Trouble with Kings (17 page)

I had forgotten Berry’s presence, and wondered how much of Jewel’s and my conversation she had overheard. Then I dismissed that thought with a mental shrug, remembering my days as a lady’s maid. She’d heard, all right, and would probably relate all our words to whoever wanted to hear them—but that, I thought, was the Szinzars’ affair. I would soon be going home, after my side trip to Dantherei.

I waited until Berry had collected Jewel’s dishes and left before I said, “You are going to love the news I just heard. Only you better sit down first.”

She was in the act of pulling on stockings. “Don’t tease, Flian. You cannot conceive how horrible the past five days have been—” She paused. “No, actually, yours were probably worse.”

I couldn’t help a laugh. “Will you hate me if I admit that I did not find durance here very vile?”

“Impossible!” Jewel sat upright. “What is there to do? Nothing! No court, no flirts, no dancing—”

“But I had my music.”

She shook her head. “Why do I like you so much when we are so utterly different? Never mind. Go on.”

“I found out what Jason’s raising money for.”

“Which is?” She straightened her sleeve ribbons, admiring their loops.

I moved to where I could see her face best and said in my blandest voice, “He wants to take his army and march into Dantherei to rescue his beloved.”

She jumped as if she’d been pinked with a fork.

“What?” She glared at me, narrow-eyed. “You’re teasing! It can’t possibly be true.”

“Isn’t it amazing?” I laughed. The revelation still felt peculiar, as if I’d stepped onto what I thought a floor, and found it was a boat. “What’s more, it’s that very same princess that my brother is in love with. And, it seems, Garian as well.”

“Garian too? Oh, well, I don’t see why Jason shouldn’t have her, then,” Jewel said, in one of her characteristic, dizzying reversals of mood. “Maybe afterward she’ll keep him locked up writing love poems to her earlobes, and he’ll leave the rest of us alone. And Garian can gnash his teeth and wail over his lost love for the rest of his life.” She made a terrible face. “But I cannot, under any circumstances, imagine anyone in love with Jason.”

“Especially for nine years.”

“Nine?
Years?
I have to meet this wench.”

“That’s my next news. It seems that we are going to.”

She whooped with laughter. “So we’re going to Dantherei?”

“That’s what he wants.”

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” She shook with mirth. “My gut hurts! Stop. Show me what you’ve been playing during your durance vile, and I’ll tell you all the latest gossip from Carnison. You are going to
steam
when you hear the horrible things that Gilian said about me, just because I danced with Maxl twice at the ambassadors’ ball…”

She followed me into my room, where I sat down to the harp and played softly. Jewel related in colorful detail who had danced with whom, when, who was flirting with whom, and who was dallying with whom, making no attempt to be fair or objective. I listened to the tone under the brave words and laughing insults, determining several things. One: though Jewel had flirted with every handsome fellow who smiled at her, she had trysted with none of them. And second, she and Maxl had been circling one another with what sounded to me like mutual distrust—and fascination.

We were interrupted at sunset when Berry came back in, not accompanied by silent stewards carrying trays, as I had come to expect, but alone. “Your highnesses.” She gave us a grand curtsey, and I wondered if Jewel saw the humor in it. “The king requests your company for dinner.”

Jewel’s brows swooped upward as she turned to me. “Were you forced to
eat
with him?”

“Not until this moment.” I was still smiling—trying not to laugh.

“Well, let’s go see what the slimy villain is demanding now.” Jewel looked in the mirror, flicked her curls back, twitched at her ribbons, and sashayed out the door, skirts swaying.

Berry’s and my eyes met. She was biting her lip to hold in laughter. My own laugh escaped as I followed Jewel out.

Though the Szinzar castle had proven, at least in this wing, not to be a grim and dim barrack, I did not expect elegance and dazzle for a private dinner—and thus was not disappointed.

We were bowed into the same chamber we’d talked in earlier, and Jason wasn’t even there. Jewel went to the rosewood cabinet in the corner, clinked around impatiently, then reappeared with two fragile glasses shaped like bubbles, filled with an aromatic amber liquid.

“Good mead.” She brandished the goblets. “No one drinks it any more in Carnison, but it’s so cold here, and mead warms you up better than those nasty Drath wines.”

I took mine to the window where I could sip and watch the purples and roses of the sunset over the western mountains.

Jewel prowled about the room, swirling her mead in the one hand and picking up and setting down objects with the other.

Jason came in. Jewel stopped her peregrinations and scrutinized him. “You
did
get hurt!” she exclaimed.

“Markham will bring dinner directly. Unless you wished to socialize first?” he addressed his sister.

“Oh, most certainly. And a grand ball afterward,” she shot back, arrow for arrow.

A few moments later Markham appeared, supervising the stewards who carried in the trays and swiftly and silently transformed the table near the windows. Cloth, napery, silver—unexpectedly elegant.

We all sat down, were served, and then Jason looked up. Markham flicked his hand, and the stewards filed out and closed the door. Markham stayed.

Jewel ignored them all and attacked her food with enthusiasm. Jason said, “Markham is assembling your entourage.”

“I’m not so sure I want to go,” Jewel retorted with lofty scorn. “She’s
your
princess.
You
go fetch her.
I
want to go back to Carnison.”

“You can’t. Garian has his entire force roaming the borders. It would actually be safer to go north into Dantherei and then southwest into Lygiera. Why not visit the capital on the way?”

Jewel groaned. “Doing your errands. I hate that!” She eyed him. “Unless you’re lying. I can’t see you languishing after anyone, except maybe a fast horse. Or a fine sword.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed in that suppressed humor, but all he said was, “Eat your food before it gets cold.”

The food was trout in wine sauce, potatoes cooked in garlic-and-onions, and fresh peas dashed with summer herbs. It was delicious, but I was glad for the space to think. I had to consider the notion of Jason being in love, which I found oddly unsettling. I’d assumed that he wasn’t capable of it—he was removed from all human feeling besides the martial ones.

Maybe I wanted to think of him that way? But that thought perplexed me even more. I decided to ponder the question later, when he was not sitting right there before me.

“Say we do go.” Jewel waved her fork. “What are you going to do? Lounge about and recuperate?” She smirked.

“Find Jaim.”

Jewel’s smirk vanished and she glared at Jason. “You’ll never find him. Never.”

“Yes I will. I know approximately where he is. I monitored Garian’s unsuccessful searches during my stay in Drath, while my own people ran around busily creating false trails. If I’m right about the general location, Jaim’ll then find me.”

Jewel threw down her fork. “And what, send your bullying border riders in to murder him like a rat?”

“I’m going alone.”

“Well, I want to go too, to make certain you don’t hurt him. And I don’t want to go begging to some stupid princess.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed again, but not with humor. Their expressions were startlingly alike, and I knew he was about to say something cutting.

I said, “Please come with me, Jewel. Dantherei is supposed to be lovely, and I would much rather travel with your company than alone. And afterward, remember, you can come home with me. And stay as long as you like.”

Jewel studied me. “You don’t want me to argue with Nastyface here.” She poked her thumb toward Jason.

“Not over dinner. Argue as much as you like after,” I invited.

She laughed. “Done.”

I turned to Jason. “Sooner gone, sooner I’m home.”

Jason slid his left hand into the neck of his shirt and pulled out the silver chain, from which swung an object. He lifted it over his head. “There’s her ring.” He tossed it onto the table. “Either she returns with it, or keeps it.”

I looked down at the gold ring, a fine lady’s ring, set with two deep blue sapphires twined in gold leaves. The last time I had seen it, there had been so much of Jason’s blood on it I could not make out what it was. I was reluctant to touch it, but Jewel felt no such compunction. She grabbed it up, undid the chain’s catch, then slid the ring onto her finger, admiring it against the last of the fading light.

“You leave after breakfast,” Jason said.

Chapter Fifteen

I did not know what to expect—anything from another military company to Jewel and me departing on a pair of ponies with a pack of travel food between us.

What we found waiting after breakfast—which we ate alone—was a cavalcade fit for two princesses, all of it overseen by the silent Markham.

Jewel took one look at that tall, powerfully built, bony-faced man and said, in a whisper that was not very soft, “Figures my rotten brother would send along someone to spy on us.”

I snorted a laugh. “It would hardly require a spy to overhear our conversation.”

Jewel only grinned unrepentantly.

My own assessment of our escort was that they were warriors masquerading as servants; the woman, Lita, who was to be our maid, moved with a strong, trained efficiency that reminded me very much of my tent-mates in Brissot’s company.

Jewel sighed, looking around the countryside. The road north wound up gentle, forested hills to the mountains that formed the border. The day had dawned without rain, and though there were clouds overhead, they were not—at present—a threat.

“If only I didn’t hate Jason so much.” Jewel lowered her voice. “The only way I can be certain he won’t do something nasty to Jaim is to go along and watch him. Then there’s the matter of being stuck doing his errands for him, fetching some obnoxious beauty—”

“She is obnoxious?” I asked, disappointed. “I was hoping we’d like her. Make for a much more pleasant mission.”

“No, it’ll be much better if she’s awful.” Jewel snickered. “Jason deserves a stinker, and anyway, would you wish a nice person a lifetime stuck with
him
?”

“Well, if she’s in love with him,” I pointed out, “she would want to be with him.”

“A beautiful princess, popular with everyone?” Jewel’s brows slanted up.

“But—people who are vastly different—can’t they find one another interesting? I mean, I have so little experience. But it seems true.”

Jewel affected a shudder. “Only a thorough rotter could have the bad taste to fall in love with him.” She snickered again. “If she is indeed nice, let’s talk her out of marrying him. What a score that would be. And if she’s not nice, let’s talk her out of it anyway. Then when he marches his army over to fetch her, they both look silly. Serve him right. Hah!”

I couldn’t help laughing, and as usual, the more I laughed, the more Jewel’s mood improved.

By evening we came to a guard outpost. Markham was waved through the gates, and within a short space of time we’d been shown to a somewhat spare set of rooms, clean and comfortable, but as plain as you’d expect at an outpost.

We dined early. I offered to while away the time by playing the lute, which I had requested permission—through Berry, because we never saw Jason—to take. Jewel listened for a short time, then danced about the room with an imaginary partner. But she was yawning long before I was tired of playing, and so she went off to sleep.

When I set aside the lute, Markham entered the room. Despite his size his footfalls were so soft one almost didn’t hear him. “Do you have any orders for the morrow?”

“No. Thank you,” I said, looking at those oblique, deep-set dark eyes. I wondered what he was thinking.

The man bowed and withdrew.

I sat for a while longer, contemplating my reaction. It was difficult to define. Was it Markham’s unstated authority? Though he’d asked me for orders, I knew very well we were in his charge. The staff answered to him. Markham was unswervingly polite, but so unreadable it was like having Jason present.

At least we did have an intimidating-looking escort—most of the men wearing those wicked-looking thin mustaches like Jason’s. It would have to be a good-sized gang of thieves to waylay us; meanwhile, couriers had been sent ahead to apprise Queen Tamara, sister to the legendary Eleandra, of our approaching visit, and to order clothing in the current styles obtaining in Dantherei. All we traveled with was riding gear, though Jewel had insisted on bringing her favorite gowns from Carnison. I suspected they were a waste of space, for fashion did not flow from my homeland north, but the other way. Chiar-on-Tann had been built a hundred years before the market town of Carnison had been chosen as the royal residence by my distant ancestor; now the great capital of Dantherei was called Char Tann, a transmutation that evoked Eidervaen, the mythic capital of faraway Sartor.

We descended from the rocky hills comprising the border to look out over broad, rich farmland. There was one great river to cross before we reached a well-tended royal highway that was busy with traffic from dawn to dusk.

Our cavalcade was nothing to be ashamed of. Our two scouts had returned and rode at the front as banner bearers. One carried a banner in my Lygieran blue, the other the dark green and pale gold of Ralanor Veleth. The liveried servants rode in columns behind Jewel and me, all of us on beautifully mannered plains-bred horses that were one of Ralanor Veleth’s few enduring resources.

When we reached the broad and slow-running Tann, we crossed its splendid mage-built bridge. From its height were able to look over the entire city laid out below us, which appeared prosperous from our vantage. Built along the low hills parallel to the river was the royal palace, gleaming pearl white in the late summer sun.