Prin ignored him. He was young and probably overly confident and stupid, determined to use his emerging skills to impress them, as young men often do when around pretty women. His hostile movements and posture told her she could defeat him in combat a hundred ways—in only a few heartbeats. He had no idea of the danger he was in.
“Ladies, if I may.” The words were innocent, but the tone cutting and demanding. He threw his arms wide as if he intended to forcibly stop them, a slight curl of a cruel smile at the corners of his insolent mouth.
Maude’s outward appearance today made her look seventy, or more, instead of her usual fifty. She was in front of the girls and continued walking as if not seeing his arms, but she said sharply, “No, you may not, whatever it is you’re selling. Go away.”
At the last moment, he lowered his right arm and allowed her to stride past with Prin and Sara at her heels. None of them gave him another look. But he didn’t quit. He raced after them and called, “I am a mage, and I require you to identify yourselves.”
At that point, Maude paused and slowly turned, her eyes flashing in anger. “I am familiar with all of the imperial mages in Gallium, as I am a senior sorceress, and do not recognize you … boy.”
“I’m not from Gallium.”
“So, you freely admit you have no standing or authority in our beautiful city, yet you are preventing me from going about my business? Does that about sum up your intentions?”
“I demand–”
A calloused hand descended on the mage’s shoulder and pulled him back a full step. The young mage swung around in anger, to find himself facing a warrior of almost fifty years, taller by a head, arms bulging with muscles. An iron ring circled his belt, and the blade of a long, thin sword rested inside it, without a scabbard. The warrior said softly, “Mistress Maude, is this slip of a mage pestering you?”
Prin saw the anger and flush in the mage who believed his powers allowed him to do as he pleased and that all others answered to him. She also noticed the royal colors of Wren, her kingdom–red, black, and orange–on a patch on his arm. There could be no doubt he was seeking her, the missing princess.
Maude hesitated only an instant. “Now that you mention it, he is bothering me.”
“I am a mage on official business! Let me go.” He tried to shake free.
“I am of the Order of the Iron Ring, and you are interfering with one of our benefactors. You must cease immediately.”
“I will strike you dead with a bolt of lightning if you do not unhand me.” The mage tried to spin himself free, looking for all the world like a schoolboy with a stolen cookie, caught by a headmaster.
The man of the Order said softly, “And will you also call down your lightning bolts on my friends?” He nodded behind the mage, where four more warriors, all dressed the same and wearing the same swords of the Iron Order had approached unnoticed. They spread out in a half circle, with their hands on the hilts of their weapons, ready to use them before the mage could raise an arm to cast a spell.
Prin had no doubt that a single aggressive move by the mage would cause four blades to draw and slash as one, and the mage would be the one who was dead—without a single bolt of lightning. She held her breath, unsure of how stupid the young mage was going to be.
But the mage understood his predicament. He spoke to Maude in a steady, stilted voice, “Sorry to have bothered you on this fine morning, madam.”
Maude spun and strode down the hillside without responding. When they were alone, she said, “I have never had one of them act so rude to me.”
“He wore the colors of Wren,” Prin said, almost to herself.
Sara pointed, “Oh, look. That’s Brice’s ship.”
Brice stood at the rail of a cargo vessel, his sea bag at his feet, talking and laughing with two other sailors. They shared another joke, and then he spotted the women and waved. The three women rushed to meet him at the gangplank, laughing, hugging, and planning his time ashore, but Prin noticed a certain lack of enthusiasm. Brice seemed distracted, and his gaze kept returning to her as if wishing he could speak freely.
Sara and Maude pummeled him with questions, but he deflected many of them, even when they scrambled into the carriage and began climbing the long hill to their home near the top. Prin noticed the mage who had accosted them earlier watching from a concealed doorway, his forearm lifted across his mouth as if he was trying to hide his face.
“Did you travel all the way to Wren and back? It seems like you just left,” Sara said. “We missed you.”
“Did the ship feed you well?” Maude asked. “You look thin.”
Thin? Prin thought. No, he looked worried. She braced herself for bad news, and when he refused to make eye contact, she knew it was so. She tried to enjoy the ride and take part in the excitement, but it fell flat.
Once inside Maude’s home, they all sat on facing sofas, plates of fresh fruit between them. Maude said, her smile showing perfect teeth, her face now that of a concerned woman of thirty, “Tell us what happened. What’s wrong?”
He turned to Prin and said solemnly, “The King is dead.”
“How?” Prin asked. She was so shocked the word barely traveled across the room.
“There was an accident. King Harold was in a coach that drove over a cliff in the mountains above the palace.”
Prin’s stomach tightened. Her head swam. She had only met him once, but he was her blood, her King. And he had been the lifelong confidant of her father. The breath that wouldn’t enter her lungs caused her to choke. A flood of tears followed.
Maude and Sara comforted her while Brice stood aside and moaned that he should have found a better way to tell her, to have eased into the subject. Prin wanted to shout that it wouldn’t have mattered—she would feel the same. But words wouldn’t come. She curled into a ball and wept.
After a few moments, Prin regained enough control to ask, “How did it happen?”
Brice sat beside her. “The story is that his carriage was traveling too fast around a turn in the mountains. The wheel slipped over the soft edge, and the carriage followed.”
Prin sat erect. “That story smells like five-day old fish.”
Maude patted her shoulder and said in a soothing voice, “Stay calm, Prin. It sounds like an accident. We don’t know the facts.”
Prin stood, angry and wary, with her fists balled. Her mind started to accept the story and digest the implications. “A King nearly eighty years old would never allow his driver to race a royal carriage on mountain roads. It was an assassination.”
Sara came to her side. “Maybe the horse bolted.”
“Royal carriages have four or more highly trained horses, the best-trained animals in the kingdom. If one did bolt, the other three would hold it back.” Prin crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. Her temper prevented them from saying or doing anything more or approaching too closely. Her eyes went to Brice. She snapped, “His son will wear the crown?”
Brice shook his head sadly, “He was also in the carriage.”
“Convenient.” Prin kicked out, barely missing the end of the sofa. The miss was fortunate, or the sofa may have lifted from the ground and flown to the far side of the room from the power of her foot. Her fist pounded her palm, but her complexion paled as she realized more implications. Brice backed to the wall away from her.
“There’s more?” she demanded of him, stalking towards him.