THE SENTRY WHO intercepted them swept his eyes over the trio, noting the green and yellow mottles of Derkh’s fading bruises and Gabrielle’s exhausted slump, and raised a hand to forestall Féolan’s explanations.
“You’d be the Elf-fellow, Féolan, and this the king’s daughter of Verdeau,” he surmised, in the clipped tones of Marronaise Krylaise. “And you,” he continued, pointing a thick finger at Derkh, “would be the lad they were looking for.” He nodded with satisfaction at the three stunned faces. “Only thing I don’t get is, who’s this one?” he asked, gesturing at the shepherd.
“Mutton delivery, ten head, to the Chief Provisioner,” the man replied, and then looked indignant at the ensuing laughter.
“That’s the biggest herd of ten I ever saw,” remarked the sentry.
Féolan stepped in. “This man very kindly provided transport to the Lady Gabrielle, and we owe him a great debt of gratitude.” The shepherd, who had previously waved away their offer of payment as imperiously as he had waved Derkh away from the cart, puffed with pleasure.
“How did you know about us?” Féolan asked, as the sentry escorted them to the camp.
“A friend of yours was here, looking for you,” the man replied. “Says you was late returning and asked us to watch. He’s up the mountain right now, searching, but he’ll be back, I warrant.”
Living conditions in the outpost were rough, but a vast improvement to sleeping on rock and cooking over a fire. Though the outpost men were still housed in tents, a row of wooden cabins was being built to provide year-round shelter. In just minutes, mattresses were moved into the most finished of these, a set of real sheets proudly produced by the on-site Commander, and Gabrielle was soon comfortably tucked in. She was asleep almost instantly and did not rouse until morning.
“WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD. You’ve missed dinner and are very close to missing breakfast. That’s no way to build up your strength.” Gabrielle’s eyes fluttered open. She knew this voice, knew she would turn her head to find warm brown eyes, golden hair, a fair Elvish face.
“Danaïs. You seem determined always to see me at my worst.” In the short time of their friendship, Danaïs had seen Gabrielle heartbroken, exhausted and filthy beyond belief.
He laughed, the sound a merry soft cascade. “You were much worse than this just days ago, or so I am told.”
“True, I’m afraid.” She stretched experimentally. “I am hungry, though. Do you think...?”
“I do not think. I am certain. Féolan and Derkh are vying even now to see who can haul back the largest, most sumptuous breakfast for you. You will have to settle for filling rather than sumptuous, though. It’s soldier fare here, plain and simple.”
Féolan and Derkh shouldered in, bearing great trays of food, and as they ate Danaïs took the opportunity to fill them in on his part of the story. “When you did not return in almost two weeks, I decided to look for you. And it seemed smarter by then to start at the end of your journey, so I rode straight here.”
“You could search these mountains for three months and never find anyone,” remarked Féolan.
“Yes, but I did not have three months, so it is well you found yourselves,” retorted Danaïs. “The First Ambassador may have forgotten, but his Council has not, that the next joint defense talks with the Humans take place in less than a week.” Féolan’s expression was comically transparent. “You had forgotten, I see. Perhaps you have forgotten also that it is to be held quite close to here, in Gaudette. So I was charged, in the unfortunate event that you were not found, to take your place as Ambassador and Translator for the Elvish Defense Council.” He chewed for a bit, considering.
“It’s rather a pity you showed up, now I think about it. I was looking forward to rubbing shoulders with the Great.”
Under the laughter, Danaïs’s gentle gaze took in the way Féolan’s eyes kept returning to Gabrielle, checking, he knew, for signs of fever, fatigue, pain.
“Derkh,” he said. “Let’s you and me clear away this mighty mess and leave these two in peace a while. We can go to my tent or find a rock in the sun, and you can satisfy my curiosity there.”
TELLING DANAÏS WHAT had happened to them all, from beginning to end, was probably the longest Derkh had ever talked in his life.
He had been worried that Danaïs would, in his light-hearted way, make a joke of his tale. But his fears were unfounded. To his relief, the Elf allowed Derkh to tell the story in his own way, waiting patiently when he groped to find a Krylaise word or lapsed into Greffaire, interrupting only to clarify when he didn’t understand. It was another thing Derkh was learning from his new friends: that qualities he had been raised to see as contradictory could co-exist. A person could be both serious and silly, or like the seskeesh, powerful and gentle. First he told the facts, unembellished with his own opinions or feelings, the way he had been taught to report on military action. And then, encouraged somehow by Danaïs’s silent attentiveness, he surprised himself by telling more.
“Maybe the real reason I left was because I couldn’t believe that anyone here could really be my friend. It didn’t seem to matter what they did; I couldn’t believe in it. And then Gabrielle nearly died trying to save me, and Féolan never said one word of blame. I don’t know what I would have done if she had died. But she lived, and I know now that all the shame and regret I have for what happened will not give her any satisfaction, only more pain. I think, if I want to repay this debt, the only way is to try to give back to her what she has given me all along. To be her friend.” Derkh swallowed, struggling against his own embarrassment, and finally lifted his dark eyes to meet Danaïs’s.
The Elf contemplated him in silence, and Derkh kept his head up and allowed the scrutiny. At last Danaïs smiled and shook his head gently, and Derkh’s own grin of relief was wide enough to hurt his bruised cheeks. He felt light, like he’d laid down a heavy pack that had bent him to the ground.
“I foretold, if you remember, a growth spurt for you,” said Danaïs. Derkh didn’t follow at first. “At Gabrielle’s dinner,” prompted Danaïs. “When you were piling your plate to the sky.”
“Oh, I remember now,” said Derkh. The night he almost changed his mind, that was. The night he almost believed.
“I was right, was I not? You have grown tall indeed. Tall in here.” He reached over and laid a hand over Derkh’s heart. It was a touch Derkh might have flinched away from not long ago. Now he accepted it, seeing in his mind’s eye the way the seskeesh had cradled Gabrielle’s face in its great hand, the dignity and tenderness of the gesture.
“I would be proud, Derkh, if you would consider yourself my friend also,” said Danaïs. “As I am yours.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LABARQUE had been jailed, but his poison was not yet drawn. His fury at being kept in confinement pending trial—to be held at some undisclosed time when the Judge, the Civil Council, the Plaintiff and the Crown could all be conveniently convened—fed the madness that had already taken hold within him. Night after night the fever in his mind flamed brighter, burning away sleep and pushing him toward a single obsession: revenge.
Disgraced though he was, he still held more than a few men in his grip. He had been a collector of guilty secrets for many years, and he was a master at implicating his partners and hired hands in his own shady actions. It was surprising, he had found, what lengths men would take to protect even the pettiest of their shames.
And he still had his wealth. A whisper into the ear of the shabbiest of the jail workers—a bent, arthritic cleaner who mopped down the hallways and guard room, but not his cell, every night—was all it took to have a note delivered. “What can be the harm of a simple note to a friend?” he had urged. “A note to reassure them in their worry, and beg their remembrance.” And he had named a sum to be paid on delivery; a sum that made the credulous simpleton’s eyes go round with astonishment and then narrow with greed.
For the day would come, and soon, when LaBarque would be transferred. T
he building where he was held now was a civil building with many uses, from housing property records to hearing criminal charges. It was not designed to keep long-term prisoners; rather it had a handful of cells for temporary detainment, while the severity of a case was determined. In the years when raiders came, it sometimes held pirates. Most often, the jail block housed only petty thieves or drunken brawlers.
And since his so-called “trial”—LaBarque sneered the word in mockery every time it sounded in his head—would not, apparently, take place for some time, he would undoubtedly be moved to the Regional Prison, far inland from the heavily settled Blanchette coast. That move would provide the opportunity he needed. LaBarque could not claim any ties of friendship, but he could still buy loyalty. Or threaten it.
“ESCAPED?! FOR THE love of—” Rosalie nearly choked on her own frustration and outrage. “Will we never be free of the man?” Unable to contain herself, she strode to the door and with a cry of anger slammed it shut. Then, feeling foolish at the childish outburst, she opened it again. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against its cool wooden edge.
Fear. It was fear she felt, in truth. The little display of temper was just her mind’s paltry attempt at bravado.
“Don’t laugh at me, Tris,” she mumbled. She felt his hand on her shoulder, a gentle but insistent pressure that turned her away from the door and into his arms.
“I’m not laughing.” Tristan had a buoyant nature, but the messenger’s report had erased all good humor. LaBarque’s transport had been ambushed on a forest road by armed men, the horses killed, the guards attacked. Some of the criminals had been apprehended, but not before three guards lay dead and LaBarque had slipped away into the woods.
André spoke up. “If it were anyone else I would expect him to seek only his freedom—to try to disappear into obscurity, as far from us as possible. But LaBarque...”
“He’s crazy as a coot,” concluded Tristan. “Who knows what he might do? But I agree. This is not about saving his skin. If I had to, I’d guess he’s coming after us.”
“You don’t think he’ll come here?” asked Rosalie. “All the way to Chênier?”
“I think he’ll try,” said Tristan. “And Rosie, Dominic had a good idea. He suggested you come with me to the defense talks in Gaudette. We can be long gone before LaBarque shows up here, if he even gets this far. You too, of course,” he added, nodding to André.
André shook his head. “I will stay here, if the Queen will extend her hospitality until his recapture. I am too old to run about the countryside, and I do not, in any case, believe LaBarque has much interest in me. But I would be very grateful, and sleep more soundly, if you would take Rosalie away from here. The sooner, the better.”
“THE SOONER, THE better,” said Gabrielle. A real bed, she was thinking. And a bath and clean clothes and clean hair. She was tired of roughing it, ready to endure even another bone-jarring shepherd’s wagon if it would get her a comfortable room and a nurse-maid’s help. Gaudette was not far, and Castle Drolet beckoned like a very paradise.
Féolan went to speak to the outpost commander, who proved eager to help his liege-lady. Though there was no carriage on site, he offered them a full-sized cart and horses to pull it, plus horses for Féolan and Derkh to ride. With a mattress laid on the bottom and a good road ahead, Gabrielle could count on a restful journey.
The clop of the horses’ hooves made a hypnotic backdrop to Gabrielle’s wandering thoughts as the foursome made their way to Gaudette. She lay cradled in the cart, watching a soothing parade of clouds and tree branches. How strange it was to think that this peaceful shaded road was the same route taken just this past spring by the retreating army. Danaïs and Féolan were singing now, clear voices raised in a duet that twined around the beat of hooves and rattle of the cart, the sound so lazy and lighthearted it made the clamor in her memory seem but a dark dream. Yet she knew it had been real: the shouting and confusion, the milling of men and horses, the groans and cries of the wounded and the sudden alarm in her mind that made her turn and struggle against the great tide of men, back to the grim field where her father lay.
Well, that was in the past now. Gabrielle hoped it would stay there, that the defense plan would remain a prudent but untested precaution. One of her brothers would come to Gaudette for the talks, she remembered, anticipating the unexpected reunion with pleasure. With luck she’d be strong enough by then to make the most of his free time. She hoped, with a twinge of apology to Dominic, that it would be Tristan. She wondered if he’d had a chance to see Rosalie yet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE common touch did not come easily to LaBarque. He had disguised many aspects of his personality over the years, but never his rank, unless to aggrandize himself. His mouth drew down in distaste at the touch of these rough clothes, soiled and patched by some common laborer, and he drew his cloak farther over his brow so none would see the disdain glittering in his eye.
It was well for him that he did so, for more showed in his face now than mere contempt for the jostling market crowd. The relentless malice that drove him burned in the dark sockets of his eyes, so that any who marked him shrank from his approach.
He was learning to keep his mouth shut also, for his educated speech betrayed him. In monosyllables he bought a crusty loaf and a slab of pork to lay inside it. It was wholesome enough food, but it disgusted him to eat thus, without plate or service, getting grease on his hands and crumbs down his shirt. No matter. The food, like the clothes, like the anonymity of this stinking crowd of humanity, was only a means to an end. LaBarque retreated to a quieter side street, crouched against a wall and ate mechanically while he planned his next move.
Lots of guards around. Guards at the city gates, questioning peoples’ business. Guards here at the market. Word had reached Chênier, then. The castle itself would be shut tight as a drum.
Could he use the same trick twice and enter the castle as he had the Royal City, hidden in a load of hay? He smelled risk. If rumor had spread in the city, and he approached the wrong delivery boy, one unmoved by the coins clinking into his palm...
He would wait and listen and learn how things lay. The Royal Brat was not one to lie walled up in safety for long. Sooner or later, the rat would come out of its hole.
BY THE MIDNIGHT bell, LaBarque had visited five different ale-houses, bought and wasted five mugs of ale and eavesdropped on untold meaningless conversations. At last he had grown impatient enough to risk a more direct approach. He drained his mug (the first he had actually drunk) and weaved up to the counter, acting befuddled.
“Another mug, sir?” The bartender’s belly bore witness to many years of sampling his own goods. It thrust proudly against the counter as the man came up to serve him.
LaBarque shook his head, spread his hands helplessly. “I must be in the wrong place. I’m new in town, I was to meet my cousin. I thought it was here but... He’s a groom at the Royal Stables. Is there a place he’d be likely to...” He left the question dangling. He knew well enough that pubs tended to have their regular clientele, often groups of men and women who shared a workplace or a neighborhood. If the royal servants had a regular watering hole, there was a good chance a hosteller would know of it.
“The Royal Stables, is it? Maybe he was too worn out for drinkin’. There’s been a deal of coming and going at the castle lately, or so I’ve heard. But you could try the Queen’s Girdle, just across the road at the corner there. Lot of the castle folk favor it.”
LaBarque flipped a coin onto the counter and pushed out the door.
THE QUEEN’S GIRDLE was, in LaBarque’s estimation, “a fetid little armpit.” It offered, however, everything the royal servants required of a gathering place: an excellent beer in ample mugs, a congenial host, and best of all, deeply padded red leather benches flanking the back tables—a comfortable and spacious place to rest their bones and exchange gossip. Here they held their own little court, for the inside story on royal goings-on wa
s highly prized and gladly paid for in ale.
LaBarque found a seat not far from the back tables, squeezed in and stared into the beer while his ears did their work. It was not long before he was rewarded for his troubles.
“Oh, aye, she’s a lovely girl. Mind you, she has a temper of her own, she does. Didn’t she give the Lord Tristan a proper dressing-down just the other day?” This from a clucking, know-it-all voice. It had to be Rosalie under discussion. So the little miss has a shrew’s tongue in her head, does she? LaBarque thought. He would soon have cured her of that.
“She didn’t!” Braying, delighted shock. That horse-voice could only come from the blowsy redhead he had noticed on the way in. “How could anyone be mad at him, with his lovely smile and all?”
“She was, though. She was all but spittin’ fire, let me tell you! Though it weren’t long before they was all lovey-dovey again.” The two women sighed in apparent satisfaction.
A new voice joined in, a man’s.
“I heard there was trouble on the coast and that’s why the Martineaus came back here. Is it true the prince was nearly killed?”
“Where’ve you been, down a hole?” The cluck-hen again. “Of course it’s true; everyone knows that old story.”
“Ooooh, the treachery of it!” Carrot-top, wallowing in boozy outrage. “Wouldn’t I like to get my hands on that one! He’d be missing summat in his britches, if I had my druthers!”
A new voice overrode the chorus of chuckles. “Maybe you’ll get your chance, Maude. My brother in the guard says that LaBarque guy gave ‘em the slip and might even be headed to Chênier for another try.”
The excited shrieks of the women almost drowned out the man’s next sentence: “Not that it’ll do him any good. Prince Tristan’s off to the defense talks already, and the Lady Rosalie with him. Let him come here, I say—make it easier to catch the treasonous devil.”
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