“You’re not from Rhenydd, are you?” someone asked Arista.
The princess nearly jumped when she discovered a woman had slipped in beside her. She was not immediately certain that it was a woman, as she was oddly dressed in dark britches and a man’s loose shirt. Arista initially thought she was an adolescent boy, due to her short blonde hair and dappled freckles, but her eyes gave her away. They were heavy and deep, as if stolen from a much older person.
“No,” Arista said apprehensively.
The woman studied Arista, her old eyes slowly moving over her body as if she were memorizing every line of her figure and every crease in her dress. “You have an odd way about you. The way you walk, the way you sit. It’s all very … precise, very … proper.”
Arista was over being startled now and was just plain irritated. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who should accuse others of being odd,” she replied.
“There!” the woman said excitedly, and wagged a finger. “See? Anyone else would have called me a mannish little whore. You have manners. You speak in subtle innuendo, like a … princess.”
“Who are you?” Hadrian abruptly intervened, moving between the two. Royce also appeared from the shadows behind the strange woman.
“Who are you?” she replied saucily.
The door to The Laughing Gnome burst open and uniformed imperial guards poured in. Tables were turned over and drinks hit the floor. Customers nearest the door fell back in fear, cowering in the corners, or were pushed aside.
“Arrest everyone!” a man ordered in a booming voice. He was a big man with a potbelly, dark brows, and sagging cheeks. He kept his weight on his heels and his thumbs in his belt as he glared at the crowd.
“What’s this all about, Trenchon?” Ayers shouted from behind the bar.
“You would be smart to keep your hole shut, Ayers, or I’ll close this tavern tonight and have you in stocks by morning—or worse. Harboring traitors and providing a meeting place for conspirators will buy you death at the post!”
“I didn’t do nothing!” Ayers cried. “It was the kid. He’s the one that started all the talk, and that woman from Kilnar. They’re the ones. I just served drinks like every night. I’m not responsible for what customers say. I’m not involved in this. It was them and a few of the others who were going along with it.”
“Take everyone in for questioning,” Trenchon ordered. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I want the ringleaders!”
“This way,” the mannish woman whispered. Grabbing Arista’s arm, she began to pull the princess away from the soldiers toward the kitchen.
Arista pulled back.
The woman sighed. “Unless you want to have a long talk with the viceroy about who you are and what you’re doing here, you’ll follow me now.”
Arista looked at Royce, who nodded, but there was concern on his face. They grabbed up their bags and followed.
Starting at the main entrance, the imperial soldiers began hauling people out into the rain and mud. Women screamed and children cried. Those who resisted were beaten and thrown out. Some near the rear door tried to run, only to find more soldiers waiting.
The mannish woman plowed through the crowd into the tavern’s kitchen, where a cook looked over, surprised. “Best look out,” their guide said. “Trenchon is looking to arrest everyone.”
The cook dropped her ladle in shock as they pressed by her, heading to the walk-in pantry. Closing the door, the woman revealed a trapdoor in the pantry’s floor. They climbed down a short wooden stair into The Laughing Gnome’s wine cellar. Several dusty bottles lined the walls, as did casks of cheese and containers of butter. The woman took a lantern that hung from the ceiling and, closing the door above, led them behind the wine racks to the cellar’s far wall. There was a metal grate in the floor. She wedged a piece of old timber in the bars and pried it up.
“Inside, all of you,” she ordered.
Above, they could still hear the screams and shouts, then the sound of heavy boots on the kitchen floor.
“Hurry!” she whispered.
Royce entered first, climbing down metal rungs that formed a ladder. He slipped into darkness and Hadrian motioned for the princess to follow. She took a deep breath as if going underwater and climbed down.