Heir Apparent (23 page)

"How many?" Kenric asked.

"I'll leave that up to you," I said, to make him feel I valued his opinion. If he suggested something significantly different from what Penrod had in the previous game, I could always overrule him.

"And will you go to Fairfield yourself," Kenric asked, "or will you send a representative?"

"What do you suggest?" I asked.

"
I
don't care."

OK. "Well, then," I told him, "probably I'll go." I didn't think anything was scheduled to happen at the castle in the afternoon that I would miss. All I'd done the previous time was get cleaned up and fitted with that awful red dress. Then I'd lost a lot of time searching in the catacombs, running back and forth to the castle....

Oh, yeah, the catacombs.
I suddenly remembered the ghosts. If I
didn't
go, the ghosts wouldn't be able to follow me—surely a good thing. But I worried that, without me, the game would arrange for
something
to happen so that whomever I sent wouldn't be able to find the money.

We went back down to the courtyard to assure Penrod there was enough left in the treasury to pay the back salaries. Though I could see the extra guards posted, I remained alert for barbarians, glancing back and forth and over my shoulder—for I was fairly certain Rasmussem would have them get in even if I ordered
all
the guards out.

Kenric finally asked, "Is something wrong? You seem to be doing an awful lot of twitching."

I couldn't admit what I knew, so I said, "Fleas."

"Charming." Kenric sighed.

Sure enough, when we got to the wagon, I saw a shadow that shouldn't be there. I shoved Kenric out of the way, hit the ground rolling, and yelled, "Attack! We're under attack!"

An arrow whizzed through the air where a moment earlier Kenric and I had been standing.

"Attempt to take prisoners!" I shouted. I kept rolling, reversing direction, this way and that, trying to make myself an unlikely target for the barbarian archers.

Our guards manning the walls fired a flurry of arrows into the area behind the wagon. They were also firing over the wall—which must have meant that the rest of the raiding party had come out of hiding when they realized their compatriots in the castle compound were in trouble.

I stopped rolling, figuring that the three barbarians who were behind the wagon had enough other worries that they were unlikely to be concentrating on me. Besides, if nobody was shooting at me, I must look incredibly silly rolling all over the courtyard.

Some of the guards went behind the wagon, and they dragged out two bodies and led out a prisoner. For the moment, I was too dizzy to focus on his face.

Kenric helped me to my feet and held on to me as I staggered toward the wagon. The survivor
was
King Grimbold. I sighed heavily, and Kenric tightened his grip, no doubt convinced I was about to feint. Penrod was on my other side, though I'd been unaware when he'd joined us. One of the guards on the wall yelled down, "Captain, about a half-dozen barbarians took off into the woods."

"Should we pursue them?" Penrod asked me.

"No," I said. "We'll question this man first." I gave my most regal look down my nose—though I was no competition for Queen Andreanna and her
what
-is-that-bad-smell? glare—and I demanded, "Who are you? And why did you sneak over our walls and attempt to do harm to me and my men?"

Grimbold spat—big surprise—and announced, "I am being Grimbold, King of the North, and I have corned here to claim that which is being mine that has been stoled."

I gave just the hint of a bow of my head—only enough to acknowledge his status as a king. "King Grimbold, I am Princess Janine de St. Jehan, due to be crowned as the new Shelban king in two days' time. I wish that we could have met under better circumstances. Surely this"—I waved my hand in the direction of his two dead compatriots and all my guards with bows still trained on him—"this is not the way for neighbors to meet."

The feet that I was speaking calmly, without threats, had a positive effect on the captive king.

"My peoples," he explained, "have never been having good luck speaking to your peoples."

"I am sorry to hear that," I assured him. I gestured for our guards to put their weapons away. There was little Grimbold could do to harm me unless he made a suicidal leap forward to throttle me, and my show of good faith could only make him obligated to me. "What is this item of yours that you believe we have?"

"The crown of our firstest chieftain, Brecc the Slayer, made for him by the wizard Xenos."

"Do we have such a thing?" I asked those around me.

"Yes," Kenric admitted.

"We
stole
it?" I tried to sound as appalled, as though I were only hearing it for the first time.

"Not exactly."

"I think," I said in my best Solomon voice, "we need to settle this immediately. King Grimbold, I regret the death of your companions. I wish that you had known me well enough to have felt you could approach openly."

He inclined his head, which I very much hoped meant he was taking responsibility for the death of his own men.

"Meanwhile," I said, "let us discuss this matter indoors. Shouldn't it be almost time to eat?"

There were lots of enthusiastic nods from my men.

"Then let us go in."

Neither those guards who were scheduled to eat at that time nor Grimbold waited to be invited twice, leaving me alone with Captain Penrod and Kenric.

Penrod dropped to his knees and offered me his sword. "Obviously, I didn't post enough guards, Princess Janine. You could have been killed, and it would have been my fault."

"No." I shook my head for emphasis and refused to take the sword. "They were determined and would have gotten in no matter what. I have the utmost trust in you."

He bowed, with a murmured, "I am indebted to you."

Kenric said, "As am 1.1 owe my life to your vigilance."

"To my fleas," I corrected, "that made me restless."

Kenric smiled. "Nevertheless..." he said, and took my arm again—this time not to steady me, but to escort me into the Great Hall.

When I entered the room on Kenric's arm, Queen Andreanna wore an expression as though she'd just put a pickled eyeball into her mouth. Kenric ignored his mother's scowl and smacked Abas on the arm, indicating for him to move in closer to Wulfgar, so that I could sit at the high table with them.

"We need room for King Grimbold, too," I said.

Abas had already gotten as close to Wulfgar as comfort would allow, but neither Wulfgar nor Andreanna budged.

"That is being all right," Grimbold announced. "I will be seating myself here, next to this handsome woman." And with that he plunked himself down on the edge of the bench beyond Andreanna, which—under normal circumstances—would have accommodated only the tiniest of persons. Grimbold wasn't tiny.

Andreanna scooted closer to Wulfgar faster than I'd ever seen her move.

"Hello, there, my lovely," Grimbold said to the queen. "I be guessing you still being fit enough to be breeding children."

"I beg your pardon!" Andreanna was practically on Wulfgar's lap, trying to gain more distance from Grimbold.

Grimbold, who hadn't spoken quietly before, now shouted, "I said, 'I be guessing you still being fit enough to be breeding children!'"

"King Grimbold," I said by way of introduction, "this is Queen Andreanna, the widow of King Cynric. Queen Andreanna, this is King Grimbold, whom I have invited to dine with us while we discuss matters of state."

"Ah!" Grimbold shouted the length of the table down to me. "The queen, is she? Probably one of them delicate sorts—is that what you be telling me?"

I nodded.

He turned his attention back to Andreanna. "All right, then," he assured her, "I be acting refined around you." He nudged her in the ribs with his elbow and winked. "I don't be believing in making my women skittish."

For just this once, things only got better.

Grimbold explained that King Cynric had taken the crown that rightfully belonged to him and his people.

Abas explained that his father had won it in a tournament.

Grimbold and Abas debated the finer points of tournament rules till the rest of us were just about facedown asleep in our bowls of leek soup before Abas conceded that perhaps his father had been a bit overly lenient in his interpretation of what was and was not allowed.

Queen Andreanna protested, "He won it fairly!"

Grimbold said, "I be liking a woman what defends her man."

Next I asked where the crown was likely to be—of course, nobody knew—and we invited Sir Deming and Sister Mary Ursula to join us. Grimbold moved in even closer to Andreanna and said to Sister Mary Ursula, "Come over here and sit next to me, you sweet young thing," though she had to be thirty years older than he was.

Sister Mary Ursula giggled like a sixth grader.

Once again Deming remembered that King Cynric had given the crown to the dragon, and once again he speculated that one of the magic-users might know how to find the dragon.

I gave orders for the magic-users to be sent for, despite Sister Mary Ursula's warning that magic was nasty.

Grimbold assured her that he would protect her from any of magic's nastiness.

She giggled some more.

Grimbold said he would send word to his people that I was working on reclaiming the crown and that they should postpone attacking the castle.

"Give me three days," I told him, knowing I had only two days, at the most, before the game would end—with or without my having recovered the crown.

"One," Grimbold said, a hard bargainer despite the feet that he'd just eaten close to an entire roast pig at my table.

"Two," I countered, and he spat on the floor and slapped his palm on the table, which seemed to mean we had an agreement.

Queen Andreanna left the table before the pastries were served, murmuring something about having to watch her figure, despite Grimbold's assurance that he liked his women substantial enough to grab hold of.

In fact, we all left the table before Grimbold had finished eating.

I had decided it was safest if I accompanied Rawdon and the guards on the expedition to Fairfield, just in case of complications. I hoped that, with Rawdon leading us through the catacombs directly to where he had hidden the gold, I might avoid picking up any ghosts. But, just in case, I decided I'd better take a quick bath now and choose what clothes to wear. Who knew when the next time would be I could do so without witnesses?

I told Sir Deming I'd chosen him to be in charge of the treasury—what was left of it, plus what we recovered—and that made him almost pleasant. What he said was, "Good decision."

"Can you suggest someone I might borrow clothes from?" I asked, sending mental vibrations his way that said,
Not Lady Bliss, not Lady Bliss.

Deming looked at me appraisingly, and I was sure he was about to make a disparaging remark. Instead, he said, "If you're going to be running around the countryside digging up treasure, you might do well to borrow one of the page's uniforms."

It struck me as a good idea, too.

After bathing and changing, and making a twine necklace to hold the ring, and handing out to the guards their back salaries and their bonuses, it was time to set off for Fairfield. This time we brought provisions in case we were there long enough to get hungry. I left Kenric in charge of the castle because that seemed a good show of trust in him at a time when, in fact, I was fairly confident nothing much would be going on. I brought Captain Penrod with me, since the castle was no longer in danger of barbarian attack.

Rawdon didn't cause any trouble on the way, being so relieved not to have received a death sentence that he kept trying to kiss my hand. Who would have guessed that such a thing could become excessive?

In the catacombs I still caught glimpses of things that weren't there and heard echoes of whispers that had never been spoken.

I didn't have high hopes for not accumulating ghosts.

It
was
much easier crawling around tunnels and exploring catacombs while wearing a page's tunic and breeches than it was wearing a red velvet gown made for a woman of the kind Grimbold would definitely have found substantial.

Rawdon led us to his hiding place. Despite all the trouble he'd caused, I even warned him that the doorway looked rather punky and that it needed to be shored up so it wouldn't collapse.

I stayed while the guards brought load after load of gold to the waiting wagons; but if any ghosts had attached themselves to me, and if they
were
going to make sleeping difficult, I knew I should probably get a head start home. Leaving Captain Penrod in charge of escorting the convoy home, I made it back to the castle at about midnight.

The guards recognized me this time—as well they should, since I was the one who'd given them their money—so they readily let me in. As I walked to the castle, I heard them having trouble raising the drawbridge.

"Hello, ghosts," I muttered.

One of them poked me in the ribs, while another pulled my hair.

The good times were over.

Just as I had been warned, the ghosts proved to be a nuisance all night long.

They moaned.

They wailed.

They rattled the window shutters.

They set the castle hounds to howling.

It wasn't that their noise was continuous. No, you can get used to just about any sound that
never
stops. Instead, they periodically grew quiet, giving the impression that they had worn themselves out or gotten bored or taken pity on the castle's inhabitants. I would start to doze. Then a door would slam. A long-dead person would scream. Cobwebby fingers would brush my face.

My brain knew that my body was lying on a total immersion couch at a Rasmussem Gaming Center, and that probably less than an hour had passed since I'd gotten there on a Saturday afternoon. Try to tell
that
to the body I felt I was wearing, which was convinced it had been tossing and turning all night.