“I was appointed her page. By Prince Cratyn himself!”
“I see. That’s quite a position of trust.”
“Prince Cratyn trusts me.”
“He must trust you a great deal, to ask you to escort her Highness through Medalon when your nation is at war with us.”
Mikel was still young enough that flattery, even from a man he despised, made his heart swell proudly. “Prince Cratyn knew that I would not betray him. No spy...”
“Spy?” Damin asked, glancing up from the tabletop. “What spy?”
Mikel took a step backwards, frowning warily. “I said nothing about a spy.”
Damin looked at Tarja and shrugged. “Send him back to the horses, Tarja. Adrina has already told us everything we want to know. She was trying to escape to Fardohnya to get away from Cratyn and stop her father joining in the war.”
“That’s a lie!” Mikel shouted, horrified that they would think such a thing of the noble princess. “You’re making that up!”
“Not at all,” Tarja told him. “Adrina told us everything.”
“You must have tortured her!”
“If you call mulled wine and a warm fire torture,” Damin said with a faint smile, “Quite the opportunist, your princess, Mikel. She changes sides more often than most people change their clothes.”
“Princess Adrina is the most noble, pious, beautiful woman in the whole world! She’s brave, too!”
“Brave?” Tarja scoffed. “She was running away.”
“She was not! She was going to see her father to get him to send the cannon! So that you would all die!”
Tarja and Damin glanced at each other as Mikel realised what he had blurted out. He wanted to cry. He wished the cold flagstones would open up and swallow him whole. First Jaymes had betrayed him.
Now he had betrayed Adrina.
Chapter 37
“Who do you believe? The boy or the princess?” Jenga paced the hearth, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Gray daylight flooded the hall but the air was crisp, even this close to the fire.
Damin shrugged. “She’s lying. She’s heading for Talabar to bring her father’s cannon into the war. She’s not running away.”
Tarja nodded his agreement. “I believe the boy is telling the truth, but it’s the truth your princess fed him. She could hardly announce her intention to run away.” He was sitting in front of the inadequate blaze, warming the soles of his boots, obviously pleased that the decision about what to do with Adrina was not his to make.
“Will you stop calling her my princess!”
Tarja grinned. “We’ll she’s your problem. And you’re always telling me how much better you understand the Fardohnyan nobility than us poor peasants here in Medalon...”
“Very funny.”
“I was merely trying to point out that —”
“Enough, Tarja,” Jenga cut in wearily. “Lord Wolfblade, would it be fair to say that you really have no idea what she is doing here?”
Damin nodded. “That would be fair.”
“And we’ve had no emissaries from the Kariens seeking her out.”
“I’d be surprised if we did,” Tarja said. “If she’s on the run, the last place Cratyn would look for her is Medalon.”
“And if she’s telling the truth, then he needs to pretend that nothing is amiss,” Jenga agreed.
“You know, we’d get a lot more out of Her Serene Highness if she thought we believed her.”
“The rack and a red hot poker would do me just as well,” Damin muttered. Jenga threw him an annoyed look before turning to Tarja.
“Explain.”
“Perhaps, if her status was one of honoured guest rather than prisoner, she might let something slip.”
“She won’t let anything slip. She’s too smart for that.” Damin glared at Tarja, not liking the direction this conversation was heading.
“Maybe,” Jenga mused. “What are you suggesting exactly?”
“Release her. Give her the freedom of the camp. We should ask for something to prove her story, of course. Some piece of intelligence we can easily verify, as a gesture of good will. And we’d have to put a guard on her – there’s no telling what she’d get up to on her own, but we can claim it’s for her protection. We can’t let her get her hands on her jewels, either, but there is no reason why she shouldn’t think we believe her.”
“If we believed her, we’d send her back to Fardohnya,” Damin pointed out. “She won’t fall for it.”
“Oh, yes, she will. Because you, my Lord, are going to start acting as if she’s an ally, not your sworn enemy.”
“The hell I will!”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Tarja?” Jenga said. “How would that help?”
Tarja sighed patiently. “As Damin keeps reminding us, she’s a very smart girl. But she never got the message from her brother and she knows nothing of the Hythrun Raiders stationed in Bordertown. If we release her, at least conditionally, and our Warlord here can keep a civil tongue in his head, she’ll come to believe we need her help in holding back her father’s troops. I’m not saying she’ll believe us right away, but if we act as if we think she’s on our side, even if she’s lying, she has to play along with it.”
“So you think she may end up betraying herself, simply to maintain the illusion of cooperation?”
“Relax your vigilance for more than a heartbeat, and she’ll slip a knife between your ribs,” Damin warned.
“Ah, but she’s your princess, remember?” Tarja said with a grin. “I don’t plan on getting that close.”
Damin glared at Tarja. “Nice plan, my friend, but in case you hadn’t noticed there’s a war going on out there. I have too much to do to waste time playing games of intrigue with a Fardohnyan princess. The Kariens could attack again at any moment.”
Jenga shook his head confidently. “Not likely. They’ve still not recovered from the last battle and it will snow any day.”
“Besides, your troops seem to get along very nicely without you,” Tarja added, taking far too much pleasure in Damin’s misery. “Almodavar coped quite well while you were off consulting your god for nearly a month.”
Damin considered that an entirely unfair argument. “It’s not the same thing. My men knew I was gone to consult with the gods. They’re not likely to be nearly as understanding if they think I’m neglecting them for a woman.”
“I disagree,” Jenga remarked with a rare smile. “From what I’ve seen of your men, Damin, they’d give that just as much credence.”
Damin chose to ignore that one. “It won’t work.”
“Of course it’ll work,” Tarja assured him. “Just pray to one of your gods.”
Damin gave the captain a withering glare. “We don’t actually have a god of Bloody Stupid Ideas, Tarja.”
Damin did not bother knocking. He ordered the guards to open the door to Adrina’s chamber and marched in unannounced. He was a little disappointed to discover Adrina and her slave sitting on the pallet that served as a bed, apparently engaged in nothing more sinister than idle chatter, their legs covered by a blanket to ward off the cold. Adrina still wore the shirt he had given her in his tent, and someone had given the slave something warmer to wear as well. The women looked up as he entered.
“Out!” he ordered the slave. She responded to the authority in his voice without thinking and scurried from the room, leaving them alone. Adrina did not move. He was quite impressed with the way she managed to look down on him, even though she was sitting and he was standing.
“You have the manners of a barbarian.”
“You seem to bring out the worst in me, your Highness.”