Paragon Lost

by Dave Duncan

  “Princess Olga. Sergei, I mean—sir.”

  “Timofei, Sergei, Lord Wassail, and three Blades. That’s six. Sir Cuthbert—he’s a knight, quite handy with a sword— and Wilf, his custler. He’s not exactly king’s counselor material, if you follow me, but horses will turn somersaults for him.”

  That did not sound very helpful, but she understood. “Makes eight. No Skyrrians?” she added suspiciously.

  “Seems not. They’d never be able to come back, see?”

  “Not just two sleds, I hope?”

  “No, Beau said we’d take three.” Oak looked doubtful. “How hard are those troikas to drive?”

  “Easy enough.” Nobility traveling around Kiensk or their estates liked having the center horse trot and the two outside horses gallop in different styles. That needed a professional driver, but Tasha had driven a standard “unicorn” team often enough.

  A rather chesty boy swept in and said, “Darling! You look wonderful!”

  “I don’t think you should call me that, Sergei, dear! It isn’t manly.”

  They hugged, sniggering nervously. The swordsman looked shocked.

  Time slipped by faster with Olga there. A swordsman entered, carrying a load of furs, and was followed in by Lord Wassail, leaning on his cane. He bowed to each of them.

  “Your Majesty, Your Highness. This is the last time I shall give you titles until we have left Skyrria. And this is your last chance to change your mind—Timofei.”

  “We do not change our mind!”

  “Spoken like a queen born to the purple.” He smiled horribly. How could a man so ugly be so likeable?

  She did not feel brave. “I have questions, Your Excellency. I fear my uncle the Czar, but I fear winter more. Have we heated bricks to keep our feet warm? You have packed food, but no liquids that will freeze? What provision have you made for watering the horses and what tools and implements do you carry for emergencies?”

  “Beau?” He turned to his companion, the handsome, insolent one who had danced with Sophie.

  The man’s eyes gleamed like silver buttons over the bundle he carried. “Hot bricks, yes. A week’s supply of food, leather canteens, no bottles. For water: axes, buckets, and rope. Oats for the horses. Shovels, lantern and tinderbox, a few pots and spoons, basic farrier equipment, and straps for repairing tack…we did take advice from Skyrrians.” He was amused at her!

  “I am relieved to hear it. I shall inspect the rigs.”

  “I was going to ask you to do so.”

  Three sleds and nine horses completely filled the yard behind the house. Tasha walked all around them with Beaumont at her heels and was peeved that she could find no fault with anything. The third swordsman and a vacant-faced youth were already settling into the front sled, a large man was helping Olga into the third, and the rear seats of both those were high-piled with baggage, so clearly she and Lord Wassail and two swordsmen were to ride in the second. He was large enough in indoor clothing; in furs he took up almost all the passenger bench. She scrambled up on the front seat.

  Smartalecky Beaumont joined her and adjusted robes around them both.

  “I’ll drive!” she said, prepared to argue.

  His smile almost blew her out of the sled. “That’s an excellent idea!” He glanced around to see if everyone was ready, and then called, “Arkell?” to the swordsman in the front sled.

  “Leader?”

  “Go. Stop when you reach the sea.”

  As she steered the team out into the street, Tasha realized that she was trembling, but not from cold. “This is exciting!”

  “Let us hope it stays at exciting,” the Chivian said, “and does not mature into fine vintage terror. The best news is that a party of streltsy rode out North Gate a little while ago, following a pack of gigantic dogs.”

  “The Czar!”

  “Certainly. He can’t disguise that nose of his. Seems no one dares make decisions when he’s not around, so when the boyars finally realize that the Ambassador has absconded, they probably won’t do more than send Igor a message, and that may take days to find him.”

  “I hope so.” Managing a unicorn team in a crowded city was a little harder than she had expected.

  “How long before you’re missed, do you think?”

  “Two days at least.” That had been Sophie’s estimate. “After that, the stars will decide.”

  “The boyars may think we’ve kidnapped you. That’ll be more serious. They’ll send the army after us.”

  Unless Sophie could distract them. Even Dimitri and Yelena did not know yet that Tasha had left. She would never see them again. She had not said good-bye and she mustn’t think about that or her cheeks would be covered with icicles.

  Three troikas rushed unchallenged out the West Gate of Kiensk and nobody noticed that the heavily muffled driver of the second one was the Queen of Chivial. The towers and walls of the city soon blurred and shrank away. With them went servants to prepare beds, dress hair, lay out clothes, empty chamber pots. Neither Tasha nor Olga had ever had to fend for herself before.

  Skyrria was a marble corpse asleep in a shroud of ice haze, dreaming of a distant spring. Only overhead did a sickly blue show through, and the only wind was the rush of their own speed, which snatched breath away and peppered faces with gritty snow. Snow muffled the beat of hooves and the hiss of runners, so there was little sound as the three sleds hurtled westward over the frozen land. Traffic on the trail was light. Stark trees and cottages were black scribbles on the whiteness.

  Home lay to the east, so Tasha would be seeing country new to her. “Who’s our guide?”

  “Arkell. He’s got an infallible sense of direction and an incredible memory for maps. We took advice from some locals, though.”

  “And where will we stay tonight?”

  “Anywhere we can find,” the swordsman said cheerfully. “The moon is just past the full, so it all depends on the horses.”

  “It all depends on the weather! And on not getting lost. Who were these experts who helped you with so much good advice?”

  Beaumont tried his woman-killing smile again, but most of his face was covered, so it lacked impact. “I swore not to reveal names, Timofei.”

  “I remind you that I am your Queen, Sir Beaumont!”

  “Only if I can get you safely to Chivial, Your Majesty.”

  Insolence! A lowborn insolent mercenary refusing to answer her questions?

  “I am curious to know. I certainly will not repeat their names. Now tell me.”

  He smiled and went back to studying the landscape.

  • 9 •

  In Skyrria, by custom, on the day after a wedding the female guests gathered again to display their second-best gowns and dissect the proceedings. These nuptial wakes were almost the only occasions on which women might drink wine in the absence of their husbands, and a state wedding without a bridegroom was especially noteworthy. It was no surprise, therefore, that the assembly of princesses and boyars’ wives over which Czarina Sophie presided soon became raucous, even boisterous, requiring no hostessing efforts from her. This was fortunate, because she was torn between nerve-racking anxiety and a numbing need to close her eyes and sleep for a week. She would have heard by now if Tasha had been caught while leaving the city, but the days of peril had only just begun.

  She was the only person in Kiensk who knew the full extent of the conspiracy. The remaining Chivians would mask Lord Wassail’s departure by staying busy and visible—buying food in the market, lighting up windows at dusk—but few of them knew that their new queen had gone with him. None had been told about the Pickled Fish, a curious Chivian term Beau used to refer to a special little chicanery he had devised.

  Sophie must cover for her sister as best she could without implicating herself. Today Tasha was supposedly in the process of moving her household back to the Temkin Palace, so half her abandoned ladies-in-waiting now thought she had gone there and they would follow as soon as the rooms were ready. The rest ha
d gone ahead and expected her to follow. Tomorrow the Czarina could reasonably be indisposed. By the day after, Igor would almost certainly have come roaring back to High Town and Sophie must just hope that his rage would be aimed entirely at the missing Chivians.

  The only aid she had given Beau that might incriminate her had been travel directions to the Dvono, dictated by Voevode Afanasii. The old man would never betray her and had now vanished back into his retirement at Faritsov. The Chivians themselves had done almost everything else, even supplying garments for the fake Timofei. It was only because Sophie had managed to convince Beau that she would not be in danger that he had agreed to take Tasha along; his loyalty was to his ward. It was only because she feared for his life if he remained in Kiensk that she had helped him plan the flight.

  Life was cruel when love itself forced lovers to contrive their own separation. Last night she had wept in his arms.

  They had found no time for sleep, certainly, and thus today she sat on her chair of state and struggled to stay conscious while exchanging pleasantries with the noble ladies drifting by. Two hundred others stood around, drinking, munching, and shouting over the din. She was seriously considering the merits of staging a diplomatic swoon, which would be a dramatic announcement of her happy condition and would certainly result in her being carried off to bed. On the other hand, healers would start fussing over her and someone might start a hunt for Tasha.

  Suddenly a worried herald was bowing before her and awareness of danger blew thoughts of swooning right out of her mind.

  Out in the corridor Chief Boyar Skuratov fussed in such a state of agitation that his silver beard almost stood on end. He had brought his usual knot of attendants, but he shooed them all away like chickens so he could be alone with the Czarina under a window. The paper he held out to her shook violently, as did his reedy old voice.

  “Your Majesty! I beg of you—is this the Czarevich’s hand?”

  It was the Pickled Fish. Neither Beau or Sophie had dreamed it might trap her instead of its intended victims— the dithery old man had never tried to shift his problems onto her shoulders before. Perhaps Igor had returned already and his evil mind already sought to implicate her in the conspiracy. She held the evidence to the light and struggled to think while pretending to read its illiterate scrawl. If she were truly innocent, how would she react, what would she say?

  “Oh, this is frightful! Wicked! This is high treason!”

  Skuratov’s eyes were bulging with terror. “Yes, yes! But is it genuine?”

  “I cannot…I mean, I have rarely seen anything written by the Czarevich. How in the world did you come by this? It is a joke in very bad taste, surely?”

  “No. It cannot be. But is the writing genuine? Oh, spirits! What can I do?” He was close to gibbering.

  “You must inform the Czar immediately. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Chief Boyar wailed. “He has left the city.”

  “He did not tell me he was going.” She folded up the damning evidence and firmly handed it back. “Send messengers to every place he may have gone—Czaritsyn, of course, but any others you can think of, a dozen if necessary. You will have to spell out the problem very clearly in your letters, lest he suspect a trap. And best write them yourself, so he can know your writing.”

  “Yes, yes, of course!” The old man was melting with relief at having someone give him orders.

  “That way as few people as possible learn of the problem.” And the process would take as long as possible.

  “That is exactly why I consulted you, Your Majesty.”

  “I am happy that you did. You have the Chivian house under surveillance?”

  “Just one watcher in the building across the street, plus the usual delivery people and minor servants.”

  “I would suggest you put all your best men there, Chief Boyar—but discreetly, of course.”

  He nodded vigorously, flapping his beard. “Of course!”

  “And perhaps—with the greatest prudence—you should have Czarevich Fedor’s movements noted also?”

  “Oh, that is standard procedure, Czarina.”

  She was not surprised. Several of her ladies-in-waiting were spies, and Igor had more reason to distrust his heir than his wife. He probably spied on his dogs.

  “And Voevode Viazemski?”

  “Him too, naturally.”

  “Then I think you have the matter under complete control, Chief Boyar. Personally, I find it beyond belief. Remember that your office is not the only branch of government keeping watch on others. This paper may have been planted in…planted wherever it was found, I mean, by some of His Majesty’s other loyal servants, possibly even on his orders.”

  Skuratov brightened considerably. “That is indeed true, Your Majesty.”

  “A more probable explanation than treason by Czarevich Fedor.”

  “Certainly!” He beamed toothlessly.

  She could not resist adding, “It may even be a test of your own loyalty and efficiency?”

  He blanched and said, “Oh!” very faintly.

  “Unlikely, I’m sure. But you will take those precautions I suggested?”

  “Oh, of course! Thank you, Czarina, thank you!”

  • 10 •

  Again and again Arkell had warned them that vague talk of heading west to the Dvono and then south to Dvonograd was very different from finding a passable route across unfamiliar country, but neither Beau nor the Walrus had been willing to listen.

  Admittedly, the first day went quite well. Beau would not say who had given him directions, but only a soldier and probably a man experienced in command would have provided such detail: “West by north for two-thirds of an hour to the ruined fort; west-northwest veering southwest by west for one quarter hour to the ford with a jetty on the near bank.” And so on. Alas, to a foreigner’s eye the landmarks were all too similar—how many trees made a clump, and was that a village or a large farm? Arkell was forbidden to stop and ask, even if the peasants would have stayed to tell him instead of just running for cover.

  A couple of hours into the journey the directions themselves became vague, as if now they were based on hearsay, but Arkell already knew he was lost. All he could do was keep heading west. Villages became rarer and traffic nonexistent, until roads were indistinguishable. Fortunately, there were few fences or hedges. Even in Chivial, major highways were usually more visible on maps than on the ground, and it was no rarity to see a dozen muddy tracks braided, with a coach or wagon struggling to add another. Here the ground was marble-smooth and marble-white. So long as the horses could find footing, the sleds would run. Runners were tougher than wheels and axles, too.

  They were making good time. He would know the Dvono when he saw it tomorrow.

  At least he was not distracted by chatter from his companion. To call the taciturn Wilf a halfwit would have been unkind, a three-quarter wit generous, but the man had an incredible affinity for horses. Whenever there was space, the other drivers would pull alongside, so the custler could watch over all three teams. He seemed to know each animal’s worries by instinct and he called a halt the moment a hoof became plugged with ice.

  By the time the west burned scarlet, the horses were worn out and Arkell was half blind from staring into the light. Ice-flat grassland had given way to slightly rolling country patched with scrub that made hard going for both horses and sleds. He had seen no houses for a long time, so when a settlement showed to the north, he headed straight for it. It had once been the home of some boyar or minor prince, a grand building surrounded by barns and cottages, but it had been sacked and abandoned years ago. There were no human tracks in the snow.

  They found a one-room cottage that had kept most of the weather out, located the well, built a fire, and set the women and the Walrus to tending it. Then everyone else went to help Wilf with the horses until he was satisfied that they were faring as well as possible. It was then Arkell thought he heard a faint wail in the distance—a long, blo
odcurdling howl in the dusk. Wolf? He caught Beau’s eye but no one said anything and the call was not repeated.

  Sir Cuthbert of Canbridge was a large and physically powerful man. His speech was almost as laconic as his custrel’s, but he was probably the brightest of Sir Dixon’s knights, and certainly the best swordsman among them. An experienced campaigner, he organized the camp, demonstrating how to thaw out hunks of sausage in ashes and build makeshift bedding of scrub. The two women did nothing to help, either from habit or because they were in shock at the primitive conditions. Wassail seemed to be in pain, for he ate almost nothing and spoke little. His spirits were high, though. He chuckled a lot at having outwitted the detestable Czar.

  Five slept around the fire. Three kept watch, usually huddled together to keep warm, but also fetching firewood under the cold moon, heating the bricks that would keep feet warm for a few hours in the morning, waiting through an endless winter night.

  They did not stay for daylight. The fire began smoking more than before. A rising wind was stirring the snow, and Beau became worried enough to waken the sleepers. Queen Tasha agreed that the weather was changing and the expedition should find better shelter while it still could. The moon was bright enough, so they struck camp and moved out before first light.

  Even when dawn came, the going was much harder than before. This was the country Hakluyt had named for Beau’s sword—Just Desert. Depopulated and abandoned, it had reverted to scrub that hid thorns, stumps, and hazards of all sorts. Soon the wind cut like a sword, so Arkell perforce turned south to put their backs to it. Then he was no longer leading his ward to the border, but there was a fifty-fifty chance—and his bump of direction said more than fifty-fifty—that he would soon intersect the road from Kiensk to Morkuta. Morkuta was inhabited. They would find shelter there and perhaps danger also, but without shelter they were going to die.

  A perverse trick of memory kept tormenting him with visions of that brave day back in Fourthmoon when three proud new Blades had ridden the lanes of Isilond to Laville, escorting their ward. They had not expected their mission to end in this ignominious flight.