Alex Bledsoe - The Sword-Edged blonde

I counted ten big rough-looking hard boys in need of haircuts and shaves. They were armed with swords and knives, including some big two-hander blades that, if their wielders could actually lift them, would slice through a cow. A quick count of the empty mugs on the tables told me they’d been drinking a while, and that might take the edge off their skill. I wasn’t going to bet on it, though.

“What’ll you have, pal?” the bartender asked. Tattoos ran down his arms and his right eyelid drooped.

“Cheapest rum you got,” I said, sounding like I’d been on the road for weeks. “I’m on a tight budget.”

“Cheapest I got’ll take off varnish,” he said.

I shrugged. I had no intention of drinking it anyway. “Challenges make you a better person.” He nodded and went to pour the drink.

I checked out the women milling around the tough guys. Like bars, bar whores tended to be the same everywhere. If they were under twenty-five, they still had that little hint of hope that some shining knight would rescue them from their life of degradation and despair. Over that age, they were either resigned to their fate, or they actually enjoyed the job and thus were always the happiest people in the room.

Five ladies sought the attention of the men in the corner. Three of them were not young enough to be my missing princess. The fourth had a bit too much flesh spilling over her bodice.

The last one sat demurely next to a big man who, in the dimness, looked familiar. I put it down as a trick of the firelight; although it wasn’t impossible, the chances that I really knew the guy were pretty slim.

The bartender brought my drink, and I nonchalantly turned to survey the room, the way any traveler would. The demure girl’s face wasn’t any clearer from this angle, but she had the right kind of hair and looked about the right age to be my missing princess. Travelers from Gurius, Balaton’s capital, might stop in here; it was pretty ballsy of these guys to bring their prisoner into a bar where she might be recognized, even dressed like a farm girl come to town.

At that moment the girl raised her head and said something to the man next to her. Damn if it wasn’t her all right, Princess Lila of the Royal House of Balaton. She looked only slightly the worse for wear, although some kinds of wear wouldn’t show. The man turned to answer her, and suddenly I knew why he had looked familiar, and why the princess had run away.

Lila stood and walked a bit unsteadily toward the door that led to the outhouses, clearly unused to whatever she’d been drinking. The man watched her the whole way.

I guess I wasn’t as smooth as I thought, because the bartender suddenly appeared and cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t stare at Ryan’s girl if I was you,” he said.

“If he don’t want people to look, he shouldn’t bring her to town,” I said gruffly. I made myself take a sip of my drink for effect, and immediately wished I hadn’t. It burned all the way down.

“I’ll make sure they put that on your headstone,” the bartender said, and walked away.

I gave the princess time to get settled on her throne, then threw down the rest of the drink and got to my feet. I hoped no one saw how red my face turned from the rum; I couldn’t drink like a young man anymore.

I went out the same door, and in the moonlight saw four outhouses in a row at the end of a narrow stone walkway. Three of them were unoccupied; I threw open the door to the fourth.

Lila looked up sharply from her seat, and her eyes widened in surprise when she realized I was a man. One eye didn’t widen as much as the other, due to the puffy, fading bruise around it. I said, “So this is the real story behind the ‘Princess and the Pea.’ ”

“Who the hell are you?” she cried. She tried to pull down her skirt without standing. Then, more in control, she said, “There’s three empty ones, you know.”

“No, I’m in the right spot, Lila.”

She froze, and glared at me. “I’m not going back,” she said through her teeth.

“Yeah, I figured you’d say that.” I wearily scratched my beard. “So who gave you the shiner?”

“Who do you think?” she muttered. “Would you mind turning around so I can get decent?”

“I didn’t get to be this old turning my back on people. You just go ahead, I promise I won’t enjoy it.” And I didn’t. Battered children don’t do a thing for me.

While she adjusted her pantaloons and skirts I said, “So I guess we have a dilemma.”

“I’m not going back,” she repeated. The bruise around her eye looked about three weeks old, right around the time she disappeared. “You can kill me, but you can’t take me back to that place.”

I hadn’t quite made up my mind how to proceed, but there was no need for her to know that. “I’ve already taken some of their money.”

She reached for a pouch at her waist. “I can pay you twice what they did-”

“Doesn’t work that way.” I took her chin gently and turned her face toward the light. “So who gave you the eye, really?”

“My father,” she spat, and twisted out of my grasp.

“Which one?”

Before she could answer, my luck ran out. The tavern door behind me burst open, and the man who’d sat next to Lila strode out, followed by three other big, slightly drunk guys. I reached over my shoulder and grabbed the handle of my sword; I twisted the hilt, and the knife sprang into my hand. In the same moment I jerked Lila in front of me and put the point of the dagger to her throat. I backed into the outhouse.

“I’m sure you guys know the drill,” I said to the man in front. “There’s no way you can get me before I cut her throat, so don’t even try. Swords and knives on the ground.”

The four men complied at once; as professionals, they knew I was right. To Lila, who was very still in my arms, I said, “You didn’t answer my question. Which one popped you in the eye?”

“That asshole who thought I was his daughter,” she hissed.

“ Not me,” the man in front, who the bartender called Ryan, added helpfully. He smiled coldly beneath the distinctive nose that was identical to Lila’s. She looked nothing at all like King Felix.

“That why you ran away?” I asked the girl, although my eyes stayed on the men.

“No, it was because I didn’t get a pony for my birthday,” she snapped. “Yes, it’s why I left. The bastard never let me forget I wasn’t his real child, and after he hit me I agreed with him.”

“And you took her in?” I said to Lila’s true father.

Ryan shrugged. “She’s my daughter. Her mother wasn’t always the queen.”

I nodded, sighed and released Lila. Another job well done; I couldn’t return her to her abusive royal household, and she certainly seemed in no danger here. She leaped into Ryan’s arms. I slipped the knife back into the sword hilt, twisted it so it locked and then crossed my arms. “So that’s that.”

“Not quite,” Ryan said. “You know where she is.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I don’t care.”

“That’s not much of a guarantee. Lila, go tell everybody to come out here.” He gently guided her to one side; the men behind him took her and passed her out of the way back toward the tavern. The last I saw of her was a triumphant, murderous gleam in her eye as she went inside.

Now the outhouse seemed a lot smaller. None of us had weapons in our hands, but I was seriously outnumbered. “You realize this isn’t necessary,” I said. “I really don’t care.”

“Bet he got a fat fee for this,” one of the other men said.

“Bet he’s got it on him,” another agreed.

Oboy. I started calculating the distance between us, deciding whom to go for first, what parts of their bodies to aim at and what my last words were going to be.