She was almost undone by the thickness of the physic, which did not splash out like water but rather oozed like pomegranate syrup: it had barely begun to drip when he started to struggle. Still, she managed to pour at least a small spoonful into the back of his throat before he came awake and broke free from her, coughing and sputtering. He knocked the bottle from her hands and it skittered down the deck, but Qinnitan did not care. She must have given him dozens of times his normal portion—surely that would be enough to kill him.
She did not wait to find out, of course. Vilas and his dull, cruel sons were on the boat, the older of the two boys minding the tiller while the other two slept. In a moment even that dullard would notice the struggle. She dashed to the low rail and threw herself over it on the landward side. When the first shock of the cold water had passed, she rose to the surface and began to swim as best she could toward the dark, distant shore. When she had gone a little way she turned to look back toward the boat. She saw something dark go over the side and make a pale splash in the moon-lit water. Her heart flopped in her chest. Was Vo coming after her? Could it be that even a mouthful of poison hadn’t killed him?
Perhaps he stumbled and fell over the side, she told herself as she quickly started splashing toward the shore again. Maybe he’s already drowned.
Only a long stone’s throw from the fishing boat Qinnitan was already cold and exhausted—at times it even seemed the water was pushing her away from the shore, as though Efiyal, the wicked old god of the ocean, was doing his best to defeat her.
I won’t… she thought, although she wasn’t quite sure what she was resisting and she was finding it hard to think. Death? The gods? Daikonas Vo? I won’t!
She fought on, struggling and thrashing so that she knew they must be able to see her from the boat, but the boat did not come after her. Did that mean Vo was dead? Or that they felt sure she was beyond rescue?
It didn’t matter. She could do nothing but what she was doing.
Water stung her eyes and threatened to fill her mouth. The moon hung above her like a giant eye, rippling as her head sunk beneath the water each time and then rose again. Her legs were like stone, dragging her down no matter how hard she kicked them against the grip of the ocean. And now the weariness seeping through her, which only a short while earlier had burned in her veins and lungs like fire, had begun to turn into something else—a killing cold that spread inch by inch until at last she could no longer feel her limbs, did not know up or down, living or drowning, whether it was the moon itself that hung above her or its reflection in the mirroring deeps…
Qinnitan’s feet touched sand and smooth rocks, then lost them again. A few more jerking lunges and the shore was beneath her again, this time for good. Her feet touched the bottom and the water was only at her neck… then her breasts… then her waist.
When she could no longer feel the water Qinnitan dropped onto the wet stones of the beach and followed the moon up into darkness.
Qinnitan woke up shivering under a bone-white moon. She could see no sign of Vo or his boat, but she felt terribly exposed on the beach and the wind was cold and strong. She squeezed as much water as she could out of her sopping dress, then slowly began to make her way toward the hills, her bare feet so cold she scarcely noticed the sharp stones on which she trod.
Partway up the hill she found herself in a sea of long grasses that leaned this way and that in the wind, whispering like anxious children. Qinnitan was too tired to walk any farther. She got down on her knees and crawled a little, thinking in her exhausted, dreaming way that she was somehow tunneling to safety, that she would reach a place where no one could see her. Finally she let herself sink down into the deep, grassy murmur until she could no longer feel the burn of the wind and then the world escaped her again.
“I wish you had not cut off your hair, Princess,” said Eneas as he helped her pull the mail shirt down over her head. “Although in truth such a mannish look will match more nearly with your current garb.”
“People will do strange things when they are fleeing for their lives.”
The prince colored. “Of course, my lady, I did not mean ...”
Briony changed the subject. “This is very light—much lighter than I would have expected.” In truth, the armor did not feel a great deal less comfortable than one of the formal dresses she had worn at court, let alone the stomacher and starched collar and layer upon layer of petticoats that she had been forced to wear beneath the dresses. The mail hung comfortably over a padded undershirt and dangled to almost her knees, but was slit on either side to make riding easier.
“Yes.” The prince was pleased she had noticed. It was one of his more endearing qualities, Briony couldn’t help feeling, that he was always happy when she showed interest in arms and armor—or at least more interest than other women would. “As I told you, it is modeled on the Tuani and Mihanni, fast desert riders like your teacher Shaso commanded. No longer can slow-moving knights trample an enemy at will. What the longbow made difficult during our grandfathers’ day, guns will soon make impossible. Even the strongest armor can stop a rifle ball only from a distance, but it leaves its wearer ungainly on a horse, and helpless when he falls ...” He colored again. “I am talking on and on. Let me help you with your surcoat.” Eneas and his page slid the garment over her as she held out her arms, then Eneas stepped away, perhaps out of a sense of propriety, while the young page tied up the sides.
“There,” said the prince. “Now you are a proper Temple Dog!”
Briony laughed. “And honored to be one, even if only for show. But is it truly necessary this soon?”
“Southmarch is a long way, Princess, and the north is unsettled and dangerous. Lawlessness has followed in the wake of the fairy army. Those bandits that Captain Linas and his men killed are by no means the only ones, and there are many others who do not love my father or Syan, even within our own borders.”
“But surely no one will attack a troop this size!”
“I do not doubt you are right. But that does not mean someone might not fire on us from cover with a bow or a gun.” He held out a helmet with a drape of mail at the neck. “And so you will wear this, too, Princess.”
“May I at least wait to put it on until we leave the tent?”
He smiled at last. Briony had to acknowledge that Eneas was really quite good to look at, with his big open face and strong jaw. “Of course, my lady. But then you may not take it off again until we reach Southmarch. No, nor even then.”
The prince had ordered his men to prepare for the journey north as he and Briony and his private guard rode back to where the players were still being held in uneasy custody by Syannese soldiers.
“Again we are rescued from a most unpleasant fate, thanks to you, Princess,” said Finn Teodoros.
“A fate that wouldn’t have threatened you were it not for me,” she said. “I’ll do what I can to make it up to you all. How do the others fare?”
“As you would guess,” Finn told her. “Mourning Dowan Birch’s death, of course. We all loved him, but I think Estir loved him more than the rest of us realized.”
Briony sighed. “Poor Dowan. He was always so kind to me. If I ever have my throne again I will build a theater and name it in his honor.”
“That would be kind, but I would not mention it yet, while the wound is so new.” Finn shook his head. “I cannot tell you how my heart sank when they took you away, Highness—yet here you are! There is something epic in your adventures, I cannot help feeling, and I suspect I have only heard half of them from you.”