by Hilari Bell
“You haven’t tried.”
She stood against the back wall to gain as much momentum as she could. Since the room was only six feet deep, that wasn’t much, but she launched herself at the door anyway, ramming her shoulder into it with all her strength.
It felt as if she’d hit the stone wall instead.
“Ow!”
“If you’re going to do it,” said Edoran, “do it the smart way.”
While she rubbed her bruises, he unrolled one of the tapestries and folded it against the door, high enough that their shoulders would hit the cushioning fabric. The tapestry blocked the light, but he shoved in the bottom with his foot till a narrow beam at each corner marked the location of the door.
Two of them together might make a difference! Arisa felt a quiver of hope.
“Start against the back wall,” she told him. “And hit it with all your weight. On three. One. Two. Three!”
It felt like hitting a stone wall through a thick layer of fabric, but Arisa kept them trying till she was exhausted and Edoran insisted on clearing the door slit so they could get some fresh air.
He added the folded tapestry to the one he’d been sitting on, picked up his shoe, and began pounding again. Three bangs, pause.
“There has to be a way,” said Arisa.
“Not always,” said Edoran. “Sometimes you can’t fight. Sometimes, some things, you have to outlast.”
“Is that what you did with Pettibone?” Arisa said nastily. “You outlasted him?”
“He’s dead,” said Edoran. “I’m not.”
“If you really believe he killed your father, I’d think you’d be willing to take some risks, in order to take down your father’s murderer.”
“Fighting would only have gotten me killed too.” She couldn’t make out his expression in the darkness, but his voice held irritation. Verging on anger.
“Sounds like cowardice to me,” said Arisa.
“Better a coward than a hotheaded fool!” Edoran replied. “Whose… Never mind.”
“Whose mother is a traitor,” Arisa snapped. “Say it! Say it, coward!” Tears burned down her cheeks.
“You just did.” Edoran sounded tired. “It’s not your fault.”
“At least I can make more noise than that.”
Arisa banged her fist against the door and shouted. Then she began to scream.
Edoran dropped his shoe and covered his ears.
She screamed till her voice was hoarse. She pounded till her fists were sore. Then she dropped to the floor and sobbed till she was exhausted.
Sometime during her weeping, Edoran picked up his shoe and started banging again.
“Things that other people do, or that happen to people you love, are some of the things you can’t fight,” he said quietly.
“I hate you.” Arisa sniffed and wiped her wet face with her hands. She couldn’t be sure in the dimness, but she thought he shrugged.
“Feel free.”
She sat in silence for a time—well, silence with banging. Was this what it meant to be unable to fight something? This helpless despair? If this was what he’d lived with, all those years while Pettibone was regent…
“I don’t hate you,” she said.
“Do you always have this much trouble making up your mind?” There was laughter in his voice, and Arisa smiled.
She was smiling when the bolt clicked and the door swung open.
“What in the Lord’s light are you doing in there?” Yallin asked.
CHAPTER 18
The Nine of Waters: safe harbor.
Only by passing through difficulty can safety be achieved.
“You weren’t there,” Yallin panted, as they ran toward the ballroom. “I knew you were supposed… to be with the prince. I helped work on your costumes. When he was there and you weren’t… started worrying. Then I started looking. I went to your room, then that scamp Weasel’s… then the stables. Must have been the Lady herself… put it into my head you might be looking… the sword and shield. By then I was fair frantic. No idea His Highness was with you.”
Her voice had a country accent Arisa had never noticed before, and she was swearing by the country folk’s Lady. And by the Bright Lord, a god most had forgotten even in the countryside. But if Yallin had secrets, right now Arisa didn’t care. She was grateful, but Yallin wasn’t running fast enough.
Thinking the apology she didn’t have time to voice, Arisa poured more energy into her aching legs, racing down the corridor to the ballroom. Yallin fell behind, but to Arisa’s surprise the gasping prince kept pace with her.
They burst into the ballroom together.
Edoran shot toward Justice Holis, darting through the crowded room like a fish through reeds. Arisa stopped in the doorway, her eyes sweeping over the crowd.
No tall woman in a crimson gown. No hawk-beautiful face with flowers painted on it. The Falcon was gone.
But someone sat in the big chair Edoran usually occupied, a ridiculous woolly helmet concealing his face. Someone.
Arisa followed Edoran toward the regent, bumping into people, almost knocking one man down because her vision was blurred with tears.
She heard Lady Danica exclaim “Well, really!” but she didn’t look around.
Justice Holis was listening to Edoran, whom everyone had recognized by now. Arisa would never have believed the regent’s mild face could wear such a hard expression. With a single gesture to summon the guardsmen, who stood near the wall, he started toward the sheep mask on the throne.
The boy stood as they approached and pulled off the mask. His face was flushed and sweaty. She had known it wasn’t Weasel from the moment she’d seen that her mother had fled.
Fled, and left her behind.
“I have terms for you,” the boy told Justice Holis. He tried to sound commanding, but his voice cracked.
“I’m sure you do,” said Holis. “But not here.”
He gestured again. The guards cleared a path and the justice led the boy toward a side door—the quickest route to his office.
The room was buzzing now, but since everyone could see Edoran, all but clinging to Justice Holis’ coat, there was no panic.
Arisa was panicked enough for the whole crowd—and then some!
She fought her way forward and latched on to Edoran’s arm, just before a guard whisked him out of the room and shut the door firmly behind them.
“I have terms,” the boy began again. “You—”
“Not yet,” Holis repeated.
“But don’t you want—”
“Not now.” Justice Holis whisked down the hall to his office, leaving the rest of them behind. The guards pulled the boy along. His face was sullen, almost angry—the kind of anger that kept fear at bay?
Arisa wanted to feel sorry for him, but she couldn’t.
Justice Holis spoke softly to one of the guardsmen, who hurried down the corridor when he’d finished. Then Holis opened his office door and ushered them in. There were plenty of chairs.
The boy sat in silence, radiating, You’ll have to ask if you want me to talk now. He’d barely glanced around the room, his gaze only lingering on Arisa for a moment, and passing over Edoran as though he weren’t there. He hadn’t recognized the prince. He still thought the plan had worked. When he learned the truth, would he be sufficiently shaken to give something away? To reveal where they’d taken Weasel?
He wouldn’t know anything. If he’d known anything that could help her enemies, the Falcon wouldn’t have left him behind.
But judging by Holis’ silence as he watched the boy, baiting his trap, the justice didn’t know that.
Arisa was the only one in this room who knew her mother well enough to predict what she would do. Though she certainly hadn’t predicted this!
She fought back the creeping tears.
General Diccon came in without knocking. He must not have been at the ball; he wore his army uniform, and only part of that—his cravat was gone from his loosened collar, and he was still s
hrugging into the dark blue coat.
His gaze shot to Edoran. “Thank the One God, Your—”
“The God of Man will have enough to do tonight,” said Justice Holis, “without you interrupting him. Now, young man. Your message.”
The boy cast him a resentful glance. “I have terms from the Falcon, the true regent of Deorthas, ruler of the realm in Prince—”
Holis held up a hand to stop him. “What is her claim to regency? She wasn’t appointed by the king, or the shareholder’s concordance.”
“The king didn’t appoint you,” the boy said. “And the shareholders had no other choice. The Falcon has been selected by the navy as Admiral Hastings’ heir, to take up the rights and responsibilities that the old king laid upon him. She has the approval of Prince Edoran, who fled with her. And she has the sanction of the One God, as shown by the sword and shield, which were miraculously given into her hands. If you—”
“Miraculously, my ass,” Arisa muttered.
Holis sent her an approving look. “Diccon, how many naval officers do you think she has? Not all of them, surely.”
The commander of the army sighed. “Hard to say, since I clearly underestimated that number—badly!—before. A third? Half? Two thirds? If all the officers who lost someone to Pettibone’s purge follow her, she’ll have a majority at least. But they’re not all idiots. Less than half, most likely.”
“That’s still enough that we can’t rely on any naval officer,” said Holis wearily. “Not till we’ve sorted out exactly who they are.”
“She’s always had contacts in the navy,” Arisa told them. “My father’s friends. Even when she was a rebel leader they’d send her news, sometimes transport her men.”
“Traitor!” the boy snapped.
Arisa glared back at him. “You’re calling me traitor? But even if I was,” she added, “it’s better than being a fool.”
“She has a point,” Holis told the boy. “Perhaps you should give us the rest of your message.”
“It’s simple enough,” said the boy. “If you want to see the prince alive again, you have to give the regency to the Falcon. Formally, before the concordance of shareholders and the people of the city. Then you join the prince in exile. You’ll be well treated,” he added. “But you’ll not go free.”
He’d abandoned his memorized speech, and his low-class city accent reminded Arisa of the customers in the tavern. He reminded her of someone…
“And if I don’t give up the regency and surrender myself?” Holis’ voice was very mild. “Then what?”
“She has the navy,” said the boy, triumphant. “She has the sword and shield, and she has the prince! You work it out.”
He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. Job done.
There was a short silence.
“I suppose,” said Justice Holis, “that there’s little to be gained by delaying the introductions any longer.”
The boy scowled. “What do you mean, innerductions? I know who you are.”
“And I don’t much care who you are,” Holis told him. “But I believe you might be interested to meet His Highness, Prince Edoran. He’s sitting in the chair to your left.”
“That’s rot!” said the boy, glaring at Edoran. “You can’t…”
He stared at Edoran, and the color drained from his face.
“You recognize him,” said Holis. “Good. I was beginning to wonder if the Falcon had no one but idiots in her employ.”
“But… But we… That can’t… We took the prince! That can’t be him.”
“It is,” said Justice Holis. “As for the rest, I believe I’ll let His Highness explain how we thwarted your foolish plot.”
If Arisa hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn the justice had known everything from the start. The boy was gasping as if someone had punched him in the stomach.
“It’s simple,” said Edoran. “Justice Holis’ clerk, Weasel, took my costume and my place. Your men captured him.”
Staring at the prince, the boy missed the wave of pain that rippled through Holis’ calm expression, but Arisa saw it, and fear clutched at her heart.
“And Mistress Arisa and I personally replaced the true sword and shield with substitutes,” Edoran continued. “Which were also taken by the Falcon’s men, so she doesn’t have them, either!”
General Diccon whistled softly, and Holis blinked. The face Edoran turned toward his regent was bright with pride. The boy didn’t understand the deep nod, almost a bow, that Holis offered the prince, but Arisa did.
“So you see,” said Holis, returning his attention to the boy, “far from holding all the cards, your leader has nothing. No sword and shield. No prince. No acknowledgment of regency. Just a handful of treacherous officers, who will be forced to surrender when her plot—her failed plot—becomes public knowledge. And if she harms my clerk,” his voice was very low, “she’ll have a charge of murder against her. You’ll be indicted with her, as an accomplice before the fact. For murder, that can be a hanging crime. Tell me where they are. Tell me where they are before someone gets hurt.”
The boy’s face was ghost white now, but he lifted his head and spoke clearly. “I’m not telling you anything. She got my uncle’s family out of lockup, didn’t she? She’ll pull it off somehow. She always does!”
He must be one of the Mimms’ cousins, Arisa realized. That was why he looked familiar. They were guilty, all of them—but even worse, this boy was in love with the Falcon. She’d seen it dozens of times over the years. Most of the Falcon’s new recruits fell in love with her, and soon got over it—usually after they’d done something stupid, and she’d torn a strip off their egos. The younger they were, the harder they fell. And sometimes her mother had taken that love and used it.
He wouldn’t tell them anything.
“One question,” Arisa said, before Holis could start. “Why did my mother leave me behind? Why keep all of this secret from me?”
“You’re to act as messenger,” the boy told them. “You’ll be the one who passes back and forth between Holis and the Falcon till the thing’s agreed, ’cause she knows you’ll tell her the truth. And she says you can slip any tail they send after you.”
She could. Her mother had trained her well. Too well? Arisa’s eyes closed in grief.
“I’ve already sent out troops,” said General Diccon. “If they haven’t left the city, we’ll stop them. If they have, we’ll be right on their heels. We’ll catch them. We’ll probably have them back by morning.”
Pettibone had hunted her mother throughout the span of Arisa’s life and never caught her. Amazing how a woman wearing a dress could cloud a man’s perceptions. They wouldn’t even catch the troop the Falcon had sent out to gallop over the countryside, while she—deck shoes and tide tables—took ship. They were already at sea.
Holis was talking to the boy, persuasive and terrifying in turn, and the boy had locked his stupid mouth shut.
“What do we do,” Edoran asked, “if they aren’t back by morning? What if she escapes, with Weasel as a hostage?”
Good question. Arisa opened her eyes, and even the boy looked interested.
Holis sighed. “As a hostage, I’m afraid Weasel only matters to me. If he’s returned alive, unharmed, I might be able to commute her sentence to life imprisonment. But I can’t even promise that, since I’m not the only one who’ll be involved in that decision.”
His face was grim. He was the only one in this whole accursed court who cared about Weasel at all.
“No,” said Edoran. “I’m involved in that decision. In fact, I’m going to make it.”
Not the only one who cared.
“Your Highness,” said Holis, “the shareholders—”
“Can rot.” Edoran rose to his feet. “General Diccon, you have till tomorrow’s dawn to capture the Falcon and return her and her hostage to the palace. If they aren’t here by sunrise, you will meet me in the courtyard with a troop of sufficient strength to guarantee my safety. T
hen we’ll go after the Falcon, and when we find her, I will personally oversee the negotiations for her surrender. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Your Highness, but—”
“I command this,” said Edoran. He turned and walked out of the room.
“Well, I’ll be hanged,” said the general. “The little runt sounded like a king!”
Arisa hadn’t realized that other people called Edoran “runt.” She winced.
“He did, didn’t he?” Holis stared after Edoran, respect and regret warring in his expression. “I almost wish he could lead the—”
“Are you mad?” the general asked. “Someone just tried to kidnap him, and they might try again! We can’t even let him off the palace grounds once they realize they’ve got the wrong boy. He’ll have to be guarded when he rides inside the walls as well. Security tightened all over, by posting… Ah…” He looked at the boy, then at Arisa. “Security tightened all over.”
The heat of anger, of shame, flooded her face, but she couldn’t blame him. Arisa stood and faced them. “I should go too. And leave you gentlemen to your work.”
The boy looked nervous, which confirmed he was an idiot. Arisa was a lot more likely to beat information out of him than either Holis or the general.
“Go to Edoran,” Holis told her. “He’s going to need friends. Tomorrow, in particular.”
Arisa nodded and turned away.
“My dear.” The justice’s voice stopped her with her hand on the doorknob. “Thank you.”
Arisa’s eyes filled. She nodded and left the room, without looking back. She didn’t care whether she was crying or not as she walked down the corridors. Few people saw her, and no one tried to stop her as she made her way to the old throne room.
Edoran hadn’t had time to tell them where the sword and shield were, and Holis hadn’t had time to think about it—but the moment he did they’d be placed under lock and key, along with Edoran.
The sword and shield stood where she’d last seen them, propped against their ancient guardian.
“You did well,” Arisa told the empty suit of armor. “Now it’s my turn.”
She took the shield first. Weasel had complained about its awkward weight, but the person who’d cleaned it had also restored the leather strap that allowed a knight to sling it over his back. Arisa did so. It was too big, and Weasel was right about the weight, but she could tighten the strap later. For now, it would do.
