The Court Of Stars (The Commonwealth Quartet Book 1)

by Malcolm Schmitz

  "Midnight. In the Folly." Georg's eyes narrowed. "I will tell."

  "Until then, then," Miriet said.

  Christian frowned. A bubble of worry was beginning to grow in his stomach.

  "What happened to Mercadier?" he asked. "Anthony, I mean."

  "Oh, he got took. Saw it with my own eyes." Mad Matt pointed with his forefinger and middle finger to his eyes, and then at Christian. "Thank God. He's the bastard that got me in the lockup, you know that?”

  “Don't call him that,” Christian ground out, through closed teeth.

  “I can if I like. I caught lightning in a bottle and that excuse of a human being told the church that I was practicing the dark arts, can you believe it?"

  He kept ranting. Christian tried to ignore his words, and pressed his own lips together, so hard that he could feel the blood draining from them. He could feel himself shaking, and stiffened, so that the others couldn't see.

  There was no way he could defend Mercadier's reputation properly. Even though Mercadier was his ally, one didn't start a duel with someone over your ally, unless they were also your family. And one didn't start a duel with a commoner.

  "If you'll excuse me," he said, quietly. "There are some things I need to get from my chambers."

  "Do you want me to come with you?" Edmund asked.

  "No!" Christian realized he'd been too vehement, and took a deep breath. "They'll be able to find us more easily if we travel together. I'll be quick."

  "Godspeed, sir," Edmund said, swallowing hard.

  He hurried away, through the endless tunnels that honeycombed the depths of the castle. The few moments' walk back to his private chambers was painful. It was as if a monster was clawing at his heart. Just thinking about his situation, and the situation his loved ones were in, made him ache inside. He could barely keep the tears welling in his eyes from springing forth.

  At least his quarters weren't too far. He'd found a tunnel going from his quarters to the depths of the Palace catacombs, in those dark days after his father's death-that made the lump in his throat grow even larger-and his feet had trod those paths so many times, he could have found it in his sleep.

  He entered the Arundel chambers, closing the door fast behind him. The room was familiar, comforting. The bright tapestries on the walls, the smoothed wooden floors, and the furniture that had been there since he was a child made him feel a little safer, for a while. But it was also empty. Linna was gone.

  Christian leaned against the wall, and let his tears flow, freely and silently. He wasn't even entirely sure why he was crying-he knew he'd suffered a loss, but it wasn't as if it was permanent, was it? He tried to keep the tears from flowing, even now, when he was more or less alone. Crying like this was a vile mockery of everything men were supposed to be. He was acting as weak as a woman. He had to be stronger than this, but he couldn't stop crying.

  "...What's wrong?" Miriet tilted her head to one side.

  "Nothing." He tried to straighten up and wiped the tears out of his eyes. "I just have no idea how to rescue him."

  "Him?"

  "Them," Christian said. A bitter weight of guilt settled in his guts. It had been a slip of the tongue, he knew, but he still felt shame for thinking about Mercadier at all. "I meant them."

  "All right..." Miriet seemed to have the good sense to not push the painful subject. "Look, this isn't that hard. We just need to get to your comms."

  "I still don't know what that means." Christian leaned against the wall, frowning.

  "Look. You have a television station?"

  He shook his head.

  "Radio?" Her tail twitched side-to-side.

  "Your words are foreign to me."

  Miriet's scales shimmered with every word she spoke, changing from the tan of the stone walls, to a dark burgundy, to red. It reminded him of the stone-opal rings that merchants sold to noblemen who had more money than sense.

  "I shouldn't be asking, but... do you have uplink, downlink, ansible?" Miriet's tail twitched. "Any way of talking to someone who's on the other end of the planet."

  "That would be witchcraft," Christian said, evenly. He pushed himself away from the wall, and tried to stay calm, and not burst into tears or rage again. "Which is against the laws of both men and God."

  "Joy of joys." Miriet snorted. "You've got no comms at all?"

  "I've been trying to tell you that since we got off of the ship. You refused to listen." Christian pressed his fingers to his temples, willing his head to stop aching.

  Miriet let off a long, long string of curses, which Christian ignored. His mind wouldn't stop pacing the same weary track.

  The King's in danger. My sister's in danger. Mercadier's in danger. I have to save them.

  The thought seemed to repeat in his head, like the chorus of a ballad. He scowled and tried to ignore it, yanking off the gloves of the suit. He threw them at the corner. When this particular 'adventure' was over, he'd burn the suit and gleefully watch the flames consume every piece.

  "Would the demons have the comms that you're looking for?" he asked.

  Miriet tilted her head to one side, seeming to think it over.

  "The Solari?" she asked. "Probably. I mean the coding is different, it'd be a pain in the tail to get through. But why..."

  Christian stripped off the suit, throwing it to the ground. He took an angry satisfaction in the clatter of the suit's mess of tubes against the floor.

  "The answer is simple, then."

  He crossed the room, throwing open his wardrobe, and bundled together a few necessities. He took simple, practical clothing-the sort of thing you'd wear underneath armor-a cloak, and a small pouch to keep everything in.

  He fastened his spare swordbelt around his waist, and sheathed Ariador, his father's sword. It had been his grandfather's, and his father's before him, through ten generations. It was an Ancient relic, never needing to be polished or sharpened, and it was said that it had saved his ancestors' lives time and time again.

  It was also said that if a man raised it in anger, he would die within a fortnight. Christian didn't carry it around court, for that very reason. He tended to fight duels that he'd started in a fit of wrath, and he didn't want to be smitten by the curse of Ariador. But he had need of it now.

  A nervous chill pricked at his spine, but he ignored it. He told himself that God would help him on this quest, and besides, if he needed to fight when he was angry, he'd use the demon's staff.

  Miriet's tail twitched.

  "Christian, what are you doing?"

  "Packing. We're going to find the d-the Solari," he said. "And we're going to use their comms to...."

  He blinked, realizing he had no idea why they even needed this 'comms'.

  "To do what you need to do," he finished.

  "You sure we can pull this one off?" she asked. "I mean... I know you want to get your sister back, that's why I asked, but..."

  "What if we had some trained knights with us? Men of skill and valor?" Christian frowned. Most of the valorous men he knew had died in the last Crusade, in the siege of Jihrat or the defeat at the Great Rift. But some, he knew, still lived.

  "If we were going to sneak in there-which is still a tarking awful idea, no offense-we’d want as few people in the raiding team as possible." Miriet sounded peeved. "The more people we have, the easier it'll be for them to pick us up."

  "So a very small group of people, then." He frowned.

  "That would be the plan, yes." Miriet's whiskers twitched.

  "All right. Tonight, I'll meet with Lord Verdenlace." Christian pulled the cloak around himself. The slight pressure was soothing, almost like an embrace.

  He'd have to gather together his armor, he realized. There were so many things he had to do, so many little duties he'd have to make sure were done in his absence.

  "If all goes well..." he continued, "We'll sail at dawn."

  Chapter Eight

  Later that evening, Christian made his way to King Anselm's Folly,
at the northern end of the Palace, through the underground passages. The air was thick with dust as he approached, and the corridor around him smelled like a tomb. The walls held echoes easily. Everything about these chambers spoke of long disuse, decay, and death, and it set Christian's skin a-shiver.

  Miriet sat on his shoulder, under the hood of his cloak. She was hunched like an old hawk, sitting on her hindmost legs. Her breath was hot on his face, and smelled like a cow's.

  Christian began to climb a set of stairs. The air felt a little less stagnant, and finally, he rose to the ground floor. He glanced around, checking for Solari, and hurried towards a small courtyard.

  "So where are we going, and who are we talking to?" Miriet whispered.

  "We're going to speak with Lord Verdenlace," he said quietly. He didn't want to look like he was talking to himself, on the off-chance that someone might be listening. "As for where we're going... there."

  He pointed to a tall structure, across the courtyard from them. The building was made of the same gray stone as the rest of King Anselm's Castle, but it had only three sides, joined in the shape of a triangle. It towered over the rest of the Palace, nine stories high. Every third story, on all three sides, a crucifix the size of a man glared balefully down at them. It was supposed, Christian knew, to be a representation of Christ's Passion, but it seemed more like the gallows after a condemned man had died. He was almost surprised, every time he passed it, not to see crows picking at the eerily lifelike corpse. Stained glass windows, showing scenes from Christ's life and death, reflected eerie blue light over the courtyard. A cross of tarnished silver teetered uneasily from the roof.

  "King Anselm's Folly," he said.

  Christian noticed a shadow flicker in the window of one of the upper stories. He held Ariador's handle tightly, ready to defend himself if needs be.

  "What's it for?" Miriet said.

  "Nothing. It's a folly; there is no point to it." Christian scowled, and advanced towards the doors.

  As he'd been told, they were unlocked. He cursed whatever fate had brought him here and pressed forward, into the Folly itself.

  The room was an odd shape, and, though the center was lit by a thousand candles, the edges of the room were as dark as the inside of a cavern. Every noise carried a thousand echoes with it. It made Christian's hair stand on end. Who knew what could be lurking in the edges of those shadows, in the dark corners of a room no one had touched for a thousand years, a room built by a heretic—

  Something stirred in the corner. Christian gripped Ariador's hilt.

  "Who's there? Show yourself!" He was uncomfortably aware of how exposed he was. He was silhouetted in the doorway, in the middle of the vast empty space.

  He heard footsteps behind him and turned, but there was nothing there. The air flickered and shimmered, though, and Miriet murmured in his ear.

  "Whoever it is, they got a cloaking device. This guy's a pro."

  "I knew that." Christian frowned.

  A whisper came from the shimmer in the air.

  "Lord Arundel."

  Christian nodded his head, cautiously. He kept his gaze carefully fixed on the source of the voice.

  "I'm told you're the captain of a ship," he said.

  "The ship's called the Polaris. I'm the first mate, actually. But I'm acting as captain for now." The Captain didn't speak above a whisper. It unnerved Christian; he felt like he'd heard that voice before, but he just couldn't place it.

  "My sister and... several other members of my allies' Houses... they've been captured." Christian frowned. "They've been taken across the channel, to the plains of Shinoam. I need to rescue them."

  The Captain laughed. That laughter was familiar, too; it nagged at Christian. His brow furrowed as he tried to place where he'd heard it.

  A young man appeared in front of him, seemingly from thin air. He was dressed in scarlet and gold, with lace at his collar. He wore a broad hat, hung low, and crowned with a long cluster of black feathers.

  His face was covered with a mask. It was shaped like a dog's muzzle, patterned in shades of bronze and crimson that weren't the colors of any House. The dog's mouth seemed to be turned up in a mocking smile, and the eyes behind the mask were sharply intelligent.

  "One condition," the Captain said. "You agree to join our rebellion."

  "… Against the King?" Christian frowned. He felt his face grow cold, and his heart raced.

  "The same." The Captain smiled. "King Leonard is a dotard. If a new king was to come to power, he could help... move our kingdom into a new age. A more enlightened age."

  "Go on." Christian's eyes narrowed.

  "Among other things... I'm sure he'd reward his favorites well," the Captain said. His tone was sly, convivial-the tone of a successful conspirator. "And you seem determined to become his favorite."

  Christian's hand surreptitiously moved to the hilt of Ariador.

  "What are you doing?" Miriet's breath was hot against his ear. “It doesn't matter, Christian.”

  "Quiet," he murmured.

  Rage burned hot inside Christian, like a monster sharing his skin. His heart seemed to race, and his stomach boiled. His left hand coiled into a fist, and his right hand curled around Ariador's hilt.

  He kept his face carefully blank, with all the practice of long training, and tried to calm himself. He took a deep breath, feeling his shoulders move as he did so.

  "If you'll allow me a moment to think about this..." he said, slowly.

  "Of course." The Captain turned his back, the skirts of his coat rustling with the movement.

  Christian bit his lip and closed his eyes, trying to think without letting his mind become clouded by fury.

  As a knight, Christian had sworn loyalty to his king, even unto death. Even if this wasn't a factor-and how could it not be-the Captain had injured his honor by implying that he was the sort of man who'd curry favor. His code of honor concurred; every principle told him to reject the Captain's offer.

  On the other hand, he suspected this meeting would end with either his allegiance or his death. He couldn't raise Ariador in anger, or he'd fall victim to its curse. The flame staff was a demon's tool; using it, he suspected, would damn him to hell even more than he already was. He didn't want another sin on his conscience.

  Christian knew what the sensible answer was, of course: sign up with the crew, rescue his sister and the king and Mercadier, and then tell the King what the rebellion was doing. They'd be executed, and he'd be a hero, in the Crown's sight.

  If he had had half of any other noble's cunning, he would have easily done it. But duplicity didn't sit easily with him. He hated seeming like a liar, let alone being one.

  Linna's fate is in your hands, he reminded himself.

  "...I'll do it," he said. He let out a deep breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. The muscles in his shoulders tensed.

  A thin, mocking smile appeared on the Captain's face.

  "Good. Get your things together. There's a carriage ready to take you to the port of Danvey, just outside.

  Christian nodded wordlessly.

  “We sail three days from now, at dawn."

  Chapter Nine

  As the gray light of morn rose on the docks, not too far from the Palace walls, Christian was beginning to have second thoughts.

  He still wanted to rescue his sister and his... his friend, there was no question in his mind about that. He lived to see them again, to hear Linna's light laughter and watch Anthony's lips twist into that little grin.

  But the sky in the morning had been red, and a seahawk had circled the Polaris; ill omens both. A faint salt breeze filled the air, and crewmen boarding the ship laughed and joked, but even the most vulgar of their jokes couldn't clear the tension from the air. It hung over him like a headman’s' axe.

  Christian crossed himself and muttered a prayer.

  The Polaris's deck was smooth, for a ship of this caliber, and polished, almost like the wooden floors in the women's rooms
in the castle. But it moved in a most disturbing way, up and down, like the swaying of a man about to faint. Christian could feel the meager breakfast he'd eaten shudder in his guts.

  "What's wrong now?" Miriet was curled up comfortably on his shoulder, her head resting under his ear.

  "Nothing is wrong," Christian said. He frowned, slightly, biting his lower lip.

  "Oh, come on. You only do that when you're worried." Miriet motioned lazily with one claw in a fair imitation of crossing herself.

  "It's a way of praying. Not that you'd know anything of God." Christian spoke more harshly than he had meant to, because the ill omens were making him agitated. He could only hope that he was imagining things, but no wise man would ignore an omen.

  "Which one?" Miriet asked, tilting her head.

  "What?" Christian blinked. If he'd thought for a moment, he realized, he would have known that of course Miriet wouldn't refer to the Almighty as 'God'. She probably had some sort of idol she worshiped. But he hadn't thought about it, and it unnerved him.

  "Which God? Libnah, Jesus, Ysdraell, Samus, Yaweh, Thor....?" Miriet said, watching him for his answer.

  "...There's only one God, and the Lord is His name." Christian frowned, and looked up at the sky. That horrible reddish tinge wouldn't abate, and dark clouds scudded against its sulfur glow. "And you'd do well to not speak ill of Him. We'll need all the help we can get."

  Miriet seemed to want to say something, but her mouth stayed closed. Christian was fine with this. He didn't want to begin arguing with her, not again.

  Christian heard someone barking orders behind him. His heart started to race, and he had to remind himself that no, he wasn't on the battlefield. For the moment, he was probably safe.

  He turned around, fingers hooking into his swordbelt.

  The Captain stood before him, scarlet-and-gold jacket gleaming in the light of the morning sun. Instead of the white trousers and courtly boots he'd worn at the Folly, he wore the drab trousers of a working man, with sturdy, steel-toed boots.

  The mask he'd worn at the Folly hung loosely from his neck. When Christian caught sight of the Captain's face, he knew it at once. It was the face of one of the few men he could have considered friends; it was the face of a man he'd thought to have been loyal to the king. It was the face of the man who would have been his brother-in-law, one of his closest allies.