Heir Apparent (12 page)

"No," I assured him.

"Give me her finger," he commanded his men.

With this crowd I was lucky none of them was stupid enough to chop one off and hand it to him. I struggled, because he didn't know that all he had to do was order me to take it, but I knew it was a losing battle. The ring slipped snugly over my finger.

"Now tell me true," he said, "do you have to be doing what I say to you?"

Because he phrased it as a command, I had to answer, and I had to answer truthfully even though I tried to deny it. "Yes," I said. The best I could do was to mumble, my hands over my mouth.

For once everybody caught on quickly. One of my captors pulled my hands behind my back.

Grimbold said, "Tell me true. Do you be knowing the whereabouts of my crown?"

"No," I told him.

Obviously, he would be worried that the ring only worked once. "Stand on one leg," he commanded.

I balanced on one leg.

"Sing a song," he commanded.

Maybe it was became I was standing on one leg ready to tip over, but the first song that came to me was "I'm a Little Teapot."

Those who understood Shelban gleefully translated the stupid little ditty for those who didn't.

With great hilarity, the barbarian horde shouted out suggestions to Grimbold, just in case he couldn't think of enough humiliating things to have me do. Dance, spin, spit—they loved that I couldn't stop any act unless specifically ordered to stop, even if I was simultaneously feeling compelled to complete another action. You try spinning, singing, and spitting at the same time—all balanced on one leg.

Luckily, though Rasmussem has nothing against killing off a paying customer, they won't allow sexual harassment, so that was one thing I didn't need to worry about.

"Pretend you be a chicken," Grimbold said.

My singing changed to clucking, and I couldn't help myself—I began flapping my arms.

Barbarian humor.

I was saved from new indignities when the messenger they'd sent to the castle returned. He spoke in his native language, which I didn't have to understand—I could tell by everyone's sour expressions that Grimbold's offer had been refused.

Now what? Would they kill me?

Maybe, maybe not—Grimbold obviously needed time to consider.

"Go back to the tree," he ordered.

Of course, as soon as I tried walking using only one leg, I immediately tipped over.

"You may be walking on both feetses," Grimbold told me.

I walked back to the tree, still clucking, scratching at the ground with my toes.

Even so, Grimbold didn't trust me and had me once again shackled.

Enough with the chicken routine,
I thought at him, but apparently he figured his camp needed the entertainment. I suppose I was lucky he rescinded the commands to sing and spit.

If time had passed slowly for me as a prisoner, it passed even more slowly for me as a chicken. The sun set, the smells of cooking carried to me, and still I couldn't stop clucking and scratching at the earth. Thank goodness I found no worms. I
did
try to lay an egg, though.

After those in the camp had eaten, and after it got dark, they finally became bored with me. They returned to their campfires and tents, leaving me with only one guard. I tucked my head under one arm and tried to sleep.

I was awakened when Grimbold himself came to take the guard's place. "What will I be doing with you?" he asked. He leaned against the tree all the guards seemed to favor, which was out of my range in case I decided to try to peck him to death. "You truly be a useless thing—useless to me, useless to your own peoples. Maybe I be selling you into slavery to one of the nomad tribes. Or maybe I be selling you to the ores, which have a tasting for human flesh."

I sure hoped the Rasmussem program would send me back to the start of the game before anyone began roasting me on a spit. I tried to tell him that I was sure I could be useful: I was willing to side with him and turn on my royal family. My pleading came out as frantic clucking.

Grimbold started laughing. "I wonder," he said, "when the ores be cooking you, if you be tasting like human or like chicken."

He was still having a good time with that thought when he gave an odd sound, something like choking but more bubbly. He pitched forward onto the ground, a dark stain spreading beneath him.

A man stepped out from behind the tree—a man I recognized as one of those to whom I'd been talking in the castle guardroom. He was holding a knife in his hand, and I realized he'd just cut Grimbold's throat. It would have been a nice rescue, except for the feet that—with the death of the person whose orders I was compelled to obey—I was destined to spend the rest of this lifetime as a chicken.

"Don't worry, Princess Janine," my rescuer whispered so as not to alert any of the barbarians. "The royal family was willing to leave you here, but we were not."

"
Cluck, cluck, cluck,
" I said:
You stupid idiot, you have lousy timing.

The man looked startled but nonetheless used his sword to try to pry open a link of my chain. "There are others of us in the woods," he assured me, "so don't worry about the barbarians pursuing."

It wasn't my chief worry.

"
Cluck, cluck, cluck,
" I said:
Look over here, you nitwit,
and I pecked at the dead Grimbold's belt, where the key to my shackle was.

The guard was leaning over Grimbold when a darkness detached itself from the shadows and launched itself at him.

"
Cwak!
" I squawked:
Wolf!
But the man didn't turn in time, and in an instant my would-be rescuer was dead.

I kept on squawking and flapping my arms, but nobody came; apparently the barbarians had had enough chicken antics for the day.

So it isn't to be ores eating me after all,
I thought as the wolf rounded on me.

But then the wolf did a strange thing; it grew longer, and taller, and less hairy. Then it stood on two legs.

In fact, it turned into Wulfgar, clothes and all.

Wulfgar wasn't raised at the castle, people had kept telling me. No kidding. It was the old cliché, only literally true: He'd been raised by wolves.

But so what if he was a shape-shifting wolf? I was willing not to hold that against him if he'd come to rescue me from becoming ore soup du jour.

But I didn't like the look in his eyes as he picked up the dead guard's knife and approached me. "Poor Princess Janine," he said with a feral grin. "A shame her gallant band of rescuers didn't arrive in time to keep the barbarians from slitting her throat."

I felt the fizziness start even before the knife touched my skin.

SUBJ: URGENT—Parts
DATE: 5/25 03:58:46 P.N. US eastern daylight time
FROM: Nigel Rasmussem
<
[email protected]
> TO: dept. heads distribution list

The suggestion from London looked good, but the parts are not available locally and need to be obtained from Pittsburgh. We have chartered a flight, but it is very doubtful this will arrive in time.

We are helpless and dependent on the gamer herself, which is not a comfortable position to be in.

There must be something we can do. Keep thinking. Situation critical.

W
ell,
I thought as I pulled myself out from under Dusty on the hill that overlooked St. Jehan,
how many more stupid mistakes can I make before my time runs out? I guess that explains what killed me that time in the topiary maze.
People had said the queen was there with Wulfgar, but when I'd seen Kenric, I'd assumed they had gotten the wrong son. Right son, just not human at the moment, thank you very much.

What was going on at the Rasmussem Gaming Center? Were they making any headway in overriding the damaged systems so that they could pull me out? Nigel Rasmussem hadn't sounded as though he thought that was likely. I figured if there had been any real possibility of help from their end, Mr. Rasmussem would have played that up to keep me from panicking.

My optimism didn't improve when I found myself once more standing in front of the statue of Saint Bruce the Warrior Poet, realizing I couldn't remember the poem I'd made up for him.

"An Ode to Saint Bruce," I said, which was
all
that I remembered.

Feordina yawned, loudly, while she waited for me to start.

You'd think someone who's created a poem would be able to remember it.

You'd think.

I recited, "Saint Bruce was a warrior poet..."

That wasn't right.

Too late, I remembered that my former first line had ended with
Bruce,
which rhymed nicely with
loose, juice, puce
—all sorts of possibilities. What did
poet
rhyme with?

"He lived in a cave, don't you know it?"

Was that a little whimper I heard from Feordina?

"He wrote sonnets and verses..."

Hmmm.

"...but never said curses..."

As the moment stretched on and on, I saw Feordina avert her gaze from the sword that hung over me. She began to edge her way toward the cave entrance. No doubt red blood makes a mess of green clothing.

Anything is better than nothing.
All in a rush, as though that would prevent Saint Bruce from hearing the way-too-many beats in the line, I finished, "He'll give you one chance—please don't blow it."

I was aware of Feordina hurling herself to the floor, out of the way of both sword and blood splatter.

I was sure the sword wavered in Bruce's hand.

But it didn't come down.

Sounding astonished, Feordina said, "He must be in a good mood. Lucky you; he's accepted your poem."

Saint Bruce, I decided, might have been a mighty warrior, but he couldn't have been much of a poet.

So once again Sir Deming and I were off to the castle, with the ring once more tied to my bodice laces. As we rode I tried to decide what I should do once we got there.
Wulfgar:
Obviously I shouldn't trust a man who had wolf instincts and who had already killed me twice. Who knew what might make him lose his temper with me and cause him to bite off my head—literally? Queen Andreanna kept rebuffing all my attempts to be nice to her, so that left Kenric and Abas. I had chosen Kenric once before, and Mr. Rasmussem had warned me away. "Kenric and Sister Mary Ursula don't work well together," he'd said. That was fine with me; Sister Mary Ursula and I didn't work well together. I'd been planning on asking Rawdon to be my counselor, anyway.

Except...

Except, Mr. Rasmussem had given me that warning before I ever met Sister Mary Ursula. Did that mean I was
supposed
to work with her?

But she doesn't like magic,
I reminded myself.

Maybe I was supposed to ask her to be my adviser, and then I wasn't supposed to follow her advice.

Mr. Rasmussem could have saved us both a lot of aggravation by talking faster and more clearly, I thought. "Talk to your father before you leave St. Jehan," he could have said. "Choose Abas and Sister Mary Ursula, and..."

And whatever.

However many more chances I had left, I suspected I was going to need every one of them.

In the Great Hall, I called, "Abas!" as Queen Andreanna—yet again—started to walk out in a huff after our family reunion.

"What?" the middle-brother prince demanded, sounding like a petulant second grader, for all that he looked like the "after" picture in an advertisement for expensive home-exercise equipment.

"Nice sword work," I said, "back there while you were menacing me."

"Oh." He sounded both surprised and pleased.
Pleased
won out. "I
am
quite good," he admitted.

His mother didn't wait for him, and his brothers were definitely trying to make it out of the room before bursting into laughter.

Abas whipped his sword out of its sheath and moved its edge to within an inch of my nose.

Now
what?

But he didn't slit my throat or give me instant rhinoplasty; he said, "Toledo steel."

And because he sounded proud and cheery, I gathered this was a good thing, and said, "How nice."

He began talking about the wonderfulness of Spanish-crafted swords, and gave me the entire history of the manufacture of blades, making my eyelids grow heavy with terms and phrases like "heat tempered" and "alloy" and "strong but not brittle."

All the while, I kept him moving toward the courtyard, wondering if I'd make it in time to rescue the poacher from the guards, or if I'd collapse in a bored stupor first.

The poacher and I lucked out.

"Prince Abas," the guard I now knew was named Penrod called out, "and, uh, Princess Justine..."

"Janine," I told him.

Captain Penrod shrugged and told Abas, "We caught this boy poaching. He killed a deer. The usual punishment?"

I waited to hear Abas's reaction, just as—that first time—Kenric had waited to hear mine.

"Certainly," Abas said. Then, as the boy was just starting to explain how he'd found the deer dead, Abas eagerly offered, "Shall I?" Once more he brought his sword forth with that metal-on-metal whisper-hiss that gives goose bumps to any sensible person.

"No," I told Abas.

I motioned for the second guard, who'd forced the boy to his knees, to let him up again.

Abas frowned in concentration. "'No'?" he repeated, as though unfamiliar with the word.

"My new reign is starting," I announced to one and all. "This is a time to review the old laws and to reconsider the old punishments."

Abas pouted. "No more beheadings?"

I didn't want to turn him against me, since this was obviously a tradition he cherished. "Not for now, anyway. My first days should be a time of clemency, of people starting anew, with nothing from the past held against them. This might be a way to settle the peasant unrest."

"'Clemency'?" Abas repeated, obviously downhearted. "You mean, no more public hangings?"