The Sword-Edged blonde

THREE

Pema was what Neceda would be if King Archibald gave a rat’s ass about anything beyond his castle walls and let real businessmen flourish. People and wagons traveled in unbroken lines in both directions on the cobblestoned main street. Every other building seemed to be a tavern, and most of those were also whorehouses; these would attract the newcomers, and if that didn’t hold them, the gaming houses waited a little further down the street. Past them, though, would be the real rough part of town, home to the folks who made their living off the weary and unguarded travelers and knew how to slip across the border without niceties like travel papers. If they were in town, this was where I’d find my princess-snatching border thugs. If they weren’t, a little money might grease someone’s memory about where they could be found.

I appeared suitably bad-assed with my sword and general scruff, so I had not bothered with a disguise. I tossed my saddlebags over my shoulder and kept my eyes resolutely ahead. I knew what a real potential victim looked like, so I didn’t look like one unless I meant to.

I passed an alley, and caught a peripheral glimpse of a mugging in progress. I considered aiding the victim, but he slammed one of the tough guys against the wall, and I heard the snick sound of a knife, followed by the wet gurgle of a cut throat. He whirled on the other mugger, dagger ready. He seemed to have it under control.

I’d gone half a block before I had the odd feeling that I knew the mugging victim from somewhere. I backtracked, but by then the whole encounter was over, and the alley was empty except for the sprawled body of one of the attackers.

The edge of town, and the businesses that catered to its denizens, was the first place to start looking for the kind of cocky border raiders who might kidnap a princess. I checked three disreputable and dangerous taverns before I reached a low-roofed building with only the words RUM and GIRLS painted on its sign. A pair of torches blazed on poles just outside the entrance. A dozen horses stood tied to the hitching posts, and from the size of their shitpiles, some of them had been there awhile. All had worn saddles and tack, but they’d been modified and personalized the way you do when you want to show off.

This rum joint had one big main room, with a small kitchen and stock area blocked off in the back. A bar ran the length of the wall to my left, and about ten small tables filled the open floor space. A bunch of those tables had been pulled together in the back corner, and were occupied by the owners of the horses. The hanging oil lamps along that stretch of the wall had been extinguished, creating a pool of relative darkness; I couldn’t see them, but I knew at least some of them would check me out as soon as I walked through the door.

I let my shoulders slump and my gut stick out (easier to do the older I got) so I would appear no more than a poor weary traveler anxious for a drink and maybe a quick roll with one of the working girls. I shuffled to the bar and took an empty stool on the end. It wasn’t the best vantage place, since it kept my back to the door, but if I’d chosen a better one, I might’ve given myself away. If I squinted, I had a pretty good view of the room in the long, smoke-stained mirror.

I counted ten big rough-looking hard boys in need of haircuts and shaves. They were armed with swords and knives, including some big two-hander blades that, if their wielders could actually lift them, would slice through a cow. A quick count of the empty mugs on the tables told me they’d been drinking a while, and that might take the edge off their skill. I wasn’t going to bet on it, though.

“What’ll you have, pal?” the bartender asked. Tattoos ran down his arms and his right eyelid drooped.

“Cheapest rum you got,” I said, sounding like I’d been on the road for weeks. “I’m on a tight budget.”

“Cheapest I got’ll take off varnish,” he said.

I shrugged. I had no intention of drinking it anyway. “Challenges make you a better person.” He nodded and went to pour the drink.

I checked out the women milling around the tough guys. Like bars, bar whores tended to be the same everywhere. If they were under twenty-five, they still had that little hint of hope that some shining knight would rescue them from their life of degradation and despair. Over that age, they were either resigned to their fate, or they actually enjoyed the job and thus were always the happiest people in the room.

Five ladies sought the attention of the men in the corner. Three of them were not young enough to be my missing princess. The fourth had a bit too much flesh spilling over her bodice.

The last one sat demurely next to a big man who, in the dimness, looked familiar. I put it down as a trick of the firelight; although it wasn’t impossible, the chances that I really knew the guy were pretty slim.

The bartender brought my drink, and I nonchalantly turned to survey the room, the way any traveler would. The demure girl’s face wasn’t any clearer from this angle, but she had the right kind of hair and looked about the right age to be my missing princess. Travelers from Gurius, Balaton’s capital, might stop in here; it was pretty ballsy of these guys to bring their prisoner into a bar where she might be recognized, even dressed like a farm girl come to town.

At that moment the girl raised her head and said something to the man next to her. Damn if it wasn’t her all right, Princess Lila of the Royal House of Balaton. She looked only slightly the worse for wear, although some kinds of wear wouldn’t show. The man turned to answer her, and suddenly I knew why he had looked familiar, and why the princess had run away.

Lila stood and walked a bit unsteadily toward the door that led to the outhouses, clearly unused to whatever she’d been drinking. The man watched her the whole way.

I guess I wasn’t as smooth as I thought, because the bartender suddenly appeared and cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t stare at Ryan’s girl if I was you,” he said.

“If he don’t want people to look, he shouldn’t bring her to town,” I said gruffly. I made myself take a sip of my drink for effect, and immediately wished I hadn’t. It burned all the way down.

“I’ll make sure they put that on your headstone,” the bartender said, and walked away.

I gave the princess time to get settled on her throne, then threw down the rest of the drink and got to my feet. I hoped no one saw how red my face turned from the rum; I couldn’t drink like a young man anymore.

I went out the same door, and in the moonlight saw four outhouses in a row at the end of a narrow stone walkway. Three of them were unoccupied; I threw open the door to the fourth.

Lila looked up sharply from her seat, and her eyes widened in surprise when she realized I was a man. One eye didn’t widen as much as the other, due to the puffy, fading bruise around it. I said, “So this is the real story behind the ‘Princess and the Pea.’ ”

“Who the hell are you?” she cried. She tried to pull down her skirt without standing. Then, more in control, she said, “There’s three empty ones, you know.”

“No, I’m in the right spot, Lila.”

She froze, and glared at me. “I’m not going back,” she said through her teeth.

“Yeah, I figured you’d say that.” I wearily scratched my beard. “So who gave you the shiner?”

“Who do you think?” she muttered. “Would you mind turning around so I can get decent?”

“I didn’t get to be this old turning my back on people. You just go ahead, I promise I won’t enjoy it.” And I didn’t. Battered children don’t do a thing for me.

While she adjusted her pantaloons and skirts I said, “So I guess we have a dilemma.”

“I’m not going back,” she repeated. The bruise around her eye looked about three weeks old, right around the time she disappeared. “You can kill me, but you can’t take me back to that place.”

I hadn’t quite made up my mind how to proceed, but there was no need for her to know that. “I’ve already taken some of their money.”

She reached for a pouch at her waist. “I can pay you twice what they did-”

“Doesn’t work that way.” I took her chin gently and turned her face toward the light. “So who gave you the eye, really?”

“My father,” she spat, and twisted out of my grasp.

“Which one?”

Before she could answer, my luck ran out. The tavern door behind me burst open, and the man who’d sat next to Lila strode out, followed by three other big, slightly drunk guys. I reached over my shoulder and grabbed the handle of my sword; I twisted the hilt, and the knife sprang into my hand. In the same moment I jerked Lila in front of me and put the point of the dagger to her throat. I backed into the outhouse.

“I’m sure you guys know the drill,” I said to the man in front. “There’s no way you can get me before I cut her throat, so don’t even try. Swords and knives on the ground.”

The four men complied at once; as professionals, they knew I was right. To Lila, who was very still in my arms, I said, “You didn’t answer my question. Which one popped you in the eye?”

“That asshole who thought I was his daughter,” she hissed.

“ Not me,” the man in front, who the bartender called Ryan, added helpfully. He smiled coldly beneath the distinctive nose that was identical to Lila’s. She looked nothing at all like King Felix.

“That why you ran away?” I asked the girl, although my eyes stayed on the men.

“No, it was because I didn’t get a pony for my birthday,” she snapped. “Yes, it’s why I left. The bastard never let me forget I wasn’t his real child, and after he hit me I agreed with him.”

“And you took her in?” I said to Lila’s true father.

Ryan shrugged. “She’s my daughter. Her mother wasn’t always the queen.”

I nodded, sighed and released Lila. Another job well done; I couldn’t return her to her abusive royal household, and she certainly seemed in no danger here. She leaped into Ryan’s arms. I slipped the knife back into the sword hilt, twisted it so it locked and then crossed my arms. “So that’s that.”

“Not quite,” Ryan said. “You know where she is.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I don’t care.”

“That’s not much of a guarantee. Lila, go tell everybody to come out here.” He gently guided her to one side; the men behind him took her and passed her out of the way back toward the tavern. The last I saw of her was a triumphant, murderous gleam in her eye as she went inside.

Now the outhouse seemed a lot smaller. None of us had weapons in our hands, but I was seriously outnumbered. “You realize this isn’t necessary,” I said. “I really don’t care.”

“Bet he got a fat fee for this,” one of the other men said.

“Bet he’s got it on him,” another agreed.

Oboy. I started calculating the distance between us, deciding whom to go for first, what parts of their bodies to aim at and what my last words were going to be.

“Whoa!” a new voice said. “It’s a whole pissin’ convention!”

A young guy with short, neat hair and clothes far too stylish for Pema stood in the tavern door. “Damn, fellas, I don’t know if I can wait through this line. I gotta whiz like a racehorse.”

“Use one of the others,” Ryan said. “Or a damn tree. This is a private conversation.”

The young guy frowned and took in the five of us. “That a fact?”

“It’s a fact,” Ryan said.

“Okay, okay, I get the hint.” He turned his back to us and undid his pants, apparently intending to piss right there in the yard. When nothing happened immediately, the young man looked up sheepishly. “I think my trouser snake’s got a little stage fright. You guys mind not lookin’ at me?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ryan said in exasperation, and for a moment all their attention was off me. I took the chance.

I kicked Ryan in the balls as hard as I could, the effect helped by the little metal toe cap inside my soft-looking boot. As he fell I grabbed the two men directly behind him by the hair and slammed their heads together. The thonk was satisfyingly loud, and they dropped like bags of wet sand.

Piss-boy, who’d been faking drunk, grabbed the last man and dispatched him with three quick blows in a style I instantly recognized. When he looked up from the crumpled form, I had my sword out and at the hollow of his throat. “Hey, buddy, I was just tryin’ to help,” he said nervously.

“Fasten your pants and tell me who the hell you are.” This was the well-dressed man I’d seen in Neceda, and the mugging victim I’d passed earlier, waylaid as he shadowed me.

He didn’t flinch, and his eyes held mine. “We’ve got about a minute before the princess brings the cavalry,” he said without the country accent. “Just accept that I’m on your side. We can discuss why that is, later.”

He had a point, so I sheathed the sword and followed him around the building to the row of tied horses. “You’ll need a horse, too,” he said as he leaped onto his animal.

I untied the one nearest the end. It was a big mare, and she regarded me with the same disdain I got from all females. I put my foot in the stirrup, then stopped. “My saddlebags are still in there.”

“Get some new ones,” he said as he expertly turned his horse toward the road.

“I need what’s in them. I don’t want to end up dangling from a gallows tree.”

The young man scowled. “Mount up and wait here.” He slid from his saddle and went in through the front door. When he ran back out a moment later, six of Ryan’s men were right behind him. He gave a sharp whistle, tossed my bags at me and yelled, “ Go! ”

I kicked the horse hard, and she lurched forward into a ragged trot. In a moment the young man was beside me on his own mount.

“Mike Anders,” he said, and actually offered me his hand.

“Eddie LaCrosse,” I said. “But I figure you know that.”

He glanced behind us. The rest of Ryan’s gang had mounted up and wheeled into the street as a unit. They quickly closed the distance between us. “I think we need to get out of town,” he said.

“No,” I answered. “Follow me.”

The big mare didn’t protest as we rode into the crowds just past the docks. Here we could barely move, but neither could our pursuers. Still, we stood out plainly against the mostly pedestrian traffic. People bounced off my uncertain mount like logs shooting down the swollen river. Some of our pursuers dismounted and shoved through the crowd toward us, but their progress on foot was no faster.

“We’ve gotta ditch the horses,” I said, and led us toward an alley.

“I don’t think so,” Anders protested. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to train this big guy?”

I didn’t have time to argue. I led us between two buildings and onto the next street, which was just as crowded. Worse, these people weren’t moving, but instead stood watching an open-air burlesque act. I saw the first pair of pursuers reach the far end of the alley. We were stuck, and if they started drawing swords in this crowd, innocent people would get hurt.

“Okay, now I’m open to suggestions,” I said over the show’s music and cheering.

Calmly, Anders pulled a small pouch from his saddlebag. He drew his crossbow, tied the pouch to the tip of the bolt and fired it at the pursuers. I was impressed; he shot one-handed, on a horse being jostled on all sides, and still managed to part the hair of the closest pursuer as he ran toward us. The bolt stuck hard in the wooden side of a refuse barrel, and the impact tore open the pouch. I heard the distinctive tinkle of coins hitting the ground.

The two men at the head of the gang immediately skidded to a stop, turned and ran toward the money. The men behind them converged on it at the same time, as did a bunch of bystanders.

“Damn, how much money was that?” I asked.

“Enough to keep them busy. Now you follow me for a while.”

He cut his horse in front of me and edged along between the crowd and the buildings. His mount was pretty impressive, picking carefully over fallen drunks and uncertain muddy spots, until the crowd began to thin and we reached the edge of town. The road became a highway that stretched north in the darkness. We continued on until we were far enough away we’d get plenty of warning if anyone pursued us. Then we stopped to let our horses rest a bit.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Just doing my job,” he modestly replied.

“Want to tell me exactly what that job is?”

He reached for something inside his jacket. Instantly I had my sword out and at his throat again. “Slow, buddy,” I warned. “No hurry now.”

“Okay, okay,” he said easily. With two fingers, he withdrew a tightly rolled parchment, sealed with wax. “I’m just the messenger.”

I recognized the seal, and blood pounded in my ears as I broke it. I turned so that the glow from town gave me enough light to read. The message was short and, like all the best messages, left the reader with only one course of action. I rolled it up and stuck it in my bags. “I ought to say no,” I told the young soldier.

“He said you wouldn’t,” Anders replied with an easy grin.

“What else did he tell you?”

“That I could trust you. And not to lie to you.”

I nodded. “Good advice. So why did you follow me for so long without saying something?”

“I tried to find you in Neceda, but you left just as I got there. I saw you coming out of that tavern where your office is, actually, but didn’t know it was you until I talked to the barmaid.”

“Did she rat me out right away?”

“Sure. After I gave her five gold pieces and my best smile. And she lied about which way you went, but after she described you I knew I’d seen you and which way you’d really gone. I followed you to the river, but by then you were on the boat. I figured I’d keep following you and wait for a chance to talk privately.” He shrugged. “Things kept getting in my way, though.”

“Like those muggers?”

“Amateurs,” he snorted. “If they’d known when to quit, they’d still be alive.”

My full reaction to the message hadn’t hit me yet. “I guess we should get started, then.” I gestured toward the moonlit road ahead. “Lead on, then, Mr. Anders.”

“Sir Michael,” he corrected with another grin. “But you can call me Mike.”

We headed away from Pema toward a place a hundred miles away, and for me, twenty years back in time.