by Morgan Rice
One by one, they raised their blades to the sun, and Royce knew that there was no point in trying to argue with them or keep them safe. They would follow him now, whether he wanted them to or not. In truth, he would need the help, would need all the support he could get. He could fight, but if his brothers were in the depths of some dungeon somewhere, it would take more than him to get them to safety. It would take an army, and, looking around him…
…looking around him, Royce had the feeling that he was starting to build one.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Genevieve slipped from her husband’s rooms by the first light of dawn, careful not to wake him and fearing what might happen if she did. At the very least, he would drag her back to bed to demand of her everything that he seemed to think was his right now that she was his wife. More likely, if he guessed where she was going, he would find some way to hurt her even more.
She still had to do this.
The trick to it was to make it appear that she was doing nothing that she shouldn’t. That meant Genevieve dressing as perfectly and as quietly as she could, seeking to look every inch the lord’s lady. It meant striding along the corridors rather than sidling, and walking up to the dungeons with the kind of determination that so many of the nobles there seemed to possess.
She stopped in front of the guards.
“You there,” she said. “Which of you knows where my husband had Royce’s brothers taken?”
It was a terrible risk. Just by asking it, Genevieve knew that she had put herself in danger. Still, if she’d gone this far, it meant that it wasn’t such a large step to the rest of it.
“They’ve been taken to the hill of traitors, my lady,” one of the men said, with a short bow that said that her attempts at playing the noble were paying off. “It’s a little way to the north, if you wish to watch them suffer.”
Genevieve nodded. “Thank you.”
That got an odd look from the men, and Genevieve cursed herself as she remembered that the nobles didn’t thank those they considered to be less than themselves.
“As you were,” she said, and turned on her heel, heading for the kitchens.
In spite of the early hour, those were already a hive of activity, with servants and cooks hurrying in every direction, working to get fires lit and to prepare the mountains of food that would be required by the duke’s forces during the day. Lord Alistair’s forces, Genevieve corrected herself. She had to remind herself that for all his violence, Altfor was considerably less dangerous than his uncle. He would not hesitate to kill her if she crossed him; Genevieve had seen that much in his eyes in the great hall.
“I require food for an outing,” Genevieve said. “Bread, cheese, meats, and wine.”
She managed to say it with enough authority to get the cooks there moving, and soon, she had a basket filled with food. Her pretense of authority was enough to get her a horse too, from a stable hand who looked at her with awe. Genevieve hoped she wouldn’t get him into trouble for it.
She rode out across the castle bridge, and it was only then that guards stopped her, stepping in front of her with weapons drawn.
“Hold there, my lady,” one of the men said. “No one said that you were heading out today. Young Lord Altfor said—”
“As we saw yesterday,” Genevieve shot back, “Lord Alistair is in charge now, and he has not forbidden me anything. I mean to take food to those who need it.”
It was even the truth, after a fashion.
“If you’ll wait here,” one of the men said, “we should find men to accompany you. The land is dangerous hereabouts, and—”
“And I doubt Lord Alistair will want to waste men on me,” Genevieve said. “Besides, what kind of message does it send, offering kindness to the poor while accompanied by an armed escort?”
That seemed to half persuade the men, and half persuasion was really all Genevieve needed.
“That’s settled then,” she said, and heeled her horse forward, past the spot where the two guards stood. As soon as she was sure that they weren’t watching too closely, Genevieve urged the creature into a gallop, hoping she would be able to get to where she was needed in time.
Finding the spot where Royce’s brothers were wasn’t hard. Everyone had heard of the hill where they took traitors to die; it had even been boasted about with a certain kind of grim relish by some of the children while she was growing up, with the brave, or the stupid, claiming that they had been there to see the caged bones and the half dead remains of whoever was left there. Genevieve rode hard, ignoring the fires that burned in the distance where it was clear that Lord Alistair’s men were engaged in putting down every hint of rebellion. She rode with all the speed and desperation of someone who knew that any moment might be the one when Royce’s brothers were killed.
Despite the speed with which Genevieve rode, the sun was still well over the horizon by the time the hill came into view. It looked like some balding old man, with trees on its lower slopes giving way to a patch of open ground where the ancient tower lay. Genevieve continued forward, even though the path narrowed and became little more than a hunting track.
Away in the trees, she thought she heard voices, speaking in a rough tongue that Genevieve had never learned to understand. Were there actually Picti there, she wondered, or was it some trick of her imagination? She thought back to the stories she had heard about the wild folk when she was young, and all the things they might do to someone unwary enough to be caught by them. She kept going in spite of it, knowing that she had to do something.
When she came to the spot where the gibbets hung, though, Genevieve found herself gasping in horror. Birds flew around those gibbets, trying to settle on them, and within, she saw Royce’s brothers. Lofen flailed weakly at one of the birds there. Garet was slumped against the bars of his, while Raymond glared down at Genevieve as she approached, the hatred in his eyes obvious.
“Come to gloat while we starve?” he asked her.
Genevieve shook her head quickly.
“I came to help you if I could,” she said. “I brought food.”
“And why should we trust you?” Lofen demanded. “It’s probably poisoned.”
Genevieve took out the little that she had, offering it up to the brothers. “It’s not poisoned. It’s… I risked my life just coming here. I know you won’t trust me, no matter what I do, but I’m trying to help.”
Raymond took a hunk of bread from her. “If you really want to help, get us out of here.”
Genevieve looked at the lock holding his cage closed. “There’s no key.”
“Then use a knife, or find a rock or something to smash it,” Raymond said.
Genevieve nodded, and started to search down among the rocks of the ruins until she came up with a fist-sized lump of rock. She wasn’t tall enough to reach the lock directly, but mounting her horse, she found that she could reach it well enough to hammer down on the metal, the sound of stone on iron ringing like a bell through the surrounding woodland.
“That’s it,” Raymond said. “I think it’s weakening.”
Genevieve kept going, but then she heard something above even the sound she was making that made her freeze in place: the sound of booted feet making their way up the hill.
“Why are you stopping?” Raymond demanded.
“I can’t be seen here,” Genevieve said. “If guards come, they’ll capture me, and there will be no getting out for any of us.”
She had to believe that there was still some route through this that didn’t involve her being found out. Besides, helping Royce’s brothers was only the first of the things she planned to do today that defied her husband’s will, and if she found herself caught now, then she wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop the one thing happening that was even worse.
“Here,” Genevieve said, passing the rock to Raymond. “The lock isn’t so far from breaking. You can probably hit it harder than I can.” The sound of booted feet was growing closer, and worse, Genevieve could
hear the sounds of the Picti too, away in the forest. If she left it much longer, she would be trapped. “I have to go. I have to.”
She didn’t even wait for Raymond’s reply, but instead wheeled her horse and set off back the way she’d come. She’d spent too much time here already. She had to get to her sister.
***
Genevieve rode hard for the house that she and her sister had shared with their family, knowing that every moment would count now. If Altfor had given orders for Sheila’s death, there would be no chance of the guards holding back. The only hope was for Genevieve to get there first.
The horse thundered forward under her, heading for her old village. In the distance, she could see smoke coming from where Royce’s village had once been, and Genevieve didn’t want to think about everything that might mean. Instead, she rode straight for her old home, the only home she’d known from the time she was a child to the point when the old duke’s men had seized her for his son.
The house was there as it had always been, the blue flowers around the door reminding Genevieve of all the good times she had spent there growing up. Now, she hurried to it, knowing that there was no time to waste, and hiding the horse she had ridden there around the back of it where it wouldn’t be seen.
“Sheila!” she called out, running inside. “Sheila!”
The house was quiet, and for a moment or two Genevieve thought she might be too late, but then her sister came down the small staircase.
“Genevieve?” her sister asked. “What’s happening? What are you doing here?”
“Is it only you here?” Genevieve asked.
Sheila nodded. “Why?”
“Because Altfor is sending men to kill you.”
“Altfor?” Genevieve saw her sister pale. “Him? He…”
“He told me what he did,” Genevieve said. “He told me to try to hurt me. Now, to hurt me more, he wants to murder you. I’m sorry, if it weren’t for me…”
Sheila shook her head. “This is his fault, not yours.”
Genevieve put an arm around her sister. She wished they had more time to talk about everything, and to really work out what they were planning to do next, but she didn’t know how soon Altfor’s men would be there, or what she and Sheila might be able to do to stop them.
“We need to go,” Genevieve said. “We need to leave right now.”
She headed for the door, all but dragging her sister with her. Through a small window though, she saw something that made her stop in place. Two men were advancing down the village street, armored in plate, and carrying one-handed swords with double edges. They had the cold looks of professional killers, and people scattered back from them. One man got too close, and one of the men kicked him back, raising the sword he held in a threat.
“We can’t go out there,” Genevieve said, because the moment they did, the men would see them, and then it would simply be a question of who could run fastest. That wasn’t a race that Genevieve wanted to risk, even against men in armor.
“Where then?” Sheila asked.
“Upstairs,” Genevieve said. “We need to hide.”
She led the way, thinking about all the spots in the house where they had hidden as children.
“Quick, grab sheets, clothes… anything with some bulk to it,” she said. She dove into the house’s small kitchen, finding the little meat that was there, still bloody, thankfully. Sheila came to her with spare blankets, and Genevieve nodded.
“Those should be perfect. Quick, come with me.”
She led the way upstairs, quickly stuffing the bloody meat she held into a pillowcase, and then wrapping the whole in more of the sheets. Coming to one of the bedrooms, she started to arrange the bedding under the blankets there, trying to get the shape of it right…
A crack came as someone hammered on the door.
“Open up!” a man’s voice called. “In the name of the duke!”
“The attic,” Genevieve said to her sister. Sheila nodded, and they hurried up a small set of steps, levering open the small hatch in the ceiling that led up there. When they had been children, it had been one of their favorite places to hide, lying there on their bellies and looking down through the cracks in the ceiling at their parents.
They did it now, pulling the steps up after them and laying the hatch back in place just as a crash of splintering wood came from below.
“Come out, come out!” one of the men called. “You can hide if you like, but it won’t work. Might as well come here and give us a reason not to kill you.”
“None of that,” the other man said. “I’ve a wife at home.”
“And?”
“Well, if that’s not enough for you, how about this? Do you really want Altfor to find out that you’ve been doing what he has? Who he has? You think he won’t take something like that personally?”
There was a brief pause, and then a curse.
“Looks like you’re in luck, girl,” the first man snarled. “You get to die quick!”
Genevieve and her sister lay above the bedroom where they had laid their decoy, staying silent and still, hoping that it would be enough. From this angle, it didn’t seem like enough. It seemed like such a pathetic substitute for her sister, with no way that it could ever hope to fool men used to violence. They would see through the ruse in an instant, then search the house, and then kill both her and Sheila when they found them.
Through the cracks in the ceiling, Genevieve looked down as the men ran into the room. They stared at the human-sized lump in the bed, and one of them laughed.
“Trying to hide, girl? That’s the last mistake you’ll make.”
He thrust his sword into the pile of bedding, and as he dragged it out, Genevieve saw the bloodstains starting to spread.
“There,” he said to his partner. “It’s done. Now you can get back to that wife of yours, and neither of us is going to get killed by his lordship. Happy?”
“Happy,” the other man agreed. “Come on.”
They set off from the room. Beside Genevieve, Sheila looked as though she was going to say something, but Genevieve clamped a hand over her sister’s mouth, shaking her head. She waited a minute, then another. Only when she was certain they were gone did she let go.
“They came in and they stabbed what they thought was me,” Sheila said, sounding shocked. “Just like that. They walked in and just stabbed me!”
“We’re not done,” Genevieve said. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”
She slipped down from the attic with her sister in tow. Even though she thought the soldiers were gone, she still moved carefully, not wanting to risk being found. They went downstairs together, then out into the yard.
“Where are we going?” her sister asked.
“I don’t know,” Genevieve admitted, “but we need to get you away from here before Altfor realizes his mistake.”
After that… well, after that, Genevieve wasn’t sure what they would be able to do.
CHAPTER NINE
Royce slipped down toward the castle in the early morning light, only too aware that for this part, he was nearly alone. The others were there, but further back, hidden out of sight among buildings.
The boy who had said that his brother might be able to help walked with him. His name was Nicolas, and he seemed nervous as they got closer. For a moment, Royce thought that it might all be some kind of trick to lure him there, but then he realized that Nicolas was probably just worried that he was traveling with probably the most wanted man in the kingdom right then.
“It will be all right,” Royce said to the younger boy. “And if it isn’t… well, you run, and you don’t look back.”
If all this went wrong, it wasn’t as if Nicolas would be able to save him. He suspected that no one would. The presence of the others back among the houses was comforting, but the truth was that they were too far back to make a difference should every guard in the place decide to attack Royce. He would have to cut his own way clear, if he could.
“Where is your brother?” Royce asked Nicolas.
The younger boy pointed. “There, over near the small bridge outside the walls.”
Royce saw the spot that Nicolas meant, and he was grateful for it. The bridge in question was uncomfortably close to the castle, a small thing designed for servants or maybe nobles going on dalliances within the surrounding settlement, but at least it was designed to be discreet for those dalliances, and at least it was small enough that it would only take one man to guard it. So long as no one looked down from the walls, and Nicolas’s brother didn’t call for help…
Put like that, it still seemed as though there were far too many things that could go wrong with all of this.
“Nicolas, what are you doing here?” the young man guarding the bridge said as they approached. “You know it isn’t safe for you to be… wait, Nicolas, who is this?”
“You know who I am,” Royce said, moving close with his hands well away from his sword. “Your brother tells me that you might be able to help me.”
“Just listen to him, Edwin,” Nicolas said.
Royce saw the guard look around, as if considering whether he could call for help before Royce could cut him down.
“What is it you want?” he demanded. “If you think I’m helping the man who murdered the duke…”
“You’re from one of the villages, right?” Royce said. He waited for the young man to nod. “Then you saw the things the duke’s men did there. You’ve seen the people killed for opposing them, or for refusing to hand over everything they have, or for not wanting to give over their daughters to be raped.”
He saw Edwin pause a moment or two, then nod again. “But without order, there’s only chaos. There have to be laws.”
“Laws that don’t seem to apply to the duke,” Royce pointed out. “I was thrown into a pit to die. The girl I loved was taken away to be given to his son like a horse or a new sword. I threw that spear because the man who had done all of that was standing there screaming for my death. Wouldn’t you?”