled form, I had my sword out and at the hollow of his throat. “Hey, buddy, I was just tryin’ to help,” he said nervously.
“Fasten your pants and tell me who the hell you are.” This was the well-dressed man I’d seen in Neceda, and the mugging victim I’d passed earlier, waylaid as he shadowed me.
He didn’t flinch, and his eyes held mine. “We’ve got about a minute before the princess brings the cavalry,” he said without the country accent. “Just accept that I’m on your side. We can discuss why that is, later.”
He had a point, so I sheathed the sword and followed him around the building to the row of tied horses. “You’ll need a horse, too,” he said as he leaped onto his animal.
I untied the one nearest the end. It was a big mare, and she regarded me with the same disdain I got from all females. I put my foot in the stirrup, then stopped. “My saddlebags are still in there.”
“Get some new ones,” he said as he expertly turned his horse toward the road.
“I need what’s in them. I don’t want to end up dangling from a gallows tree.”
The young man scowled. “Mount up and wait here.” He slid from his saddle and went in through the front door. When he ran back out a moment later, six of Ryan’s men were right behind him. He gave a sharp whistle, to
ssed my bags at me and yelled, “Go!”
I kicked the horse hard, and she lurched forward into a ragged trot. In a moment the young man was beside me on his own mount.
“Mike Anders,” he said, and actually offered me his hand.
“Eddie LaCrosse,” I said. “But I figure you know that.”
He glanced behind us. The rest of Ryan’s gang had mounted up and wheeled into the street as a unit. They quickly closed the distance between us. “I think we need to get out of town,” he said.
“No,” I answered. “Follow me.”
The big mare didn’t protest as we rode into the crowds just past the docks. Here we could barely move, but neither could our pursuers. Still, we stood out plainly against the mostly pedestrian traffic. People bounced off my uncertain mount like logs shooting down the swollen river. Some of our pursuers dismounted and shoved through the crowd toward us, but their progress on foot was no faster.
“We’ve gotta ditch the horses,” I said, and led us toward an alley.
“I don’t think so,” Anders protested. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to train this big guy?”
I didn’t have time to argue. I led us between two buildings and onto the next street, which was just as crowded. Worse, these people weren’t moving, but instead stood watching an open-air burlesque act. I saw the first pair of pursuers reach the far end of the alley. We were stuck, and if they started drawing swords in this crowd, innocent people would get hurt.
“Okay, now I’m open to suggestions,” I said over the show’s music and cheering.
Calmly, Anders pulled a small pouch from his saddlebag. He drew his crossbow, tied the pouch to the tip of the bolt and fired it at the pursuers. I was impressed; he shot one-handed, on a horse being jostled on all sides, and still managed to part the hair of the closest pursuer as he ran toward us. The bolt stuck hard in the wooden side of a refuse barrel, and the impact tore open the pouch. I heard the distinctive tinkle of coins hitting the ground.
The two men at the head of the gang immediately skidded to a stop, turned and ran toward the money. The men behind them converged on it at the same time, as did a bunch of bystanders.
“Damn, how much money was that?” I asked.
“Enough to keep them busy. Now you follow me for a while.”
He cut his horse in front of me and edged along between the crowd and the buildings. His mount was pretty impressive, picking carefully over fallen drunks and uncertain muddy spots, until the crowd began to thin and we reached the edge of town. The road became a highway that stretched north in the darkness. We continued on until we were far enough away we’d get plenty of warning if anyone pursued us. Then we stopped to let our horses rest a bit.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Just doing my job,” he modestly replied.
“Want to tell me exactly what that job is?”
He reached for something inside his jacket. Instantly I had my sword out and at his throat again. “Slow, buddy,” I warned. “No hurry now.”
“Okay, okay,” he said easily. With two fingers, he withdrew a tightly rolled parchment, sealed with wax. “I’m just the messenger.”
I recognized the seal, and blood pounded in my ears as I broke it. I turned so that the glow from town gave me enough light to read. The message was short and, like all the best messages, left the reader with only one course of action. I rolled it up and stuck it in my bags. “I ought to say no,” I told the young soldier.
“He said you wouldn’t,” Anders replied with an easy grin.
“What else did he tell you?”
“That I could trust you. And not to lie to you.”
I nodded. “Good advice. So why did you follow me for so long without saying something?”
“I tried to find you in Neceda, but you left just as I got there. I saw you coming out of that tavern where your office is, actually, but didn’t know it was you until I talked to the barmaid.”
“Did she rat me out right away?”
“Sure. After I gave her five gold pieces and my best smile. And she lied about which way you went, but after she described you I knew I’d seen you and which way you’d really gone. I followed you to the river, but by then you were on the boat. I figured I’d keep following you and wait for a chance to talk privately.” He shrugged. “Things kept getting in my way, though.”
“Like those muggers?”
“Amateurs,” he snorted. “If they’d known when to quit, they’d still be alive.”
My full reaction to the message hadn’t hit me yet. “I guess we should get started, then.” I gestured toward the moonlit road ahead. “Lead on, then, Mr. Anders.”
“Sir Michael,” he corrected with another grin. “But you can call me Mike.”
We headed away from Pema toward a place a hundred miles away, and for me, twenty years back in time.
FOUR
We crossed the Gusay, which put us back in Muscodia, and headed north. We traveled the length of Casselward and, at last, entered Arentia in the middle of the night.
The Hornfisher River had been unaffected by the rains to the south. We used a small raft hidden beneath a well-built camouflaged shed that was also stocked with many other things a secret agent like Sir Mike might need.
All kings and queens employed people like him, and they all denied it publicly. But power wasn’t a gift for life, and to hang onto it, sometimes nasty things needed to be done. The best men (and often women) for these jobs never looked the part, and Anders certainly didn’t. He laughed easily, talked a lot, and seemed content to let me make decisions about things like places to camp. There was an iron quality to him, though, that I sensed would be quite willing to knock me over the head and bring me to Arentia trussed and thrown across my saddle if I gave him too much grief.
We guided the horses onto the raft and poled it across the Hornfisher. The looming shore had thick forest down to the waterline, and I wondered if there was room to land even this tiny vessel. The dock, when we touched it, was actually disguised as a pile of driftwood, and only when I stepped onto it did I realize it was solidly anchored to the river bottom.
I don’t know what I expected to happen when I set foot on Arentian soil again—maybe for it to burst into flames beneath my feet or something—but of course it was just dirt, like any other dirt.
We pulled the raft out of the water, tucked it into a depression dug for it and covered it with leaves. Then, leading our horses, we weaved through the trees until at last we hit a trail. I’d have had a hard time following the path in broad daylight, let alone at night, but Anders worked from memory and landmarks I didn’t bother to try to map out.
As we led our horses down the narrow trail through the woods, Anders asked, “Feel strange to be home?”
“This ain’t my home,” I muttered.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He seemed genuinely contrite. “I didn’t mean to bring up—”
“Do you hear that?” I snapped, and when he stopped to listen I pushed past him. He didn’t say anything else for a long time.
By sunrise we’d emerged from the woods onto a wide highway that led eventually to Arentia City. These roads were Arentia’s pride, layered with flat, smooth stone dredged from the Hornfisher and other rivers. Creating them had been a tedious process that almost led to a revolution against then-King Hugh II; his insistence on good infrastructure earned him the nickname “Highway Hugh,” and of course the roads themselves became “Hughways.” But once completed, everyone suddenly realized the advantage they gave: they didn’t become impassable muddy tracks after each heavy rain, and trade between towns became so easy that within a generation Arentia went from a cesspool not unlike Muscodia to the thriving center of commerce it was now.
At least, that’s what they taught us in school. What they left out, naturally, was that the roads were built by press gangs of Fechinians who, after they’d done their jobs, mysteriously died of a disease that left marks almost identical to sword wounds. This massacre
was quietly swept under the tapestry, and when Hugh III ascended to the throne two centuries ago, all mention of it was expunged from the official history books. Only the diligence of the Society of Scribes, who made copies of everything, kept the memory alive in their hidden archives.
It was a glorious spring day, and everything seemed to be in bloom beneath the wide blue sky. Everyone we passed, whether farmer, trader or soldier, waved or said something friendly. Children laughed, dogs barked. Birds sang. My mood grew more and more foul.
Suddenly I noticed that the road beneath us was not one of the original Hughways, but a new construction; the rocks were a completely different color. “Hey, wait a minute. Didn’t the road used to turn right here and go all the way around old Hogenson’s place?” I asked.
“They’ve built a whole new series of roads,” Anders explained. “The king bought rights-of-way across some of the big landholdings to cut travel time down, and trade picked up a lot as a result.”
“Huh.” That explained all the traffic, although not how the king had managed to sweet-talk the various big shots into something that gave the appearance of patriotism. Arentian nobles weren’t known for being altruistic, and old Baron Hogenson was especially self-absorbed.
As we traveled, I learned that young Sir Michael was the eldest son and namesake of an army general who’d earned his rank the hard way, protecting the border Arentia shared with San Travis to the west. Mike junior attended military school and then took a commission in the regular army. Since Arentia wasn’t at war with anyone he found the distinct lack of action mind-numbing, until a superior suggested he apply for the special operations branch. The screening process alone took three months. His tests included being tossed naked from a ship off the coast of Romeria with orders to retrieve a certain piece of jewelry from a nobleman’s house and return with it by a given date. He’d done so by convincing the scullery maid’s young daughter that he was a merman, and she hid him long enough for him to learn the layout of the house and acquire the jewelry. He even sculpted a copy from melted sugar to give himself more time, and arrived back in Arentia three days early. He seemed very proud of this, and if it was all true, he had a right to be. I’d been to Romeria a few times, and it was a cold, ragged, lawless place where strangers weren’t welcome and thieves were routinely blinded.