A Posse of Princesses (24 page)

Shera’s and Rhis’s eyes met.
Marry a
crown
, Rhis thought. Lios might have been a stick of wood or an
old hedgehog, just as long as he would get her a crown.

As though her thoughts paralleled Rhis’s,
Iardith said, “He is a handsome enough lad, that I will say. Though
dull as can be. All he likes is
sport—racing—shooting—wrestling—fencing. Tchah! Anyway, he
panicked. It was quite funny, really, though at the time I was just
angry. Told me who he really was, and who Lios really was. When I
stamped out, ready to murder that snake of a scribe for daring to
lie to
me
, there was Jarvas. I’d been ignoring him, though
he’s almost as easy on the eyes as that Lios-lackey. Damatras might
be big, and everyone is afraid of them, but the truth is, they are
almost as poor as Arpalon. I want to be rich,” she finished. “But
beggars cannot be choosers, and when he started trying to argue
with me about not having danced with him—that I was playing with
his feelings—I cut through the rot and said I wished someone would
take me away.”

She shrugged, and smiled. “So he did.” She
laughed. “I must say, he catches a hint fast. Better, he organized
everything himself. I didn’t have to do a thing, yet we were gone
by sunup. Though that journey left much to be desired—I can see it
will take some time to teach them how a monarch ought to travel.
And be treated. But I can wait to civilize these barbarians. I need
that crown on my head first.”

She huffed out a breath, then went on
briskly, “So, that brings me to my messages. You must see to it
that my father knows that this was my idea. He can bluster all he
wants—he may get a better settlement that way—but he’s not to
rubbish up my plans by sending an army.”

Taniva said in a low, rough voice, “So at
least you think of those who must fight in your cause. And of the
lands trampled in the fighting.”

Iardith shook back her braids. “I don’t like
fighting and blood, no. Especially when Arpalon would come out the
worst of it, I dareswear. I do not want a disaster associated with
my name.” She pointed imperially at the floor. “So now they’ve all
heard you plinking that thing, and no one has come back upstairs to
investigate further. Unless you want to knock and deal with the
night guard, they’ve probably forgotten all about you. I suggest we
get some sleep. They can let you out in the morning.”

Taniva gestured to Dartha, who dropped to the
floor, peered beneath the door, then rose, shaking her head. She
held up six fingers. Six guards now on the landing, where there’d
been none before.

Taniva sighed. Rhis suspected she wanted to
break out the way they’d broken in. They sure couldn’t now.
If
it were home
, Rhis thought,
someone would be wanting to know
who let us up here. I don’t think they’re going to forget by
morning
.

“Tomorrow will be another long, no doubt
ghastly day. It’s going to take real work to make this place
half-way civilized enough to spend my life in.”

Iardith flung herself back on the bed, and
clapped out the lights, leaving everyone else to dispose themselves
as best they could on the floor.

Rhis did not want to ask her to share the
bed. She realized everyone else felt the same when Shera said
accusingly, “You might at least spare us a pillow or two. You don’t
need all those.”

Fluff! Fluff! Two down-stuffed pillows
landed, one on top of Rhis, the other farther away. “Shut up,”
Iardith said.

oOo

Summer or not, the tower room was chilly,
open as it was to the outside air. When the sounds of footsteps
clattering beyond the door woke Rhis, she found Shera’s hair
tickling her nose. They’d curled up together, under both cloaks.
When Rhis raised her head, her temples panging, she discovered
Yuzhyu’s bright hair just behind her; she’d shared their pillow,
facing the other way.

Taniva and two of her guards had taken the
second pillow, the oldest sitting up beside the door. From the
steady gleam in her eyes, reflection from the bleak dawn light in
the window, she’d sat up all night; later Rhis found out that
indeed, she’d kept checking all night to see if the massive guard
placed round the tower had diminished so they could sneak away, but
it never had.

The girls rose, rubbing eyes, yawning,
shaking heads, clothes, cloaks. Everyone went still when the door
swung open and Jarvas stopped abruptly on the threshold, several of
his Damatran guard crowding behind him.

He no longer wore the sinister dark velvet
she’d seen him in at Eskanda. He was dressed like his guards, in
sturdy tunics of practical brown, belted at the waist, with loose
riding trousers stuffed into their boots. They all wore knives and
swords—including Jarvas.

His scowl turned into a frown of perplexity
when his gaze reached Taniva, and then cleared. “You? Here?” he
exclaimed, and grinned.

Taniva scowled.

“Give it back,” Jarvas said, advancing into
the room. He hopped over saddlebags and pillows and cloaks, taking
up a stance directly before Taniva. He held out his hand.

Taniva snorted. “I buried it in the
forest.”

Jarvas said something that made Dartha choke
on a laugh and Taniva fight a grin. But she just crossed her arms.
“Give it,” Jarvas said. “It’s on you. I wouldn’t set to horse
without my bridle. You have my knife. I want it back—and I won it
fair-and-fair,” he added. Then waved a hand around the room. “You
can’t get out. If you want to fight me, I’d be more than happy to.
But you’ll lose.”

Taniva tipped her head. “Maybe. Here. Not on
the plains,” she added with a darkling glance, as she put her hand
inside her blue smock and withdrew it reluctantly. Then slapped the
silver-and-black handled knife onto his palm, the blue gems winking
in the rainy morning light.

Iardith had been watching with an
increasingly dire frown. It was immediately clear to Rhis, at
least, that she expected to be the center of attention, and did not
like her betrothed talking to anyone else. “What’s this about?” she
demanded. “Never mind, it’s already boring. Where’s my
breakfast?”

The look of disgust that Jarvas sent her made
Rhis gasp. She remembered quite well how besotted Jarvas had been
with the Perfect Princess at the Eskanda party—a besottedness that,
if his expression was anything to go by, had long since
vanished.

“You can all come downstairs,” he said.

Iardith said, “Once I am properly dressed.
And you had better remember that whatever you decide about them,
I
am a hostage, not a prisoner. I want at least some of them
to take messages back, that will be to the benefit of us both.”

Jarvas jerked his thumb over his shoulder,
and his guards retreated, clattering back down the steps. “My
father will sort all that out,” he said only, and banged the door
shut behind him, leaving the girls alone.

Iardith lunged out of bed, flinging off her
nightgown with an impatient rip. As she moved to the vanity table
across the room and snapped her fingers over the silver pitcher
(which began to steam gently) she said over her shoulder to Rhis,
“You can stop with the disapproving frown any time, Princess
Perfect,” she said nastily. “I plan to get you out first. I
remember quite well how much you toadied up to Prince Scribe.
You’ll take my messages, and Prince Scribe can do what he does so
well, and write the letters.”

Rhis recoiled. “Princess Perfect?” When she
remembered having called Iardith the Perfect Princess, her face
heated up.

Iardith splashed the magically heated water
into the silver basin, and bathed her hands and face, making no
attempt to spare any water for the others.

Then she stepped through the cleaning frame
on the opposite side of the room, without inviting anyone to share
the water, or the frame.

“Oh, aren’t you just so innocent, my dear,”
Iardith said, toweling her skin vigorously until it glowed a dusky
rose. “Save it for someone who will be impressed with your model
deportment and good behavior.” Iardith yanked her way into a soft
linen under-dress of pale yellow, then flung a heavy,
ribbon-flounced over-dress to Shera. “Here. Help me with that.
Jarvas, the idiot, wouldn’t travel with my maid. Well, he paid for
it,” she added with a small smile. “Go ahead.” She pulled the
expensive velvet gown of ochre impatiently over her head. “Lace up
the back.” The golden embroidery glimmered in the watery light.

Shera complied, pulling the silk laces with a
hard yank that made Iardith gasp, and spin around.

Shera said sweetly as she tied the knot, “I’m
sorry, did I hurt you? I’ve never done anyone’s laces before.”

Iardith flounced around and began to finger
her hair out of its night braid. Shera sent a wink at Rhis, whose
eyes had teared up as she waited for her turn to step through the
cleaning frame. Behind were the soft noises of the others fixing
hair, changing, repacking.

After Dartha, Rhis stepped through the
cleaning frame, wishing it would whisk away tears the way it did
grime. But Iardith did not pay her the least heed as she marched
out and down the stairs, leaving the others to follow.

“Am I really like Elda?” Rhis whispered to
Shera.

“Of course not,” Shera whispered back
indignantly. “Do you think I would ride in a carriage willingly
with a prating, pompous Elda?”

“I’m sure Elda doesn’t think she prates—”

“Oh, yes she does,” Shera said briskly. “She
likes
prating. She told me once that she spends the last
time of the day before she falls asleep arranging useful things to
say, and she trusts her daughter is writing them down for the
benefit of future generations. You wouldn’t do that. Ever.”

Rhis gulped on a watery laugh.

“Oom,” Yuzhyu said, quite distinctly. Rhis
realized the Ndaian princess hadn’t said that for a very long time.
“Yiss, om! Time to zee Kink of Damatras.”

Iardith sighed. “I so detest awkward
accents.”

“Om!”

Shera giggled.

Rhis followed, surreptitiously wiping her
eyes on her shoulder as she hefted her saddlebag. With a
mischievous grin, Yuzhyu said “Om!” every step they took all the
way down the winding tower—and there were a lot of steps. Iardith
muttered in affront, but when the other girls muffled
laughter—Shera whispering “Om, om,” under her breath—she gave a
sharp sigh and remained silent.

When they reached the ground floor, the
Damatran guards closed around them, carrying spears, with swords
worn at their sides. The girls walked down the flagged hall
surrounded by these tall, fierce-looking fellows. Though they
looked far less sinister, the way they kept sneaking peeks at
Iardith, who marched first, head held high, her shining fall of
black hair streaming smoothly down to her heels. Rhis’s feelings
swooped. She fought a flutter of giggles.

The urge to laugh was gone all too soon. They
marched down a hall with a high stone ceiling, then stopped outside
two massive iron-reinforced doors. Rhis tightened her arms around
her saddle-bag, dreading a barbarian throne room, complete with
bloody weapons mounted on the walls, skulls used as dishware, maybe
a torture instrument or two as decoration, and a lot more
fierce-looking guards.

They passed inside a narrow room. A tall,
massive man who had to be Jarvas’s father sat near a huge arched
window, beyond which rain poured. The King of Damatras was eating
his breakfast as he listened to reports from soberly dressed men
and women, all with looped braids. As Jarvas led his party in the
king paused with his spoon in the air to give orders, whereupon the
man or woman spoken to bustled out and the next in line moved to
his table and began their report.

The kingly signs were his golden cup, and the
diamond drop he wore in one ear. Otherwise he was as soberly
dressed as his minions; the only color was that provided by nature,
the silver-streaked pale hair lying on his shoulders, and in his
braided beard.

Jarvas stepped up to Rhis’s side. She gave
him an uneasy glance; they had never spoken before. She was scared
enough without any Damatrans coming right up to her.

“Don’t tell my father who you are,” Jarvas
muttered. And dropped back before she could answer.

Yuzhyu’s eyes flicked between them.

The king looked up from his eggs and toasted
bread. When he saw Iardith, his thick eyebrows contracted. “What is
she doing here—who are these others?”

Jarvas pointed to Taniva. “What
were
you doing, anyway? You didn’t really go up there to dance and
sing?” He sent an accusing look at Iardith. “Despite what was
said.”

Iardith just shrugged. “I hope,” she
enunciated, “there is a breakfast ordered for me—and I am not
required to eat it in front of a gaggle of lackeys.”

The king and Jarvas ignored her. Despite the
situation, Rhis felt another butterfly-wing of laughter behind her
ribs: it obviously had not only been a hideous journey for the
swain, but the king didn’t seem any more enamored of the Beauty of
Arpalon than his son now was.

“We come to rescue Princess from Arpalon,”
Taniva said, confronting the king, arms crossed.

The king frowned. “You are High Plains?”

“Taniva of—”

“Heh,” the king said, and grinned. It was a
humorous grin, but there was far too much gloat in his voice when
he said, “Your father is going to just hate the ransom I’m going to
demand.”

Taniva said something that made the king
throw back his head and laugh. “You’ve got courage, girl, but then
we knew that.” He glanced wryly at his son. “Got your blade
back?”

Jarvas pointed silently to the blue gemstones
winking above his belt.

“And these others? Potential ransoms, I
trust?”

“Shera of Gensam,” Shera said in a small
voice.

“Yuzhyu of Ndai.”