By Heresies Distressed (52 page)

“Are we there yet?” Prince Daivyn asked plaintively.

Compared to his older brother, Phylyp Ahzgood reflected, the query was
only
plaintive. Crown Prince Hektor would have asked the question in something uncomfortably more like a whine, and there would have been no doubt that it was a complaint.

“Not quite yet, Daivyn,” Princess Irys said soothingly. She leaned over and tucked the boy's cloak more snugly about him. “Go back to sleep. I'm pretty sure we'll be there by the time you wake up.”

Daivyn looked at her, his eyes puckered with worry in the dim light of the single turned-down lantern hanging from the carriage's roof. Then he nodded, obviously as reassured by her manner as by her words, and settled back down on the comfortably padded seat. It was more than big enough as a bed for a boy of his age, and he closed his eyes obediently.

Irys sat looking down at him for several minutes, her eyes tender, but then she drew a deep breath, leaned back in her own seat, and looked across at the Earl of Coris.

“I hate this,” she said very quietly, speaking softly to avoid disturbing the boy who was obviously already drifting back off despite the rapidly moving carriage's swaying, frequently jouncing motion and the sounds of their cavalry escort's hooves.

“I know you do, Your Highness,” the earl replied just as quietly. “I don't blame you.
I
feel like I'm running away, as well.”

“You shouldn't.” She shook her head. “I know perfectly well that the only reason you're here is because Father ordered you to be.”

“Your Highness, it's my honor, as well as my duty—” he began, but another shake of her head cut him off.

“Can we just go ahead and consider all of the obligatory comments already said and accepted?” she asked, and smiled wearily at his expression. “I'm sorry, Phylyp. I didn't mean to suggest for a moment that what you were saying was anything but sincere. I've known you too long to think anything else. But I'm so tired of saying what we all have to say, playing the parts we all have to play.”

“I can understand that,” he said after a moment. “Still, you are a princess of Corisande, and I am, by your father's appointment, your legal guardian and your younger brother's first councilor, if it should come to that. I'm afraid those are parts we can't stop playing, Your Highness.”

“Given how long we've known one another, and the fact that I'm sure you were there on at least one occasion when my diaper was being changed, do you think you could call me ‘Irys' rather than ‘Your Highness,' at least when we're alone, Phylyp?”

He started to reply quickly, then paused.

“I'm not sure that's a good idea,” he said finally. “Under the circumstances, it's particularly important that your dignity and Daivyn's are as effectively protected as possible. If I address you too familiarly, it's going to undercut your authority in your person as your father's daughter. And, from a more selfish perspective, I wouldn't want anyone to think I'm presuming on the position your father assigned me to for personal advantage.”

“I don't disagree with any of that. That's why I said ‘at least when we're alone.' But it's going to be difficult enough in Delferahk, whatever happens. I'd like to have at least one person I know I can trust who's willing to call me by my name at least sometimes. And if my ‘legal guardian' can't do that, then who can?”

“Very well . . . Irys.” His own smile was bittersweet. “And you're right; I was present when your diapers were changed.”

“Good!”

A gleam of genuine amusement flitted across her expression. It didn't last long, but he thought he saw a few less shadows in her eyes when it had passed. It was difficult to tell under the present lighting conditions, of course.

“I wish he hadn't done it,” she said.

“Sent you away with Daivyn?”

“Sent me away at all,” she corrected, and if there were fewer shadows in her eyes, the lantern light touched the diamond gleam of tears on the ends of her long lashes. “I know he didn't have any choice—not if he was going to send Daivyn at all. But I ought to be with
him
, Phylyp!”

“Don't think for a moment that this was an easy decision for him,” Coris said gently. “In fact, I haven't seen any others that were harder.”

“I know. I know!” She shook her head. “And I promise I don't want to sound like a petulant, spoiled princess, either.”

He started to reply to that, then stopped and simply shook his head with a small smile.

Irys sat silent for several more minutes, reaching down to smooth her brother's hair across his forehead. Finally, she looked back up at Coris.

“I suppose, since there's not any point crying about the basic decision, I ought to spend my moaning time on the travel arrangements, instead,” she said with a determinedly lighter air.

“They do leave a bit to be desired, don't they?” Coris acknowledged wryly as the carriage went over a particularly solid bump. “Call it another inconvenience to blame on Cayleb and his Charisians.”

“Oh, believe me, I've got quite a list of ‘inconveniences' to . . . discuss with
Emperor
Cayleb some fine day.” Her tone was whimsical; the anger in her eyes was not.

“Under the circumstances, I think Admiral Tartarian was entirely correct, though,” Coris continued, and she nodded.

At the moment, their carriage, even at its rapid speed, was still some hours from the minor city—little more than a glorified fishing port, if the truth be known—of Elvarth. The journey overland from Manchyr had been an exhausting and lengthy ordeal, especially for Daivyn (who still didn't really understand all that was happening), since Elvarth lay in the Earldom of Storm Keep, at the northern tip of the island of Corisande. But the town had three significant advantages. First, it was so small and insignificant that it hadn't occurred even to Cayleb of Charis that it needed to be blockaded. Second, it was about as far away from Manchyr as it was possible to get. And, third, there'd happened to be a small galleon already anchored there, taking refuge from the Imperial Charisian Navy.

“I'm sure the Admiral was right,” Irys agreed. “And I'm glad he was able to give us Captain Harys.”

Coris nodded again. In many ways, he supposed, command of the galleon
Wing
was something of a step downward for Zhoel Harys. The onetime commander of the galley
Lance
had been promoted to command one of Tartarian's first armed galleons, the
Cutlass
.
Wing
, unlike
Cutlass
, carried only a handful of falcons and wolves, and she was no more than half
Cutlass
' size. Of course, there'd been the distinct probability that
Cutlass
was going to find herself pounded into a bloody wreck by the Imperial Charisian Navy sometime soon, but Harys' appointment to command her had represented an enormous professional step upward.

Despite that, he'd responded with every appearance of genuine pride when he'd learned that his prince had chosen him to transport his daughter and younger son to safety, and Coris never doubted that the captain would do everything humanly possible to carry out his mission successfully.

Tartarian's plan for doing just that ran back through Coris' mind once more. The notion of sailing east, rather than west, had a great deal to recommend it, in Coris' opinion. The Charisian Navy was overwhelmingly concentrated in the waters around Corisande and Zebediah, and its attention was focused on the area between the League of Corisande and Charis proper. A single small vessel sailing east, rather than westward into that area of interest, was far more likely to get through unintercepted.

There were still risks, of course. The Trellheim pirates came to mind, and so did the swarms of Charisian privateers operating in Dohlaran waters. On the other hand,
Wing
wouldn't be flying Corisandian or Dohlaran colors. Harys had quite a selection of national colors laid in, along with a splendidly falsified set of Harchongese papers, and
Wing
had been chosen almost as much for the cargo she'd carried when the Charisian threat drove her to ground at Elvarth as for her out of the way location. So far, at least, all information available to Coris indicated that the new Charisian Empire was leaving Harchong's limited merchant marine strictly alone. If the reports about Harchong's involvement in building the Group of Four's new navy were accurate, that immunity from Charisian attack was unlikely to last long. For now, though, it appeared to be holding, and they should be able to make Shwei Bay without interception. From there, it would undoubtedly be safer to travel overland to Delferahk.

Especially traveling incognito
, Coris thought a bit grimly.
You're far too valuable a prize, Irys. Far better for you to be simply my niece, Lady Marglai, traveling with me to Delferahk
.

That, too, had been suggested by Tartarian. It made at least some sense for Hektor to have sent his most trusted councilor off to Dohlar and Delferahk in search of aid. And if any of Corisande's enemies decided to interpret his mission as an effort on his own part to get out of Corisande before the final shipwreck, that was perfectly all right with Coris, as well. The additional cover story that his sister-in-law had asked him to take her daughter and son to safety in Delferahk also made sense. Marglai Ahzgood was a few years older than Irys, and Kahlvyn Ahzgood was a few years younger than Daivyn, but the match was close enough, and the Ahzgoods had relatives in Delferahk who might be expected to provide their distant cousins with a safe haven in these troubled times.

There were still far too many opportunities for something to go wrong, even if one completely disregarded the possibility of natural disaster overtaking a galleon at sea. Still, under the circumstances, it was probably the best plan available.

“Do you really think this will all work?” Irys asked quietly, as if she'd been reading his mind.

“Honestly?” He looked at her, then shrugged ever so slightly. “I do think it will work. I won't pretend there aren't a lot of things which could still go wrong, but I think it's the best plan, with the best chance of success, anyone could have come up with under the circumstances.”

“Then that's just going to have to be good enough, isn't it?” she said simply, then adjusted her own cloak about her, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes.

Merlin Athrawes frowned in unhappy agreement with the Earl of Coris' assessment. Although Merlin had been late in picking up on Hektor's decision to get his daughter and younger son safely out of Corisande, he'd realized almost a full five-day ago what was happening. Unfortunately, Hektor's instructions to his daughter's coachman and accompanying cavalry escort had included the order to move as rapidly as possible. By the time Merlin had become aware of what was happening, there'd been insufficient time to get word to the handful of light cruisers covering the waters between Sword Point and East Island before Irys and Daivyn could reach Elvarth.

He'd considered using his recon skimmer to intercept them himself, but only very briefly. The skimmer could have gotten there in time, but what was he supposed to do after he arrived? He could hardly destroy the galleon tied up to the town's wharf without raising at least a few eyebrows. And he wasn't prepared to simply sink the ship with all hands—including a teenaged girl and her younger brother—once the galleon got to sea, either. Nor could he and Cayleb send word to the privateers operating in Dohlaran waters—not in time for it to do any good, at any rate—without raising all sorts of unpleasant questions about just how they'd come by the information that Princess Irys and Prince Daivyn were taking a cruise.

He'd told Cayleb about it, of course, and the emperor had shared his own unhappy conclusions. If they were lucky, one of their patrolling schooners would happen across
Wing
, snap her up, and discover an incredibly valuable prize. If they were unlucky (which, frankly, given Captain Zhoel Harys' general level of competence, was much more likely), then Irys and Daivyn were going to arrive unintercepted at King Zhames' court.

Neither he nor Cayleb liked the notion of allowing them to slip through their fingers, but it was unlikely that their successful escape to Delferahk was going to have much effect on events here in Corisande. Not, at least, in the short term. In the long term, it was likely to prove . . . inconvenient, of course. In fact, it was almost certainly going to prove far worse than that. Which was why Captain Athrawes was spending his time hoping that one of their schooners would get lucky.

The surf boat could have been a slightly more solid piece of the moonless night as it came nosing in from the southeast. It had been carefully painted matte black, and the sailors manning the oars rowed steadily but carefully. The last thing anyone needed was for the boat to broach to in the surf and soak its passengers' gunpowder. Among other things.