Grimy hands clenched the steel, and sad, dark eyes peered back at Nightfall through the gaps. A man with limp, brown hair and an openmouthed expression shy several teeth seemed as surprised to see Nightfall as the squire to find a stranger where his master should stand. The oath-bond’s threat intensified with abrupt and suffocating intensity. For a moment, Nightfall froze, fighting back the pain enough to function. He glanced back around to the main pathway. Four guards swept it in two groups of two, moving with readied caution. Shortly, they would trap him against the wall.
Damn. Nightfall scarcely dared to believe he had cornered himself for an unknown hoodlum. He watched, calm, as the sentries came toward him. Nightfall still carried the last of his throwing daggers in addition to three others he had been given in Alyndar. Pain drove him to hurl himself upon the guards en masse, to bite, claw, and stab in a wild frenzy until they killed him. Nightfall delved deeper to the more familiar and personal part of his brain and the cold pocket of calculation he drew upon in times of desperation.
The guards turned the corner. Nightfall took a careful, backward step, aware one more would press his back to the wall. To his right, the farthest wall of the dungeon hemmed him. To his left, the bars of the prisoner’s cage loomed. He saw only one other route, a small and desperate possibility he could not ignore. As the guards charged him, Nightfall scrambled up the bars. He flung himself up and over the cell roofs, skittering from cage to cage in a dashing crawl.
"Hey!" a guard shouted. "Get him." Their footsteps pounded a wild cadence in pursuit. Nightfall leapt from the last cell, hit the floor running, and sprinted back up the tower steps. Heavy footfalls resounded through the turret, seeming to come from all directions at once. Lowering his head, Nightfall jumped over the moaning guard on the first landing, whipped up to the second floor, and caught the door handle. He ripped open the panel and raced through the corridor. The oath-bond tore and hammered at him.
This time, he found a young maid in his path. He swerved as he ran past, but his shoulder struck her, jolting her to her knees. She let out a short scream that impressed the need to work swiftly. Catching the latch to Willafrida’s room, he tripped it and pushed. The door slammed open, revealing the duchess-heir sitting alone on her bed. Nightfall closed the door. "He wasn’t there."
Willafrida stood. "I tried to tell you that. My father wouldn’t lock up a prince in a dungeon."
Every sinew in Nightfa1l’s body seemed stretched to the point of breaking, as if his body might explode to open his soul to the magic. "Where is he!"
"I don’t know exactly," Willafrida admitted. "Calm down. He’s safe."
Nightfall believed her, and the oath-bond settled to a persistent, but no longer excruciating, roar. "You’re sure they won’t hurt him?"
"And cause a war between Alyndar and Schiz? Are you insane?"
Nightfall forced himself to think through the dense fog of agony dampening logic. He suspected the maid’s scream would bring more soldiers or family soon, and Willafrida’s safety would be foremost in her father’s mind. The woman in the hall might have seen which room he entered and cue the pursuing guardsmen. "What will they do with him?"
"Keep him safe until they can get someone to vouch for him. They’ll send a message to Alyndar, probably."
Nightfall knew a sudden clutch of fear accompanied by a single, sharper thrust from the oath-bond that was mercifully short-lived. It would take at least a month for an envoy from Alyndar to travel, during which time Prince Edward would miss the Tylantian contests. Worse, they might have to return to Alyndar, the tenets of the oath-bond unfulfilled, Nightfall’s time limit wasted in waiting and travel.
Voices in the corridor warned Nightfall of approaching danger. He cleared the distance to the window in a single bound. "Please, when I get down, toss the grapple after me." Without awaiting confirmation, Nightfall sprang to the ledge and skittered down the rope ladder. A moment later, the grapple cut a gleaming are through the moonlight and thumped to the ground nearby. Grabbing it, Nightfall slipped beyond a tended hedge of leafy bushes, safe for the moment.
Willafrida’s certainty of Edward’s security appeased the oath-bond enough to allow Nightfall coherent thought, though it remained a generalized, gnawing ache. He had only one solution. He needed to affirm Prince Edward’s identity and intentions by himself, without the courtly breeding that might give him the words and knowledge he needed to succeed. He would have to play the situation by the moment and hope the right attitude would come naturally. The distracting, harassing throb of the oath-bond would only make his task more difficult.
First, Nightfall mow, he needed to look calm and in control, a competent representative of the country of Alyndar. He brushed dust from his clothing, using collected moisture on the branches to wash out streaks. He wrapped the rope in neat figure eights around the grapple, placing the package on the ground. He added all hut one of his knives, tucking that in a well camouflaged boot sheath. He had learned enough from Edwards lectures to know it would not do to visit a duke’s home armed. He emptied his pockets of assorted objects he carried without specific thought to what he might do with them until a problem arose. Long years of poverty and danger had encouraged such behavior. Breaking free a thorny branch, he combed his red-brown hair, arranging it neatly around his collar. He pushed all of his things beneath a bush, memorized the location, and rose. He gave his clothes one last pat, then headed boldly for the front of the duke’s citadel.
Nightfall tried t0 look official and confident, but pain turned his walk into a listing shuffle. Nevertheless, Nightfall kept his head high and his eyes alert as he wound along the cobbled walkway to the stone porch and knocked on the carved, oak door. Lanterns lit windows on every floor from rooms that had been dark when Edward and Nightfall had first arrived.
After several seconds, the door swung ajar to reveal a plump woman in a baggy dress and an apron. "Hello. What can l do for you, sir?" She seemed nervous for a servant attending a door, apparently aware of the excitement in the household but not wholly informed of its source. He understood rumors circulated quickly among house workers, but the events of moments ago surely had not yet dispersed widely.
Nightfall cleared his throat. "I’d like to see the duke."
"Thank you, sir.” She curtsied. "But Duke Varsah isn’t seeing anyone this late. Could you return in the morning?"
The oath-bond’s threat intensified, giving the answer Nightfall already knew. "This can’t wait. I need to see him now."
“I’m sorry, sir. But . . ." The woman trailed off, glancing to her left where, apparently, someone approached.
Nightfall heard the click of mail and smiled. The guards, he guessed, would be inordinately interested in what he had to say.
"Is there a problem?" The man’s voice preceded him into view, then he appeared. Nightfall recognized him at once as the first floor sentry of the tower, the one who had tended his fallen companion. The drawn face held a half day’s growth of stubble, and mousy hair poked from beneath a leather and metal cap. Large blue eyes studied Nightfall from a pall of obvious astonishment. He said nothing more. The woman stepped aside to let him handle the situation, a feat he was managing poorly.
Nightfall met the guard’s surprise with impatience. "I need to see Duke Varsah now."
Gradually, the guard broke free of his trance. He addressed the woman first. “Escort this man to the meeting room, please. I’ll speak with the duke.”
The woman opened her mouth as if to protest, presumably on the basis of policy. Then, apparently realizing the guard had placed the burden of punishment on himself, turned to Nightfall instead. "Come with me, please, sir."
Nightfall followed the woman through a wide entry hall into a room with three doorless exits, each on a different wall. A massive, block fireplace held unlit logs. Above it, the mantle held an assortment of knickknacks, most figurines of warriors in various types of combat in the center, a small battle raged, complete with archers and spearmen. A portr
ait hung over it all, of a stately man in mail and a rich cloak in a frame constructed from metal and notched daggers. A plush chair faced two matching couches, and a rectangular table stood in the center of the arrangement. The latter held a chessboard, each jade or alabaster icon set in its starting position. The woman gestured toward one of the couches, and Nightfall sat, mentally valuing each item in the room to keep his mind from the inescapable throb of Gilleran’s magic.
Within moments, a few faces peered at him from every doorway, then disappeared. Nightfall sat back and smiled, enjoying the show. He noticed a few guards among them whispering to confirm their guest as the same man who had led them on a strange and reckless chase through the dungeon, though surely his motivations, for the hunt as well as the returning, evaded them. Shortly, the servants went reluctantly back about their business, leaving only the sentries. Then, he overheard hissed snatches that told him the guards worried more for hiding their incompetence than for informing their duke. No harm had come of Nightfall’s run through the dungeon, so they would not report it. The rapidity and ease with which so many came to agreement made him certain they had grown accustomed to covering up their mistakes and duty failures. Nightfall guessed he would soon understand why avoiding Varsah’s disapproval took precedence over truth.
The guard who had met Nightfall at the door came, escorting a stout, elderly gentleman with a jowly face and frizzled hair slicked back with perfumed oil. "Duke Varsah," the guard presented.
Nightfall called on every detail of Edward’s descriptions and lectures, wishing he had paid closer attention. Even street orphans knew to stand and bow in the presence of nobility. He did so.
Duke Varsah gestured Nightfall to sit, then claimed the chair. The guard took up a position at his left hand. "What can I do for you . . .?" He left a long enough pause at the end to indicate a polite request for an introduction.
This time, Nightfall caught the appeal. "My name is Sudian, squire to Prince Edward Nargol of Alyndar."
“Ah," the duke said. The guard nodded. From the entryways, Nightfall saw other heads bob and heard quiet whispers.
“I believe my master is here, sir."
“He is,” the duke admitted.
Nightfall met the duke’s eyes solidly. "You need to free, him, Duke Varsah.”
"Why?"
The question caught Nightfall off-guard. He recalled Willafrida’s comment about vouching for Edward and I hoped it would prove as easy at it seemed. "Sir, in every way, he’s as good and moral a man as this world has."
The duke’s brows fanned down toward his eyes. "If that’s so, then there’s little hope left for our world. A man who would sneak into a woman’s bedroom, without the permission or even the knowledge of her father—" He broke off with a sharp, wordless sound, clearly feeling he had no need to finish the sentence.
Nightfall wished that he had. It would have clarified so much. In his world, where families felt lucky to have a single sleeping chamber, it seemed nonsensical to worry about a harmless liaison between nobles, no matter in which room it occurred. Those thoughts notwithstanding, he took it as given that such was improper behavior and worked from there. "Willafrida called for him, sir. Would a good man refuse a lady’s invitation?"
The brows snaked lower. "My daughter did no such thing."
"With all respect due." Nightfall had come to enjoy the phrase. In his mind, the amount became a spectrum on which most men deserved a pittance. "I was there, sir."
The duke’s face pinched further, becoming ugly. “My daughter would never call a man to her room. That’s an insult l won’t tolerate, especially from a servant. Why did you come? To besmirch the name of my daughter? To try to make her unmarriable?"
The duke’s responses bewildered Nightfall, and he tried to return the incident to its proper perspective. "Sir Duke, I came to clear the name of the most moral and honest man I’ve seen or heard about. Nothing more.”
Duke Varsah made a noise that implied he believed otherwise.
The solution seemed simple to Nightfall. "What does Willafrida say about the matter, sir?"
"What?" The duke’s features returned to normal, more, Nightfall guessed from the discomfort of their previous position than from any change in attitude.
Nightfall pressed. "Sir, Willafrida was there as well. Surely she told you what did and didn’t happen.”
The duke clenched his hands, glaring. "This isn’t a matter to involve my daughter. I will not even insult her purity by asking. There’s no need."
Nightfall stared, his own rage growing, not daring to believe what he had heard. "Perhaps, sir, if you spoke with your daughter more often, she wouldn’t feel the need to call men into her room."
Duke Varsah’s jaw drooped, and he sputtered, no coherent words emerging for a moment. Apparently no one had ever spoken to him in this manner, and he had never had to deal with punishing such rudeness. “Servant, l could have you executed."
Nightfall met the angry glare with level coolness. "And incur the wrath of Alyndar. Do you really want to war with a kingdom?"
The guard remained nervously in position, awaiting a direct command. The others in the doorways ceased their whispered discussions and became more visible.
Varsah pursed his lips, weighing Nightfall’s bluff. “Over a servant? I think not."
Nightfall remained notably calm, his composure a disquieting contrast to Varsah’s fury and threats. He had seen Alyndar’s dungeon as well as the duke’s and little doubted it would prove easy to escape in comparison. He sincerely doubted the duke would carry forth on his warning of execution in his, own living room. Even if he did, Nightfall was ready and willing to discover whether his dagger and skill would get him out the door. "Sir, I’m not a normal servant. I’m Prince Edward’s personal squire. I hold his life in my hands on a daily basis. Do you think I was chosen on a whim, without careful forethought?"
"Perhaps not," the duke admitted grudgingly. “But I can tell you’re ill-mannered and lowly bred."
Many sarcastic ways to answer the taunt entered Nightfall’s mind, but he dismissed them. This was a time for diplomacy not antagonizing. In truth, Nightfall doubted Varsah could find a man less cultured or of baser stock. "Duke Varsah, my only wish is to free my master. What do I need to do?"
The duke sat back, folding his arms across his chest. His manner suggested a willingness to discuss the matter but a heldover hostility that could surface at any time. "First, we need to determine if Edward dishonored my daughter. If not, my next step depends upon his attitude. He claimed he had no intention of marrying her. I’ll have to see some explanation and remorse for breaking into a woman’s room at night. If I don’t, his father and I will discuss his punishment. If I do find that my daughter’s been violated, his father and I will have a different discussion. One that involves restitution, discipline, and, possibly, a wedding.”
Nightfall considered a moment. The last had promise. Voluntary or not, Edward’s marriage to Willafrida meant landing, he believed. Yet, Nightfall refused to place his trust in that last possibility. Edward choosing to marry a duchess-heir fell into a vastly different category than being forced into an intolerable union. Surely King Rikard would not let Nightfall out of the oath-bond based on a strategy that had gotten Edward in trouble, shamed the younger prince and his breeding, and gotten him married as a punishment. That thought sparked another. Perhaps King Rikard would sanction any action that got Edward land and out of Rikard’s charge. At one time, that would have sufficed for Nightfall. Now, it bothered him. He could always take another chance at uniting Willafrida and Edward; the danger of their romance might heighten its excitement. But Edward deserved a chance at something better than a wedding at weapon point and a jackass for a father-in-law. Despite Nightfall’s thoughts, he responded directly to the duke’s words. “Sir, that seems fair enough. I’ll wait here while Willafrida is asked whether my master forced anything on her." Nightfall hoped the young woman would speak honestly and not lie to snag a
prince of such beauty.
"The duke dismissed the suggestion. “The court physician will examine her in the morning."
The duke’s words seemed wholly unrelated to the topic. "Examine her, sir? There’s a way to tell such a thing?"
Duke Varsah stared, equally incredulous. "Of course. Physicians can tell if a woman’s virginity is intact. Purity is required as a condition of most noble weddings."
Nightfall wondered if the rule extended to the men as well as the women. If so, it explained much about Edward and, especially, his reaction to Kelryn.
Varsah’s manner hardened again, though less extreme than previously. "Poor Willafrida. I had hoped never to have to subject her to such a thing until her wedding day. That alone makes Edward deserving of punishment, whether innocent or guilty. Even if they merely talked as he claimed, his crime began when he invaded a lady’s room."
The impact of Varsah’s words struck hard. If the physician would perform his check for the first time, it meant Edward would take blame for any indiscretion of Willafrida at any time. Recalling the outfit and pose she had struck when she believed Nightfall the suitor who sent the mysterious flowers, he doubted she would pass the physician’s test. Edward would take blame and punishment for another man’s entertainment. "If you ask her about what happened, she won’t have to suffer the physician’s test."
The duke stiffened, sitting forward in the chair again. "My daughter is innocent. There’s no need to question."
Nightfall turned the remark back on itself. "Surely then, sir, she would not lie."
Duke Varsah’s voice gained volume. "She’s a sweet girl. She might protect him out of kindness. Or embarrassment. The examination will tell the whole story. If Edward violated her, she becomes unweddable to any noble on the continent. Alyndar will need to marry her to one of theirs, and it won’t be to the rapscallion who violated her."
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