Helm

  Gahnfeld rolled his eyes. “Of course, Warden.”

  Leland winced, then jogged across the bridge, leading his horse at a trot. The bridge bounced slightly, and he hoped the vibrations wouldn’t shake the dirt and straw out. The last thing they needed was to have a horse put a leg through a gap. Besides the danger of breaking a bone, the animal could panic and go over the edge. The rope railing was purely visual—structurally it might as well not be there.

  Across, he haltered his horse and tied it to a tree, then took his saddle off and laid it on the pine needles just beyond. He took the poncho and spread it on the ground, then lay down, his saddle for a pillow, staring up through the branches.

  IT’S GOING TO WORK.

  It’s got to work. He closed his eyes.

  “Warden.”

  Leland sat up, surprised. He hadn’t expected to sleep, but there’d been little enough the night before.

  Gahnfeld stood there. Beside him was one of the Rootless. He peered closer—it was the Cricket, Donald Dobson.

  Leland stretched. “Good morning—afternoon?”

  “Afternoon,” the Cricket said.

  Leland climbed to his feet and looked at the bridge. There were still men crossing it, this time leading the unit’s draft horses—converted from wagon teams to pack animals. “The sentries?”

  “They’ve crossed. Twenty more animals and we’re done. None of the other units seem to have noticed.” Gahnfeld nodded at the Cricket. “Apparently we’re ready to leave as soon as we cross.”

  The Cricket nodded back. “True. I’ve the honor of escorting you to our gathering point. Or, as Himself said, to make sure you won’t hold us up.”

  “We’ll need a torch,” Leland said.

  Fifteen minutes later, hot flames rising into the sky, the bridge tumbled into the river, smoke and steam rising where the glowing embers splashed into the water.

  Leland mounted his horse and said almost absently, “Well, let’s get going. I’ve burned my bridges behind me. There’s no turning back.”

  Chapter 18

  SUTEMI: TO THROW AWAY THE BODY

  Where is it?

  The guard at the holding cell said, “Good morning, sir,” and it took great effort on Siegfried’s part not to slam him against the wall.

  “Just open the door,” he said.

  The guard’s tentative smile dropped from his face and he pulled the bolts and swung the door wide, moving quickly.

  Siegfried gestured to the side and his personal guards dropped off, stationing themselves on the opposite wall. Then Siegfried stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Dulan was noticeably thinner. It had been a week since his capture, and Siegfried was allowing him only water. He was sitting cross-legged on his straw pallet, back against the wall, hands resting in his lap. The leg irons weren’t visible and for one paranoid moment, Siegfried thought Dulan had gotten out of them, but then he saw the chain running across the pallet and under his legs.

  The two oil lamps that lit the room were on this side of the room, out of the prisoner’s reach, as was a large chair from Dulan’s own study. Siegfried sat in the chair and watched Dulan impassively.

  Where is it?

  Dulan opened his eyes then and looked at Siegfried without surprise. “Ah. You.”

  He straightened his legs, letting blood flow back into his lower legs. He didn’t ask what Siegfried wanted. Siegfried was interested in only one thing.

  “Me. Where is it?”

  “What do you think?”

  Siegfried narrowed his eyes. “I think you hid it.”

  “I can think of other possibilities. I could’ve sent it into Noram. I could’ve sent it with Leland. I could’ve floated it down the Tiber in a reed basket. Or I could’ve destroyed it.”

  Siegfried felt a twinge of panic at the last but said, “Don’t be ridiculous. I could dream up possibilities all day long if I had nothing to do. I don’t care about possibilities. I care about actualities.

  “Where is the Helm?”

  “Ask Dillan.”

  Siegfried sighed. “You know that was a mistake.”

  The night of the attack, Dulan had been taken in the main hall, after seeing Dillan’s corpse. He’d been unarmed but had killed or disabled eight of Siegfried’s men before being knocked unconscious. The chains that held him were very strong, and Siegfried had no intention of coming within his reach, half starved or otherwise.

  “No. I’m sure you wish you had him alive, to use as a lever against me.” Dulan’s eyes strayed to the wall on the other side of the doorway and Siegfried looked, despite himself, at the irregular brownish stain.

  Siegfried wondered if having Dillan alive would make any difference. He’d gone through five of Dulan’s closest staff without results, starting with the household manager, Martin, and ending with the companion of Dulan’s daughter, the Gentle Guide Bridgett.

  Dulan had wept at each cut, openly, but remained silent even in the face of their screams—each death.

  Siegfried snarled, angry. “Do you want more blood on your hands?”

  Dulan stared at Siegfried. “My hands? Don’t kid yourself.”

  Siegfried narrowed his eyes. “You know, don’t you? You know what I intend. That’s why you didn’t spare them.”

  Dulan didn’t say anything. Instead, he crossed his legs again, rattling the chain, and folded his hands back into his lap. He let his eyelids half close and unfocused his eyes. Siegfried had the irrational feeling that the man had left the room.

  Siegfried stood. “We’ll see how you handle this when the delirium sets in. When your tongue swells in your mouth and your throat feels like sandpaper.”

  He stood and banged on the door. When it swung open he said to the guard, “No more water for the prisoner. Not a single drop.”

  The door shut with satisfying finality.

  His guards fell in behind him and he walked through the Station to the main hall.

  Most of the staff and residents were either dead or crowded into the servants’ wing, under guard. He entered the small family dining room and greeted the one exception.

  “Gentle Guide.”

  Carmen Cantle de Laal was also thinner, though Siegfried hadn’t limited her food.

  Except for a constant escort, she’d been given the run of the Station. He wondered if she was having second thoughts about her treason. Too bad.

  She bent a knee. “High Steward.” Her face was blank, an expression Siegfried was used to—one he cultivated in his own servants.

  “Please be seated.” Siegfried sat at the other end of the table, one of his guards holding the chair. Another guard held Carmen’s chair then stood back against the wall.

  Lunch was grilled mutton, saffron rice, and a salad of hothouse tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil. Siegfried’s cook was delighted with the produce of Laal and had a troop of Cotswold infantry fully occupied in supplies confiscation. He wanted Siegfried to relocate his capital to the Tiber valley.

  Too cold.

  “I’ve given some thought to your request, Gentle Guide.”

  She stirred at the end of the table, looking up from food that she’d disarranged on her plate but hardly tasted. “My portion,” she corrected. “Of our agreement.”

  He waved his hand as if shooing midges from his face. “I can hardly give the governorship of Laal to someone who is currently leading troops against me. Your son and Koss are fighting my men in the southwest.”

  “After you’ve won, choosing Ricard will do much to pacify the area. If he was with you now, he wouldn’t be an effective governor later. The people would rise against him.”

  Siegfried pretended to consider her words. If I can just find that blasted Helm, I won’t need any of you. “I’ll consider it. I don’t want a rebellious province sucking up troops.”

  There was a knock at the open door and one of the signal runners paused there. Annoyed, Siegfried gestured him on in. His staff knew not to bother him with ro
utine traffic, so it must be urgent.

  From: Dickson, Commanding Eastern Division

  To: High Steward Siegfried Montrose

  Subj: Nullarbor invasion

  Sir. Rootless Clan Forces numbering over seven thousand cavalry have taken or besieged all seven of the border forts before proceeding northwest, toward Bottleneck. Our losses at the border number over eight hundred dead, wounded, or captured leaving only three hundred and fifty troops under my command. Initial attacks on heliograph stations prevented our report until now. We are running before them, maintaining contact, but cannot possibly engage them without relief. Please advise.

  Siegfried stared at the message until the words blurred. Those troops should be fighting the Noramlanders over the Plain of the Founders! He’d counted on that when he’d pulled his forces west for the invasion of Laal. Now, between the ragged remnant of Dickson’s forces and the militia left in Montrouge, there were fewer than seven hundred troops between the Rootless and his capital.

  Should I move my forces back to Cotswold?

  If the Rootless weren’t fighting the Noramlanders, then where were Arthur’s troops? Still on the plain or moving west, toward Laal? He had a deal with Arthur, but had Arthur double-crossed him?

  Since Siegfried planned on double-crossing Arthur, the thought came easily to him.

  No, he wouldn’t run back to Cotswold. Perhaps the Rootless would stop at Bottleneck, the narrow section of Cotswold between the Bauer Rent and the Bay of Sorrow, then consolidate their hold on the peninsula, territory that had belonged to them in the previous century.

  Even if he had to take his capital back, he was staying. With the Helm, he could do anything. However, Arthur could still be a problem if he acted too soon.

  “Two messages,” he said to the runner. “First, to Dickson: Maintain contact and report movements. Second, to my son in Noram City: Execute Operation Commitment immediately.”

  Dillan is dead. Father is their prisoner.

  The news had leaked out of the Station, passed mouth to mouth, hand to hand, in the way that bad news travels. A man driving confiscated sheep to the station under guard heard it from the station butcher. Ejected from the fortification, he told it in the market. It traveled up into the woods with a deadwood collector who left the news on a sheet of paper under a certain rock. Matilda collected the paper at sunset and held it two days before finally telling Lillian.

  She’d cried herself dry and now, a day later, she couldn’t cry any more. She’d retreated—packed cotton wool around her being—certain that the next message would be the death of her father or the capture of her brothers.

  Now she did what Matilda told her or sat in the corner, huddled in blankets.

  Siegfried’s patrols swept farther and farther up the hill, and Matilda was afraid that the sight or smell of smoke would give them away, so they ate cold meals, bundled their clothing around them, and, at night, slept together to share their body heat.

  Will I ever be warm again?

  “Again? What does he want this time?”

  Marilyn’s maid, Dora, said, “He didn’t say.”

  Marilyn frowned. Until Zanna reached the capital the next morning, she was just waiting. She’d done all she could to prep her father, to incline him toward negotiations, and sensed further efforts would backfire, annoying him. She really had no excuse not to see Sylvan.

  “All right. Please ask him to wait in the conservatory. Ask the kitchen for tea.”

  That was public enough. Lately Sylvan’s attentions had become both more forceful and more intimate. A month before she would have welcomed them, but now… Anyway, the conservatory should be safe. She wasn’t worried about handling him, particularly. She just wanted to avoid the necessity.

  She dressed in one of her old dresses, from those days when she practically lived in the drafty halls of the Great Library, a high-necked velvet gown, with long sleeves, and a long enough hem to comfortably tuck one’s feet under while reading. It was an almost-black dark purple with an applique of the Stewardship’s Crest worked over the heart in royal blue and scarlet.

  It didn’t make her look at all sexy, but it reminded, ultimately, of who she was. It made her feel like someone.

  Sylvan was pacing along the long glass wall that gave the conservatory its name. He turned when she entered and smiled briefly. “I was beginning to think you were a figment of my imagination. There was this girl I was betrothed to, but try as I could, I couldn’t find her.”

  Any sympathy she felt was wiped out by his use of “girl.” Still, she was polite. “I’ve been assisting my father in affairs of state. For the first time in two hundred years, it looks like we might have peace with Nullarbor. In fact, because of the peace with Cotswold, nobody seems to be at war on the entire planet.”

  Sylvan nodded. “I’ve heard the rumors. Imagine, peace. Who would have thought it?” He turned and walked toward a couch and a group of chairs around a low table. “I brought something you might be interested in.”

  He picked a package off the table, a book-shape object wrapped in cloth, and opened it. It was, not surprisingly, a book.

  She took it from him carefully for it was not one of the Prime books, the indestructible volumes brought by the Founders, but a copy—a very old copy—missing the front cover and several pages.

  The running header said Pharmaceutical Processing from Scratch. It was one of the missing volumes, the ones listed in the colony indices but never found, probably thrown into the river four hundred years before by Josh Townsend’s New Luddites. Someone had found it, though, if the copy existed.

  “Where did you get this?” She didn’t attempt to hide her excitement.

  “There’s a used goods shop on Stellar Way. The man sells furniture, dishes, and other junk, but he also sells copies of Prime books, original works, and old magazines. I don’t think he knows what he has, though. This was in a pile of last year’s newspapers. Got him down to half a soy because of the damaged cover.”

  “Half a soy? This is priceless!” The tea service arrived and she started, annoyed.

  “Did he say where he got it?”

  Sylvan helped himself to a handful of cookies. “Got it? Um, didn’t ask. Had to get to lunch—keep up my strength. You going to sit down, Gentle Guide?”

  She frowned and sat. “I’ve got to see that shop. The missing pages might still be there. There might be other lost volumes.”

  Sylvan blinked. “Well, I suppose I could run you over there after tea.”

  She poured a cup, threw sugar and lemon into it, and thrust it across the table.

  “While you drink that, I’ll get my cloak.”

  She’d expected complaint. Instead he just nodded. “As you wish, Gentle Guide.”

  His father had sent the bait all the way from Montrouge, earlier in the month, from his private library. Not the library that he’d let Marilyn see when she was there, but the truly private one, the one that he kept from everybody.

  She’d gone for it like a trout after a caddis fly.

  He walked her across the city, taking the narrow, winding walkway that avoided traffic. Two guards followed—hers.

  “Since the attack on Warden de Laal,” Marilyn said, explaining the guards.

  He nodded. “Wise.” It didn’t matter. He’d planned for guards. He turned onto the Appian Stair, just short of Stellar Way.

  “I thought you said it was on Stellar Way?”

  “Well, near there. I’m new to your city. I couldn’t really remember the name of this one, but it’s near Stellar Way.” He’d been careful not to tell her, lest she tell someone at the palace.

  The shop was on an alcove off an alcove, and Sylvan saw the guards checking the shadows. It was much as Sylvan had described it, though, a junkshop selling the secondhand goods of the well off to the not so well off.

  Marilyn stooped like a hawk on a rabbit to the double shelf of books outside the door, skipping her finger across the titles and pulling out the volum
es without covers.

  The gray head of the proprietor stuck through the door and eyed the party, then said, “The good books are in the back. These are the ones that I can risk the elements with.”

  Marilyn stood. “I’d reached that conclusion myself. Please show me.”

  One of the guards pushed through, to screen the interior, then stepped back outside, nodding to Marilyn. “It’s a single room with no other exits.”

  Sylvan almost laughed but controlled himself. Idiots!

  Marilyn followed the proprietor back inside and Sylvan came behind, lagging. He stationed himself just inside the door and loosened his dagger.

  The proprietor pointed at the “good” books, two low shelves at the rear of the shop, near a gas lamp. Marilyn said, “Thank you,” and knelt before the shelves.

  The proprietor turned and looked at Sylvan, who nodded. The man reached out to the wall and pulled a knob.

  “Wha—!” The floor beneath Marilyn dropped, a swinging trapdoor, and she dropped out of sight. There was the sound of a bottle breaking and the door swung up. The knob was pushed back in.

  The first guard stumbled through the door and fell to all fours, an arrow in his back. Sylvan kicked him in the head, using his boot heel, then carefully looked outside.

  The other guard was slumped against the wall, two arrows in his chest and another in his neck.

  Sylvan looked up at the four archers in the second-floor windows across the alley. He gave the hand signal and they unnocked their backup arrows and pulled the window shutters closed again. Sylvan stepped out, grabbed the ankles of the dead guard, and dragged him into the shop.

  As soon as the body was clear of the door, the proprietor stepped past Sylvan with a bucket of water and sluiced the blood off the wall and cobbles, then hung the BACK SHORTLY sign on the door and bolted it shut from within.

  Sylvan started to pull the trapdoor knob and the proprietor said, “Not yet. She could still be holding her breath and you’ll disperse the ether vapors. Give it another five minutes and you know she’ll be out.” He began shaking the flour from his hair, turning from the aged proprietor to the Cotswold agent-in-place.