Sasharia en Garde Read online

  His eyelids lifted slightly, giving me half-a-heartbeat’s warning. Before I could draw breath to move, or even to yell, a thick winter quilt blotted out the sun and my world was perforce confined to hot, enshrouding darkness that smelled distinctly of mold.

  I began to struggle, though it was futile, writhing and kicking until a familiar voice muttered next to my head, “C’mon, Princess. It’s your old friend Owl. You can kick me all you like when we get back to the ship. If you can reach me. But you can’t be allowed to get us all killed.”

  Killed? Say what?

  I stopped struggling as I considered that, but before I could decide I didn’t believe it, something efficiently wrapped me up into a giant cocoon, and thump! I fell onto something wooden. Things thudded round me, and a horse clopped. I was in a cart, which jerked and rumbled at a sedate pace back down the street, my face streaming with sweat in that suffocating quilt. I was so tightly wrapped it was useless to yell. No one could hear me anyway.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Atanial was considerably surprised to receive a visitor.

  This time it wasn’t night, but morning. She’d done a long session of yoga and had emerged from her bath to discover Ananda entering her room through the servants’ door.

  “Please pardon the intrusion. But this is the only way to have private converse.”

  Atanial wondered how the queen got past the guards on the stairs, then suspected illusion magic. More important was the timing of this visit. “I certainly didn’t have privacy during my intimate little dinner with the king, did I?” she asked with some irony.

  Ananda laughed softly. “Privacy? With the entire troupe of players watching the only two members of the audience, and one of them is busy staring at the other, caressing her neck? Watched also by the servants who had to stand there all evening with their wine and plates of uneaten food and unused cushions?”

  Atanial had hopped onto her bed. She leaned back against her pillows and crossed her arms. “So I take it I passed some kind of test, and you are here for—?”

  Ananda’s voice was sad. “There was no test. I would have come anyway, if you had been here alone. Whatever happened. But my message would have been warnings. I am going away, Atanial.”

  Atanial’s nerves prickled with the cold chill of the unexpected. “Going away, as in . . .”

  “Transferring to a place of safety. What no one except the prince knows is that his mother, Feraeth Jervaes, and I have been friends for many years.”

  Atanial whistled softly. “Sit down. Tell me more, please.”

  Ananda perched on the edge of the bed. “You know that the morvende do not have what we would call a government. But they do have leaders whose wisdom inclines others to listen. One such is Tarael of the Eleyad geliath on the northern continent. He has seen in dreams that Norsunder will move against the world soon.”

  Norsunder. Atanial had never quite gotten a grip on the whole concept of a place beyond space and time, controlled by inimical minds who seemed to have lived for thousands of years. She’d defined it to Sasha as a kind of hell, one mostly created by, run by and joined by humans who really, really wanted power. Including, she was told, the power to live forever. “Soon? As in days? Weeks?”

  “Time is . . . time is different, for the morvende. It’s useless to ask that question, because they cannot answer with any precision. But it could be this year, or next. Or in five. Probably not as long as ten, though, Feraeth told me, judging from some troubling events in the world elsewhere. I waited, and waited, but I think . . .”

  Ananda paused, her profile briefly turned toward the window. The sunlight slanting in touched her frizzy hair into a halo of gold.

  “I think there is no more I can do here, that what must be done will be done, but easier without me. I will go away. I first wanted to offer you the chance to go with me. The world is changing, and only the young will be strong enough to survive what is regretfully going to come.”

  Atanial impulsively launched herself across the tumbled bedding and hugged Ananda. “You are a sweetheart. I really appreciate that, more than you probably will ever know. But while my daughter is in danger and while Math is . . . missing, my place is here. That might change, and if I only get this one chance, so be it. But I have to stay and turn my hand to whatever I can.”

  Ananda smiled and stood, her face in silhouette against the bright window. “I thought it might be so. I did wish to ask. The illusion spell waits for two to leave, if you are reconsidering. But it will be impossible to repeat it. Once I am gone, poor Perran will search every stone of this castle, and he’ll increase the wards.”

  “‘Poor’ Perran? I thought Perran and Zhavic turned into Evil Sorcerers.”

  Atanial’s tone was half-joking, but Ananda did not smile. “They would never turn to dark magic or to Norsunder. There is a terrible rift between our kingdom’s mages. Some withdrew completely and live behind wards. The Eban boy is trained by these. Perran and Zhavic felt they had to swear allegiance to Canardan because he was the king. This was to better protect the kingdom, for they feared if they didn’t, he might bring in truly evil mages.”

  Atanial vaguely remembered Perran. He’d seemed odd back then. Now she pegged him as the kind of guy who’d be a star at Apple Computers, designing brilliant software by day, and on weekends entirely taken up with playing World of Warcraft.

  “I think I see.”

  “Everything is confused,” the queen said seriously. “I would say that Zhavic, having thrown in with the king, has gradually shifted allegiance, but he is still dedicated to the kingdom. Despite Canardan’s earnest wish, even his orders, none of the mages really exert themselves to harm the others. There’s always some magical reason why the ‘traitor’ mages cannot be extirpated, as the war commander often demands. Magister Glathan’s death was—”

  “I know. Randart’s example of how to do it properly. All right, I think I see my duty. I think. Anyway, with Sasha out there in the world, I must stay. But again, thank you.”

  Ananda lifted a hand. “The gift is not mine, only the thought. I will leave you with terrible trouble, I know, but I was never capable of addressing it. However, I beseech you to trust Canardan’s son, though it appears there is much against him. He’s also Feraeth’s son, and she is convinced he walks the knife-edge between seeming and truth, but to a purpose, and his purpose is good.”

  “I will remember that.” Atanial wondered if she could believe it.

  “Fare you well,” Ananda said softly, and she left as silently as she had come.

  Atanial lay back down, staring at the ceiling. The next day there might be a hue and cry, but more likely Canardan would suppress news of the queen’s disappearance as much as he could. She would vanish from history as quietly as she’d lived.

  Atanial let her breath trickle slowly out. So what about her own history? So far, she hadn’t done all that well. But she was here again, and so she had a second chance.

  Plan, then? For now, be a model “guest,” make friends with everyone in sight, be visible, friendly, keep talking to people in hopes they would talk to her and about her, so that Randart, at least, would have difficulty making her disappear. Learn whatever she could.

  And wait to meet this Prince Jehan on whom so much seemed to depend.

  o0o

  At the far end of the castle lay the senior barracks of the Ellir Academy, near the tower above the very top of Market Street. Across from Market Street was the famous brewery. The barracks thus lay at the other end of the row of buildings from all the masters and guards.

  It was the place every cadet yearned to live in. By the time you’d attained that pinnacle, though, you had also become aware that there was hierarchy not only in the academy, but among the seniors.

  So it was Damedran Randart, the academy commander’s son, whose particular group got all the beds down the window side that overlooked the top of Market Street, the brewery, and the harbor beyond. The rules stated that beds were
first come first served, but those not part of Damedran’s inner circle who had arrived for the senior year weeks before Damedran had either discovered a taste for the dusty view overlooking the practice courts inside the academy, or they suffered a lot of accidents that the masters didn’t seem to notice.

  And so, when Damedran came back from seeing his father, he found his friends sitting at the open windows, idly watching Market Street below.

  He paused in the doorway, his splendid shoulders set off in the brown tunic (his being tailored, not taken off the piles down in Supply), his long, glossy black hair worn loose instead of clipped back according to regs, but who was going to complain?

  He waited impatiently, wondering why they were all staring out at Market Street when he was back, especially as they’d been begging him to find out the final word about the games. “Market Street on fire?”

  Gratifying, how they whirled around, a couple of them even snapping to attention. He wasn’t a king yet, and they were already thinking of him like one. Good. Maybe Uncle Dannath would stop jawing at him, Think like a king!

  Red, his chief lieutenant, dashed back the pale red hair that made the origin of his nickname obvious. “The sheep managed to waylay a pickpocket or thief.”

  Damedran’s huge cousin Wolfie said in his deep growl, “Least, we’re pretty sure it was the sheep.” He raised a huge paw to his unruly black hair, which he wore neatly clipped back. Wolfie did not stand on privilege. He was mainly interested in fights out behind the stable. “Sheep-white hair. Not many o’ those in uniform brown.”

  “None of ’em wear their hair long,” Red said. “Has to be the sheep. Only I thought he rode off to Sartor?”

  “He rode in this morning.” Damedran was uninterested in Prince Jehan, except when he was in trouble. “I’m amazed he managed to waylay a single thief. It must have taken at least thirty of his followers.” As the others laughed, he strode into the barracks, nodded at two of the boys, who leaped up and sped to the doors at either end, shutting them and setting their backs to the wood.

  The room now being secure, he got right to the subject that interested them all the most. “My father said it’s the king’s own order. There won’t be any yacht runs.”

  “Whyyyyyyyy?” That was Bowsprit Lanarg, who was the best of all the seniors at skiff running.

  Damedran saw disappointment to varying degrees in all their faces, except for Wolfie’s. Wolfie just liked fighting. End of subject.

  Damedran himself hated anything to do with the ocean. Too much work, and anyway, kings didn’t go out on the water. But he had to sound like he cared. “It’s because of the pirate Zathdar. They think he’s got the old princess’s daughter, and so my uncle has been ordered to take the fleet and wipe ’em out.”

  “Even Prince Math’s girl?”

  Damedran snorted a laugh. “Orders are to take her, but hey, if she gets in the way of someone’s sword, problem ended—” As soon as the words were out he saw they were a mistake.

  Not all his followers knew the secret plans. Definitely not Ban Kender, who was his only genuine aristocrat follower. Ban’s family had been deposed when Locan Jora took over the western portion of the kingdom. Handle him like a thoroughbred plains runner, his father had told him in private. That whole family, they’re romantic. To them we’re heroic though outnumbered, fighting for ancient rights. See you don’t disabuse ’em of that notion.

  “They’d kill her?” Ban said, sure enough. And the rest (except for Wolfie, who never changed expression) reflected his dismay. “She sounded as gallant as any ballad heroine.”

  The others muttered in agreement.

  They’d all heard the gossip about the mysterious appearance of Princess Atanial’s daughter at the ancient tower, followed a day or two later by the princess herself, at the home of the ex-palace steward.

  Damedran said quickly, offhand, “You heard about her fighting skill, but you didn’t hear about her screaming orders at the criminals who brought her out of the other world. Last thing anyone heard was her yelling about them forgetting to bow, and where was her coach-and-six, and did anyone take her father’s jewels?”

  Damedran watched Ban, relieved at his faint expression of disgust. The others muttered about swagger—idiots—who did she think she was, anyway? Damedran didn’t listen to any of them. Ban’s opinion was important, maybe almost as important as his own. Weird, when Ban never strutted.

  “We don’t need that kind of trouble,” Ban said at last. “Not right now.”

  Damedran nodded, and the others exchanged looks. They weren’t supposed to talk about the secret plans to retake Jora, but they all knew. That was one of the good things about being in with the war commander’s nephew.

  Damedran was amazed that his lie actually worked. Then he got another idea. “No, we sure don’t. Cowards, those Zhavalieshins. Skipping out and leaving us with the Siamis trouble, and now that things are settled, dancing back and expecting us all to bow down to them.”

  The boys expressed loud disgust. Then Bowsprit, who always had one eye on the weather and the other on the sea whenever he could, hooked a thumb toward the window. “Why is the sheep’s yacht warping out?”

  “He can’t be going anywhere.” Damedran snorted. “My uncle made it clear enough even to him he has to stay put. He’s supposed to preside at the games.”

  As he spoke, he and the others moved to the windows. All minor boat traffic beyond the royal pier had cleared the way so Prince Jehan’s beautiful yacht could be rowed out a ways from the dock.

  They didn’t have to warp far. The tide had reached flood and the wind had begun to shift as well, judging from the lower layer of clouds coming in under the high wispy ones. In silence they watched the exquisitely cut curved mainsail drop and sheet home. It filled, the craft gathered speed, then the sail was brailed up again. The anchor dropped, and the yacht rocked elegantly out in the roads, isolated east of the fleet ships.

  “Well, he certainly won’t get to sit on it to watch us compete in the harbor,” Damedran said, and Bowsprit groaned. “Maybe Uncle Dannath ordered him to anchor out in the trade roads in case the pirate tries to grab him on shore.”

  Wolfie said, “Or maybe the sheep is so afraid of the pirate that he gave the orders before the water games were cancelled.”

  Hoots of derision met this suggestion.

  Damedran waved a dismissive hand. “Or maybe my uncle is commandeering it for his pirate hunt. The important thing is, the games are now confined to ground, and we’re going to win, right?”

  The boys cheered. Damedran regarded them in satisfaction. The plans were all set, his father had said. Beginning with his win in every competition this year, the songs about them all winter, and on the rising tide of his reputation, his leading all the young aristocrats in galloping over the hills to liberate Locan Jora in spring. He’d be the hero who reunited the country . . . while Prince Jehan did what? Probably sat around watching some pretty girl paint daisies.

  With this prospect in mind, he laughed, triumphant, happy, burning with anticipation. As the bell clanged for the midday break’s end, and the beginning of afternoon practice, he led the way out at a run.

  The others stampeded after. Or most of them did.

  Ban followed more slowly. He was thinking hard until he noticed Bowsprit also lingering, his pointy nose pressed against the window. After one last glance out at that beautiful yacht, Bowsprit said, “How I’d love to crew it, just once. I don’t care what stupid orders the sheep gives.”

  Ban grimaced. Truth was, he hated that “sheep” business. It didn’t seem respectful. But his father had said, If our regaining your mother’s family lands from those ruinous Jorans means putting up with Merindar boot heels all over custom for a time, then we put up.

  Bowsprit poked his arm. “And you wouldn’t care if it was a fish scow. What’s wrong?”

  “I just now remembered. The other night, when I had leave, it was the night my mother’s friend’s son arrived in
town. He’s a patrol leader. Wounded at that old castle the mages talk about. Samdan was invalided home. Got there right before supper, and at the time I was annoyed that he interrupted. I was afraid we wouldn’t eat and I’d have to report back hungry—” Ban noticed Bowsprit’s impatience at all that explanation, and got to the point. “This fellow was there when Prince Math’s daughter came to the old castle. I really wasn’t listening, but I heard some of it. How the pirate wounded him, how she was easily as hot with a blade. They thought she was a fellow at first, because she’s tall and really fast.”

  “You mean, she wasn’t a coward?”

  Ban closed his eyes. “No. She did faint, or almost faint, but that was after the fight. She did some kind of healer’s spell on one of the pirate’s people, who got a cut on the arm, and there was poison on the knife.”

  “How about the coach-and-six?” Bowsprit asked.

  “Well, that might have been later. But she sure didn’t do it at the castle. Samdan said she came out into the court, picked up a blade, and she and the pirate whacked their way through the prince’s patrol. Then she healed the boy, who my sister says was probably Devli Eban. She didn’t try to kill anyone, either. Just like the pirate. Then they were gone by magic transfer.”

  “Who’s Devli Eban?”

  “Son of the palace steward during Prince Math’s days. He was a mage student with my sister, though he’s out now. Price on his head and everything, for being resistance.”

  “Oh.” They reached the door, and Bowsprit paused. They could hear the thunder of the others’ boots diminishing down the stairs below. No one else was around. They were all racing to the practice courts. “So your cousin’s friend’s father, or whatever, was wounded. Maybe he didn’t hear everything.”

  “Said he was two spear-lengths from them.”

  Both considered in silence, each remembering times when Damedran’s version of the truth hadn’t quite matched with what they’d understood. But did it do you any good to point such things out? Not when the liar is the son of the academy commander, and the nephew of the kingdom’s war commander. And, rumor had it—but never when Damedran was around—that if anything happened to Prince Jehan, the king was looking his way for a possible heir.