With that announcement, Alenor kicked her horse into a canter, heading back in the direction they had come. The two guards rode behind her, followed a few moments later by Raban.
They watched her leave in silence, then Porl turned to Reithan and Dirk.
“Well, she’s not exactly what I imagined,” Porl remarked.
“Raban was right about one thing,” Reithan agreed. “She certainly has spunk. What were you two talking about for so long, Dirk?”
Tia waited for his answer. When he didn’t respond immediately, she lifted the bow and began to draw back on the string, the arrow aimed squarely at Dirk’s back.
“Which one of you,” Dirk asked in a flat, toneless voice, “decided that I didn’t need to know that Antonov and Belagren are going to execute my mother at the Landfall Festival on Elcast?”
Reithan and Porl exchanged a concerned glance before Porl answered him. Tia drew back the arrow until the fletching brushed her cheek.
“Now, lad, I can understand that you’re a bit upset—”
“A bit upset?”
“We thought it better that you didn’t know, Dirk,” Reithan told him.
“We?” Dirk demanded angrily. “Who is we? Who the hell do you think you are that you can decide such a thing on my behalf?”
Reithan reached his hand out to his stepbrother. Dirk reacted as if he had thrown a punch. He took a swing at Reithan, but the older man ducked and grabbed Dirk, swung him around and slammed him against the trunk of the tree.
“Settle down, Dirk!” Reithan yelled at him.
Dirk tried to hit him again, but Reithan had Dirk’s right wrist pinned in a tight grip above his head and his other arm across his throat. Dirk was finding it difficult to breathe. Tia trembled as she watched them struggle, the muscles in her arm crying out in protest. Dirk thrashed against Reithan’s hold but could not break it. In desperation, his left hand reached down to the dagger at his belt.
Tia let the arrow go. It thunked solidly into the tree a whisker from Dirk’s left ear. Reithan jumped back in alarm. Dirk turned to look at the arrow in shock then stared up at Tia, who had already nocked and drawn another arrow.
“Get your hand off that dagger, Dirk Provin, or I swear I’ll put the next one between your eyes,” she called down to him.
Without hesitating, Dirk brought up his hand to show that he believed her. Reithan turned to stare up at her, looking almost as pale as Dirk. “Get down here!”
Tia slowly let the string go slack and turned for the ruined stairs. It only took a minute to reach the ground floor. When she emerged into the sunlight, Reithan turned on her angrily. “Do you know how close that was?”
“Do you know how close he was to gutting you?”
Tia walked over to the tree where Dirk was still leaning against the trunk. “Believe it or not, I happen to think they should have told you,” she said as she began to work the arrow loose. “But that doesn’t give you an excuse to pull a knife on anyone.”
He stared at her, wide-eyed and pale, as she jerked the arrow free and replaced it in the quiver on her belt.
“You knew about this, too?” he asked.
“We all did. Lexie thought it best that you weren’t told. Porl and Reithan agreed with her.”
Dirk looked past her at Reithan. “I have to go to Elcast.”
“There’d be no point, lad,” Porl told him sympathetically. “We’d barely make it in time and even if we did, there’s nothing you can do to save her.”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Reithan agreed. “But what we do know for certain is that Antonov is on Elcast with the High Priestess, and your brother Rees is actively aiding him. Just what do you suppose you can do against those sorts of odds?”
“You can’t expect me to stay here and do nothing!”
“Dirk, think about it . . .” Porl began, but Dirk was in no mood to be reasonable.
“I am thinking about it, Captain, and all I can see is that you and Reithan and Lexie conspired to prevent me from saving my mother from being burned alive.”
“Even if we got there before Landfall, Dirk,” Reithan pointed out, “there’s nothing we can do to save her. Morna Provin was condemned to death before you were born.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to Elcast,” Dirk announced. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find my own way there.”
“Be sensible about this, lad!” Porl said. “You’ve spent the past two years trying to stay out of Antonov’s way and now you want to reappear right under his nose for the sake of a useless gesture. Damn it, boy, he’s probably expecting you to turn up!”
“You think trying to save my mother from being burned alive is a useless gesture?” Dirk asked incredulously.
“That’s precisely what it is,” Tia agreed. “And Porl’s right. This is as much about driving you out into the open as it is about your mother.” Dirk glared at her, but before he could respond she added, “But in your place I’d want to do exactly the same thing.”
“Don’t encourage him!” Porl snapped.
“Johan would have tried to do something,” she reminded them, turning to look at the captain. Her words silenced the argument like a wet blanket thrown over a fire. Porl Isingrin shook his head and then looked down at his boots.
“If we leave Morna Provin to die without trying to do something, then we’re no better than Antonov,” she added.
Reithan turned to Porl. “Maybe Tia’s right. Maybe we should try.”
“It’s a waste of time,” Porl insisted.
“We could get there by Landfall, though, couldn’t we?” Dirk asked.
“If we leave on tonight’s tide,” Porl agreed reluctantly. “If we don’t have any trouble clearing the harbor. If we get favorable winds the whole way. If nothing breaks. But once we get there, what are you going to do? Drop anchor in Elcast harbor and lower the longboat? Even if I could get you there in time, even if you could get past the Lion of Senet’s guards and somehow find a way to free Morna, even if by some miracle you got her back to the Makuan, how would we escape? The Calliope would run us down in a matter of hours.”
“We could get to Yerl in a night,” Dirk said. “And then I could go overland to Elcast Town on horseback.”
“Alone?” Porl scoffed.
“If need be,” Dirk retorted.
“I’ll go with him,” Tia volunteered.
“You?” Reithan asked in surprise.
“Well, someone has to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Reithan stared at her for a moment and then shrugged. “In that case, I suppose you’d better count me in,” he told them. “Someone has to make sure you don’t do anything stupid, Tia.”
The captain debated the issue for a moment in silence then he threw his hands up in defeat.
“This is foolish in the extreme,” he warned. “But if you really must do this, I’ll do my best to get you to Yerl by morning. But after that, you’re on your own. I’ll weigh anchor outside Elcast harbor until second sunrise the day after Landfall. If you haven’t found your way back to the ship by then, I’ll assume you’re not coming back.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Dirk said.
“If we’re shipping out tonight, we’d better get moving,” Reithan suggested, turning toward the ruins where their borrowed horses were tethered.
“Tia,” Dirk called as she turned to follow Reithan.
“What?”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I was aiming for your forehead. I missed.”
“I meant for sticking up for me. You didn’t have to. I appreciate it.”
Tia was not even sure why she had spoken up on Dirk’s behalf. It was not as if she actually wanted to help him. And she was certainly not happy with the idea that she had just convinced Reithan and Porl to put Dirk within the grasp of the Lion of Senet. Perhaps it was because she still didn’t trust him, and it was easier to go along with him than risk lett
ing him out of her sight. But somehow the decision felt right, even if she couldn’t explain it.
“Nobody deserves to be burned alive, Dirk,” she said with a shrug. “Not even your mother.”
Chapter 28
Marqel was forced to leave Kirshov for a few hours to go into the town to find some bromelain extract, imported from the distant Galina islands, to help relieve his pain and bruising. She had tried explaining what she wanted to one of the duke’s servants, but the half-witted fool had returned with nothing more useful than a packet of turmeric, so she decided to undertake the task herself.
The marketplace was crowded. This close to the Landfall Festival the city was packed with visitors and traveling performers. She watched a troupe of acrobats performing for a while, thinking they weren’t nearly as good as she had once been, although there were more of them in the troupe and, by the quality of their costumes, they appeared to be making a tidy living.
It was a long time since Marqel had spared her former life a thought. She wondered for a moment what had become of Kalleen and Lanatyne, Murry and Sooter and the insufferable Vonril. She decided she didn’t care. Marqel had moved up in the world, a fact that was driven home to her time and again as she browsed the markets, looking for a decent herbalist. People hurried out of her way. They made a path for her through the crowd as if her red robe was surrounded by an invisible shell that others could not penetrate.
Almost ...
She was nearly bowled over by a rough-looking boy dressed like a sailor who barreled straight into her. He smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a month, walked with his head down and his unruly dark hair was probably riddled with lice.
“Idiot!” she snapped. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”
“Thorry ...” the young man muttered without looking up.
Marqel pushed past him and then stopped suddenly and turned to look at the boy. He had grown somewhat in the two years since she had seen him last, but there was no mistaking that lisp. “Eryk?”
The boy stopped and turned to look at her blankly. “My lady?”
“Goddess! It is you! Don’t you remember me, Eryk? Marqel? The acrobat? From Elcast?”
Slowly she saw the light of comprehension glimmering in his dull eyes. “But you’re a Shadowdancer.”
“That’s right. Don’t you remember? That’s why I was on the ship with you on the way to Avacas. So I could join the Shadowdancers.”
The boy nodded, suddenly cheered to see a familiar face. “What are you doing here, then?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
The stroke of good fortune that had made Eryk cross Marqel’s path left her almost dizzy. In truth, she couldn’t have cared less about seeing Eryk again, but one thing was certain— where Eryk went, Dirk Provin was sure to be close by. Is he here now? If I look up will I be looking into those cold, unforgiving eyes? Almost fearfully, Marqel glanced around, studying the faces in the crowd, wondering if she could spot him, but there were too many people.
Marqel looked back at Eryk with a smile. In the hands of this half-witted man-child lay a future she had not dared dream about. That she might be the one to discover where Dirk Provin was hiding when all of Prince Antonov’s efforts to flush him out over the past two years had failed was more than she could have hoped for; more than she could have imagined in her wildest fantasies.
“Why don’t we go somewhere quieter, Eryk?” she suggested. “Somewhere we can talk.”
“If you want,” Eryk agreed readily.
Marqel took his grubby, calloused hand in hers and led him to an inn on the other side of the square. Her status as a Shadowdancer secured them a private room without so much as mention of a payment. She ordered wine from the innkeeper, then changed her mind and ordered ale instead. Eryk would prefer ale, she guessed.
“You’ve been away a long time,” she said, taking a seat beside him on the small settee by the window. “I was worried about you.”
“You were?” he asked in surprise.
“Of course I was! You and Dirk disappeared so suddenly, we were all afraid that something terrible had happened to you.”
“We was fine, Mar— my la— What do I call you now?”
“Marqel is fine, Eryk. We’re old friends, remember?”
He nodded eagerly. “We’ve been in the Baenlands,” he volunteered. “But it’s a secret. Nobody’s supposed to know we’re there.”
“Never fear. I’ll not tell,” she lied with a comforting smile. “It must be terribly harsh, living with all those pirates.”
“I really liked it,” he told her, and then he frowned. “Well, I did until I tried to kiss Mellie. I hurt her, I think. I didn’t mean to, truly, but she said she wanted to marry me and then she screamed and Dirk hit me and Reithan got really mad at me, too, and they wouldn’t let me see Mellie and then they put me on the ship with Cap’n Isingrin and they all pick on me ’cause I’m slow and . . .” His incomprehensible babbling trailed off unhappily.
“Who is Mellie?” she asked curiously.
“She said she was going to marry me.”
Marqel smiled. “You said that. Why did she scream when you kissed her?”
“I don’t know ...”
“Had you ever kissed a girl before Mellie?”
The boy shook his head, his eyes downcast.
“Then maybe you just weren’t doing it right,” she suggested.
He looked up hopefully. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe this Mellie of yours just got a fright because you didn’t know what you were doing.”
“I suppose,” he conceded. “But it doesn’t matter now. They’re never going to let me see her again.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps that’s why they sent you out on a ship—so you could get out into the big wide world and gain some experience.”
“How?” he asked.
“You could always pay someone to show you what to do, Eryk.”
The boy shook his head. “Even if I could afford a whore, Lord Dirk says I shouldn’t go near them ’cause they’ve got diseases.”
Marqel bit back a smile. How typical of Dirk Provin. Then another thought occurred to her. Eryk was more than just a lucky break. He could do more than tell her where Dirk was. If she handled him correctly, he could be an unending source of information that she could use to advance herself into the High Priestess’s favor.
“There are other ways to learn, Eryk.”
“I don’t understand.”
Careful not to startle him, Marqel gently placed her hand on Eryk’s thigh. “I could show you.”
He stared down at her hand with wide eyes. “You? But you’re a Thadow ... I mean a Shadowdancer!”
“It is my job as a servant of the Goddess to help people, Eryk.” She smiled warmly at him. “You could do me a favor in return.”
“What sort of favor?”
“I’m not sure ...” she said, making a great show of giving the matter serious thought. “I know . . . how about telling me all about what Dirk’s been up to?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really. Personally, I don’t care what he’s been doing these past two years. But Prince Kirshov and Princess Alenor miss him terribly. You know what good friends they all were. If you can tell me all about him I’d be able to pass it on to them, to stop them worrying about him.”
“I don’t know ...” he said uncertainly.
“I understand it’s a secret, Eryk, and I promise I wouldn’t tell anyone else but Alenor and Kirsh. It would mean so much to them, especially Kirsh. He’s very sick at the moment.”
Eryk nodded. “Will he be all right? Lord Dirk was really angry about that. He said they shouldn’t have done it.”
It was her turn to look surprised. “You know who beat up Kirsh?”
He looked away guiltily. “I’m not supposed to say.”
“Then I won’t ask you to betray your friends,” she p
romised. She didn’t need to ask, anyway. If Eryk knew who Kirsh’s assailants were, then it was a fairly safe bet they were part of the same crew he belonged to. And better yet, Dirk Provin was on the same ship . . .
But Eryk was not quite as stupid as she remembered. He was reluctant to divulge anything regarding Dirk. For that matter, Marqel did not even know the name of his ship. All she really knew was that Eryk was lusting after some girl called Mellie.
“Let’s not worry about Dirk, for the time being,” she declared. “Let’s deal with your problem first. Show me how you kissed Mellie.”
Eryk stared at her. “Here?”
“There’s nobody watching.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure. Come now, don’t be shy. How can I help you if you won’t show me where you went wrong?”
Eryk thought it over for a moment, and then he nodded. “I kissed her on the mouth.”
“Like this?” Marqel leaned forward and kissed him, teasing his mouth open with the tip of her tongue.
Eryk cried out in alarm.
“What’s the matter?”
“It weren’t nothing like that!”
“Did you like it?” she asked, trying to hide her smile.
“Well ...” he mumbled uncertainly. The boy had blushed a bright shade of crimson. Pathetic little creep.
“Don’t you think your Mellie would like to be kissed like that?”
“I suppose . . .”
“Then we have our work cut out for us, Eryk,” she announced in a businesslike tone. “And when we’re done, you can tell me all about Dirk.”
Chapter 29
Her mind still reeling from the information she now had in her grasp, Marqel hurried back through the duke’s house toward the room where Kirsh lay. The halls in this part of the house were gloomy, even in the middle of the day, the only light coming from a narrow window at the far end of the long corridor. As she turned the corner she spied a familiar figure heading in the same direction and cursed under her breath. The last person she had wanted or expected to see on her return was the princess.
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