As she approached, two pages pulled wide the large doors leading into the royal quarters, a palace within the palace effectively. The entranceway to the family’s living area was larger than Lady Franciezka’s entire house, a two-storey, vaulted antechamber in which a half-dozen ladies already were gathered to accompany the Queen. She knew that in another part of the apartment a like number of lords of the Kingdom would be waiting to accompany the King. The oddest quality of royal life, Franciezka had always observed, was how the King and Queen shared a bed every night, but on formal occasions dressed in different rooms, departed from the apartment through separate doors, and met in the large hallway before their entrance to the throne room or the grand hall as if arriving from different places. She had once asked the royal historian about it, and he had been at a loss for an answer. The best he could summon up was that this was the way it had always been done.
She nodded greetings to the other ladies who returned polite words, then swept past them into the Queen’s private chambers. The Queen was just rising from her vanity table, having endured, no doubt with her usual good grace, the ministrations of her attendants in applying whatever final touches they deemed necessary to achieve fashion perfection.
Franciezka curtseyed before her Queen and then came to kiss her on either cheek.
‘You’ve been gone too long, my girl,’ Queen Gertrude scolded with affection. She hugged her and whispered, ‘We have no idea what is taking place. Lord John has said nothing.’
Franciezka nodded. ‘We must all be ready for anything.’
‘My daughter?’
‘Safely away,’ Franciezka whispered back.
Barely holding back tears, the Queen said, ‘Good.’
A page approached and said, ‘Majesty, the King is ready.’
So practised were the ladies of the court that it took no more than five minutes to have everyone in place outside the entrance to the Queen’s boudoir. A nod from an assistant to the Master of Ceremonies had both the King’s and Queen’s parties moving at precisely the right moment, so that they both reached the intersection of the grand hall entrance and the hallway marking the boundary of the royal apartment.
Massive doors swung wide as the Master of Ceremonies intoned, ‘My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, the King!’
Franciezka was one step behind the Queen, in her place on the right as her senior lady-in-waiting, but something felt amiss. Then she recognized what it was. The four children were missing. Crown Prince Constantine, the Princes Alber and Grandprey and Princess Stephane should be entering behind their parents. The court had a pensive quality to it, as well, for while this was ostensibly a gala, there was obviously nothing to celebrate, at least in the minds of the lords and ladies in attendance.
Franciezka saw Lord Servan, the King’s nephew and her most trusted agent, the man who would take over all of Roldem’s intelligence concerns should anything happen to her. He barely nodded greeting and she inclined her head slightly.
Nearby stood three young lords about whom Franciezka had mixed feelings. Foreign born all, they had risen in Roldem’s service and been knighted by the King, and all had some sort of relationship with Jim that annoyed her all the more. Yet she had been reassured more than once by Servan that she could count on their loyalty to the end. Lords Jonathan, known as ‘Jommy’ to his close friends, Tad, and Zane stood quietly alert, much as they had looked when last she had seen them, at the previous Masters’ Court. Zane was recently married and a little distance away his wife was showing with their first child, talking to the wives of the other two young lords.
Had it only been months ago? she silently wondered. It felt like years since the last gathering.
Waiting to greet the King and Queen at the throne dais was Lord John Worthington, his son Serge at his right hand. Now titled Prime Minister of Roldem, Lord John bowed and waited until the King and Queen were seated. Then, turning to the assembled gathering, he announced, ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen, I have the great honour of announcing-,’ Franciezka half-expected that he was going to announce the betrothal of his son to Stephane despite her absence, ‘-the cessation of hostilities between the Empire of Great Kesh and the Kingdom of the Isles.’
This was completely unexpected, but welcome news, and the applause that greeted his words was heartfelt as a wave of relief swept through the room. Perhaps, more than one lord thought, things will now begin to return to normal.
The applause grew in volume until suddenly there was cheering and foot stamping. Finally, Lord John held up his hand and a moment later quiet returned.
‘I am pleased to announce that our most gracious King has offered to broker a final treaty between our neighbouring nations, and that within a month Gregory, King of the Isles, and Sezioti, Emperor of Great Kesh, will arrive in Roldem for a supreme conference to bring final peace to the Sea of Kingdoms and beyond.’
This brought applause but no small chatter, for in the history of the Empire of Great Kesh, the Emperor had never left his home above the Overn Deep. And no sitting King of the Isles had ever visited Roldem — princes later to be kings, yes, but never once the crown was set upon his head. This was unprecedented.
Franciezka cursed silently. She had mistaken Lord John’s words to his Kingdom double. He didn’t mean to dispatch the King as a euphemism for killing him, he meant dispatch him to Roldem.
Franciezka Sorboz, Queen’s lady-in-waiting and head of the nation’s intelligence network, glanced over at her deputy, Lord Servan, whose dark features reflected exactly the same thought as her own. What exactly was going on here?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Escape
Ty held up his hand.
Instantly the others fell silent. He motioned to Gabriella to move with the Princess into a depression below the road and hide out of sight. To Hal he pointed behind and then held up his hand to his ear, and then again pointed to the rear.
Hal paused, cocking his head to one side, and then he heard it: distant footfalls, slowly coming their way. He motioned back to Ty to take up a position on either side of the game trail they had been following.
For two days they had circled up into the high foothills heading mostly west by north, then straight west, roughly parallel to the King’s Highway, hoping to reach the road close to the city of Ran. They had subsisted on stream water and summer berries found along the way, but otherwise had nothing. They might be young and fit, but hunger was robbing them of strength daily, and Hal and Ty knew they would be less able to fight as time wore on; it was time to make a stand.
Hal motioned again and Ty nodded, understanding he wanted their pursuers to come past them before they attacked. Both young swordsmen hunkered down behind concealing undergrowth.
Soon the sound of footsteps grew louder and four men in the tabards of the Kingdom came into view. Hal didn’t have to look at their boots to know they were counterfeit soldiers, as they were as ragged and unkempt a lot as he had ever seen. Pirates in stolen tabards was his best guess, and they looked ill-humoured and angry. For them to still be on the trail of the fugitives indicated the lesson of those slain on the King’s Road hadn’t been lost on the rest of them. Hal could hear them speaking in a language foreign to him, and guessed they were Ceresians.
They were not being especially quiet, but they were being cautious, and the man in front appeared to have some tracking skills as he pointed to the prints Hal and the others had just made. He knelt for a moment, placed his hand into the depression of a boot heel and pressed with his fingers. He raised them up, rubbing with his thumb and Hal knew exactly what he was doing.
The leader tracker said something as he drew his sword and pointed down the trail to where the ladies lay in hiding. Hal waited until the last of the four was past, then leapt at him from behind, cutting him down as Ty went past to take out the next man.
The fourth man turned to intercept Hal, but the tracker hung back, shouting, ‘They’re here!’ at the top of his lungs. He managed to get three
shouts out before he suddenly stiffened and then collapsed, revealing Lady Gabriella standing behind him with a bloodied belt knife.
The two best swordsmen at the previous Masters’ Court finished off the two remaining pirates in quick fashion, but shouting from the distance told them the damage had been done. Ty cast around, determining where the noise was coming from. ‘They’re above us!’
He started down the hillside as fast as trees and brush would allow, assuming, correctly, that the others would follow without question. As they reached a clearing he paused to seek the next path down and said, ‘We got below all of them but that one that stumbled on us. Had we been a little quicker maybe …’ He looked back. ‘We need to strike for the King’s Highway and hope we can outrun them to Ran.’
‘How far?’ asked Gabriella and with a slight incline of her head showed she was asking on behalf of Stephane, not herself.
‘If I’m correct, three, maybe four miles.’
‘We’ll never outrun them,’ said the exhausted Princess. ‘Leave me. You go and get help and come after me.’
Almost simultaneously Hal and Ty cried, ‘No!’
Hal put his arm around her waist, half-lifting her, and started toward the downhill slope.
‘No!’ shouted Ty.
Hal turned to look, and Ty pointed off in another direction. ‘That way.’
Hal took off and Gabriella and Ty followed. Without communication it was understood. Hal would keep going with Stephane no matter what happened, while Ty and the Lady Gabriella would turn and hold off the pursuers as long as possible should they be overtaken.
After a moment, Stephane said crossly, ‘This is impossible!’ She pushed herself away from Hal, shouting, ‘I can run!’ and took off at a staggering run down the game trail.
‘Don’t!’ shouted Ty, but it was too late.
Four staggering steps sent her tumbling and she cried in pain as she rolled down the trail.
‘Oh, gods!’ Hal leapt after her, almost losing control as he raced down the trail after her, Ty and Gabriella a step or two behind him.
Stephane continued her out-of-control tumble, crying as she struck rocks and branches tore at her clothing and flesh, until she hit hard against an outcropping of rocks at the lower end of a small clearing. Hal was at her side a moment later. Kneeling beside her, he said, ‘Don’t move.’
She looked up at him. ‘I’m an idiot,’ she said weakly.
He pressed quickly where he could, seeing if anything was broken, and found a spectacular collection of abrasions, bumps, and small cuts, but at last said, ‘I don’t think you’ve broken any bones.’
‘I feel dizzy,’ she said weakly as Ty appeared.
‘She must have bumped her head.’
‘Can we move her?’ asked Gabriella.
‘Yes,’ said Hal. He picked up the Princess and tossed her over his shoulder as he would a sack of grain, ignoring her moans. He set off down the trail, hearing the voices of their pursuers.
‘There they are!’ cried Ty.
Hal turned and as gently as possible put the Princess down, drawing his sword. ‘I can see the road below,’ he said, ‘but we might as well stand here.’
Ty had his sword out and Lady Gabriella her long belt knife when the first two pirates hove into view. One almost ran up on to the tip of Ty’s sword, barely backing away in time. The other jumped towards Hal and for his trouble had Hal ran him through the stomach as Gabrielle slashed his throat.
The first pirate’s heel caught a rock and he fell backwards, just as three others approached slightly more cautiously. They spread out and one spoke. ‘Give us that girl and the rest of you can go.’
‘Found your friends, did you?’ asked Ty, with a grin.
Hal said, ‘Four to three. Shouldn’t be much of a bother.’
Another half a dozen men came up behind the first pirates. ‘Well, ten to three,’ said Ty. ‘That might pose a problem.’
‘Your last chance,’ said the leader. ‘Walk down the hill and you live. You’ll be in Ran inside two hours. Stand another minute, and you’ll die, and we get the girl either way.’
‘Ah, where’s the sport in just walking away?’ asked Ty with a grin.
‘You take the five on your side,’ said Hal loudly. ‘You’re the Masters’ Champion, after all.’
‘Well, you almost beat me,’ he replied.
Several of the pirates laughed, but the leader looked at Hal and said, ‘You’re Duke Henry’s boy?’
‘I have that honour.’
‘Lot of ransom.’ He motioned to his men. ‘Take him alive too. Kill the other two and if the girl is alive, have your way with her, but first to touch the Princess dies at my hand, understood?’
As he turned to look to see if his men were following orders, he heard a dull thud a moment before he reached up to his throat. His eyes widened, then started to go blank. Gabriella’s throwing blade was lodged firmly in his throat and he died trying to pull it out with weak fingers. ‘Now, who wants to be the first to try to have his way with me?’ she hissed as she held her dripping dirk and another knife she had drawn out of her boot.
The pirates hesitated. Hal, Gabriella, and Ty formed a semi-circle between Stephane and the would-be abductors. The attackers approached cautiously and Hal said, ‘If the lady doesn’t carve up too many of them, perhaps we can settle once and for all who’s the best blade. Most kills?’
‘Loser buys dinner when we get to Ran.’
The pirates shouted and charged and Hal was almost bowled over by a burly man who received a wicked slice along his arm for his pains. Blood spattered over Hal, and over Stephane where she lay on the ground behind him, and he howled in pain.
Ty let the first man on his right extend and overbalance, then grabbed him in a headlock, slicing the back of his sword hand with his blade, then wheeling him around so that his rump faced the other four men, just as one struck a blow, taking his companion in the backside. The man howled in pain. Ty released him, then drove his left elbow down into the man’s neck, stunning him.
The half-dazed man served as a momentary human barrier, and Ty reached across it to cut the sword hand off another of the remaining three men. His stump fountained blood and he cried out as his sword and fell dropped to the ground, and backed away.
Both Hal and Ty were trained in swordcraft far beyond most young men. Moreover, they were not merely competitive swordsmen, but sons of fathers who understood the skills of brawling as well as soldering.
Men who had not trained to fight alongside one another were often more of a liability than an asset, and Ty and Hall moved instinctively away from one another, while Gabriella stayed close to Stephane, her own blades ready to protect the princess.
Hal ducked and sliced at a man’s hamstring as he stepped by, Hal’s finely-honed blade cutting through a heavy leather boot to topple the man. Now there were six.
Realizing almost simultaneously that their biggest risk was being swarmed by the rest, Ty and Hal began furiously to hack and lunge, inflicting half a dozen minor injuries before the men fell back.
One man bumped against the man next to him, moved the wrong way and Ty skewered him in the lower abdomen, causing him to collapse in a groaning heap. Now there were five.
Seeing so many comrades fall, the remaining pirates pulled back, stealing glances at one another as if attempting to coordinate their attack. Their expressions showed each was waiting for another man to take the lead.
One muttered, ‘It’s our necks if we come back without her.’
Another said, ‘And it looks like it’s our throats if we keep trying.’
What the remaining pirates saw was Hal and Ty hiding their exhaustion, and a strong-looking young woman crouched low with two weapons she had already shown she knew how to use. Even Stephane sat up, back to a rock, holding a dagger, determined to make any man who touched her pay a heavy price. The remaining Pirates appeared uncertain of which way to move.
There was a moment of silence,
then as one the five pirates launched their attack, followed an instant later by three others, the fourth turning his attention to the girls. Ty parried the man on his left but took a nasty cut along the ribs from the one on his right before slamming the man in the face with his right elbow, the blow catching him under the chin and driving his jaw upward, stunning him. Ty turned full-circle and cut the other man across the back of the neck and he fell like a rag doll.
Hal spun to his left, taking him beyond the two pirates who had launched themselves at him, causing the man who had moments before been about to take Hal on the left, to discover Hal now far to his right. As he attempted to turn, to open up, he died from a deep thrust through his right side. Ty was quickly dispensing with the other two men, as they conveniently got in one another’s way, allowing the young master swordsman the opening he needed to quickly impale both with sharp thrusts.
Hal shouted, ‘Gabriella, guard the Princess!’ He realized his warning was gratuitous, as Gabriella made short work of the pirate who had foolishly picked her as an easy target. He had come in expecting the longer reach he had with his sword to give him an advantage, and made the mistake of making a cutlass slash rather than a killing thrust. She had ducked under the cut, come up inside his reach and used her two blades to carve him up before he could recover.
The last man tripped over that corpse as he backed away from Hal, falling on his back at her feet. Gabriella knelt and without emotion drove her dagger into his throat.
Two wounded men groaned, while a third was unconscious and bleeding. Hal nodded once with a grim expression to Ty, and soon the three men were dead.
Hal turned to confront an ashen-faced Stephane. ‘Are you hurt?’
Quietly she said, ‘Did you have to kill them all?’
Hal looked into her eyes and without emotion said, ‘Yes. If others come by they won’t be alive to raise alarm or tell which direction we’ve fled.’ She nodded. Again he asked, ‘Are you hurt?’
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