The suzerain stared at it. "Are you a messenger, or the lady herself?" he whispered. "Do you presume to speak for her? Go—take my message to our mistress and be done with you."
He started toward the bird, shaking. Aeriel was not sure whether with terror or rage.
"And tell your lady to give me back my name!"
The rhuk hopped from the crumpled silk. "Nameless man," it muttered, taunting, almost laughing at him.
Then it gave two strong hops and flew, skimming toward the window, toward the light.
Aeriel was running forward before she was aware. She gripped her walking stick, brought the great blond knot of the crown down upon the bird, batting it out of the air. It flopped with a squawk to the ground, one limb broken.
"Fool," the suzerain was crying. "Do you think I have not tried to kill them?"
Aeriel brought her staff down upon the bird again. It screeched, floundered away from her. "Do you not know what I am?" it cawed. "Girl, do you not know?"
Aeriel followed. "I can guess." The bird was on the silk. "The White Witch makes her sons' wings from the feathers of your kind."
"Let me alone," the black bird shrieked. "My lady does not wish to harm you, only to speak with you... 1"
Aeriel swung the walking stick a final time, felt bone beneath the pinions crunch. The bird lay in a heap upon the green silk gown. A trickle of blood came from it, not pale like mortal blood, but dark.
The garment, the stone of the floor smoked a little where the blood touched them, gave off a bitter stench. The suzerain stared at the bird.
"That is some magic staff," he murmured. "I could not kill it with a mace the time I tried." He was silent a moment. "But what does it matter?" he said bitterly. "The lady will send another when her first does not return."
"I shall be a long time gone by then," Aeriel replied, then darted past him and was out the door.
Aeriel fled down the winding steps, along the narrow parapet. She saw the plum tree across the garden. The suzerain was coming after her, swiftly, but he did not run. He seemed to have no fear of losing her. She found a stair and descended. The suzerain called after her. She dodged into the thick of the trees.
The vegetation of the garden closed around her, and suddenly she was lost. Panting, out of breath, she found herself at the foot of another stair. She climbed and came onto the terrace where she and the suzerain had watched the dawn. White cloths now lay spread upon the tiles, but no cushions or platters of food.
She spotted the plum tree again from the balustrade suddenly. Turning, she started back toward the steps to descend and sprint for it—when abruptly she halted. Two paces from her lay one corner of the terrace. Long dry, a dark stain marked the flags where the suzerain had cast the wine from her cup a daymonth ago.
The lilies in the square of earth where some of the wine had run stood brittle now, withered and stiff. Two dead butterflies lay beside the sweet juice, and the bones of a lizard now moldering. Aeriel knelt and touched the dust.
"Aeriel," the suzerain said, and she realized he had come onto the terrace. She did not turn, only stared at the lilies, at the flies.
"The rhuk," he said. "What I said in the tower—I meant only to show you what peril you are in. If you leave this place..."
He stopped himself, began again.
"The White Witch is hunting you. She calls you a sorceress. She wants you dead. One of her birds came to me that fortnight before I found you, saying I must look for you and take you if I could. Her darkangels are hunting you."
"Erin was right," said Aeriel, running her fingers over the dark-stained stones. "My wine was diiFerent, that first feast you gave. You meant to poison me." She touched the lizard's bones again, then raised her eyes to meet the suzerain's.
"I had not seen your eyes," he whispered. "Stay with me. Be my wife. I will ransom the Grey Neat and its fellows for your life...."
Aeriel gazed at him, and hated him. "Leave my gargoyles alone."
The suzerain frowned. "Gargoyles?" he said.
"Greyling and Mooncalf and Catwing," she said. Half her rage was at herself—to have left them to the suzerain's huntsmen all this time. "I freed them from a darkangel in Avaric."
The suzerain shook his head. "What are you talking of? They are wild beasts."
"They are my beasts," said Aeriel fiercely, rising. "They are my beasts."
"You are a sorceress," the suzerain whispered. Then his tone grew suddenly fierce as well. "But you will wed me."
"You will never have me willing," whispered Aeriel, "and wedding is no wedding but that I say yes."
"You will say yes," the suzerain said, stepping forward. Aeriel raised her staff between them and the suzerain seized it. "You will."
He pulled at it roughly, as though expecting her to yield. Almost without thinking, Aeriel locked her fingers about the dark wood and made her body limp. She let herself fall, rolling backward as in the desert Orroto-to had taught her. Losing his balance, the suzerain fell.
Aeriel braced her arms, brought her knees to her chest and snapped her legs. The suzerain landed behind her, on his back, his startled cry choked off as the breath was knocked from him. His hands slipped from the staff.
Aeriel sprang to her feet, saw the suzerain rolling painfully to hands and knees, one arm cradling his ribs. He could not seem to catch his breath. Then all at once, he had started to his feet and was lunging at her.
Aeriel fell back, sidestepped and brought the crown of her walking stick around in a low arc, catching him behind the knees. She hauled back on it, hard, yanking his legs from under him.
The suzerain sprawled backward upon the smooth stone flags. She heard a crack as his head struck the tiles. He lay still then, and Aeriel knew she should run, that instant, but all she could do was stare. She wondered if she had killed him.
She drew a little closer, knelt. He barely breathed. She heard a sudden clanging crash, felt something strike the back of her head. She turned, dazed, saw one of the palace serving boys with a tray in his hands, raising it to land another blow.
She felt movement beside her, saw the suzerain springing up and realized his swoon had been feigned. His one hand closed over the wrist of her hand that held the staff, his other over the staff itself.
Aeriel twisted, tried to get free of him. He was pulling the staff from her. She grabbed at it wildly with her other hand. She felt another crash on the side of her head. The terrace tipped. Solstar went dark.
Dimly, she heard the suzerain shouting, "Stop it, boy. I don't want her dead."
She felt her fingers still about the staff, the suzerain tugging at it angrily. She opened her eyes and dragged in a breath. All her movements were sluggish. Her mouth tasted of copper.
"Bird," she panted. "Heron, awake."
She kicked at the suzerain, felt his ribs beneath her feet. His hand on her wrist lost its hold, but not his hand that held the staff. She shook the staff with both hands, against his grip.
"Wing," she cried out. "Fly!"
The walking stick shuddered in her grasp. The blond wood of its figurehead shimmered, paled, opened its wings. Aeriel heard the suzerain cry out, heard a shriek, then a crash as the servant boy dropped his tray. The heron launched into the air.
"What is it?" she cried out, hovering awkwardly. "Why can you not call me by my proper name?"
"Erin and Roshka," Aeriel gasped. "Tell them to fly."
She tried to get to her feet, but her bones were all loose inside her skin. She could not balance; the sky lolled and swayed. The suzerain had her by both wrists now. The heron lunged at him. He seized her by one fragile leg. The white bird squawked, stabbed at his fingers.
"Fly!" Aeriel said. All her muscles had lost their strength. "Fly," she muttered, putting her hand to her head.
One leg buckled. She fell sideways. Her elbow struck the stone, then her temple and chin.
She heard shouting, a number of feet upon the stone steps now—shod feet. Not servants.
Soldiers. Short, whipping sounds, whizzing: bowcords, she realized, arrows flying. The heron must have gotten free.
The stone of the terrace had lost its hardness. It was cold suddenly, and very still. Her cheek seemed to be sinking, slowly, the surface under her gently giving way. Her skin felt no more cohesive than water, or dust. It felt as though her whole body were falling into the stone.
12
Prisoner
Aeriel was aware of a coldness against her back. Opening her eyes, she found herself huddled in a tiny space. Through the barred window in the stone wall behind, morning light streamed. A wall of masonry rose just in front of her, with no door, only a tiny chink partway up where no brick had been placed. To her right, the other wall was sloping, earth and stone: a hillside, mostly in shadow.
Her arm had been chained to the window wall. She tried to rise, feeling very stiff. Her legs below the knee prickled. She flexed and chafed them, then her arm. She felt dizzy and a little sick. Peering out the window, she judged it must be a dozen hours since dawn, and she had not eaten for hours before that. She rubbed her temple and the back of her head. They were sore.
Two eyes appeared in the chink across from her. "So, little witch," the suzerain said,
"awake at last. How deep you slept—right through the walling up of this dead-end passage."
Aeriel realized what the faint odor she detected was: fresh mortar. "What do you intend to do with me?" she said.
The other laughed. "I intend to take great good care of you."
"Why have you walled me in?"
"Locks can be picked," the suzerain replied. "But this cell has no door to be unbarred.
Little sorceress, I am not completely a fool."
"I am not a sorceress," said Aeriel.
The suzerain smiled. She saw the skin beneath his eyes creasing. "And I suppose your staff did not become a bird? Oh, you were careful to conceal your magic from me. But now, without your staff, I think you can have little power."
Aeriel felt herself shivering—with anger, not with cold. "Oh, it is well you are a nameless man. I can think of nothing to call you that could be fouler than your name."
"Impertinent girl," the man beyond the wall replied. His eyes vanished. He shoved a bread crust through the chink. "Fill your mouth with that. Perhaps when I have caught my nephew and that boy of yours, you will not be so insolent." Aeriel felt the blood come to her face. "Roshka and Erin are long gone by now."
The suzerain did not seem to hear her. "You will say yes to me in time," he said. "If I leave you alone long enough, you will come to hunger for my company. You will say yes." "Eryka," said Aeriel, "did not say yes." She heard a cry beyond the wall. The masonry shuddered when he struck it. "Witch," he shouted. "Cursed witch!"
She glimpsed him going, heard his footfalls down the hall. They faded. The cell grew still. Aeriel felt herself continuing to tremble. I could never be your bride, she thought—
and then, almost against her will—for I am another's bride. Irrylath. The memory of him was suddenly all she had to cling to against the suzerain. Her legs felt weak. She sat down abruptly, and felt the shackle yank her wrist. The eye space gaped vacantly. She was alone.
Aeriel let the crust lie a long time be-fore she touched it. She dusted the dirt from it at last, tasting carefully, but she could detect no taint, no hungerspice. She ate hungrily then.
A movement along her shoulder startled her. She turned to see her dustshrimp standing there. Had it been hidden in the folds of her garment all this time?
She offered it a crumb from the crust, but it would not take it, wandered restlessly along her arm. After a little, it crept down to the floor, began exploring the tiny cell, investigating every niche. Finally it found a crack in the earthen wall and there it stayed, refusing all crumbs. It never moved, but seemed perfectly content. Its little eyes on stalks watched her.
Aeriel paced her tiny cell, as much as the chain on her wrist would allow, for she began to grow so weary from lack of movement she felt like sleeping all the time. She practiced stories, without her bandolyn, and watched what she could through the close-barred window. Sometimes the tramp of soldiers' feet and the rattle of horses' hooves came to her, or the groan of the great gates being drawn.
The suzerain came to her cell at odd hours. He informed her how the search proceeded, soldiers combing the garden and grounds, huntsmen riding in the woods. He spoke at her for hours through the crack, pleading with her, sometimes threatening. Aeriel said nothing, refused to look at him. More than once he merely flung her a crust and stalked away.
The daymonth had worn itself half away when she heard a scrabbling behind her, whirled and saw the heron at the window, white against the black noon sky.
"Wing," she cried, then caught herself. "Why are you not with Roshka and Erin?"
The white bird bobbed, clinging awkwardly to the window bars. "Oh, they have not gone.
Roshka poled Erin to a little island in the middle of the garden pool. So far, no soldiers have thought to search there."
"But," cried Aeriel, "they will be taken if they remain here. Why did they not fly at once, as I bade?"
"Erin would not go without you."
Aeriel fell silent. "What have they been living on?" she asked at last.
The heron shrugged. "What I can bring them: fruit of the garden, fish. What have you?"
Aeriel sighed. "What the suzerain brings me. Moldy bread. I get what water I can from a trickle down the wall."
The white bird cocked her head. "Only water and bread? No wonder you are so pasty grey. You cannot live on that. Wait here," she said, without thinking, so Aeriel nearly laughed. The heron flew away in a slow stroking of wings.
Almost at once she had returned, grasping a peachmelon in each foot and a sprig of fat currants in her bill. Aeriel took them and ate. The yellow fruits were deliciously sweet, the currants tender-skinned and tart.
"Your arm is chained," the heron said. Aeriel looked up. She had grown so used to the shackle, she had almost forgotten it. "Hold your wrist over here."
Aeriel did so, bringing it as close to the white bird as she could. Inclining her head, the heron inserted her bill into the key space and turned. Aeriel felt a click, and the shackle fell free.
"I could not come before," the heron was saying, "because there was a guard beneath your window, but he and a serving boy stole off into the garden a little while ago."
Aeriel rubbed her wrist. "Is that how you knew where to find me, by the guard?"
"Roshka made a guess. Hist, I must go," the bird said suddenly. "Your guard returns. I will come again when next he goes."
"Tell Erin," cried Aeriel, "tell Erin she must go now, without me. She and Roshka must flee."
The white bird shrugged. "I will tell her. She will not listen. They dare not move now, in broad day, in any case. The suzerain is combing the woods too well." The heron flew.
Next time the suzerain came with a crust, Aeriel flung it back at him through the niche.
He gazed at her through the crack, surprised. "Where is the chain," he cried, "the chain I bound you with?"
"I grew weary of wearing it."
"Someone has given you the key," he cried. Aeriel watched him. He vanished from the niche; she could hear him pacing. "Someone has brought you food and a key," he muttered. "Do my own people betray me? Henceforward, you will have guards posted here as well."
His eyes reappeared, bloodshot, dark-circled.
"How well have you slept these past hours," Aeriel inquired, "with the black bird pecking at your dreams?"
"Guards!" the suzerain shouted. She heard his footsteps down the hall. She felt a moment of panic then, suddenly, realizing that if the suzerain's guards watched her through the crack, the heron could not come to her again.
The fear swifdy faded, though, for though Aeriel had soldiers outside her cell from then on, after the first hour of their gazing in on her uneasily every now and again, she heard them move off down the h
all. Their murmured talk drifted in to her, and the rattle of counters as they played at dice.
The suzerain returned no more. Her food was brought her by the guards. Whenever the heron came, bringing fruit, she and Aeriel kept their voices low. Aeriel ate the fruit, and felt her strength beginning to return.
The daymonth rolled on. Aeriel exchanged messages with Erin and the prince by means of the white bird. Roshka sent word that he had found a hollow upon the isle, all overgrown with bower brush. Investigating, he had discovered a tunnel, running deep, beneath the pool. He and Erin had begun to explore it, wanting to find where it led.
Shadows grew longer. Solstar hung five dozen hours from setting. The white bird came to Aeriel then, saying Roshka and Erin had gone down into the hollow again but had not yet emerged. Aeriel felt a twinge of fear. They had never been gone so long before.
The twinge became a tremor when the heron came again, perhaps a dozen hours later, and said Erin and the prince were still below. Aeriel felt a gathering despair when, just before Solset, the white bird appeared a third time with no word. She began to give them up for lost.
Not long after, the suzerain came. She heard him roaring at his soldiers for playing dice in the crosshall instead of keeping watch outside her cell. His eyes appeared in the niche.
"I have come, little witch, to bid you farewell."
Aeriel looked up, left off gnawing the last crust the guards had brought her. Her stomach clenched. The suzerain smiled.
"I have decided you are more pain to me than you are worth. The white lady has told me she will give me back my name when I capture your gargoyles-----"
Aeriel felt a cold sweat cover her. "She is a liar. She will never give you back your name."
"You are a witch," the suzerain cried. "I'll have no witches for my wife. I saw your birdshape at the window. Last time it came to you, I watched. Well," he laughed fiercely,
"it will find you no more."
Aeriel wheeled. Outside her window, one of the villa guards sat suspended from a rope.
A Gathering of Gargoyles Page 13