The horse startled forward, forcing Jerin to step backward. Pain flared up his leg. He bit down on a gasp, but not quickly enough.

Cira's voice came out of the darkness. "Who's there?"

"I've got a gun." Jerin tried to keep his voice calm as he pulled out his pistol and leveled it at her. It was so heavy for something so small. "I know how to use it. I will use it."

"Jerin!" Cira cried, and launched herself at him.

If it had been one of the other women, he would have pulled the trigger. He was sure he would have. He tried to tighten his finger, to pull the trigger, to kill her, but he couldn't, he just couldn't. Her acts of respect and kindness flashed through his mind, freezing him in place.

She caught hold of him in a crushing hug, pressing a damp cheek to his. "Oh, thank the G.o.ds, oh, thank the G.o.ds, oh, thank the G.o.ds," she breathed like a mantra into his ear. Then she was kissing him, a desperate hungry kiss.

He jerked out of her hold, whimpering in pain as he put weight on his bad ankle again. "I've got a gun. I know how to use it. Please, don't make me."

"I'm not part of them, Jerin." The flame from the shack gleamed on her pale face. "On my word. I came to save you."

"I can save myself."

"I can see that." Her tone almost seemed like admiration. "Let me help you."

"I don't trust you!"

They stood, facing each other, as the fire crept through the shack's ceiling to feast on the dried sod roof.

"You're not going to believe anything I say, are you?" she said quietly.

"No." He motioned with his gun. "Back up."

She backed up, giving him plenty of room to run. He swung up onto the smooth back of the horse and took it.

Chapter 14.

It was almost a royal brawl on the landing of Mayfair. Despite Ren's orders for Odelia, Lylia, and Trini to be escorted back to the palace, they met her on the cobbled landing.

"Look at this!" Lylia cried, thrusting a copy of the Herald Herald at Ren. "Is it true? Is he gone?" at Ren. "Is it true? Is he gone?"

Ren took the paper and scanned it. The Herald Herald, always willing to blare out rumors, hearsay, and outright lies, blasted the story of Jerin's kidnapping across the front page. The Herald Herald went on to decry the royal security, lamenting that losing an innocent from the palace was a sign of supreme incompetence. Worse, the story begged someone, anyone, to save the poor royal-blooded boy before it was too late. Read carefully, it hinted darkly that such saviors could expect to keep their spoils. After such an article, the public would look softer at Kij for keeping Jerin after "rescuing" him from the river trash. Kij was already juggling madly to make her marriage to Jerin respectable. The news of Jerin's kidnapping must have reached the went on to decry the royal security, lamenting that losing an innocent from the palace was a sign of supreme incompetence. Worse, the story begged someone, anyone, to save the poor royal-blooded boy before it was too late. Read carefully, it hinted darkly that such saviors could expect to keep their spoils. After such an article, the public would look softer at Kij for keeping Jerin after "rescuing" him from the river trash. Kij was already juggling madly to make her marriage to Jerin respectable. The news of Jerin's kidnapping must have reached the Herald's Herald's office long before it reached Ren. Or-she gritted her teeth in sudden anger-even before Jerin had even been kidnapped! office long before it reached Ren. Or-she gritted her teeth in sudden anger-even before Jerin had even been kidnapped!

"Well?" Trini asked quietly.

"Yes, he's gone," Ren admitted, crushing the newspaper, wishing it was Kij's throat. "They came in through the bolt-hole and kidnapped him, just like the paper says."

"What are we doing just standing here, then?" Ode-lia cried.

"Raven is securing a boat,'" Ren told them, beating her palm with the crumpled paper. Jerin's kidnapping wasn't an impromptu grab and run. Kij had planned it in greater detail than Ren had initially given her credit for. What other plans were set? Did Kij count on their chasing after her?

Ren uncrumpled the paper and scanned the story. Not surprisingly, there were no mentions of cribs; Kij would want to keep Jerin's reputation clean of that rumor. Otherwise, though, the text ran close to hysterical over the possible dangers that Jerin faced. Surely, upon reading the story, even the most coldhearted of women would rush after their betrothed. "Where did you get this, Lylia?"

Lylia was standing on tiptoe, looking over their guard's heads for Raven. "One of the clerks at the courthouse brought it around. She was concerned that we didn't know what had happened." Kij was concerned that they didn't know. "There's Raven now!"

"Good! We can get moving!" Odelia started toward Raven.

Ren caught Odelia by the elbow and pulled her back. "No. You three aren't going anywhere."

"What?" they cried in dismayed chorus.

Lylia recovered first. "I'm going after Jerin!"

"Me too!" Odelia tried to shake loose from Ren's hold.

"It's a wife's duty to guard and protect her husband," Trini stated firmly. "You can't stop me from doing so."

"The Porters are behind this! They killed Eldest and the others. They want the throne," Ren told them. She added in what she knew, and then what she only suspected. "Kij wants us to chase after her. She has some trap in store."

"Surely you're not suggesting letting them them keep Jerin!" Trini growled, her eyes narrowed in anger. "Not after all they have done to us!" keep Jerin!" Trini growled, her eyes narrowed in anger. "Not after all they have done to us!"

"No!" Ren cried, hurt that they would think her capable of that. "I'm saying that only one of us should go!"

"Kij doesn't know that we know it's her!" Odelia pointed out. "We'll be on our guard!"

Ren shook her head. "She can't trust her luck that we haven't guessed. She's in too deep. She has to be sure that when she strikes this time, she gets us all. She's taken our husband, printed this d.a.m.n story, and left a trail to follow. It's a trap!"

"And we're supposed to sit back and let you ride off to get killed, and do nothing?" Lylia asked.

"You're supposed to stay here and make sure our little sisters are safe, or have you forgotten that they're between the Porters and the throne too?"

Her sisters exchanged guilty looks.

"You think Kij is going to lure us upriver and then attack here?" Trini asked.

"Quite possibly," Ren said. "Our mothers might be mostly retired, but they're still a force to fear. If Kij kills us upriver, unless she counterblows here too, against the palace, then she'll be facing a very angry Queen Mother Elder."

"Go upriver," Trini said quietly. "We'll guard against the Porters here."

Raven broke her silence. "It would be best if none of you go. I can take a boat and fetch Jerin back."

Ren shook her head. "Much as we love Jerin, he figures in this only as bait, and as a royal husband for whoever comes out alive. I need to go upriver and nail Kij to the nearest tree."

"You can't arrest a d.u.c.h.ess on her ducal grounds, Captain," Trini added. "You don't have the power."

Raven's mouth quirked into a grin. "It might be fun to try, though. She wouldn't be suspecting it-a common arrest is much below her own sense of self-importance."

"I don't want her warned," Ren said. "I have a feeling that we'll have only one shot to get her. I want to make the most of it. Raven, take the boat you just commandeered to Sparrows Point. Get the Red Dog Red Dog. Bring it back. I'll ready a platoon of marines here."'

Raven eyes widened. She controlled a grin, and then bowed slightly. "Yes. Your Highness."

As Raven hurried off, Lylia crowed with delight. "A gunboat? Ren, that's truly evil! Blow that b.i.t.c.h out of the water!"

Ren grinned, and swatted Odelia with the newspaper. "You! You're eldest while I'm gone, unless Halley shows her face, which she may once she sees this paper! Kij has done us a favor there. Send troops to the Herald Herald, find Kij's mole there, and root her out. I don't want any more articles that smell-ever so mildly-of treason."

Odelia gulped at the promotion, and nodded, eyes huge.

"Trini, have a fast messenger go on to Annaboro and let Jerin's family there know what's happened. I'll send one on to Heron Landing once I get upriver. Send word to our cousins-Kij might try to eliminate them too. Send out messengers to the Queens Justice for news on Jerin-Kij will be expecting us to do that, and we don't want to disappoint her."

Trini nodded solemnly.

Ren turned last to Lylia. "Call in troops; fortify the palace. The youngest aren't to go out. Keep our mothers in, if you can. Remember that Kij's favorite weapon is poison."

Lylia nodded, and then suddenly hugged Ren tight. "Take care of yourself. Get Jerin back!"

Ren blinked back sudden tears. "I will. Go on, now. Kij has her plan in motion. We've got to get ours going too."

Jerin wasn't aware Cira was following until her big roan muscled beside his. She reached out, caught him by the waist just as he registered her presence, and jerked him sideways onto her horse. Taken by surprise, he was left with the choice of falling between the horses, perhaps to be trampled, or letting her settle him onto the saddle in front of her.

To his shame, his body chose the latter, clinging tightly to her.

"Where the h.e.l.l did you learn to ride?" Cira growled, reining her horse sharply and turning suddenly down a side track. His horse raced on without him. She held him tight with one arm, and stripped the pistol from his belt. "You certainly have pluck, I have to say that!"

"Let me go!" He swung at her awkwardly with his free hand, but she dodged the blow.

"What a little lion cub." Cira laughed at him. "Hush! Quiet as you can! Here they come!"

The shack was a torch in the night behind them. She had tucked her horse into a thick grove of sumac, screening them from the road he had been racing along. Horses were coming, a rolling thunder.

Jerin stopped fighting Cira to be quiet. She held him close, stroking his hair. Her heart pounded under his cheek.

The river trash rode past, dark forms moving through night, hooves drumming on the dry earth.

"It's okay. We're safe now." Cira lowered him to the ground but kept hold of his forearm. "Get on behind me. I can get you back to the palace without so much as a blemish on your reputation. It will get all hushed up, no one the wiser."

He hesitated, not sure what to do. A throbbing pain in his ankle reminded him that running on foot wasn't an option.

Cira tightened her hold on him. "Alone, you'd be at the mercy of every woman that sees you."

She was right. If he didn't run afoul of a family desperate for a husband, then there were the women that would use him to establish a crib. Much as he didn't trust Cira, his chances were better with her.

He scrambled up behind her. "Where are we?"

"Halfway to Hera's Step." Cira clucked to her roan and guided it out of their hiding s.p.a.ce. "This is the main road into Sparrows Point. If we stay on it, well be caught between them and the d.a.m.n hat-wearing b.i.t.c.hes that hired them."

"How do I know you're not lying to me?"

Cira chuckled. "I'll try not to push my credibility with you. Fen and her women went that way; we'll go this way. How about that?"

"Will it take us downriver to Mayfair?"

"We can't go downriver. We have to cut across a dozen fields and get upriver."

"Why?"

"We're just north of Snake Run, and it's all white water and deep fast pools. We can't ford it. We'll have to go all the way to Queens Highway for a bridge across. With us riding double, those river rats would catch us before we could get to where we could buy fresh horses."

"It would have been better if you left me on my horse."

"I'm hoping they think you were thrown. I don't know many women that could have kept their seat through that. If they believe you've been thrown, they'll have to be searching for you to be on foot, or unconscious, in the dark."

For a plan conceived at a full gallop, it seemed sound enough.

Jerin pointed out the one flaw. "But won't they think you've caught up with me, like you have?"

Cira's shoulder lifted under his chin. "I tried to give the impression that I thought everything was a lost cause, and started out in the opposite direction. Whether they believed any of it, is another thing."

They went as quickly as they could, crossing open fields in reckless bursts and carefully picking their way through cave-black woodlots and windbreaks. With the gray of predawn came a thick fog, whiting out the land-scape. Steamboat whistles echoed from the distant river like cries of great hunting beasts.

The roan, lathered and winded, couldn't go any farther. They dismounted and found that Jerin's ankle was weak, but he could limp.

"We're almost to Sarahs Bend," Cira said as she helped Jerin to a hay barn standing like an island in the fog. "It's just a half mile down the road. The Queens Justice here is corrupt. I think the Hats have the lieutenant in their pocket. Fen might think I pulled wonders getting her and her women free, but all I had to do was mention the Hats and drop a few crowns, and someone forgot to lock their cell door."

"I'm supposed to believe you're not one of them after comments like that?" Jerin asked.

The barn was in good repair, with no windows and a door padlocked against pa.s.sing river trash.

Cira tested the heavy lock with a tug. "Fen was a means to something bigger."

"And I'm just a means to something bigger too?"

Cira gave him a hurt look and then turned away, studying the barn for another entrance. "I've been hunting the Hats for over a year. Fen is getting me closer to knowing who they are."

"They're the Porters: Kij and her sisters. We found proof."

Cira jerked around to face him. "What?"

Jerin backed away from her. "We found the proof in the husband quarters."

Cira caught his hand, keeping him from bolting away. "Honey, I'm not angry at you. Just tell me what you found."

"Kij was sleeping with Keifer, even after he was married." Jerin slipped out his lockpick and tackled the padlock to distract himself. "Keifer poisoned the princesses' father. And then, after the princesses' father was dead, every time Keifer acted angry, it was so he could let Kij into the husband quarters. We didn't know at first that Kij was his lover, though, and Ren went to Kij and showed her what we found."

"Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." Cira started to pace. "This all makes sense. They're after the throne. You're Prince Alannon's grandson: marrying you would give them legitimacy."

"But I have male cousins nearly my age-they could have made an offer..."