The Decoy Princess (50 page)

Contessa’s eyes widened, and I nodded, imagining Haron giving the order to start lobbing flaming tar.

“Of course,” the princess said, then motioned to Kavenlow. “My chancellor here can fund anything you need to outfit your ship for its new duties. And welcome to the palace, Captain Borlett.”

Captain Borlett’s eyes lit up with a sudden avarice. He made an awkward bow to the princess and beckoned to Kavenlow. “I’ve got a few things I’ve been wanting,” he said.

Kavenlow gave me a pained look as he obediently followed Captain Borlett out. The short man grabbed his elbow, spouting phrases like a third lateen sail, and a new galley stove, and perhaps a coat of paint. Black if they could find it.

“That’s the man who took you across the bay?” Jeck said as he leaned close, and I nodded. “I’m glad I was here to see this,” he murmured. “Your new sovereign is rough but clever. King Edmund will be taken by surprise should he think to start mischief with her.”

I smiled. “Did you expect anything less? She is my parents’ daughter.”

The remaining sentries shifted closer, and Thadd set a protective hand upon Contessa’s shoulder as Prince Garrett was bought in. I straightened, nervous for what he might say.

His wrists were bound with a soft cloth. Metal hobbles were about his stockinged feet. He was dressed in the same rumpled uniform from last night. A whisper of blond stubble was on him, looking out of place. His mien was cold and stiff as he stalked into the informal court. Jangling his shackles as if they were a badge of honor, he came to a haughty standstill before the table, a red mark on his face where my whip had reached him. “Princess,” he said, sweeping into an exquisite bow. Bringing his head up, he spat at my feet.

The sentry behind him grabbed the scruff of his neck and almost pulled him from his feet.

“No!” Contessa called, and the guard hesitated. The prince hung in his grip, a taunting smile hovering about him despite the pain he must be under. “Put him down,” she said, and the guard reluctantly did. My pulse slowed, and I settled into my seat. I hadn’t realized I had risen.

The princess looked distressed at the haggard, innocence-wronged look he had draped about him like a cloak. “I told you to offer him food,” she said. “He looks hungry.”

“He won’t eat, Princess.”

Her brow pinched. “We will get him home as quickly as possible, then.”

“You are a fool,” Garrett said, his beautifully clear voice shocking through me. “I told you last night to kill her.”

Contessa shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Tess. I didn’t want you to hear this.”

“They’re going to kill us all,” Garrett said loudly. “The farmers and the whores. They’ll kill us all when it suits them.
They
rule the world from their rows of soil and beds of lust.”

His voice had an eerie edge to it. The silky sound grated across the back of my neck, making me shudder. I wondered if Kavenlow and Jeck really had made him insane.

“I demand you return me to my father. He must be warned,” Garrett continued. “He must slaughter all the farmers and unmarried women in the streets. They can’t be allowed to live.” His green eyes went distant. “No,” he breathed. “That isn’t right. Just the whores in Costenopolie. And only the farmers in Misdev.” Garrett’s brow furrowed. Losing his upright stance, he hunched in on himself. “But not all the farmers,” he muttered. “Just those with swords. And the whores with red hair. The rest are just whores.

Yes,” he said, his voice going crafty. “Whores with red hair. That’s what I’ll do. Kill all the red-haired whores.”

A wash of uneasy relief went through me. Clearly the blurring of memory was imperfect, but the indecision in his story and the muddled state of his words would make him seem all the more insane. Still, there was enough truth in his words to make my nights occasionally sleepless.

The princess looked pained. “I’m sorry, Captain Jeck. Be careful with him on the way home. I’m afraid he might hurt someone.”

The sincerity behind her simple words outweighed their lack of tact. I wondered if I should give up on giving her royal polish and instead capitalize upon her earthy, honest nature.

Jeck gave her a bow. “Yes, Your Highness. I’ll put him safely in his father’s keep.”

Garrett jerked out of his soft mumbling. “My father is a fool!” he shouted. “He will have me beaten.

My brother will treat me like a child. I’ll have to kill them all if I want to be king!”

The princess gasped, then steadied herself. “Please give my deepest regrets to King Edmund,” she said, her eyes on Jeck. “I feel responsible somehow.”

Jeck bowed again. “I will do my best to assure him it wasn’t your doing.”

Of that, I was sublimely certain, and I made a tight, mirthless smile.

“May I go rest?” Garrett asked, his beautiful face twisted. “I feel ill.”

“Of course.” Pushing her hair from her eyes, Contessa gestured for the guards to take him.

“Not them!” Garrett shouted wildly as he fell back a step. “Where are my guards? I don’t trust you.

Your red-haired whores will poison me.”

The princess sat very still, clearly thinking. She looked to me, and I shrugged. “Tess, will you and Captain Jeck please accompany him?” she asked.

The captain of my father’s guard stiffened. “Princess!”

She raised her eyebrows, and he fell silent. “Prince Garrett is mad,” she said, “not his captain of his guard. But please, follow at a discreet distance.”

Garrett made a mocking bow, almost returning to the man he had been. “Your Highness is gracious and kind,” he taunted, making it an insult.

I rose and gathered my skirts as he strode regally from the room with Jeck at his elbow. I touched Contessa’s hand in parting, giving her a reassuring smile. She hadn’t done badly in her first formal court.

She would be fine with Kavenlow, and I knew Heather would love Contessa with all her heart, finding her a suitable companion worthy of telling all her gossip to.

There were a slew of Costenopolie guards between Jeck and me, and it wasn’t until I gained the hall that I managed to bully my way through them and catch up with Jeck and Prince Garrett. Jeck gave me a sideways look as I came even with him. Here in the hallways, I was reminded how tall the man was, standing over me by almost a full head. Garrett strode before us like an injured hero. The sentries followed obediently out of earshot. Jeck’s brow was furrowed, and he kept a terse silence. I wondered if I had done something wrong.

We entered a hall lit from wide, interspersed windows, and Jeck muttered, “You managed to get yourself a devil of a fine position, Princess. Congratulations. It took me six years to get the ear of my sovereign. How nice it was so easy for you.”

“Easy!” I said, offended, as I looked up to see his jaw clenched behind his trim beard. “You call the last week and a half easy?”

“The only thing that would have made it easier for you was if it had rained to cover your tracks,” he muttered.

My anger swelled. “You don’t want me to go, do you,” I said in sudden understanding. “You don’t want me in your lands.”

Jeck’s lips pressed together, going unseen behind his beard and mustache. “You couldn’t be farther from the truth,” he said, but he looked angry, and it confused me. His pace was stiff, and his neck was red. Reaching into an inner pocket, he pulled out my bone knife. “Here.”

The knife thrust belligerently into my hand was warm from his body. He had kept it. I had thought he had sold it to buy a horse. “Thank you,” I said sharply. “I thought Kavenlow searched you.”

“That’s what he thought, too.”

I frowned, tucking my knife into the wide sash of my dress where it belonged. The weight of it felt comfortable. “Your knives are with my handmaiden. I’ll get them when I can.”

“I would appreciate that.”

We continued. Confused and angry, I walked beside him, Garrett before us. Jeck took a deep breath as we passed a window, glancing up and down the hall. There were sentries at either end, but they were too far away to hear. “Has Kavenlow explained to you about your—hands?” he asked, and I started, shocked from my anger at the shift in topics.

I said nothing, looking at Garrett in concern as I came to a wide-eyed halt. Jeck stopped with me, and when Garrett continued Jeck pulled him back, pushing him roughly into the wall. The young prince’s eyes narrowed, but he stayed put.

Frowning, Jeck took off his foolish-looking hat, his gaze drifting over my shoulder to the sentries coming to a halt out of easy earshot. “It’s just that…” He hesitated. “Oh, to hell with it,” he muttered. My eyes widened as he made a fist. Drawing it back, he swung it at Garrett with a small grunt, as smooth and sweet as honey.

I gasped. The prince saw it coming but had no time to react.

Jeck’s fist smashed into his chin. Garrett’s head snapped back and hit the wall with a hollow thunk.

Shocked, I gathered my skirts and stepped back as the royal crumpled.

Satisfaction heavy on Jeck, he shook his hand free of the pain. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

My gaze rose to the guards jogging our way. “It’s all right,” I called, and they hesitated. “We’re fine.

Prince Garrett is fine. Thank you.” They came to an uncertain halt. “Go on back.”

Laughing among themselves, they returned to a respectful distance, gossiping. I faced Jeck squarely, a quiver in my middle as I waited to hear what he didn’t want Garrett to know.

Jeck rubbed his hand, meeting my gaze from under his shock of black hair. “Tess, Kavenlow is your master. And that he cares for you is obvious. But he…” His stance shifted from foot to foot, and his shoulders hunched. “Has he told you why your hands hum?” he asked.

“He…” I hesitated. “He said I returned from me dead with the punta’s ability to heal.”

He nodded, a tension easing in him. “Did he also tell you that you can kill with them?”

I took a step back, frightened. Seeing my cold face, Jeck nodded as if I had confirmed something.

“No. He hasn’t,” he said.

“Why are you telling me this?” I demanded, my stomach light and my knees weak.

He leaned close, his brown eyes carrying a sly anticipation that settled over me like a chill. “I’m saying Kavenlow is your master, but nothing says it has to stay that way.”

Shocked he dared make his offer a second time, I drew back. “Kavenlow is my teacher. I am young, Captain. Not stupid.”

I turned with a flounce, gasping when he grabbed my upper arm. “Wait,” he demanded.

I froze in fear as I heard the snick of steel from learner. It wasn’t Jeck but the sentries at the end of the hall. Swallowing hard, I tugged free of Jeck’s loose grip and waved the guards back. I was shaking inside, but if I was going to have this conversation, I wanted them close.

Jeck took a step from me, darting a glance at the sentries. “Tess, hear me out,” he said softly as Garrett lay slumped between us. “You’re young, and raw with talent. I can see why Kavenlow took you as a student. But you’re just that. A student. What I’m proposing isn’t uncommon. Apprentices are wooed from their original teachers more often than not. It’s hard to trust the man who continually poisons you.”

My anger faltered at the truth of what he was saying. Seeing it, his brown eyes probed mine. “That’s why Kavenlow didn’t have you recognized for so long. Your high tolerance to venom makes you extremely valuable. But, Tess, he can’t teach you to heal with your hands. He didn’t even recognize you had the ability, did he.”

It wasn’t a question, and he read my answer in that I was unable to look at him.

The tips of Jeck’s black boots shifted under my gaze. “The force you can direct through you swings both ways, and willy-nilly experimentation is likely to get you or the one you are trying to heal killed.”

I felt a stab of fear and I looked up. I wondered if that was why Kavenlow had been so worried when he told me why my hands hummed.

“I can teach you things he can’t, Tess,” Jeck said, his low voice running through me like ice in a river.

“Things he won’t. I know he has high ideas and plans for conquest by commerce. But he’s wrong. The world doesn’t change that quickly. Be my apprentice, and I will teach you things Kavenlow can’t—or won’t.”

“Kavenlow knows what he’s doing,” I said, but even I could hear the doubt in it.

Jeck smiled, straightening to look over my shoulder. “Your loyalty suits you. But ask him… ask him if what I say is true. He has never been honest with you with about his past—your past. It’s ugly, Tess, the things he’s done, the atrocities he’s capable of. He has outright lied to you. I never have. I never will.”

My eyes fell from his as a seed of doubt wedged itself deep, buried under my denial.

“While you’re in Misdev, let me at least teach you how to heal with your hands,” he continued. “I’m sure once you know enough, you’ll decide I’m right and stay. If not, return to Kavenlow.”

It sounded too easy. But then I realized I could take him for all his knowledge and bring it back to Kavenlow.

A pleased expression was in Jeck’s eyes when I met them. “You just had a thought to take what you could from me and leave,” he murmured.

Fear washed through me, shortly followed by a flush. Jeck chuckled, making me feel foolish. “I’m better at this than you, Tess,” he said. “Come and learn from me with the sole intent to steal, and I guarantee I’ll come out of the arrangement better than you.”

Though my knees were weak, pride narrowed my eyes. “You’re mistaken, Captain Jeck. I accept your offer. Teach me what you will, but I will stay Kavenlow’s apprentice.”

There was a scuff from behind us, and we both spun. My hand was at my topknot, and Jeck’s was tucked behind his jerkin. It was Kavenlow, his venom-induced skills allowing him to get this close without alerting either of us. He was better than both of us combined.

“What are you two doing in the middle of the hallway?” he demanded, ignoring Garrett slumped unconscious on the floor.

Squinting in the bright light from the window, I looked at Jeck. “He asked me to be his apprentice,” I said, feeling vindicated when Jeck clenched his jaw and his eye began to twitch.