Far to the northeast, Teressa was also awake, sitting in her little tent and writing by the light of a small lamp.
When her pen went dry she warmed her fingers over her lamp, then dipped the pen into the inkwell. Carefully she inscribed the date, and then the results of the morning’s negotiations.
Promised to Elkin, Mayor of Craeg, fee and untaxed foraging for their sheep on the Crown Land south of town, all the way to Griswold Knolls.
Teressa laid her pen down and flexed her fingers. It was hard to write so small, especially by such dim light, when her entire body seemed to be half-frozen. But her little book was already partially full. She leafed through the remaining pages, wishing that she’d found a bigger empty book at the Haven House. Well, at least I have this. Now, what else to write?
She twisted her head from side to side, trying without much success to ease the stiffness in her neck from the day’s long ride. Then she bent over the book once again. In the ancient Leric script that she had learned once just for fun, she added:
Observation: If people think a suggestion comes from someone they respect, they’ll obey it. The same suggestion from someone they don’t like is sure to cause argument.
She thought about how Garian had grumped when she had insisted they stay well away from streams, hills, and other “tactically significant” terrain when they first camped. “This is ridiculous,” Garian had said. “If it rains, this field will get soggy, and it will take forever to hike to a stream to get wash water.”
“We’ll camp here,” Teressa had replied. “I’ve been told by someone with experience that this is best.” She hated to mention Connor, as his name always sparked Garian’s temper.
At first Garian scowled, then he asked, “A lesson from the King?”
Teressa opened her mouth to deny it, saw that Garian was — for once — not pestering her with arguments, so she shrugged. “My father taught me a great deal,” she said, not quite answering — but it was enough for Garian, who turned away and gave the order for the camp.
Was that diplomacy — or hypocrisy? It worked, she thought tiredly as she put pen, ink, and book away, doused her light, and curled up on her mat. But she couldn’t sleep until she had reviewed her plans for the next day. That delegation from Hroth Falls ought to be here. That is, if the message-relay system is still working.
She tried to calculate how long their supplies might last and where they might get more. Maybe it’s time to sell that ruby necklace I was wearing the night of the attack. If this war drags on much longer, food will become more precious than jewels.
That was her last thought before sleep overwhelmed her.
It seemed only a short time later that she was startled awake again by the crunch of footsteps outside her tent.
“Highness.” The whisper managed to sound apologetic.
Teressa lifted her head. Cold air shocked her into sitting up. Her braid caught under her elbow, jerking her head painfully back. She bit her lip against a scream of annoyance and scrabbled in the dark for the few hairpins she had left. Winding her scruffy braid tightly around her head twice, she jabbed the pins in to hold it. It been more than a week since she had been able to wash her hair, and at least four days since she’d had the time to unplait and comb it.
She pulled her heaviest tunic over her head, jammed her feet into her boots, and thrust her knife down the top of one.
“I’m ready,” she murmured. She pulled on her gloves as she stepped out of the tent.
Omric Balaran of Croem waited, holding two blunted swords. “You still wish to do this, Highness?” Omric asked respectfully. “I — well, I saw a light in your tent very late.”
“Practice every day, Omric,” Teressa said. “It’s not the will I’m lacking, it’s the hairpins.”
Omric chuckled. His long form was barely visible in the weak predawn light as they walked away from the camp. They headed for a copse of trees, an uneven outline against the deep blue sky.
“Stop!” a voice challenged on their right. “Who’s there?”
“Omric and Teressa.” She was pleased that the unseen sentry was alert. Place them in a circle outside the camp, a big enough circle that they’ll see anyone sneaking up before the sneakers see the camp, Connor had said.
So far, it had worked.
They found a clearing surrounded by shrubs. As Omric measured off the space, tamping down long grass and kicking rocks out of the way, Teressa took her blade and began swinging it back and forth, thinking of Connor as she did so. Though Omric was a patient and kind teacher, she never missed Connor more than during these morning training sessions.
“Shall we begin, Highness?” Omric suggested.
Connor would have said “On your guard!” she thought.
Clash! Clang! They worked steadily, until Teressa’s hands were sweaty in her gloves and her shoulders and legs started to ache. With each session the ache seemed to come a little later, and her parries and thrusts had gathered a bit of strength.
Still, she was breathing hard before Omric even broke a sweat, and then, just as she was trying a difficult maneuver, a hairpin gave, pricking her scalp unmercifully. She staggered back, and one of her braid loops swung down into her eyes. Omric pulled up his blade just in time.
“Argh!” Teressa exclaimed, clawing her hair back. She glared down at the churned mud at her feet, knowing she’d never find the missing pin.
“Perhaps we ought to cease for the day, Highness,” Omric said politely.
Teressa closed her lips against a heated retort, realizing that they had been at it longer than she’d thought. The weak winter sun had come up behind a thick layer of clouds. Omric’s bony face looked anxious.
“All right, Omric,” she said, forcing herself to smile, to sound calm. “I’ll be along shortly. I think I’ll try to find that pin.”
He bowed, took her blade, and walked back toward the camp.
Teressa glared down at the mud. The heavy braid loop pulled at the remaining pins, making her itchy scalp hurt even more. With a stifled cry she yanked her hair free, sending the last of the pins flying in all directions.
She stared at the thick, bedraggled braid in her hand. Then a flash of anger made her reach down and pull the knife from her boot. Holding out the braid at arm’s length, she sawed wildly until it came off in her hand. At once her head felt lighter, and the remaining hair swirled, free, about her shoulders.
The anger departed as quickly as it had come. She stared down at the long length of hair, auburn glimmers catching the strengthening sunlight. Her mother’s hair color.
What would her mother think? How proud the Queen had been of Teressa’s long, silky hair, a shining river to her knees. So many evenings Queen Astren had brushed it herself and plaited pearls into it so Teressa would look splendid for some Court gathering.
Tears stung Teressa’s eyes. She pressed the braid against her cheek, as if her mother’s touch somehow lingered on it.
Distant voices resolved into a sharp cry. “His Grace is trying to find you, Highness,” the sentry shouted.
Garian. What is the problem now?
“Coming!” Teressa yelled, hating how shrill her voice sounded.
She stared down at what was now just a length of dirty braided hair in her hand. With all her strength she flung it into the thick undergrowth and watched with grim satisfaction as it disappeared.
Morning baths and a new dress each day are gone, she thought as she started back toward the camp. Gone are the maids who tied the ribbons on my sleeves and dressed my hair. And gone are the music, the plays, the long conversations about art. Mother, I’m glad you can’t see me now.
Her eyes still stung, but she would not permit tears to fall.
As she reached the outskirts of the camp, several people stopped and stared at her. She was intensely conscious of the short hair swinging about her shoulders, just like a boy’s.
Garian stood near her tent, and when he saw her, he gaped. “Garian,” she said dryly, “may I borrow one of your hair ties?”
Silently he reached up, pulled off his own, and held it out.
She tied her hair back, then sighed. Never mind how many traditions she had just broken. The truth was, it felt wonderful.
“Well,” she said briskly, “what is the problem?”
“It’s them,” Garian said, his thin face reddening as he pointed his handsomely gloved hand toward an angry-looking knot of new recruits. “They won’t do what I say.” And as a brawny, ragged-dressed boy broke from the group and stalked toward Teressa, Garian added loudly, “If this were the Scarlet Guard, such insolence would earn a well-deserved flogging.”
The boy coming toward them flushed with rage. “I’ll show you insolence, strutcrow,” he snarled, advancing on Garian.
“Hold,” Teressa said with all her authority.
The boy made an awkward bow toward Teressa, talking the whole time. “You’ll pardon me, Princess, but if I hear any more slunch out of this... this tilt-nosed miffler, I’m going to — ” He clamped his mittened hand on his sword hilt, breathing hard.
“ ‘Slunch’?” Teressa said, trying to keep from smiling.
“Insults,” the boy said through gritted teeth.
“Your name, please?” Teressa asked.
“Rett.” His eyes shifted, and he added hastily, “Uh, Princess.”
“Never mind that,” she said. “What’s the problem? You knew when you came that my cousin Lord Garian was to command our army.”
“But that was before we found out that he thinks anyone not born with a title is stupid as a rock,” Rett retorted. “All we do each day is footle about with dueling practice. Dueling!” He exclaimed with devastating scorn. “They jaw us about proper form and nobles’ rules.” He parodied a stance, left hand on hip and right hand twirling an imaginary blade at a decorously distant opponent. “As if the Lirwanis would ever pay attention to that mulch!” His hands formed into purposeful fists. “And then he sets his toady pals over us, when most of them — well, some of them,” he corrected himself judiciously, “aren’t half as quick as we are.”
“We need the practice, Rett,” Teressa said slowly as she tried to sort this out. “We’ll have to work together if we’re to be at all effective. This means knowing how to follow the arm signals.”
Rett bobbed his head. “I realize that. The signals, even the sword practice, we’ll take. But I’d rather be flogged ten times over than follow that clotpole Nyl Alembar, just because he’s related to a Rhismordith!”
Teressa’s gaze shifted inadvertently to Garian’s clumsy cousin. Nyl was at that moment swaggering about the far end of the practice area, waving a quarterstaff. As everyone watched, he swung it in too wide a circle. One end buried itself in the mud and the other smacked him on the jaw. He yelped and fell with a liquid squelch into the mud.
Rett’s lips twitched — he was trying to fight a laugh. His friends on the field roared.
Garian sighed.
Glad of her years of practice, Teressa kept her face blank.
“Tell you what, Rett,” she said. “Form your group into lines and you run them through some practice while Lord Garian and I confer.”
Rett ran off, shouting enthusiastic orders at his group.
Garian shifted impatiently, but Teressa put a hand out, halting him, as she watched the boy briskly chivvy the disorganized mass into two neat lines. Within a brief time he had them all moving through the same sword-fighting warm ups that she now used each morning.
“He’s good,” she said, watching Rett swing his blade until it hummed.
“Lacks training,” Garian said, curling his upper lip. “What you see is what I’ve managed to teach him so far — he’d never held a sword in his life until two weeks ago.”
Teressa shook her head. “He’s good at command,” she said. “I think you ought to make him some kind of captain.”
“But he’s a commoner,” Garian protested in a horrified voice.
Teressa endured a flash of anger so strong she wanted to slap Garian’s silly face. She stifled it and stared her cousin straight in the eyes. “Do you really think,” she said slowly and evenly, “that the Lirwanis are going to ask for Letters of Royal Grant before they attack?”
“We’ve been trained at arms for our whole lives,” Garian muttered, looking at the ground. “That fool has been trained to mill wheat.”
“Rett is right,” Teressa said. “You’ve been trained in dancing, and making nasty comments with a smile. You’ve also trained in dueling, but those duels would have been fought with each other, where everyone knows the rules. I don’t remember the Lirwanis using any rules when they killed my parents.”
Garian’s face blanched.
Teressa heard her voice going sharp again, and consciously lowered her tone. “We need those volunteers, Garian. We need them more than they need us right now, for we did not protect them, and your f — some of the nobles really didn’t govern all that well. I charge you to find a way to work with him — today. Before the sun sets.”
Garian blanched. “I thought I was the commander in chief.”
“You are,” Teressa said, trying to hide how terrified she was that Garian would run back to his father and betray her. But if I can’t be firm with him now, I’ll lose the chance forever. “I don’t know how you’ll do it — that’s up to you, because you’re a commander. But we have to have an army, cousin. Not two big crowds, which is what they are now.”
“Princess Teressa!” A far-off cry interrupted them. Remember compromise. Teresa made herself smile. “I have faith in you, Cousin Garian.” I want to have faith in you.
Laris ran up, her scrying stone clutched against her. Still panting, she began to talk as Garian marched away, waving to his followers.
Teressa forced herself to concentrate on what the journeymage was saying.
“... and so we just got the signal. They’re on the way.”
They? “On the way,” Teressa repeated, then remembered. The delegation from Hroth Falls! She whirled around. “I’ve got to put on my dress.”
Laris nodded. “I just sent a pair of riders to find them.”
If I’m fast I might have time to get something to eat, Teressa thought as her stomach growled. She grimaced as she ran back to her tent. She’d skipped far too many meals of late.
In the tent she pulled from a saddlebag the one court dress she had left. Those voluminous sleeves and the long, dragging skirt took up as much space, and weight, as a week’s regular clothing plus food.
But it was necessary — she needed everything she could muster to lend her the dignity her new position seemed to demand. There was no throne, no crown, no smiling courtiers or lovely music to surround her with prestige anymore. Just herself.
Her fingers laced the silver underdress rapidly, with the speed those twelve servantless years in the orphanage had given her. Then the blue velvet overdress and its silver belt. She had no mirror, but she knew the gown made her look a little taller, a little older. Her hand hesitated over the rubies. Would they help, or was it foolish to wear jewels in a war camp? Garian’s jewels don’t impress anyone but his friends, so mine won’t, either. I’ll leave them.
That decided, she bent to smooth the skirt and her hair swung down to cover her face, startling her. A pang of remorse hit her, but she fought it back as she hunted on the tent floor for Garian’s hair tie. What’s done is done. I won’t look back.
Her head was high when she marched out, her skirts bunched in both hands so they would not drag through the mud. More than ever she felt the sheer weight of the gown and how difficult free movement was in it.
At the cook tent, she tore a hunk off the flat pan-bread that made their main dish, and cut a chunk of cheese from a wheel. Seating herself carefully on a barrel, she ate as she listened for the pounding of horse hooves.
They came very soon. She tucked the bread and cheese under a napkin for later, then walked out to wait for the visitors.
They turned out to be three adults: a sour-looking older man and woman, and a younger man with the smiling blank face of a courtier. This latter had to be the cousin to the baron whose land lay adjacent to the city, which meant the other two were representatives chosen by the most powerful guilds of Hroth Falls.
Teressa conducted them through her little camp, glad that — at least to all appearances — the fighting practice was orderly and businesslike. Those on duty at the cook tent had brewed summer tea from Teressa’s precious hoard, and the visitors sat and sipped at it with no change in their expressions.
Their questions were general until one of the guild pair said stonily, “Why should we risk our people with you, Princess? What guarantee have we, should we win, that you won’t turn about and hand off our lands to some fool relative who’s already ruined his own lands, just as your father was about to do down south?”
“Now, Runter,” the baron’s cousin said, smiling in faint reproach, “I’m certain the King had never intended any such thing.”
Teressa looked from one to the other, deciding that the smiling cousin was the more dangerous of the two — Runter, though blunt, was honest. “What guarantee do I have that you won’t run after every hothead who talks rumor?” she countered.
The woman visitor uttered a short laugh. “That’s for you, Runter,” she said. “And you too, Lord Kilyan.” Then she leaned toward Teressa. “So you want all our able-bodied souls, is that it?”
I’ve got them, Teressa rejoiced, but she kept her face smooth. “Not all,” she said. “Only a portion, and a small one at that. Your main force — whatever you can muster in secret — ought to stay right at home. Because here’s my plan...”