Crown Duel

  But my future had brightened. The hallway was empty, with a stairway leading upward, and next to it one leading to a basement. I wanted to fling myself down that, to hide in the dark, but I restrained myself: There was generally only one way out of a basement.

  At my right a plain door-tapestry opened onto a storeroom of some sort. I peeked inside. There were two windows with clouded glass, and a jumble of dishes, small pieces of furniture, trays, and a row of hooks with aprons and caps on them. That outer door was the servants’ entrance, and this room was their storeroom.

  Colors flickered in the clouded glass. Edging up next to the window, I heard the slow clopping of hooves. The rhythm broke, then stopped; from another direction came more hooves, which swiftly got closer.

  The house I was in was a corner house, the first in a row. Two search parties met right outside my window, where the alley conjoined with the street.

  “Nothing this way, my lord,” someone said.

  A horse sidled; another whickered.

  Then a familiar drawl, not ten paces from me: “Search the houses.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  So there I was, light-headed with hunger, footsore, with the perimeter of safety having closed to about ten paces around me, and the Marquis of Shevraeth standing on the other side of the wall.

  At least he didn’t—yet—know it.

  As if in answer, I heard the klunk of footsteps on the tiled floor directly above me. Someone else had been listening at a window and was now moving about. To come downstairs? Would the searchers go to the front or come to the back?

  I considered then dismissed the idea of begging safety from the inhabitants. If they were not mercifully inclined, all they’d need to do was shout for help and I’d be collared in a wink. And if they were merciful, they faced a death sentence if caught hiding me.

  No, what I had to do was get out without anyone knowing I’d been inside the house.

  And nippily, too.

  The clatter of hooves and the jingle of harnesses prompted me to edge next to the window again. All I could see was the shifting of blurred color, but it sounded like one riding had moved on. To divide up and start on the houses?

  What about the other group?

  Dark-hued stalks stood directly outside the window. Did one of them have a pale yellow top?

  I could see him standing there narrow-eyed, looking around. Then maybe he’d glance at the window and see something flesh-colored and blue just inside the frame…

  I closed my eyes, feeling a weird vertigo. Of course he couldn’t see me—it was dark inside and light out. That meant the window would be a blank, dark square to him. If he even gave it a look. I was letting fancy override my good sense, and if I didn’t stop it, his searchers would find me standing there daydreaming.

  I took a deep breath—and the stalks outside the window began to move. Soon they were gone from sight, and nothing changed in the window. Nor did I hear feet, hooves, or swords clanking in scabbards.

  It was time for me to go.

  My heart thumped in time to the pang in my temples as I opened the storeroom door, peeked out, then eased the outside door open. Nothing…nothing…I slipped out into the alley.

  And saw two posted guards at the other end, looking the other way. I whisked myself behind a flowering shrub that bordered the street, wincing as I waited for the yells of “Stop! You!”

  Nothing.

  Breathing hard, I pelted across the street and into the garden where I’d spent the night before. And with no better plan in mind, I sped along the paths to the shady section, found my fern, and crawled in. The soil was still muddy and cold, but I didn’t mind; I curled up, closed my eyes, and tried to calm my panicking heart and aching head.

  And slept.

  And woke to the marching of feet and jingling of weaponry. Before I could move, there was a crackling of foliage and a spearhead thrust its way into my bush, scarcely an arm’s length above my head. It was withdrawn, the steps moved on, and the spear smashed through the shrubbery a few paces on.

  “This is my third time through here,” a low voice muttered.

  “I tell you, if we don’t get a week’s leave when this is over, I’m going back to masonry. Just as much work, but at least you get enough time to sleep,” another voice returned.

  There was a snorting laugh, then the searchers poked their way down the row of bushes.

  I shivered, wondering what to do next. My tongue was sticky in my mouth, for I’d had nothing to drink since the night before, and of course nothing to eat but those few bites of the chicken pie.

  How much longer can I do this?

  Until I get home, I told myself firmly.

  I’d wait until dark, sneak out of that town, and never return. I’ll travel by night and go straight east, I decided. How I was to get food I didn’t know, but I was already so light-headed from hunger, all I could think of was getting away.

  oOo

  Just before sunset it started to rain again. I told myself that this was good, that it limited visibility for the searchers. Therefore it would help me, because I needed to go east, and I’d been trapped on the west side of the town for two days.

  Thus I rationalized sneaking through the town rather than going around it, which might be a small problem to those on horseback—but to someone who was tired, footsore, and unenthusiastic about slogging knee-deep in mud when she could traverse the beautifully paved streets more quickly, it was a lure that could not be overcome.

  So, keeping to dark alleys and tree-shaded parkways, I cat-footed through the town. I was doing all right until my growing thirst got so bad I could think of little else.

  Where to get a drink? In the countryside this was less of a problem, but now I began to regret having stayed in the town just to make it easier on my feet. The streams had been turned into canals, with windowed bathhouses everywhere along them, and house windows overlooking everything else. It was impossible to sneak to a canal for a drink and not be seen. Holding my mouth open to catch raindrops on my tongue only made my thirst more intense.

  So when I stumbled onto a little circular park with a fountain in its center, I couldn’t resist. A quick glance showed the park to be completely deserted. In fact, so far I hadn’t seen any people at all, but I didn’t consider that, beyond my brief gratitude that the rain had kept them all inside.

  I hopped over a little flower border. The blooms—ghostly white in the soft glow from the lamps around the park’s circumference—ran up the brick walkway and gripped the stone lip of the fountain. I opened my mouth, leaned in, and took a deep gulp.

  And heard hooves. Boot-heels.

  “You, there, girl! Halt!”

  Who in the universe ever halts when the enemy tells them to?

  Of course I took off in the opposite direction, as fast as I could: running across grass, leaping neatly tended flowers. But the park was a circle, which made it easy for the riders to gallop around both ways and cut me off. I stopped, looked back. No retreat.

  Another group came running across the lawns, swords drawn. I backed up a step, two; scanned this way and that; tried to break for it in the largest space, which of course was instantly closed.

  There must have been a dozen of them ringing me, all with rapiers and heavier weapons gleaming gold tipped in the light from the iron-posted glowglobes and the windows of the houses.

  “Report,” someone barked, and then to me, “Who are you? Don’t you know there is a sunset curfew?”

  “Ah, I didn’t know.” I smoothed my skirts nervously. “Been sick. No one mentioned it…”

  “Who are you?” came the question again.

  “I wanted a drink. I was sick, I think I mentioned, and didn’t get any water…”

  “Who are you.” This time it wasn’t even a question.

  The game was up, of course, but who said I had to surrender meekly? “Just call me Ranisia.” I named my mother, using my hardest voice. “I’m a ghost, one of Galdran Merindar’s man
y victims.”

  Noises from behind caused the ring to tighten, the weapons all pointing a finger’s breadth from my throat. My empty hands were at my sides, but these folks were taking no chances. Maybe they thought I was a ghost.

  No one spoke, or moved, until the sound of heels striking the brick path made the warriors withdraw silently.

  Baron Debegri strode up, his rain cape billowing. Under his foppish mustache his teeth gleamed in a very cruel grin. He stopped within a pace of me, and with no warning whatever, backhanded me right across the face. I went flying backward, landing flat in a flower bed. The Baron stepped onto my left knee and motioned a torch bearer over. He stared down at the half-healed marks on my ankle and laughed, then jerked his thumb in a gesture of command. Two warriors sprang to either side of me, each grabbing an arm and pulling me to my feet.

  “What have you to say now, my little hero?” the Baron gloated.

  “That you are a fool, the son of a fool, and the servant of the biggest—”

  He swung at me again, and I tried to duck, but he grabbed me by the hair and then hit me. The world seemed to explode in stars—for a long time all I could do was gasp for breath and fight against dizziness.

  When I came out of it, someone was binding my hands; then two more someones grabbed my arms again, and I was half carried to the street. My vision was blurry. I realized hazily that a gem on his embroidered gloves must have cut my forehead, for a warm trickle ran nastily down the side of my face, which throbbed even worse than my ankle.

  I got thrown over the back of a horse, my hands and feet bound to stirrups. From somewhere I heard Debegri’s harsh voice: “Lift the curfew, but tell those smug-faced Elders that if anyone harbored this criminal, the death penalty still holds. You. Tell his lordship the marquis that his aid is no longer necessary, and he can return to Remalna-city, or wherever he wants.”

  Quick footsteps ran off, and then the baron said, “Now, to Chovilun. And don’t dawdle.”

  Chovilun…

  One of the four Merindar fortresses.

  I closed my eyes.

  oOo

  I do not like to remember that trip.

  Not that I was awake for much of it—for which I am grateful. I kept sliding in and out of consciousness, and believe me, the outs were more welcome than the ins.

  I knew that Chovilun Fortress lay at the base of the mountains on the Akaeriki River, which bisects the kingdom, but I didn’t know how long it took to reach it.

  All I can report is that I felt pretty sick, nearly as sick as I’d been when I fell into Ara’s chickenyard. Sick at heart as well, for I knew there was no escape for Meliara Astiar after all; therefore I resolved that my last job was to summon enough presence of mind to die well.

  Not, of course, that the truth would ever get to Branaric. The Merindars held the kingdom by a winning combination of treachery, bullying, and lying. I had made the baron look silly during that episode at the inn, and I knew he was going to take his revenge on me in the privacy of his fortress, making it last as long as possible. And every weakness he could get me to display was going to get noised as excruciatingly as possible over the entire kingdom—especially aimed at Tlanth.

  So my only hope was to make him so angry he’d kill me outright and save us both a lot of effort.

  These were my cheery thoughts—not that my head was any too clear—as we clattered into a stone courtyard at last. The ever-present rain had nearly drowned me. My hands and feet were numb. When the guards cut me loose I fell like an old bundle of laundry onto the stone courtyard, and once again hands gripped my upper arms and yanked me upright.

  I was borne into a dank tunnel, then down steep steps into an even danker, nasty-smelling chamber—a real, true-to-nightmare dungeon. Shackles, iron baskets, various prods and knives and whips and other instruments whose purpose I didn’t know—and didn’t want to know—were displayed on the walls around two great stained and scored tables.

  A huge, ugly man in a bespattered blackweave apron motioned for the warriors to put me into a chair with irons at arms and feet. As they did, he said, “What am I supposed to be finding out?”

  At the door, the baron said harshly, “I want to shed these wet clothes. Don’t touch her until I return. This is going to last a long, long time.” His gloating laugh echoed down a stone passageway.

  The huge man pursed his lips, shrugged, then turned to his fire, selecting various pincers and brands to lay on a grate in the flames.

  Then he came back, lifted one bushy brow at the warriors still flanking me, and said in a low voice, “Kinda little and scrawny, this one, ain’t she? What she done?”

  “Countess of Tlanth,” one said in a flat voice.

  The man whistled, then grinned. He had several teeth missing. Then he bent closer, peered at me, and shook his head. “Looks to me like she’s half done for already. Grudge or no grudge, she won’t last past midnight.” He grinned again, motioning to the nearest warrior. “Go ahead and put the irons on her. Shall we have a little fun while we’re waiting?”

  He pulled one of his brands out of the fire and stepped toward me, raising it. The sharp smell of red-hot metal made me sneeze—and when I looked up, the man’s mouth was open with surprise.

  My gaze dropped to the knife embedded squarely in his chest, which seemed to have sprouted there. But knives don’t sprout, even in dungeons, I thought hazily, as the torturer fell heavily at my feet. I turned my head, half rising from the chair—

  And saw the Marquis of Shevraeth standing framed in the doorway. At his back were four of his liveried equerries, with swords drawn and ready.

  The Marquis strolled forward, indicated the knife with a neatly gloved hand, and gave me a faint smile. “I trust the timing was more or less advantageous?”

  “More or less,” I managed to say before the rushing in my ears washed over me, and I passed out cold right on top of the late torturer.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Awareness came slowly, and not very pleasantly. First were all the aches and twinges, then the dizziness, and last the sensation of movement. Before I even opened my eyes I realized that once again I was on a horse, clasped upright by an arm.

  The marquis again? Memories flooded back—the dungeon, the baron’s horrible promise, then the knife and Shevraeth’s comment about timing. The marquis had saved me from a thoroughly nasty fate with about the closest timing in history. Relief was my foremost emotion, then gratitude, and then a residual embarrassment that I didn’t understand and instantly dismissed. He had saved my life, and I owed him my thanks.

  I opened my eyes, squinting against bright sunlight. Words of gratitude formed, only to vanish when I saw an unfamiliar face. I closed my eyes again, completely confused. Had I dreamed it all, then? Except—where was I, and with whom?

  The horse stopped, and the stranger murmured, “Drink.”

  Something wet touched my lips. I swallowed, then gasped as liquid fire ignited its way down my gullet, the harsh taste of distilled bristic with other herbs. I swallowed again, and my entire body glowed—even the aches diminished.

  “Not too much,” someone else warned.

  The liquid went away. I opened my eyes again and found a circle of unfamiliar faces looking at me with expressions ranging from interest to concern.

  I twisted my head. The young woman holding me was tall and strong, with black hair worn in a coronet around her head under a plain helm. She held out a flask to someone else, who capped it and dropped it into a saddlebag.

  The peachy light of early morning warmed the faces around me. There was no sign of the Marquis of Shevraeth—or of Baron Debegri, either. I blinked, sat up straighter, then grimaced against a renewal of all my aches.

  “Am I holding too tight, Lady Meliara?” the woman asked.

  “I’m all right,” I said a little hoarsely.

  “I don’t think you can ride alone quite yet.”

  “Sure, I can,” I replied instantly.

  To my s
urprise they all laughed—but it wasn’t unkind laughter, like Baron Debegri’s, or heartless laughter, like that of Galdran’s Court in the throne room at Athanarel.

  “We’ll see, my lady,” was all she said. And lifting her head: “Let’s move.”

  Suddenly businesslike, the others ranged themselves around us in a protective formation, and the horses started forth at a steady canter.

  The glow from the bristic faded, leaving me listless and miserable.

  After a time the riders slowed, then stopped, and the woman holding me said, “Here’s a good spot. Flerac, you and Jamni see to the mounts. Loris, and you three, set us up a perimeter. Amol, the Fire Stick and the stores. My lady, you and I are going down to that pool over there.”

  So saying, she dismounted, then lifted me down. She paused, rummaged in her saddlebag, pulled out a bundle, then said, “I am Yora Nessaren, captain of this riding. Please come this way, my lady.” She bowed, then held out her arm for my support.

  I took it gratefully. This was certainly a new twist on the various treatments I’d received. I was even more surprised when we topped a little rise shaded by trees, and found a clear pool. One end was shaded, the other golden and glittering in the sun.

  “First order of the day,” she said with a grin, “you are to have a bath and new gear.” She opened a small, carved box. A scent of summer herbs rose from it. She dug two fingers in, then slapped something gritty onto my palm. “There’s some of my sandsoap.” Then, putting the box away, she reached again into her bag and pulled out a new teeth cleaner. “I always carry an extra in the field.”

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully, thinking, as I stepped down to the pool, of all those days I’d had to use the edge of my increasingly dirty underdress.

  I found a flat rock on which to put my waiting soap and teeth cleaner, flung off the last of my dirt-stiff clothes, and dived into the pool. The water was clear and cold, instantly soothing the stings from hiding in scratchy shrubs, and the rope burns on my wrists and ankles from my journey as a saddle pack to Debegri’s fortress. After a good scrub from head to toe, I reached for my clothes in order to wash them out. Yora Nessaren, who’d sat on the rise staring up at the trees, turned, then shook her head. “We’ll burn those old clothes, my lady—they’re ruined.” And she pointed to where she’d laid out a long, heavy cotton shirt, and one of the blue and black-and-white tunics, and a pair of leggings. Renselaeus’s colors.