“We need to pick up a couple of broadsheets,” Jade said, as they passed another crier. “They won’t tell us the truth, but at least they’ll tell us what lies the king wants us to believe.”
“Or the nobility,” Emily said. Zangaria hadn’t quite got the idea of a free press. The broadsheets were a combination of the worst of tabloid journalism and the devious misrepresentations of Pravda. “I doubt we’ll learn anything too useful from them.”
They pulled up beside an inn and Jade clambered down, hurrying inside to get a room. Emily allowed her gaze to wander down the street as she waited, noting that there were seven inns on the same street. It looked odd, as if they were forced into cutthroat competition, but she could see the logic behind it. The innkeepers could hardly rent the same room out to several different people at the same time, while the town council probably liked the idea of keeping all the outsiders in the same general area. Chatham might survive and prosper through trade, but the residents wouldn’t welcome too many guests.
She shook her head, ruefully. Chatham was too small, despite the recent expansion, to take many runaway serfs, let alone offer them the opportunities they needed. She had a feeling that most runaway serfs headed to Alexis or tried to catch a boat to Beneficence or Cockatrice. There had been complaints from the other barons, if she recalled correctly, about underground railroads being set up by former serfs. The barons hadn’t been able to do anything about it, either. A serf who escaped arrest for a year and a day was a free man.
Jade returned, looking grim. “No room at the inn,” he said, flatly. “Wait here. I’ll check the next inn.”
Emily felt cold. If they couldn’t find an inn...what then? They could sleep in the wagon, if necessary, but that might wind up with them being arrested for vagrancy. Chatham wasn’t likely to let strangers sleep on its streets. They’d have to bribe the guardsman who caught them or...or do something to him. She really didn’t want to have to kill a guardsman. The entire town would be after them.
“Success,” Jade called, running back to them. “We have a room. Let’s get the horses put away.”
“Thank the gods,” Cat said. “I was starting to worry that your face was putting them off.”
“I’m not the one with a face like a squashed tomato.” Jade snorted, rudely. “I think the last inn was genuinely full.”
Emily helped the boys lead the horses to the stable, then followed them up the stairs and into the room. It was surprisingly clean, although she supposed she shouldn’t have been too surprised. The New Learning had been good for Chatham. Everyone knew that insects–and coughs and sneezes–spread diseases. No one would bat an eyelid here if an innkeeper who skimped on the cleaning was marched outside, stripped naked and scrubbed thoroughly with a wire brush. The town even smelled better than average. Anyone who threw their wastes into the street could be assured of a beating. It wasn’t pleasant, but it worked.
“I could live here,” Cat said, stretching out on the bed. “Which cover story did you tell them?”
Jade shot him a reproving look. “We’re hired guards, looking to spend our bonuses before we go back on the road,” he said. “I did tell you all this, you know.”
Emily rolled her eyes at the bickering as she inspected the washroom. It was primitive, but at least it was clean. They wouldn’t need to use chamberpots this time. And there was running water...cold running water, admittedly, but still running water. She splashed some on her face, then tied her hair into a long ponytail and brushed down her clothes. There was no way she’d be taken for a local, particularly after she opened her mouth, but at least casual watchers wouldn’t assume she was a streetwalker. It would probably be better to claim she was Jade or Cat’s sister.
The boys changed into casual clothes, hiding their leathers under the bed even though they kept their weapons with them. They didn’t look like mercenaries any longer, thankfully; they looked like young blades around town. Emily had a feeling it wouldn’t fool anyone for very long–Chatham was still too small for a young blade to be a complete stranger–but it was unlikely that anyone would connect Jade with the Prince Consort. She just hoped that Randor’s men weren’t on the lookout for Cat too.
“Let’s go,” Jade said. “We don’t have that long until nightfall.”
“This isn’t an isolated inn,” Cat pointed out. “Chatham won’t have a curfew.”
“Not normally, no,” Jade agreed. “But now...?”
“Come on,” Emily said. Being caught out after dark might not be a problem, but Jade was right. There was no point in taking chances. “I want to get something to eat.”
The streets seemed even more crowded as the working day came to an end. Emily looked around with interest, noting how the old and new worlds seemed to have collided. A bookshop sat next to a temple, a street kitchen was placed right in front of a burger bar...she couldn’t help smiling as she saw the young men and women lining up for burgers, while the older folks seemed to prefer the more traditional places. A pizza parlor, a restaurant claiming to sell food from all over the continent...Chatham was clearly a very cosmopolitan town. She was surprised the population was large enough to support so many places.
But it was also oddly conservative, in many–many–ways. Young men and women were either out in groups or escorted by chaperones, watching carefully to make sure there was no hanky-panky. The girls wore loose dresses that revealed little of their figures and no skin below the neckline, the boys wore shirts that were tight around their muscles and thighs, tight enough to make Emily blush, yet revealed very little actual skin. She supposed it wasn’t too surprising. It seemed to be a universal law that a woman needed to guard her reputation carefully, while a man had no such constraints. The trousers she wore would cause comment, if she stayed for long.
They found a table in the burger bar and sat down, listening to the conversations as they placed their orders. Jade purchased a handful of different broadsheets and passed them around, but they were largely useless. Two were bland, refusing to discuss politics in anything more than the vaguest terms; the remainder were so full of monarchical propaganda that Emily found it hard to believe anyone actually took it seriously. Kings were meant to have special powers, she’d been told, but Randor couldn’t walk on water...
They’ve never met the man, she reminded herself, dryly. To them, the king is a distant figure in golden armor. They’ve never seen him vulnerable...or angry.
“We’re going to have to go out drinking later,” Jade said, as the food arrived. “That’s where we’ll hear the real rumors.”
Emily nodded, feeling uneasy. She wouldn’t be going, and she was thankful for that, but she worried about them. She’d heard enough horror stories about drinking competitions to fear for their safety. Jade and Cat would be expected to drink pint after pint of what passed for beer and, watched by so many eyes, it would be hard to accidentally pour it down their front instead. If they came home rolling drunk...
Or if they get picked up by the guardsmen, she thought grimly, I might have trouble finding them again.
She ate her dinner quickly, appreciating the flavors. Food in the Nameless World was more intense, more real, than food on Earth: the meat was flavorful, the tomato sauce was very strong, the mustard appropriately nuclear...it would be a long time before anyone opened a fast food outlet and started cutting down the quality as much as possible. But then, who knew? The pace of technological advancement had surprised even her.
Night was falling, slowly, as they walked back to the inn. “Be careful,” she said, as they stopped outside the porch. “And don’t get yourselves arrested.”
“We won’t,” Jade said. “That would be bad.”
Emily nodded. Chatham couldn’t afford to develop a reputation for harassing travelers, even mercenaries, but the city couldn’t tolerate rowdy behavior either. Jade and Cat might be kept in a cell until daybreak, then marched to the gates and kicked out. God alone knew what would happen then, if they couldn’t get back in
to the city...she wouldn’t know that anything had happened until it was far too late. She waved them goodbye, then walked up to the bedroom and found the chat parchments. There was nothing stopping her from having a long chat with Frieda if she was around.
The boys returned, two hours later. Emily allowed herself a moment of relief, although she was careful not to show it too openly. They both looked tired and grim, their clothes stinking of beer. Emily wrinkled her nose, trying not to think about her mother, as they stripped off and washed themselves with cold water. It didn’t really improve the smell.
“It’s not good news,” Jade said, once he’d donned a nightshirt. “Alexis is in lockdown.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed. “And you heard this from...?”
“A trader, who carts goods to the city every week,” Jade said. “Nothing perishable, luckily for him, but...he says they have to wait, every time, for the guards to search his carts. He said it was even worse on the river.”
“Joy,” Emily said. “Are they looking for us? Or someone else?”
“He didn’t know,” Jade said. He shrugged. “Drunk as he was, I didn’t dare ask too many questions.”
“The king must know you’re coming,” Cat said, as he stepped out of the washroom and searched for his clothes. “And if there’s anywhere that will actually have a good picture of you, it’s Alexis.”
He donned a pair of trousers, but left his muscular chest bare. Emily tried not to look at the tattoos covering his upper body. He would have carved some of them himself, just as she’d carved the rune on her chest...she wasn’t sure if she should admire his bravery or berate him for being stupid. Tattooing one’s skin always had an element of risk.
“That’s true,” Jade said. “They might well be looking for me. And Emily.”
Emily nodded, stiffly. She’d yet to see a portrait of her that someone could actually use to find her, but the paintings she’d seen of Jade were far more accurate. Jade was probably a little more photogenic, she guessed. He certainly looked much more like the local masculine ideal. He’d changed his appearance quite a bit, but if the guards had reason to suspect and called for a sorcerer...
We’d be caught in a trap, she thought. They could break out of a trap, if they used magic, but that would bring the king’s sorcerers down on their heads. Worse, it would almost certainly guarantee Imaiqah’s immediate execution if she weren’t already dead. There would be no way out.
“They might miss me,” she said. She could walk right past any guard who only knew her through her official portrait. Emily had no idea who’d sat for the painting–she knew she hadn’t–but the only thing they had in common was hair color. “Jade is a bit more noticeable.”
“They’d also want us to have a reason to be there,” Jade pointed out. “I don’t think we could get away with claiming we want to visit family.”
“There might be a way under the walls,” Cat said. “Are there no secret passages?”
“Not that I know about,” Jade said. “And even if there were, they’d be controlled by criminal gangs. They might smuggle stuff in and out of the city, but they wouldn’t want to risk bringing the king’s wrath down on their heads. They’d betray their grandmothers if the price was right.”
“Then we fly,” Cat said. He clapped his hands together. “We change ourselves into birds and fly over the walls.”
“They’d be watching for it,” Emily said. “They’ll have wards guarding the skies.”
“They couldn’t stop us,” Cat insisted.
“No, but they’d know we entered the city,” Jade said. “I helped set up those wards, Cat. They’re good.”
“We could charm a number of other birds and send them flying through the wards,” Cat suggested. “The wardcrafters would have problems sorting out the real birds from the fakes.”
“That would alert them, even if they didn’t find us immediately,” Jade countered. “They’d be on their guard.”
“They’d be on their guard anyway,” Cat snapped.
Emily nodded, although she took Jade’s point. No military force could hope to remain on alert indefinitely. It was why soldiers on watch were rotated so frequently. It had been several weeks since Alassa had been arrested, long enough for the guards to relax a little...as long as they didn’t have any reason to be alert. But if a sorcerer was detected breaking into the city, they’d go back on alert at once. She wouldn’t have wanted to be the guard commander who had to admit to the king that they’d lost their prisoner.
“Then we have to fool the guards on the gate,” she mused. “Or bribe them?”
“The trader swore blind it was impossible,” Jade said. “We’d have to bribe all of them.”
“We do plan to sell the horses anyway,” Emily said. “We’d have money...”
“Not enough,” Jade said. “If they have an aristocrat on the gate, the bribe will have to go up steeply. He won’t want a few mouldy bronze coins.”
Emily nodded, tossing ideas around and around in her head. Lady Barb would think of the perfect solution in a flash, she was sure. She’d know how to tackle the problem. Emily...Emily couldn’t think of anything. There had to be a solution, there had to be a way of slipping into the city without making waves...but what?
“Perhaps we could look for a tunnel,” Cat said. “We could pose as smugglers and...”
Emily started to giggle, helplessly, as a thought occurred to her. “We’re going to go in through the gates,” she said. It was the last thing the guards would be expecting. “And you are going to be disguised as women.”
Chapter Nine
“DO WOMEN HAVE TO WEAR THIS all the time?”
Emily had to bite her lip to keep from breaking into giggles, again. She’d gone out immediately after breakfast to purchase the clothes, once she’d finally talked the boys into wearing them. It hadn’t been that difficult. Chatham, like most of the towns and villages she’d visited, had stalls for old clothes that could no longer be passed down from parent to child. The dresses she’d purchased looked old, too old. Their wearers certainly wouldn’t look very attractive.
“You’re missing out on the underwear,” she said, deadpan. She hadn’t tried to force them into bras and panties. That might have been a little too much for them. “And you really have to slouch a little bit more.”
She studied the two men, trying to keep her face under tight control. Cat and Jade looked like old women, but their stance was thoroughly unconvincing. They looked like parodies of women, not real women. Cat had stuffed a handful of clothes under his dress in the hope of giving himself breasts, but they were about the least convincing breasts Emily had ever seen...and she’d grown up in a place where young women regularly padded their bras.
Maybe we should have gone for a sex change potion instead, she thought, although getting one might be tricky. They were difficult to make and incredibly expensive. But who knows if that would have triggered the wards.
“Put your scarves on, then tint your faces,” she told them, firmly. “And slouch forward when you walk. You don’t want us to be caught because you look unconvincing.”
“I’m trying,” Cat said. He stood and started to walk across the room, swinging his hips. “Do women really walk like this?”
“No,” Emily said. “That looks unnatural.”
“This is unnatural,” Jade muttered.
“It has to be done,” Emily said. She understood their concern, but getting caught was a bigger concern. Besides, if they did it right, no one would ever know. “I think it would be better if you stayed sitting down.”
“We’ll have to get a cart and something to sell,” Jade said. “Perhaps we should start with these clothes.”
Emily nodded. “Good thinking,” she said. “Now, put your scarf back into place.”
It was nearly an hour before she was satisfied, both with their appearance and their cover story. They would be peddlers, making their way from place to place selling their wares; it would be hard, almost impos
sible, for the guards to disprove their story. They might get turned away from the gates, but they probably wouldn’t be arrested. A hint of fish sauce on her lips–and their lips too, just in case–and the guards wouldn’t even try to cop a feel. Lady Barb would have approved, she thought. It was better to subtly convince someone that he didn’t want to try something than resist him openly.
“Jade should do the talking,” Cat said, mischievously. “He nags like an old woman.”
“I think your womanly voice is far superior to mine,” Jade tossed back. “And you...”
“Definitely not,” Emily said, as the boys started to change back into their regular clothes. It would be a pain to dress up somewhere near the gates, but the innkeeper might notice if two elderly women tottered down the stairs when they hadn’t gone up in the first place. “Let me do the talking.”
“Good idea,” Jade said. “We’re your grouchy old aunties who don’t want you to have any fun.”
Emily nodded. No one would be surprised, when vast numbers of men had either been conscripted or gone on the run, if a young woman drove a cart to the city. And no one would question, either, why she was escorted by a pair of older women. The guards might mourn the presence of a chaperone or two, but they wouldn’t question it. They’d probably just wave them through without hesitation.
Let’s just hope they don’t want to do a strip search, Emily thought, as she quickly packed up her bag. Or try to put their hands somewhere they don’t belong.
Her lips twitched at the thought, even though it wasn’t really funny. The guard who tried to put his hand up Jade’s dress was in for an awful shock, but he’d sound the alarm as soon as he realized what he’d touched. And if he tried to touch Emily herself...her skin crawled as she considered the possibilities. She’d planned to make herself look older, and as unattractive as possible, but she’d been warned that guardsmen developed new standards of beauty. They were almost always uniformed bullies, particularly when confronted by something young, helpless and apparently female.
The Princess in the Tower (Schooled in Magic Book 15) Page 9