Princess of Thieves
Tabrina grimaced as she heard the crowing outside announce the morning and threw the covers over her head, as if they would prevent the day from happening at all. It was her sixteenth birthday, the dreaded day when Branul, her father, would apprentice her to one of his fellow thieves and begin her serious training in the fine art and craft of stealing from others. She had no choice in the matter and never had. The children of thieves, at their majority, were always trained as thieves themselves — if they hadn’t already undertaken to learn the craft on their own.
She already had a fair idea of whom he had selected to be her master for the next year as well, and the thought that she would be at the beck and call of the ugly and lecherous Timon sent shivers down her spine. Timon had been ogling her ever since she had been a very mature fourteen; and if she were apprenticed to him, there would be no telling what would happen and no appealing to Branul once the apprenticeship had begun.
“Get up, girl!” Branul’s rough voice shouted from the next room. “You have chores to do before the guild meets and you move on. Don’t make the day any longer than it already is!”
The girl sighed in reluctant submission to her fate and stood up. She drew her trousers and jerkin on quickly in the chill, autumn morning and ran her fingers through her long, black hair to untangle it somewhat and re-braid it, making herself a little more presentable. There would be little time after she had fed the animals and hauled the water from the stream to make herself any cleaner before the afternoon meeting.
Branul smiled as his daughter slouched out of the bedroom of the hut and headed for the door and her normal daily chores. “Cheer up, Tabrina, you won’t have to slop the pigs anymore after today, I can guarantee you.” He laughed sharply at his own humor and coughed as the action brought the phlegm up from his lungs. For sixteen years he had been waiting for this very day, when his daughter would begin to earn for herself the place and keep that he had reluctantly provided for her for so long. There was little that could dampen his joy in the day he shed his responsibilities for her upkeep. Keeping the younger members of the Thieves Guild from sniffing around the attractive girl had taxed his patience in these past few years, and the idea of someone else having to watch out for her instead was a relief.
Tabrina threw the mess of table scraps and gruel into the dirt next to the pigpen, careful not to splatter her trousers. There would be no new clothing for her anymore until she was able to provide them for herself one way or the other. The sound of the splatting pig feed brought the chickens at a feathered gallop, and Tabrina had to grab up the basin of grain and scatter it widely across the yard to keep the hungry hens from fighting. After the chickens, she opened the door to the stable and chased her father’s recalcitrant donkey into the corral where she had fresh hay already waiting for him in the trough. She paused in her labors long enough to give the ancient animal a fond scratching behind the right ear. Old Jarek gave his usual soft nicker in response to the girl who gave him the only caresses he had ever known from humans. Of all the personalities here, Tabrina would miss only Jarek’s when she left; she had never had any feelings short of loathing for either her father or his profession, and her mother was long dead.
The morning passed far too quickly for her; and as usual, Branul allowed her only a moment or two to freshen up from her strenuous hike to the river for water before demanding that she harness Jarek to the cart. Tabrina did what he asked without a word. Branul in a good mood was insufferable, and she was unwilling to share her misgivings about entering a life outside the law with one who could see no good in any other trade or craft. Branul sensed his daughter’s uneasiness and gloried in the fact that she would no longer be a problem to him. The bumpy ride to the Guild hideaway was spent in silence except for his occasional chuckles and resulting coughs.
Her worst fears were soon realized. No sooner had they tied up Jarek and entered the dank darkness of the cavern than Branul led Tabrina by the hand over to Timon and placed her hand in the master thief’s cold and clammy grasp. “She’s all yours now. May she learn well and quickly, and don’t spare the rod if she gets stubborn on you.”
Timon smiled maliciously at the trembling girl at his side. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine after a couple of days, Branul, don’t you worry. I haven’t had an apprentice yet that’s been any trouble to me for long.” Tabrina avoided looking at the scarred visage of her new master and was glad that, while taking care of the chamber pot in her father’s room that morning, she had had the foresight to palm the tiny dagger her mother had kept from her own years as a thief.
The Thieves Guild meeting that day consisted of a division of the collected spoils of the previous night’s pilfering among the working thieves and the consumption of seemingly bottomless tankards of bitter ale. By evening, Timon’s grasp on Tabrina was as much to keep himself on his feet as it was to keep his pretty prize from bolting. Branul several times had put his arm around the neck of the husky thief in drunken companionship, nearly knocking Tabrina over with the stench of his breath.
A sudden jerk on her sleeve brought her away from her contemplation of what the morning would be like at her old home. “Come on, girl,” Timon slurred at her. “Time we were to home and bed.” He chuckled at the thought and dragged the suddenly pale girl to her feet. Tabrina’s stomach turned over as the thief pushed his face close to hers. “We have to think about starting your training right away, now don’t we?” He laughed coldly and threw an arm over her shoulders and hugged her close as he began weaving his way through the throng of thieves. Several of the younger men who had been hoping to have time with her before her master spirited her away watched with longing as the two exited the cavern.
“Help me up, will you?” the drunken master thief panted as they approached the side of his tall horse, and then he waited until Tabrina had put her hands together to help boost him up onto his mount. “Now, you, up here in front of me,” he said in a tone Tabrina couldn’t read. She looked back at the entrance of the hideaway and then out into the darkness of the night. She knew she could not run fast enough to escape a horse, so she reluctantly allowed herself to be hauled up in front of Timon.
Timon seemed to be in no hurry to get home, and Tabrina forced herself to ignore the pressure of his hand lying casually on her legs ‘to steady her’. Every time the thief tried to snuggle his face down onto her shoulder, she shifted slightly so that he couldn’t stay comfortably in that position for long. Other than that, he seemed to make no other over motions that could be called seductive or threatening; although Tabrina dreaded what would happen when they were at last in his home later. Timon had long had a reputation for being a skirt-chaser, and she seriously doubted that the relationship of master to apprentice would keep her safe from him for long.
oOoOo
Timon had a hut behind the stables of the town of Tebrintz, out of which he worked by day as a skilled carpenter. As the horse slowed to a halt in front of the hut, Tabrina found herself unceremoniously shoved from her seat to the ground. Timon dismounted, showing no signs of the copious amount of ale he had consumed earlier. He was rock-steady on his feet, and his voice crisp and clear. “Take Latchkey into the stables, and let’s see how well you can curry a real horse as compared to that ass of your father’s. You had better do a good job, or there will be no breakfast for you in the morning tomorrow.” He followed her closely into the stables and supervised her care of the animal with a critical eye.
“Not bad for a beginner,” was his curt comment when she was finished, and he pointed her out the door and toward his hut. She was surprised when she entered the building that he was able to keep it so clean; for the dirt floor was swept out and the hodge-podge housekeeping that her mother had taught her made her old home seem like a pigsty in comparison. Timon stirred the embers of hearth fire back into ruddy life, added another slab of peat and then seated himself grandly at the table. Tabrina stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to expect next or what to do. Timon’s ebony eyes glinted as he studied with care the slim girl who was now his apprentice. Tabrina was tall — taller than either of her parents. Her long, black hair was accented by the lightness of the serious grey eyes that watched him timidly and warily. He had long hoped that Branul would remember his debt to him and give him the girl to train, giving him the opportunity to try out a new scheme he had been planning that required a girl apprentice instead of the usual boy.
“I told you your training would start soon, and I meant it,” he began curtly, making Tabrina jump at the tone. “It starts NOW. I am going to lay my head down on the table as if I were drunk and passed out. I want you to try to get my money pouch from my belt without my knowing it. A good thief needs to be an expert pickpocket before even thinking of going on to attempting bigger or greater feats.”
Tabrina stared at him as he laid his head down just as he had said he would. This was not as she had expected. Her hesitation brought his head up, and he glared at her. “Come on, girl! If you intend to be my apprentice, you have to learn to pick pockets well before I can teach you anything else. Now!” He laid his head back down and closed his eyes.
Tabrina held her breath and moved as silently as she could to his side. She carefully pulled his cloak aside just enough and moved her hand slowly across his sash to find the leather pouch that she knew hung there. She followed the thin thong to the knot that held the pouch on the sash and then untied it, being as careful as she could not to put any tension on the sash itself that would let him know she was manipulating it or shift the weight of the pouch until it was free. The pouch came free at last, but she was unprepared for its weight. The leather bag dropped to the floor unexpectedly with a heavy, metallic clank.
Timon grabbed her wrist before she could pull back and held her in a painful grasp. “You have a light touch for a beginner. That’s good. At least now I know you have potential.” He stood and pulled her up with him. “Only one rule around her I expect you to obey without question and without exception: never, EVER, try on me what you just did — or anything else I teach you — unless told to do so in practice. If you ever steal from me for real, I’ll tack your hide up on my wall as a decoration.” He dropped her wrist, and Tabrina rubbed where his strong grasp had bruised the skin. “You will sleep in there,” he pointed to a dark corner off of the room where a low pallet sat in the corner. “Get yourself some sleep now. Mornings begin early around here.”
Obediently, Tabrina walked over to the pallet and sat down on the thin mattress. She stared at her master cautiously, fully expecting him to come to her side and force himself on her. Instead, Timon turned his back to her and drew out a large bag, from which he removed a long, wicked-looking blade. He reached for the honing stone that lay in the middle of the table and began to sharpen the blade carefully and skillfully. Tabrina watched for a long time as he meticulously spat on the stone and then drew it in sure motions over the edge of the blade, never once turning back to look in her direction or giving any sign that he was aware of her presence or audience. The soft metallic swishing sound of his honing was monotonous and soon had her nodding sleepily. Finally giving in to her over-stretched ability to stay awake, Tabrina lay down and soon was fast asleep on her pallet.
The thief was right; the mornings started in Tebrintz far earlier than they ever had at home. It was still dark when Timon shook her awake roughly and ordered her to fetch water from the well in the middle of town before the sun was up. After giving her directions on how to make a thin gruel that would suffice as breakfast for them both, Timon spent the entire day making Tabrina try to steal the heavy pouch from his sash while he worked on his carpentry. The girl earned many heavy cuffs about the shoulders and arms when she blundered and only curt nods when she held out a successfully purloined pouch to him. He spoke to her only rarely, mostly during the short time at
“Tomorrow, you will come with me to town,” he said as he stuffed his mouth with a piece of bread. “You did well enough today that I think you’re ready to begin on the old drunkards in front of the inns.”
“But what if I’m caught?” Tabrina asked fearfully. “Shouldn’t I practice for a few more days before I try the real thing?”
“There is nothing that will teach you more than the ‘real thing’, as you call it — and learning to escape when detected is part of what I CAN’T teach you here. I’ve seen you move through the hideaway during feasts; I know you can make your way through crowds.” Timon looked at her seriously. “If I didn’t think you were ready to begin to earn your way, I wouldn’t turn you out to try your luck until I thought you were. You see, if you do get caught, not only do I lose my apprentice to a prison cell, but my standing as a master thief would be lost as well. A master thief doesn’t send out an unprepared apprentice. Ever.”
Tabrina could think of nothing that could convince him otherwise, so she looked down at her plate woefully. “I’m going to be caught, I just KNOW it!”
“Stop that!” Timon grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. His face was red and his eyes sparkled coldly. “If you keep telling yourself that, you WILL get caught. Nothing can defeat a thief faster than his own lack of confidence.” He let her chin go and went back to eating. “You’re going with me tomorrow, and that’s that. We’ll practice all day just to be sure you’re ready, though.”
oOoOo
Two months later, Tabrina had forgotten all her fears of getting caught, for her light touch had brought her and her master more profit in those few weeks than Branul’s nightly pilfering had brought into that hovel in a full year. She had become quite adept at working in the inn at night as a serving wench and picking the pouches from the weary travelers as she served them their meals and drinks. The innkeeper received a percentage of her take for looking the other way and protecting her from detection, that being the agreement between Timon and the unscrupulous innkeeper. Her apprentice’s share after Timon had taken his healthy master’s portion as well was still more than enough in the short time to have bought her several new gowns and three of the dark, leather trousers and jerkins that she wore while she helped her master with his carpentry.
Timon himself had not done badly for himself either in those few months. He had broken into three of the stately mansions in the heart of Tebrintz and helped himself to the silverplate and jewels while their rightful owners slept peacefully only paces away. Every time it was time to divide spoils with the Guild, Tabrina was made aware of the jealousy Branul now felt toward his daughter by the brooding and dark glances he shot at her and Timon as they sat at the head table reserved for those who were particularly successful. Tabrina was earning a name for herself with her quick study and skills, she soon was just as welcome and respected within the Guild now as was her master. She found herself grateful that she’d come to Timon while watching her father steal a glance in her direction when he thought she wouldn’t be looking. Branul looked as if he were wishing he had not left her training to someone else and had undertaken it himself.
Before the authorities could figure out why so many travelers were being robbed at the one inn, Tabrina and Timon made arrangements with other innkeepers in the district with the same conditions and kickbacks. As time went by, they made it a habit never to work the same inn two nights in a row. It was in one of these inns that the master thief finally began to introduce her to the finer points of picking locks and rifling baggage for other valuables they might contain while their owners slept peacefully not far away. Tabrina found she had a real talent for burglary and lock picking; and as the profits from her nightly endeavors continued to enrich the Guild as a whole, her reputation among her fellow thieves grew apace. And as Timon’s training took her successfully into more risky and far more profitable ventures normally shunned by the less skilled, Branul’s brooding became darker and more malicious. He could only regret the wealth and reputation his talented daughter would have brought to his name and pouch had he only undertaken her training himself.
That jealousy and resentment erupted on dark night, as Tabrina and Timon crept through the hall of yet another inn. Suddenly there were loud voices as the authorities of the crown surrounded the inn and began a room by room search for thieves. As she and Timon scrambled just in time into the hiding spot they had prepared beforehand for such an occurrence, Tabrina heard one mention that the informer Branul would be well-paid if they caught the thieves that had been ravaging the town’s reputation that night. Timon stifled a curse when she had whispered to him what she had heard and sworn revenge, but Tabrina made it clear to her master that any revenge would be hers to bring about. They were lucky to escape the inn that night with little more than their freedom, and Branul’s smirk at the next Guild meeting when they had to confess their near-capture was almost more than Tabrina could stomach.
Twice more, just as hefty purses came within their reach, the same thing happened: authorities surrounded the inn they were working, and only because small niches and hiding holes had been prepared ahead of time did they escape with only their freedom. Frustrated, they decided together to change their tactics and strategy. They began posing as fellow travelers to gain entrance to the inn without the knowledge or collusion of the innkeeper, and once again their booty became impressive. Branul began his brooding glaring anew, but could figure no way to foil their new scheme without calling attention to himself as someone whose inside information could only come from being a thief himself.
To Tabrina’s surprise and immense relief, Timon never made any move to seduce or molest his apprentice during her indenture to his service, preferring to keep to his regular rounds of local bawdy houses instead as would be expected of a true master thief. And those young thieves who would have had dalliances with his apprentice found themselves having to cope with her being far too busy to enjoy more than just what quick and furtive attentions they could shower her with when at the hideaway.
As her skills and accomplishments earned her the respect of her master and more deferential treatment, Tabrina began to develop an attachment to Timon that bordered on filial affection. Certainly the master thief treated her better as his apprentice than Branul ever had treated her as his daughter. Tabrina was content with her lot and learned pride in her craft and in her master’s instruction. Her happy glow as the weeks and months progressed, as well as her obvious prosperity among her fellow thieves, became the cause of endless glowers from her father. And so her two years of apprenticeship passed with only that one sour note.
On the eve of her release from his training, Timon declared the night a holiday from all ventures and bought, with money properly stolen the night before, a huge shank of lamb and a bottle of the best wine available in Tebrintz. The meal was a quiet one, but Timon drank most of the potent liquid quickly without eating very much to dull the effects of the alcohol. Tabrina cleaned up the table, not exactly knowing how to deal with a drunken master after all this time; for in all the time she had been with him, she had never seen Timon truly intoxicated. With every cup that night, however, he grew more morose and silent, leaving it to Tabrina to keep some semblance of conversation going. Finally he looked at her with bleary eyes.
“You will be leaving in the morning, then?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it much,” Tabrina said with the broom in her hand. “I thought that we are doing so well together, perhaps we could just continue on the way we have been.”
“I don’t think so. There comes a time when all good things must end. That’s why I told you that we wouldn’t go out tonight. We have to talk.”
Tabrina leaned the broom against the wall and seated herself at the rough-hewn table. “What is it, Master?” she asked in concern. “I know you’ve been bothered by something all evening. Can you tell me?”
Timon upended the wine bottle into his cup and downed the last of the wine in a single long gulp. “I may be a thief and thumb my nose at the king’s authority and laws every time I ply my craft, but I’m not disloyal to the crown,” he mumbled after resting his chin in his hand and studying the face of his former apprentice with a drunken frankness. “I found something out yesterday evening when you were working that the inn that upset me so that my concentration was ruined. Watching you this evening has made me realize that you deserve to know too.”
“Master,” Tabrina comforted him, “whatever it is can’t be all THAT bad as you make it sound…”
Timon shook his head slowly and retreated for a while into a brooding silence of his own. Tabrina sat still and waited, knowing that he wouldn’t remain silent for long before speaking what was on his mind. Timon simply didn’t do that.
Finally, as she knew he would, he gave a great sigh. “It is the tradition for a master to give his out-going apprentice a gift on the eve of his elevation to thief. The gift I have for you may or may not be to your liking, but it is all I have to give you. And it was stolen,” he smiled wanly, “and that makes it apropos for us.”
Tabrina smiled back and nodded for him to continue.
“Your mother, Jaline, was a great thief in her day — one of the greatest. There never were fingers as light as hers when it came to lifting pouches or picking locks. But the lady had a tendency to sentimentality, and she sometimes took that which should never be stolen or held onto those things that she found pleasing instead of selling them the way she should have. So it happened one night that she and two others made their way into the Palace…”
Tabrina gaped. “You mean, she stole from the King?!”
“Aye,” Timon nodded seriously. “What was more, she saw something in the Palace of such beauty to her that she knew she HAD to have it for her own, and she stole it. She managed to keep it for twelve years before her death put it on its own path into the future, but she never did give it up.” He looked Tabrina straight in the eye with a gaze that riveted her to her seat. “What she stole was a child, a girl child — the first-born of the King. You.”
“ME!!” Tabrina began laughing. “You’re joking, aren’t you? I’m a princess? That’s absurd!”
“You,” Timon repeated. “Mind you, you’re not related to the King of Tebrintz. No, in those days, Jaline lived in Khartol. It was the Khartoli King’s child she stole. I can remember, for I too lived and worked in Khartol at the time, how the King’s men searched every hut and hovel for days looking for you. But you were never found.”
“But Branul always told me…”
“Branul was one of Jaline’s lovers from when she visited her aunt here in Tebrintz just before she began working in Khartol. She convinced him the child was his, and that was why he married her. He never forgave her, or you, for that matter, for the loss of his freedom. Jaline, of course, gave up her career to care for you until she died six years ago.”
“So Branul knows nothing of this?”
“No, he knows. Jaline told him on her deathbed. She wanted him to return you to Khartol, but he had other ideas. I can still see his face last night. He was quite drunk and insisting that he had really pulled the greatest job of all, turning a princess into a thief. That was going to be his revenge for having to spend time in a Khartoli prison cell after being caught picking pockets. He told me the whole story — and that’s why I just couldn’t think of our going out tonight.”
Tabrina put her chin in her hand pensively. “So I’m a princess. What a laugh he must have had when I turned out to be as capable as a thief as my mo… Jaline was. I became a princess of thieves.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s what rankles him so much,” Timon contradicted her. “He had no idea that you would prove to be such a quick study in the Craft. What’s more, he’s absolutely amazed that those grey eyes of yours haven’t given you away to some of the travelers from Khartol we’ve worked recently. You see, both Tebrintzi and Khartoli royalty all have grey eyes — and almost nobody else outside the nobility has them either.”
“Who else knows of this?” Tabrina’s grey eyes narrowed.
“Only the thief called Kavon, to whom we were speaking last night in the hideaway. And it is my warning against this man that is my gift to you. He had Branul convinced that they could each make a small fortune by returning you to Khartol and selling you as a royal whore there, claiming they found you wandering the streets of Tebrintz selling yourself to the men already.”
“Did Branul think he could keep me from telling the truth of the matter when I got there? What kind of fool did he take me for?” Tabrina was incensed and rose to pace the floor next to the table.
“Kavon has a vial of potion he got in Khartol from an herbalist there, and he claims that it would render you unable to remember anything before your taking the potion unless you were told it. With it, they could steal all your knowledge of the Art of Stealing and turn you into nothing but a blue-blooded whore to be sold to the highest bidder in Khartol. They had planned to give it to you at the hideaway during the feast tonight honoring all apprentices finishing their term of service, but I was able to foil that plan by keeping you here tonight instead. But my protection ends tonight with your apprenticeship — after you leave tomorrow, you’re on your own.”
“Master, with all that you’ve told me, WHY do you think I’d consider leaving?”
Timon looked at her sadly. “Tabrina, you can’t stay here. One way or another, they would find ways to get to you here, or get to you while you’re working an inn. I can’t protect you all day and all night and either of us continue to be profitable at our Craft. More than that, I can’t see you continuing to steal for your living, knowing what you do now about your true heritage. You must go to Khartol on your own terms and reclaim your birthright from your father, the King, before those dog-men destroy any chance of your being able to live a respectable and respected life.”
“And I should leave YOU here, with all the information about this that you possess? I’ll leave, Master, but only if you come with me to tell what you know.” Tabrina seated herself and took her master’s hand. “Two people telling the same story will be much more convincing than just one. You haven’t been in Khartol for years, so there couldn’t be any way for the authorities there to have any reason to want you or do anything to you.”
“I have a better idea. When we don’t go into the hideaway tonight, Kavon and Branul may very well come looking for you.” Timon straightened up and stretched his shoulders. “But if I went in alone as if we were unsuccessful earlier and said you were ordered to work the rooms by yourself tonight to make up for lost profits, I might be able to keep them away from you long enough that you could get away safely. So you get packed now, and I’ll go out and saddle Latchkey for you.”
“But I can’t leave you!” Tabrina cried in panic.
“Tabrina, go! Do as I say!” Timon ordered in his curt manner of many months past. “Let’s just hope that I didn’t drink too much of that wine tonight that I can’t handle that stupid horse for one more time.”
Tabrina went back to her corner with tears in her eyes as Timon stumbled out the door. Too much had been revealed that night for her to think clearly, and she threw her gowns into a wadded bundle and tied them together carelessly. She knew from long experience that there would be no swaying Timon from his decision once he got something firmly in mind, and the idea of leaving her master at all was wrenching enough already. To be torn from the side of the one person in this world who actually seemed to care for her was almost past her ability to cope. She tied the bundle together quickly as she heard the clatter of Latchkey’s hooves outside the door.
The huge, black gelding stood unattended at the door, reins hanging to the ground and no visible sign of Timon’s whereabouts, when Tabrina charged outside. A dim light shone from the open door of the stable. The hair on the back of Tabrina’s neck stood up as she realized that Timon would not have sent the horse out and not come himself to say a final farewell. She threw the bundle over the saddle horn and went to mount the horse when she heard a faint stirring behind her. A hand grasped the hem of her gown and tried to pull her away from the horse, but her hold on the saddle and stirrup of Latchkey enabled her to pull free and jump onto the gelding’s back. The dim light of the stables revealed the angry face of Branul and another thief she had seen occasionally in the hideaway as she wheeled her mount around and set off down the road away from Tebrintz at a full gallop.
oOoOo
It was nearly dawn when she walked a tired Latchkey toward a camp of travelers where life was just beginning to stir for the day. A tall, cloaked man looked up warily as the slim girl halted her mount and dismounted quickly. “I’m looking for someone with whom to travel to Khartol. By any chance, are you headed in that direction?” Tabrina asked as she watched two other men come to the side of the one she had addressed.
“We’re going there, young miss. You’re welcome to travel with us,” the man said carefully and soberly. “But, if I might inquire, why were you traveling alone at the dead of night? Are you running from someone? Will you be bringing danger to our party when you join us?”
Tabrina smoothed her gown in an attempt to calm herself before answering. “I AM running, but I don’t think the men who may be following me can catch up even if they knew which way I went.”
“Are you sure?” the second man asked cautiously. “We are a day’s journey from the boundaries of the Emperor’s domain and can ill afford any trouble.”
“Silence, Crom,” the first man ordered with a tone of authority that obviously expected to be obeyed. “We can’t very well let a young lady travel alone if she is in some kind of danger.” He turned back to Tabrina with a calculating expression. “Just how many do you think maybe following you, and why?”
“I can’t tell you why, and I’m sorry for that,” she replied sincerely, “but I can tell you that there are two only who would be following if they could. Perhaps it would be better if I traveled with you only long enough to rest my horse, and then go on ahead so as not to endanger you or the rest of your party in any way?”
“Nonsense,” the man in charge shook his head decisively. “If we have only two to watch out for, I’m sure we could handle them if they dared show their faces.” He swept into a low bow. “I am…”
“No!” the third man warned his superior in alarm.
“Do you think me foolish, Gidon?” the first man snapped impatiently. “I am Wortam. And since you keep the purpose of your journey to yourself, I’m sure you’ll respect that we choose to do the same.”
Tabrina nodded, feeling slightly more at ease now that she was no longer alone. “I’m Tabrina, honored sir. I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you’re allowing to travel with you.”
“I assume you haven’t eaten?” Wortam asked with a smile, fully expecting her negative reply. He turned to the other two. “Gidon, go back to your packing. Crom, see to the horses while I finish getting the breakfast. Lady Tabrina, perhaps you will assist me in providing a woman’s touch with the meal?”
It was an extremely rushed meal after all, and Gidon threw the remains of his water to douse the fire as he rose and collected the utensils from the others almost before they were ready to surrender them. Tabrina wondered at the haste, but was more than willing to go along with the party. After all, she herself had a good reason to wish herself farther down the road as quickly as possible.
The hour or so of inactivity had restored to Latchkey his wind, and the tall gelding had no problem at all keeping up the trotting pace set by the other mounts. Crom and Gidon led the party, watching in all directions for other riders while Wortam fell back to ride at Tabrina’s side. She smiled shyly at him in the early morning light and was startled by a sudden, wary look that came into the young man’s eyes as he looked her in the face for the first time and saw her features clearly. The look passed almost as quickly as it came, and then he smiled widely at her. “You are young to be on the road by yourself, Lady Tabrina.”
“Believe me, it is not by choice,” Tabrina remarked dryly by way of explanation.
“You’re not a horse thief, by any chance, are you?” Wortam asked in a seemingly good humor. “That is a very fine mount you have.”
“Latchkey was a gift,” she answered. “Don’t worry, it’s not the authorities I’m fleeing. Only two very unscrupulous men.”
“That does make me feel somewhat better. I wouldn’t have it known that we harbored a thief in our midst, albeit unknowingly.”
“I think perhaps I should be insulted,” Tabrina said, shaken and struggling to hide that fact, “but then, you seem to be trying to skulk your way out of the country as well. Maybe it should be I who is worried about the company I keep.”
Wortam threw his head back and laughed heartily. “I deserved that. Forgive my suspicions. You have a perfect right to travel without having to explain to everyone who comes along the nature of your journey, just as we do.”
“Are you from Khartol?” Tabrina asked curiously. “I’ve never been there before. What is it like?”
“It’s a grand city,” was the response, despite warning glares from the riders ahead. “Much larger and grander than Tebrintz ever thought of being.”
“How did you know I was from Tebrintz?” she queried in alarm.
“Simple, “ Wortam answered easily. “Your accent is that of Tebrintz, and is quite unmistakable. People from Khartol tend to roll their R’s much more than you do. You’ll notice the difference when we get to Khartol.”
“How far is it?”
“Two more day’s travel. One day to reach the border, and then one more to get to the city itself. Why? Are you in a hurry?”
Tabrina shot her companion a warning glance and refrained from answering, which drew another smile from the handsome man. Wortam was much handsomer than any of the men Tabrina had come in contact with before, with a shock of black hair that seemed to float about his finely chiseled features. Although slender, she could tell that there was much strength in the hands that held the reins of the spirited grey stallion that he rode with such ease. Then she caught sight of his eyes, and she held back a gasp as she saw that they were the same shade of grey that hers were. She glanced ahead at the tall men who were his companions and wondered that they were more bodyguards to this royal personage than just watchful fellow travelers. No wonder they had been ready to refuse her coming with them. If Wortam was Khartoli royalty, what in the name of all the gods was he doing in Tebrintzi lands?
Tabrina was able to ponder her questions off and on as her companion fell into breaking the sound of hooves on packed earth only to point out various landmarks along the way. Late in the afternoon, the four passed a small masonry outpost that Wortam explained signaled the boundary between the lands of Tebrintz and Khartol. The well-armed guard took one look at the regal man and lady at the rear of the part and bowed the four of them on their way without stopping them. The relief on the faces of the other two was obvious, and Wortam left Tabrina’s side to ride ahead and confer with his two companions for a while before they finally pulled to a top at a small inn at the side of the road.
“We’ll rest here tonight, Lady,” Wortam said as Tabrina pulled up Latchkey beside the other mounts. He helped her dismount and, with an almost possessive hand at her elbow, escorted her into the inn. After seating her comfortably at one of the tables, he conferred with the innkeeper, who turned out to be someone she and Timon had had business with before. The man’s eyes widened at the sight of the girl in such company, but he said nothing to reveal their former acquaintance, much to Tabrina’s relief.
Tabrina insisted on paying for her own room, and she bolted the door from the inside and took all the precautions against unwelcome entry that Timon had taught her to use when she was traveling so as not to fall victim to thieves as skilled as they. The mere thought of her master brought a sad sob from the road-weary girl, and slumped over to the window and peered out with lonely tears coursing down her cheeks. It was while staring out the window that she saw the approach of two animals in the moonlight, one of which she immediately recognized as old Jarek. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she hastily tied her bundled clothes back up and crept to the door.
Below, she could hear the grating of Branul’s voice arguing with the innkeeper, and she clutched her bundle close and tiptoed down the hall to where the door to the back stairs waited in darkness. She had her hand on the latch when a strong grasp shackled her elbow and spun her around. “Where do you think you’re going?” Wortam demanded.
Footsteps creaked on the front stairs, and Tabrina tried in vain to pull her arm loose from the Khartoli’s clutches. “Let me go, please!!” she pleaded in desperation. “The men I told you about are here. I don’t…”
“There she is!” Branul’s voice called triumphantly from the head of the stairs, and Tabrina tried to stifle a small scream and pulled harder against Wortam’s hold on her. From another room, Gidon and Crom charged into the hallway and stood by their leader. Wortam dragged the struggling girl with him and faced the two thieves boldly.
“What do you mean, there she is?” he demanded boldly in return. “Do you have business with the Lady Tabrina?”
“Is that what she’s calling herself these days?” Branul sneered at them. “She’s a simple thief who stole a horse from our friend the carpenter two nights ago. We followed her here to bring her back to justice.”
“Don’t listen to them!” Tabrina shrieked. “They’re lying. They’re thieves themselves.”
“Hush!” Wortam hissed at her curtly. “I have no intention of letting them have you, my dear.” He gave a signal to his men, and suddenly two gleaming swords at their throats faced Branul and his cohort. “Take them to a back room and quiet them,” was the deadly calm order, and Wortam turned to the innkeeper with cruel eyes. “I hope you understand that I had best not hear of this incident from anyone not here now, or I promise I will return and make sure you tell no further tales.”
The frightened innkeeper nodded anxiously and turned on his heels to flee back down the stairs to the rest of his guests and a reasonable measure of safety. Tabrina quailed as the stern gaze settled back on her. “And as for you, my dear, best you go back to your room and rest up for the remainder of our journey. Rest well, Tabrina; you will get little chance after we enter the city.”
“Who are you?” Tabrina whispered, her suppositions of royalty fading as the cruel lawlessness of his actions tore away at the façade of gentility that had during the day’s ride actually begun to seem very attractive and interesting. The thought that she’d actually been attracted to him now caused her to swallow hard in disgust. “You aren’t part of the Khartoli royalty, are you?”
“Whatever gave you THAT idea,” Wortam chuckled evilly. “Oh, the thing with the eye color. There are, my poor innocent, others who come from other places who have the grey of Khartoli royalty, just as you do. Perhaps I AM royalty; then again, perhaps not. But the fact that both you and I have those grey eyes of ours will most certainly gain us entrance into the Palace when the time comes.”
“Gods!! Are YOU thieves too?” Tabrina breathed in horror.
“Wortam opened her door and shoved her inside. “Nooo…” he replied with a slow smile that brought chills to the frightened girl, “not thieves. Assassins.” On that note, he pulled the door shut, leaving Tabrina staring at the heavy planking. A few moments later, she heard the sound of a chair being dragged up next to her door; and she knew that Wortam was not going to take any chances in making sure that she was there the next morning to continue on toward Khartol with them.
oOoOo
“Was what that fool said true; are you really a thief?” Wortam asked conversationally as their horses walked quickly down the road. Tabrina only looked at him and did not answer, fearful of what the reaction would be either way she responded. Her silence only brought him closer, and he reached out an iron grip to her already tender elbow. “Was there anything to what they said?” he demanded again.
“Yes!” she cried, and jerked her arm from his painful grasp. “I have just completed my apprenticeship with Timon, the master thief of Tebrintz, the carpenter they claimed I stole the horse from.” Tabrina urged Latchkey over in the road a little farther so as to be hopefully out of Wortam’s reach. “So I’m a thief. I’ve done nothing to you. Let me go on alone, and I promise I won’t speak of having seen you to another living soul.”
“I don’t think so.” Wortam settled into his saddle smugly. “I have no intentions of trusting you after last night. Besides, you’re being a thief gives me an opportunity to study a different angle on the contract I’ve been sent to fulfill.”
“I’m not an assassin. I wouldn’t help you, even if I knew how.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself, my dear. You have just as much to lose if I should see to it that Gidon reports you to the authorities as a known thief from Tebrintz. I think it would behoove you to change your mind.”
“I would rather die in a prison cell than take part in killing another person.”
Wortam snorted in derision. “How noble you sound, little thief! There are many assassins that think the same way of common thieves, you know... Besides, your grey eyes may do more to help me in the beginning without your even needing to speak a single word or pick a single lock. The Khartoli will think us quite a royal procession, between you and me and our grey eyes. There was talk many years ago of a stolen girl child of the King; I could claim to have found you and be bringing you back to your rightful place in the Palace.”
Tabrina shuddered at his unwitting and unknowing discovery of her intentions. “Whom are you going to kill?” she asked, not really wanting to know.
“Ah,” Wortam gave her a sideways glance. “I think it would not be wise to tell you right now. Leave it to say that the target of our skills is an important personage in Khartoli.”
“What if I scream that you are assassins as soon as we enter the city?” she retorted impotently. “What would stop me?”
Wortam chuckled in a tone that made Tabrina’s skin creep. “Well, it would mean that I wouldn’t be able to do my job right away; but then again, I doubt that you could get much out before Crom would have his blade in your throat. He really is quite good with the thrown dagger.”
Tabrina eyed the hulking back of the two assassins ahead of her on the road. She was trapped; just as surely as she had been trapped into learning her craft from Timon a year ago. She had no doubt that Wortam was not exaggerating the ability of his cohort to remove her from the scene quite easily. “I seem to have no choice,” she sighed in defeat.
“No, you don’t,” Wortam agreed coldly. “Think of it this way: if we succeed, you will be free to go about your business; and if we are caught, you face the same penalties as we would for being party to the scheme.” He grinned at her. “That makes everything very simple, with the choice being between death or the possibility of going free in the end.”
Tabrina hunched down as far as she could comfortably in her saddle. Belatedly she wished that she had stayed in Tebrintz to face Branul and Kavon with Timon and never let her master convince her of the importance of her leaving. Timon. The mere through of his name brought tears to her eyes, and she wondered yet again if he had died that night in the stable. She would never know now. Miserable, she kept her gaze on the passing pebbled in the road the rest of the way to the gates of Khartol.
oOoOo
The late afternoon sun shone blood red in the western sky as the immense walls of the city of Khartol loomed in front of the four weary riders. The group approached the gates four abreast; the two other assassins having moved back to either side of Wortam and Tabrina. As before, the guard at the tiny stone house before the gate took one look at the man and woman in the center of the party and waved them on into the busy market square unchallenged.
Tabrina lost the sharp edge of her anxiety as she studied the people of Khartol. Located at the edge of the vast frontier, Khartol drew traders from every corner of the countryside and beyond. Turbaned desert men haggled over the sale price of their sheep alongside the richly robed jewelers with glittering displays of gold and silver wares that would have made Timon’s mouth water. A littler further into the market, Tabrina could see the piles of every imaginable produce in abundance. Although late in the day, the trading did not seem to be slacking whatsoever, and Wortam leaned over and whispered to her, “You see, little thief, you will have the world for the taking if you get through these next few days alive.” His words brought back the seriousness of her predicament, and Tabrina lost all interest in the sights of the city immediately.
After leaving the square and its throng of people, the four riders walked their mounts down a narrow, cobblestoned alleyway just wide enough for one horse to push past the pedestrians. The high walls of the buildings made the alley into a maze, and Tabrina lost all track of direction in the shadowy labyrinth. Finally, Wortam pulled up in front of an open door and dismounted. He helped Tabrina down, and then tossed her bundled clothing at her. “Get a cloak and hood out and cover your face,” he ordered, pulling his own hood over his face so that his features were indistinct. With shaking hands, Tabrina obeyed. Leaving the horses in the care of Gidon, Wortam lead the way into the squalid inn and seated his captive at a table much the same way he had the night before. He nodded at Crom, who took a seat across the table from Tabrina, and then went himself in search of the innkeeper. Tabrina went to pull the hood back from her face but was forestalled with her hands halfway up by a glower from the assassin across the table from her.
Wortam returned and, with mock chivalry, assisted Tabrina to her feet. “I told the innkeeper that you were my wife and indisposed. He will send food up with Crom a little later.” Tabrina tried to pull away, and Wortam hissed at her, “Don’t be foolish. I am quite capable of handling a dagger myself.” Cowed again, Tabrina allowed him to lead her up the darkened stairs to a small room toward the back of the inn.
The handsome assassin drew the heavy beam across the door after he had closed it and turned to Tabrina. “Lay down and get some rest. We must be away from here come nightfall. I want to be done with this business and you as quickly as possible.”
Tabrina sat down on the low bed but did not lie back, not willing to lower her defenses in the presence of the dangerous man she had traveled with. Wortam merely grinned at her and then went to the window and stared out over the city, ignoring her completely. After what seemed like an eternity, a low tapping on the door brought Wortam spinning around. The tapping was in code, and he removed the beam to let Crom enter, carrying a tray piled with thickly sliced bread and a pitcher of wine.
Tabrina helped herself liberally to the wine, hoping perversely that her not being used to drinking much at all would dull her abilities enough to foil any plans Wortam might have in using her in his plot. Wortam was watchful, however, and took the pitcher from her hand as she went to pour herself a third mug of the bitter liquid.
“I think not, my pretty thief. It’s almost time to see if it was worth the trouble and effort of bringing you along in the first place. Listen well, now, for I will tell you this only once.
“The Palace is just a short distance away. Crom will escort you to the front gate and tell the guards that he thinks he has found the lost princess and demand to see the King. You will say nothing. You will then be taken to a waiting room on the second floor, where I want you to wait until the Palace guard leaves and then leave the room yourself, going down the hall until you come to a casement window that opens on the courtyard. Open the window. Gidon and I will climb up and join you there. You will then go back to the waiting room and stay there until you are summoned to the King.”
“You are going to assassinate the King?” Tabrina shivered.
“Bright girl. Now shut up and listen! Now Crom will go with you to see the King. You will agree with his story, whatever he says about you. Probably you will be dismissed until morning and given a room on the off chance the story is true. Crom will lead me to you after the way is clear, and then we will make our way to the royal apartments through a passageway that is little used these days. The doors of the apartments will be locked and guards will be at either side. Once the guards are eliminated, you will open the locks and lead the way to find the bedroom of the King.”
“I can’t believe that you think we will be able to get to the King, kill him, and then be able to get out again with our skins,” Tabrina hissed angrily. “This sounds like a suicide contract.”
“So you know some of our terminology,” Wortam quipped coldly.
“Thieves and assassins sometimes work together. My master taught me well.”
“That is yet to be seen,” he snapped. “As for getting back out again, don’t worry. I know the Palace like the back of my hand. My uncle, the King’s cousin, sent me to be educated in the fine art of diplomacy under the King when I was a boy. I lived there, in the Palace, until I couldn’t take it anymore. My father was, of course, disappointed with my chosen profession until he actually saw a use for it not long ago.”
Tabrina looked at him through narrowed eyes but refrained on commenting on Wortam’s lack of ethics. The idea that she was to be obliged to aid in the assassination of her real father made her more than uneasy; although she did not know him personally, she felt an odd sense of loyalty to her own blood calling to her.
Wortam moved away from the window finally, stating simply, “It’s dark enough. Let’s get on with it.” He took Tabrina’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “You had better hope that all that wine hasn’t affected you very much, my dear. The penalty for being involved in this kind of action is death by slow torture. Not a very pleasant thought, is it?”
Crom took her arm from the other side, and with Gidon watching towards the back the four made their way to the very back of the inn and down the rickety outside stairs to the alley below. Crom gave Tabrina’s arm a wrenching twist. “Remember: you will agree with anything that I say, no matter how preposterous it sounds.”
“You’re hurting me,” she answering by way of reply.
“Just remember,” he repeated as he loosened his grip on her arm and dragged her close to the gate. From above, a guard hailed the pair with a challenge. Crom shouted up at him, “I have news of the stolen princess, and I want to see the King right away.”
The guard disappeared from the ramparts and a few minutes passed until the heavy gates parted to let them enter the Palace grounds. A richly garbed servant gazed into Tabrina’s face sharply, then he nodded and motioned for them to follow him. “Look down. I want you to seem humble,” Crom hissed at her under his breath. Tabrina obeyed more or less, but noted carefully the path they were taking through the halls and worked at memorizing the route in case she was abandoned later. Small torches lit the way to a door where the servant paused. “You will wait in here,” he said rather condescendingly and thrust the door open. Crom and Tabrina walked into the smallish room furnished only with several benches against the walls while the servant pulled the door closed again. Crom put his ear to the door and waited a few moments before he cautiously cracked the door open to check the hall. “Come on,” he whispered.
“No,” Tabrina shook her head and backed away. “I won’t go through with this.”
Crom reached beneath his cloak and pulled a rather nasty-looking dagger out and ran his thumb down one edge. “You WILL come NOW!” he insisted, with an unexpectedly smooth and swift motion grabbing hold of her hair and tugging her head painfully backwards and pointing the blade at her throat menacingly. “You are just not so important that you couldn’t be eliminated easily; and frankly, I’m all for doing away with you entirely. I think it was a mistake to involve you from the beginning; and the only reason you’re still alive is because it wasn’t my decision to make. So MOVE!”
Tabrina considered letting Crom do away with her, as it seemed she probably wasn’t going to survive the day anyway, but her will to live and foil the plan one way or the other would not allow her to give away her live so cheaply. Crom didn’t sheathe the dagger until they were well into the hallway; and he pushed her along to where the hall branched.
Wortam was very strong and very grim in his warning to Tabrina when he had climbed in through the casement window and Crom had explained what she had tried. “The next time you try anything, that WILL be the end of you, do you understand? Crom is right; the plans for this were made long before you came into the picture, and it would be very easy to go back to the way we had decided to do things before. So don’t think for a moment that you are indispensable to us, young lady!”
Tabrina knew she was treading a lethally dangerous path, but she could see no other alternative. Somehow, some way, she had to put a stop to the awful plans. Feigning deep resignation, she thrust her hands into the pockets of her cloak and allowed the men to lead her back down the hall toward the waiting room. The fingers of her right hand touched something that nearly made her trip over her own hem in surprise; she had forgotten that she had put the tiny dagger of her mother’s into the pocket for safe keeping. For the first time since she had entered the Palace, she felt slightly surer of herself. Not only did she have her wit to work with, but she was armed as well.
It seemed that they had just slipped back into the waiting room when the servant returned and showed them to the throne room. Crom nudged the girl to remind her to keep her eyes to the floor and act humble, but that didn’t prevent her from taking a good look at the monarch on the throne who was her father. The King was middle-aged yet muscular. Black hair shot with silver hung to his shoulders, held back by a simple gold circlet. His features were clean-shaven, finely chiseled and delicate; and Tabrina could see that many of her facial features could easily have come from this man. Even Crom took a second, careful look at Tabrina as they approached the throne and gave deep bows.
“This had better not be a joke,” the King’s soft voice spoke sternly. “In the past, there have been many that have claimed to have our lost daughter, and most of those claimants now have their residence in our dungeons.”
“Your Majesty,” Crom began, a little unsettled by the King’s remarks, “see for yourself. Could this girl not be your lost princess?”
The King rose and came closer to Tabrina to take a careful look. “Look at us, girl,” he ordered. Tabrina looked over at Crom, who gave the slightest nod, then up into the King’s face. The King blanched. “Amazing! She does look very like our wife and ourselves. Her mouth,…” He straightened abruptly and resumed his proud and distant air as he moved back toward the throne. “Where did you find her?”
“In the streets of Tebrintz, Your Majesty, stealing a loaf of bread. When I got a good look at her, I remembered the description of the lost princess my old pater used to read to us children many years ago. I just knew I had to bring her here to see if I remembered aright.”
“Your name,” barked the King.
“Crom, Majesty.”
“If this truly IS our daughter, you will be rewarded handsomely. I must admit, she is the closest resemblance to what our daughter must look like that we’ve seen in years.” The King passed a weary hand over his eyes. “You must excuse us. Matters like this are very taxing. You both will be housed here in the Palace for the night, and we will continue our interview in the morning. Our man will should you to your rooms.” He went back to his throne and sat down heavily.
Crom and Tabrina bowed deeply and backed out of his presence. “Wortam was right,” Crom whispered in triumph as they followed the servant up some stairs and down yet another corridor. Tabrina hoped that Crom would be placed in a room far enough away from hers that she would be able to get away before Wortam and Gidon arrived, but her hopes were dashed when Crom was placed in the room right next to hers. What was more, she had barely had a chance to take a superficial look at her room before the door was pushed open and Wortam and Gidon hurried in. “You did well,” Wortam congratulated her coldly, “despite your little display earlier. Now all we have to do is wait for an hour or so until we can safely assume the Kind will have retired for the night.”
“I hate you,” Tabrina spat at him and threw herself down on the bed. “You are the lowest form of life on this world.”
“Why, thank you, Lady,” Wortam acknowledged with a grin, then huddled with Gidon in a corner, whispering so as not to be overheard.
Crom soon joined his cohorts, who stood in a tight group away from Tabrina. During a moment when she knew she was unwatched, she sneaked the dagger from its pocket in her cloak and put it in a hidden pocket of her bodice. Her mind spun as she tried to make some sort of plans for herself, but without knowing exactly what would happen next, there was no way she could figure out a way to either escape or warn the King.
Again, the time passed slowly until Wortam looked over at her and said softly, “Get on your feet, thief. Time to finish this and get out of here.” Tabrina nodded reluctantly with her hands folded over her breast, feeling the sharp hardness of the tiny dagger against her chest. As she moved past him toward the door, Wortam put his hand under her chin and forced her to look up at him. “And now we get to see just how good a thief you’ve turned out to be after all, don’t we?” He smiled and released her chin, placing that same hand in the small of her back and pushing her through the door. “Move.”
The torches in the hallway were sputtering, nearing the end of their fuel for the evening. Wortam lead the way slowly to the grand staircase and up two more floors. At the last step, he paused and motioned for Crom and Gidon to join him. He pointed to his left, and the two followed his finger and saw the double doors of the royal apartments and the two very alert guards that stood rigidly at attention on either side. Crom and Gidon each pulled out their daggers and at a signal from Wortam threw them with deadly accuracy. The guards fell without a cry. Wortam grabbed the reluctant girl and dragged her to the doors. “Get those doors open quickly,” he hissed. “We have fifteen minutes before the guard changes and we are discovered.”
Tabrina knelt in front of the lock and, taking the few tools of her craft from her cloak pocket, set about picking the lock as slowly as she dared. She would not be able to take too much time, or Wortam would begin to suspect her. As it was, she heard his angry snort when he realized that she had managed to bring unknown tools into the Palace without his having thought to search her to see what ELSE she might have brought. As it happened, the lock was tricky indeed, and her delay at opening it cost the assassins three or four minutes, with Wortam urging her on with more and more anxiety. Finally she heard the tumblers move into place, and she rose and pushed the one door open silently.
“About time,” Wortam growled as he pushed past her and into the darkness. Even Crom scowled angrily at her, but held his tongue. Gidon merely pushed Tabrina ahead of him and pulled the door closed behind them, making the darkness complete. “As I remember, the King’s bedchamber is to our right,” came Wortam’s whisper from the darkness, and Gidon’s firm pushing kept Tabrina in line with the faint sounds of footsteps in front of them. She stepped slowly and as loudly as she dared, but bumped into a body that had halted in front of her. A strong hand pulled her forward past the body and smack into a wall. “This is the one,” Wortam whispered and found her hand and placed it on the latch. “If it’s locked, open it.”
“Why should it be locked?” Tabrina whispered back, earning herself a heavy cuff to her shoulder.
“He sometimes locks the door when he is reminded of the other time a thief made it this far into the Palace. Your appearance probably made sure of that. Now, shut up and get to work!”
Tabrina’s hands shook as they tried the latch and found that Wortam was again correct. It was more difficult this time to pick the tricky lock without the benefit of light, but she managed it only a little less quickly than the last. “You first,” Wortam whispered in her ear, “In case the old monster isn’t yet asleep.”
Tabrina shivered and did as she was told, but drew her tiny dagger from its hiding place. If she was going to prevent any bloodshed of innocents, there was very little time left to waste. The bedchamber was dark, yet not as dark as the anteroom had been; the dim moonlight shone through three large windows ahead and illuminated the room enough for her to be able to distinguish the position of the huge bed. Wortam and Gidon pushed past her and headed for the bed. In the activity, Tabrina spun around without warning and sank the diminutive blade deep into Crom’s chest. His cry rang through the room and made Gidon spin around in surprise. From the bed came a mumbling that indicated that the King was rousing.
Surprisingly, Wortam did not head for the bed to finish his job, but took his own dagger and sank it into the back of an unsuspecting Gidon, who fell silently at his feet. Tabrina faced Wortam, her tiny blade shining in the darkness and ready for him to make his move as she circled warily in order to put herself between him and the King. “I told you I couldn’t go along with this,” she said quietly. A spark danced near the bed, and the disheveled King lifted a candle up to enable him to see his intruders. As his gaze came to rest on Wortam, his mouth dropped open.
“You!”
“You were right, Uncle. There was a plot to kill you.”
Tabrina started to shake. Wortam seemed prepared to talk his way out of his dilemma, depending upon acquaintance to defend against capture. “Don’t listen to him, Sire!” she called out over her shoulder. “This was all HIS idea! He really was coming to kill you.”
The King seemed to disregard the girl’s warning. He rose from his bed and came over to look down at the body of Gidon, lying in a pool of blood. “Are they both dead?”
“I know this one is; the other may still live, but not for long.” Wortam sheathed his dagger after wiping it on Gidon’s pantleg and moved quickly over to the fallen Crom. He rolled the killer over with his foot. “This one is dead as well.” He looked up into Tabrina’s pale face. “You did better than I thought you could, little thief. You saved me the trouble of killing him myself. Thank you.”
Tabrina remained in her defensive stance with her bloody little blade held forward threateningly, still shifting to put herself between the King and the man she perceived as a threat. “Your Majesty, don’t you see he’s lying to get away with trying to kill you?” she asked desperately, starting to wonder if anything could convince the King to listen to her. “Please, listen to me!”
Again, however, the King seemed to ignore her. “Was the girl a part of the plan?” he asked Wortam in a conversational tone of voice, only beads of perspiration on his upper lip showing his stress.
“Not willingly, as you can see for yourself. She came upon us as we neared the Tebrintzi-Khartoli border. In reality, she is a thief fleeing two unsavory men who had visions of dragging her here to claim the reward for the lost princess for themselves. I found out about their plans when they caught up with us in an inn last night. I figured that having her along as an unwilling accomplice would perhaps give me an ally when the moment came to eliminate the assassins themselves. I was right.”
“You don’t really believe him, do you?” Tabrina cried.
The King finally turned a kindly face to her. “Of course we do, dear. You see, he was acting under OUR orders to discover if there was any truth to the rumors that his father, our cousin, was conspiring to have us killed. His task was to foil the plot by making himself a part of it to sabotage it from inside. He had no reason to aid his father to gain a chance at the throne for himself — for you see he is already, although secretly, our designated heir.”
“But…” Her mind spun, unable to comprehend. “What about the guards outside?”
“Their deaths were regrettable, but unavoidable,” Wortam sighed. “I couldn’t reveal my true intentions too soon, or those two might have managed to escape justice only to be hired to try again at a later date. What better proof that they did indeed intend to kill the King than to let them get as far as the King’s own chamber, even to the point of killing the King’s guards, before taking care of them? Had we not killed them ourselves, you and I, there would still have been more than adequate proof of their guilt to see them properly punished as traitors and assassins.”
“It’s too bad that you really ARE a thief, dear,” the King said softly and gently, “for we had convinced our Queen that there was a real chance that our daughter might have been finally found in you. But for your aid to our nephew, and for saving our life, you are free to go and practice your craft outside our boundaries.” He moved in closer. “Go in peace, child. You have done us, and this kingdom, a great service.”
Tabrina stared back and forth from Wortam to the King in shock, and finally down to the tiny blade still covered in blood that she continued to hold out in a defensive stance. She shuddered at the sight of it and threw it down on the floor next to the body of her victim and turned on her heel to leave.
“WAIT!!”
The shock in the King’s voice spun Tabrina around in her tracks. The monarch leaned down and picked up the dagger she had discarded with cautious fingers and wiped it clean on Gidon’s shirt, then brought it into the candlelight to examine it closer. He looked back at her, his eyes wide with surprise. “This was stolen from my Queen’s chamber the same night that our daughter was taken. Where did YOU get it?”
Tabrina blanched even more. “I stole it from a chest of my mother’s things the night I learned I was destined to be a thief whether I wanted to be or no. She had had it ever since I was a small child — it was the only thing I had of hers to remind me of her.”
“Your mother’s name! Quickly!”
Tabrina stared at him. Could Timon’s story and Branul’s claim have really been the truth after all? “Jaline,” she stammered.
The King grabbed Wortam’s sleeve. “Wasn’t that the name of the thief that was seen leaving Khartol with a child she’d not had before?”
Wortam stared at Tabrina as if he were seeing her for the first time. “I’m not sure. It’s been such a long time, Uncle…”
“That must have been the name, I’m sure of it.” The King made a motion as if he wanted to reach out to Tabrina, but withdrew the hand before it had extended even halfway. “I want to believe it, after all these years of pain and disappointment. But I want to be sure.” He paced a small circle, trying to remember the features that he had told the guards so long ago that until just that moment had seemed indelibly engraved into his memory. Then he looked up. “Do you have…”
A commotion outside his door interrupted his train of thought, and three guards crashed through the chamber door with swords drawn. They took one look at the disheveled King and Wortam, then closed in on Tabrina. One of them grabbed her by her long, black hair and jerked her head back. He waited for the word from his ruler to take the intruder away, and looked over at the King in confusion when that word was withheld to see his monarch holding up his hand to still the action. The King was staring at Tabrina.
Slowly, as if in a trance, he came over to Tabrina and bent to look at the back of her neck. With her hair pulled out of the way, the tiny red patch that had been a constant embarrassment to her as a small child was exposed. The King touched the spot gently, then rubbed it a little to see whether it was just splattered blood. The patch remained. “You have always had that mark on your neck?” His voice trembled.
“I guess so,” Tabrina replied tentatively, then tossed her head so that her hair again hid the patch. Since her hair had grown long enough, she hadn’t noticed the patch for years, and nobody else had either — which was fine by her. “I had forgotten about it.”
The guard, realizing something greater was happening and that the girl he held was not to be hauled away, released his hold on Tabrina and went to help his comrades in removing the bodies of the dead assassins from the room. The King continued to stare at the trembling girl, barely noticing when his Queen entered the room and placed her hand on her husband’s arm in concern. “What are you called?” he whispered.
“Tabrina,” she answered softly.
The Queen looked at the girl and gasped. “Is this?…”
“Our daughter’s name was Camira,” the King mused, “but it is possible that the thief changed her name to avoid discovery. It would have been a simple thing for her to begin a new life in Tebrintz with nobody the wiser. And our daughter would have grown up never knowing her true identity and believing that stealing was a legitimate craft and profession.” He looked at her, and his disappointment in her was almost palpable. “Camira became Tabrina, and so a princess became a scofflaw and thief.”
Tabrina lowered her eyes to the floor. For the first time since accepting her fate with Timon, she felt shame at the thought of how hard she’d worked to learn and then hone her skills. Tears began forming in her eyes and flowing slowly down her cheeks.
Wortam’s face twisted into a scowl at the sight of them, and he moved to Tabrina’s side and put an arm around her shoulder protectively. “Uncle! Is this the way you greet your daughter, lost these many years? With words that bring her to tears of shame and guilt over something she could not control? She isn’t responsible for the way she was raised; she had no choice in the matter. In all the time she was with me, she has displayed nothing less than a genteel nature. Did you not once say that how she was raised as would make no difference, provided that she DID return to you someday?”
“Wortam is right, my husband,” the Queen tightened her grasp on the King’s arm. “We should be grateful that she is returned safely to us at long last, not berate her for her past.” She stepped past her husband and forward to take Tabrina from Wortam’s loose embrace into a much closer one of her own. “Welcome home, child.” The Queen looked a challenge at her husband over her shoulder, then turned her attention back to the girl in her arms. “Welcome home, Camira.”
Tabrina stiffened and pulled back and away from the Queen with a stony look on her face. “I am Tabrina, not Camira,” she stated firmly, deliberately refusing to allow the stricken look on the Queen’s face to affect her. “Perhaps I was Camira before I was stolen from you, but I have been Tabrina for too long to change back now.” The shame and guilt disappeared now, only a momentary reaction to the King’s disappointment.
She lifted her head and looked into the King’s eyes defiantly. “I was raised by thieves, trained as a thief and earned a reputation of my own as a thief. I was and am proud of my abilities and training, and I worked long and hard to master my craft. This was the lot life handed me, I’ve made it mine and I feel no need to apologize for it. If you cannot accept me as I am now, then it would be better for all of us that I leave and go home to Tebrintz. Just as I couldn’t become assassin before just to save my own skin, I doubt I can become the kind of princess you want me to be just to have a soft bed and easy life.”
“Tabrina,” Wortam interrupted in hopes of calming her, but Tabrina only turned and gave him a hard stare that made him squirm. In the past day or so, while he hadn’t exactly mistreated her, he had shocked and frightened her badly and given her little reason to listen to him at all.
“At least you can tell me if, before you locked them away, Branul and Kavon told you if they had killed Timon? I must know.”
“Timon lives,” Wortam admitted reluctantly when he saw she wasn’t going to back away from her question. “At least, that was what they claimed; that he was merely unconscious when they left him to chase after you.”
Tabrina felt the band of heavy sadness that had been her fear of her master’s demise fall from her soul. “Then at least there is someone in Tebrintz who will accept me for who I am now.” Her voice betrayed her bitterness; and then she turned away again, more than ready to at last go home.
“Tabrina, wait,” Wortam again interrupted. “Be reasonable! You aren’t giving these people much of a chance at all. Surely you don’t expect them get used to the idea that you’ve grown up the way you did in just a moment or two. Gods, they’re your father and mother!”
Tabrina paused in her tracks, and then turned and took another look at the monarchs of Khartol as they stood supporting each other, looking both shocked and stricken at the thought that they might lose their daughter yet again. “I know they are,” she responded to him more softly. “But they remember only the baby Camira and the person they had hoped and dreamed she would turn out to be. They’ve been waiting for that Camira to return. It’s pretty obvious they don’t want ME.”
She paused and then spoke to the staggered monarchs. “I am truly sorry, but Camira is dead. She died the night the thief Jaline took a fancy to a baby lying in a cradle and stole out of the Palace with her. I can’t go back and pretend the lifetime I’ve spent with Jaline and Branul in Tebrintz as their daughter didn’t happen,” and she raised her chin defiantly, “and I wouldn’t even if I could. Besides, you’ve made it very clear that you don’t want a Tebrintzi thief in your kingdom, Majesty. Father.” The word tasted bitter, and she shook her head, rejecting it. “You see only what I have become, not ME. And while I may be a thief, even thieves have a sense of honor and judge a person by who they are, not what they are. I don’t belong here — and I don’t think I want to.”
The King finally shook himself free of his stupor at the rapid and downward spiral of events. “Please… Wait… Forgive me — I spoke rashly, without thinking. While I had many nightmares about what might have become of you, your being raised a thief among thieves was never one of them. But no matter what you have become, or what you call yourself, you are still our daughter and a princess of Khartol. You DO belong here — with us. We can learn…” He swallowed hard. “Each of us… can learn to accept the other… We just need a little time.”
“Just give us a chance, please…” the Queen pleaded poignantly. “Get to know us and allow us to get to know you. Be yourself, and let us be more ourselves than we are in this extraordinary moment.” The graying woman began to shake as she reached out to her daughter one more time. “We have waited so long to find you. Cam… Tabrina… Please…”
Tabrina backed away just that much further from the hands that stretched out to her. “I can’t make a decision like that without settling with my past first. I need to go back to Tebrintz, to make sure my master is alright and hear his opinion.” She watched the Queen falter back into the arms of her husband and disintegrate into tears, and at last felt the Queen’s emotions touch her despite her efforts to remain aloof. “I can stay a day or so first, I suppose,” she relented, her eyes catching and holding the King’s.
oOoOo
Tabrina spent three days in the Khartoli Palace, three days that gave her both a taste of the easy and pampered life her parents were offering her there with them as well as a taste of the kind of captivity luxury can become that she’d never known possible. She had grown up with chores assigned, so the idea of having to work was an accepted and even welcome concept. But when her mother had tried to teach her daughter the very beginning stitches of embroidery that first morning, and Tabrina had seen how her mother very patiently accepted it as her lot to spend the better part of each day bent over needlework meant for the King’s wardrobe, the girl had rebelled. The moment the midday meal was concluded, Tabrina had beat a hasty path to the stables and more or less hidden in Latchkey’s new and plush stall.
Wortam had finally found her there, leaning tiredly and forlornly against Latchkey’s exceedingly well-groomed shoulder with the curry brush still in her hand. Then he’d stood leaning against the side of the stall, silent and patient, while Tabrina had railed at him against the loss of independence she was being expected to accept as the price of being a princess. The moment it began to look as if she was running out of arguments, he would break his silence, speak up and make a comment comparing her former life to what she had in Khartol that would spark her ire again. This continued until she was spent enough to finally figure out what he was up to, and then she joined him in a chagrinned chuckle at her own lack of attention.
At that point, he reminded her that he, too, had once had his fill of Palace life and left — that THAT part of his story hadn’t been a deliberate deception. He’d led her out into the garden, sat down with her and spoken of his life — and in the narrative taught her more about life as a royal than she’d been able to gather as yet on her own. She eventually let him escort her back into the Palace for the evening meal, finally accepting that the refined gentility she’d once seen in him was, in fact, his true nature. The time she’d spent with him that afternoon left her feeling that she had at least one friend in the Palace who knew and accepted her, knowing exactly who and what she was and not being confounded by the contradiction.
That night, after supper, her father had very carefully and patiently taken her aside and tried to explain to her the notions and rules of propriety and station, and the reasons behind the separation of duties between those of the nobility and royalty and the rest of the kingdom. Tabrina had listened quietly and asked no questions. It was obvious King Frodran had never questioned these values or notions; and she could see that he had no idea how utterly contrary they were to the way she’d been raised. Nevertheless, he was trying to reach out to his daughter in the only way he knew how, and she could at least appreciate the effort he was making on her behalf.
Queen Isolde, for her part, was never anything but loving and openly demonstrative to her daughter; but it was obvious that the long years not knowing her child’s fate had weakened the Queen’s health and stamina considerably. In fact, the needlework with which she filled her day was the most demanding task she could manage anymore. Learning this, Tabrina schooled herself to patiently sit with her mother in the mornings, using nimble fingers that picked locks and pockets with ease to practice the painstaking needlework that was one of the main duties of noblewomen. As she worked her needle, she carefully began to answer her mother’s questions about what her previous life had been like. She omitted those events that she feared would upset the delicate Queen, and found those moments when the Queen understood her completely to be most satisfying. In return, the Queen reminisced about when she was younger, and again Tabrina learned of life as a royal through the narrative of another.
Her afternoons were spent in Wortam’s company, either walking in the gardens or sitting at a table struggling to master the basics of reading — a task he had assigned himself upon learning that she was completely unschooled. Only with Wortam did she feel completely free to be herself and let her sometimes prickly temper show itself. The tall Khartoli noble seemed to derive endless amusement in her displays of temper and enjoyed blatantly pricking it to life. Tabrina began watching his expressions carefully in self-defense so that she could finally learn just what set him off as well. Their arguments were heated and a satisfying vent for frustrations she didn’t feel comfortable airing otherwise, and their more sedate talks cemented into place a friendship and mutual respect that had begun days earlier before being interrupted by intrigue and conspiracies.
As challenged as she felt by this new life, Tabrina spent the next two days in silent turmoil. She found herself wanting desperately to please and impress parents who were bending over backward to try to make her feel as loved and welcome as possible in her unfamiliar ancestral home and state. She surprised herself by finding she was wanting to get closer to a certain handsome young Khartoli nobleman who made her feel more alive than she had ever felt before. And yet, ever present in her mind was the desperate desire to saddle Latchkey and gallop all the way back to Tebrintz, back to her old life.
By the morning of the third day, however, she could stand the strain no longer. She didn’t exactly fit into the Palace life; she knew this. The questions that obsessed her then were whether she could still fit into a life as a thief in Tebrintz — and what she would do if she found that even that life no longer fit her. Those questions couldn’t be answered from the Palace in Khartol; she had no choice, she had to leave.
She would have fled Khartol alone in the middle of the night, but her father had made her promise to take a guard with her when she did leave — and to let the man accompany her at least until she had made a decision to remain in Tebrintz or return. She had easily agreed to his terms to save him as much grief and worry as possible, having become inexplicably fond of a man who, despite a tendency to be aloof and cold otherwise, was doing everything he could think of to be a loving father to her. Telling Frodran and Isolde that she was leaving them was one of the hardest things Tabrina had ever done — and after that, she had neither the heart nor the courage to tell Wortam of her decision or to bid him goodbye.
It was the guard he had assigned her that, even as she was saddling Latchkey, had convinced her that should she decide to return to Khartol eventually after returning the gelding she’d still need a mount for the return trip — for propriety’s sake, if for no other reason. She’d sighed heavily at the echoes of her father’s lecture from such an unlikely source and then pointed blindly to a stall across the way from Latchkey’s; and so three horses had left for Tebrintz that morning.
Once within the walls of Tebrintz, Latchkey no longer needed or heeded guidance from his rider, but followed the winding path that took him the most direct route from the city gate to the street in front of the carpenter’s shop that was his home. Tabrina dismounted, signaled to the guard that had accompanied her to remain with the horses, and then went in search of her master. The sounds of rhythmic scraping, so familiar, drew Tabrina through the hovel and out the back to the workshop, where she could see the back of her master bending and stretching as he carefully planed smooth and straight the lumber he was going to work with.
“Master?” she called softly.
Timon glanced over his shoulder at her, then returned to his work. His head bore heavy bandages from the attack in the stables, and his left eye was still nearly swollen shut with a bruise that was already turning an ugly green beneath the purple. From the way he was moving stiffly about his shop, Tabrina could guess that he was most likely bruised in less visible spots as well. “What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.
“I brought Latchkey back to you. Once I heard you were still alive, I knew that if I kept him, it would have been stealing — and I promised I wouldn’t steal from you, remember?”
The thief harrumphed and ran the plane over the lumber a couple more times. Then he turned, folded his arms across his chest stared deeply into his apprentice’s eyes. “You found your parents?” Timon asked, knowing instantly from the expressions that crossed Tabrina’s face the answer.
“Yes,” she answered simply.
But Timon didn’t want to hear the narrative, and shook his head and threw his hands up defensively when she would have begun telling her story. “You found them. Good. So what are you doing back here? Why aren’t you in your Palace, safe and secure?” He turned back to his work and ran the plane smoothly and repeatedly again. “You could have sent Latchkey back with someone else,” he commented between strokes.
“I needed to talk to you.” Tabrina took the wood plane from Timon’s hand and lead him away from his latest carpentry project back into his hut and the familiar smell of burning peat from the hearth to sit together at the table as they had that night nearly a lifetime ago. “I don’t know what to do, master,” she began, and then broke into confused tears.
“What do you mean, you don’t know what to do?” Timon shouted angrily at her, making her cringe. “You leave a life we common people can only dream of because you ‘don’t know what to do’? I taught you better than that! Open your eyes, girl! You are — were — a thief, and a damned good one at that. But that’s no life for you now. What is there to decide? There’s no big decision to be made between stealing to eat or having your food brought to you on a golden platter! There’s a world of difference between drinking bitter ale in the hideaway with the Guild and sipping the finest nectar with good, honest folk.”
“But I don’t fit there,” Tabrina choked out. “For months, while we were working together, you were like a father to me. I was raised HERE… Those people… they don’t know me like you do… You’re my master…”
“Ah, Tabrina, you fool,” Timon said sadly. “We were master and apprentice, nothing more. I remember the sense of duty and affection I had for MY master so many years ago. It is love of a sort, but not the kind that should make you want to give up a better life. And I won’t allow it to. I’m not your father and I don’t want you to think of me that way — your father is a King.”
“But don’t you love me too, just a little?” Tabrina whispered brokenly.
“Of course I do, or I wouldn’t have warned you and protected you as best I could — or told you of your true heritage. But I will not become something I’m not. That is not the way of the thief, and you know it as well as I do. We thieves take what we can and then walk away without a second thought, looking for other fools to steal from. It can be no other way for us. A master thief has no place in his life for soft feelings that can only distract him.” He leaned toward her and poked his finger into the rough table for emphasis.
“Listen to me, and listen well. Tomorrow I return to the hideaway for the first time since you left. When I come home, your pallet will be filled with another fresh face, and I will find myself breaking in yet another young brat to the skills and game of wits we call our craft. That is my place in the Guild — teacher to the young. You and I have nothing further in common. You go back to your fine Palace and be what you were born to be — and don’t think of coming back here again. There is nothing left for you here.”
“Timon!!”
He shrugged, unmoved by her tone. “Or go back to being a thief, if that is truly your wish. But there will still be no place for you here with me. The night you left would have been our last night as master and apprentice anyway, even if this all hadn’t happened. The results would have been the same, and there still would be a fresh face in the corner — only it would already have been there a while. I’m not your master any longer, Tabrina; you’re on your own. So make your decision, make it carefully, and then live with it.”
He rose and, with a firm hand at her elbow, escorted the sobbing girl to the door. “Go be what you need to be, Tabrina,” he said more softly and gently, “and I know you’ll do well with whatever you choose. For whatever it’s worth to you, you have my blessings on your decision; but I cannot and will not tell you what to choose. All I can do is remember you with fondness, as I do many of my past apprentices. Go now. I have work to do.”
He closed the door in her face, leaving her alone in the street staring at the blank slab of rough-hewn wood.
Tabrina put her face in her hands and leaned against the wood, sobbing out her misery and loneliness on the unyielding planking. Finally she threw her head back, wiped the tears from her face, and turned to where her guard sat on his steed and held the other two horses’ reins patiently. She took the reins of Latchkey from him and led the gelding into the stable and back into his old stall. Latchkey nickered softly as she tied him to the post and stroked the soft cheeks of the horse one last time. “Goodbye, old friend. Take good care of him for me, will you?” she whispered into his ear and, with a last caress to his forelock, walked away from the stable and back to where the guard still waited for her.
She stood in front of the lowly dwelling for a long time, thinking through her choices. The bundle tied to the riderless stallion’s back held a leather jerkin and trousers, garb she would exchange for the fine gown she was wearing should she decide that returning to her former life was what she wanted. The guard looked down from his mount at her, and while his eyes showed some understanding, he kept his council to himself. The King had been most specific in giving him his instructions — the princess was to be allowed to make her own decisions, no matter what those decisions might be.
Tabrina looked around her at the rough and crude dwellings and shops, feeling at the same time comfortable and repelled by them. This was where she had spent her life, and yet now that she’d come to know a finer, gentler existence, street life just seemed to have something missing. She heard the raucous laughter emerging from the nearby tavern and winced. Nearly a week with more refined company had made such loud, boisterous noise almost obnoxious — and this wasn’t even half as loud or raucous as the hideaway became on any night. The worst of it was that Timon, her guide to life on the streets of Tebrintz, had discarded her like a piece of moldy bread — told her in so many words that she didn’t belong here. There was no question of returning to Branul’s hovel; he had been willing to sell her into a life of total depravity without a single qualm. Standing there in the street, she knew without a doubt that she no longer fit into life as she’d known it.
She didn’t fit anywhere.
Silently, and without looking at the guard at her side, she mounted the unfamiliar stallion and then turned the spirited horse’s head back in the direction of the city gates, not entirely sure what she would do after that.
oOoOo
Tabrina spoke not a single word to the guard that entire day as they walked their mounts down the long road back to Khartol, having sunk into a state of shock and numbness. Only the insistence of the guard made her stop for the night at a spot very close to where she had met up with Wortam and the two other assassins only a week earlier; but that night seemed already two lifetimes past. She ate only sparingly of the meal the guard prepared for her, and then turned to her lonely bedroll unwilling to share her grief and confusion with a stranger.
Sleep would not come, and she rose to stir the embers of the fire listlessly. Then, in the distance, the sound of rapid hooves broke the silence of the night and brought the guard bolting out of his blankets, hand on the hilt of his sword. The gallop slowed to a trot and then a walk as the rider closed in on the campfire. Tabrina peered into the blackness nervously, and eventually her eyes discerned the tall figure of horse and rider in the shadows.
“Looks like you didn’t stay long in Tebrintz after all,” a familiar voice commented wryly, and the rider dismounted.
“Wortam,” Tabrina breathed in relief and motioned for her guard to relax. Louder, she repeated, “Wortam. What in the name of all the gods are you doing here?”
The handsome Khartoli moved into the dim light of the fire next to her. “I came after a horse thief.”
“What?!”
He smiled at her gently. “In your rush to leave Khartol to seek out your old master the other morning, little thief, you stole MY horse from the royal stables.”
Tabrina giggled, and Wortam moved closer to her, chuckling as well. “I told you that night in the Palace that my master had taught me well,” she managed between spasms of laughter.
“I’m finding out how true that is,” Wortam agreed, barely succeeding in stifling the urge to throw his head back and shout his relief at finding her apparently back on the road to Khartol. He sobered quickly and moved a little closer yet to her. “Had you thought to bid me farewell, rather than just vanish from the Palace without a single word to me, I would have given Blizzard to you freely.”
No wonder the beautiful grey stallion had seemed so familiar to her. “I didn’t mean to steal your horse, Wortam,” she confessed softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” the tall noble smiled down at her. “Losing my horse was the least of my worries. Uncle Frodran told me that the guard would bring Blizzard back, one way or the other. But, you see, you’d already stolen something else from me quite a while ago. I didn’t really miss it until after you were already long gone, and it took me a whole day after that to decide to come looking for it, too.”
Tabrina sobered instantly. Wortam’s closeness was disconcerting; she felt her breath coming fast and her cheeks become hot and flushed. “What was that?” she whispered.
“Oh no,” Wortam murmured as he cupped her cheek ever so gently and drew her closer still. “If I told you, I’d ruin my chances at returning the favor of stealing yours first.” Agonizingly slowly, he lowered his lips to hers; and in the heat of the kiss, Tabrina felt a bubble of emotions burst within her, making her throw her arms around his neck. At last she knew where she belonged and what she wanted.
Breathless, Wortam whispered in her ear as he nuzzled her neck, “Well, am I making love to a thief or to a princess?”
“Yes,” she replied with confidence, and pulled his lips back down to hers hungrily.