The Caravan Road by Jeffrey Quyle Page B

risk the things they’ll do to you?”
    “The first time I saw the duke, he saved me from being taken to the palace and raped,” Carla said.  “He didn’t know me, or anything about me.  There wasn’t anything to know.  I was a complete stranger to him, and he fought to free me.  He saved my father’s life, at least for a little while, and he went into the palace to set you free.  He can make this city the good place it used to be, better for everyone.
    “I’ll do whatever it takes to set him back on his feet,” Carla said, rising to her own feet.  She reached over and grabbed Charls’s shoulder, urging him up.  “Let’s go get you dressed for this; the sooner we do this, the better.”
    With a sigh, Charls resignedly acceded to the girl’s plan, recognizing that it was in fact the only way he could imagine they would be able to enter the palace grounds now.  Together they entered her mother’s room and slowly dressed the unhappy steward in a strange collection of dress, blouse, and many scarves that covered his head and much of his face. 
    Charls returned to Alec’s room and took one of the knives from his unconscious duke, then returned and met Carla at the front of the house.  With that done, Carla tied a scarf over her own bright red hair, and the two of them walked back towards the palace they had escaped from just days before.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 7 – Deposing the Duke
     
    Carla felt intimidated when they were within sight of the palace gate.  She had been raised in the city, and lived there all her life, without ever entering the palace until Alec had smuggled her in.  It was a place she had always fantasized about with her friends around the market place, the big building with servants and feasts and carpets on the floor, the features they believed it had and that made it opulent in their eyes.
    For Charls, it was a return to a place that had been his assumed place of duty for decades, one that he took for granted, or had until a few weeks earlier when the new duke had arrived and turned the world upside down.
    “Slow down,” he hissed to Carla as they began their walk in view of the guards.  “Remember, I’m your elderly mother.  You need to slow down to help poor, frail me.”
    “Sorry,” Carla said contritely.  She immediately shortened her stride and offered her arm, while they approached the watchful guards at the gate with a more measured gait.
    “My mother,” Carla began, once they reached the gate, “has always wanted to see the gardens in the palace.  She’s heard such wonderful stories about the flowers there.  I thought that for her birthday today I’d bring her here to ask if we could go in for just a little while to see the garden.  We’ll only go straight there and then come straight back out,” the girl wheedled in her most winsome fashion.
    “We’re not supposed to let any strangers in,” the bolder of the two guards on their side of the gate replied, “but we could make an exception for the right reasons,” he added with a smile that held no warmth.
    Carla quelled her desire to shudder at the licentiousness the man conveyed.  “We’re worth it,” she replied, and held still as his hand reached out to take hold of her arm.
    “Come with me, and I’ll show you something,” he spoke, as he started into the palace grounds, leading Carla and Charls along the winding way that led into the interior of the palace grounds, where the garden was enclosed.  “Tell you mother to go enjoy herself, and I’ll show you something in here,” the guard told Carla as they stood outside a gardeners’ storage shed.
    Carla looked at Charls with despairing but determined eyes.  “You go see if you can find the pretty ones,” she said, then bowed her head as she stepped into the shed, the guard directly behind her.
    He closed the door behind him, then reached for Carla and pressed his lips against hers.
    “Wait,” Carla struggled, but the man easily