“Oh, stand up,” said Florian. “Sapskull.”
Lucien set his peg leg and crutch firmly on the floor and recovered his balance. He worked his jaw, blinking rapidly. When Florian hit him, some childish part of him always wanted to cry. It was embarrassing and stupid, and he was never going to let that part of him have its way. Another part of him quivered with the furious desire to strike back, but that was an urge he absolutely had to suppress. No one attacked the emperor and survived.
“Rhianne is missing,” said Florian.
Despite his still-rattling head, those words shocked him. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I’ve said. She’s run away.”
Lucien lifted his eyes to Florian’s, perplexed. Hadn’t he placed Legaciatti in front of the hypocaust exit just to prevent that from happening? “How did she get out?”
“It appears there was a trapdoor in her room leading to the hypocaust,” said Florian. “But you already knew that. Didn’t you?”
Lucien steeled himself for another blow. How was he to answer such a question?
“You must have known,” continued Florian, carefully enunciating each word, “because you placed Legaciatti in front of the hypocaust exit.”
“I was trying to stop her from getting out.”
“You failed, because she got out anyway!” cried Florian.
“I’m sorry,” said Lucien. “But I did my best to prevent that from happening.”
“You didn’t think to tell me about the trapdoor? I’d have sealed it up, put her in another room entirely—found some solution better than a couple of guards.”
Lucien shook his head ruefully. “The trapdoor was something she used as a child. You were so angry with her already. I didn’t want her to be in even more trouble. But how did she get past the Legaciatti?”
“We’re going to find out,” said Florian. “But right now I’m more concerned with you. How do you feel about facing a treason charge?”
Lucien gulped. “I tried to stop her from getting out!”
Florian frowned. “I don’t care what you intended with your foolishness. You withheld information that led to her escape. However”—he held up a hand to forestall Lucien’s protest—“I came here to grant you the opportunity to demonstrate your loyalty.”
Lucien’s neck prickled. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like this. “And how may I do that?”
“You will find your cousin,” said Florian. “Some of your colleagues in the north, when you were in charge of White Eagle battalion, said you were a savvy tactician. Prove it. Use your best tactics and find Rhianne.”
“Battlefield tactics and locating a runaway aren’t the same thing.” Lucien’s mind raced. What if he tried his best and couldn’t find her? She was smart, and Florian hadn’t told him how much head start she had. Would he face a treason charge if he didn’t succeed? He supposed deliberately failing at the task wasn’t an option.
Florian’s brows rose. “Are you making excuses?”
“No.” He swallowed. “Have you considered that maybe you should just let her go? She’s ungrateful and unreliable. Let her suffer on her own.” He couldn’t resist the opportunity to perhaps save his cousin from the fate the emperor intended for her.
Florian’s brow arched upward. “Let her go?” He spoke the words as if they had a funny taste.
“Well . . . yes. For her to take a step this desperate, she must really hate the idea of this marriage. She’ll never cooperate.”
“I handpicked him for her,” said Florian.
“She seems to disagree with your choice,” Lucien murmured, discouraged.
Florian folded his arms, frowning. “Are you quite finished?”
Flinching from the contempt in his father’s eyes, Lucien nodded.
“You speak as if I had a stable of imperial princesses to choose from and could simply swap another into Rhianne’s place,” said Florian. “I have only Rhianne and Celeste, and Celeste isn’t of marriageable age. Rhianne will marry Augustan. And you will find her for me. Unless you’d prefer to face a treason charge for abetting her escape.”
Lucien dropped his eyes to the floor. It appeared he had no choice but to drag his cousin back to this hated marriage, if he could possibly manage it. She’d never forgive him. “I’ll find her.”
Lucien stepped into the war room, followed by his father. He’d been here many times, but never in an advisory capacity. Always he’d been told to keep his head down and his mouth shut. For the first time, he would actually be dictating tactics. Too bad the circumstances were so unfortunate.
Officers and their lackeys crowded the room, some grouped together and speaking in low voices, others poring over a map spread on a marble table. There was something ironic about seeing all these men putting their heads together to work out a strategy not for winning a war but for capturing a runaway princess.
“Men,” said Florian, “I want you to give Lucien your full attention. He knows Rhianne better than anyone, and I’m putting him in charge.”
Some of the officers eyed Lucien sidelong as he limped to the table. “What have you got so far?” he asked. “She escaped through the hypocaust. What else do we know?”
A tribune raised his wooden pointer and indicated a red flag that marked the town of Old Veshon, just north of Riat. “We know she was here around midnight. She visited a Healer for the wounds on her back. Then she sold her white mare and a substantial amount of imperial jewelry.”
“After that?”
“The trail runs cold,” said the tribune. “We’re pretty sure she bought another horse. A stableman reports he sold someone a bay gelding during the night, but he can’t remember details such as the exact time or whom he sold it to.”
“Almost certainly that was her. She used a forgetting spell.”
“We assumed as much.” The tribune pointed to a semicircle of white flags marking the towns north and east of Old Veshon. “We figure she’s in one of these places by now, most likely one of the northern ones.”
“Why north?” asked Lucien.
“She rode north to begin with, and it’s likely she began her journey in the direction of her ultimate destination,” explained the tribune. “If she wanted to go east, why start by riding north to Old Veshon?”
“Because she was deliberately deceiving you. You’re underestimating her. The radius of your search is too small—you’ve marked villages only twenty miles out. If she departed Old Veshon as early as midnight, and it’s midmorning now, she could easily be a hundred miles from here.”
Florian stepped into the crowd around the table. “Not likely. Rhianne is unaccustomed to travel.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Lucien. “She has a pile of money from Old Veshon—I assume she got good prices, with her mind magic?”
“She did,” said the tribune.
“We must assume she rode hard all night, trading horses every ten miles at post stations or anywhere she could sell the old horse and buy a fresh one. Buying and selling are easy for a mind mage, even in the dead of night. She’s skilled in the saddle, and she’s desperate. We should assume she rode until she dropped—and she might still be riding.”
Florian frowned, clearly unhappy with this characterization of his niece. “So what’s your strategy for finding her?”
“I advise three strategies,” said Lucien. “First, we track her through the horse. She bought a bay gelding in Old Veshon, and I’ll bet she sold or abandoned it ten to fifteen miles from where she bought it. We pick up the fellow who sold it to her and take him to all the post stations within range; see if he can identify the animal. If we find that horse, we’ll find the next one she bought, and so on. With luck, we can track her progress across the country.” Lucien paused and looked around the room. He had everyone’s attention now.