Edouard listened as I recounted my conversation with Elisha. The excitement in his face from his discussions with the King faded to consternation the further along my tale went. He sat up in his bed and put his book down, moving his candle to the table. He motioned for me to sit down at the table and I followed.

“What did you tell her?”

It was not what I expected his first question to be but I was honest with him.

“Interesting. Is that what you think?”

“I’m not entirely sure what I think, but it’s as plausible as anything else. Your father really never spoke of this to you? For him to have gone through this it must be one of the most memorable experiences of his life.”

“Never,” he said.

His face darkened at the mention of his father. I wondered if I should have waited until morning to break this news. He had been in such high spirits after his conversation with Everard had seemed to make some progress. He popped the cork on a wine bottle and drank straight from it, setting it back down on the table with his thumb over the top.

“What do you think?” he asked me, using his free arm to wipe his mouth.

“Bring her in.”

“What?”

“Well, not entirely. But enough. Clue her into our essentially alien nature and our desire to make Everard a better ruler. We can’t very well just kill her.”

The look on my Prince’s face suggested he felt otherwise and had in fact been considering that very thing. He was far from as sure as I was that the people we were living amongst were real in the sense Elisha’s questioning supposed.

“I think she might be helpful,” I continued. “Think about it. She can go unnoticed in places we can’t. We can use that.”

“And if she turns on us?”

“To what end? She isn’t stupid, Edouard. She knows the likes of Carbo or the King aren’t going to reward her. She has a keen eye. She knows what type of men they are. She’s young but has experienced a great deal.”

I was aware of my own bias creeping in, my solidarity with youths on their own in a harsh world. I did not have near enough information to make such claims about Elisha’s character, but my words felt true and so Edouard took them to be so.

“I don’t feel good about it.”

“Nor do I.”

It was decided that Elisha was to be my project as there were few circumstances in which Edouard might be seen speaking to her without it drawing attention. I was to go out on a constitutional ride, really to practice riding as continuing to impersonate a Prince’s valet would require an improvement, but also as a pretext for speaking to and recruiting Elisha to our cause. At first, we intended to give her little and require little in return. We only needed her to feel out for us how Edouard’s actions were being perceived by the people of Singhal who did not have copper tubs and silks. She was to be our eyes and ears among the commoners of the early Empire. The stables were situated at a formidable distance from the palace proper, down the slope and only a small shelf above the bottom of the tiered city. It sat above one of the smaller gates to the city and the smell of manure and animal announced its presence well before I arrived. It was a bright, brisk morning and Edouard was sparring with Everard and his King's guard. The King liked to “keep himself sharp” by sparring with the men tasked with his safety.

“I’m sure he is humored,” Edouard told me, certain that the guardsmen would not risk losing to the King or losing face with their fellow guardsmen. So the bouts were always close, but pulled out by the guardsmen, with many compliments to the liege for his skill.

I carried an apple from the kitchen. I polished it on my sleeve and took a deep breath. All cities share smells in common, the putrid reeks of humans in close contact, the simmering of broths, the tanning of hides. But there are individualities. There was no hint of Quinze’s marshy salt on my nose here, no dust from marsh bricks in the sun. An unfamiliar freshness pervaded the thinner air in Singhal and for a moment I felt disloyal to my home as I allowed myself to wonder why the Empire would move the capital from a place like this to one such as Quinze. A few moments after smelling them, I found the King's stables.

They were enormous, towering over the small cottages nearby, and I soon saw that what I took for a small city gate was only for stable use and provided easy access to a grazing area just outside the main walls. I heard the bustle of activity but no one bothered me as I strolled through the horse stalls. My clothing announced I was not a commoner, but nor was I a Lord who would expect immediate service. They let me wander as I willed. Mid-way, the light at the far end of the barn slanting in, I found the horse I had ridden into the Borderlands. She let me stroke her muzzle and whinnied when I stopped. I did not hear her approach.

“Her name’s Mazzy,” Elisha said, rough broom in hand.

I did not look away from the horse, but kept stroking the gentle animal.

“She seems like a good girl.”

“Loyal to a fault.”

“Trustworthy, would you say?”

“Doesn’t panic under pressure. Battle-tested. Only asks her master to be as brave as she.”

“A fair bargain. I’d like to take her out for a ride. The thin air doesn’t suit me. Need to stretch my bones.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Shall I saddle her up for you?”

“Please. And one more thing,” I said.

I turned around for the first time and looked into her light eyes.

“I’ll need a guide. I mean to get a fair stretch in and I’m not familiar with the countryside.”

She nodded.

While Elisha prepared the horses, I filled two skins with water from the well behind the stables. The Stablemaster sat on the lip of the well and ate his breakfast. He was a man of middle age, his brushed clothes and neat appearance suggesting the fastidiousness of a man who had mastered his craft. He was not a man of noble birth, but of noble bearing. I had learned from an early age, from my father, and from the old man in the library, that pride in your work raises any man above his station.

“You run a tight ship,” I said, motioning around me with my free arm.

“I thank you,” he said. “Whereabouts are you from?”

“You can tell I’m not from Singhal?”

He laughed a hearty baritone, which rang out clear in the cool morning.

“Aye. Easy enough that is.”

“Quinze,” I said. “Outside of the Empire’s boundaries.”

“Only just. And not for long as I hear it.”

“The Quinzen are not a warlike people.”

“If you’ll beg my pardon,” the stablemaster said. “But you aren’t Quinzen by birth.”

It was not a question.

“No, you’re right there. Rodanian, though I’ve never–I’ve lived in Quinze a good long while.”

My cover story on my past was hazy. I had mixed fact with fiction too much to keep up with easily when speaking to Carbo and had nearly told the stablemaster I had never stepped foot on the plains. The man’s eyes had depth and I felt his mind working. He was too polite to pry, but his eyes told me what I needed to know. He did not believe I was being entirely truthful with him. Still, he smiled at me.

“We’ve had a Rodanian or two come through over the years. I’ve seen naught to show what some say about ‘em is true.”

Hundreds of years into the future this type of statement was not unknown to me. It was a cold comfort to hear, but I was well practiced at thanking the generosity of such praise. In his own time, it made the stablemaster as open-minded as they come. Before I could give my obligatory thanks for his lack of hate for my ochre skin, Elisha appeared at my side. She had a talent for appearing in silence and I made a mental note of it.

“Your mount is ready,” she said, turning to the stablemaster, “Master Halsey, I’ve been requested to guide this man on his ride so he does not wander into borderlands. All my morning tasks have been completed except for the tack.”

He waved her off.

“You can fix tack any time. Make sure it gets done.”

“Aye, sir.”

“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said, standing and offering his arm.

We grasped arms.

“All mine,” I said.

We led our horses through the gate I had seen on my descent from the palace, and mounted in the small grazing field, the grass yellow and dead for the season. My foot slipped in the stirrup and Elisha’s strong grip on my cloak kept me upright, even from her own saddle. There was untold strength in this girl. We may have made a better ally than Edouard and I could have hoped for. She made no comment as I situated myself on Mazzy. She took the lead, showing me the way out of the city, through the outskirts and to the open country for good riding.

I did not broach the topic until we were well outside of the city. We rode without conversation, only the sounds of birds, the soft clomping of hooves, and Elisha’s muttered criticisms of my riding. It was obvious from the tone in which she offered corrections that my riding was not fooling anyone. Mazzy, to her credit, had no complaints, and made things as easy as possible for me.

“Could hardly do better for a person who can’t ride worth a damn,” Elisha said. “That’s why I gave her to you in the first place.”

“What?”

My surprise was amusing to her and I saw her crooked teeth as her lips pulled back in a mocking smile.

“You don’t have the gait of someone who can ride.”

“You knew from the way I walked?”

“Yes, and the look of sheer panic on your face was a good clue as well.”

“So what do I do?”

“No good backing out of the lie now,” she said, shrugging. “Most are too polite to call you out. Or afraid of offending Prince Edouard. Still–you’d do well to improve.”

My plans of playing father figure to Elisha and bringing her into our scheme on those terms now seemed immensely foolish. She read me like a book, pitied me even, and was sharp. Where was her fear from the night previous? We stopped at a stream and tied the horses to a low-hanging branch. I took off my boots and sat on the edge of the water, letting the cold numb my sore feet. She sat down next to me without making a sound. After a long silence she waited for me to break, I finally did.

“Here’s what you need to know about Edouard and myself.”

In the end, when we stood up from our spot by the water, I had told her more than I intended at the outset, but less than the whole picture. She left the stream with the understanding that Edouard and I were not who we made ourselves out to be and that we intended to change the King's stance towards the Ba-Hali. Her questions about the nature of her reality were more vague on this day, less searching than the desperation of the previous night. I felt that she had been burned there and did not want to spend too much time contemplating what the consequences of my admissions to her meant.

“What’s in it for you?” she had asked.

“There…there are consequences to the King's actions that would be better avoided.”

My implication of our travel through time is not what haunted me most about this admission to Elisha. After she led me back to Singhal, and after she rubbed down our horses and made them comfortable in their stalls with water and oats. After I bade her goodbye and told her to be in touch soon, and even after I made it back to my room and began building a fire in the grate. After all of the events of the day, that single sentence reverberated in my head because it was a lie. Nowhere in my reading of the events we were living through, the near extermination of the Ba-Hali and massive losses of Empire soldiers to the cause, nowhere in the Empire’s telling of that tale were there consequences to speak of. King Everard Cortes, while not looked upon as one of the greatest rulers in the history of the Empire, was not shamed for what he did. The citizen school children did not learn of what happened as a tragedy. It did not affect future sovereigns from doing much the same thing to other tribes. And they were still doing it, the rebel whispered in my ear as my match stuck and I dropped my taper into the kindling. There was not even any evidence that what we did here had any effect in the “real” world. As far as we knew, as much as my senses denied it, this was a closed loop, a training center.

It was early afternoon and I expected Edouard back any moment to take my report on my talk with Elisha, and to tell me of his sparring session with the King and his guardsmen. I was feeling lost, alone, and tired when I noticed the bell on the chest by my bed. Without knowing what I wanted, I rang it. In a few short moments, a serving lass knocked on my door and I permitted her entry.

“Sir?”

It was not until she stood in front of me, hands clasped in her apron, bright cheeks shining with health, that I realized why I had called her.

“Does the palace have a library?” I asked.