The Sleeping King (27 page)

She spied a pair of soldiers charging around the corner, weapons drawn. They raced to the edge of the dock and skidded to a halt, looking about frantically.

“Pssst. Over here.”

Raina started. It sounded like that whisper had been directed at her. She searched around quickly.

“Don't look,” the whispered voice bit out, disgusted. “Make your way over here casually, behind the wagon.”

Her common sense ordered her in no uncertain terms to turn tail and run full tilt the other way. But there was something familiar about that voice.…

She peered around the end of the wagon and spied a golden-haired elf crouching in the shadows. “Cicero!” she exclaimed.

“Keep your voice down, for stars' sake,” he muttered. He yanked her down beside him into the shadow of a stack of barrels.

“Are those soldiers after you?” she asked under her breath.

A grunt was her only answer. She'd take that as a yes. Cicero peeked past the barrels and then subsided next to her. “The barge just down there to our right is getting ready to cast off. We'll make a run for it at the last second. Timing will be everything. When I say go, take off running for all you're worth and don't look back or slow down for anything. Understood?”

“Not at all. What's going on?”

“No time to explain,” he replied. “Just do what I say if you wish to remain free.”

Alarmed, she nodded, securing her pack more tightly against her back, eyeing the barge Cicero indicated. He sidled along the wall of the warehouse, using stacks of crates for cover, and she followed along as best she could. They paused next to a straw pile, crouching huddled up to it.

Cicero stood and eased away from the wall. He mouthed silently,
Ready … Set—

A jingling noise from an oxen harness very close by slammed them both back against the damp stone wall at their backs. She mimicked Cicero, who stood stock-still. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied soldiers milling in the road no more than twenty paces distant. Three more soldiers had joined the first two. They all looked to be reporting to one of the late arrivals.
C'mon, c'mon. Finish talking already and go away!
The first mooring line of their barge had just been cast off.

And still the soldiers chatted. They looked to be trying to figure out what to do next. The second line was cast off and thrown to the barge's deck. One more line to go. Time was running out.

The barge's crew cast off the last line with maddening slowness while she waited in an agony of impatience. The sailors picked up their long poles and walked to the front of the boat. Her muscles tensed. If she and Cicero were going to catch the barge, they had to go now.

With massive arms, the sailors jabbed the poles into the river bottom and commenced walking slowly toward the back of the boat. Cicero took a deep breath, and she did the same.

By inches, the heavy barge crept away from the dock. A balky ox on board bellowed as the vessel began to rock gently beneath his feet, and the captain shouted for one of his men to blindfold the animal. No help for it that the ruckus had drawn the full attention of the soldiers.

“Go!” Cicero ordered.

She went. As fast as her legs would carry her.

“Halt! You there! In the name of the Empire, halt!”

She and Cicero streaked across the road, cloaks flying. Footsteps pounded on the hard-packed dirt behind them. She gritted her teeth and ran for her life, concentrating fiercely on catching the barge before her. A gap appeared between the barge and the dock, some six feet of ominous, hungry-looking black water. Now seven feet. She barreled down the slope and clattered onto the wood dock. Eight feet. Nine.

It was too far for her to jump!

Cicero soared out into space in front of her. She had no choice but to do the same. One of the soldiers was tearing down the slope only a few yards behind her. It was the barge or a swim for her life. She took the last few steps at a dead run, flinging herself out into space, arms flailing.

Her toes just caught the edge of the barge's flat platform. Her momentum carried her forward, but her feet slipped and she lost purchase on the slippery deck. She began to fall, her shins sliding painfully down the ends of the planks into the water. She wasn't going to make it. Cold water closed around her legs. But then strong arms caught her under the armpits, rolling away from the edge of the barge and yanking her along. She was bodily dragged aboard in a heap, her sodden skirts dripping on the deck. She untangled herself enough to push up against a warm, strong chest. Cicero.

“Thanks be,” she panted

Exasperated, he snapped, “Next time you choose to run away from home, do not wear a fancy dress with such a heavy skirt. Had you fallen into the water, it would have weighed you down and drowned you. Adventurers, even women, must needs wear practical clothing!”

The first thing that registered was the complete absence of peasant accent in his voice. He sounded as educated as her parents or herself. Only secondarily did she register that he hadn't shared with her exactly how dangerous his plan to jump for the barge had actually been.

As irritated as Cicero was about her dress, he wasn't half so irritated as the soldiers shouting on the dock behind them for the barge to come back to shore. Raina glanced back and shuddered at the nearness of her escape. Apparently, the soldier who'd nearly caught up with her had thought better of duplicating her jump. Which was just as well, since he and all of his comrades wore heavy chain-mail shirts. A fall into the river for one of them would've meant certain drowning.

“Gimme a good reason why I oughtn't do as them soldiers is shoutin' at me to and return to shore,” a voice growled over her head.

Raina looked up. The barge captain. “Because they want to drag my friend off and imprison him or worse, when all he has done is help me out of a difficult situation.”

The sailor shrugged. “They's Anton's men. Disobeying 'em is same as disobeying 'im. An' I ain't inclined to cross the guv'nuh'. 'E's a mean one, 'e is.”

Raina winced. “Can't you tell them the current is too strong to turn around? Or that your cargo is bound for the governor and you dare not keep him waiting?” She gave the captain her best approximation of a kicked-puppy look—the one that always worked on Justin.

The captain's expression softened a tiny bit. “I shouldn't.”

She poured all the charm she possessed into her voice. “But in your heart, you know it's the right thing to do. Please. Just this once.”

Cicero piped up from where he sprawled beneath her, “Cut her a break, man. She has done nothing wrong. The soldiers were chasing me.”

Raina scrambled off of him, mumbling an embarrassed apology.

He climbed to his feet, flashing her a rare, wry smile from behind those wise eyes of his. “We are willing to pay handsomely for passage downriver. I've enough gold to make it worth your while to … look the other way … regarding our manner of boarding.”

The captain's eyes took on a cunning gleam that worried Raina. “Give it to me now.”

Cicero laughed merrily. “Not a chance. I'll show it to you now. But you'll not get a copper until we set foot upon shore.” Raina noted that Cicero's hand rested comfortably on the hilt of his sword.

The captain must have noted the same, for he scowled but nodded in agreement.

The pole men had pushed them out into the main portion of the river and the barge rocked gently as the current caught it. The soldiers onshore yelled insults and invective at the captain, their threats of what they were going to do to him upon his return growing ever more dire.

He glanced over at Cicero. “Ye'd best pay me well. I ain't gonna be able to put ashore in Castlegate Falls fer a while.”

Cicero shrugged. “They're human. Short memories. In a few months, they won't remember a thing.”

The captain, a human, too, grinned. “Aye, true enough, pointy ears. Fugitives like you two are as common as copper. Them soldiers'll find themselves a bigger fish to fry afore long.”

Raina's heart dropped to her feet. She'd fled the Haelan legion. Disobeyed their orders to stop. She was officially a fugitive. The finality of the step she'd just taken struck her. Until now, she'd always had the option of identifying herself as Raina of Tyrel, a minor colonial noble, and she would have immediately had status and safety, not to mention a quick journey back home. But she'd just left all that behind. Her safety net was gone.

They drifted on what Cicero declared to be a stiff current. The barge traveled in an hour as far as they could have walked in half a day. The countryside as they drew closer to the capital was heavily settled, although it looked no more prosperous than the rural hinterlands.

Overnight, she and Cicero took turns napping because neither of them entirely trusted the captain not to slit their throats in their sleep and steal Cicero's purse. Raina did not ask where he had come by the pouch of coins in his absence from Mag and Arv's hut, and he did not offer an explanation. Now that they had money, she was relieved of the necessity to trade healing for passage. Which was just as well. Healers with her volume of magic were apparently quite rare and drew a fair bit of attention.

The barge rounded a bend late the next morning, and a city so vast she could not see the far margin of it came into view.
Dupree
.

Gold changed palms as the barge docked, and the captain grinned, appearing satisfied. Whether it would be enough that the fellow made no mention of them to the authorities remained to be seen.

She leaped across the short gap from deck to dock, nothing compared to the mighty jump she'd made to board the vessel. And yet she managed to catch her hem on a board and stumble headlong into a richly dressed and accoutered young noble who happened to be striding past.

He caught her as she staggered into him and righted her courteously enough. “Easy there!”

“I'm so s-s-sorry,” she stammered. “I caught my skirt, and, well, you know the rest.”

Her rescuer scanned her assessingly before answering her lightly, “No doubt, it was fate that threw you at my feet. I am Kendrick of Hyland.”

She recognized the name. Hyland was said to be one of the largest and most powerful landholds near Dupree. As she recalled, the landsgrave's given name was Leland, though. This must be his son. His handsome, charming, womanizing son, if she had to guess. He looked as spoiled and entitled as his rank suggested he might be.

“And you are?” the young man prompted her.

She and Cicero had discussed this very thing. He had no confidence in her to remember to answer to a false name, and she had to agree. Thankfully, Raina was not that uncommon a name. They'd agreed she would use it but forego her title, henceforth. She dropped automatically into a curtsy. “I am Raina. It is my pleasure to meet you, kind sir.”

Cicero glared at her over the young man's shoulder, and she realized belatedly that perhaps she should not have been so courtly in her response to Kendrick. She was supposed to be a commoner on her way to Dupree to look for work as a lady's maid. But it just felt … right … to address the young man thus. She always had had a talent for instinctively knowing the best way to speak to others, whether to strike a formal tone or respect, or gently joke, or, as in this case, to flirt a bit.

Sure enough, Kendrick's eyebrows lifted in pleased surprise. He took a closer and more interested look at her.
Curses
. “Where are you bound in such a hurry, Raina? Have you time to tarry for a while?”

If she did not know better, she would guess he thought she was some doxy for hire by the hour—no matter that she was not wearing the Entertainer's Guild colors. The idea offended her more than a little. Bent on correcting his misapprehension, she replied a shade tartly, “As you saw, my traveling companion and I have just come ashore.”

Kendrick eyed Cicero speculatively. “What sort of companion?”

It was a forward question. Not the sort a young gentleman asked of a young lady. But it was the sort of thing a noble could demand of a commoner, she supposed. “Family friend and protector,” she replied, hoping that was evasive enough while appearing to give a reasonable explanation.

Cicero rolled his eyes at her over Kendrick's shoulder. She glared back. It was better than the fellow thinking they were lovers!

“… on my way to make an urgent purchase,” Kendrick was saying. “If you would accompany me on my errand, it would be my great pleasure to dine with you afterward.”

Raina's stomach growled on command, and Kendrick laughed. “It seems your belly accepts my offer.” He ordered in a tone clearly accustomed to being obeyed, “Come then. I must hurry.”

Had a pair of surly-looking soldiers not come into sight just then prowling the docks, she would have told this arrogant young man what he could do with his order. Instead, though, she fell in meekly beside him. Cicero followed just behind her, scowling and looking exactly the part of a long-suffering bodyguard. The three of them passed by the soldiers without incident, and Raina let out the breath she'd been holding.

Kendrick made his way to a jeweler's shop. Although it was somewhat less prosperous looking than she'd have guessed a person of Kendrick's station would choose to frequent. She was quite surprised, however, when he stripped off the many rings and brooches and necklaces gaudily adorning his person and presented them to the jeweler for sale. Kendrick obviously came from wealth. What could a young man of his station need gold for so urgently that his family would not simply give it to him? A gambling habit, perchance? Or maybe the purchase of female companionship?

“What will you give me for the lot?” Kendrick demanded of the jeweler.

He and the shopkeeper haggled a price, which, frankly, she thought was highway robbery on the part of the jeweler. But as a commoner she would not know such a thing and held her tongue.