A Posse of Princesses (20 page)

Rhis had also learned that there were two
kinds of loyalty: there was paid loyalty, and personal loyalty.
When young Ama, the upstairs maid, had been so sick, Rhis had done
all her room chores herself. Why not? She’d learned how to braid
her hair and dress herself when she was small, because her mother
had insisted. And she knew how to make a bed and sweep a floor and
pass dirty clothes through the cleaning frame, fold them, and stow
them in the chests. So she’d done it, just as her older sister
Sidal had done it, but afterward she’d realized that Ama the
steward had a different attitude toward her than she did toward
Elda, who expected her servants to work every day, just like she
did. She often said that if you did your duty, you had no time to
be sick—but then she never seemed to get sick.

When Rhis had talked about it with Sidal, her
sister had said, “Paid loyalty stops at the chores the person is
hired to do, just as if I were hired to guard a caravan down the
mountain. I would do that, and only that, unless I found the
leaders to be worth my personal loyalty. Then I might choose to see
them safely home past the agreed-on place, or give them some other
help that was not in the contract, like watching their little ones
during a rest stop. It’s my personal choice. Friendship works that
way. You don’t have paid friends—and never forget that, if you do
end up living in a court somewhere. There is no such thing as paid
friends
. Paid
companions
, whose job it would be to
nod and smile and pretend you’re the center of their lives, courts
are full of those.”

The other girls were all silent, obviously
lost in their own thoughts.
I don’t know Keris
, Rhis
thought.
She doesn’t really know me. But if she has personal
loyalty, it would be to my mother.

That left Shera’s maid, who might be
reporting on Shera out of personal loyalty to the Queen of Gensam.
She didn’t have any loyalty to Shera, or she wouldn’t be sending
reports back. Or did she, and the reports were written to please
the queen—to hide worrisome things, and report only the good
things?

Rhis didn’t feel she could ask Shera those
questions. She couldn’t even resolve them in her own situation.
What worried her most was what Lios might find out—if he did, and
what would happen. Keris had promised that she would ‘take care of
everything.’ Rhis did not know what that really meant.

It means I should not worry about it
,
Rhis thought.
Since I can’t do anything about that any more. I
chose to see this chore through
. She sighed. She was tired,
despite the night of sleep, and desperately hungry, for she still
had not eaten, though the sun was well west.

So she turned her attention to her
companions. Yuzhyu had brought no one along, just like Shera (whose
head was bowed, and occasional sniffs issued forth from under her
hood) and Rhis. Taniva had the three servants with her. Even the
girl was armed and very fierce looking.

These three set up camp once Taniva had
chosen a good spot beside a stream, where the horses had sweet
grass to crop. They were swift and efficient; in a shorter time
than Rhis expected they had two tents set up, and a savory-smelling
meal cooking: mostly boiled grain, with spices added in, shallots
one found farther down stream, and sprinkled over it a very sharp
cheese that they’d brought from home and preserved carefully.

The portions were small but Rhis discovered
the grain was filling. The dishes were carved out of wood, very
flat—easy to pack, Rhis discovered, watching them clean up.

They ate in silence that first night. They
were all far too tired, even Taniva, who sat brooding near the
fire, which reflected in her eyes. The sleeping arrangements were
crowded—Taniva and the servants in with her (one of the women was
always on guard duty) and the other three princesses in the tent
that had been the servants’. They slept rolled up in their cloaks
and capes, with clothes from their packs as pillows. Nobody had
night clothes.

Rhis was determined not to complain.
Adventure
, she kept telling herself. She avoided the other
term in the old saying: she did not want to think about
tragedy.

Rhis woke to the sound of laughter, followed
by chatter in a language she had never heard before.

Her face, hair, and mouth were gritty, her
legs horribly sore, and the rest of her body felt as wrinkled as
her clothes looked when she forced herself to get outside the tent,
stand up, and shake out her cloak.

Taniva was already up, hair brushed and
braided. She was helping with the cooking. The good smells chased
away some of Rhis’s wrinkly mood. “I heard laughter,” she said.

Taniva’s grin widened. “They say, my people.”
She indicated her three guards. “They not want to be in Lios’s
guard. When they find out that princess is missing.”

Rhis folded her cloak. “Oh, I hadn’t thought
of that.” She remembered Lios’s guards. They were vague memories,
silent—mostly men but not all—who stayed out of the way of the
guests.

“What I wonder,” Shera said in a very
disgruntled tone as she crawled out of the tent, her curls wild,
“is how Jarvas managed to get Iardith away without anyone knowing.
He can’t have any magic—not that I ever heard—and the way she was
making a dead set at Lios, you’d think they’d hear her kicking and
screaming clear in the capital when they tried to wrench her from
his side.”

“No magic made by Damatrans,” Taniva stated
definitely. “They hate mages.”

Yuzhyu looked up from brushing off her
clothes, her eyes narrowed in a way Rhis had never seen before.
Very intent.

“They must be tough if they don’t fear
busy-body mages nosing in anyway, and making trouble,” Shera
observed, adding a soft “Ouch! Eugh!” in an undervoice as she
fingered the tangles out of her hair. “
Why
did I think a
hairbrush was too much trouble?”

“You can share mine,” Rhis said. “Maybe the
Damatrans have magical protections. Many lands do, if the kings
don’t want powerful mages around, even with the laws against
magicians in government, and the vows they make.”

Taniva said, “That is what we are told, in
High Plains. Damatras has protection.
Verrrry
powerful. They
fear no mage. They fear no one!” She grinned, making a swift motion
like a sword slashing.

“Well, about Lios,” Rhis began.

Yuzhyu paused in the act of braiding her
hair, question puckering her brow over her big blue eyes.

Rhis didn’t finish her sentence. Was what
she’d heard a secret or not? It was a despicable secret, if so—but
it wasn’t hers.

“About Lios?” Shera asked, shaking her cloak
with a snap. “Eugh. Dirt got into
everything
. How is that
possible? I was so careful when I lay down.”

Yuzhyu said, “Lios is cousin to me.”

Shera said crossly, “We knew that.” Then she
crossed her arms. It was evident that already she hated this
venture. But she seemed determined not to be the first to
complain.

“I don’t suppose,” Rhis said as politely as
possible, “there is a chance of washing up a little?”

Taniva pointed with good cheer at the stream,
then sat on a mossy rock, her bowl on her lap.

Rhis gritted her teeth. She knew the water
was cold from drinking it the night before. But she marched to the
stream-side, crouched on a rock, and dipped her hands into the
water. The first splash of cold water on her face made her gasp,
and she almost missed the squawk, “What?” from the campsite.

Yuzhyu told them about Dandiar’s
masquerade
, she thought, and finished with her washing.

When she reached the camp, her face and hands
tingling, it was to find Yuzhyu eating her breakfast, her
expression unhappy. Taniva was laughing. Shera stood in the middle
of the camp, her eyes wide, her mouth open. “I can’t believe it, I
can’t!” As soon as Rhis appeared at the top of the trail, she
turned on her. “Did
you
know that Dandiar the scribe was
really Prince Lios?”

“Found out yesterday,” Rhis said.

Shera clapped her hands. “I have to admit, it
gave me a bad moment, until I thought over everything I’d said in
front of Dandiar. You know, about Lios. But I scarcely was ever
even around Dandiar, because I thought—well, anyway, the important
thing is, how
romantic!
”

“Ugh,” Rhis exclaimed. She absently accepted
a bowl of warmed-over boiled grain with more cheese crumbled over
it. She found a flat rock to sit on as Taniva’s guards silently
dismantled the tents, rolled and packed them on the waiting
horses.

“Eat up.” Taniva slapped her leg. “Then we
ride. Ha! It’s very funny, that about Lios. Why he do it? Makes me
think of war ruse, back in history.”

“War ruse?” Rhis asked, to shift the subject
from Lios.

“King traded clothes with his man. Traveled
with servants on treaty mission. Heard all he should not have.
Servant heard all they wanted him to hear. At meeting, out he comes
with truth instead of lies they told servant!” She slapped her leg
again.

“So,” Rhis said. “Meeting all of us at his
party needed a ruse of war?”

Taniva paused, staring skyward at birds
streaking from treetop to treetop. She held her hand out stiffly
above her knee as if frozen by a stone spell.

Yuzhyu cradled her bowl in her lap, mute and
unhappy.

Taniva’s dark brows contracted. “Did not
think of that. Hah!” She slapped her leg yet again, then rose from
the rock she’d been sitting on. “I wash bowls—you eat fast. We must
ride. When we did not come back, maybe they think we are also
taken. Hah! Hah!” Her laugh was somehow both jolly and fierce.

The idea of Lios’s guards riding after them
made Rhis hurry her breakfast down far faster than she would have
liked. It was sitting in a solid wodge inside her when they resumed
the northern trail, every trace of their campsite having been
thoroughly eradicated to the two guard women’s satisfaction.

This second day on the trail the riding order
changed. The two women rode far in the back, and the younger one
ahead, out of sight. They were expecting trouble, and so having
guards far ahead and far behind lessened the chance of the
princesses being taken by surprise.

At first Rhis and Shera rode next to one
another.

“My butt hurts,” was the first thing Shera
said, in a sulky voice. “I hate this. I don’t know why I did it.
Yes I do. I had to get away from Glaen. And, oh, I think I wanted,
and still want, to do something to make them all—” She waved a hand
in a circle.

“Stun them,” Rhis said.

“Yes.”

“Make them sorry.”

“Yes!”

“You realize we’re probably going to end up
doing something really stupid,” Rhis said regretfully. “I mean, you
and I barely know how to ride a horse. How are
we
going to
rescue someone?”

“I don’t know,” Shera admitted. “I thought
I’d just copy whatever Taniva does when the time comes. She
certainly knows what to do. As for everything else.” She slewed
around in her saddle. “Exactly how did you find out about Lios and
that scribe—I mean, the scribe and the—what
is
Lios, anyway?
Er, the false Lios?”

“His name is Andos, and he’s the sword
master’s son. Dan—Lios told me himself,” Rhis said.

Shera’s eyes widened. “He did? And you did
not come straight to tell me?”

“No. I was too angry. And when I got to our
rooms, you were already upset.”

Shera frowned between her horse’s ears. “Then
that has to have been yesterday.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re angry?
Why
did he tell
you?” Shera’s eyes narrowed.

“Because I saw—something. By accident. He
came to explain, and, well, it just popped out.”

“I’d love to know what you’re not telling
me,” Shera said, still with that unnerving stare.

“Not my business to tell,” Rhis retorted.

Shera flickered her fingers like a fan
waving. “What I really want to know is, why are you angry? Did you
say something awful and the wrong one heard it?”

“No. It’s lying, don’t you see? Judging us,
like, like, I don’t know, some sort of spy, and laughing about it,
and gloating—”

“Did you ever see them laughing and gloating?
I didn’t spend much time with either of them, but neither seemed
the gloaty type.”

“The first morning. They were alone by the
rail on the terrace, laughing away. Probably at the rest of
us.”

“You don’t know that, though, right? I mean,
they could have been laughing over some mistake one of them made,
or Lios trying to wear Dandiar’s clothes—or the other way
around—oh, you know what I mean.”

“He said it was all a joke,” Rhis
muttered.

Shera was silent as the horses stepped onto a
narrow trail above a rocky gorge. Below water fell with a roar. The
trail was slippery, the horses stepping carefully single file.
Shera slewed around again to glare at Rhis. “I don’t want to make
you mad, but sometimes I wonder if you’re more like Elda than you
think.”

Rhis flushed. “I am not!”

“Well, you sure can get all superior,” Shera
said. “I mean, about this. Usually you’re the nicest girl I ever
met, better than anyone in Gensam, and I
mean
that—”

“Skip that,” Rhis said crossly. “This
what?”

Shera waved her hands—the horse stumbled, one
hoof slipping in mossy muck, and she clutched hastily at her
saddle, her curls swinging forward and tangling in the reins.
“Ur-r-r,” she growled. “I do hate this. Riding, I mean. ‘This’
before was Prince Lios, the real one. Can’t you see how romantic it
is, he wants to be appreciated for his own self? And when I think
of Iardith so very busy chasing after a sword master’s son, I could
fall off this horse laughing. I might fall off anyway,” she said,
and straightened around as her horse slipped again.