The slick-haired guard — Mack — considered this for a second. “Take him to the guard station and wait for the shift change. You can handle him on your own as long as he’s tied up, can’t you? I can walk her home.”
The big guard grinned. “Sure, Mack. You get the girl to yourself. I get stuck with the murderous Wise Man.”
“Just take him. I’ll be back soon enough.”
The big guard grumbled, but he bent down anyway, hefting the Wise Man and slinging him over one huge shoulder, like an over-large sack of potatoes.
“You’re only making me carry him because you don’t have the strength t’do it yourself,” the guard told Mack.
Mack huffed in irritation. “I’ve met highborn daughters who whine less than you, Dawk. Get going. We’ll settle who’s stronger later.”
“You hain’t known any highborn daughters,” the big one shot back. But he turned away from them and headed across the street with his burden anyway.
Tasia let out a tense breath of relief to see her would-be assassin move away from her on the shoulder of the guard. But conflict brewed inside. She wasn’t sure if the Wise Man’s receding form was a good thing or a bad thing.
It was good, because she was out of danger for the moment. But it was bad, because she did not know his identity, and that meant he might return — or worse, he would find his way back to whomever else he was working with or working for and strengthen his position before making a second attempt on her life. Letting the guard take him away might be a mistake.
“A friend is someone you can let out of your sight for a short while,” her father’s voice said in her head. “An enemy is someone you never allow out of your field of vision.”
The Wise Man was almost out of her field of vision already. It would be much better if the guards took the assassin to the palace, where he could be properly interrogated by the Emperor’s men.
She drew in a breath, about to call out to the big guard to bring him back, but instinct stopped her again.
They will not heed your words, instinct said. You’ve made them believe you’re a baker’s girl. The only way to make them obey is to reveal that you are the Princess. And what will happen once they know that? The wheels of your fate will begin to roll. If they believe you — if — then they will take you back to the palace along with the Wise Man. The palace guard will wake your father. You will have to explain why you’ve been found outside the walls — again — in the dress of a baker’s girl.
She weighed both options. Nearly losing her life was deeply disconcerting. But explaining to her father why she was leaving Markas’s apartments at four-of-the-clock… That was even more disconcerting.
She held her tongue — and realized the guard named Mack was watching her.
He smiled unconvincingly. “So, girl,” he said. “Which way towards home?”
She turned, facing the palace. The gate was only a few hundred yards up the hill, the gently glowing torchlight visible even from here. Once she made it to the privacy of her own quarters, she would figure out what to do about what happened tonight.
“Girl?”
“Sorry, sir,” Tasia said. She let out a giggle that she hoped sounded jittery and nervous. “I think I’m still a little shaken up.”
“I don’t have all night. Which way are we going?”
Tasia pointed up the hill. “North,” she said. “Past the palace.”
#
They marched up the hill in silence, the occasional hanging lantern wavering in the breeze and casting eerie yellow patterns against the canal’s black water. Tasia stared straight ahead of her, mind busy with the task of deciding how she would lose Mack and make it to Sunfall Gate without him.
“I hope the Wise Man at least paid you for your troubles before he attacked you,” Mack said, words breaking into Tasia’s contemplations.
“Beg pardon?”
“I said, I hope he at least paid you.”
“Paid me for what, sir?” Tasia asked, genuinely confused.
Mack chuckled, tucking a long strand of hair behind one ear. “Come on, girl. You might’ve fooled my mate Dawkin back there into thinking you’re just an errant baker’s girl out past your bedtime, but you didn’t fool me.”
Fool him?
And then understanding struck Tasia all at once: Mother Moon, he thinks I’m a prostitute!
“I am a baker’s girl,” Tasia said, tone brooking no room for disagreement. “The baker I work for has several clients in the Ambassador Quarter, one of them with a tendency to entertain guests late into the night, which sometimes requires late night replenishment.”
“Replenishment? Is that what they call it when you visit?” Mack gave her a smug smirk. “I can tell just from the way you talk you’re no baker’s girl.” He eyed her, inspecting her up and down. “I bet you’re from one of them high-class brothels, eh? Where they teach you to read and play the lute and all the other pig shite so rich men can pretend you’re highborn.”
Tasia turned her gaze away from him, kept her eyes fixed firmly ahead of her. “I am not what you imply, sir. I am a baker’s girl far from home, nothing more.”
“Which baker?”
“He’s not — his shop is new,” Tasia sputtered. “I doubt you’d recognize the name.”
Mack’s hand snaked out, and for the second time in one evening a coarse man grabbed the Princess’s wrist. He jerked her toward him.
“Don’t lie to me, now, girl.” He was so close to Tasia that she could smell the fish and ale on his breath. “Half the brothels in Port Lorsin are under the protection of the city guard; surely you know that. And you wouldn’t want your mistress finding out you lied to a kindly guardsman who only tried to walk you home. After saving your life.”
The palace was so close. If she could only get away from him, she might be able to outrun him to the gate. Or at least come close enough that the Sunfall guards would hear her shouting for help.
Composing her face into a mask of cold neutrality, Tasia looked down at the rough hand around her wrist.
“Neither would my mistress be pleased to hear that a guardsman bruised one of her chattel,” she said cooly.
He let her go, wide grin revealing a missing tooth. “Ha! I knew it! You should’ve just said what you are to begin with, girl.”
Tasia straightened her cloak, resumed her trek up the hill. “It would have been unbecoming for a woman like me to state her true occupation to a member of the city guard.”
“So it would, so it would,” Mack mused with a light chuckle, clearly pleased that his infinite intelligence had revealed the truth about Tasia.
A few seconds later, the same hand that had grabbed her wrist goosed her bottom. Tasia jumped, barely managing to repress a startled yelp before it escaped her throat.
Mack laughed. “And do you think your mistress would allow a humble city guardsman a few minutes on the house as thanks for saving one of her girls?” He wrapped an arm around Tasia’s narrow waist and pulled her into him. Before Tasia had a chance to react, a stubble-coated chin pressed against the side of her neck and a tongue slipped into her ear.