by Lian Tanner
The prisoners closed around Arms-mistress Krieg again. ‘It was not the right time,’ she repeated in a low voice. ‘Everyone was against us. If they had believed you, they would have slain you on the spot.’
‘But if Brun had told the truth,’ said Otte. ‘If he had stood beside me – if you had both stood beside me—’
‘Young Brun has no reason to tell the truth,’ interrupted Lord Rump. ‘He is Margrave. He has power and he has influence. Why would he give those things up?’ ‘Because he is my friend,’ said Otte.
Lord Rump patted him on the head. ‘You poor dear boy. You have so much to learn about the world.’
‘I do not believe that Brun is thinking only of power,’ said Arms-mistress Krieg. ‘There was a reason behind his denial.’
Sooli made an impatient gesture. ‘Reasons do not matter. What matters is escape.’
‘From here?’ murmured Arms-mistress Krieg. ‘No one has ever escaped from these dungeons. I used to check them myself twice a year, never thinking I would end up on the wrong side of the bars.’
Lord Rump sidled closer to Pummel. ‘The raashk, lad. It comes to your hand, does it not? Could you call it?’
‘Not from so far away,’ whispered Pummel. ‘I have to be close.’
‘Could you pick the lock, Lord Rump?’ asked Otte. ‘Duckling said once that you could undo any lock made by man.’
‘A slight exaggeration,’ replied Lord Rump. ‘I can pick most locks, but not all. And this one, unfortunately, falls into the latter category.’
None of them said anything about Duckling’s escape. But Pummel knew they were thinking about it. In that moment of chaos, halfway across the first bailey, they had all tried to get away from their captors, but Duckling was the only one who had succeeded.
Where was she now? Had she been recaptured, or was she still free?
There had been a time, in the salt mines, when Pummel had lost faith in his friend. Sooli had deliberately sowed mistrust between them until all Pummel could think of was the fact that Duckling had betrayed him once and might well do it again.
Sooli had had good reasons for what she did, but Pummel still regretted his own part in it. Because Duckling had changed, which was not an easy thing for someone who had been raised by Lord Rump.
He trusted her now. Not blindly and innocently, as he had once done, but with the knowledge of who she was, and of the upbringing she struggled against. He knew she would come for them if she could; that she would do her best to get them out of the dungeon. It was just a question of whether she would be in time.
Sooli had been inspecting the wet walls and the slimy corners. She had taken careful note of the spiders, too. Now she turned back to Arms-mistress Krieg and whispered, ‘Could you grab the turnkey through the bars and take his keys from him?’
The arms-mistress shook her head. ‘You think he does not know that trick? He has been turnkey for forty years or more. He will not come within arm’s length of us.’
‘But if he did come close,’ insisted Sooli. ‘Could you grab him then?’
‘I suppose so. But he will not.’
Sooli didn’t argue. Instead, she leaned against the damp wall and bowed her head. Her fingers twitched and pulled, as if she was weaving threads together.
But then she frowned. ‘The magic is not taking hold as it should,’ she whispered. ‘I think it is affected by the curse.’ She flexed her fingers and started again.
Pummel held his breath. If he concentrated very hard, he could see the witchery slowly spinning out across the dungeon floor towards the turnkey, like the finest of spiderwebs.
‘Get him on his feet,’ whispered Sooli, without taking her eyes off her hands. ‘Get him moving. Then be ready.’
Arms-mistress Krieg turned to the cell door. She beckoned Lord Rump and whispered to him. The two of them bent over the giant lock and inspected it in a surreptitious fashion.
The turnkey looked up from his cards.
With an air of great secrecy, Lord Rump turned his back and took off one of his boots. He removed something from it, then slipped the boot back on – with some difficulty, because he was obviously trying to hide whatever was in his hand.
The turnkey’s eyebrows lowered in suspicion.
Lord Rump bent over the lock again. Beside him, the arms-mistress leaned against the bars and whistled loudly, as if she was trying to cover up some other sound.
The turnkey dropped his cards and lurched to his feet. ‘Here, what are you doing? What have you got?’
He took a couple of steps towards the cell, then stopped. At least, he tried to stop. But his feet kept moving.
At first, the look on the old man’s face was almost comical. His feet were taking him straight towards the cell, and he didn’t know why or how. He tried to turn back. He tried to swerve sideways.
His feet carried him onward.
Arms-mistress Krieg stopped whistling and waited, her arms innocently by her side. But the turnkey wasn’t fooled. His eyes began to bulge with effort. Every breath went in with a heave and out with a groan as he tried to break free of whatever was controlling him.
He came closer. And closer …
Sooli gritted her teeth, as if she was fighting something that no one else could see. Her fingers moved so fast and so intricately that Pummel couldn’t follow them. The witchery stretched and shuddered. Krieg’s hands rose in expectation.
The old man tried one more time to free himself—
And Pummel felt the witchery snap back on itself, like a rope that has been stretched beyond its limits.
Arms-mistress Krieg lunged through the bars, but before she could catch him, the turnkey was five paces away, with his hands on his knees and his head bobbing up and down in relief.
Sooli muttered something in Saaf. The turnkey raised his head and scowled at her. ‘Saffy tricks! But you didn’t get me, did you? And I won’t fall for it again.’
He plonked himself down in his chair, gripping the sides as if he thought it might fly away with him. ‘Here I sit and here I stay,’ he said. ‘Right up until they come to take you to the chopping block.’
Duckling stayed in the Great Chamber for as long as she could. But even the worst shock wears off eventually, and there came a time when the grafs stopped shouting at the stuffed bears, the grafines loosened their frantic hold on their hounds, and Brun and the Regent got their expressions under control.
Soon they would notice her. Soon one of the soldiers would turn up to report her escape. It was time to go.
The guards at the main doors were back in position, challenging everyone who entered, so Duckling headed for the small door behind the Faithful Throne, with the Bayam chicken tucked under her arm. The door led to a narrow corridor, with a single candle in a bracket on the wall and the shadows so deep and thick that she had to feel her way.
As she shuffled along in the half-darkness, she whispered to the chicken, ‘Don’t reckon anyone’ll look for us back here.’
The chicken murmured politely.
‘Wish you were still with us,’ whispered Duckling. ‘Properly, I mean, with all your wits about you. I could do with a Fire Wind right now.’
But it was no use wishing.
This part of the Keep was strange to Duckling, so she hummed up her breeze and sent it ahead to make sure she wasn’t going to run into anyone. She asked it to hunt out some clothes, too, so she’d look as if she belonged.
‘And shoes,’ she whispered. ‘Comfortable ones.’
Her breeze came back more quickly than she expected, and led her to a windowless room one floor down from the Great Chamber. She smelled it before she reached it, a reeking cloud of stale sweat, ancient gravy and wine gone sour.
When she poked her head around the corner, holding a candle that she had taken from the bracket outside, she found several enormous baskets filled to the brim with filthy clothes and even filthier sheets.
‘Waiting to be washed,’ whispered Duckling. ‘Just what I need
.’
She put the chicken down, with stern instructions not to wander away, and began to sort through one of the baskets, looking for a tunic and hose that would fit her. They weren’t hard to find, though she had to choose between hose of exactly the right size that smelled strongly of pee, and ones that were too big and had a grease stain all down the leg.
She chose the ones with the grease stain, plus a rope belt to hold them up. There were no shoes.
When she was dressed, she hunted around until she found a basket small enough for her to carry on her own, and filled it with soiled clothes.
The chicken was scratching at the floor, occasionally pausing to snap up a scrap of ancient beef. But she made no complaint when Duckling picked her up, set her on top of the basket and covered her with a pair of hose.
‘Don’t you make any noise under there,’ whispered Duckling. ‘You’re laundry, right? And laundry doesn’t cluck at people.’
She made her way out of the Keep, moving to one side whenever one of the servants came bustling towards her, as if she knew how unimportant she was and didn’t want to get in anyone’s way.
But when she stepped out into the sunlight of the first bailey, she raised her head and walked with quick, purposeful strides, like someone who knew exactly where she was going.
She saw the soldiers straight away, searching behind the kitchen huts. There were eight of them, peering down wells, poking their swords into lumpy sacks, and upending buckets. Sergeant Bock was red-faced and furious – the others looked grim.
Duckling stared at them with the same worried curiosity that everyone else was showing, but didn’t slow her march towards the second bailey.
She heard one of the soldiers say, ‘She’s not here, Arms-master. Nowhere in the first.’
Bock replied through gritted teeth, ‘Search the second.’
‘We’ve already searched the second,’ said a different soldier.
‘Then search it again,’ growled Sergeant Bock. ‘Unless you want to go back to the Regent and tell her we’ve lost one of the prisoners.’
And to Duckling’s dismay, all eight men marched towards the second bailey.
She couldn’t turn around now; it might attract their notice. So she kept walking. But she whispered to the chicken, ‘Not a sound!’
None of the soldiers looked at her. They spread out across the second bailey, with its laundry tubs and clotheslines and the servants’ huts all around the walls, and began their search.
Duckling’s hands, gripping the basket of dirty clothes, trembled. She had never intended to go all the way to the laundry; anyone who worked there would know that she was not one of them.
But once again, she had no choice. Sergeant Bock was standing right in the middle of the bailey, with his eyes peeled for anything or anyone suspicious. So Duckling kept walking.
The women who worked at the laundry tubs, carting water, scouring away bloodstains, and wringing out wet sheets, had muscular arms and dripping faces. They were watching the soldiers out of the corners of their eyes, as if they didn’t trust them.
Which gave Duckling an idea.
She marched up to the women, who awaited her with their hands on their hips and their lips pursed. But before they could say anything, Duckling whispered, ‘Don’t give me away; Cook sent me with a warning.’
The women’s eyebrows rose. One of them said, ‘You a kitchen skivvy? Thought I knew all of them, but I don’t remember you.’
‘Cook’s a hard mistress,’ said Duckling. ‘Keeps us working long after everyone else has stopped. Some of us don’t see daylight for months at a time.’
The woman nodded approvingly. ‘That’s the way. Can’t give young ’uns too much rope, or they’ll get tangled up in it. Now what was this warning?’
‘See that man over there?’ Duckling pointed to one of the soldiers, who was fighting his way past the heavily laden clotheslines to get to the huts beyond. ‘Cook says he was stealing when he was in the kitchens. Only small stuff, but she can’t abide thieves. She said you’d better watch him; there’s no telling what he’ll get up to.’
The woman’s face hardened. ‘I’ll watch him all right.’ She rolled her sleeves higher and made a fist. ‘Let him try it here.’
‘I don’t want them knowing I warned you,’ said Duckling. ‘Do you mind if I hang around for a bit, and pretend to be one of yours? I won’t get in your way.’
‘Hang around for as long as you like,’ said the woman, without taking her eyes off the soldier. ‘You’re only a little thing, so you won’t be much good at washing. But you can help with the sorting. Over there.’ And she pointed her chin towards one of the huts. ‘Tell them I sent you.’
And so, as the soldiers diligently searched the second bailey for the second time, Duckling sorted washing with half a dozen girls her own age and older. They were keen to hear about working in the kitchens, so Duckling made up the worst stories she could think of, knowing that people love to hear about the misfortune of others.
She told them that the chicken was her particular pet, and that Cook (who was the cruellest mistress a girl could have) was determined to make the poor creature into a pie.
She told them that they were lucky to work in the laundry, and that she envied them with all her heart (which people also love to hear). By the time the soldiers bullied their way into the sorting hut and out again, they were all fast friends.
Duckling stayed there until the soldiers had searched the third bailey as well, and appeared to have given up. Then she took her leave of the girls and set off for the dungeons.
The minutes ticked by so slowly that Pummel felt as if time had stopped. Where was Duckling? Why hadn’t she come? What if she had been recaptured, and couldn’t help them?
He tried not to think about the chopping block, because then the minutes stopped moving slowly and began to rush past at a horrifying speed. He tried not to wonder where the Harshman was, and how quickly he was travelling back to the city, and how long it would take him to find them in the dungeon.
But there was nothing else to think about, and before long, the chopping block and the Harshman filled his mind to the exclusion of all else. And still Duckling did not come.
In desperation, Pummel turned to Sooli. ‘Can’t you try your witchery again?’
Sooli looked as if her imagination was getting the better of her, too. ‘What is the use? You saw how the old man broke from it last time.’
‘But you could try. Please, Sooli. I don’t know what else to do. Lord Rump, can you get the turnkey on his feet?’
‘Given enough time, I could persuade him to turn somersaults,’ murmured Lord Rump. ‘But we may not have time, not with that very fine chopping block awaiting us. Very well, I will see what I can do.’
He glanced at Arms-mistress Krieg, and something unspoken passed between them. Then, without another word, he sagged against the bars and let out a quiet groan, as if he was in pain but didn’t want to disturb anyone.
The turnkey looked up. ‘What was that for?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lord Rump in a voice far weaker than his usual tones. ‘Please do not bother yourself. I am perfectly all ri—’ He broke off, and another groan issued from his lips, even more piteous than the previous one.
Otte said, ‘Lord Rump? Are you ill?’
‘No, no,’ said Lord Rump, clutching his belly. ‘It is nothing. A bit of indigestion, perhaps.’ But his face was screwed up in agony, and as Pummel watched, he sagged further.
Otte hovered over him, saying, ‘Where does it hurt? Are you sure it is indigestion?’ He peered into Lord Rump’s eyes and gasped.
The turnkey scowled. ‘You’re trying to trick me again, aren’t you? You want me to come and see what’s wrong, so you can grab me.’
‘No,’ said Otte, in a worried voice. ‘You must not come and see. In fact, the further you keep from us, the better.’
Arms-mistress Krieg pulled him away from Lord Rump – pulled all three children away,
saying, ‘You did not touch him, did you? I do not think you can catch it unless you touch him.’
‘What do you mean?’ demanded the turnkey. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘It is nothing,’ gasped Lord Rump.
Truly, he sounded awful. He was gulping down air in huge gasps, and his face was desperate.
As for Otte, he looked more frightened than Pummel had ever seen him. ‘I fear it is purple fever,’ he whispered, just loud enough for the turnkey to hear.
‘What? Purple fever in my dungeon?’ The old man was so horrified that he leaped to his feet without thinking – and Sooli had him.
Her fingers spun barely visible webs, as intricate as the ones that hung from the corners of the cell. The turnkey’s feet turned towards the prisoners. Lord Rump stood up, suddenly cured.
‘No,’ gasped the turnkey. ‘I won’t come close. Get your nasty Saffy tricks off me.’
He windmilled his arms, as if Sooli’s witchery was a real web that he could break out of. It made no difference; his feet kept walking towards the cell, where Arms-mistress Krieg waited for him.
But Pummel could already see that it wasn’t going to work. The witchery was beginning to fray, like a slipped stitch that unravels a sock. He groaned, almost as loudly as Lord Rump had done, and clutched the bars of the cell.
The turnkey leaned backwards, swearing horribly. Sooli spun and spun, but the witchery weakened a little more. The turnkey managed a single step away from the cell. Then another. And another—
With that, the witchery broke entirely and the turnkey stumbled away, trying to catch his balance.
In the darkness of the doorway behind him, someone shouted. And something came flying through the air, flapping and squawking.
The turnkey whirled around, only to find his face filled with feathers and scrabbling claws. With a howl of fright, he staggered backwards so fast that he crashed up against the bars of the cell.