Prisoner of the Crown

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Stricken I pressed my lips together and nodded. “That was wrong of me. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “You didn’t.” He cracked a smile. “I’m keenly aware of my shortcomings in my ability to extract you from this situation, but I’m going to do it anyway. We’re going to do it, together.”

  “But why would you?” It came out as a plea.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do. I won’t stand by and let this happen to you. I’m getting you away from him, whatever it takes.”

  I was shaking my head, a low moan escaping me before I stoppered it. “Don’t speak those words. It’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” he replied with all that optimistic earnestness he shared with Helva.

  “It is.” We were conducting the conversation in the lowest of voices, but my skin still twitched with the expectation that Rodolf would wrench open the door and discover us. “I’m not so lacking in Konyngrr spine that I haven’t thought about it. But I have no shoes, no warm clothes. I’m instantly recognizable and I have nowhere to go. And if I don’t get away completely—” I had to pause to swallow down the sick, remembering Rodolf’s promises, the dreams of the howling dogs eating the pieces of my body as they fell from me while I struggled through the snow. “I would be dead. Worse than dead—and so would you.”

  Harlan smiled, the cockiness of youth and grim resolve of character in it. “Then I’ll make sure we get away completely. Can you trust me to do that?”

  I didn’t know. Fear riddled and weakened me, making me feel stooped and aged as Old Mara. But I didn’t want to be that bird who stayed in her cage, afraid to fly out the open window.

  “Yes,” I said. Do you need to be rescued? “Yes.”

  “Good.” Harlan nodded at me. “I know this takes a lot of courage. You are amazing.”

  “I’m not brave,” I told him.

  “But you are, because he hasn’t broken you. Leave it to me. Be ready to go when I say. The hardest part—no mjed or opos, or even gryth. Can you do that?”

  I firmed my mouth and nodded. I would, no matter what.

  “How much pain are you in without it?” He asked carefully.

  “Some.”

  “Answer me like a dancer. How would your gauge your strength and stamina? Be honest.”

  “I have no broken bones, but I’m weakened. I doubt I can endure much.”

  “All right.” He closed his eyes briefly, swallowing something down. “If we maintain the present pace, we’ll stop at Castle Fjaltyndar where we meant to stop last night. Pray it keeps snowing like this. But it’s looking inevitable at this point. Plead illness or weariness and ask to go straight to the seraglio. Act weak enough that I must carry you there.”

  “You can’t carry me into the seraglio—you won’t be allowed. Not without grave insult to our hosts.”

  Harlan gave me a grim smile. “I’m an Imperial Prince. They should be worried about insulting me. Now, once there, feign sleep if you must, but stay alert. Wear your darkest klút. Have you hair tied up so it won’t show. Be ready.”

  Part of me had always realized men didn’t enter by custom, not because they couldn’t if they decided to. But I didn’t understand how he planned to get me out of the seraglio again and said so.

  “I’ll take care of the guards outside. Don’t worry about that.”

  “And the inside guards?”

  He frowned. “Do you think one this small will have guards inside, too?”

  “Probably,” I said. “The last one did.”

  He muttered a curse. “I’ll think of something.”

  “No,” I said, surprising myself now. “I can make them sleep.” Sól knew I had enough gryth to make a dozen women sleep soundly.

  Harlan studied me. “I’ve heard rumors. About … the empress and certain herbs. No offense intended toward your mother, who I assume you hold dear.”

  I laughed a little, for his sweetness and his delicacy. “Poison, I think, is the word you’re looking for. And I do not hold her dear. She—” I had to break off there, robbed of breath, unexpected black and bilious fury rising up to choke me.

  Face creased, Harlan reached out a hand to me, then let it fall, clearly unsure what to do for me. “Jenna?” he asked, tentative. Making me wonder what he saw in my face.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they sleep and I’ll be ready. As for a place to go—Princessa Adaladja of Robsyn offered to help me.”

  “Did she now?” Harlan mulled that over, then shook his head. “Robsyn is too deep into the empire, too far from the coasts if you’re discovered.”

  “I wouldn’t want to bring that on her, regardless.” Speaking of which, “I want you to promise me something.”

  He raised his brows, saying nothing.

  “If we’re caught, you abandon me and go straight back to the Imperial Palace. Don’t let them kill you.”

  “Our father will hardly welcome me back with open arms in that eventuality,” Harlan pointed out.

  “But he won’t let you be killed.”

  “I’m his seventh son, far down on the list of spare heirs. There’s nothing for me there. I’m not going back. I’m going with you.”

  I nearly gasped. “You can’t! To where?”

  “I have an idea of where, and did you think I’d abandon you somewhere without protection, without a way to pay for even your food?”

  “I don’t know!” Somehow when he asked me to trust him, I’d imagined him finding another seraglio for me, one I could hide in for the rest of my life. What would the rest of my life look like? I couldn’t even imagine. And it was too huge to contemplate. All that mattered now was getting away. “But you can’t give up your birthright, your title, your entire life for me.”

  He gave me a slight smile. “I’m looking at it as trading for something better. The empire is big, but the world is bigger. You said you wanted to see an elephant, didn’t you? Sounds like a fine goal to me.”

  * * * *

  Harlan continued to ride in the carriage even after Petra returned, cheeks pink with snow chill and lips full from kissing. She offered me my pipe, perplexed when I refused, more so when I asked to have my tea plain, without gryth or mjed. For that I subtly blamed Harlan, sliding a glance at him to remind her how the men disapproved of women indulging in the liquor. She nodded knowingly and curled up for her own nap.

  Harlan and I chatted amiably, speaking of our siblings. He filled me in on our brothers’ doings, who was good at what field of study or style of fighting. The only exception was Hestar, whom he touched on only briefly. He didn’t exactly make his dislike clear, but I understood from what he didn’t say how Hestar both held himself apart and made his younger brothers’ lives more difficult.

  Harlan asked about some of the ladies in the seraglio, including Old Mara. “She told the best stories,” he commented, wistfulness in his voice. “I miss visiting her.”

  “I’m surprised you remember her.”

  He regarded me with an odd expression. “I remember a lot about my childhood in the seraglio. It seems like a paradise in my mind—all warmth and lush flowers, waterfalls and lagoons. I was broken hearted to be summarily expelled from it. It seemed terribly unfair that you and Inga—and especially Helva—got to stay and I didn’t.”

  I glanced at the apparently sleeping Petra. Unfortunate that she was likely my mother’s tool. “We missed you, too. Especially Helva.” I didn’t say that we found it terribly unfair we didn’t get to leave. By the way Harlan’s eyes rested on me, the thoughts turning behind them, I suspected he’d realized that.

  And, like me, he’d begun to see that our childhood paradise wasn’t what we’d believed it to be at all.

  * * * *

  I didn’t have to pretend much to appear unwell when we reached Castle Fjaltyndar. Without opos or mjed, or even the
milder sedative of gryth to cushion me, every jolt of the carriage had become an agony. The world had gone gray and I felt faint. We stopped and Harlan gathered me up, carrying me out of the carriage—not an easy task, maneuvering us out the narrow door, but holding me easily.

  “My sister is unwell,” he informed Rodolf and the lord who greeted us, wasting no time. I buried my face in Harlan’s chest, so I wouldn’t glimpse my husband’s expression and lose my nerve. “Lead me to the seraglio,” Harlan demanded, every bit as arrogant as Hestar could ever be.

  He strode along and I fuzzed out for a while. I heard some protests that he couldn’t enter, and him saying to hide the ladies away or blindfold him or whatever they needed to do, but unless someone else wanted to carry me, he was going in. He was an Imperial Prince and no one could gainsay him.

  They must have let him, because next thing I knew, Harlan was tenderly laying me on a divan of pillows so soft my body melted into them. He pressed something into my hand, kissing my cheek as he did. “Stimulants. Take them. Can you make it?”

  “Yes.” I levered my eyes open, folding the herbs into my palm. “After all, I slept the day away.”

  He laughed. “They’re having someone tend you, but don’t sleep. No sedatives.”

  “I know.”

  He rose, covering his eyes with his big hands—they reminded me of a puppy we’d had with too-large paws that forecast his eventual size, exiling him, too, from the seraglio. I giggled, giddy for no reason. Except maybe because, no matter what happened tonight, Rodolf would never touch me again. If it looked like we’d be captured, I’d kill myself. I no longer had any doubt of my ability to do that.

  Death, at least, would be painless.

  * * * *

  This seraglio was smaller even than the previous one. Really a series of rooms little larger than my apartments had been. And with windows. Glassed in, from what I could see, but only a thin width to the outside.

  The healing woman brought me hot water when I asked, saying I had my own special herbs from the Imperial Palace. Secret ones only for Imperial Princesses, I said, so I must brew them in private. I didn’t want to risk that she might recognize them by sight or scent as stimulants.

  I brewed it strong and drank it fast, amazed by the potency that seized my nerves and sent my heart pounding. At least I had no fear of sleeping. I also allowed only Petra to tend to me, letting her change my bandages and rub the muscle-coolant the healer gave her into my aching body.

  Even if I could trust her, however, what kind of life would she have outside of the empire? No one in their right mind would leave the pinnacle of civilization for the barbaric lands beyond the emperor’s enforced order, peace, and prosperity.

  Fortunately, I’d long since lost my right mind. I didn’t know why Harlan had, but I’d seize the opportunity he gave me. Maybe we would make it. There was something I could picture for my life after—doing everything I could to ease Harlan’s way. I’d spend the rest of my life repaying him.

  My nerves ready to snap like delicate silk thread, I lay there, listening to the soft conversation of the ladies who’d remained in the seraglio, then the return of the few who’d dined with the esteemed visitors. At that point, I roused myself, drifting out to sit with the ladies, to make acquaintance and to apologize. My delicate constitution and the horrors of travel. How lovely to rest in the security of their seraglio. Oh, no—it wasn’t small or plain at all—so cozy and delightful.

  Then, my heart hammering as I turned out not to be very good at this sort of subterfuge, I asked Petra to bring out the other pot of tea I had brewing. The sedative gryth tea, also made extra strong—as I’d asked her to make it—and more than half mjed. They all should share it with me, as a gesture of my appreciation.

  Petra gave me a few sidelong glances, but poured as I instructed. She would not defy me directly. Even this far from the Imperial Palace, I could have a defiant servant killed with a few words. And the ladies, of course, didn’t dare refuse the gift. Not wishing to offer insult, they all drank—some working hard not to gag or make faces—even the guards, when I coaxed them prettily as deserving a reward for guarding us all so diligently.

  Petra, I thought, only pretended to drink. Something that I fretted over. But I hadn’t been able to think of a way to circumvent her. If only I could trust her to collude with me. I feigned sleep, and I thought she did, too, lying on a servant’s pile of blankets on the floor next to me. If Harlan came, he’d trip over her, and wake her.

  Then—nearly a miracle—Petra answered a summons to attend Alf. Handy that she would be occupied, though I wondered if Harlan had somehow encouraged the liaison. Perhaps she’d been meeting Alf every night and I’d been too doped up to realize.

  Petra would be on her own when I’d fled. I could only hope she would be cared for. My mother’s spy or not, Petra had been kind to me, tending me carefully.

  Occupying myself with details, my mind racing while the others slept deeply, I tried to work out what Harlan’s plan might be. How could he possibly extract me from the seraglio? He’d tricked his way in, certainly, getting the feel for the layout, I felt sure, despite his ostentatiously covered eyes.

  It would have to be the windows. Though how he’d open them without alerting the outside guard I didn’t know. Then, as the hours passed, I began to fret that Harlan wouldn’t come. Or that Petra would return before he did.

  Or that he’d been discovered. Soon I’d hear shouts and angry voices. Even an Imperial Prince would pay a price for trying to steal into the seraglio.

  A movement caught my ears. Not a snuffle-snort of sleep, but … something. Moving as silently as I could, I sat up.

  And there was Harlan on the floor, down on hands and knees and gesturing for me to do the same.

  Though my body protested, I slid quietly off the bed, mimicking him, promising my abused flesh that if it would just keep going it would never suffer again. Never would I chafe at a life of leisure and luxury. I followed behind Harlan, crawling to the door, my heart loud in my ears. Klúts aren’t made for crawling, but I did my best. It helped that he didn’t hurry, keeping slow and stealthy.

  As he’d told me, I’d braided my hair and removed all my jewelry—customary for bed, regardless—except my gloves, the wedding bracelets and ring, of course. The gloves helped, but to keep the chains from jingling, I’d wrapped my hands in extra scarves. We made it to the inner door, Harlan easing it open, then crawling through. Placing my trust in him, I followed. No guards there, though I didn’t know if there hadn’t been any or if Harlan had somehow disposed of them. Only two locked doors in this place, and the lights beyond the outer one blazed into my eyes after the dark of the nighttime seraglio when Harlan eased open that door. Signaled me to wait. He rose and went out, then came back and gestured me to stand and come with him.

  My hand enfolded in his big one, I slipped out the door into the hall, surprised to find the two male guards sleeping, one snoring mightily. Harlan produced a key and locked the door. Smiling at me, he led me down the hall where it grew dimmer, then down a narrow, unadorned staircase, such as servants might use.

  We emerged into a quiet kitchen, lit only by a low-burning fire, slipping through it quickly, then down into a musty-smelling cellar. Harlan had me wait while he shifted a few barrels, then sent me up a wide, shallow set of stairs to crouch under a wooden roof. He crawled in behind me, replacing the barrels behind us, plunging us into darkness.

  The roof above me creaked, and I realized he was levering it open. He did just enough to peek out, then let it fall. He counted under his breath, then lifted again. Looked briefly. Closed and counted. Looked again.

  He put his mouth to my ear. “When I say go, run as fast as you can. Don’t look around. Don’t worry about your feet. It will be ice and snow over stone. Your bare toes will give you decent footing. Across the yard you’ll see an open door with a torch on eith
er side. Run straight for that, turn left and crouch down. Don’t move. Count to sixty and I’ll be behind you.”

  “Yes,” I replied, not bothering to tell him I had no idea how much sixty was. I’d simply wait. I’d wait there until Harlan came for me or someone else found me. I had no choice.

  Harlan eased the roof open, watching, closed it and counted. I tried to memorize how long that was. “Ready…” He eased the roof open. Looked. Pushed it wider for me to slide out. “Go!”

  ~ 17 ~

  My klút caught, ripping, and I yanked it, the hiss of silk whispering loud in the nighttime courtyard.

  Then I ran.

  Dark all around. Punctuated by torches. Looming walls and shadows. The pair of torches dead ahead, flanking a black doorway.

  Ice and slush under my feet, mixed in with gritty dirt.

  I ran with all my might, with all my dancer’s speed and agility. The performance of a lifetime.

  My heart ran as fast as my feet, a panicked cadence that spurred me on. Even if my heart burst, I’d die quickly. A far better death.

  Far better than the grasping hands I expected to seize me at any moment.

  And I was between torches, inside the doors. Turn left. Piles of scratchy plant material, packed tight, making a little wall. I crouched there, tucked back in my prickly cubby. Something cut into my foot, but I didn’t care. I stayed as still as I could, willing my heart to quiet so I could hear.

  Horses, the smell stronger than the sound, but all around in this warm place. As instructed, I hadn’t looked around as I ran, only straight ahead, but my peripheral vision is keen and practiced. I’d run across the outer courtyard and into the stables.

  I think none of the patrolling guards saw me. No alarm had gone up.

  But no Harlan, either.