Page 93 of Once Upon a Castle
But later that night, sleeping on a rug at the foot of Cador’s camp bed, she comforted herself. No one was likely to look for her among this ragged band of rebels. As long as she kept her identity secret she was safe here. As safe as she could be from everything except her own emotions.
She listened to the sounds of his breathing. Was he still awake? The urge to confide in him was strong; yet she must trust no one until she had reason to be sure of their loyalty. It seemed that Cador had his own eye upon the throne. If she remembered rightly, he had been outlawed for trying to overthrow his cousin, the Duke of Morania.
And, now that she thought of it, the oath he’d made her swear had been to him and to his people. There had been no mention of loyalty or duty to the House of Varro or the rightful heiress to the throne. No, better to wait and spy out the lay of the land until she knew more.
Cador lay awake long after Tressalara’s breathing deepened and she drifted off, but his thoughts were much the same. He’d known her for a female the moment he’d pushed her up against the tavern wall. That had been quite a shock, and it had set him thinking of the missing princess. They were of an age. And her hands, although scraped raw, were soft and white beneath the grime, unused to hard physical labor. Definitely the hands of a lady.
Or a princess.
Certainly she had the coloring of the royal family. She might hide her hair beneath a cap, but there was no disguising those amethyst-colored eyes beneath winged brows. He smiled in the darkness. It couldn’t have gone better if he’d planned it. Princess Tressalara, heiress to the throne of Amelonia, had dropped into his hands like a ripe plum.
Now he would have to figure out exactly what to do with her.
5
In the Cavernsof Mist two exhausted frogs squatted on the floor, eyeing one another balefully. No matter how hard they tried, they had each failed repeatedly in their attempts to clamber back up the table to where the huge spellbook lay open. The large, darker frog made one last attempt, only to flop gasping onto its back. The spots on its pale belly were curiously shaped, almost like small stars and moons.
“This is all your fault,” Illusius said between gasps, flailing his webbed toes in the air.
“Nonsense,” Niniane snapped, hopping fretfully back and forth in short, nervous arcs. Although human time meant little to a wizard’s apprentice, she was tired, her jumping muscles ached, and there was nothing to eat but a bug perched on a rock. She’ddiebefore she atebugs!It took all her willpower to keep her long tongue coiled neatly in her mouth.
“Oh,” she said with a sigh, “how I do wish we’d been turned into something that could fly. At least that way we could reach the table to read the spells and try to figure a way out of this fine mess you’ve gotten us into. And my poor princess is in terrible danger.” An idea came to her. “Illusius! See how that wand is tipped up at one end? If I got on the other side and you hopped on that end, you might be able to flip me up to the tabletop. Then I could hunt through the students’ handbook for a spell to free us.”
The darker frog hopped over to the wand and examined it. “It might work. But how do I know you’ll keep your word? You might just change yourself back and leave me croak!”
Niniane rolled her big, bulgy eyes at him. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
He didn’t move, just waited with his toes splayed out. “Oh, very well. Hop on.”
Before Niniane had even reached the wand, a curious thing happened. A puff of sparkling smoke twinkled through the caverns. When it cleared, she found herself in daylight, floating in a river’s shallows on a lily pad. She was, to her intense disappointment, still a frog.
“What happened?” Illusius croaked beside her.
“I don’t have the froggiest…er, foggiest notion.” She hopped a few feet to the reedy bank and looked around. “But at least I know where we are—the rebel camp where Cador brought Tressalara last night. Let’s find her and see what she’s doing.”
Illusius was facing the opposite direction, across the riverbank “I already have, Niniane. And you’re not going to like it oneribbit!”
“Who are you calling a pimple-faced boy?” Nidd shouted. How dare this newcomer try and make him a figure of fun before the others, especially Ulfin.
Tressalara had tried to ignore Nidd’s taunting earlier, but things had finally gone too far. For the past two weeks he’d made her life miserable. Today he’d managed to push her into the horse manure, making her spill her morning’s allotment of bread into it as well, and now he had splattered Cador’s saddle, which she had just cleaned and polished, with claylike mud.
If she didn’t stand up for herself now, he would, like all bullies, make her life hellish from dawn to dusk. She stood with her hands on her hips. “If you have doubts, custard-face, look at your reflection in the river. Better yet, bathe in it. Saints know, it must have been long enough since your last washing, as anyone standing downwind of you can tell!”
She turned away with the laughter of the other young people ringing in her ears. That should silence Nidd for a while. Instead, there was the unmistakable sound of a weapon sliding out of its sheath. She whirled around like a cat and found Nidd mere paces away from her, with his rapier drawn. He lunged at her.
“Let us see how brave you are now, Sir Trev!”
She had only her jeweled dagger. Swallowing hard against the lump in her throat, she drew the weapon and switched to an alert, defensive posture.
“Not fair!” someone in the crowd cried. “A dagger is no match for a rapier blade.” The speaker, a sandy-haired older boy, took out his own weapon and tossed it to Tressalara. “This will equal the match.”
She hefted it and grinned. The balance was perfect, the blade strong and true. “A fine piece of the swordmaker’s art. I thank you for the loan of it.”
With a swish and a flourish she brandished it in the air. Nidd was too angry to recognize the skill evident in the way she handled the rapier. But the onlookers did, and they looked forward to an exciting test of arms. “Have at it, then!”
Tressalara waited for him to make the first move. Nidd thrust wildly, and she parried it with ease. He was briefly startled, then weighed in. Although she was well trained, with a quick eye and the reflexes of a cat, Nidd’s height and reach gave him a slight advantage.
What she lacked in strength or reach she made up for in wit and cunning. Tressalara danced away, darted beneath his thrust, and came up with her blade singing against his. A fast bit of footwork and she was out of reach again. “Catch me if you can!”
