Selected for Sport Ch. 18

But she had only really breathed easily the following evening, when a flashed message from her father's agent, the lantern-bearer, had read: Check the gutter. Straining on tiptoe after awkwardly bridging her way up the rough stone of the slanted window embrasure, she had found a bag containing the spyglass, a small, folded note, and three of the small blue beads taken from Xanir's armring. She hadn't recognised the messy handwriting, but she'd recognised the communication style all right. It must have been scribbled in a dark corner when he had been sneaking back out of his own palace.

Alanna. Limaq tells me a watch has been set on him. Your friendship is suspect; you will both be executed if proof of dishonour can be manufactured. Zander has orders that will suspend your sentence until my return if necessary, but I cannot do more now without exposing my presence here. Forgive me; I pray you never receive this note.

Destroy it if you do. Do not wear your beads where any may see.

And keep faith, my little maia; I will come for you.

Alanna smiled to herself, watching the earliest merchants setting up their booths on the opposite side of the square, playing with the delicate bracelet of her own hair that she had plaited and woven around the beads. She needed to teach Xanir how to write love letters.

Absently she noted the pattern by which the carpet merchant was laying out his wares this morning, memorizing the encoded letters as he finished each with a flick of his wrist. This was not one of her father's agents, but one of Em Feliz's. A strange, slightly unsettling warmth through her. Zander had evidently found and convinced the lantern-bearer who worked for her father to collaborate with him before he had departed for the desert the morning after the hanging, because in addition to the note about the parcel in the gutter, the Kjell agent had told her to watch for this merchant the following morning: a day agent. Alanna could only reply throughout the day, in very brief spurts when the guard movements were such that they would not see the flashes of light from her spyglass under the sun.

The back of Xanir's note had held an alphabet made up of patterns of rectangles scrawled in charcoal, the carpet-code alphabet. She had memorised it before burning the paper with the lens of the glass under the sun on the window-ledge, carefully brushing every speck of ash out into the light breeze that nearly always encircled the top of the tower and scrubbing the stone with the sand the winds frequently carried in.

Yes, it was stark, uncomfortable and horribly lonely here in her tower, spending the endless days watching, reading lips and groupings, compressing as much information as possible into as few letters as possible. But a fierce pride kept her spirit alight; delighted, even. Alanna flicked one of the beads with a fingertip. She was still Xanir's agent in the palace, watching his back. This eagle-eye view from this highest point in the city enabled her to see so much more of what was happening, pick out patterns that had been invisible in her rooms.

She just needed to get him word of what she had learned, and she wasn't trusting this to any intermediary.

Her heart leaped as the merchant finished setting out his display and she strung the memorised letters together in her head: Xanir had reached Jaifa with his warships, Sianese fleet in pursuit, and set up a blockade to keep them out.

So Limaq had reached him in time? Zander must have intercepted Beguine and his mercenary sappers, or the city would most likely have already fallen. Damn the limitations of this form of communication. Limaq must have escaped the rope; that fire the following morning had had something to do with it, as she had suspected -- the corpse had supposedly still been recognisable due to the pattern of scars, but his pretty face had been melted, so her malevolent maid had informed her.

Damn only getting snippets of information.

Distant, heavy footfalls tramping up the stone steps to the turret room drew Alanna's head around. She blinked at the loss of the blinding light from outside, assessing. In the going on three months that she had been locked in here, her only visitors had been a taciturn guard every evening, accompanied by the slatternly maid with a tray of provisions who also did minimal cleaning, swopped out Alanna's covered bucket for a clean one, and trying to provoke the prisoner with snide taunts. Who was coming at dawn? Sounded like more than two, also. Her stomach roiled.

But whoever it was still had sixty-seven steps left to go.

Shrugging, Alanna slid the spyglass closed, dropped it and her beautiful bracelet into the bag she took from around her neck, then wedged her way with practised ease up the tight stone V and reached up outside to slide her belongings carefully into the guttering below the eaves, queasily aware of the bright sunlight shining on her bare arm. Dropping with lithe grace back onto the tiny sill, she wafted her bare arm in the outside air some more, as she did upon occasion, both to cool down and to desensitize any watchers to her behaviour. This time, however, after circling her arm lazily for a few cycles, she moved it in the precise track of the 'Alert' signal for her father's agent, then withdrew and dropped down onto the bare boards of her cell.

Her father would never leave her with only Xanir's agent watching.

The footsteps were close now. Alanna backed into the rough wall by the window, her eyes on the sole door, heart thundering with hope and fear. Xanir had reached Jaifa with the fleet. Maybe someone was coming with good news? Maybe? Shivering, she hugged her midriff tightly.

Keys jingled and the clank of the lock heralded her jailor's grim face, lips folded thin.

The maid panting beside him had the usual sneer on her face. The girl's insolent eyes drifted down to Alanna's crossed arms and she sniffed, "Protecting your bastard?"

Barely noticing the warning scowl the guard cast at the maid, Alanna gazed longingly at the clean, green swathe of material the girl was shaking out, one of the coverings the desert riders used. It must be for her: clean clothing, a sign that she was going to get out of this place.

Then: What? Alanna swayed, heart stopping, her eyes flying between the maid's sneer to the male's expressionless face. What?

Mind blank, she stared as a second maid with a downcast expression edged her way around the guard and through the doorway, stooping to plunk a chipped ceramic bowl holding a jug and sponge on the bare boards. "Wash," she instructed quietly, straightening without looking at the prisoner.

Alanna's mouth opened, and closed again silently, like a goldfish. She was pregnant? Her mind was reeling in shock. But she didn't feel any different. Well, now she did. She was trembling violently.

"What?" she croaked.

"Wash," repeated the guard, and turned his back. "Quickly."

"Why?" demanded Alanna.

The first maid snorted and stepped forwards, grabbing the loose white shift that was all they gave her to wear, trying to yank it off over Alanna's head.

Anger pierced the numb shock, and Alanna moved. The maid shot backwards with a wail, cradling her wrist and whined to the guard, "She hurt me." Then, vindictively, "You take her shift off. We have very little time to get her ready."

The guard snorted, not moving, not looking. He never had, whenever they had brought her a fresh smock, every week. Alanna's eyes flashed at the maid, who stumbled even further backwards while the princess hauled the shift over her head and flung the sweaty, dusty fabric into the sullen face.

The second maid was shaking out a fresh shift, the simplicity of the lines the same, but in a plain green, and longer. Wondering, worried, still unable to focus beyond the bombshell the first maid had just dropped: was it true? How did they know? Alanna squatted to soak the sponge with the water in the bowl. With a little sigh of happiness, she wiped the water over her grimy skin, shivering in the coolness. Her mind was flickering between questions and blankness, she couldn't seem to hold any thoughts together, plan. She was panicking, she realised.

She was pregnant. Now she knew why her stomach kept churning.

Her glazed eyes were unfocussed on the wall while swiftly, mechanically, she wiped the sweat and dust off her skin. Her throat was tightening: it was too dangerous to speak her thoughts -- even, no, especially with this development. She flushed, fingers spreading across her belly. Xanir's child.

She could stay with Xanir. Her flush deepened, colour rioting over her skin.

The first maid interrupted her thoughts, dropping a rough towel onto the floor by her feet. Alanna didn't even look, flicking the dripping sponge into the stupid girl's face before hooking up the towel with her toes and beginning to dry herself. Her mind was spreading out of control, flooding her with thoughts and emotions with the speed of the tidal race, then slamming to an abrupt halt, quivering in shock.

Did Xanir know?

Shuddering under the emotions eddying through her, Alanna pulled on the shift, then waited, staring silently at the doorway beyond the black, cold eyes of the guard while the angry maid wrapped her in the huge swathe of green cloth, winding the end over her head and shoulders. The thick layers felt strange after months in nothing but a loose, long shift.

A travelling cloak. Travelling.

A bright, precious, terrifying thought cut through the fog of shock, and her brain snapped into focus.

Two of them, now: they were travelling. Where were they going?

At the foot of the tower, six swarthy guards dressed in a rich green were seated on the lean, swift horses of the desert flanking two sad-looking mules wearing a ladies' saddles, one occupied.

A mule.

Alanna pulled her eyes away, telling herself not to get affronted by irrelevancies. She was already sweltering in the heat at the base of the tower, her head swimming as she tried to get it to focus past the shock announcement upstairs. One of the palace priests -- she couldn't even remember his name, that showed how shot her mind was -- was standing beside one of the equally minor palace officials, a roll of parchment in his hand with the imperial seal hanging from one corner. Her heart lurched. What now?

Her jailor stopped Alanna in front of the pair, and the official took the parchment, cleared his throat and read aloud in an appalling, bored monotone: "Wherefore the lady Alanna Fortuna Kjeldahl hath infecund proven; by Law of Terat, when reflecting the needful absentia of Alt Sultus Xanir Bilal Malik Tahl, the provisional contract of marriage between Alt Sultus Tahl and the lady is terminated herefrom for the remaining one-third term. Dated this -." Alanna's eyes focussed, glazed, on the quivering, oiled moustache of the speaker while she tried to wrap her ricocheting brain around the news that Xanir had annulled their marriage from the date of his official departure. Because he supposedly wouldn't make it back before the year was up -- there was some legal post-script in case she fell pregnant within a month of the departure date, but she hadn't.

She had fallen pregnant after his second, secret departure.

Dazed, she swaying with the double shock, she shied back and stumbled over a trailing end of her swaddling robe when the priest pressed a henna-daubed thumb to the centre of her forehead, intoning something. Staggering over more folds, she tried to free a hand to catch the scratchy cloth sliding off her head and shoulders but she was too distracted, upset, trying to make sense of this.

It must be a move for her protection; their protection. A glow steadied her. It wasn't like there were any people left in the palace who he trusted.

Alanna managed to steady her footing, hugging herself, one arm still trapped, one free, swallowing back tears. The silence echoed. Her skin prickled, and she looked up into open lust with both petty officials staring at the swell of her breasts under the loose linen of her shift-dress, exposed by the fallen folds of her travelling robe and enhanced by her tight arms. The priest licked his lips. Her fist clenched and she hid her breasts behind her free arm, tripping again in the damn tight material as she tried to step backwards and instead fell full length at their feet, her arm shooting out again to break her fall, breasts bouncing at the impact with the hard soil.

The predatory look in their eyes shot a shiver through her: she no longer had any status here, however nominal. A long way from home.

The priest stepped closer and cold settled in at the intent in his eyes as he stared down. The official moved up to flank him, actually rubbing his groin, and the cold morphed to anger that lit a different thrill inside her as from the corner of her eyes she saw her jailor turn his back.

Other footsteps were advancing from the vicinity of the horse-troop but she was too intent on the threat beside her, sliding backwards on her butt, finally freeing a leg. The men's eyes gleamed at the sight of it, and her apparent fright. One licked his lips, stepping forward.

Alanna crabbed swiftly sideways, between the maids and the tower wall, while the men stomped after her, eyes eager. The maid holding the empty washbasin and jug half turned, watching with malicious eagerness while other remained downcast, unmoving, her uneasy gaze fixed on the corked slop-jar she had carried down from the tower. Perfect.

Alanna rolled, hooked a foot behind the dangling jar, and flicked it full-force to smash across the cheekbone of the damn priest and shatter against the tower wall beyond him. To her great satisfaction, both men were splattered with the contents and howled, lurching backwards.

"Hold!", barked the unknown voice of the horseman who had been advancing on them, and Alanna completed her spin to grab the bowl from the gaping maid, smash it against the wall, and rise to a defensive crouch with a sharp shard of broken crockery held menacingly.

The horseman in green with an officer's mark bound into the braid by his temple stopped a yard away, ignored the makeshift weapon and bowed, frowning, carefully not looking at her. "Cover yourself," he ordered tersely.

Alanna scowled at him, steadying her breathing. He didn't look directly at her. Behind him, the other horsemen were watching intently from atop their horses. The priest lunged forwards with a curse, and Alanna's makeshift weapon swept to her right.

Even more swiftly, the curved sword of the desert-rider, the ghelber, whipped out and scored a shallow line across the priest's left cheek. The fuming man leapt backwards with a yelp.

"I said hold," the green officer said coldly, eyes flickering to the priest then back to just beside Alanna's head.

"Cover yourself, woman," he hissed furiously.

The nicer maid stepped forward hesitantly to lift the dragging folds from the earth and shake out the dust, folding them ready over her arm. After a tense moment, Alanna relaxed her stance, dropping her weapon and moved so that the material could be fully freed. This time, she watched what the woman was doing as she re-folded the cloth and wrapped it around Alanna, carefully tucking it in. Less of a prison -- both tighter in the right places, and looser around her arms, neck and shoulders. This time it felt better.

"Thank-you," she murmured, and the tear-bright black eyes shot to hers.

"My lady," whispered the maid.

Then she wrapped the veil across Alanna's nose and mouth before stepping back.

Spitting into the dirt, the ghelber now confronted her, glaring hot dislike into her eyes. Alanna blinked.

"Lord Sharim has sent to fetch you," he barked. Her already whirring brain spun faster, and she blinked, wondering: Limaq's father. The warrior continued, "With his son's death, he assumes responsibility for his grandchild. Come."

Limaq's father? Then she did a double-take, gasping: Limaq was really dead?

Tears in her eyes, Alanna watched the back of the ghelber stalking furiously back to his horse, and hesitated. Then she noted the quivering tension in the smelly duo against the wall, glaring, the sneer on the face of one maid, and the fear in the face of the other. She started after her new escort, shock making her reel again, although suspicion also narrowed her teary eyes. The officer had not stepped in to halt the lustful officials until the last minute.

He hated her. Why?

Limaq. Limaq's father was taking responsibility for her child; the responsibility of the deceased's father falling on the grandfather. She bit a lip against the surge of misery for her friend. Was he really dead? Or was this another lie, were they just protecting her still? Protecting both her and her child. Xanir's child. That must be it.

The post-dated annulment made sense now. Had she been the bride of the Great Tahl when Limaq had begotten a child on her, her life would be forfeit, together with the child's and father's. A legal fiction - more subterfuge. She hid a weary smile as she mounted the mule with a sigh of resignation.

Then she squashed her resentment. Xanir was trying to lift a siege and repulse a rebellion mixed with an invasion. She could endure her own petty difficulties to keep this child safe. Xanir's child. Their child, entwining the two of them permanently. She still couldn't take it in, heart lifting like the sun.

She mustn't, she admonished herself. Better she too believe that the child was Limaq's.

"Forward!" snapped the officer.

*

A fortnight later, Xanir stood motionless, staring out over the darkening sea from the buffs of the Southern headland of Jaifa Bay, his back to the campfires of the victorious army dotted across the coastal plain outside the walls. He ignored the ceaseless flutter and cacophony to his left, feathers wheeling and squabbling around the occupants of the twin gibbets suspended above Jaifa harbour: Faisal and Justin.

Haman stood behind his right shoulder, for once quiet, although he let out a soft sigh when Xanir turned and strode past towards where his tent was outlined by the glorious sunset, dropping the Tahl-Mat's message into the brazier outside, watching flames lick up the parchment.

The letter had been a tortuous medley of advice, recriminations about keeping their mother in the dark over the state of both sons and empire, and veiled accusations against further plotters, but a side-swipe had contained the information every nerve had been straining for: the Kjell whore had been taken by the Limaq to pop her bastard. Alanna was out of the capital. She was still dangerously vulnerable; his messenger must have managed to reach the city first, riding hell for leather as soon as Xanir had made landfall and received the news of her pregnancy. But the crews had not been able to keep silent long, even now rumours were spreading that the Tahl had arrived with the warships, not the army. The swiftest route to the Kural Coast from Jaifa was through the capital. A simple count and the subterfuge would explode: whether the child actually was Xanir's became immaterial: it could be.

"What will you do?" his brother asked quietly.

Xanir stared out to sea again, heart hot. Out there, he had taken the worst blow. Limaq had reached him with his warning just in time for them to scatter their warships among the Medulla islands and lay a trap for the Sianese fleet. They had won that first, key victory by such a narrow margin, mainly due to the dogged and fierce loyalty of one of his oldest friends, surprise and strategy giving them a faint hope despite the superior, unexpected numbers of enemy ships.