by Glenda Larke
With care, he extracted the fan and pulled the feather quills out of their metalled sheaths, then returned the handle to the chest, closed the lid and replaced the cushions. Something about the plumes suffused him with reverential awe, and he was glad he was wearing gloves. He didn’t want to touch the shafts with his bare hands, or sully the gloriousness of the wisping curls of the feathers.
He threaded the three plumes into the bambu with care. Once he’d stoppered the open end, he straightened up and took a final look around to make sure everything was as it should be, only to find he’d left the dagger on the floor. Grinning as he imagined what Ardhi would have said if he’d left that behind, he bent to pick it up.
Just before his fingers reached the handle, the blade moved – and the door behind him opened. Saker dropped to the floor, ducking down to put the bed between himself and the opening door. He had the briefest glimpse of a chambermaid carrying a warming pan, looking over her shoulder as she spoke to someone in the next room. “I tell you,” she said, “I heard such a screeching! There’s summat leery going on here, and you’d better find out what, Master Torjen, ’fore the Regal—”
The kris arrowed upwards, spinning as it went, and thunked into the wall to one side of the fireplace. It vibrated in the wood, but any sound it made was drowned in the high-pitched squeal of the chambermaid. He winced. She must have turned back in time to see it spin across the room.
“Master Torj! Help! There’s some devil beastie flying…” The woman’s voice faded as she fled.
Clutching the bambu tightly, he leapt across the room to pluck the kris out of the wall. His heart was pounding as possibilities rushed through his head … Fight? Flee? In which direction? Were they just servants? How many? He’d heard at least one man’s voice…
Then he realised the question he should have asked first. What was the kris trying to tell him? The door. The door to the staircase Sorrel had mentioned. The blade had stuck itself into the centre of a camouflaged egress panelled to match the wall on either side. As he extracted the blade, a hidden latch clicked slightly and the door cracked open. Without a second thought, he pulled it open all the way and stepped inside. A narrow stone staircase spiralled both up and down.
Mathilda’s bedroom was above.
He could already hear the excited conversation going on in the next room, something about flying bats and whirring wings. He pulled the door shut behind him. Instantly, he was plunged into utter darkness, such a profound lack of light that he couldn’t even be sure he hadn’t gone suddenly blind.
41
Thieves in the Night
“Perhaps you’ll feel better if you sit over here by the fire,” Sorrel suggested.
Mathilda was pacing the bedroom floor from door to window, occasionally stopping to arch her back. Impatience and exasperation and discomfort were written in every step and every pose.
“I can’t! No matter what I do, I feel horrible. I can’t stay still! I can’t sleep. I can’t sit. I’m miserably uncomfortable. I hate these babies! I hate them! Maybe they are both devil-kin. Maybe they’ll kill me when they come into the world. Maybe that’s what they wanted all along.”
She slipped her arm around Mathilda’s waist and smiled comfortingly. “My lady, you are a princess and a regala and you have your position to uphold. It’s not like you to be hysterical. We all know you are much more sensible and brave than that.”
Taking Mathilda’s hand, she led her to the sofa to sit, but was distracted herself, all too aware that the combination of the banquet in the Great Hall and the rain outside would mean that Saker was likely to be somewhere in the castle. Risking his life. In danger. Va protect him. And blast the man. Why should I care?
Oblivious, Mathilda continued. “It’s so unfair! Why am I not allowed to attend the banquet? Anyone would think I was ill, instead of being in a – a delicate condition.”
Sorrel almost rolled her eyes. A couple of weeks back, Mathilda’s complaint had been that she hated being required to sit at the Regal’s side at every entertainment or dinner. “Well, quite apart from their peculiar idea that a heavily pregnant lady is more of a lady if she can avoid being seen in public, it is better from your point of view that not too many people see you,” she pointed out. “We don’t want any speculation about whether you are larger than normal at this stage.”
“I’m bored! I have no friends, I can’t do any of things I loved to do before, like – like riding, or theatricals, or dancing…”
“Your lying-in will be over before you know it.”
Mathilda turned to regard her. “And then what?” she whispered. “You’ll be gone, and I will have no one.”
She had no answers. She could have pointed out that her own marriage had been little better, but it would have served no purpose. At least she’d had opportunities to run away; Mathilda would never have even that.
“You’ll have more power once you have given the Regal an heir,” she began, intending to offer her some hope, but stopped dead as the door to the spiral staircase was flung open without warning, and a warden with a pike stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.
Mathilda yelped in shock.
The first thing Sorrel noticed was that his hat was too small and his hair was wet. An appalled moment later, she realised it was Saker. He was breathing heavily, his usual cool calm in abeyance. She leapt to her feet, fear gripping her so tight she couldn’t speak. Why had he used those stairs? What had gone wrong? Dear Va, if he’s caught in here, he’ll be killed…
At least she’d known he was likely to enter the castle; Mathilda had no such knowledge. Sorrel, deeming that the less the Regala knew the better, had not told her anything about his help.
Mathilda rose slowly to her feet, gaping. “Saker?” she whispered. “Saker, is it really you?”
He took one step forward, and halted. “Milady,” he said. “Forgive the intrusion.” He stopped there, at a loss for words.
Pox on him, he’s still besotted with her, the lackwit. And he is indeed lacking wits to endanger her like this! Did he even have the feathers? He held an odd piece of wood as well as a pike, but that was all.
“Are you intending to behead us?” Mathilda asked him, eyeing the pike.
“What? No, of course not!” He turned to look at Sorrel. “How can I get out of here without anyone seeing me? I’ve got to get back to the roof…”
“Are you out of your mind? To involve us like this?” she asked, furious. “You said you wouldn’t!”
“Oh, you came to help me,” Mathilda cried. “You came to rescue me!” She flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her head in his shoulder, sobbing. “It’s so awful here and I hate Vilmar so much and he is going to kill my babies!”
Saker, obviously aghast, with the pike in one hand and the round stick in the other, sent Sorrel a pleading look over the top of Mathilda’s head.
Her mind raced. Saker must have been seen, or have been in danger of being seen. Either way, going back down the staircase was out of the question. The only way out was through the main doors of the solar into the gallery.
“Milady,” Saker said, finally gathering his wits enough to speak soothingly to Mathilda, and disengage himself from her embrace, “you are the Regal’s wife. That cannot be changed.” His expression was horrified, and he firmly removed her arms from around his neck. “We’ll do our best to save and care for both your children, I swear.”
“And me?” Mathilda wailed.
“If anyone catches you here with Saker, we’re all dead,” Sorrel snapped at her. “Let’s deal with the most important things first. Saker, did someone see you enter the spiral stair?”
“No, but they know something odd happened in the Regal’s bedchamber. And sooner or later the feathers will turn up missing.” He tapped the wood he carried. “They are inside this. I need to get to the door to the tower stairs on this level. Unseen.”
“Not possible,” she said flatly. “There w
ill be at least two wardens out there in the gallery.”
“Feathers? What are you talking about?” Mathilda asked. She looked from one to the other, her expression bewildered. “You mean the feathers from the Regal’s fan? Both my children? How did you know there are two?”
Sorrel and Saker both ignored her. “Then I need a diversion,” he said. “We have to entice the wardens into the Regala’s solar in a way that allows me to slip out into an empty gallery, and so to the warden’s stair.”
“Diversion?” Sorrel asked, keeping a tight hold on her rage. “What sort of diversion is going to succeed in doing that? You want us to set fire to the place?”
Mathilda glared at her. “Are you out of your mind? Don’t you dare!”
“No one is going to set fire to anything,” Saker said in an attempt to soothe her. “Milady, your grace, the best thing you can do is get into your bed and stay there. Afterwards, you can tell people you slept through everything. No matter what you hear, stay where you are. Sorrel and I will fix this, but we have to be quick.”
Sorrel was already bundling Mathilda into bed before he’d finished speaking. Mathilda began to protest, but Saker stopped her with a finger raised to his lips.
“Aren’t you going to rescue me?” she asked instead.
He stared at her blankly, then drawled, “No, I rather think not.”
This time Sorrel did roll her eyes as she yanked the curtains around the bed, forcing Mathilda to pull her head back or be enveloped in velvet hangings. “This way,” she said, glaring at Saker.
She peeked into the reception room to make sure no one was there, then ushered him through and closed the door behind them. The fire had not been lit, and there were only three candles burning in a holder to give light. “Those are the main doors,” she said, pointing to her left. “On the other side is the gallery corridor. Turn right, and you’ll see the door to the tower at the end. The doors on the other side of the gallery belong to the rooms of the ladies-in-waiting. They will be gone, all but the Mistress of the Chamber and her maid. They remained to be of service to the Regala, should I call for them.”
He nodded and glanced around the room they were in.
“If you want to hide in here, the only place is behind the Regala’s chair.” She indicated a high-backed winged seat placed close to the wall. All the other chairs were straight-backed and offered little cover. “The room through there on the right is the Regala’s retiring room, which is more comfortable. It has a view over the inner bailey. And that door next to the fireplace leads to the Ladies’ Hall, where the Regala can entertain a larger crowd.”
“There’s no one else here now?”
“There shouldn’t be. All the servants are on duty downstairs, even Aureen.”
He walked past her into the retiring room, which was in darkness, and flung open the casements. The rain had stopped, but everything outside still dripped.
“You can’t jump,” she protested. “You’d break your legs or kill yourself. And you’d still be deep inside the castle.”
“I know.”
He leaned out of the window. She looked over her shoulder anxiously, petrified that someone would come asking for Mathilda’s permission to search the spiral staircase.
“What are you doing?” she asked, convinced something awful was going to happen any minute.
“I thought I could call up the gulls again, but there aren’t any around. I think they’ve had the living daylights scared out of them. Do you mind chaws? They call them jackdaws here.”
She stared at him blankly.
As he stepped away from the window, she saw a stream of birds approaching out of the darkness on silent wings. “You jest,” she murmured.
“Er, no. You’re about to find out what my witchery is.” Quickly he outlined his plan.
When he finished, she nodded her acquiescence.
“I’m sorry about all this,” he said. His apology sounded heartfelt, but she was in no mood to be mollified. He’d endangered them all, in order to steal some feathers.
The birds began to fly in through the window to land on the chairs and furniture within. They ruffled their feathers, shook their tails and sat regarding Saker with malicious grey eyes glistening in the dim light. Even though they ignored her, Sorrel had to suppress a shudder. The silence was unnatural. Everything about this was unnatural.
He took her by the elbow and escorted her to the main double entry doors. “Now,” he said, and turned from her to crouch behind the Regala’s chair.
She took a deep breath and put her hand to the doorknob. Behind her, the jackdaws began to stir and cluck.
Flinging open both doors at once, she dashed out, shrieking, “Help! Help!” A glance in either direction told her they were in luck. Each end of the gallery had only one warden. “Quickly!” she screamed at them. “We are being attacked!” She dived back into the reception room. “Only two,” she said quietly to Saker. “Both with pikes.”
The retiring room erupted into a cacophony of sound, a squawking and screaming that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She shrieked again, and it wasn’t entirely forced. When the two men arrived at the door together, pikes at the ready, she pointed wordlessly in the direction of the noise. Even in her fear, she made sure she positioned herself so that when they regarded her, they’d be looking away from Saker. One of them ordered, “Bring the candles!”
She did as he asked, taking care to extinguish all but one as she carried the candelabra. When she entered the retiring room, she surreptitiously kicked the door to behind her. Both men were leaning out of the window and all the birds had gone.
“No problem, lady,” one of them said. “Someone must’ve left the window open, and them chaws come in to get out of the rain. They’ve all gone, and not much damage done, barring a bit of birdshit.”
“Oh! Was that all? I was all of a panic, truly. Never heard such a to-do! You were truly brave. I’ve heard it said they’re birds of ill omen…”
“Nay, say not!” the second man interrupted. “All creatures are of Va’s making, after all. ’Twas just the storm.”
“Indeed, you must be right.” She chatted on inanely, clutching at the arm of one of the wardens until he was forced to peel her off and gently lower her into the nearest chair.
Saker watched while Sorrel did everything he’d asked of her, and more. She even managed to snuff out two of the candles when she grabbed up the candelabra, dimming the room to near darkness. Dressed in her loose, plain retiring gown that swept the floor, her thick black hair flowing free, she deliberately made the shadows dance as she ran after the two wardens. She never looked his way and gave no sign he was there. He’d had to put his life – and Mathilda’s – in her hands, and she had not wavered. He was still trusting her, trusting her with a royal child who could possibly be his. Sweet Va, how did either of us come to this?
As he crept out of the apartment and ran up the long, empty gallery, he wondered if he would ever see her again to thank her.
He had not yet reached the door to the tower stair when it was flung open and five or six pike-wielding wardens charged in, running towards him. He stopped dead, momentarily shocked into immobility. Surreptitiously he edged his left hand with the bambu clutched in it behind him, at the same time as he gripped the pike in his right, ready to use.
“Any trouble here?” the officer of the wardens yelled at him, barely slackening pace. “There’s an intruder somewhere in the Keep and he may have come upstairs to the Regala’s rooms! One of the wardens is knocked out cold.”
“Can’t say I know aught about that,” he replied calmly. “I came to shoo out a flock of chaws. Some addlepate maid left a window open. There’re a couple of wardens attending to it now; mayhap they know something.”
“What the pox is going on with birds tonight? Those buccaneers of the air attacked the warden on the roof like they were possessed! Scared him halfway to beggary.” He was already on his way past Saker as he said this las
t, and his men jogged after him, exchanging apprehensive looks. One of them gave Saker a puzzled glance, obviously trying to place him.
He grinned to himself. Once the wardens were fixated on the birds, the more obvious questions they ought to ask were thrust into the background. He hurried on to the tower, before anyone wondered just who he was and why he was heading that way. The stairs were now lit with torches, so he had no problem running up to the roof. The young warden he’d left on the stairs was gone, and so was his cloak. To his dismay, the roof was well lit. The wardens, alerted to something amiss, had all emerged from the guardhouse to patrol the rooftop.
Oh, pox on them, he thought. Disaster. He glanced around to see if he could spot Ardhi, but there was no sign of him.
Without another thought, he took charge, and hoped no one would question his authority. “You, over there near the tower entry – you get down to the Regal’s solar and help the guards find the intruder, if there is one. What the blistering blazes do you swag-bellied addlepates think you are doing anyway? Lighting up the roof so you can’t see a damn thing out there in the dark? And providing a lighthouse for all the birds and their grannies to home in on? The Regala had chaws in her sitting room! Snuff those torches, you pickle-brains!”
As he’d hoped, every torch was seized and extinguished.
He continued to yell. “You three, line up along the wall overlooking the inner bailey, and keep an eye out for birds or a man that ought not to be there. I’ll take the cliff side.”
“Sir,” one of the men said, agitated, “when we carried Konraad inside the guardhouse, we found he wasn’t wearing his uniform!”
“It was stolen, you daft rabbits! There’s a man in the Regal’s solar pretending to be one of us. Look lively now, and make sure you’re not taken unawares!”
The men scattered to do his bidding, and he strolled over to where he’d left Ardhi. To his relief, the lascar was huddled safely beneath the walkway. “All’s well,” he whispered. “I’m going over the side now.”