“His Lord will not promote me as long as Selrat’s head instructor, I tell you. The man loathes me . . .” said the guard with the tray. The second guard shut the door behind him as he did every night.
“What? You‘re dreaming, Piert. Selrat the Rat’s not in His Lord’s particular favor, not since he let those vagabonds overrun the locks.”
“Well, he’s let us rot in guard duty for three years while he promoted that worthless Kurah. There must be some reason,” Piert said glumly.
My muscles poised, I leaned forward, waiting for Piert to get directly under the chandelier. As soon as he started to set down the tray, I released the rope and bounded off the bed. The heavy iron circle clanged to the floor as Piert crumpled beside it. The second guard swore and sprang back. I bent over Piert and drew his sword as the remaining guard charged me.
“Help!” he yelled to his comrades out in the hall. I swung the sword around, slicing the man in the gut. He screamed in pain, and I stepped back, seeing the blood already turning his blue tunic black. Likely he hadn’t expected me to be so quick in engaging him. These guards were prepared for prisoners who fled, not prisoners who attacked. His sword slipped from his hand with a clatter. Then he staggered forward and fell to his knees, clutching his middle. The sour smell of bile and the stench of human offal filled the air as the other two guards burst into the chamber.
I rushed toward them, my sword extended and ready for battle. They stepped aside, the flat of their blades raised in a defensive posture. They didn’t want to attack me—perhaps they saw their dying comrade and hesitated. And if they killed me, even in self-defense, they could lose their positions. I was a foreign nobleman to them, above their station, and the queen suspected me of concealing valuable information. I swung at them, charged them, and each time they moved away, unwilling to engage.
As one dodged me, the other would switch position so that there was always one at my back and one at my front, a circle of sharp silver. Damn their careful cowardice. I continuously turned with my sword extended so that they both stayed their distance as I sidestepped toward the door, inching closer and closer to freedom. Sweat beaded on my temples and forehead and dripped in my eyes. I gave one last desperate feint, lunging at the guard in front of me before I spun around to force the guard behind me to jump back. Then I dashed out the door, grabbing the latch and slamming it closed.
One of the guards shouted, his voice muffled, “The key--Vectir, you fool, the key!”
I glanced down and realized Vectir had left the key in the lock. Someone rattled the latch, fighting to open the door I was holding shut. The muscles of my arms popped as I leaned all my weight away from the door to keep them from pulling it away from me. Gritting my teeth, I turned the key, and the lock clicked. Curses followed from the other side of the door.
I pocketed the key and started half running, half walking down the hall. It curved around, lit at intervals by torches shaped like dragons’ heads. The guards’ yelling and pounding on the door soon faded behind me. It didn’t look like they’d get any help soon. This hall was deserted. Perhaps there were other prisoners behind the other doors, but if so, no one made a sound as I dodged from shadowed doorway to shadowed doorway. If there were other prisoners, I was the only one who was guarded apparently. How interesting. I had had at least two guards all the time, four at meal times--the queen must have thought me a serious risk.
Damn it, there had to be a stairway here somewhere. The night the guards had brought me up here, we had paused at the top of the stairs while someone fumbled with a latch. I began to try doors. Most were locked, a few weren’t. Finally, after the tenth door or so, I opened it to find the orange glow of a torch flickering over a narrow landing. The steps went down--the only way up from this point was a ladder with scrollwork sides which went to the top of the tower.
I raced down the steps, pausing only at the landings. A door opened on a landing below, and I froze, my breath harsh in my ears as I listened to two maids giggling and whispering. Finally, they started down the stairs, their voices echoing back to me.
“He’s a fine man, but . . .”
“But what?”
“But his, his pate is bald as a vulture’s,” she said in a fit of giggles.
“Alis--keep your voice down.”
“Don’t be a ninny. No one’s here this time of evening.”
“He is not bald as a vulture.”
“You fancy him, don‘t you?”
“Alis!”
“Well, he does have coin . . .”
I began to creep down the steps after them, the sword clenched in my hand. Even after they exited the staircase on a lower floor, I still crept. At first, all was quiet, but as I got closer to the bottom, I began to hear snatches of distant music and loud laughter. The public rooms must be close by, which meant this stairway ended in the main section of the palace. I squeezed myself against the wall, thinking hard. I knew my way around the main section fairly well. There was also a greater chance of me running into someone I knew and being recognized. If I could somehow find my way to the servants’ quarters, somehow pass unnoticed there, it would be easier to slip out of an unguarded entrance. But how was I going to pass unnoticed? I continued down the stairs sideways, the music growing louder with every step down. Eden and Father had both managed to lose their guards and spies and sneak out into the city. But Eden had the help of Randel and her maid Bridget the night she came to see me, just as I had the help of Falken when Safire and I had our clandestine trysts. And how Father had handled it? Like a vampire, he could probably dissolve into mist and move through crevices. I snorted, remembering all the times he had silently come up behind me when I was younger and scared the hell of me. He hadn’t made a sound--there was something not quite human about such perfect silence.
I did have one advantage. No one knew I had gone missing yet except my guards, and they were locked away for several hours if my luck held. With this in mind, I reached the bottom of the stairway. It ended in an open archway, a torch-lit marble hallway beyond. On tiptoe, I peered around the edge of the arch, then hastily withdrew. Not three feet from the arch, a guard sat in the hallway, thankfully looking in the other direction from me.
I leaned against the wall, my breath slowly settling back into rhythm. I couldn’t stay here for long. Someone was bound to come down the staircase soon. I had to ambush that guard before he could raise the alarm. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, I glanced around the arch again. He was still looking the other way down the hall, toward the sound of the revelry. Raising my sword hilt, I crept around the arch. He turned just as I stopped behind him. He froze, his mouth open. I brought the hilt down as hard and as fast as I could, knocking him across the head. He toppled over, his mouth still open. I dragged him into the shadows under the staircase before I grabbed the tunic of his uniform and yanked it over his head. Then I wriggled into it, pulling the edge down so hard I almost ripped it. I tucked the sword back under my belt.
As I came out from the stairwell and started down the hall away from the noise, several young noblemen in fancy dress and masks emerged from a doorway, smelling of pipes and liquor. They were talking and laughing, and I only garnered a couple cursory glances as they passed. I ducked into the doorway they had just exited. The felt-lined door pushed easily to the touch, and I found myself in a cloud of smoke. There was the clack of billiard balls, a game of Sarneth snobbery that had only lately made its way to Cormalen. Except for a couple of guards posted at strategic spots and the three men standing at the billiard table, everyone else sat on low couches and arm chairs, most drinking, most smoking, all talking. A few were playing furtive games of dice, as if ashamed to be seen engaged in such a lowly pastime. I walked around the edge of the chamber, cursing myself for coming this way. I had thought perhaps there would be a servants’ entrance if this was a smoking room, but I sure as hell wasn‘t seeing it. It must be a hidden entrance. At least it was dark aside from a few candelabra and the fireplace--pl
enty of shadows to conceal my face.
I walked the perimeter as if on patrol, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. I caught a few snatches of conversation. One voice rose above the rest. "You would have the nobility taxed out of existence?" demanded a florid, white-haired man, who jabbed his finger in the air. The Sarneth master of the treasury--I had seen him at a couple balls.
"You misunderstand me," said a smooth, all too familiar voice. Toscar.
All feeling left my feet, icicle points pricking the insides of my veins. I forced myself to keep walking, forced myself not to stare. Toscar couldn't have seen me--his back was to me. His words might be smooth, but his shoulders appeared stiff, as if he were on the verge of throttling the treasurer. A pale man in a black doublet rose from a sofa and went over to Toscar then. He leaned up and whispered something to him. Toscar stopped in mid-sentence, then clapped the pale man on the shoulder as if he'd just made a good jest. My footsteps hastened.
A crack appeared in the paneling in the corner across from mine, a crack which widened into a doorway as a steward pushed his way through, carrying a tray of decanters. He set down the tray and then disappeared, the paneling door closing soundlessly behind him. I was so relieved that I had to slow my feet as I made my way over to the corner. I ran my fingers down the edge of the paneling, my fingers hitting the cool metal of the latch. I pulled the door open and stepped into a plain corridor of exposed beams and plastered walls. The steward was going around a distant corner to the left, so I started after him. There were many doors along the hall, likely leading to other public rooms. When I came to the corner the steward had went around, I discovered the hall turned into a narrow staircase that descended to the kitchens, judging from the smells of roasting meat and baking bread wafting up the steps. My stomach growled--it had been hours since my last meal.
I hurried downwards, twisting and flattening myself against the wall whenever I met a servant on the steps. None of them paid me any attention beyond a simple “pardon me,” and I relaxed a little.
A plump, wheezing maid, carrying a washtub and smelling strongly of onions, passed me. “Pardon me, sir,” she squeaked. I nodded and paused to wipe my watering eyes. Her washtub banged against the wall, echoing above me as she tramped up the stairs.
I had taken several more steps down when I heard the maid again. “My Lord,” she exclaimed, so loudly that her distinctive squeak carried down to me. It could only be Toscar--how many men who could be called "My Lord" came this way?
My feet started flying down the steps two at a time as I pushed past people, knocked trays and jugs aside, and elicited several curses. I stumbled, almost tumbling down the last flight of stairs into a long kitchen.
Feet pounded behind me as I dodged scullery maids and cooks, tables and chairs, stewards and butlers. Women screamed, men shouted. I plucked a large butcher knife from a startled errand boy. One could never have enough blades at a time like this. I brandished my new weapon and the sword, clearing a wide path in front of me. Damn it, where was a door? There had to be a way out.
I spared a glance back. Toscar and the two guards from the smoking room were half the kitchen’s length behind me. I threw the knife in my hand at the closest, one of the guards, not waiting to see if it hit him.
My hand landed on a glass jug of spirits, and I tossed it in the nearest fire. The jug exploded, sparks flying everywhere. People rushed for the door leading to the stairs, blocking Toscar’s way for a moment. I could hear him swearing at them, his cool demeanor gone in the heat of the chase.
There was another kitchen beyond the first, then another. Such a huge palace likely demanded a dozen kitchens, swarming with servants. The heat from all the ovens and hearths made sweat run down my neck in rivulets as I raced across the flagstone floors. Between the fourth and fifth rooms was heavy door of some unknown wood, blackened by age and a century’s worth of soot. A burly older man with a graying beard stepped in front of the door, and I skidded to a stop, panting.
“What are you in such a hurry for, boy?” he said in rough Sarns, some provincial accent I could understand with difficulty.
“A woman.”
“Hell, there’s plenty of them here.”
I drew my fist back and punched him in the jaw. He chuckled and swung at me. I ducked. His upper arms bulged, big as hams--all it would take was one of his fists in the wrong spot, and I’d be out for hours. And Toscar was halfway across the room. Bending down, I rammed my shoulder into the older man’s gut. He grunted, moving aside enough for me to grab for the door.
I gasped the instant I entered the next room. After the hot hell of the kitchens, it felt freezing in here. The sweat iced down my back. A single oil lamp in the corner revealed this to be a room for hanging fresh game. Gutted and skinned cattle, deer, pigeons, chickens, and pheasants dangled from hooks and racks. The metallic smell of blood was everywhere.
I drew my sword as I sprinted along the rows of carcasses. They swayed slightly at my passage, and the light shone a dull red off the curves of bare muscle and sinew. Perhaps the knife I’d thrown and the exploding jug had done some good, as I could only hear what sounded like the scuffle of one pair of boots, not several, far too loud in this dead stillness. I reached the end of a row. There was a patch of bare sky, stars glinting against the deep cold blue of winter--a doorway, open to keep the game fresh. Not believing my good fortune, I dashed outside. A long courtyard, a low wall at the far end. And beyond that, surely the city waited. I knew they wouldn’t keep the servants’ quarters and kitchens guarded well.
My feet slipping in the snow, I headed straight for the wall. Toscar was mere yards behind, breathing hard and swearing. Tucking my sword back in my belt, I took a running leap at the wall. The stone knocked the wind out of me, but my fingertips had cleared the top just enough for me to find purchase. I heaved myself up. The rock scraped my skin, but I felt no pain in all the cold and urgency. I jumped down on the other side into a dark alley. The bluish glow of the snow on the ground guided me and kept me from stumbling into gutters and rain barrels as I ran to the left.
Harsh breathing and the crunch of boots in ice-crusted snow echoed behind me, magnified in the still air. Toscar had made it over the wall. I went around the corner of the alley and ran to the end before I ducked behind a rain water barrel. Crouching, I glanced around. There was a small square here, the snow turned to slushy ice in many spots where carriages and wagons had been and people had walked, judging from the wet gleams of bare cobbles under the lanterns. Even as I watched, a carriage rolled by. In the square, Toscar wouldn’t be able to follow my tracks in the snow anymore. Nor would he be able to see me here in the shadows. Perhaps he would go the wrong way or give up the chase entirely to go get help.
I began to realize how cold it was. I had no cloak, only my shirt and the tunic I had stolen from the guard earlier. As long as I had been running, I had been fine, but now my teeth started to chatter. I clamped my jaw shut, willing myself to be as silent as possible.
Toscar ran past me, coming to a halt several yards away in the middle of the square. He looked around, his breath smoking in the lantern light. “Merius,” he said finally, his voice soft, almost cajoling. “Merius, I know you’re here. My guards will be here soon, scores of them. They’ll find you.”
Really?
“You don’t want them to find you. You killed one of their own with his own fellow guard’s sword.”
My brow wrinkled. How did he know that? There’d been no time for him to send someone back to check my cell. Unless someone had been spying when the guards entered the chamber and seen what had happened. But I had noticed no spy during my flight.
“I sent a guard for help,” Toscar continued. “I told him to tell the rest you’d killed one of their brothers in cold blood. There’s no better goad than lust for vengeance.”
That dishonorable, conniving son of a bitch. My hand tightened on my sword hilt.
“If you come out before the guard gets here, I’l
l take you to the queen immediately. We can negotiate your release tonight, have you free and clear by tomorrow morning.” He paused. “I suggest you take my offer. Once the guards get here, I can’t be responsible for what they do.”
Did he really think my father would let my death at the hands of the royal guard go without reprisal? No, he was too smart for that. He was trying to flush me out so he could capture me again. I noticed a street across the square, a street that likely led to the Serpentine. If I could just make it to that street, I would be able to find my way to the chamber where Father planned to meet me later.
“I’ve always thought you your father‘s son,” he said after a long moment. “He’s neither stubborn nor unwise. He wouldn’t cower in the shadows, waiting to be killed.”
Realizing I couldn’t hide much longer, I rose, moved forward into the square. “No, he wouldn‘t. He would kill you,” I said.
He tensed, holding his sword so it shielded him even as he chuckled. “You’re a real hothead under that clever façade, aren’t you? I saw it, every time I took Safire’s arm to lead her somewhere--you could have throttled me just for that. Your father should have taught you better--careless hotheads are easily snuffed.”
I circled him, sword raised in a horizontal line, my defensive posture. That arrogant fool Toscar depended on his presence to be enough of a distraction to keep me here until the guard arrived. I licked my lips, already beginning to chap in this cold, and tried not to blink as I watched him. He was a master swordsman, one of Father’s worthiest opponents, and I would have little chance against him. I had the quicker reflexes of youth, but these quicker reflexes counted for little against his experience--he would likely find a way to use my haste against me.
So I continued to circle him, edging closer to the entrance to the street I had noticed earlier, the street that led to the Serpentine. As soon as I was close enough, I spun and bolted across the square toward the street. He swore, the hiss of his sword against the scabbard as he quickly sheathed it. I flew down the street, his boots pounding behind me. I slowed when I reached the Serpentine--there were still plenty of people out this time of evening, several in carriages and wagons. I even saw a sleigh, its runners making sparks against the patches of bare cobbles.
Tapestry Lion (The Landers Saga Book 2) Page 31