“I know who that was. He must have been investigating sightings of a giant bird. No doubt he meant to deny thee thy ability to change shape.”
“So, not only are there more of you, there are factions.”
“Those Shining Ones dedicated to the success of the Chaldarean invasion of the Holy Lands might view what I have been doing negatively.”
That was a thick slice of cautious evasion. “Old heathen gods, who aren’t even supposed to exist, will help the Commander of the Righteous drive the Pramans out of the Holy Lands?”
“Yes.”
Socia had trouble getting her mind around that.
Dawn said, “Once thou art established with the Widow’s soldiers I shall get the story from Asgrimmur.”
“Weren’t you listening? I’m not going to deal directly with the Vindicated. I’m going straight into Arngrere. You’ll stay outside, with the Vindicated, in whatever guise you like. You want to visit your friends, do it after Kedle is free.”
The Instrumentality’s irritation was intense. Socia felt it as an actual physical pressure. Dawn should not be pushed any more.
“Asgrimmur?” Socia asked. “Odd name for a god.”
“Asgrimmur is no deity. He is an ascendant. A mortal who achieved Instrumentality status. In his case, unintentionally, as a result of his part in destroying two Instrumentalities who tried to use him as a weapon against one another.”
Socia remained at sea.
She continued to engage Dawn in conversation. And concluded that the Instrumentality was not as bright as she thought. Which reinforced the Countess’s estimate of the Old Ones in general, based on myth and legend.
Before Socia knew half what she wanted, Dawn announced, “I am going. Do thou as it pleaseth thee.”
Socia felt an immediate sense of loss, loneliness, and isolation. It might be manipulation but it was real, emotionally. She got up and followed the Instrumentality into the light of late afternoon.
Dawn stopped not far from an outpost where pickets watched for an Arnhander relief force. “They waste their time. The Arnhanders squabble amongst themselves, pointing fingers. That Stephan of Bley holds Arngrere hinders the process. Nobody likes Stephan of Bley.”
“This is where we part,” Socia said. “You go tell them the castle will be betrayed.”
“As thou wilt.”
Socia examined her companion. Dawn had become a woman with hard eyes and weather-beaten skin, like a once-handsome peasant of middle years. She strode toward the pickets with purpose. The soldiers welcomed her, chatted with her, provided her with a horse.
What Socia saw confirmed suspicions birthed when she found the Instrumentality in her tree.
Dawn explained Kedle’s success. Dawn helped Kedle evade every ambush and showed her how to be perfectly positioned at the perfect time to inflict great embarrassment on Anne of Menand and those Arnhanders who had participated in the invasions of the Connec.
Socia watched till Dawn passed out of sight, headed toward Arngrere and its besiegers. In this unfriendly season the Vindicated would depend more on the Instrumentality for intelligence about food supplies than for the whereabouts of enemies.
Socia withdrew into better cover, with less wind, and awaited the night. She began to learn truths about Socia Rault.
* * *
Socia soon wished that she had retreated to the woodcutter’s hut till it was time. First point of learning: Socia Rault was impatient and impatience always cost. She shivered till she feared her body would be too exhausted to make any changes.
The sky became overcast. Snow might be coming. Eventually, she ground her teeth and stripped, carefully folded each article, and stuffed it into her sack.
The chill gnawed her bare flesh like wolves with fangs of ice. The stones in the necklace felt colder still, but all that retreated to the level of annoyance once she took a winged form.
She rose a thousand feet. From that vantage she quickly discovered the unique nest of shadows that marked Arngrere, which was more imposing vertically than horizontally. It was sited badly for defense. It was one of those Arnhander castles built more to overawe the neighbors than to offer sanctuary in times of danger.
Socia drifted down, looking for sentries. She did not see a one. Stephan of Bley was not fierce enough to make men stay out in the cold when their enemies were content to starve them out. In fact, the defenders could be under orders not to man the walls at night. The castle had not been provisioned for a siege. Men on night duty might be tempted to climb down and run away.
Socia considered a parapet on a tower that rose twenty feet above the rest of Arngrere. Definitely no lookout. She landed there.
She changed shape. The wind was so biting bitter she nearly screamed. Her fingers would not stop shaking. She fumbled fastenings repeatedly as she dressed. She thought longingly of the cozy off-kitchen at home where she ate with Bernardin and Brother Candle. Oh! Had Guillemette been found out yet?
Dressed sloppily, the best she could manage, she took up her bag and crept down the stairway that ran round the inside wall of the tower. She could see nothing. The steps were wooden. She tested each carefully before putting her weight on it. She stayed hard against the wall. No point exploring the axis of the tower. There might be nothing there but a long fall.
The tower existed only to provide a high place from which to observe the countryside. Socia counted steps till she was sure she had descended twenty feet. No change. She descended another twenty before she heard the slow, snorting breathing of someone who, likely, was the man supposed to be in the parapet. Two steps more and she spied a hint of pumpkin-colored light.
Socia entered a small landing watch room, oozed toward a sleeping soldier. The pumpkin light leaked from a lantern turned so low its flame barely remained alive.
Maybe the proximity of human warmth made the soldier stir. Like Aaron d’Fitac, he was just a boy. He sat up straighter, groggily.
Socia’s hand darted to her lips, then to her necklace. She fingered the stones. Their touch soothed her. She prayed that the boy would drift off again so she need do nothing dire.
The soldier shuddered, shifted slightly, and began to snore.
Cause and effect?
Probably not. In case, though, she set her bag down, moved the necklace from around her neck into the pocket of the peasant apron she wore. Sack over shoulder, hand in pocket gripping stone beads, willing the boy to sleep till his relief arrived, she slipped out of the watch room and continued downward.
She reached a deserted residential level. There were neither doors nor door-masking hangings there. Nor were there any people. She suspected that she could beat a drum if she wanted.
She did find people in the great hall. They were crowded around one large fireplace, sharing body heat more than the warmth coming off a dying fire. There was coal light enough to reveal two dozen crowded bodies and just a few sticks of firewood remaining.
She entered not far from that fireplace. Though disoriented she thought the main entrance should face the castle gate. She drifted that way, staying near the wall.
One of the sleepers surged up. She froze. He stepped over, around, and on his fellows to get to a tin bucket. He urinated noisily. Done, he looked around. Seeing no one watching, he chucked the last firewood onto the coals. Socia gripped her necklace and willed herself to be a shadow amongst shadows.
All the while she contemplated the probable layout of the castle. She was at ground level now. The other Arnhanders must have been elsewhere. She did hear snoring from the kitchen beyond the big fireplace. Some might be in the stables, where the horses and any livestock or poultry would generate heat.
Socia started moving again, looking for an exit. She wondered where they kept Kedle. She no longer meant to look. Those fantasies about slipping around assassinating captains and sowing chaos had perished. The cold reality was, there would be no sneaking Kedle out while the Arnhanders brawled with one another.
She was too cold. O
r thought she was because of stress. Intellectually she knew the cold had been worse during the winter when she was fleeing from the Captain-General with Brother Candle. This time she was operating alone, with no margin for error. Willful choices had created a potential for catastrophe. If she failed, if she ended up in chains with Kedle, the struggle for Connecten independence would collapse.
That realization struck her immobile. For some while Brother Candle’s voice muttered in the back of her mind, possibly about willful children who refused to consider possible consequences.
She found a door that would let her out the side of the great hall. She pushed out hoping the gust she admitted would not waken anyone. She shoved her right hand into her apron pocket, fondled the stone beads. Her fright and nerves receded. Winter backed off its fury.
A touch of moonlight slipped through the overcast, not enough to help her avoid a pile of frozen horse apples but sufficient to show her the shapes of general features. She was in a courtyard that crossed the front of the keep and stretched along its left side. She was in the foot of the L. The stables were to her left. She moved to her right. More moonlight came down briefly, painting the world in ghostly shades. This might fit some religion’s notion of hell, a cold, dark place where you would be all alone forever.
She approached the gatehouse almost incautiously. Had the Instrumentality cast a spell to put the garrison to sleep? This was going awfully easy.
She found the gatehouse manned by two shivering youngsters, huddled for warmth in a corner, behind a single fat, smoky tallow candle. One boy was crying. He was terrified even before he saw Socia.
“Get up. There’s work to do.”
They clambered to their feet, stiffly. Neither glanced at their weapons, pole arms standing in a corner beside the entrance.
Socia asked, “You. What’s the matter?”
She got no answer. The other boy said, “He doesn’t understand your dialect. He’s scared of what Stephan of Bley will do when he finds out that we let more than thirty men get out tonight.”
Socia considered his open face, his wide, frightened blue eyes. She saw no guile. “Why didn’t you go with them?”
She received no answer but a downcast look. And that, she supposed, told the tale. Going would have been worse than staying.
“Time to open up again.”
The spokesman said something to the other boy. Socia did not follow but felt no threat. The two began a reluctant drift toward the doorway. Socia stepped in front of their weapons. “You will be protected. There will be work for you.”
These days most soldiers were in the martial life because they needed some way to support themselves. Common folk suffered ever more as the ice advanced.
Arngrere’s gateway was just wide enough to pass two horsemen abreast. The gates themselves were heavy oaken doors in need of replacement. They could not long resist the advances of a determined ram. They would have been broken long since had Kedle been in charge outside.
There lay the weakness of charismatic leadership. The worshipful followers were too accustomed to having the messianic one do all their thinking. They froze up once the genius was removed.
“How wide do you want them opened, ma’am?”
“Six feet should do.”
The gates creaked and shrieked but no one came to investigate, evidently for the second time tonight.
“Six feet, ma’am.” Voice quavering with fright and cold.
“Step through, please.”
They did so.
The moat was empty, its sides caving in. A bridge spanned it. It was made of planks meant to be taken up in time of siege. That had not been done. The fugitives from Vetercus had been too hard-pressed when they arrived.
“Move to the end of the bridge.”
The boys did that, too. The one who did not understand Socia said something softly, scared. His friend said something reassuring.
Socia looked out into the darkness and wondered where Kedle’s people were. They were supposed to be watching.
Another minute of nothing happening. Able to come up with no alternative but a shout, she reached into her bag and fished around for her crystal. She raised that overhead while fingering her beads, willing the crystal to shine.
The crystal began to glow.
Connecten soldiers trudged out of the darkness several minutes later. They were not happy. They would rather be sleeping somewhere warm. They were not, apparently, especially concerned about the welfare of the Widow. There were just a half dozen of them, far too few to invade Arngrere.
Socia controlled her anger. “If I have to do this over I will be one unhappy Countess.” Next time there would be no fast and easy—though for now Stephan of Bley ought to suspect nothing more than mass desertion.
The soldiers did not recognize Socia. They did not believe she was who she claimed. Still, they were no more rude than they had to be. Socia kept the boys close as the soldiers moved them toward the Connecten camp. Ten minutes later they were inside a warm house, where some of Kedle’s officers did recognize her.
Few were willing to believe that she was the real thing—even if she was a dead ringer for Socia of Antieux and had the Countess’s country accent. They saw a trick by Anne of Menand.
“Weren’t you warned that I would be opening the gate?”
Humprie of Belbois shook his fat head. “The Widow’s friend, Lady Hope, advised us to watch the gate. We did. A band of deserters came out. We rounded them up.”
The boy who understood the Connecten dialect stirred nervously.
Socia said, “The gate is open. The Arnhanders are huddled around their fires. Go round them up. Go liberate Kedle.”
“I don’t think that would be wise,” a man said. “It has to be a trap.”
“Where is Lady Hope? Get her in here.”
“She went away after she told us we should watch the gate.”
Socia could think of no way to convince these men. She became angry. She grabbed her crystal. She gripped the necklace with her other hand. “You will listen! You will believe! You will act now or your sons are going to grow up without an inheritance!”
Eyes got large. Men looked at one another, baffled. Then, one by one, they rose and did as they had been told, albeit as though sleepwalking. But then they began to believe. Soon Kedle’s captains were bustling around like this was all their idea.
And then the newcomers were alone beside the fire with no company but one grizzled veteran nursing a deep arm wound.
The boy Socia could understand asked, “How did you do that, ma’am?”
“Magic.”
* * *
The Instrumentality arrived an hour later, not in her maddening form. “Where is everyone?”
“Gone to rescue Kedle.”
“I thought thou hadst reserved that mission to thyself.”
“I adjusted my goals. You did a bad job telling these idiots what was going to happen.”
The Instrumentality shrugged. She did not care. “It is working out. I went to visit my aunts. There was shouting involved. I learned things of interest to thee and the Widow.”
Socia thought it might not be long before the Instrumentality could converse like she belonged to the present century. She now used a modern sentence structure, in the main, along with fewer archaic verb forms. Of course, she clung to the antiquated second person. That might never go. That might be customary in her mother tongue.
Socia was vaguely aware that languages were in flux. Changes had begun with the fall of the Old Empire.
“Why am I thinking about that?” she asked herself, then realized that she had dozed off. “I’m sorry. I missed most of that. Exhaustion is catching up.”
“Never mind. I will tell it again when the Widow gets here. I visited the ascendant who was trying to attract thy attention.”
“That eagle just wanted my attention?”
“Yes. He was curious. It won’t happen again.”
That smelled like a cartloa
d of goat dung, but Socia was not interested in the ascendant’s motives if, in fact, he did stop chasing her. “That’s good.” She really did need some sleep.
“There. The conquest of Arngrere is complete. The villain Stephan hath been brought low and the Widow freed. She will be with us ere long.”
Socia grunted and went to sleep. The last thing she saw was the amazement of the boys. They should be all right. Kedle’s officers had not demanded an explanation of who they were. They were with her. And the Widow would be back soon.
Sleep felt good, especially so close to a hearty fire.
* * *
Someone shook Socia. She wakened. A sallow, wasted Kedle lay beside her, on a litter that had begun life as a low table. Socia stirred. The chair in which she had been sleeping was miserably hard. She was rested enough to complain. “Kedle?”
“It’s me. Free. Thanks to thee. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I am a clever dancer.” Which made no sense but she was still trying to wake up. “We could toss you back.” She concealed her worry. Kedle looked awful. She was in pain. She had received little medical attention. Stephan of Bley had seen no need. The Widow would be burned after a quick show trial presided over by the Patriarch Serenity.
Would she walk again?
“I’m here, Kedle. You’re free. These handsome young men were very helpful. Find them work that doesn’t require them to use weapons. And talk to Lady Hope. Make her tell you what she really is.”
“I already know, Socia. She can’t really keep her mouth shut—if you’re clever and give her a chance to brag.”
The Connectens who entered Arngrere found fewer than forty men inside, none in a mood to fight. They had lost hope of seeing help from Anne of Menand.
Socia asked, “What now?”
“Now I eat. I sleep. I get used to the idea that I’m free again. Hope helps me heal. When I can I’ll go after Anne’s dogs again.”
“You could end up dead, dear heart. Look at you now.”
“I’ll fight them till they put me down, Socia.”
“Suppose you win?”
“Win?” That possibility, apparently, had not entered Kedle’s mind.