by Leo Carew
On her bedside table was a carved wooden chess piece. A yew-wood queen, facing her, which had certainly not been present when she had gone to sleep. Aramilla sat up and glanced at the door: the maid had gone. She reached for the queen and examined it. It was roughly carved, and out of place in a manner that she had come to recognise as Bellamus’s signature. No part of it yielded to a tug or a twist. The only join that she could see was between the wood and the leather oval on which the piece sat. This did not respond to casual investigation, and she cast around the room for something she might use to prise it off. By the fire was a knife, which the maid had used to carve off some wood curls for tinder. Aramilla retrieved it before returning to her bed. Using its edge, she was able to lift a flap from the leather patch and then tug off the base altogether.
Beneath, there was a hole.
The piece was hollow, and she upended it onto the bed. After a vigorous shake, a small stone dropped onto the covers, wrapped tightly in parchment. With another glance at the door, she unfurled it and read the message it bore.
My Queen—The Anakim are undermining the city walls. Proceed to the east side of the city, where you will find two planted flags revealing the extent of the tunnelling. This area must be defended. Tell your father TODAY, and await further instruction tonight. Be ready to leave. In haste, B
Aramilla turned the parchment over, without expecting to find any more. She thrust a finger into the chess piece, but felt only the rough wooden interior. Finally, she turned her attention back to the note.
It looked like Bellamus’s hand, but it could not possibly be from the upstart. How he could have delivered this message was beyond her, and in any case, it was not in his usual cypher. It seemed more likely that this was a trap, laid by King Osbert, the purpose of which was to confirm her guilt. If she were to pass this information on, even to her father, it might be taken as proof of her treachery. Perhaps Earl Seaton had struck a deal with the king to preserve his own status by submitting her as a sacrifice. That would not surprise Aramilla. The more she thought, the more likely that seemed.
And yet, if she remained in this city she would be killed, either by her husband or, if she believed the note, the Anakim. And if Bellamus had got inside to deliver it, then there might be a plausible means of escape.
There was only one thing to do. She dressed swiftly, not bothering to call for her maids. She thrust the chess piece into the fire, balled the note into her skirt and strode to the kitchens downstairs. She found it steamy and frenetic, readying a breakfast of rye bread, porridge and fish. “Cathryn? Is Cathryn here?” A curtsey rippled through the room.
“She’s fetching water, Majesty,” called the cook, a great pink oval of a woman, sweating liberally by the fire. “She’ll be back soon.” Cathryn joined the fray moments later from a door by the hearth, balancing two huge pails, which she set on the floor by the cook. “Not here!” snapped the cook. “I’ll trip over them, take them somewhere else.”
“Come with me, Cathryn,” called Aramilla imperiously. “I have a task for you.”
Cathryn freed herself from the cook’s aproned gravity and ducked through the press to Aramilla. The queen took her hand and led her outside into a throng of people, which they battled against to turn east. Aramilla wore her plainest skirts, hoping to pass by unharassed. Cathryn, in yards of dark cloth fit for the kitchen, was less conspicuous still.
“Where are we going?” asked Cathryn.
“To the walls,” replied the queen. “There’s something I want to see.” Aramilla had never needed company before. That was something that had come with her newly precarious position.
“We’re not going to stare at the Anakim again, are we?”
“Not this time.”
“Wherever we go, it’s better than that kitchen. Cook is so greasy that I fear for her next to that open hearth.” Aramilla did not respond, but Cathryn needed little encouragement from an audience. “She’s very unhappy with me,” she continued. “I climbed onto the roasting spit yesterday and she came in while I was revolving over the hearth.”
Aramilla stayed aloof for the remainder of Cathryn’s stories, her exploits at turns clumsy and mischievous. Though high-born, Cathryn’s usually indulgent father had grown exasperated by her frivolous behaviour and sent her to the kitchens in a belated attempt to school her in responsibility.
They reached the north-eastern edge of the city, and Aramilla led them south, around the inside of the walls. She thought about the note tucked into her skirt, wondering what form the flags might take and whether they existed at all.
When she encountered the first, it was obvious.
A staff, some twelve feet tall with a tattered black cloth hanging from it, had been planted in the ground. Above this was an eye: the evil eye of the Anakim, woven from holly leaves. This little slice of Anakim art was out of place here among the timber and thatch. She pointed it out to Cathryn, who observed it sunnily. “A little barbaric, isn’t it?”
“That’s what we’ve come to see,” said Aramilla. “There should be another one further along.” There was; three hundred yards past the first. Aramilla looked back along the wall in horror. “There is a tunnel,” she said to Cathryn, “underneath the walls between these two flags.” So transfixed was she by the thought of those wild and unearthly folk mining the very earth beneath her feet, that she did not notice how she had already started to believe the note.
“A tunnel? What for?”
“Dug by the Anakim, to bring down our walls.”
“Are they burrowing creatures, then?” Cathryn did not seem to have absorbed the magnitude of this news.
Can this be true? If it was, how had Bellamus got word into the city? And it was not in his own cypher: that was suspicious above all. At that moment, she decided she could not risk telling her father. It still seemed most likely that this was a trap laid by him and the king together. Its promise of escape from Lundenceaster was simply too good to be true.
She and Cathryn walked back to her father’s hall and Aramilla explained where she had learned of the tunnel. Cathryn frowned at the news. “Do you really think this is a trap? If the king is determined to have you arrested, he won’t need proof. He’ll just do it, and nobody would question him. Not in his current state.”
“Why else would this message be uncyphered?” demanded Aramilla. “He has never sent me unobscured details before, still less something this important.”
Cathryn had no answer for that, and when they were back in the hall, Aramilla led her to her own chambers and summoned food for the pair of them. They chewed on bread and salty cheese, Aramilla too distracted to taste anything.
Be ready to leave.
She packed a warm cloak, two loaves of bread and some of the cheese in a leather bag. Anything else might seem silly, as though she really was about to leave the city. But still, she encouraged Cathryn to do the same and once she had returned with her bag, the two passed the day in Aramilla’s room. Cathryn read and talked, Aramilla did nothing in particular. She just waited. Several times she took out a quill, ink and parchment, and pored over a note, but she could not get past the first word: Father.
The houses beyond the window dissolved into darkness and Cathryn, mystified by Aramilla’s inactivity, summoned candles. By their sputtering light, the room filled with shadow and conspiracy. If Bellamus did send another note, was this where it would arrive? Might it be near the flags they had inspected that morning? Cathryn peppered her with questions as to what their plan was, and Aramilla largely ignored them, for she had no idea. She just waited.
When a nearby church bell struck midnight, Cathryn glanced at the window and said she should go to bed. “Cook will have me up before dawn to help with the breakfast.” Aramilla held the note crumpled in her hand and did not look up at Cathryn as she stood. “Let me know if you hear anything, Majesty,” she added, the end of the sentence lost in a yawn. With a perfunctory curtsey, Cathryn picked up her packed bag and shuffled to the door
. Aramilla did not look up, hearing only the click and creak as the door was unlatched and opened.
Then there came a pause. “Majesty?”
Aramilla stood at once. “What is it?”
Cathryn was standing in the doorway, staring down at something near her feet. Aramilla near elbowed her friend aside and saw that lying on the floor beyond the door was a glittering brooch. It was a spider: the same she had sent to Bellamus months before as a token of favour. Between the pin and the spider’s ornate body was stuffed a scrap of paper. Heart sinking at the crudity of this delivery, Aramilla removed the message and unfurled it, scanning the scrawled lines within.
My Queen—Proceed to the flags by the eastern wall. At midnight, I will get you out of the city.
B
Still uncyphered, with a cruder messaging system than she had ever received from Bellamus before, but it was his brooch. It must be from him, and her choices were to believe or die. “Come!” she said, springing to her feet. “We’re late already.” She was out of the door and halfway down the corridor, Cathryn on her heels, before she froze. She battled for just a moment and then turned back. “Wait here.” She hurried back to her room and flew to the desk, scrawling a passage of liquid night for her father. The Anakim were undermining the walls to the east, marked by two banners. The information came from Bellamus
He might find it in time. It might give the city a chance.
She left the note, spattered with black constellations, and rushed back to join Cathryn. Together, they exited onto the deserted cobbles beyond the hall. The night was close and they sweated as they ran, Aramilla holding her bag in one hand and the front of her skirts in the other. Her calves were soon burning and the plump Cathryn was labouring to keep pace with her, but as far as she knew, they might have already missed the rendezvous with Bellamus. Around them, all was still but for the occasional scrabbling of a rat. One window they passed was illuminated by a candle, the light seeping between twin shutters.
The bulk of the wall grew in the darkness and when she reached it, she cast about wildly, sweating and panting. This place seemed as deserted as the rest of the sleeping city. She could hear Cathryn clattering nearer, and swore, once, twice, three times, because she had had a chance and missed it. If only they had checked outside the door earlier.
Cathryn reached her, wheezing and coughing. “Where… is he?” she managed.
“We’ve missed him,” said Aramilla, bitterly. It was at least half past the hour and Bellamus was wanted by the crown. He would not linger here.
Then Cathryn screamed.
It was a piercing alarm, which sent a jolt through Aramilla the instant before she saw what had triggered it. An enormous figure; shadowed, powerful, and unmistakably other, had stepped from an alley. It spoke a word, which might have been an attempt at “Silence,” but so heavily accented as to be near incomprehensible.
Aramilla flinched backwards, but the apparition did not pursue her. Cathryn had seized her forearm and they stared at the figure for a moment. It raised a hand, beckoning them closer. “With me,” it said.
Cathryn screamed again and Aramilla clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shut up, shut up!” She scanned the walls behind the figure but could see no guards. The battlements were still, the streets deserted and covered in the faintest film of moonlight. She looked at the figure. “Are you an Anakim?” she demanded.
“With me,” the figure repeated in a growl.
It was like being confronted by a bear. In the street, this thing looked totally out of place. Perhaps it was his stance, which seemed braced and confident at the same time. He radiated sensory awareness, every piece of his attention on her and their environment. He did not wait for her response and turned away, back towards the wall. She had never seen a stride so purposeful. Each step was deliberate and focused in a way that made her consider her own walk. She felt suddenly silly and ungainly, like a puppy rushing for milk. This wild man exuded a composure which she had summoned only in her most dedicated moments. “We must follow,” she breathed, dragging Cathryn forward.
“No! Leave me!”
“Fool!” hissed Aramilla, her grip unyielding. “This is our only escape. He will be an informant for Bellamus.” She dragged Cathryn after the giant, who had rounded a corner onto the street that ran along the inside of the wall. By the time they caught sight of him again, he had crouched down over a cobble that protruded slightly above its fellows. He removed it, and then those that surrounded it, eventually excavating an opening roughly a yard square. He reached into it and pulled out a wooden frame, on which the cobbles seemed to have rested. Then he looked up at the two women, still standing ten yards distant.
“Inside,” he said, pointing into the hole.
“No!” shrieked Cathryn, trying to break free again. “Release me, I won’t follow that thing into its pit!”
Aramilla seized her shoulders. “Look at my face!” she demanded, but Cathryn still flailed. “Look at me!” She managed to hold Cathryn’s eyes for a moment. “We are surrounded, and you have proof before you that they have undermined the walls. They will break through. Leave now, or die.”
“I will not go into that hole!” she cried.
“You have to. We both do.”
Cathryn paused for just a heartbeat and Aramilla took it. “Come!” she insisted, dragging her companion towards the hole and ignoring the moan it elicited. “I’ll go first.” She met the eyes of the Anakim briefly, who was just staring at them steadily.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” chanted Cathryn hysterically, staring down at the hole.
“Go in,” said the Anakim. Those words, in that voice, at last silenced Cathryn.
Aramilla dropped her bag into the hole, darkness swallowing it at once. She lowered herself down after it, trying not to think at all. Within, she could not see so much as an outline. She reached forward with a trembling hand, feeling walls of rough earth, which crumbled to her touch, and panting at the sense of dread that closed around her. The tunnel was perhaps four feet high, and she shuffled a little way in, pushing her bag before her. The passage seemed to be angled downwards, sloping deeper into the earth. She heard a thump and a moan as Cathryn dropped in behind her. “Milly!” she cried.
“I’m here,” said Aramilla. “Just keep going. Follow my voice, that’s all.”
There came another thump at Aramilla’s back. “He’s behind me!” cried Cathryn.
“Of course,” replied Aramilla, supressing her own fear at this thought. She had expected a thrill at first meeting one of his kind, but all she felt was unease at this thing that was so crudely like her, but so different. “He’s helping us out.”
“Silence!” came that alien voice. The two women fell quiet, and Aramilla’s experience of the world focused to her groping fingertips.
She pressed on, starting slightly when Cathryn’s hand seized her ankle, using her as a guide through the dark. She even suffered her to remain, glad of any sort of companionship. “You’re doing well, Cat,” she whispered. “Just keep going. We’re escaping, think of that.”
Aramilla wondered whether she could see light ahead of her. Her knees pressed uncomfortably on small stones and lumpen clods, and she found herself scrambling faster, hunting the yellow light she now perceived on the wooden stakes bracing the walls. The tunnel levelled off and she let out a small cry of relief as she emerged from what seemed to be a small side-tunnel into a much larger chamber. This was illuminated by a thickly smoking torch, held by an Anakim even larger than the one behind them. “Bellamus sent us,” said the torchbearer, in an accent hardly more comprehensible than his fellow. “We will get you out.”
Aramilla nodded and stood gingerly. The tunnel was high enough to accommodate her with room to spare. Cathryn emerged from the tunnel behind, starting visibly at the sight of the torchbearer. The light he held revealed a subterranean chamber stretching to either side, its roof supported by regularly spaced wooden stakes. Against many of the stakes lay bu
ndled twigs, and looking up at the ceiling, some six feet from the floor in this larger tunnel, she was shocked to see flat, carved stone. She felt the enormous weight of the wall above them, supported only by these thin stakes.
And then she realised the purpose of the bundled twigs: they were going to burn the tunnel down. They would collapse a great stretch of the wall and then flood through onto the streets. Even if her father found the note she had left, she could not think how he would be able to stop this.
The Anakim were nearly ready.
A few rough words at her back made her turn, and she saw the first Anakim emerging from their tunnel and turning to push a mound of earth in behind him. He steadily concealed the entrance until the way they had come was indistinguishable from the bare earth to either side. It seemed that even the Anakim command did not know about the tunnel through which she had just left the city. They would certainly not facilitate the escape of the Suthern queen, and with that came the knowledge that the worst of the danger was not behind her, but just beginning. These two would need to smuggle her out of their camp.
“Come,” said the torchbearer. He turned away, so vast he had to stoop even while on his knees, and shuffled away, leaving them in darkness. Aramilla took Cathryn’s hand and followed, the first Anakim bringing up the rear.
The torch provided a measure of light by which they could now move, and they shuffled on for what seemed to be miles. The torch began to dim, its flame growing blue and feeble, and when it finally smoked out altogether, to be discarded by the side of the passage, even Aramilla groaned. She fumbled on, moving as fast as she dared but still able to hear the Anakim ahead growing steadily more distant
“Hurry!” The word hissed down the tunnel and Aramilla broke into a trot, hands scrabbling desperately along the walls until she thought she could see light up ahead once more. But not the yellow, dirty light of a sputtering torch or candle. Light of silver and midnight blue; the aura of moon and stars.