by Martha Wells
"We're on the west side of the Old Palace," Aviler said quietly. "We could get out through the siege wall into the Old Courts..."
Thomas sheathed the rapier and drew the shorter main gauche, which would be more effective in these close surroundings. "If we can get there. The King's Bastion is probably still sealed off from the other side. Most of the troops are quartered right below us." He took a soft step down the narrow stairs, careful of the creaking boards that would betray their presence.
The bogle dropped from above. It landed on Aviler, knocking him forward. He dropped the candlelamp and the flame guttered wildly, threatening to leave them in darkness. Aviler stumbled into Thomas, who caught himself against the wall. He turned, getting a grip on the thing's greasy skin below its neck and dragging it off the other man. It turned on him more swiftly than a cat, claws flailing, and he stabbed it with the main gauche. It dropped and he saw that Aviler had gotten it from behind with their late guard's dagger. It struggled wildly on the steps, its claws scrabbling on the wood, a random swipe of one long arm sending Thomas staggering back into the wall. Then it froze into immobility.
They stared at one another, breathing hard, then Aviler wiped the blood from the scratches on his forehead. He said softly, "That was rather a noisy episode. Do you think anyone heard?"
After listening for a moment, Thomas shook his head. "No, they'd be hacking through the wall by now." He leaned back against the stone, considering their options. They would have to make for one of the rooms along the outside wall. And they could go no lower than this floor: the levels below had no windows. And what was Kade doing now? That she was planning something he had no doubt. Fortunately Grandier would have as little chance to guess what it was as he had. Kade made her strategy on the run, which was poor planning in a chess game, but in real life tended to make opponents waste time bumbling around wondering what in hell she was thinking. The only problem was her inclination to the dramatic. Would Grandier consider that?
He looked up to find Aviler watching him narrowly. At his look of inquiry Aviler said, "You haven't yet pointed out that I was wrong about Denzil and you were right."
Thomas said dryly, "I thought the consequences so obvious that calling further attention to it was unnecessary."
Aviler snorted and shook his head. "Even though you've saved my life, I can't seem to bring myself to like you."
"That's probably just as well." Thomas was thinking of ways to rooms with outside windows, and that the nearest could only be reached by using this wall passage to travel directly through the part of the palace Denzil had made his stronghold. And why not? They won't be searching for us there. And there's less chance of running into more fay. There was also another possibility in that direction to be explored. "Did you know about the spyhole near the third-floor council chambers?"
Aviler's eyes widened. "No, I did not."
"Denzil doesn't either. When Dontane took me to those chambers, they had their maps laid out, so it must be where they plan their troop movements at the very least."
He could tell the notion appealed to Aviler. "You think it would be worth it, for what we might hear?"
"Perhaps not, but it is on our way."
* * *
There were voices coming from the direction of the faint glow of light. "Why you?"
It's my plan, Thomas started to say. Instead, he put a properly sardonic note in his voice and said, "Another noble impulse? You're the only one who has a chance of convincing Roland of any of this; don't you consider that a little more important than your pride?"
They were crouching in the narrow darkened wall passage, beside a gap in the baseboard just large enough for an agile spy. But someone had been through this servants' passage at some point strewing the floor with iron filings, so they couldn't afford to waste time here. The hole in the baseboard had an extra helping of iron sprinkled around it, but there was no sign that its real purpose had been discovered.
Aviler glared, and gestured reluctantly. "All right, damn you." As Thomas bent to scramble under the lintel, Aviler added, "Eventually that little tactic is going to fail, then what will you do?"
Thomas grinned to himself. "Hit you over the head."
From inside the cramped spyhole, he could see the gap carefully cut into the planks below the wall, leading into a narrow crawl space below the first council room. They were there, right enough. He recognized Dontane's voice, but it was impossible to distinguish individual words. He would have to try to get over to the next room.
The crawl space was perhaps two feet high, the bottom made of planks supported by the thick wooden rafters of the room below, lit by soft candlelight finding its way through the cracks in the floorboards above. On the far side, where the wall of the second council room had been erected, another hole had been torn in the baseboards, allowing access to the crawl space below the next room. That was where the voices were coming from. Well, it would be, Thomas thought. He sat back, pulling off and laying aside the baldric and rapier, which would be far more trouble than it was worth in the narrow space. He hesitated over the main gauche, which would be equally unhandy at his back where it could catch on things or in the front of his sash poking him determinedly in the stomach. He settled for wedging it down into his boot, though he knew if he encountered anything more hostile than a rat, he was a dead man.
He worked his way slowly across the crawl space, trying to keep from choking on the dust, gasping in pain when his bruised ribs encountered the sharp corners of a rafter.
About halfway across, something sharp bit through the leather of his glove and he jerked his hand back. It was only a nail loose on the planks. Then he took a closer look and saw the boards of the crawl space were sprinkled with them. They must have fallen down through the cracks from above. Denzil did not trust his fay allies at all.
Thomas edged closer to the gap. The voices were distinctly louder here. And louder. Damn them, he thought; they're coming in here. There was no time to move as a door squeaked open nearly overhead. He froze as heavy footsteps sounded on the floorboards of the room above and Denzil's voice said, "God, you're such a fool."
"I didn't have to tell you," Dontane replied, his tone surly.
You prick, you've been so splendidly stupid, why did you have to ruin it by thinking? Thomas had counted on Dontane being fool enough to try to hide their escape from Denzil as well as from Grandier.
"You did if you wanted to live. You idiot, I would have gotten rid of him in time." Footsteps paced overhead, a long winter cloak brushed the floor. Thomas winced as Denzil came to stand by a dark area that must be a cabinet or other large piece of furniture, the Duke's boots almost directly over his hiding place. He was cramped and his shoulders were aching, but he dared not shift his position.
"They can't escape," Dontane protested.
"Of course they can. Boniface knows the palace very well; he's been spying on everyone in it for years."
"I'm not a fool, damn you, I was--"
"It doesn't matter, not at this point." There was a hesitation, then Denzil asked softly, "What position do you want when I take the throne? Court Sorcerer?"
Ah. I should have known Denzil would contrive to sell everyone to everyone else, Thomas thought. He's lured Dontane away from Grandier, that was why our mercenary friend was so afraid.
"Will the nobles accept me?" Dontane spoke slowly, diverted by visions of the future.
"They will if I order it."
They might at that. Anything to keep Denzil away from home and family.
The door opened again, and a young man's voice, shy with hero worship said, "My lord, there's a message."
"Thank you." Denzil's voice warmed, probably out of habit. He would keep no one close to him who was not his absolute slave. How it must gall him that Grandier remained his own man. Dontane had probably been an easy conquest.
Paper crackled, then with a smile in his voice, Denzil said, "Villon has reached Bel Garde."
Thomas caught his br
eath.
"No." Dontane sounded horror-stricken. "The cavalry--"
"The siege engine cavalry," Denzil corrected gently.
"How could he get here so quickly?"
"If the messages went to the Granges yesterday, if Villon left his Train of Ordnance behind and traveled through the night, it could be done easily."
"Without Grandier's help I couldn't possibly hold him off."
"Yes, if Evadne hadn't failed I'd have Roland by now." Denzil was silent for a moment, possibly calculating the time as Thomas was. It would have been impossible to conceal the cavalry's movement up the plain to Bel Garde; they would have been spotted easily from the city wall. But it would have taken time to send the message through the dangerous snow-choked streets. And Villon was a cautious general, preferring maneuver and siegecraft to pitched battle. He had taken Bel Garde as a base from which to stage his attack.
Denzil said, "It's unfortunate. If I can't keep Bisra from attacking us in what they will perceive as our weakness, Lord General Villon would be useful. But he won't deal with me. I hope he has more amenable officers. You'll have to send the Host against him."
"Grandier won't allow it. He's counting on Villon to help lead the attack against Bisra."
"And counting on me to convince Villon to support my claim to the throne. But I can't... I won't do that. He is an old friend of Ravenna's, you see."
Denzil was not going to allow a war with Bisra. He wouldn't want a kingdom locked in struggle, war torn and poor. And he really didn't need a war to put him on the throne; he only needed the threat of it. He's going to hold Bisra off somehow. If he can. If he gets past Grandier, Thomas thought.
"I want you to speak to your friends in the Host and persuade them to attack Villon tonight," Denzil said.
"I'll go now, but--"
"Don't go now; wait until dusk. I don't want Grandier to learn of it. We can scarcely ask him to arrange the cloud cover for us, so they will have to wait until dark anyway." Footsteps crossed the floor to pause near Dontane. "Take care. Everything depends on you."
Does it? Thomas thought. Does it really?
He heard them move toward the door. As soon as it closed he rolled away from his painful position over the rafter and began to work his way back toward the hole in the baseboard, half-formed plans turning in his head. He had almost reached it when there was the thump of a chair pushed aside, hurried steps crossed the floor, and the door banged open.
Thomas swore and scrambled through the opening into the spyhole. Dontane and Denzil had departed, but he had never heard the messenger boy leave. He grabbed up his sword and baldric and ducked under the lintel back into the passage.
"Well?" Aviler demanded.
"Move. Someone heard me."
They made their way through the twists and turns of the passage and up a narrow flight of rickety stairs. "Villon's reached Bel Garde," Thomas said.
"Thank God. The court got through."
"It's not over yet. Denzil's sending the Host against him tonight--despite Grandier's orders to the contrary. Villon will have to be warned."
They came to a door with a thin line of chill daylight leaking under it. Thomas listened at it, then carefully prized it open. The room outside was a long formal dining room lit by slanting gray morning sunlight from tall windows opening onto a portico. It was undisturbed except for a little snow that had blown in through a window left carelessly open; the scene had the strange still quality of a painting.
Thomas crossed the room and opened the window further, stepping out onto the portico. The tiled floor was heavily laden with ice, and he held carefully to the light railing and looked out on a view of the garden courts and the siege wall, the bastion rising up beyond. To the north was the open land of the park, and cut off from sight by the side of the Gallery Wing would be the Postern Gate. The ground was two stories down from the bottom of the portico. He stepped back through the window to lift a heavy velvet drapery cord. "Think you could make it?"
Aviler nodded. "Of course."
They started to tear down the drapes, pulling loose the cords and discarding the ones that had gotten wet from the open window and had stiffened with ice.
Aviler tied off a section and tested it, then said, "We can secure it to the table. It's heavy enough to support a dozen men, so--"
"It won't have to. Just you. I'm staying here."
Aviler frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
Thomas tied off two cords and reached for another. "There's barely enough time for you to make it across the city to Bel Garde by nightfall on a good day. I'm going to try to stop them here."
Aviler looked incredulous. "How?"
"I don't know," Thomas snapped. He didn't want to give Aviler the chance to talk him out of this. He controlled himself with effort and said more calmly, "Apparently Dontane's the only one who can talk to the Host besides Grandier. If I can stop him--"
"That would help immeasurably, of course, but Villon is hardly going to be unprepared for an attack by night. That he's here now means he knows what's happened. He will realize the danger."
"And with Ravenna dead you're the only one who knows for certain that Denzil is a danger. Even if the attack on Villon fails, all Denzil has to do is ride up to Bel Garde tomorrow and ask to speak to Roland alone."
Aviler hesitated. Thomas could see him turning over that image and not liking what he saw. But Aviler shook his head. "Outright assassination would hardly serve his purpose--"
"It wouldn't have to be that. But it's hardly politic to allow the man who's near destroyed a city so he can usurp the throne unlimited access to the King."
"All right, all right." Aviler shook his head impatiently. "I'll go on. But I think you're only going to succeed in killing yourself."
"Probably," Thomas admitted.
They finished the makeshift rope and tied it off, and Thomas told Aviler the way over the canal and through the Postern Gate that he and Kade had used.
They secured the rope to the table, and with Thomas to hold it steady, Aviler started to climb. The High Minister disappeared over the portico with no more than a whispered "good luck" and Thomas was grateful, loath to countenance any attempt at sentimentality at this point. When Aviler had reached the snowy ground and vanished into the shelter of the garden walls and frozen hedges below, Thomas pulled the makeshift rope up and bundled it into the bottom cabinet of one of the sideboards. With luck the tangled draperies would look like an aborted attempt at looting. He closed the window and slipped quietly out of the room.
Chapter Eighteen
ROLAND COULD NOT stop shivering. He sat near the fire in a windowless interior chamber at Bel Garde. A salon meant for entertaining, its walls were softened by cloth-of-gold draperies and the overmantel and borders delicately painted with black grotesques on gilt backgrounds. Fretfully looking around the room, Roland's eyes lit on a silver and gold filigreed perfume burner he had given Denzil some months ago, and it occurred to Roland just how isolated he had become from the others in his court. He had no other close confidant or advisor but Denzil; most of those who had surrounded him were his cousin's companions, not his, and he had no wish to see any of them.
Lord General Villon had arrived with his men not long ago, and the walls of the little fortress had almost trembled from the cheers of the other guards. After Ravenna's death their situation had seemed hopeless, and now for the first time there was a chance for revenge and victory. Roland had been just as glad as the others to see them, but he was nervous of Villon, knowing the General's opinion of him was not a high one. And having to greet the old warrior with news of the Dowager Queen's death...
Behind Roland, in the center of the room, Villon and his officers, their cloaks still steaming from melting snow, met with Renier and the Queen's Guard lieutenant who had brought Falaise. They were talking intently, pointing to the maps laid out on the round table, making some plan. Roland had no wish to join in their council. They all thought him a coward, or a fool, and
perhaps they were right.
A new voice made Roland look up, and he saw that Elaine had been brought in again. The hem of her skirt was torn and dirty, and her face was a pale oval in the candlelight. Her only companion was an Albon knight standing at her elbow as if she were a prisoner, and Roland wondered if she had been left to sit in some cold anteroom, without even a maid to accompany her. Such treatment suddenly reminded him of one of Fulstan's more subtle tricks, when Roland had been left alone in a bare room to contemplate his fate for hours, only to discover later that the King had left the palace and that there would be no punishment after all.
"Hasn't anyone even sent for a lady to care for her?" Roland interrupted. All heads turned toward him, and he wished they would stop looking at him as if he were mad, or had just grown an extra limb. "God, just let her alone. Your damned questions are worthless."
"At once, m'lord," someone said. Roland found himself meeting General Villon's expressionless gaze and quickly looked away. Elaine still stood shivering in the center of the room and he motioned her to come over by the fire. She came obediently, taking a low cushioned stool near his chair, moving stiffly as if the cold and shock had solidified her muscles. Roland felt more at ease in her presence. Here, at least, was someone who knew he could not have disobeyed his mother's order, who did not think him a coward. If he had stayed in the tower he would be dead as well, or Bel Garde overrun by fay and they would all be prisoners. But he wondered if he would have had the courage to order his own son or daughter to safety while he met death. I will never know, because we'll all die here and I will never live to have a son or daughter...
There was more quiet talk, but the council seemed to be over. Roland stared into the fire, trying not to see images it hurt to think about. Since hearing Falaise's tale, he had sunk deeper into grief and pain, and he felt powerless to help himself. He heard Renier move up behind his chair, and he said the words he had been living on since that moment in the tower. "He will explain himself. There will be some reason."