A Kiss for Queens

CHAPTER ONE

Sebastian crept through Ashton, cautious as a hunted deer, trying to work out his next move. He was free, but the truth was that he didn’t trust it. Even now, it felt like some trick. The circumstances of his escape saw to that.

Sebastian still couldn’t understand those. Someone had unlocked his cell door and killed all the guards in Rupert’s townhouse, but they hadn’t bothered to claim the credit for it; hadn’t even announced themselves. Sebastian would have expected a rescuer to be there for this part of the escape as well. Instead, he progressed along Ashton’s streets alone.

He skulked through Knotty Hill and the Screws, making his way slowly toward the docks. He was cautious, and not just for all the usual reasons that someone making their way through Ashton needed to be cautious. At some point, Rupert would find out that he was missing, and send men to hunt for him.

“I need to be away before then,” Sebastian said to himself. That part seemed obvious.

If he still had his mother’s favor, it would be a different matter, but after he’d run out on his wedding, he doubted she would be in a mood to help him. Besides, the truth was that he wanted to leave Ashton quickly for another reason: the sooner he left, the sooner he would reach Ishjemme and Sophia.

“I will get to her,” he promised himself. He would reach her, and he would be together with her. That was what mattered right now.

He made his way down to the docks, finding an inn and settling into a corner, the cowl of his cloak up as he watched for men who might be working for Rupert. They’d caught him on the way out of the city once, after all.

“What can I get you?” a serving woman asked him.

Sebastian put a small coin on the table from the pouch that someone had left him along with the cloak and a double-edged dagger. “Food,” he said, “and information. Are there any ships leaving for Ishjemme?”

The serving woman took the coin. “Food, I can manage. For the other, you’re welcome to sit here and listen. Captains come through often enough with the docks.”

Sebastian had thought it might come to that. He’d been hoping to be out of Ashton quickly, but he couldn’t risk going along the docks simply asking for a ship again. That had been how Rupert had caught him last time. He needed to take his time. He needed to listen.

He did both, sitting there and trying to pick up what he could of the conversations there in the inn while he ate a plate of bread, cheese, and cured ham. The men in the corner were talking about the wars across the Knifewater, which no longer seemed so distant now that the New Army had tried to invade. A man and a woman were talking in whispers, but Sebastian could see enough of them together to guess that they were making promises to one another and working out a life together. It made him think of Sophia. Others were talking about the latest players’ works, or the arguments they’d seen out on the docks. In amongst it all, though, one whisper caught at Sebastian’s ears.

“The Dowager…”

Sebastian stood, making his way over to the dock hand who’d said it.

“What was that?” he demanded. “What were you saying about the Dowager?”

He kept his head down, hoping no one would realize who he was.

“What’s it to you?” the dock hand demanded.

Sebastian thought quickly, letting his voice take on the same rough edge. “Been hearing her name all day. Finally thought I’d see what was happening.”

The dock hand shrugged. “Well, you’ll not get much from me. All I’ve heard is what anyone’s heard: something’s happening up at the palace. There are whispers about the Dowager, and now the whole place is locked down. My brother had a delivery up that way, and was stuck more than an hour just at Higharch.”

“Thanks,” Sebastian said, moving away from the other man and heading for the door.

By rights, the hints of trouble at the palace should have meant nothing to him. He should have just kept going with his original plan to find a boat and get to Sophia as quickly as he could. Whatever was happening with his mother, it wasn’t any of his business.

Sebastian tried to tell himself all of that. Even so, his feet found themselves turning inexorably in the direction of the palace, carrying him across the cobbles and up through the city.

“Sophia will be waiting,” he told himself, but the truth was that he didn’t even know if Sophia had played a role in his escape. If she had, wouldn’t his rescuers have announced themselves? She might not know that he was on his way, and in any case, could Sebastian really leave without at least knowing what was happening?

He made up his mind. He would go to the palace, grab supplies, and learn what was happening. If he did it quietly, Sebastian guessed he might be out of there before anyone even noticed, and in a far better position to get the ship he needed to Ishjemme and Sophia. He nodded to himself, walking in the direction of the palace, then stopping to hail a passing palanquin for hire. The bearers looked at him skeptically, but didn’t voice any doubts once he’d thrown them a couple of coins.

“This is close enough,” Sebastian said, once they reached a street not far from the palace grounds. He couldn’t risk trying to get in through the front doors, in case Rupert’s cronies were there. Instead, Sebastian slipped around to one of the garden gates. There was a guard there, looking surprisingly alert considering it was such a minor gate that he was guarding. Sebastian watched him for a while, then beckoned to a nearby street urchin and held out a coin.

“What’s that for?” the child asked, suspicion ringing through his tone. Sebastian wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had happened to make the child that suspicious of strangers.

“I want you to go and cause trouble with that guard. Get him to chase you, but don’t get caught. Do you think you can do that?”

The child nodded.

“Do a good job, and there’s another coin in it for you,” Sebastian promised, then stood back in a doorway to wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. In less than a minute, the child was there, throwing mud in the direction of the guard. One spattered off his helmet, bursting over his uniform in a great spray of earth.

“Oi!” the guard yelled, and ran for the urchin.

Sebastian hurried into the gap that was left, making his way through the gate and into the palace grounds. He hoped the child would be all right. He suspected he would, because no urchin lived on Ashton’s streets for long without being able to run.

Sebastian made his way through the gardens, finding himself thinking about the walks he’d taken with Sophia through them. He would be reunited with her soon. Maybe Ishjemme would have gardens to rival the beauty of the climbing roses here. He intended to find out either way.

The grounds were quieter than they normally were. On any normal day, there should have been servants bustling about, gardening or collecting herbs and vegetables for the kitchens. There should have been nobles taking formal turns around the grounds, for the exercise, for the opportunity to talk politics with one another without being overheard, or as part of the elaborate hints and subtle gestures that constituted courtship in the kingdom.

Instead, the gardens were all but empty, and Sebastian found himself slipping through the kitchen gardens, into the palace through a side door. Servants there stared at him, and Sebastian kept moving, not wanting the entanglements that might come if someone called out his presence. He didn’t want to be caught up talking to the full court; he just wanted to find out what was happening and leave again, as unobtrusively as possible.

Sebastian made his way through the palace, ducking back every time he thought a guard might be coming, heading in the direction of his rooms. He went in, collecting a spare sword and changing his clothes, grabbing a bag and filling it with what supplies he could. He went out into the palace again…

…and almost immediately found himself face to face with a servant, who started to back away, terror etched on her face, as if she thought he might cut her down.

“Don’t worry,” Sebastian said. “I won’t hurt you. I’m just here to—”

“He’s here!” the servant called out. “Prince Sebastian is here!”

Almost immediately, the sound of booted feet followed. Sebastian turned to run down the hallway, sprinting along the corridors he’d spent most of his life walking. He went left, then right, trying to lose the men who ran along behind him now, yelling for him to stop.

There were more men ahead. Sebastian glanced around, then burst into a nearby room, hoping that there might at least be an adjoining door or a place to hide. There was neither.

Guards crowded into the room. Sebastian considered his options, thought about the beating he’d received at the hands of Rupert’s men, and drew his sword almost on instinct.

“Put the sword down, your highness,” the leader of the guards commanded. There were men on either side of Sebastian now, and, to his surprise, at least some had muskets leveled. What kind of men would risk his mother’s anger by threatening one of her sons with death like that? Normally, they didn’t dare so much as a rebuke. It was part of the reason Rupert had gotten away with so much over the years.

Sebastian wasn’t Rupert, though, and he wasn’t foolish enough to consider fighting against a group of armed men like that. He lowered his sword, but didn’t drop it.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. There was one card he could play here that didn’t sit well with him, but might be his best option to stay safe. “I am the heir to my mother’s throne, and you are threatening me. Lower your weapons at once!”

“Is that why you did it?” the guards’ leader demanded, in a tone that held more hatred than Sebastian had heard in his life. “Did you want to be the heir?”

“Is that why I did what?” Sebastian shot back. “What is happening here? When my mother hears of this—”

“There’s no point in playing innocent,” the guard captain said. “We know you’re the one who murdered the Dowager.”

“Murdered…” It was as though the world stopped in that moment. Sebastian stood there open-mouthed, his sword clattering from nerveless fingers as the shock of it hit him. Someone had murdered the Dowager? His mother was dead?