by Dave Duncan
“Mine…my tower?…The Bursar’s office on the ground floor…my lab above it, and the turret’s sometimes called the Observatory, for no reason. I keep junk in it. The fourth is called the Queen’s Tower. Don’t know why. Do you, Saxon?” He was lying again.
Grand Master said, “The ground floor room is Leader’s office when the Guard’s here. The room above is locked, and so is the turret room above that. They’re said…they were the royal quarters before Main House was built.”
“What’s in there now?” Emerald asked.
Grand Master laughed. “I can’t recall ever being in there. When I was elected I explored everywhere I could, but I could find no key to those rooms. The turret room windows are draped or shuttered. I have been meaning to break in, but I have never gotten around to it.”
“There’s sorcery in there.”
Both men looked skeptical.
“Can’t imagine how it got there.” Lothaire was lying again.
“I sensed it as I went by with Intrepid,” she insisted. “It’s faint and I think not threatening, but I need to inspect it more closely.”
“I shall have the door forced.”
“Don’t be hasty, Saxon,” Lothaire said hastily.
“I have to find somewhere to put this Princess Vasar. Normally I’d put her in the royal suite, but it sounds as if she will be here at the same time as the King.”
“Why not organize the sopranos to look for keys? They’re turning the place upside down anyway hunting for the Brat…. I may have a bunch of ’em around—keys, I mean. In the lab somewhere? Somewhere.” He was lying. She knew he was lying. He must know she knew. Whatever she had expected to find in Ironhall, it was not voluntary treason. “Sister, we cannot expose you to any more of this brutality. Saxon, I wish you’d get rid of that Servian brute…makes my flesh crawl. You need a refuge from the mob, my lady.”
“I certainly do.”
“How about the Observatory?…wonder if the rain’s stopped?”
She needed sleep, but work must come first. “Would the middle of the night be a more private time for me to inspect some of these confidential places?”
“Not without an escort!” Lothaire said firmly. “Ghouls haunt the night hereabouts, especially when there’s a new Brat around.” He rose. “Come, Sister. Saxon will lend us a lantern, and I will show you some Ironhall secrets.”
13
Secret Chamber
IT DID OCCUR TO EMERALD THAT SHE MIGHT BE crazy to go off into the night with a man she knew was lying. Yet Sir Lothaire’s lies did not reek as much of death spirits as they would if he were luring her into danger. Whatever he was plotting could not be murder.
He led her out through the corner door to the stair, curving around and upward until it reached two doors. One must lead to Grand Master’s bedroom. Her guide reached for the latch on the other.
“It’s narrow out here, Sister. Stay close to the wall, please.” He stepped out into moorland wind and a spray of mist. She followed, closing the door.
“Dark!” he said cheerfully. “Raining!” Even more unnecessary. “Wait a moment for our eyes…should have thought to borrow a cloak from Saxon for you.”
“That’s all right. Except I’m going to dribble soup all over your battlements.”
He chuckled. “Keep away from the edge. The crenels are too low.”
“Crenels?”
“The gaps you shoot through. The high bits you hide behind are called merlons. But even the crenels are supposed to be high enough to provide cover. These merlons are fakes—just pieces of wall. Any real archers out there could see all of you as you walked along the parapet…even your legs.”
“And if I take a wrong step I walk right through and fall?”
“That sums it up. Stay inside the merlons.”
She followed the sickly twinkle of his lantern. Once they were around the curve of the tower she no longer had its comforting stonework beside her, only lead-plated roof sloping down to ankle level. On her right was stone, slabs of masonry alternating with nothing, two stories of fresh air above the moor. She was glad that the overcast night was dark enough to hide the view.
“I take it the boys never come up here?”
“Never say ‘never’ in Ironhall.” He spoke over his shoulder. “Seniors’ Tower has no door out to the parapet, but a few maniacs have signed their names on the outside of it over the years.”
Emerald shuddered. Earth people like her were rarely good with heights. If Wart were here, he would be running along the merlons and turning cartwheels.
Lothaire himself was another air type, probably air-chance. He was inquisitive, cheerful, and disorganized. He might still be a very fine swordsman if he didn’t lose his glasses. She liked him and was inclined to trust him, in spite of his lies.
Soon she detected sorcery ahead and knew they were approaching the Observatory door. The lantern moved to the right and around the tower. A lock clattered.
Sir Lothaire had spoken truly when he told her he used the Observatory turret room to store junk. It was even more cluttered than the Records Office, with piles of boxes, books, barrels, pots, decaying bags, crumbling scrolls, all stinking to her of sorcery. The enchantments were so confused that she could not hope to identify individual spells. All eight elements were involved and yet death was the least noticeable. There was nothing deadly here.
“What is all this?”
“Hoping you could tell me, Sister. I brought some things from the College when I came…seems every Master of Rituals for centuries must have done the same. You think one day this place will just explode?”
“Or I will. I can’t possibly stay here tonight.”
“Oh, well…of course not,” he mumbled. “You see no threat to His Majesty?”
What she could see mostly was dust. Nothing had been moved in this garbage heap for years. “None.”
“Ah! And would you care to inspect my lab also?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“No, no…glad to be of—” Sir Lothaire disappeared through the floor.
In fact he went down a stair, but so steep and narrow as to be almost a ladder. Following, Emerald found herself in another hodgepodge dump of sorcerous junk, no tidier than the one upstairs and—curiously—almost as dusty. The healing magic racked her with waves of nausea, and she realized that she would never be able to tolerate a major healing.
“Something wrong, Sister?” Sir Lothaire inquired anxiously. He raised his lantern so his face was a gargoyle in the darkness.
“Too much spirituality, is all. I detect nothing that should alarm the Royal Guard.”
He sighed, undoubtedly with relief. “Good, good…. see what I came for…around here somewhere…”
A box of keys, she decided. That had been his most resounding lie earlier.
“Ah, got it…have a confession to make, Sister. Prefer…of course—I mean, you must do your duty—if possible…prefer you not mention this to Grand Master….”
“I am here only to defend His Majesty, Sir Lothaire. Unless you are committing treason or a major felony, I shall not—”
“Not major. Minor, perhaps…a minor theft, technically. When I came here from the College…brought, um, this….”
It looked like an egg carved out of ice. It bore a powerful aura of motion, of rushing water, turbulent air. She had met that before some-where…. Yes, on Master Nicely, the inquisitor.
“It’s what the Dark Chamber calls a golden key.” Even in the uncertain light, Lothaire was visibly blushing as he made this confession. “The College was trying to duplicate the enchantment. This was one of my final attempts…works quite well. Not as well as the originals…”
Emerald laughed as she saw the implication. “But quite adequate for Ironhall’s ancient locks? And what does lurk in the Queen’s Tower, Sir Lothaire?”
He sighed. “You’d better see for yourself. Can you remember the way from here?”
She flinched. “Can’t we go along t
he parapet?” The wolf pack must have abandoned the hunt by now. Why risk rousing it?
“Not unless you want to try it in the dark. The Queen’s Tower is visible from the yard, and I don’t like showing lights there.”
“You are not coming with me?”
He seemed puzzled by her reluctance. “I’ll follow in a few minutes. I have to round up some candles. Here, take my token, just in case.” He produced another lantern and lit it for her. “And the lantern…Even if there are people still wandering around, not everyone here is a baby hyena, Sister. Seniors and knights don’t stoop to bullying children.”
“I turn right. Down some steps. Left, right. Up stairs. Left. Right?”
“Yes. Well done. You go first. I’ll follow. If you are unlucky enough to run into the cannibals, I’ll chance by and conscript you to move books for me or something. That way they won’t guess we’re in cahoots.” He beamed encouragingly. He enjoyed finding complicated answers to simple questions.
It wasn’t far. She couldn’t possibly be unlucky enough to run into Servian, could she?
Nevertheless, her mouth was dry as she peeked out the lab door and ascertained that the coast was clear, the corridor dark. Holding her lantern high, she hurried off.
She arrived safely at the door she had passed with Intrepid. It was still locked; the faint odor of magic still lingered. She waited, looking back at the stairs. And waited, in steadily rising panic. She had thought the Master of Rituals was being honest with her, but perhaps in all that elemental racket she had misjudged him.
Eventually light appeared in the stairwell. It grew brighter. Only when it reached the top was she certain that Lothaire was the one carrying it. He beamed cheerfully at her as he approached, but she turned her face away, not wanting him to see how relieved she felt. He touched the icy egg to the keyhole. The lock clicked. They went in and closed the door.
He lit an extravagant number of candles so she could admire.
“These windows overlook the moor, you see…no one will notice. Wall hangings…silk…artists from Gevily…candlesticks must be gold—feel the weight of them!—mother-of-pearl inlay on the spinet…”
The room was small but most gorgeously furnished, even by palace standards. Its tapestries and carpets were exquisite. The furniture was long out of style and the mosaic ceiling even more so, but they were still beautiful and valuable, a lost treasure.
“This is the salon,” he said. “Through that door is the tower room. That was the lady’s dressing room, and her bedroom was in the turret above. Can’t show you those tonight.”
The suite had been shut up and forgotten for ages. The ever-curious Lothaire had found it with his magic key. But that was stolen property, so he had never told anyone about his discovery until now. He welcomed the chance to show it off and brag as if he owned it.
He had used it as if he owned it. His clutter was everywhere. The elegant escritoire was littered with scrolls and the carpet with discarded quills. The sorcery Emerald had detected came from a pile of boxes, most of which were still roped for transport. Rather than clean out his official quarters, he had moved his effects in here.
She perched carefully on a chair that looked as delicate as a spiderweb. “How could this have been forgotten?”
“After Main House was added, it wouldn’t have been needed. And the key was inside! There’s a key that fits the door lying right there in that drawer. All the others must have been lost. I suspect the last ruler to use it was Queen Estrith, a hundred years ago. Main House is older than that, but the gowns hanging upstairs are in the style of her time.”
Estrith had been deposed and died in the Bastion. She had never come back for her gowns.
The sorcerer squirmed and added, “There are some papers dating from her reign….” Which he had read, of course.
Emerald grinned at him. “But tomorrow Grand Master’s going to break down the door!”
He winced. “How can we stop him?”
“Easy! Do you really have old keys lying around your lab?”
“Sister, I have old everything lying around there.”
“Then put the key from that drawer in a bunch of others and hand it to Grand Master! I won’t tell, promise!”
Master of Rituals nodded sadly, looking around his secret chamber. “After I’ve tidied up here. I haven’t used the tower rooms at all.”
“I’ll help you move in the morning.” She had just condemned herself to several trips along the battlements. “Are there any blankets or covers upstairs?”
“Silk sheets, down-filled quilts!”
“No bats or rats?”
“Sister!” Master of Rituals protested. “We do not have rats in Ironhall! And no bats, unless you mean some of the old knights.”
Emerald sighed happily. “So tonight the Brat will sleep in the Queen’s bed!”
14
Walk into My Parlor
NIGHT HAD FALLEN ON GREYMERE PALACE. The flunkies and minions had gone. Few candles still burned in the offices of Chancery, and most of those were above the desk of the Chancellor himself. He was already late for an important dinner; Kate would be tapping her toe. He must go—as soon as he finished skimming through the late mail, brought by courier or coach from all parts of the realm.
The big antechamber, which by day was thronged with petitioners, was empty now, lit by a single candle. The figure that walked in front of that tiny flicker moved as softly as a cat, yet Durendal looked up.
“Leader!” He stood, as he always did to honor a fellow Blade. “Come and rest your bones, brother.”
Blades guarding their wards could dispense with sleep—Bandit had likely not slept since he was appointed Commander—but they needed rest sometimes. His stride lacked its usual spring, and when he sank gratefully onto the chair beside the big desk, the candlelight showed the dust of the road on his livery.
Their friendship was too deep to need empty greetings. For a moment they studied each other in silence. Duty and friendship could be awkward partners.
“I got your note,” he said, “about Silvercloak being a woman. You believe it?” He had not ridden all the way in from Nocare to ask that.
“No, I don’t. But I thought you should be advised. The inquisitors don’t believe it either.”
The Commander rubbed his dust-reddened eyes. “You asked me to let you know when Fat Man decides to go to Ironhall.”
“And you rode two hours to tell me in person?”
No, he had ridden two hours to ask why.
Bandit shrugged. “He proposes to fly a hawk in the morning on the Meald Hills, and set off at noon. He will overnight at Bondhill and reach Ironhall before dark on the twenty-seventh, weather and chance permitting. Assuming the bindings proceed normally, he should start back on the twenty-ninth.”
“The twenty-seventh will suit me very well.”
Pause. “In what way, brother?” Bandit asked softly.
Durendal had chosen him to be his successor as Commander. Although he was an indifferent fencer by Blade standards, Bandit had turned out to be an excellent Leader—adored by his men and capable of handling the King as well as Ambrose could ever be handled. But he was a plodder, not a sprinter. He followed rules, not intuition. Whatever his loyalty to his friend and mentor, he alone was responsible for the King’s safety. He would never bend on that.
“I am not trying to do your job for you, brother,” Durendal said. “I hope you know me better than to think I would try.”
Bandit smiled faintly. “I suspect you may be going to make it harder.”
Kate would just have to wait. Durendal leaned back, crossed his ankles. “Easier, I hope. Do you recall when we had that meeting, the day Chef was killed? Young Stalwart—”
“Suggested that Silvercloak might strike at the King in Ironhall. We all scoffed. You told him, in so many words, that he was a silly kid.”
“I wasn’t that hard on him, surely!”
“But you shut the meeting down right there!�
� Bandit raised his bushy eyebrows. “Could it be that you’d gotten what you wanted, Brother Durendal?”
“It could.” A good plodder got to the right place in the end. “I admit I am merely playing a hunch, but a good hunch is better than a sword up your nose any day. Remember your Ironhall lessons?—the worst of all errors is underestimating your opponent. If he makes a mistake, of course you take advantage of it, but you never count on him blundering. A swordsman must always expect his opponent to make the best attack available to him. This Silvercloak is notorious for striking where and when he is least expected. He is a master of disguise, so that he has even been suspected of making himself invisible. I tried putting myself in his shoes. I asked myself where I would start. And always I came up with the same answer—Ironhall. When everyone at that meeting scoffed at Stalwart’s idea, that merely convinced me that my hunch was worth playing.”
“And he’s a show-off.”
“Well, he’s young.”
“I mean Silvercloak!” Bandit said. “I’ve read the Dark Chamber reports. He takes on impossible assignments and accomplishes them in showy ways. The Duke of Doemund, for instance—climbed into his coach and was driven to town with his armed escort all around him. He arrived dead, lying inside with his throat cut. Obviously there was sorcery involved, although no one knows how, but his killer went to a lot of trouble and expense and perhaps risk to do it that way. Silvercloak is a show-off! The King of Chivial’s Blades are the world’s finest bodyguards, so he’ll kill the King right there in Ironhall, the Blades’ headquarters….
“I mean he’ll try.”
“You’re right!” Durendal was intrigued. He had missed that point, perhaps because he was not without showmanship himself, whereas Bandit had none at all. Or were the Commander’s Blade instincts sensing danger? To have Bandit believing in the Ironhall theory complicated things considerably. “Well done! I’m glad you didn’t mention that at the meeting.”