“I didn’t take it!” Laetri stumbled to her feet, clutching the rags of her bodice to her, and men stared at the bruises on her face, the streaks of blood on her back and arms. “I didn’t touch your purse,” she cried, “and you gave me nothing from it! Pargas, help me!”
Her pimp stepped between her and the nobleman, pulling two small clubs from his belt, one in each hand. “
“You’ll not get out of paying her wages simply by crying thief, milord.”
“What lord?” the Bretanglian cried, enraged. “I’m only a common soldier, you fool!”
“Oh! Well, if you’re only a trooper, then I might as well give you a drubbing till you pay!”
The Bretanglian soldiers came to their feet, hands going to their daggers. Their Merovencian fellow gamblers stood up, too, reaching for clubs and dirks, suddenly much less hospitable.
The landlord, seeing a riot coming, stepped up, crying, “Please, goodmen, not in here!”
A tall, older man in peasant dress stepped up to the nobleman. “Your Highness, this is not fitting! You shame yourself!”
“Get away from me with your mealy-mouthed preaching, Orizhan,” the nobleman snarled, and shoved the disguised knight away. He stumbled back and fell.
“I do not preach, and my mouth has no meal!” a Bretanglian sergeant said, stepping up to glare at Pargas. “I am Sergeant Brock, and I shall grind your bones if you defy my lord!”
Sir Orizhan scrambled to his feet, his face red. “We are guests in this land!”
But the nobleman took courage from the sergeant’s support and snarled at Pargas. “Insolent fellow! I’ll teach you some manners, and your whore some honesty!” He leaped on the pimp, dagger flashing.
Pargas howled, stumbling back against the wall, blood spreading from a gash in his left shoulder—but his right arm swung its club.
The Bretanglian sergeant shouted and leaped in to block the club, his own dagger stabbing. Two Merovencian toughs bellowed in anger and jumped him.
Sir Orizhan ran to help Sergeant Brock, crying, “Put up your weapons, I beg you!”
A Merovencian tough whacked him with a club. He fell back into the arms of the nobleman, who tossed him aside in disgust, leaving him to rise again or not, as the fortunes of battle might have it. Then the Bretanglian nobleman took a firmer hold on his dagger and went after Pargas again as two Merovencians jumped on Sergeant Brock. Two of Brock’s troopers ran to help, and four Merovencians fell on them.
As one, the foreigners turned on the locals, and in seconds the whole room was one huge brawl. Stools swung as weapons. Men lifted other stools as shields. Knives streaked, clubs cracked, and men bellowed rage at one another.
Then a scream cut across the shouting, a scream of such horror and anguish that all the men froze and turned to stare.
Laetri was shoving herself into a corner, screaming and screaming, and Pargas, bleeding from half a dozen knife cuts, stood in front of her, panting but with his club still raised— and staring, appalled at the same sight that terrified Laetri.
The Bretanglian nobleman lay on his back in a pool of his own blood, a bruise on his forehead, his eyes wide and staring but seeing nothing, nor would those eyes ever see anything again.
The silence of shock gripped the whole room. Then Sergeant Brock shook off the brawler who had fallen on top of him, shoved himself to his feet and sprang to the fallen man. “Your Highness!”
Sir Orizhan moaned, sick with dread.
“Highness?” Dread washed over Pargas’ features.
“Of course!” the sergeant shouted. “You knew he was no common soldier, no matter how he was dressed!” He glared at Laetri. “You have been honored with the touch of the heir to the throne of Bretanglia, woman—Gaheris, Prince of Wales!”
“Hon—Honored?” Laetri could only touch the bruise on her cheek, a sob catching in her throat.
Then the innkeeper pointed, howling. “Stop him!”
Whirling, everyone saw the man just as he sprang out the window and into the night. With the howl of the hunting pack, locals and visitors alike tore out the door to give chase.
The innkeeper turned to Pargas and Laetri, shooing them toward the kitchen. “Out of my house, scoundrels! Out the back door and into the alley, for I’ll have no more of your troublemaking here!”
Half a dozen Bretanglian soldiers stepped into their path, and a hard hand caught the innkeeper’s arm. He turned to see Sir Orizhan, flint-eyed and grim. “A nice try, landlord, and you might indeed have helped your friends escape—but I am the companion assigned to protect the prince, and I’ll not take the blame for this alone! Corin! Ferol! Bind these three and take them to the castle—and do it quickly, before that rat pack comes back!”
Alisande’s lady-in-waiting laid down the brush. “There! Your Majesty’s hair glistens like the sun! Shall I braid it?”
“I shall do that myself tonight.” Alisande stood up, clad in only her shift and long blond hair. “I thank you for your ministrations, ladies, but I shall tell you good-night now. It has been a long and wearying day.”
“Good night, then, Your Majesty ” The senior lady curtsied, and the others after her. They went out the door, already beginning to murmur in amazement at their young sovereign’s strength in standing against the worst arguments and tempers of her royal guests.
The door closed behind them—and Alisande turned to throw open the other door, the one that connected to Matt’s suite. He stood there waiting and came in, arms up to embrace. Alisande all but fell into them, buried her face in his shoulder and let herself go limp at last, let herself stop being strong, let herself take refuge for a few moments in her husband’s love. “What a horrible family!” she said into Matt’s chest.
“Not the worst I’ve seen, but certainly in the running for second place,” he agreed. “With so much bickering, it’s a wonder they can govern their kingdom at all!”
Alisande pushed herself a little away, though not far. “You cannot entirely blame Petronille if she is a virago, though— not with a husband like that.”
“What—aside from the fact that she doesn’t dare turn her back on him for a second? Look at it this way, Drustan’s entirely dependable—she can depend on him to betray her anytime he takes it into his head to want something that might hurt her!”
“Well, be fair to him,” Alisande said with a half smile. “He never stops to mink whether or not his actions will hurt her, or anyone else.”
“Right. He knows what he wants, and he sets about getting it, and if anybody gets in his way, too bad.”
Alisande shuddered. “How could a woman marry a man like that?”
“Oh, I expect he looked a lot better twenty years ago,** Matt said, “when he was new to kinging, and didn’t realize how much power he had yet.”
“Which he may have learned from her, if the tales of her former marriage are to be believed,” Alisande said.
“She did kind of run her first husband, didn’t she? But after all, she was the one who’d been born with a title.”
“Yes, and he was only a knight errant, though a handsome one by all accounts.” Alisande sighed. “One wonders why he died so young.”
“Delayed action from an old wound, no doubt. Riding the tournament circuit can be dangerous.”
“So can Petronille,” Alisande said darkly. She went to sit down and stare into her mirror. “Could I ever be like that, husband?”
“Only if I didn’t do my job right.” Matt came up behind her, caught a stray blond lock and began to wind it about his finger. “No, I don’t think you could ever be that selfish, love. You’re too busy fighting off rebels and invaders, and trying to find some way to make life better for your people.”