The Decoy Princess

One

It might have been chance that kept my attention tight across the street and upon the mud-splattered gypsy van, but I doubted it. Nebulous coincidences like chance aren’t allowed sway in my life, everything being planned to the moment if I didn’t arrange for spontaneity. No… it was probably my thirst for something outside my ken, my wish to see what lay around the corner just outside my sight and understanding. Either that, or I was bored out of my mind.

“Look, Kavenlow,” I said, squinting in the sun at the gaily painted gypsy van. “A palmist. Here.” I dumped my latest purchase of fabric into his arms. “I want my fortune told.”

“Tess.” The man lurched to keep up with me as I started forward. “We should get back. It’s not safe for you to be out this long.”

“Oh, may God save you,” I complained. “It’s not even noon yet. I’m safer here than in my own rooms.” Whether fortunate or unfortunate, it was true, and I confidently made my way across the busy street, a way parting itself for me as I cut across the narrow avenue for the wood-slatted, horse-drawn van parked in the shade of the closely packed buildings.

There was a huff of exasperation as Chancellor Kavenlow hastened to catch up, and I slowed. I gave the thickset man a surreptitious look to gauge his irritation as he came even. His lightly wrinkled face was taut, his cheeks red from the sun’s heat. The fingers gripping my packages were strong from reining in unruly horses, their tips stained from the ink I had spilled during my history lesson yesterday. His neatly trimmed black beard and hair were grizzled with white, as were his thick eyebrows. But his jaw yet carried the firm sensibility I relied upon. He was still my dear Kavenlow, the one to whom I went first with my questions and last with my complaints.

Right now, his brow was creased in bother. I winced, thinking I’d reached the balance where my parents’ anger at him for letting me stay out this long outweighed the scene I would make if he bodily dragged me shrieking back behind stone walls. It hadn’t happened since I was thirteen, but the remembered humiliation still brought a warmth to my cheeks.

It had been cold when we started out, and he looked uncomfortable under his cloak; he had been carrying mine most of the morning. His boots were dusty, as was the bottom half of my dress, the street having turned the lace-strewn white cloth a begrimed yellow from my knees down. Seeing him so irate, I resolved to stop at a winery on the way home to bribe him into a better mood. If the truth be told, the black leather jerkin and dagger on his belt made him look more like a master horseman than a keeper of books and armed attendant.

“Tess,” he said, his blue gray eyes pinched as he eased into the slower pace. “I strongly suggest we go back. Your suitor has arrived early.” He glanced behind us as he shifted my packages to his other arm, squinting from the sun despite his leather cap. “And he’s brought so many soldiers. Twice as many as he needs. They’re thick in our streets.”

I forced my expression into a carefree smile. I’d noticed that as well, but since there was nothing I could do but watch and wait, I hadn’t said anything. And I knew Kavenlow was more aware of the situation than he was of the fly currently trying to land on his nose. “He probably heard what happened to Prince Rupert,” I said, thinking I could be safely married by now if the dunderhead hadn’t gotten himself killed a day’s ride inside our borders last year. Just as well. The man had a nose like a potato. “I don’t think we’ll ever live that one down,” I added, pulling up short to allow a wagon whose driver didn’t recognize me in time to rattle past.

Kavenlow looked pained as he took my elbow. “The point I’m making is that it’s a mistake to risk meeting him prematurely in the streets.”

“Of course I want to meet him prematurely,” I said. “I won’t see him for three weeks if my parents get their way.” Eyebrow cocked in a rather saucy expression, I pulled out of his grip and made my sedate way to the gypsy van. “I won’t be long,” I said over my shoulder. “While I’m with the madam, you can get a drink from the tavern across the street. And I need a rest,” I lied. “This heat is doing terrible things to my hair.”

I fussed with the pile atop my head that I’d made of my waist-length curls. Apart from a few strands artfully pulled out for effect, the neat topknot was held together by not only hairpins but also needlelike darts. They were made from the bone of a bird and were hollow to hold a drop of venom. The short blowtube to launch them bisected the arrangement like a decoration. Kavenlow insisted I have them when out of the palace, though I’d never had to use them.

Kavenlow watched me check the position of my darts, his craggy face carefully neutral. I had been wearing them for the last seven years. Assassins plagued my mother’s house. My first few years had been fraught with near misses, prompting my parents to give in to Kavenlow’s insistence that he be allowed to teach me how to defend myself should I ever become separated from my guards. Hence the bullwhip I wore as a belt under a silk wrap and the throwing knife strapped to my thigh. Heaven help me if I ever needed it—I’d have to lift my skirts to reach it. The darts, though, were Kavenlow’s and my secret. One sent a person either comatose or into convulsions; two brought death. The weaponry was very unprincess-like, but then, I was supposed to shatter the world if that damned prophesy could be believed.

The attempts on my life had slackened off after my tenth year when my parents began searching for suitors, but now that I was in danger of actually marrying someone, they had started up again. This time the assassins had switched from me to anyone I had shown a liking to. It made for very nervous suitors. I couldn’t blame Prince Garrett for bringing so many men.

My eyes rose to search out the unfamiliar black and green uniforms of the Misdev prince as I rose up onto the first step of the van. I wondered if Garrett was as young and handsome as his portraits made him. If they were anywhere truthful, I wouldn’t complain. “Besides,” I added, my gaze dropping to Kavenlow’s as a thrill of anticipation flashed through me, “I want to know what Prince Garrett is like.”

“Then let’s go back to the palace, and you can ask the maids.” Kavenlow’s sea gray eyes were weary with a repressed exasperation. But the tiny scar above his eyebrow wasn’t red yet, so I knew I had some leeway.

“The maids! They won’t know anything except what color his stockings are.” Giving him a wicked smile to dare him to stop me, I climbed the last two steps and knocked dead center of the red circle on the door. A flash of expectancy struck through me and settled to a steady burn as a tremulous greeting came from inside.

I’d been waiting what seemed like half my life for a husband. And by all that was holy, it wasn’t fair to procrastinate into my third decade, shaky political situation or not. Papers had been signed, and now that I was mere days from meeting my intended, I was nervous. Gypsies were well-traveled. The madam might be able to tell me things about Prince Garrett my parents couldn’t— or wouldn’t.

I reached for the simple latch, hesitating when Kavenlow grasped my sleeve. I looked down, astonished not that he had touched me but at his troubled expression. The gypsy van had to be safe; he wouldn’t have let me come down this street if he hadn’t investigated it already. “I’m coming in with you,”

he said, worry tightening the corners of his eyes.

My lips parted in surprise. Kavenlow hated gypsies almost as much as he hated the ocean, always turning overly protective when I invited them to the palace to entertain. “It’s just a foolish woman’s fancy,” I said, mystified that my harmless entertainment had him concerned. “Go have a drink. I’ll be fine.

Perhaps you could get me one as well?”

He made a small sigh of surrender. “Very well, little miss,” he said, and I smiled. He hadn’t called me that in years. He hesitated before leaving, looking up as if fixing me into his memory. His thick, salt-and-pepper eyebrows bunched, but it was the glint of apprehension in his solemn eyes that made my stomach clench. Something was wrong.

“What is it?” I asked, my gaze roving over the noisy crowd as I came down the stair, my instincts flashing into a wary caution at the tension he was trying to hide.

“It’s nothing. Go on. I’ll wait across the street.”

Still unsure, I watched as he turned away and, with slow steps, crossed the street to sit at an outside table in the sun. I slowly mounted the stairs again, taking a long, appraising look at the street. I wasn’t convinced all was as it should be anymore.

A puff of exasperation escaped me when I spotted the blue and gold of my father’s soldiers tucked into the shadows. They were like rats; see one, know a dozen more were out of sight. Upon seeing my attention on him, the guard waved merrily. My nose wrinkled in bother, and I gave him a sour, pinky-wave back. They knew I hated them shadowing me when I was out of the palace, but I could ignore them if they remained hidden.

Kavenlow had settled himself, watching everything with his hands free and his eyes roving. Still not comfortable, I accepted the call through the door to come in. A chill enveloped me as I opened the door and stepped into the van’s darkness. Immediately I moved from the opening to let my eyes adjust to the light of two candles. It was quieter than it ought to be, the noise from the surrounding market dulled. A forest bird fluttered against the bars of its cage. Vermillion curtains and drapes hung from the ceiling to insulate against the heat and noise. A red rug spread dusty and worn, the tassels tattered.

“Close the door,” the madam whispered, and my attention jerked to a corner. She was in red, the gaudy color and her chains of jewelry blending into the bloodred background draped around her. There was a fox on her lap, and her swollen fingers gentling the animal and the tips of her stringy gray hair swinging were her only motion. I eased the door shut to seal myself in the ash-scented dark.

“Sit, girl,” the heavy woman said, her ugly voice rasping.

My eyebrow rose, but I accepted the slur in the spirit of the moment, feeling her magic gave her more latitude than most. On a small table between us sat a lit candle, an empty dish, a jagged rock, and a feather. I eased myself onto the folding stool across from her. “You wish your fortune?” she said, her harsh accent pulling my eyes to hers.

I nodded, pausing at the creased, leathery look of her face. “Yes. I’m soon to be—”