by Bell, Hilari
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Also By Hilari Bell
Chapter 1 Michael
Chapter 2 Fisk
Chapter 3 Michael
Chapter 4 Fisk
Chapter 5 Michael
Chapter 6 Fisk
Chapter 7 Michael
Chapter 8 Fisk
Chapter 9 Michael
Chapter 10 Fisk
Chapter 11 Michael
Chapter 12 Fisk
Chapter 13 Michael
Chapter 14 Fisk
Chapter 15 Michael
Chapter 16 Fisk
Chapter 17 Michael
Chapter 18 Fisk
Chapter 19 Michael
Chapter 20 Fisk
Chapter 21 Michael
Chapter 22 Fisk
Chapter 23 Michael
About the Author
Sneak Peek—The Fixer
A damsel in distress — or at least, a damsel mysteriously vanished and quite possibly in distress — is a most fitting task for a knight errant. But this damsel had gone missing from the High Liege’s court, and peril lurked there. Not for me, which I would have shrugged off, but for those I held most dear. Which is probably why I made the mistake of saying, “She’s only been gone for about twelve hours — that could be accounted for by a lame horse or a broken wheel. Surely she’s returned by now. I say we send this fellow back, and wait for word that all’s well.”
The messenger, who’d ridden all night to deliver the letter my sister held, looked indignantly at me, but he spoke to my sister. “The Heir’s fair worried, Mistress. He bid me get this letter to you as fast as I could ride.”
Fisk, Kathy and I stood on the landing of my brother’s lodging, which he’d begun to hint he’d like us to vacate eventually — a request that seemed reasonable, given that the knocking of the messenger had roused us shortly after dawn. Kathy was clad in a well-worn dressing gown, her mouse-brown hair in a tousled braid down her back, and the rosy light reflected in her spectacles as she read. There was no reason for Fisk to look at her as if she was the source of the sunrise ... which increased my apprehension about going to court.
“Meg didn’t take a coach,” Kathy told me, still reading. “’Tis a bit incoherent — he must be really worried — but Rupert says she left on foot. She might have rented... Why does he think she’d rent a carriage to come to me? Or come to me at all, for that matter.”
This was addressed to the messenger, who shrugged. “I’m to bring back your reply, if you don’t return yourself, Mistress Katherine. And escort you if you need it.”
“She doesn’t need an escort,” said Fisk. “We’ll take her.”
“I don’t think...” I didn’t think that was a good idea, but I couldn’t reveal my reasons in front of the messenger.
“I do think,” said Fisk. “And so does Kathy. You’re out-voted. Partner.”
They held to that, despite all the sensible arguments I raised after the messenger had departed — I even went so far as to remind Fisk what had happened the first time we rescued a damsel in distress. This memory made him pale, and I might have won the day. But Katherine was set on learning what had happened to her friend, and Fisk couldn’t bear to appear cowardly before her, so right or wrong, I lost. We departed from the university town where my brother lived before breakfast.
I may have sulked a bit over my failure to dissuade them, for when he was my squire, Fisk never overruled me. That was why he had ceased to be my squire, and if this was what he’d felt like in the past, when I overruled him, I could hardly blame him.
I still thought we would arrive at Crown City and find the lady safe returned, with a tale of some minor mishap to entertain us. But there is little I like more than riding my good horse on a fair day, with a fine hound frisking at our heels, and the two people who — despite their stubbornness — I loved best in all the world riding beside me. They loved each other too, and watching them together yet another problem came to my attention.
We had stopped to water the horses and they sucked greedily from the stream, with our hound True lapping at their side. ’Twas the hottest part of the long summer day and we were all coated with road dust, but instead of taking this brief respite to wash, stretch their legs, snatch a bite to eat, or even help me with the horses, Fisk and my sister sat on the bridge’s low railing holding hands.
’Twas charming, and I was tempted to annoy Fisk by saying so. But a more important matter was at stake.
“You two agreed to conceal your arrangement from the court, but if you go on acting like this...”
“He’s right.” We were still several hours ride from Crown City, but Kathy let go of Fisk’s hand as if it had grown thorns. “Everyone at court knows Father. And the people who hate him will be even quicker to rat us out than his friends would.”
The phrase “rat us out” sounded odd coming from my sister — Fisk’s influence, no doubt. But it seemed this kind of transmutation traveled in both directions.
“We agreed because Michael refused to come if we didn’t,” Fisk pointed out. “We’ll have to tell your father anyway, sooner or later. It’s going to take a while for me to put together enough money to ask for your hand.”
“Or,” said Kathy, “we could get married, let him disown me, and then work out the rest of it.”
Fisk, the cynical, practical ex-con man, who claimed to think all laws and most principles nonsense, simply shook his head.
I found it nothing short of miraculous that love had made my erstwhile squire determined to court my sister properly and honestly ... but in truth, this reformation couldn’t have overtaken Fisk at a worse time.
“You’d better keep lying,” I advised him. “If Father hears about this he’ll do everything in his power to separate you.”
And when my father did everything in his power, he succeeded.
Fisk, who all but lived by lies, grimaced in distaste. “Then you’re right — we’ll have to put up an act. Can you pretend to dislike me, love?”
“With ease,” said Kathy dryly.
But her eyes softened and her hand crept toward his. Fisk’s hand was already opening to receive it.
I tried to think of some way to prevent my father from clapping his underage daughter up in a tower, and having Fisk cudgel-crewed off to the northern timber camps. Or somewhere even worse.
Nothing came to me.
We reached Crown City in the late afternoon. Here in the Realm’s capital the street hawkers were selling everything from sausages to news-sheets to an offer to carve your face onto a cameo brooch. I kept True close to the horse’s heels as we rode through the bustling streets.
Most dwellings in the central plains are made of plastered mud brick, strengthened with great beams. The farther into the city we went, the larger the buildings became, and the more stone appeared in their construction. I saw gray granite, creamy marble, and a lovely rose-colored stone that judging by its rarity had been shipped from some distant quarry at considerable expense.
The palace rested at the top of a low hill, loosely cupped in a bend in the Erran River, which ran through the city, crossed by a score of bridges. In these peaceful times, ‘twas unusual to see patrolling guards on top of the high wall that had once been part of the old fortifications — though their braid and button encrusted tunics were more designed to impress than to defend anything. And those guards may have been more functional than they looked, for as we soon learned, someone had informed the Heir of our approach.
After we passed through the gate, Kathy, who had lived in this palace for some time, guided us off the carriag
e drive and across a well-cut lawn toward stables that she claimed lurked behind one of the sprawling wings. The palace had clearly begun as an old-fashioned keep, surrounded by numerous outbuildings and enough room for a good-sized village to take shelter behind its wall. But when the need for such defenses vanished with the ascension of the first High Liege, the outbuilding had given way to graveled paths, flowerbeds and fountains, and the keep had sprouted additions in a number of architectural styles, like branches of peach, pear and cherry grafted onto a gnarled old apple tree.
’Twas from a wing that sparkled with white marble and diamond-paned windows that a young man emerged, vaulting over the terrace railing in his hurry to reach us. Lace frothed at his throat and wrists, and his collar and cuffs were crusted with gold embroidery ... but once you got past his clothing, his rather ordinary face was tight with concern.
“She’s not with you?” he demanded, as soon as Kathy was within earshot. “She didn’t go to you?”
I had genuinely believed the lady would have returned by now, and my concern deepened — this task might require a knight errant after all.
“She’s not back yet?” Kathy had shared my hopes. “That means she’s been gone a night and two days. Rupert, something’s wrong.”
“You think I don’t know that?” The young man’s mouth twisted with worry. “I’d be frantic by now, except that if anyone kidnapped her it was probably Father. And he wouldn’t hurt her, no matter how crazy this is.”
At twenty-four, Rupert Roger Yvain Justin Ware was only a few years older than Fisk and me. But I knew his age, and all those names, because he was the oldest son of the High Liege, declared heir to the throne of the United Realm, and upon his father’s death he would become Liege and Ruler to us all.
“Why would your father do that?” My sister dismounted, and tossed her hired horse’s reins to the Liege Heir as if he were an under-groom. “I know he’s a bit miffed about Meg, but he has no reason to kidnap her. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to fall out of love if she’s gone for a while.”
Rupert Roger Yvain etc. led her horse toward the stables, and Fisk and I dismounted to tag along.
“And why do you think that anyone kidnapped her?” Kathy added. “At this point, I have to admit she might have met with an accident, but it might not be too bad.”
“Then why hasn’t she sent a message, to me or her family?” Rupert asked. “It must be that she can’t, either because someone’s stopping her, or because ... because she can’t. And besides, there’s the note. Someone sent that and she went to meet them. If whoever it was didn’t kidnap her then why haven’t they come for—”
“You do realize,” I said gently, “that none of us knows what you’re talking about. Slow down, Your Highness, and tell us about this note.”
It checked him, as I’d hoped it might, and he drew a deep breath.
“She got a note. Delivered by a paid messenger, shortly after breakfast yesterday. According to her maid, she took it into her room to read and then came out wearing a light cape — it’s still cool in the morning sometimes. Then she rushed off in a great hurry. I was hoping she’d gone to you, since you’re the closest friend she has. But she didn’t, and she hasn’t been seen since. So either the person she met took her, or something worse has happened. If I wasn’t so furious, I’d be relieved to think that Father has her.”
“But that’s crazy,” said Kathy. “There’s no reason for anyone to kidnap Meg.”
Rupert’s mouth tightened mulishly. “Someone sent that note, and then she vanished. And there’s something you don’t know, Kathy. Meg recently found out... I mean, she realized...”
“She got pregnant,” said Fisk. “That’s ... unfortunate.”
“You say that like she was the only one involved,” Kathy said critically. “You could just as well say that he got her pregnant. Rupert, this is my brother Michael and his rude friend Fisk.”
Despite their repeated failures to pretend indifference while we traveled, Kathy sounded convincingly annoyed and Fisk looked nettled.
“I’m sure they participated equally,” I said soothingly. “And I see that having a child would bind them even more tightly, which might distress the Liege. But at this point there’s no purpose to be served by separating you from your mistress. The damage is done.”
“You’re forgetting,” said Fisk, “about the project.”
“What proj— Oh. How ... unfortunate.”
We’d first learned of the Heir’s desire to wed his mistress in the course of what I claim as our last adventure, and Fisk refers to as “our most recent fiasco.” And one part of that adventure, which had entailed bribery, blackmail, scholarly sabotage and attempted murder, centered around an alchemical study designed to create Gifts in the Heir’s Giftless mistress — or at least, to make her bear Gifted children.
There are a host of lesser talents that seem to accompany the Gift for sensing magic, but the magic sensing Gift is the one that matters. Danger and disaster haunt those who harvest or destroy magica plants and animals, so ’tis easy to see why the people who could use that Gift to protect their fellows became barons and lords in the first place. ’Tis less necessary for human survival now ... but had he not disowned me, my father would have been displeased to see even his fourth son marry a Giftless woman. If my oldest brother had wanted to do so, the unlucky girl would have found herself shipped off to those far north timber camps before you could blink.
I was impressed that the Liege Heir’s Giftless lover had managed to remain by his side long enough to become pregnant, and that might speak well of the High Liege’s common sense. As Kathy had pointed out, kidnapping someone’s lover didn’t make them fall out of love. But if this Meg was pregnant...
“’Tis too late,” I pointed out. “When ’tis born, your first child will be Giftless. And unless you marry your lady before the birth, it won’t inherit, anyway.”
Which might actually give the High Liege a motive.
We rounded the end of the wing as I spoke, and the long low buildings of the stable came in view. The grooms saw Rupert as well, and a small swarm started toward us.
“Then why hasn’t she sent a message?” Rupert asked once more. “Or a note, or a...”
The grooms reached us, taking not only Kathy’s horse, but also Chant and Tipple. However my attention was distracted by the shouts of several gardeners, who had failed to keep True from chasing a rabbit into a flowerbed.
“...so I think whoever sent that note must have taken her,” the Heir concluded.
In truth, ’twas more likely she had met with an accident so severe that she couldn’t reveal her identity or send for help — which made it painfully clear why he clung to the theory that his father had his lover safely tucked away.
Not wanting to convey this depressing fact I called my dog, who came loping up with his tongue hanging out in a big, canine grin. Hounds are bred for tracking instead of speed, but he likes chasing rabbits even though he never catches them. I ordered True to go to the stable with the grooms and he obeyed me as well as he usually does, frisking around them and emitting his rasping non-bark. True is mute, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.
Rupert watched this show in some bemusement. “I wasn’t worried at first. Meg’s free to come and go as she pleases.”
One of the grooms produced a rope and captured True, and the others were leading the horses away — though they weren’t moving briskly. If Rupert didn’t mind them overhearing I saw no reason I should care.
“I started to wonder when she didn’t show up by afternoon. When she wasn’t back by dinnertime I sent to her family, to see if she was there. Her brother came back with my messenger, and he said they hadn’t seen her for several days.”
He’d turned toward the palace, seemingly without thinking about it. Neither Fisk nor I was dressed for court — indeed, neither of us owned clothes fit for court — but we weren’t there to attend upon the Liege.
“That’s
when I checked with her maid, and then I went to Father and asked for a troop to search for her in town, see if she’d met with some accident...” The distress in Rupert’s face melted into anger. “He said she probably got the vapors, as pregnant women do, and ran off to a friend somewhere. That she’d come back when her nerves settled. Meg isn’t some flighty ninny, but... Once her pregnancy became known, all the people we had working on ways to make her children Gifted... Did Kathy tell you about that?”
“We came across one of those projects,” Fisk said. “And from what I saw, if your father kidnapped her to keep her out of the scholar’s hands, he did her a favor.”
“Their solutions aren’t safe to try yet,” Rupert agreed. “They acknowledge that themselves. But some of them are getting close, and all their solutions work while the child is forming in the womb. The moment Meg said she was pregnant they practically swarmed out of the woodwork. And some of their ‘promising results’ were pretty horrible. I’d never put Meg or our child at risk, and she knows that. But she was upset, and I thought she might have gone to you, Kathy.”
’Twas now nearly evening. A night and the better part of two days was a long time for someone in Mistress Margaret’s state to go missing. It seemed that something must have happened to the poor woman, and ’twas clearly our duty to discover what it was. And yet...
“Pregnant women can be taken by odd fancies,” I said. “We’ve an aunt who refused to leave the ground floor of any building the last few months before her child was born.”
“That’s right,” Kathy said. “And it wasn’t that she couldn’t climb the stairs. She said the child didn’t like being surrounded by air. By the time she was ten, Lucinda had climbed every tall tree on the estate. But even if some odd fancy took her, why wouldn’t Meg have sent a message?”
“You’re forgetting the note,” said Fisk. “It does sound like someone sent for her. Of course, she might be staying with the person who summoned her, and it’s her message that she was going to be gone for a few days that went missing.”
That was more likely than kidnapping and more hopeful than some horrible accident. Both Rupert and Kathy’s faces brightened.