Andrei chose an afternoon Commander Herist planned to spend far away from the palace––occupied with inspecting his warehouses. Andrei was certain there was something subversive buried in Herist’s mercantile and military books. I got the impression Andrei didn’t much like Herist.
It was at this point I first knew Max to have a twin brother, Luka: exactly the same in looks, but more spastic in temperament. It was interesting that Andrei had invited him along, as he didn’t like Luka any more than he liked Herist. Perhaps he wanted more bodies for rifling through Herist’s things, because the boys cornered Luka into taking the first watch.
We met at the eastern wall, under the hill, to sneak through a little postern I was made to unlock.
The door swung open––just inside was a flight of steps cut into the hill. Andrei sighed. “Haven’t been this way in three years,” he said. “Since he set up shop in this part of the building.” He was the first to go through, at a gallop.
I stood at the bottom with Luka, wondering how to coax my lame ankle up the stairs, until Trid walked back down. He put his arm around me and half-carried me up, through a garden where yellow roses had climbed over everything, and into the building.
The chest took a time to find. It was in the farthest room, hidden under a wolf-skin with a snarling snout that made everyone wary of drawing near.
“Have at it.” Andrei swept the skin off by its tail and draped it over the bed. The chest was big and bound at the corners with hammered iron, and the lock was built in. I put my wrench into the keyhole, slid my needle inside, and felt the breaking of the first tumbler as far back as the needle could reach.
It began to rain outside. The air grew colder, numbing my fingers. I was moving carefully to the third pin when Luka burst through the door, his hair soaked.
Max was snooping through the wardrobe. “Dark too frightening for you?”
“They’re coming––I saw them walking this way––”
“We’ve still got time.” Andrei crossed the room in three bounds. “I’m going to do something––”
Luka blocked the doorway. “If you’re caught,” he said to Andrei, “you’ll cause a stupendous rift between the military and the peerage.”
“And you’re a stupendous idiot if you think I care,” said Andrei. He shoved Luka out of the way. “Aloren, when you finish all of you are to carry as many as you––”
“Leave.” Trid prodded him out the door. “Before he finds us inside his rooms instead of out.”
Andrei left, still yelling instructions, and Trid grumbled in the doorway for a bit, and then walked after him.
I went back to work. Luka squatted beside me, yelling at my fingers. “How d’you make the tick work faster?” he said to Max. “Does she even understand me?”
“I expect not.” Max snapped his arms from the wardrobe. “You talk like a drunk squirrel.”
“Oh, no.” Luka had thrust his head outside the room. “I hear them. They’re inside. Oh, no––”
Max walked over and stuffed his brother’s head under his arm. “Shut up, idiot.” Luka struggled frantically, and Max backed him into the bed and pushed his face into the bedclothes. “Aloren, hurry your fingers along for light’s sake.”
“There’re nine pins,” I said.
“Where’ve Trid and Andy got to?” Max released Luka, who had become quiet. I raised my last pin, shifted positions, and broke into a sweat when the keyway wouldn’t rotate.
The pin had gone past its breaking point. I slowly released tension from the chisel handle, felt the pin click into place, and turned the key. I let my exhausted hand slide to the ground.
Luka thought I had given up. “Lazy little shit.”
He ground his boot into my fingers just as Andrei barreled through the door with Trid right behind.
I howled and snatched my hand to my chest. Andrei sank his fist into Luka’s stomach, and Luka collapsed, squealing.
“Don’t touch things that aren’t yours.” Andrei knelt beside me and flung open the trunk. Inside were books, ledgers, and bundles of old letters, meticulously sorted.
I shrank away, but Andrei pulled me back by the arm. “You’re helping too.” He pushed my hand into the chest.
I ignored the pain and gathered an armful of the parchment. I scrambled up and moved away so the others could reach in.
Digging, Andrei said, “Tried to talk with him about Evelers––all his knee splitters and other nasties where he could just have it off with the man’s wife, but he guessed. Right away he guessed, so I left, and he’s probably marching up with the whole garrison.”
He growled at me to leave. But as I picked my way toward the door, my ankle turned and the parchment spilled onto the floor.
The other boys pushed past and I knelt to retrieve it. I’d got half of it up when I noticed the letter poking out from the bottom.
I went still. Andrei had lingered behind to close the lid and throw the wolf-skin over it. His hands reached before mine could, and snatched up Tem’s letter and all the rest. I squatted, staring, turning over in my mind a vision of Herist picking the thing off the ground after he’d shot my uncle through the back with an arrow. And then tossing it into his chest when he failed to understand the Gralde.
“Well?” Andrei paused at the door. “Come on.” He caught my wrist and swung me to my feet. I was dragged down a corridor, handed to Trid, and neglected when Trid paid more attention to the letters he was holding. Max prodded Luka ahead with his elbows, arms full of parchment. Andrei ran ahead, shuffling through the parchment in his hands.
“Yes,” he called, stopping in mid jump so that Luka ran into him. “I knew it. I knew he was double-dealing. With Duke Caveira of Dirlan.”
Trid stopped with me ten feet behind everyone else, and the blood drained from his face. Trid was Caveira’s nephew, and suffered for it whenever the man did something stupid. He’d been reading a letter, and he stared over my head at Andrei, who said:
“He’s building up an army. Been growing the military—you’ve seen it—there’re more soldiers in Ellyned now than there used to be, and it’s driving the Girelden mad. He’s going to threaten Caveira with war.”
“Threaten Caveira with war?” said Max. “How is that double-dealing?”
“Caveira needs troops. The Ravyir will give him troops if he thinks Norembry’s going to invade eastern Lorila. Caveira wants to beat his cousins out and become the next Ravyir––he’s promised Herist a province in return, he’s promised him Garada. Ugh! Imagine––but there’ll be worse, I’ll stake my life on it. Herist’ll double cross him in the end. He’s looking for a short trip to power––this must be it! It’s brilliant––”
“Mad, are you?” said Max. “Herist couldn’t find his arse with both hands. And Caveira wants to give him Garada?”
“Worse than that, probably,” said Andrei. “As soon’s they’ve both got enough men, they’ll go after the whole of Lorila and Norembry in a combined effort.”
“Andy––” Max looked back at Trid. “I know Herist is a giant fuck, but you’re crazy.”
“Always was,” muttered Luka.
“Caveira’s been collecting soldiers, anyway,” said Andrei. “He wants most desperately to be king of Lorila––been doing everything he can to squeeze funds out of the current king. Probably to the point of encouraging the outlaws in his province. Maybe he has his soldiers dress as brigands, makes them go raiding.”
Max gave a snort, and Andrei said to him, “I’m serious. Daonac Lauriad must’ve known. He was absurdly concerned about the western wildmen. Too concerned for Caveira’s comfort. They’ll tell you it was because his children were living out there, but I still wonder how a crew of wild boors could’ve killed Daonac Lauriad.”
Trid said, “You’re half right, you know.” He spoke as though he wasn’t sure he ought to go further. “It wasn’t a crew of wild boors. They were soldiers disguised as bandits. Not Lorilan ones. Noremes.”
I dropped my letters a second time. No one noticed.
Trid kept on: “They had the face paint, the gaudery, everything. Herist was in charge of it, apparently. See this?” He held up his letter, his hand trembling a very little. “A letter of instruction, from three years back, when Herist was out west. Gods know why he still has it. Good for blackmail, I suppose. The letter has the Queen’s seal, see?” He was looking at Andrei.
“Go on.” Andrei’s voice was strange, detached, as if he didn’t really care. “Go on and say all of it.”
Trid shrugged, scanning the letter. “She planned it for the littlest one’s birthday, when she was sure the King would visit. She went herself, even, to make sure the thing was done––to her satisfaction.” He looked sick. “She bribed their cook, she wrote, after the cook let slip. Or it wasn’t the cook; a scullion, rather, a little girl at a market up in Gaelhead. That’s how she found them.”
“So the Queen killed him?” said Andrei. “And his children? Does the letter say why?” The corridor lacked a cresset at that end, and his face was hidden in shadow.
But no light was necessary to feel the terror coming from Floy’s little breast. I looked into the corner; she gaped at Trid with slate-black eyes in a girl’s face.
“Trid,” said Andrei. Trid took a long breath. “Why would the Queen do that? Kill the King, all his children, and Ederach? Of course Herist killed Ederach. We all know Herist killed Ederach, but it must’ve been under her orders. Why all of them?” His voice became higher and more forced. “Let me read it. Give it here.”
I turned back to Floy, but she had resumed her usual form and was flinging herself through the garret.
“Not now.” Trid shoved it behind his back. “They’re coming. Can’t you hear them?”
Faint voices echoed down the walls. Andrei leapt at Trid’s hand and ripped the letter free.
“Nobody knew anything? No wonder.” Max’s eyes were round as coins. “All this, if it’s true, it’ll be perfect for getting whatever we want. Just think. Think what we could do…blackmailing the Queen!” He burst into laughter. I put Floy out of my head.
“Do?” I said. “The only decent thing ye could do is nark on her to the rest, and right away. And Herist’s meddling with Caveira, too.”
“We’ll do no such thing,” said Andrei on top of my voice, and after taking two crazy steps forward, he turned around. “And if I hear one word’s got out I’ll have your tongue slit.”
Max stopped laughing. A clash of habergeons sounded at the far end of the hall. Andrei turned and fled round a corner, the other boys running in his wake, except for Trid, who had me to look after.
He turned toward the noise and must have seen its makers. He slammed me onto the floor, shoved me beneath a trestle table, and squeezed beside me.
He grabbed a candleholder from the table, and made as if to throw it toward a far window, but I pinned down his arms.
A carpet covered the length of the corridor floor, reaching almost to our table. I remembered that a stool with a porcelain jar stood on this carpet. The stool was set before the door to an adjoining corridor.
I reached my hands out, and clenching my teeth to keep in the shout of pain, gave the carpet a yank. There came a crash of wood and pottery, a shout of voices, and a fading thud of boots. Trid helped me out from under the table.
“Move,” he said. “Hallway’s a dead end.”
Immediately after he spoke the boots came running back. We turned the corner; hanging on the wall before us was a richly colored tapestry of a blooming peach tree.
I’d stood here before…
“Hold it.” I pulled Trid behind the tapestry. Sneezing, I found a door handle. It was unlocked, and easing it open, I slipped through.
I brushed cobwebs away from my face and looked round. Trid, who’d come through behind me, stared at me, stared at the room.
Leaves dusted the corners and littered the bed. They’d never closed the window, apparently, and the ivy had crept in with the sun, rain and snow. The black rocking chair still sat in the corner, grown faded with lapfuls of sun every evening, and the rain poured in with an accustomed hiss.
I stepped in a puddle, drew my foot back. Though she kept hidden, Floy had followed me in. I looked at the soiled bed, remembering the red of the sunset and Leode’s wet hair.
“It would’ve happened somehow,” I said to her. “With or without you.”
Her claws scratched about in the leaves, and careful not to step on her, I limped over to Trid, who had moved to the other side of the room.
“Here’s the proper door.” He joggled it and it opened with a bang.
We went along a corridor and came into a long hall with a pitched roof. Thin piers branched upwards like tree trunks. The windows were laced with leaf and branch tracery, and a gallery high on one side opened into the raining night. The room moved with wings, and row upon row of cages swinging in a light wind.
A fear filled me, that hadn’t come from within me. “What’s this place?”
“Sounds like an aviary.” Trid looked around and scratched his neck. “Lady Dariond’s.”
We heard a clang of soldiers on the other side of the hall. Trid jumped. “I though we had lost them. This is the last time I’m going on a treasure hunt with leave-them-to-rot-Andrei––”
“Why anyway? Why’ve you befriended that gigantic git?”
We squeezed through cages, looking for an exit.
“Don’t know,” said Trid. “Inexplicable.”
“Kalka,” shouted a man’s voice. “Run up the center and we’ll corner them.”
Trid pulled me west below the gallery, and the wind stirred us into a fast walk.
I slipped on bird scat and hit the flagstones. Trid fell on top of me.
“They heard that,” he said, and pulled me up. “Let’s run.” And holding my arm, he ran so vigorously my feet left the ground, twisted beneath me, and knocked over a cage on a stand.
He let go of my wrist, and I looked at the cage: my chin had put a dent in the wire. “There it is––the door,” he said.
But I only saw the bird in the cage: a dove, black as the rain-washed night.
I temporarily lost my mind. I picked myself up and ran, heeding neither the pain in my ankle, nor Trid’s yelling. I ran in the wrong direction, right into a window, so fast I picked up scarcely a cut when I shattered the glass and fell through.
I landed on my side in a patch of mud. My ankle throbbed in giant beats.
I gritted my teeth and dragged myself around a corner of the building, cutting my knees on broken glass. There was an evergreen shrub growing against the wall. I crawled beneath it and curled up, thinking hard.
“That could’ve been Leode,” I said to Floy. “We have to go back and check. There’s nothing else for it.”
***
I sat beneath the bush for a long time. The lights dimmed, the curtain of rain never broke, and two pairs of boots slogged past. And knowing tonight was going to turn into tomorrow-morning, I climbed up and picked my way back to the broken window.
I swung my leg over the sill and lowered myself to the floor, listening for voices. Nothing but the rain came, so I inched forward, hands gripping the wall. I forgot where I had knocked into the cage and someone had repaired my damage.
The lamps were lit. The place was full of cages, wood and wire, square, round, octagonal, some hanging, some standing––and their inhabitants crowded my mind, tangling fear and bewilderment into nonsense: “Iron, sky, wind, iron, iron, iron. Stretch, stretch, look at her slow legs, wrapped in air, her reaching hands, but no stretching for us. We are heavy, like water under the rocks.” They grew more agitated as I went along.
“I’m caged, too,” I said. “Can’t you see it? And a million keys growing up the river, so far from here. Spring passes so quick and them flowers is so far away, I should have wished for my own wings.” I leaned against the cold stones, breathing heavily.
“Keys,” they said, as if they understood. “Keys! Keys! Keys!” So I let them out.
I hobbled up and down the room, throwing open the cage doors, and where locks hung I picked them or pried apart the wire until the birds were able to slip through.
Goshawks and grey ravens flew around the pitched ceiling. Greenfinches and bluebirds flitted between my legs, and my satisfaction grew with every wing I set free, so that I didn’t think once how the canaries would survive the winter.
Floy caught their attention, and soon had a flock following her: jewel-bright, glinting in the oil lamps, echoing through the gallery, swallowed by the cold rain.
Behind a cabinet of doves I found the black one sitting in his cage, nipping at his tail. The cage was round with turreted top, and the door had a lock. I put my face close to steady my utensils.
“Craven crows,” said the dove, and he latched onto the other side of the cage. “Who the hell are you?”
“Your sister.” I turned the lock. “And don’t go cussing.”
His neck feathers puffed. “I can’t believe this.” It was Leode. “I can’t believe this. You look like a street boy. The kind that eats pigeons. You look awful, did you know? We didn’t dare say it, but we thought you were dead.”
I opened the door for him, and he hopped onto my arm. His claws dug into my skin, and it felt so good my eyes teared up. I found it hard to speak.
Floy landed beside him and spoke for me: “What sort of harebrained, stupid thing were you doing that you got shut up like this? The others’re probably out of their minds.”
“A human caught and sold me.” He tilted his head. “A soldier, with orange galligaskins. I was hanging about near a horse trough with Mordan, and he left for a while, and I got thirsty. It’s awful when you’re a black bird––all the wind and dust and sunlight baking you up, and so I––”
Scratching my wrist, Leode backed down my arm. He stared above my head. Floy took flight.
“Did you set them all loose?” The voice was deep and clipped. “Little thief. How did you get in?”
It was the human who had swallowed my neck in his huge hand, the soldier who had seen my seal on the pier.
I threw Leode off my wrist. The man cracked me in the face and pushed me against the wall. He dug beneath his cuirass and drew out a wicked-looking, curved knife.
He pinned my left hand to the wall and dragged the tip of the blade across my wrist. “Tell me, thiefling. Were you lurking around my rooms? Did some bad man pay you to sift through my possessions?”
He made a slit across my wrist. The crease welled with blood.
But the man dropped the blade and lurched forward; Leode, gone Elde, had jumped onto his back. The boy flashed immediately back into a dove. “There’re more?” The man called for aid.
Two soldiers came running into the hall. Floy flew over their heads, and my knees turned to wood.
“Leode, Floy––” I bit at the officer’s hands. “Get out, they’ll kill you.”
I attempted to run and my ankle flopped. I went down, tripping over someone’s boots. He pushed forward and grabbed me up under my arm and leg just as his fellow dived from the opposite direction and caught hold of me around the other leg.
They slipped, skidded, and pulled me vigorously in two directions. My thigh snapped. I screamed, fighting my arms free, and one of them put his hands around my neck.
He lifted my feet from the ground. I choked, kicking and scratching, and Floy attacked his nose and Leode scraped at his eyes. The man dropped my neck, agile Floy leapt away, and Leode received a great whack from the back of a hand.
He hit the wall. The boy shimmered on for a moment, and a dove fell to the ground.
I pulled myself toward him. The man backed away.
“It’s a demon,” he said. “Wild eyes, hair––melted clean into the air––”
Leode shrugged his left wing. I scooped him up and turned into the corner. “I told you to leave.” I bit my chemise and shook. “Idiot.”
“A demon?” said the officer. “This is a breed worse. Get back to your watches. There might be more of them.”
Floy picked around my knees and the footsteps faded. I felt the eyes of the officer on me.
“Bit of filth couldn’t slink fast enough.” He dug his boot into my back and abruptly pulled it out.
“Herist?” The voice was rough with tiredness. “What’s squealing? Have you stuck a pig?”
“Children should be a-bed at this hour.”
“It’s hard to sleep next to a boar hunt.” I bit my knuckles. “What happened to all the birds?”
“On your way, boy,” said Herist.
“Is that a person?” The boy laughed.
“A thief. We broke her leg. Get you back to bed.”
But his feet padded over the stone, coming closer. I gathered Leode into my arm, thinking disjointedly. A hand touched my shoulder; I grabbed his nightshirt, pulled myself up.
He swung forward and his head hit the wall. It was Andrei. I froze in chagrin.
He rubbed his head, and I lunged under his arm. My leg collapsed. I scrambled forward on my knees, not knowing what else to do, pushing the dove ahead of my chest, and Herist walked two steps after. He took up my ankle and twisted it. A throb shot through my thigh; I shrieked and the room spun.
“Wait, you pig.” Andrei was squatting in front of me, his mouth open, and I though he was going to yell at me, but he spoke to Herist instead: “Let her be.” I had never seen such hatred in a face.
Herist dropped my leg. “Why do you care?”
I shoved Leode between my knees and Andrei unclenched my hands. “What’s she stolen? I don’t see anything.”
“Fifty birds, damage to property––” Herist gestured at the room’s wreckage.
Andrei rubbed blood between his fingers, stared at my hands. He’d exhausted his tool. I thought of being dropped at Herist’s feet.
I caught his eye. Make him stop. Please, make him stop.
Andrei looked away, and Herist smiled at me, smiled at my thin, tattered shift. “Try to put a contrite face on, little worm. Those who confess get off with less––”
“Confess, Aloren,” Andrei interrupted. “He’ll give you a pardon and a fucking and a bloody stump. Don’t confess and he’ll kill you.”
Herist opened his mouth: “For gods’ sake.”
“Shut up,” said Andrei. “I’ll decide the punishment. Your punishment will end badly for me.”
Herist gave a bark of laughter. “How so?”
I put Leode in my lap and pushed with my elbows away from them. Andrei said, “You were going to cut her hand off. Her hand is quite dear to me. Without her hand I wouldn’t know what a child-killing, king-slaying whore you are.”
Herist grew very stiff. “If I were to tell the Queen––”
“She’d break my fingers,” said Andrei. “Right after she fed you to your dogs. I know about you and that rat, Caveira. Let the girl go, I want both her hands.”
Herist’s eyelid twitched. “Why?”
“To strangle you with.”
“How clever. I’ve deduced you know something else. About a deed done under another’s discretion.” Herist bent down, so close to Andrei’s nose that I barely heard his words. “Blackmail can go very much awry. So awry, in fact, that it can be flipped completely onto its head.”
Andrei looked toward me. “Get out.”
Leode clung to my arm. My head was swimming with pain, and Floy told me where to go.
I passed through the door at the back: a flight of stairs spiraled down. Floy was silent, so I moved forward with the wall. My skin grew clammy beneath my chemise, and my mouth was dry, so dry.
The first step was excruciating, and the second washed into a tumult by the ringing in my ears. I don’t remember a third.