The Alliance (6 page)

“Thank you.” The captive seemed relieved. “My boy first. He’s afraid.” His chin indicated another captive, a youth in his late teens.

Rachael felt the sergeant’s nod, and then she seemed to sense his thought. It was softer, almost ruminative,
Damn it, Red. You’ve slipped through my fingers again,
and the scene shifted to the charcoal burner’s camp. Thin spirals of smoke came from all the mounds. Her signal was on its way.

* * * *

Kamran watched the hangings without emotion. It was good training for his men and the smugglers were getting off more lightly than they deserved. The High Born were quite inventive when it came to punishing an attack on them. They enjoyed inflicting pain. He would have to be careful when he explained the operational necessity of hanging the smugglers immediately so captives wouldn’t hamper his men when the second group arrived.

He might not have the interrogation skills of his scouts, but winkling information out of men who knew they were doomed didn’t require them. Except for Red slipping through his fingers again, he felt pleased with the day’s work. The companies had carried out the attack with dispatch, losing less than a handful to the smuggler’s twenty. When they finished the hangings, he’d rest them to eat a meal cooked by the women, and then they could dispose of the dead while he scouted for a good ambush position. Two successful battles would bind them to him and, if Red got her signal away, it would work in his favor. He needed the Federation to know how she died for their reaction to give him the opportunity, and these men the power, to grasp it.

Not that he had any illusions about the Federation. He’d seen their methods on other planets and the difference between them and the High Born was minimal. The trick was to offer them an easy way to get what they wanted and ride their need to the top. They wanted to establish a Treaty Port. If he had to, he could give them this principality and a chance for revenge on the High Born who humiliated them and ordered their agent killed.

“Sergeant,” one of the women said. “I heard you asking about a High Born.”

“Do you know something?” He studied her appearance. Younger than the others, her clothes a little finer, she could be a servant to the High Born.

“There was one. I was with her when they caught us. She did a deal, trading me and her jewels for freedom. Half the smugglers had her by the fire before she left.”

“Her name?” He didn’t doubt the woman’s story. It was typical High Born behavior.

“Fleur d’Gracay.”

His Idiot’s sister-in-law. “You’re certain she left.”

“I heard them boasting she’d taken a young one to her bed and damn near gelded him.”

“She’ll not welcome the sight of you.” He could guess what was coming next.

“She’ll have me killed.” The woman straightened, she’d placed her life in his hands in a desperate gamble to survive, but she wouldn’t beg.

“Do any of the other women know?”

She nodded. “Our deaths were part of the deal.”

“Go back to your cooking. I want my men well fed.” He offered her a sliver of hope to buy time.

“Thank you, sergeant.” She was definitely a servant, aping the manners of a High Born, and smart enough to realize she’d set him a pretty problem.

There’d been time and opportunity for any one of the women to have told their story to a half dozen of his men and this one was smart enough to either make sure the story was spread widely or ensure her companions remained silent. His first problem was to decide which and he had no prospect of getting a truthful answer from anyone.

His safest course was to have the women hung as soon as the meal ended. Anything else put him at the mercy of the first gossipmonger who wanted to curry favor with the High Born. It would damage any personal loyalty the men might feel to him at a time when he was planning to use it for his own purpose, but it insulated him from failure. Yet, none of the women could expect to return to their homes as long as the High Born ruled—unless he was successful in deposing them.

Kamran shook his head at the folly of sharing his plans. He might just as well draw his dagger and cut his own throat. It would be less painful than what the High Born would do. No one must know until after he cut a deal with the Federation.

Peripheral vision caught the surreptitious glances from the women, proving they were aware he had a problem in dealing with them. That much of what the servant said was true. In their place, he’d poison the food, taking revenge in advance.

He smiled at the thought, knowing he’d already decided.

* * * *

Anneke stirred uneasily in her sleep, the movement waking Rachael, the vividness of her dream fading as her mind rejected the horror she’d witnessed.

Daylight was filtering into their retreat and the morning sounds of the birds nesting in clefts of the rock seem magnified against the stillness surrounding them. Rachael never realized how completely the forest absorbed sound. There were few of them on her world.

“Good morning.” Anneke’s voice sounded soft, but its tone turned Rachael in time to catch the haunted expression in her eyes before it faded. “I really needed that sleep, but we’d best eat and be on our way.” Anneke reached for the provisions and started sorting them into the immediately edible. “This bread and sausage will do. There’s a creek to cross just down the track. We’ll drink there.” She acted all business, her moment of melancholy forgotten.

“I’m hungry,” Rachael agreed, wondering what had caused it. The Alliance agent seemed indestructible, treating triumph and disaster with the same aplomb. Rachael felt she could depend on her absolutely, something she could never say about her fellow agents in the Federation.

It was an uncomfortable train of thought, smacking of disloyalty, but it was time she acknowledged her survival lay in Anneke’s capable hands. She would be dead twice over if it were not for her. Anneke’s reasons puzzled her, yet Rachael had more than a sneaking suspicion Anneke had told the truth in the beginning. The situation had offended her sense of fairness and the Alliance agent involved herself to redress the imbalance. A quixotic feel to it matched Anneke’s character.

Another related matter was her reaction to the intimacy of their embrace last night and in the poacher’s hut. Rachael had experimented with lesbian love and enjoyed it. Not as much as a heterosexual relationship with the right man, but enough to recognize Anneke’s embrace as asexual. She suspected the Alliance agent could swing both ways, as most agents must, but she treated Rachael more like a younger sister than a potential partner. It felt comfortable, but she was not sure she felt entirely flattered.

Anneke ate efficiently, chewing her food long enough to ensure she was satisfied by the experience and could hold hunger pangs at bay for an extended period and not wasting a morsel. Rachael had the sense an expert had trained Anneke. One proven right so many times, it was now second nature for follow his training. The fleeting memory of a strong male face passed through her mind and disappeared.

“Time to go.” Anneke had finished and was packing the food away. “There’s a junction just beyond the creek that leads toward the sea.” She perked up, smiling a secret smile about some thought.

Rachael finished the last mouthful of sausage and followed suit, folding her share of the food into her shawl and tying it diagonally across her back. “I’m ready.”

“I’ll lift the branch higher going out,” Anneke said. “You should fit.”

Rachael bit her lip in chagrin, but said nothing as she slid toward the opening, making it through without her bundle of food catching.

* * * *

Kamran felt amused when the servant girl brought him a platter of food. They were on tenterhooks to know his answer.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the platter. “What’s your name?”

“Helene.”

“A High Born name?” He raised an eyebrow.

“It amused my mistress. My parents called me Ellen.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“I’ve been Helene for so long it feels natural.” The girl gave an expressive shrug, still unconsciously aping her mistress.

It wasn’t unusual for an attractive peasant girl to enter the Keep at an early age as a companion to a High Born child. Some of them became partners in sexual experiments as well. It made them discreet companions for illicit assignations.

Kamran sampled the food on the platter, smiling a little as he remembered his earlier thoughts of poison. It tasted very good and he felt hungry, so he stood there and ate the lot, sopping up the meat juices with a thick-cut round of bread at the end.

“Thank you,” he said, handing the platter to the girl, who stood patiently while he ate.

“Another? We’ve cooked plenty.” She’d cleaned her face and hands, combed her hair and mended the rips in her clothes. This one knew how to use her appearance.

The food tempted him, but it was full daylight now and he had much to do. “Feed the others. I’ve work to do.” He turned and walked away. He had to scout an ambush site. The second group of smugglers was due at nightfall and he wanted his men in place with plenty of time to spare. He felt her eyes watching him as he left, but didn’t turn back.

They’d find out soon enough and he gained nothing by telling them prematurely—something could change his mind.

* * * *

Anneke set a killing pace along the trail and there was no conversation, not that Rachael had any breath to spare. “We have to hurry,” Anneke said at the junction when she returned from reconnoitering the path ahead, but had not explained why. Now they approached another trail junction and the girl lifted her pace again, forcing Rachael into a trot.

“Another mile will see us clear.” Anneke’s speech showed nothing of her exertions. “They might see our tracks, but they’re hurrying to make the rendezvous by nightfall.”

Rachael didn’t have the breath to ask who “they” were. In any case, Anneke’s tone booked no discussion. She focused on keeping up, seeing nothing but Anneke’s back leading the way. For all that, she almost cannoned into her when she slowed abruptly to a walk and said, “Relax. We’re clear.”

Another twenty minutes at the slower pace brought them to a tiny creek crossing and Anneke called a halt, freeing Rachael to collapse on a sloping grassy bank.

“There was a natural lookout further along the other track. Another rock like the one where we slept. From its top, I could see where the trail back there came through a gap and there was a large group coming our way. I know there’s a smuggler’s rendezvous back that way,” Anneke waved in the general direction of where they came, “and it made sense they were heading for it. Another mile that way,” she pointed the way they were going, “is the first village. They’ll want to keep clear of it. We’ll rest here for ten minutes and then start circling around it. We don’t want to be seen either.”

Rachael contented herself with a nod, talking was beyond her for the moment. Obviously, the Alliance agent’s alertness had preserved their lives yet again. Her debt was piling up and she had no idea how to repay Anneke. She must find a way.

* * * *

Anneke swore under her breath, turning away to hide her expression. She had trapped herself into over-explaining. Peter and Karrel would shake their heads at her mistake. She felt tired and trapped into traveling through the physical world with the Federation girl. Peter was right. She must learn to curb her impulses.

The sergeant would have his hands full with the second group of smugglers. It’d take all his skill to overcome them with only three companies of raw troops, for all the stiffening of experienced men. All he had going for him was the smuggler’s tiredness and his choice of an ambush site.

She’d felt sick when she woke and realized he was hanging them all, and then she scanned his mind and understood what he was sparing them. Her trick to ensure he followed the smugglers had backfired. She shook her head to dispel her stupidity. On this world, they hung smugglers on capture. There were no trials, just summary executions. She merely hastened their fate.

His solution to the problem of the women amused her. It was typically pragmatic and his hand would appear to be forced. He was a clever man trapped in an impossible situation and making the best of it. Except in the matter of Rachael’s death, she hoped he succeeded. The High Born had exhausted their credit here, although the girl, Helene, appeared to be an exception.

The shadow on the grass reached the mark she’d chosen. It was time to go.

“Rest time over,” she smiled encouragingly at Rachael. “It’s time to move.”

* * * *

Helene knew her life rested in the sergeant’s hands and his livery marked him as an enemy of her family. She’d been a fool. Fleur engineered their capture to establish her new husband’s family claim to Helene’s estates. The High Born blood lines were convoluted and subject to much scrutiny.

The other women had guessed her secret and looked to her to protect them, ready to do whatever she asked. They’d already lied to the sergeant about the phantom High Born he’d heard and had now excelled themselves in the matter of food. She should save them, if she could.

She had no doubt the sergeant was the key. She watched him in the aftermath of the attack, seeing his wounded attended, honoring their dead, and dispensing justice. He was a good soldier, but an unusual man, commanding a high level of loyalty, even from the half-trained men of the levy. His company sergeants trusted him and the trained men looked to him instinctively, copying his demeanor without realizing it.