A Clatter of Chains

by A Van Wyck

  “Just one more of my improprieties for her to put out. Indiscretion is the best misdirection with her.” Her voice turned sultry and she rose to her tiptoes. “And I do owe you my life,” she purred and he felt teeth nip at his earlobe. “But,” her hands fell abruptly away, her mood changing like quicksilver, “then father had to go and appoint you my personal bodyguard.” He could almost hear her rolling her eyes. “And so my dear sister finally got what she’s always wanted: a legitimate pair of eyes – sanctioned by Father no less! – to watch my each and every move.”

  She’d moved around to his front and now flicked the tip of his nose with an irate finger.

  She regarded him a moment and her face was a mask he’d never seen. All hard edges and bright malice.

  “Oh, well,” she gushed and reached out to draw his sword from its scabbard. “If you must blame someone,” she said, eyeing him like she was deciding where to put the next flower on her embroidery piece, “blame my sister who put you so callously in my way.” She cocked her elbow on her hip, letting the sword tip dangle lazily as she looked off into the distance.

  “I never could fool her,” she reminisced with a scowl, “even when we were children, the suspicious sow! I wonder if the assassin was hers…”

  Smiling eyes snapped back to him.

  “You should have seen Luvid rage,” she enthused, “after he failed to kill you in the tourney!” She chuckled, letting the sword point rest above his near-healed wound. The pressure was slight but unforgiving. “Who would have thought you actually did have some sword fancy in you?”

  The wide smile made her face a thing of exquisite cruelty.

  “Don’t look so glum,” she chided brightly. “You’re going to get your wish: you’re going to die protecting me.” The sword point drilled painfully at him. “Just not the way you thought.”

  She took a step back, raising the blade to depend from her dainty fist.

  “In a few moments,” she explained, concentrating as she pressed the outside of her forearm to the blade’s edge, “I’m going to scream.”

  Horror surged through him.

  “When I do,” her voice turned thick with pain as she dragged her arm down the keen edge, “the guards in the hallway are going to burst in.” She gasped as she lifted her arm away, the pearly sleeve blooming crimson. Blood dripped to the carpet. “But they’ll be too late,” she continued, breathing deeply. The sword went to the thick carpet, hilt angled towards him.

  “Because,” she continued, voice taking on a singsong quality, “the brave, loveable little princess will have defended herself valiantly…”

  Her smile was serene as she reached for a silver letter opener, the cast as a swan.

  “…from her Heli attacker.”

  His heart quickened as she took a step toward him, toying with the stiletto blade.

  “You know,” her tone turned wry, “if your snooping priest had just deigned to die in my mountain raid, you and I might have been fast friends.”

  He could see the elation behind her coy façade now, the pleasure she took in the power she held over him.

  “Now I’ve promised his holy head to another and I can’t have you running off to save it.” She positioned the slim blade against his ribs, where a good push would plunge it into his heart.

  “Goodbye, Master dei Toriam.”

  She filled her lungs, preparing for the scream that would summon the guards. Her pupils were dilated, her cheeks flushed with her excitement. She held his gaze with feverish intensity, one hand holding his death, the other anchored behind his neck.

  His mind was a startled covey of conflicting thoughts, the words to his last prayers lost in their flurry. He longed to shut his eyes but they were frozen open. And so he saw the shadow grow in the window at her back, outlined by the dawn that had finally broken.

  The window exploded.

  Amid the shower of colored glass, a dark shape plunged into the room. A gloved hand flicked out.

  But the princess, having followed his gaze, had already started to turn. She threw herself aside as the two throwing stars sped toward her. They clanged musically off the far wall. The assassin rolled upright, tightly wrapped in black cloth. A narrow-bladed knife appeared in one gloved hand, glistening black.

  The princess was anything but slow. She loosed the shriek she’d saved up and darted for the door.

  The black clad assassin surged forward, hammering the spindly lectern with the heel of a cloven slipper. It jumped drunkenly away, fouling the princess’s escape. The glossy wooden box was sent flying from under his fingers. He gasped as his knees gave way, muscle spasms coming down like a rockslide.

  He watched from the floor as the princess, a ferocious snarl marring her pretty face, bolted in a new direction. The assassin sped after her only to jump back as she upended a massive suit of armor in her wake. It slammed down loudly, a dozen pieces skittering across the hard marble.

  Somewhere in the background, the door had burst open to the sound of urgent shouting. Guards poured in, Kreel in the lead.

  The door guard hurled his sword savagely. It spun end over end, forcing the assassin to either skid to a halt or be skewered. In that instant, the princess flitted in among the guards and beyond the assassin’s reach.

  The nearest guardsman led with a solid swing, which came nowhere near landing.

  He’d just about managed to rise to his hands and knees when a pair of cloven slippers settled lightly at his side. Pain speared him as the black-clad killer hoisted him by his hair. The ebony blade kissed the underside of his jaw threateningly and he rose up on tiptoe, eyes bulging. The closing cordon of guards hesitated, eyeing the knife held against his throbbing pulse. Towing him, the assassin backed slowly toward the shattered window. The guards matched each measured step but didn’t dare close the distance.

  Until Dailill’s voice pealed from somewhere behind them, ringing with authority: “They’re working together! Get them both!”

  Surprise flitted briefly across the guards’ faces but they reacted immediately, surging forward.

  The knife disappeared from his throat to be replaced by the crook of a black clad arm. He flung his hands out blindly to catch the edges of the window frame but it was too late. He watched in horror as the scene before him changed. From crowded room to open sky. Cold air whistled past his ears and sucked at his cheeks. The window streaked away faster than he would have believed. In a blink, it had retreated to near nothingness.

  He screamed – he couldn’t help it. One long, sustained note that lasted all the way to the bottom.

  Christian tugged his steel backed gauntlets tighter over his fingers and ran a palm over the hilt of the sword at his belt. Everything was ready. He walked briskly from the little office he’d been assigned, down a flight of stairs and out into the high walled courtyard. His troupe was armed and armored and already mounted.

  The masha’na weren’t the only ones present. Chapter Master Bulgarron’s fighting entourage and Ambassador Malconte’s military escort loitered in two’s and three’s, watching silently. Imperial Guard Captain Iolus stood on the second story balcony, hands clasped behind a back rigid with disapproval. The masha’na had refused to say where they were going or why.

  By this time, word of what was happening at their compound would no doubt have reached the palace. He and his men needed to get going before either chapter master or ambassador could appear. Not that either had the authority – strictly speaking – to order him to stand down. But it would be best if he were not forced to refuse them.

  And this way the two politicians could claim ignorance after the fact.

  A quick glance hinted at a sun well and truly risen.

  Where in the dark places is Marco?

  They couldn’t leave without him. The boy’s extraordinary (and somewhat disquieting) tracking ability was their best chance at finding the keeper. Finch was an excellent woodsman. But even the diminutive masha’na couldn’t follow a trail across the leagues o
f ankle-deep marshes to the north.

  A sudden unease gripped him.

  I shouldn’t have let him go off to the palace alone.

  Someone with the gall to kidnap a keeper wouldn’t balk at adding an adolescent scribe to their tally.

  Taking his reins from Jurgun, he vaulted into the saddle. They’d fetch Marco, then pick up the trail outside the city.

  “All right,” he bellowed, command ringing in his voice, “looks like we’re stopping by the palace first.” He spurred his mount forward, his troupe falling in behind. Finch on his left, Bear on his right.

  “Halt!”

  Horses wuffed in surprise as their riders were forced to pull up sharply.

  Royal Guards, the white stork rampant on their surcoats, came riding through the gate in double file. They split to encircle the masha’na, wheeling their horses to face inwards. Amid a flurry of confused shouting, the Temple warriors found themselves facing a ring of armored soldiers.

  He eyed them critically, noting the hefty spears – lances, he corrected. Couched or not, their threat was implicit. He picked out their commander by the man’s plumed helm his the fur-trimmed greatcloak, trailing across his horse’s croup. The officer rode up, horse slewing sideways as if to singlehandedly prevent their egress.

  “By what right do you detain us?” Christian demanded before the man could get a word out, his anger thickening his accent.

  From beneath his helm’s brow the Renali officer regarded him with heavily lidded eyes, like two poached eggs in a nest of wrinkles. Oiled indifference matched the painfully thin, ruthlessly pointed mustache. Though Christian had no idea how to reckon the man’s rank from his insignia, the paunch proclaimed the man an officer of some standing.

  “We are envoys of the Heli Empire,” Christian continued, “and as such enjoy diplomatic immunity. Having been duly informed of this fact you have no jurisdiction–”

  “Less than a bell ago,” the officer loudly overrode him, “an agent of the Heli temple made an attempt on the life of her royal highness, Princess Dailill.”

  Shock ran through the courtyard at this announcement.

  …Marco…

  “That attempt,” the officer continued, “was foiled!” The man’s heavy lidded gaze hunted among the assembled Imperials as if for evidence of disappointment. “As per royal decree, until such time as the priest, Justin Wisenpraal, and the novice, Marco dei Toriam, are found and questioned, none will leave this compound.”

  Found?

  “The priest’s temple entourage,” the officer continued, finally deigning to match gazes with Christian, “are hereby ordered to disarm and accompany me to the Royal Guard barracks for questioning.”

  Silence. The kind only achieved by very dangerous men being very still.

  Christian tried to reason it out. There was no doubt in his mind who the ‘Heli agent’ was. Though no one was less likely to try and assassinate the princess. But if they truly did not have Marco in custody, then the boy had either escaped – which seemed unlikely – or had met with the same fate as the keeper. If so, then the masha’na were the keeper’s only hope of rescue and they could not afford to be waylaid here.

  “The boy,” he fired at the officer, “did he flee? Or was he abducted?”

  He’d hoped for some hint – a twitch, anything! – that would betray these men as Marco’s (and by extension the keeper’s) abductors. What he hadn’t expected to see, kindling in the officer’s oily eyes, was triumph.

  “Indeed?” the officer returned, smiling thinly to match his mustache. “A strange question to ask. How did you know to ask it, I wonder? That is something, I believe, we shall discuss at length.”

  The man’s sudden hunger took him aback.

  He had no idea whose agenda was being advanced here, only that it was impeding him. He cast another assessing glance over the encircling Royal Guardsmen.

  Lances. Thoroughly useless weapons in cramped quarters like these, what with more than a score horses crammed in the courtyard…

  But cutting down the king’s guardians in broad daylight, a stone’s throw from the palace…? He’d force the ambassador and the chapter master’s men to make a difficult decision. Fight alongside them and escape on the crest of a new war? Or do nothing and hope not to be tarred by the same brush as their sinful brethren? Either way, the summit would die a sudden and final death.

  “And if I refuse?” he questioned, feeling the battle-calm slowly suffusing him.

  The officer waved a hand indifferently and the encircling guardsmen’s lances dropped, in unison, from threatening the sky to threatening the mounted masha’na.

  “I am confident,” the officer waxed, “you will not refuse.”

  The masha’na at his back were a solid presence, heavy as a thunderhead and charged with violence. Ready to burst at his slightest prompting. For a moment the poached officer and his men poised precariously on the lip of death.

  “A moment please, gentlemen!”

  Into their tense tableau galloped an older man on a cloud of dust. Unarmed and richly robed, the newcomer’s authority was immediately apparent by the way the officer’s arrogance retreated like a tortoise seeking its shell. The threatening lances suddenly hovered uncertain.

  “Invigilator,” the officer greeted in an approximation of pleasantry. “Your presence is appreciated but, as you can see, I have everything well in hand.”

  “Ah! So you’re not at all about to get yourselves killed?” the Invigilator – obviously some kind of highly placed official – queried cheerily as he cantering to a stop.

  “Sir!” the officer forced between gritted teeth, “I must protest–”

  “Oh, if you must,” the Invigilator interrupted with a negligent wave, not looking away from Christian. “Just not right now, if you please."

  The officer’s teeth ground audibly, mustache vibrating.

  “Captain,” the Invigilator addressed Christian, throwing arms wide as if for a filial hug. “Please forgive the rash marshal. As you might imagine, tensions are running high in the wake of this morning’s excitement. Let me assure you, we have no intention of violating your diplomatic immunity.”

  The man’s face was a picture of sincerity, spoiled by the riotous line of a smile.

  “This being said, two of your number have gone missing and the word ‘abduction’ does seem rather in vogue this morning. I’m certain,” the man cast an eye over their assembled battle-readiness, “your first unconsidered thought was for the reclamation of your companions. No doubt you’ve spared little regard for how your actions might be perceived by the city authorities?”

  Unease crawled beneath his armor.

  The invigilator’s hands settled sedately on the saddle horn.

  “You’ve no investigative authority here, commander. You are either honored guests – or a hostile invasion force. I’m certain you would do nothing to endanger the integrity of the peace talks. Especially since your keeper has worked so hard to bring them about.” The man gave him a pointed look, “I assured his majesty that you would be most eager to give my investigation your fullest cooperation.”

  The man gave him a winning smile.

  “Since it seems this disappearing phenomenon is restricted to your theological fellows, I have suggested you all be moved to a place of safety. With all haste. His majesty concurs.”

  “Moved?” he glanced at the marshal, who glared at him as if he were a haunch of beef just beyond the tether of the man’s leash. “You mean to arrest us.”

  “Arrest?” the invigilator looked suitably shocked. “Never! Luckily for us the peace talks mandated that a Heli embassy be established. Sovereign soil and all that. In fact, his royal majesty has this very morning set aside such a site. With your kind permission, the marshal shall escort you there. Now.”

  So. Arrest. With political honey dribbled on top.

  “I assure you,” the invigilator said, in an altogether more serious tone, “my first priority is the safe apprehens
ion of your Keeper Wisenpraal and his ward.”

  He regarded this invigilator in silence, taking in the earnest eyes and the patently disingenuous smile. Was he hearing false assurances beneath the man’s flowery words? Did he dare trust the man? More importantly, did he dare risk the keeper’s life on the decision he made this moment.

  Behind him, Finch shifted in the saddle. He cocked his ear toward the woodsman.

  “Keeper’s met with this one before,” the little masha’na said in Heli, regarding the Invigilator, “I think they’re friends.”

  Still Christian wavered.

  And, in that moment, the decision was taken from him. Outside, ambassador Malconte’s city carriage had just pulled up. The spindly conveyance blocked their exit more effectively than a dozen royal guardsmen.

  Recognizing defeat, he reached to unbuckle his sword. The invigilator smiled a gratified smile, the marshal an anticipatory one. Behind him, Finch shrugged and Bear spat off to one side, missing the hooves of the nearest Guard’s charger by less than a hand.

  Marco, he prayed, wherever you are, I hope you’re faring better than we.

  * * *

  Ribi sat proudly upon his new horse – a nameday gift from his father. It was a magnificent animal. One of the few spotted horses left to the tribe and highly prized. The gene had been dying out since the tribe’s flight from the empire – running ahead of the expansion. Interbreeding with the large, Renali bloodlines had all but wiped out the famed spotted horse. It was a good gift, as his father had intended. Other clansmen would come to him now, as owner of the horse, to broker stud fees. He could begin amassing his own wealth. Truly his father was a wise man.

  This wasn’t his first time accompanying his father’s trek to the city but it was the first time he’d ridden a horse owned by him and not his father. It meant he was a man now. He breathed deeply, enjoying the smell of the great freshwater lakes and trying not to think how much he missed his stalwart pony.

  He enjoyed the constant noise of hundreds of species of bird around him but knew he was one of few. Words like ‘empire’ and ‘expansion’ were just words to him. He’d grown up here, in the Kingdom, among the wet, the water and the birds the older men despised. He listened politely, as custom dictated, when they spoke of the dry grasses and gentle hills of the tribal plains of their ancestral home. But old as they were, he knew, none of them had ever seen these things first hand. Besides, this was home now. He couldn’t imagine wanting to live in a place where you could see for leagues in every direction. Or where the sun beat down hard enough to bend the stalks of the grass seas. Or where the only sound was that of the screech beetles – whatever they were – calling to one another.