Maybe the family had already made a run off-planet. Maybe the guards were just left behind to guard the property. … Maybe anything, it hardly mattered. Time was passing. He opened the door to an empty hallway.
The backstairs were at the end. He took them down as far as they went, not exiting at the first floor, and opened an old hinged door slowly at the bottom. It was a large, cold room. No lights were on. There was one window, high on the other side, with an open curtain; dangerous if anybody walked by and saw him. But from the other side, in this darkness, a human would be unlikely to make him out. There was a long table in the middle of the room, covered with papers, books, and general flotsam; a smaller table near the comer, with a chair; a cot by the wall, not made up; and, he would bet his life, a vault on the blank wall to his left. In matters like this humans fell into a statistical predestiny.
He moved across the room toward the wall. A light snapped on.
He blinked and turned, his pupils adjusting rapidly. Through the brightness he saw die bundle of blankets on the cot move. It wasn’t empty after all.
Sarah Jean Arbrith, Princess Casamara Tonnelly, sat up and swung her six-year-old feet to the floor. “Who are you?” she asked, eyes wide.
He went at once to the window and closed the curtain.
If she had screamed, he would have stopped her. However, she didn’t seem about to scream. He stared at her for a full ten seconds, then turned and surveyed the walls of the room.
“Are you going to hurt me?” she asked at last.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” said Tal, as he knocked on the left-hand wall.
She appeared a little nettled by his lack of interest. “Then why shouldn’t I scream?”
“Because if you do, twelve ferocious bears will follow me into this room and tear you limb from limb.”
She rocked for a moment, then recovered. “They will not. How can you tell such lies?”
There was no answer.
“What are you looking for?”
No answer.
“I’ll bet I know,” she said. “I’m not stupid. In fact I’m a genius.”
“Really? So am I.” He ran a hand along the floorboards. There might be a control there.
“I’m not making it up!”
“I didn’t think you were. Ah!” He lifted a trapdoor, looked inside, pursed his lips delicately, and closed the door. He moved farther down the room and squatted again. He tapped the floor with his knuckles.
“It’s the Sawyer Crown, isn’t it?”
He looked up, suddenly giving her his full attention. It was as though a row of spotlights had hit her face, and she stepped back. He said, “Where is it?”
Now that she had control of the conversation, she deliberately waited a minute before answering. “You could look all night and not find it.”
He straightened up. She said quickly, “And I could yell at the top of my lungs and have a dozen people in here in a second.”
“But you’re having too good a time to do that, I hope.” He walked toward her, and she backed up a few steps.
She touched the edge of the table as she moved away. Her hand ran over one of the gamepieces and her fingers picked it up without any conscious command. “Have you ever played Hotem?”
He glanced at the glass box on the table. There were marbles set in various places on the top side of the square. “I’ve heard about it. I’ve never actually played it.”
“I can teach you the rules.”
“I forgot to mention that I’m in a hurry. Perhaps some other time, Princess.”
“You know who I am! I knew you knew who I was. They sent you here to kill me, like the others, didn’t they! Hyram told me it might happen—”
He said, “Shut up!” and she did, to both their surprise. “I’m here for the Sawyer Crown, madam, as you so cleverly realized. I don’t give a damn about you personally. So please be quiet, so I don’t have to kill you, all right?”
“I see.” She sat back down on the cot, looking distressed.
He said, “You implied you knew—” But the Princess was crying. She pushed her stuffed animals off her cot with a fine disregard, and sobbed into the pillow.
Tal stood there, wondering what he was supposed to do. She raised a reddened, swollen, harelipped face, and said through tears, “Nobody cares. I’m here all alone, and nobody ever comes. Nobody even comes to kill me!”
He sat down next to her. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” he said. “I’m sure an assassin will be along any time now. In fact, if you don’t mind some advice, I would get off-planet if I were you. The Tonnellys are unpopular with the Republic, you know.”
“Hyram told me to wait,” she said into the pillow. “But he hasn’t come back, and neither has that bitch.”
Tal sensed she was not referring to her terrier with that last remark. He said, “Hyram told you to wait in here, because he thought this room would be safer.”
“Yes. I can go out through the little window if I have to. But it’s been two days—and he never came to see me before, anyway. They didn’t let me have any friends, and—”
“All right, all right.” Would Adrian pat her head? Tal patted her head. “You know, he might be busy. He’s one of the chiefs of government, after all.”
“He just does what the Duke tells him.” Her pillow was getting damp.
Tal said, “You mentioned the Sawyer Crown—
She sat up abruptly. Tears and mucus were on her cheeks. She wiped them with the sleeves of her nightgown and walked over to the table. She raised one of the Hotem pieces and waved it. “You could play with me!”
“As I said, I’m in a hurry.”
The Princess
