Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (5 page)

Blinking again, Soren tried to understand what she was
feeling. All she saw was a man dressed
in dark clothing, leaning back in his chair, watching her. Black hair, thin but definite brows, and
strong features set in cynical lines. Attractive. And lit with blazing
anger, for all his easy pose.

It was the Rose. The
power which had become part of her was alerting her to the man's presence,
revealing what lay beneath the surface. There was not an actual sense of threat, just that strong impression of
tight fury.

"Champion?"

Now was not the moment to pursue the warning. Soren stepped further into the next room,
allowing Captain Sharwell to close the door and shut away the interested
spectators and the man the Rose was telling her was important.

-
oOo
-

"We reached Teraman the morning after receiving the
Regent's message," Captain Sharwell said. He poured Soren a glass of water, then sat down opposite her. "With orders to keep an eye on the child
and await your arrival."

Of course the Regent wouldn't have left recovery of the heir
to Soren alone. She should feel
relieved, not annoyed. "You know
who the heir is?" she asked, reminding herself to behave like someone who
hadn't had a conversation with a girl hiding beneath a bridge.

Sharwell grimaced. "Have you heard the tale behind this inn's name, Champion?"

"I know that Crown Princess Sethane led a hunting party
from Teraman into The Deeping, about two hundred and fifty years ago,"
Soren replied. It had taken her too long
to find even that. There was certain to
be more than a paragraph devoted to the loss of an heir of Darest in the
histories, somewhere in the tumble of books covering her floor. "None of them were ever seen
again."

"Not alive. Searchers found a few limbs."

"They offended The Deeping?" She'd heard plenty of stories about the
dangers of The Deeping, but something must have gone seriously wrong to end the
life of a Crown Princess. A Rathen mage.

"The hunt had the approval of The Deeping,"
Sharwell said. "There'd been deaths
in the area, a farm had been attacked. So they went out, they never came back. She must have succeeded – the Princess – even if it did cost her
life. Whatever it was, it left Teraman
alone after that."

"And where does this lost prince fit in?"

"The Crown Princess had a couple of cousins in her
party," Sharwell replied, shrugging. "One's been sighted in the area on and off ever since – your
standard infrequent haunt. Fading now,
judging from the number of reports. But
a tradition grew up – unmarried girls would claim that the lost prince had come
to them. I always thought it was an excuse. With the garrison so close, Teraman girls
have a tendency to find themselves starting a family without the security of a
life partner." He shrugged, and
rubbed his chin.

"So we come to the heir?"

"Ye-
es
. Lucia
Meddescalf
,
the eldest daughter of the owners of this inn, claimed that the lost prince had
come to her. Child arrived in due
course, a girl she called Helena. Then
we get the message from the Regent." He grimaced. "If we'd been
the only ones getting messages, matters would have gone more smoothly, but it
seemed like every second traveller had heard about the new Rathen and how
Teraman came into the picture. Busiest
the place has been for a century. When
too many were inclined to stay, and a handful of distinctly unsavoury types
drifted in, Mistress
Meddescalf
and her wife allowed
me to station a couple of men as guests, though they declined my suggestion
that they remove to the safety of the garrison. Seems like they didn't really believe the child could be Rathen." Captain Sharwell sighed, and put his hands
flat on the table, giving Soren a straight look. "I'm not attempting to shuffle the
blame, Champion. I made the decision not
to act."

"What happened?" Soren asked, voice muted. She was glad to have met Nina. If it wasn't for the girl's message, she'd be
spun sideways by this news. As it was,
she felt more sympathy for Captain Sharwell than she would like. But if she planned to leave Darest, she couldn't
take him into her confidence.

"Jutlanders."

Soren aped surprise, and felt she'd overdone it.

"Riding escort with a
merchanter
train, until they stopped in Teraman. Only a half dozen, but more than enough to take out the two men
stationed at the inn. Young and glory
hungry. They tell me ransoming the Crown
Princess of Darest is 'name-worthy'."

"You caught them, then?" Nina's description had left Soren picturing
an entire clan descending on Teraman.

"Oh, yes. A
couple made a break for the road, but we rounded them up quickly enough. No-one's too eager to stray into the woods around
here." He smiled thinly, then shook
his head. "But they stormed the
inn, left both my men and a number of others injured, and sent the entire
Meddescalf
clan out of the window."

He was looking very grim and stiff-backed, and Soren felt a
pang of guilt. "So they
escaped?" she said, disliking her pose of innocent ignorance more and
more. She hated playing games with
truth.

"They did indeed. So thoroughly that we haven't been able to find them since."

Soren didn't say anything, finding herself incapable of
putting on a further show of horror or astonishment, let alone haranguing the
man for this turn of events. Her face
felt stiff. Sharwell shifted
uncomfortably, and colour darkened the tanned skin of his cheeks. Then he turned one of his hands over, a
device to dismiss the moment.

"We've scoured the road, of course, but it seems they
must have headed into the Tongue or The Deeping."

"Why would they do that? Instead of making for the garrison?"

"Possibly Mistress
Meddescalf
felt the wiser course was to remain out of sight until you arrived,
Champion. There are places within the
Tongue which are said to be safe, and we've been attempting to search these,
with the help of some of the locals. Slow going, since there's too much risk spreading the search among a
number of small bands, and we've only a minor mage assigned to the
garrison. My hope is that your arrival
will draw them out."

His hope, and that of anyone else taking an interest in the
heir. "Could they have made for Tor
Darest?" she asked.

"Unlikely. Some
doubt even the existence of the safe places; actually crossing the Tongue would
be courting death. And they certainly
haven't travelled along the trade road." He gave her an assessing glance. "Is there any chance, Champion, that you–?"

Soren shook her head, then lifted a shoulder
equivocally. She was very aware of the
weight of the sword, of the harness currently pulling to the left because she'd
pushed the sheathe to the side so she could comfortably sit down. "I don't sense the heir's presence, if
that's what you mean," she said. "The Champions have had only their title, since the death of King
Torluce. I will try what I can, but I'm
afraid that's very little."

"Even a little might be enough," Sharwell said,
though he was obviously disappointed. "Would you care to refresh yourself, before eating? I've had a room kept for you."

A blank-faced man wearing a lieutenant's badge was summoned
and escorted Soren upstairs. She paused
to look out over the public room again, busier than before. Dozens of faces lifted to follow her
progress, but the man in the corner was gone. She felt uneasy, not knowing where he was. He could be waiting upstairs with a knife and
a grudge. He could be heading for Lucia
and Helena, or just away. But she was
careful not to pause to search for him, obediently following the Lieutenant to
a door well away from the stair.

The room, which was presumably the one with a wardrobe you
could walk through, was not large and was dominated by a cushiony bed. Her saddlebags were already empty and hooked
neatly on the wall next to the small window. Checked curtains puffed inwards, allowing her a glimpse of a twilight
town walled in black forest. No
assassins, this time.

-
oOo
-

A lone bird called: two warbling notes. The moon was directly above, slowly drifting
toward the far side of the sky, and Soren was being watched.

She'd dined excellently with Captain Sharwell, glad when
he'd chosen to focus the conversation on Teraman and its environs and hadn't
objected to her retiring early. After an
intensive investigation of the back of her closet she'd napped until
midnight. Now, looking out over Teraman
from a dark room, she found herself listening to three people breathing.

One in the lane directly beneath her window, quick and
light. Another across the road which
joined the lane, with only a sidelong view of her window. There was a faint, moist gurgle to that one's
breaths, as if on the verge of a cold. The third was on the rooftops, sitting in the shadow of a chimney near
the building she thought was Teraman's temple. Slow, deep inhalations, almost as if the person was asleep.

Of all those in Teraman, these were the only people whose
breathing she could hear. The ones who
watched. The ones the Rose chose to
point out. She wasn't a mage, didn't
have the senses to detect the power within, but could hardly deny that the Rose
was working through her. Out in the
night, the man across the road swallowed a cough. It felt like he was in the room with her.

Why, so far from its garden in Tor Darest, was the Rose's
power becoming tangible? Because she was
closer to an actual Rathen than she'd ever been before? Because now, unlike in Tor Darest, danger
truly threatened? She'd told Sharwell
she couldn't sense the heir's presence. Now she closed her eyes and tried to reach for the child whose life was
to be her centre, her focus. Somewhere,
out in this same night, was the future Queen of Darest.

Or nothing but three people, watching. Experimentally, Soren moved forward, twitching
the curtain against the wind. The one
below caught back a breath, and across the road she heard a sigh. The one on the roof snorted.

Staring at the shadow of the chimney, Soren decided that
this was the man from the inn's public room. A huge assumption, but she didn't doubt it. One of the others would surely be stationed
there by Captain Sharwell, and the third an unknown. All waiting to see if she'd make contact with
the family of the missing heir.

Knowing where the
lurkers
were
hidden was a boon. Soren left the
curtain to the wind and lay down on the bed. Their breathing kept her from dozing and, when she decided at last that
the moon would surely have passed beyond whatever temple gate Nina had been
talking about, it was a useful guide to their failure to detect her as she
fastened her sword to her back and eased her way into the wardrobe. Her prior search had revealed a catch which
released a false back. With only
moonlight in the room, the stair beyond was a black well which could harbour
any and everything.

The detachment she'd felt while waiting faded. Immediately, her strange sense shifted its
attention away from those outside to the quick, nervous breathing of the one
who waited at the bottom of the stair. Nina.

Soren had prepared for this moment, and when her heart
caught up to her head she carefully lifted her re-packed saddlebags to her
shoulder. She didn't know if she'd be
coming back. The leather creaked,
dragging her off-centre, and she moved with excruciating care onto the steep,
narrow stair. Both doors had to be
closed behind her.

Insensibly cheered at having successfully shut away three
spies, Soren inched down, hugging the rough wall and feeling for each
step. She'd lost track of Nina and found
that when she tried to locate the girl, her own heartbeat and nervously ragged
breath deafened her.

What was she doing? Creeping down a hidden stair in the middle of the night, off to smuggle
a princess to safety. Rain would love
this. Her sister was the most
adventurous of the three Armitage siblings, and after Soren's annunciation
she'd had a few pithy things to say about just who should be the Champion of
the family.
Romadin
would have brought Captain Sharwell with him, always confident that right and
wrong were clearly separate. Soren had
the dubious pleasure of feeling that she was doing wrong, while unable to see
another clear course. She felt sick,
more than a little frightened, and, beneath it all, excited. After two weeks' of travel, she was eager to
finally see the Rathen child.

"Nina?" she murmured, when she thought she was
almost at the bottom of the stair.

A puff of wind touched her face, then the girl's whisper:
"Take my hand, Champion. We've got
to go quiet here. It's narrow an' it
runs along the back of the common room, out to the icehouse."

Soren didn't reply, simply squeezing the small fingers which
found hers. Trying to move silently
while carrying saddlebags and strapped to an oversized sword proved more
difficult than she'd expected, but the few scrapes and single tap would surely
be put down to mice. She hoped.

Chapter Five

They travelled for at least half an hour, splashing along
the course of a stream choked with overhanging bushes. It was an uncomfortable, itchy journey
accompanied by far too much mysterious rustling in the underbrush, but no
attack came. Nor did that strange
awareness of observation return, though this was no guarantee they weren't
being followed. Half Teraman could be
trailing them, for all Soren would be able to tell. She was truly out of her seaside element.

Strange to feel so alive.

"We have to go on hands and knees here, Champion,"
Nina said, her hand warm and sweaty in Soren's. "It's not far now."