Sasharia En Garde (58 page)

The implied threat silenced the mage.

Canardan felt the inner click of the message-box magic,
which was somewhat of a relief. Dannath had, so far, always responded
immediately.

He flipped it open and pulled out the folded square.
Randart’s neat writing filled the entire paper.
For a month we have been tracking Atanial’s daughter Sasharia on your
orders earlier in the summer. Damedran has her now. I am in Ambais to meet him.
Planned to have her in hand before sending my report.

Canardan laughed, then flicked the paper in Zhavic’s
direction. He watched the master mage read it.

“What’s the matter now?” Canardan demanded when the mage
handed back the paper, his lips tightly closed.

Zhavic looked out the window as rain began tapping the
glass. “A month. And you didn’t know. I wonder if he really was going to tell
you when he did get hold of her.”

Canardan threw the pen down. “Damnation, we’re right back to
where we were! Why not? What else would he do with her?”

“Perran believes that she might be coerced into a match with
Damedran. So that he could become . . . the heir.”

“That again.”

Canardan’s grim look sent a spurt of pleasure through
Zhavic. The mages didn’t believe any such thing. Randart’s mind did not run to
marriages. But the king’s did. And reminding him of the Randarts’ suspected
plot to put Damedran on the throne was always a good idea.

Zhavic went on in a slow, ruminative voice, as if he were
thinking, though he and Perran had rehearsed this interview half a dozen times.
“I think Perran’s wrong. I wonder if Randart means to assassinate her. The war
commander’s thinking appears to be of military and political advantage, not
magical.”

Canardan frowned at the mage. “What are you talking about?”

“Why else would he take so long to secure her and without
letting you know? If he wanted to find out where she was going—”

“The cook! She was the cook!” The king snapped his fingers.
“Jehan had her briefly. Randart went out to search Jehan’s yacht and didn’t find
her. I assumed because the girl had slipped Jehan’s grip before Randart showed
up. But now I think Jehan was lying to Randart. And she was there all along.
Which changes everything.” The king drew in a slow breath. “Only which way?”

“What?” Zhavic’s voice, which was far more revealing than
his face, lost the smoothness of rehearsed musing and revealed genuine
spontaneity. “Princess Atanial’s daughter is a cook?”

The king snorted a not-quite-laugh. “You don’t remember? I
do. I’ve always had a head for details. Which, one could argue, is what
kingship is. The tall female cook on Jehan’s yacht, with the flour all over her
face so no one saw what she looked like—” He turned his head, spoke sharply.
“Page!”

The runner on duty outside the king’s study opened the door.

“Request Prince Jehan to attend me for an immediate
interview.” He turned back to Zhavic. “Finish your point.”

Magister Zhavic had been wondering how to get back to it. He
smiled. “Well. If you consider she was last known aboard the pirate ship, and
presumably managed to escape somewhere along the coast—”

“Or was rescued by a very romantic prince, let us say.”

Zhavic blinked, and the look he gave the king caused
Canardan to laugh out loud.

“No, I have not lost my wits. Though I might be chasing down
the wrong trail. We’ll know in a moment. Go on. So Atanial’s daughter escapes
on the coast . . .”

“. . . then turns up in Bar Larsca, what kind
of a vector, as the military term it, does that give you?”

The king rubbed his chin, mentally reviewing the map. “Not
the siege, though she’s close. That makes no sense.”

“Think magic, not military,” Zhavic urged. “Remember who her
father was. Though you were not trained, surely your first wife told you some
things about the magical part of our history—”

“Ivory Mountain?” the king asked and watched the mage’s face
smooth into blandness. “But why? That’s an old morvende geliath, empty for
centuries. Even I know that.”

As usual, Zhavic’s voice betrayed him. “If Mathias is alive,
it could be that he is hiding there, beyond time.”

Canardan rapped his knuckles on the table. “How do you get
to that conclusion?”

“While guarding the old World Gate site, Perran decided to
do a thorough search of the castle. He found a couple of hidden chambers, and
one of them held some of Glathan’s old papers. Nothing was astoundingly
revealing, or
we
would have reported
instantly to you,” Zhavic added quickly.

He shifted on his seat. “But in a chest Glathan had stored
an old book on morvende geliaths. That book is well known to mages. Most of us
have a copy. At first Perran didn’t even look through it. But as time went on
and he had finished his search, he decided to go through all the books and
papers in a methodical way. In that book, the reference to Ivory Mountain had a
scribble next to it, in some kind of code.”

“So you think this girl might go to Ivory Mountain and free
Math? But she’s not a mage.”

“We know she was taught at least one difficult spell.”

Canardan nodded slowly. He was beginning to wish he’d
listened to Dannath in those early days. His reasoning was clear, if brutal. A
quick, clean death for Math, and the problem goes away. Kill the woman, too, or
send her back to her own world. Keep the girl and raise her to marry the heir.
The popular but incompetent family Zhavalieshin sinks into memory, along with
incompetent royal families of the past.

Canardan ran his thumb back and forth along Randart’s note,
remembering how he’d steeled himself to see it through. All those clear reasons
Mathias should die: most important, his incompetence as king. Except at this
remove, Canardan knew that most of Mathias’s supposed incompetence had actually
been attempts to cope with the mess the old king had made of things.

He gave his head a shake. The prospect of Mathias walking
back in suddenly had ceased to worry him a few years ago. Now it was back.

Canardan turned in his chair, as if physical movement could
shake certain other more uncomfortable memories, and he frowned at the mage,
who was studying his hands. Underneath all this hinting and innuendo about
Randart’s secret plans lay the old question again. Why did the mages
really
want to find Mathias? The mages
always seemed to have their own plans, which may or may not quite be the same
as his. Mathias had been raised to magic knowledge, not to military. Maybe they
thought if he returned, mages would gain the political ascendance that Randart
thwarted with vigilant energy.

A tap at the door caused Canardan to lean forward. “Enter.”

The page stepped inside. “Prince Jehan is not in the
castle.”

Chas appeared directly behind him, face slick with sweat.

The king locked his jaw hard against a surge of rage. He
twiddled his fingers in dismissal, and the page ducked round Chas, obviously
relieved at being able to escape.

Chas walked in and gave the mage a poisonous look. But the
king did not dismiss Magister Zhavic.

So Chas said, “He’s gone. So is that boy he kept as personal
servant. And—”

“There’s always an ‘and’, these days,” Canardan murmured,
waggling his fingers again. “Yes, get on with it.”

“Certain among the guard are missing as well, all without
leave.”

Canardan smacked his hands down on the desk, stood, and
dropped back into his chair. This time he swept everything except the inkwell
off the desk in one angry motion. Papers hissed to a snowdrift on the floor as
he pulled a small communication note from inside the desk, and wrote:

Jehan, where are you
and what are you doing?

He shoved the paper inside the magic box and tapped out
Jehan’s signal.

No one spoke, or moved, until the king twitched. He’d received
a magical signal, which meant an answer had arrived. He pulled out and read a
paper, then tossed it onto the desk, the inscription toward them. “What d’you
make of that?” he asked, grinning.

They leaned forward and read:

I am here to rescue
Sasharia Zhavalieshin from Dannath Randart
.

“My son might be an idiot, but he’s a romantic idiot,”
Canardan said, almost buoyant with relief. He’d feared treachery. He couldn’t
even bear to think about that. Here was the real answer, even if it wasn’t
quite reasonable. But Jehan had always been like his mother, romantic and
idealistic. “I don’t know why he didn’t tell me. Maybe more romantic that way.
Wait. He did tell me the other day that he wanted to find
her . . . and yes, I told him to sit tight. Well, well. Maybe
he’s not such an idiot after all. At least, not when it comes to romance.”

Laughing, he bent over the paper, crossed out the former
words and wrote below, in small letters:
So
who has her?

And the answer came back:
No one, right now.

Canardan did not show that response to Zhavic or Chas, who
tried to sneak peeks at those upside down letters, but the king kept using the
same scrap of paper, as did the prince, the writings tinier and tinier.

And if I order you to
come home? Saying that I will deal with Randart as I see fit?

This time the wait was longer. The king was aware of his own
breathing sounding loud and harsh, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears as he
stared down at his thumb prints on the gleaming golden box.

Zing! An answer. Jehan’s print was small, the letters
carefully formed. I have to do what is right. I don’t think you can protect her
from Randart. I think I can.

The king sighed, ripping the paper into tiny bits. Then he
got up from behind the desk. The other two wheeled to face him as he paced the
few steps to the fireplace and cast the note into the fire. But he kept his
back to the two men as he sorted his reactions. Some relief, much exasperation.
Jehan was a romantic, but it seemed he’d chosen to grow up at last. And typical
of sons, with terrible timing and headlong foolishness.

Canardan sat down at the desk, pulled out another note, and
wrote:
Dannath, whether you have the girl
or not, return to the siege
. He shoved it into the case and tapped out
Randart’s pattern.

Silence again, the mage and the spy standing, the king
neither speaking nor looking their way as he waited for an answer. Again there
was a wait. Then:

With all respect,
sire, are you not losing sight of an advantage? Permit me to secure then bring
to you this objective. You can then decide what to do from a position of
strength
.

Canardan sat back. Another day—yesterday—before the mage
came, before the note from his son, he might have shrugged and accepted that.
As he always had in the past. But. He stared down at the piece of paper and
Randart’s strong, assured handwriting. Despite their long friendship, despite
the reasonable wording, the implied service, the truth was, Dannath Randart had
refused an order.

Canardan tapped his fingers on the magic box. His first
impulse was to demand that Dannath return at once and face him. But even if he
said he was riding back, how many of those damned transfer tokens did he
possess? Unless he was directly under Canardan’s eye, he could go anywhere in
an eyeblink, do anything, while saying he was on his way back.

Canardan swung around, glaring at the fire. Did he distrust
Dannath, after all these years?

Tap, tap, tap.

Randart had made no mention of Ivory Mountain. If he did
capture that wretched girl and promptly ride either for the siege or for the
royal city, Canardan would know everything was as it should be. Least said, the
better.

The king looked up at the waiting men. “Have my guard saddle
up. Say nothing of the destination, only that the king wishes to ride on
inspection.” His smile was unpleasant. “We’re riding for Ivory Mountain, but as
yet only the three of us know that. It will be interesting to see who else
shows up, eh?”

War Commander Randart counted out his paces.
Fifty . . . a hundred. Still no answer.

Relief. If the king was going to answer, he would have by
now. Why had he suddenly took it into his head to interfere at this moment,
when matters were the busiest? But wasn’t it always that way? You are presented
with a crisis of events, and that’s when one and all choose to interrupt.

Randart looked out through the tower window at the rain,
already receding eastward. Rain. Another disruption. If Damedran hadn’t managed
to reach one of the military roads, he was no doubt bogged down on some
civilian mud track, and that would slow him down.

Randart threw his gold case with a clatter onto the desk,
then remembered he was at Ambais. This was a loyal garrison, but they were not
used to his ways, and he didn’t want to have to shoot someone who touched his
things.

So he picked up the case again, thrust it into his pouch,
and began pacing, glaring periodically out the window at the courtyard as if he
could mentally pull Damedran and those boys in by force of will.

Elsewhere in the castle he could hear the orderly march of
events—sentries at their duty, some noise from the mess hall at the bottom of
the stone stairway. This was an old fortress, small, inconvenient, but easy to
defend and tough to attack. Not that he expected an attack.

Pace, pace, glance out the window. Was that a speck on the
road? More than one speck?

He wrenched open the ill-fitting glass, which was befogged
with steam. Cold air blew in drops of rain as he peered down the gentle slope
below the castle. Sharp disappointment. Yes, two riders galloping up the
military road.

Not Damedran, only the trackers he’d sent out to meet the
boys and reinforce them for the last leg of their journey. He’d known Damedran
would be disgusted with any reinforcement on his first mission, especially a
successful mission. Randart would have been at his age as well. But this vile
female was far too important for any prudent commander to consider mere boyish
emotions.