by Callie Bates
“I’m sorry,” I say, not knowing what else to say. “It’s a terrible thing, to be abandoned.” And I swallow, because this is not something I want to talk about, either.
Rhia looks at me. She opens her mouth to speak.
Just then the trapdoor lifts up. Sorcha pokes her head into the attic. “We’ve sorted it out.” Reaching back, she shunts two bundles of clothing between the trundle beds. One hits my legs. “Put those on. You’re going in an hour.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It takes longer to reach the garrison than I expect—partly because we are on foot, and partly because of the nerves tremoring through me. I keep reviewing the plan in my head, afraid that if I forget a single step, the whole thing will unravel into disaster.
Rhia and I are dressed in Ereni military uniforms, our hair bundled into hats and our figures obscured by the bulk of heavy wool coats. Though it’s common enough for women to act as informants, the Ereni have never employed female military officials, and my heart beats an uneasy rhythm. I am to draw a fog around us so that we are less easily recognized. A Caerisian conspirator will be waiting at the gate to let us in. If any other guards get to us first and recognize our voices as feminine, I will have to claim we have special dispensation to work as spies and dress in men’s clothes. I will lie through my teeth to get into that garrison and meet our Caerisian contact.
Our contact will bring us into the building and direct us to Hugh’s cell, which we will find “accidentally” unlocked. We have to wrangle Hugh into another uniform then, and get him out the back gate; someone else will guide us there. This assumes that whoever watches the back gate won’t know two soldiers, not three, came in the main entrance. Once we get out, we head for the woods. I will use the magic of the land to confuse any pursuers while Rhia guides us through the woods. Sorcha has arranged for horses to be left in a hamlet outside the city. Then we ride like mad to Dearbann.
It’s simple. So simple it should work. Rhia is ferocious, and I have my magic. Both may help.
And for once, it’s Rhia who must remain silent. I am the one who must speak if required, because my perfect Ereni accent will allow us to pass through without question, even though my voice is light and modulated. Hopefully they’ll think we’re boys.
My palms itch with sweat.
“Pretend it’s already done,” Rhia advises me. She seems alert but calm, as if she breaks into garrisons every day. She probably does. “They’ll sense your nerves. You’ve got to convince yourself you are exactly what you say. That will make them believe, too.”
She’s right. I try to focus. I am an intelligence officer employed by the crown. I have new information that requires me to question one of the prisoners immediately—Hugh Rathsay.
“And don’t think I’ve forgotten our bargain,” Rhia says. “We drop him at the house, and then we go north.”
I nod, distracted. We might not survive the next few hours; I can’t wrap my head around what might come after.
The garrison’s squat tower appears between rooftops ahead of us, black against the night sky. My heart leaps. Rhia gives me a stern look. I pause beneath a swinging tavern sign. Two beggars eye us from the ground. I try to calm my racing pulse as I reach within me for the feeling of the land. I touch the dampness in the earth; I imagine it slipping into the air, crowding us in fog.
When I open my eyes, a mist is leaking down the rooftops. A sound accompanies it—a strange creaking, like trees buffeted by the wind. The beggars gather up their blankets, muttering about strange weather. I suppress the urge to give them coin.
“Let’s go.” Rhia has gone tense. She strides away from me into the pooling fog, and I hurry to catch up with her.
The gates loom abruptly out of the misty dark, far taller than I imagined they were. Their iron seems impenetrable. I swallow hard. I am too small, too human, to survive this.
A guard pushes open the covered window above. “Who’s there?”
My voice sticks in my throat. I have to clear it. “Officers Valmont and Knoll—” I sound thready and high-pitched. Girlish. I struggle to deepen my voice. My Ereni accent punches the words through the air, aristocratic and perfect. “We’re here to make a report.”
The door to the side of the gate opens on a soldier, the winking epaulets on his uniform just visible through the fog. He calls up to the gatekeeper, “I’ve got it, Quentin. We’re expecting them.”
Closer to, I see he’s wearing a lieutenant’s stripes. He nods at us. No special gesture. No reassurance that he is, in fact, our Caerisian agent.
We just have to trust him.
“Come in,” he says.
We walk after him into the garrison.
He leads us through the gatehouse. In the courtyard beyond, the gathering fog obscures a company of soldiers dismounting from their horses. The gleam of lanterns makes their shadows huge. Voices seem to lurch out of nowhere in front of us, sprinkled with laughter. “Damned Caerisian weather!”
“You shouldn’t mock it. It’s like the old stories. The ones where the land…” The speaker is hastily shushed; someone laughs again. The men—two young officers—come into view before we can slip around them. The one who just spoke stares at Rhia, then away. They brush past us and are swallowed by the fog.
I sneak a glance at Rhia. With her hair tucked into her hat, her features are still delicate—but her expression is set with such ferocious gravity that no one would dare to question her even though she still looks feminine. No wonder the young officer looked away.
I hope I appear half as terrifying.
Our contact—he does not name himself—guides us into an old tower that dominates the complex, its stones weathered with age. It must have been built before the Ereni conquest. We pass through an empty hallway to a staircase that winds up into darkness above us.
He stops here and hands me a bundle of neatly folded clothes, lighting a candle from a nearby torch and passing it to Rhia. “The prisoner you want is on the third floor, the last cell on the left. All the prisoners have been fed and no one else should be there. You’ll find a door directly across from his cell that will take you down to the back side of the tower. A private is waiting for you there.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” I say in my most official manner.
He salutes, hand out, in the Ereni fashion, copied from the Idaeans.
I return the gesture.
The lieutenant presses his lips together. He touches his fist to his heart. He mouths, “Caveadear.” Then he walks out.
We are left in utter silence—but not alone, because the eyes of Barrody’s underground watch us. I glance at Rhia. She nods back at me. I take the candle from her.
Then I start up the stairs.
—
I DIDN’T COUNT on there being so many cells, or the stone hallway being so cold and dirty. I didn’t count on there being so many prisoners.
One calls after us through the grille on his door. “Hey, hey, soldier boys, come to get me free? I’ll give you a deal. How’d you like a deal? Hey, hey—”
It’s well after dinner now—closing on midnight. I thought they’d all be asleep. I am suddenly grateful for the locked door keeping the singing prisoner from us.
We turn a corner, blocking us from his view.
The last cell on the left. I have to stop myself from running. I keep my stride even.
This door has a grille, too, but there’s no movement on the other side, only darkness. Rhia faces the corridor, standing guard, while I put back the latch.
The door swings open. The walls are lost to shadows, and I hear the terrible rustle of a rat over the stone floor. Then there’s a louder movement, of a man sitting up from his pallet bed.
I rush in, dropping to my knees beside him. He smells, but I pretend not to notice. His face is bruised, crusted with blood around the nose, but he’s alive. He begins to gasp my name, catches himself, falls into a fit of coughing.
I embrace him. “We’re getting you out of here,” I whisper.
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“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispers back.
“Yes. I should.” I drop the uniform into his lap, the gold and blue pale in the dim light. “Put that on. Hurry.”
I pace back to the door while he changes, giving him what privacy I can.
Rhia is on edge. “I heard something.”
“What kind of something?”
“Voices. Below.”
We both listen, but I don’t hear anything. Trying to listen through the earth does little good; I’m so tense I can sense next to nothing.
Hugh scrapes across the cell behind us. I turn, grabbing his arm as he stumbles. “What mercy,” he murmurs.
Rhia marches to the door across the hall. A narrow, dark stairway curves down into apparent oblivion. I pass the candle to her. With Hugh between us, we begin our descent.
Nearly out.
By the final landing, I can see that Hugh is limping, and he has to lean against the wall to catch his breath, hissing in pain. “Broken ribs,” he grunts.
Oh, no. What if we need to run?
As if she’s thinking the same thing, Rhia shakes her head at me. She strides out into the darkness behind the tower, raising her hand to shine the candle as far as it will go. I wedge my shoulder under Hugh’s arm. He winces but says, “That helps.”
I hope he’s telling the truth.
Rhia returns. “There’s no one here,” she hisses. “Someone was supposed to meet us. There’s no exit. We seem to be in a sort of well between the tower and the city wall. That lieutenant betrayed us.”
My heartbeat jumps. We’re stuck.
Betrayed.
“Maybe it was too dangerous for someone to come.” I try to think if my magic can help us, though I had not intended to use it again until we’d fled the city. Can I speak to the stones and tear down the wall? It would be impossible to do that without attracting notice. A door would be so much easier. “There has to be a way out. Why else does a staircase lead to this place?”
She just looks at me. “Where else do you think they execute people when they don’t want it done in public?” She storms off. “I’ll look again.”
Hugh squeezes my hand. I’m trying to hold down my nausea. Now I see it in my mind’s eye, remembered by the land. These walls weep with blood. All the forgotten dead. The unremembered cruelty. The punishments meted out for no good crimes.
“Under Caerisian law,” Hugh whispers, “capital punishment is almost never accord—”
“Shh.” Something passed through my inner vision. I’m concentrating, trying to see it again. This is a shallow space, between the two walls, and where they meet—
“Stairs,” I say aloud. Stairs, not a door.
I drag Hugh toward where Rhia is combing the wall. I point to where the two walls join. “Steps. Onto the outer wall.”
We run for them, Hugh hobbling on my arm. Rhia finds them first. “Careful. They’re slippery.” They are old, covered in moss. I slip and bang my knee once, but keep climbing. Hugh’s breath becomes labored ahead of me. I insist on going behind.
On top of the wall, Rhia has turned to look back at the tower. I don’t like the way the candlelight plays on her face.
I glance over my shoulder. I see what she sees.
Light. A light glowing in the darkened tower.
Hugh reaches the top. I stumble on the final step. On the other side of the wall, the ground is a long way down, and there aren’t any stairs to reach it. These steps must be here for defensive purposes, built back in the days when Barrody was under siege by the Ereni, during the conquest. We’re on an open walkway, our view of the city’s main gate blocked by the shoulder of the tower. We can’t go to the gate. If we go the other way, who knows what we’ll find—another gate, also guarded?
The light has vanished from the window behind us. The dull tramp of boots echoes in the stairwell.
How do they know? Who told them?
“Blow out the candle!” I hiss at Rhia.
She looks at me, and I see an expression on her face I never expected to find there.
Fear.
I reach for the candle. I mean to blow it out, but I overreach and knock it from her hand by mistake. It goes flying down into the woods on the other side of the wall, briefly flaring in leaves and branches before being snuffed out.
The woods. I should be able to—
I stretch out my hand. The wind sifts through the forest below me. I try to put out of my mind Rhia grabbing onto Hugh, the boots coming closer down the stairs, even the thump of my heartbeat. All I hear is the woods. The trees. The growing things.
An ash tree grows close below the wall.
Come higher, I invite it. I reach out as if I’ll hold it. The ash wakes, stretching up to meet me. I feel its bright green awareness, the sturdiness of its branches.
“Halt there!”
Lights below and behind. Ignore them. I hold my awareness of the ash, whose top I can just see over the wall. It’s growing fast.
“Jump,” I say to Rhia and Hugh. “Go. Go!”
Hugh goes first. He crashes down into the tree branches. The ash dips but holds him.
A shot bursts out behind us as Rhia leaps.
Again, the ash quivers but its branches hold. I feel Hugh drop to the ground.
“Stop in the queen’s name!”
I lunge forward.
But there’s a hand on my ankle. And I am falling—not into the arms of the ash, but back down onto the hard stones, into the solid form of a soldier on the steps behind me, back into the place between the walls, where too many prisoners have died.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They lock me in Hugh’s cell, with the rats.
Time passes.
I lie on the blankets that smell of Hugh’s sweat and pain, and the sweat and pain of many before him. The guards stripped my stolen uniform from me, and at some point in the night I sit up and put on Hugh’s discarded coat, much too big for me, grimed with filth and blood. But it’s wool. It’s warm.
Did they escape? They must have escaped.
Was it the lieutenant who betrayed us, or someone else? It could have been the gate guards or those two young officers who passed us in the courtyard. It could have been someone else entirely, who got word of our plan.
I doze somewhere toward dawn, and jerk into alertness as the prison wakes to the arrival of slop, shoved in bowls through the narrow openings on everyone’s doors. I stomach three bites and leave the rest for the rats.
Time passes again.
My mind has gone blank. I cannot even form a hope.
More time. Endless time.
Keys jangle in the hallway. Footsteps. The rattle of a lock.
My door opens.
Two men walk in. The first is an officer I have never seen, and the second is a bandy-legged man whom I know too well. He’s wearing a silk coat and breeches. The dim light catches the sheen of the fabric.
“This is the prisoner who claims to be Elanna Valtai, sir,” says the officer.
The Butcher leans over me, looking into my face. “You’ve got yourself in quite a pickle this time,” he says to me, shaking his head. “King Antoine would have had you executed tomorrow in Hugh Rathsay’s place, for all the little stunts you’ve pulled recently. But our new duke is the kind who likes to play games. You’ve been granted a reprieve.”
The new duke? But I thought Loyce had named the Butcher to that position.
He stands, then glances back down as if puzzled by my lack of response. “Well, come along. Get up.”
I ache with bruises. I am not sure if anything is broken. I crawl to my knees and then, by some feat of strength, I’m standing.
“The lady is shaken,” says the Butcher. “Give her your arm, Captain Renold.”
Captain Renold’s head jerks in surprise, but he gives me his arm.
I make it to the door and stop, bracing myself on the jamb. I have something to say to the Butcher. I wait for him to look at me, and when he does, I speak.
“Don’t think I’m coming willingly. I don’t collude with Caeris’s enemies.”
Captain Renold’s arm stiffens.
The Butcher looks interested. “Would you die for Caeris?”
I blink. My numb mind stutters. “I don’t know,” I say.
He raises his brows. “You don’t know?”
“I’m going to die anyway, so I might as well be honest.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “You are not going to die quite yet, Lady Elanna.”
But soon I will; that is clear. “And Hugh. Did you—did you recapture him?”
The Butcher looks at me. He sighs. “Ordinarily, under such a circumstance, I would be obliged to tell you whatever I felt might give you the greatest pain. But I have been given no particular instructions. And it is rather a pity to see such a promising young lady reduced to your present state.”
“That means you didn’t catch him.”
“No, Lady Elanna.” A faint twist of his lips. “We didn’t.”
I sag in relief.
Then he adds, as if he can’t quite help himself, “Not yet.”
—
THEY LOAD ME into a coach—plain black, unmarked. My hands are not bound. The Butcher and I sit facing each other, quite alone.
He looks me straight in the eyes. “You had a nursemaid. Hensey, was it?”
My heart goes cold. He knows her name perfectly well, and I know what he’s going to say. I close my eyes, as if it will block out his next statement.
“She seems to have escaped from prison,” he says with irritation.
My eyes fly open; I lurch to the edge of my seat, gripping it with both my hands. He’s watching me with both his eyebrows lifted. I shouldn’t have betrayed so much feeling, but I can’t will away the tears starting to fall down my cheeks. I can’t stop myself from whispering, “She’s alive?”
“I had expected you to know more.” He frowns at me. “Her whereabouts, for instance.”
I can’t speak. Hensey’s alive. Free. He could be lying, of course, but what would be the point?
He sighs, drumming his fingers on the windowsill, watching me. I look away so I can wipe the tears from my face.