Twice a Prince

by Sherwood Smith

  Me: Subconscious, please don’t do that.

  Her: I want that one.

  Me: You’re being a total cow. I mean, anybody with half a brain does not mistake lust for love.

  Her: I want that one.

  Me: He’s a liar. He cheats his own father! He says what he wants me to hear, just like dear old dad.

  Her: Oooookay, you wanna be like that? Just wait for your dreams tonight, girlfriend.

  Despite the fact that in this culture, as long as you have not married with the ring ceremony, it’s expected you’ll shop around before finding a mate, I couldn’t head for the sweet-smelling shadowy glades where insects softly chirruped and autumn leaves rustled, to enjoy some recreational kissy-face with one of the nice, cute, pleasant young men I met there, who had no possible interest in politics or power or any of the rest of it, only in me. Because my subconscious promised stubbornly that if I did, I’d have about as much fun as kissing a fence post.

  There I was, almost three weeks later, when the last of the olive crop was pretty much down and we were doing a second run for gleanings.

  I was a day from finishing the job, so I put in some time that morning asking easy questions here and there about the main landmarks that would lead me to Ivory Mountain.

  We were about to break for the midday meal when the entire camp was surprised by new arrivals.

  We Got Males.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Once they were actually on the road, Damedran and his princess-hunting posse enjoyed the ride. The second morning, as they relaxed around the campfire in their bedrolls while the two servants saw to the horses and cooking, they gloatingly counted up the toilsome chores they weren’t doing, unlike the other senior cadets.

  When breakfast was ready they climbed out of their bedrolls, and after the servants cleaned up, they took to horse. Through the remainder of the day’s ride, they wondered aloud from time to time what their own group was doing right at that moment, but Damedran and Ban both noticed that once you were actually out of sight of the game, most of the fun was gone. You had to be there.

  Adjusting to what they were missing was a whole lot easier when they remembered that they had the king’s sigil. They could change horses whenever they wanted, and could eat anywhere they wanted, what they wanted, and that included drink. And no one made a peep. The shot would be sent back to Vadnais to be paid by Uncle Dannath’s paymaster.

  Ban Kender and Bowsprit Lanarg hadn’t much liked being pulled from the war game, but that was because Damedran hadn’t told them why until Castle Cheslan was far behind them. Their first reaction to We’re going to intercept Princess Atanial’s daughter was surprise. Then both of them thought philosophically of the fact that success meant early promotion. Their families counted on their doing well in the military, and if finding and escorting a princess’s daughter to the royal city got them made patrol leaders way ahead of the other seniors, well, see the tears?

  Except for one bump, the good mood lasted until they reached the outskirts of Zhavlir a few days later. The bump happened midway through the ride, when they reached Barlir and visited an inn. There they were, with no glowering captains, masters or war-commanding uncles to order them around. They didn’t have to spend, or account for, a copper dunket of their own. And the dark ale here was famed throughout the army. What a perfect opportunity to get snockered!

  …except they had to ride the next day.

  Well, all right, so you learn something about how unfun it is to get drunk anywhere but at home, and not with duty the next day.

  After that never-too-soon-forgotten ride, things went right back to first rank. Even the weather cooperated, turning from cold with occasional bands of rain to a stretch of sunny, warm days.

  The moment finally came when they cleared the last hill above Zhavlir and saw the fine, smooth military road curving gently down between hedgerows toward the city gates.

  Damedran cleared his throat. “Getting sick?” Red asked.

  “No.” Damedran did not look at any of them. Of his six companions, Ban, Red and Bowsprit rode close. The others had formed in a row behind, and could only hear the murmur of voices ahead. Behind them rode the two servants with the equipment packed on the remounts, talking quietly to one another; they didn’t even try to listen in on the toff cadets.

  Damedran said quickly, “Our orders are, we grab her, and report to my uncle. Then we take her back to him, wherever he is.”

  Red shrugged. “Sounds easy to me.”

  Bowsprit turned to Ban, who sent him a grimace.

  Ban eyed Damedran. Something was wrong. “We’re not taking her to the king?”

  “No.”

  Bowsprit whistled.

  Damedran flushed. “My uncle is the war commander. He’s the king’s voice, his right hand—”

  “This isn’t a military matter,” Ban cut in. “It’s a royal one. Why aren’t we taking her straight to the king? Or at least contacting him?”

  Damedran snarled, “Shut up. Just shut up. You want to be reported for insubordination? In case you have forgotten, I am patrol captain for this mission, and it’s I who has the communication relay.” He dug the gold case out of the pouch at his belt and brandished it.

  Ban’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed and he faced forward.

  Bowsprit sent Damedran one last, unhappy glance, then he too faced resolutely forward.

  Red jerked his good shoulder up in agreement. When the three behind started in with variations on “What did he say? We can’t hear!” he explained in a few terse words.

  Two of them shrugged. They were used to Damedran’s ways. But the third burst out, “I don’t like this.”

  Ban drawled over his shoulder, “Lord Damedran Randart is the patrol leader. Oh, I beg your pardon. Patrol captain. Haven’t you heard? He has the communication relay. He can snitch, I mean, report, us for insubordination. Just for asking honest questions.”

  “Shut up, Ban.”

  Ban lifted his voice. “But we’re not to think. We are here as muscle. Our next order will probably be to beat her up. That doesn’t take any thinking. Six of us! Six and no thinking allowed—”

  “Shut up, Ban!”

  “Is that an order, Lord High Patrol Captain?”

  Damedran burned with fury, and his fists bunched. He longed to fling himself on Ban and pound his face into the dirt. But they weren’t behind the stable where cadet fights were carried out with friends on watch. They were here, they were supposedly on their first mission as men, and not cadets.

  First mission. As men.

  He groaned, remembering his uncle’s softly uttered threat, and his anger doused like water on flames. “My uncle ordered this secret mission. Want to know what he said when I dared one single question?”

  Instantly sobered, Ban shook his head. He’d only seen the war commander lose his temper once, but he’d seen the results of it many times. Not only terrible floggings before the entire assembled academy and garrison, but he’d heard of people vanishing altogether.

  As for Damedran, Ban had never actually envied him his exalted position, not after the first time he watched his fellow ten-year-old leave his uncle’s chamber after a thrashing. Though Damedran’s father was the head of the academy, everyone knew he obeyed his older brother in everything, including how to raise his son.

  Red said in a make-peace voice, “King or war commander, what’s the problem?”

  Bowsprit slewed round in his saddle, studying Ban’s long face, then he slewed back. “When Red puts it that way, what is the problem?”

  Ban hunched his shoulders, glowering between his horse’s flicking ears. She was aware of the animals on the civilian road on the other side of the hill, though none of the humans were.

  Ban said slowly, working it out as he spoke, “I think it’s the secret part of the mission. And the fact that it’s us. And not any of the guard. Think of it. Your uncle could send any of the top scouts, any of his honor guard, who are all picked for sk
ill and speed and all that. I mean we’re about the best in the academy, with one or two exceptions—”

  He paused for the hoots and scornful comments to die down, then continued. “—but we’re still academy. Why isn’t he sending any of them, when they are so much better?”

  “Yeah.” Bowsprit slewed around again. “Yeah!”

  “We don’t have orders to, ah, kill her, or anything?” Ban asked in his most surly voice in an effort to hide his anxiety.

  Not that it worked, because Damedran felt the same way. “No! No. We’re to capture her in secret. No one to find out who she is. Tie her up so she can’t do magic. Report to my uncle via message box. And then take her to wherever he says. Only to him, he kept repeating. Not to anyone else, and not a word to anyone, either.”

  Silence fell between them as they reached the bottom of the hill. They were in arrow shot of the city gates, and the military road was about to blend with the crowded civ road.

  “I don’t like it,” Ban said as the two roads converged, and Damedran made a short gesture meaning shut up!

  This time Ban obeyed, and they fell in just behind a wagon full of bushels of vegetables, driven by a very shapely girl who kept looking round in a pretense of checking her cargo.

  Bowsprit and Red sat up straighter, sneaking peeks at the girl, who scoped them out pretty thoroughly from under drifting black curls. The boys tried to catch her eye when she looked their way. The rest of the time they were checking out her figure instead of watching the road, until Damedran caught them at it. He pulled his riding gloves from his belt and whapped Red.

  “Pay attention,” he snarled. “What if that pirate has spies tracking us?”

  They all looked around, radiating furtiveness.

  Satisfied that the passing farmers and merchants were not secret spies, Damedran said in a low voice. “Now, here’s what we’ll do…”

  None of them gave a second look to the scruffy, scrawny red-haired man slouched on the back of a tired horse, who plodded two wagons behind them. The kingdom seemed to be filled with plain, wiry red-haired men who served in stables or at table or sewed or cobbled or did masonry.

  The same was not true of this scruffy red-haired man—known at this end of the continent only as Owl—who was finally close enough to identify them.

  He’d first spotted them as the military and civilian roads topped separate hills and started down toward the fork. He always watched for military roads and who might be on them, going where.

  His glimpse of a patrol of cadets had taken him by surprise. The boys looked familiar. He’d ridden along in frustration, peering as they vanished and reappeared again, hidden by hedgerows and the last hill, and then never-to-be-cursed-enough wild ferns growing alongside the roads.

  He dared not gallop or in any wise call attention to himself. If that really was Damedran Randart and some of his pack of rats, they might possibly recognize him from his menial labors around the academy. Unlikely, but he wasn’t going to take the chance. It was too strange to encounter them here, so far from Castle Cheslan and the rest of the army. Surely they should be at the center of the war game.

  Everything seemed to conspire against him, including the angle of the bright sun turning them into silhouettes, until at last the two roads merged. A few moments later the one riding point turned his head, long blue-black hair swinging, as he whapped the red-haired boy with gloves—and Owl stared in amazement. That was indeed Damedran Randart.

  Why? The only thing Owl was sure of was that Randart was behind it, for some purpose sinister and sneaky. Surprise inspection for the local garrison, maybe?

  The urge to write a note to Jehan gripped him, to be fought off. One thing that would call attention to him would be scrawling a note on horseback, and whipping out a golden case to put it into. Owl knew that he’d be seen. Circumstances were lamentably predictable that way.

  So once they were through the city gates, he deliberately turned his horse up a different street than the main street, which led straight to the garrison. He dismounted when he found a quirk between two old alleyways, moss growing between the bricks. He slid off the horse and kept it between him and the alleyway intersection as he pulled out his chalk and a scrap of paper from his pack, and wrote:

  Damedran here. Know why? Should I do anything?

  He tucked it into the notecase and leaned tiredly against the horse to wait. Jehan might answer right away, if he was alone. But if he wasn’t, it could be half a day. Or longer. So he’d give himself a breather. If nothing came, it meant Jehan was away from his rooms.

  As he stood there absently running his hands over the neck of the drooping animal, he thought back over the exercise in frustration the past weeks had been. Like losing the princess during the very first storm that ended the summer and discovering she’d vanished. He’d ridden as hard as he could along the river road, pausing only to arrange for changes of mount, until he reached the foothills below the border mountains. Here the road narrowed, leading directly to Moonsky Lake at the border. He’d asked at the inn where absolutely everyone stopped, and despite coins and exhaustive questioning, discovered no trace of any tall woman fitting the description of Sasharia Zhavalieshin.

  So he’d ridden all the way back to the last inn he’d seen her at, wishing he’d dared sleep inside the first time. But that enormous wedding party and all those harvesters had convinced him to ride on to the next inn and wait for her to catch up. That was before the big storm.

  He hoped that the inn folk remembered her. A description, some added coin, and the innkeeping pair told him they did indeed remember her. She’d helped that night, and further she’d carried a letter for them to the Three Falls Inn in Zhavlir…

  Zhavlir? On the other side of the river?

  Owl got a room, sat down, wrote a bitter letter, tore it up. Wrote another saying only that he’d found the right road. Sure enough Jehan wrote back: Waste no time. Find her.

  So here he was again, after another mad dashing ride. Now he only had to locate the inn.

  He yawned, leaning against the horse. “Just one more ride, old friend,” he murmured, making a mental promise of bran mash as he himself thought longingly of a good pull on some fine dark ale…

  While he was trying to find the energy to get himself back in the saddle and seek the inn, Damedran and his posse had ridden straight to the garrison in the middle of the town, sent a servant in to get directions to the Three Falls, and rode the few blocks to reach it.

  They dismounted in the stable yard, Damedran saying, “The trail is at least a week old, so she can’t still be here. But in case, I want a perimeter. Make certain you can all see one another. No yelling, no attention.”

  The others obeyed while Damedran walked into the inn. A teenaged girl clearing a table took in his long stride, his swinging black hair, the sword at his side, blushed and ran into the kitchen. He never gave her a glance, but made directly for the tall man at the counter.

  He said, “Master Innkeeper? I’m looking for an old friend I was supposed to meet on the road. A woman with honey-colored hair, one of her names being Lasva. Very tall. Carried a letter for you.”

  Until the mention of the last, the innkeeper had looked puzzled, for he’d served plenty of tall women with honey-colored hair, and Lasva was a very common name. But the letter?

  “Ah, the sailor! Very nice person. You come from the west, then? Your accent is good. Are those not guard colors?” He indicated the brown tunic.

  “West?” Damedran repeated, as confused as the innkeeper.

  “Yes. What was it…somewhere west of Colend…Bermund? Hanbria? No, I think it might have been Tser Mearsies. Yes. My wife made her a map, see. She can draw a mighty fine map. She puts things like rivers and forests and mountains in it, little tiny ones. Not like real ones, if you get my drift, but to represent—”

  Damedran waved a hand. “I comprehend. So she rode west, did she?”

  The man shrugged. “One can only assume so, if she asked
for the map to help her get home again.”

  Damedran bit his lip against letting out any curses, turned away, then turned back. He pulled out his coin purse and laid several heavy golden six-sided coins on the counter, but kept his hand on them. “Did she happen to mention any other places?”

  He shrugged again, but his wife appeared, drying her hands, glanced from the coins to Damedran. Her tired face took on a wary look. “Is there a problem? She was a very nice young woman. Even neatened her room when she left. They don’t always, the young.”

  “I think someone we know sent her wrong,” Damedran invented desperately. He’d never been good at lying on the spot, he always had to think them out first. “But she was going to meet me, and I was east, see, not west.”

  “You don’t look anything like her.” The wife smoothed stray hairs off her forehead and narrowed her eyes. “Family, you say?”

  “Friends. Ah, my older sister is a sailor too, see, and they got to know each other. And, well, I’m trying to find her.” Running out of ideas, Damedran fought against losing his temper again.

  The wife looked up at her tall spouse, he gazed down with an air of helpless question, and when a customer yelled out, “Innkeep! Is that ale ready, or must I fetch it myself?” the man whirled away and the woman gave a tiny shrug. “Well. Not my business, I guess you could say. She did ask a bit about Bar Larsca Valley. Said she was looking for a friend. I think she might even have said a sailor, come to think on it.”

  Damedran grinned. “Ah. Listen, I don’t want any more mixed messages. It’s not likely anyone else would ask. But if they do. You’ve forgotten, yes?” He took his hand off the coins.

  She smiled, sweeping them into her apron. “I’m always happy to help a nice young woman like that. Indeed, sir.”

  Damedran almost ran out, signaling to Ban as he did. Ban waved at the next cadet down, and they soon assembled in the courtyard.