A Posse of Princesses (21 page)

As the animals plodded upward, Rhis was aware
of Yuzhyu riding silently behind her. Rhis could not guess how much
the Ndaian princess heard or understood. Now she was afraid to turn
around. Besides, she had to think about that nasty comment about
Elda. She didn’t think she was being superior, but that didn’t mean
others might not see her that way. Elda certainly didn’t see
herself as superior, she saw herself as truthful and
duty-minded.

These disagreeable thoughts chased round in
her mind without ever coming to rest as the horses climbed ever
upward into a spectacular mountainside. Nym mostly had a variety of
evergreens growing, but here there were all kinds of trees, and
wild roses climbing over rocks, and a hundred other types of plants
that Rhis had never seen before.

Taniva kept urging them on, despite Shera’s
increasingly plaintive requests for rest. Yuzhyu never spoke at
all, and Rhis stayed quiet. Her first reaction was relief when they
stopped on a grassy plateau with a rocky fall at one side,
obscuring the valley below.

The guard women built a fire under the
shelter of the outcropping. Rhis sat passively, glad to be off that
horse as she watched the two working. The oldest woman stepped out
to check for telltale smoke rising, then put one hand to her back
and another to her neck. She and the other guards had to feel as
tired as the girls. More, if they’d traded off patrolling outside
the tents the night before.

So she made herself get up and offer to help
with the cooking. Taniva translated, got a brief answer, and handed
Rhis a flat board and some root vegetables plus more of the
shallots from the day before, somewhat withered after a day in a
saddlebag, but still aromatic when she began chopping with slow
care. She worked with the board on her knees, unused to these
wicked sharp knives as well as chopping. Not that it was hard
work.

Shera eyed her, then silently picked up the
saddlebags from where they’d been piled when the High Plains guards
took care of the horses first thing. As the younger girl and Yuzhyu
set up the two tents, Shera dragged the saddlebags to each.

The meal was potatoes and vegetables cooked
on a flat pan with pressed olive to make things crisp. More of the
cheese was dribbled on, and this time, for dessert, one of them
brought out a pomegranate, which they shared seven ways.

Yuzhyu got up and collected the dishes this
time; Rhis forced herself to join. In silence they worked at the
stream, rubbing the plates clean in the rushing water, using long
grass to do the rubbing.

When Rhis had finished the wooden spoons and
Yuzhyu stacked the dishes, the latter said in a low voice, “You are
hate. My cousin. Yiss?”

Rhis struggled within herself. She’d spent an
entire day arguing with Lios Menelaes Dandiar Arvanosas in her
mind, each time after determining never to think about him
again.

Finally she said, “I hate being lied to. He
can explain all he wants about how everything he said was strictly
true, but only if you knew the real truth.”

Yuzhyu’s lips moved as she translated; Rhis
carried her spoons back to the guards before Yuzhyu could say
anything more.

Shera and Rhis rolled up in their cloaks,
wriggling around to find a comfortable position on the bumpy ground
to rest their aching bodies. Yuzhyu joined them, silent and somber
in the flickering light of the campfire. Four High Plains
silhouettes further blocked the light as Taniva and her three
guards spread a map between them, talking in low voices until
Taniva jabbed her finger on the heavy paper, traced a trail, and
clapped her hands.

The three gave nods, one doused the fire, the
other rolled the map, the third started on her patrol by starlight.
Soon the camp was quiet.

Rhis fell immediately into exhausted sleep,
to be woken what seemed moments later. “Quick, quick,” Taniva
whispered. “We hide now.”

“What?”

The tent vanished from around them, a whoosh
of cold air waking Rhis further as Shera snorted and sat up. Beyond
her, Yuzhyu was already folding her coat, her summer-sky blue eyes
reflecting starlight.

Rhis shoved her things back into the
saddlebag and picked it up. Her muscles had tightened unpleasantly
into a bunch of knots, making movement painful, but she said
nothing as she followed Taniva across the plateau. Her eyes had
adjusted. Above, the sky was filled with different stars than she’d
seen before bedtime, and in the east a pale smear.

There wasn’t real light, only a vague
lessening of the intensity of shadows. Rhis’s heart pounded as she
followed Taniva along a very narrow trail that seemed to lead
straight down a cliff face into a uniform blackness the more
frightening because she couldn’t see the bottom of it.

Presently she heard snorts and thunks and
rustles—the horses being saddled by feel. She smelled the horses a
few steps later, and mounted in silence.

They rode very slowly down and down, the
cliff overhead hiding that faint glow of dawn. But on they went,
until the low, soft warble of a nightbird sounded on the soft air.
The horse in front of Rhis abruptly stopped, tossing its head. The
bird sound had been false, Rhis realized—one of Taniva’s guards on
the watch somewhere on the road above them.

Rhis also stopped, and Yuzhyu’s mount behind
her. They stayed in place, still and silent, as distant noises
gradually got louder.

Rhis recognized the rhythmic thuds, rattles,
and creaks of a riding party on the road uphill. It seemed a long
time before the noises diminished to a muffled rumble, and then
vanished.

Another wait. In the weak blue light Rhis
made out Shera’s wide-eyed question, but no one spoke until Taniva
came sliding down the trail.

“Ha,” she said in a low voice. “It was
them.”

“Them? Damatrans or Vesarjans?” Shera
asked.

“Lios—Dandiar—whichever is the little one
with the brown hair.” Taniva chortled. “The little one in the lead.
He not wear the scribe clothes now. He wears the clothes of the
guard, with much weapons.” She smacked her side where a sword would
go, and her boot top, and the other side of her belt, where she
wore her long knife in a sheath, all the while chuckling.
“Remounts. Mud splashed to here.” She smacked her thighs. “They
must be very much tired! They seek us!” She laughed. “But they do
not find.”

Lios himself was chasing them? Rhis shivered,
remembering with an acute pang exactly what her last words to him
had been.

“They’ll certainly find Jarvas before we do,”
Shera said.

Rhis nodded, not sure if she was disappointed
or relieved.

“No,” Taniva said, with another fierce
chuckle. “He not know this countryside. He not grow up here. I have
good map. They ride high road, but we will take shorter road.” She
laughed again. “Get ready for a
real
ride—like we do in High
Plains!”

Rhis never liked to remember the first part
of the ride after that. Not that much remained in memory but a
weary blur. A
painful
weary blur.

She could never count up how many days it
lasted. One day, near the end, when the worst of it was almost
over, she woke up before dawn at the same time as the High Plains
people did, instead of having to be shaken awake. The day’s hard
ride had gradually ceased to feel unbearable. Perhaps the tough
High Plains princess had seen Shera’s silent tears and relented
about the terrible pace at last.

That night, instead of feeling the urge to
drop into exhausted sleep the moment her dinner-chores were done,
Rhis looked forward to staying up. She even brought out the
tiranthe that had banged against the back of her left leg for days
and days until she almost threw it away.

But she didn’t throw it away, and was glad
she hadn’t. The ride hadn’t gotten easier, she realized as she
tried to limber up her fingers. It was just that she’d found it
easier to endure. As for Shera, Rhis hadn’t seen the tears for a
couple of days. Rhis admired Shera for how grimly she’d stuck to a
task she clearly had begun to dislike right from the beginning.

Another thing: she and Shera had learned some
of the camping tasks, so camp was easier and faster every day. By
now everyone had tasks that they’d taken as their own. Rhis had
decided to learn how unappetizing-looking roots and bits of herb
and so forth turned into tasty meals. The guards had gladly taught
her to cook—mostly by show, at first, then gradually using more
High Plains words as Rhis worked to learn the language. Lessons
progressed faster, to the point that Rhis learned to spot certain
wild herbs from the trail.

Right now she had a potato stew simmering,
full of vegetables, fresh herbs, and some of the hoarded High
Plains spices, as she ventured from warm-up into a few simple
songs.

Shera appeared, laying a hand on her wrist.
“That sounds pretty, and I beg pardon for interrupting,” she
whispered. “But I think you need to see this.”

Rhis had gotten used to Shera’s habit of
saying ‘this’ for what could mean any of five to fifty things. It
wasn’t the word you listened to so much as watching for the
gestures she made to tell you what ‘this’ was supposed to be now.
Shera’s chin tipped toward the river.

Rhis laid aside her tiranthe and noiselessly
followed Shera.

Over the days the two of them had removed all
the unnecessary decoration from their riding clothes, until they
were pretty much indistinguishable from the High Plains people.
They had learned to braid their hair simply and tightly for riding.
There were no maids for the pleasant morning and evening ritual of
brushing it out and dressing it elaborately.

Shera paused on the high ridge above a
river-bank, and pointed below.

They’d stopped at sunset, as always.
Silhouetted in the mellow golden slants of the vanishing sun were
four figures on the flat riverbank, moving in cadence. Rhis blocked
the last bit of the sun with a hand. Taniva and the guards were
twirling and stabbing and lunging and sweeping real weapons round.
And—farther up the bank—there was Yuzhyu’s bright head as she
bounded with graceful deliberation, practicing with her knives!

Shera clutched her hands to her front. “What
do you think that is about?”

“I don’t know, but I am going to ask,” Rhis
said as they turned away.

When the others returned to the camp, they
did not act as if anything was amiss. Taniva sniffed appreciatively
at the stew Rhis had made.

Rhis wondered if the others had always gone
off like that to do those drills with the swords and knives, and
she had failed to notice because she’d been so tired and sore.

Still. After she’d dished the food out, and
they all sat in a circle eating with hearty appetites, she said,
“So what is that you do with the weapons? Are you planning to
assassinate somebody?”

Taniva glanced up in surprise, her spoon
halfway to her mouth. “Is drill. We always do. You did not see at
Eskanda palace? Yes! I see you there one time.”

Rhis said, “All right. So you practice. But
I’m asking again, are you planning to attack someone?”

Yuzhyu’s abilities with language had improved
vastly since they’d left the palace party, where she’d mostly been
on the outside of things, looking in. “Not attack,” she said. “But
defend? If we must.”

Rhis considered that, then turned to Taniva.
“So you’re not thinking about carving up D—Prince Lios.”

“Him? Tchah!” Taniva stirred her stew
vigorously. “It is Jarvas whose blade I hope to cross.” She added
some pungent insults in her own tongue that made her guards grin,
then added, “He and his pest princess are nothing but trouble.”

Rhis said, “I wondered about that. Why you’d
want to rescue the ‘pest.’ I mean, I understand about keeping
various kings from leading armies across your kingdom, but there
are other ways of doing that, aren’t there?”

Taniva chuckled. “My father want me to marry
Lios. For much-needed alliance. I do not want to marry him. My
father has very bad temper. I knew Lios not want me any more than I
want him. But if I go, my father cannot say I do not try. Now, when
that black-haired pest is grabbed, and by our enemy, I am thinking
first that I prove myself a worthy leader. Get her back. And save
Lios much trouble, so maybe he makes alliance with us
without
any marriage!” She pointed. “You play this wooden
thing with strings?”

“I would be happy to,” Rhis said, and
did.

Taniva listened, a curiously intent
expression on her face.

When Rhis finished her song, Taniva insisted
she play more—songs from other lands—and she listened carefully as
she took her turn with the washing up.

Rhis felt self-conscious. She’d usually
played for herself, or for her family. She knew she wasn’t a great
player.

But Taniva seemed serious. So Rhis played,
wincing at fumbles, hating it when she lost her timing, until she
noticed that the others all seemed to appreciate the shimmering
sounds of the strings, damped to shift to minor keys by the
finger-pedals. At Taniva’s gesture the girl guard, Dartha, began a
dance to a lively tune, clapping her hands in counterpoint, and
stamping her feet. She was an excellent dancer.

The other two got out their vests with the
chimes, put away the day they left, and they too joined the
dancing, their chimes ringing sweetly in time to the music. Yuzhyu
brought out a pair of wooden spoons and tapped out a rhythm on a
rock.

When they were done, Taniva said, “You two
sing?”

Shera and Rhis exchanged looks. They’d sang
harmony on the journey to Eskanda, but not when anyone heard them.
But they sang a couple of ballads, watching one another for cues as
they harmonized. At the end, when Rhis wrung her fingers and moved
to put away the instrument, Yuzhyu, who hadn’t spoken to her in
days, put the spoons away then said shyly, “Iss good. The
music.”