'What do you mean?' Camilla demanded.
'I had hoped for a mass surrender, and the ensuing mass confusion,' he admitted. 'That would have given us a chance to make our way down to the docks and steal a boat. That's still our best hope.'
'What about Kara?' Camilla complained. 'Doesn't this mean we can now get rid of her?'
'No, it doesn't,' Kara's brother said shortly.
'And why not? What if someone sees her?'
He shrugged. 'At the moment, that won't present too much of a problem. Once we reach the area where the fighting will take place, everyone will be far too busy with the business at hand to take the time to even notice her presence.'
'That is true,' Camilla admitted. 'No one from Port Haven will know who she is, so they will not think to ask questions.'
'Can you handle a gun?' Kara's brother asked Camilla, his expression faintly mocking.
Giving her head a haughty toss, Camilla rejoined, 'Every last woman and child on Isla Fiero learns to handle firearms from the cradle. And the rapier, too.' To emphasise her point, she picked up her rifle, sighted and fired in one motion, neatly clipping off the end of a branch high overhead, sending it and its leaves fluttering down about them.
Under her covers, Kara flinched at the sound of each concussion as it clapped and echoed through the air and shook the ground, and she couldn't suppress a gasp of fear as Camilla discharged her firearm. She was feeling somewhat revived after being given food and drink, but felt weak and sweaty, as though recovering after a fever. Weapons! Guns and swords! Tools of organised murder! She was sick of them, sick of the sight of them and what they represented. She too had been taught to use them with proficiency as part of her upbringing, but only because she had been given no choice in the matter and hadn't known any better at the time.
What was she going to do now? They were returning to the vicinity of Port Haven, but what did this mean? Would they untie her, giving her a chance to call for help? Or perhaps something might happen that would allow her to slip away unnoticed! Was there a chance of that?
And what of Roman? Her husband, she reminded herself. Where was he? Leading the people of Isla Fiero against the coming invasion? Or was he out somewhere, combing the island, searching vainly for her?
She found herself hoping that he was thinking about saving the island and its people first. After all, defeating her father in the process was his only real means of rescuing her.