Rune King

The entire force was arrayed against her, and she'd given them all the time in the world to choose their positions, to hide their traps. Finally she sat up and rubbed the sting from her eyes. She wasn't going to sleep. That much was clear. So she might as well look out at the stars.

That had always calmed her down, no matter what had happened to her. Nothing was nearly the equal to what she had to deal with now, but it was something. More than she had before, at least.

She slid her feet off the back and sat. Her feet kicked forward and back, swinging naturally, and she craned her head back. There was the archer, there was the snake and the ladle. She counted off the constellations. The sky was unusually clear, and it gave her an amazing view of the stars.

But even that wasn't enough. She was too focused on everything else, too impatient. Something was about to happen, everyone could feel it. Their voices told her so, even if she couldn't understand their words. More than likely nobody would talk about it even if she could have understood them.

It was something that each of them would ignore until it was just too late. Or until something happened that they could react to. She could imagine them all waiting, each trying to look as if they were casual, but all of them thinking of what would almost certainly come next.

Certainly, Valdemar would have put the word out, at least to a few, of what his plan was. Even if things went exactly the way that he wanted, then Leif and Ulf wouldn't go quietly. Eirik was an odd one, unpredictable.

So some of them were waiting for something, maybe they knew what to expect, maybe they didn't. But the tension of the night would tell them that whatever it was, they would need their blades for it. And the others would pick up on their tension, and it would only make things that much worse.

Her mind drifted to the question of what would happen next. At some point, one of the three would sneak into Valdemar's tent. They'd probably find an excuse to get him out, first. That would be the smart way, but she couldn't begin to say if they would. It was safer to assume they would.

He would let it happen, because his plan needed to move forward. Then the sneaking would happen, and then the curtain would fall, and then a second and a third until the cards were all on the table.

Who would be holding the trump, at the end of it, she wondered? It was an unpredictable situation to say the least. If she had succeeded in her little play, and Valdemar was deposed, then she'd gambled the right way this time.

She cleared the thought out of her mind. There wasn't time to think about the good outcomes that might happen. She had let herself grow slack. She needed to be planning for when things went wrong. The less that she thought through the future, the more that they would go wrong for her.

She had to make up for it by thinking ahead, by making plans. There was the question, of course, of what happened if they got rid of Valdemar, but something went wrong. It wouldn't take an incredible deduction to realize that she was behind it, and it would leave her in the same position that she'd been in before.

A knife in the dark, all that they have to do is let their protection slip for an instant and she was dead. Would that bother them? Perhaps it would wound their pride, but Deirdre doubted that they would lose much sleep over it. No, she couldn't rely on any sort of charity coming from the Northmen. It was safer that way.

If that happened, then she would have to find a way out, and fast. The boys, who continued to pretend quite valiantly that they were injured, slept behind her. She might be able to use one of them to free her, now that their wounds were healing.

She could cut herself free, and in the confusion of the split camp she could be gone. It would be easy, but then she would be in the same position that she'd been in before Gunnar left. A hundred miles or more from home, and nothing to stop someone from waylaying her on the road.

Preferable to death, though. Infinitely preferable to death. She had to keep thinking. Had to keep moving through the problem in her head. Slow, methodical, patterned thinking. That was how she was going to overcome this.

She wasn't good at it. She'd never practiced, never wanted to. She had never faced a challenge like this one before, and now she was beginning to regret having never given a good deal of thought to it before, when her teacher had hounded her endlessly about it.

She pursed her lips. If Valdemar was caught off-guard, it would be a quick thing to have him die before he could alert anyone. More likely, he'd see it coming at least a moment or two before the lethal blow, long enough to give a cry and start things going in the camp.

She followed the logic to its conclusion. What if she was wrong, though? What if he wasn't caught off-guard? What if he didn't see it coming a few moments before the critical moment?

What if he saw the whole thing coming? What if he'd thought a step ahead of her, and had allowed her one out? That out was simple, just tell them about the trap. She'd be doing exactly what they wanted, exactly what he wanted, and she would think that it was clever.

It put her back into his pocket, as deep as she could go. So deep that she'd never be able to get away from the appearance that she was loyal to him. The thought was jarring, but she had to keep herself in check. There was no time for worrying about whether or not she had stepped into a trap.

Now she had to figure out what she was going to do to get out of it, if she had. Deirdre closed her eyes. No time for looking at the stars now. She turned, pressed her back against the bench seat and pulled her feet back up into the wagon.

If that were the case, he would have planned for it. She was supposed to think that she had duped him. He would act shocked and betrayed when the hammer came down on the rebellious Northmen. Then the threats would come.

But would he mean any of it? Not likely. She'd done his work for him, rounding up any and all dissidents in the camp and serving them up on a silver platter. He should be thanking her.

If that happened, then she would be alone again, and up against a much more worrying opponent. Someone who had seen through her more than once. She would be lucky if she managed to make it out. She certainly wouldn't be able to keep ignoring her role in all of it, wouldn't able to keep pretending that it wasn't her responsibility to make moves for herself.

Finally she was beginning to feel the sides, all pressing in at once. She should have started this sooner. Should have thought all of this sooner. Now she was trapped in a corner, and everything was pressing on her.

The worst situation of all to be in, if she was dealing with a smart opponent she may well be doomed no matter what she did. The only options available to her would be ones that led to her own ruin. She had to hope against hope that there was more to it than either of them realized, because without it she was already a dead woman in the worst case scenario.

It was always a worst-case scenario.

It occurred to her that she hadn't heard any movement outside for a while. The voices continued in their strained conversation, though fewer and fewer seemed to be speaking. It felt as if an eternity was passing.

Some time tonight, it had to happen. They'd planned it, the whole thing had been agreed on. If she had given Valdemar bad information, would he punish her for it? How badly? She had to assume that he would. It was the only safe thing to think.