by Mark Anthony
The baroness’s blue eyes grew large. She stumbled back and might have spilled her wine, but Durge was there to steady her with a sure hand. The knight glanced at Aryn, then at Grace and Travis in turn. His somber face was thoughtful.
“I don’t know what to think of this Earth you speak of,” he said. “But if Goodman Travis is one of your kinsmen, Lady Grace, then he is welcome here.”
Grace shook her head. “No, Durge, you don’t understand, it’s more than that. Much more.…”
Soon the knight’s deep-set eyes were nearly as round as Aryn’s, but he did not interrupt Grace. When she finished he stroked his drooping mustaches.
“Of course,” he said in a soft voice. “I always knew it was so. There were no footprints in the snow in the hollow where I found you, in Gloaming Wood. Ever did I say it was as if you had drifted from the sky, and I had wondered if perhaps you had come from the realm of the fairy folk. So it is from a different world you hail. But I was not so far from right, was I?”
“No, Durge, you weren’t.” Grace’s voice was hoarse, and her eyes shone.
The knight was still for a moment, then stepped forward, knelt before her, and bowed his head. “Do not trouble yourself, my lady. I have pledged my sword to you, and an Embarran’s word is stronger than steel, more enduring than stone. It does not matter what world you are from.”
Now Grace laughed. She touched Durge’s stooped but strong shoulder.
“Rise, Sir Durge. Oh, please rise.”
He did, and she caught his hands in hers, and his eyes went wide all over again. Aryn ran toward Grace and threw her left arm around the taller woman. The baroness was weeping, and Travis’s own throat grew tight. Even in other worlds there were good people.
Aryn pulled away from Grace and turned toward Travis. Her young face was earnest. “I’m so sorry, Goodman … I mean, Travis. I didn’t know. Do you think—not now, but someday—you could forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” He smiled at her. “And you can call me whatever you want. I don’t think there’s any shame in being called a good man.”
Durge laid a hand on his shoulder. “No. There is not.”
“I have the feeling I just missed something,” said a bright tenor.
Travis looked up to see a broad, familiar figure standing in the doorway.
“Beltan!”
The big knight bowed in reply.
“How did you find us?” Travis said. “I looked all over the castle for you, but I couldn’t find you.”
“I got the Lady Grace’s summons. A page brought it to me in the stables.”
Travis glanced at Grace.
She gave a little shrug. “Being mistaken for royalty does have its advantages.”
“Apparently.” He took a step toward the blond knight. “I’m glad you could come, Beltan.”
The knight’s jovial face grew solemn. “I can’t just hide in old tombs, Travis. One day that will be my place, but not now, not while I’m alive. Thank you for reminding me of that.”
Travis opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say.
Grace shut the chamber door, and this time she slid a wooden bar over it. “We’d better get started. It won’t be long before someone comes looking for at least one of us.”
All eyes turned to Grace. It was time for the real business at hand.
Aryn glanced at Beltan, then back at Grace. “Should we tell him?”
“It’s all right,” Travis said. “Beltan knows.”
“Knows what?” Beltan said.
“That I’m from another world. And Grace, too.”
The big knight snorted. “Oh, that.”
Aryn raised an eyebrow. “You seem to take it in stride.”
Beltan crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Believe me, you get used to surprises when you travel with Melia and Falken. The fact is, you can act astonished only for so long. Your face just gets tired of all that jaw-dropping.”
Now the baroness gazed at Travis in a new light, her blue eyes curious.
“Grace,” he said to get himself out of the spotlight, “tell them what you told me.”
Grace nodded, and the others listened as she paced before the fire and spoke in low tones: the doors, the knife, the spell, and the circle of stones. When she whispered how she had learned this magic—that she and Aryn were studying with Queen Ivalaine and the Witches—both Durge and Beltan took a step back. Beltan started to make a motion with his hand, his thumb and littlest finger outstretched, then stopped himself.
“It appears we are not quite through with Lord Beltan’s surprises,” Durge said when Grace had finished.
She took a halting step toward him. “Durge, I’m so sorry, I should have told you.”
His expression was incredulous. “Why, my lady? It is not my place to question your actions. And there are matters at hand that do require my attention.”
“Like the fact that there’s a conspiracy of murder in Calavere,” Beltan said. Now his face was nearly as grim as Durge’s. “Again.”
Beltan and Durge had more questions, and Grace and Travis answered them as best they could. They knew little enough, but for all the enigmas a few things were clear. A plot was afoot in the castle to murder one of the rulers attending the Council of Kings, and the new Raven Cult was behind it. Travis couldn’t imagine what a mystery cult could get from murdering a king, but there was no doubting the cult’s involvement. Grace had seen a cultist drop the black knife in the act of carving the Raven symbol into a door. That same knife had taken her—by means of magic—to the circle of standing stones. The knife must have belonged to one of the two conspirators Grace had seen. That meant one of them had access to the castle. But who was it? That was another unanswered question.
“I still don’t understand what the doors mean,” Beltan said. He ran a hand through his long, thinning hair. “I grant you there’s no great surprise in that. Still, if someone could explain what two storerooms have to do with a murder plot, I’d be grateful.”
Aryn had been quiet through much of the discussion, but now she glanced up from her thoughts, her blue eyes bright. “I have an idea. It will only take a minute, but I need … I need another hand to help.”
Durge stepped forward. “My lady.”
Aryn hesitated, then gave a nod.
When the baroness and the knight returned to the chamber minutes later, his arms were filled with vellum scrolls.
“What are these, Aryn?” Grace said.
“Let me show you.”
The baroness took one of the scrolls and set it on the sideboard. She put a saltcellar on one corner, and Travis and Grace helped her unroll it. At first Travis could not make sense of what he saw. The scroll was covered with dim lines and circles.
Grace gasped. “It’s a map of the castle!”
Even as she said this the lines and circles snapped into place, and Travis could see it. “Look, there’s the upper bailey,” he said. “And the hedge maze, and the main keep. And these over here must be plans of the keep’s different floors. I had no idea there were so many.”
Durge started to set the other scrolls down, scrambled for them as they slipped from his arms, then managed to get them on the table. “What are we to do with these, Lady Aryn?”
“Look,” she said. “We have to look.”
It took nearly an hour. Some of the maps were very old—drawn by the master builders who had constructed Calavere over the centuries—and it was clear many of them were no longer accurate. Some depicted corridors and rooms that no longer existed, or showed nothing where towers now stood. Eventually they found a scroll that seemed less faded than the others. It was Beltan who finally found what they were looking for.
“It was just luck,” the knight said. He pointed to the small square on the map.
Travis peered at it. Yes, that had to be the storeroom with the Raven symbol on the door, the first one he and Grace had found. The other room had not been far from the first, and they s
oon found it on the map. But what did all this tell them?
Aryn drew in a sharp breath. “Beltan, pick up that map, the last one we looked at before this.”
He glanced at her, his expression puzzled, but did as she asked.
“Now place it over this map. Please.”
Travis saw what she was getting at. The map on top depicted the floor of the keep just above the floor with the two empty rooms.
“What is it, Aryn?” Grace said.
With her trembling hand the baroness pointed to two rooms on the top map. “This is the chamber where King Persard is sleeping. This chamber is King Sorrin’s.”
“And the two rooms Lady Grace and Goodman Travis found are directly beneath these chambers,” Durge said.
Travis flipped back the top map. It was true. He shut his eyes and saw again the ventilation shaft in the storeroom and the old dumbwaiter in the empty bedchamber. His eyes flew open.
“That’s how they’re going to do it! That’s how they’re going to get to the king they plan to murder.” He pointed to the map. “See these lines? These are shafts that run between each of the empty rooms and the chambers of the rulers.”
Beltan swore. “We have to go to King Boreas. From what Grace told us, the conspirators could strike anytime.”
Durge turned away from the window. He had been gazing into the night. “I would not be so certain of that,” he said.
The others stared at him.
“Lady Grace,” he said. “Did you not say in your tale that you saw the circle of stones at twilight? And that the crescent moon was just setting?”
“Yes,” she said. “It was very … vivid.”
Durge stepped away from the window. Light streamed through the rippled glass and cast a pattern like silver water upon the floor. Outside the moon sank toward the castle’s battlements. A quarter moon.
Grace approached the window. “But I don’t understand. I saw it so clearly. The moon was a crescent.”
“And will be so in five days,” Durge said.
They all seemed to grasp the truth at once.
“It hasn’t happened yet,” Grace said as she turned back from the window. “What I saw, the two men in the circle of stones. It hasn’t happened yet.”
“Then that gives us time,” Aryn said. “Time to learn what’s really going on before we tell the king.”
Beltan frowned at this, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I still say we should tell King Boreas.”
Grace took a step toward the knight. “You are the king’s nephew, Beltan.” Her voice was cool and logical. “We can’t tell you what to do. But right now we don’t even know what other rulers, including Boreas, are in danger from this plot. I think we should find out more before we tell anyone. Right now the fewer people who know, the more likely we are to learn something.” Her eyes flickered to Aryn. “And there are other reasons for not telling King Boreas how I learned what I did.”
Aryn nodded, her face tight.
Beltan crossed his arms over his broad chest and considered her words. Travis held his breath. Grace’s visage was so calm, so assured. How many patients at Denver Memorial had seen that same expression as she explained a dire prognosis to them?
Beltan sighed and threw down his arms. “All right. I won’t tell Boreas, or Melia and Falken. But why do I have the feeling I’m going to get in trouble for all of this?”
It was a question no one cared to answer.
“It’s set then,” Aryn said. She gave a nervous laugh, her blue eyes bright, uncertain, thrilled. “We’ve begun our own conspiracy.”
Durge blew a breath through his mustaches. “Don’t proper conspiracies have names?”
“They do.” Aryn chewed her lip. “But what can we call ourselves?”
“We have to all swear an oath on something,” Beltan said.
“An oath of loyalty and secrecy. We’ll take our name from that, whatever it is.”
Travis searched around the room. What sort of thing did one swear an oath on? “The knife,” he said before he even really thought of the answer. “It’s the knife that got us into this.”
Grace picked up the onyx-hilted knife from the sideboard, drew in a breath, and held the blade out. “I swear myself to secrecy,” she said.
Travis laid his hand atop hers. “Count me in.”
“I also swear an oath of secrecy,” Aryn said. She rested her hand on Travis’s, light as a bird.
“As do I,” Durge said, and he added his hand to the knot.
Beltan was the last. “May our circle never be broken.”
The knight placed his big hand atop the others, and in that moment the Circle of the Black Knife was forged.
82.
The next night, Calavere’s newest conspiracy embarked on its secret work.
The Circle of the Black Knife met just as the moon—waning now—sank beneath the western battlements. The doves had long since ceased their twilight song, and only a handful of torches guttered in the bailey below. In winter, in this world, light and all the things that made it—wood, peat, oil—were precious commodities, and not to be wasted. The Eldhish day lived and died with the sun. Most hid in their beds and waited for the rebirth of dawn.
Then again, there were those who favored shadows.
“There you are, Grace,” Aryn said with a sigh of relief.
Grace stepped through the door, into the dusty chamber. The others were already there.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I’m afraid King Boreas caught me on my way here.”
Travis pushed his spectacles up his nose. “He doesn’t suspect anything, does he?”
Grace took a step back. At first she thought Travis meant her lessons with Kyrene and the Witches. Then she realized he had meant the meeting of the Circle.
“No,” she said, then cast a nervous glance at the door. “At least, I don’t think so.”
Boreas had cornered her for a report on what she had overheard at the council that day. Grace had done her best to give it to him in calm, unhurried tones, but once he had left her she realized she had been shaking. She could only hope he hadn’t noticed. Luckily, their meeting had been necessarily brief—if Grace and Boreas were seen together, it would spoil the ruse that they had had a falling-out. It was an unforeseen result of Grace’s plan, but a welcome one.
“Let’s hope you’re right, Grace,” Beltan said. “Boreas might not consider what we’re doing to be treason. Then again …”
Durge moved to the door and shut it.
Grace crossed her arms over her gown and wished she had brought her cape. The room was cold. It was situated in the old watchtower, which—according to Aryn—was little used these days, because of a faulty foundation and the fact that it was not as high as the newer guard towers near the gate. That was why the baroness had chosen it for their meeting place.
The Embarran turned back toward the others. “Should we set a lookout to be sure no one overhears us?”
Aryn frowned. “But that won’t do. Whoever has to stand outside will miss our conversation.”
Durge’s mustaches drooped.
“I think … I think maybe I can arrange something,” Travis said.
Grace watched with interest as Travis walked to the door and pressed his hand to the splintering wood.
“Sirith,” he whispered.
Grace wasn’t certain, but she thought she saw a nimbus of blue light flicker around Travis’s fingers. Then he pulled his hand away.
She met his eyes. “What was that you said, Travis?”
“It’s the rune of silence.”
“What did it do?”
He stroked his beard. It was getting full now, with flecks of copper, gold, and—Grace noticed for the first time—silver. Only thirty-three, and already he was becoming a graybeard.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Travis said. “Speaking something’s rune is supposed to awaken its power. But I think, if I spoke it right, no one on the other side of this door will be
able to hear what we’re saying.”
Grace and Aryn nodded—his words made sense to Grace, even if she knew little of runes—but the two knights scowled as one.
“If that was the rune of silence,” Beltan said, “how come I can hear what you’re saying now?”
Travis scratched his head, then shrugged. “It’s a magic thing.”
The blond knight let out a snort. “Apparently.”
“Perhaps Travis would not mind a test of his skill at runespeaking,” Durge said. “He is a student, after all.”
A quick experiment confirmed that Travis’s magic had worked as intended. Grace and Beltan stood outside the shut door but heard nothing, although those within spoke in loud voices.
Beltan rested a hand on Travis’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“Don’t be.” Travis looked down at his hands and was quiet for a time after that.
Now that they knew they would not be overheard, it was time to get to the business at hand.
“I’ve found another marked door,” Aryn said without preamble.
The others regarded the baroness. Knowing what sort of rooms were being marked with the rune of the Raven had narrowed their search considerably. The night before, Aryn had shown them on the castle plans where each of the rulers was sleeping. The five had all agreed to stroll—alone, and at separate times of the day—past rooms that were adjacent in some way to those of the various kings and queens, and to look for any signs of the Raven Cult.
Aryn pulled a vellum scroll from a leather satchel and—with Beltan’s help—spread it on a table that listed more than a little to starboard. She laid a finger on the map.
“Here. You can only reach this room off the lower bailey. It’s for storing grain. In it there’s a drain leading to a stone pipe that runs here.” She looked up to regard the others. “Right past Queen Ivalaine’s room.” A shiver coursed up Grace’s spine.
“Excellent work, my lady,” Durge said. “I fear I was not so lucky. But that is only as I would expect.”
Aryn gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”
The knight only gazed forward with serious brown eyes.