Page 31 of The Uncrowned Prince

“Shall I guard your back while you converse with your enemy?” Karreya asked, with a disturbing amount of sincerity.

“Thank you, no.” He was hoping the man was not his enemy and could be persuaded to leave before he let slip what he knew. But still, it was with a pounding heart and one hand in his pocket that he rose and approached the farthest corner table.

The man who sat there, hunched over a mug of ale, was not immediately familiar. He was dressed in the blue over-robe of an Irian government official, though it appeared rumpled and slept in. For a brief moment, he blinked blearily at Vaniell, as if he were not entirely certain what he was seeing.

But then the ale fog seemed to clear somewhat, and his dark eyes goggled with horror.

“You.” He shrank back in his seat, pressing against the bench as if wishing he could sink into it and disappear. “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?” He spoke the words in a quavering voice, the volume of which began to rise alarmingly towards the end.

“Absolutely not,” Vaniell returned, raising both his hands to where the man could see them. If the man knew him, what could possibly have convinced him that Vaniell meant to commit murder? No one who was familiar with his public history thought of him as a danger to anyone but himself and the female population of Hanselm. “I saw you drinking alone and thought you might want a friend.”

A lie, but those had never bothered him much before Karreya. Now he felt almost guilty.

“Hesent you,” the man across the table muttered in a hoarse whisper, pointing one shaking finger at Vaniell’s face. “I escaped, and I brought warning, but now the king is dead and I’m next.”

A sick ache of foreboding landed in Vaniell’s stomach with a thud, making him strongly regret the wine. “No one sent me,” he said soothingly. “But what warning did you bring? And what does it have to do with the king’s death?” He kept his voice low, silently begging the other man to do the same. This was hardly a conversation for public ears.

But with the lack of self-preservation common to drunks everywhere, he simply stood up and began to talk louder. “The queen told me, and now she’s dead. And I did what she asked, and now I’m dead. He’s going to kill us all, and there’s nothing we can do.”

He leaned forward, hands on the table, to glare directly into Vaniell’s eyes. “You did it, didn’t you? You wielded the knife for him! But I won’t let you kill me so easily. You’ll have to catch me first!”

And then he bolted. Nearly tripping over his robes, he stumbled towards the door and out into the street.

Three things happened almost immediately.

The drunken city guards heard the man’s shouted accusations, saw him running, and decided Vaniell was precisely the man they’d been looking for—foreign, suspicious, and not particularly dangerous. They leaped up from their chairs and headed for Vaniell with scowls on their faces and cudgels in their hands.

Jarek yelled a few colorful phrases and insisted they sit down, which had about the same effect on their advance as a loud sneeze.

And Karreya? Well, she had already disappeared. Vaniell hadn’t seen her go, but he would have wagered a great deal of money that she’d followed his accuser.

Surely she didn’t intend to kill the man… Surely… But he had to admit to himself that he genuinely had no idea, and given that she seemed to want to keep Vaniell safe, it was entirely likely that she would see the drunken official as a threat and decide to silence him.

And yet, there was nothing he could do but silently beg her not to as he turned his attention to avoiding the onslaught of outraged guardsmen.

Had they been any less drunk, he might have been in trouble, but as it was, two of them were barely keeping their feet. The fastest of the three took a wild swing at Vaniell’s head with his cudgel, but it was easily ducked as Vaniell sidestepped to the left. He didn’t want to start slinging magic in Jarek’s tavern, but he would protect himself if forced.

The second guard dove forward, arms outstretched as if he intended to tackle his opponent to the floor. A quick twist to the right removed Vaniell from the immediate path of the onslaught, and then it was a simple matter to stick out one foot and trip the unfortunate fellow into an empty chair.

But then he was too late to avoid the third guard, whose cudgel caught him across the ribs hard enough to knock him sideways to the floor and drive the breath from his lungs.

One more hit like that…

Vaniell rolled left just in time to dodge a kick from the first guard, but by now, the second was scrambling up from the floor, weaving from side to side, and spewing obscenities.

Well, it wasn’t like he hadn’t given them a chance to reconsider. Right hand in his pocket, Vaniell snatched the knotted string and swiftly wrapped it around his fingers, then rolled up into a crouch. Left hand joined right, then the string flared with light and flew forward to tangle itself around the ankles of the man presently attempting to bash Vaniell’s head in.

He fell headlong, letting go of his cudgel in an attempt to break his fall. The weapon flew up and across the room—narrowly missing another patron’s head—and the guard landed full on his face with a guttural scream of pain.

Judging from the expressions on his friends’ faces, it might still have gone badly for Vaniell, but by then, Jarek had waded into the fight. Two swift blows to the wrists disarmed the remaining two attackers, and while they were still blinking in dismay, he grasped them both by the collars andliterallyknocked their heads together.

The sound it made was undeniably satisfying to Vaniell, who lowered himself back to the floor with a groan and placed a careful hand on his ribs.

“Anything broken?” Jarek asked over the sounds of angry patrons and drunken objections.

“Just his nose.” Vaniell gestured to the man who still lay full length on the floor, howling with pain and indignation. Blood streamed down his face onto the clean boards, and Jarek looked at the resulting puddle with unmitigated disgust.

“You’ve just broken three of my rules, gentlemen. You attacked another patron without provocation, disturbed my customers, and bled on my floor. I don’t care who you work for, your welcome is revoked. Now get out.”

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