“They’d be on their guard anyway,” Cat snapped.
Emily nodded, although she took Jade’s point. No military force could hope to remain on alert indefinitely. It was why soldiers on watch were rotated so frequently. It had been several weeks since Alassa had been arrested, long enough for the guards to relax a little…as long as they didn’t have any reason to be alert. But if a sorcerer was detected breaking into the city, they’d go back on alert at once. She wouldn’t have wanted to be the guard commander who had to admit to the king that they’d lost their prisoner.
“Then we have to fool the guards on the gate,” she mused. “Or bribe them?”
“The trader swore blind it was impossible,” Jade said. “We’d have to bribe all of them.”
“We do plan to sell the horses anyway,” Emily said. “We’d have money…”
“Not enough,” Jade said. “If they have an aristocrat on the gate, the bribe will have to go up steeply. He won’t want a few mouldy bronze coins.”
Emily nodded, tossing ideas around and around in her head. Lady Barb would think of the perfect solution in a flash, she was sure. She’d know how to tackle the problem. Emily…Emily couldn’t think of anything. There had to be a solution, there had to be a way of slipping into the city without making waves…but what?
“Perhaps we could look for a tunnel,” Cat said. “We could pose as smugglers and…”
Emily started to giggle, helplessly, as a thought occurred to her. “We’re going to go in through the gates,” she said. It was the last thing the guards would be expecting. “And you are going to be disguised as women.”
Chapter Nine
“DO WOMEN HAVE TO WEAR THIS all the time?”
Emily had to bite her lip to keep from breaking into giggles, again. She’d gone out immediately after breakfast to purchase the clothes, once she’d finally talked the boys into wearing them. It hadn’t been that difficult. Chatham, like most of the towns and villages she’d visited, had stalls for old clothes that could no longer be passed down from parent to child. The dresses she’d purchased looked old, too old. Their wearers certainly wouldn’t look very attractive.
“You’re missing out on the underwear,” she said, deadpan. She hadn’t tried to force them into bras and panties. That might have been a little too much for them. “And you really have to slouch a little bit more.”
She studied the two men, trying to keep her face under tight control. Cat and Jade looked like old women, but their stance was thoroughly unconvincing. They looked like parodies of women, not real women. Cat had stuffed a handful of clothes under his dress in the hope of giving himself breasts, but they were about the least convincing breasts Emily had ever seen…and she’d grown up in a place where young women regularly padded their bras.
Maybe we should have gone for a sex change potion instead, she thought, although getting one might be tricky. They were difficult to make and incredibly expensive. But who knows if that would have triggered the wards.
“Put your scarves on, then tint your faces,” she told them, firmly. “And slouch forward when you walk. You don’t want us to be caught because you look unconvincing.”
“I’m trying,” Cat said. He stood and started to walk across the room, swinging his hips. “Do women really walk like this?”
“No,” Emily said. “That looks unnatural.”
“This is unnatural,” Jade muttered.
“It has to be done,” Emily said. She understood their concern, but getting caught was a bigger concern. Besides, if they did it right, no one would ever know. “I think it would be better if you stayed sitting down.”
“We’ll have to get a cart and something to sell,” Jade said. “Perhaps we should start with these clothes.”
Emily nodded. “Good thinking,” she said. “Now, put your scarf back into place.”
It was nearly an hour before she was satisfied, both with their appearance and their cover story. They would be peddlers, making their way from place to place selling their wares; it would be hard, almost impossible, for the guards to disprove their story. They might get turned away from the gates, but they probably wouldn’t be arrested. A hint of fish sauce on her lips–and their lips too, just in case–and the guards wouldn’t even try to cop a feel. Lady Barb would have approved, she thought. It was better to subtly convince someone that he didn’t want to try something than resist him openly.
“Jade should do the talking,” Cat said, mischievously. “He nags like an old woman.”
“I think your womanly voice is far superior to mine,” Jade tossed back. “And you…”
“Definitely not,” Emily said, as the boys started to change back into their regular clothes. It would be a pain to dress up somewhere near the gates, but the innkeeper might notice if two elderly women tottered down the stairs when they hadn’t gone up in the first place. “Let me do the talking.”
“Good idea,” Jade said. “We’re your grouchy old aunties who don’t want you to have any fun.”
Emily nodded. No one would be surprised, when vast numbers of men had either been conscripted or gone on the run, if a young woman drove a cart to the city. And no one would question, either, why she was escorted by a pair of older women. The guards might mourn the presence of a chaperone or two, but they wouldn’t question it. They’d probably just wave them through without hesitation.
Let’s just hope they don’t want to do a strip search, Emily thought, as she quickly packed up her bag. Or try to put their hands somewhere they don’t belong.
Her lips twitched at the thought, even though it wasn’t really funny. The guard who tried to put his hand up Jade’s dress was in for an awful shock, but he’d sound the alarm as soon as he realized what he’d touched. And if he tried to touch Emily herself…her skin crawled as she considered the possibilities. She’d planned to make herself look older, and as unattractive as possible, but she’d been warned that guardsmen developed new standards of beauty. They were almost always uniformed bullies, particularly when confronted by something young, helpless and apparently female.
“Let’s go,” Jade said. “We’ll check out, then find somewhere to sell the horses.”
Emily followed him out of the room and down the stairs, where they waited for the innkeeper to check them out and then point them in the direction of a horse-trader. The man looked rather like a used car salesman–Emily couldn’t help being amused at the flattery he lavished on Jade–but he seemed to know his stuff. He also knew the virtue of not asking questions: he sold them a cart, some oxen and a small bag of foodstuff for a price only mildly outrageous without asking anything that might get him into trouble later. Emily listened, carefully, to what he said and didn’t say. The price of horses–even workhorses–was steadily rising. King Randor had put out a call for them.
And he will sell our horses to the king at a considerable profit, she thought. She didn’t really care about the money, and the advantageous deal would help buy the man’s silence, but it was annoying. They’ll be on their way to the wars.
She eyed the cart suspiciously, although neither Jade nor Cat seemed put out by its appearance. It looked as though anyone who touched it ran the risk of getting a splinter, if they were lucky; she didn’t want to sit down on the wooden chair, even though she had no choice. The yoke didn’t look very strong either. She had a nasty feeling that the cart would topple over if the oxen broke free and scampered into the distance.