A Posse of Princesses

by Sherwood Smith

  Taniva and two of her guards had taken the second pillow, the oldest sitting up beside the door. From the steady gleam in her eyes, reflection from the bleak dawn light in the window, she’d sat up all night; later Rhis found out that indeed, she’d kept checking all night to see if the massive guard placed round the tower had diminished so they could sneak away, but it never had.

  The girls rose, rubbing eyes, yawning, shaking heads, clothes, cloaks. Everyone went still when the door swung open and Jarvas stopped abruptly on the threshold, several of his Damatran guard crowding behind him.

  He no longer wore the sinister dark velvet she’d seen him in at Eskanda. He was dressed like his guards, in sturdy tunics of practical brown, belted at the waist, with loose riding trousers stuffed into their boots. They all wore knives and swords—including Jarvas.

  His scowl turned into a frown of perplexity when his gaze reached Taniva, and then cleared. “You? Here?” he exclaimed, and grinned.

  Taniva scowled.

  “Give it back,” Jarvas said, advancing into the room. He hopped over saddlebags and pillows and cloaks, taking up a stance directly before Taniva. He held out his hand.

  Taniva snorted. “I buried it in the forest.”

  Jarvas said something that made Dartha choke on a laugh and Taniva fight a grin. But she just crossed her arms. “Give it,” Jarvas said. “It’s on you. I wouldn’t set to horse without my bridle. You have my knife. I want it back—and I won it fair-and-fair,” he added. Then waved a hand around the room. “You can’t get out. If you want to fight me, I’d be more than happy to. But you’ll lose.”

  Taniva tipped her head. “Maybe. Here. Not on the plains,” she added with a darkling glance, as she put her hand inside her blue smock and withdrew it reluctantly. Then slapped the silver-and-black handled knife onto his palm, the blue gems winking in the rainy morning light.

  Iardith had been watching with an increasingly dire frown. It was immediately clear to Rhis, at least, that she expected to be the center of attention, and did not like her betrothed talking to anyone else. “What’s this about?” she demanded. “Never mind, it’s already boring. Where’s my breakfast?”

  The look of disgust that Jarvas sent her made Rhis gasp. She remembered quite well how besotted Jarvas had been with the Perfect Princess at the Eskanda party—a besottedness that, if his expression was anything to go by, had long since vanished.

  “You can all come downstairs,” he said.

  Iardith said, “Once I am properly dressed. And you had better remember that whatever you decide about them, I am a hostage, not a prisoner. I want at least some of them to take messages back, that will be to the benefit of us both.”

  Jarvas jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and his guards retreated, clattering back down the steps. “My father will sort all that out,” he said only, and banged the door shut behind him, leaving the girls alone.

  Iardith lunged out of bed, flinging off her nightgown with an impatient rip. As she moved to the vanity table across the room and snapped her fingers over the silver pitcher (which began to steam gently) she said over her shoulder to Rhis, “You can stop with the disapproving frown any time, Princess Perfect,” she said nastily. “I plan to get you out first. I remember quite well how much you toadied up to Prince Scribe. You’ll take my messages, and Prince Scribe can do what he does so well, and write the letters.”

  Rhis recoiled. “Princess Perfect?” When she remembered having called Iardith the Perfect Princess, her face heated up.

  Iardith splashed the magically heated water into the silver basin, and bathed her hands and face, making no attempt to spare any water for the others.

  Then she stepped through the cleaning frame on the opposite side of the room, without inviting anyone to share the water, or the frame.

  “Oh, aren’t you just so innocent, my dear,” Iardith said, toweling her skin vigorously until it glowed a dusky rose. “Save it for someone who will be impressed with your model deportment and good behavior.” Iardith yanked her way into a soft linen under-dress of pale yellow, then flung a heavy, ribbon-flounced over-dress to Shera. “Here. Help me with that. Jarvas, the idiot, wouldn’t travel with my maid. Well, he paid for it,” she added with a small smile. “Go ahead.” She pulled the expensive velvet gown of ochre impatiently over her head. “Lace up the back.” The golden embroidery glimmered in the watery light.

  Shera complied, pulling the silk laces with a hard yank that made Iardith gasp, and spin around.

  Shera said sweetly as she tied the knot, “I’m sorry, did I hurt you? I’ve never done anyone’s laces before.”

  Iardith flounced around and began to finger her hair out of its night braid. Shera sent a wink at Rhis, whose eyes had teared up as she waited for her turn to step through the cleaning frame. Behind were the soft noises of the others fixing hair, changing, repacking.

  After Dartha, Rhis stepped through the cleaning frame, wishing it would whisk away tears the way it did grime. But Iardith did not pay her the least heed as she marched out and down the stairs, leaving the others to follow.

  “Am I really like Elda?” Rhis whispered to Shera.

  “Of course not,” Shera whispered back indignantly. “Do you think I would ride in a carriage willingly with a prating, pompous Elda?”

  “I’m sure Elda doesn’t think she prates—”

  “Oh, yes she does,” Shera said briskly. “She likes prating. She told me once that she spends the last time of the day before she falls asleep arranging useful things to say, and she trusts her daughter is writing them down for the benefit of future generations. You wouldn’t do that. Ever.”

  Rhis gulped on a watery laugh.

  “Oom,” Yuzhyu said, quite distinctly. Rhis realized the Ndaian princess hadn’t said that for a very long time. “Yiss, om! Time to zee Kink of Damatras.”

  Iardith sighed. “I so detest awkward accents.”

  “Om!”

  Shera giggled.

  Rhis followed, surreptitiously wiping her eyes on her shoulder as she hefted her saddlebag. With a mischievous grin, Yuzhyu said “Om!” every step they took all the way down the winding tower—and there were a lot of steps. Iardith muttered in affront, but when the other girls muffled laughter—Shera whispering “Om, om,” under her breath—she gave a sharp sigh and remained silent.

  When they reached the ground floor, the Damatran guards closed around them, carrying spears, with swords worn at their sides. The girls walked down the flagged hall surrounded by these tall, fierce-looking fellows. Though they looked far less sinister, the way they kept sneaking peeks at Iardith, who marched first, head held high, her shining fall of black hair streaming smoothly down to her heels. Rhis’s feelings swooped. She fought a flutter of giggles.

  The urge to laugh was gone all too soon. They marched down a hall with a high stone ceiling, then stopped outside two massive iron-reinforced doors. Rhis tightened her arms around her saddle-bag, dreading a barbarian throne room, complete with bloody weapons mounted on the walls, skulls used as dishware, maybe a torture instrument or two as decoration, and a lot more fierce-looking guards.

  They passed inside a narrow room. A tall, massive man who had to be Jarvas’s father sat near a huge arched window, beyond which rain poured. The King of Damatras was eating his breakfast as he listened to reports from soberly dressed men and women, all with looped braids. As Jarvas led his party in the king paused with his spoon in the air to give orders, whereupon the man or woman spoken to bustled out and the next in line moved to his table and began their report.

  The kingly signs were his golden cup, and the diamond drop he wore in one ear. Otherwise he was as soberly dressed as his minions; the only color was that provided by nature, the silver-streaked pale hair lying on his shoulders, and in his braided beard.

  Jarvas stepped up to Rhis’s side. She gave him an uneasy glance; they had never spoken before. She was scared enough without any Damatrans coming right up to her.

  “Don’t
tell my father who you are,” Jarvas muttered. And dropped back before she could answer.

  Yuzhyu’s eyes flicked between them.

  The king looked up from his eggs and toasted bread. When he saw Iardith, his thick eyebrows contracted. “What is she doing here—who are these others?”

  Jarvas pointed to Taniva. “What were you doing, anyway? You didn’t really go up there to dance and sing?” He sent an accusing look at Iardith. “Despite what was said.”

  Iardith just shrugged. “I hope,” she enunciated, “there is a breakfast ordered for me—and I am not required to eat it in front of a gaggle of lackeys.”

  The king and Jarvas ignored her. Despite the situation, Rhis felt another butterfly-wing of laughter behind her ribs: it obviously had not only been a hideous journey for the swain, but the king didn’t seem any more enamored of the Beauty of Arpalon than his son now was.

  “We come to rescue Princess from Arpalon,” Taniva said, confronting the king, arms crossed.

  The king frowned. “You are High Plains?”

  “Taniva of—”

  “Heh,” the king said, and grinned. It was a humorous grin, but there was far too much gloat in his voice when he said, “Your father is going to just hate the ransom I’m going to demand.”

  Taniva said something that made the king throw back his head and laugh. “You’ve got courage, girl, but then we knew that.” He glanced wryly at his son. “Got your blade back?”

  Jarvas pointed silently to the blue gemstones winking above his belt.

  “And these others? Potential ransoms, I trust?”

  “Shera of Gensam,” Shera said in a small voice.

  “Yuzhyu of Ndai.”

  Rhis couldn’t figure out why Jarvas had said what he’d said. Did he mean her ill? She’d been the most afraid for Taniva, royal descendant of this king’s worst enemy. But so far, the king seemed reasonable.

  Besides, she refused to lie, unlike Some People.

  She lifted her chin. “Rhis of Nym.”

  The king pushed his chair back. It squeaked on the flagstones, making several people wince. “You are? You are?” He began to laugh.

  Jarvas sighed softly just behind Rhis as the king got to his feet and approached them. He was even bigger than Rhis had imagined. She fell back an uncertain step or two as the king approached, grinning down at her. “You are? By all that’s rich—and that means your father. Jarvas!” He swung around. “You can put all these over in the garrison prison. The guest cells.” He chuckled as he wagged his hand at Shera, Taniva, and Yuzhyu. “Including that one—” He jerked his thumb at Iardith.

  “What?” she snapped. “I told you, I agreed to your marriage terms. You only have to get my father to agree—”

  “Your father,” the Damatran king retorted, “is as poor as a miller in a drought. You might have been good for a cushion alliance, but that’s it. This little thing—” He flicked Rhis’s hastily made, lopsided braid. “—comes from a land that might be as big as an ink blot on the map, but Nym is richer then Arpalon, Gensam, and the High Plains together! Maybe even as rich as Vesarja. Who knows? Though I mean to find out! She goes into the guest tower, boys. We want her comfortable, we want her safe. Very safe. If she gets down those stairs past you, every one of you will wish you’d chosen to be bricklayers before you die.” He laughed again, somehow sounding both jolly and quite heartless. “Don’t forget writing implements. Her father is going to pay a smacking good bride price, or an even bigger ransom! She can think about her choice while uninterrupted.” He swung around and glared at Iardith. “You, we’ll get rid of as soon as I squeeze that strutting rooster of a father of yours. Hah!”

  Rhis looked around, dazed. Taniva winced, Iardith looked cold and unconcerned, Shera’s eyes had filled.

  Jarvas lifted a shoulder, as if to say: I warned you.

  Rhis’s eyes stung as the guards advanced.

  Just before they closed around her, Yuzhyu stepped close. “Remember, Lios comes,” she whispered.

  Oh, wouldn’t that make things much better! Remembering with painful clarity what she had said to Lios the last time she saw him, Rhis felt the tears burn down her cheeks as she was marched away.

  Demo version limitation

  Demo version limitation

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Shera was uncharacteristically quiet that long, nightmarish day. Rhis walked next to her, slipping in and out of dream. The stone sang sweetly, as if urging her tired feet to carry her on: it seemed to want to get away as badly as she did.

  Lios walked with seeming tirelessness up and down the line, encouraging people, talking to keep them awake. That is, he talked to everyone but Rhis and Shera. Neither of them spoke to him.

  At sunset the tired group shuffled down the river bank far west of the city, where the river narrowed to white water. Here was an old row of rocks that formed a hopping bridge, as Taniva called it.

  Under pouring rain, as the light faded, Rhis faced those uneven wet stones. She wished she could just waft herself over. And though she did not know any magic whatsoever, when she hopped to the first stone, she seemed to move slowly through the air, as if it were water and not full of raindrops, and landed lightly. She hopped to the next, and the next—and almost stumbled when Yuzhyu took a crowing breath.

  “Rhis,” she called. “Have you a spell on you?”

  “A spell? No—”

  “You haff zis magic light on you, ooom.” She was so excited her accent was back very strongly.

  Rhis’s body tingled. She closed her forearms across her middle and fought away the strange sense of lightness.

  And it withdrew slowly, almost reluctantly.

  She almost fell at the next hop, she was so heavy. Like she’d taken one of the boulders upon her back.

  Three, two, one. And then a thin, strong hand reached down and pulled her up the steep riverbank, and she looked up tiredly into Glaen’s narrow face.

  He dropped her hand, reached past, and took Shera’s hand in his grip. He pulled her up, but did not let go.

  Shera said, “Glaen? What are you doing here?”

  “You were gone,” he said. Not You were gone, like the group was gone, but YOU were gone.

  “I—we thought—” Shera sighed sharply. “We stupidly thought Iardith needed rescuing. Guess what?”

  “We had a bet going on that. I won.” Glaen drawled with the old irony. “Having bet five to one that she was the one who abducted Jarvas of Damatras.”

  Shera giggled, then choked on a sob.

  “Hey. Don’t start, or you’ll get me at it,” he said in a low voice. “We’ll talk later. I hope you’ve saved up some of those insults,” he added. He lifted his voice. “We got a hot meal all ready, so step up to the formal dining parlor as soon as you put on your jewels, your highnesses!”

  Fast as they’d traveled, one of Lios’s people had traveled even faster—making sure of the trail, and warning the others. In gratitude Rhis followed Shera up a trail into a clearing under spreading trees. The welcome glow of firelight drew Rhis stronger than any mere magic. She allowed her saddle bag to thump to the ground, the tiranthe giving a discordant hum of strings. For a time she just stood there, the warmth of the fire beating gratefully over her numb face and hands, and causing faint curls of steamy smoke to rise from her clothes.

  Hearing soft laughter, she looked around. The Vesarjans had set up tents; while she’d been in her reverie, someone had picked up her saddlebag and borne it away.

  Reverie. She felt the weight of the magic stone on her mind, which caused a warning prickle. She caught a fleeting memory: Sidal’s face. Diamonds are much stronger than any other stone . . .

  She forced herself to move, poking her head into the open tents until she recognized her own saddlebag.

  She pulled the stone from her sash. It was strangely heavy. She could barely lift it. The singing changed to a high, skull-rattling whistle. But Rhis’s memory of Sidal’s warning voice was louder, and so, using th
e last of her strength, she shoved the stone into her saddlebag.

  At once the singing lessened. Then it turned sweet again, a lovely chord so faint, so beautiful. If she just got closer, she could—

  Gravel crunched under feet right outside her tent. She knew it was Lios. A rush of feelings chased through her as she backed out of the tent and straightened up.

  “Rhis, are you still angry with me?” he asked.

  He didn’t mean the disastrous rescue plan. She knew he meant his masquerade. “I don’t think so. I mean, I was, then I wasn’t, then when I was, I think I was more mad at myself for saying those nasty things.” There, it was out. And oh, she felt such relief!

  “Perfectly understandable,” Lios said promptly, and flashed his quick grin. “The poets maintain it’s perfectly natural to throw blame around. Why, here I am, living proof. I blamed you for the fact that I was an arrogant fool, ignoring others’ feelings with my witty ‘joke’ that wasn’t witty or even much of a joke. Yes, completely your fault—”

  She shook with silent laughter, though the tears still weren’t far away.

  “So how about we make a pact: we let our blames smash into one another, fall to pieces, and vanish.” He clapped his hands lightly. “There! Gone. I don’t feel any blame toward you any more, not a speck. Do you feel any for me?”

  “No,” she said, and somehow all her pent-up regret and embarrassment and anger were gone. She laughed, feeling much lighter inside.

  “Good,” he said. “Things are messy enough at home. Your words were great practice for what everyone else said when they found out. Hoo!” He gestured, his clothes jingling faintly.

  “What’s that noise?” Rhis asked.

  Lios grinned. Then he flung his arms wide and hopped from toe to toe. “Isn’t that a laugh?” He danced around in a circle. “Me in chain mail.”