Coronets and Steel

by Sherwood Smith

  A quick glance at Tony. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other hand shading his eyes as we moved in and out of deepening shadows. Despite the idle pose we were racing at a dangerous speed for these mountains roads; his open shirt rippled in the wind, revealing the black T-shirt that showed the contours of his arms and the outline of six-pack abs. Tony might act like Mr. Laid-Back but he was in shape. He was also at least half a foot taller than me. Considering the fact that we shared a lot of athletic genes, there wasn’t much chance I’d win a fistfight or a foot race.

  I squashed a strong wish to be back at Sedania, where I could grab one of those swords from over the mantel. Too late for that. I’d have to watch for another chance.

  First, hide my intention. I sighed. “Madam Waleska will be looking for me if I don’t show up soon.”

  “She knows you’re with me,” he replied. “Since she believes you’re my sister—using a fake identity for some reason—she won’t question your giving it up to go home. The family will talk for years to come about the night Ruli von Mecklundburg danced at her daughter’s wedding. You are a mystery, Cousin Kim. What is your name? Is it Atelier?”

  “If it will annoy you, I’d be happy to change it to Dsaret,” I said sweetly.

  “Don’t be angry! Think about the serenity of a mountain retreat. Everyone gasses on about how healthy the air is—I suspect that’s because it’s too cold up there for germs. I’ll keep my promise to help you to discover your proof that Grandfather Armandros was a bigamist. And with twin sisters! My respect for him grows daily. Have you any clues to go on?”

  “Nothing.” To bolster my image of meek acceptance, I added, “I was hoping you might get me past the red tape so I can check the official records.”

  “Which official records?”

  “Any of them.”

  “For church records, you’d go to the bishop in Riev. All of the royal funerals, coronations, baptisms, and most of the marriages—except the hasty ones—were conducted right there in the cathedral. You didn’t ask?”

  “No. At first I didn’t speak the language well enough, and then, well, things started happening too fast.”

  “What makes you think these records haven’t been gone over thoroughly, at least once?”

  “I want to see them for myself,” I stated, glad the engine-noise hid the sudden slamming of my heart as I spotted dust ahead in the trees. Someone coming?

  “I’ll get an interview for you, though I suspect this is familiar ground.”

  “Thank you.” I tried not to sound excited as I saw my chance ahead.

  Tony had slowed to drive onto an old wooden bridge which spanned a rushing river some thirty feet below. As he passed the center, with a noise of bleating and more dust rising in clouds, a flock of sheep converged on us from the other side. They had surrounded the car within seconds, and Tony was forced to slow to a stop. He leaned back, muttering an unheated curse. He kept the car in gear, one foot on the clutch, other on the brake; one hand on the wheel, the other gripping the gear shift—

  I pulled my feet up and flung a leg over the car door.

  Tony reacted with startling swiftness, jamming the gear into neutral and reaching for me. He managed to grasp my right ankle with his fingertips.

  I had enough presence of mind to restrain the urge to kick out at him, which would have enabled him to better his grip. Jerking my ankle against his thumb, I snapped free and whirled out of the car.

  “Shit.” He laughed. “Don’t be a fool.”

  The car was closer to the left side of the bridge than the right. So I only had a few sheep to dodge around—stumbling as one butted against me in silent protest—before I reached the rail of the bridge and could run along beside it.

  Tony rammed the hand brake on, jumped out and came after me, and despite the sheep, he was beginning to close the gap with such speed it was time for desperate action.

  So I vaulted over the bridge rail and stood on the outer edge, clinging tightly to the rail with my fingers. Below was a sheer thirty foot drop to the rushing water.

  He stood in the center of the bridge with sheep swarming around him and lifted his hands. “Kim,” he said with some exasperation, “come back here. Please.”

  “I don’t want to go to your damn castle,” I snarled through gritted teeth.

  “Right.” He took a slow step toward me, and I slid away along the rail. He stopped. “I’ll take you back to town.”

  I needed to go about six more feet before I would be over the middle of the river. A quick glance down showed that depth could not be judged, and too close to the sides was the white water indicating rocks.

  Tony held his hands out wide. “Truce?”

  “What is it,” I demanded, ignoring his offer, “about the guys from this place? Do you always pull the pirate shtick on women? No wonder they run off.”

  He laughed. And took another step.

  I slid away, watching him unwaveringly—and knocked against a stanchion. I clutched feverishly at the rail to steady myself.

  Tony bit off an exclamation. Then said with care, “You didn’t have trouble with Alec, did you?”

  “If being knocked out and stuck on a train qualifies as trouble, yes.”

  He had reached the rail about eight feet from me. Leaning idly against it, he gave a crow of laughter. “Alec? I’d love to’ve seen that.”

  “I wish you had been in the starring role,” I retorted.

  “So that’s how he got your cooperation in Split.”

  “No,” I said loftily. “I jumped out the window on the train.”

  His eyes widened briefly. “I wish I’d known that,” he said, leaning the other elbow on the bridge rail. “What happened them?”

  “Nothing more to tell. He got my cooperation by asking for it.” No need to ruin the effect by mentioning that my escape had been short-lived.

  “Poor Kim! Ill-used by us damned Dobreni.” He took a slow, cautious step. “Please get off that thing, you’re scaring me.” Another step. “I’ll take you anywhere you like.”

  We stared at each other for a long moment. He was smiling, wind blowing in his blond hair, the long hands so much like my own leaning carelessly on the rail. I glared back, clutching the rail.

  “I don’t believe you.” And, bracing myself: “So I guess I’ll have to—”

  He lunged.

  If I hadn’t decided to jump, he would have got me, too. As I’d suspected, he could move fast when he wanted to, but so could I.

  A brief, panicky moment as his fingers snatched inches from my wrists—I yipped—and fell away through the cold, breezy air.

  I barely had time to wrap myself up into the cannonball dive we’d used as kids, high diving at the municipal pool. Cannonball jumps make an almighty splash but don’t hurt, and one doesn’t go down too deep.

  I hit the water like a rock. My breath smashed from my body as cold water closed over my head. I fought my way to the surface, propelled by an uncompromisingly strong current. Kicking and gasping for air, I fought my dragging skirt, then turned over to see if Tony had come after me.

  He was still up on the bridge. I caught a glimpse of the last of the sheep milling past him as he leaned on the rail watching me, his head bright in the afternoon sunlight.

  Watching to see where I climb out, I thought.

  Cold as it was, not to mention fast moving, I couldn’t resist sticking a hand out of the water and giving him the point-and-shoot. He grinned and twiddled his fingers as the white water swept me into the center of the current. I struck out, swimming hard to stay with the current, keeping a close watch for rocks as the river swept me along.

  The next time I risked a glance back I’d already been swept completely beyond sight of the bridge. At least the water was rain runoff, rather than snowmelt, or I wouldn’t be writing this now. It was chilly enough, and I was moving fast downstream as the river bent and twisted. Remembering those waterfalls glimpsed from the drive, I worked hard to swim to the side
, hampered by my skirt, which acted like an anchor or drag sail.

  Water splashed in my face—I paddled hard to avoid rocks that seemed to come at me at freeway speeds—then I nearly choked when I caught sight of a strange, barky face peering beneath the limbs of a willow. Splashing hard I lunged up, trying to blink water out of my eyes. My foot encountered a rock long enough for me to shove against it.

  I fell with another splash, but when I came up, I was within a few arm’s lengths of the bank. I’d passed that rocky point—I risked a look back—nothing. Of course nothing!

  When I faced forward again I almost missed it—a long branch reaching into the water, somehow caught between a couple of huge boulders. I caught the strongest twigs in a death grip. The water tried hard to suck me past, but I pulled myself hand over hand along the branch, grimacing at pricks and scrapes.

  As soon as my feet touched ground I surged out, panting and shivering, falling heavily onto a mossy stretch of rock-strewn mud. It was slimy, too; my feet slipped out from under me when I tried to stand so I crawled up until I reached a tangle of thick shrubs. I grasped a branch and pulled myself up onto the higher bank, then collapsed on the long thick grass. At once flies and gnats came to investigate. Slapping at them, I sat up again. A tug on my scalp made me realize I’d lost my hair clip, and my braid hung in a sodden rope around my shoulders, bits of twig, leaf, grass, and mud caught in it. My hat had also disappeared down the river. The late afternoon breeze ruffled briskly over my scalp, making me shiver.

  As soon as I stood up the brisk wind caressed me with all the balmy warmth of an industrial refrigerator. I knew the only remedy was to dry out and walk fast, so I started slogging my way up the steep, overgrown slope, wringing out my clothes as best as I could.

  Okay, what next? I tried not to think about freezing night temperatures, or wild hills full of bears, lynx, chamois . . . are chamois carnivores?

  The ethereal sound of a wooden flute echoed through the trees. Was it possible I was below Sedania? No, we’d driven too far for that, and the river had taken me farther south, not north. But the quick, butterfly melody, light and magical, reminded me of that unseen player at the hunting lodge.

  I turned around slowly. Music is fine, but what I wanted was a human being to point to the road. If I could find the player, I could ask directions.

  The melody changed to something vaguely familiar. Had my grandmother once played that? Memory carried images of our back porch in Los Angeles, and the breeze-tossed jacarandas sifting the westering light as my grandmother played songs on the piano that I never heard again after I began pestering her about titles and composers.

  I lunged up the hill in the direction of the music, mentally forming questions with my nascent Dobreni vocabulary.

  After trudging determinedly up the long, pine-covered slope I found a narrow goat or sheep track. I was no closer to the musician, but at least my climb got easier.

  The track was fairly easy to follow, even in slippery, squashy sandals—my second ruined pair since I’d met up with my noble relations.

  Anyway the spongy moss and pine needle-strewn ground was clear and firm along this narrow track, and it wound around treacherous rockfalls and impenetrable underbrush. I got my breath back despite my swinging pace.

  The occasional low rays of sunlight had deepened to amber. I paused to catch my breath, peering through the towering blue-green spruce that soughed peacefully overhead, almost drowning out that breathy flute.

  The player was moving away.

  I hustled up the trail. I was totally lost, but somehow the idea of being lost within earshot of another human (except Tony, I amended mentally) was bearable. Totally lost without anyone for miles around wasn’t, especially with dark fast descending.

  When I topped a small rise bare of foliage, I stopped for breath, turning slowly as I listened. The view was sensational. The last rays of ruddy gold-tinged light flooded the valley. Above the rim of the distant line of mountains behind Riev, the reddish sun rested. Far below rib-boned the dark blue gleam of the river as it crossed the farmland.

  Behind me, smoke drifted gracefully up from beyond a mysterious close of forest. I no longer heard the pipes, or flute, or whatever it was, but smoke? That had to mean a house. Or even a camp. Or something with humans around.

  I swung about, examining the slope. In the fast-gathering shadows I’d almost missed the narrow dirt road almost directly below me some two hundred feet.

  And, in a loop lower than that, a turnoff.

  Next to that, a sign.

  For the second time, I started slip-sliding down a mountainside.

  When I reached the halfway point the sun disappeared, the sudden shadow investing the forest around me with a sinister darkness. But I kept my sights on that sign: I didn’t care what it said, I was going to head for the nearest town or village and trust to luck that Tony wouldn’t want to advertise his kidnapping attempt by having people go out and search for me.

  Presently I crouched on a bluff some yards above the sign and squinted down at it. The letters were in Cyrillic, and there were arrows before each of the three choices, pointing off in three directions. I almost didn’t bother sounding out the second and third villages listed, as the first had 3 km painted next to it. The second was 5 km and the third 11—but that third one . . . I puzzled out the worn, rough painting—dor . . ee . . keh . . .

  Dorike. Governess Mina’s village.

  Or another Dorike? No. I remembered the widow at Anna’s wedding. On Riev Dhiavilyi. Devil’s Mountain . . .

  And we’d been on the way to Tony’s blasted castle, probably at the top of this same mountain.

  So this was definitely his territory. I sat back on my heels. Good news and bad news. Good news, maybe an ally in Mina. Bad news: I knew enough about local custom to realize that, if this was the heart of his family’s land, there was a good chance that Tony would have the right in local people’s eyes to search for a blond female on the loose, reason unstated.

  I wavered for half a second, then slid the rest of the way down, and started marching for Dorike.

  Darkness fell rapidly, and with it the cold intensified. My hair was dry enough for me to spread over my shoulders in a forlorn hope it would act as a cape. I swung my arms vigorously as I strode along. When the road became hard to see, I told myself at least no one could see me, and to keep my spirits steady I sang Loreena McKennitt and Mediæval Bæbes ballads, and when I ran out of those, I reached back to the stuff my folks had played when I was growing up, beginning with the Beatles, working through Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

  I was on the second verse of “Jack of Hearts” when the tinny growl of an old Volkswagen engine cut through my lousy singing. I looked back down the road where twin beams twinkled between the trees.

  I ducked out of sight behind a broad tree trunk as a fantastically decrepit VW bug on four mismatched, elderly tires rattled slowly by in second gear. Four men had stuffed themselves inside, two with long-barreled rifles poking out of the windows. Each man scanned the bushes and trees at the sides of the road: I glimpsed the blobs of their faces turning this way and that.

  I thought of telltale prints leading to my tree—but the headlights only illuminated the road ahead of the car, which passed me and kept going. I waited until the engine noise had vanished beneath the rising sound of wind in the trees, then I resumed my trek—this time quietly.

  Once a sudden thrashing upslope frightened me into scrambling behind some brush as a low, canine shape swarmed by, plumy tail lifted. It was only a fox. It vanished, going about its business, and I marched on.

  It seemed a thousand hours later that I was wondering if I had somehow missed a turnoff, or a sign, when I smelled the sweet, unmistakable scent of roses in bloom.

  Wondering if I’d gone around the bend mentally as well as on this endless road, I tried to walk faster. When I got past the last dark stand of silent fir, the weak glow of small, whitewashed buildings appeared in the light of the moon
. The road widened into three paths, the main one going straight through the center of a village. I had to be in Dorike.

  Most of the houses were dark. I walked as quietly as I could, examining each cottage for any sign of the rose bushes I could smell.

  I was so expecting the pruned shrubs I was used to at home that I almost missed it. There, at the other end of the village up a steep slope, I could see a cottage through the arched opening of a trellis covered with some enormous shrub that rambled in tangles, forming a natural wall up and beyond the house, in some places as high as an oak. The perfume of rose on the cold air clued me in: a close look revealed a mighty rose tree, or combination of trees, winding up the walls and over the roof of a roadside shrine like the ones I’d seen all over the countryside. The shrine was sheltered by the thick boughs of ancient skyscraping fir—like Sleeping Beauty’s century-old garden.

  Leading down from the cottage were stone steps that had probably been set in by hands five hundred years ago, if not longer. The cottage was small and round, its roof also shaded by huge firs.

  The windows were dark.

  In my ruined, mud-caked sandals, I walked cautiously up the neat flagstones to the low door, my dress bedraggled, my hair hanging limply down—hoping Mina Hajyos was not gone, or living with one of Tony’s most ardent partisans, I knocked.

  “Madam Hajyos?” I whispered, my gaze on an open window a few paces from the door. “Salfmatta Hajyos?”

  Muffled sounds inside, a scraping, slippers on a wooden floor and then golden light flared, swinging: an old-fashioned lantern.

  The door was pulled open a crack. Weak light touched my face and the front of my disheveled clothing. I got to the first word of “May I talk to you?” when there was a sharp gasp as the door flung wide.

  “Durchlaucht,” an old voice cried. “Princess Lily?”

  The lamp was set down with a crash, and taking my hand in her two old ones, Mina bowed over it and cried.