Agent of the Crown (46 page)

Telaine’s mouth dropped open. “But—there’ll
be no containing the rumors, then! Everyone will know what I am,
what I have been. Nine years of espionage…how many people will want
my head?”

“Not as many as will want mine,” the King
said grimly.

“There has to be an alternative,” Telaine
insisted. She hated the Princess, wanted nothing more than to be
free of her, but to do so in such a public way…it would truly be
the end of her life.

“Believe me, Telaine, I have gone over the
problem with my advisors, looking for some other solution. Harroden
will testify, and we can link Steepridge to the smuggling, but your
testimony as agent of the Crown ties it all together. This is the
only way we can sentence and execute Steepridge.”

“But…those letters he sent to Harroden, and
the ones hidden in his study! There must be others between him and
the Ruskald King!”

The King shook his head. “He never put
anything between himself and the Ruskalder in writing. He’s going
to claim simple incompetence about the fort and deny the other
charges of treason. The only certain thing we have him on is his
attempt to murder you, and attempted murder is not a capital
crime.” He smiled wryly. “Now, if he’d succeeded…”

“I almost wish he had,” she said under her
breath.

The King straightened and stared at her. “You
don’t believe that,” he said.

Telaine shook her head. Uncle Jeffrey lifted
her chin so she had to meet his gaze. “You came out of this much
more wounded than I believed,” he said. “Is there something else
you want to tell me?”

Telaine shook her head again. “Maybe someday,
Uncle.”

“I’m here when you’re ready. Or maybe you
should tell Julia. You haven’t told her the truth yet?”

“I was afraid to. I wanted your advice.
Shouldn’t the family know now rather than learn about it at the
trial?”

“Yes, they should. I’ll break it to Imogen.
You can tell Julia. Then Imo can decide how to tell the rest. If it
has to come out, I’d like it to be on our terms, through your
testimony in court.” He leaned back and tapped his long fingers on
his jawline. “I am sorry I can’t spare you testifying. It will not
be easy. And you can already guess what will happen after that. But
I can promise you that with time, this will fade. Some other
scandal will take its place. Is there anything I can do for you?
You realize we are all very much in your debt.”

Telaine began to shake her head a third time,
then said, “Could you get me the casualty list from Thorsten Pass?
The…the townspeople? I would like to know whom to mourn.”
Is his
name on it?

Uncle Jeffrey covered her hand with his. “Of
course.”

Like the east wing drawing room, Julia’s
sitting room smelled of cinnamon and roses. The smell…it was like
finally coming home. Telaine reclined on Julia’s sofa and rubbed
the lavender velvet, smoothing down the nap. It was like petting a
kitten. Maybe she needed a kitten. They couldn’t be that hard to
care for, could they?

“I’m actually relieved to learn you aren’t as
scatterbrained and—forgive me—shallow as you sometimes seem,” Julia
said. “I could never understand how you could be so sensible at
home and then be so foolish in public. What I also don’t understand
is why you couldn’t tell me the truth. I keep all your
secrets.”

Telaine looked up from where she’d been
watching the baby chew on her watch. Julia had named her Emma
Telaine, something that made Telaine go misty-eyed whenever she
thought about it. “I couldn’t tell
anyone
,” she said. “We
rarely even share that knowledge with other agents. It’s the first
rule, the unbreakable rule.”
Except that I broke it, and look
what it got me.
“It’s—you know the saying, how two people can
keep a secret if one of them is dead?”

“No, I’m happy to say I’ve never heard that
somewhat gruesome saying.”

“Every person who knows you’re an agent is
one more person who might give you away. Even accidentally. Even if
they swear they never, ever would. It’s become something of a
superstition, with agents. It would have been wonderful to tell
you, but I simply wasn’t allowed.”

“Even so, I’ll be Queen someday, and I don’t
understand how Father could justify not telling me about something
I’ll have to administer eventually. Suppose he’d gone to war and
been killed?” Julia ate a cream puff and tossed another one at
Telaine’s head. She caught it without thinking. Cream puffs were
one of the things she’d missed, along with her family and
full-sized baths.

“But it sounded as if the battle on the
northwestern front, the Ruskalder king’s overt attack, wasn’t. Did
the Army actually come to blows with the Ruskalder?” Telaine
said.

Julia grinned. “After what happened at
Thorsten Pass, Father squeezed some unilateral peace concessions
out of the King of Ruskald before our armies had time to clash.
Their failed backdoor invasion left us in an excellent position,
strategy-wise, because Jannik had committed so many of his
resources to it. Including,” she said, dropping her voice
dramatically, “his eldest nephew, who is his heir. The Thorsten
defenders captured him and we’ll be exchanging him for, I don’t
know, everything Ruskald has plus their underwear.”

Telaine laughed. “I’m glad it was
successful.”

“I think so. Father thinks we may have, in
his charming phrase, ‘neutered’ their ability to come to war
against us for the foreseeable future.” Julia reached over and
picked up her baby, then commenced to bouncing her on her knees and
making funny faces. Emma Telaine giggled and pulled her mother’s
hair.

“Julia, you are positively maternal.”

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful? Motherhood suits
me.”

Telaine hesitated, then said, “I read about
your divorce.” She’d avoided the subject when she’d returned, not
sure how to bring it up, but now that they were exchanging
confidences, it felt like the right time.

Julia paused in the act of bouncing Emma
Telaine. “Did you read about Lucas’s accident? Wagering he could
jump three fences in a row while drunk? Broke his neck over the
second one. Killed the horse too.” Her voice was emotionless.

“Julia, I—”

“Telaine, whatever you may think, it was his
own fault and nothing to do with Father or anyone else. I don’t—I
loved him, I did, but after the divorce I realized how much more my
own woman I am. I don’t miss him. I’m not even sorry Emma Telaine
will grow up without knowing him. It’s a pity she won’t have a
father, but she has a family. She even has you.” She cooed and
bounced the baby again.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you,” Telaine
said. “I wanted to be, honestly.”

“Yes, and I’m miffed at you,” Julia said
cheerfully. “Your payment will be to tell me exactly what exotic
mission forced you to abandon me in my time of need.”

Telaine sighed heavily and smiled at her
cousin. “I suppose, if I
must
,” she said. “It began when
Uncle ordered me to travel to this little town called
Longbourne…”

She left Ben out of the story entirely.

Three days
later, Telaine stood at her sitting room window, looking out toward
the army barracks that lay beyond the palace wall. Soldiers had
been marching in all morning, returning from the front. At this
distance they were green and brown insects swarming the parade
grounds before receiving new orders. Jeffy ought to be one of them,
unless he’d remained in Longbourne… She bit her lip, trying not to
remember things best left forgotten. How would the townspeople
treat him, the deceptive Princess’s cousin?

From down the hall, a familiar voice called
out, “Doesn’t anyone want to know how I am?”

Telaine turned around fast. Had thinking of
him conjured him up? Shouts of “Jeffy!” rang out from the sitting
room, echoing through the east wing. Telaine rushed out of her room
and down the hall.

Jeffy, his left arm in a sling, fended off
family members, laughing. It was so good to see him, alive and
mostly unharmed, that her heart felt lighter than it had in days.
He met her eyes as she entered the room, and his laughter cut off.
“Hope that shoulder doesn’t hurt much, coz, because the sling is—”
she began.

Jeffy reached out and put his good arm around
her, pulling her tight and bending to lay his forehead on the top
of her head. “Lainie, Lainie, you saved all our lives,” he
whispered. “When the Canden garrison burst past us and took the
fight to the Ruskalder…it was just in time. I was still sprawled on
the battlements because there wasn’t a single soldier to spare to
carry me down—and I was trying to save another man’s life at the
same time. Thank you.”

She wrapped her arms around her tall cousin
and hugged him tight. “I wasn’t going to let you die there
heroically and get all the glory,” she sniffled.

“Did the Baron try to escape? Did you have to
hunt him down?” Jessamy asked, bouncing as if he were five instead
of thirteen.

“He was a model prisoner,” Jeffy said.
“Didn’t even speak to anyone except to ask to relieve himself. He
looks pretty bad, after ten days in the fort lockup and four more
on the road.”

“He didn’t curse or rattle the bars or
anything?” asked Mark, sixteen years old and as Army-mad as Jeffy.
He sounded disappointed.

Jeffy chuckled. “No, although he was still
furious at…” He looked down at Telaine again and released her. “You
should have heard him when we put him in the fort lockup, before
the attack. No, maybe you shouldn’t. Some of those swear words I’d
never heard before.”

“He’s in shackles, so he can say anything he
likes,” Telaine said. The thought of the Baron in the tiny prison
cells made her heart feel even lighter, despite her ongoing dread
of having to testify against him in public.

Aunt Imogen entered the room and embraced her
son, laying her cheek against his. “And now we’re all home again,”
she said, her Kirkellish accent stronger than usual. “Sit down and
let’s hear your story.”

“Mother! Why aren’t you at the front?” Jeffy
put his good arm around her and hugged her back.

“Because your father and I tossed a coin and
I lost. Though it sounds as if you Thorsten defenders had all the
excitement, so I will stop feeling resentful for missing out.” Aunt
Imogen patted the seat next to her. “I hope this is a long and
detailed story.”

“Of course. I want you all to appreciate my
daring heroics.” He winked at his mother. Telaine thought she might
be the only one who saw the tremor in her aunt’s smile when she
looked at her eldest son’s arm in the sling. War would never be
just a story for her.

Jeffy leaned back and stretched his long legs
out. “Major Anselm had a difficult task. Not only defending the
fort under strength, but integrating our unit—I’m proud to be under
her command, she’s amazing—with those scruffy undisciplined louts
and
the townspeople from Longbourne, who were at least
willing and fierce. That’s an important piece of military strategy:
never underestimate someone who’s fighting for his home and
family.”

“Save the military science lectures for
later, please?” said Caitlin, rolling her eyes. She was fourteen
and rolling her eyes was her default expression.

“Sorry. Anyway, most of them didn’t have
experience with anything but brawling. A few knife fighters, a
couple of men and women who’d served in the military. But those new
guns, they don’t take much skill to use despite their weight, and
the major had a handful of riflemen to use the old black powder
rifles, which still have a longer range than the Devices.”

“Did you use the new guns? What firing rate
do you get? Does the new cartridge wheel cut down on the misfire
chance? When—”

“Save the gun chatter for later too,
please?”

“Later, Mark. You ought to ask Telaine. I
heard she rebuilt more than two hundred of them.”

That brought exclamations from her family.
“Telaine, where did you learn to do that? I know you’ve always been
a tinkerer, but rebuilding weapons…that sounds like complicated
work,” said Imogen.

Telaine reddened. “I was secretly apprenticed
to a Deviser in the city. For, um, seven years.”

That elicited more gasps and exclamations,
and then a torrent of questions. Telaine waved her hands at her
family. “I know, I should have told you, and I know I say that a
lot lately, but I was afraid if people knew about it they’d start
taking me seriously, and that could have ruined everything.”

“We’re not people, Lainie, we’re your
family,” Caitlin said.

“And I think it’s unfair you wouldn’t even
tell
me
,” Jessamy said with a scowl.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve given it up for now.
I just don’t have the time.”

Imogen gave her a skeptical look. “It sounds
like an awfully big thing to give up.”

Telaine hoped her smile didn’t look forced.
“I’d rather spend time with all of you,” she said, ruffling
Jessamy’s hair in the way he hated. He ducked away, still scowling.
“Jeffy, were you able to separate out the damaged ones?” she asked,
ignoring Mark’s worshipful eyes. “I was worried about that.”

“A few of the Longbourne fellows knew you
hadn’t finished the job. The major had it sorted out in no time.”
He hesitated, then added, “They didn’t want to talk about you at
all. Lainie, I still feel responsible.”

“Jeffy, it was entirely my fault. I’m the one
who stood up and yelled ‘I’m a princess and a spy’ without warning
anyone. They’re entitled to be angry.” She had to swallow hard to
keep from tearing up again.

“They—never mind. We’ll talk about that
later. Anyway, the major toured the keep and the fort, and she
cursed a lot, then she went up on the wall and cursed a lot more.
Whoever built the fort built it too far back from Thorsten Pass.
There’s over two hundred feet of wall to defend, none of it more
than thirty or forty feet high, and that’s why it needs so many
men; you push back the enemy in one place and he’s coming over the
wall somewhere else.