by Candy Rae
“Not that sort of danger,” she whispered, “after taking all this trouble to get us here I’m sure they’re not going to kill us, no, it’s something else, something life-changingly dreadful.”
“I think the Count slipped up a bit a while back,” David whispered, “he called you My Lady. Do you think you are some sort of southern noblewoman?”
“There’s no noble blood, southern or otherwise in my blood,” she replied with a faint smile, “must be you.”
“Perhaps you are the heir to a great estate,” he teased.
“Women can’t hold property in Murdoch.”
“But it can pass through them to their children.”
Her eyes swept to Xavier who was sitting between his two sisters, an arm round both. Who was comforting who was anybody’s guess.
Count Charles was one hundred per cent positive that no-one who wasn’t meant to, saw their carriage pass. Duke William Duchesne had declared a curfew that night from eleventh candlemark and the sworn men who were patrolling the area would say nothing. Their livelihood depended on absolute obedience to the Duke.
The castle was not inside the port so there had been little need to pass the dwelling centres but when they arrived at the castle, Charles breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief.
Once he had escorted the family to the tower apartments prepared for them, he left them to the tender mercies of the servants and slaves and, clutching the bag that contained the papers he and his men had purloined when they had ransacked the farmhouse and also the locket from the old lady’s bedside table, made for the ducal apartments. Charles had realised that it was almost an exact replica of the locket embedded within the royal regalia. During moments of leisure during the journey he had taken it out and stared at it, another item of proof that the family were the lost heirs.
The papers too, he knew, were important, necessary original copies of birth certificates that had been in the old lady’s strongbox under her bed and if he thought back to that night, she had been most distressed when he had found them. He wondered if he should have insisted that she come along as well but discounted the notion: she had been too frail for the walk to the river and he had not had enough men to carry her and to guard the other five.
She, Charles was convinced, alone of them all, had known who she was. She had known how important her family was to the South and equally certain she had not told her daughter. He wondered why.
He had eavesdropped on the family talking during the journey, listened to their speculations as to why they had been taken. He now believed he knew why the elder daughter had not been at the farm that night. She was with the Vada, that indomitable army of whom legends were told, even in Murdoch.
William Duchesne was waiting for Charles in his private study.
As his guest settled himself in the other comfortable chair, William watched him.
A pile of parchment and papers sat on a low table in front of the Duke. Charles placed his own bundle beside them and, with the air of a conjuror, took the locket out of the pocket of his breeches and placed it on top.
“The family settled in?” questioned William eyeing the locket with interest and a nagging sense of recognition. “I take it that they don’t know who they really are or why they have been brought here.”
“I didn’t tell them. They are in their rooms, I expect your Seneschal and his servants will see to their every comfort.”
William nodded, “I have chosen those who will look after our guests with much care. The stakes are too high to take any chances. They are the oldest and most trustworthy I can find, old Rulf I would trust with my very life and his three daughters will say nothing.” He pointed to the locket and the papers.
“Original birth certificates and marriage documents plus one death certificate that of the original Ruth, proof positive that the family are who we say they are.”
William bent forward and picked up the locket, “interesting, you found it where?”
“Bedside table of the old lady who was sleeping in the side-room downstairs, I recognised it at once.”
“You have done well Charles, this exceeds all my expectations. We have the copy documents, purloined from the Argyll registrar, my operative arrived last night; I never expected that the originals would still exist. Foolish of them to keep them.”
“Good for us though.”
“Indeed.”
He swung the locket in front of his face, “and this little trinket is the icing on the cake. Are you positive the family don’t suspect?”
Charles shook his head, “they are scared and worried. They believe they may be some sort of distant relative of one of the noble houses from way back, nothing more. All the noble houses are interrelated, they know of this.”
“Did you get all of them?”
“No. We left the old woman, I could do nothing else, she was too old and frail and the eldest girl was not available.”
William extricated the genealogical chart from the pile and placed it in front of Charles on the table. “This shows Ruth Murdoch’s descendants.”
Charles looked at it (it was full of pencilled annotations and notes).
He pointed to a woman’s name.
“This will be the old lady. Technically, I suppose, she is the true heir.”
“Did you question her?”
“There wasn’t time my Lord.”
“Understood. Please continue.”
“Anne and David, yes, these are the parents.”
“Four children.”
“We have the youngest three, Anne, Xavier and Ruth. The eldest, Jessica, wasn’t at the farm. I’m not a hundred per cent sure but I think she is with the Vada. The family were being careful. They would have suspected what they said might be overheard. I do know that she was no longer living at the farm.”
“Three out of four is a good catch and enough for our purposes. The boy now, is he strong, well grown?"
“You intend to put him on the throne instead of his mother?”
“No, a queen will be more malleable.”
“The husband?”
“Prince Consort, no more.”
“He is a strong-willed man,” Charles warned, “what news from Court?”
“The King still lives and so does young Susan but she is ailing. The fever has left her weak and she has little reserve with which to meet any other sickness. If she lives out the year I will be surprised.”
“The King?”
“Weary of life.”
“The Dukes?”
“You’ll be meaning Baker, Brentwood, Gardiner and Graham? Wheeling and dealing, proposing candidates of their own. The Largan has also sent envoys to Court, much to their discomfiture.”
Charles laughed. “They are insisting the terms of the treaty are upheld?”
“Yes, hence the panic. My fellow Dukes, apart from your father and Raoul van Buren, don’t know what we have been up to, nor that I have made my own contact with the Largan’s representatives.”
“They come here?”
“A tenday from today, they are coming to see the blood heirs for themselves and to evaluate our proofs, with their Altuinqs.”
* * * * *
Kidnap (2)
Tana arrived for riding class at a run. Her chore section had had cookhouse duty that morning and the dishes had taken ages, especially as the Eighth Ryzck had arrived back at Vada from their patrol sector that dawn and had descended on the cookhouse en masse, eager for a decent meal after their long run.
This had meant far more mugs, platters and eating implements to be cleaned than usual. She and Tavei, with the others who had morning duty in the cookhouse, were almost the last to arrive for the class. They slipped into their place beside Beth as the riding master explained the lesson. She noticed Jess and Mlei were not in their usual place on Beth’s other side.
Tana raised a questioning eyebrow, careful not to let Ranolf see.
Beth shrugged, her face clearly demonstrating that she was as perplexed a
s Tana. It was not like Jess to miss a class.
“Weaponsmaster Rhian intercepted them at the gate,” she whispered, her lips barely moving.
: Can you ‘hear’ anything? : Tana asked Tavei.
: Mlei’s mind is closed to me :
That is strange, thought Tana, the Lind of their quartet could always sense each other, it was a part of what made their friendship such a tight one and, out of the four, the friendship of Tana and Jess and their Lind was the closest.
: Perhaps it’s bad news from home, her grandmother is frail and Jess has been worried about her :
Beth nodded, a concerned expression on her face, Tavei had telepathed this idea to Xei who had passed it on.
Tana hoped this was not so, thinking back to the days when Jess had taken her and Beth to visit her family.
Tana had enjoyed being part of a family again and Beth, well, her inexpert help in the kitchen, house and livestock areas had set off gales of laughter amongst the family.
Jess remained absent for the entire class, she didn’t turn up at any of the other morning lessons nor did she appear in the cookhouse for lunch.
It was Weaponsmaster Rhian who approached Tana, Hannah and Beth during their afternoon free period when they were supposed to be writing a history essay but were, in fact, discussing Jess’s disappearance. The three (and Tavei) were squeezed inside Tana’s cubicle worrying and speculating about what had happened. Xei and Kolyei were outside but were ’listening’ in.
After checking up and down the corridor to make sure that no-one else was around, Rhian knocked on the swing door and squeezed inside the cubicle with some difficulty.
Four pairs of eyes turned and stared at her.
Rhian took a deep breath.
“Jess?” queried Beth.
“Is she okay?” asked Hannah.
“Has something happened to her family, her grandmother?” asked Tana.
“Jess and Mlei are with Susa Lynsey and Bernei,” began Rhian, “and you are quite right Tana, something has happened to her family.”
“Has … are they … has her Granny died?” ventured Beth with a wobble in her voice, this being, in her mind, the most likely reason for Jess being summoned to the Susa.
“Her Granny is fine, at least she is alive,” answered Rhian gazing at her, “it is the others, they have disappeared.”
Tana gasped, Beth went white.
“Disappeared? Was it slavers?” asked the quick-witted Tana.
“We don’t think so but that is an option we are considering. Jess is talking to Susa Lynsey and a member of the Avuzdel is there too. Jess is upset and will stay where she is for the time being.”
The words were uttered before Beth realised it. “Is it the secret?” she blurted.
“Secret?” asked the confused Rhian, “what secret?”
“Her Granny’s secret. The one that she told me about when we visited.”
Tana, Hannah and Tavei were looking at Beth in amazement.
“You never told us about a secret,” Tana accused her.
“Tell me,” prompted Rhian, “we got a message to send out a patrol to check that they were all right. Susa Lynsey got word from Argyll that they might be in some danger but it was a suspicion only. Jess has told us nothing about a secret.”
“She doesn’t know,” answered Beth. “Granny Jessica told me about it when she was trying to help me get settled in here. We talked a lot, she … she seemed to understand.”
Rhian sat down on the edge of the bed, the only free space in the cubicle not taken up by the girls and Tavei.
“Tell us,” she commanded.
“I was talking to her about how different my life was here, how strange it was to be accepted as a person and not as a mere female who was only expected to listen and obey. She understood, said that her great-grandmother had escaped from the South and an arranged marriage just like I had done and that she had found peace and a husband of her choosing in the North.”
“Jess has said nothing about this to me or Susa Lynsey.”
“She doesn’t know. Granny Jessica said it was best forgotten. That was her secret to me. She made me promise not to tell anyone.”
“What else do you remember?”
“I’m not sure, it was the meaning behind what she was saying that was important, not the story itself.”
“Tell us everything you can remember. No, wait, you’d better come with me to the Susa’s office. You two come along as well.” She turned a stern eye on Tavei. “I know you’ll be listening in. You stay here, block mentally anything that you ‘overhear’, now don’t play the innocent with me Tavei. I have a fair inkling of what you’re capable of. Keep an ear open; prevent any ‘seepages’ and try to do what you can for Mlei, he’s upset too.”
The three were ushered into Susa Lynsey’s office. Jess sat silent on the Susa’s own chair. Rhian bade Beth start at the beginning and tell them everything she could remember, however trivial. Beside the Susa stood a youngish man not dressed in Vada maroon but in grey-brown and with him was a large dun-coloured Lind. He was from the Avuzdel but Hannah, Tana and Beth were not to know that. In fact it was doubtful that, at this stage in their military careers, they knew what the Avuzdel was.
Beth’s face was screwed up with concentration as she tried to remember exactly everything she knew.
“I think she said that her great-grandmother must have been quite an important person and she said it was quite possible that I might have been distantly related to her. I liked it when she said that, it made her and Jess and the other relatives … it made me feel that I belonged somewhere.”
“That would mean what?”
“That she was of noble birth, from one of the Houses.”
“Houses?”
“The Ducal Houses. We’re all interrelated, noble children very rarely marry those of lesser birth.”
The human part of the vadeln-pair from the Avuzdel stared at her with awakening comprehension.
“There is a tradition,” he said, “a rumour, that during the first decade or so of landing that a young girl did escape from Murdoch and hid herself successfully amongst us but, if I recollect rightly, she was not a daughter of one of the original Lords of Murdoch but sister to their first king. That is what brought me here. We don’t know anything for definite, much has been lost through the passage of time and we of the Avuzdel relied on oral records until a short time ago. I wonder. I very much wonder.”
He turned to his Lind, “bespeak the Gtrathlin,” he said, “ask that they look into their memories and traditions, she will know which ones.”
She nodded and her eyes grew distant as she tried to make contact over the distance involved.
He turned to Susa Lynsey, “there might be something written down there as well. Tara and Kolyei kept detailed notes on certain aspects not generally known. We have a vadeln-pair who reside at the domta of the Gtrathlin. If there is anything to be found it will be there.”
“But what is this all about, why would they be interested in Jess’s family even if she is related in some manner to the Murdoch line?”
“King Elliot is old and sick,” the man answered, “and there has been sickness at Fort. Numerous fatalities from what we hear. The heir to the throne is a child of two.”
“You think they are searching out for a replacement if this child dies?” asked Lynsey in disbelief, “but there must be other heirs.”
“All dead,” he replied.
“How?”
“Elliot the Third murdered all his living relatives except for his own children about fifty years ago. He feared a coup. He was quite insane of course. Now, this could mean one or two different things. One, what if there was one who escaped, who made it here to the North and was Jess’s ancestor and two, that the old rumour of the Hidden Princess is true?”
At the back of the room, momentarily forgotten, Tana, Hannah and Beth stood silent. Jess continued to sit on the Susa’s chair.
The man swung round, “d
id Granny Jessica tell you anything else, names, dates? Think girl, this is important.”
“I think,” faltered Beth, “I think that Granny Jessica’s great-grandmother’s name was Ruth.”
“Are you sure?”
Beth nodded.
“Pretty sure, yes.”
It was two days before the detailed handwritten reports of the police chief’s investigations arrived at Vada and with it the realisation that Jess’s family were the hidden heirs of Murdoch.
Jess and Mlei had rejoined them; she was quiet, too quiet.
Susa Lynsey excused her some classes and she spent some time in the infirmary visiting her unconscious grandmother who had been brought to the Stronghold. The old lady had suffered a stroke and remained unable to speak for some months.
* * * * *
Kidnap (3)
When the servant woman assigned to Anne and David woke them the next morning, the couple gazed with renewed wonderment at the opulent surroundings in which they found themselves.
“Bit different from what we’re used to,” was David’s comment as he rose and sauntered over to the table beside the window on which a light meal was waiting.
“Where are the children?” he asked the woman.
“The table is set for five, no doubt they will arrive presently,” Anne answered for her. “Where are our clothes?”
The serving woman indicated two chairs in the corner.
She curtsied to Anne as she did so.
Anne looked startled although it was not the first time she had been bowed or curtsied to since their abduction but she said nothing.
“Do you need help with your dressing My Lady?”
Anne looked at the clothes then at the simply dressed woman.
“No, I don’t think so,” she answered as she made to rise.
“I’ll go arrange for the hot courses then,” said the woman.
“And the children,” added Anne.
The woman nodded and scuttled away after performing another deferential curtsey.
Anne looked askance at the clothes.
