Darim had. It had been her duty to be grateful, her duty to marry him as a reward, and she'd refused it. Perhaps she did not deserve to be a princess after all.
She wandered warily, looking for a place out of the wind and out of the way. At last she crept over a fence near the edge and found a tarpaulin over an open pleasure coach. She curled in the dark beneath it, her warm breath on her hands, and imagined she was gliding to her sister's court.
Each day she lined up at the free kitchen for two meals; each night she found another hiding place. She asked shopkeepers for work, and offered herself as a servant to householders; one took her in, but threw her out after two days when it was clear she could neither cook nor clean. Save for that one chance at a borrowed washbasin, she grew dirtier and dirtier. But Tharo, who ran the kitchen, did not seem to mind; he usually talked with her when she came in. She learned his story: he was the son of a wealthy merchant who'd inherited enough property to keep him the rest of his life in style, but used it to run the free kitchen instead.
After almost a full turn of the largest moon, she found him frazzled and the line longer than usual.
"Bennek is sick," he said, referring to his older son. "You're in here almost every day. Could you spare a little time to help me out?"
"I'm sorry to hear that. Of course I could," Tekelei said, and frowned down at her grimy hands.
"Go wash, and meet me when you're done. There's a washbasin and soap in the back, and there should be a couple of clean towels."
Tekelei almost cried with relief. She could do little about her clothes, but at least her skin was no longer sticky.
Tharo, fortunately, directed her in everything: fetch these dirty bowls, mop that spill, peel and chop these carrots. She was slow and made mistakes, but he seemed grateful for the help. And after, when the guests were cleared out and the room and kitchen cleaned, he let her sleep rolled in a blanket on one of the tables and lent her a smock so she could wash her clothes.
Bennek recovered, but Tekelei kept helping. Sometimes Tharo and his sons would ask about her life; she'd elaborate on the same story, and he looked a little skeptical but never said anything to doubt her.
She became a nightly lodger like several other trusted regulars, until one day her life changed again.
*~*~*
The elodon Neneya was pursuing rode a gust far ahead; a distant cloud winked over it, and it was gone.
Neneya swore. This had been the worst moon-turn since she'd started hunting. She'd been better as an apprentice.
This time of year, birds tended to congregate up higher, near the Six Lesser Kingdoms and the thin-air frontier above. Even there she'd had little luck. She'd gone so high pinpricks had tingled in her fingers and she'd gasped for air, but all she'd bagged today was one small emek, bled and stiffening in a saddlebag.
She was tempted to roast it herself, but emeks sold for good money. Just before light this morning she'd eaten a jerked haunch of a songbird she'd managed to catch two days ago, and some mountain berries, but nothing since. Ilaka, at least, could graze on skymoss, grass, and grubs.
She wasn't even sure where she was any more until she glided down and sighted a familiar city: Kilibara, which she was approaching from the side opposite the palace.
No one would recognize her at the port, though it was possible palace guards might. She'd stop at the port and rest both herself and Ilaka, who was sweating and blowing after a long day's flight.
They touched down in the public landing field. She rubbed down Ilaka and spent her last remaining coins on stable space. She'd have to sleep in the stable with Ilaka, but she'd slept in the open with her plenty.
In addition to the emek, she still had the bandit's knife, which perhaps she could sell, and the Falcon Brotherhood torc and princess's shawl, which she certainly dared not, especially here.
None of her regular customers were here. With Ilaka secured, she wandered up the streets as daylight dimmed, looking for a place that might pay her for an emek. A crowd of ragged people was gathering on a side street. Curious as to what had drawn their attention, she sidled to the periphery and peeked over a short woman's head.
Beside the door of a nondescript building was a painting of a steaming bowl of stew. The scent of roast spiced goose drifted from an open window, half torment and half delight.
Perhaps this was a potential buyer. She joined the waiting crowd.
A small young woman in drab old clothes opened the door and stepped aside.
Neneya would speak to the proprietor as soon as she got a chance. The line shuffled forward. Ahead, two boys and a man bustled about behind a table serving and cleaning. She grasped for an opening as she waited; doing business with butchers and innkeepers was the part of her work she was usually worst at. But when she met the eyes of the woman ladling soup into her bowl, all preparation fled.
She'd seen that face only once, but she'd remember it forever. The blue faith-marks were gone, the intricate braids had become a loose black puff like Neneya's own but larger―but the gentle curve of the brow, the flattish nose turned up at the tip, the full lips, were all Princess Tekelei.
Neneya opened her mouth, paused, and realized she was staring and holding up the line.
"Something the matter, miss?" The woman who looked exactly like Princess Tekelei―but couldn't be―sounded unsettled herself; the ladle wobbled in her hand.
"I don't have any money, Your Highness," Neneya said, in a voice lacking breath. So much for doing smooth business.
Tekelei's mouth fell open in shock, and she nearly dropped the ladle. "Please don't call me that," she whispered urgently, glancing around, then visibly forced herself to a semblance of her earlier calm and managed to hand Neneya her bowl without spilling much. "That's the point of this place, miss. We serve people who don't have any money."
So it was Princess Tekelei—in rags. Secretly slumming? Suffering some kind of punishment? Neneya didn't dare ask.
Neneya's stomach was churning with anxiety, but she was hungry enough that she managed to eat anyway, perched on the end of a bench. She stole a few quick glances at Tekelei, who glanced back with a mix of apprehension and puzzlement.
Once Neneya was done and awkwardly handing in her empty bowl, Tekelei flagged down the man who ran the place. "I'll be right back," she told him, then pointed to a door in the back and whispered, "Follow me," to Neneya.
Outside in an alley, amid ash heaps, bones, and fruit peels, Princess Tekelei faced Neneya. "If he sent you," she hissed, "the answer is still no."
"No one sent me," Neneya said, unsure what she meant and clamping down her lips on Your Highness. "I'm a hunter looking to sell a fresh kill." She indicated the harpoon at her back covered in a skin sheath. "This place was near the landing field, and it smelled good."
Tekelei's brows went up in surprise. She paused and seemed to reconsider whatever she was going to say. "The landing field? So, you fly?" Her eyes lit.
Neneya was meeting a beautiful princess, and the princess was impressed by her. Any moment she'd wake up with Ilaka snoring in her ear. "Of course. Can't see how I'd catch much otherwise." She shouldn't be so familiar with a princess―but the princess was in ragged clothes serving stew to beggars and refusing to be called Your Highness.
"On a fenyara?" Tekelei managed a half-smile. "I've never ridden one. What's it like?"
"Freedom," Neneya said.
Tekelei's half-smile broadened into a whole one. But then she seemed to remember herself and where she was. "Where have you seen me before?" she asked, quietly. "I don't know you."
"I killed the bandits who tried to kidnap you," Neneya said.
"What?" Tekelei took a step back, unbalancing and catching herself on the wall.
"I wanted to say something to you, but the guards were coming and I was afraid they'd catch me and think I was a bandit, too."
"How?" Tekelei managed.
"They saw I was a good shot, so they took me prisoner and threatened me into killing your gua
rd skrika. I'm sorry." Neneya rushed the words out. "I tricked them. I lured them in and managed to kill one quietly. The second one yelled and roused the guards before I got him, so I had to run. The third one tried to kill me on the way out, but I really was a better shot."
Tekelei's mouth hung open. Then she shut it, and Neneya could almost see the thoughts churning behind her eyes. "I thought I heard a woman's voice by the window," she said. "And the guards said there was a man and a woman fighting each other on their way down from my tower, but they didn't know why."
Neneya had come this far; she might as well unburden her conscience fully. "The one chasing me at the end… well, he and I landed on the same island. I found his torc. Falcon Brotherhood." She felt her face twisting in disgust at the memory of his corpse as she dug the torc from her belt-purse.
Tekelei's eyes widened.
"And… they said I had to signal them that I had control over you. So I used your shawl. And I didn't have the chance to return it." Hands unsteady, Neneya drew it out of her belt-purse as well. "I'm sorry. I'm especially sorry it's ruined."
Tekelei goggled at the white shawl, with its embroidered heraldic symbols and its stains of old blood near the edge. "So that's where it went," she murmured, and touched it sadly. "There doesn't seem to be blood on the embroidered part. Maybe someone could cut the central section out and sew it to something else for… well." She looked down. "I can't really make plans for my seamstresses anymore."
Neneya gave her a puzzled look.
"My father threw me out because I wouldn't marry Prince Darim after he claimed he killed all the bandits. Father took my good clothes―and here I am."
"He claimed he killed all the bandits?" It angered Neneya on a personal level that someone would steal credit for her hard-fought battle. She looked down at the battered torc and stained shawl in her hands. "I wonder if we can prove him wrong."
"Tela?" A boy's voice called from within.
"I'll be right back," Tekelei shouted back, and turned again to Neneya. "Who are you?"
"My name is Neneya. Daughter of Kenem and Lilafa, homesteaders near the Greater Kingdoms; former apprentice of the hunter Akafu Greencoat." She bowed her head. "No one of importance; just someone who tricked some bandits to save her own skin."
Tekelei smiled. "Meet me tomorrow early in the morning… Neneya. We're going to the palace."
*~*~*
In the morning, Tekelei washed in the back room and helped Tharo and the boys make porridge for breakfast and dough for the day's flatbread, but she kept looking out the back window at the alley.
At last, four soft knocks at the back door made her jump.
She scrubbed flour from her hands with a towel. "That's the visitor I was going to see," she said. "She might have work for me, so I might have to leave you. But I'll be sure to visit."
Fluffing her hair nervously, Tekelei opened the back door.
Neneya was there, the same extraordinary figure that had made Tekelei's blood rush when she'd seen her the day before: a tall broad-shouldered woman, strength visible in the firm curves of her muscles and the decisive confidence with which she moved, dusty and smelling of fenyara but dizzyingly handsome. A woman who'd lived Tekelei's dream of flight: bold, clever, and well-traveled, no doubt with a wealth of tales from her life. Tekelei could feel Neneya's large dark eyes meet her own. "You came back!" she exclaimed softly.
Neneya gave her a crooked smile. "Of course, Your―" She put one hand to her mouth. "Sorry."
"Come in and wash," Tekelei said. "We're going to the palace."
Tekelei stood guard over the back room while Neneya cleaned herself up as best she could and changed into her spare clothing. An image teased her mind of Neneya, nude and sculpted in muscle, rubbing soap over herself and glistening wet.
Neneya came out patting her hair into place behind a headband. "Thanks. I've never been presented to royalty before." She paused. "Well, on purpose anyway."
As they walked across the city to the palace, Tekelei prepared herself for how she'd approach the palace servants―and her father. "Meli, my maid, saw what happened, and two guards saw at least part of it. If we can get them to talk, they'll be more evidence to add to yours."
"The ones I was running away from."
"Yes. I heard them say they wondered why the two bandits getting away were fighting each other."
"That would be me and Badur, the last one to come up after I'd signaled the others." Neneya grimaced. "I'm sorry about leaving dead men on your floor. I'm fairly sure that's terrible manners."
"Better than hauling me off to the Falcon Brotherhood's stronghold."
Neneya smiled.
*~*~*
At the palace gate, the guard to whom they spoke was clearly torn between deference to Tekelei and fear of her father's wrath. It was a conflict she'd seen in many servants over the years, and she was sorry for her part in it; no matter what they did, they would be disappointing someone vastly more powerful. "Your Highness! It's… good to see you well. But His Majesty has decreed that you aren't to be let in."
"I have very important information I need to tell him," Tekelei said, "and proof of it." She took a deep breath. "Prince Darim did not kill the bandits who tried to kidnap me. Neneya the hunter did. She was their prisoner, and they were forcing her to help them, but she turned on them and saved me before the guards even arrived."
The guard stared.
"Neneya has proof. She has both the torc from the neck of one of the bandits who tried to get away and the shawl that disappeared from my room that night."
Neneya brought forth both from her belt purse.
"Meli and the guards who were at my door can give further evidence."
The guard went pale. "I'll… let me consult with my superior, Your Highness, please," he said, and hurried inside.
*~*~*
Guards surrounded them as though they were prisoners but brought them before King Yenok, enthroned, thunder on his face.
In one of the chairs at the edge of the dais, below the throne but above the floor, Darim sat stiffly; apparently, they had interrupted a discussion between the king and his would-be son-in-law. Darim stood, one hand raised. "Princess Tekelei, I can explain―"
"Sit down, Prince Darim!" Yenok's voice was not quite a shout, but there was steel in it. Darim paled and sat.
Neneya, hands shaking a little, held out the torc to Yenok. She held one corner of the shawl; Tekelei, stepping to the side, held the other, so that it was spread taut to show both the family and personal heraldry and the bloodstains.
Tekelei motioned forth the two guards who had been stationed outside her room and her maid Meli.
"I... " Meli glanced fearfully at Darim, her eyes huge. He narrowed his eyes in menace. "I can't say anything, not in front of him!"
"You are under my protection," King Yenok said. "No one will harm you for anything you say, no matter what it is. I only command you to tell the truth." He shot Darim a stern look. "If she is harmed, Prince Darim and his kingdom will pay."
Meli fell to her knees before the dais and sobbed. "Prince Darim said he'd have me killed if I said what really happened. Please forgive me, Your Highness, Your Majesty. Please. I'll do anything, for the rest of my life."
"It's all right, Meli." Tekelei laid one hand gently on Meli's back.
Darim turned toward the king, sweat gleaming on his forehead. "I never―Your Majesty, she's just a hysterical maid, she's very imaginative―"
"Do you dare lie to me further?" Yenok made a quelling gesture, and Darim's mouth shut. Yenok then turned to Tekelei and the guards, and his eyebrows furrowed into a deeper V. "There were supposed to be four guards at your room."
"The other two were sick and didn't show up for duty that night, Your Majesty," said one of the two guards. He genuflected and bowed over his knee, and his companion followed. "We're terribly sorry, Your Majesty. Please, have mercy on us."
"Was this your doing, as well, Prince Darim?" Yenok's voice had ri
sen to a greater pitch of fury.
"No, Your Majesty." Darim quailed further, as if realizing the full extent of what he was being accused of. "I had nothing to do with the kidnapping. I swear on the Heavens and my own soul!"
"Is he telling the truth?" Yenok demanded.
"This time, yes. According to what the bandits told me when they took me captive, Your Majesty, the other two were bribed by the Falcon Brotherhood," Neneya said. Tekelei nodded along.
Yenok's upper lip drew back, showing teeth. "Falcon infiltrators in my palace. This is… unwelcome news, but necessary." He turned to Neneya, who drew back a little. "You will have to tell me everything you've been able to learn about the Falcon Brotherhood."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Yenok then turned to Prince Darim―who started trembling visibly.
"Prince Darim, you are banished from Kilibara, and you may not return. Any greater punishment would cause… an incident, and I wish to maintain peace with Talakar. Your servants will pack immediately, and you will depart today. You are dismissed."
Darim slumped over and buried his face in his hands. He sat there unmoving for a few moments, then stood and shot Tekelei a look of bitter hate.
She only smiled.
He snarled and stalked off, several guards following as if to make sure he tried nothing foolish.
Yenok sighed and turned back to Tekelei. "I suppose we will have to find you a different husband. If anyone will have such a disobedient girl."
"Yes, Father." An idea came to Tekelei's mind. "If I may suggest it, the court at Kunaka is larger than our own. If you permit, I might have success there."
Yenok paused to consider. "You might." He sighed. "It would do me good for you not to be underfoot for a while."
It was the best she could hope for from her father, and it was enough. Tekelei went down on one knee and kissed his hand in proper, daughterly, obedient gratitude.
Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8 Page 22