Agent of the Crown (19 page)

Telaine leaned back on the bench.
“Floating…maybe not. They’d try to fall down. But…lights on
strings? They could maybe run between the maypole and nearby trees.
It would be like a tent made of light.”

Eleanor’s face was lit up itself. “That
sounds near perfect, Lainie. Could you do it?”

“I’d need to see the place, and I’d need a
whole lot of string or twine. And components to build the Device.
But, yes, happen I can.”

Eleanor went to the door. “Ben? You got a
minute?” Telaine heard his muffled reply. “Lainie needs to look at
the maypole, something she’s doing for the wedding. Can you show
her, or are you busy?”

“In a few minutes,” Garrett said.

“Thanks so much,” Eleanor said, and turned
back to Telaine. “I can get you all the string you need,” she said.
“And anything else.”

“It’ll be so pretty.”

Garrett was a comfortable companion through
the forest to the maypole, telling her things about the lake, the
typical autumn weather, and what a shivaree was like. “Lots of
dancing,” he said, “lots of food. The bride and groom make
speeches.”

“Most of the weddings I’ve been to, the bride
and groom’s friends do the talking.”

“Here, they talk about the families they’re
leaving behind and the family they’re joining. If it’s not a direct
adoption, they might say something about the new family they’re
making.”

“It sounds nice.”

Garrett smiled. “Depends on how drunk they
are.”

The forest opened up on a clearing that might
have been natural once, but had been widened by axe and saw until
it was nearly forty feet across and roughly circular with the
maypole at its center. Telaine walked around the maypole, looking
up at its height and the trees circling the cleared area.

“I think I can thread wires back and forth
from the pole to the trees,” she said. “And maybe weave some in and
out of the long wires to keep it rigid.”

“Good thing you know what you’re doing. I
can’t exactly picture it.”

She looked back over her shoulder at him,
standing at the edge of the clearing. “Think how surprised you’ll
be to see it.”

“I’m always surprised at the things you come
up with.” He looked up at the sky again, and said, “Best hurry
back. There’s a storm coming.”

When they were within sight of Longbourne, he
said, “You having problems with that friend of the Baron’s?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Garrett shook his head. “Morgan’s a mean
fellow. Might turn into something you can’t handle.”

“I don’t think the Baron would let that
happen.”

He grimaced. “Baron’s not much better than
his pet.”

“Even so, I try not to be alone with
Morgan.”

“You’re alone with him every time he takes
you up on his horse.”

“He cares more about his horse than he does
about me, I think.”

Garrett sighed. “Don’t think you’re taking
this seriously.”

“I am. I promise I know what I’m doing, and
I’m being careful.”

He shook his head again, but said nothing
more until he bade her goodbye at Aunt Weaver’s back door.

“Thanks,” she said, and went back to her
room. Little sparks of light. Raw motive force would work—no, not
for each one, it would be blinding. Imbued pieces lighting others.
That would be easier. But how to make them stay on the string?

She pulled out the box of parts she’d
scavenged, some from the Baron’s Devices, others she’d brought with
her, a few pieces from the forge Garrett had let her have, some
coils of wire. A few of them were imbued already. She sat on the
floor and began to experiment.

Telaine rocked and bounced on the wagon seat
beside Abel Roberts. It had only been a week since she’d last
ridden down the mountain with him, but he’d already forgotten her
name, her face, and the fact that she lived with Mistress
Weaver.

They again rode in silence, Telaine gazing in
wonder at the changing colors on the mountain above and below them.
She occupied herself with mentally coding messages to send to her
uncle, reviewing the parts list she needed to fill in Ellismere,
and thinking about how she’d make her tent of lights work.

That reminded her of her conversation with
Garrett the day before. He interested her. She was sure there was
more going on inside his head than he let on, as quiet as he was.
And she liked his directness and his smile, the way it warmed his
eyes and never failed to make her smile in return. Passing the
forge was starting to be one of the highlights of her day. But he
was more worried about her than he needed to be. Morgan was
dangerous, but so far she was in control. She remembered Morgan’s
wide, pointed, mirthless smile, and refused to let herself consider
the possibility she was wrong.

They pulled into the Hitching Station before
noon, Telaine having rousted Abel at sunrise. Josiah Stakely came
out to meet them and a pleased look came over his face when he saw
Telaine.

“Miss Bricker! Back so soon?”

“Hello, Mister Stakely.” She hopped down from
the wagon seat and beckoned him closer. “Could you do something for
me?” she whispered. “Make sure Abel doesn’t leave without me. I’m
not sure how long this will take.”

Stakely winked at her. “I’m sure I can find
some way to keep him occupied.”

“Don’t let him get too drunk,” Telaine said.
“I don’t want him driving off the cliff.”

“Abel Roberts can drive that wagon full to
the eyeballs with beer,” said Stakely, “but I’ll keep him as sober
as I dare.”

Telaine thanked him and set off through the
streets of Ellismere. She didn’t remember it being this noisy and
busy—then she realized she was comparing it to Longbourne’s
peaceful quiet. How quickly she’d become acclimatized to her…home?
Not a home. Her posting? That sounded better.

The trend in individual telecoder booths
hadn’t reached this far east, but the telecoder office looked the
same as all the other ones she’d ever used: dingy white walls,
low-hanging Devices that shed insufficient light, and a long row of
iron grilles painted white, behind which sat the operators, who
generally looked bored.

She waited in line, then laid down her forms
and the fee. “Waiting for a reply,” she said.

The operator took her money and the forms
without comment. This message wasn’t going to the ultra-secure
Device in the palace—there was no way Telaine would give that
setting to a public telecoder operator—but to an ordinary, almost
as secure Device that would nevertheless turn around her response
in less than an hour.

As any operator would give her a funny look
if she turned over a form filled with random numbers and letters,
she’d had to break her message into three telecodes, which made her
feel terribly insecure. Her greatest security was, of course, that
no one was watching Lainie Bricker, but it didn’t stop her worrying
that someone might be suspicious about the stilted language her
coded messages used.

Rather than wait at the office for her
replies, she walked the short distance to Crafters’ Way, which
earned its name by having every conceivable kind of craftsman,
smith, and builder you could imagine packed into a single long
street. She came out half an hour later with several hundred feet
of fat copper wire, a bag of brass eyelets, and the tiniest torsion
screwdriver imaginable. She didn’t need the last, but how often was
she going to get to town? She deserved a reward after almost nine
weeks of hardship, not to mention the outhouse.

Her return messages were waiting for her at
the telecoder offices. She decoded them in a quiet corner,
pretending to be reading the newspaper, in case one required a
reply. The first was simply an acknowledgement of the information
about Harroden’s addiction. The second was a list of the items
Harroden had groveled to the Baron about that he could easily
smuggle or embezzle to the Baron, so she’d know what to look
for.

The third, in plain text, read simply: STAY
SAFE ALL MY LOVE UNCLE. She folded the messages and put them into
her trouser pocket. This was more direction than she’d had before,
but still left her with the problem of how to get into the fort and
the locked store rooms. It was time to work out a more direct
approach.

Abel hadn’t rolled out of the tap room when
she returned. Edith looked at her over the horses’ heads, spat,
then turned back to brushing them down. To Telaine’s eye, they’d
already been brushed thoroughly, but then Edith was a horse lover.
Telaine poked her head into the tap room and caught Stakely’s eye.
He snatched the tankard away from Abel, whose head was bowed as if
in sleep, nudged the man and said, “Abel, it’s time to head back up
the mountain. Abel, wake up!”

Abel raised his head, looked around, then
slid off his stool. He seemed surprised to see Telaine at the door.
“You going up the mountain?”

“I came down with you, remember?”

Abel shook his head. “Hop on up, then.”

On the way back up the mountain, Telaine
contemplated how different this journey was from her first. Then,
she’d been facing a total unknown; now, she knew she’d greet twenty
people on her way into town, trade nods with Garrett, spend the
afternoon working on the new Device, have supper with Aunt Weaver,
and settle into a bed that no longer felt lumpy and hard. She was
actually looking forward to it all.

Telaine sat in
her bedroom, clad only in an underskirt and brassiere, and fingered
the soft cotton fabric of her dress. It was a dark green that
reminded her of the gown she’d worn the night this whole thing had
been set in motion, but much plainer, with a skirt that flared out
when she spun and a bodice that fitted snugly but wasn’t too tight.
The neckline covered her collarbone and was higher than any dress
she’d worn since she was a child. The buttons were in the front, so
she wouldn’t need to ask Aunt Weaver for help. She couldn’t think
why she was so reluctant to put it on.
Because the Princess is a
bitch
, she told herself,
and these people don’t deserve to
meet her
.

She’d never thought of her alter ego in that
way before, because everything she’d done and said as the Princess
had been in the service of the Crown, and it hadn’t mattered what
kind of woman she was. But the idea of setting the Princess loose
in Longbourne…she’d promised Aunt Weaver not to manipulate the
townspeople, but this went beyond that promise into a desire not to
hurt any of these people, because they were her friends in a way
the Princess’s “friends” were not.

Telaine slid the dress over her shoulders and
buttoned the bodice. It flattered her slim figure and—she took an
experimental twirl—it would be fun to dance in, if anyone asked
her.

She freed her hair from its braid and brushed
its mousy-brown waves over her shoulders to fall nearly to her
waist. Josephine had assured her it was appropriate for young
unmarried women to wear their hair loose, but she still felt…could
you call it naked, not doing your hair up? She brushed it again,
unnecessarily, and wished she had some jewelry to wear, a gold
chain, anything.

She looked at herself in the mirror and her
heart lightened. There was her everyday face, unaccented by
cosmetics, her hair hanging loose like a girl’s. The Princess was
nowhere in sight.

Aunt Weaver had already left when Telaine
came downstairs, so she walked alone through the town’s back
streets to the forest. She followed the trail left by men and women
and skipping children to the clearing where the maypole stood.
Though the crowd was gathering beyond it, Telaine stopped to admire
her tent of lights. Strands of glowing specks wove from the maypole
to the branches and between those long ribs, shedding a warm glow
over the clearing and the tables laden with food for the shivaree.
She was proud of her Device, but not on her own behalf; the look on
Eleanor’s face when she saw it had been a greater reward than if
she’d sold the thing to the Baron for a hundred guilders. One of
the strands was sagging, but there was nothing she could do about
it now. It still looked perfect.

She pushed through the crowd to join Aunt
Weaver, who wore a dress of dark red wool and an expression less
severe than usual. “You look nice,” she told Telaine in a voice
that said she shouldn’t expect any more praise than that.

“So do you,” Telaine said, not exaggerating.
The dark red of the dress and the black of her hair set off Aunt
Weaver’s youthful skin. Telaine again had the strangest feeling
she’d seen her before. Someone she’d seen at a distance, perhaps?
The Princess had a hundred “friends,” enough that Telaine might
find dozens of people who resembled them. Maida looked like
Elizabeth d’Arden, for heaven’s sake.

Past the crowd, Blythe Bradford’s father
stood at the far side of the clearing. The townspeople had left a
space, big enough for Eleanor and her children, minus Trey, to
stand in a semicircle behind Mister Bradford. Next to them was a
thin, dark woman Telaine didn’t know, who had to be Blythe’s
mother. She and Eleanor were talking; from the stiff way Eleanor
stood, Telaine guessed she wasn’t all that fond of Mistress
Bradford, and Mistress Bradford responded to Eleanor’s conversation
so tersely it looked as if the feeling was mutual. Unfortunate, if
the two families had to meet often socially.

More townspeople were joining the crowd,
chatting quietly, calling out to corral or silence children, but no
one spoke to Telaine, and she shifted her weight, uncomfortable for
the first time in many weeks. She felt like an invisible observer
dropped into Longbourne, a witness and not a participant. She began
to say something to Aunt Weaver, thinking if she spoke, she might
feel less disconnected, but Aunt Weaver was talking to one of her
many knitting circle friends. Telaine felt awkward breaking into
the conversation when she had no idea what she wanted to say.