Sasharia En Garde (56 page)

When I was done (and had thumb-pressed every crumb off the
leaf and nibbled it up) I rose to get some water. All of the guys closed in
around me, faces tense and determined.

I washed, drank, then silently held out my dripping hands.

Red offered an old sash. “Found it in my gear. Crumpled but
clean.”

Damedran sighed, but took it.

This time he did a better job of checking to make sure the bonds
were not too tight. He helped me mount up, Ban took the reins of my horse, and
in silence the boys mounted. They rode around me downstream a ways, Damedran
squinting up at the sun to check direction, until a distant screeching of birds
caught his attention.

Everyone’s head turned. I looked as well, not comprehending
what they could find interesting about a flock of birds rising above the trees,
screeling and squawking, until I heard the faint rumble of horse hooves.

Damedran’s face blanched. “Ride out!” he shouted, waving at
Ban and me. “Ride out. You know where to go!”

Ban used the reins to whack my horse, kneed his own mount,
and suddenly there I was, galloping unsteadily—gripping with my legs as best as
I could.

Damedran whirled his horse round, pulling his weapons, to
face the oncoming threat now raising a great dust cloud. I dared a single
glance back. He sat squarely in the path of that billowing grit in which vague
silhouettes of mounted warriors could be made out. The five other cadets spread
out behind Damedran.

My horse jerked to a stop, and Ban flung the reins back over
my leg. “Go,” he muttered, not looking at me. “Just—go.” Without waiting for me
to speak, he whacked my mare on her hindquarter, and she took off downstream.

Ban rode back to face the danger with his mates.

Just as, behind me, Jehan and Owl led their force at a
gallop straight toward the boys. The dust thinned, revealing in the lead a
tall, slender rider with long white hair.

Damedran raised his sword, then lowered it. “What?” he
cried. “Prince
Jehan
?”

Jehan did not halt his sweating, foam-flecked horse. In
answer he rode straight at the string of remounts, and as the boys gaped, he
leaped from a galloping horse onto the bare back of a fresh remount, who sprang
into a gallop. White hair flying, he shot downstream after me, the boys so
amazed they didn’t comprehend they were efficiently surrounded until it was too
late.

“You’ll note there are twelve of us.” Owl waved a hand. “You
might go ahead and sheathe the weapons, boys.”

o0o

I was galloping about as gracefully as a teapot on a
rocking horse alongside a rocky stream, hoping that when I fell off, which I
was sure was inevitable, I would manage to hit the water and not a giant
boulder.

A galloping horse thundered up behind me.

All I could think of was War Commander Randart.
He doesn’t trust Damedran to bring me in
.
He’s here to skewer me personally.
I
bent down, as if that would help my poor mare increase her speed.

A hand reached out to grip the mare’s reins near her head.
Both horses slowed, and I braced myself, angry, fearful—

And stared up into Jehan’s face. His pale, grim face.
Searching my features to see if I was all right.

“Huh?” I said intelligently.

He leaped off his horse—which had no saddle, I noticed
distractedly—and held up his arms. Instinctively I leaned forward, and though
I’m not exactly a sylph, he lifted me down as if I were one, and set me gently
on my feet. He tightened one arm around me, and laid his other hand along my
cheek so I looked up, and there were his lips brushing over my nose, and my
eyes, and well, despite the dust, and the pair of us being considerably sweaty
and disheveled, the instinct that flared brighter than logic or even laughter
locked us together in a long, lingering kiss.

Eventually we had to breathe.

“No—” I began, standing in the circle of his arms. “Wait.
You can’t.”

“Don’t,” he murmured into my filthy tangle of hair. “Say
anything. Just—don’t.”

I drew in a very unsteady breath, and when I felt the sudden
loosening of the sash round my wrists, I fought the urge to hug him back, but
neither did I push him away.

I gripped his wrists instead. “Jehan, I don’t know how you
managed to get here. Or why. In fact I’m almost afraid to ask. But you should
know that those boys are scared Dannath Randart will kill them if they don’t
show up with me at something called Castle Ambais.”

“I guessed as much.” Jehan whistled softly. “Ambais is a
garrison full of handpicked Randart warriors. It’s located at this end of the
valley, tucked up against the border mountains. If the boys had managed to get
you there, it would have been impossible to get you out. At least, without
bloodshed that Randart is quite willing to spill.”

“Ugh.”

Jehan wiped his hair back off his damp forehead and squinted
up at the sun’s position. “It’s one of his staging points for his and my
father’s war. As near as I can tell, it’s also a secret stash for the weapons
that are going to conveniently appear for next spring’s surprise invasion of
Locan Jora.”

I saw in his dust-printed face a tension to match my own. I
was so full of questions I did not know where to begin, or how to handle any
answers I heard. He’d lied before. And so had I. The situation was already
impossibly tangled before those kisses made emotional reaction about ten times
worse.

“Randart has to know approximately where you and the boys
are, which is about half a day’s hard ride from Castle Ambais. I figure we have
until sunset.” Jehan walked away to catch the reins of my mare. “Then Randart
will send out rings of trackers to find Damedran. And you.”

“And so?”

“And so the days of disguises are past.” He handed me the
reins and whistled to the other horse, who stood on the other side of the
stream a ways away, cropping unconcernedly. It tossed its head and swung round
our way. “My first act is to rescue you.”

“Here I thought I was going for a Guinness Book of Records
for abductions,” I cracked. “You being my fourth. Except, does it count when
the same fellow—”

Jehan laughed, flinging up a hand. “My second act is going
to be to take Damedran hostage.” Jehan whistled again, the whistle the stable
hands use at the academy. “I think it’s the only way to save his life.” The
horse trotted obediently back toward us.

“And then what?”

Jehan indicated the entire world. “You go wherever you
like.” He thrust a hand into a pocket in his tunic and brought out a richly
gleaming flat gold box about the size of those beautiful cigarette cases that
you see gangsters and snobs carrying in old movies. “While I wait to find out what
my father says.”

I was amazed and relieved almost beyond thought. “You’re
going to let me go?”

“Did I not say so?” he responded, not without humor.

“Just like that.”

“Well, it does seem to me my time is going to be taken up
with such small matters as Randart coming after me, with or without my father’s
orders. As for what he will say—” He opened his hand.

We began walking the horses back toward the others.

I said above that I was almost beyond thought. Actually I
wasn’t quite there yet.

I turned to face him. “How did you find me? I take it you
are not suddenly in Randart’s confidence. Damedran made it pretty clear that no
one knows about his orders. Except you?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that. But the truth is, I had
Owl follow you,” Jehan admitted. “Not that he was all that successful. He lost
track of you early on and didn’t catch up until Damedran appeared on your
trail. He showed up at some inn or other. Where you took a letter.”

I sighed. “I should be mad. But if he
hadn’t . . .” I shuddered. “I’d be going straight into Dannath
Randart’s waiting . . . noose? Sword? Prison cell? Not waiting
arms, unless you mean the pointy steel ones. I don’t think I’m his type. He
sure isn’t mine.”

Jehan laughed. We rounded the hill where the others were
gathered, Jehan’s people sitting on horseback, hands resting on sword hilts,
chatting back and forth as Damedran’s group hunched disconsolately on or around
the mossy rock bench where I’d so recently sat to eat my share of the food.
Damedran stood a few paces away, head bent, staring at the little waterfall.
Even from a distance his profile was strained.

“Busted,” I breathed.

Jehan flicked a questioning glance my way.

I didn’t answer, but jumped off my mount and ran up to
Damedran. Jehan did not stop me, nor did he join us.

“Damedran.”

The Randart boy looked my way, his face tight with misery.
Then his cheeks reddened with anger, but before he could speak, I flung up a
hand in the palm-out sign for peace that I’d seen people use.
Peace
here, and on Earth,
Stop Right There
.

“I wanted to thank you for making things as easy as you
could,” I said, not really sure what I was doing, just following instinct. It
was that misery in his eyes. “Listen. I’ve been nabbed by Jehan. A couple of
times. It won’t be so bad.”

“Nabbed,” Damedran repeated, the anger fading from his
expression.

“You’re his hostage. And while I’m trying to sort out what’s
what, this I will say. You won’t hear any death threats from him. Or, if you
did, it would surprise me.”

Damedran turned his head sharply, and I followed his look.
Jehan was busy with the horses some twenty or thirty paces away, though he
glanced our way. But not in earshot, which I considered an honorable gesture. A
gesture I knew Dannath Randart wouldn’t make. “I am a hostage, then?” he asked,
his voice lifting at the end. “Us. We? Are hostages? Or prisoners of war? Or
what?”

I called out to Jehan, “Damedran has the same question I had
earlier. Is he a hostage, prisoner, or what?”

Jehan took that as an invitation to join us. “You can define
your exact status at your leisure. All I’m going to say is that Uncle Dannath
is not going to get his hands on you unless certain demands are met, and then
only with your permission. I can explain on the ride. We’re going to have to
pick up our feet, if we want to stay outside of Randart’s search perimeter,
which will be dispatched by sundown, if they aren’t riding already. So say your
farewells to the princess, because she’s presumably going off in another
direction.”

Jehan held out his hand toward my mare. I saw a new feedbag
hooked to the saddle gear. With the other hand, he held out a folded paper.
“Here is a map I made last night, to help me orient on you all. Go ahead and
take it. I know where I am now. You’ll see the major roads, cities, garrisons, and
towns marked. Castles as well. You should be able to find several routes out of
the kingdom.” He gave me a bland smile.

In silence I took it.

I don’t know what I might have said or done if we’d been in
private. Probably made things worse. But before all those watching guys—both
sides in brown uniforms, which was kind of funny and kind of
heartbreaking—there was only one thing to do.

I swept as flourishing a bow as I could, turning at the last
to include the entire company. Then I said in English, “Gents, it’s been real.”

And leaving exceedingly puzzled faces behind me, I mounted
up and rode away.

Yeah, I managed what I thought a suave exit, but I swore
when I first took up my pen I’d tell the truth in this thing, and so I have to
admit that within about thirty seconds of choosing a random direction I was
snuffling into my sleeve.

Talk about confused. I was sad, scared, angry, mostly at
myself for having kissed Jehan again when I knew, I
knew
, I’d feel terrible afterward. Because the kiss itself was so
great. Despite everything. And oh yes, what
was
“everything”?

I didn’t snivel too long. The sky was clouding. If I lost
the sun, I’d lose my sense of direction, and the map would be worthless.

Map.

I unfolded it. There was Jehan’s handwriting, in even,
slanted letters with slashing curls. It was a dashing handwriting, and I
resisted the impulse to kiss the map. Yeah, I know.

Focusing my blurred eyes (this is the last time I wipe away
tears, I vowed) I saw he’d marked a place on the map below Ambais, where he wrote:
Should find D. here
. D of course had
to mean Damedran.

That meant I could use that point as my orientation.

Tracing my finger straight north, I discovered that Ivory
Mountain was not all that far away.

“Papa, I sure hope you are ready to rock and roll,” I
muttered, kneeing the mare. “Because the house is packed and the band is
playing as hard as it can.”

Almost directly to the west the rain had already begun, a
soft plopping of cold drops, when the single sentry at the gate of Zheliga
Castle burst into the buttery, where Hilna and Pirie Famid worked alongside
their servants, the sisters sharing the title of “baroness” for simplicity’s
sake as they shared the baroness chores. In this case, pressing butter into the
molds and seeing it carried down in neatly wrapped blocks to the cold room.

“Gate,” the boy said, his voice cracking.

“Army?” Hilna asked doubtfully, knowing that Orthan and his
brother Dannath were somewhere on the other side of the hills to the east, busy
with their big siege game. She hadn’t expected Orthan and Damedran until the
siege was over, and it was time to settle in for winter. The sisters had been
laying in extra stores for weeks.

The boy shook his head. “Women,” he said succinctly.

Pirie and Hilna exchanged puzzled looks. The sisters were
not given to needless chatter. They untied their aprons, dropped them onto the
table and left, one smoothing back her gray curls, the other brushing flour off
her skirts left from the morning’s inspection of the milling.