The Decoy Princess (40 page)

I cringed inside, certain he knew I was trying to keep him out of the way. “I need a distraction so I can sneak in over the walls,” I said.

“A distraction!” Duncan’s vehemence shocked me. “I’m no one’s distraction, Princess. Not for you.

Not for anyone! Not again.”

I warmed as my anger grew. “There’s nothing wrong with being a distraction. I was one for twenty years!”

“Yeah?” Duncan stood with his feet spread, solidly planted on the wooden floor. “You need us,” he said, pointing at me with a stiff finger. “And for more than the time it will take for you to get over the walls!”

He was shouting at me, and flustered, I turned back to the mirror, pinching my cheeks to try to hide how pale I was. My knees were weak, and my stomach was in knots. “I need you to stay in the streets,”

I said to my reflection. “Stir up some Misdev-dog sentiment. Raise a fuss at the gates. Something to keep Garrett’s thoughts off me. If the gates open, everyone leaves.”

Heather’s eyes were pinched as she came forward with a wide-brimmed hat. “What about me?” she said. Her chin was trembling, and the fear was so thick in her blue eyes I wanted give her a hug and tell her it was going to be all right. “I know the palace as well as you do. What should I do?”

I couldn’t send her behind the walls. I couldn’t send any of them. “Can you talk to the people?” I said hesitantly as I took her hands. They were trembling and cold. “I can’t bear the thought they might believe I ran away.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell them,” she said, clearly glad she wouldn’t be storming the palace.

“Damn it, Tess,” Duncan said as he crossed his arms. “You’re going to need our help. Thadd and I will drive the cart in with the statue. He has a commission paper. What are they going to do? Call him a liar? You can hide in the box instead of trying to climb that wall, and once we’re free of the guards, we’ll get you out.”

Bile rose, and I swallowed it down. The box looked like a coffin. “No.”

“You’re afraid of a box?” Duncan mocked. “A strong, tall woman like you is afraid of being in a box?”

I stiffened, affronted. When I had been in the wilds, it had been easy to remember I wasn’t the princess, but here, in the capital with clean clothes and Heather fussing over me, it was harder. Fingers trembling, I ran them over the blunt ends of my darts in my topknot. “Jeck knows about the statue,” I said, fighting Heather’s flustered attempts to put a hat on my head. “I’d be a fool to get in it.”

Duncan snorted, earning a dark look from Heather. “You’re afraid,” he taunted. “But you go right ahead and climb that wall. Thadd and I will take the wagon in and wait for you.”

“No.” I pulled my shawl tight. Heather took the opportunity and covered my damp hair with that ugly yellow hat. But it hid my face, so I took it off for a moment to shirk a few darts to my sleeve and tuck my dart pipe into my waistband beside the knife. The thought of being in that box made me shudder. “I’m surprised they didn’t stop us at the city gate with that wagon,” I said. “If you try to get in the palace with Thadd’s statue, you’ll end up in chains.”

Duncan’s face went empty, and for the first time, he seemed to hesitate.

“What’s the matter?” Heather said with a sniff. “Big strong man afraid of a little iron?”

“No.”

“Don’t think your plan is going to work?” she mocked, and he reddened.

“Heather,” I said, thinking Duncan had earned the right to be afraid of iron around his ankles. “Leave him alone. It’s a bad plan, anyway.”

Duncan regained some of his bluster. “It’s a sound plan,” he insisted. “Once we’re all inside, Thadd can get the guards from their cells, and I’ll help you protect Contessa.”

Thadd cleared his throat and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “I’m going to rescue Contessa, not you,” he said, his voice thick with determination.

I made a small noise of disbelief. It was the same conversation that we had had this morning, all over again. I was in charge. Why the chu pits didn’t they understand that?

“You?” Duncan glanced at Thadd. “You wouldn’t hurt a fly, Thadd. And there might be swordplay.”

I stared between them, appalled. As if either one of them had been in battle before. “Listen to me!” I all but shouted in frustration. “Garrett isn’t playing a game. He will kill you! None of you are going!”

Duncan shifted into quick motion. He strode toward me, his face tight. Startled, I backpedaled.

Thadd grabbed Heather’s arm, keeping her from flying at Duncan as he all but pinned me to the wall. “I am not letting you go in there alone,” Duncan said, the width of my hat between us. His breath stirred the wisps of hair floating about my face. I felt the heat from him through my thin dress as he came close, bullying me.

My breath came fast, and my heart pounded. Fists clenched, I refused to push him away lest he think his nearness bothered me. Which it did. “You’re a branded thief, Duncan,” I whispered, knowing it would hurt him but desperate for a way to get him to back up. “You can’t risk it.”

He stiffened. Jaw clenched, he dropped his head and took a step back. My hands were shaking, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air. I felt guilty for having said it, but I wanted him—all of them—safe. I wouldn’t risk his life. I wouldn’t risk any of them.

“That was foul of you, Tess,” he said tightly. Turning, his hunched figure moved soundlessly into the hallway. He slammed the front door as he went out.

Feeling like the bottom of a chu pit, I looked up to find Thadd and Heather both downcast and uncomfortable. The sound of excited people in the street was loud. I wished I hadn’t eaten; my stomach had turned into knots. “We’d better get going,” I said faintly, and Thadd and Heather silently followed me out.

Twenty-nine

Duncan wouldn’t look at me as I came out onto the stoop. I hesitated, wondering if we would all fit into the small city cart Thadd strode down to. A surly pony was harnessed to it, and I surmised Thadd’s huge draft animal was busy churning up the tiny yard where Heather said she kept the pony in the rare instance it wasn’t in the field.

With much shifting and broken comments, we arranged ourselves with Thadd and me in the back, and Heather and Duncan in the front, facing us. Thadd ran the reins between Duncan and Heather, and we started off after an initial balking from the pony at the heavy load.

Unhappy, I sat crammed into the small space, comparing it to the few times I had toured the city by coach. I was closer to the people in the cart—hearing the worry in their voices and seeing the excitement in their eyes—but still detached. I caught snippets of talk of war, and that the war was already over and we had lost. No one was even considering that the changes in the palace were due solely to my botched marriage arrangements. It was depressing.

Even worse was Duncan’s continued stiff silence. I wished now I had never opened my mouth. Any apology from me would be rebuffed; he wouldn’t even meet my eyes. But he had scared me, and I had lashed out. The memory of our kiss intruded, turning me even more miserable. At least I wouldn’t have to decide what to do about that now.

“Turn around,” Heather said breathlessly when we found the main entrance to the square blocked with people. “Go down that alley there, then up and to the left. We can get in through the smaller side entrance between the yarn shop and the confectioner’s.”

People swarmed to take our place as Thadd hupped and called, expertly backing the pony up. He kept us to a good clip, and we dodged around other carts and mounted riders bent on the same thing. “Is it too close?” I questioned as we slipped back into the square. We were almost next to the hastily constructed, raised stage. Misdev guards in Costenopolie colors stood three deep, making a ring nearly thirty paces from the scaffold’s footing. The young soldiers looked tense, and the crowd was voluntarily keeping back from them. We were past accurate dart range, but I had known Jeck wouldn’t make it that easy for me. A movement on the high stage incited the crowd into more noise, and I stared along with everyone else.

Garrett, Contessa, Jeck, and Kavenlow were filing into the small box atop the scaffolding, having just climbed the stairs. Dressed in furs and silks, they arranged themselves behind six sentries forming a living wall. A closed wagon waited nearby to whisk them back behind the palace walls. Thadd looked desperate, helpless pain thick on him.

Shouts of, “Where are the king and queen?” and, “Where’s the princess?” were put forth. I shrank down on the bench, praying I wouldn’t be recognized. It might start a bloodbath.

Clearly Garrett was going to begin Jeck’s endgame, proclaiming he had the real princess and that he was going to marry her. Kavenlow’s word would be sufficient to convince the crowd it wasn’t a convenient lie. The real question was how the Misdev dog was going to explain our parents’ death.

“Duck your head, Tess,” Duncan murmured, and I glanced up to see a Misdev guard circling the crowd. My heart pounded and my fingers touched my whip as he passed us murmuring, “Proud beggar woman with a black eye and good boots,” over and over like a litany. I was fervently glad I had come as middle-class, and I no longer minded my hair was red.

My gaze rose to Kavenlow’s, willing him to look at me. He didn’t. My brow pinched as he shifted with an odd, shuffling walk. He was fettered with chains. He looked weary, dressed in a black robe that hindered his motions rather than his usual form-fitting trousers and jerkin. I wondered if he had eaten today, feeling guilty for my full stomach. His hair looked freshly combed and his face washed. It was obvious someone had tried to disguise the abuse he had suffered. I was torn between my hatred for Garrett and my heartache for Kavenlow. The pain at seeing him like this and being helpless to do anything was unexpected, and my heart clenched.

“I’m sorry, Tess,” Heather said, seeing the direction of my gaze. “I’m so sorry.”

Garrett leaned to the princess and said something. She recoiled, her face aghast. Kavenlow’s lips barely moved, and a sentry hit the back of his legs. I gasped. Duncan caught my hands as I reached out.

Garrett shouted something at the guard, and the sentry backed off. Duncan’s grip tightened in warning, then released. Thadd looked as if he might pass out, so tense with the effort to not storm the scaffolding was he. Giving the sentry a barked order, Garrett moved forward past him, raising his hands to the crowd. The murmuring eased to a background hum.

“Where are the king and queen?” someone shouted, and it was repeated several times.

Garrett raised his hands higher. I could see—and hate—his beautiful, reassuring smile from where I sat in the pony cart. “I have answers,” he said as his hands lowered and the crowd settled. He took a breath. “As you good harbor folk have surmised, I’m Prince Garrett of Misdev, come to beg your princess’s hand in marriage and usher in an era of cooperation and trade between your kingdom and my father’s.”

“Where’s the princess?” someone shouted, and several more took up the call.

Not distressed in the least, Garrett turned to the first voice. “She is safe beside me.”

“Take your whore away,” a voice bellowed. “Princess Contessa shops at my stores.”

The crowd surged into noise, drowning out Garrett’s words. My heart hammered, and I wondered if they would swamp him, forcing a battle they couldn’t win. The ring of guards about the scaffolding braced themselves, and the angry crowd stopped shy of their reach.

“The woman you were betrayed into calling princess isn’t one!” Garrett shouted over their noise.

“She was a changeling, bought in your very streets to occupy assassins while the real princess was raised in safety.”

The people at the front went silent, shocked. A slow murmur rose as his words were carried to the back of the crowd. I heard, “He’s lying. The Misdev dog has killed them all,” and Garrett surged ahead before he lost control.

“I didn’t know, either,” he said, allowing a hurt, innocence-wronged tone to enter his voice. “I was betrayed as much as you. But your true princess has returned, brought back by your chancellor and my captain of the guards in a show of solidarity.” Jeck stepped forward and touched his hat before stepping back.

The crowd’s voices strengthened.

“The chancellor will affirm this woman is the true and rightful princess, heir to Costenopolie,” Garrett said.

My throat tightened as Garrett gestured to Kavenlow. He stepped forward, pride making him hide that he was shackled. His eyes roved the crowd. I willed him to see me, almost crying out as our eyes met and he forced himself to look away.
He saw me
, I thought. Tears threatened, and I clenched my fists.
Damn Garrett. Damn him for what he has done
.

“The woman standing beside me,” Kavenlow said, his resonant voice, stilling the crowd, “is the heir to Costenopolie’s throne. At the queen’s request, I took her daughter upon her third month of life to safety, and upon her twentieth year, I brought her home again.”

The crowd didn’t like that. “Where are the king and queen?” someone said. It was repeated and taken up until Garrett raised his hands. Silence grew. Slowly his hands dropped.

“Your false princess has murdered them,” Garrett said.

I gasped, turning to Duncan. His long face mirrored my own shock. The crowd roared, and I shrank down, feeling as if I was being beaten. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

“She killed them,” Garrett shouted. The crowd tried to listen, but their outrage wouldn’t allow them to be still. “She killed them when they told her she wasn’t the princess. She murdered them, then tried to murder me because I knew the truth. She left me for dead to find and kill the true heir so she could take her place.”

I watched from under my hat, shocked as Garrett pulled the princess forward. “Tell them who you are and how she attacked you,” he said, and the crowd went silent. I felt as if I was going to pass out.

The princess’s lips moved, and I heard nothing. “Louder!” Garrett demanded.

“I am Princess Contessa of Costenopolie,” she said, her voice trembling. She looked like our mother, more so for being dressed in her clothes. It was enough to convince the most doubting citizen. “She did attack me, but it was—”