by Hilari Bell
“Justice Holis said you knew him! He said he’d earned your trust!”
“Yes, well, that was foolish of me, wasn’t it?” The prince should have looked foolish, sitting in bed holding the dainty, empty cup. Weasel had never seen such a bleak expression in his life. “Since he was evidently using me, to plot against—”
The door opened. Weasel jumped so hard the dishes on the tray rattled.
The man who entered was short, probably not much taller than Weasel in his stocking feet, but the heels on his shoes were at least three inches high. He wore a brocaded dressing gown over a nightshirt that bore more lace than the prince’s did. His long hair had been neatly combed back and bound at the nape of his neck, and he carried a slender cane. It didn’t seem to go with the dressing gown, but Weasel supposed it must be fashionable, for he never leaned on it.
Three guards followed the nobleman into the room.
“Seize the imposter,” the man told them calmly. “Good morning, Your Highness. I must apologize—”
The rest of his apology was lost in the crash of crockery when Weasel flung the tray at the guards and ran. They were between him and the door, but if he could open a window … if the ground below was soft …
He had one leg over the sill when they dragged him back into the room. He struggled, stupidly, uselessly, until they cuffed him so hard that bright lights flashed across his vision and he sank to his knees.
His hearing returned before his sight.
“… as I saw his shoes, I knew he was an imposter,” the valet was saying. “So of course, I went immediately to the regent.”
“Of course,” the prince said dryly.
“I’d not intended to trouble you with this distressing news before you rose, Your Highness,” said the man, who must be Regent Pettibone. “But it seems a group of nobles, justices, and a few naval officers have been plotting to assassinate you and place another on the throne.”
“Tha’s not true,” said Weasel. The left side of his face throbbed and his tongue felt stiff and clumsy. But if he didn’t speak now, he would never get another chance. “They were plotting ’gainst the regent. Not against you.” He focused his wavering vision on the prince, who was still sitting in bed, looking remarkably unruffled. The justice had cared about this indifferent brat. Clearly, one of his few mistakes.
“Even this boy, who you tell us belongs to Holis, admits they were plotting,” said Pettibone swiftly. “Perhaps he has forged some kind of evidence—”
“No!” Weasel exclaimed. He wished he’d thought of it.
“No,” the prince confirmed. “He came to me with nothing but his word.” There was an odd note in his voice. Pettibone caught it too.
“I have evidence of the conspirators’ guilt. Not only sworn testimony, but documents seized during the arrests.”
“How many arrests?” the prince asked.
“Your pardon?”
“How many were involved in this plot?”
“Eighteen that we’ve discovered so far, six of them ring leaders, with your cousin, Shareholder Marchington, in command of the scheme. He was the one they planned to place on the throne—since he was, at least, of the true line. Though not, of course, the true king.”
“No,” said Edoran grimly. “That would be me. Since you used to be a justice yourself, Pettibone, I’m sure your evidence is sound. But with all the unrest people keep telling me about, I think we’d better make sure the trials these men receive are open to the public and scrupulously fair.”
Pettibone frowned. “In times of unrest, a show of strength is more likely to effect the desired result than a show of law.”
“Won’t we be showing sufficient strength if we hang them after they’re convicted?” the prince asked.
“Your Highness …” Pettibone paused. His expression held only grave sorrow, but Weasel had seen enough people lie with their faces to read the determination beneath. “Your Highness, I must tell you that, due to the horrific nature of Shareholder Marchington’s intentions and the civil disturbances of which we’ve been speaking, I felt an immediate display of royal authority was both necessary and desirable.”
Weasel frowned, trying to sort through this with his sluggish wits, but the prince beat him to it.
“You hanged him.”
Weasel cried out in protest and then felt foolish, for he knew nothing of this Marchington. Still, something in him despaired at the news.
“I thought it necessary, Your Highness,” said Pettibone, in an apologetic tone that didn’t fool anyone. “His guilt was clear. I can show you the evidence, if you wish, but much of it is accounts and other such tedious stuff.”
“I see.” The prince’s composed face was pale. “But I’m not the one who should see that evidence. Have you hanged any of the others?”
Weasel’s heart contracted, but Pettibone was already shaking his head.
“Not yet, but their executions are scheduled as soon as the evidence can be sifted and presented to you. Unless, of course, you want me to take that burden….”
“No,” said the prince. He straightened his spine and stared at the regent. “Neither you nor I will judge those men. They will be tried by a panel of justices, in open court.”
Pettibone sighed. “Your Highness, several of the traitors are justices. If there are more, whom we haven’t uncovered …”
“They will be tried in open court.” Edoran swallowed, then took a deep breath. “I command it.”
The regent shook his head. “This has been a shock to you.”
“Not that much of a shock,” said the prince. “A trial in open court, starting one month from today. That will give you time to gather all the evidence you’ll need, won’t it?”
He meant, forge the evidence you’ll need. Weasel’s blood chilled. The prince knew! He knew what the regent was doing. He was trying to buy time.
“Most of the evidence has already been gathered,” Pettibone told him coolly. “Three days is sufficient to set it in order and select a panel. A month gives an appearance of hesitation, of weakness, on the part of the crown.”
“And three days gives an appearance of haste,” said the prince. “Three weeks. I command this.”
Pettibone hesitated a moment more. “If Your Highness insists, I have no choice but to yield. Two weeks, and then the trial commences. I shall announce it.”
He bowed to the scowling prince and gestured to the guards, who hauled Weasel to his feet and then toward the door.
“You said three weeks,” Weasel cried to the prince. “Stop him!”
His feet scrabbled for purchase on the polished floor, and one of the guards cuffed him hard enough to make his head ring.
The prince’s gaze fell to his hands, clenched around the empty cup.
“You know what he is!” Weasel shouted. “You withless piece of sludge! Stop him!”
The guards dragged him from the room and the regent followed, closing the door behind him.
Two weeks! What could he do in two weeks? Even if the justices Pettibone selected were impartial, and they wouldn’t be, how could he—
“What do you want us to do with the boy?” a guardsman asked the regent.
“Lock him up with the others,” said Pettibone. “We’ll try him along with his master.”
They passed out of the suite and into the hallway. There was no one in sight; no wandering noble, not even a maid he could ask to contact one of Holis’ friends.
“There’s no room in the old cells, sir,” the guard protested. “What with the traitors, and their families, and their clerks and such, they’re packed in like salt fish. If you’d just let us use the town lockup …”
“No,” Pettibone snapped. “They’re traitors to the crown. They stay in the palace dungeons, under palace guard.”
Lest they succeed in getting some rumor out into the world that they were innocent, Weasel realized. In the palace, Pettibone had complete control over who the prisoners saw and spoke to. Even the servants
who took away the slop pails would be his men.
“If you say so, sir,” said the guard. “But I’m telling you, there’s no room.”
The regent’s frown faded. “Then put him in the storeroom with that other young nuisance. It won’t matter what he tells her, for she’ll be in no position to act on it.”
“That’ll do,” said the guard. “Thank—”
The footman with the coal scuttle came out of a door at the other end of the passage. It was a slim chance, but he might not get another.
“Help me!” Weasel screamed at the top of his lungs.
The footman turned and stared.
“I’m innocent! Tell Justice Danvers! Tell Justice Witworth! Tell—”
The guard’s fist crashed down.
CHAPTER 3
The Eight of Fires: imprisonment. Being forced into a particular set of circumstances, or course of action. Or possibly, imprisonment.
“Are you really unconscious?” a girl’s voice asked.
In fact, Weasel had never quite lost consciousness, though he’d had little control over his stumbling feet. The guards had dragged him through what felt like miles of corridor, and up and down flights of stairs, before dropping him here on the floor. Wherever here was.
Considering the way his head ached, Weasel had thought it prudent to stay limp and keep his eyes closed until he heard them close the door and lock it behind them. Then it seemed prudent to feign helplessness, until he knew more about the source of the light footsteps that slowly approached him after the guards had gone—especially since he wasn’t so sure his helplessness was feigned.
But a girl didn’t sound like much of a threat, so Weasel opened his eyes and promptly wished he hadn’t. The small square of sunlight lancing through the barred window made his headache explode. He rolled onto his side and clutched his stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Please don’t,” said the girl sincerely. “The slop pot smells bad enough as it is. Take deep breaths.”
Weasel followed her advice and found that his stomach slowly settled and his muscles relaxed. He would have to get up in a minute, confront the girl, and find some way out of this place. Whatever it was. Any minute now. He was still thinking that, when he fell asleep.
The next awakening was better than the first. His left eye throbbed dully, but the worst of the headache had passed and his stomach had settled. A damp cloth lay across the sore side of his face and a rolled blanket had been tucked under his head, which was nice because the stone floor on which he lay was cold, and very hard. Weasel lifted the cloth and looked at it. A kerchief. The kind countrywomen wore over their hair, and countrymen sometimes tied around their necks.
“You going to stay awake this time?” the girl asked tartly, and Weasel turned.
She had probably worn it around her neck, he decided, for she was dressed as a boy. Countrywomen did that sometimes when engaged in rough work, though they usually dressed in proper skirts to come into the city.
She looked to be about his own age, and the orange light pouring through the window awoke red highlights in her long, dark hair. If her face had matched that chestnut hair she would have been beautiful, but her features were ordinary. A scattering of freckles crossed her nose.
Weasel was more interested in the fact that the light was orange and came through the window at a very low angle.
“How long did I sleep?” His voice was urgent, but he sat up slowly. His headache didn’t worsen, so he rose carefully to his feet.
“All day.” The girl watched him with critical interest, making no move to help. Weasel would have been annoyed, except …
“This yours?” He offered her the kerchief.
She took it and tied her hair into a thick ponytail.
“I’m Arisa,” she said. “Arisa Benison.”
The clothes were country but the accent wasn’t. The name could have come from anywhere in Deorthas.
“Why’d they lock up a nice girl like you?” Weasel asked. He crossed to the window, still moving cautiously, but he felt steadier the longer he was on his feet.
“What’s your name?” she asked. “And what’s a nice clerk like you doing here?”
“How do you know I’m a clerk?” Weasel asked. The windowsill was above the level of his eyes. He stood on tiptoe and still saw nothing but the sky.
“You have to stand on the slop pot to see out,” the girl said. Aside from a handful of blankets, it was the only object in the room. “And even then you can’t see much. About your profession, you’re dressed like a footman, but footmen don’t have inky fingers. I took a guess. I was right, too,” she finished smugly.
Weasel opened his mouth to ask how she knew that, then realized he’d confirmed it himself.
“Are you going to make me guess your name?” she added.
“It’s Weasel,” he said, dragging the big crockery pot from the corner where she’d tucked it. It was nearly a foot tall, and she was right about the smell.
“Your parents named you Weasel?” Her brows rose.
“My mother named me William. Weasel was the name that stuck.”
“What about your father?”
“He died in an accident, a few months before I was born. He was a stevedore. He was helping unload a ship when one of the ropes holding a crate snapped. Killed three men—bam! Hold this steady for me, will you?”
“I’m sorry,” said the girl, as she knelt and grasped the pot. “My father’s dead too.”
Weasel shrugged. “I never knew him.”
Drawing himself up on the bars, he managed to get both feet balanced on the sturdy rim without tipping it over.
The stone wall was almost three feet thick, and the bars were set on the inner edge of the window. Even when he pulled himself up to the top, Weasel could see nothing but a square of distant waves. It looked like they were far below the cell, though from his angle it was hard to tell how far. It made sense, anyway, since the palace stood on a bluff that overlooked the sea.
Perhaps it was only imagination, but one of the bars seemed to shift as he lowered himself and stepped down.
“I’d have thought the dungeons would be belowground.”
“I don’t think we’re in the dungeons,” said Arisa. “When they put me in here, one of the guards said that the dungeons were full. There used to be shutters on this window.” She pointed to holes in the wall, where hinges had been attached. “And I found a bit of grain on the floor, and some splinters that might have come from a crate. I think this was a storeroom, and they cleaned it out when they needed extra space for prisoners.”
“Then why are there bars on the window?” Weasel asked.
“To keep the prisoners in?” Her expression was innocent, but sarcasm leaked into her voice, and Weasel grinned.
“I didn’t say this was the first time they’ve kept prisoners here,” the girl went on, more soberly. “But I think those bars were added after the room was built. They’re set in mortar, not in the stone.”
“Are they?” Weasel breathed. Bars set in stone, when the cell was built, were solid till the iron rusted through. Bars set in mortar lasted only as long as the mortar did. Parts of the palace were thousands of years old, and judging by the thickness of the wall, this room was one of them.
He reached up and wrapped both hands around one of the bars, trying to rotate it first one way, then the other. At least he didn’t have to balance on the pot to grasp it.
“How long have you been here?” he asked the girl. She’d clearly had time to investigate the cell. The bar wasn’t moving. He went on to the next.
“Day before yesterday. They bring bread and cheese in the morning and a bowl of bean porridge in the evening. They’ve already gone,” she added, at his look of alarm. “Though why you care I don’t know. I shook those bars. They’re solid.”
“Did you try twisting them?” The second bar didn’t budge. Weasel went on to the third.
“Why would I want to twist—”
So Weasel explained, as he worked the bar back and forth, that loosened mortar acts like a grinding stone; that if you can turn the bar, eventually you can use it to file itself free.
When his arms tired, she took a turn, and he put the chamber pot to its accustomed use while she politely pretended not to notice.
As the bar moved more and more freely, a small hole formed around it. They started pulling it toward them as they twisted it, and slowly the round hole became an oval, then a short slot.
Digging idle hands into his pockets, Weasel discovered the knife he used to sharpen quills. The guards had evidently overlooked it, which wasn’t as careless as it sounded, for the blade was less than an inch long. But after he found it, whichever of them wasn’t working at the window cut their blankets into strips and then knotted them together. To Weasel’s critical eye, it wasn’t much of a rope; the knots seemed to take up most of the strip, and when he pulled on one section it stretched in a thoroughly ominous fashion. It gave him something to do when Arisa was twisting the bar, but he’d hate to trust that rope with his life.
Even with both of them working, it had been dark for several hours when the bar finally pulled free. Arisa, who had been turning it, tumbled onto her backside, but she sprang up again immediately, her face alight with excitement.
“Forget the pot and stand on me!” she told him. “You’re smaller than I am.”
In fact, Weasel had already noticed that she was both taller and, as she worked the bar long past the point he’d have been exhausted, stronger than he was. It was spending the last three years writing legal documents that had made him so soft, Weasel told himself. But if she hadn’t noticed that he was weaker, as well as smaller, he wasn’t about to call it to her attention by defending himself. And besides, sometimes smaller was better!