“You, what is your name?”
“Aubry Chomley, your highness,” the man said. His uniform had a captain’s insignia.
“Well, Chomley,” Rupert said, “how loyal are you?”
“Completely,” the other man said. “I saw what you did against the New Army. You saved our kingdom, and you are the rightful heir to the throne.”
“Good man,” Rupert said. “Your loyalty does you credit, but now, I have a test of that loyalty.”
“Name it,” the other man said.
“I need you to swap clothes with me.”
“Your highness?” The soldier and Sir Quentin managed to say it almost in unison.
Rupert managed not to sigh. “It’s simple. Chomley here will go with you to the boat. He will pretend to be me, and go with you to the Near Colonies.”
The soldier looked as nervous at that as if Rupert had commanded him to charge a horde of the enemy.
“Won’t… won’t people notice?” the man said. “Won’t the governor notice?”
“Why would he?” Rupert asked. “I’ve never met the man, and Sir Quentin here will vouch for you. Won’t you, Sir Quentin?”
Sir Quentin looked back and forth from Rupert to the soldier, obviously trying to calculate the course of action most likely to keep him his head.
This time, Rupert did sigh. “Look, it’s simple. You go to the Near Colonies. You vouch for Chomley as me. Since I’m still here, that gives us a chance to get together the support we need. Support that could bring you back far quicker than if you start waiting for my mother to forget a slight.”
That part seemed to catch the other man’s attention. He nodded. “Very well,” Sir Quentin said. “I’ll do it.”
“And you, Captain?” Rupert asked. “Or should I say General?”
It took a moment for that to sink in. He saw Chomley swallow.
“Anything you require, your highness,” the man said.
It took a matter of minutes to find an empty building among the warehouses and the boat sheds, changing clothes with the captain so that now Chomley looked… well, frankly, nothing like a prince of the realm, but with Sir Quentin’s recommendation it should be enough.
“Go,” Rupert commanded them, and they went, accompanied by about half of the soldiers to make it seem more authentic. He looked around at the others, considering what he would do next.
There was no question of leaving Ashton, but he would have to move carefully now until he was ready. Sebastian was safe enough where he was for the time being. The palace was big enough that he would be able to keep away from his mother for a while at least. He knew he had support. It was time to find out how much, and how much power it could buy him.
“Come on,” he told the others. “It’s time to work out how we take what should be mine.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I am Lady Emmeline Constance Ysalt D’Angelica, Marchioness of Sowerd and Lady of the Order of the Sash!” Angelica shouted out, hoping that someone would hear her. Hoping that her full name would demand attention if nothing else did. “I am being taken to be killed against my will!”
The guard dragging her didn’t look concerned by it, which said to Angelica that there was no real chance of anyone hearing her. No one who would help, at least. In a place with as many cruelties as the palace, the servants were long used to ignoring cries for help, to being blind and deaf unless their betters told them not to be.
“I will not let you do this,” Angelica said, trying to dig in her heels and hold her ground. The guard simply pulled her along anyway, the size difference too great. She struck out at him instead, and connected hard enough that her hand stung with it. For a moment the guard’s grip relaxed, and Angelica turned to run.
The guard was on her in moments, grabbing at her and striking her so that Angelica’s head rang with it.
“You can’t… you can’t strike me,” she said. “People will know. You want to make this look like an accident!”
He slapped her again, and Angelica had the feeling that he did it simply because he could.
“After you’ve fallen from a building, no one will notice a bruise,” he said. He snatched her up then, carrying her over his shoulder as easily as if she were a wayward child. Angelica had never felt as helpless as she did in that moment.
“Scream again,” he warned, “and I’ll hit you again.”
Angelica didn’t, if only because it didn’t seem likely to make any difference. She hadn’t seen anyone on the way here, either because everyone was still busy with the wedding that hadn’t happened or because the Dowager had carefully kept them out of the way in preparation for this. Angelica wouldn’t put that past her. The old woman planned as patiently and as cruelly as a cat waiting outside a mouse hole.
“You don’t have to do this,” Angelica said.
The guard replied with just a shrug that jostled her in her place on his shoulder. They went up through the palace, along winding staircases that narrowed more the further up they went. At one point, the guard had to set Angelica down just to get through, but he kept a cruel hold on her hair, dragging her along with a sharpness that made Angelica cry out in pain.
“You could just let me go,” Angelica said. “No one would know.”
The guard snorted at that. “No one would notice when you just popped back up at court, or in your family’s home? The Dowager’s spies wouldn’t know you were alive?”
“I could leave,” Angelica tried. The truth was that she would probably have to leave if she was going to live. The Dowager wouldn’t stop at just this attempt on her life. “My family has interests so far across the sea that there’s hardly ever news. I could disappear.”
The guard didn’t seem any more impressed by that idea than the last. “And when some spy mentions you? No, I reckon I’ll do my duty.”
“I could give you money,” Angelica said. They were getting higher now. So high that, looking out of the slender windows, she could see the city arranged like some child’s toy below. Maybe that was how the Dowager saw it: as a toy to be arranged for her amusement.
It meant that they must be almost at the roof, too.
“Don’t you want money?” Angelica demanded. “A man like you can’t earn much. I could give you enough wealth that you’d be a rich man.”
“Can’t give me anything if you’re dead,” the guard pointed out. “And I can’t spend it if I am.”
There was a small door ahead, iron bound, with a simple latch. Angelica thought that the route to her death should have more drama to it, somehow. Even so, just the sight of it made her fear rise again, making her pull back even while the guard dragged her forward.
If Angelica had possessed a dagger, she would have used it while he unlatched the door and opened it to let the cold air beyond rip at them. If she’d had so much as a sharp eating knife, she would have at least tried to cut his throat with it, but she didn’t. In her wedding dress, she didn’t. The most she had were a couple of powders designed to refresh her makeup, a sedative snuff that was supposed to be there for the threat of nerves, and… that was it. That was all she had. Everything else was below somewhere, tucked away against the conclusion of her wedding.
“Please,” she begged, and there didn’t have to be much acting to it to look helpless, “if money won’t do it, then what about decency? I’m just a young woman, caught up in a game I didn’t want. Please help me.”
The