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She had never met a man that she could imagine taking for a husband. And she couldn’t bear to think of Amelonia being handed to some stranger like a honey cake on a platter, all because she’d had the misfortune to be born female. But the wedding ring was not yet on her hand, and there was no likely suitor in sight. Plenty of time for an enterprising young woman to prove herself worthy of guiding her people firmly and wisely.
Rebellion bloomed, and a wildness flared in Tressalara, borne with the scent of summer meadows on the warm air. She slipped out of her gown and into the stable lad’s clothes. She wished that she could cut her heavy hair short, but satisfied herself by twisting it into a thick braid.
The door to her inner chamber opened, and Elani, her youngest lady-in-waiting and closest friend, entered. Her blue eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, highness, you dare not…!
“Watch me and see!”
With a grin, Tressalara pinned her long braid atop her hair and covered it with a battered leather cap that pulled down to her ears. “Behold young Trev, a simple peasant lad of Amelonia, on his way to an adventure.”
Before Elani could even think what to do, the princess was gone.
She was halfway down the back staircase to the lower level, her mind on nothing but escape and freedom, when she heard a scream followed by a great commotion in the main courtyard. Without pausing, she clambered to the ledge of a window that overlooked the market area.
What she saw turned her heart to a ball of ice. The portcullis had dropped, the gates were barred, and the courtyard was filled with men-at-arms in black livery. Some of the visitors threw off their cloaks to reveal the same ominous uniforms. They were everywhere. At their leader’s signal they charged into the crowd.
Tables were overturned. Fruit and tools and pottery went flying as the king’s bugler blew a call to arms. Chickens and piglets scattered. Women and children screamed and ran; babies wailed as men fell before the attackers’ blades. Thank God—there was Jeday, her father’s loyal captain of the guard arriving with his men.
He raised his arm to lead a charge, and Tressalara’s relief turned to horror as Jeday was struck from behind by an assassin’s knife. As he fell, lifeless, the guard behind him threw off his king’s livery to show again the dread black uniform of the attackers. It had all happened in an instant.
Then Tressalara recognized their leader: the smooth-talking chief councillor, Lord Lector. No mistaking that mane of dark hair with its single silver streak, the jutting profile, and the silver scorpion emblem on his shield. A crafty and dangerous man. There was no time to lose.
As Tressalara ducked inside, the courtyard rang with fierce cries: “Death to the tyrant! Death to King Varro!”
Elani came to the head of the stairs and looked down, her usually pretty face pale as lard. “What is it?”
“Lector has turned traitor, and we are besieged. I must find my father.” Tressalara was halfway down the stairs. “The enemy are within the walls. Save yourself, Elani. Hide in my chambers. You know where.” She saw her friend hesitate. “That is an order from your princess! I command you!”
Then she was on the last step, plunging into the shadows along the corridor. She must reach her father in time. She must! Tressalara’s heart beat so hard it seemed about to jolt out of her chest. The invaders had timed their coup well, waiting until the king had retired to the isolated chapel for his daily meditations—alone and unarmed.
Oh, the cowards! she thought, sliding back the secret panel that led to a shortcut. The castle was riddled with many such passageways, a legacy of her great-grandfather’s madness. Trusting no one and fearing assassination, he had built a maze inside these walls. She knew every secret way and in the past had gotten her britches dusted a few times for hiding in them overlong and setting the castle on its ear.
But now the knowledge of these places, where she and Elani had played as children, would serve her well. If only she could get to her father in time to warn him, she could spirit him away to safety through the secret door in the chapel.
She slipped the catch that opened behind the altar. Before it had always amused her that the icon of Saint Ethelred the Dragonmaster hung upon the doorway to the heart of the secret maze. At the moment she had no thought for it.
Her father was on his knees at the altar, looking old and frail in his simple robe and without his emblems of kingship. As he humbled himself before God, his gray head bent almost to the floor, and his coronet caught the light of the tall candelabra.
At any other time Tressalara would have told herself that he was no doubt praying for a virile son-in-law to sire a male grandchild in the years to come. But now was no time to nurture old grievances.
“Father!”
“Tressalara! By all the saints!” Varro roared, taking in her boy’s garb and her unorthodox arrival in one heated glance. “Do you have no sense of what is fitting in this holy…”
“Father, we are under attack! Lector and his men have taken the courtyard and the great hall. Jeday—“She strengthened her faltering voice. “Jeday is dead by an assassin’s hand. Come this way. Hurry!”
Already they could hear the first sounds of tumult from just beyond the thick chapel walls. Voices raised in anger and fear. The clash of steel on steel. Cries of mortal agony.
“Father, come!”
He hesitated as the locked chapel door shuddered from the onslaught. The brass key fell to the stone flags with an ominous clang. The wood cracked and splintered. The king hurried to Tressalara’s side, and she turned down the secret passage, assuming that he meant to follow.
Instead, he wrested her drawn dagger from her hand, then shoved her forward into the darkness with what frail strength he could muster. She fell heavily, skinning her hands on the rough stone floor. The door to the passageway thudded shut behind her.
Jumping up, Tressalara threw herself at the latch, but it refused to give. She pressed her shoulder against the panel, tears of rage and fear for her father running down her cheeks. She knew why she couldn’t open it. Her father had his back firmly to the door, holding it shut so that she could not open it from the inside and reveal her hiding place. He had chosen her life over his.
Tears streaming, she could do nothing but stifle her own sobs and pray. The scuffle of feet and the shriek of metal against stone were plainly audible through the heavy wood, although the assassins’ voices were muffled.
An eternity passed while she waited, hoping in vain that her father would escape yet knowing that he had no chance at all. Vowing, through her anguish, that she would have revenge upon Lector and save the kingdom.