A Fate Worse Than Dragons Page 5

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” the girl said politely. “I’m sure you are quite correct. But I regret that I must tell you I’m not your daughter Gloria. I’m Jean, one of her ladies-in-waiting.”

  “You’re not Gloria?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “You’re quite sure?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Well, damn it, where is Gloria?”

  The rest of the king’s entourage was piling up at the door. A small girl in a blue pinafore wiggled her way through the crowd of legs. She ran up to the king and hugged one of his legs. “Hi, Father!”

  “You!” The King pointed a finger at her. “Are you Gloria?”

  “I’m Melody, Father!”

  “All right, then!” The king disentangled himself from the child, pushed forward into the dressing room, and from there into Gloria’s bedroom. After a cursory check he returned to the sitting room, which had filled with government officials. More were still outside. “Which one is Gloria, anyway?”

  “Gloria is your oldest daughter, Your Majesty,” said Jean.

  “That’s correct, Your Majesty,” said Terry.

  There were murmurs of assent from both inside the room and those still outside the doorway. A tear welled up in the little girl’s eye. “You don’t remember me, Father?”

  Instantly contrite, the king dropped to his knees and threw an arm around the child. “Of course I remember your name, Melody. I was just checking to see if you remembered.” He felt in his pocket with his other hand and was gratified to come up with a handful of wrapped peppermints. “Here, have a sweetmeat, Melody. Now go and play with your friends, Melody.” Placated, the girl crunched the candy and ran through the door, the various ministers parting to let her through. “Melody, Melody,” the king muttered. He closed his eyes and paced back and forth a bit. “Got to remember . . .” He opened his eyes and saw the courtiers watching him. “What?” he demanded. “You think I don’t know my own children? Of course I do . . . you!”

  He pointed a finger at another young woman who was poking her head up from behind the crowd in the hall, trying to see what was going on. “You’re Gloria! I remember that dress! You posed for a portrait in it. It’s hanging in the library. Get in here!”

  Once again his entourage separated themselves to form a path for the girl. She slid through them and curtseyed to the king. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I’m Alice. I’m Princess Gloria’s personal maid.”

  “It’s common for a gentlewoman to make gifts of clothing to her personal maid, Your Majesty,” said Jean. “Gloria also makes gifts to her friends.”

  King Galloway lost his temper. “That’s it,” he roared. “I’ve had enough. I want every woman in the castle assembled in the ballroom in one hour! Do you hear me? One hour. In the ballroom.” He glared at his assembled ministers. “See to it!”

  Precisely one hour later he entered the ballroom, flanked by his guards. He had changed out of his pajamas and combed his hair and beard. His ministers flocked around like nervous birds, crowding up behind him. Queen Matilda was seated in the center front, openly weeping. The footman had just finished bringing in extra chairs, for the queen had her own entourage, and it was larger than the king’s. She was surrounded by children, courtiers, ladies-in-waiting, maids, governesses, cooks, laundresses, dressmakers, tradeswomen, waitresses, teachers, musicians, actresses, artists, friends, and visiting nobility. All looked grave. All stood when the king entered, flanked by his bodyguards. Terry, still on duty, was at the king’s side. Galloway strode briskly to the front of the room, held up a hand for silence, and said authoritatively, “Thank you for coming. I know that you are all very busy, but this will take only a moment.” He waited for the room to become silent. “I want everyone who is not one of my daughters to sit down. Understood? Everyone who is not one of my daughters, please sit down.”

  There was a rustling of skirts and a sliding of chairs. A hundred feminine eyes watched as the king did a quick head count, then double-checked, his lips moving. He motioned for his chargé d’affaires to come to his side. “I make it out to be nine.”

  “I get the same total, Your Majesty.”

  “There should be ten, right?”

  “That is correct, Your Majesty.”

  “Do a roll call. Find out who is . . .”

  “It’s Princess Gloria, Your Majesty,” said Terry quietly.

  The king looked at the knight. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “He is correct, Your Majesty.”

  “Well, that jibes with this note, then.” He turned to the watching throng. “All right, then. Dismissed. Thank you for your cooperation.” All the women rose, but none left. They were all watching the queen, who remained seated. Galloway cleared his throat nervously, then turned his back on them. He gestured for some of his key ministers to come over. “How could this happen?” he asked in a low voice. He pointed to the note.

  “She was riding in the royal park,” someone said. “It’s always been considered a secure area. She rides there all the time. All your girls do. And since she turned eighteen, Princess Gloria often sends her bodyguards away. She says she needs her privacy. Anyway, the horse came back to the stable without her. The note was pinned to the saddle blanket. It said to wait for instructions.”

  “I know what it says.”

  “We combed the park, of course, but we didn’t find anything else. There’s no reason to think she has been injured. A few witnesses have come forward already. They say a band of brigands rode off to the west. A young blond woman was with them. They said she seemed to be struggling.”

  “All right then,” said the king. “Mobilize the Royal Guard. Start tracking the brigands. Cover all the routes out of the city. Put every available man on it. Round up the usual suspects, offer the usual rewards, you know how it works.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Contact me as soon as you learn anything. Wait a minute.” King Galloway snapped his fingers. “Gloria. Didn’t we finally get her betrothed to that poofy-looking kid?”

  “The wealthy young gentleman? Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Well, he has a problem, doesn’t he?” The King looked over his shoulder, to where the queen was still sitting. She had stopped crying and was now glaring at him. Galloway turned back to his ministers. “Gloria’s mother is going to be so mad.”

  The office of the Royal Guard was hot and stuffy. It was located at one end of the palace, near the stables and the barracks, so Terry had to cross both the exercise yard and the stable yard to get to it. A fire burned in the stove, a pot of coffee boiled on top of it, and the Captain of the Guard looked as though he had spent a sleepless night, which he had. He sat at a small conference table, with his elbows on the top and his chin supported by his hands, poring over a large map of the kingdom. He had taken a stick of charcoal and marked the map in a grid pattern. Pins with colored flags and initials represented each knight. Terry looked them over. If the pins were located accurately, the bulk of Medulla’s knighthood was spreading out in a wide arc that would cover the western third of the kingdom. The Captain looked up with bleary eyes.

  “About time you showed up,” was all he said, without taking his head out of his hands.

  “I was on duty,” said Terry mildly. “I had to wait until His Majesty dismissed me.”

  “Mmm-mm,” said the Captain. He selected a pin, pasted a little triangle of paper to the blunt end, and wrote Terry’s initials on the paper with a ragged quill. “The most likely routes have been taken, I’m afraid.” He slid the pin over to Terry. “We got everyone off and on their way this morning. Horses, tack, supplies, squires—it took a bit of doing, but they all left at first light. If you want in on this, pick any empty square.”

  “I need a moment to think about it,” said Terry. He poured a cup for himself, and pretended to study the map some more. “You’re all pretty certain they went west, eh?”

  “Get me some
more of that coffee, if you please. Yes, no doubt about it. Three separate witnesses saw her carried off. A young girl, an old woman, and a farm laborer. Rarely do we get such good agreement on stories. Brigands, five of them, with horses, and they went west.”

  “West makes sense.” The western border of Medulla was well-known as bandit country. “Where there’s a border, there’s smugglers. Where there’s travelers, there’s bandits.”

  “Right. Broken terrain, heavy thorn brush, hills, caves, streams, and those damned ravines cutting every which way. You can’t ride in a straight line for a mile. That will be a problem. We’ll be flushing all sort of thieves and road agents out of there. It just makes it harder to find the ones we actually want.”

  “I’ve got a few ideas of my own,” said Terry. “I’d like to talk to the witnesses, if I might.” And make sure they stick to their stories, he added to himself.

  “You can’t. They all went home. Turned out that none of them were locals. They left after we interviewed them.”

  Ah. Good thinking on Gloria’s part. “Right. I should have expected that. It’s the visitors to Sulcus who want to see the Royal Park.”

  “Damnedest thing, though. The girl and the woman were right near the park. The farmer was on the edge of town, on his way home. But no one in the outlying towns saw them. They seem to have vanished right outside the city.”

  “Bandits are good at that. Captain, I’m not sure we should concentrate all our search in one direction. I’m thinking we should spread out a bit, consider all the possible avenues of escape. I should try another route.”

  “So long as you don’t waste your time in the north country.”

  “Um,” said Terry. Gloria’s note suddenly seemed to weigh heavier in his pocket. “The north country? Why not the north country? It’s isolated. Sure, it’s a long shot, but maybe someone should check it out.”

  “Waste of time. No bandits there. There have never been bandits there. The Old Man of the Mountains scares them off. That why I sent the Westfield kid there.”

  Terry had a momentary feeling of falling, the feeling you get when your horse steps into a hole and almost goes down, but then recovers. The Captain was too tired to notice his brief change of expression. “Roland Westfield?”

  “Yep. Turns out he and the Princess just got engaged. Pretty bad timing, I daresay. His family bought him a brand-new fiancée and right away she disappears. Now he’s financing his own search. Came over here last night trying to hire a knight to accompany him.”

  “Really?”

  “The last thing we need is some dilettante riding out and getting himself killed over this. So I told him all the clues pointed north. It will get him safely out of the way. As long as he doesn’t do something to piss off the old sorcerer, he won’t get in any trouble.”

  “Couldn’t you just order him to stay in town?”

  “Not him. His people are too rich and well-connected.”

  “Right.” Terry paced back and forth a little, thinking. He returned to the table and scrutinized the map, but he really did this so the Captain couldn’t see his face. “Yes, good thinking. Send him north. Sparsely settled, with only a few roads through the mountains. With the harvest over, there’s nothing going on at this time of year. It will keep him distracted for a few weeks, and then I expect he’ll get bored. Still . . .” He paused thoughtfully. “You say he was looking to hire a partner?”

  The Captain set down his cup and shook his head. He pushed back his chair so he could look Terry up and down. “Good Lord, Terry. You’re always looking to turn a coin, aren’t you? Well, can’t say as I blame you, trying to keep a place in the city these days. But you’re making a mistake in this case. You’ll be missing out, my boy. The knight who rescues the Princess will be showered with glory. I wish I could ride out myself. Have you ever met Roland Westfield?”

  “I have not. It’s true I care little for glory, Captain.” Terry waited to see if the Captain would object to that. When he did not, Terry continued, “But it will reflect badly on all of us if the scion of a wealthy family gets himself killed. You know how irresponsible these rich kids are. He might change his mind and ride off in a different direction. And if he can’t find a real knight to go with him, he’s likely to hire some thug who will lure him into a dark glen, rob him, and leave his body in a ditch. At the very least, I should see what his plans are.”

  The Captain tried to think about this, then decided his brain was too fogged to argue. He shrugged. “Your choice, Terry. Here.” He reached for his quill and the inkpot. “I’ll write a letter of recommendation for you.” Terry waited while he scrawled a reference across a sheet of foolscap, folded it, dripped it with sealing wax, and stamped it. “Here, take this. You can find him at that little bakery on Élan Street. And don’t blame me if you end up guarding his clothes for him.”

  “Thank you, Captain.” Terry took the letter and slipped it into a jacket pocket, on the opposite side from Gloria’s list of instructions. “I’ll let you know what I decide.” He sauntered out the door, hesitating outside until he saw the Captain bend his head over his maps and papers once again. He glanced casually around to see if anyone was watching him. Then he took off for the bakery at a dead run.

  For those who can afford it, the preferred means of travel between cities is the stagecoach. From the outside one can see the brightly lacquered woodwork, the high, spinning wheels, the fine teams of horses, and the liveried drivers. On the inside the traveler enjoys velvet upholstery, leather-curtained windows, and a modern suspension system that delivers a ride as smooth and comfortable as swinging in a hammock.

  The drivers—former gentlemen all—are the heroes of the day, admired and emulated by men and boys alike for their style, dash, and ability to control a six-horse hitch. Their backgrounds are a mystery, their reputations much discussed. There is the dandy “Baronet” Blanco of the Bismuth line, never seen without some bit of gold on him, who supposedly took to driving after he squandered his family fortune. There is the one-eyed man known only as “The Navigator,” silent and grim-faced, reputed to be a former pirate, now the champion of the Seltown-Vertebruck route. And there is the darkly handsome “Daddy” Jack Deacon, who some claim is in hiding from a string of paternity lawsuits in Alacia. Fast, skilled, and daring, they race their teams through the countryside at speeds approaching fourteen miles per hour. When the horns blow, and the gates open, and the coaches come to their stops, great joints of roasted meat, racks of savory pies, and bowls of hot spiced wine greet the hungry travelers. The inns are luxurious, the beds are soft, the food is gourmet, the company is the finest. Truly there is no more splendid way to travel the Twenty Kingdoms than by luxury stagecoach.

  Gloria, however, took the mail coach.

  Really, it was a good choice for the plan she had developed. Although it was slower, the mail coach actually got you where you wanted to go sooner than the fast stagecoach, because the mail coach did not stop at night. There were no meal breaks either, only a chance to grab a hot potato when the driver stopped to change horses, or throw down mail sacks. That was an advantage, too. It meant there was no demand for Gloria to answer questions about herself around a dining table. Sure, the ride was cold, rough, and uncomfortable. The coachmen wore plain postal uniforms and muddy overcoats. The windows were open, and the seats covered only with coarse wool horse blankets. But the mail coach went to places that the stagecoach did not, out-of-the-way places where the only outside news came from—well—the mail coach. By leaving Sulcus immediately, Gloria would arrive ahead of the news. By the time anyone started looking around for a missing princess, she would already be concealed on the Wayless estate.

  The rough, jolting ride bounced her around, but even when the road was smooth she couldn’t help bouncing a little herself, just from excitement. She was off, she was on her own, she was having an adventure! No parents, no guards, no guardians, no chaperones. Just herself and the excitement of making her own way. So what if she was
cold? So what if she was hungry? She had heavy clothing, and she would reach Bornewald in a matter of days. At the end of her travails there would be love, and marriage, and—oooh!—hot, hot nights with Terry. Just thinking about it made her feel warmer. True love and high adventure, she reflected. It was amazing the way the two concepts fit so well together.

  She was doubly fortunate in that there were no other passengers on the coach to Bornewald, for she didn’t want conversation, or to attract attention. Only the coachman spoke to her, and that was but once, during a stop to water the horses. They were on a chilly mountain pass, just a few hundred feet below the snow line. Gloria wore a stylish coat of sheared beaver that she belted tightly around her slim waist, and she pulled her fur-lined hood low over her head as she hurried into the well house, knowing that the cold wind would make this attempt at concealment seem like normal behavior. Inside the well house, out of the wind, she searched for the metal dipper that usually hung on a hook inside the door. The coachman saw her and shook his head.

  “There’s no drinking this water, Miss. It’s all right for the horses, but it’s not fit for people. It must be boiled first, to take off the curse.”

  Gloria looked at the well stones, then at the inside of the well house door, and then stepped outside and briefly examined the outside of the door and the lintel, searching for the spot where a wizard had made his mark. She didn’t find one. She slipped back inside and pulled the door shut. “How odd,” she said. “Surely the locals would hire a wizard to certify their well.”

  “No wizards here, Miss, nor from here on. We’re in the realm of the Middle-Aged Man of the Mountains. He controls the valley, and he doesn’t like competition from other wizards.” The coachman made an upward gesture, which simply indicated the well house roof, although when Gloria stepped outside she looked up again. The sky was dark and low and held threats of snow, but among the swirling clouds she thought she saw a castle, perched on a distant crag.