“I doubt it,” Cat said. “They weren’t that good. And if we’d been caught with them…”
Emily nodded in understanding. Their swords were clearly theirs, part of a mercenary’s toolkit, but carrying so many battered weapons around would probably have raised a few eyebrows. The difference between mercenary and bandit was smaller than anyone cared to admit, particularly the mercenaries. It would be the height of irony if they’d killed the bandits, then found themselves threatened with hanging for being bandits themselves.
But we did leave them behind for someone else to find, she reminded herself. She had no idea if the bandits would bother to recover their dead, but if they did they’d be able to recover the weapons as well. And whoever does find the bodies may not have pure motives either.
She shrugged as she knelt down in the back on the wagon and started to dig through the bags for the cleaning supplies. That was someone else’s problem. Right now, their concern was getting to Chatham before it was too late.
And then we can start thinking about how to get into the capital city without getting caught, she thought, grimly. That isn’t going to be remotely easy.
Interlude One: Lillian Harkness
BARONESS LILLIAN HARKNESS KNEW, WITHOUT FALSE modesty, that she was perhaps the single most powerful woman in Zangaria. Her older brother would have inherited–and she would have been married off to someone who would have benefited the family–if the idiot hadn’t managed to get himself killed falling from a horse. Lillian had inherited the title after her father died and enjoyed an unprecedented amount of freedom, right up until the moment the king had discovered her involvement in the attempted coup. He hadn’t killed her–she was a woman, after all–but he’d transferred her power to her milksop of a husband.
But he didn’t realize just how much of a milksop Hedrick actually is, she thought, as she stepped into the hunting lodge. And just how many people had come to depend on me.
It galled her to know that her gender always put her at a disadvantage, when it came to dealing with powerful men. She would almost have preferred to be executed, rather than be reduced to a powerless wife. The king could easily have had her marriage dissolved and then married her off to one of his supporters, if he’d taken her at all seriously. But then, he’d probably been fooled by her husband’s protestations of loyalty. Hedrick didn’t have an imaginative bone in his body. He wouldn’t be able to consider defying the king, let alone go through with it. If she hadn’t known he was the only man who’d ever lain with Simon’s mother, she would have wondered who had truly fathered the bastard. Simon was everything his father wasn’t and more besides.
A man just like my father, she thought. It wouldn’t be long before Simon started wanting a bigger role in running the barony himself, although she was fairly sure he would remain loyal to her. Adopting her husband’s bastard had been a risk, but one she’d had to take. And someone more than capable of taking my place when I die.
“My Lady,” Baron Gaillard said. “Are you sure we are safe here?”
Lillian resisted the urge to say something cutting about his manhood. He was, after all, risking his life, while the worst she had to fear was being dispatched to a temple and told to spend the rest of her days praying to a god. But then, Gaillard had never been a particularly brave man. He knew how close he’d come to disaster, when the last coup attempt failed spectacularly. He’d be trustworthy until the king held a sword to his throat, whereupon he’d switch sides with terrifying speed. Lillian honestly didn’t know why Gaillard hadn’t been murdered by his younger brother. He was simply incapable of looking after his family’s interests.
“If we are not safe here, we are all doomed,” she said, dryly. It had taken weeks of preparation before she’d felt comfortable calling the meeting. Ideally, she would have preferred to avoid something as incriminating as a face-to-face discussion, but she wanted to look into their eyes and gauge their level of commitment for herself. “I believe the king has no idea where we are.”
“I have gone to some trouble to create the impression that I am inspecting the outer reaches of my estate,” Baron Silversmith grated. “Might I suggest we hurry? Time is not on our side.”
Lillian nodded. “The latest intelligence from Alexis is not good. The Crown Princess is behind bars, while the king has been moving more and more troops into the city. I think it is just a matter of time before he demands that we disarm–or else.”
The others muttered to themselves, which Lillian completely understood. Once–only ten short years ago–the barons had been strong enough to dictate to the king, if they hung together. Now, the combination of the New Learning and the fallout from the failed coup had been devastating. Lillian commanded thousands of men, but she was grimly aware that most of them were neither trained nor equipped for the new way of war. Simon had made it clear to her, more than once, that most of their armsmen were unable to stand up to the king’s army. And Lillian was sure Randor knew it, too. It wouldn’t be long before he decided to crush the remainder of the overmighty aristocracy, once and for all.
“We know what is at stake,” Baron Gaunt said. Beside him, Baron Thornwood grunted agreement. “But can we win?”
Lillian met his eyes. “Do we dare not fight?”
She looked around the table. “Our world is changing. The king is tightening his grip on our lands, while the peasants are showing signs of ideas above their station. Their insolence grows ever stronger, while our ability to respond to it weakens. It will not be long before we are reduced to nothing more than powerless names, while the king takes our lands and shares them out amongst his supporters. And it is all because he clutched that viper to his bosom!”
“The king can be induced to be reasonable,” Gaillard said.
“The king has no reason to like or trust us,” Lillian countered. She didn’t blame Randor for wanting the barons brought to heel. She didn’t like them herself. “How many of us lost family to the purge after the coup?”
“Too many,” Thornwood growled. “But if we fail this time, we will lose everything.”
“And if we do nothing, we will also lose everything,” Lillian said. “We are being slowly suffocated, My Lords. We are being choked to death. We fight now–we must fight, with all the force we can muster–or we lose.”
“And who takes the throne?” Gaillard asked. “The Crown Princess?”
“No,” Gaunt said, flatly. “A sorceress on the throne?”
Only because she turned you down flat when you asked to marry her, Lillian thought, with a flicker of amusement she was careful to conceal. Princess Alassa could hardly be faulted for refusing to marry a man old enough to be her father, a man who was powerful and stubborn enough to attempt to dominate her. And none of us would have tolerated the match anyway.
“The Crown Princess is too stubborn to be a good monarch,” she said, instead. “She would attempt to wield real power. Given time, she might restart the civil wars. And, let us not forget, she has powerful friends.”
“Her son, perhaps?” Gaillard asked. “She’s supposed to be pregnant.”
“If the rumors are to be believed,” Lillian said. She knew better than to take them for granted. Besides, even if Princess Alassa was pregnant, there was no guarantee that the child would be a boy. “We cannot rely on her giving us a child. And besides, a child on the throne…”