Warrior (14 page)

“How many shops did she visit in search of her shoes?” Alija asked.

“Scores of them.”

“And how many shopkeepers did she speak to? Were they spies? Do you even know who her spies are? How many of those apparently innocent shopkeepers were actually contacts in her network?”

She shook her head and sighed. “You really must begin to think like a politician if you expect to take the throne some day, my dear.”

“It seems more like you expect me to develop an irrational fear of conspirators.”

“I wish you did fear them, Cyrus, whether you think it’s irrational or not.”

“I’ll try, Mother,” he promised. “If only to keep you happy.”

She nodded in satisfaction. He was such a dutiful son. “You
will
be High Prince one day, Cyrus.

And it will be the proudest day of my life.”

“Then I suppose I shouldn’t let you down this afternoon,” he announced, climbing to his feet. He straightened the coronet on his head and smiled at her. “It’s going to be as hot as a roasting pig out there this afternoon, riding through the streets in an open carriage.”

“Don’t look to me for sympathy,” she warned with a sour smile. “I’ll be in that carriage right beside you, you know. Wearing a black woollen robe.”

“The things we do, eh?” Cyrus chuckled, crossing the room to kiss her cheek.

“The things we do for
Hythria
,” Alija corrected with a smile.

Cyrus laughed softly and turned for the door. Alija watched him leave, thinking no mother had ever been more fortunate in a son, while another part of her—the politician inside that never slept—

wondered why Marla Wolfblade had suddenly decided to welcome Luciena Mariner into the fold, when she’d quite deliberately ignored the poor girl for the past eight years. And more importantly, why she’d left it until the day all the important people in the city were leaving Greenharbour.

Alija glanced out of the window again. It wasn’t yet midday and the parade to farewell the High Prince from Greenharbour wasn’t due to start until midafternoon. There was still time, she reflected, to see if she could discover what was going on. Marla Wolfblade suddenly deciding to welcome a baseborn commoner into the royal family was something that, as High Arrion, Alija couldn’t let slip by unremarked.

Xanda thought the girl ungrateful, did he?
Alija thought.
There might be an opportunity here
.

Maybe a chance to get through the wall of protection surrounding the only obstacle to her son’s ascension to the throne. Perhaps the forgotten daughter of Jarvan Mariner had good cause to despise the Wolf-blades.

Perhaps enough cause to wish them harm.

And who would blame the child . . . abandoned and forgotten, publicly humiliated and ignored by the princess, when the whole city knew who she really was?

It might even be enough
, Alija mused with a small, secretive smile,
to tempt Luciena Mariner into
seeking revenge—revenge that could not, in any way, be traced back to the High Arrion of the Sorcerers’

Collective
.

Is it hot in Krakandar at this time of year?” Luciena asked.

Aleesha shrugged as she folded another of Luciena’s formal gowns and laid it carefully in her trunk. “How should I know? I’ve never been there.”

“I suppose I should take the cashmere shawl,” Luciena decided, standing in front of the shelves that lined one wall of the small room off the main bedroom where Aleesha stored her clothes. “Just in case.”

“Why not take it all?” the slave grumbled.

Luciena turned to her in surprise. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me. You’ve been snapping at me all day, slamming things around, muttering under your breath . . . what’s wrong?”

“I’m just a poor dumb slave, my lady,” Aleesha replied as she laid a blue and gold silk gown across the bed to fold it. Luciena’s mother had bought that gown only weeks before she died. She’d never worn it. “It’s not
my
place to say.”

“I’m making it your place. Tell me!”

Aleesha stopped her folding and placed her hands on her hips, glaring at her mistress. “Well, if you must know, I think you’re a screaming bloody fool!”

“For agreeing to go to Krakandar with Princess Marla?”

“No,” the slave replied sarcastically, “for deciding to eat eggs for breakfast this morning.”

“I have no choice,” Luciena sighed. “You know that better than anyone.”

“You had a choice. You could have said no.”

“And what would happen to us if I did?” she asked. “Princess Marla paid off our debts, Aleesha.

If not for her intervention, I’d be fighting off that animal, Ameel Parkesh, by now. Or would you
rather
see me selling my body to a moneylender to spare you the effort of packing my trunks?”

“If you ask me, Marla Wolfblade bought
you
along with those damn debts,” the slave complained. “Just because the bed has silk sheets and a feather mattress, Luciena, it doesn’t make you any less a whore if you choose to lie on it and open your legs. Your mother should have taught you that.”

“For pity’s sake, Aleesha! What did you expect me to do?”

“Anything but roll over without a fight and say:
Yes, your highness
,” Aleesha replied in a scathing falsetto voice. “
Of course I’ll drop everything and follow you right across the country, put myself
completely at your mercy, and let you dictate the rest of my life to me.”

Luciena was wounded by Aleesha’s scorn. “You think I would’ve been better off taking my chances with Parkesh, do you? Or have you forgotten that
you
were the one who went racing off in a blind panic to fetch the Palace Guard because you thought I was in danger?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” the slave snorted, as she began folding the gown again. “I just wanted an excuse to talk to that young officer again.” Suddenly Aleesha looked up and smiled mischievously.

“He was pretty cute, you know.”

“He’s Princess Marla’s nephew,” Luciena told her, shaking her head at Aleesha’s impertinence.

There were going to be problems with her slave if she didn’t learn to act a little more like a slave once they were travelling with the princess’s entourage.

“That figures,” Aleesha shrugged. “There’s always
something
about the good-looking ones that makes them trouble. Is he the reason you agreed to go?”

“
What
?”

“I could sort of understand
that
,” the slave explained. “I mean, I can’t for the life of me imagine why you’d want to have anything to do with Princess Marla after cursing her every day of your life since your father died. But I can appreciate a bit of good old-fashioned lust. Is it the uniform, I wonder?

Perhaps it’s the sword? Or those tight leather trousers, eh? It’s all those hours they spend in the saddle, you know, that gives them thighs like—”

“
Aleesha
! Stop it!” she ordered, raising her voice to emphasise her point. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Then explain it to me, my
lady
,” the slave responded just as loudly. “Because the gods know,
I
can’t think of any other logical reason why you’d go along with this!”

“I
have
explained it! Over and over again! Princess Marla paid off my debts!”

“You said the princess didn’t want the money back.”

Luciena threw her hands up helplessly, not sure what else she could say to convince Aleesha she’d been left with no alternative. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it
is
that simple,” the slave insisted. “Let’s get out of this while we still can. You hate these people and you don’t belong with them.”

“I can’t . . .”

The slave abandoned all pretence of packing and walked across the room to her mistress. With an encouraging smile, Aleesha took Luciena by the shoulders so she couldn’t avoid facing her and added gently, “Look, you don’t have to pretend with me, pet. I remember your father telling you all those fanciful stories when you were small about how the princess was going to make you part of the family, how you’d have brothers and sisters and would live in a grand palace . . . And I remember how much you wanted it. But they were only stories, Luciena, and I know it hurt when you finally realised that . . . so don’t give in now. We don’t have to go to Krakandar. And for all you know, Princess Marla’s just inviting you along so she can get you out of the city and have you killed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Luciena scoffed, pushing the slave away. “If Princess Marla wanted me dead, she could have done it any time in the past eight years and nobody would have cared about it, with the possible exception of you and my mother.” Even as she uttered the words, she knew they lacked conviction. What had Marla told her?
You’re not actually worth the price of an assassin
. “Besides, she owns everything of mine already. Why would she need to have me killed?”

“That’s a question I’m rather curious about myself.”

Luciena spun around at the unfamiliar voice and almost fainted with shock.

The High Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective was standing in the doorway.

“My lady!” Aleesha gasped, falling to her knees.

Luciena was too stunned to speak. The High Arrion smiled and stepped a little further into the room. She was wearing a pale yellow sleeveless gown, rather than the traditional black robes of her office, but there was no mistaking the diamond pendant she wore, or her unconscious air of superiority.

“I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t startle you. I did knock, but there doesn’t seem to be anybody around to answer the front door.”

“Lady Alija!” Luciena said, finding her voice at last, curtseying as elegantly as she could manage.

“Ah, you know me!” the High Arrion declared with a smile. “That’s good. It’ll save us going through all those tedious introductions. Do you have something cool to drink?” she added, looking at Aleesha.

“Of course, my lady,” the slave replied, scrambling to her feet. She hurried from the room, bowing several times on the way out.

Alija Eaglespike watched her leave and then turned to Luciena. “You must forgive my rudeness, Luciena. You and your slave were having a rather heated discussion and I must admit I overheard quite a bit of it. In fact, it was your raised voices which alerted me to the fact that you were home.”

“I’m sorry, my lady.”

“You’ve nothing to apologise for, my dear.”

“Thank you . . . I . . . er . . . I mean . . . what are you doing here, my lady?”

“My gateman informs me you came to visit the Collective yesterday,” the High Arrion announced, looking around with interest. “I came to find out why.”

“You didn’t have to visit me personally, my lady.”

She smiled warmly. “Well, when I heard you were considering an offer from Princess Marla, I thought I should give the matter my immediate attention. Is that what you wanted to see me about?”

“Um . . . well, no, not really. It was about my cousin. In Fardohnya.”

Lady Alija raised an elegant brow in surprise. “You have family in Fardohnya?”

“I think so.”

“You’re not certain?”

“My father had a brother,” she explained nervously, totally unprepared to face the High Arrion with her request. “They had a falling out long before I was born. My uncle followed his heart—and the wife my father didn’t approve of—to Fardohnya. He has three sons, according to his letter. And they have a number of their own children.”

Alija nodded as she strolled around the room, apparently engrossed in the painted murals on the walls. “How lovely for you, my dear. What does that have to do with me?”

“One of my cousins has some sort of magical talent, according to my uncle.”

Alija looked at her in surprise. “Does he now?”

“Well, I suppose . . . I don’t really know.”

She smiled. “And what were you hoping I’d do about it?”

“Well, I thought . . . or rather, my uncle thought . . . he should join the Sorcerers’ Collective. I tried to make an appointment to see you because I was hoping, maybe . . .”

“What? That
I
would arrange it?”

“I’ve heard you’re searching for gifted apprentices.”

“Not in Talabar,” the High Arrion replied wryly. “Have you spoken of your magically gifted cousin to Princess Marla?”

“No, my lady.”

“What have you told your uncle?”

“Nothing, as yet, my lady. I mean, there’s nothing to tell. And there’s some doubt . . .”

“About what?”

Luciena shrugged, the preposterous notion of asking the High Arrion for help making her cringe with embarrassment as she spoke.
What was I thinking
? “The timing of his letter is a little suspicious.

Aleesha . . . my slave, thinks it’s just an attempt by my uncle to extort money from me.”

“Your slave may well be right. And I’d like to help you, my dear, but any members of the Sorcerers’ Collective foolish enough to set foot in Fardohnya are rotting in Hablet’s dungeons. If you can get him to Greenharbour, I’d be happy to consider your cousin, but I can’t do much more than that.”

In truth, Luciena would have been surprised at more. “Thank you, my lady.”

“You’re welcome, my dear,” Lady Alija replied, still studying the murals intently. “And do take care in your dealings with her highness. I share some of your companion’s concerns.”

Luciena looked at the High Arrion in surprise. “My
lady
?”

“It seems remarkably out of character for the princess to suddenly decide to pay off your debts and welcome you into her family after all this time. Are you sure you’ve examined this offer closely?”

“It wasn’t actually an offer, Lady Alija. It was a done deed before I could object.”

“Marla can be like that at times. Has she told you what she wants of you?”

“I’m not sure I understand . . .”

“Marla’s generosity must come with some sort of obligation.”

Luciena shrugged. “She expects me to marry someone of her choosing.”

“Did she say who?”

“No,” Luciena replied, shaking her head. “Although she specifically told me not to set my cap at her nephew.”