Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 146

Chapter 146: Building the team
Her legs were burning with the effort of her run, but finally Anaisa drew closer to her goal.

Trace’s head kept twitching to one side or the other, as if he badly wanted to turn around but was restraining himself. That was good; looking back would have been suspicious.

Not nearly as suspicious as a woman sprinting through the streets, however. As she caught up, she tried to slow her pace to something not quite so worthy of everyone’s attention.

On regular days, travelers could freely leave and enter the city, with merchants occasionally being stopped and searched for contraband or to make sure their tax papers were in order. If a criminal was on the loose, extra guards would be posted to keep a watch for the suspect.

Today, thankfully, the contingent of guards seemed normal, perhaps even bored. As the group drew close to the gate, the men pulled their horses to a stop to water them at the public well that many people used to fill their canteens before departing the city, or after entering it.

Trace was drawing a fresh bucket of water and pouring it into the animal trough for the horses when Anaisa approached. She came up and stroked one of the horses on its noble brow as he looked up in surprise and relief.

“You made it,” He whispered softly, glancing up at the doctor who was still perched atop his mount, looking as nervous as a man holding a technically-kidnapped prince should look.

“Are we ready?” Anaisa asked quickly, looking around.

“No,” The doctor frowned. “We need… that other person.”

“Oh,” The auburn-haired woman had almost forgotten that the little baby required a wet nurse, and that Sanders had promised to have one at the gate within the hour. “How are we supposed to find her?”

“Apparently he didn’t think that would be a problem, or he would have told us some kind of description,” Trace’s words were optimistic, but his voice betrayed frustration and impatience.

Anaisa wholeheartedly shared that impatience, wanting badly to be far, far away.

“It will be all right,” She assured him with a small smile, though she wasn’t sure where she found the audacity to declare the words so confidently; things could go very wrong in a hundred different ways and end in all of their deaths.

“I still don’t know if we were followed. I just want to be away,” Trace whispered, and Anaisa grimaced slightly.

“You were being followed. I took care of it.” She cast her gaze to one side, trying to sound modest but really being terribly proud of herself over what she’d accomplished. It had been more luck that she knew how the street urchins could harass a person to distraction. She had really expected them to create a chant to make fun of him and make him look away, not cause him bodily injury.

Not that she could bring herself to regret it, except for the fact that the poor horse had suffered.

“You what??” Trace blurted a little more loudly than he probably intended. He turned back to drawing more water, though there was already enough for the horses to drink, and set about filling a canteen from his pack.

“It was Conlan. I saw him in the crowd. I paid some street urchins, and they made his horse rear and throw him. His leg is likely broken, I do not think he will catch up to us anytime soon.” She told her husband.

He shook his head in disbelief and mumbled something under his breath that she didn’t quite catch.

The doctor breathed shakily, daring to open the pack and look down inside it. Anaisa watched him from the corner of her eye as his shoulders sagged slightly with relief. The little baby must be alive, but she imagined he was getting hungry.

“We need to find her,” She grimaced. “But how?”

She looked around the scatterings of people readying to leave the city. Merchants, mainly, checking their wagons and animals, with a few groups of travelers discussing their routes to outlying towns or villages.

Since this particular gate eventually led toward Foundrel, no one openly discussed plans for international travel, if they had any.

Anaisa saw a hooded figure that seemed female standing nearer to the gate, facing away. She was hunched slightly.

“I’ll… be right back,” Anaisa said to Trace. If she was wrong, she didn’t want to draw attention to their little group, just herself. She could always go out of the city separately and meet up with them later if things went too far awry. As long as Trace saw she was safe from a distance, he surely wouldn’t mind.

She tried to approach the woman in a roundabout way. Not seeing any other people standing alone, Anaisa became more and more convinced that this solitary woman must be the wet nurse Sanders sent.

The hesitance born of fear at making a mistake was quickly overcome by the sense of urgency Anaisa felt over getting the little prince fed and out of the city… in whichever order was safest.

The woman turned to stroke the forelock of a horse, whose bridle she held, blocking her face from Anaisa’s view.

Drat.

It was obvious that Anaisa would have to actually strike up a conversation with the woman before she would get a chance to see her face. She tried to think of anything reasonable and innocuous to say to a stranger, and took a deep, steadying breath.

Pasting a bright smile on her face, she strode up to the stranger as her eyes searched fervently for anything to comment on.

“What a lovely horse!” She declared enthusiastically. “Her mane is so well-kept and beautiful, what sort of brush do you use for it?”

She resisted the urge to cringe. Were there even different kinds of horse brushes? Was that a thing that people talked about?

The woman turned at the sound of Anaisa’s voice, her eyes widening at the sight of her face.

“Ah… Your Highness?” She whispered softly.

Anaisa froze with shock as the woman’s face registered starkly in her memory.

“No!”