Royal Outlaw: (Royal Outlaw, Book 1) (30 page)

“Go Hallie!” Mariel cheered. “Don’t get too dizzy!”

“And what about you?” A dashing young man asked Mariel, approaching the table. “Would you like to get dizzy?”

Mariel glanced at the offered hand and then at Cara who clapped along with the rhythm of the music. Her eyes were wide with excitement and the effects of the alcohol as she watched couples, including Hallie and her small partner, dance around the tavern. Mariel flicked her eyes to the table where the man had come from. His friends watched, waiting to see her reaction to his inquiry. They looked like merchant folk. Safe enough.

“I’m sorry to say I’ve had my eye on one of your friends,” Mariel lied to the man. “But I’m sure Cara here will be happy to let you spin her around for a while.”

The young man turned to Cara with a bow. “How about it, Miss Cara, would you care to dance?”

Cara’s eyes almost popped out of her head and she blushed crimson. She looked toward Mariel for help. The girl with the dark green eyes just smiled and winked before she gracefully stood and sauntered toward the table of merchants. They eyed her the entire way over.

She grabbed the arm of a tall, gangly fellow with a bent nose, but startling blue eyes. “Come on, I want a dance.”

The young man grinned as his friends cheered. The musicians launched into a lively reel as the man stood and took her by the waist. She made sure his hands came nowhere near the knives at her back that were hidden beneath the cloak. Mariel glanced over her shoulder to see Cara laughing tentatively at a joke the other merchant had told her as he pulled her into the throng of dancers. Hallie had let down her hair and continued to dance with wild abandonment with her small partner.

Mariel turned back to her dancing partner and beamed. “Show me what you can do.”

The man accepted her challenge and together they joined the other dancers. They moved across the floor with ease, matching their steps and reading each other for the next move. This was no stately dance meant for the ballroom. It was made up as they went. The merchant twirled her around, his long gangly limbs having no effect on his dancing skills.

After only two dances, Mariel parted with her partner and returned to the corner table for a break and a drink. She did not feel tired, on the contrary, she felt invigorated, but she had no desire to push her luck tonight.   

“I feel like I could do anything!” Cara cried, giddy with delight as she fell into her seat. “Even take on those men who were bothering us earlier.”

Hallie plopped into her seat, her face flushed and her eyes brimming with excitement from her dance. “And they claimed they were off-duty soldiers in the Provost’s Guard! It is positively appalling.”   

Mariel sobered instantly. “They work for the Deputy Provost?”

Hallie nodded, not registering the change in Mariel’s mood. “They talked to us in a dreadful manner and bragged about being guardsmen who risked their lives daily to bring justice to the king’s lands.”

Perceptive Cara had seen Mariel’s reaction. “Is it bad that they were guardsmen?”

“Very,” Mariel said, rising from her seat. She scanned the room, noting any new arrivals. “We need to leave. Now.”

“But, the men left! You made them leave!” Hallie protested, even as Cara stood.

“I have a feeling they left because they recognized me, but they’ll be back.”

“But hardly anyone knows what you look like. Since being named princess you’ve only been at the convent and restricted to the suite at the Citadel.”

Mariel’s head snapped back to Hallie. “They didn’t recognize me as royalty, Hallie. Do you remember when we first met and I told you my name was Mariel Quickwit?”

The large girl nodded uncertainly.

“I wasn’t lying. That was the name I went by before Dreyfuss found me and bound me to this life.” She indicated the fancy gown she wore. “I worked for the Resistance. I was a thief and a spy. I traveled across this kingdom and into others for my work. But this city, the City of the Gods, was
my
city. My name is not so well known elsewhere, but here? There’s such a heavy price on my head that even you, an earl’s daughter, might not hesitate to turn me in.”

Mentally, Mariel’s mind worked fast, trying to figure out how much time had passed since she had sent the men away from her friends with an icy glare. They had drunk and sang and danced. Too much time had passed. If the men were truly guardsmen and if they had recognized her by her eyes they would have already reported her presence here. Soldiers would be arriving any minute to arrest her.

“But all these people are here,” Hallie said. “And they haven’t turned you in to the Deputy Provost.”

Mariel felt the need to leave growing stronger as each wasted minute passed, but Hallie remained sitting, not fully understanding the danger they were in. She doubted Cara understood it either, but the quiet girl knew she was out of her element and it was Mariel’s judgment that she needed to listen to.

“That’s because people hate the Provost’s Guard. The soldiers are supposed to protect, but they only help the people who will pay them gold, and that category doesn’t include the lesser folk like most of the customers here. People will do almost anything for money, even turn in most outlaws, but they won’t do that to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not like other criminals. I only steal from those who can afford to lose and I fight in defense of the poor mites who the guards are supposed to be protecting but aren’t. The people here, if they recognize me from my wanted posters or from seeing me before or from rumors about the color of my eyes, they will keep their traps shut because they
like
me and they don’t want to see me caught. Your little guard friends though? They would like to watch me hang. Just by being in my company they will see you as my accomplices. So we need to leave.
Now!
”

With fear drilled into her heart, Hallie jumped to her feet and started pushing her way through the drunken crowd. People protested, but one withering look from Hallie and the mass of bodies parted. Mariel followed, her eyes scanning the crowd for any sudden movements and her hands on the knives on her back, hidden beneath the cloak.

Cara followed on Mariel’s heels, she stumbled and caught herself on the older girl’s shoulders and hurried to regain her balance. Mariel glanced back to make sure her friend was okay. As she did, she caught a glimpse of what looked like dark shadows moving outside the open window.

Lunging forward, Mariel grabbed Hallie’s cloak and dragged her and Cara to the grimy floor. Hallie screeched in surprise, but a glare from Mariel shut her up. They had made it as far as the merchants’ table, the men gave them odd looks, but before any of them could ask what the girls were doing, the music broke off abruptly.

The entire tavern went quiet a moment later when twelve heavily armed men dressed in black and green uniforms stepped inside. The guards wore leather plates for armor beneath their tunics and had swords and daggers strapped to their waists. Mariel knew that these soldiers kept all of their weapons visible, but knowing that she could see their killing devices did not loosen the knot in her stomach.

One look at the leader of the group with three silver stars surrounding a hammer on his left breast, and Mariel muttered swear words under her breath. This man was none other than the Deputy Provost himself, Sir Mathias Goodwin. His six-foot-three muscular frame marked him as the tallest of the guards. He was fortyish and his age had begun to show with the crow lines gathering at the corners of his eyes, but his hair was still sandy in color and neatly bound at the nape of his neck. He boasted an impressive frown on his clean-shaven face.

Twelve against one were very bad odds. They would be bad odds even if she were in prime condition, which, sadly, she was not. But adding Sir Mathias into the mixture and the situation was ten times worse. He was a hard man who had spent his younger years fighting in every war the monarchs asked him to. A third son, but a noble through and through, he had been given the position of Deputy Provost a year before when his predecessor was relieved of his post after Mariel had escaped his grasp. Sir Mathias was known for taking fat bribes and being hard on the poor folk who lived in the slums. He was the type of man that people feared and he held a personal grudge against Mariel.

The second time she had been truly captured here in the City, it had been this man who had hauled her to the prison after catching her stealing from his own townhouse. She had escaped the jailhouse and returned to his home to finish her thievery. The last time she had been caught, Sir Mathias was Deputy Provost, head of the Provost’s Guard for the City of the Gods. She had escaped once more and his position had been challenged but not stripped from him. This towering man was here for personal revenge.

The easiest way to escape would be to start a tavern brawl, leap over the counter in the ensuing confusion, and make a break for the back door. Alone, or with another underworld outlaw, the plan might stand a chance of working. But with Hallie and Cara it would be impossible. The two lady’s maids would never survive a tavern brawl.

She had never felt the need to keep anyone else she knew safe as much as she did now. The two noble girls were in this situation now because she had brought them here. It was her responsibility to get them to safety.

As the Deputy Provost scanned the room with his steel grey eyes, Mariel knew that it was only a matter of time before he saw her. She needed to act fast if she hoped to keep Cara and Hallie alive.

“If you want to live through tonight, you need to listen to me,” Mariel whispered to her friends as they crouched behind the table of merchants, who were thankfully looking at the soldiers now and not the girls. As she talked, she never took her eyes off the guardsmen. “You need to stay on your hands and knees and crawl to the front door.” She unfastened her cloak and let it slide to the floor so that it would not be a hindrance to her later. “I’m going to distract the guards. When they aren’t watching, sneak outside.” Slipping off her feet-pinching shoes, Mariel continued to watch the dangerous men in black and green. “Once you get outside, run up the street. When you get up two blocks turn left, then at the next street take a right. Keep running until you find the temple dedicated to Borin, god of the hunt. Hide there.”

“What about you?” Cara asked.

Mariel tore her eyes away from the guardsmen and looked at her quivering friend. She forced a smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’m Mariel Quickwit, remember?” Not that that made a difference when she was weak from an injury and facing twelve well-armed men, including the infamous Mathias Goodwin, but Mariel was not about to mention that to the girls.

Hallie seemed reassured, but Cara looked as though she saw straight through Mariel’s bravado. However, it did not matter if Cara believed her words or not, just as long as she obeyed them.

“Go!” Mariel ordered.

Hallie and Cara began to creep around the wall toward the door, while Mariel crawled in the direction of the counter. With the wall at her back, Mariel stopped and crouched in an area between tables where the guards could see her. She waited, wishing that people were not so terrified of the guard because then they would not be so quiet.

The Deputy Provost’s roving gaze came closer and then stopped as they found their prey. His lips tweaked up in a malicious smirk. “In the King’s name, I hereby arrest you, Mariel Quickwit.”

Mariel rose gracefully from her crouched position and leaned against the wall. “It’s a pleasure to see you, too, Mathias. I’ve been hoping for another little run-in.”

“There will be no escaping this time.”

The outlaw widened her eyes in feigned surprise. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Deputy Provost. A small girl like me attempting something so daring against all you big, brave men?”

One of the guards drew his sword and stepped forward, but Sir Mathias put up his hand to halt him. “Careful, she may not look it, but she’s dangerous. You can’t see her weapons, but I know she’s heavily armed.”

Some of the guards near the back of the group still stood in the doorway. She needed to get them to move if she wanted Cara and Hallie to have a chance of escape. She was tempted to search for her friends and see where they were, but she resisted, knowing that looking for them would give away their position.

Mariel spread here arms wide. “Now, now, Sir Mathias, don’t go jumping to conclusions. I’ve become respectable. Can’t you see I’m dressed like a lady?”

“No proper lady I know spends time in a tavern.”

“But surely you’ve heard that I’ve been fully pardoned of all my crimes. I’m a free girl now.”

Some of the guardsmen looked uneasy. “She’s right, Sir, the king gone and taken that price off her head.”

“Shut your trap!” Mathias barked at his man. “How do you think she got the name ‘Quickwit’? She’s a clever one, no doubt about that.”

Mariel spread her skirts and dipped into her most graceful curtsy, careful to keep the knives at her back hidden from view. “I thank you kindly for the compliment, Good Sir, but surely you can’t expect me to fight you while I’m wearing a corset.” She tugged at the front of her gown. “Have you ever tried to wear one of these contraptions? They’re positively painful!” 

That elicited chuckles from some of the tavern’s customers. Mariel smiled winningly at them. She recognized only a handful of them, but she knew that everyone else was aware of her reputation. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dale grip a large butcher knife behind the counter. If it came to a fight, Mariel hoped she would not be alone.

“What good lady did you swindle for that gown?” Sir Mathias asked.

Mariel looked down at her dress and attempted to brush off some of the grime that had gathered on the fabric from crawling on the floor. “Actually, this gown isn’t stolen from a noblewoman or a fat merchant. I have the oppressed people of the land to thank for this creation. Their sweat and blood and starving stomachs helped produce it.”

“What’s she talking about?” one of the guards whispered to another.

Even Sir Mathias appeared slightly confused, but he recovered quickly, knowing that he could not let her words throw him off his guard. “Enough talk, it’s time to do my duty and arrest you.”

The guards blocking the door had not moved. Mariel forced a laugh, hoping it sounded genuine. “Do your duty? You don’t know what duty is, Mathias. People in the Lower District and other not-so-well-off districts have family and friends vanish daily and you don’t go looking for them or their kidnappers, not even when bodies are found later. Cutpurses and foists steal from those who can’t afford to put food in their own mouths, let alone their children’s, but you don’t so much as lift your sword, even if you are a witness. Women drown their own children and men beat their families, yet you good soldiers sit on your asses drinking ale and letting your purses grow fat on bribes and the money the wealthy give you to protect them.”

Soldiers still stood between Cara and Hallie and escape. If Mariel wanted them to move, she needed to get them angry. She was beginning to feel that a fight was inevitable.

“The only sense of duty you great guardsmen of the City of the Gods in the kingdom of Natric have is duty to your purses, not to the people who need your assistance most. I’ve cracked the heads of plenty of lowly robbers and dragged murderers and rapists to the doorstep of
your
prison when you were too busy bowing to the nobles to track them down. I’d say I do your job better than you.”

Some of the guards growled, but two, including the one that had started to approach before, lost their tempers. “Shut up, wench!”

Drawing their swords the two men lurched toward Mariel before Sir Mathias could stop them. They were fools, ones who had never dealt with her before.

As they had drawn their weapons, she freed her throwing knives from the sheaths strapped to her back. Before they had so much as taken a step, her knives flew through the air with precision that had come from years of practice. The knives hit the men in their right shoulders, striking perfectly in the gap between the plates of leather. The two guards screamed in pain as blood began to spill.

That was what Mariel had wanted. She did not want to kill anyone if she could help it. Facing twelve soldiers—and almost imminent capture—she knew that killing any of their comrades would raise the bloodlust in the remaining guards and she would probably be killed before they managed to arrest her and drag her off to prison. Jail was a place she might escape, death was not.

The two overzealous guards released the hold on their swords and clutched at their bleeding arms with the knives still imbedded in them. Mariel dropped into a fighting stance with the two knives drawn from the sheaths on her forearms in her hands. She sprang. Her bare feet barely touched the dirty floor as she ran toward the injured men. She twisted her wrists as she approached and slammed the hilts of her blades down onto the men’s heads, knocking them unconscious.

Intent upon her targets, she had forgotten to compensate for the other guards. Not quick enough to draw a blade, but fast enough to react to her unexpected attack, one of the nearby guards slammed his fist into her face.

Pain blossomed on the side of her right jaw and cheek. The punch threw her off balance and she stumbled. Her foot caught on the hem of her dress and she fell. As the ground rushed up to meet her body, Mariel ducked into a roll. She was forced to drop her knives to keep from impaling herself.

Unable to control where she was going, she slammed into one of the tables, knocking it over. The two men and the woman who had been seated around the table bolted like frightened rabbits. Mariel was grateful for all those months of practice of fighting in a dress as she untangled herself from the table and settled into a crouch.

The ten conscious guards drew their swords and began to close in. The doorway was clear now. Mariel had gotten exactly what she wanted—if not in the way she had desired. She hoped that her two noble friends were now out the door and running up the street to safety as fast as their corseted bodies could take them. But she could not dwell on that now, not when she was one against ten, and she needed to focus on her own survival.

She pounced again, but kept low. Turning just before she reached the men, she slammed her shoulder into one of the guard’s legs. The man lost his balance and fell, taking several of his comrades with him. All four men that fell were forced to drop their blades to keep from skewering each other and themselves, while the rest of the group backed off to avoid becoming tangled in the mass of limbs and bodies.

Mariel struggled to extricate herself from the men that were much bigger than her. In the process, a large flailing arm slammed into her face. It made contact with her nose, but did not break it. Blood began to flow before she managed to escape the mess and found her fallen knives on the floor.

She looked for escape, but she was cornered. The guards, both fallen and standing, were between her and the front door and the counter. She backed up and skirted around a table, so that there was something between her and the guards. The table’s occupants scattered to get out of the way.

Mathias’s grey eyes flashed deadly with his heavy sword in hand, while his men regained their footing. Mariel crouched low again with her daggers in hand. She spat out the blood that had dribbled into her mouth from her nose.

Before either the soldiers or Mariel could move again, a melodic, angry voice cried out, “I demand that you stop this tussle this instant. You guardsmen should be ashamed of yourselves. Do you have any idea who you are attacking?”

Mariel rose from her crouch to be sure that the voice she was hearing was not her imagination turning this bad situation into a nightmare. But sure enough, through the crowd of surprised guards who looked toward the source of the voice, she saw Cara standing near the door wearing a horrified expression that perfectly reflected the way Mariel felt.

Hallie stood proudly in front of Cara with her shoulders thrown back and her chin held high. They had not escaped. They had had the chance, but Hallie had stopped and Cara had not left without her.

Sir Mathias and his fellow guards observed the finely dressed nobles, while still keeping an eye on Mariel. “Who are you?”

Hallie puffed up her large chest, her eyes blazing in anger. “I am Lady Hallie, daughter of Earl Xavier Feningon of Silverwash Canyon and this is Lady Cara, daughter of Lord Stonewell. And the young lady who you happen to be trying to kill, is someone that you should be bowing to not hitting. She is none other than . . .”

“Hallie,
no!
” Mariel cried.

But the noble girl did not listen. “
Princess
Mariel de Sharec, granddaughter of His Majesty King Vincent II and Queen Meredith, and heir apparent to the throne of Natric.”

Stunned silence followed Hallie’s declaration and then every eye in the crowded tavern, soldiers, patrons, and employees alike turned to stare at Mariel. To her increased shame, she felt heat creep up her neck and spread across her cheeks.

“Is the girl mad?” Sir Mathias asked Mariel with incredulity.

“Yes,” the princess hurried to agree. “Her brain has been addled. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, which is why you should let them both go on their merry ways.”

Sir Mathias frowned, narrowing his eyes at Mariel, but before he could speak Hallie interrupted. “What are you talking about? Why will you not tell them the truth? Royal blood flows through your veins. It is something to be proud of, not ashamed!”

If Mariel had been closer she would have boxed her friend’s ears. The outlaw had no intention of claiming the title of crown princess. Not to mention she doubted the guards who had hunted her so long would deign to believe such far-fetched notions. And she was right.

“Your friend could pass as a decent Player,” Mathias told Mariel. “Too bad her lies are so outrageous. Grab the girls,” he ordered his men.

Cara did not struggle as a guardsman grabbed her, but Hallie flailed and shrieked, “When my father hears about this—”

“Hallie,” Mariel yelled. “
Shut up!
You aren’t helping.”

The plump girl stilled and stared at Mariel. She was about to open her mouth again, but the princess silenced her with one icy glare. The situation had gone from bad to worse.

“Let them go,” Mariel told Sir Mathias. “Your quarrel is with me not them.”

The Deputy Provost smirked. “Free them? They are no doubt outlaws too. After all, they are in
your
company.”

Sweat trickled down Mariel’s forehead. She glanced at her captive friends. The guardsmen who restrained them held knives, which they could easily drive into the girls if Mariel so much as took a step toward them.