Excerpt: Madame Bortaby

Dusk settled over the city of Margara. The bustle of shopkeepers and skilledmen closing up their stores for the night echoed down the alleys without actually reaching their darkened corners. No greetings would be heard, only the sounds of keys in locks, gates being closed securely, and hurrying feet to avoid the chill of both the air and those alleys.

Autumn had been scarcely noticed in the city, however, as the kidnapping of King Bronsorn III was all people could drum up energy for. The countryside of Khalorn still went about its’ business, harvesting and transporting the food necessary to feed the capitol city, but the city itself was numb with grief, and with fear. Prices had gone up as there was no authority that could keep them down, and some of the city managers were afraid that a great ransom would be put to the city, and that they would not be able to pay.

It was three months since the king’s disappearance, and the average person in the city did not know where he was. Sure, there were rumors, and no one had pronounced him dead or that his son, Prince Miglan, would be crowned. That had to mean that the heads of the city knew where he was, right? That he would someday come back?

Those who knew a little more than the average citizen mumbled about the Counsel of Colors, and that they should be doing something about it. They said that if the Counsel left it up to the city managers, that there wouldn’t be much city for the king to come back to, when and if he did return. There was talk of a mutiny if the Counsel didn’t do something about the rising costs and the useless Managers.

Those who knew, though, the ones whose job it was to hear every whisper spoken in the city, knew that the Counsel was trying to get the king back. They knew where he was, but they didn’t know why he’d been taken. They didn’t know what the demands would be as the kidnappers hadn’t made any.

Those who knew planned a way to convince the Counsel not only to not pay ransom, whatever that might be, but instead pay them to get the king back.

D’nared Boglithay stood up from his great-grandfather’s polished wood desk that had been brought over on a ship from the farthest reaches of civilization. The man was in a rare state of undress, the ruffles of his shirt limp and unbuttoned, his jacket flung carelessly over the back of the desk chair. His hair, even, unkempt and in disarray, as though a hand or a whisk had stirred the bright auburn many times. His clear grey eyes took in his father’s land through the library window, land that hadn’t seen a plow in generations, land that didn’t need to be plowed to meet the needs of the family that lived on it.

D’nared had no love for the land, although it certainly helped him keep up appearances. He had enough money to sell the whole thing, though, despite his father’s best efforts at the craps table. He’d been told by one particularly annoying socialite that all of the best families lived in town, near their royal family. D’nared had only raised an eyebrow and said, “And that’s done them good, has it?” before turning away to find a younger and less boring companion.

He sighed over the current predicament. He wouldn’t so much call himself a loyalist as much as an opportunist, but there certainly didn’t seem to be as much opportunity as there was when good old Bronsorn was safe at home. There wasn’t a reason for intrigue if there wasn’t a crown to steal.

And the missive that D’nared had just received didn’t help matters a great deal.
D’nared turned from the windows at a slight sound and was facing it with a dagger out when the door of the library opened.

*
It became easier to gauge how long they were hiding from the crew down in the hold of the ship the longer they were on the water, partially because the closer they got to docking, the more often people were talking about docking. It was so easy to find a conversation about docking by the third day since the incident, that they barely had to leave the stairway to hear a couple of sailors walking by talking about docking later that day. Before either of them could sneak up and find out when exactly they were supposed to arrive, the ship gave a gentle bump and they were at dock.

Luckily, both of them had worked hard at making sure that they were packed and ready to go long before that. Dan had a vague plan for how he was going to get off the ship after he’d had the plan for getting on the ship, but of course he couldn’t go out the same way he’d come in. It just seemed like it would be easier if he could just sneak back to the other cargo bay and climb out from there.

But the only way that he knew of to get out of the lower deck was the staircase right next to the other cargo hold, and that meant that all of the sailors would be going up and down that stair while they were unloading and everything. As soon as the two of them felt the ship bump against the dock, they were on their feet and trying to sneak ahead of each other to the stairway to the middle deck. There was a small ruckus when they met the foot of the stair at the same time, but Dan won since he was bigger and could just reach around her and follow his arm.

He snuck up the stair first and poked his head above to make sure that the whole hallway was completely clear. The place looked pretty deserted, so he nodded and gestured to her that he was going ahead. Sure it was a long hallway that lead from this end of the boat to the other, but he thought that if they were quick about it, they could make it.

But as they were just past the first door into the ship, there was the distinct noise of men coming down the stairs and heading in their direction. The Madame, who was in back, pulled on the back of Dan’s cloak and opened the door behind her quickly, pulling on Dan to follow her before the men came into the hallway they were standing in.

Dan followed reluctantly, as he didn’t want to end up in the bunk room with no way of knowing if there was anyone inside first. It was too risky to jump at a door and not know what was there, but he also knew that if they stayed in the hallway, they would be found out. The good thing was that if they were found just then, they’d be taken out of the ship and he could figure a way to escape whatever bonds they put them in so they could go about their business in Narche, so it wouldn’t be all bad.

He didn’t want to get caught that easily, however, so he followed her into the bunk room and was thankful that there were no visible lights on in the cabin room. There were enough shadows from the slanted sun (it must have been late afternoon by then, and the sun was streaming just over the docks), that he felt that there was sufficient shadow to hide in, should they need to.

He stood still for a moment and listened for the men in the hallway to continue past the door that they’d ducked through, then went to go back out to the hallway and continue on the path that he was going to follow, but she didn’t let go of his cloak, and she tugged on it as he was reaching for the door handle.

He turned to glare over his shoulder and when he did, she jerked her head in the direction of the other end of the cabin. He shook his head and mouthed, “No!” but she let go of his cloak, shrugged, and walked toward the end of the cabin by herself.

He rolled his eyes and sighed inwardly before following her down the bunk room, through the rows of two-high beds and the small cabinets that the men had to store all their possessions for a week in. Really, the cabinets looked like they were a decent size, for how much room there wasn’t in the bunk room. She moved with confidence, far too quickly for Dan’s liking, toward the door at the far end of the cabin, not making any noticeable noise, but certainly at a charge kind of pace. Dan was distinctly uncomfortable moving that quickly, but he couldn’t let her literally charge her way toward the other men on the ship. She could get caught, and he’d already dismissed all of those consequences as an unnecessary hindrance.

But, by some miracle, they reached the other end of the ship without encountering anyone. Although, it might not have been much of a miracle since just about everyone else was above deck getting the ship ready to unload and such. But it still seemed wrong that the spirits were letting her get away with her brazen and completely unsafe practices. He supposed that rather than cursing them, he should be thanking them for giving her this luck while she was still around him, but he got distracted shortly thereafter by her arrival at the door that went back into the hallway and up the stairs.

He jumped ahead of her and opened the door himself to peek into the hallway, holding out a hand to show her that she should stay behind him. He didn’t look over his shoulder to see her glaring at him, and didn’t expect that, when they finally got out into the hallway, she would zip in front of him and scale the side of the staircase to start climbing it about halfway up, and therefore ahead of Dan. He certainly didn’t appreciate this maneuver, but he couldn’t do anything about it before she’d done it.

He watched her peek her head slightly above the level of the deck to check the status of the sailors, and he heard voices coming from the cargo hold next to the stairs. The men were starting to get the cargo ready to unpack, and Dan had known that, but there was something about it that surprised Dan. He hadn’t thought that they would be in the cargo holds this early on in the process, he figured that they would be finishing up on top before they would worry much at all about their cargo. This time he did thank the spirits that they had given him good timing. As he thought about it, he realized that the men who had gone down the hallway that they’d had to hide from were likely going below to start getting that cargo ready to go, too. He shuddered at the thought that they might have waited even a few moments longer.

She leaned back down below the edge of the deck and nodded. She made some wide gestures over her shoulder and such, and Dan thought that he understood her to mean that the men were mostly on the cargo side of the divide between the two openings in the deck and that if they stayed low, they might be able to sneak between boxes and barrels and off the ship.

It wasn’t a plan that Dan approved of, mostly because it wasn’t a plan that he’d come up with, but he didn’t have a better plan himself, and he didn’t know the layout on top, or where any of the men were, so he simply went with her idea for the moment. He could always improvise if the need arrived.

She went first, simply because she was already up the stairs. He did the same maneuver that she’d done up the staircase as he didn’t want to go all the way to the end of the staircase and risk being seen by the men in the Cargo hold. When he peeked above the deck himself, he saw that she was right, most of the men were either working on the opening to the cargo hold, or they were on the side of the ship behind them working on tying the boat to the docks.

But Dan couldn’t say that he was expecting her to continue on toward the outside of the boat. He figured that he would try to sneak over to where the dock was and try the same thing that he’d done to get on the ship, but in reverse and with a lot more men around. He hadn’t really gotten to the successful part of the idea yet, but he certainly hadn’t intended to go off the other side.

But she, apparently, did. She made a direct b-line scamper below the level of the separator that kept the walking men out of the cargo hatch and the cargo people away from the staircase. She was lucky as she ever was that the men were all busy working at their individual jobs, certainly dangerous jobs to look away from, and didn’t think to look up or look over the barrier that they were standing next to.

Dan held his breath, took one more look around, and followed her over to the side of the boat. She stopped directly in front of one of the openings in the side of the boat, the ones that were there for water drainage. The whole deck was wetter than it had been when Dan had snuck on board, as it appeared that there’d been some rain on the voyage. Dan supposed that there were some advantages to staying entirely below-deck on a long river trip.

Dan joined The Madame behind some barrels and boxes that had been moved out of someone’s way and over to the far side of the boat. The two of them were essentially stuck between the two spaces, and fairly well hidden while still having
some vantage point between the barrels and boxes.

“So what’s the plan now, just wait until some of the activity’s died down and sneak back?”

She didn’t answer, simply smirked at him and looked out between the gaps in their hiding place. She had her hood back up over her bright hair, but the lock that always seemed to be escaping was glimmering bright in the washed sunset. Dan marveled at the combination of just-after-rain sunlight and wavy golden hair, particularly after he’d spent so many days in deep darkness for the most part.

Finally, she looked back at him and he saw for the first time that her eyes were a dark blue, so dark as to be mistaken for black in many lights, but not in the direct sunlight.

After she caught his eye and said, “Goodbye, D’nared Boglithay.” She stood strait up and did a graceful dive over the railing of the ship and into the dark river, barely making a splash, and certainly not making a sound big enough to be heard over the commotion of the unloading. Dan watched her swim further into the center of the stream and let the current take her for a ways before he lost sight of her through the drain hole.

“Shit.” He breathed out on the breath that had caught when she caught his eye.