Eye of the Labyrinth (41 page)

Chapter 78

The day after Tia met with Prince Misha, Gilda came to visit her with the news that the
Orlando
was coming for her. Dal Falstov would have a longboat off the same secluded beach where she had been dropped off with Dirk, at second sunrise in two days. Giddy with relief, Tia spent the rest of the day pacing her small cottage until she thought the walls would close in on her, and then she went for a walk in the gardens.

She avoided the grotto where she had met Misha, sticking to the more secluded paths closer to the wall. Now that she knew she was going home, all her earlier doubts and fears began to plague her.
How do
I tell them?
she asked herself over and over.
What do I tell them?
Tia glanced up at the second sun as she walked, wondering why it had not appeared to move. Time was dragging, and it seemed to go slower and slower now that rescue was at hand.

When she arrived back at her cottage just on first sunrise she found it surrounded by the Lion of Senet’s personal guard.

Her first impulse was to flee, but they had already seen her, and there was a small chance she could bluff her way through this. If Misha had betrayed her and informed his guard who she really was, then there was no hope for her. She would never make it out of the Hospice grounds. But if he had not, there might still be a chance she could convince them she really was Lady Natasha Orlando.

There was nothing hostile in their demeanor as she moved toward the cottage warily. The officer in charge actually saluted her politely as she approached, and the guard standing near the door held it open for her. Filled with trepidation, she stepped into the small living room of the cottage, to find Misha Latanya sitting by the fire, which had been lit in her absence.

He looked up as she entered and smiled. His eyes were bright, and he was much more animated than he had been the last time she saw him.

“Lady Natasha! How nice to see you again. I was certain it was you I spied yesterday taking a turn in the gardens. How long has it been since I saw you last in Avacas? It must be two years at least, surely?”

Tia nodded cautiously, realizing that Misha spoke for the benefit of the Shadowdancer who accompanied him. “It must be that long, I suppose, your highness.”

Misha looked over his shoulder at the Shadowdancer and smiled triumphantly. “There, Sonja, didn’t I tell you Lady Natasha and I were old friends? You may leave us now. I’ll call you if I need you. My guard will see me back to my quarters when I’m done.”

The red-robed woman looked uncertain, but she was not about to deny the crown prince when he seemed so certain. She bowed and left the cottage, closing the door behind her.

Once they were alone, Misha smiled at Tia rather smugly.

“How did you find me?”

“I have every person in this place at my beck and call, Tia. It wasn’t hard.”

“You look a lot better today.”

“I feel better. I took your advice.”

“What advice?” She could recall telling him off, but not giving him any advice.

“I’ve taken poppy-dust. I demanded it, in fact, which caused something of a stir.”

“You took it deliberately?”

“I did. And lo and behold, my symptoms disappeared! I’ve stopped shaking. I feel more alert than I have for weeks. I can eat without throwing it back up again. I haven’t had a fit all day. You were right. I’m an addict.”

“You hardly needed me to point that out, your highness,” she said, taking the seat opposite him.

“Actually, Tia, I did.”

“You would have admitted it to yourself eventually.”

“That’s not what I mean. I swear, Tia, until today, I have never knowingly taken a grain of poppy-dust in my life.”

She didn’t say anything. Neris had days like this, too, when he decided none of it was his fault. Addicts were like that.

Misha sensed her skepticism. “I know you probably think I’m just trying to fool myself . . .”

“I believe that
you
believe it,” she agreed, which was as far as she was willing to pander to his self-delusion.

Misha leaned forward, his expression so earnest, so genuine, that she almost felt sorry for him. “I speak the truth, Tia. If I’m an addict, it’s not because of anything I did. It’s because somebody deliberately set out to make me one.”

She stared at him, staggered by what he was suggesting. Then she remembered that this young man had been in the care of Ella Geon for most of his life, and suddenly she did not doubt him.

“I believe you,” she said.

He looked very relieved. “I was afraid you wouldn’t. I was afraid you’d think I was merely suffering from some drug-induced delusion.”

“When do you think it started?”

“A long time ago. I can’t seem to remember a time when Ella wasn’t making me take her ‘tonic.’ There’s nothing else I’ve ever taken regularly enough for it to have the same effect.”

“And when you took this tonic you always felt better?”

“Much better. Every time.”

“Why?” she asked curiously. She was not referring to why the tonic worked, and Misha seemed to understand that.

“I’ve been asking myself the same question, over and over,” he admitted.

Tia began to feel genuinely sorry for him. It must be something of a shock to realize that you’d been systematically poisoned for over half your life by the people you trusted most.

“Do you think your father? . . .”

Misha shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I can’t be certain. Kirsh was always his favorite. But he always professed an extreme abhorrence for poppy-dust addicts. It’s a bit hard to imagine him condoning my addiction.”

“Maybe that just made him turn a blind eye,” Tia said thoughtfully. “Belagren had to have been in on it, if Ella was involved.”

“But why would the High Priestess wish me ill? What reason could she have for wanting to harm me? I’ve never done anything to her.”

“What happens if you die?”

“You mean the succession? It goes to Kirsh, of course.”

“And who is your brother now married to?”

“Alenor . . .” He slumped in the chair a little. “The Queen of Dhevyn.”

“Seems pretty cut and dried to me, your highness.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Miss your next dose of poppy-dust,” she suggested. “That should convince you.”

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I thought I was going mad. Part of the reason I came here was so that you would sit there and laugh at me. I was hoping you’d tell me I was insane to imagine such a plot could exist.”

“You’re speaking to the daughter of a man who was destroyed just as deliberately as you’ve been, Misha,” she pointed out. “Not only do I know such plots can exist, I’m living proof of one. You don’t need to convince me that Ella Geon turned you into a poppy-dust addict. Nobody would raise an eyebrow when you died at a tragically young age and your younger, more pliable brother—who also happens to be the Regent of Dhevyn—is forced to step up and take your place.”

He was silent as the implications of his plight settled on him like a weight being slowly lowered onto his shoulders. “What should I do?” he asked.

“Why are you asking me? You hardly even know me.”

“Which, oddly enough, makes you one of the few people I can trust. How do I know how many people are involved in this? How high does it go? Have I been sent here to Tolace to die? Is every Shadowdancer I meet part of the plot? Are my guard guarding me, or waiting on orders to end my life? Once you begin wondering about it, the suspicion never seems to end.”

“If I was in your place, I’d run like hell,” she told him.

He smiled sadly. “It’s a nice thought, but where would I run to, Tia? Where is there anyplace on this world that is beyond the influence of my father and the High Priestess?”

Tia hesitated for a moment before she answered him

“There’s always Mil,” she said.

Chapter 79

The decision to leave Senet was surprisingly easy for Misha, given that the alternative would more than likely mean his death. After he left Tia’s cottage, he could think of little else, trying to decide if his sudden wish to flee was out of a genuine need to save his own life, simply a desire to relieve his boredom, or merely the drug-induced delusions of a pathetic addict.

Accepting that he was addicted to poppy-dust had also been something of a shock, but Misha was far too familiar with the feeling of relief and well-being that flooded his mind and body after he had taken Ella’s tonic to question the assertion once he had consciously taken poppy-dust. There was simply no difference. His trembling stopped, his mind cleared, his fear of having another convulsion began to abate. The reasons for his addiction were another matter entirely, but he chose not to dwell on them for the time being.

There would be time enough later to wonder why this had been done to him. Time enough later to do something about it.

Getting out of the Hospice and down to the beach to meet Tia’s pirate friends should have been a fairly straightforward exercise. Smuggling out the Crown Prince of Senet rather complicated matters.

Misha was guarded closely and attended almost constantly by the Shadowdancers charged with his care. Getting free of them for long enough to get out of the Hospice grounds was not going to be easy. Tia decided not to tell the people who were aiding her (she refused to mention their names) the identity of her unexpected traveling companion, just that she had met an old friend in the Hospice who needed to get out of Senet nearly as much as Tia did.

The plan they devised in the end was quite simple. They needed a diversion, which Tia promised to arrange, that would distract the guards long enough for Misha to slip out of his room. He slept alone, which was fortunate, and because he was safe in the grounds of the Hospice, his escort made themselves comfortable in the front room of the cottage each night, and did not worry too much about patrolling the grounds outside.

“You’d better take another dose of poppy-dust before we leave,” Tia had advised as they made their plans to escape in the privacy of her small cottage. “The last thing I need is you collapsing on me before we get out of the grounds of the Hospice.”

Misha lay on his bed, waiting for her to come for him, going over the plan in his head for the thousandth time, his mind unnaturally alert from the dust. It was about two hours before the second sunrise, and the sleeping Hospice lay quiet in the light of the red sun. He suffered more than a few doubts about the wisdom of placing his fate in the hands of Tia Veran as he waited. He did not really know her. Didn’t know if she genuinely wanted to help him, or if she would simply take this opportunity he was so recklessly handing her, and bend it to her own purposes.

Does it matter?
he wondered.
If I stay, I will surely die, either
by deliberate intent or accidental overdose.

He didn’t know if Tia wished him harm, but he was certain beyond doubt that someone in Senet did—someone with sufficient power and the ill-will to arrange for him to be systematically destroyed by poppy-dust.

It was dangerous to trust Tia, Misha knew. But it would be fatal to trust the people he had known and depended on all his life.

Finally, when he was sure she was not coming for him, he heard a rattle against his window, and then a painfully loud creak as Tia opened it.

“All clear?” she whispered, poking her head through.

“They think I’m asleep,” he whispered back.

Tia climbed nimbly through the window and hurried to the door, walking so lightly that her feet made no sound on the rug. She was dressed like a boy, in leather trousers and a well-worn linen shirt, and had a bow slung over her shoulder, a quiver of arrows at her hip. Poking out of her boot was the hilt of a dagger that bore the rampant lion of Latanya engraved in its hilt. He decided not to ask how she had acquired it.

Placing her ear against the wood, Tia listened for a moment to satisfy herself that they would not be disturbed, checked that the door was locked, and then came back to the bed, looking down at him with a frown.

“Can you walk at all?” she asked softly.

“A little. And not far.”

“Well, you’ve wasted away to nothing, so I should be able to carry you if I have to,” she told him.

As it was, she had to half drag, half carry him to the window. She propped him on the sill and looked at him closely. Misha tried not to let her see the pain he was in, or the effort it cost him to hold himself upright.

“Are you sure you want to do this, your highness?”

“I’m sure.”

Apparently satisfied that he would not change his mind and raise the alarm, Tia nodded and then whistled softly into the red night. A moment later a small, rotund man with a cheerful demeanor appeared beneath the window. Without a word, he helped Tia get Misha through the window, then the two of them carried him to a small cart the fat little man had waiting for them. She shoved Misha none too gently into the cart, and then jumped in after him, pulling a pile of loose sacks over them, as her accomplice climbed into the driver’s seat and clucked his horse forward, away from the cottage.

Tia’s diversion was worthy of Dirk Provin. As they wound slowly along the graveled paths of the Hospice toward the gate, Misha looked toward the storeroom, where, the previous day, he had noticed a load of wicker baskets destined for use in the Hospice laundry being delivered. Unaccountably, it burst into flames. Shouts of alarm suddenly filled the air, as the flames hungrily ate the wicker and threatened to spread to the nearby buildings.

Tia pushed the sacks back a little to see what was happening.

“How did you make
that
happen?” Misha whispered, as several Shadowdancers hurried past them toward the fire, paying no attention at all to the cart or its occupants.

“I have friends,” she shrugged. “It’s one of those things you’re better off not knowing about.”

He glanced back at the driver for a moment and then smiled at Tia. “The local basketmaker will be happy. The Hospice will have to purchase another load of baskets to replace those destroyed in the fire.”

Tia did not confirm or deny his suspicions, but she did smile. “Quite a profitable exercise all round.”

“We’re coming to the gate,” the driver hissed. “Get down.”

Tia rearranged the sacks to conceal them as Misha felt the wagon coming to a halt.

“Bit of excitement going on back there,” the jolly fat man chuckled to the gateman.

“Aye,” the man agreed. “Did you find the basket you were looking for?”

“I did, thank you, Gustav. It was good of you to let me in so late. I found it in the kitchens ready to be used as onion storage. Good thing I didn’t wait until second sunrise to go looking for it.”

“Well, I’d not like to cross Mistress Gilda either, my friend.”

The driver laughed. “It’s a wise man who understands that. I’m just happy that I can go home now and not get my head caved in with a rolling pin. How was I supposed to know the damn thing was a special order? It looked just like all the others to me.”

“Well, you get along now,” the gateman advised. “And give my regards to Mistress Gilda.”

“I will,” he promised, as he clucked at the horse and it began to move slowly off.

After a while, Tia threw back the suffocating sacks with a grin. The horse clip-clopped steadily along and the world around them seemed quiet. There was no sound of pursuit, just the distant cries coming from the burning Hospice.

“We made it,” she announced.

Misha nodded, but found his heart racing too hard to answer her. He had never done anything so daring. Or so dangerous.

The fat little man in the driver’s seat turned back to smile at her. “Aye, Tasha, we made it. Now get back under those sacks until we’re clear of the town.”

“I can’t thank you enough for your help, Boris.”

“Yes, you can,” the little man chuckled. “Just wait until you get my bill.”