Planet 5
PLANET 5 / CH. 1: INTRODUCTIONS
Extract from pre-contact report for inhabited planet orbiting star 3648
The planet (fifth from its sun, and fifth discovered so far with intelligent life) is a water-rich planet (90% surface is wet) with a single continental mass, evident plate tectonics, and several island chains. The creator seems to have a sense of humour in that these aliens are humanoid, little (avg height 1.4m or so), and you guessed it, green. Their human-likeness extends to there apparently being several races, (distinguished by differences in skin-tone between darker and lighter shades, hair-type and colour. They also are in the middle of a war, have books, slavery and based on audio samples, at least two, possibly four, apparently different languages. There seems to be one well-situated island that has a far higher-than normal ratio of libraries to the population size.
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UP A TREE
Although the astronomers pulled faces when asked if everything was fine, muttering darkly about not being astrologers, and not knowing enough to make that sort of pronouncement definitively, according to them the flickering lights in the sky of their fifth planet were pretty but totally harmless. According to historians, they came and went from time to time, but there seemed a lot at the moment, more than normal. According to the astrologers, the combination of these daytime aurorae with the lunar eclipse just over a week ago would bring doom and disaster unknown in their entire history, but people ignored them since they predicted that roughly twice every year, along with plagues of squirrels and thirty-seven of the last two economic blockades.
Humorists asked if the fact that no one had seen the lunar eclipse because of the rain meant that end of the world was cancelled this year due to bad weather, The theologians said astrology is rubbish, but anyone worried about their salvation was welcome to talk to them. Prince Hal of the Three Isles didn't have anything to worry about in terms of his salvation, though the flickering lights were certainly a distraction.
When not distracted, he was busily spying on what seemed to be an unusually well-guarded outbuilding behind the inn. Then he heard the unmistakeable sound of a chair being smashed on someone's head. He adjusted his position a little to see further inside, and saw a rather bedraggled young woman searching the body of her jailer for keys, and praying. He concluded that, rather shockingly, the chair had had the desired effect. Maybe the jailer had a thin skull, or had fainted in surprise.
Then, Hal reconsidered his assessment that she was praying. She wasn't praying in the sense that many used it. She was talking to God, thanking Him for being with her, and telling her when to make her move, and that that she'd been able to knock out the jailer, and asking where the keys were. Surely he hadn't just got her past the jailer to leave her trapped. Surely God? What happens next? Sadly for the young woman, Hal knew the jailer didn't have keys to the outside door; Hal had noticed that little performance earlier. At least she (or rather, God) had picked a time when the outside guards weren't around. He guessed that since God was the author of the timing, he was her answer to prayer. “Stop wasting time, he doesn't have the keys.” he called, quietly. “Up here!”
“What?” the girl asked. She was reasonably pretty, he thought. Maybe not a great beauty, but quite pleasing to the eyes.
“I've been wondering what's in there, but every time he comes in or goes out, the outside guard locks or unlocks the door. Can you climb up on something and reach the roof beams?”
“Now that I've smashed the only piece of furniture, you mean?” she whispered back archly. “Do you have a rope?”
“No,”
“What sort of a rescuer are you, then?”
“I didn't know I was going to be rescuing any fair maids in distress today, sorry. I'll improvise something, hold on.”
Hal wriggled across the branch and climbed onto the roof to above the opening that served as the window he'd been looking through, and swung himself in. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but not too hard. In an abstracted manner he noticed that his clothes weren't as clean as they had been, and that the young woman he was rescuing was actually very pretty, and therefore cleanliness suddenly mattered.
“Want to share the joke?” she asked.
“If you like, I was just thinking that I'm not exactly fit for formal introductions, and it's going to get even worse if I have to use my trousers as a rope.”
“I see. I'm not exactly in my best clothes either. You want me to climb up your legs?”
“I was thinking the closest thing I has to rope was my trousers, if you can't reach my hand if I dangle it down like this. By the way, we've got about ten minutes to get you out before the guards finish their lunch, based on yesterday.”
“I suppose I should be grateful, but you're really spoiling my single-handed escape, you realise?”
“So sorry, I'll go away, shall I?”
“Don't you dare!” she shot back. “Get closer to the wall can you? I'll try bouncing off it to get higher.”
“Really? OK.”
Once he was in position, laying flat on one of the beams close to the wall, she ran at the wall and used her momentum to get higher; their hands met. She had a good strong grasp. “Wow!” Hal said, “You're impressive.”
“I'm supposed to be,” she said, “But probably Mum doesn't mean like this.”
“My parents say I'm supposed to be impressive too. If I lift you like this, can you grab the beam with your other hand?”
“Got it, just.” the girl replied.
“I'm called Hal, by the way.” Hal said. “Got a better grip now?”
“Yes. If you get me out of here, you can call me Esme.”
“And if I don't?” he asked, adjusting himself so he could lift her onto the beam.
“You'd better call the city guard and tell them where you found me, what happened next and so on.”
“Will they be interested?” He asked, lifting her up.
“You really don't know who I am, do you?” Esme said, looking into his face.
“Sorry, I've only been in the city two days, I didn't see any missing persons sketches or anything. But I was mighty curious about why those guards were putting on accents when they got near this barn.”
“You mean they be not marshlanders? I'd guessed.”
“I got in through this window. No, they be not from the three isles, fair maiden.” he said in his own people's manner.
“Ah, by your speech, I'd guess you are. I'll let you go first and lift me up; you seem good at that.”
“I am of the isles, yes.”
“But you're here rescuing me, while we're still at war.”
“Stranger things have happened. Your ambassador Hagberry never let the war stop his chess games with the king of Tew, he says. And that was a real war, not just a trade blockade.”
“You know ambassador Hagberry?”
“Yes. But I don't play him at chess, I made that mistake once.”
“Hal of the Three Isles,” she said, looking at him. “Prince Hal of the Three Isles? Why are you rescuing princesses you're officially at war with?”
“Urm, a gesture of peace?” He suggested, as the penny dropped. “You're Esmetherelda?”
“A mouthful, isn't it?”
“I always thought it was a beautiful name. Blame Hagberry that I'm here, if you like. He said the war seemed more like a plot to discredit us than anything sane. I've got a letter from him and from Dad for your father in my room.”
“Where's your room?”
“Conveniently close. Very conveniently close, so I hope I wasn't supposed to get curious about the barn, in which case if I climb back along this tree into my window then I'm walking into a trap. I don't want you to get caught again.”
“What about you getting caught?”
“Oh, I'm caught already,” he said, ruefully.
“Pardon?”
“I've never met anyone like you, Esmetherelda, I hope you don't mind me being moth to your flame a while. Point me at any insurmountable challenge you like and I'll conquer it for you or die trying.”
“Very romantic,” she dismissed his words, not believing anyone would say such a thing seriously ever, let alone while perched on the corner of a barn. “Now be serious.”
“May I escort you home?”
“Maybe. I don't know how I was taken hostage — I went to bed perfectly normally and woke up in this barn, a week ago.”
“Drugged and kidnapped out of the palace? That's a pretty bad situation.”
“I thought so.”
“Someone might have left a note from you saying you were running away, or anything.”
“Did anyone know you were coming? It'd end badly if they think I've run away with a lover and they find me in your room.”
“At this end? No. End badly, in the sense of war, or what?”
“Being the strange fifth daughter who doesn't fit in, I imagine the best I'd get is mother suggesting I get exiled in shame, if I'm supposedly caught mid-elopement.”
“Well, come to the Three Isles if that happens. Dad'd think it nice to have a just cause for a war, anyway, rather than groundless accusations.”
“Groundless?”
“Unless you're blaming us for navigational idiocy. One of your ships tried to take a short cut across a shoal, and discovered that rocks don't do good things for the keels of over-laden carriers.”
“The captain claimed he was running from pirates.”
“Official customs agents. Men were rescued, at no small risk to the customs vessel and the locals, goods were impounded, awaiting documentation. The documentation we got was the declaration of war. Was the captain someone important's son? He seemed barely older than me.”
“My brother. You met him?”
“Saw him, anyway. I was on the customs clipper. He left port late and laid up for a moonless night at a place known as a smuggler's cove. Nothing illegal about that, but suspicious, especially when the ship seemed a bit light leaving port and a very heavy afterwards. And then his cargo turned out to be lots and lots of barrels of our finest wine with no export tariff stamps on them. No crime there, again, but if you don't have the casks stamped you need documentation from the suppliers. Or at least to name the suppliers so agents can check up on why he didn't give the right documents. I heard that your brother claimed to have forgotten who that was, 'from the trauma' he said.”
“My big brother is a smuggler. Oh, joy!” Esme whispered.
“I didn't say that, and that's a serious accusation, Esmetherelda.”
“Suspected smuggler then. But that doesn't give him a motive to besmirch my character just to escalate the war.”
“So you think he's going to 'accidentally' discover you were being kept captive just the other side of the fence to the garden of an inn known to serve the best marshland food, and you reporting that you were held by people speaking with marshland accents?”
“That's not really his style. He doesn't normally do that sort of planning.”
“Hmm. It sounds more like something a seriously grumpy grand-vizier might come up with. Do you still have one of those?”
“He retired last month. His daughter is my maid, and has a crush on big brother.”
“Ah, that's complicated. Was he happy about retirement?”
“Yes. His wife wasn't, she liked the status and the scheming.”
“So, your maid, and her mum, maybe with big brother's financial help?”
“Unless it was my mum, of course.”
“Your mother?”
“Not keen on anything from the Isles except your wine. She's from Tesk.”
“Poor break-away Tesk, still blaming us for everything. Yes, that sort of makes sense. You really don't get on with her?”
“I don't fit her idea of what a proper daughter ought to enjoy.”
“Hmm. Proper daughters ought to simper and sew, not bash jailers over the head with a chair, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“Have you had training in that, by the way? I've seen plenty of chairs smashed over heads from my time in the navy, but never one that actually worked.”
“It was a good solid chair, and I got him with the edge of the seat. Yes, I got some secret training from an old sergeant.”
“See, you are a very special person. So, do you want to stay up here, or accept the hospitality of my room?”
“What sort of facilities does it boast?”
“Separate bathing chamber, plumbing, no room service, half a sandwich from last night, and an unopened bottle of fairly poor quality wine compared to home but reasonable compared what you produce here.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“No room service?”
“I hate having anonymous staff looking at my stuff when I'm not around and invading my privacy like that. I can make my own bed.”
“But you don't mind me snooping?”
“Unless you're a very deceitful person, you're not anonymous, and you're invited. I wonder what's happened to that guard, he ought to be checking on your jailer soon.”
“Me too, but not enough to stay and ask him. Show me to clean water please.”
“This way, highness,” Hal said.
“When did I stop being a fair maiden?” she asked curiously, “when you realised I desperately need a bath?”
“You do be always a fair maiden until we do wed, Esmetherelda, unless I fail in pursuit of your heart and some other wins your smile.”
“You're serious aren't you? I'll have you know that love at first sight is a complete fabrication of poetic convention.”
“Oh, I know, but my parents have been saying I need a wife so many times it's accepted fact now, and you've just raised the standard so high that I doubt there's anyone other than you who'll match it. And it's not like Hagberry's never spoken about you.”
“Hagberry's told you about me? What's he said, and do I need to strangle him?”
“He said that you had your father's determination, your mother's beauty, your grandmother's faith, and your grandfather's sense of fair play, that he didn't think you'd ever failed to do something you set your mind to but that you were in desperate need of a soul-mate. Oh, and that if I ever decided I'd volunteer for that position I'd better really impress you, because no one had skin thick enough to survive the sort of tongue-lashing you reserved for unworthy suitors.”
“Maybe I've mellowed with age. When did he tell you that? Five years ago?”
“Yes, and then he repeated it after his last visit here.”
“Hmmm. Have you considered the risks of having a balcony that's quite so accessible via a tree?”
“Yes. But it makes a nice emergency exit doesn't it?” He went and checked the door. The hair he'd glued in place was still there. “No one's been in through here, anyway. Are you hungry or thirsty?”
“Not for old sandwich.”
“I can go down and get something.”
“They actually fed me quite well. I found that quite suspicious.”
“Yes. Urm, I'm out of touch with fashions. Is what you're wearing classed as a light dress or a nightgown?”
“It's a light dress I wear as a nightgown, because I've never liked the idea of running out into the palace gardens in the middle of the night to greet Dad or to see some other sight, in something I wouldn't dream of wearing in public.”
“OK. That's good. Well, mostly, anyway. Somehow we need to get you to your father safely. Any ideas, other than walking up to the palace gates?”
“The soldiers probably wouldn't believe I'm me.”
“And the old sergeant?”
“Retired to the country.”
“Anyone else you'd trust?”
“What about your ambassador? Raleph's moderately competent and can get to see Dad, I'm sure.”
“Really? We're not on greatest terms, but OK.”
“Why not?”
“Have you met his daughter? Much too vague for me, but that didn't stop her making plans. I said I'd rather stay for another tour in the navy when she told me about them, and did.”
“Oh. Well, that can't be helped, I suppose. I'll go and wash.”
“And would you prefer me to be on guard out here, or out and about arranging transport, finding you another dress, or something like that?”
“For some reason, I trust you, Prince Hal. Please stay.”
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EMBASSY OF THE THREE ISLES
“Afternoon! Do Ambassador Raleph be home?” Hal asked the younger sentry.
“Who be you that wants to know?”
“What be you that you need to know? Never be you a sailor! Why there do be dry mud on your boots and rust on that blade! For shame! Dress uniform with rust! In't navy tha'd never be swabbing the decks, tha'd be swabbing the bilges!”
“Rust! Where?” the man asked, mortified, and looking at the blade.
“Here, here and here.” Hal said, taking the blade, pointing out the rust and then with a final “Not to mention here” he pointed the blade at the sailor's forehead. “Put yerself on report for falling for that old trick, man.” Tossing the stunned man his weapon, he added “And tell Raleph that prince Hal needs to talk to him in approximately one minute, in other words, once I've reprimanded this grinning ape who do be beside you. Go on, sprint man. Now you, how dare you be letting yon sprinter lose his weapon?”
“On account of me recognising your highness, from the Albatross, I was knowing that all he was going to lose was some pride.”
“Fair 'nuff, thought you might.” Hal said, grinning at his old shipmate. “You do be Bings, don't you?”
“I am indeed, highness! 'Tis nice indeed to recognised! And a most honest welcome to you too, highness,” Bings said, bowing to Esme. “I heard some rumours from the city guard about you being kidnapped.”
“You didn't hear who by, I suppose?” Esme asked.
“No. You don't know?”
“They were speaking mock-marshland, 'do you go here', 'do you pick that up' when near me.”
“And she was held in locked inner cell someone'd built in that barn out behind the Fisherman.” Hal added.
“And you rescued her, Highness?”
“Credit where it do be due,” Hal said. “Her royal highness here put her jailer out cold with a chair to the head, I recognised the sound, of course, but didn't never expect the guy to be flat on his back and snoring. I just helped a bit after that.”
“Just little things like lifting me up to the rafters when I was in a trap with no way out, and helping me find a safe place.”
“With respect, I'm not too sure anywhere in this city is a safe place, highness.” Bings said, 'There's factions and stuff forming in the city guard. Bad sign that, very bad sign. Conflicting orders, that sort of thing. 'Tis not our country, but it's where we live and it's got us lads worried. Hence the rust, highness.”
“You're suggesting things are heading for civil war?” Hal asked.
“Unrest anyway. And unrest isn't that many steps from civil war.”
“Thank you, Bings.” Hal said, “I think we'd better go chat to Raleph.”
“My pleasure, Highness.”
Ambassador Raleph had been a naval captain, but that was a long time ago. Both showed; his uniform was immaculate, but his waistline was getting a little too wide. “Highness, I wasn't aware you were in the city.”
“I wasn't a few days ago. Then I got distracted by an overly guarded barn, which turned out to contain my companion here.”
“A barn?”
“Behind the Fisherman, guarded by people who don't know when to say 'do', so stick it everywhere. I imagine that it's something to do with escalating the war.”
“Sorry, why would holding a pretty girl hostage escalate the war?”
“Bings has better eyes than you, Ambassador Raleph,”
“Bings has better eyes than anyone,” the ambassador grumbled, looking at Esme again. “You do sort of look familiar.”
“That's a comfort. Maybe my father will recognise me too, then. Try mentally adding a coronet and a book, and put me in the throne-room, ambassador Raleph.”
“Highness! A thousand apologies! You were kidnapped?”
“A week ago, I went to bed and woke up in a cell. No one ever told me what they wanted, just that the voices I heard outside were all friends of theirs so they wouldn't gag me, but 'the boss' had said if I tried calling for help they could knock me about a bit the first time, break some bones the second and do whatever they liked the third as long as they burred the evidence. Except there were a lot more 'do's in there.”
“Kidnapped from your own bed!” Raleph said. “An inside job, then.”
“I know. And I'm not really looking forward to telling father I'm going to make alternative arrangements, but I plan to. And since I don't trust the palace guards, my maid, or even my brother and mother, they're going to be secret.”
“You trust your sisters, though?” Hal asked.
“Sort of. But some of them only because I can't imagine they'd dare let someone into my bedroom.”
“I think there are a number of questions, highness,” Hal said. “One is how they got you out of your room, the next is how they got you out of the palace, and the third is how you ended up in that barn, all in the space of a moonlit night. The same answer doesn't necessarily apply to all three. Someone might have slipped you something that evening that made you forgetful, and then invited you out into the garden — from what you said earlier you make a habit of that.”
“And if I wasn't carried from my bed, it might explain why I had my shoes on.”
“Exactly.”
“But it was just a family meal. I didn't even have a glass of water afterwards.”
“But you have a known place, a known cup, and so on.” Raleph said, “As well as a known habit of getting up in the middle of the night to watch eclipses or whatever.”
“The eclipse! Yes, it was that night, I missed it!” A flood of partial memories came too. 'Come on Esme!' a voice had said, 'You're missing the eclipse!'
“That was nine nights ago, princess. I thought you said a week,” Hal chided. “So, I've got another suggestion: you went to bed, planning to wake up for the eclipse, but the entire family was fed some kind of sleeping draft. You get woken up, all bleary and suggestible, and told you're missing the eclipse, and you can't see it from the garden any more. Whereupon you're escorted to somewhere where you're drugged and bundled into a waiting carriage.”
Esme looked at Hal for a while, saying nothing. He'd described it exactly right, she knew, and he knew that too. “Are you going to 'suggest' who it was, too?”
“No, my princess, I'll leave that to you.”
“Good. But it sounds like an entirely plausible explanation. We'll have to ask if the whole family slept well that night. Raleph, I want to talk to my father, I don't want to be taken for a pauper and get stopped at the gate. Please can you help? I'm going to take price Hal along too, because for some reason he wants to ask Daddy if he can be my suitor, and for even less explicable reasons I'm not going to raise much more than a token objection. Oh, and he's got some letters that might stop the war, which would be nice.”
“May I see them?”
“Father asked me to give them to him directly, Raleph, sorry. The other one's from ambassador Hagberry, so I'm certainly not going to tell you what's in that.”
“But you know?”
“Roughly, yes. 'Please stop the war or tell me what it's about. Surely not that probably-smuggler's cargo of wine. It's very embarrassing'. Father's has a bit more about trade in it, exchanges of mutual benefit, release of the wine if it's really so important, and so on.”
Esme looked at Hal once more, very aware that his thoughts and glances had been in her direction when he'd said 'exchanges of mutual benefit'. Why hadn't she prised the context out of him for Hagberry's rather flattering description of her? Now, in front of Raleph wasn't the time. “Can I get a couple of things clear in my thinking?”
“I breathe but to serve you, highness,” Hal said, with a florid bow.
“Why don't you say 'is' and 'are' among yourselves?”
Hal laughed. “Because all day long the wind is saying izzz in the rigging, and it gets very confusing, when you shout something and only half gets heard. And on the marshes, an ar is a dangerous water-snake, so if someone needs to shout Ar! in the middle of their sentence, you don't want grammar getting in the way of understanding.”
“Wouldn't it be easier to call the snake something different?”
“It's been tried. The snake's now known also known as a flicken, a pennythwack, and there are some rarer ones too. But there's always someone who can't remember or recognise the new word or refuses to use it because it's too long.”
“I see,” Esme said.
“Next question?”
“Where would you suggest as a safe place for me to sleep tonight?”
“The ship that brought me here is at your service, princess. There is a cabin with a stout lockable door. It doesn't have plumbing, which is why I stay at the Fisherman, but otherwise it's comfortable. If your father agrees to everything in my father's letter and to my request of you, then perhaps you could also trust your maid not to hand you over to anyone in the middle of the sea, and with her as travelling companion accompany me to see the Isles and my parents. Not to mention give Hagberry a few pieces of your mind about putting ideas in my head.”
“You came here hoping we'd meet?” Esme asked, thinking suspicious thoughts about their meeting.
“I swear to you in the sight of the saviour that I knew nothing of your kidnapping, Esme.” She didn't need to listen to his words to know the feelings her suspicions had aroused in him. She didn't need her eyes to see the wounded expression on his face, either.
“Sorry, Hal.”
“Not your fault,” he said, “pretty reasonable, really.”
“I feel like I'm missing half the conversation.” Raleph observed.
“I suspect you are, ambassador,” Hal said. “It looks like Esmetherelda and I are getting quite good are interpreting what lies behind one another's words and intonation and stuff. Blame adrenaline if you like.” Stuff was the key thing, of course.
“I prefer to credit the fact you've both got Tesk ancestry,” Raleph said. “My parents tuned together. We can credit adrenaline for helping forge the link, but you are tuning in to each other, aren't you?”
“It seems like we're starting to,” Esme said, thinking that this would be the final straw for her mother. She felt Hal's confusion. “Mother will be displeased to think of any Tesk ancestry in your line, Hal.”
“Then she should study more history,” Hal replied. “The first king of of the Isles was from Tesk. That's why his descendants developed the tradition of Tesk brides; to keep the line pure, not to dilute the lines on Tesk.”
“I'll let you try to explain that to her.”
“I intend to, for I wish her blessing as well as your father's.”
“Hadn't you better change out of that dirty doublet, then?” Raleph suggested.
“I suppose so. Raleph, Can you send Bings to the Albatross for me, with the promise that he can go and get drunk with his old ship-mates this evening as long as he brings my formal-wear back quickly and undamaged.”
“Certainly, certainly. And I'll send a message ahead to the palace if I may?”
“No mention of me, please.” Esmetherelda said. “They must have discovered I'm gone by now, but I don't have any idea what that leads to, and there's always the hope that the guards might have just decided not to report in.”
“I understand, highness.”
“And if I am to look my best, I do not want Esme's parents to think I'd subject her to the indignity of approaching the palace in her present nine-days old clothes.”
“If you think you're going to win anyone's favour by buying me a bar-maid's dress.... What cloth on the ship?” she asked, reacting to his thought, “There's no time for a dressmaker!”
Then she understood his thoughts, and was pleased that his blush matched hers.
“A bit presumptive, Hal,” she said. “in the sense that the sea is a bit wet.”
“Not entirely without precedent. Especially on Tesk or the isles.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Mother is going to hit the roof if I walk in in an engagement sari.”
“Even if we say it's not an engagement sari?”
“But the fabric is meant for one. And you did bring it just in case we got on well enough that you'd get me to wear it some time. And you know that once I've worn it then no other will.”
“I'm not planning to offer it to anyone else, Esmetherelda, I think I've made that clear. A gift, without strings, without promises, and without time to make it into anything else but a sari.”
“But full of hope, nonetheless. I am rebellious enough that I will accept your gift, Hal of the three Isles, of a sari with no strings attached.”
“If I may recommend caution, highnesses.” Raleph said, “Given the state of semi-war already, upsetting your parents is not the best policy. Especially since if you walk in looking like you've spent the last nine days being wooed by the prince then things could go down hill very quickly.”
“A good point made a little too late, I'm not going back on my acceptance now. But yes, I'll wear it differently to a Sari,”
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THE PALACE GATES
“I hope we're expected,” Raleph said to the guard from the official coach.
“You are, ambassador, and one special courier, not two.”
“Well, I hardly felt it appropriate to seek a pass for a royal princess to return to her home.”
Putting aside the veil she'd added to the cloth, Esme said, “Stand aside, captain. If there is subterfuge it's mine. I need to talk to my father before my kidnappers discover where I am.”
“Sorry, highness, I didn't recognise you, dressed like that.”
“That was rather the point. Having been kidnapped and managing to escape once, I hardly want to repeat the experience.”
“It was a kidnapping then?”
“Did I have any books with me? Of course it was a kidnapping. I was drugged, held in a locked cell in a locked barn with food and drink but nothing to read and told I'd be beaten to death if I made a sound.”
“Sorry for doubting, princess. Shall I provide an escort?”
“Certainly not,” Esme replied. “I know where my father's throne room is.”
“His majesty has been taken ill, highness.”
“Who is making decisions?”
“Day to day decisions are taken by her majesty, more important issues are discussed with your brother as heir, and his majesty is privately consulted on the most major issues, they say.”
She didn't miss the implication of that final clause. “Then I shall require of you a squad of ten soldiers loyal to his majesty who are aghast at this breach of protocol, and I shall also require you to send for the grand-vizier.”
“He has retired, highness.”
“I know. But he has not abdicated. Oh, and on the subject of the war with the Three Isles. Prince Hal here tells me the boat that chased my brother's ship was a customs clipper which wished to inspect his cargo for duty stamps having observed some suspicious behaviour. I hope you can draw the relevant conclusions.”
“Do you know who abducted you, highness?”
“I do not know how I was so drugged that I did not question the person who told me I was missing the eclipse of the moon and would see it better from standing in a carriage, but I know who it was. I don't know who drove the carriage to where I was imprisoned.”
“But no one saw the eclipse, highness, it was raining!”
“I remember that also. As I said, I was clearly drugged. My father fell ill that same night?”
“Yes, highness.”
“I must speak to his doctor then. His old doctor, if there has been any change there.”
“He has been imprisoned, highness.”
“Under the seal of the regent, or just by command?”
“By command, highness. I'm not aware of any decisions under the seal of the regent.”
“I'm not surprised, father entrusted it to me and I hid it somewhere. I hope it's still safe. Hopefully, the good doctor has survived his imprisonment as well as I have mine. Send me with an extra couple of men as runners, and form a few more squads of loyal men, if you can, captain. I'll go via my apartment and assuming the seal is where it ought to be, I'll send you some orders concerning the doctor and the grand-vizier.”
“At your command, highness,” And he barked commands to form an escort.
“Good man that,” Raleph observed. “Why is he on gate duty?”
“It keeps him out of the politics,” Esme said. “It seems that the Lord God has a use for my heritage.”
“You mean...” Hal didn't finish his question. He didn't need to.
For Raleph's benefit. She said, “I mean that it will be unwise for anyone to try to deceive me.”
“Squad ready and reporting for duty, highness.”
“Very well. Now, quietly, because there are traitors around. My father formally placed the seal of the regent in my care some years ago, making me regent in need, for example in the event of his illness, do any of you have doubts concerning that?”
“No, highness,” they all murmured.
“Well, someone just hesitated and should have said yes. And you ought to, because that'd be treason if it wasn't true. Therefore, we're going to go to my apartment and I'm hoping to find the seal where I hid it. If I don't find it, then you are not to treat me as anything more than a princess, understood?”
“Yes, highness.” they murmured, with greater confidence.
“Excellent. Oh, I know that there are standing orders about no regular soldiers in the royal apartments. Right now, you and Prince Hal are now my royal bodyguard, Ambassador Raleph is invited to accompany us, and I expect you to protect him also.”
“Yes, highness.”
“I'm so glad that I ate at your embassy, Raleph, I'd hate to do this on an empty stomach. If anyone's hungry, grab a hunk of bread and let's go, the back-way and not in strict formation, so we don't alert anyone.”