“Oh, my orc?” she said, turning to look at Dathor. “This is my personal bodyguard, who has been trained directly by my father to keep me safe. I never go anywhere without him. He does have papers. You can see he’s half elf. He has our blood, you know, which is why he is loyal to us.”
“Let’s see them, then,” said the soldier. “Show us hispapers.”
She knew what was at stake here. If she could not prove that Dathor was legally meant to be here in Lothnehil, he’d be taken away, put into one of those awful corrals with a number of other orcs and marched straight back to Arzakh.
If she did anything to anger these soldiers, they would take Dathor, papers or no. Orcs with papers were being sent across the pass all the time.
Not that it mattered.
Obviously, they did not have any papers of any kind.
35
AERHRIL AND DATHORlocked gazes, and she could see his frustration that he could do absolutely nothing in this situation, that he had brought this down on them because he could not keep his head inside the carriage.
“Oh, fine,” she said, sighing heavily. She hopped down out of the carriage. “I think they’re packed in my trunk. I did not think I would be stopped on the street and my word questioned.” She glared at the soldier. “What do I look like to you, some sort of orc sympathizer? How many women my age do you know who are sneaking illegal orcs through the streets of Renegahan?” She walked around to the side of the carriage and looked around, but Gathren was gone from the top of the carriage. “Where is my driver?”
The soldiers looked around, but all of them shrugged, none of them answered.
“I don’t see how I’m to get into the trunk without help.” She gestured to her chest. “It’s far too heavy. Can my bodyguard assist me?”
The soldier eyed Dathor. “I think he should stay where he is.”
She turned to the soldier. “I know you’re just doing your job, and that you have to investigate anything that seems suspicious. You must wonder why I had him travel inside the carriage with me, is that it?”
The soldier considered, eyed the trunk, and then eyedDathor. “Yes, actually.”
“It is foolish of me, truly foolish, but once, I traveled in a carriage and there was a snake in it. It must have crawled in somehow, I know not, but since then I have been too frightened to ride on my own. I imagine something crawling out and striking me, and so I have insisted, ever since, that my bodyguard travel with me, and if you but let him out, he can take out my trunk, and—”
“No, no, it’s all right,” said the soldier. “You can move along.”
Except Gathren was—
Oh, no, there was Gathren, coming along behind a blond elf who coming through the streets to them.
“Ah,” called the elf. “She’s here.”
The soldier turned to look at the approaching elf. “Lord Marthlis? Do you know this girl?”
“Of course I do. She is here to visit me, in fact. I have been wondering why she was late.”
“The orcs with her?”
“All legal, I assure you,” said Marthlis, smiling at the soldier. “You can say I vouched for them.”
The soldier nodded. “Well, it all seems in order anyway.”
“Good,” said Marthlis. “Glad to have cleared this up.” He nodded at her. “I’ll ride with you, my dear, the rest of the way to my house. After you?”
She climbed back into the carriage and Marthlis got in after her and shut the door.
Dathor’s eyes were wide and frightened. “Thank you,” he breathed.
“This is going so well already, I have to say,” said Marthlis sarcastically. He banged on the roof of the carriage.
It took off.
She tried to calm the beating of her heart for the rest of the ride, but she didn’t quite manage it.
