“They’re the Porters: Kij and her sisters. We found proof.”
Cira jerked around to face him. “ What?”
Jerin backed away from her. “We found the proof in the husband quarters.”
Cira caught his hand, keeping him from bolting away. “Honey, I’m not angry at you. Just tell me what you found.”
“Kij was sleeping with Keifer, even after he was married.” Jerin slipped out his lockpick and tackled the padlock to distract himself. “Keifer poisoned the princesses’ father. And then, after the princesses’ father was dead, every time Keifer acted angry, it was so he could let Kij into the husband quarters. We didn’t know at first that
Kij was his lover, though, and Ren went to Kij and showed her what we found.“
“Oh, bloody hell.” Cira started to pace. “This all makes sense. They’re after the throne. You’re Prince Alannon’s grandson: marrying you would give them legitimacy.”
“But I have male cousins nearly my age-they could have made an offer…”
“You’re the one who’s been verified by the Queens themselves.”
The padlock clicked open and Jerin unlatched the door.
Cira eyed the lock with surprise. “So that’s how you got free from that bed. An interesting talent for a prince consort.”
Jerin limped inside to collapse onto the fresh hay. Cira led in her roan and tied it outside reach of the hay, so it couldn’t eat itself to death, and then found grain and water for it.
“Three daily packets stop in town,” Cira said as she returned Jerin’s pistol to him. “I think the first packet comes through town before noon. I’ll get tickets so we can board at the last moment and go straight to a cabin. Once we’re on the river, we’ll be safe until we hit Mayfair.”
Somehow sharing a cabin with Cira didn’t seem like a “safe” option. Nor did Jerin like the idea of waiting here, trusting Cira while she could be selling him to the highest bidder.
“And your plan is for me to sit here quietly until you come back?”
“Sweetie, I’ll just be more river trash, but you’re a man, one that the entire Queensland is looking for. If the Queens Justice is in town, they might have drawings of you.” Cira took his hand and clasped it tight.
“And I know you have no reason to trust me, but just because they’re soldiers doesn’t make them infallible.”
As his own family history would attest to.
He sighed and pulled his hand free. “I’ll wait here. Can you bring me something to eat? My stomach is still queasy.”
She gave him a slight smile, pulled her Stetson down low to throw a shadow across her scarred face, and left. He waited as the bells of the nearby town rang five o’clock. Once he was fairly sure she was gone, Jerin unbuckled her saddlebag and carried it to the hay mound to look through it.
On top was a silver flask. He unscrewed its lid, sniffed its contents. Brandy-and fairly expensive if he judged it correctly. He had expected to find corn whiskey, the standard smuggler drink.
He put the flask aside and continued unloading the saddlebag. A turtle shell comb. A bottle of black liquid he couldn’t identify. A small book tied shut with a piece of ribbon.
Untying the ribbon, he found the book was a journal written in code. He worried at his bottom lip. While his grandmothers had taught him code breaking, nevertheless, it could take him hours to crack it and translate the book. He didn’t have hours. He flipped through the pages, checking if anything had not been written in code. Between the back pages, he discovered three newspaper clippings. The first was headlined forty dead in weapon shop fire. The second story looked like it had been torn out instead of clipped; while it was missing the headline, he recognized it as the Herald’s story about the attack on Odelia. In the same handwriting as the journal were names and numbers written in the margin. “ Osprey 6/4 Dusk. Frontier 6/5 Dawn. Enterprise 6/4 Midnight.‘” Ship names and times, he realized. Where had she gone? The “ Osprey” had been underlined, seeming to indicate a need for speed.
The third story had been carefully clipped, neatly folded and refolded, and was well-worn from being handled.
QUEENS SPONSOR PRINCE ALANNON’S GRANDSON
After decades of mystery, the fate of the vanished Prince Alannon has been finally revealed. A report issued from the palace today stated that the prince married Queensland knights Sirs Whistler and retired to their up- country land grant. In an amazing twist of fate, Master Jerin Whistler, the grandson of Prince Alannon, has been named as Princess Ode-lia’s recent savior. As a reward for his selfless bravery, the Queens will be sponsoring Master Whistler for the upcoming Season. Sources close to the crown state that the young man has been installed at the palace and bears a striking resemblance to the beautiful missing prince…
The story would have appeared after he met her on the Mayfair landing-after she kissed him. He supposed it was understandable she would want a keepsake of such an event. Kissing was something only husbands and wives were allowed to do. His sister Summer would keep a newspaper story of a boy she kissed. That Cira was like his sister helped calm his nerves.
He could glean nothing more from the journal. He returned the clippings, closed the book, and tied it shut. He dug deeper into the saddlebag. A can opener. A tin pan with a screw-on handle that could be stored inside the pan. He marveled at the ingeniousness of the pan and then started to set it aside. It struck him then, the quality of the items Cira owned. The journal had not been showy, but was well bound with a stamped leather cover. The tin pan was cunningly made. The saddlebag itself was a sturdy and handsome item. The fine roan horse she rode. Even the brandy in the flask had been quality.
Cira was a rich woman, though she did not show it. It was, in fact, as if she was trying to hide the fact.
The other women at the shack, though, seemed to be river trash. The shack. The two or three of them he saw. The language that the others used. Dirt-poor and willing-no. needing-to steal to survive.
Cira hadn’t been one of them. Considering the newspaper clipping, it even seemed likely that she had been there only to rescue him. Still, he could not afford to trust her. Trust had led to betrayal too often, too recently.
A short time after the town bells rang six, Cira reappeared.
“There’s no sign of Fen and her women,” she told him as she sat down on the hay beside him. She had two small loaves of fresh bread. “This was all that could be had this early in the morning. I would have brought you ginger if the apothecary was open. Most likely it’s the drugs that Fen gave you that upset your stomach, but it might be because you haven’t eaten for a full day.”
He ate the bread cautiously; it seemed to help settle his queasy stomach.
“The first packet is at nine.” Cira lore her loaf of bread in two and gave him the larger piece. “And the Queens Justice is in town. If I’d had the coin. I’d have bought fresh horses. I don’t like this sitting and waiting, but we don’t have much of a choice.”
She started to unload her pockets, producing a small ceramic crock, rhinestone hair combs, a bright red silk scarf, and a white-feathered boa. “I thought that one way to slip you past the Queens Justice is to hide you in the open.”
“What do you mean?” Jerin opened the crock, hoping for something to eat. It contained a bright red cream. “What is this?”
“That’s lip paint,” Cira said, dipping one finger into red. “Purse your lips and hold still.”
“Makeup?”
Cira blushed, a first for her. “It’s a disguise. Everyone is looking for a man; they might not look twice at a whore.”
He knew some women pleasured others for money, but his mothers and sisters kept him innocent of the details. “Whores are women, aren’t they?”
“In body, but not always in appearance. Many dress as men, the manlier, the better.” Cira glided her fingertip over his lips in a way that was at once intimate and erotic.
Jerin scrambled to take his mind away from her fingers. “Don’t they lack certain vital equipment?”
“There are artificial devices.” Cira dipped her finger into the crock again, and rouged his cheeks, her breath on his face as she blended color out. “They call them bones because they’re made out of ivory.
They strap on. Whores carry them sheathed to their leg, here, to look more manly.”
She put her hand on him, and found him excited. She smiled, stroking him gently, her eyes full of lust.
