But my worry turned closer to home when a small breeze spun about me as if looking for its playmate in my head, bringing me the familiar scent of leather and horse. Jeck. Just ahead. I hoped he had been out of hearing.
Muscles stiff as if I had been unmoving for hours, not moments, I started forward. My limbs felt weak and spindly, still trying to purge the recent venom from me, and the chalky taste of spent poison was thick on my tongue. I felt numb inside as I stumbled down the path to the faint brightening ahead. Jeck had saved my life, but I was too tired to hate him for it.
I slowed when the path opened up and the forest ended in an abrupt drop that stretched for miles either way. Below was an infertile field where the city's few horses and ponies found pasture. Beyond that was the smoke-wreathed capital, with its walls and towers, haze and stink. It had never looked so good with the strong morning sun glancing on the fog to impart a golden glow. Carts, ponies, and people made small from the distance crowded the gate. Some were going in, some were going out. None were taking the rough goat path up to here. And overlooking it all with his back to me was Jeck.
The weary man was standing beside a thick oak whose roots went right over the edge. My thoughts went back to his hands on my shoulder last night, giving me peace in my body with his hands and his magic, and peace in my mind with his voice. I clutched my cloak closer about me, suddenly nervous. I didn't want him to know what it had meant to me, finding comfort from him, even if I had to buy it with a peek at my shoulder and the future.
He looked cold, hunched under the sailcloth cloak he had made and rags on his feet. His breath steamed, and he had an uncomfortable-looking stance, awkward and very uncaptainlike though his shoulders were just as broad, and he stood just as tall. I hesitated to move as I took him in. He seemed afraid to go down among the people.
His head came up and he stiffened. And though he didn't turn, I knew he had realized I was standing behind him. “I should have knocked you on the head,” he said softly.
I shuffled forward, halting on the path beside him and looking down at the oblivious city. In the harbor was the pirate ship. We hadn't beaten them here, but they had yet to leave. We were in time.
My shoulders slumped, and, looking askance at him, I realized I could feel the warmth from him, though we were a good arm's length apart. “Why did you wait for me?” I asked.
He took a slow breath. “The wind came up when you awoke. I knew you wouldn't be far behind. And after seeing that . . .” He pointed with his chin down to the milling people. “I would rather have you with me under the guise of bringing you safely home then to tell them you were an hour behind me, angry and hell-bent on killing me because I stole your knife.”
I jerked back a step when he reached behind his cloak and pulled the blade out. Silent at my reaction, he extended it to me hilt first. Heart pounding, I snatched it, retying it on the red ribbon though I thought it an appalling place to keep it since it wouldn't take much for me to fall and cut myself on it. Penelope hadn't seemed to have a problem with it, but she probably didn't slip as often as I did. My gaze went to the mass of morning traffic below us as my fingers tied the knot by rote. There were a lot of people. “Better part of valor?” I questioned bitingly.
Not looking at me, he pushed from the oak and headed down the steep trail to the gate. “I should have knocked you silly and left you there for them to find.”
“I'm already insane,” I whispered, and fell into place behind him. But his voice had driven the chattering wind in my head to a soft complaint, and I was grateful for his presence.
I had to concentrate to keep my footing while descending the rocky scree, and I lost sight of everything else until we reached the bottom. It was only when my feet were again on level ground that I realized how worried Jeck was, and I watched him carefully as he adjusted his makeshift cloak to hide his Misdev uniform before joining the mass of people before the gate. I was getting better at reading him. Though he didn't say anything, I thought he disliked the crush of humanity in which I took comfort in.
The chattering insanity of the wind in my head was all but drowned out by their combined noise. Being surrounded by the swirling mass of people was the best I'd felt since seeing the
Sandpiper
flounder on the reef at Midway Island and realized I had made a life-changing mistake. Chin coming up, I pushed ahead of Jeck. I was home.
“Stay behind me,” I muttered, dodging a cart loaded with deadwood.
“The hell I will,” he said, sounding affronted.
I jerked to a stop, not caring that people streamed about us to gain entry. I had endured enough of him. “You will mind your tongue, Captain,” I said, loud enough so that the surrounding people could hear. From my peripheral sight, I could see them gossiping, starting to point. Despite my ragtag appearance, I was being recognized. Good.
Jeck must have realized it, too, since he pinched my elbow and all but hissed at me, “What are you doing? You'll start a panic if you're forced to explain why we're here, looking like this and without the royal couple.”
Meeting his gaze with a satisfied calm, I raised my eyebrows mockingly. “We are out of the wilds, Captain,” I said. “You're a Misdev officer who lost your prince and allowed brigands to retake my sister and burn my boat to her waterline. I am the sister of the reigning queen, and if she and Alex die, I succeed them. Half the people out here saw her reaffirm my title.”
Jeck's brow furrowed, and he leaned closer so the surrounding people couldn't hear. “You're a player's apprentice. If you take the throne, every player will fall upon you, drag you to ground, crush your master's playing field, and squabble over the scraps like dogs on a downed cat.”
I pried his fingers off me. “They don't know that.”
My attention lifted when the swelling of questions rose around us and the inevitable, “Princess Tess?” was called out. More heads turned, and the milling people bent on gaining the capital hesitated, swirling to a stop about us a deferential four feet back. “Princess Tess?” it came again, worried and frightened.
I scanned the faces, my gaze alighting on a man standing atop the bench of a wagon.
“Look!” he called out, pointing when he saw me see him. “It
is
her. It's the princess!”
A worried murmur rose like birds from a beach. Jeck possessively took my elbow, and I let him, thinking it gave him strength. Smiling, I met the eyes that turned to us. Concern outweighed curiosity on all of them, and calls of “Where is the queen?” and “What happened?” and even a few, “Who hurt you?”
I tried to be reassuring as I raised my hand for silence, but the noise of the crowd swelled, becoming dangerous. From the gatehouse, the guards stood tall and watched from atop the observation platform. Jeck pressed close lest we become separated.
A woman pushed forward, putting a blanket over my shoulders. The smell of horse rose from it, warm and reassuring. I met her eyes, fixing her flushed, eager countenance into my memory forever. I could tell she thought it a rude gift, but I was so cold, it felt like the finest wool. My smile went grateful. I touched her hand and gave it a squeeze of thanks.
Almost as if it were a signal, the rabble pressed inward. Jeck stiffened. Questions rose and fell, unanswerable. A man elbowed his way to me, smiling to show he lacked a tooth as he fostered upon me a pair of mittens, thick and ungainly. Tears pricked my eyes when my stiff, aching fingers slipped into them and found them still warm from his body. I gave him a heartfelt expression of thanks. He bobbed his head in embarrassment and was swallowed up by the crowd. He dropped back willingly, having done what he intended.
“Please,” I said, though I was sure no one heard me over the noise. “I need to get to the gate. I'll tell you all what happened, but I need to get to the gate!”
“The gate!” a man large enough to be a blacksmith bellowed, and I winced. “Princess Tess wants to talk to us from the gate. Make a way! Make a way!”
The call went out like a rippled wave, but no one could move until the outside people shifted first. Slowly a path opened, and I looked behind me to be sure Jeck was keeping up when his grip was torn from my elbow. His face was empty of all but a stoic nothing that I now knew was how he hid worry.
“Stay close,” I said to him. “My people have long memories from the last Misdev war, and trust comes slow to fishermen if it comes at all.”
He stumbled as he was jostled from behind. “I'll try to keep up,” he grumbled.
More shouts for news came as the space opened wider before us. Smiling with a lifetime of protocol, I made my steps slow to the guardhouse, feeling stronger with each foot.
“Telling them is a mistake,” Jeck cautioned as we neared the gate.
“My game, not yours,” I said softly, sure he could hear me over the surrounding babble beating on us. I smiled at a frightened young woman patting a fussy baby at her shoulder, trying to tell her with my eyes that her child would grow up to be a fisherman, not a soldier.
“Your master's game,” he corrected, and I glanced to see his brown eyes were pinched from behind his salt-stained hair. “You don't even know if he acted upon your queen's note.
We passed into the capital, and the guard at the gate held a hand to me to help me up the ladder to the raised observation platform atop the wall. He was young, not old. Kavenlow had gotten Contessa's note and emptied the guards' quarters. My soldiers were probably scattered from here to the borders of the realm in search, leaving the area about the capital free of close scrutiny.
I said nothing to Jeck, my eyes lingering on the sentry who pulled me up the ladder. He looked frightened, and I gave him a calming smile. Jeck was quick behind me, and from the top of the wall, I looked down into the city. People had gathered there as well, alerted to my presence by those who had gone in before us. My gaze rose to the palace, safe on its hill. Word would reach them soon whether I intended it or not.
“Did you dispatch someone to the palace yet?” I asked the young guard.
He paled. “No, Your Highness,” he stammered. “I . . . I didn't.”
“Good,” I said, putting my mittened hand on his shoulder to reassure him. “Do so now. Tell the chancellor I'm with Captain Jeck and will join him after I speak to the city. Have the runner talk only to the chancellor himself, and only where others can't hear.”
My hand dropped to the knife dangling from my waist from its bloodred cord. I awkwardly cut a curl from the nape of my neck and handed it to him. “Use this as a token to get past the sentries.” The pirates had taken my rings; my hair would do.
“Yes, ma'amâI mean, Your Highness,” the young guard stammered, gesturing to another sentry as young as he.
I started when Jeck leaned over my shoulder and muttered, “Young whelp. He wouldn't last three weeks in my king's army.”
My brow furrowed in anger. The wind tugged at my hair, and I squelched it. “We don't normally put new officers in charge of the gates, Captain,” I said tartly. “He's green, yes, but he's handling the situation well. No one is being crushed. No one is fighting. Everyone is calm.”
The runner went out, a way parting for him until he got past the worst of the crowd and could start a faster pace. Jeck leaned closer yet, and I refused to shrink back. “That wouldn't have anything to do with those soothing thoughts you're putting out, now would it?” he asked, his whiskers tickling my ear.
Shocked, I spun, almost hitting him in my haste and only now recognizing the warm tingle coursing through me as my magic.
Jeck's smirk of satisfaction vanished as he saw my sudden fear. “Damn,” he swore softly. “You didn't even know you were doing it.”
“No,” I whispered when the young guard started shouting for everyone to be quiet. I placed my hands atop the railing, my mind going to the woman who gave me her blanket. I had sent her an encouraging thought of calm expectation. And the man who gave me his mittens . . . My gaze fell on them, seeing again their unadorned but sturdy construction. I had wished him to be calm and watchful, too. And the girl with the baby. She had looked so worried until I had smiled at her, and the old woman who touched my shoulder. It had given me so much strength, I was sure I had given her back tenfold the reassurance she had given me.
Even now I felt their whispers of emotion in me as they spoke to their neighbors, calming them, crushing the rumors before they started. And those they spoke to did the same to those beside them. The ripples of calm were passing through the crowd almost visibly, stilling them, turning their questions into a patient waiting.
I looked behind me to the people inside the city, talking with their faces turned up to me. My magic had filtered inside, rising through the streets like a slow fog.
God help me,
I thought. What if I had given them fear instead? How could I wield this much power safely?
The breeze in my head recognized my fear. It seized my distraction and called the wind to play. A gust flowed from the distant woods, visibly pushing the winter-worn grass tops to me. It raced over the crowd, inciting cries of dismay as hats were blown off. My hair streamed behind me, and I wildly bound the voice inside my head to be still.
Jeck took my elbow, and I suffered his touch, too shaken to resist. “Careful, Princess,” he said softly. “Only happy thoughts. Lie to them.”
The wind had died, but the soft sound of the crowd had swelled to replace it. My mind went to Contessa, probably bound and gagged on a dirt floor somewhere. She wouldn't be on the boat in the harbor but somewhere else, secreted away. I hoped Duncan was still free, waiting to move when he could be most effective. He was my best hope to get her back alive.