Homage and Honour (23 page)

“They come
here?”

“A tenday from
today, they are coming to see the blood heirs for themselves and to
evaluate our proofs, with their Altuinqs.”

* * * * *

Kidnap (2)

Tana arrived
for riding class at a run. Her chore section had had cookhouse duty
that morning and the dishes had taken ages, especially as the
Eighth Ryzck had arrived back at Vada from their patrol sector that
dawn and had descended on the cookhouse en masse, eager for a
decent meal after their long run.

This had meant
far more mugs, platters and eating implements to be cleaned than
usual. She and Tavei, with the others who had morning duty in the
cookhouse, were almost the last to arrive for the class. They
slipped into their place beside Beth as the riding master explained
the lesson. She noticed Jess and Mlei were not in their usual place
on Beth’s other side.

Tana raised a
questioning eyebrow, careful not to let Ranolf see.

Beth shrugged,
her face clearly demonstrating that she was as perplexed as Tana.
It was not like Jess to miss a class.

“Weaponsmaster
Rhian intercepted them at the gate,” she whispered, her lips barely
moving.

: Can you
‘hear’ anything? :
Tana asked Tavei.

: Mlei’s mind
is closed to me :

That is
strange, thought Tana, the Lind of their quartet could always sense
each other, it was a part of what made their friendship such a
tight one and, out of the four, the friendship of Tana and Jess and
their Lind was the closest.

: Perhaps it’s
bad news from home, her grandmother is frail and Jess has been
worried about her :

Beth nodded, a
concerned expression on her face, Tavei had telepathed this idea to
Xei who had passed it on.

Tana hoped this
was not so, thinking back to the days when Jess had taken her and
Beth to visit her family.

Tana had
enjoyed being part of a family again and Beth, well, her inexpert
help in the kitchen, house and livestock areas had set off gales of
laughter amongst the family.

Jess remained
absent for the entire class, she didn’t turn up at any of the other
morning lessons nor did she appear in the cookhouse for lunch.

It was
Weaponsmaster Rhian who approached Tana, Hannah and Beth during
their afternoon free period when they were supposed to be writing a
history essay but were, in fact, discussing Jess’s disappearance.
The three (and Tavei) were squeezed inside Tana’s cubicle worrying
and speculating about what had happened. Xei and Kolyei were
outside but were ’listening’ in.

After checking
up and down the corridor to make sure that no-one else was around,
Rhian knocked on the swing door and squeezed inside the cubicle
with some difficulty.

Four pairs of
eyes turned and stared at her.

Rhian took a
deep breath.

“Jess?” queried
Beth.

“Is she okay?”
asked Hannah.

“Has something
happened to her family, her grandmother?” asked Tana.

“Jess and Mlei
are with Susa Lynsey and Bernei,” began Rhian, “and you are quite
right Tana, something has happened to her family.”

“Has … are they
… has her Granny died?” ventured Beth with a wobble in her voice,
this being, in her mind, the most likely reason for Jess being
summoned to the Susa.

“Her Granny is
fine, at least she is alive,” answered Rhian gazing at her, “it is
the others, they have disappeared.”

Tana gasped,
Beth went white.

“Disappeared?
Was it slavers?” asked the quick-witted Tana.

“We don’t think
so but that is an option we are considering. Jess is talking to
Susa Lynsey and a member of the Avuzdel is there too. Jess is upset
and will stay where she is for the time being.”

The words were
uttered before Beth realised it. “Is it the secret?” she
blurted.

“Secret?” asked
the confused Rhian, “what secret?”

“Her Granny’s
secret. The one that she told me about when we visited.”

Tana, Hannah
and Tavei were looking at Beth in amazement.

“You never told
us about a secret,” Tana accused her.

“Tell me,”
prompted Rhian, “we got a message to send out a patrol to check
that they were all right. Susa Lynsey got word from Argyll that
they might be in some danger but it was a suspicion only. Jess has
told us nothing about a secret.”

“She doesn’t
know,” answered Beth. “Granny Jessica told me about it when she was
trying to help me get settled in here. We talked a lot, she … she
seemed to understand.”

Rhian sat down
on the edge of the bed, the only free space in the cubicle not
taken up by the girls and Tavei.

“Tell us,” she
commanded.

“I was talking
to her about how different my life was here, how strange it was to
be accepted as a person and not as a mere female who was only
expected to listen and obey. She understood, said that her
great-grandmother had escaped from the South and an arranged
marriage just like I had done and that she had found peace and a
husband of her choosing in the North.”

“Jess has said
nothing about this to me or Susa Lynsey.”

“She doesn’t
know. Granny Jessica said it was best forgotten. That was her
secret to me. She made me promise not to tell anyone.”

“What else do
you remember?”

“I’m not sure,
it was the meaning behind what she was saying that was important,
not the story itself.”

“Tell us
everything you can remember. No, wait, you’d better come with me to
the Susa’s office. You two come along as well.” She turned a stern
eye on Tavei. “I know you’ll be listening in. You stay here, block
mentally anything that you ‘overhear’, now don’t play the innocent
with me Tavei. I have a fair inkling of what you’re capable of.
Keep an ear open; prevent any ‘seepages’ and try to do what you can
for Mlei, he’s upset too.”

The three were
ushered into Susa Lynsey’s office. Jess sat silent on the Susa’s
own chair. Rhian bade Beth start at the beginning and tell them
everything she could remember, however trivial. Beside the Susa
stood a youngish man not dressed in Vada maroon but in grey-brown
and with him was a large dun-coloured Lind. He was from the Avuzdel
but Hannah, Tana and Beth were not to know that. In fact it was
doubtful that, at this stage in their military careers, they knew
what the Avuzdel was.

Beth’s face was
screwed up with concentration as she tried to remember exactly
everything she knew.

“I think she
said that her great-grandmother must have been quite an important
person and she said it was quite possible that I might have been
distantly related to her. I liked it when she said that, it made
her and Jess and the other relatives … it made me feel that I
belonged somewhere.”

“That would
mean what?”

“That she was
of noble birth, from one of the Houses.”

“Houses?”

“The Ducal
Houses. We’re all interrelated, noble children very rarely marry
those of lesser birth.”

The human part
of the vadeln-pair from the Avuzdel stared at her with awakening
comprehension.

“There is a
tradition,” he said, “a rumour, that during the first decade or so
of landing that a young girl
did
escape from Murdoch and hid
herself successfully amongst us but, if I recollect rightly, she
was not a daughter of one of the original Lords of Murdoch but
sister to their first king. That is what brought me here. We don’t
know anything for definite, much has been lost through the passage
of time and we of the Avuzdel relied on oral records until a short
time ago. I wonder. I very much wonder.”

He turned to
his Lind, “bespeak the Gtrathlin,” he said, “ask that they look
into their memories and traditions, she will know which ones.”

She nodded and
her eyes grew distant as she tried to make contact over the
distance involved.

He turned to
Susa Lynsey, “there might be something written down there as well.
Tara and Kolyei kept detailed notes on certain aspects not
generally known. We have a vadeln-pair who reside at the domta of
the Gtrathlin. If there is anything to be found it will be
there.”

“But what is
this all about, why would they be interested in Jess’s family even
if she is related in some manner to the Murdoch line?”

“King Elliot is
old and sick,” the man answered, “and there has been sickness at
Fort. Numerous fatalities from what we hear. The heir to the throne
is a child of two.”

“You think they
are searching out for a replacement if this child dies?” asked
Lynsey in disbelief, “but there must be other heirs.”

“All dead,” he
replied.

“How?”

“Elliot the
Third murdered all his living relatives except for his own children
about fifty years ago. He feared a coup. He was quite insane of
course. Now, this could mean one or two different things. One, what
if there was one who escaped, who made it here to the North and was
Jess’s ancestor and two, that the old rumour of the Hidden Princess
is true?”

At the back of
the room, momentarily forgotten, Tana, Hannah and Beth stood
silent. Jess continued to sit on the Susa’s chair.

The man swung
round, “did Granny Jessica tell you anything else, names, dates?
Think girl, this is important.”

“I think,”
faltered Beth, “I think that Granny Jessica’s great-grandmother’s
name was Ruth.”

“Are you
sure?”

Beth
nodded.

“Pretty sure,
yes.”

It was two days
before the detailed handwritten reports of the police chief’s
investigations arrived at Vada and with it the realisation that
Jess’s family were the hidden heirs of Murdoch.

Jess and Mlei
had rejoined them; she was quiet, too quiet.

Susa Lynsey
excused her some classes and she spent some time in the infirmary
visiting her unconscious grandmother who had been brought to the
Stronghold. The old lady had suffered a stroke and remained unable
to speak for some months.

* * * * *

Kidnap (3)

When the
servant woman assigned to Anne and David woke them the next
morning, the couple gazed with renewed wonderment at the opulent
surroundings in which they found themselves.

“Bit different
from what we’re used to,” was David’s comment as he rose and
sauntered over to the table beside the window on which a light meal
was waiting.

“Where are the
children?” he asked the woman.

“The table is
set for five, no doubt they will arrive presently,” Anne answered
for her. “Where are our clothes?”

The serving
woman indicated two chairs in the corner.

She curtsied to
Anne as she did so.

Anne looked
startled although it was not the first time she had been bowed or
curtsied to since their abduction but she said nothing.

“Do you need
help with your dressing My Lady?”

Anne looked at
the clothes then at the simply dressed woman.

“No, I don’t
think so,” she answered as she made to rise.

“I’ll go
arrange for the hot courses then,” said the woman.

“And the
children,” added Anne.

The woman
nodded and scuttled away after performing another deferential
curtsey.

Anne looked
askance at the clothes.

“Do they really
expect me to wear this?” she demanded, holding up the dress. It was
of heavily brocaded velvet, a dark green colour and looked very
long and very heavy. On the floor under the chair were matching
green slippers. The undergarments too were of superfine
quality.

“It’s wear that
or meet our host naked,” replied David who was eyeing his own
garments with dismay, “mine aren’t much better.”

His tunic and
trews were also of green velvet and with them were some strange
half-boots, also in green.

David helped
Anne struggle into her dress.

“Wonder how the
children are faring?”

Two of the said
children arrived shortly afterwards, ushered in by another
plain-dressed woman.

Annette’s dress
was a miniature version of her mother’s; Xavier’s was like his
father’s but much fancier. His was trimmed with shiny sequins and
he looked very uncomfortable.

“Where’s Ruth?”
asked Anne.

“She didn’t
want to get dressed,” answered Annette with a giggle, “and if you
think we look strange, just wait until you see her!”

At last, a very
hot and flustered servant girl half-carried the youngest Crawford
into the room.

They couldn’t
help it; Anne and David laughed aloud.

Ruth was
dressed in a profusion of pink lace.

Her dress was
shorter than Annette’s; it fell halfway to her ankles and was a
mass of flounces with an inordinate amount of frilly petticoats
showing underneath the pink velvet skirt. Anything less suited to
the tomboyish Ruth would have been hard to imagine. Her curls
bubbled round her face (which was one red-visaged scowl) and a
large pink silken flower had been pinned to it.

As she squirmed
out of the girl’s arms she wrenched the flower off, dropped it to
the floor and stamped on it with angry petulance.

“Wants me
twousies and me boots,” she announced.

The girl looked
at Anne and David.

“My Lady,” she
began in her slow drawl, “I tried to explain that she is a girl and
that girls of a certain station in life never wear trousers. She
would not listen.”

“I will speak
to my daughter,” said Anne, feeling sorry for the girl, “but
perhaps you could find something a bit plainer for her to wear,
without all the frills and flounces?”

The girl looked
relieved.

“I will try My
Lady and thank you for not being angry with me.”

Anne looked at
Ruth, “will that do?”

“I surpose,”
replied that young damsel before she added, “soon, velly soon.” She
stamped an angry little foot.