She dropped the fruit into the girl’s hand and walked back to her side of the kitchen. So she didn’t see tall, pinch-faced Hortia stick out her hand and Telin drop the apple into it. Hortia whisked it beneath her apron and went right back to kneading dough. Telin, who had remained stone-faced through the unfairness from Lady Olucar, now had tears dripping down her face as she bent to her task.
No word had been said, though some of the older girls exchanged looks. Either Telin had been caught saying or doing something by Hortia, or else had promised a trade in food for help with some chore—either way she wouldn’t get a bite of that apple.
Nan stooped down, picking up another potato. Her hands moved automatically as she cored the eyes out, then began the peeling. Praise for being a good peeler! She wasn’t grateful, she was angry. For a few minutes the furnace of rage burned brightly in her. Just her luck, to leave an entire world—only to be stuck doing exactly the same sort of chores in the next one. Only it wasn’t her fault—
She caught herself up on that.
It is my fault, she thought fiercely. It’s my fault that I lied. Mican wouldn’t have set me up if I hadn’t pulled that stupid princess trick. Never forget that.
She took a deep breath, finished her potato, dropped it into the waiting salt-water, then picked up another.
She was still having nightmares about that morning in Nitre’s office. Not the threat of hanging—she had since learned that Nitre threatened everyone but didn’t actually hang kids—but her fear that after another day or two of starvation, she might have talked herself into giving in. How many days would she have really lasted? Honesty compelled her to admit, if only to herself, that she was not sure.
That has to be just how villains get started, she thought. I’ll bet even the old beast Olucar doesn’t wake up every day and say, ‘I’m a great villain, har har!’ She has excuses for everything she does. She’s talked herself into believing she’s right, and everyone around her is wrong. Giula, too. She always has excuses for tattling. If they starved me long enough, would I have talked myself into thinking it was right to tell on Blackeye, explain the plan, and what she told me about Noss?
No. She wouldn’t think like that. Instead, she’d remember what she was there for, and make herself listen to the others’ talk. One of these times someone was going to say something that would give her some clues on exactly where Prince Troial was kept, and how she could get to him.
She smiled grimly at her potatoes.
Fifteen
“They’ve got a prisoner,” Warron said. “He’s our age. Toff.”
It was very early in the morning, but everyone had woken up before dawn to find Warron waiting for them.
Blackeye frowned. “Where are they keeping him?”
“High tower.” Warron grinned. “Green stair side.”
Blackeye looked at the rest of the group. “If we rescue him, we’ve got to decoy the pursuit so they don’t search here. We can’t risk anyone finding out about our hideaway.”
“Thought about that on the run back.” Warron jerked his thumb at Kevriac. “We can take the skimmer. There’s a good wind—I can outrun that big warship, especially if Kevriac here makes us fade in and out of view. Lead ’em northward and lose ’em among the little islands.”
Blackeye turned to the magic worker. “Want to?”
Kevriac gave a nod.
“Well, then, let’s get to it.”
Soon they were running single-file along a narrow path into the close growth of the island. “Be shorter if we could paddle round the rocks, but they’d see us,” Tarsen said, running just behind Joe. “We can only go that way at night.”
Joe nodded, not talking. He knew they’d be running uphill soon, and he wanted to pace himself. Nothing winded you, he’d discovered, like talking while on a long run. Instead, his fingers went to the knife hilt at his side, an unfamiliar weight that made his heart start thumping faster. Blackeye had said matter-of-factly, “Warron, arm everyone with knives, not swords. We don’t want a fight; we don’t want to be seen. Knives for in case.”
‘We don’t want a fight’ I sure as heck don’t!
Joe loved the practice sessions, but he felt ambivalent about the idea of sticking a knife into anyone for real. If the warts had been a bunch of evil orcs or monsters, like in his computer games, he thought he could blow them away and keep as cool as a guy in action movies, but a real person? Especially since not even Warron pretended that all the warts are rotten. Most of them seemed to be just regular people doing a job, and didn’t concern themselves with what the bosses were doing, since they couldn’t change them anyway. That sounded an awful lot like his parents’ jobs back on Earth.
“Look sharp,” Blackeye said a while later, after they’d run silently uphill a good long stretch. “Here’s the passage. Tarly, guard us here.”
The centaur waved a hand and trotted daintily into the shadows of an overhanging tree.
The rest turned to the secret entrance. Joe followed closely after Tarsen, squeezing through a scratchy bush that felt like holly, and falling through a narrow crack between two huge rocks.
Inside, the air was cool and smelled of dust. Someone lit a candle, and Joe saw in its wavering light everyone hunched down because of the low ceiling. The crevasse led in one direction. Blackeye went first, holding the candle. They followed. The soft dirt beneath Joe’s feet gave way to rock before long, and as it was uneven, he put his hands out to help balance. The light from the candle threw weird shadows around that danced and flickered, distorting further the already strange proportions of the tunnel.
Straight up, and they reached a real passage where the air was cool and moist, and the ground was mossy. Blackeye gave an exclamation of satisfaction, clapped, and the steady cool white light of a glowglobe banished flickers and made the shadows retreat to dark corners.
“Now for some nasty sweatin’,” Tarsen whispered. His voice echoed, sounding like snakes. Tarsen grinned at the spooky sound, and Joe grinned back, but he felt the skin on the backs of his arms tighten.
But nothing happened as they made their way upward. It was a long, tiring climb, and Blackeye kept them moving quickly; her grin matched Tarsen’s. Joe had noticed that she seemed happier, somehow bigger when in the middle of action.
At the top, Blackeye paused, and looked around at the gang. She flashed a grin, stuck her thumb up, then doused their light.
A tiny noise sounded like a pistol shot as she cracked open some kind of door. Her silhouette blocked the pale light beyond, then she then threw it wide. They passed into what smelled like an old store room, and she held up the candle. Twin flames glittered in her dark eyes as she motioned them in a tight circle around her.
Joe heard everyone’s breathing, fast and sharp like his. He gripped his knife-hilt with a sweaty palm.
“Sarilda, with me. If anyone comes along, you take the form of the Lorjee duchess.”
Sarilda gave a horrible grimace, which caused Tarsen to snort a muffled laugh.
“Bron, I want you and Tarsen guarding our line of retreat. Joe, you hold this position. If anyone else comes along, hide. Then take a position farther up so you can warn us before we come back this way. When we come down, we’ll use one of the signals.” She whistled softly.
“Got it.” Joe’s guts seemed to be full of butterflies.
“Then let’s get to work.”
The others filed out one by one, their bare feet noiseless on the stone flooring.
Left with the flickering candle, Joe felt more scared than ever. He propped the door open just a half-inch, so he’d hear anyone coming down the hallway outside, then he made himself do a bunch of pushups. When his arms ached, he did some of the other exercises Warron had taught him. Anything was better than sitting around listening to his own heart pound in his ears.
Time stretched on, and when he was tired, he caught up the drips from the candle and made little balls from the wax. He was beginning to wonder if the others had al
l been captured or worse, when he heard a sound.
He rushed to the door, and sighed with relief when Blackeye’s whistle echoed down the hallway. A few moments later the others came running in, Sarilda and Tarsen snickering breathlessly. In their midst was a short boy in a snazzy outfit that reminded Joe of something out of King Arthur.
“Now,” Blackeye said, pulling a long dark scarf from a pocket. “We’ll have to blindfold you.”
The boy lifted a hand, then stood still as Blackeye tied the scarf round his eyes and checked it to make sure it was secure. Sarilda and Bron took his hands, and everyone slipped into the secret passageway.
They retreated back down the tunnels and ran through the forest until they got to the hideout. The boy ran with them, his head low. He stumbled once or twice but never complained. Sarilda and Bron kept a tight grip on his hands.
When they reached the hideout, they clambered down the tunnel and collapsed onto the pillows. Tarly, who’d had the easiest job, and who could outrun any of them without even slightly disturbing her breathing, said, “I’ll fix something hot to drink,” and disappeared into the galley.
“We’re here,” Blackeye said, pulling off the kid’s blindfold.
Joe looked curiously at the kid they’d rescued. He was stocky. His arms, and the calluses on his palms, hinted at plenty of practice. His hair was long and blond, braided back and bound with a glittery thing.
He gave a great sigh as he looked around at the gang. His face changed when he saw Bron. “Fared!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were—”
“Dead,” Bron said, smiling sourly. “So I am to my family—and so they are to me. My name is Bron now. Fared Thauvan is dead.”
The boy nodded soberly. “All right, then. Bron. Forgive me if I forget and slip; it will not be advertent.” And he bowed.
To Joe’s surprise Bron bowed back, his twisted body managing to look graceful. “I understand.” Then Bron turned to face the rest of the gang. “This is Liav Senna.”
“Senna!” Tarsen exclaimed. “Then—that’s your castle, isn’t it?” He flapped a hand northwards.
“Yes.” Liav’s friendly face went grim for a moment. “Lorjee thought it a poetic touch to hold me in our own castle. Not that he ever said I was a prisoner, of course. They kept gloating about how I was their ‘guest,’ taken away from the noise and bustle of Fortanya for my ‘health.’”
Blackeye said, “Tell us what happened.”
Liav sighed, dropping onto one of the pillows. “I don’t think I’ve slept a night through since the Duke first arrived with his ‘invitation’—and twenty armed guards.” He rubbed his eyes. “Here’s the truth. You might know that my older sister was supposed to marry the prince when she turned eighteen.”
Bron nodded, but no one else did.
“She’s eighteen now, and they want her to go through with it,” Liav went on.
The others exclaimed in surprise.
“What?”
“But he’s—”
Liav made a sour face. “We all know he’s under some kind of weird spell, though no one has the guts to say it out loud where Lorjee or Todan or any of their people can hear it. Including me—until recently,” he added matter-of-factly. “I just kept up with my sword training and book-learning, pretended I didn’t see or hear anything, hoping someone would do something about the whole mess before Alitra turned eighteen.”
“How does she feel about this?” Sarilda asked.
“She has tried four times to run away. Since the last one they’ve had her surrounded by almost as many guards as the prince is supposed to have.”
“I’m surprised Todan doesn’t just kill her,” Blackeye said. “He certainly hasn’t stopped at killing other people.”
“If Todan does that,” Liav said, “he’ll touch off a war with every single ducal family. The truce is uneasy as it is—he’s got the power, and he holds family members as hostages. Everyone has always known about the marriage. The Great Families take turns, and it’s Senna’s turn to ally with the royal House. Lorjee has been working on Alitra to go through with it for the good of the people. She kept saying she wouldn’t marry anyone who had not the will to choose.”
“So what does forcing her to marry him do?”
“It means, as near as we can figure, they can kill the prince and force her to rule. They grabbed me to make her marry the prince. If she refuses when the time comes, then I am to suffer a fatal illness,” Liav said. “As for the prince, Alitra told me that this new sorcerer can make him stand up and walk about and there’s even a voice that seems to come from him, but it’s all a terrible kind of magic. And she knows as soon as she marries him, she’ll probably get the same spell. Then, when she’s princess, someone can marry her and really rule. All of it legal—on the surface.”
“Lorjee.” Blackeye slapped her hands together. “That must be the plan we overheard last month.”
“And Todan probably thinks one of his people will be marrying the princess,” Sarilda exclaimed. “Double cross!”
“When is all this to happen?” Blackeye asked.
“On the day of the Feast of Heroes.”
“That’s less than three weeks off,” Warron said.
Liav rubbed his eyes again. “Am I dreaming? Who are you, and why did you come after me?”
“Oh, it was a game to make Lorjee angry,” Sarilda said with her flashing smile, and as Tarly came in bearing a heavy tray, she jumped up to pass out mugs of steaming drink.
Liav whistled. “I was afraid I was dreaming—at least until I found myself climbing down that ivy outside the tower window. Whew! I think I’ll have nightmares about that for the rest of my life. I kept wondering just how long it would take me to fall before I smashed on the rocks, but you two climbed around like it was an apple tree, and a young one at that.” He pointed to Blackeye and Sarilda.
Tarsen then started asking questions about his stay in the castle, and for a few seconds Joe listened in. Liav tried to make it all sound like no big deal, but Joe knew it had to have been pretty nasty.
He was distracted by the sight of Blackeye motioning to Bron.
“Can we trust him?” she asked softly.
Warron drifted up on her other side and murmured, “Could be a plant. Lorjee might suspect someone on this island. He’s had cause.” He gave a wry grin.
“I think he’s been too busy to suspect,” Kevriac said. “Or we’d have had more searches. I feel that Liav is speaking truth—but should we trust him with our plans?”
“We’re going to have to make some decisions and act fast,” Blackeye said, “or we’re going to lose our chance forever if what he says is true.”
Bron nodded slowly. “I trusted him when we were small.”
Blackeye pursed her lips. “We don’t have time for the spy run then, or at least, it’ll have to be done when we go back to Fortanya—which we’d better do right away. We’ve got to get the Falcon back.”
Tarsen and Liav laughed suddenly.
“Stench puffs?” Tarsen yelped.
Liav grinned. “In every single lamp. Then we stood back, held our noses, and waited for the candles to burn down. Peeeee-yew! What an incredible stink! Olucar was screaming, the servants running around yelling and trying to put out the candles, and then my cousin Mora had a brilliant idea—she grabbed up handfuls of the food and flung them. It was too dark to see who was doing it.”
“What’s this?” Warron asked.
“Party. For Nitre and Olucar’s stick of a son. Made us all attend. Last time they tried it,” Liav added smugly.
Blackeye leaned forward. “I take it you do not care for Lady Olucar?”
“About as much as I care for swallowing broken glass,” Liav said grimly.
“Want to do something about Todan, Nitre, Olucar, and the rest? Or would you rather we just take you back to Fortanya and set you free to go where you want?”
Liav looked from one to another, frowning. “What—is there something you want me t
o do?”
“If you like,” Warron said, hefting a whetstone. With deliberate strokes he began sharpening a knife.
Blackeye leaned back on her pillow, grinning. “Help us rescue the prince.”
o0o
Nan peeked around a corner, saw no one, and slid out, her bare feet silent on the rough floor. The cold gray-stone corridor was softly lit by magical glowglobes. Still no one in sight. Grabbing her skirt and apron in both hands she ran as hard as she could, not stopping even when she reached the narrow staircase.
She had gotten really good at traveling on stairs. Now she leaped down four at a time, paused outside the wooden door to the kitchen wing, and, heart pounding, slipped through.
A quick look—she heard voices coming, the nasal whine of Ilda, and with her Giula. Nan skipped quickly to the kitchen’s back entrance, and picked up a bag of potatoes. When the two girls appeared, Nan was just going into the kitchen, moving in a slow shuffle like she’d been carrying bags for a while.
“Oh, Nan,” Giula said brightly, flipping her hair back. “Did you hear? Maris got into trouble last night. Something about damp sheets on the beds. Now, everyone knows I try to be friends with each creature, but really, she is such a snob. I can’t help but laugh. She has stairs now for a month—won’t she be sick of running up and down! Too sick to stick her nose up at us.”
“We’ll have to see if we can think of a few extra errands,” Ilda said nastily, and both girls giggled.
Nan gave them an absent smile, and busied herself with her potatoes. The girls passed on by, and Ilda didn’t trouble to lower her voice as she said, “Ugh, she’s dull. Good company for carrots and potatoes, isn’t she?”
“Dull but harmless,” came Giula’s condescending reply.
Nan set the sack down by her stool and picked up her carving tool. The potatoes weren’t really needed yet—she had baskets of vegetables to do first, but no one would bother to remember, or ask her about them.
The other girls ignored her as they took their places and started on the day’s work. No one had noticed Nan slipping out of the dorm room just a little early, and no one had noticed her being gone.
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