by Morgan Rice
Emeline and Cora went inside. The interior of the farmhouse was surprisingly well furnished for somewhere so out of the way, looking as though someone had paid the costs for a merchant to bring over the finest carved chairs and tables by cart.
“Oh, this is all down to my boys,” the woman said. “They travel about to trade. I’m Addie. Who are you girls?”
“I’m Emeline,” Emeline said, “and this is Cora.”
“It’s lovely to meet you both,” the woman said. “Come and sit down, and then we’ll find you something to eat.”
The two of them sat down, and Addie brought over bread that looked as though it had just been baked, along with stew that had the smell of mutton laced with mint and rosemary.
Come on, girls, eat up so we can get on with this.
Emeline caught those thoughts almost by accident, looking across to Cora and putting a hand gently on her arm to stop her.
“Aren’t you going to eat with us?” Emeline asked.
“Oh, I ate earlier, dears,” Addie said.
And in any case, it wouldn’t be much good if I drugged myself.
“Well, that hardly seems fair,” Emeline said. “You’ve gone to such trouble. Maybe we should just get off to Stonehome. It is where you said?”
Not that you’ll get there. You’re too valuable. Runaways.
“What’s going on?” Cora asked. “Emeline, is everything okay?”
“No,” Emeline said. “She’s not planning to let us leave.”
Emeline and the woman moved almost at the same time, Emeline grabbing for her small eating knife, Addie grabbing another one on the table. The older woman was, if anything, even stronger than she looked, grabbing Emeline’s arms and pushing her back toward the table.
“Might as well stop struggling, girl,” Addie said. “I’ve spent my life handling pigs and horses ever since my husband died. A little thing like you is nothing.”
You’ll fetch a fine price though.
Emeline struggled anyway, kicking out at her would-be captor.
“Is that all this is?” she demanded. “You snatch people and sell them?”
“You aren’t anybody,” the older woman said. “Probably indentured already. Certainly, nobody cares about you if you’re asking about Stonehome.” She pinned Emeline down, and now there was a length of rawhide in her hands. “You should be grateful. If you went to Strand asking about that place of witches, they’d probably burn you for it.”
Emeline knew she couldn’t let herself be tied. Cora wouldn’t be able to fight off a woman like this. She was—
There was a thud as Cora picked up an iron skillet and hit the older woman. To Emeline’s surprise, she hit her again, making her stumble away from Emeline. She looked as though she might hit Addie again, but Emeline pulled her toward the door.
“This way!” Emeline said. “We need to get out of here.”
They ran for the door together, and it seemed that Cora’s blows had slowed Addie down a little, because she was barely able to stumble after them. Emeline slammed the door shut behind them, looking around for something to block the door. Cora was already dragging over a heavy trough, pushing it in place.
“That won’t hold it for long,” Emeline said, already looking around for a way to escape. It seemed that Cora had an idea about that too. She was already running over to where the great horse was standing, throwing a nearby blanket across its back in lieu of a saddle.
She leapt up easily, and Emeline pulled herself up behind her. She heard a crash as Addie kicked the door open.
“Hold on,” Cora said, as she kicked the horse into a run. It wasn’t a fast run, but it didn’t need to be. They bolted from the farm, out into the darkness, while Emeline did her best not to fall.
She wasn’t sure how long they rode like that, but by the time they stopped, she was more than ready to tumble off the horse’s back. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath.
“That was… we almost…”
“It’s all right,” Cora said, hopping down beside her and pulling her into a hug. “We escaped. We even got ourselves a new horse.”
“We can’t keep escaping,” Emeline pointed out.
“We won’t have to, once we reach Stonehome.”
She had a point. Once they reached Stonehome, they would be safe. That meant that, burnings or not, they were going to have to find the village of Strand.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“No, not the cream silks, the white, you stupid girl!” Angelica pulled the material out of a servant’s hands, tossing it aside. “Fetch something better. Run.”
Angelica had to admit that she was enjoying the chance to prepare for her wedding. Ordinarily, she found the work of planning a ball or a party a little boring, but those were things for other people. With this, she would be the center of attention.
Well, her and Sebastian, but the groom hardly mattered at a wedding.
“Better,” Angelica said as the girl came back with what she wanted. She patted her on the shoulder. “You see, you can do it right when you want.”
She was playing nice today, and she was a little surprised to find that Sebastian was part of the reason for that. She didn’t want him hearing that she was slipping into old ways, being cruel to the help. Part of it was that she didn’t want to give him any reason to call this off. Part of it was just that he was Sebastian, and Angelica didn’t want him disappointed with her.
Now there was a surprising thought.
There had been a time when the only thing that had mattered to Angelica was marrying a prince. Now, though, the fact that the prince in question was Sebastian seemed very much a bonus rather than a hindrance. Angelica tried to think about what it would be like to be married to Rupert. That thought made her shudder.
“Is everything all right, your highness?” the servant asked.
“It’s still just ‘my lady’ for now,” Angelica said, but she had to admit that she liked the sound of it. “It’s Eliza, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my lady.” The servant looked surprised that Angelica knew her name. They often made that mistake. They thought that Angelica didn’t know it, when in fact, she simply wasn’t using it.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you, Eliza.”
She was more than fine. She had won the prize that she’d always wanted. Soon, she would be royal in one of the only ways that someone could become royal without being born to it. She would be close enough to the throne to touch it.
Of course, it would mean having the Dowager for a mother-in-law, but Angelica would find ways to deal with that. There were always ways to deal with even the most intractable of problems. She’d dealt with Sophia, after all.
“I just need to take a few measurements for your dress,” the servant said.
Angelica stood there, letting the servant do it, but even in this, there was a difference between her and the other woman. Perhaps someone else would have stood there like a doll, moved around and manipulated to be measured. Angelica moved with grace and authority.
That was the key difference in the way the world worked. There were those with the strength of will to command, and those who obeyed out of habit. Blood could give a person some of it, knowledge more, physical strength something, but the real key was will.
“The Queen has suggested that perhaps you might like to use the mask she wore for her wedding, to demonstrate continuity,” the servant said.
That wasn’t all the move was designed to demonstrate, and Angelica wasn’t happy about it. The Dowager was trying to remind her of her place even now. Well, she had more will than that.
“Wait here, Eliza,” Angelica told the servant, deciding to demonstrate it.
The servant shifted in place, and Angelica caught her by the throat. Not hard, not enough to leave a mark, but enough to make it clear which of them was in charge.
“I did not tell you to move,” she said, her voice still gentle. “Stand now. There, that’s nice. Stand like that. Exactly like that. If you mo
ve even a little, I will know, and your younger sister… Masie, isn’t it, will pay for it. You’ll watch while she’s whipped. Then I’ll find an excuse to have the both of you sold.”
Angelica left the servant there and went over to the desk in the corner of the room. A glance back at the servant showed her shivering in apparent fear, the need not to move only making her shake more.
It was a petty cruelty, and normally Angelica had no time for such things, If only other people were so easy to set quaking. No matter how strong she became, the memories of having to kneel before the Dowager while she threatened Angelica’s life were only too fresh.
Angelica took out a ledger, opening it to go through some of the notes she kept there. The original of this had started as a diary when she was little more than a child, the whole thing in a cipher of her own devising. Over time, she had acquired many volumes, all separate. Now, each page was filled with tiny notes on every person she had met, their strengths and their weaknesses, their hopes and their dreams.
The pages for the Dowager were a complex thing of interweaving strands, most of them featuring her sons. The fact that Angelica would soon have a full hold on one of those sons was the only thing that alleviated her mood. She wouldn’t be at risk in the same way when she was by Sebastian’s side, joined in marriage. He wouldn’t stand by and let his mother control his wife, and that would give Angelica the space she needed to do what she wished.
That brightened Angelica’s mood enough that she flipped a few pages, read a brief entry, read a few notes attached to it, and went back over to the servant who stood there trying to be still.
“Thank you, Eliza, that’s enough. Incidentally, there is a small house on Gutterfield Street. There is a loose brick beside the lower left lintel. You will find what you are looking for there.”
“My lady?” the woman said, looking shocked.
“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about,” Angelica said. “Now go please.”
It was a small thing, a fragment of a favor, yet to this servant, it was everything. It was actually quite amusing to watch her scurry off looking so happy. Perhaps this was why Sebastian insisted on doing good for other people.
Angelica went back to her book, considering the contents even as she considered the extent of her wedding feast, the people to invite, the arrangements that would have to be made. They were all parts of the same whole, the presence of guests having as much to do with what they owed Angelica or the opportunities to bring them together as because they were friends or relatives.
There were those who might have called that cynical, but it was simply how the world worked, as far as Angelica could see. How it had always worked. Ultimately, she had a choice: she could stand there as a pawn in someone else’s game, or she could play it, better than anyone else. She chose the second option.
“Now I just have to find the right moves to topple a queen,” Angelica said, although the truth was that wasn’t how it needed to work. She didn’t need to kill the Dowager, or overthrow her, or even force her to abdicate. She just needed to create the right situations to ensure that Sebastian got power once the old hag died, and that it was real power, not the facsimile of it that the royal family had wielded for a generation.
How to do it, though…
“My lady?” a young man said, knocking at the door as he said it to drag Angelica from her thoughts.
“What is it?” she demanded. Was there some wedding preparation she had forgotten, something urgent when it came to Sebastian? Ordinarily, Angelica liked the idea of spending time around the prince who would be her husband. She had found time for meals with him, for sweet kisses that had nothing to do with the more manipulative things she’d used as weapons with others in the past. She didn’t want him to see this side of her, though.
“A message has come for you by bird, my lady,” the boy said. “From Ishjemme.”
There were only so many people that could mean, and as Angelica held out her hand for it, she knew who it had to be. Endi, the younger son of the place’s duke, whose affections she had carefully cultivated for just this reason.
Most nobles took a tour of the lands around them as they came of age. Many still did it despite the wars on the continent. Most of them wasted their time collecting mementos of the places they’d visited, rather than cultivating the kind of contacts who might tell them what was going on. Angelica had been more direct about it. She had made friends, and more than friends. She had found those who would tell her what she wanted to know for money, or friendship, or the hint of more…
She read Endi’s overt message slowly, making a face. “Oh dear, I suppose I shall have to discourage this sort of thing now that I am to be married. Thank you for bringing it though.”
She took out a candle, and the messenger lit it for her, obviously guessing that she meant to burn it. She did, but not before holding the paper above the flame, watching the letters that formed there in the seconds before the message caught light. Her eyes widened, and she would have read it again to be sure except that the words were already gone.
There was no mistaking what it had said, though: Sophia and her sister were in Ishjemme. Sophia was alive.
“No,” Angelica breathed. “She can’t be.”
“I hope everything is all right, my lady,” the messenger said, and the echo of the earlier servant’s words caught at Angelica. A few minutes ago, everything had seemed perfect. Now…
…now, Angelica feared for her life. If the Dowager found out that she’d failed, that Sophia still lived, then there was no telling what the old woman might do. She might make good on her promise to have Angelica treated as a traitor, even now. She might pull apart the marriage that Angelica had worked so hard to get.
No, she wouldn’t allow that. Whatever it took, and she knew what it would take. Endi had already hinted at it in his message. If Angelica was lucky, then there would be another message on its way already, telling her that things had been resolved. If they weren’t…
Assassins were not as common as people supposed them to be. Mostly, they were madmen or fanatics, fools who could be persuaded by love or politics or religion to kill someone on the wrong side. Mostly, they died soon after. Those who killed for simple coin, and who survived to do it again, were harder to find.
Angelica flicked through her book, checking that she had it right. She wrote on a scrap of paper in a neat hand.
Sophia and Kate, in the court of Lars Skyddar. Speed is essential. Lady d’A.
She paused for a moment, and then sighed as she wrote more.
This messenger knows too much.
She sealed the paper with wax, waiting for it to cool before handing it to the messenger.
“I have a task for you,” she said. “Take this to the Street of Barrels, and look for the sign of the Green Thorn. Put it into the hands of the proprietor, and no one else. Give this to him as well.” She took a pouch of coins from her belt, knew that it wouldn’t be enough, and removed her earrings to add to it. They had cost enough to buy a small house, but right now, there was no reason to be stingy.
So long as Sophia died, everything else was secondary.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They put Sophia in chambers as large as any she’d had back in Ashton’s castle, with Kate somewhere nearby. Sophia half expected her sister to be in there the moment she woke, wanting to explore the city, but instead it was Rika who opened the door, coming in with a dress on her arm.
“I thought you would be up. Your sister said we should let you sleep while she rode off, but I thought that was just wasting the day.”
“Kate rode off?” Sophia asked.
“Oh, not like that. Frig and Ulf were going to show her the countryside around the city.”
That sounded more like Kate.
“Here,” Rika said. “I brought you one of my dresses. I’ll show you the city, if you like.”
“I’d like that,” Sophia said. It was strange how quickly her uncle’s family h
ad taken her in, and how natural it felt.
The dress was pale wool, and fit her surprisingly well. Rika led the way, showing Sophia the kitchens and the galleries, all the nooks that her uncle had no time for the day before as they headed down toward the castle gates.
To Sophia’s surprise, Jan was standing by those gates, looking resplendent in a colorful tunic and a harlequin cloak. Although his thoughts were a blank to her, his sister’s thoughts were anything but.
Oh dear, she really has made an impression on him.
Sophia looked across to Rika. “Um… Rika? You know that I can hear your thoughts, right?”
Normally, it wasn’t something she said, but she didn’t want to feel that she was eavesdropping here, and in any case, she wanted to know what Rika meant. The other girl looked a little embarrassed by that.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Father taught us how to shield our thoughts, but I must admit I was never very good at it.”
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Sophia said. “It’s just… what do you mean about me making an impression on Jan?”
She doesn’t know? Oh damn, she can…
“Rika?” Sophia asked.
“I think he’s a little in love with you,” Rika said, her face turning almost as red as her hair. “He’s obviously trying to impress you, dressed like that.”
Sophia looked across at the young man in surprise. She had to admit that he was handsome, her age, with a lean look to him that seemed more like a poet or a scholar than a warrior. She could even feel a flash of attraction looking at him.
Yet the truth was that she wasn’t interested in that right now. She loved Sebastian, and the thought of anything beyond that made things far too complicated.
“Just… don’t be too harsh with him?” Rika asked. “And don’t tell him that you got it from me?”
“I can do that,” Sophia said.
They went over, and Jan smiled.
“There you are,” he said. “I heard from Rika that you’d be going down into the city. I thought I might come along, show you some of the best places.”