Stone of eye and tight of mouth, she said, “I have warned you, Hieronomer. One refusal I permitted. I will not countenance another. Here you will counsel me according to your gifts.
“What must I do to end this carnage?”
When I had declined to sacrifice a child, she had replied, Then I will demand more of you. Much more when the time requires it. The moment of crisis was upon me—surely the last crisis of my life—and I was unprepared for it.
Yet not as unprepared as I felt myself to be. In the interval between my encounter—and my Queen’s—with the alchemist Opalt Intrix, I had learned much. At a calmer moment, I might have said that I had also come to understand much. Indeed, I had considered much that would have been inconceivable to me scant fortnights ago. When I realized that Excrucia had come to my side—when I felt her hand rest on my shoulder as though she had determined to share my straits—words came to my lips, words half unbidden and no more than vaguely apprehended.
“Your Majesty,” I answered in a croaked and cracking voice, “you must do nothing. I will do it.”
“How?” she snapped at once.
Fright dimmed my sight. She confronted me as though through a greying mist. The blasts of cannon struck directly at my heart. With Excrucia at my side, however, I did not fail to continue.
“I will descend to Venture and approach the vessel under a flag of parley. When I stand before the captain of our foes, I will persuade him to desist. I will persuade him to name his terms, for truce if I can, for surrender if I cannot.”
“How?” my Queen repeated with some ferocity. “Why will he heed you?”
Desperately I wished to turn aside from my purpose, yet I could not. “Alone, he will not. In his eyes, I will be naught. Yet I believe that he can be persuaded.” In a rush, I endeavored to explain. “What is his purpose here? I have foreseen enslavement. One vessel cannot achieve that end. Harm it can do, terrible harm. But it cannot impose submission. Even an assault upon the Domicile cannot. Our people are too many, and the men under Baron Plinth’s command are ready.
“Should that ship be the vanguard of a greater power, it must await reinforcement. If it is merely a scout, it must depart to summon aid. In either case, its captain will have much to gain by parley, a large victory at small cost. The only difficulty will be to assure him that I speak with your authority.
“For that reason,” I said, though my heart quailed and my throat was thick with fear, “I will be accompanied by a hostage, a personage of sufficient stature to confirm that my voice has weight and substance. By that demonstration, I will gain his heed.”
Now Inimica Phlegathon deVry nodded. “A clever ploy, Mayhew,” she conceded more softly. “I will be your hostage. I am Indemnie’s Queen. My shoulders must bear the burden of Indemnie’s peril.”
Too quick for courtesy, I retorted, “No!” Then I recalled myself. With greater care, I said, “Your Majesty, you must not. You are necessary here. Your sovereignty must rally our defense. For that task, none other will suffice. You must remain Indemnie’s Queen whatever the outcome of my efforts may be.”
Hearing me, her ferocity returned. Once again, I had refused her. Yet she did not gainsay me. Still more softly, as though she dreaded my response, she asked, “If I am not your hostage, whom will you hazard? Who among our personages of stature will consent to accompany you, certain of imprisonment and confident of death?”
There I turned from my Queen to regard Excrucia.
She did not glance at me. Speaking only to her mother, she announced, “I will do it.” Though her voice was small, it was also firm, unshaken at its core. “For Mayhew, and for you, and for Indemnie, I will do it.”
“An ideal choice!” bleated Thrysus Indolent in mockery. “Holding your daughter against you, that captain will be sure of his success.”
For that rejoinder, at least, I was prepared. “He will also be sure that I speak for Her Majesty.”
My Queen gazed at her daughter with droplets streaming from her eyes as though she wept rain. Of her emotions she gave no other sign. I saw—or perhaps merely imagined—considerations of one sort or another scud like stormclouds across her sight. In her reckless youth, she had bedded a man without regard to his lack of gifted blood. At her command, her daughter’s father had been murdered. I could only guess at her thoughts until she spoke.
Sounding strangely stricken, as though something within her had cracked, she said, “Some escort you must have. I will not consign either you or my daughter to that horror”—a twist of her head indicated Venture—“unguarded.”
Given a choice, I would happily have preferred fainting. Sadly, I had already announced my own doom. For a moment, I rubbed at my eyes, striving to wipe the dimness from my vision. Excrucia’s fate I now held in my hands—hands which had not been formed for great deeds, but rather for shedding the blood of small creatures. Should I fail, my sole consolation would be that I would be slain while my only friend remained imprisoned or enslaved.
“By your leave, Your Majesty,” I contrived to reply, “I will have Vail and Slew. No larger escort will serve my cause. They will suffice.”
For an instant, my Queen showed her teeth as though she meant to spit an obscenity at my head. At once, however, she mastered herself. To Slew and Vail she merely nodded, committing her daughter and me to their care.
While the four of us left the balcony, she returned to her study of Venture’s ruin. Her hands she propped on the wall, perhaps hoping to steady or suppress the trembling of her frame. Yet her shoulders betrayed her. They shook as though she were overcome by wrath or woe.
Holding aloft a halberd with Thrysus Indolent’s white handkerchief tied to its blade as a flag of parley, Slew and Vail accompanied Excrucia and me from the Domicile on horseback. Slew himself bore the standard, for Vail could not. In addition to his saber and dirk, Slew had shouldered a longbow and a quiver of arrows. Leading us, he rode like the herald of a mighty force of arms, with his gaze fixed upon Venture to seek out the safest passage.
In contrast, Vail sat hunched in his saddle. At every third or fourth jolt, a thin gasp broke from him. His only weapon was his dirk, and I doubted his strength to wield it. Yet he rode with his jaw set as though he dared any foe to believe him weak.
I had been on horseback no more than twice in my life. I bounced and flailed in my saddle like a sack of grain loosely filled. Fortunately Excrucia was an accomplished horsewoman, and she glided more than rode with a supple cloak for warmth fluttering from her shoulders. At intervals, she turned toward me, perhaps to confirm that I had not unhorsed myself. When I met her gaze, she smiled like a woman born for daring.
Again fortunately, the rain had ceased. Slashing winds had driven the storm from the headland, leaving clear skies, a bright moon, and multitudes of stars overhead. Though I understood none of my mount’s movements, I was able to trust that it saw its road clearly enough to avoid mishap.
More swiftly than I had imagined, we neared the outskirts of the town. At some distance—a distance greater than it had appeared from the vantage of the balcony—the black vessel continued its bombardment as though its supplies of balls and powder were infinite. Across the whole of the east, burning merchantries, warehouses, inns, and residences flung flames that dimmed the stars, giving the very moonlight an infernal cast. Already we had passed small clusters of men, women, and children, all fleeing for the presumed sanctuary of the Domicile. Soon we encountered throngs of refugees, most cradling wounds or each other, some burned beyond recognition. One and all, they were too stunned with loss and pain to ask succor of us. Among the fire and concussions of their homes, their livelihoods, their futures, they had exhausted their capacity for terror. Now they merely ran, expending the remainder of their lives or their wits in flight. What hope remained to them, they fixed upon the Domicile and Inimica Phlegathon deVry.
Slew drew us aside. Standing in hi
s stirrups, he peered into the west. Then he informed us, “I see no sign of armies. They are too distant. They must march hard and long to reach the town if they hope to find any of its folk alive.”
“A generous gesture,” Vail muttered, “but wasted. Better to defend her house.”
I believed that my Queen’s commands to Baron Plinth served more than one purpose, but I did not speak my thoughts. Our mission demanded haste—and yet the prospect of wending our way through Venture’s wrack sickened me to the marrow of my bones. While I flinched, however, Excrucia touched my arm. She nodded to indicate her comprehension, then smiled to demonstrate her willingness. Thus encouraged, I swallowed my nausea and urged Slew to proceed.
With more alacrity than I knew how to endure, Slew Immordson led us among the storms of fire and destruction that were Venture’s death-throes.
At every moment, I expected to be struck by a fatal ball, or by its explosion, or by the wreckage it wrought. In my mind, I saw myself become a smear of blood and meat on the cobbled streets. Evidences of similar fates lay everywhere. I beheld an appalling number of mangled corpses—a number matched only by the maimed and dying. I rode haunted by screams, and endangered on all sides by wind-lashed pyres, and near blinded by heat. Excrucia had grasped the edge of her cloak and drawn it across her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered. Of her, I knew only that she wept. Vail, however, reacted in another fashion. He now rode erect, straight as the shaft of a halberd, and in his slitted eyes and clenched jaws I saw a rage of such intensity that the wound in his side was forgotten.
As for Slew, the sight of his back revealed naught except concentration. Turning this way and that, choosing one street rather than another for no reason that I could discern, he led us ever closer to the wharves and the attacking vessel.
Through carnage and devastation, we went onward until I guessed that we were near our goal, though our foe remained blocked from my sight. There I called Slew to a halt. In Vail’s hearing, and in Excrucia’s, so that they would know my needs, I spoke to my Queen’s bodyguard.
“I cannot gauge whether what I ask is possible. That you must determine. But I hope that you will now part from us to seek some concealed vantage from which you can observe us. The difficulty is that your covert must be within bowshot of that vessel’s foredeck.
“I will bear our flag of parley. It will persuade our foe’s captain to take us aboard his ship.” If it failed to do so, Excrucia’s presence would succeed. “With Vail, we will gain the foredeck. There we will attempt some form of negotiation. If I am then permitted to depart, you will know that my efforts have succeeded. If I am altogether spurned, however, I will drop my halberd. By that sign, you will know that we require an instant distraction.
“My hope is that you will send a shaft into the chest of some foeman upon the foredeck. If you cannot strike at the captain himself, or at the man who speaks for him, any other will suffice. But you must be able to use your bow accurately at a considerable distance.
“Tell me now if what I ask is possible. Otherwise I must consider a more hazardous distraction.”
By more hazardous, I meant more easily anticipated. More easily thwarted. I depended upon the confusion that an unanticipated attack would cause.
While I spoke, Slew betrayed no reaction. Briefly he studied me as though he doubted neither his skill nor his success, but only my true intent. Then he released his halberd to me.
“Venture lacks elevation,” he replied. “I must have higher ground. There is a path that ascends partway up the cliff below the Domicile. It is used to watch for returning vessels when the seas are perilous. There I will be able to do as you ask.”
An instant later, his tone and manner changed. Abruptly he became the man who had murdered Excrucia’s father—a man who did not balk at bloodshed. “Be warned, Hieronomer,” he said in a bitten voice. “If you intend betrayal, my second shaft will find your heart.”
At that, Excrucia flinched. She poised herself to expostulate. Ere she could find words for her protest, however, Slew wheeled his mount and rode away, running hard for the south and the cliff.
She flung a look of fright at me—or perhaps it was an appeal for reassurance. Yet she did not utter her query, and I did not answer it. So craven was I that I could not name my intent, even to myself.
When I had secured my grasp on the halberd, and had confirmed that my pouch of chrism and my hieronomer’s blade remained hidden within easy reach, I urged Vail to lead us onward.
The man replied with a grin as ready for killing as Slew’s threat, but he did not hesitate. First trotting, then cantering, he took us toward the docks.
Over the roar of cannon and flames, the smash of balls and the fall of timbers, Excrucia contrived to make her voice carry. Doubtless Vail heard her, yet her challenge was for me alone.
“Betrayal, Mayhew? You?”
My need to offer some reply was as great as her need to receive it. “Never!” I shouted though I quavered. “I will serve Her Majesty and you and Indemnie with my last breath!”
Staring at me, her eyes grew wide. Surely she had already surmised that my peril was more immediate than hers. She was too valuable a hostage to be blithely slain, whereas I might well be deemed mere dross. Now she appeared to consider less obvious dangers. Indeed, she appeared to consider that I had chosen her to bear the greatest cost of my designs.
So softly that I was scarce able to hear her through the tumult, she replied, “I will have you or nothing, Mayhew Gordian. If you mean to cast away your life, I will cast mine with you. I will not remain to be imprisoned while you are lost.”
Altogether she compelled me to consider that she—like Slew and Vail—like Inimica Phlegathon deVry herself—knew my last secret.
Spurred by alarm, I struggled to envision some expedient that would spare her. However, I was too much afraid to reason clearly.
Also I had no time. While I belabored my mind in a bootless effort to exceed its bounds, we passed among the few remaining structures and cantered onto a wharf in plain view of the black ship at anchor.
For a moment, I froze in my seat, stricken motionless by the sight of the huge vessel with its cannon protruding from its foredeck—and by the sudden knowledge that my small gifts and smaller wits could serve no worthy purpose against so puissant a foe. Until Vail barked my name, making a command of its humble sounds, I did not recall myself enough to hold my halberd high and wave its flag of parley from side to side, demanding notice—or pleading for it.
So convinced was I of my littleness that I expected no response. Indeed, I saw none, heard none—no men at the foredeck rails, no shouts across the water. For that reason, I was shocked by Vail’s nonchalant announcement, “The cannon do not fire.”
Forgetting to flourish my flag, I gaped around me. For a time, I held my breath, certain that the bombardment would resume on the instant. Yet the tubes did not utter their jets of flame. No horrid thunder resounded from the unruly seas. No exploding balls crashed into Venture’s heart. An unearthly silence deafened the harbor—unearthly and fatal. Long moments passed ere I was again able to discern the shrieks and wails of Venture’s people at my back.
Vail stood in his stirrups. Excrucia pointed. “There, Mayhew,” she panted. “There.” Yet I saw nothing, understood nothing. I only listened as she breathed, “They lower a longboat. They will take us aboard.”
Now I remembered to hold up my halberd.
Black against the black ship, the longboat remained invisible to me until it entered the glare of fires upon the water. Then I was able to descry it—a longboat indeed, three oars to a side, six men at the oars, and four more armed and armored in the stern. These four remained standing despite the heave of the seas and the strong sweep of the oars, a feat which they achieved by bracing their legs against the thwarts.
Straight as an arrow, the longboat came for us, bringing with it a d
oom that I had chosen for Excrucia as well as myself—and perhaps for all Indemnie.
When Vail dismounted, clutching briefly at his side, Excrucia and I joined him, she lightly, I with trembling legs.
At once, I took Vail’s arm. “Hear me,” I urged, attempting command. “Should my efforts fail—should I drop my halberd, and Slew succeed—you must save yourself at any cost. We will endure our fates. You must bear our tidings to Her Majesty. She must know all that you will be able to tell her.”
He spared no more than a grunt for my instructions. His gaze remained fixed on the approaching longboat. When he nodded, I could not determine whether he indicated assent or mere comprehension. He may have wished only to direct my attention toward our foes.
The great vessel was not distant, and the longboat was swift. With quick proficiency, the rowers shipped their oars, caught the side of the nearest pier, and secured their craft. Thereafter they returned to their seats while the four soldiers or marines disembarked. The heavy rise and fall of the waves caused them no apparent awkwardness.
The four marched toward us with their blades drawn, cutlasses keenly curved. Seen by moon- and firelight, their raiment was motley. Two wore chain sarks that flapped against their knees. Another had a turban on his head, a shirt open to the navel, and voluminous pantaloons. Only the fourth was clad in what might be styled a uniform—a fitted breastplate of bronze, leggings of silk, and high boots much abused. In addition, the men were variously groomed. The individual in the turban wore a shrubbery of beard to cover much of his chest. One of his comrades had a moustache oiled and waxed to sharp points. Another was clean shaven. The man in uniform had neglected his whiskers for some days. Altogether they resembled brigands more than men-at-arms.
Nevertheless their discipline was plain. As they gained the wharf, they fanned out to encircle us with their blades. Only when we were surrounded did the uniformed man speak.
In a voice thickly accented, he announced, “You are now our prisoners. If you seek parley, you must convince our captain to hear you. If you have some other purpose, we will cut you down.” After a pause, he added, “We may find a better use for the woman.”