At last the dress slid free of Laina’s arms; Ladybird threw it into the corner in a rumpled pile and fetched the new gown. “Oh, believe me, Conard would have none of that.” She gave Laina a significant look. “As I said, he’s obsessed with you. Won’t even take a playful peck from me.”
Laina was not sure whether to be dismayed or reassured by this.
“Anyway, how long are you staying? You can’t be off too soon, not with the trials you must have gone through to get here.” Ladybird batted her eyes at Laina. Then, while Laina raised her arms obediently, she draped the new gown over her head. It was a tight fit, but eventually she tugged it straight and Ladybird began doing up the laces.
“Is everything okay in there?” Conard’s voice asked from beyond the tent flap.
“Nearly done,” Laina said, wincing as a cord bit into her back. She had never cared much for fine dresses, and owned just one lace-up gown, which she saved for the nicest of occasions—the sort that never took place in Lostport. This one, despite belonging to the gypsies, could have passed for something a bit more fashionable. It was red, with orange and yellow accents, the sleeves billowing at the shoulders and the skirt slashed all around. With the final laces tied, Laina realized the swooping neckline was cut lower than anything she had worn before. She hoped she looked alluring, not simply bedraggled.
Belatedly she remembered that they had come here on a crucial mission, not to seduce Conard. Perhaps he would be more amenable to her idea if she presented it looking like this.
Then she bit her tongue in annoyance. Who was she, to contemplate seduction and trickery?
“You look lovely!” Ladybird squealed, taking Laina’s hands and eyeing her head to toe. “But your hair must be fixed. It looks such a mess!”
Laina touched a hand to her usual braid, which was neither muddy nor unraveling. “No. Leave it be.” Too much attention to her appearance, and she would no longer feel like herself.
“Conard!” Ladybird called. “She’s ready.” Grinning, she ducked out of the way as Conard stepped into the tent.
When he saw Laina, his face went blank before his features resolved into a frown. “What’s she playing at?”
Laina’s anticipation vanished. “I didn’t ask for this dress,” she said grimly. “Now everyone will think me a harlot.”
“No, that’s not what I meant!” Conard said. “I just—I’ve never seen you like this before. You look stunning. But I think Ladybird has some mischief in mind. She usually does.”
“I feel a bit foolish,” Laina said, trying not to blush. “How am I going to discuss serious business looking like this?”
“Who cares?” With a mischievous grin, Conard closed the gap between them and kissed Laina hard on the mouth.
Chapter 14
A s promised, the rain began to ease by sundown, and the following morning dawned clear and sunny. When the Whitish builders announced that they would stop in town to re-provision before heading to Port Emerald, Faolan hardly dared believe what he heard.
“Have they received new orders?” he asked Harrow. His advisor had arrived to watch in disbelief as the laborers filed down the lawn toward the road.
“I did hear a rumor,” Harrow said, tearing his eyes from the procession. “A rumor of treasure, treasure that they can do away with. Those men intend to abandon the project and steal as much wealth as they can in the process.”
Faolan frowned and scratched his jaw, which he had allowed to grow stubby with hair during the fuss over the Whitish laborers. “Is this fact, or mere speculation?”
Harrow gave him a fleeting smile. “I said I had heard a rumor. I don’t know a thing about what the Whitlanders believe or intend.”
Either way, all fifty of the insufferable Whitlanders had now vacated Faolan’s manor. He did not need to worry about their rationale; they were no longer his concern.
“Now we must simply tidy the place up a bit,” Faolan said, trying not to sound gloomy. For the duration of the Whitlanders’ stay, he had tried his best to avert his gaze and ignore the layers of dirt, the discarded potatoes and stale bread crusts, and the soiled carpets. Now, when he turned back to the hall and caught sight of the mess within, it was all he could do not to groan. His manor looked as though a mudslide had swept through it.
One of Doran’s guards—Nort, if he remembered properly—was beginning to gather and remove the blankets and sleeping mats that had been left behind. “I need every servant in this manor working alongside you,” Faolan told the guard, clapping him gratefully on the shoulder. “I want this place looking presentable before sunrise tomorrow.”
Nort gave a brusque nod and continued at his work. Limping past him into the dining hall, Faolan collapsed into his favorite chair.
“Would you like a spot of ale, my lord?” Mylo said, shuffling from the kitchen with a bucket of soapy water.
“Tea, please, if you can spare a moment.” Faolan put his hands to his head and tried to ignore the dull ache that was spreading from his back up to his shoulders.
The house quickly descended into a chaotic bustle, each servant racing to and fro with unwonted urgency, first clearing out the last remnants of the army and then scrubbing the manor from its lofty ceilings to its marble floors. Nursing his tea and enjoying the shaft of sunlight that spilled into the dining room from the high window, Faolan read through the figures he and Harrow had estimated. Since he did not trust Prince Ronnick to do a proper job of passing on his plea for more materials, he began drafting a letter to High King Luistan, with a second set of more precise instructions accompanying an estimation of the exact benefits Port Emerald would bring Whitland.
As it was, Faolan did not think to look for his daughter until the sun was nearly going down. He had assumed she was still in the kitchen, where she had spent the past several days, but when Mylo appeared with a bowl of creamy potato soup, Faolan realized he had seen neither Laina nor her foreign friends all day.
“Is my daughter in the kitchen with you?” he asked, pausing with his spoon halfway into the soup.
Mylo blinked in surprise and rocked back on his heels. “I thought she was resting! All the excitement wore her out yesterday, I’d say.”
“And that cartographer?” Faolan narrowed his eyes at Mylo. The cook was an honest, practical fellow, but Faolan could not be certain he told the truth.
“Oh, he and the Varrilan left earlier today,” Mylo said. With a respectful bob of his head, he shuffled back into the kitchen.
Faolan dropped the spoon and pushed back his chair with a screech of wood. Resisting the urge to run, he strode into the entrance hall and up the stairs to Laina’s room. He ducked his head around the corner just to ascertain she was not in his office, and then came to a stop before her door, breathing hard. He knocked.
No sound came from within. Could Laina be asleep? Quietly, one hand on the doorframe, Faolan eased the door open and peered into the room beyond.
As he had known it would be all along, the room was empty.
* * *
“Jairus and I have begun planting the seeds of a rumor,” Swick said over supper that evening. Conard was sitting in a circle of makeshift chairs—mostly logs, with a few odd stools thrown in—with Laina beside him and Ebony making the rounds with a cauldron of hot mulled mead. “We’ve asked King Faolan’s kitchen staff to spread word of a mine up in the mountains, practically overflowing with gems. Only one man knows its precise location, and he’s currently trying to extract as much wealth as possible before anyone discovers his secret. Then, before anyone can stop him, he intends to flee Lostport and buy himself an estate in Whitland.”
“And it’s not true, not the least bit?” Grandfather asked wistfully. It seemed that the two older men had found much in common. Grandfather and Swick had been trading stories and chuckling over their youthful misdeeds for hours now.
Laina shook her head. “We’ll know the soldiers have fallen for their bait if they head for Port Emerald in the next span. Until now
, they’ve been sitting idly in my father’s manor, ordering the servants to bring more food and ale than we could possibly give them. They don’t intend to do anything but cause trouble.”
“So, in a few days’ time, fifty new Whitlanders are going to flood into Port Emerald,” Conard said. “How does that help anyone?”
“Sorry, but that is where your part comes in,” Laina said.
Swick waved her into silence. “Not yet! We haven’t finished laying the foundation.”
Conard thought he heard Laina sigh.
“As the Whitlanders pass through the gypsy camp, we need volunteers to start a new rumor,” Swick said. “We need them to believe that now is an especially good time to take any wealth they can and return to Whitland. Land is cheap, say. High King Luistan is offering generous rewards to anyone willing to help fund his war.”
“I still don’t understand,” Conard said. His trepidation for what they would ask him to do was growing, but he had already given his word.
With what looked like reluctance, the young Varrilan—Jairus, if he remembered correctly—spoke up. “With my knowledge of glass-working, I could forge a mountain of fake gems; nothing more than dyed glass. Unless these soldiers have worked with precious stones before, they would not recognize the deception.”
“That leaves you, Conard,” Laina said. “We need you to infiltrate the Whitish ranks, earn the trust of the builders, and pretend to discover the thief’s secret mine.”
Conard’s misgivings had been entirely justified. He had meant to keep a low profile, to hide amongst people who passed beneath the king’s notice. This would draw exactly the sort of attention he did not need.
“You can still refuse,” Laina said quietly. “I don’t know anyone else to call upon, but it’s too much to ask of you. If anyone realized you had tricked them, the consequences would be terrible.”
Conard met her eyes and saw something desperate there. Was it worry for him, or fear that he would refuse to help? “Of course I’ll do it,” he said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He did not want to sound reluctant. “So I’m to pose as a builder, then? I’ve never built anything in my life, unless setting up a tent counts.”
Laina tugged at his patched coat. “That’s better than some,” she teased, her eyes still serious. “I don’t think most of those useless Whitlanders have spent a night outside before. They traveled from their homes in comfortable barges and immediately set up camp in my father’s hall. I bet you’ll be their wilderness hero.”
Conard snorted. “Sure.”
Far too soon, it was time to retire for the night. Conard could not help but think his time with Laina was hastily drawing to a close. The next time he saw her, he would be in disguise, unable to speak to her or show he recognized her. He hoped she would trust him to stay true. He would never be tempted to sympathize with Whitland, no matter how well the builders treated him.
Despite a good deal of grumbling from Ebony and Silversmite, the performers shuffled around until Laina, Swick, Jairus, and Conard were able to share one of the larger tents. Whether by accident or design, he and Laina ended up beside one another. At first he thought he might ‘accidentally’ roll toward Laina in the dark secrecy of night, but when he saw Jairus’s dark eyes fixed on her, he realized he was still unsure of Laina’s intentions. Perhaps he had misjudged her completely. She could be manipulating him for her own ends, while secretly carrying on an affair with Jairus.
Disgusted with himself, Conard drew his knees in to his chest and turned to the canvas wall. Laina would not do such a thing. She had more honor than anyone he knew.
“Good night,” he said to the wall.
Swick extinguished their candle with his thumb and forefinger.
“’Night, Conard,” Laina said softly.
At daybreak the next morning, Conard was startled awake by shouts and the sound of hundreds of feet tramping down the road. He was disoriented for a moment—he had slept poorly, dreaming time and time again that Laina had crawled beneath the blankets with him and molded her body to his, only to wake and find himself alone.
A moment later, Laina and the old horse-master sat up in unison, both looking in the direction of the commotion.
“It’s the Whitlanders,” Laina said, alarmed. “I didn’t expect them so soon!”
“They must have camped just down the road,” Swick said, already on his feet and pulling on an overcoat. “Jairus!”
With a muttered curse in Varrilan, the young man sat up and threw off the blankets.
“Don’t move,” Swick told Conard and Laina. “We’ll be right back.”
Still cursing under his breath, Jairus hopped after Swick, trying to pull on his second sock as he went.
“What are they doing?” Conard whispered. He was still watching the tent flap Jairus had vanished through, wondering as before if Laina had fallen for Jairus or was simply helping him through a sense of moral obligation. To him, Jairus seemed dour and prickly and inescapably foreign.
“My guess is that they’ve gone to procure your uniform.”
At Laina’s voice, Conard was wrenched from his thoughts. “My what? Oh, you mean my disguise?”
She nodded, her mouth twisting in distaste. “I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon. You can still say no.”
Untangling his legs from the blankets, Conard crawled over to Laina’s side, where he knelt tantalizingly close while still maintaining a finger’s breadth of space between them. “Consider this a way of beginning to repay the wrong I’ve done your family.”
“You know you don’t have to,” Laina said, her brown eyes wide, “but thank you.” She bent her head to rest on Conard’s shoulder, a warm, comforting presence at his side.
After a moment’s hesitation, Conard reached up and wound his fingers through her hair. As dangerous and trying as the subterfuge might become, he realized he was grateful for the chance to prove himself to Laina.
“You know I won’t be able to see you for a long time,” he said.
Laina snaked an arm around his waist and held him closer still. “I know. Just don’t—don’t become one of them. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
“Never,” Conard said.
Just as he bent to kiss Laina, the tent flap swung open again to reveal Jairus and Swick, this time with armfuls of white clothes and muddied boots.
“Better hurry,” Swick said. “The army plans to stop here for a quick midmorning tea before racing on toward Port Emerald. Don’t want to get caught out in more rain, by the sound of things.”
Laina and Conard shared a pained look. With a last squeeze of her hands, Conard rose and accepted the uniform.
“How did they manage to keep those pants so white?” Laina asked, narrowing her eyes at the somewhat muddied breeches. “Has someone managed to drain the swimming hole since yesterday?”
Swick chortled. “They probably paid a few poor fellows to lie on their faces and make a boardwalk.”
Conard began stripping to his underclothes, again conscious of Jairus’s silent, critical stare. “What I’m more concerned about is what happened to the owner of these clothes.” He frowned at Swick. “Is some poor Whitlander lying naked in the middle of the woods?”
“Don’t worry, we gave him a blanket,” Swick said.
Conard could not tell if he was joking.
At last he was dressed, and all of his buttons were done up properly—which had taken some work. “How do I look?” he asked Laina, turning in a circle.
“Very handsome,” she said drily. “I hate to say it, but the uniform suits you.”
“The boots are a bit tight,” Conard said.
Swick laughed. “We had to choose a short man. Jairus and I are not strong enough to take down anyone particularly imposing.”
“The laborers will be leaving soon,” Jairus said. It was the first time Conard had heard him speak all morning. “Is someone ready to repeat the rumors of cheap land and titles back in Whitland?”
�
��I believe Ladybird was planning to whisper it in a few ears,” Conard said. He sighed. “I supposed I should join them, before it becomes too conspicuous.” Ignoring Jairus and Swick, he knelt and drew Laina into his arms. “Send for me,” he whispered. “If you ever need anything, I will come for you.”
Laina gripped him tightly but did not say anything. In that single embrace, Conard tried to convey every shard of love he had been holding back—the fear that Laina would hate him, the spans he had traveled to return, and the new pang of leaving once again, this time without any guarantee of return. Even if he were to return, what would he gain? Laina could never be his. She was the heir to the throne of Lostport; he was a stray fosterling. And an exile now, as well.
At last Conard kissed Laina on the forehead and released her. For now, everything would have to go unsaid.
Outside the tent, Conard was surprised to find the entire company—aside from Ladybird, who must have genuinely been trying to spread the rumor—waiting to bid him farewell.
“Come back to us,” Grandfather said, nearly crushing Conard in a hug. “In one piece.”
“I’ll miss you,” Silversmite said solemnly, putting both hands on Conard’s shoulders and examining him in his new uniform. “Take care of yourself.”
“And you,” Conard said. “I’m not leaving forever, you know. I’ll be sure to say hello whenever the laborers stop here for a day.”
“Be careful, though,” Grandfather said. “As much as we’d love to see you, we would rather you not get yourself in trouble.”
Nodding, Ebony gave Conard a brief hug, which surprised him. He had thought the woman barely tolerated his presence.
Then, with Silversmite and one of the children tailing him conspicuously, Conard turned from camp and began picking his way toward the road. The campground air was rich with woodsmoke, and voices were beginning to drown out the birdsong, most of them searching around to discover who had caused such a commotion. Before long, a sea of white uniforms came into view; the Whitlanders were clumped together as though for protection, and only a few had dared to sit on logs around the clearing.
The Fall of Lostport Page 19
