by Alex Bledsoe
“Shy,” I suggested.
“Yes, that’s it, shy. Since none of them are likely to ever meet Queen Jennifer, the resemblance is not an issue.”
“Drake never visits?”
“He intends to, on occasion. The queen always finds a way to dissuade him. She has as much to lose as we do.”
“It’s funny. You trust me because Drake says so, and yet you’re trusting me with things he doesn’t know.”
Spears looked at me with that cold warrior look. “I’m trusting you, Mr. LaCrosse, because I have no choice.”
Before I could say more, Jenny emerged from the same passage. Her hair was down and hung in waves close to her face. She wore a floppy, sweat-stained hat with a wide brim. Her dress was simple and threadbare. Her eyes were red from crying, but there were no tears now. She carried a canvas bag and, more gloriously, a basket laden with food. “I couldn’t help noticing you seemed a bit peckish,” she told me wryly.
I tore off a piece of fresh, oven-warm bread. “I apologize in advance for my lack of table manners,” I said as I chewed.
“There’s no table,” she said, her smile widening.
When I finished, I tossed her bag into the back of the wagon. A puff of dust and a few sprigs of hay bounced in response. The horses shuffled in place.
“Nice disguise,” I said to her, then gestured at my own dusty but expensive clothes. “I’m not exactly dressed as a farmer, though.”
“It won’t matter,” Spears said. “It’s night, and the roads are safe. Between here and Kern’s place, no one will bother you.”
Jenny climbed onto the wagon seat. She neither asked nor waited for help from either of us. She arranged her battered dress as if it were court finery. The boy Jack returned, and Spears gave me the map. “This will get you to Kern. He will probably act like he expected you; he’s that way.”
“Is he a wizard, like they say?” I asked through my second bite of bread.
“He likes to provoke. His wisdom is considerable, and he is able to see into the hearts of men to a degree that might well be magic. But he primarily enjoys keeping people off-balance.”
“Should I trust him?”
“Yes.”
I looked over the map, which seemed pretty simple. The route took us about halfway back to Astolat, where we’d turn onto a secondary road that wound through forests and hills. I tucked it inside my coat, then yawned; I’d had about four hours’ sleep in the last day and a half, and it began to wear on me.
“And now, would you excuse us a moment?” Spears said quietly. He cut his eyes toward Jenny, and I nodded.
I wandered to the stable doors. The path beyond them led to a service gate down the hill from the house. This end of Blithe Ward had no visible lights. The trees, shrubs, and shadows provided plenty of opportunities for ambush, but who would dare it under Elliot Spears’s nose?
I wiggled my fingers in their cast, noticing there was more room; the swelling had considerably diminished. I shifted my shoulders, trying to find a position where the new scabbard didn’t seem uncomfortable. It improved my posture, although the sword’s bare-metal pommel kept tapping the back of my head. A nice leather wrapping would make it a lot more bearable.
I glanced behind me. Spears and Jenny were still deep in soft, serious conversation, their faces close.
I yawned again. I didn’t entirely buy the loony tale of identical half sisters; it sounded more like a bedtime story than real life. Whatever its source, though, the resemblance between Queen Jennifer and Jenny was extraordinary. Still, my job was just to make sure this Jennifer got to her destination, after which I’d have a healthy purse and a clear conscience and could decide then what to do about Iris Gladstone.
Eventually they kissed. Spears took the nearest horse by the bridle and led the wagon to the stable door. I climbed onto the seat beside Jenny. “Have a safe trip,” he said to me, but his eyes never left her. “I’ll send word as soon as I can.”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
I took the reins and urged the horses forward. Spears walked beside us to the gate and opened it. Beyond it, the moonlit road stretched into the darkness. Jenny turned and watched the gate close behind us.
For a long time neither of us spoke. I continued to raid the picnic basket until my stomach stopped berating me. We rode west on the same road that brought me here, and the wagon made a lot of noise on the flagstones. A whistling farmer taking home an empty cart passed us headed east, and we exchanged neighborly waves. Finally I said to Jenny, “So who else knows about your … situation?”
I couldn’t see her face in the darkness. “The other Jennifer. Cameron Kern. Elliot, of course.” I could hear the slight smile in her voice. “And now there’s you.”
Abruptly I yanked the reins, halting the wagon. Ahead the road rose up a slight hill, and three riders were silhouetted against the night sky, stopped and apparently conferring. They could’ve just been ordinary locals on their way home—it wasn’t that late, after all—but I was taking no chances. We were at the bottom of the slope, in a pool of shadow beneath a tree; if they hadn’t heard our clattering approach and we didn’t give ourselves away, we should be invisible. To Jenny I whispered, “Be very still.”
The three riders had not moved. Their voices reached us, but not clearly enough to make out. Were they coming our way, or headed toward Astolat?
They finished their conversation and started down the hill at a fast trot. There was no time to jump from the wagon and hide, certainly no chance of turning around and outrunning them. So I did the only thing I could.
I pulled Jenny into my arms and kissed her.
Even at the time, part of me appreciated how rare this moment was. She was a beautiful woman, and when I held her close, I felt the shape of her slender, strong body against me. I was experiencing the same embrace as both Marcus Drake and Elliot Spears; that was some pretty rarefied company.
She strained against me at first, then amazingly began to relax. I felt her lips part slightly, and her arms went around my neck. It became less of a ruse than I intended.
Then one of the riders said from beside us, “What’ve we got here?”
I looked back at them. Shadowed by the tree, I couldn’t make out their faces, which meant they couldn’t see mine or notice how overdressed I was. I said, in what I hoped was a fair approximation of the local country accent, “Do you mind? We’d like a little privacy here.”
I felt a sword tap my cheek. “Don’t get smart, farm boy.”
I spread my hands. It was dark enough they couldn’t tell I was armed. “Hey, whoa, I’m not trying to start any trouble. We’re just out for a ride, you know?”
The next voice both raised my hackles and made my temper wind to the breaking point. It was the sneering, unmistakably broken-nosed whine of Dave Agravaine. “Forget it. We don’t have time. Come on.”
The sword did not move. Then it tapped my cheek playfully. “Too bad, or we’d share her with you. Maybe she’d like a couple of real men.”
“Come on!” Agravaine snarled. It came out Cub ah!
I watched until they disappeared in the distance, back toward Blithe Ward. I heard Jenny draw a breath to speak and quickly touched her lips with my finger. Still watching over my shoulder, I snapped the reins. The horses pulled us up over the hill and into the open, where at least we couldn’t easily be ambushed. I said, “Okay, but speak softly.”
“Elliot would have you gelded for that.”
“I’m sorry, it was all I could think of.”
“Your first impulse in a moment of danger is to kiss the nearest woman?”
“Yes.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she giggled. She choked it off at once, but there was no denying it. After a moment she added, “My experience with kisses has been limited to one man, but yours was not … unpleasant. I wouldn’t make it a habit, though.” She leaned close and gave me a small but deliberate peck on the cheek.
I might’ve blushed. �
�I wanted them to think we were just local folks out for a good time and completely uninterested in them. And since they were Knights of the Double Tarn, it was definitely the right call.”
“Knights of the Double Tarn?” she gasped.
“Yeah. One was Dave Agravaine, so I assume the others were Cador and Hoel.”
“Why would Knights of the Double Tarn be here?”
“If they don’t know about you, then those particular knights were probably out to ambush Elliot. If somehow they do know about you…”
“Then we have to get to Cameron’s place quickly. Hurry!” She reached across and tried to grab the reins from me.
“Stop that!” I said roughly, and pushed her back. “There’s no reason to panic.” I held her shoulders until she stopped struggling. “Nice to see you worry about your husband,” I snapped.
“Elliot doesn’t need my help,” she said, still shaking. “But if they catch me, if they hurt me, I can’t bear it—”
“Nobody is going to catch you. You may not believe it, but I know what I’m doing. They’re going the other way, and we’ve got a good head start. Now calm down.”
The wagon seat trembled, conveying her shudders. She was totally unlike the other Jennifer, and I realized that the long-ago decision to switch was right. But I also understood why Drake might see it as treasonous betrayal.
I stopped the wagon and took her in my arms again, not as a man takes a woman but as you’d hold a frightened child discovered far from home. I recalled Mary the servant girl trembling on her stool, face battered from Agravaine’s tender care. That made me even more aware of my responsibility. I kept one arm around Jenny’s shoulders and snapped the reins with the other. The sooner I got her to safety, the better. For everyone.
chapter
TWENTY
Luckily the turnoff was marked well enough that I spotted it in the dark. We left the stone-paved road for a more traditional worn path across the countryside. Here and there hearth fires shone through the windows of small farms, and we startled a group of young people skinny-dipping in a lake. The sound of their joyous panic was both sweet and, in its fragility, somehow ominous. If they knew what was going on at Nodlon Castle with their king, they might not be in such a hurry to run around so vulnerably.
We went around a bend, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a man on horseback just beyond a stand of trees. “Don’t move!” I hissed. I yanked the reins with one hand and reached for my sword with the other.
Jenny laughed. “That’s a statue, Mr. LaCrosse.”
By the time she said it, I’d figured it out myself. It was life-size, made of stone, and mounted on a low pedestal. The horse reared on its hind legs, and the knight riding it had his sword above his head.
I sighed in relief and embarrassment. “Who the hell puts a statue out in the middle of nowhere, anyway?” I snapped.
“You can find these all over Grand Bruan. There was a decisive battle in the wars of unification on this very spot. Old Pernil—that’s the knight’s name—came out of retirement to fight alongside Marcus and Elliot. He took a javelin meant for Marc and died.” She paused for a moment. “Pernil used to visit our castle when I was a little girl, long before Marcus came to power. He did little sleight-of-hand tricks to amuse me. I wanted to marry him when I grew up.”
Looking around at the countryside, I was again amazed at how quickly and thoroughly the citizens of Grand Bruan had put aside centuries of differences and united under one ruler. The battle she described left remarkably few scars on the landscape. I’d seen fields so salty from spilled blood that nothing ever grew there again.
Near midnight we left the open country and went back beneath the forest boughs. Owls and nighthawks called, and deer darted from cover ahead of us. The insect chorus expressed its contentment, countered by the barrumphing of frogs. Like those isolated stretches of the main road, this would be prime bandit cover anywhere but Grand Bruan.
“I saw you admiring my painting,” Jenny said. “Back at Blithe Ward. I apologize for spying, but you understand why now.”
I was glad she’d decided to talk, because I was losing the battle with my eyelids. “Was the model you or the queen?”
“That one was me. Elliot painted it himself.”
“I’m impressed. He’s a man of many talents.”
“No, only a few. But he excels at them.” She paused. “You thought it was Jennifer?”
“Well … yes. At the time I didn’t know you existed.”
“Then may I ask you something as a man?”
“I’m not sure I’m qualified to represent all men.”
“I think you’ll do, if that kiss was any indication. Who is more beautiful, the queen or me?”
I laughed. “Any answer to that question might lead to bloodshed.”
“Please, I’m serious. I know we look similar. Even identical to a casual glance. But there must be differences.”
“There are. But they don’t make one of you more beautiful than the other.”
“What are they?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Her voice grew small in the darkness. “She makes Marc happy. I once wanted to do that with all my heart, and failed. I’ve often wondered if that meant she was somehow a better person than me.”
“You make Elliot happy. I doubt very seriously if the queen could do that.”
“Making Elliot happy is no effort.”
“Maybe making Marc happy is no effort for the queen. I’d say you both ended up where you needed to be. I’m sorry it’s all gone to hell like this. Hopefully it can still be salvaged.”
“You said you kept the other Jennifer’s secrets. Did you just mean this situation, or were their others?”
“If I answer that either way, I’m breaking her confidence.”
She nodded and turned away to look into the dark. Neither of us spoke for a long time. At last Jenny caught me yawning and said, “If you’d like, you can stretch out in the back. I can drive a wagon.”
“That’s okay.” I urged the horses to a faster pace. They snorted their disapproval but obeyed. I doubt they were used to working this late, either. “We’re close, if the map was right.”
She nudged me in the ribs. “You won’t be much of a bodyguard if you’re too sleepy to hold your sword. Go get some rest, I’ll be fine. I promise to scream if I need you.”
She had a point, and I really was having trouble keeping my eyes open. So I crawled into the back of the wagon and used her bag for a pillow. I put the sword beside me and snapped the hilt into my cast. In my dreams, I fought with Agravaine while Marcus Drake sat in judgment and the two Jennifers, one on either side of him, watched and laughed.
* * *
TWO things woke me. One was the realization that, with all the other insanity I’d found in Blithe Ward, I hadn’t mentioned the dust cloud to Spears. If those were soldiers on the move, he’d run right into them. Of course, he was their commanding officer, second only to King Marcus, so there should be no danger. As long as they were Grand Bruan troops.
The other was the awareness that we’d stopped.
It was still mostly dark, although the horizon ahead had begun to lighten. We were no longer in the forest. I sat up and saw Jenny on the wagon seat, absolutely still, facing ahead. One of the horses whinnied impatiently.
“What’s wrong?” I asked thickly. My mouth tasted as if a badger had bedded down in it.
“That idiot,” she hissed.
I climbed onto the seat beside her. “Which idiot?”
“Cameron Kern.” She nodded ahead of us.
We were atop a slight rise that gave a wonderful view of the rolling countryside below, all tinted gray in the dawn. Short stone fences marked off plots and pastures, and a small cottage lay about a mile away. Beside it rose a barn, and on the barn’s sloping roof were painted the words, visible in the predawn light even at this distance, SEE THE CRYSTAL CAVE.
“I can’t believe he would do that,�
� she fumed.
“Do what?”
“That he would”—she sputtered in her fury before she got out the word—“advertise.”
I shook my head to wake up and found a sack of water in the basket. I splashed some on my face and said, “So what is the Crystal Cave?”
“It’s where Cameron always told everyone he was going to retire. To live secretly, quietly, in peace away from the world. No more kings and knights seeking his advice and counsel.” Her sarcasm grew stronger as she spoke. “And now he’s announcing its presence to everyone.”
I blinked a few times and yawned. “Does that change anything?”
“No,” she said, dejected. “It’s just disappointing.”
She whistled at the horses and we started down the hill. As the sun rose, we passed two more barns with the same message. I’d never seen that before, but if you were trying to drum up business, it was a great idea.
We met a local family on their way to market with a cart full of produce. I asked if they knew anything about the Crystal Cave.
“Oh, sure,” the farmer told us. “The guy who runs it, Cammy, comes by every so often to buy some vegetables. He always gives us tokens for a free visit.”
“What kind of place is it?”
“It’s pretty neat,” a little boy about ten said.
“Was anyone asking you?” his father snapped. “I know you have manners, boy, I’ve spent your whole life beating them into you. Don’t speak until spoken to.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” I said, although the kid didn’t look very intimidated by this threat. I asked the boy, “Have you been there?”
The kid looked at his father until the man said in exasperation, “All right, tell him.”
“Yeah,” the kid began, so quickly it was as if the words had been piling up behind his lips. “He can do magic tricks, and he sings all the songs about King Marcus. They say there’s dragons in the forest where he lives. They protect him from the bad guys.”
“There are no more bad guys,” his father said. “Marcus chased them back across the sea. We live in a peaceful kingdom now.”
