Sasharia En Garde (38 page)

“She trusted you, then?” Atanial asked, and they parted.

Three
, he thought.
We only have five chances left
.

Instinct prompted him to lie, as he always had. But the
relief he’d felt on telling her the truth overrode the mere protective
instinct, and so when they met again, he said, “No.”

Another indrawn breath. Her hand trembled under his fingers,
as though she tightened her muscles against betraying expression, and once
again he felt relief and alarm.

On the next, when she looked her question as she reached for
hands across, he murmured, “Kissed me, yes. No trust.”

And he was gone, not seeing her face.

No one could see her face, except behind the mysterious
shimmer of her veil, so they could not see the sting of tears.
My fault, my fault
, she was thinking. No
use in trying to excuse herself. They’d returned to Earth all those years ago
grief-stricken and angry; sunshine dancingstar, she who had left her world a
hippie idealist, had come back bitter and afraid. She’d told her daughter over
and over, in infinite variation,
Men are
pretty and fun to be with, but never. Ever. Trust them
.

Think. Do not make
things worse
. They had three more exchanges ahead, and the dance would be
over.

When they met, both uttered a word at the same time, he
blanked his face and she said again, “Is she safe?”

Two more
, they
each thought as they parted, the pretty melody tripping through the silver
flutes and reed horns and harp strings.
We
have to talk.

He trod his stately pace, smiling at the two young heiresses
who cast him languishing (and watchful) glances over their fans as he circled
them and mentally reviewed the palace. Her rooms, warded. His rooms, warded,
and spies in the stable, kitchen and the government rooms—

There she was again, and he could feel her question, but he
had no answer, and so number seven passed in silence.

When she neared for number eight, he saw in the rigid line
of her shoulders, the tension outlining her veiled head and neck, that the
question still stood.

He said, “So far, yes.” Knowing that she’d figure out what
it meant: that he was having Sasha followed.

I learned two things the first week of my journey.

The first occurred two days to the northwest, on the
meandering trade road alongside the Lembesca River. I did not risk any gallop
in that withering, humid heat. Shade occurred too seldom as relief, and then
only briefly under hardy trees with long thin leaves through which the
brilliant sun shone in a lacework of glare.

I arrived at an inn early in the afternoon. I would have
liked to push on farther. I’d been careful to walk the horse and to offer water
at the two streams we’d passed, but she was looking dangerously droopy as we
plodded along the road under what seemed to be a permanent dust pall. Since I
had no idea how long I’d ride before finding another village, I thought I’d
better stop.

So did a harvest party. And the friends of a journeyman
who’d been made master joiner that day, after they’d been working on a building
somewhere over the dry, golden hills.

The two parties converged almost at the same time. I had
gone in to arrange for a hammock when the harassed innkeeper, who had deployed
his entire family for the first party, paused at the door in dismay. From
outside came the merry sounds of a crowd turning off the road to the stables
as, behind us, the harvesters flowed downstairs into the common room, singing
out for food and drink!

Mr. Innkeeper reminded me of my father. Mrs. Innkeeper was a
round-faced woman my mother’s age who bustled anxiously to the door of the
kitchen. Their expressions were a mixture of stun and a kind of helpless
horror.

I swerved away from the door, moved to the shelf behind the
counter, and took one of the aprons I saw folded there.

The man ran out to the stable to commandeer bodies for
cook’s helpers. The woman turned her head, her braid half coming down, and
stared from the apron to me. Brows rising, she glanced at my arms.

“Experience?” she asked, obviously trying not to hope.

“Four years.”

Relief made her face redden. “Here are the choices,” she
said rapidly. “Broiled cabbage rolls, fresh-water fish, rice, onion, cooked in
pressed olive. Rice with melted cheese and chicken with lemon glaze. Lentil
soup with yesterday’s chicken, and cheese over it if they like. Bread until it
runs out, and green-apple tarts.”

“Got it. Drink?”

“Don’t fret over the drink, my daughters can see to that.”
She indicated two light-haired girls of about ten and twelve who’d appeared
from the storeroom door, both in aprons, one dusty with flour, the other
setting down a mending basket behind the bar. “But they are too small to carry
more than one plate at a time.”

“I can carry six.” I flexed my biceps. “On one arm.”

She laughed. “You shall have a royal meal when we finish,
and our best wine.”

“Innkeeper! Wake up!” a man roared, and that was the last
time we spoke to one another for many hours.

It was about midnight when I thumped down onto a bench,
weary, my arms feeling like string. I had just enough energy to appreciate it.
A good workout is a good workout, however one gets it.

The woman entered from the kitchen (from which every scrap
of food had been emptied), and took one look around the empty room where the
two daughters and I had finished cleaning the tabletops. The younger daughter
had fallen asleep on a bench in about two breaths, head on her crossed arms,
washcloth still gripped in her fingers. The other girl stood at a window,
staring out at the pinpoints of dancing lights as the harvesters wove, singing,
back to their homes.

“A bed is waiting.” The woman touched my arm. “Follow my
daughter.”

The older girl led me upstairs. She stumbled in exhaustion.
I’d expected a hammock but found myself in a narrow but comfortable bed, the
linen sheets smelling of a recent drying in sunlight. Heaven.

When I woke, there was hot water steaming on a table.

I went downstairs to a massive breakfast, which ended as the
footsteps of the celebrants overhead began thumping about. The family, still
tired, seemed cheered by the father’s grin. He’d made enough, he said, to
refurbish the stable against winter. Then one by one they turned to me.

So, my two discoveries.

One, in a world without the level of bureaucracy that binds
the US of A, you can do things like pick up an apron and there’s no worry about
contracts, the IRS, etc. That was the good thing. The not-so-good thing I
learned is that it’s really difficult to make up believable lies when you are a
stranger in a strange land.

“Were you inn-raised?” the mother asked me, and as I opened
my mouth to lie, the father said, “Where? We know most of the inn families up
the coast and a good ways along both rivers.”

They were so friendly, and eager for news and gossip. There
I was, struggling to come up with lies.

Well, they were not supposed to know I was lying, I told
myself sternly. This was the only way I’d get to Dad, which meant a few
harmless lies. Therefore my answers had to be short, and boring.

“Stables, mostly.” At the surprise in the older daughter’s
face, I vaguely remembered leaving my mare to be curried, and I said quickly,
“Supplies. Cleaning. Helped with the tables, when I was little, down south.
Then I became a sailor.” I ventured that shot on reflecting how far inland we
were. Hopefully they knew nothing of the sea.

“Where did you sail to?” The daughter leaned forward. “I
love stories about other places!”

“Why are you so far north?” The mother also leaned forward,
ready to be sympathetic if there’d been some disaster.

“Maybe we could get you to run a message, if you’re passing
toward some of our folks?” the father put in. “Even with things being bad,
handing off letters still always nets a free bed for a night, among our folk.”

I dealt with all these as best as I could, accepting the
message finally, figuring I would pay in the next town I could for a messenger.
And I took my leave, feeling isolated, uncertain, afraid my lies would explode
behind me.

The route I’d chosen was, I hoped, random enough to keep me
anonymous and not make my destination clear to anyone who knew magic. Ivory
Mountain lay to the west of Ellir, at the far end of the Bar Larsca Valley,
inside of the border mountains. The road to Locan Jora was alongside the river
that divided Ivory Mountain from some of the other high peaks.

I knew from childhood that Ivory Mountain had a mysterious
rep, having to do with magic. I didn’t want to risk going straight to it, so I
chose the trade route between the two biggest rivers, where, yes, the most
traffic was constantly moving to and fro. I hoped there’d be safety in numbers.
The idea was to cruise as unobtrusively as possible to the big trade city,
Zhavlir, which lay at the fork of the great rivers. Hang a left to the west.
After crossing the Northsca, zap south into the valley.

That was my plan.

I’d also planned to reach Zhavlir in a week—Southern
California freeway flyer optimism!

My reeducation began with a high-pressure front squatted
over the sweating countryside, forcing all traffic to a crawl except maybe on
the military roads, which were beautifully maintained by mages paid out of the
king’s coffers.

When at last the weather broke I was scarcely halfway to the
city, still angling up to the northwest, my butt sore, my clothes soggy, the
mare slow. I wished I had my old junkmobile, which (when it was working) at
least had air conditioning. Better, I could rev the thing up to sixty miles per
hour instead of the two to five I was sort of making now. I’d been on the road
a week and a day. That last morning dawned hotter than ever. The sultry
stillness began with a peculiar sheen to the light that gradually oranged and
blended into shadow as overhead a massive storm boiled up, ready to rock and
roll.

And rock and roll it did.

The rain felt good for about the first thirty seconds, until
the wind rose. A sudden, cold wind drove stinging hailstones directly into my
face and hands. The hail peppered my poor mare, who snorted, skittish with ill
temper, and who could blame her? The blackish green clouds barely cleared the
lashing treetops. The light vanished, and my mare now plodded, head low,
directly into the oncoming storm sweeping down from the northwest.

The road soon turned to muddy slosh, caking her hooves and
slowing her so much we seemed to be squelching in one place.

After a couple of ice ages, I realized I was not
hallucinating, there really were lights somewhere beyond. I threw back my
aching head, peering blearily. Yes. Real lights, glimmering through the
downpour. At least the hail had given over to real rain, but so much, so quick,
it was like a hose turned onto my head, and I had to breathe behind my hand.

The mare picked up her pace. The lights appeared to recede
and I wondered miserably if mirages also came with cold and wet, but then the
wind brought the warm scent of horse and hay. A stable! And between one shower
and the next, I glimpsed the silhouette of a long, rambling building. Inn?
Farmhouse?

Whatever it was, I vowed, they were going to take me as a
guest, or discover my frozen corpse on their doorstep come morning, seriously
lowering their property values.

Someone called out. The words blurred in the hissing roar.
With my waning strength I kept my gaze on that square of golden light, which
resolved into a broad, open door, like the gates to heaven.

Silhouettes emerged, one bearing a swinging lantern. I rode
past them into the barn, and stopped. Warmth gradually dissolved the grip of
cold, and sound returned, the flutter of wings and fretful murmling of birds in
the rafters overhead, refugees, like me, from the storm. Around me, the quiet
voice of command, and response of obedience.

Gradually I regained sight. Lantern flames flickered in the
eddies of wind, reaching into the warm stable, their light stippling with gold
the edges of a pile of hay, gleaming along neatly hung lengths of horse
harnesses, and on people dressed in uniform color.

I had yet to dismount, though someone held my horse’s
bridle, waiting patiently. I stared uncomprehending into the faces of a group
of young men and a couple of young women. In brown. With little silver cups
stitched over the heart.

Sound, sight, and finally sense.

I had fumbled my way into a military outpost.

The drought-breaking storm was a major weather front,
catching the entire east end of the continent.

All over the kingdom people reacted, either running out to
celebrate, or rushing about trying to save things that wet would ruin. Most
snugged up inside of castles or cottages, barns or shops, and those on the road
sought the shelter of trees or cliff sides.

Out on the sea, traders, navy, smugglers, fishers and
pirates alike lay up under mostly bare poles with a scrap of sail to keep them
pointed into the wind, and rode it out.

War Commander Randart, having kicked the captain out of his
cabin on the ship he’d declared as his flag, sat with his meal uneaten before
him, fighting against rage. The king had done
what
?

The report lay on the table, the words mocking
him: . . .
promised a
treason trial for the prisoners taken along with Princess Atanial.

Randart shook his head in disgust. Canardan was getting
weaker every year. Why not just line them all up and have them shot, in as
public an execution as possible? That would end his dilemma with rumors.

At least there was one possibility. Randart could show him
how it could be done. Soon as he finished this pirate mission, he’d have those
old guardsmen of Prince Math’s, Silvag and Folgothan, taken out and shot in a
public execution, under military law. That would demonstrate effectively how
Canardan ought to handle those fools, and Randart would not have to say a word.
It would all be in accordance with military regulations—the ones Randart
himself had designed, and Canardan had signed into law.