Once a Princess

by Sherwood Smith

  Jehan didn’t trouble to look around. The shadow would be riding as fast as he could for the relay trail, which was sure to keep him or her busy for a while. Jehan suspected that David and his three friends, who had indicated they would speak to him after the competition would find him if they wanted him.

  He was right. A crowd of sailors strolled by, talking and laughing out of their number appeared two figures who flanked Jehan. The tall black haired one grinned “nice side step.”

  He meant it as a compliment, they were aware of the shadow, and how Jehan had slipped the shadow’s vigilance. Prickles of invisible ice cooled his neck the backs of his arms as the thin one flickered a hand toward one of the more modest tents.

  Inside they found David holding a table, to which a harried young woman brought a loaded tray of chicken pies, cornbread and cold frosty ale.

  Almost immediately the small boy drifted in, unnoticed by anyone else in the tent. the conversations at the other tables being mostly about the fleet made up for the pirate hunt, and who’d hired on where and what it was doing to trade.

  The boy was wearing an outsized shirt. He slid in next to David, then said with a quite air almost of apology, “I had to use the other for bindings.”

  Jehan realized then what he’d known instinctively that these four somehow spoke mind to mind. He knew now from where he recognized the tall one, and possibly the one with the hair. They’d competed in the midsummer games years before, always well, but previously they’d never quite stood out.

  Jehan sat back. “So your roustabout was intended as a general humiliation or for fun?”

  David looked surprised, and the fiery eyed one grinned. “For instruction.”

  David put down his fork. “Tell me you didn’t see what we were doing.”

  Jehan shrugged a shoulder. “So you are giving me lessons in curriculum design why?”

  The mock surprise and fake air of helpfulness vanished. “because you will need to train em better,” David said. “And if I might suggest an added course of instruction, hill warfare against occupation.”

  Again the ice burning with warning.

  “Norsunder,” Jehan breathed. “What? When?” he knew now who they were, but not why they were here.

  Before he could speak again, the tall one flicked up a scarred hand. “Don’t say anything.” He flicked one ear. “They do actually have wards against certain names.”

  Jehan studied the four faces. “But the stories about you whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “What’s a side?” the smallest one asked.

  “The easiest would be anything or anyone against Norsunder taking land, people, life. Liberty. Will and spirit,” Jehan said deliberately.

  “That would be our side,” said the boy, his gaze steady. Meeting it felt strangly like falling and falling through the air.

  “Not what I’ve heard about you.” Jehan looked away, steadying himself with his hands flat on the table.

  The one with the hair looked down, the tall one flashed his sharp edged grin. David said, “Is everything said about your actions, motivations, true?”

  “No.”

  The small one murmured, “Some of what’s said about us is true. But we bring no intent to harm here.”

  Jehan believed that because he knew what they were capable of.

  The tall one, meanwhile had gone on eating. He looked up. “Damedran. Bad bridle training. You take the reins.” He gestured meaning qualified approval and returned to his meal.

  Jehan let out a soundless laugh. He couldn’t quite point out that he had no reins to hold, not with Randart hunting him in phantom for and now possible in real, all because of that hasty abduction. It was only a matter of time before he slipped and Randart penetrated the tenuous disguise. When seen in the perspective of world politics the sinister powers hunting the blood of these four and the infamous figures who had trained them his problems seemed small.

  “Everyone is going to have to pitch it together,” the one with the hair spoke for the first time. “Everyone. To the best of their ability. War is coming, we cannot avoid it, but we can resist if everyone works together.”

  David turned his head sharply; Jehan heard cadenced march above the general noise of the tent.

  A search party of guards halted outside the tent. the patrons fell silent and the harried girl ran to the canvas door, lifted it, exclaimed in question and alarm.

  Jehan turned his back to his companions. They were gone, the bottom of the tent reverberating as if just dropped.

  He was alone at the table even their food was gone, leaving him to hunch over his meal. He felt the hot wary exasperated gaze of the search captain sweep past him and then came the sounds of the searchers marching farther up the row of tents.

  Jehan sat there thinking, while he had this precious time to think. War, imminent. I’d better have Tharlif stockpile those weapons she took off Randart’s fleet.

  He slipped out to make his way to the boat as the sun vanished at last and shadows merged.

  It was time to go try to make amends with Sasharia. And despite his headache, his regrets the new threats to his kingdom and the world he looked forward to seeing her. Maybe just maybe he could get her to laugh.

  ———

  On the other side of the castle while riding the last leg of the relay without finding prince Jehan or anyone else, his shadow came across four cadets making their way slowly toward the parade ground. In amazement he recognized Wolf nephew of the commander, and three others all with broken bones a wrist an arm a shoulder and Wolf with a broken leg. Each wound thoughtfully splinted and bound up with neatly torn strips from a boy sized shirt.

  No one spoke as he helped them back to the academy.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The last of the day’s light was a deep blue glow on the western horizon behind him when Jehan reached the yacht. He’d left orders for a single lantern at the stern rather than running lights, so he was surprised to see lanterns swinging and winking as silhouettes crossed back and forth, the sort of movement you expected to see during work aboard a ship.

  What work? The sails were furled, the yacht riding at single anchor on the outflowing tide. He smothered his lantern and waited oars at rest, until his eyes adjusted enough to determine that the yacht was not being attacked. He’d first seen climbing figures. Now the crew was at the falls and tackle, bringing up the second boat.

  There could only be one reason it had be let down. He uncovered his lantern, once again shielding it from the shore side, and pulled hard on his oars, occasionally peering over his shoulder until he could make out a shivering figure with long dripping braids huddled in a blanket on deck as the other crew members finished stowing the second boat.

  “Dolphin,” he called.

  “Dolphin ho. Falls ready,” came Owl’s wry voice.

  Jehan climbed up the side and crossed to the captain’s deck. As he passed Sasharia she lifted her chin, her face pale and defiant when she recognised him.

  “I would have tried it too,” he said.

  She laughed, and his breath caught. “You. W-would have G-gotten. Away.” Her teeth chattered so hard she almost couldn’t speak.

  A step nearer he saw her blue lips. Angry he turned his head. “where is something hot...”

  “Right away. Gave the orders when we got back.” Owl worked in tandem with the other crew, pulling up Jehan’s boat.

  “Here I am,” came the accented voice of Kaelande, the cook, and a heartbeat later he appeared with a tray of hot coffee, which he sat on the capstan. “Dinner,” he added after an inscrutable glance at them all, “will be ready anon.” He vanished back down to his galley, a tall stocky man who had been trained in Alsais’s royal palace, the most exclusive cooking school in the entire southern hemisphere.

  Owl turned a slant-browed, assessing look Jehan’s way, and then toward Sasharia. “Looks like we could all use it.”

  Sasharia took her mug, her eyes closing as she cherished
its warmth. She carried it toward the guest cabin in the forecastle, and Owl followed Jehan down into the main cabin. They sank down onto the fine-carved chairs bolted to the deck, and Owl sighed. “I didn’t think she’d try to swim for shore from out here.”

  “I didn’t either. We were wrong. But that’s one more tot in the day’s total.” Jehan tried to shut out the image of Sasha’s tall, strong body in that wet clothing. His life was complicated enough, and he knew she didn’t want any part of him. But there she was somehow larger than life in all the ways that were good, with a sudden smile like the sun on the world’s first day. He pressed his thumbs into his eyelids, trying to shutter away Sasha’s image. “Randart will probably have a search team out here by morning soon as he can figure an excuse.”

  “He’s onto us?”

  “I think he suspects. And I’m coming to believe despite his former friendliness, that he would like any excuse to help me suffer a fatal accident. But that’s not our biggest problem. Not nearly.”

  Owl grimaced. “If there’s something worse, I’d rather get a meal in me first.”

  “We’ll all do that.”

  Owl jerked his thumb toward the front of the ship in question.

  Jehan said, “Invite her. Then I don’t have to explain twice.”

  Owl waited, but Jehan’s gaze had gone diffuse the way it did when he was evolving plans, and so he left.

  ———

  I stood in the cabin while my core temperature gradually achieved something resembling human levels, rather than penguin, and stared into the coffee.

  I hate coffee. That is, I love the smell but find it bitter to drink unless I doctor it with honey and milk. Lots and lots of milk. But I wasn’t going to complain about it now. First of all because I needed the warmth and second because they very definitely had the high moral ground.

  Human nature or maybe it’s my own nature, has mule kick stubbornness beat hollow. If they’d yelled at me for my stupid act, I would have been planning another try. But they’d been nice about it, so I felt guilty. Guilty for simply trying my best to get away, on my won, until I figured out what was right? No, guilty because they’d gone to a terrible amount of trouble to search me out in the ocean, their faces worried sick when they found me about two nanosecond before my numb body was about to give up.

  I felt guilty and cold and waterlogged. All my gear was soaked as well for the gear bag was not waterproof, and I’d thrown away the horrible basket weave. Owl had put me through the cleaning frame as soon as I got on board, so the salt sting was gone, but that did nothing to dry anything.

  For a short time I stood there staring haplessly down at the soggy firebird coverlet and my other outfit. I let them drop to the deck with a squelch.

  A knock a moment later. “Will you join us for dinner?” That was Owl. I knew Owl’s voice very well by now. First he’d been on the other side of that hot quilt the day before. Today he’d been calling to me, calling to me as they sought for me in the boat despite the darkness as I was about to sink... “No clothes.” My lips were numb, my jaw shuddering. “W-wet.”

  No answer.

  I was pressing the cup against my face when the knock came again. “Jehan offers these with his compliments.”

  I fumbled with still-numb fingers at the cabin door. It opened. Owl handed me folded cloth. “He apologizes for the colours but says they went through the cleaning frame. If you’d give me yours, I’ll put em through the frame and spread em near the galley fire.”

  I silently handed him the cloth things from the gear bag then shut the door and shucked my tunic and trousers. My undies were wet too, but no help for those. At least they were clean.

  I turned to the clothes. Jehan’s clothes. The idea whopped me right behind the ribs. I held up a fine linen shirt the lacing another of those long braided silk things with a tiny gold leaf at the end. Under that some black riding trousers. Last, a long velvet tunic somewhat like a battle tunic except obviously not made to be fought in. Brown with the cup stitched on in real silver—the royal colours. Hence the apology.

  I was too numb to care. The shirt was roomy and only slightly large, but the pants, tailored to a very different body, were way tight where it counted most. My wet underwear threatened to make the wedgie of the century, so I took the trousers off again and slipped on the tunic. Its hem fell below my knees, except for the slits on the sides, but the shirt was long enough to cover me to mid-thigh. Hardly immodest, even here, when during summer many rolled their deck trousers to their knees, especially when working with water.

  Still I felt off balance, intensely aware of a sense of intimacy in the wearing of Jehan’s clothes. The cleaning frame had removed any trace of him, so they smelled like clean cloth, but curious electricity lingered, the sensory evidence of attraction. I ran my hand down the tunic, which was cut to fit a man the shoulders hanging over my upper arms, the front reshaped by me. The slim line of the tunic hugged my hips, which are built on the Valkyrie model. If there was a mirror in the cabin I had not found it. Not that I had really searched, for earlier in the day I’d only had escape on my mind.

  No help for it. I looked the way I looked.

  I grabbed up my wet clothes and marched out.

  The yacht currently had only four crew members besides Owl: the cook, his wife and two men, one young one older. Only one of those was in my line of sight, on watch at the helm. He gazed out to sea.

  Owl and Jehan stood near the smooth, elegantly curved stern rail. When the cabin door shut behind me they turned their heads and watched me walk up the half a dozen shallow steps to the deck, the lantern light from the binnacle shining on their faces.

  Is that stare universal among het males? Their gazes swept down my body, stopped twice once north of the equator and once south then dropped to my feet and away. Both faces wearing inadvertent grins a mix of appreciative and slightly embarrassed grins civilized guys show when they get caught staring.

  Here’s the girl part of that particular embarrassment. If one likes one of the guys, it’s not annoying, it makes one feel outlined in light. Well I do anyway.

  “The pants were too tight,” I said curtly and as soon as the words were out I knew they made everything ten times worse.

  Owl turned away, one arm gripping the other arm. He was trying very hard not to laugh. I felt the riveted gaze of the fellow at the helm.

  “You look better in that tunic than I do,” Jehan said, assuming courtly manners, but his tone was genuine. Even enthusiastic. “Come into the cabin. Supper is ready.”

  It was a relief to follow him down the broad stairs into the stern cabin. As he stepped with his characteristic quick stride I couldn’t help myself from sneaking a peek at him from behind, that long slim line from shoulder to... stop that!

  I turned my attention to the captain’s cabin.

  Wow talk about a sybaritic delight. Whoever had designed this yacht didn’t have a rough sailors life in mind. There were two of everything in the fine wood carvings, shining rich gold in the light of leaded glass lanterns set in graceful golden holders. Two roses, the leaves suggestive of intertwined bodies. Two lilies, same. Two dolphins leaping and sporting in repeated motif all around the bunk frame. And what a bunk. Built directly under the broad, slanting stern windows, it enabled one or two to lie there and look directly out at the wake glowing in the reflected golden light, foaming away under the glimmering stars. I leaned to look...

  And felt that neon sensation again.

  I whirled around, and crossed my arms when I caught Owl and Jehan staring. Not just staring but checking out my butt in that snug tunic.

  Owl looked up at the ceiling as though his future lay written there. Jehan grinned, a laugh barely suppressed in the slightly husky undertone to his voice as he said, “please sit. Tell me about your day.”

  Since I’d been doing my own butt-checking a minute previous I didn’t say anything. Just plunked down and thumped my elbows onto the carved table. The chairs were lyre backed
cushioned and comfortable.

  “Let me see,” I said cordially. “What part would that be? The nice long morning when Owl nearly suffocated me? Or would that be later, when I was still suffocating? Or maybe after you left, when everyone was busy, the sun was sinking. I thought, great time to dive overboard. Straight into an out flowing tide. Oops,”

  “What did you plan if the tide had worked for you?” Jehan poured out some wine into three goblets. “I ask because I’ve made a couple of ship dives myself.”

  “Yours being successful, of course.”

  He grinned over his goblet at me. “I’ve had more experience with remembering the flow of tides.”

  “Well I didn’t think I could make it all the way to shore. My idea was to reach another boat. Any boat. I could see them, or rather their running lights, or whatever their called here. Pretend if they pulled me out that I’d fallen overboard during a pleasure cruise, no one noticed because of all the noise, and would someone set me ashore?”

  “Except those between us and the harbour are all Randart’s fleet.” Jehan swept his hand all around us. “Gathering to search for the wicked pirate Zathdar.”

  “Oh.” I sipped the wine, which was perfect, not too sweet, not too tart, a Shakespearean sonnet of subtle flavours. I took another sip, this time pausing long enough to savour it. Wow that’s good.” My annoyance melted away. “All right, so that concludes Sasharia’s stupidity for the day. What about you? How did the games go, was it boring and predictable?”

  “No it was neither.” Jehan began with meeting the mystery guys on the walk up to the castle. He ended his report when David and the others vanished through the back of the tent just as the searchers came through the front.

  “So I made my way straight to the boat and here I am.” He said to Owl, “that tall one. I knew I’ve seen him before.”