When they reached the port side of the boom, Berit took a dented brass horn out from under his fur cape and blew a flat, off-key blast at the port-side tow-boats while Khalad picked up a yellow flag and began to wave it vigorously. The pre-arranged signals were simple. The yellow flag told the ships to crowd on more sail to keep the towing hawsers taut; the blue flag told them to put out the sea-anchors to slack off on the ropes; and the red flag told them to cast off all lines and get out of the way.
The tow-ropes went tight again as Khalad’s crisp signal trickled down through the ranks to the sailors who actually did the work aboard the ships.
‘How do you keep track of everything?’ Berit asked his friend. ‘And how do you know so quickly that something’s wrong?’
‘Pain,’ Khalad replied wryly. ‘I don’t really want to spend several days taking this beast apart and putting it back together again with the spray freezing on me, so I’m paying very close attention to the things my body’s telling me. You can feel things change in your legs and the soles of your feet. When one of the hawsers goes slack, it changes the feel of how the boom moves.’
‘Is there anything you don’t know how to do?’
‘I don’t dance very well.’ Khalad squinted up into the first stinging pellets of another sleet-squall. ‘It’s time to feed and water the horses,’ he said. ‘Let’s go tell the novices to stop sitting around admiring their titles and get to work.’
‘You really dislike the aristocracy, don’t you?’ Berit asked as they started forward along the edge of the corral toward the wind-whipped tents of the apprentice knights.
‘No, I don’t dislike them. I just don’t have any patience with them, and I can’t understand how they can be so blind to what’s going on around them. A title must be a very heavy thing to carry if the weight makes you ignore everything else.’
‘You’re going to be a knight yourself, you know.’
‘It wasn’t my idea. Sparhawk gets silly sometimes. He thinks that making knights of my brothers and me is a way of honoring our father. I’m sure that Father’s laughing at him right now.’
They reached the tents, and Khalad raised his voice. ‘All right, gentlemen!’ he shouted. ‘It’s time to feed and water the animals! Let’s get at it!’ Then he critically surveyed the corral. Five thousand horses leave a great deal of evidence that they have been present. ‘I think it’s time for another lesson in the virtue of humility for our novices,’ he said quietly to Berit. Then he raised his voice again. ‘And after you’ve finished with that, you’d better break out the scoop-shovels and wheel-barrows again. We wouldn’t want to let the work pile up on us, would we, gentlemen?’
Berit was not yet fully adept at some of the subtler forms of magic. That part of the Pandion training was the study of a lifetime. He was far enough along, however, to recognize ‘tampering’ when he encountered it. The log-boom seemed to be lumbering southward at a crawl, but the turning of the seasons was giving some things away. It should have taken them much longer to escape the bitter cold of the far north, for one thing, and the days should not have become so much longer in such a short time, for another.
However it was managed, and whoever managed it, they arrived at a sandy beach a few miles north of Matherion late one golden autumn afternoon long before they should have and began wading the horses ashore from the wobbly collection of rafts.
‘Short trip,’ Khalad observed laconically as the two watched the novices unloading the horses.
‘You noticed,’ Berit laughed.
‘They weren’t particularly subtle about it. When the spray stopped freezing in my beard between one minute and the next, I started having suspicions.’ He paused. ‘Is magic very hard to learn?’ he asked.
‘The magic itself isn’t too hard. The hard part is learning the Styric language. Styric doesn’t have any regular verbs. They’re all irregular – and there are nine tenses.’
‘Berit, please speak plain Elenic’
‘You know what a verb is, don’t you?’
‘Sort of, but what’s a tense?’
Somehow that made Berit feel better. Khalad did not know everything. ‘We’ll work on it,’ he assured his friend. ‘Maybe Sephrenia can make some suggestions.’
The sun was going down in a blaze of color when they rode through the opalescent gates into fire-domed Matherion, and it was dusk when they reached the imperial compound.
‘What’s wrong with everybody?’ Khalad muttered as they rode through the gate.
‘I didn’t follow that,’ Berit confessed.
‘Use your eyes, man! Those gate-guards were looking at Sparhawk as if they expected him to explode – or maybe turn into a dragon. Something’s going on, Berit.’
The Church Knights rode off across the twilight-dim lawn to their barracks while the rest of them clattered across the drawbridge into Ehlana’s castle. They dismounted in the torch-lit courtyard and trooped inside.
‘It’s even worse here,’ Khalad murmured. ‘Let’s stay close to Sparhawk in case we have to restrain him. The knights at the drawbridge seemed to be actually afraid of him.’
They went up the stairs to the royal apartment. Mirtai was not in her customary place at the door, and that made Berit even more edgy. Khalad was right. Something here was definitely not the way it should be.
Emperor Sarabian, dressed in his favorite purple doublet and hose, was nervously pacing the blue-carpeted floor of the sitting-room as they entered, and he seemed to shrink back as Sparhawk and Vanion approached him.
‘Your Majesty,’ Sparhawk greeted him, inclining his head. ‘It’s good to see you again.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Ehlana?’ he asked, laying his helmet on the table.
‘Uh – in a minute, Sparhawk. How did things go on the North Cape?’
‘More or less the way we’d planned. Cyrgon doesn’t command the Trolls any more, but we’ve got another problem that might be even worse.’
‘Oh?’
‘We’ll tell you about it when Ehlana joins us. It’s not such a pretty story that we’d want to go through it twice.’
The Emperor gave Foreign Minister Oscagne a helpless look.
‘Let’s go speak with Baroness Melidere, Prince sparhawk,’ Oscagne suggested. ‘Something’s happened here. She was present, so she’ll be able to answer your questions better than we would.’
‘All right.’ Sparhawk’s gaze was level, and his voice was steady, despite the fact that Sarabian’s nervousness and Oscagne’s evasive answer fairly screamed out the fact that something was terribly wrong.
Baroness Melidere sat propped up in her bed. She wore a fetching blue dressing-gown, but the sizeable bandage on her left shoulder was a clear indication that something serious had happened. Her face was pale, but her eyes were cool and rock-steady. Stragen sat at her bedside in his white satin doublet, his face filled with concern.
‘Well,’ Melidere said, ‘finally.’ Her voice was crisp and businesslike. She flicked a withering glance at the Emperor and his advisers. I see that these brave gentlemen have decided to let me tell you about what happened here, Prince Sparhawk. I’ll try to be brief. One night a couple of weeks ago, the Queen, Alean, and I were getting ready for bed. There was a knock on the door, and four men we thought were Peloi came in. Their heads were shaved and they wore Peloi clothing, but they weren’t Peloi. One of them was Krager. The other three were Elron, Baron Parok, and Scarpa.’
Sparhawk did not move, and his face did not change expression. ‘And?’ he asked, his voice still unemotional.
‘You’ve decided to be sensible, I see,’ Melidere said coolly. ‘Good. We exchanged a few insults, and then Scarpa told Elron to kill me – just to prove to the Queen that he was serious. Elron lunged at me, and I deflected his thrust with my wrist. I fell down and smeared the blood around to make it appear that I’d been killed. Ehlana threw herself over me, pretending to be hysterical, but she’d seen what I’d done.’ The Baroness took a ruby ring out from under her pillow. T
his is for you, Prince Sparhawk. Your wife hid it in my bodice. She also said, “Tell Sparhawk that I’m all right, and tell him that I forbid him to give up Bhelliom, no matter what they threaten to do to me.” Those were her exact words. Then she covered me with a blanket.’
Sparhawk took the ring and slipped it onto his finger. I see,’ he said in a calm voice. ‘What happened then, Baroness?’
‘Scarpa told your wife that he and his friends were taking her and Alean as hostages. He said that you were so foolishly attached to her that you’d give him anything for her safe return. He obviously intends to exchange her for the Bhelliom. Krager had a note already prepared. He cut off a lock of Ehlana’s hair to include in the note. I gather that there’ll be other notes, and each one will have some of her hair in it to prove that it’s authentic. Then they took Ehlana and Alean and left.’
‘Thank you, Baroness,’ Sparhawk said, his voice still steady. ‘You’ve shown amazing courage in this unfortunate business. May I have the note?’
Melidere reached under her pillow again, took out a folded and sealed piece of parchment, and handed it to him.
Berit had loved his Queen from the moment he had first seen her sitting on her throne encased in crystal, although he had never mentioned the fact to her. There would be other loves in his life, of course, but she would always be the first. So it was that when Sparhawk broke the seal, unfolded the parchment, and gently removed the thick lock of pale blonde hair, Berit’s mind suddenly filled with flames. His grip tightened round the haft of his war-axe.
Khalad took him by the arm, and Berit was dimly startled by just how strong his friend’s grip was. ‘That’s not going to do anybody any good at all, Berit,’ he said in a crisp voice. ‘Now why don’t you just give me the axe before you do something foolish with it?’
Berit drew in a deep, trembling breath, pushing away his sudden, irrational fury. ‘Sorry, Khalad,’ he said. I sort of lost my grip there for a moment. I’ll be all right now.’ He looked at his friend. ‘Sparhawk’s going to let you kill Krager, isn’t he?’
‘So he says.’
‘Would you like some help?’
Khalad flashed him a quick grin. ‘It’s always nice to have company when you’re doing something that takes several days,’ he said.
Sparhawk quickly read the note, his free hand still gently holding the lock of Ehlana’s pale hair. Berit could see the muscles rippling along his friend’s jaw as he read. He handed the note to Vanion. ‘You’d better read this to them,’ he said bleakly.
Vanion nodded and took the note. He cleared his throat.
‘ “Well now, Sparhawk,’ ” he read aloud. “‘I gather that your temper-tantrum’s over. I hope you didn’t kill too many of the people who were supposed to be guarding your wife.
‘ “The situation here is painfully obvious, I’m afraid. We’ve taken Ehlana hostage. You will behave yourself, won’t you, old boy? The tiresomely obvious part of all of this is that you can have her back in exchange for Bhelliom and the rings. We’ll give you a few days to rant and rave and try to find some way out of this. Then, when you’ve come to your senses and realize that you have no choice but to do exactly as you’re told, I’ll drop you another note with some rather precise instructions. Do be a good boy and follow the instructions to the letter. I’d really rather not be forced to kill your wife, so don’t try to be creative.
‘ “Be well, Sparhawk, and keep an eye out for my next note. You’ll know it’s from me because I’ll decorate it with another lock of Ehlana’s hair. Pay very close attention, because if our correspondence continues for too long, your wife will run out of hair, and I’ll have to start using fingers.”
‘And it’s signed “Krager”,’ Vanion concluded.
Kalten smashed his fist into the wall, his face rigid with fury.
‘That’s enough of that!’ Vanion snapped.
‘What are we going to do?’ Kalten demanded. ‘We have to do something!’
‘We’re not going to jump eight feet into the air and come down running, for a start,’ Vanion told him.
‘Where’s Mirtai?’ Kring’s voice had a note of sudden alarm.
‘She’s perfectly all right, Domi,’ Sarabian assured him. ‘She was a little upset when she found out what happened.’
‘A little?’ Oscagne murmured. ‘It took twelve men to subdue her. She’s in her room, Domi Kring – chained to the bed, actually. There are some guards there as well to keep her from doing herself any injury.’
Kring abruptly turned and left Melidere’s bedroom.
‘We’re tiring you, aren’t we, Baroness?’ Sarabian said then.
‘Not in the least, your Majesty,’ she replied in a cool voice. She looked around at them. ‘It’s a bit cramped in here. Why don’t we adjourn to the sitting-room? I’d imagine we’ll be most of the night at this, so we might as well be comfortable.’ She threw back her blankets and started to get out of bed.
Stragen gently restrained her. Then he picked her up.
‘I can walk, Stragen,’ she protested.
‘Not while I’m around, you can’t.’ Stragen’s customary expression of civilized urbanity was gone as he looked around at the others, and it had been replaced with one of cold, tightly suppressed rage. ‘One thing, gentlemen,’ he told them. ‘When we catch up with these people, Elron’s mine. I’ll be very put out with anybody who accidentally kills him.’
Baroness Melidere’s eyes were quite content, and there was a faint smile on her face as she laid her head on Stragen’s shoulder.
Caalador was waiting for them in the sitting-room. His knees and elbows were muddy, and there were cobwebs in his hair. ‘I found it, your Majesty,’ he reported to the Emperor. ‘It comes out in the basement of that barracks the Church Knights have been using.’ He looked appraisingly at Sparhawk. ‘I’d heard you were back,’ he said. ‘We’ve managed to pick up a little information for you.’
‘I appreciate that, Caalador,’ Sparhawk replied quietly. The big Pandion’s almost inhuman calm had them all more than a little on edge.
‘Stragen was a bit distracted after what happened to the Baroness here,’ Caalador reported, ‘so I was left more or less to my own devices. I took some fairly direct steps. The ideas were all mine, so don’t blame him for them.’
‘You don’t have to do that, Caalador,’ Stragen said, carefully tucking a blanket round Melidere’s shoulders. ‘You didn’t do anything I didn’t approve of.’
‘I take it that there were a few atrocities,’ Ulath surmised.
‘Let me start at the beginning,’ Caalador said, brushing his hands through his hair, trying to dislodge the cobwebs. ‘One of the men we’d been planning to kill during the Harvest Festival managed to evade my cut-throats, and he sent me a message offering to exchange information for his life. I agreed to that, and he told me something I didn’t know about. We knew that there were tunnels under the lawns here in the imperial compound, but what we didn’t know is that the ground under the whole city’s honeycombed with more tunnels. That’s how Krager and his friends got into the imperial grounds, and that’s how they took the Queen and her maid out.’
‘Prithee, good Master Caalador, stay a moment,’ Xanetia said. I have seen into the memories of the Minister of the Interior, and he had no knowledge of such tunnels.’
‘That wouldn’t be hard to explain, Anarae,’ Patriarch Emban told her. ‘Ambitious underlings quite often conceal things from their superiors. Teovin, Director of the Secret Police, probably had his eye on Kolata’s position.’
‘That’s most likely it, your Grace,’ Caalador agreed. ‘Anyway, my informant knew the location of some of the tunnels, and I put men down there to look around for more while I questioned various members of the Secret Police who were in custody. My methods were fairly direct, and the ones who survived the questioning were more than happy to co-operate.
‘The tunnels were very busy on the night the Queen was abducted. The diplomats who were forted up i
n the Cynesgan Embassy knew about the scheme, and they realized that we’d kick down their walls as soon as we found out that the Queen was gone. They tried to escape through the tunnels, but I already had men down in those rat-holes. There were a number of noisy encounters, and we either rounded up or killed just about the entire embassy staff. The Ambassador himself survived, and I let him watch while I interrogated several under-secretaries. I’m very fond of Queen Ehlana, so I was quite firm with them.’ He looked at Sephrenia. I don’t think I need to go into too much detail,’ he added.
‘Thank you,’ Sephrenia murmured.
‘The Ambassador didn’t really know all that much,’ Caalador continued apologetically, ‘but he did tell me that Scarpa and his friends were going south from here – which may or may not have been a ruse. His Majesty ordered the ports of Micae and Saranth sealed, and he put Atan patrols on the road from Tosa to the coast, just to be on the safe side. Nothing’s turned up yet, so Scarpa either got away ahead of us, or he’s gone down a hole someplace nearby.’
The door opened, and Kring rejoined them, his face gloomy.
‘Did you unchain her?’ Tynian asked him.
‘That wouldn’t be a good idea right now, friend Tynian. She feels personally responsible for the Queen’s abduction. She wants to kill herself. I took everything with any kind of sharp edge out of the room, but I don’t think it’s really safe to unshackle her just yet.’
‘Did you get that spoon of hers away from her?’ Talen asked.
Kring’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, God!’ he exclaimed, bolting for the door.
‘If he’d only yell at us or bang his fist against the wall or something,’ Berit murmured to Khalad the next morning when they gathered once again in the blue-draped sitting-room. ‘All he does is sit there.’
‘Sparhawk keeps his feelings to himself,’ Khalad replied.
‘It’s his wife we’re talking about, Khalad! He sits there like a lump. Doesn’t he have any feelings at all?’
The Hidden City Page 4