Alex Bledsoe - Dark Jenny

“Hold it, hold it,” I said. “What the hell, Spears? You think I don’t recognize her?”

She was dressed in a simple but expensive gown, with her brunette hair braided and twisted close to her head. Yet the lips and eyes were unmistakable. Although even when she feared for her life and marriage back in Nodlon, she never looked this frightened. She blurted, “It’s not what you think.”

“It never is,” I said wearily. “Surprise me.”

“No, really, it isn’t what you think,” Spears said. He’d lost that superior attitude and put his hands protectively on her shoulders.

“Let me explain,” Jennifer said.

“Let us explain,” Spears corrected.

I held up my hands. I was sore, hungry, and monumentally weary of complications and intrigues. “Please, no, don’t bother. I really don’t care.” Then I added to Jennifer, “Except about one thing: how did you get here before I did?” It was a straight shot from Nodlon Castle; even if she’d somehow passed me while I was swapping horses or dawdling in Astolat, I’d easily have overtaken a queen’s slow-moving retinue on the open road.

Spears and Jennifer looked at each other. “Tell him,” Jennifer said.

Spears finally said, “I suppose if I don’t, I’d have to kill you to keep you from inquiring further.”

I said nothing, but shifted my weight so I’d be ready to move. Being killed by a legendary warrior was actually a lot classier than most of the ways I assumed I’d die, but I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Jennifer smoothed wrinkles from her gown and recovered some of her dignity. “I don’t think that will be necessary. Are you in the king’s service?”

“He’s paying me,” I said.

“Then this can be handled, I’m sure, with an appropriate amount of… compensation?” She looked at me with haughty, defensive disdain.

I frowned. Surely she knew me better than that by now. “I kept your other secrets, didn’t I? Give me a good reason and I’ll keep this one. But I don’t bribe.”

Again they looked at each other, as if they knew something important I didn’t. It got on my nerves.

Finally Spears said, “There’s something you don’t understand, Mr. LaCrosse.” He looked at Jennifer. “She is not who you believe she is.”

“She’s not Queen Jennifer Drake of Grand Bruan?”

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”

I’d heard my share of lame excuses, but this might beat them all for sheer nerve. “You called her Jenny,” I pointed out.

“My name is Jennifer. But…”

Like a guilty teenager, Spears blurted out all in one breath, “She is the half sister of the woman who is now queen of Grand Bruan.”

Now it was my turn to stare at them, especially at her. I said, “No way.” But there were differences, subtle and hard to spot but definitely present if you took the time to look. Mostly it was in her bearing; Queen Jennifer never looked as deer-in-torchlight frightened as this woman.

“It gets better,” Spears said, then nodded at Jennifer, or whoever the hell she was, to continue.

She took a deep breath. “Jennifer Drake and I have the same father. Around the time his wife became pregnant, he also had a liaison with one of his servant girls. Both the servant and his wife gave birth on the same day, both bore girls, and both girls were named…” She looked down and sighed at the absurdity. “Jennifer.”

I made no effort to hide my skepticism. “That’s a little hard to believe.”

She shrugged. “I know that. It doesn’t make it untrue.”

“I realize how ridiculous this sounds,” Spears said. “I know a bit about breeding both horses and hounds, and the chance of two identical offspring from a single father and two different mothers is… well, unlikely. But”-he spread his hands helplessly-“there you are.”

“So your mother was a serving girl,” I said.

“No,” she said, chin high. “ My mother was the lady of the manor.”

This took several moments for me to process. My stomach growled in the silence. At last I said, “Maybe I’m just tired, but I’m not following this at all.”

“Some days it confuses me, too,” Spears said.

“I am the daughter of Lord Leo Camiliard,” she said. “I met Marc Drake shortly after he’d been crowned king. He was young, handsome, and forceful; he overwhelmed me with his attention. I fell in love, agreed to marry him, and become the queen of the newly united Grand Bruan. But…”

She began to cry, the kind of silent tears that strike before you’re aware of them. Spears gently took her hand.

“The thought of being queen terrified me,” she continued. “I hated being stared at, being expected to speak and be gracious and follow court intrigues. I loved Marc the way you’d love a god, as something not human; it wasn’t… wasn’t real. And then I met Elliot.”

I saw where this was going. “So you switched places with the other girl who looked just like you.”

She nodded, delicately wiping her eyes. “Marc spent very little time with me before we were to be married. He was creating a whole new government, after all. So whatever differences there were, my sister overcame them. She’s much better suited to being a queen than I am.”

“Even though she’s a commoner.”

“Nobles, commoners, what difference does it make?” Spears said. “Marc has his queen, and I have my love.”

I closed my eyes in annoyance, weariness, and just plain disbelief. “So this is why people think you and the queen are fooling around.”

“Yes. We have visitors, and Jenny usually manages to stay out of sight. But not always. A glimpse here, an overheard comment there…” Spears shrugged.

“You had a very public fight with the queen, they tell me.”

“Yes. It was about whether we should go public with the truth, now that the days of war and conflict were over. We chose not to.”

It explained a lot: why the Knights of the Double Tarn distrusted the queen, and why Spears was scarce now that the wars were over. It didn’t explain why someone tried to kill Thomas Gillian and make it look as if the queen did it. “Well, be that as it may, the woman currently wearing the crown needs to see you by tomorrow or things could get ugly.”

He nodded. “Of course. I’ll be ready to go within the hour.”

“Elliot,” Jenny said. She stepped close and added softly, “You can’t just leave me here.”

“You’ll be fine. Just stay upstairs, and-”

“No!” she almost shrieked. “I can’t do it! Here all alone, wondering if you’re all right-”

Spears smiled. “It’s a joust of honor against Thomas Gillian, Jenny. It’s not that serious. And I never lose.”

“I won’t stay here alone.” Her voice was firm even though she looked down at the floor. “I’m tired of hiding.”

“She’s got a point,” I said. “Drake seems like the kind of guy who-”

“Don’t tell me about Marc Drake,” Spears snapped, fury in his eyes. Again I fought the urge to step back. “Our blood mingled on too many battlefields for me not to know him better than even his queen does. If I thought even remotely that he’d understand, I’d have told him long ago. But he wouldn’t.”

“There’s another reason she shouldn’t stay,” I said. “Whoever’s behind this may know about the two of you. With you gone, she’d be pretty vulnerable.”

“See?” Jenny said.

Jenny and Spears looked intently at each other, a contest of wills I wasn’t sure who would win. After a moment I risked interrupting them to say, “Now that my message is delivered, if it’s all the same to you folks, I’ll be leaving. Best of luck with the joust.”

Spears held up Drake’s message. “That’s not what it says here.” He read, “‘Mr. LaCrosse has my utmost confidence. Anything you ask of him will be the same as me asking it. I’m convinced of his honesty and integrity.’” Spears folded it with a wry scowl. “Looks like you’re still on the royal payroll, if you’re an honorable man.”