Treason Keep

and counted herself lucky. He had spent the entire ball blushing an interesting shade of pink every time he caught sight of a Fardohnyan woman’s bare midriff. As every one of the two hundred or so women present had been dressed in a similar fashion, he was damned near apoplectic by the end of the evening. For a fleeting moment, she debated doing something truly outrageous, right here in the Hall, which would ensure the Kariens would reject her as a potential bride. But she had caught the expectant look on Lecter Turon’s smug, fat face as he slipped through the door to attend the King, and thought better of it. He would keep.

She stopped and waited as the young prince approached. Tall, serious and boring did not particularly appeal to Adrina, but he was civilised enough, she supposed. He was a little taller than her, with unremarkable brown hair, and eyes the colour of dried mud. At least he knew how to chew with his mouth closed.

“Prince Cretin,” she said, offering him her hand. The older man on Cratyn’s right looked a little put out that she had greeted his prince as an equal, but Cratyn did not appear to notice. He was too busy staring at the pearl in her navel. “My father has just informed me that we are to be married.”

Cratyn dropped her hand, jerked his head up and met her eye. He looked at her black eye curiously for a moment, but made no comment about it. Instead, he nodded – rather miserably, she noted with interest.

“Karien welcomes Fardohnya’s favourite daughter, your Serene Highness,” he said in his clipped Karien. “We look forward to a new era of prosperity and friendship between our two great nations.”

Someone sniggered in the background at the idea. Adrina looked at Cratyn curiously, wondering if he was really as naive as he sounded.

“I look forward to serving Fardohnya and Karien, your Highness,” she replied graciously, in heavily accented Karien. Two could play this game, and Adrina could mouth meaningless platitudes in any number of languages, when the mood took her. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have arrangements to make for my journey.”

Cratyn stepped aside for her, forcing the rest of his party to do the same.

Adrina continued regally on through the hall. Until she came up with a way to escape her father’s decree, she had no choice but to play along with it.

At least the meeting with the young Karien Prince had not gone too badly. She had made it clear to the Kariens that she held a rank equal to their prince, and Cratyn had been rather overawed by her, she decided with satisfaction. But he wasn’t very happy with the idea of an arranged marriage. That much was obvious. It could simply be his distaste for a foreign bride – or perhaps he was smarter than he looked, and had some idea of how treacherous and unreliable her father was. She was almost back to her rooms, and still trying to puzzle it out, when a rather shamefaced Tristan caught up with her.

“The last I heard, you were running away like a cur with its tail between its legs,” she snapped as he fell into step beside her.

Tristan was younger than Adrina by two days, and until an hour ago, she had considered him her best friend. Tristan’s mother was a Hythrun court’esa, one of Hablet’s favourites, who still lived in the palace harem, even though she no longer took the King’s fancy. She had been a beautiful woman in her youth and Tristan had inherited most of her charm, as well as her fair hair and golden eyes. He turned all of that charm on his half-sister now, to absolutely no effect.

“Would I desert you in your hour of need?”

“I didn’t happen to notice you helping me when I needed you, just now.”

“I was busy,” he shrugged, with an apologetic smile.

“Do you know what he’s done?” There was no need to elaborate on who he was.

“Married you off to the Karien Prince and ordered me north with the regiment?”

She turned on him furiously. “You knew!”

“My orders were waiting for me at the South Gate. The ink wasn’t even dry. You really pushed him too far this time, Adrina.”

“You were there, too! I only tried docking the damned boat because you dared me...”

“It’s a ship, not a boat,” he corrected. “Anyway, this might be fun.”

“Fun? I have to marry that snivelling, pious little cretin.”

“And one day that snivelling, pious little cretin will be the Karien King. That’s more than you’ll ever get here, Adrina. You might be the eldest legitimate child, but Hablet will turn atheist before he lets a woman inherit the Fardohnyan crown. You’ve always known he’d sell you to the highest bidder. At least, this way, you get to be a queen.”

Adrina listened to her brother thoughtfully, as she considered possibilities that had not had time to register.

“And what about you?” she asked. “He’s banished you north as well.”

Tristan shrugged. “I’ve got fourteen half-brothers, Adrina. When Hablet tires of trying to get a legitimate son on one of his wives, there’ll be a rather spirited competition for our father’s favour. That’s a bloodbath I’ll be more than happy to miss.”

“This does present some interesting opportunities, doesn’t it?” she agreed.

Tristan laughed. “You know, sometimes, you’re so like Hablet it’s scary.”

Adrina stopped and looked up at him. “The regiment that’s going north, what’s its function?”

“They’ll be the Princess’s Guard,” Tristan told her. “Under your command, to use as you see fit.”

“And you are the Captain of the Guard?”

“Naturally,” he said with a smug grin.

“Is Father sending any cannon with you?”

Tristan’s grin vanished. He glanced up and down the hall before answering in a low voice. “No, and I’m not certain the Kariens will ever see any artillery.”

“But he’s promised them!”

“You know as well as I do how much Father’s promises are worth. He’ll take their gold and their timber and happily send his daughter to Karien as a bride to prove his good intentions, but he really doesn’t want to hand the Kariens anything as dangerous as a cannon. He’s had every man in Talabar who even thinks he knows how to make gunpowder taken into custody.”

“He could be doing that just to drive up the price.”

“I suppose.”

“So the regiment going north are just light cavalry then?”

Tristan nodded warily. “For the most part. What are you up to, Adrina?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Not yet, anyway. Can you get me that list? Before we sail? And I want to know who Hablet arrested, too.”

“Why?”

She ignored the question. “And I want you to do something else for me. Find out why Cratyn is so unhappy about this marriage.”

“He’s probably heard about you,” Tristan suggested.

Adrina frowned at him, but did not rise to the bait. “Maybe, but I’ve got a feeling there’s more to it than that. I want to know what it is.”

“As you command, your Serene Highness,” Tristan said with a mocking bow.

“One other thing,” she added as she turned to walk away. “Do any of the regiment speak Karien?”

“Most of them, as far I as know,” Tristan said.

“Then the first order you are to give them is to conceal that knowledge,” Adrina told him. “The men are to act dumb. I want the Kariens to think they don’t understand any orders but mine. Including you. If I have to go through with this, I’ll do it on my terms.”

Tristan was as good as his word, and by early afternoon Adrina had the names of every man in her regiment, and every man and woman rounded up by Hablet prior to the arrival of the Karien Prince, to prevent the secret of gunpowder falling into the wrong hands. She studied both lists carefully. The names on the first list, for the most part, meant nothing to her. She was not permitted to socialise with Tristan’s fellow officers, although a few of the names she had heard spoken in court. The second list was much more interesting. She studied it carefully, delighted when one name appeared that she knew – by reputation at least.

Adrina spent the rest of the day driving her slaves mad as she made them drag the entire contents of her