“Hablet’s bastards are usually sent to serve in the army as officers once they’re old enough,” Damin explained.
“So Tarja killed one of Hablet’s bastards?” she said, throwing her hands up. “What of it? This is war.”
“He wanted me to warn Adrina that they’d been betrayed,” Tarja reminded her.
Damin glanced at R’shiel then turned to Tarja with a frown. “And suddenly there are two court’esa crossing the battlefield from Karien? Something bothers me about this. I think we should look into it.”
Tarja nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should, at that. If Adrina is attempting to send a message back to her father, and she thinks the Kariens have betrayed her, she couldn’t risk sending the message by normal means.”
“Well, that’s nice!” R’shiel declared. “You ask me to wait around so you can say goodbye, then as soon as my back is turned, you’re off chasing a couple of floozies in see-through dresses on the off-chance they’re Fardohnyan spies.”
With a tired smile, Tarja put his arm around her and pulled her close. “I’m only going along to keep Damin out of trouble.”
“I think you need someone to keep you both out of trouble!” she complained unhappily. “You look terrible, by the way. Both of you.”
“Speaking of trouble, here comes your watchdog,” Damin warned, as Brak strode across the field toward them.
R’shiel glanced at the approaching figure and then turned to Tarja. “I have to go. Promise me you’ll take care.”
“I’ll take about as much care as you will, R’shiel,” he said, so softly Damin could barely make out the words. Damin turned away, to give them at least the illusion of privacy.
“It’s time we were gone, R’shiel,” Brak said when he reached them.
R’shiel drew away from Tarja with some reluctance. “I know.”
“Keep her safe, Brak, or you’ll have me to answer to.”
The Harshini laughed sourly. “You, Tarja? There’s more than a few gods who I’d have at me, if I let anything happen to the demon child. You’d have to line up for a chance at what was left of me, I’m afraid.”
R’shiel frowned. “I wish you would all stop treating me like a fragile doll. I can take care of myself, you know.”
“He’s knows that, R’shiel. Go and save us all from the Sisterhood, while we stay here and skewer Kariens like fish in a barrel, and when you get back we can all tell each other what heroes we’ve been.”
She smiled at Damin and leaned forward, kissing his cheek lightly. “You’re just as bad as he is. You take care of yourself, too. And don’t go leading him astray when you find your court’esa. The captain is already spoken for.”
“What court’esa?”
“Don’t ask, Brak. Let’s just get out of here before Garet decides to leave without us.”
With a final kiss for Tarja and a wave for Damin, R’shiel followed Brak to the horses he had waiting for them. He glanced at Tarja.
“Don’t worry. She is the demon child. She has forces watching over her that you cannot imagine.”
Tarja nodded and seemed to force himself to shrug off his apprehension.
“I’m not worried. Anyway, I thought we were going to investigate some floozy in a see-through dress?”
Damin nodded and swung into his saddle. “Meet me by the fletchers’ tent. I have to see about burying some Fardohnyans first, then we’ll find out what two very expensive court’esa were doing looting a battlefield full of dead Kariens in the middle of the night.”
CHAPTER 32
“What time is it, Tam?”
The slave looked up at the heavy, overcast sky and shrugged. “Breakfast time.”
Adrina’s tummy rumbled in agreement. She was rather disgusted that she had not thought to ask Filip to pack any food. Adrina had never had to worry about where her next meal was coming from. It had not occurred to her to think of such mundane things when she planned her desperate flight from Karien. Perhaps when they reached the tents of the camp followers, there would be a stall or a tavern where they could purchase a meal. And supplies for the journey south. As she rode, Adrina tried to calculate what they might need and what it would cost, but she really had no idea. She had never had to buy her own food, either.
They had made little progress since leaving the battlefield, hemmed in as they were by the other travellers on the makeshift road. Adrina fretted at the delay, but knew the crowd was her best protection. Among these peasants she was just another looter returning home from a long night robbing the dead. Once they reached the followers’ camp and had equipped themselves for their journey, they could make up for lost time.
She wondered if Cratyn had discovered her missing yet. Even if he had, she realised with some relief that she was safe from him now. He couldn’t follow her into Medalon, and would not suspect it had been her destination, in any case. More likely he would send troops searching the road back toward Yarnarrow. By the time he realised where she was, she would be in Cauthside, perhaps even on a boat, sailing the Glass River south for home. The knowledge invigorated her and some of her exhaustion fell away.
She was free of Karien.
Nothing would ever entice her to go back.
Adrina glanced at Tamylan and smiled encouragingly. Mikel slept in her arms and Adrina led his riderless horse. The poor child was exhausted and Tamylan had offered to hold him while he slept, for fear he would fall from his saddle.
Adrina was not certain what to do with the child. He was a sweet boy, but he was so fanatically devoted to his damned Overlord, he was liable to do anything. She felt a twinge of guilt over her plans to abandon him. Perhaps she could find some Medalonian peasant who would take him in. She could pay for his keep—she had enough jewellery on her to buy him a commission in the Defenders, for that matter.
The thunder of hooves brought her out of her musing and she glanced over her shoulder as a dozen Hythrun Raiders rode by them with a red-coated Defender in the lead.
Probably off to celebrate their victory, she thought sourly.
A little further on the riders slowed and then wheeled their mounts around, heading back the way they came. With a stab of apprehension, Adrina stared steadfastly forward, as if by refusing to look at them they wouldn’t notice her.
At a sharp command the Raiders reined in beside her, expertly cutting her and Tamylan out of the crowd. With no choice but to do as they indicated, she turned her mount off the road to confront the Defender and a grubby, unshaven Raider who wore nothing to indicate his rank.
“Ladies,” the Hythrun said as they approached. “What a pleasure to find members of your profession out here.”
Adrina glared at him with all the withering scorn she could muster, which was considerable. “Don’t even presume to think I would entertain the likes of you!”
The man seemed more amused than offended by her answer. “Why not? We have plenty of money. And that is what you’re doing out here, isn’t it? Looking for financial advancement? There’s a dozen of us here, and at, say ten rivets a turn, you could make quite a tidy sum.”
Adrina flushed angrily, not certain what insulted her most—that this barbarian would dare proposition her, or that he would offer a measly ten rivets for the privilege.
“How dare you!”
“Adrina,” Tamylan hissed beside her, warningly. Mikel stirred sleepily.
“My deepest apologies, madam. Fifteen rivets, then, although for that price, you’d better be good.” The dark-haired Defender who rode at the Hythrun’s side seemed to find the exchange highly entertaining.
Adrina forced her temper down. She had to talk her way out of this. Adopting an air of extreme disdain, she looked down her nose at the Hythrun and the Defender, both of whom would have benefited considerably from a bath.
“Fifteen, or fifty rivets, it makes no difference, sir. I am a bound court’esa. I am not at liberty to accommodate you. As you can see, I wear a collar.”
“So you do,” the Hythrun
said, as if noticing it for the first time. “A wolf collar, at that. Am I to understand that you’re the property of House Wolfblade?”
“Naturally,” Adrina agreed, with a bad feeling it was a mistake to admit such a thing. These mercenaries worked for House Wolfblade. They might take such an admission as proof that they were entitled to her services.
“I don’t recall Lord Wolfblade bringing any court’esa to the front, do you, Captain?”
“I’m sure I would have noticed,” the Defender agreed laconically. “Perhaps we should take them to him?”
Adrina blanched at the thought. She didn’t want anything to do with Lernen Wolfblade’s degenerate nephew. “No thank you. We can find our own way.”
Mikel woke and wiggled around in Tamylan’s arms to stare open-mouthed at the Hythrun surrounding them. Adrina threw him a warning glance, hoping the child would have the sense to remain silent.
“But we insist,” the Hythrun said, with a dangerous smile. “Lord Wolfblade will be most anxious to see you. He’s been a long time out here in the field and these Medalonian women are all dogs.”
“My Lady…” Mikel whispered urgently. She ignored him.
“Thank you, but no. Now get away with you! I’m sure Lord Wolfblade didn’t send you out here to harass innocent people going about their business. I will be speaking to him about this, I can assure you!”
“Your Highness!” Mikel’s whisper was verging on panic-stricken.
“You know his lordship then?” the captain asked.
“Of course, you fool! Now get out of my way or Lord Wolfblade will have you whipped!” Adrina didn’t know if that was the case, but it seemed a fair assumption, based on what she knew of the family.
“Your Highness! That is Lord Wolfblade!” Mikel cried.
Adrina suddenly felt faint.
Her mouth went dry as Damin Wolfblade rode up beside her, so close his stirrup touched hers. He was nothing like the powdered courtier she imagined. He was big and dirty and unshaven and looked meaner than King Jasnoff’s most vicious hunting hound.
For a fleeting moment, she wished she had never left Karien.
Damin Wolfblade looked at her closely. He didn’t look surprised to discover her identity. She realised with despair that they had suspected all along who she was. That nonsense about ten rivets a turn was obviously his misguided idea of a joke.
“Your Highness.” He bowed with surprising grace, but it was the short bow of an equal, not a mere Warlord greeting a royal princess.
“Lord Wolfblade.” Adrina marvelled at how steady she sounded.
“Tarja, allow me to introduce Her Serene Highness, Princess Adrina of Fardohnya, or is it Her Royal Highness, Princess Adrina of Karien, these days? It’s so hard to keep track of these things.”
“Move away from me, sir,” she said in a voice that was colder than the Fourth Hell.
Wolfblade smiled. “What do you think, Tarja? Will we get more by selling her back to the Kariens or her father?”
“I’ll kill you if you touch her!” Mikel screamed.
“You!” The Defender glared at the child and Mikel cowered under his scrutiny. “Founders, how did you get here, boy? I thought we’d seen the last of you!”
“You coward! How dare you pick on a helpless child! As for you,” she added witheringly to the Warlord, “I refuse to be your hostage!”
“You refuse to be my hostage? I don’t recall asking your permission, your Highness.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, sir. I am a Fardohnyan princess of royal blood!”
“Quite a step up from a court’esa,” the Defender remarked, not in the least impressed by her declaration.
This was not going well at all. She could not afford to be a hostage. The first thing they would do was send a message to Cratyn demanding the gods alone knew what in return for her release. At that moment, Adrina didn’t care if the war raged on for another hundred years.
She was not going back to Karien.
“I refuse to be your hostage, my Lord, because I am seeking asylum,” she announced, the plan formulating in her mind as she spoke.
The Warlord made no effort to hide his astonishment, or his disbelief. “Asylum?”
“But, your Highness…” Mikel began with a horrified gasp.
“Be quiet, child!”
“You expect me to believe you’re running away?”
“I am not running away, my Lord, I am altering the terms of the Karien-Fardohnyan Treaty. The Kariens have not kept their side of the bargain, therefore I do not feel compelled to keep mine.”
“I’d call that running away,” Tarja chuckled.
Damin Wolfblade shook his head, clearly not believing a word she said. “And what is it you want in return for asylum, your Highness?”
“Safe passage to Fardohnya in a manner befitting my station.”
“Is that all?” Tarja asked with a sceptical laugh.
“Safe passage to Fardohnya? So you can get together with your father and stir up even more trouble? I don’t think so, your Highness. Do we look that foolish?”
“You question my word, sir? How dare you! I am a princess!”
“You’re Hablet’s daughter,” he corrected. “That makes every word you utter suspect.”
She was going to have to put this man in his place, sooner rather than later. “I will not sit here and be insulted by a barbarian! I insist you take me to the Lord Defender this minute, so that I may present my case to someone with a better understanding of protocol than a savage, such as yourself!”
Damin Wolfblade laughed at her. Adrina loftily ignored him and turned to Tarja Tenragan.
“The boy is under my protection and so is my slave. They will remain with me, so that I may have some basic level of service. You will agree to consult me regarding any offer of ransom made on my behalf. And under no circumstances, will I agree to return to Karien. Is that quite clear?”
Her list of demands seemed to startle him. Wolfblade exchanged a glance with the Medalonian before turning to her. “You may keep your slave, your Highness. As for the boy, his fate will be up to Captain Tenragan.”
“And the rest of my demands?”
The Warlord laughed. “Demands? You are our prisoner, your Highness. You’re not at liberty to make demands. But I’ll promise you one thing. Give us any trouble at all, and I will see that you learn what it is to wear the collar of a bound court’esa. Is that quite clear?” He turned his horse away from her before she could frame a suitable retort. “Put the boy on his own horse. He’s old enough to ride without a nursemaid.”
A Raider rode forward and snatched Mikel from Tamylan’s arms. Other hands took the reins of her mount, leaving her nothing to do but cling to the pommel as, surrounded by the Hythrun, she rode toward a crumbling ruin that must be their command post.
Adrina chewed on her bottom lip and wondered if she’d done the right thing, admitting she was trying to get home. Damin Wolfblade clearly did not believe her, but Tarja Tenragan was hard to read. Perhaps he would champion her cause? Surely the Medalonians would see the benefit in letting her go? Her arrival in Talabar was bound to destroy the treaty.
On the other hand, returning her to Karien would be almost as effective. They could demand any number of concessions from Cratyn. She stared at the backs of the two men in whose hands her fate now rested, and realised her only protection lay in making them want to shield her from Cratyn’s wrath.
Adrina realised that she was going to have to change her tune.
She was going to have to be nice.
She wondered, for a moment, if she remembered how.
CHAPTER 33
“What in the name of the Founders are we supposed to do with her?”
Jenga paced the hall, hands clasped behind his back, his brow furrowed with concern. He had hoped for sleep on his return to the Keep. He had not planned on the discovery that Tarja and Damin had captured a court’esa who turned out to be the Crown Princess of Karien.
“My suggestion is that whatever you do, you do it quickly. You don’t want her around causing trouble, my Lord, and believe me, she will cause trouble.” Damin spoke from the heart, never more certain of anything.
“She’s well guarded,” Tarja pointed out.
Damin laughed sceptically. “Then make sure you change them often. In a week, she’ll have every man she comes in contact with eating out of her hand. A week after that they’ll be helping her escape. It’s a good thing we searched her saddlebags. There’s enough here to buy more than a few men’s souls.” He glanced at the fortune in jewellery scattered on the rough wooden table. The blue diamond alone would feed a small village for a year.
“You claimed she was a shrew,” Jenga said, stopping his pacing for a moment to glance at the gems. The torches painted dark shadows over his lined face.
“She is,” Damin agreed. “But she’s also as sharp as a new sword. Now we’ve deprived her of her purchasing power, she’ll resort to more direct methods. She’s court’esa trained. That may not mean much here in Medalon, but trust me, it makes her more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.”
“What do you mean, court’esa trained?” Tarja asked. “She’s a princess.”
“Your definition of a court’esa and ours is very different, Tarja. What you call court’esa in Medalon are merely common whores. In Fardohnya and Hythria, they are highly trained specialists, worth a small fortune to those who can afford them. Adrina was probably given her first one around the age of sixteen. He would have been a skilled musician, an artist maybe or a linguist. But first and foremost, his job would have been to make Adrina more valuable as a wife by teaching her the art of giving pleasure in the marriage bed.”
“So our princess is a whore?” Tarja asked with a grin.
Damin shook his head impatiently. “You’re missing the point. She’s Hablet’s daughter. She’s been trained by the very best and if she thinks it will help her cause, she’ll use every skill at her disposal to get her own way. And in case you hadn’t noticed, she’s not exactly hard to look at. If you don’t believe me, go up there now and spend an hour in her company.”
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