It seemed to jolt all of them into moving. I pushed the door to the hallway open while the guards closed in around him.
"Moonbeam?" Mahmood hurried down the hallway from the direction of the stairs. "What is it?"
"I think he's about to get free," I said with some concern. "Was he right about the attack?"
Mahmood nodded and waved for me to follow. "Quickly. We must hide you and the princess."
"I thought you wanted me to talk to the Mongols," I replied without one small shred of interest in such a task.
"There is a … division within the house of my master. Those who want to negotiate, and those who feel surrendering, and thereby, turning over the last of our royal line to the barbarians, is a fate far worse than her death," he explained. Reaching the stairs, he took them two at a time. I struggled to stay behind him at the pace, not completely recovered from either of my travels back or forward in time. "Those who prefer the bloodline's demise are organizing a coup may try to hurt the princess. We will hide you from them. The barbarians will dispose of them and find you, and you can negotiate with them."
This is sounding like one of Carter's ill-planned ideas. I heard Mahmood's desperation and understood he and his mysterious master were operating out of fear and partially, out of knowledge their own fates were likely already sealed.
No matter what, though, I wasn't able to stomach the idea of some poor little girl being chopped down, royal or not. I owed it to them to help. What choice did I have? I had to assume whoever sent me here was less likely to help me if I failed.
My only option was to go with the flow, however bizarre the path. Patting the phone in my pocket, I took some comfort in knowing I had an outlet to someone from my time who might one day help me.
He led me up the stairs and to a wide hallway. Armed soldiers lined the hallways, along with several servant women stationed outside a door. Mahmood moved past them all into the bedchamber of the little princess, who sat beside the fire, dressed in servant's clothing and appearing scared already.
The sounds of fighting came from the streets. I crossed to the window. The princess's room overlooked the inner city. Fires had sprung up around the edges of the city moving in our direction. People jammed the streets and fled towards the east. I wasn't able to see the attackers from this angle, but I assessed the prisoner hadn't been lying about the siege coming from two directions. The surreal scene struck me once more as almost too unfamiliar for me to process.