His sword.
We Kyr have little use for swords; what we hunt we kill with the arrow, and the knife we use to cut portions for meals. We do not take up the sword. Not in the highlands.
Yet, he has become very skilled with lowland weapons, my father. He might have killed you, too, Elzin, with your own, magical weapon. He could have, but he has asked me to prevent it.
Elzin crept up to her elbow and stared. On its soft bed, the sword glittered: weighty, cold, and meticulously cared for. "He meant to use that on me."
"No, Elzin. Remember? He did not need to." She touched the hilt cautiously. "See how it looks as if it sleeps? I think he was done with it. I think he was finally done."
"He's done, all right. I've stopped him."
Castandra rubbed Talisman behind the ears. "Resume," was all she said.
o0o
She had scarcely passed beneath the lintel when the elite tried to step in. "Wait here," said Castandra. "It is found, but she wishes to be alone for this Playing."
Ableman shoved her aside. "I'll see for myself."
On the other side of the door, something heavy was dropped into the metal slots meant for the siege bar.
"Hold her," Ableman ordered. The sorceress found herself unceremoniously thrown into the arms of another elite. "If this is more Tarskan trickery--"
"No! Nothing! She simply wanted--"
The door shuddered beneath Ableman's blows. "Great Lady! Answer me!"
"Go away!" her voice through the heavy door was muffled, but distinctly Elzin's. "Can't you leave me alone? I have to play. I have to!"
And she did; there was no mistaking. Mere stone and wood could not contain the sound; the music rolled past them, rolled and rolled, like a wave seeking breakwater.
o0o
"Ableman." When he didn't respond, Castandra tugged on his sleeve. "Captain Ableman."
"I heard you," he said, and brushed her hand away. "Allow me make something plain to you that you have evidently failed to notice… Your Highness. The Great Lady trusts you, and you seem to think that buys you something, but it doesn't buy fish offal with me. We have both seen how misplaced the Saire's trust has been before. So, let me offer you a courteous warning. I'm going to have a talk with the Chosen. I hope that soon she'll see the light of reason. But no matter what the outcome, before that time, and during that time, and after that time, I and my men will be watching you."
"No matter," said Castandra. "though your vigilance would be better employed against those who might do her harm. Still, your delusions are no concern of mine. What I need is your assistance."
Ableman laughed caustically. "Bold, too, just like her father. Don't wager on getting it."
"I never gamble, and I especially would never gamble with the welfare of Elzin's son. He's a babe, and he's missing his mother's breast. I need you to send someone to fetch him here safely."
"I take my orders from the Saire."
"As you like," she said. "I'll send another. But the Great Lady will hear how the captain of her own elite refused to return her child to her arms."
He grabbed her as she whirled and spun her back around to face him. "You are very sure of yourself."
"So I am," she said. Strange, how she was. "But most of all what I am sure of is that the Saire's child needs his mother. Now unhand me, and I'll find someone more willing."
"You won't need to." He let go of her arm and unconsciously wiped his palm on his trousers. "Not this time. But don't get too accustomed to having your own way. You'll find out soon enough we're not so easy to manipulate."
o0o
"Great Lady? Saire Elzin?"
The voice intruded on her sleep, faded, then returned, vexing as a gnat.
"Saire Elzin, are you in there? Are you hurt?" The pounding grew steadily in volume to punctuate each muffled phrase.
Grabbing for a pillow, she rolled over in her bed. Surely her father couldn't expect her to help out every day. After all, she'd been shoveling grain ever since the hired man was fired last week, and her mother would have screeched that it was hardly work fit for a girl. Her mother never would have cared a fig, either, about her bit of sport with Drenreal, so he wouldn't have been fired in the first place. Her mother…
"Saire Elzin! Please answer, Great Lady!" The knocking became a deep, wood-splitting thud.
He'd brought his heavy walking stick! She was sure to catch it now! Fishing for the flimsy security of her threadbare, woolen blanket, the blonde clumsily brushed metal with one hand. She sucked in a startled breath, then coughed.
Dusty. It was dust she choked on, and dust that made her nose and eyes run. Eyelids squeezed shut against the irritating cloud, she grasped the Flute and clutched it to her breast.
She remembered now. Castandra, placing the gold-enshrouded Saireflute in her hands. Her own need, raw and painful, to be alone with it to play. There hadn't been time to assemble anyone for a proper ceremony, not even time to move into the White Hall. Hurrying the sorceress from her room, she had rushed to bar the door with a sturdy, wrought iron pole which had held a candelabra. Then, at long, long last, she sank in gratitude onto the bed and raised the soothing silver to her lips.
And then what? What had happened to her? What had happened to this place? Coughing hoarsely, she heard the splintering of wood and the clang and clatter of metal caroming off a hard surface. Heavy boots hammered against tile, lamplight danced like will-o-wisps in the drifting murk.
Still unsure which fearful reality had her in its grip, she cringed. "Da? I'm up now."
"Great Lady, were you injured by the quake?" It was Baygale's voice, she thought, or maybe Finehearth. She always confused the two veteran elite.
Shaking her head in answer, Elzin coughed again and struggled, as she always struggled, to piece together what had happened while the Flute had worked its magic. Rubbing at her eyes, she peered through the lamplit haze. Had he said something about an earthquake? All around her, she could just make out the evidence: bed-table overturned, swirls of flaking mortar like grey snowflakes on the floor, the elaborately decorated washbasin shattered on the tile.
"Forgive our intrusion, Great Lady." It was Finehearth after all, with Captain Ableman beside him. "After both the trembler and the Saireflute's music ceased, we feared that you had come to harm."
Clutching the Flute tightly, Elzin stepped cautiously through the jumble of broken glassware and flaking masonry to peer out her ruined door, where a crowd of elite snapped to attention.
"Perhaps you'd better sit, Great Lady," suggested Ableman. "After a display of such power you must be tired."
"What is keeping that damnable physician?" Finehearth growled.
"But I'm not hurt. I'm not even tired. Please, I have to leave. You have to come with me. I--I have a son, now."
"I've sent a contingent out to fetch him, Great Lady, and you cannot leave." Ableman gestured pointedly to the exposed door in the wall. "There are important decisions you must make."
Managing a weak nod, she sat upon her bed, already guessing.
"There is the matter of the traitor and his kin."
The traitor. Caldan. Not even worthy of a name, now.
"And, Great Lady," he continued, "no monarchy can be left too long kingless. By my council, you must execute our enemies and grasp the reins yourself. There is no better choice."
Behind its dark mask of dried blood, Elzin's face was ashen. "No. Not me. I--"
Outside the room, a familiar voice stridently insisted. "But I have important news! She'll want to see me."
"Kezwann?"
A multitude of toenails scrabbled on the floor.
"Oh, sweet Telriss, now look what's happened!"
"Let her in!" howled Elzin. And then the pugs were on her.
"Ugh!" groaned the Saire as she ineffectually struggled to repulse the grunting, lapping horde. "Couldn't someone have drowned these things while I was away?
Other hands came to her aid, and then a pair of warm arms gathered her up. "Oh, Great
Lady! I knew that you'd come back! I knew it! And then I heard the music, and I knew that you had returned. But, hallowed amber moon, Chosen, you're an awful mess! What's the matter with you stupid men? Can't you fetch some water to cleanse the Chosen's face? Oh, child, how you've wrung my poor heart. You're not hurt, are you? What with all that's happened, all the magic has done?"
"Done?"
"Done to the Keep."
"The… Keep?" Elzin repeated woodenly.
"The Keep of the Virgins. It's gone. Collapsed. I was out--the pugs, you know how they wake up sometimes. Then the music came and the ground moved. There have been torches and rushes lit all week as we watched for your return, so I could see it. It was like—like--a ripple. Like the mound a digging mole makes. Everything tilted as it passed, and then it struck the walls of the Keep and smashed them down. The whole place is gone."
The room began a slow spin, with the Saire its axis. "But what about the priestesses? What about the women in the keep?"
"People are digging through the rubble," said the handmaid as she dipped the edge of her dress into a pitcher offered by Finehearth. "They're doing what they can. Best not to think about it, Great Lady. When the Goddess raises her hand, what else can we mortals do but bow our heads?"
o0o
He awoke, face down and on his stomach, to pain and a damp, pervasive stench. His first thought was that loss of blood had made him faint and then cycle into sleep, until the dull throb at the back of his skull put him to mind of other reasons. If he had been struck, he did not remember it.
He stirred a little--even with his eyes closed he could feel vertigo and heard voices.
"Well, well. Look who's awake. Just when I was beginning to hope maybe I had killed him. And how does Your Majesty find his accommodations?"
"That's enough, Stronghull. You were plenty worried when you hit him too hard, so no one's impressed by your crowing now."
There was other pain, besides the dark, astringent need of his body. One was sharp and small and about midway between his left ribs. He drew back one arm and probed his side experimentally. He had fallen on something buried in the rancid straw.
Curiosity and the stench, as much as anything, forced him to sit up and open his eyes. His shirt slid unimpeded off his naked back. No surprise. The elite were efficient; he had expected he would be well searched.
He faced the back of a square, twenty-foot cell. He knew it was square, because the only cells with twenty feet to any side were the ones that the Queen had ordered built. She had required many in the pursuit of what she liked to call her "hobby", and they ran for several levels, all excavated beneath the older, less spacious, dungeons. At his back would be an entire wall and door of bars. Her Late Majesty preferred an unimpeded view of her "collection", and it only increased her pleasure to know that those waiting in the cell opposite had an all too ready view of any festivities, and ample time to dwell on their own upcoming torments as well.
Heratinn had released those obviously unjustly imprisoned not long after his mother's death, and he himself had been well into the laborious task of separating the not-so-famous who had fallen afoul of the monarch from the true criminals that languished in her extensive dungeons.
He had also ordered the prisoners rotated and the place cleaned. Judging by the fetid, mildewed straw and the smell of old decay, the work had not progressed this far.
Carefully, so as not to arouse suspicion, Caldan used his fingers to explore the contours of the thing he had fallen upon in the straw. Concentration was difficult. He wanted, needed, the distraction, but touch was not a reliable sensation now. Already the nerves had begun to carry other messages, urgent and demanding, as if the dryness of his mouth and eyes and skin were not enough. Pain, to make him listen. I thirst. Pain, to drive him to comply. You will drink. The body was an unrelenting and merciless master. And a deaf one. There was no explaining to blood and bone that he had no means to satisfy it. Communication only worked one way.
Bits and strings of matter flaked from the smooth, hard surface of the object, which was knobbed at each extreme. Before he had even carefully raised one end to look, he was sure he knew what he held.
"What have you got!"
He lifted it up between thumb and forefinger by way of answer. A tibia, small: a child's.
"Shador rot you, Stronghull. You said you had checked the cell!"
"There was a lot of rubbish in there--no one could find it all. I suggested we have it cleared out."
"Captain Ableman's orders were to keep it as it was, except for potential weapons. You should have been more thorough. Consider yourself on report. You!" The guard punctuated the pronoun with a solid bang on the iron bars. "Reach your arm behind you and drop that thing to the floor."
He did so.
"Now turn around--stay down--and push it toward us with your foot."
A wide band now encased his ankle in a circle of steel. The chain attached to it disappeared in the straw, to an anchor moored securely in the middle of the cell, he suspected. He would test its length soon enough, but he doubted it would be sufficient to reach any wall. The elite would be taking no chances with secret portals, however unlikely.
The change in perspective also verified what his nose had already told him. There was no water in the room.
With genuine revulsion, Stronghull retrieved the gruesome reminder of Hulgmal's long reign.
"Lovely," said his companion. "It would have served you right had he given you a crack across the head to match the one you gave him earlier. Would you like to be the one to beg the Great Lady's pardon if he escaped?"
Escape. That would be gratifying accomplishment, he thought as he stood (the ceilings were tall here--Hulgmal had often liked to hang things from them), but he doubted he would manage it by virtue of the bone from one small child. Besides, escape was not his plan.
He combed the debris fastidiously from his hair, then bent to snag his shirt. The stretch brought a twinge of pain from the wound on his throat, but not much, and no blood. From how much the healing had progressed, he judged he had slept full cycle.
The stars would be out still, the sun not yet risen. The city slept. Or maybe not. Perhaps Elzin had sent out criers. That would be like her--she adored a celebration. So far beneath the surface, he would hear nothing.
He snapped the shirt sharply. The elite jumped at the crack of linen, which gave him an inappropriately childish sort of satisfaction, and more importantly removed the clinging straw. There would be no removing the blood. Still, he was cold, so he put the thing on, buttoned it, and neatly tucked it in. His dagger was gone, of course, as well as the wicked little throwing knife that had been a long-ago gift from an acquaintance in Egia. His jacket, too, had disappeared, along with his belt, assorted odds and ends, and both his rings. He especially missed one of the latter, and wondered if the elite had figured out the catch, or even thought to look.
No matter. When it came to it, if it came to it, he was certain he could goad them into what he wanted. They were elite after all, and thought first with their swords. Few had the necessary will, to be so good at something and not look for opportunities to use it. He would give them very good reason.
But not yet. Not until he had heard. He had to know how Castandra had fared, how much she had rescued from his folly. He had been weak and would pay the price without complaint, but his people must not lose what had been gained. The Saire trusted Castandra already. As a reward for restoring the Flute, Elzin might grant her anything.
He withdrew from the door as far as his shackle would permit, then sat and pulled his knees up to his chin. The inevitable would come. He need only wait.
o0o
Despite the soft, thick blankets wrapped around her, Elzin could not control her shivering. It was as if the memory of Caldan's touch, his hands cradling the back of her head, had drawn from her not only warmth, but the strength of her rage.
"I never wanted to hurt you."
I watched you murder Her
atinn. You killed my friends, my brother.
"I dare not hope you will forgive."
Kezwann cradled the sleeping infant in her arms and settled more comfortably into the chair by Elzin's bedside. "Don't cry, child. Rest," she whispered to the blonde across the narrow stretch of darkness. "It's just another nightmare. We've washed off all the blood…"
But Elzin could see blood, when she closed her eyes. Caldan's blood, splashing onto her. And Caldan's face, poised at last above her own. Had he been afraid of dying? Did he fear it now?
"Please, Chosen, try to sleep. I'm right here if you need me." The handmaid's voice faded to a sleepy mumble. "This unpleasantness will soon be all behind you."
Elzin listened to a dawnsinger's soft trill outside her window and swallowed past a painful lump.
"I dare not hope you will forgive."
Forgive? No, she could not forgive. She could not forgive because Caldan had loved her. His reaction to her pain had told her that. But he would have killed her anyway. To him, love didn't matter. Nothing mattered but his plans.
And Caldan was always planning. He must be planning even now.
The next time the highlander had the upper hand, he would not hesitate a moment out of past affection. The next time, he would leave her child motherless, if he chose to allow Venwinn life at all. She threw off her useless blankets and reached for a clean, white robe. There was only one choice that she could make. There must not be a next time for Caldan.
o0o
"If you plan to rule, Great Lady, you must learn that ofttimes there are difficult and unpopular decisions to be made." Ableman offered his arm respectfully as the pair approached the staircase which would lead them to still a lower dungeon. "A woman in your position has no need of explanation, particularly not to the likes of criminals and traitors."
Elzin grimaced and added yet another cuwhar-shell to her mental tally of unsolicited advice. So far this morning, Zendriam had offered her suggestions on everything from how to handle her own coronation to what to do to distance herself from what he presumed would be a round of executions. Immersed in her own thoughts, she chose to ignore the problem. Let him find out with the rest that she could make decisions of her own, that the very last thing she needed or wanted was another Caldan in her life.
The Night Holds the Moon Page 45