Twenty-Seven
It looked as though I’d been dumped into a ship’s hold. But I felt stone at my back, and looking up, saw it was an oubliette. The grate in the ceiling dropped a shaft of light across my legs. Herist must have thought me precious. There was new straw at my back and a wooden bowl of water.
I was obviously in the barracks or palace prison; I didn’t know which and I didn’t much care. But I must have cared some, because my eyes ticked with weeping, and Floy, who had followed me in, was heavy with my sadness. Her cheek warmed mine, and my head fit into the curve of her neck.
Finding me awake, she blinked back into a bird.
“We must get you out! This is terrible––If only Mordan were here. I’m too small to lift a keychain, and Reyna, what the hell were you thinking?”
I shifted my feet––my ankles were shackled. The chain stretched to a bolt high in the wall. “Wasn’t thinking. Thinking don’t do anything. Let me be. You get out.”
“Are you mad?” She tore into the skin on my wrist. “We know where they are, where the asters are.”
“So go get them.”
“You are mad.”
“Is this country worth a damn, really?” I asked myself.
Floy didn’t hear me. “Think of your country, Reyna.”
“Why should I think of them? Never gave thought a chance, did they? Killing’s cleaner than talking, I guess. Smarter to keep your mouth shut. We’ve got only ourselves to look after––leastways, that’s the only person the smart ones are looking after.”
Floy grew round with indignation. “If you want a big, bloody mess––”
“Why’re you lecturing me about bloody messes?” I threw her off my arm. “I tried.” I tasted blood on my lip. “They didn’t listen. I hate them, every one! I’m not thinking about them no more, nor talking to them neither––it’s no use. I’m keeping my mouth shut.”
“You’re going to stop talking?” she said. “For five seconds?”
But I was pigheaded, and Gralde too, and just like my mother I sang my last words:
“No ear does she have nor a mouth that can scream to fill suffering’s silent appeal.”
***
When I woke next the light was blocked. Someone was bending quite close, golden eyes staring full at my face. Andrei. Springing up, I ripped at his cheek.
He leapt away, and I leapt after, but the chain prevented it, yanking my legs beneath me. I fell on my stomach.
“They shackled your ankles?” he said. “Were your wrists too small?”
He bent and I spat on the front of his shirt. He’d come to torment me, I was certain.
But he pinned my arms down, and proceeded to explain I’d better not wear myself out before climbing the ladder, because he couldn’t haul us up both at the same time.
“Trid let me out,” he said. My breathing slowed. “He heard me thrashing around the solar. Didn’t come with, obviously. Some men stopped him, said Herist had business with him, and I told them Herist was going to burn for this. But they aren’t listening to me, and he’s probably bought all of them, but even so, they daren’t touch me.”
His breath was very hot. “And you. I told you to get out. I bet you tried especially hard to get locked up, just to spite me. But here? Gods, Aloren––you must have done something incredibly stupid to end up down here.”
I bared my teeth, and he changed subjects. “I don’t know all of what happened last night, but judging by your welcome, I deserve death. Before you kill me, though,” he said, sounding more arrogant than ever, “I have to hide it.” He moved closer, and the chain slipped out from under his shirt and the dragonfly’s middle swung next to my mouth.
“I may have made a mistake, but Herist made one, too. I have yet to give the thing up.” He sat upright, and I did too, watching him warily. “But I don’t know what to do. Nothing I do’ll be able to keep them in check. You were right––it’s too large a mess. You were completely right, and I hope you’re happy about it, because I’m sure as fuck not. I’m so stupid––” He took the thing in his hand. “A light in a silver cup. I won’t give it up, not like you want me to, not to the Ombenelva, nor to some other country, even, because it’ll end up in the South’s clutches some way or another, and it’s not supposed to end up there. Clearly it’s not supposed to, clearly––” He rolled it back and forth between his hands. Then he flung it away, and looked toward the grate in the ceiling, and yelled, “I wish it was clear!” I jumped.
He scrubbed his face with his cloak. “Sorry. The firebird was a Simargh. A halo of light on the wall and a thought in my head, and I didn’t take her seriously.
“She told me I should hide it so it was safe. I don’t know what from. And she said––I’ll tell you the rest––she said my guide was to be a person. She said”––he wrinkled up his forehead––“his feet were to have been cut from the earth’s trammels for long enough to lead me along some sort of path. And at the end I was to find my hiding place, my other world.
“It was the stuff of lunatics. Saebels. I thought it was nonsense. And what’s ridiculous is”––he swallowed––“what’s ridiculous is you’ve been floating right under my nose for three years. With a broken spirit.”
Andrei stuffed his hand deep into his pocket, and pulled out a circle of keys. “Cut from the earth’s trammels, right? I got rid of the jail-men. Sent them some specially made caudle. They’ll be sleeping it off somewhere.” He scowled. “They wouldn’t have stopped me, they’re still scared of my mother, but Trid––” He glanced at me and switched words. “I can’t help what’s gone before.” He found a small key, and I crouched, heart thumping, while he folded the iron from my ankles. “This is your choice.” He stood, dropping the keychain back into his pocket. “I’m certain it’s what she––the Simargh would’ve wanted. So please come with, but don’t ask me where we’re going. I’m following you.”
For a moment I thought he had made a mistake.
Then the River Cheldony stretched before me, shining like moon through a fog. I would find the ice asters at her head. I could save my brothers and Floy, at least. Whether Andrei would find his other world––I didn’t know, didn’t care. What Herist would do, whether the Ombenelva would leave or stay and work mischief if Andrei and I ran away with the Aebelavadar––I didn’t know, didn’t care. I got up and climbed out just above him.
***
After we’d slid the grate back across the hole, Floy gave a significant chirp, and I put my hand into Andrei’s pocket. Ignoring his frantic signals, clasping the keychain in both hands to muffle the noise, I ran along a corridor, peering through the half-moons in the doors. Floy led me farther along, until I saw smoke wafting between the bars in a door. It had a cedar smell.
It came from Begley’s pipe. There were about thirty other folk locked in with him––those, I was to learn later, who’d knelt before the executioners in the courtyard last night. Begley looked up at me. “Have ye brought me whistle?”
A man sitting beside him said, “Already got his weed, hasn’t he? What about the Tuley’s I asked for?”
“She’s brought you the keys,” said Andrei, who had come up behind me.
“Oh.” Begley puffed sadly away. “I was dearly hopin for one more snatch on me whistle.”
“It’s Aloren.” Padlimaird looked through the bars. “Come to let us out.” His face collapsed and he pulled away. “It was good of you to come but I wish you hadn’t.”
“You gone mad?” said someone behind him.
“No,” said Padlimaird. “I’d rather’ve been hanged tomorrow.”
“You’re all sentenced to hang?” said Andrei.
“Yes,” said someone at the back. “They lied to us. Said we’d be granted clemency.”
“Clemency from a lifetime of shame,” said a woman, and she laughed. I put the first key in the lock to try it out, but Andrei pried the keychain away.
“Not yet.” He dropped the keys through the bars in the door, and a lanky boy took them. He found a likely key and made to use it, and Andrei pushed his arm back into the cell.
“Wait,” he called, “hear me out. You all must’ve given Herist a nasty shock, because he’s put a big troop of guardsmen just outside this place. If you attempt a jailbreak now it’ll mean tremendous bloodletting. Look to the window and wait until dawn to let yourselves out. By that point I’ve a feeling he’ll need most of them for something else.”
“He’s lyin,” said the boy with the keys. “Making fun for hisself. He’ll tell and rake up some profit. We’ll just be hanged earlier.” Andrei didn’t say anything. Begley rapped his pipe on the boy’s head, took the keys, and sat on them in his spot against the wall.
“If he’s wrong it’ll be just as bad now as later,” he said. “And Aloren’s wid ’im.”
“Maybe her tongue’s been cut out,” said a young girl.
“We’re waitin till later.” Begley folded his arms and sucked at his pipe.
“But perhaps we’re needed out there now,” said an old man. “What about the gang at the west armory? Did the same happen to them? I haven’t heard them in here––Haberclad, or Gwat, or young Illinla? Should’ve heard him.”
“You’re not needed anywhere,” said Andrei. “Elden hold the harbor and the warehouses––they’re armed. They got weapons from the other armory. The garrison had just finished with you, my friend told me, but they came up the bottom of Dewing, and got flushed out by an opened sluice. The lake’s just beginning to sink.”
I stared at him. He looked puzzled. “I thought you’d opened it. Maybe Trid––”
“Lally.” Padlimaird had stuck his nose through the bars. “Sal stood back there in the courtyard.” Sweat rolled away from his temples. “And I don’t know about Wille––I fear he’s dead. Is he dead? Why don’t you talk? Do you think I’m a coward?”
A chill crept over me. Sal’s old friend Goody kept her home on Dewing. Goody Mabble the pawnbroker.
I thought of Trid sitting on the bridge above a roaring canal––I had taught him to pick locks. I thought of Sal clobbering noggins with her hambone, her baby screaming at Goody’s house.
I turned and walked away. I climbed a stair, and Andrei grabbed my arm. He explained frankly that we had no other alternative than that he carry me out.
So he picked me up, hid me beneath his cloak, and walked straight through the forty-some guards gathered around the doorway. His shirt was damp under me and I held my breath. Finally the cloak pulled back, and he put me on the ground.
It was cold and the sky was full of stars. My breath swam before me. I held my arms close under my tunic, and walked toward the stables. When we reached the one I’d lived in for a winter, my heart grew heavy and I stopped. Andrei by now knew what we were about. He pushed me inside, asking that I calm myself for the horses’ sakes.
Once inside, we filled two nosebags with grain. Andrei ran for coins and I oiled the tack. He came back with a sagging belt, found me outfitting Liskara, and questioned her suitability. He questioned little more after my grimace, and we led the horses from the stable and set off through a back gate.
The questions began anew when I turned Liskara down Crewald Street. I slipped from her back at the edge of Trid’s lake. Andrei made to copy my motions, but I threw him my leads, gesturing for him to remain with the horses.
I waded through the inky water to a wall. I pulled myself up the thatch and picked my way over the roofs till I’d reached the half-submerged houses at the bottom of the street. It was dead silent; the water hardly stirred, and there was little light except what came from the moon.
I stepped onto the pawnbroker’s steep roof. The water lapped through the attic window. There was a mattress floating just inside, and I lowered my feet to the windowsill and waited for my eyes to adjust. Then I stepped onto the mattress. The bundle of bedclothes moved and began to squall. I heaved a sigh of relief, and wondered when anything had ever been that easy.
“Who’s there?” Wille called, his voice rough.
The bed hangings moved, and I pulled the mattress and baby toward the voice, using the wall to steer. Floy pleaded with me, but I held my tongue and my oath. I couldn’t see much of him––he was on the bed, head barely raised above the water.
“Sal?” He touched my face, the scar on my cheek. “Aloren. Has it been raining?” A slip of moonlight fell across his face.
There was something wrong. He didn’t look at me even when I touched his eyelid.
“They threw lye in my eyes,” he said. “They was crashing through the houses like a herd of––what d’ye call em?––elephants, looking for us with the weapons. The ones who broke in here stuck Goody through like a dry ham, and I killed one or two––don’t tell Sal––but not before they did what they wanted with me. The lye was for good measure. Goody’d been scrubbing the floor. But they left when the water came, and I looked and looked and finally found her in a drawer. It was all I could do to carry her up here, and I lay down for a while, and lost her. I couldn’t see––thought she’d floated out the window. Thank God for her gusty lungs. Just like her dad’s.” He laughed once more, and shook.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “Why ain’t you yelling? What’s happening? The pigs been run out of our streets, hain’t they?”
I kept silent.
“Don’t this beat all?” said Willie. “If I’m blind and you’re mute, how’re you going to show me if there’s any hope?”
The girl kicked against me, asleep again.
Wille’s breathing was ragged. I wished I could push his head where I wouldn’t hear it. Then I tore the letter from my pocket, took his wrist in my hand, and placed his fingers over the wild rose seal. He made a closer connection than I expected. His eyes went round. He laughed and said, “I knew you weren’t a saebel.” And then he grew quiet and all I heard was the lapping of the water.
***
I put the letter back in my pocket. I pushed the mattress toward the window, to rejoin the rest of the blind and mute. Little Daira slept on, unaware, and I paddled us between the dark houses and into the shallows. Andrei cast a shadow like a tower between the two horses. He took the girl and gave her to me once I had mounted. She still slept as we rode toward the tavern on the quay, where I though Hal might be.
Because of the skirmishing at the barricades the quayside was nearly inaccessible––the main streets were stopped up with soldiers. But Floy and I together made a canny partnership, and we rode down smaller, lesser-known streets and had little trouble. Ellyned was quieter than I had ever heard it. Windows were shuttered and doors boarded up, and we went along like ghosts in a ruined city.
Finally we reached the dirty little alley and the tavern. The door had been torn from its hinges and tipped across the stoop, and the entrance obstructed by a massive table, except for a small hole at the top, from which, I guessed, a man might make inquiry or point an arrow.
As we led the horses into a recess, I thought of the window in the little room where Hal and I had talked three years back. The baby hot in my arms, I pulled Andrei clear of the lamplight, and we crept between buildings, roughing ourselves against the walls.
The window had a board nailed across the frame. No light shone from it. Andrei said nothing as I transferred the child to his shoulder and climbed through the window. He was bewildered, probably, but I felt no sympathy for him and I was glad his face was hidden in the dark. Once within I reached for the baby––she was awake now, staring quizzically at me––and edged her through. I felt in the blackness for the door and slid us into the boathouse, leaving Andrei waiting outside.
Candles cast light over a few tables. Hal’s fiddle played, and many voices sang with it.
The child began to wail. I tugged my arms from the folk holding me back, and walked up to Hal, who was sitting on a bench. I placed the girl on his lap and took away his violin.
“Good to see you alive and bossing folk about, Lady Renegade,” he said. Gwat cleared his throat, and Hal said sharply to him, “You’re better off silent. Now this”––he looked at the baby––“this is Sal’s girl.” His voice was sad, and he bounced her on his shoulder. Her cries turned to gurgles.
But she balled her fists and screamed when a rumpus walked in from the tavern. Everyone jumped to surround it, and I saw that half of it was Andrei, face swollen beyond recognition and buried in Haberclad’s black whiskers. “Found the owl loiterin by the tavern door,” Haberclad growled, stumbling forward. He’d clearly been comforting himself with a whiskey jar. “Tryin to listen in, I’ll warrant! And full of tripe. Herist this, and Herist that––”
“Perhaps he’s come to tell us something,” said Hal over the noise. But no one listened, and beating down my panic, I thought quickly. I took the baby from Hal’s shoulder and propped her on Gwat’s lap. Then I returned Hal his fiddle and began drumming my feet on the wooden landing. My fists found the bench, and the clatter was deafening, but Hal recognized it.
“I don’t think,” he said, “this is the time for Golly Stooner.” But I refused to cease my pounding. Finally he got wise and, lifting his fiddle, launched into the old reel.
As I began to dance the shouting faded to silence. Wille’s rendition of the chorus came unbidden to my mind along with such a glut of emotion that I had no trouble forcing it between my toes and the wood. I kicked and pummeled at the air, and my shadow guttered. The dust settled where my feet had been.
Loosening his grip on Andrei, Haberclad said to the man next to him, “Hain’t never seen that before.” They all watched me, only me, and Andrei frowned behind them, hair rumpled.
Rather than slink away, he edged to the front of the crowd. I sank when his lips moved: “Herist’s come.”
With scarcely a thought I hit the ground and grabbed Andrei’s shirtfront. I pulled him through Hal’s legs and beneath the table.
Haberclad had neglected his watch. Having breached the tavern entrance, Herist, Gershom, and Kalka strode into the boathouse.
Gershom had his crossbow cocked and everyone scrambled for weapons, and readied them. “No blood, I hope,” said Herist. “We have news for the resistance. About the Lauriad princess.”
A mystified murmur filled the room. “Eh?” yelled Gwat. Daira was still screaming in his lap. “Princess?”
“Oh, come,” Herist said. “Come, come, you must know someone’s been providing you with information. You’ve been acting on it for years.”
“Commander Snake’s gone nutty,” said Gwat. “Breathin in his own stink, probably.”
“I’ve captured her,” said Herist. “And I have a proposal for you.”
“Proposal? Her? Who the hell is her?”
“I have proof,” said Herist.
“Hear that?” said someone else. “Poor fellow’s got proof.”
“Tell us a better tale and we’ll give you some Tuley’s,” said Gabe.
“Wait a bit––this here’s a right happy little band, Herist, but before you join we’ll have to give you the paddle.”
“She had this on her,” said Herist. “The King’s signet ring.” The silver glinted in his hand. Silence fell around Daira’s whimpers.
“The letter writer,” said someone in a low voice.
I suddenly remembered; I could have bit off my hand for my forgetfulness.
Andrei’s chin was high above my hand, his eyes focused ahead; and Hal’s leg stiffened as I slid my last letter, the letter about Calragen, Ackerly, and the Simargh, into his boot.
“She’s a lass?” Haberclad whispered. “A poor, brave lass?”
“The King’s daughter,” said Herist. “She said so herself—you see, she can still talk. For now. And if you want her alive and well you’ll stop this nonsense and support the war effort like men. I’ll wait here until you’ve evacuated the harbor. My troops are stationed outside.”
The Elde shifted uncertainly on their feet, a few bows still stretched. Hal took back the girl from Gwat and remained seated in front of Andrei and me. Andrei turned his head towards mine, and I pointed towards Gwat, who stood near Andrei. Gwat hadn’t lowered his bow.
I gave Andrei’s arm a fierce, endorsing pinch. He shot his leg out and kicked Gwat in the back of the ankle.
Gwat let fly his arrow straight into Kalka’s chest. Haberclad, drunk and hollering about the princess, missed Gwat with his fist and leveled Gershom’s face instead. Gershom’s quarrel sank into Gabe’s shoulder. The landing erupted, folk spilled into the water, and Hal slid the babe beneath the table and crawled after her.
I looked at him, wondering if he meant to hide with us. But he crawled under the benches to the edge of the dock, babe in one arm, beckoning us after.
We came alongside him, and without so much as a by-your-leave he pushed Andrei and me into the water.
I was too shocked to feel the cold. I stared dumbly as Hal dropped a candle in after us. “To oil the gate,” he said. And then I watched as he walked quite calmly down the jetty and locked the squalling babe and himself into the little side room.
The candle bobbed beside me. I grabbed it, gasping, and Andrei nodded toward the watergate.
We crept beneath the surface to the gate. My hand reached up and rubbed the candle around the iron hook, and the rust made barely a complaint when Andrei unlatched it. We opened the gate a crack, and slipped through.
Leaving a wet trail, we ran down a back alley. By the time we came to the horses Andrei was blowing with fury. “He pried that ring from the dead King’s finger,” he said, dripping all over his white-eyed gelding. “To unveil when the time was ripe.”
Hiding my face, I dug my heels into Liskara’s sides. The wind whipped water from my hair, and I huddled against the horse. We raced down the silent streets and turned north toward the far city gates, pitting our horses against the dawn.