Chapter 3
The Fetch
The mark of the true hero is that the most heroic of his deeds is done in secret. We never hear of it. And yet somehow, my friends, we know.
—Father Tyler’s Collected Sermons, FROM THE ARVATH ARCHIVE
Wake up, girl.”
Kelsea opened her eyes to a sky of such brilliant blue that she thought she must still be dreaming. But a quick glance around showed her that it was a tent. She was lying on the ground, wrapped in the skin of some animal. Not deer, which she would have recognized, but it was warm, so warm that she was reluctant to rise.
She looked up at the speaker, a man dressed entirely in dark blue. His voice was a pleasant baritone, distinctive enough that she recognized him even without his awful mask. He was clean-shaven and handsome, with sharp cheekbones and good humor in the set of his mouth. He was also considerably younger than she had guessed on the riverbank, certainly no more than twenty-five, his hair still thick and dark and his unlined face dominated by a pair of large black eyes that gave Kelsea pause; those eyes were much older than twenty-five.
“Where’s your handsome face today?”
“I’m home now,” he replied easily. “No point in dressing up.”
Kelsea busied herself with sitting upright, though the movement brought a strong warning twinge from the right side of her neck. Exploring the area gently with her fingers, she found a stitched gash, covered with some sort of sticky poultice.
“It will heal well. I tended you myself.”
“Thank you,” Kelsea replied, then realized that she wasn’t wearing her own clothing, but a gown of some sort of white cloth, linen perhaps. She reached up to touch her hair and found it smooth and soft; someone had given her a bath. She looked up at him, her cheeks reddening.
“Yes, me as well.” His smile widened. “But you needn’t worry, girl. You’re far too plain for my taste.”
The words hurt, and badly, but Kelsea hid the sting with only a slight tightening of her face. “Where’s my cloak?”
“Over there.” He flicked his thumb toward a pile of clothing in the corner. “But there’s nothing in it. It would take a better man than me to resist hunting for this.”
He held out one hand to display a dangling sapphire necklace. Kelsea reached up and found her own necklace still around her neck.
“They’re optimistic, girl, to let you have both. Some said the King’s jewel had been lost altogether.”
Kelsea restrained herself from reaching for the second necklace, since he so obviously wished her to. But her eyes followed the sapphire as it swung back and forth.
“You’ve never worn this necklace,” he remarked.
“How do you know?”
“If you had worn it, the jewel would never have allowed me to take it from you.”
“What?”
He gave her an incredulous look. “Don’t you know anything of these jewels?”
“I know they’re mine.”
“And what have you done to earn them? Born to a second-rate queen with a burn on your arm.”
Second-rate. What did that mean? Kelsea filed the comment away, speaking carefully. “I would not have wished for any of this.”
“Perhaps not.”
Something in his tone chilled Kelsea, warned her that she was in danger here. And yet why should that be, when he had saved her life on the riverbank? She watched the jewel, blue sparkles reflecting across her skin, while she concentrated on the problem. Bargaining required something to bargain with. She needed information. “May I ask your name, sir?”
“Unimportant. You may call me the Fetch.” He leaned back, awaiting her reaction.
“The name means nothing to me.”
“Really?”
“I was raised in isolation, you see.”
“Well, you would know my name otherwise. The Regent has a high price on my head, growing all the time.”
“For what?”
“I stole his horse. Among other things.”
“You’re a thief?”
“The world is full of thieves. If anything, I am the father of thieves.”
Kelsea smiled against her will. “Is that why you all wear masks?”
“Of course. People are envious of the gifts they don’t have.”
“Perhaps they just don’t like criminals.”
“One needn’t be a criminal to get in trouble, girl. There’s a handsome reward for your head as well.”
“My head,” Kelsea repeated faintly.
“Yes, your head. Your uncle offers twice as much if it’s recognizable upon delivery. A present for the Mort bitch, no doubt; I suppose she wishes to hang it somewhere. But your uncle demands the jewels and your arm, as proof.”
Carlin’s words about the fates of rulers reappeared in Kelsea’s mind. She tried to picture her head atop a pike and couldn’t. Carlin and Barty rarely spoke about the Raleigh Regent, Kelsea’s uncle, but there was no mistaking their tone. They held him in low esteem, and that low esteem had trickled down to Kelsea. The fact that her uncle wanted to kill her had never bothered her; he had never seemed important, not the way her mother was important. He was only an obstacle to be surmounted. She returned her attention to the Fetch and took a deep breath; he had drawn his knife now. It sat balanced on one knee.
“So, girl,” the Fetch continued in a deceptively pleasant voice, “what to do with you?”
Kelsea’s stomach tightened further, her mind racing. This man wouldn’t want her to beg.
I must prove that I’m worth something. Quickly.
“If you’re such a wanted man, I’ll be in a position to offer you clemency.”
“You will indeed, should you survive to sit on the throne for more than a few hours, and I doubt you will.”
“But I may,” Kelsea replied firmly. The wound on her neck gave a hard twinge, but she ignored it, recalling Carroll’s words in the clearing. “I’m made of stronger stuff than I appear.”
The Fetch stared at her, long and intently. He wanted something from her, Kelsea realized, though she couldn’t imagine what it might be. With each passing second, she became more uncomfortable, but she couldn’t look away. Finally, she blurted out the question in the back of her mind. “Why did you call my mother a second-rate queen?”
“You think she was first-rate, I suppose.”
“I don’t know anything about her. No one would tell me.”
His eyes widened. “Impossible. Carlin Glynn is an extraordinarily capable woman. We could have picked no one better.”
Kelsea’s mouth dropped open. No one but her mother’s guard knew where she’d been raised, or the Regent’s men would have been at the door of their cottage years before. She waited for the Fetch to continue, but he said nothing. Finally she asked, “How is it that you knew where I was, but the Mort and the Caden didn’t?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “The Mort are thugs, and the Caden didn’t start looking for you until your uncle grew desperate enough to pay their rates, which are exorbitant. If the Caden had been looking for you from the beginning, you’d have been dead years ago. Your mother didn’t hide you that well; she lacked imagination.”
Kelsea managed to hold her face still, but it wasn’t easy. He talked about her mother so contemptuously, but Carlin had never said anything bad about Queen Elyssa.
But she wouldn’t have, would she? Kelsea’s mind whispered unpleasantly. She promised.
“Why do you dislike my mother so much? Did she wrong you somehow?”
The Fetch tipped his head to one side, his gaze calculating. “You’re very young, girl. Incredibly young to be a queen.”
“Will you tell me your grievance with my mother?”
“I see no reason to.”
“Fine.” Kelsea crossed her arms. “Then I’ll continue to think of her as first-rate.”
The Fetch smiled appreciatively. “Young you may be, but you have more brains than your mother ever had on a good day.”
Kelsea’s wound was aching badly now. A fine mist of sweat had sprung up on her brow, and he seemed to notice it only a moment after she did herself. “Tip your head.”
Kelsea did so without thinking. The Fetch reached into his clothing and pulled out a pouch, then began to apply something wet to her neck. Kelsea braced herself for the sting that didn’t come. His fingers were soft on her skin. Within a few seconds, Kelsea realized that she should have been more protective of her person, and shut her eyes, resigned. A phrase from one of Carlin’s books occurred to her: any plausible scoundrel . . . Her own foolishness made her toes clench.