Chapter 191 Assassination

The weather held fair the whole road, and the Countess grew fonder of her nephew by the day.

Well-read, well-mannered, gentle of temper — a pity only about the legs. Otherwise, she caught herself thinking, he'd do nicely enough for little Lora.

He spoke little with anyone else, yet he could set Lora laughing till she doubled over. She would remind Lora that a young lady laughs without showing her teeth; the nephew would say her teeth were pretty.

She would remind Lora that a young lady eats no more than seven parts full; the nephew would say she was still growing, no need to bind her hand with rules — and besides, she looked well plump or thin either way.

On the road, Lyle, Norton, and the rest shot a few wild rabbits.

One had taken it in the leg only. She dosed the wound, bound it up, made a great fuss of it, and let it go — then in the next breath was clamoring to roast the others with her own two hands.

The Countess, watching that ring of people round the campfire, could not help a quiet sigh.

"My lady, see how happy the young lady is today. Come next year, when she's married, before her mother- and father-in-law it won't be so easy." Rosa draped a straight-collared cloak about the Countess's shoulders. The Countess looked no more; she turned back for her room in the posting house:

"True enough. Lora has her presentation next month. It's the fashion now for young lords to marry late — but what young lady waits past a year or two after her pin? Easy and free — that's only before one's father and mother..."

"A grown daughter won't be kept. It's the General I fear won't let go."

Down in the little courtyard, Lora watched the doors and windows of her mother's room go shut. She took Leon's hand:

"Come on. I'll show you the stars."

She had had her eye on the posting house's watchtower this good while — three stories of pavilion below, and a signal-fire platform on top.

It was their first night out, and they lay at Newholm, eight leagues back down the road. This had been the Hainault Pass of the old dynasty, a frontier fort of the Lohenheim domain.

The Empire's land relays ran in seven classes, and Newholm was a second-class great station, no shabby place: fifty relay horses in its stalls, warehouses, eating-houses, a tisane house, an inn — and private little courtyards set aside for the great to lodge in.

They had one of those, well toward the back.

The watchtower — the signal platform, that is — stood between two of the courtyards.

A watchtower was nothing new to the two of them. But now Leon rode a wheelchair — and still, so as not to spoil her fun, Lyle pushed the chair out of the courtyard toward the tower.

"Eh? Someone's stolen a march on us."

Lora thought she caught a shadow of movement up top and grabbed tight hold of Leon's arm — and Lyle, behind the chair, was up the stairs in one flash.

In a moment he was down again: "Nobody up there. I heard a rustle, gave chase — gone."

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"You're sure it was a someone? We're inside a posting house — no big trees here. Search the place quietly, see what's off. I'll walk the young lady back."

"It's not a private courtyard — is a person so strange a thing? Maybe they're up there star-gazing, same as us?"

Lora — grown up in the modern world, where nothing much went bump in the night — hadn't much of a guard up yet.

"I can't be sure. But we can't be careless. It's well the man was above and we hadn't gone up — had the positions been the other way round..."

Lora looked down at the wheelchair under his hands, and the fright caught her late:

She'd been far too easy. If there had been nobody above, she might have sailed straight up, dragging Leon along.

The guards left in the courtyard saw them come back in a hurry and came pressing out: "Something off?"

"Someone was dodging us, that much we know. Lyle's after him. Hold the courtyard — nothing rash."

Leon's room was downstairs; Lora got him into it quick.

"It's my fault — wanting to go look at stars..."

"Little goose. If you hadn't proposed the stars, we might never have known there was a man up high." Leon took her hand and smiled:

"Don't chew on it. Nothing's come of it. Might have been bats, an owl. Lyle's quick as a cat — and he never caught so much as a shadow?

Maybe I'm over-quick. The whole world knows I'm a cripple. If somebody went and broke my legs for real, I'd have naught to do but swallow it."

True — the last time out, he had traveled buried among the guards, no man knowing who he was. This time, going back to the capital, it was the Baron of Charnwood, Leon himself, out in the open on the road.

No village ahead, no inn behind — as pretty a spot for a knifing as a man could ask.

When Lora had gone up, Ruth wheeled Leon back into his room, Ivy following with basin and towel.

Ruth stepped up to help him off with his outer robe; he stopped her: "I'll sleep dressed. Who knows what the night brings. Hand me the face-cloth."

He wiped his face any old way, and sent them out.

Candle out, Leon sat still in the dark: he was still an ant yet — one his brother the King could pinch dead any hour he pleased.

Nothing for it but a guarded tongue and a guarded step.

Upstairs, Lora slept badly too. When day broke, the guards in the courtyard stood already armed and saddled.

Leon was talking with the Countess; seeing Lora come down, the Countess smiled:

"Just this minute we were talking of you — won't sleep at night, won't rise by day. Tonight there'll be no more carrying-on."

Before they mounted, Leon came to her side: "It should have been a false alarm. No one doubtful turned up in the station overnight."

The next two days were mountain road. Everyone went soft-footed and careful — and nothing happened; till Lora began to think it had been nothing after all.

"This stretch — high hills, wild water — is the best of the scenery too. The two banks of the Glenwater are at their finest in the year right now."

Leon looked greedily out the carriage window — at the steep ranges, at whole hillsides of red and yellow crowns.

Coming out, it had been spring, the cold still in the air, the road misted over end to end.

And his heart — this hour and that hour were two different worlds.

"Another hour or so brings us to Tarnfield County. We'll be in early — I could play you a game of five-in-a-row." Leon smiled.

Lora couldn't play Go, but five-in-a-row she knew cold; they had played it back in the Grand Princess's mansion. Two days of stretched nerves — Leon wanted everybody's blood to run easy again.

"Good. I'll go flop in my own carriage a while."

"You just ate — you'll be carsick if you sleep..."

"If I'm sick, won't I sleep all the better?" Lora giggled, and stepped down.

The carriage had scarce begun to roll when a shout came from the rear: "Assassins!"

Lora—!

Leon surged up to run — Linn caught him: "My lord, I'll push the chair. The young lady's in her carriage — for now she's safe."

Linn and Lyle hauled Leon out, chair and all — and there before them were dozens of masked men, come down on the three carriages in the middle from both ends at once.

First came the fire-arrows in a volley — but the carriage canopies had been treated and would not take the flame easily; then the masked men drew their swords and charged.

Their own guards were many, but here the cliff rose on the one side, the road was choked by the carriages, and what ground was left was too narrow to brawl on.

Ten-odd men to a carriage, no more — and in that first rush, the dozens of masked men dropping out of the sky had the numbers all their way.

Ahead of Leon's carriage was Lora's. Linn and Lyle parried the masked men hacking toward them, and he swung round the carriage, rolling the chair himself toward Lora's, and seeing no stir inside, he called out, hoarse:

"Lora! Lora!"

"Here!"

Lora had just put her head out of the canopy — and two black-clad men traded one glance, shook off their guards, and lunged for her together.