Agent of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you,” Telaine said. “I wanted to be, honestly.”

  “Yes, and I’m miffed at you,” Julia said cheerfully. “Your payment will be to tell me exactly what exotic mission forced you to abandon me in my time of need.”

  Telaine sighed heavily and smiled at her cousin. “I suppose, if I must,” she said. “It began when Uncle ordered me to travel to this little town called Longbourne…”

  She left Ben out of the story entirely.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Three days later, Telaine stood at her sitting room window, looking out toward the army barracks that lay beyond the palace wall. Soldiers had been marching in all morning, returning from the front. At this distance they were green and brown insects swarming the parade grounds before receiving new orders. Jeffy ought to be one of them, unless he’d remained in Longbourne… She bit her lip, trying not to remember things best left forgotten. How would the townspeople treat him, the deceptive Princess’s cousin?

  From down the hall, a familiar voice called out, “Doesn’t anyone want to know how I am?”

  Telaine turned around fast. Had thinking of him conjured him up? Shouts of “Jeffy!” rang out from the sitting room, echoing through the east wing. Telaine rushed out of her room and down the hall.

  Jeffy, his left arm in a sling, fended off family members, laughing. It was so good to see him, alive and mostly unharmed, that her heart felt lighter than it had in days. He met her eyes as she entered the room, and his laughter cut off. “Hope that shoulder doesn’t hurt much, coz, because the sling is—” she began.

  Jeffy reached out and put his good arm around her, pulling her tight and bending to lay his forehead on the top of her head. “Lainie, Lainie, you saved all our lives,” he whispered. “When the Canden garrison burst past us and took the fight to the Ruskalder…it was just in time. I was still sprawled on the battlements because there wasn’t a single soldier to spare to carry me down—and I was trying to save another man’s life at the same time. Thank you.”

  She wrapped her arms around her tall cousin and hugged him tight. “I wasn’t going to let you die there heroically and get all the glory,” she sniffled.

  “Did the Baron try to escape? Did you have to hunt him down?” Jessamy asked, bouncing as if he were five instead of thirteen.

  “He was a model prisoner,” Jeffy said. “Didn’t even speak to anyone except to ask to relieve himself. He looks pretty bad, after ten days in the fort lockup and four more on the road.”

  “He didn’t curse or rattle the bars or anything?” asked Mark, sixteen years old and as Army-mad as Jeffy. He sounded disappointed.

  Jeffy chuckled. “No, although he was still furious at…” He looked down at Telaine again and released her. “You should have heard him when we put him in the fort lockup, before the attack. No, maybe you shouldn’t. Some of those swear words I’d never heard before.”

  “He’s in shackles, so he can say anything he likes,” Telaine said. The thought of the Baron in the tiny prison cells made her heart feel even lighter, despite her ongoing dread of having to testify against him in public.

  Aunt Imogen entered the room and embraced her son, laying her cheek against his. “And now we’re all home again,” she said, her Kirkellish accent stronger than usual. “Sit down and let’s hear your story.”

  “Mother! Why aren’t you at the front?” Jeffy put his good arm around her and hugged her back.

  “Because your father and I tossed a coin and I lost. Though it sounds as if you Thorsten defenders had all the excitement, so I will stop feeling resentful for missing out.” Aunt Imogen patted the seat next to her. “I hope this is a long and detailed story.”

  “Of course. I want you all to appreciate my daring heroics.” He winked at his mother. Telaine thought she might be the only one who saw the tremor in her aunt’s smile when she looked at her eldest son’s arm in the sling. War would never be just a story for her.

  Jeffy leaned back and stretched his long legs out. “Major Anselm had a difficult task. Not only defending the fort under strength, but integrating our unit—I’m proud to be under her command, she’s amazing—with those scruffy undisciplined louts and the townspeople from Longbourne, who were at least willing and fierce. That’s an important piece of military strategy: never underestimate someone who’s fighting for his home and family.”

  “Save the military science lectures for later, please?” said Caitlin, rolling her eyes. She was fourteen and rolling her eyes was her default expression.

  “Sorry. Anyway, most of them didn’t have experience with anything but brawling. A few knife fighters, a couple of men and women who’d served in the military. But those new guns, they don’t take much skill to use despite their weight, and the major had a handful of riflemen to use the old black powder rifles, which still have a longer range than the Devices.”

  “Did you use the new guns? What firing rate do you get? Does the new cartridge wheel cut down on the misfire chance? When—”

  “Save the gun chatter for later too, please?”

  “Later, Mark. You ought to ask Telaine. I heard she rebuilt more than two hundred of them.”

  That brought exclamations from her family. “Telaine, where did you learn to do that? I know you’ve always been a tinkerer, but rebuilding weapons…that sounds like complicated work,” said Imogen.

  Telaine reddened. “I was secretly apprenticed to a Deviser in the city. For, um, seven years.”

  That elicited more gasps and exclamations, and then a torrent of questions. Telaine waved her hands at her family. “I know, I should have told you, and I know I say that a lot lately, but I was afraid if people knew about it they’d start taking me seriously, and that could have ruined everything.”

  “We’re not people, Lainie, we’re your family,” Caitlin said.

  “And I think it’s unfair you wouldn’t even tell me,” Jessamy said with a scowl.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve given it up for now. I just don’t have the time.”

  Imogen gave her a skeptical look. “It sounds like an awfully big thing to give up.”

  Telaine hoped her smile didn’t look forced. “I’d rather spend time with all of you,” she said, ruffling Jessamy’s hair in the way he hated. He ducked away, still scowling. “Jeffy, were you able to separate out the damaged ones?” she asked, ignoring Mark’s worshipful eyes. “I was worried about that.”

  “A few of the Longbourne fellows knew you hadn’t finished the job. The major had it sorted out in no time.” He hesitated, then added, “They didn’t want to talk about you at all. Lainie, I still feel responsible.”

  “Jeffy, it was entirely my fault. I’m the one who stood up and yelled ‘I’m a princess and a spy’ without warning anyone. They’re entitled to be angry.” She had to swallow hard to keep from tearing up again.

  “They—never mind. We’ll talk about that later. Anyway, the major toured the keep and the fort, and she cursed a lot, then she went up on the wall and cursed a lot more. Whoever built the fort built it too far back from Thorsten Pass. There’s over two hundred feet of wall to defend, none of it more than thirty or forty feet high, and that’s why it needs so many men; you push back the enemy in one place and he’s coming over the wall somewhere else.

  “The major’s strategy was to hold them off with guns as long as possible, then have teams of two or three each working to defend a section of the wall. We each—the regular soldiers—were partnered with townspeople or the scruffy rejects from Thorsten. No, that’s unfair. They stiffened right up when they knew what we were facing. Their so-called captain, Jackson, he turned out to be good at getting his men to fall in line. Jess, would you mind getting me some water or something? I already feel hoarse.”

  He swallowed some water, then continued. “We had plenty of time to test the new weaponry. Some of those townspeople were naturals. Some of them weren’t going to be able to do anything but distract the Ruskalder, but the major sai
d she’d take whatever she could get.

  “We hauled stone from the quarry to blockade the inside doors, the ones facing Thorsten Pass—the major cursed about those too, said there was no reason for doors like that in a fortress built for defense. That was something, anyway; we had no shortage of raw materials to fortify the walls. Anyway, we piled stone against the doors as high as we could manage, then we settled in to wait for nightfall. Ate some of those rations the Baron had stored. They were good, for rations.

  “We saw the enemy before sunset. There’s a sort of plain between the fort and the pass, and the earth mover had cleared most of it, so they had an unobstructed path to the fort and they took it. Remember, they had no idea the plan had changed, so they didn’t even bother sneaking, or rushing the wall, they just strolled up until they were in range, and we unloaded a couple hundred balls and bullets into them.” He grinned a bloodthirsty grin. “I know war’s not a good thing, mother, but watching them run away shrieking made my heart warm.”

  “My dear son, I rode to battle long before you were born. I know the feeling. And I agree it’s not a good thing and as your mother I forbid you to enjoy the heat of battle ever again.” Her eyes twinkled at him.

  “Anyway. That was the first advance. We shouldn’t have been so triumphant, but it had been such an anxious day, and we knew we were outnumbered, so we needed a victory. The Ruskalder retreated through the mouth of the pass and stayed there for a couple of hours.

  “It got dark and cold. I tried to make conversation with my team, but they weren’t interested in talking—one of them was this big Thorsten soldier, didn’t look like he thought about much beyond his next meal, and the other was that friend of yours, Lainie, the one I shoved—”

  The blood drained from her face. “Ben Garrett,” she said in a quiet voice. Of course it would be him. He was going to follow her around for the rest of her life—no, that was the problem, he wasn’t going to follow her the rest of her life, she’d just never be able to stop hearing about him.

  “He wanted to pretend I didn’t exist. I’m not sure if it’s because I hit him, or because I’m related to you, but either way he wouldn’t talk. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a chatty kind of fellow—”

  “We know,” his family chorused. Jeffy threw a pillow at Edward, the only one of his siblings taller than he; Edward tossed it back.

  “—and I thought about asking the major to put me with a different team, you know, in case he wouldn’t be able to take direction from me, but I thought that might look like I couldn’t rally the troops, even if it was a troop of one. Best decision I ever made, not asking for reassignment.”

  He has to be alive. Jeffy would have said right away if he’d been killed. She couldn’t think of a way to ask the question burning a hole in her stomach without revealing so many things she didn’t want to share with anyone, even her family. “Why was that?” she asked, casually, as if her heart wasn’t tangled up in his answer.

  “Let me tell the story, Lainie,” Jeffy said, and she nearly leaped from her seat and throttled him right there. “They came at us again around midnight. I don’t know why they didn’t wait until morning. Anyway, they had torches and lanterns they set up around the sides of the mountain as you come through the pass, just outside our range. This time they had shields and helmets, so we didn’t do as much damage, but we drove them off again.

  “And then we did it again, and once more. They had so many men they could afford to waste them on wearing us out. That last wave must have been after full dawn, and we were sagging. Up until that point we hadn’t lost anyone, because the Ruskalder didn’t have projectile weapons and each time we beat them off before it came to a melee fight. The major had us rotate taking naps, getting food, and she kept her best riflemen watching the pass. There was a wind blowing through the pass, cleared away most of the smoke from the black powder rifles, not that we had many of those. Anyway, we had good visibility during the times between waves.

  “They saw movement in the mouth of the pass but they didn’t realize what it was until they actually saw them building the siege towers. The Ruskalder only had two, but I don’t mind telling you I was terrified. All we could do was watch. Well, all but the major.

  “She had the townspeople run out to the sawmill and bring back long, thick poles, and had us carve notches in one end, for something to try to fend the towers off with. Had ’em do some shorter ones in case the Ruskalder had ladders and got that close. We were sweating trying to get all that finished before they came at us again.” He laughed. “Thing is, it took so long for them to build their towers we were able to rest up and get our second wind. If they’d kept on throwing wave after wave of men at us, they’d have overwhelmed us by noon.

  “So it was maybe three o’clock in the afternoon when we saw the siege towers move. It was a crazy strategy, because they had to haul all that wood up the pass, but it was effective. They were on—” Jeffy shook his head. “The details don’t matter. All that matters is the siege towers were slow, but inexorable.

  “We had the riflemen and anyone who was a good shot taking aim at the ground soldiers, and the rest of us armed with those long sticks or swords or whatever other melee weapons came to hand. Garrett had a sledgehammer he swung around like it didn’t weigh a thing. The Thorsten fellow and I had swords. We were supposed to watch the wall and take care of anyone who got past the stick-men.

  “That first advance, though, nothing happened. One of the siege towers got stuck, and the other one, the stick-men were able to fend it off so they had to withdraw. But they were back in half an hour and they’d fixed all their problems, and that’s when it got bad.

  “We lost maybe thirty people in that second push and had another twenty seriously wounded because none of us knew what to expect or where to focus our efforts. The Ruskalder poured out of the siege towers and then, when those fellows had our attention, more of them came up the walls. It was…carnage.” He stopped, staring at something invisible and horrible. Then he shook his head, as if waking himself.

  “We—my team—held our ground well. None of the Ruskalder who came up our section of the wall made it over the top. That Garrett—” He shook his head again, this time in rueful admiration. “I’d never seen anyone fight like that. All that anger he—sorry, Lainie.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. She clenched her fists, driving her nails into the skin of her palm, trying to keep her composure. He’s not dead. It’s not true.

  “Anyway, he had a lot of bottled-up rage, that’s all I’m saying. Anyone he hit with that hammer stayed down, particularly since being hit by it usually meant falling thirty or more feet to the ground.”

  “What about you, Jeffy? Did you kill anyone?”

  “Jessamy, hush.”

  “I did,” Jeffy said, “and I’m not saying it wasn’t necessary, but it’s not a memory I care to dwell on. Maybe you’ll understand some day, Jess, but I hope you never do.” He cleared his throat. “Where was I? Right. We lost a lot of people—thirty doesn’t sound like much, but it was about fifteen percent of our entire troop, and about fifteen of our injured couldn’t fight anymore—but we pushed them back again. Literally, because we got a couple of our sticks in the right place to topple one of the towers, and that bought us more time.

  “By then it was late afternoon and everyone was flagging again. The major walked around, talked to everyone, helped everyone find some more stamina. We ate again. Some people napped. I tried to get Garrett to settle down, but he kept pacing that little strip of wall we were defending. He’s the one who shouted the warning. I looked over the wall and…there were so many of them. They almost climbed over each other to get up the wall. My team held its ground for a long time, but we were forced back.

  “The Thorsten soldier fell first. Sword to the—” He stopped himself. “Sword wound, pretty bad one. He fell off the wall so we couldn’t even try to help him. Garrett and I were back to back, and we were doing all right until o
ne of them got me—” He pointed at his shoulder.

  “I dropped my sword and fell. It’s hazy after that, but I remember Garrett standing over me, screaming like a madman and swinging that oversized hammer of his. I found out later he’d killed six men, right there. The next thing I remember he was on the ground and blood was—I mean, one of those Ruskalder had gotten in a lucky swing, nearly took his leg off at the hip. I was half lying on him, trying to stop the bleeding, and I was calling for help, and then the Canden garrison poured up the stairs and over the wall, and it was all over.”

  “You saved his life, though, didn’t you?” asked Caitlin.

  “Only because he saved mine first. There’s no doubt I’d have been dead if not for him.” Jeffy looked at Telaine, but she was certain her face showed no more than normal interest and concern. Her clenched hand had gone numb. He was alive. He hated her, but he was alive.

  Jeffy drank some more water and cleared his throat again. “There’s not much more to tell. The Ruskalder army fled down the mountain. We took a few captives, among them the heir to the Ruskald King, who’d been knocked unconscious and couldn’t flee. The garrison had someone with some healing talent, saved the direst cases. Saved Garrett’s leg, for one, though he won’t be using it for a while. Minor injuries like mine have to heal on their own.” He grimaced.

  “And then Major Anselm assigned me to escort the Baron to prison, probably because she knew my dear family would be worried.” He stretched out his long legs and smiled. “You’re going to give me special treatment because I’m wounded, right?”

  “If by ‘special treatment’ you mean ‘waiting on your every whim,’ then no, because the palace healer will come to see you immediately,” said his mother, tousling his hair fondly. “But we promise to be grateful to have you back. And now I think you should rest. It’s easy to overexert yourself when you’re recovering.” She stood and gave him her hand to help him rise.