Maudrayne went white. “You misunderstand me, Your Grace. I was only speaking rhetorically. Foolishly also, I confess. I scarce know what I’m saying, being so shaken by what you’ve told me. I beseech you to forgive me for being so thoughtless at this difficult time.”
The princess had come around the table and taken the queen’s hands in her own. Her sea-blue eyes were brimming. “I do love the King’s Grace deeply, as you know. If you’ll allow it, I’ll accompany you to him and do my utmost to soothe his troubled mind and distract him from sick fancies.”
“He insists on saying good-bye to you,” Cataldise said tiredly. “To humor him, I’m letting his gentlemen dress him in outdoor clothing, as though he were truly going to sea. You’ll have to go along with the charade.”
“Of course…”
Behind Cataldise, the door to the sitting room opened slowly without a sound. Rusgann was there, grinning. Beside her stood the shorter, more ample figure of Red Ansel the shaman, holding a finger to his lips. He winked. A moment later, the door swung nearly shut again.
Maudrayne embraced the queen, her heart wildly pounding. “I understand perfectly, Mother. Wait here just a moment while I instruct my maid.”
The princess rushed from the studium. She found Ansel holding out a small green glass phial he had removed from the ivory casket where she kept her diary.
“Take this with you,” he whispered. “It’s time for us to leave this place. But our manner of departure will be more memorable than any of us ever dreamed.”
“What must I do?” Maudrayne said breathlessly. “Oh, hurry, or the queen might discover you!”
“No, she won’t,” said the shaman. “Return with her to the king and contrive to give her a few drops of this sleeping potion. It has no taste and won’t harm her. Rusgann and I will meet you at the royal bedchamber very soon.”
“But what about the king?” the princess said.
“I thought you understood.” Ansel’s dark eyes were dancing. “He’s going to escape with us.”
==========
“They all think I’ve lost my mind, lass,” Olmigon said to Maudrayne in a quavering voice.
“Oh, husband!” The queen sighed.
“It’s true. My dear wife and the wizards and that morbid old raven Falmire all believe I’ll turn up my toes if I leave the palace. But they thought the same when I told them I was going to Zeth Abbey to ask my Question of Bazekoy. And I lived through that, didn’t I?”
“So you did, sire.” The princess leaned forward from her stool beside the king’s bed and gripped his hand.
He lay atop the swansdown comforter, completely dressed except for his heavy cloak and mittens. Only Maudrayne and Cataldise now attended him. At Olmigon’s insistence, the alchymists and the others had withdrawn. Vra-Sulkorig had left behind a tall crystal tumbler containing a poppy draft, which sat on a nightstand along with a pitcher of water, a basin with washcloths, a decanter of wine, three unused goblets, and a burning candle. The only other light in the room came from the hearth.
“They’re taking too long with my carriage,” Olmigon complained.
“It’ll be here soon,” the queen said. “Don’t be impatient, love. Remember there’s your yacht to be readied as well. You don’t want to be kept waiting at the dock when you can rest more comfortably here. Are you sure you don’t want us to take off your boots?”
The king grunted. “I’m fine, damn it.”
Cataldise lifted the crystal tumbler and offered it to him again. “You really ought to take your tonic. You’ll need your strength.”
But he turned his face away. “Not yet. I’ll drink it at the last minute before I go, so its benefits will last longer.”
Cataldise rolled her eyes. “You know best.”
“Damned right I do! If I could only have convinced my jackass admirals of that, I wouldn’t have to take charge of things myself.” He began to cough, and both women sprang up to lift his head and shoulders. The queen tried once more to hold the tumbler to his lips, but at the first bitter taste he knew what it must be and began to curse and splutter. “Take it away, woman! Didn’t I tell you I won’t have the vile brew yet?”
He calmed down as the queen began to sniffle and told her he was sorry for losing his temper. “It’s just that this delay is vexing the hell out of me, Catty. Find out what’s delaying the carriage.”
“Perhaps Maudrayne could go—”
“She’s still under arrest,” the king reminded his wife coldly. “You do it. Please. You can make them hurry.”
“Very well.” She left the chamber, moving reluctantly, and Olmigon said nothing more until the outer door closed behind her. Then: “Maudie, they’re playing games with me, aren’t they!”
“I’m afraid so, sire.”
His voice dwindled to near inaudibility. “God help me. I thought I could pull off Bazekoy’s trick, but they’ve flummoxed me. I’m too far gone to make anyone obey. It’s over. Nothing left to do now but sing the Deathsong and polish my sorry excuses for the emperor.”
“Sire—”
“Woodvale’s bound to bungle it, you know. He’s a professional naval officer with no idea how to utilize a flotilla of cockleshell irregulars. You see, by all conventions of modern warfare, large ships only battle large ships, while cutters and other light craft only fight with each other or act as runabouts in service to the big men o‘ war. But it doesn’t have to be that way! I could show Woodvale how to use our small fry against enemy ships-of-the-line and frigates… like hornets harrying a herd of bulls! But I’ll never get him to understand, talking to him through the bloody windvoices.”
“Your Grace, listen—”
But he swept on in a tone that was weighted with a certain gloomy relish. “If Con were only here, I might get the message across through him. He has no preconceived notions of proper naval tactics, and he wouldn’t take any guff from Woodvale and his captains. But there’s only me.”
“And me,” she said. “And my friend Red Ansel Pikan. Sire, your oracle of Bazekoy is a hard thing for sophisticated Cathrans to believe in. But we Tarnians are different. And because we are, Ansel and I intend to flout the queen, the wizards, and all the Cathran court if need be. Your idea of taking charge of the Cathran fleet is magnificent folly… and Ansel and I will do everything in our power to help you carry it out.”
Olmigon stiffened. An odd sound came from his throat, and for a moment the princess feared she was hearing his death-rattle. Then she realized that the king was laughing.
“How do we manage it, lass?”
Maudrayne took the tumbler with the poppy mixture and flung its contents into the fire. “We pretend you’ve drunk that. You feign deep sleep when the queen returns.”
She took the green glass phial from her bodice and poured four drops into one of the empty goblets on the nightstand. “This is a harmless soporific given me by Ansel. The queen and I will share a welcome bit of wine, watching you snore—and when she begins to lose her senses I’ll help her safely to a couch. Then you and I will wait for Ansel, and trust that his magic suffices to get us both past the guards and out of this cursed prison.”
“Bazekoy’s Brisket!” he crowed. “Can you really do it?”
“Only if you promise not to drop dead on me as we try,” she said, smiling demurely. “In which case, I’m off to Tarn—and your unfaithful son can win his war as best he can.”
Olmigon’s elation vanished. “Ah, Maudie… Is there no way to reconcile the two of you?”
“Not unless he renounces the Conjure-Princess. And small chance of that, I think, with him counting on her sorcery to gain him the Sovereignty.”
“He swore to us this very day that her magic is benign.”
“He lied,” Maudrayne replied somberly. “I have it from Ansel that Ullanoh uses moonstone sigils that call on the power of the Beaconfolk—those inhuman creatures we Tarnians call the Coldlight Army. Such magical tools inevitably put the wielder’s soul at risk, as well as the souls of those around them. Conrig knows this, but his ambition won’t permit him to admit the truth. I don’t believe he loves Ullanoth. But he intends to use her. If it suits his purposes, he may even make her his queen.”
The old king’s eyes squeezed tight shut as she spoke and he gave a soft groan of pain. “No! He insisted he would not! Such a thing would taint the Sovereignty beyond repair. Can’t you convince him—”
“He’d never listen to me, sire. Perhaps he’d listen to you.”
“But is there time?” Olmigon’s eyes opened again, leaking tears. She took a washcloth and wiped his face.
“Only God knows,” she said. “And perhaps a certain emperor dead for ten centuries and more.”
“I dreamed of him last night,” the king whispered. “I saw Bazekoy’s head afloat in its crystal urn. He said: They’re coming: cold iron and cold iron clashing. Warn your son to take refuge then, forsaking victory, for these two are the foe no man can defeat.”
Maudrayne’s eyes widened. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. I feel that I ought to know—but my wits are so skimble-skamble these days.”
Before he could say more, the latch on the corridor door clicked. Queen Cataldise came tiptoeing back into the royal bedchamber.
“Finally asleep!” she whispered happily, bending over her husband and kissing his forehead. The king’s eyes were closed and he breathed slowly. “I see he’s drunk the potion. Oh, well done, Daughter!”
The princess took up the decanter and filled two goblets with red wine. “Share this with me, Mother. Then we’ll undress His Grace and sit quietly here through the night, knowing we’ve done the best we can for him.”
==========
Veiled by the shaman’s magic and carried in his muscular arms, the dying Olmigon Wincantor was successfully spirited from his rooms to the palace stableyard, trailed by the princess and her trusted maid. An unloaded cart, one of many that nightly brought in firewood, awaited them near the Dung Gate. None of the guardsmen, porters, or other lackeys working nearby seemed to notice the Tarnian as he rearranged sheets of canvas to cover the lumpy shapes now resting inside the cartbed. As for the rig’s former owner, he was already returning afoot to his hut in the countryside, thinking how he would spend the bag of gold hidden under his smock.
“Are you all ready?” Ansel inquired as he checked the harness of the draft-mule.
“As we’ll ever be,” came Rusgann’s truculant reply from beneath the concealing canvas.
“If only my dearest Catty could have heard me say farewell,” said the king.
“She’ll find your note in her pocket tomorrow,” Maudrayne said. “It will suffice.”
The shaman climbed into the driver’s seat and took the reins. A click of his tongue urged the mule off at a smart trot, and the cart rumbled out the gate and headed down the cobblestoned street to the harbor.
==========
Maudrayne’s sloop-rigged yacht, only slightly disguised, was tied up at Red Gull Pier. She gave a cry of delight when she caught sight of the fine-looking craft, bobbing in the dark water at some distance from the other sailboats and dinghies, and oddly requiring no watchman to keep it unmolested by the dockside skulkers and roistering seamen.
“It’s my own Fulmar! I never thought I’d see her again. Conrig was supposed to have ordered the yacht sold.”
“And so she was,” Ansel said dryly, tying the mule to a bollard. “To me.”
Olmigon had mercifully fallen asleep. Maudrayne and Rusgann climbed out of the cart and began unloading bundles of supplies they had brought along, provisions of every type gathered and hidden for their great escape. None of the roughnecks wandering about paid the slightest attention to them, although they were the only women on the pier.
“Let’s get everything aboard quickly,” the princess urged, “and cast off before some busybody reports us to the Harbor Patrol.”
“No one will,” Ansel said. “We’re not really invisible, but you needn’t be concerned that anyone will try to stop us. Not even those who spy from strange places!” He peered over the edge of the dock with a sly smirk. There was nothing to be seen among the pilings in the dark water but seaweed and the usual floating bits of rubbish.
“Who do you mean?” Rusgann asked, scowling.
“Never mind. There’s nothing to fear.”
==========
It was not quite midnight and the great quay seethed with activity. Sheltered by the hills north of the capital, the harbor air was cold and almost dead calm. A shallow blanket of mist hung above the water, which was still fairly warm close to the shore.
Rumors of an impending naval attack upon Cala had caused many panicked merchant captains to abandon the commercial docks and put out to sea, or else move their vessels up the Blen or Brent River estuaries out of harm’s way, in spite of the danger of grounding at low tide. The skippers of some smaller craft, heeding the Crown’s call to arms, were installing simple artillery capable of hurling tarnblaze shells at the foe. The distinctive sulphury smell of the infernal chymical mingled with the usual harbor odors of decaying fish, tar, stale beer, and human waste.
The king was not to be moved until the other contents of the cart were unloaded and the sloop made ready. Maudrayne had laid a gangplank and hopped aboard Fulmar. She was catching bags of supplies tossed to her by the maid and stowing them below in the yacht’s tiny cabin.
During one of the intervals when the princess was out of sight, Rusgann said to the shaman, “I hope you don’t intend for my lady and me to go aboard some Cathran warship and sail into battle! It’s the king who’s mad—not us women.”
Ansel chuckled. “Nay, goodwife, you and your mistress will be let off safely ashore before Olmigon meets his destiny. The Lord Admiral’s fleet awaits the enemy in the waters between Eagleroost and Castle Defiant, some seventy leagues to the south. We’ll zip handily down the coast and land you in a likely spot. Our voyage will last only three hours or so, and will be as blithe as my magic can make it.”
King Olmigon had finally roused at the sound of their voices. He said to the shaman, “Duke Farindon Eagleroost is a loyal friend, and his wife is Tarnian. She’d welcome Maudie. I could rest briefly at the castle, then sail away and deliver my great surprise to Admiral Woodvale at dawn! Perhaps small craft from Defiant’s flotilla might even ferry me to the rendezvous. Then you yourself would be able to remain with the princess and keep her safe until the final victory, after which I pray you help my son and his wife mend their differences—”