The Lascar’s Dagger

by Glenda Larke

  “You have them?” Ardhi asked.

  “Safe in the bambu.”

  Sitting astride the battlements, he reached for the rope and swung himself down. He cleared his mind of all thought of falling, or of being observed, or of having someone cut his lifeline. After all, if one was going to have an adventure, it was always best to enjoy it. Wrapping the rope over his shoulder and around his thigh, he began the long descent to the ground.

  An age later, or so he felt, his feet hit the rock. He took one deep breath, then gave the agreed signal to Ardhi. In answer, his pack came tumbling down, tied to the rope. No sooner had he grabbed it than the whole length of rope followed. By the time Ardhi joined him, having happily climbed all the way down without aid, Saker had stowed the rope in his pack, and thrown the coat and hat of his stolen uniform into the river. He was shivering, and so was Ardhi.

  “I know just where we can get a hot bath,” Saker said as they trudged through the mud of the gorge track at the back of the castle.

  “At this hour of the night?”

  “In Lowmeer, whorehouses are banned. So they have bathhouses instead.”

  “I didn’t think you would ever—”

  “I don’t. But I do know where to get a bath. We need to warm up in a hurry, and this is the best way I know of. And they’ll have some dry clothes, too. For a price.”

  Half an hour later, soaking in a tub of warm soapy water and having his back massaged by a bathhouse bawd, Saker finally allowed himself to think of Mathilda. How had he never seen through her to the manipulating, self-serving woman beneath?

  He didn’t blame her, exactly, but by the sweet oak, he’d been as blind as a hedge-born mole.

  Sorrel might have murdered someone, but he was sure she was a better woman than her mistress. He shrugged. Their paths were not likely to cross again.

  42

  Royal Twins

  The night did not end for Sorrel after Saker was gone. The wardens left once they’d satisfied themselves no jackdaws remained hidden anywhere in the room, and once they’d made a few jokes about hysterical women who didn’t know enough to close windows on a wet and windy night. Instead of uttering a scathing reply, she smiled sweetly and ushered them out with profuse thanks for rescuing them all from vicious birds.

  When she returned to Mathilda, it was to find her sitting bolt upright in bed, her eyes wild with fear. She didn’t ask about Saker. Instead, she clutched Sorrel, saying, “Oh, I am feeling pains! The babies are coming!”

  Sorrel’s heart sank. It was still too early, which might give rise to rumours about the length of the Regala’s pregnancy.

  “You’ve had pains before,” she pointed out, “and they came to nothing.”

  “This is different! Go get Aureen!”

  “Mathilda, nothing is going to happen for a while yet, I promise you. If I send for Aureen and your ladies-in-waiting find out, they’re sure to come buzzing about to see if your confinement is upon you. Best we just wait for her to return.”

  “Oh! It hurts! How can you be so uncaring! You don’t know what it’s like.”

  Poignant memories lanced her. The pain. The fear. Heather’s first cry, her tiny fist curling round her finger with surprising strength, the elation of the belief – later shattered – that her baby was perfect. She closed her mind to the remembrance. “Perhaps it will be better if you walk about for a while. If this is the beginning of your travail, it’s too early yet for you to take to your bed.”

  Reluctantly Mathilda clambered out of the four-poster and began to pace the room, clutching at Sorrel every so often and moaning.

  “Later, when the pain is more severe, you will have to muffle your cries,” Sorrel warned. “It is important that no one hears. For the second baby you can scream all you want. But for this first one, we must not alert the wardens or your ladies-in-waiting.” She smiled in encouragement. “You’ll show us all what it is to be born of a long line of brave kings and courageous queens. Today you will show us what it is to be truly of royal blood.”

  After that, Mathilda’s moaning was more subdued.

  Aureen returned, bone-tired, an hour before dawn, to confirm that Mathilda was indeed on the way to delivery. “Tonight,” she said. “All is well. The first twin has its head in the right place for the birth.”

  “Tonight?” Mathilda asked. “But the night is almost over!”

  “She doesn’t mean now,” Sorrel said. “Perhaps you should try to sleep a while?”

  “You mean I’ll be in pain all day? Sleep? I can’t sleep like this!”

  However, after sipping some warm milk sent up from the kitchens, she did indeed sleep for several hours. Sorrel dozed as well, and dreamed of Saker, an unpleasant, restless dream about a man who ignored her in preference for a flock of orange-coloured birds the size of ponies. When she woke, she lay thinking about him. Why had she been so attracted? Perhaps because his lithe, muscular frame was so at variance with the usual cleric. Or because he lacked the unctuous rectitude she had come to associate with the clerics at court, or the ones who’d frequented Ermine Manor.

  Maybe it was none of those things, she thought wryly. Maybe it’s merely because he is the exact opposite of Nikard. Saker would never reject a child because she was born deaf. He’d be more likely to kill someone who’d sling their daughter down the stairs like unwanted garbage…

  Tears pricked at her eyes, and that horrible lump returned, the one that came into her throat whenever she thought of Heather had died.

  Mathilda called out to her then, and she left her pallet to see what she wanted. It was going to be a long day.

  Several times people came to the outer door of the solar to see Mathilda, but Sorrel turned them away, saying the Regala was sleeping after an uncomfortable night.

  The gossip up and down the gallery was that there had been at least one unauthorised person in the Keep during the evening, and the assumption by the servants was that he’d been one of the guests at the banquet. However, when the Sergeant of the Castle Wardens came to apologise for the disturbance by the jackdaws, it was clear he was more worried about a man he couldn’t identify wearing a warden’s uniform. He questioned Sorrel in detail about what had happened, but she said nothing to enlighten him.

  Throughout the day, she kept waiting for the Regal to discover that the feathers in the fan were missing, but as the hours dragged by, nothing was said. Mostly, life in the castle dawdled on, as its occupants recovered from either overimbibing and overeating, or from overwork and lack of sleep.

  Mathilda dozed and complained by turn. When each contraction came, she alternated between swearing that the Regal would never kill any baby of hers, and vowing that the twins she was about to deliver were devil-kin bent on ripping her innards out and she didn’t care if they were thrown into the sea at birth. It took all Aureen and Sorrel’s tact and cajoling to keep her on an even keel.

  As the ferocity of the contractions increased, so did Mathilda’s bad temper. “I’ll kill him,” she said, clutching her arm so tight Sorrel winced. “He said I wouldn’t have to marry Vilmar! He promised me!”

  “Hush, don’t think about that, milady. Think about the babies.” She didn’t know who Mathilda was referring to, but it didn’t seem important then.

  The first baby slid into the world around midnight with a weak cry. A girl, to Sorrel’s intense relief. She’d dreaded the thought that she would be leaving the castle with a male heir to the Regality in her arms. She was terrified enough of the night ahead, without that.

  Mathilda had surprised her, displaying a courage she’d not expected, refusing to cry out, biting hard into a rolled-up towel, refusing to indicate her pain by anything other than grunts of exertion when expelling the child from her body.

  Afterwards, bathed in perspiration, knowing she had to do the whole thing again, she sobbed and clutched Sorrel in a tight grip. “He swore it, Sorrel,” she said between her sobs. “He did. He said everything would be all right. What if these are h
is children? He’s an evil man. Sweet Va, what did I do?”

  Appalled, Sorrel shot a glance to where Aureen was tying off the cord and wrapping the baby. “Hush, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Aargh! Why am I getting pains still? Is the second one coming already?”

  “It’s just the afterbirth, milady,” Aureen said. “Nothing to fret about.”

  The next few minutes were busy ones, and Sorrel had no time to think of Mathilda’s words. Then Aureen was thrusting the tiny bundle of mewling baby at Mathilda, saying, “She’s a bonny one. And not too small. You must feed her, milady.”

  Mathilda turned her head resolutely away. “No! I refuse! I won’t touch her!”

  “Ay, you will, milady,” Aureen said, implacable. “Mistress Sorrel, you hold the babe to milady’s breast. She must sup on the first milk ’fore you go. I’ll start to clean up here.”

  “Milady, what will you call her?” Sorrel asked as she held the suckling newborn.

  Mathilda, her head buried under her pillow, said, voice muffled, “Call her what you will, I don’t care. She’s the devil-kin.”

  You don’t know that, Sorrel thought. That’s just what you want to believe. Because if she wasn’t, then the one about to be born was…

  “The poor wee mite,” Aureen said, whisking away the bloodied bedclothes. “’Tis an evil land to condemn a newborn with such dreadful words. You ask me, there bain’t be such a thing as devil-kin! Va would ne’er be so cruel. And shame to the clerics who believe such things.” She bustled off to hide the evidence of the birth in their cuddy.

  “Don’t you dare tell anyone what I said about Fox,” Mathilda said to Sorrel. “If you do, I’ll see you dead!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Milady, you must calm yourself. Everything is going well. The babe’s a girl, so she would never be the heir. Va has been kind. Look, she’s fallen asleep. She’s so beautiful…”

  I don’t want to ever see her again. Take her away!”

  Aureen came back into the room then, shaking her head in sorrow at Sorrel as she caught those last words. “Time to be off, mistress,” she said. “I’ll clean up all that might betray us here, and call for them physicians. The other one might be along any time.”

  “Will Lady Mathilda be all right?” she asked, whispering.

  “She’s hardly tore at all, the babe being not so big. She’ll be fine, poor lass.”

  Sorrel looked down at the tiny head peeking out from the woollen shawl. An unwanted child. Well, she could give it love, just the way she’d loved Heather in the face of Nikard’s despising.

  She grabbed up the bundle of items she was taking with her: the letter of introduction to the Pontifect, a change of clothes, Saker’s money, her cloak, some of the swaddling and one of the warm shawls Mathilda had in readiness for the birth. A meagre accumulation.

  “Milady,” she said, “I will guard this child with my life, I promise you. I will beg the Pontifect for help and I will seek the blessing of Va upon you at the Great Shrine in Vavala.”

  Mathilda refused to look at her, or say goodbye. Sorrel touched her hand in farewell, and it was pity she felt, not hurt, or resentment. King Edwayn’s daughter, indulged and spoiled when young, hadn’t had much chance of happiness as an adult. At the very most, her future had always been to be the wife of a monarch who saw her bloodline as of more importance than her person.

  Aureen kissed the top of the baby’s head, then handed Sorrel a single lighted candle and opened the door to the spiral staircase. As Sorrel stepped through into the darkness, the midwife whispered, “All is well, so far. The other babe lives. I’m hoping it will be a while yet, an hour or two, mayhap. A little time for the Regala to rest.”

  She nodded, and squeezed the woman’s hand. They both knew Aureen’s life would be forfeit too if Sorrel was caught.

  Although this was her favoured way of sneaking out of the castle, Sorrel had never done it in the middle of the night. She wound her way down the narrow treads of the staircase with care. She bypassed the door to the Regal’s chamber, where loud snores indicated that his slumber was deep, and continued down to the next level, where the stair ended.

  She cracked the door open a sliver, to see if there was a light in the room beyond. The darkness was softened a little by the glow of coals in the fireplace, but no candles were lit. Blowing out her own, she stood for a moment, concentrating on her creation of a glamour. Shapeless, colourless, just a dull formless blending into the background…

  Please, little baby, don’t cry, not yet. We have to slip past the dragon. The baby was small enough to be concealed by her glamour, but there would be no way she could disguise the mewling of a newborn as something else. Taking several deep breaths to calm herself, she stepped into the room and closed the camouflaged door behind her.

  The curtains were drawn around the bed. More snoring, not quite as loud as the Regal’s, indicated that the Lady Friselda was asleep. A maid lay on a straw pallet on the floor nearby, but she didn’t stir. Sorrel crept past her in silence. The bedroom door was shut. When she opened it, the hinges squeaked.

  She stopped dead, scarcely breathing. The maid rolled over and sleepily raised herself on one elbow to stare in her direction. There was no way she’d miss seeing the open door. Sorrel moved slightly to touch it again, and it swung open a little further, as if caught by a draught. The screech of unoiled hinges was appallingly loud. The maid flung off her coverlet and wandered, still half asleep, across the room in Sorrel’s direction.

  Sorrel gave the door one last push, opening it far enough for her to slip out. A moment later the maid had pushed the door to and latched it without seeing her.

  She breathed again. Calmed her thudding heart. Crossed the anteroom to the servants’ door leading into the kitchen maids’ quarters. Here, pallets on a large wooden platform were occupied by five sleeping forms. Hurrying past, she reached the top of the narrow, dark stairway that led directly down to the kitchens. Without a light, she had to edge her way down, feeling with her feet and her free hand. Something scuttled away into the darkness ahead of her. Rats?

  Don’t think about them, they don’t matter. They can’t rat on you … She giggled, and wondered if she was losing her hold on her nerves. At last, the bottom stair.

  She stepped into the empty scullery.

  The room was still warm from the heat of the chimney in the neighbouring kitchen. Moonlight filtered through the cracks in the wooden shutter. She peeked at the crumpled face framed by a soft woollen shawl, touched a finger to the plump cheek – and remembered another child, another such moment. Suppressing the memory, she sat down on a sack of potatoes to wait. There was no point in leaving through the door to the outside; it led only to the inner bailey.

  Until dawn, all the castle gates were closed.

  Although she held on firmly to her precious bundle, she must have dozed, because the next thing she heard was the metallic scrape of someone cleaning out the ashes from the kitchen fireplaces. The baby stirred and whimpered in her arms, tiny sounds, but they alarmed her. Quickly she rose and unbarred the scullery door.

  “Who’s there?”

  The tremulous tone of a scared kitchen boy. Some poor lad tossed out of bed early to riddle the grates and set the kindling for the ovens before the cooks arrived. “Just me,” she called back unhelpfully. “Don’t fash y’self, young’un.”

  She stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind her. It was still dark, and she had to feel her way along the wall towards the servants’ gateway. When she arrived there, it was still closed, with two sleepy wardens on duty. She kept well back and blended herself into the wall. The baby began to cry, and she gave her the tip of her finger to suck. The child squirmed for a moment inside the swaddling, and then subsided, asleep again.

  An hour later the sun came up and the gate was opened, but she waited until the first servants began moving between the two baileys before she slipped through to cross the outer ba
iley and make her way out of the main gate, unseen, on to the awakening streets of Ustgrind.

  It was a long walk across the city to the seminary, but for the first time since her marriage, she was truly free, and there was a lightness to her step.

  Soon, I shall be able to decide my own fate. Soon.

  No one to tell her what to do, or where to go. Her only responsibility was to the baby in her arms. Mathilda had rejected the child, which wasn’t all that surprising, and Saker had washed his hands of it, which puzzled her far more. What could be more important to him than the welfare of Mathilda’s child?

  She shrugged. She was unlikely ever to find out the reason, so she dismissed him from her mind and considered instead her own options. Right then, she had more money than she’d ever possessed for her own use in her whole life. It was more than she needed for the hire of the wet nurse and the journey to Vavala for the two of them and the baby. It would have set her up in her own household for a couple of years, if she wanted, together with the child and its nurse.

  As if I had another daughter…

  Not another Heather, no one would ever replace Heather, but another daughter to love and cherish. A tempting idea. Her heart speeded up even at the thought. But what if the child was truly a devil-kin?

  I have to take her to the Pontifect. No silly dreams.

  After an hour of walking, she was hungry and thirsty, and stopped at a stall for something to eat and drink. The smell of fresh buns seeded with marshberries was irresistible. She bought two, along with a hot mug of camomile tea. The woman behind the counter, who had been rocking a young baby to sleep when she arrived, immediately asked to see Sorrel’s child.

  “She’s not mine,” she said, and added glibly, “Her mother died at birth. I am taking her to a wet nurse over in Thorn Meadows.”

  On cue, the baby started to cry.

  “Has she suckled yet?” the woman asked.

  “Just first milk, before the mother bled to death.”