Well of the Damned

by K. C. May

  Chapter 38

  Uncaring about the rain tapping his head, Gavin stormed towards the stable, with Daia and Brawna following behind. Gavin grabbed Golam’s reins, mounted and started off, with the others scrambling to catch up.

  “If we hurry to the market,” Daia said, catching up to him on her horse, “perhaps you can find Cirang before Queen Feanna even arrives.”

  He nodded, having already formed the same plan. It gave him comfort to know Daia understood him well enough to anticipate his thoughts, his plans, even his words. Should have married her instead, he thought angrily.

  “Rikard,” he yelled as he approached the gate. “That woman who left the message. She’s a traitor, murderer and thief and needs to be brought to justice. I need whatever armsmen you can spare to search the city and apprehend her.”

  Rikard’s jaw dropped open. “But she was wearing your colors, my liege.”

  “She murdered a true First Royal Guard and stole that armor. Arm your men with a description of her and send as many as you can.”

  “Yes, sire. Most of us are preparing for the queen’s outing, but I’ll awaken those who guard at night. Oh, and sire? You asked whether—”

  Calinor rode up on the white mare and reined in.

  “Ho there,” Rikard said, holding his sword to block Calinor’s approach. “Move back.”

  “He’s with me,” Gavin said. “Treat him as you would a First Royal Guard.”

  “Oh. Yes, sire. You asked whether that woman has come to see the queen — and she hasn’t — but someone else has. I thought you should know, in case—

  Gavin cocked his head. “Who?”

  “Two women. Twins. They didn’t say their names, and so we refused to request an audience with her on their behalf.”

  Alarm made him stiffen. They must have been the twins Adro had seen wandering in the palace. “What did they look like?” Gavin didn’t know what business those women would have with the queen, but their business with her was also their business with him.

  “They were more erstwhile ladies with gray in their black hair. Blue eyes, angular faces. Nicely dressed but not wealthy. They arrived on foot, as near as I could tell, but I didn’t actually see them approach.”

  “How was their demeanor? Angry? Friendly?”

  Rikard looked into the distance for a moment. “I’d say more cool than friendly, but not angry. No more so than some of the merchants or department directors who come to meet with the lordover.”

  “I want to know what business they have with my wife,” Gavin said. “If they return, detain them, but be cautious. At least one of them might have some skill with magic.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  Outside the guarded gate, they were met by the throng of eager citizens, now crowded around. Though he understood their excitement at seeing the first king in more than two hundred years, Gavin’s mood was already soured. He had neither the time nor the patience to deal with them but didn’t want to leave them with a poor impression of him.

  “Make way,” Daia shouted, taking the lead. She parted the crowd for him.

  He held his left hand out and downward as he followed, letting the people touch him as he passed. A few tried to grab his hand, perhaps to shake it, but Golam moved steadily forward, ripping his hand from those tenuous grasps. At last, the crowd thinned, and the horses broke into a trot on Daia’s lead.

  “Calinor says we should take Brewer Street to Worsted,” Brawna said from behind him. “The lordover’s guard told him they cleared that route so Queen Feanna’s carriage can get to the orphanage with the fewest delays.”

  Gavin turned in his saddle and grinned. “Good idea.” The crowd had fallen behind, and most had given up the chase, though the people on the street ahead were beginning to notice his presence. They turned onto Brewer and met three soldiers blocking the road.

  “The street’s closed,” one of them said.

  The other two gaped at him. “K-King Gavin?” one said, a young man about Brawna’s age with a wide-eyed, slack-jawed gape.

  “The same,” Gavin said. “Let us pass.”

  At that, they snapped to attention and saluted, flattened right hand against the chest, before stepping aside for him.

  “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty,” said the first one. “I didn’t recognize you.”

  “You won’t make that mistake twice,” Gavin said with a grin as he rode by. The street ahead was lined primarily with houses, with no one on the street. Behind him, two of the soldiers teased the other for forbidding the king’s passage. “Let’s stop a minute to check Cirang’s location.” He hadn’t yet mastered using his hidden eye while also doing something else, even something as natural to him as riding his warhorse, and doing so would have been like riding blind.

  He sent his hidden eye up over the tops of the buildings. Below, he saw his own haze and those of his party. He continued searching towards the crowd gathered to await Feanna’s arrival. All the hazes were normal human hazes of white, yellow and blue. He expanded his search and found Cirang’s dark haze in the western part of the city, away from both the orphanage and the shops where the people gathered. Cirang wasn’t moving. In fact, she was in a building, and judging from the stillness of her haze, he would swear she was asleep.

  He released the hidden eye and nudged Golam forward again. “She’s on the west side o’town.”

  “Leavin’ the city?” Calinor asked.

  “No, stopped. Maybe at an inn.”

  “Wouldn’t it be odd if she was at the same inn where you and I first met?” Daia asked.

  He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. I’m certain of it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Maybe she’s resting now so she can travel at night,” Brawna said.

  “She’s got to be exhausted,” Gavin said. They all were. He realized then they all looked as haggard as he felt.

  “And she’s injured,” Daia added. “If not for the crowd following you everywhere, we could take her by surprise.”

  “How about me and Brawna go to the inn while you go get your book?” Calinor whispered. “We don’t have to take her alive, right?”

  He had a point. There was no need for all four of them to go, and the crowd following him would surely awaken Cirang and give her another chance to slip away. He hated leaving the responsibility to others, especially when it was just the two of them. Cirang had already taken Calinor by surprise once and nearly killed him, and Brawna was a less experienced and skilled battler than Cirang was. “You’re right. I’ll be in the way if I go, but take those three guards with you.” He tossed a thumb back over his left shoulder. “The innkeeper’s name is Trayev. Ask him if she’s there afore you break down the door.”

  “Where should we meet you after we’re done?” Brawna asked.

  “Good question. Guess that depends on when you’re done.”

  Calinor grinned. “No reason to let her sleep. I’ll have the innkeeper pound on the door, sayin’ something’s wrong with her horse. When she comes out, she gets two swords in the ribs, one from each side.” He nodded at Brawna, and she smiled back at him.

  Gavin clapped Calinor’s shoulder. “Then we’ll see you at the lordover’s for supper.”

  “Be vigilant. She’s crafty,” Daia said.

  “No one knows that better than I do,” Calinor whispered, pointing at his scarred throat.

  Chapter 39

  Cirang lay on the lumpy mattress for what seemed hours, turning first onto one side, then the other, unable to shake the nagging feeling something was wrong. She tried to sleep. The gods knew she was exhausted and needed about three days of doing nothing but sleeping and sitting on her arse, not to mention a half hog, a dozen loaves of bread and a barrel of wine. Or ale. She wasn’t picky.

  Once or twice she started to fall asleep but jerked awake with visions of blood and claws and a sharp gasp of death.

  The demon’s gone, Cirang. Kinshield’s just a man, and not even a fearsome one.

/>   With a sigh, she swung her legs over and sat on the side of the bed, head hung, listening but hearing nothing out of the ordinary.

  She put on the mail shirt, strapped on her weapons and slung the knapsack over her left shoulder, but just as she put her hand on the bar to slide it across, something made the fine hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand up. She couldn’t have said what it was other than instinct, the warrior’s intuition honed by years of fighting.

  Pressing her ear to the door, she heard the eery silence that came just before death.

  Just in case, she dug into her knapsack for the remainder of the serragan powder, tapped some onto the palm of her left hand, and quietly drew her sword, which she used to push the bottom bar to the right, unlocking the door. She waited. If no one was there, she would feel awfully foolish, but better to feel foolish than to die a third time. If Kinshield had somehow tracked her here, he’d have with him Daia and Brawna at least, and perhaps others as well. The queen had her guards, and the lordover’s armsmen would surely be at the king’s beck and call. An entire army could be standing outside her door now, ready to arrest her or worse, carry out the king’s execution. She had, after all, killed Vandra, the warrant knight Calinor, and the surgeon and his wife, whose names she’d already forgotten.

  No, she thought. If he had all those battlers, they’d have just broken down the door and stormed the room.

  She lifted the other bar and eased the door open, peeking out through the crack. No one there. She opened the door a bit more and waited, but nothing happened. She looked out, ready for the battlers there to take her down, but the street was clear.

  She let the powder fall back into its bag, tied the bag closed and tucked it into the top of her boot. The feeling of being constantly pursued was no delusion, though she felt ridiculously self-conscious. She went around the building to the street and checked in both directions. No one seemed to be paying her any attention, and so she walked calmly but alertly towards the temple.

  The entrance consisted of two wide doors into which symbols of divinity and angels and other crap were carved. Inside, long benches were arranged in rows on both sides of an aisle that led to the altar, where the golden flames of dozens of candles flickered. Behind the altar on a dais was a tall marble statue of a bald-headed man, his hands clasped in front of his navel. The statue was standing in the sacramental font.

  As soon as Cirang walked in, the worry that had nagged her dissipated. So profound was the difference that for an instant, she wondered whether the god Asti-nayas really was present. She looked up without thinking towards the heavens. More symbols of divinity had been painted on the temple’s arched ceiling, many of which were accented by gold and gems. Magic, she knew, was strengthened by gems, but how were gems relevant in a house of worship? She was certain the religious doctrines forbade the use of magic within the temple. Did all temples have gems embedded in their ceilings? She searched her childhood memories of visits to the temple with her parents but couldn’t recall ever seeing gems.

  Several people were seated on the benches near the front of the nave, closest to the altar, their heads bowed in reverence. At the altar, a cleric in a plain brown robe was chanting, waving his arm in the gesture of subservience. He tapped his forehead, chest, and navel, and bowed. Forehead, chest, navel, bow. No one seemed to notice her enter, and so she took a seat on the bench closest to the door and watched.

  One woman, a plump redhead, stood and climbed the three steps beside the altar to ascend the dais. A woman in a white robe bowed with her hands clasped like the statue’s were. Under the hood that covered her hair, a lace veil covered her face, obscuring her identity. She was perfect.

  The acolyte dipped a ladle into the font and poured the water into a small cup. The worshiper raised it to her lips and made the gesture of subservience before handing the cup back and descending the steps. She didn’t retake her seat on the bench but instead strode down the aisle towards the door. As she passed Cirang, she smiled and nodded.

  One by one, the other worshipers repeated the ritual and left. Cirang wondered whether she would be discovered here because the people who were leaving would remember her if questioned by Kinshield. She rose and went to the altar, her footsteps loud on the bare wood floor. Except for the chanting cleric and the acolyte serving the sacramental water, she was alone.

  On each side of the altar was a closed door. She opened the one on the right and looked inside, but it was too dark to see anything. The cleric was busy chanting, his eyes closed and his hand moving. The acolyte was kneeling before the statue at the base of the font on the dais and spared her not even a glance. Cirang took one of the candles from the altar and, cupping its flame with a hand, carried it into the room. No one noticed her. Too trusting, she supposed. Their own faith will be their downfall. She snickered.

  The room appeared to be a supply room, with several buckets stacked neatly against the wall and three wooden yokes with ropes attached to each end. There was a public well not far away, and so Cirang surmised this was how they kept the font filled. She lifted a hatch in the center of the floor and peered into the darkness. If nothing else, it might be a good place to hide until she could dump the wellspring water into the font. Quietly, she climbed down into the cellar.

  About the size of her old gaol cell, it was musty like any other cellar but furnished with a straw-stuffed mattress on the floor, small pillow and wool blanket, and an overturned crate as a table. It would do. It would do nicely.

  She set the candle on the crate and her knapsack beside it, and then lowered herself onto the bed with the groan of a much older woman. She didn’t know how much sleep she would get until she was discovered, but she was willing to take her chances. If one of the clerics lived here, he’d better be prepared to call on his god to save him, because nothing else would. She unstrapped her weapons, blew out the candle and embraced the darkness.

  With none of the worries that had plagued her at the inn, she fell into a comfortable sleep and dreamed of grateful people dropping coins and gems at her feet as she ladled cup after cup of water into their eager mouths.

  Chapter 40

  With the help of two of the lordover’s armsmen, Gavin and Daia made their way through the eager and growing crowd to the Gwanry Museum of History, which had once been a large house. The sitting room, dining hall and music room were converted to display rooms with rows of shelves upon which ancient artifacts were neatly arranged. Gavin had come to know most of the items in the King Arek room, with the help of the assistant curator, Tolia. She’d read him the letters King Arek and Queen Calewyn had written, and told him the story behind objects they’d owned or given to others. He’d hoped they would shed light on what had happened to King Arek, but now he knew more from experience than he’d ever learned at the museum.

  When he and Daia stepped into the foyer, Tolia rounded the corner. She was, as always, crisply dressed with her gray-streaked brown hair wound into a neat bun. “Your Majesty!“ she said with a broad smile. She dipped a low and impressive curtsy as though she’d been practicing, but she was slow to rise.

  He took her elbow and helped her stand. “My lady Tolia, it’s always a pleasure to see you.”

  Tolia batted her eyelashes at him. In the past, he had flirted with her, not out of genuine interest, but because she was learned and a former lordover’s granddaughter, and he was a warrant knight of hearty peasant stock. They’d been worlds apart culturally and it had become a game between them. Now that he was a king — and a married king at that — flirting with her would have been indelicate, even if she understood it was only in jest. “And you.” She gazed up at him with the large, unblinking eyes and a silly smile plastered on her face.

  “I understand you have something for me.”

  She blinked and started, seeming to snap out of whatever trance she was in. “Yes, I do. Your First Royal left it with me yesterday. Please allow me to take your cloaks.” Gavin and Daia removed their rain cloaks, shook
off the water and handed them to her. She hung them on a hook near the door. “Let me get that book for you, but first...” She glanced uneasily at Daia. “May I have a moment with you? Privately?”

  Daia raised her brows at Tolia, but Gavin reassured her with a nod. “Give us a minute,” he said, and she inclined her head and went into the King Arek room.

  Tolia seemed more alive than he’d ever seen her, and breathless as if she’d been running. Her eyes sparkled and danced. She put one delicate hand on Gavin’s mailed chest. “I wanted you to know I feel the same way. No disrespect to the queen.”

  He waited for her to explain what she was talking about, but she didn’t go on. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know,” she said. “Our feelings for each other. I know you’re married now, and it would be disgraceful to divorce your wife, especially now that she’s pregnant. I’ve never said this to anyone before, but I would move to Tern if you asked it of me. You could visit anytime, day or night.”

  He was stunned to momentary silence. He’d never thought she would take his flirtations seriously, nor had he ever considered she might’ve had feelings for him. She had always maintained a certain coolness, drawing an understood line for how far he could take the jests, and he’d never crossed that line. Now she was leaning towards him with her head craned back, lips pushed forward into an expectant pout.

  He took her hand from his chest and held it gently, fragile and small in his meaty paw. “Tolia, I always thought we were playin’ a game, and we both understood it. I’m sorry, but I only have feelings for my wife. It’s why I married her.”