"People who want to settle the frontier."
"All of them?" she gasped.
"Yes." He turned around and headed back into the shadows of the forest, guiding both horses.
Was it possible so many people could crave adventure? She sent another stunned gaze down into the basin, then hurried after him. "Robert, what are you doing?" It had taken her two months to get out of this wretched forest. She wanted to stay out.
He wrapped Horizon's reins around the saddle horn and attached a lead rope. "I'm hitching the horses here. Horizon is too conspicuous, and he doesn't lie when asked to identify himself."
The words drew her concern. She knew how much Robert valued his horse. If he was willing to leave Horizon behind, the danger below must be grave. "But the palace guards left the city, didn't they?" she asked, moving to help hitch the roan.
"Yes, but they will have asked questions, and word will have spread about your disappearance."
"Questions about Horizon?"
"Aurelia, they won't just be looking for you."
Fear shot through her. Of course, she had endangered Robert as well.
"Come on." He took her hand, guiding her through the trees, and together they strode forward into the basin. As they descended, sounds from below began to rise up: the harsh cracks of gunpowder, the thuds of an ax, the thunk of shovels hitting rock. And then everything. Baaing, moaning, squealing, baying, barking, clucking, and crowing. Bawling infants. Screaming youth. The rattle of buckets and pans. The spitting sizzle of campfires in the already fierce midday heat. And the unbroken squall of human voices, crossing from one tone to the next without constraint from walls or barriers.
She held her hands to her ears, aware that the noise was as much an inner cacophony as an outer one, the sharp reaction caused by her long absence from so much sound. "All these people are camping here, on top of each other?" she asked as her sensitive ears began to adjust. "Why?"
"They have no choice." Robert circled around a cooking fire. "They're waiting for a pass."
"A pass?" She followed him and almost ran into a small girl.
Aurelia bent down to apologize, then peered closer. The toddler was half naked, her ribs showing beneath her torn garment, her heel planted heedlessly in fresh bird dung. Aurelia turned to the child's mother, but the woman looked worn, her hand barely moving as she stirred a pan over the fire, sweat dripping from her forehead.
This was not adventure.
Reluctantly, Aurelia left the toddler behind. "A pass?" she repeated to Robert.
"Yes, no one can cross the Gate without one."
Then she remembered hearing that there was a monthly limit on the number of people allowed on the narrow mountain path. "You mean we'll have to wait for all these people to receive a pass and cross over the Gate first?"
"No, Aurelia." There was something bitter in Robert's tone. "We aren't going to have to wait."
Doubt threaded through her mind. Did that mean he was going to use her name in exchange for the pass? She pushed away the thought. He asked you to trust him.
She would have liked to know more, but they had neared the narrow entrance in the log walls around the actual city, and a crowd of people had gathered. "Open!" a loud voice from somewhere up ahead called out, just as Aurelia and Robert had reached the group's center. And suddenly she found herself in the midst of a pressing swarm. The close bodies shoved against her, tighter and tighter, the scents of sweat, soil, and urine ramming into her nostrils.
And then she was through, the crush dispersing into a cramped marketplace. Stalls clustered one upon the other, their surfaces teaming with furs, guns, raw meat, and tools. The ring of the blacksmith's forge clashed against the pounding of the carpenter's hammer. And the vendors' voices battled for customers, despite already exhaustive lines.
Robert made no move toward any of them, instead steering her along the edge of the walls until he and Aurelia had neared the back of the market. "There," he said, pointing her toward a dark wooden building. The words OFFICE OF LAW were carved into the sign beside the door. "That's where I'm going for the pass. I need you to wait here."
"No, I'm coming as well." She did not like the trepidation in his voice.
"That's not a good idea. The man in there-they call him the Lion."
The cryptic comment from three days before came back to her. Obviously it had held more significance than she had realized. She started toward the building.
"I need you to let me deal with him," Robert said.
She nodded.
Still he refused to relinquish the issue. "I'm serious, Aurelia. I need you to stay silent."
She glared back. Enough. She was not letting him go into the Lion's Den alone.
Robert cringed inwardly as he led her into the room of pilfered spoils. Crimson, silver, and speckled pelts overflowed the far corner beside an empty jail cell. A pile of gold rings, a diamond brooch, and a jeweled shell-shaped watch rested on the surface of a nearby chest. A rack of specialty rifles lined the same wall, and a half dozen pistols, all with fancy inlay, were scattered on the dirt floor to the left of the entrance. Though none of the weapons matched the engraved ivory-gripped flintlock on the desk of the Lion.
A thick, swarthy-faced man leaned back in his shabby chair, the black soles of his shoes propped beside that engraved pistol. The curling hairs of his overweight chest stuck out through the open neckline of his beige hunting shirt, and the button on his trousers had been unfastened. "Name your business, or get out," he said. Robert noted the quick glance to the arched hilt of his father's sword.
He felt Aurelia stiffen at his side and willed her, desperately, to keep her mouth shut.
"We require a pass," Robert said, meeting the man's gaze. His father had taught him never to look down in the face of a bully.
"There's a wait." The man pointed his shoe toward a thick stack of parchment on the corner of his desk. "You can add your name or your mark to the list."
Robert felt Aurelia shift.
"I'm afraid that won't be convenient," he replied.
The Lion's gaze turned again, this time openly, to the arched hilt of the sword. "You have some pressing business in the north?"
"My own."
The man spit a wad of chewing tobacco into a tin. "That so?'Fraid that reason doesn't supersede government policy."
No, of course it didn't. And neither would any reason Robert gave, though his uncle's name as the king's adviser would have done the job well enough, if Robert had dared risk it. "I'm sure we can find something that does," he said.
Again the gaze moved to the sword.
He would have loved to hand it over, to thrust from his side once more the piercing reminder of his own guilt. But it was still his father's, and the crest on the hilt would give away his last name as easily as printing it on a piece of paper. He should have left the sword behind, along with Horizon. An oversight he could not correct now.
Robert reached into his pocket and produced a gold coin.
Aurelia's grip tightened on his hand.
The man spit again. "'Fraid that won't pull you very far up the list."
No, but men the likes of this one would take as much as they thought they could get. "How far?" Robert replied.
"Hmm, maybe two, three pages."
Aurelia twisted her grip.
"Maybe more like twenty or thirty." Robert broke free.
The man bit into a hunk of beef jerky. "Maybe," he said, his mouth full.
Robert produced two more coins. He had had only four in his pack the night of the fire, and then had tried giving Thomas two of them as payment for his stay, but when Robert had reopened the pack later, he had found ten.
"Well, that'll get you about halfway there," the man chuckled.
Done. Robert palmed three more coins within his pocket, and placed them each-one, two, three-on the edge of the desk. The Lion smirked, reached into his top drawer, and pulled out a pre-signed strip of paper. "Happens I kept one back for this month," he said. "Just in case there might be an emergency." He held up the parchment. "Course that'll only get you one pass." He nodded leeringly at Aurelia. "So I reckon the little lady'll have to stay behind and keep me company. Unless you have somethin' else to offer." The gaze returned to the sword.
But Robert didn't need a second pass. He already had a permanent one, obtained back on the frontier. This man did not need to know that. Robert reached forward, his fingers grazing the parchment.
Then someone else stepped into the Lion's Den-a tall, lean man wearing a long dusty black coat. And a rope around his waist. Robert let his gaze follow the length of that rope through the open crack in the door.
And knew. Knew he had about three seconds before the crown princess of Tyralt tore the place apart. He snatched the signed pass, grabbed Aurelia by the wrist, and yanked her toward the door.
Aurelia bridled, pulling out of Robert's grasp. Was this why he had made her promise not to speak? So he could pay this horrible man called the Lion a bribe without fearing that she would interrupt? She would remember this man. She had taken in every crease and mark on his pudgy, despicable face and counted every misbegotten treasure in the room. She would have him arrested. He would pay back every toll he had ever collected, every pass he had ever withheld, and serve out the rest of his life in prison.
A tall lean man with a rope around his stomach jostled past.
She ignored the insult, eager to free herself from this den of greed. Steaming, she turned on her heel.
And it was then she saw the boy.
A child, no more than eight or nine, standing limply outside the door. Head down, his uneven, spiked hair spitting out toward her. His weight tilted on one leg, the other gingerly bent. His ragged trousers hung loose on his hips beneath scarlet chafe marks from the rope around his concave waist.
But these were nothing next to the bright red welts oozing from his stripped torso.
Horror, shock, and rage inflated Aurelia's chest. "Let him go!" She whirled to confront the man on the other end of the rope.
"Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am," the lean man sneered. He tipped up his stubbled jaw.
"Release that child!"
Robert's arm reached for her, but she thrust it away.
The Lion actually chuckled.
"Can't do that," the lean man replied. "He's a prisoner."
"I don't care what crime he's committed," she shrilled. "No child deserves to be beaten like that!"
"He's not a child. He's a kuro."
"A what?"
The man turned to the Lion. "I swear these settlers don't have the brains of a wasp."
"A kuro, gal." The Lion gave her a foul glare. "A frontier orphan who sold hisself for his keep and then rethunk. But that don't sit too well with the law."
"The law! You call this place an office of the-"
"Who do you think you are?!" the Lion roared.
An arm gripped her waist so tight that it forced the air from her diaphragm. Then Robert was literally pulling her out of that vile room. Away from those repulsive scoundrels. From their crass guffaws. And from that helpless, bleeding child.
Chapter Ten.
INTENTIONS.
ROBERT HARNESSED HIS FEAR AND DRAGGED HER away from the Lion's Den. She fought him. Of course she fought him. She jabbed him with her heels and battered his shins. She twisted in the circle of his arms and hammered his fingers with her fists. She dug her nails into his flesh and thwacked him straight in the eye with her elbow. Thank Tyralt she had never been trained with a sword, or she would have stripped him of his weapon and won.
Though what she would have won filled him with such dread it gave him the strength to carry her across the blasted marketplace, where every set of eyes hinged upon her. Staring. But there was no time to worry about the undesired attention. The Lion had hirelings. Minions.
Robert hauled her through the log barricade.
"Let me go!" she demanded.
"To the horses," he replied with gritted teeth.
She shoved on his arms. "Not without the boy."
"If I have to," Robert said, "I'll pack you all the way back to the Fortress."
"You haven't the strength."
He seriously doubted he could drag her another hundred feet. "Test me," he challenged, then added, "Listen, Aurelia, we'll talk about the boy, after we get to the horses."
She wrenched her torso to the side, to no avail. "All right," she snapped.
He let go. To argue further would undercut the agreement.
She stormed through the wagons, her pace so fast he had to struggle to keep up after the exertion of fighting her, but he was grateful for the speed. She cut a direct line up the hill, and his mind held the same direct route. Get out. Get out. Get out. Before the Lion figures out who we are.
Aurelia crested the basin, and Robert hurried after her into the trees.
Both horses were still there. "Get on Horizon," he ordered her. The stallion would move faster, even with two riders, than the roan. And if Robert needed to, he could cut the mare free.
"We're going back for that child!" She planted her feet stubbornly.
Robert unhitched the horses and tied the roan's lead to Horizon's saddle horn. "Aurelia, the palace guards knew if we were alive, we would have to go through that law office. Through that man. Do you think he can't be bought for the life of a crown princess?"