Oath of Fealty

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Bind them well,” Dorrin said. “For they have spoken treason and thus fall under a sentence of death, unless the prince commutes it.”

  “You cannot kill us,” Grull said, this time in his own voice. “We have done nothing. And you lack the will—you are weak—”

  “You tell your Duke she is weak?” Dorrin had her sword in hand before she quite realized it. Beside her, her two escorts had drawn blades when she did. “You were not told, perhaps, that I have been a soldier more than three hands of years. I have killed more men—aye, and women—” That with a glance at the women down the hall. “—than you can count on both hands twice over.” A dark rage rose higher in her mind, urging her to prove Grull wrong, to kill both him and the footman, and that slowly. Her ruby flashed, bright in her mind. She shook her head. “You are not worth the loss of honor,” she said, shoving her sword back into its scabbard. “To trial you will go, and I doubt not the royal hangman will soil his hands with you.”

  By then four of the Royal Guards were behind the two, with thongs to bind them. When they had bound the men’s wrists, then their arms to their bodies, Dorrin released her control so they could be led aside, but both lunged toward her, eyes wide and mouths open. Before she could draw her blade, her escort had stepped in front of her, and run them through.

  A disturbance broke out somewhere outside—clashing blades, a horse’s squeal, shouts—and three more men pushed through the huddle of servants, waving knives and pokers as they ran toward Dorrin, only to fall to Royal Guard soldiers. Like a terrified herd of sheep, the rest of the servants surged back and forth, unsure which way to run.

  Dorrin saw all this with awareness honed by many a battle. Diversion—who would want a diversion?—her gaze fell on her prisoners; her aunt and mother were grinning in triumph. Dorrin strengthened her control of them, and all those prisoners slumped. Phelani uniforms appeared behind the mass of servants; Vossik called over their heads.

  “My lord, a stableboy and a gardener’s lad suddenly attacked us, but it’s all under control now.”

  “Casualties?” Dorrin asked.

  “Captain Selfer’s spare mount, and one of the privates had a gash to the arm.”

  The three final attackers lay tumbled on the hall floor; they’d had no real skill and no plan, easy kills for the Royal Guard soldiers now cleaning their blades. So many dead already, when she had hoped to bring peace and security to her new realm’s people. Had they all been Liartians? Dorrin went to Grull’s body—and yes, he wore Liart’s symbol on a chain around his neck. When the guards checked, so did the others.

  Dorrin walked around the bodies and toward the huddle of servants. Before she could speak, they all knelt. Dorrin sighed. It must do for now, but she did not want this kind of submission, clearly more fear than anything else. She touched them lightly with magery, and found no more who harbored evil intent. For now, at least.

  “Well, then,” she said. “This room will be used for those going to Vérella in the morning. Which of you are the nurserymaids?”

  Six women shuffled forward on their knees.

  “Get up now—you will have charge of the youngest children. Give this man”—she pointed to one of the Royal Guard—“the names of those ten winters and younger, point them out, and then you will take them to the nursery and keep them there. Supper will be sent up later. Which of you are kitchen staff?”

  Others came forward, headed by a stout woman who exclaimed when she saw the nearest dead body. “He’s tooken my best carving knife, that wicked Votik, and him no more than a kennelman! If that’s nicked, I’ll—get me that back, lord Duke. And I don’t doubt them’s my pokers from the kitchen fires!” Her indignation almost made Dorrin laugh, but instead she sent the cook grumbling back to the kitchen, with orders to prepare a meal for the younger children.

  Soon, the nurserymaids and younger children were upstairs, far from anything that might happen, Dorrin hoped. Now to disarm the Verrakaien prisoners—for she was sure they would all have weapons of some sort, most likely poisoned.

  “The rest of you servants,” Dorrin said, “will change clothes with the prisoners. This will be a brief inconvenience.” The women servants looked at one another; a few grinned and one younger maid, in drab, even giggled, stifling it with her hands when an older woman cuffed her.

  “Do any of you know if there are prisoners in the old keep tower?”

  Most shook their heads; a few nodded. Dorrin beckoned those to the front: two women and a man.

  “What do you know?”

  “Us’n heard screams,” one woman said.

  “Them guards left,” the man said. “Days agone, that was. But after they dragged in those poor folk from the vill.”

  They could give no clear account of when the prisoners had been brought, or how many, or when the guards had left. Dorrin let them go; she must deal with the Verrakaien prisoners first, or it would not be safe to investigate the keep.

  She turned to the Verrakaien women and eased off on the control she had forced on them; they opened their eyes and sat up. The women still looked angry, but the children were frightened.

  “Now—one at a time, at my direction, when I release your bonds, you will strip to the skin, unloosing your hair if it is bound, and change into the clothes those wear—” She gestured at the servants standing near the inner passage.

  Her aunt Jeruvin spat. “You cannot make me change here, in front of them, and wear peasant clothes—”

  “I could have you stripped naked and hung by your feet from the tower,” Dorrin said. “I suggest you change, and be quick about it. You are supplicants; your lives are forfeit unless the Crown grants you mercy. You would do well to act humble, however you feel.”

  On some of the younger women’s faces, she saw now the dawning realization that this was real—the Order of Attainder existed, and they were indeed in mortal danger. She felt a concerted nudge at her magery, their attempt to break free of the power that bound them. Dorrin said nothing; best if they did not know she even felt it. She knew Falk had lent power as well; Falk had been magelord himself; he knew more of magery than she ever would.

  Than you do now, knight of my heart. Her heart skipped a beat, raced, steadied again. What was that? Not Falk himself, surely! A soft internal chuckle, very unlike the harsh laugh of the earlier attack. It is your heritage, your birthright, and you have finally freed it. Dorrin just managed not to shake her head visibly. One thing at a time … get these women into safe custody.

  As they undressed, she noted the number of weapons both physical and magical: all of them had more than one dagger, all had amulets and rings, charms hung on necklaces and bracelets. She could feel the magery, as she could detect the poison on the blades.

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t kill yourselves, just dressing and undressing,” she said. Her troop gathered the daggers into one basket and left the rest for the time. The women, now in their undershifts, glared at her but said nothing. “Now take down your hair—completely. No braids, no pins.”

  She expected trouble, and was not surprised when Jeruvin, unpinning the top coil of braid, suddenly flung a pin at one of the soldiers—a hand long, the two spikes undoubtedly poisoned. Dorrin snatched it from the air by magery and tossed it back; it struck in Jeruvin’s neck, and the woman gasped, staggered, tried to wrench it free, and fell to the floor, writhing.

  “You were warned,” Dorrin said. Hate flashed from Jeruvin’s eyes before they glazed in death. Dorrin looked from woman to woman. “You were all warned. Anyone who tries to harm me, any of these troops, or the Royal Guard will die. Now take down your hair.”

  A shower of clips, combs, pins, and ornaments clattered to the floor. Most were probably harmless, but Dorrin was taking no chances.

  “One at a time, starting with you—” Dorrin pointed to her mother. “Go there, with those soldiers.” Women she had had Selfer choose, experienced enough to be wary and thorough. Two others held a blanket for a semblance of privacy. B
ehind it, one at a time, the women were stripped naked, then given peasant clothes already searched for hidden weapons.

  Furious as they were, the women offered no more resistance. They came from behind the blanket in house livery or drab peasant dress and sat on the floor where they were bidden, watching as Dorrin’s troops carried Jeruvin’s body out of the house, as their clothes and ornaments were examined and separated into piles—dangerous, safe, uncertain.

  Dorrin knew they had not been converted from resistance: merely, for the moment, outflanked. She wished again that she’d had a Captain of Falk, Marshal of Gird, or paladin along with her. Selfer came to report.

  “Aris’s arm will heal; that blade wasn’t poisoned,” Selfer said. “My horse—well, he’s lame, and like to be lame forever, if he lives.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dorrin said. The charger had been Selfer’s first purchase when he became captain.

  He shook his head, and went on with his report. “We found none but servants in the outbuildings, but stalls lately occupied are empty: those you seek must have had warning.”

  “Or been living in the forest, ready for this, since the battle was lost,” Dorrin said. “My family may be evil, but they were never stupid, and what little mother’s milk we had was flavored with tactics and strategy. Not that it matters, but for the possibility of attack. They may well have had an underground passage; check the outbuildings and stable carefully.”

  “Could be one in the house, too, my lord,” Selfer said.

  “I know of one, but it leads only to the keep,” Dorrin said. “I’ll show you when we have time. For now, I need to check the keep and release any prisoners.”

  “Bring them in here?”

  “No—not with my relatives. They should be safe enough over-night in the upper floors; we can take over food and water.”

  “My lord,” Valthan said, “you must not go yourself.”

  “I must,” Dorrin said. “The danger’s too great for anyone who does not know the traps.”

  “If you die,” Valthan said, “will your control of the magelords continue? Or will I be left with prisoners I cannot control?”

  “It should continue,” Dorrin said. “When the Knight-Commander bound my magery—when I was a young woman—that binding lasted through his death until the new Knight-Commander released it.”

  “We cannot afford to lose you,” Valthan said. “The realm cannot afford to lose you.”

  “I am needed only if I do what the prince commanded,” Dorrin said. “Sir Valthan, I have been a soldier too long to risk my life needlessly—or withhold risk where it is needed.”

  He gave her a long, puzzled look, then nodded.

  “Stay here with the prisoners,” Dorrin said. “I will take an escort of Phelani into the keep; they are experienced with the sorts of dangers that might be found here. I want to do this before dark, and afternoon is waning.”

  Selfer had posted guards at the keep entrance; now he told off a hand to be her escort. “I’m coming, too,” he said.

  “You are not,” Dorrin said. “If I fall, someone must get word to Valthan, and then to the prince—and someone must burn out the keep.”

  “My lord—you know what I saw in Vérella, before Paks redeemed us. I need to be part of this—”

  Dorrin turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder; tears gleamed in his eyes; she felt hers burn. “Selfer, in this I must command you. The need is greater—and the task more difficult—where I place you. I know you have courage to face what lies below, but what I need is your determination not to let any evil free. Do you understand?” After a long pause, he nodded. “With Falk’s grace and Gird’s, I will return unharmed, but if I do not, you must do what is necessary. Whatever that may be.”

  Before Selfer could answer, she turned to the others. “Touch nothing without my word; this place has as many traps as some of those Rotengre houses. Vossik, you and one other will come with me to the bottom of the stairs. Two on the landing partway down. One halfway down the first flight of steps, to call messages up and down.”

  At the foot of the stairs, Dorrin turned right, and twenty strides later paused before opening the door to the blood chamber. She could feel her own pulse pounding. Ridiculous. She was an adult now, not a helpless child. Of course the memories would rise here, of all places, but she had the skills to subdue them. This door had no lock. It needed none. It reeked of blood magery; centuries of fear and anguish had permeated the wood. No one would go there who did not seek what it hid.

  “Stay here until I call,” Dorrin told her escort, then touched her ruby, murmured, “Ward of Falk and the High Lord’s grace,” and pushed it open, hanging her lantern on the familiar hook by the door. A soft scuffling sound met her ears. Along the left wall, as in her childhood, cages held small animals … rabbits, kittens that started mewing at once. Eyes gleamed in the lamplight. She ignored them all for the time being, taking a second lantern from a shelf of them, and lighting it. The room was centered with the tables and frames on which the Verrakai bound their victims to practice blood magery. At the far end, another door led to the cells, where human victims might or might not wait in darkness, terrified. To the right, the chambers where, in her childhood, a priest of Liart might be housed if one came to stay.

  Those doors were open; those chambers were empty; she reported that to Vossik. Another, smaller, held the instruments, glinting in the light of the second lamp she lighted and set on a ledge. She closed that door, and went to the one at the end, opening it after a prayer for those who had been, and might still be, suffering.

  A terrible stench rolled out to meet her, all too familiar from her years of warfare; Dorrin pinched her lips and set the lamp on a ledge. Facing her were three cell doors. Her stomach roiled. She had been locked in the left-hand one, as punishment: days and nights of terror.

  She lifted the bar on the first door. Empty. The second … she gagged at the stench. Here someone had died, and recently. As she stepped into the cell, light revealed the carrion beetles scuttling for cover from a corpse too small to be an adult. Tears burned her eyes. Too late … would she always be too late?

  In the third cell she heard harsh, uneven breaths. By the lamp’s light, she saw a naked man, curled on the floor, streaked with his own filth. She bent lower; his face had been battered, one eye gouged out. His swollen tongue protruded from cracked lips.

  “Falk’s grace,” she whispered. “Give him ease.”

  At her voice, the man groaned and stirred.

  “Help is here,” she said. She unplugged her water bottle and dripped a few drops on his tongue. “Soon you will be better. I promise.” He shuddered. Backing out of the cell, she called Vossik, who came into the outer room at once. “I need a burial party and someone to carry a wounded man,” she said.

  She went back to the wounded man and poured a little more water on his tongue as she waited for the others to arrive. He roused a little, groaned, moved his tongue, and opened his one eye. “Wha—nooo … no more.”

  “No more,” Dorrin said. “It’s over.” She dripped more water in his mouth; he swallowed.

  “Who—”

  “The Duke’s dead,” Dorrin said. The man’s ruined mouth stretched in what might have been a smile. “The prince sent me, to be the new Duke.” She gave him a little more water. He blinked, and she realized that with the lamp behind her, she was only a black shadow. “We’ll get you out of this very soon …”

  “Tam—?” Hardly a breath of sound at that.

  Dorrin had already realized that the young person in the next cell was probably this man’s brother or son. She dipped her head. “I’m sorry … Tam … died.”

  “Gird’s grace,” the man said; his one eye closed.

  A squad arrived then, clattering down the stairs and into the dungeon. Dorrin went back out into the main room, explained in a low voice what she’d found.

  “Only three cells?”

  “In this part of the dungeon, yes. There are twenty
on the other side, through the door to the left as you came down the stairs. But this is where Liart’s priests lived, where the most dangerous magery is, so I had to check this myself. You’ll be safe enough now. Clean up the boy’s corpse and lay it on a table upstairs, under a cloth. If his father lives to morning, he’ll want to see it.”

  By full dark all the prisoners were upstairs in the keep, munching bread and cheese, their cells left to the rats and beetles. The man from the torture cell clung to life with the help of the cohort’s physician; his son’s body, under an embroidered bed hanging from the main house, lay surrounded by candles with two of the cohort to give an honor watch. Dorrin sent for Sir Valthan to witness what she had found, then told Selfer to supervise their care and the external security while she returned to the house with Valthan, who still needed an accurate list of Verrakai family members.

  “Have you eaten, my lord? I know you ate no lunch—”

  “No—”

  “We have hot rations—”

  Of course he would have seen the troops fed—and no doubt from their own supplies. She did need to be alert for her next task, rifling her uncle’s study to find the family rolls. Dorrin nodded, and wolfed down the familiar Company rations, then went back inside through the kitchen entrance, where the head cook was scolding her assistants as they cleaned pots and prepared for the morrow. She asked the head cook’s name.

  “Farintod, m’lord,” the cook said. “But I’m called Farin, or just Cook.” Once more, Dorrin probed with her magery but could find no malice, only a combination of annoyance and fear, among the kitchen staff. Perhaps she might eat food they prepared the next day, when their former rulers were gone … but not until then.

  In the main hall, Valthan’s lieutenant reported that the prisoners had first refused to eat the simple meal served them, but eventually hunger overcame pride. Now they lay on the floor under the blankets Dorrin had allowed after ensuring that they had no hidden weapons. The glitter of eyes in the lamplight proved they were not asleep, but at least they were down and quiet.

  She asked Valthan for the loan of a Royal Guard sergeant.