Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda

by Joel Rosenberg

  Making everything appear effortless was, as she had known it would be, a lot of work, but Leria didn’t mind work, and in fact reveled in it.

  She did not, however, at all enjoy having to put up with Miron, and the truth was that he scared her.

  It wasn’t a dangerous situation, not really. It just felt that way.

  Captain Thirien, she knew — although he wouldn’t quite come out and say it — had no love or respect for Miron, and the old soldier was utterly loyal to Forinel; so loyal, in fact, that she knew that it bothered Kethol. She didn’t think that it was an accident that Thirien was taking his own supper outside, in the garden, with only a few muttered curses and the occasional dropping of something noisy wafting through the open doors as a reminder that he was only a shout away.

  Not that that was necessary, and in practice it was probably as much Miron’s protection as her own — although she doubted in Thirien’s intent — as she could hardly tear her dress and scream with Thirien right outside.

  Although she had considered it.

  But Miron would have just sat back in his chair, and looked vaguely alarmed, and not made a show of protesting his innocence, so there was no point in that.

  Miron was as dangerous as a poisonous snake, and a country girl, noble or not, knew how to handle a snake: you hit it with something heavy, hard and repeatedly, until you were sure it was dead, and then you hit it a few more times, just to be sure.

  What you didn’t do was sit across the table from it, which was precisely what she was doing at the small table near the hearth, where the family usually ate.

  “You seem very quiet this evening,” Miron said. “Which suggests that you’re thinking deep thoughts.” His smile was a degree short of insulting.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I was just thinking that the soup was a little thin, and I’ll probably have to have a word with the cook about what goes into a proper stock. More chicken, I would think, and fewer dried carrots.”

  “Very domestic of you,” he said, nodding in approval. “It’s good to have a firm hand around here, taking pains about such things. Mother, despite her many virtues, seemed to think that paying attention to the details was beneath her.”

  “She seemed to, yes, but I didn’t notice a problem with the food.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have, at that.” He chuckled. “Mother was more … concerned with results, rather than the process.” He sipped at his wine. “A quiet complaint to Cook would always be more than enough, without her having to specify what Cook ought to do about it.” He shrugged, and considered the meat impaled on his eating prong as though studying it intently. “Of course, the fact that she’d had Cook’s predecessor lashed and then dismissed from her service may have had something to do with how quickly the staff responded to her every need.” He looked up. “Not that I’m criticizing you, dear Leria. I’m sure you’ll have the house running splendidly in time for my brother’s triumphant return — oh, but, then again, you won’t be here for it, will you?”

  “If you’re amused by the notion of Forinel and me being separated again, Miron, I think you’ll find yourself not amused for very long.”

  He shook his head. “You wound me, Leria, really you do. I, for one, wish nothing but the best for both of you, truly.”

  She nodded, as though she believed that. “Of course.”

  “Then again, he is off doing something … well, soldierly, and that isn’t without risk, is it?”

  “You hope that he’s killed by one of these Kiaran bandits, so that you can be baron.”

  “Well, of course I do,” he said, punctuating the admission with a snort. “If I’d rather be the almost-landless second brother than Baron Keranahan, I’d be an idiot, and I think that one of the few things you and I can agree on is that I’m not an idiot.” He shook his head. “Still, that would make you sad, and that would sadden me. Truly it would. So shall we drink to his safe return to this empty house?” He raised his glass, and she couldn’t do anything but mirror him, although she drank only a little.

  He was not going to get her drunk, if that’s what he had in mind.

  What exactly was she frightened of? She wasn’t certain, not really. Miron had, of course, tried to press his attentions on her back before his mother had died, back when Elanee was trying to pressure her into marrying him, but that had ended when Kethol, Pirojil, and Durine had arrived, and since Kethol — since Forinel had left for Nerahan and whatever he and Pirojil were doing, there hadn’t been any of that sort of unpleasantness.

  Which was, in a sense, unfortunate. She could have handled that easily.

  “Yes,” she said. “But the only pity is that I won’t be here when your brother returns from Nerahan.”

  “Returns in triumph, no doubt.” There was no overt sarcasm in his tone.

  “Yes, it will be just that,” she said, her words more sure than her conviction.

  “Then since we’re both convinced on that, we should probably drop the subject, lest our last evening together is wasted nodding our heads at each other, eh?” Miron conveyed a small piece of lamb to his mouth, and chewed slowly, thoughtfully, his head cocked to one side. “So, since this is our last evening together for some time, we should be sure to enjoy it. Would you care for a walk in the garden after dinner?”

  “No, but thank you,” she said. “I’d best supervise the packing. I’m not sure how long I’ll be in Biemestren, and —”

  “And there are far better seamstresses there than here or in Dereneyl — fond though I am of Madame Curtenell’s shop — and you might as well take advantage of your time in the capital, and travel lightly. Once you settle down to a life of a country baroness, there will hardly be many more occasions for that sort of expedition.”

  “Country baroness? I think that Baron Keranahan” — she had used the title deliberately, hoping for some reaction, but she didn’t get one — “and I will be living in Dereneyl, at the residence there, sooner than you might think.”

  He nodded, as though actually agreeing. “That’s quite possible. I suspect that Governor Treseen’s days are numbered — as governor, that is.” He smiled. “It will be … interesting to see how well Forinel can actually rule, once the responsibilities, as well as the title, are his.” He shrugged. “I, of course, wish him well.”

  “Of course.”

  He had the nerve to laugh. “You sound so skeptical, my lady, and I wish you wouldn’t. I had best have great faith in his ability to rule the barony, under present circumstances — although he showed scant interest in the details of such things before he left on his … little adventure, and it seems to me that it’s you, rather than he, who has shown any involvement in such things since his very convenient return.”

  If it bothered Miron that Forinel had appeared in Parliament just before the Emperor and Parliament were to award the barony to him, it didn’t show. Which spoke only to his self-control.

  “I think,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “that everyone will find that Forinel can handle himself as well in Dereneyl — and in Biemestren, too, for that matter — as he did in the Katharhd.”

  “Ah, yes, his wanderings in the Katharhd. There were quite a few stories about his exploits floating around the capital, although he’s far too modest to retell them himself.” A quick shrug. “At least in my presence.”

  Did he suspect the truth? Was he probing? She couldn’t be sure, but there was no way of knowing, and the last thing she wanted to do was to seem defensive.

  “If you have any questions, ask them yourself — of him,” she said.

  “And see if he’ll boast to me?” Miron shook his head. “So that I could, perhaps, magnify the stories in my own retelling of them, and use that to embarrass him as a braggart? No, thank you. My brother is a fool — that he left you in the first place proves that beyond a shadow of a hint of a glimmer of a doubt — but he’s not that kind of fool.” He smiled over his wine. “Whatever he did, I think it’s very clever of h
im to refuse to talk about it, and I’ve more than a hint as to where that cleverness originates.” He saluted her with his wineglass. “Not with Forinel, who has always been something of a dolt, eh?” He drained his glass, then picked up the wine bottle with his own hands and poured himself some more, rather than ringing for the serving girl.

  She could have protested, and she wanted to. Forinel had left her, indeed — to go out into the Katharhd and prove himself, as though he had had something to prove — but that had nothing to do with being a fool, unless all men were fools. Miron’s mother, Elanee, had had a strange effect on men, something that Erenor described as a latent magical talent. Forinel hadn’t been the only one affected — Elanee had had Treseen wrapped about her little finger, and it had been all that Kethol, Pirojil, and Durine had been able to do to resist her attempts to persuade them, when they had first arrived in Keranahan, to leave Leria here. Only their orders and that innate stubbornness of Kethol’s had made them able to resist her.

  It would have been wonderful, Leria thought, to have that ability, but she didn’t, and had to make her way with native wit, sharpened by a lifetime of training, and she sometimes wondered if it would be enough.

  He picked up the bottle and refilled her wineglass. “Well, shall we drink to the future true ruler of Barony Keranahan?”

  “To your brother,” she said, raising her own glass.

  As she brought it to her lips it occurred to her how strange it was that Miron had poured his own wine, and that meant that he had had to handle the wine bottle, and —

  She let the glass drop from her fingers. It shattered on the floor, splattering her legs.

  Miron was on his feet in an instant. “Are you hurt, Leria?” he asked, as he came around the table.

  The serving girl ran in through the archway to the main hall a scant moment before Captain Thirien burst through the garden door.

  “Some problem, my lady?” he asked, as the serving girl, napkin snatched from the table in hand, knelt down beside her to daub at the stained dress.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s just my clumsiness,” she said. “I dropped a wineglass.”

  He hadn’t had the opportunity to put something in her glass, not directly, but he could easily have slipped something into the wine bottle. Poison? Not likely. Some sort of sleeping potion? She didn’t know, but it had been something, she was sure.

  Thirien smiled. “I’m sorry to have bothered your dinner, then, Lady,” he said, giving a slight bow.

  Miron turned to Ella. “Another glass for the lady, if you please,” he said, as though he was used to speaking so politely to servants.

  “Yes, my lord, and —”

  “No,” she said. “I think I’ve had enough. I think there’s something … strange about that wine.”

  “The wine?” Miron’s brow furrowed. “It seemed fine to me.” He raised his own glass, and sipped at it. “As it still does, although I’ve certainly had better.” He shrugged.

  “Not the wine in your glass,” she said. “The wine still in the bottle.”

  She hadn’t seen Thirien move, but somehow the thick-waisted captain was between her and Miron, his eyes on Miron’s. “There’s something wrong with the wine in the bottle, Lady?” he asked, not looking directly at her.

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  “Surely,” Miron said, “surely you don’t think I put something in the bottle, Leria, do you?” He spread his hands. “I’m aghast at the suggestion, and I’m more than a little offended.”

  “Easy enough to tell,” Thirien said. “Wizards are supposed to be good at that sort of thing.”

  Miron shrugged. “Wizard? I see no need to bother the wizard, but, if you’d like to, you certainly may.” Moving slowly, he picked up the bottle and refilled his own glass, then set the bottle down on the table, where Thirien could reach it easily.

  “I think you’ll find a glassful left, for the wizard to do whatever wizards do. As for me, I prefer a simpler test.” He lifted the glass. “To innocence,” he said. He drained the glass and set it down on the table. “Perhaps a trifle overly tannic, yes, but a fine bottle of wine, and I most certainly did not put anything in the bottle.” His lips were tight as he turned back to Thirien. “Captain Thirien, if you’d call one of your soldiers to accompany me, I find myself in need of fresh air, and I’d like a reliable witness to the fact that I am not about to go out into the garden and purge myself of this wonderful wine, for fear of some poison or potion in it. I know a gentleman would do no such thing, and I am, I assure you, a gentleman, but it seems that there are some who do not think me such.”

  He bowed toward Leria, deeply, too deeply, then straightened himself. “For that, I can only blame myself for whatever it is that I have done that could have raised such an unworthy suspicion in such a lovely head as Lady Leria’s, and I’ll endeavor not to give such offense again.”

  She didn’t like the way that Thirien was looking at her. “With the lady’s permission, I’ll accompany you, Lord Miron,” he said.

  His face was stern, and almost expressionless. She couldn’t tell if he wanted to see for himself that Miron wasn’t going to make himself vomit, or whether the old captain wanted to absent himself from the company of the flighty girl who had made such a wild accusation, but the two of them walked out through the garden doors, and it looked for a moment as though Miron was going to wink at her.

  But the moment passed, and the doors closed behind the two men, and then she was alone with the wine bottle, and with Ella looking up at her, puzzled, as well.

  “Should I take the wine up to, to him, my lady?”

  “Yes, I suppose you should.” Leria nodded. “You might as well, although I’m sure it’s fine.”

  She stood alone in the great hall, and cursed herself, since there was nobody there to do it for her. She thought that she had been so clever, that Miron had been trying something — perhaps to drug her, and then pretend to help her up to her rooms?

  And what then? Of course, Miron wanted her — that had been clear for a long time, but equally, of course, he wasn’t the sort of fool who would risk his own neck just to have an unconscious woman.

  On the other hand, he was apparently just the sort who would tempt a foolish girl — who wasn’t nearly as clever as she had thought she was — into making a provably false accusation against him, and she had obliged him by doing just that, and in front of a witness.

  The next time …

  Once the word of this got out, the next time that she opened her mouth to accuse him of anything, she wouldn’t be believed.

  ***

  The carriage, accompanied by a full troop of Imperials, arrived at first light, which didn’t surprise her at all. Erenor was nowhere to be seen, either, which also didn’t surprise her.

  She was only half-surprised that Elda reported that Miron’s bed hadn’t been slept in, and that he, and several of the horses, were gone.

  She sighed as she let them help her into the carriage.

  It wasn’t a day for surprises. She had had more than enough of those yesterday.

  11

  BANDITS

  I find it very easy to be philosophical about personal discomfort. As long as it’s somebody else’s personal discomfort, of course.

  — Walter Slovotsky

  THE NIGHT WAS cold, and the short, hard rains just after sunset had left everything painfully damp.

  Cold and damp and dark: now, that was something Kethol was familiar with. There was a real comfort in familiarity, even if it was only familiar discomfort.

  Kethol lay, stretched out on the waxed ground cloth, silently cursing himself for not having waxed it himself. Nobles didn’t prepare their own gear. Nobles didn’t do this, nobles didn’t do that … nobles couldn’t wipe their own asses, probably.

  There was a spot just to the right of his right thigh where the rainwater that had soaked the pine needles had soaked through, leaving him miserable and wet.

  He had b
een more careful with the smaller ground cloth next to him where his longbow lay. His body being wet was uncomfortable, but tolerable — but a wet bowstring would stretch more than it ought to, and that would be dangerous. You had to be able to count on your weapons, as much as you had to be able to count on yourself.

  The temptation was strong to close his eyes for just a moment, but he had long ago learned — and painfully; the decurion had had a very, very heavy hand — that if he did that, if he allowed his eyes to close longer than it took him to blink, the next thing he would see would be morning light streaming over the horizon.

  He was beginning to wonder if this would ever work. After two tendays of planting poles and stringing cable — no, of having others plant poles and string cable; Kethol tried to be honest, at least to himself — he had been certain that word of the new telegraph line would have reached up into the hills and into Kiar.

  So where were they? They should have already tried to take the cable, days before.

  He hoped it would be here — and it should be. Most of the rest of the twisting path that the telegraph line took went along the tops of the ridges, and that would let somebody trying to cut the cable be silhouetted against the night sky. The Kiaran bandits were cautious enough, at least he hoped, to avoid that.

  That would have been less of an issue if the sky wasn’t so clear, but tonight the stars shone brightly overhead, and a dozen clusters of distant faerie lights pulsed lazily on the horizon.

  Pirojil had announced that they would run this section of the telegraph alongside an ancient streambed in the draw simply to speed things up — it was, after all, both easier and quicker to roll the pine telegraph poles downhill than to have horses and men drag them up the ridge — but their real reason was to bait the trap.

  Kethol couldn’t see the phony cable in the dark, but he didn’t have to. Earlier, he had snuck down, as he did each night, to throw the hooked end of his long coil of line over the top of the cable, and had pulled it tight when he made his way back to his stand.