Treason Keep

Cratyn glared at her, his expression a mixture of hatred and despair. “Don’t push me, Adrina.”

“Push you, husband? I doubt pushing you would achieve any more than pulling your limp sword has so far.”

“You taunt me at your peril, Adrina.”

She laughed. “Peril? What peril? What are you going to do, Cretin? Hit me again?”

“I’m warning you...”

“Does your sword get hard when you think of Chastity, my dear?”

Cratyn flew out his chair and turned to face her. He was red faced with shame and shaking with fury. “Don’t you even mention her name, you pagan whore! I’m not fooled by this act you are putting on! If I cannot lay with you, it is because the Overlord does not wish me to sully myself in your filth!”

Adrina took a step backwards, her hand on Tiler’s collar. The dog took exception to Cratyn’s tone and he was growling softly, warningly.

“Perhaps you’re right, Cretin. Perhaps you are cast in the image of your god. He’s undoubtedly an emasculated idiot, too.”

Cratyn snatched up a map from the table and made a show of studying it. His hands were shaking with suppressed rage. “Return to your tent, Adrina, and take that damned beast with you. I will come to you when the Overlord assures me the time is right, not to satisfy your crude heathen lust.”

“Lust? Now there’s a word I never thought to associate with you. Are you sure you know what it means?”

“Get out.”

“Get out, your Highness,” she corrected.

He slammed the map onto the table. “Get out! Go back to your tent and stay there! I will not tolerate your pagan disrespect a moment longer!”

His shout had Tiler lunging against her hold. He bared his teeth at the prince defiantly.

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, you impotent fool! I am a Princess of Fardohnya!”

“You are a heathen slut,” he cried angrily.

She could not hold Tiler any longer. He slipped her hold and lunged for the prince. Cratyn threw his hand up to protect his face as the dog flew at him. His cry brought the guards running from outside the tent.

It almost happened too quickly for Adrina to see. Tiler had Cratyn pinned against the table. The guards saw nothing but their prince under attack. Adrina saw the blade in the hand of the guard and screamed as she realised what they intended. She threw herself at the dog, but the guards were quicker. Tiler squealed with agony as the guard ran him through.

“No!” she sobbed as the dog slid to the ground.

“Sire? Are you all right?” the guard asked with concern as he helped Cratyn up. Tiler had savaged his arm, but he had managed to fend off the worst of the attack.

“You killed my dog!” Adrina accused, unaware of the tears coursing down her face. “I want him punished, Cretin! He killed my dog!”

“Your damned dog was trying to kill me!” Cratyn gasped, still shaking from fear and shock. “I’m more inclined to knight him.”

Adrina brushed away her tears and gently kissed Tiler’s limp head before climbing to her feet.

“You’ll pay for this,” she warned, then she turned and walked out of the tent with all the regal bearing her breeding and ancestry allowed.

When she reached her own tent she dismissed her ladies-in-waiting impatiently and called for Tam. When her maid found her, she was tearing at the laces of her bodice impatiently, sobbing inconsolably.

“Here, let me do that,” Tam offered, as she saw Adrina struggling. The princess knocked the offered hand away.

“No! I can do it myself! I want you to go and see Tristan. We’re getting out of here.”

The young woman studied her closely. “Out of here? How?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. But we’re leaving and I don’t care what it does to the alliance, to the war, or to my father. I’ve had enough!”

“We’re a thousand leagues from home in the middle of a battlefield on the border of an enemy nation,” Tamylan pointed out. “Where are you planning to go, your Highness?”

Adrina glared at her in annoyance then sagged onto her bed. It was a large four-poster that had taken a full team of oxen to bring it to the front. One of the trappings of her station designed to inconvenience Cratyn.

“I don’t know,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes. “Oh, Tam, they killed Tiler!”

The slave opened her arms and she sobbed against Tamylan’s shoulder hopelessly. Grief was a new emotion for Adrina. She had never before lost a living soul she had loved.

“There, there, I know it hurts, but it will pass in time,” Tam advised.

Adrina wiped her eyes and sat up determinedly. “I can’t do this any more, Tamylan. I don’t care if there’s a crown at the end of it. I cannot bear these people. It’s like a prison.”

“I understand, your Highness, but think it through before you act too hastily. This might be a prison, but it’s a sight more comfortable than the one awaiting you on the other side of the border, or worse, if you were caught by the Kariens trying to run away.”

Adrina looked up at the slave who had been by her side for as long as she could remember. “You always did say more than was proper for a slave.”

“That’s because I’ve always been your friend first, Adrina.”

Adrina smiled wanly. “Even though you were my slave?”

“Slavery is a state of mind, your Highness,” she shrugged. “You’re a princess, yet you’ve less freedom than I have. I never minded being a slave. It just meant that I knew where I stood.”

After Tamylan left, Adrina lay on the bed and thought on what the slave had said. She was right. Even being a princess didn’t stop you from being used by other people for their own ends, or save you from being hurt. If anything, it made you more vulnerable. Well, enough was enough. She would find a way out of this and she would never, as long as she lived, ever allow a man to hurt her again.

And by the gods, she vowed, she would make Cratyn pay.

Part 2 BATTLE LINES

Chapter 21

Loclon may have been responsible for letting Medalon’s most notorious criminal escape, but his expertise with a blade was widely acknowledged. Commandant Arkin assigned him to the cadets. His days were spent in the Arena teaching future Defenders the finer points of swordplay.

Following his initial annoyance at not being assigned to active duty, he found he enjoyed the job. He had regained his fitness quickly. The cadets were in awe of both his skill and his fearsome scars, and the rumour that he had killed a man in the Arena enhanced his reputation considerably.

The work gave Loclon a rare feeling of omnipotence. While they were in his charge, he had the power of life and death over these young men, and he wielded it liberally. Demerits were earnt easily in his classes and, almost without exception, the cadets treated him with gratifying obsequiousness to avoid incurring his wrath. Of course, there was the odd dissenter. Occasionally, a cadet would fancy himself a cut above the rest of his classmates. There was one such foolhardy soul in the Infirmary now. His temerity had cost him his right eye. Commandant