“From now on you only translate what I tell you to,” Talbun said. “Understand?”
Olgen’s eyes shifted to Brasley.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Brasley said.
Talbun made a low growl in her throat. “No, we bloody will not talk—”
The three women who’d darted away earlier—at least Brasley thought it was the same three—returned abruptly. One held a silver tray with a dazzling crystal wine decanter filled with red wine. Another held a similar silver tray with three crystal wineglasses. The woman in the middle unstoppered the decanter and filled one of the glasses, then handed it to Brasley with a respectful nod.
Brasley brought the glass halfway to his mouth, paused, glanced sideways at Talbun.
The wizard shrugged, as if to say, Might as well.
Brasley drank.
He lowered the glass.
He didn’t move.
Talbun started to reach for him, then stopped herself. “Uh . . . Brasley.”
“This,” Brasley said, “might be the best wine I’ve ever had.” He remained frozen, staring into the wineglass.
“Uh . . . what are you doing now?” Talbun asked.
“I’m trying to think what I should ask for next,” Brasley said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Her Perranese captors had carried Rina steadily south as she’d lain spelled and unconscious in the back of the cart. As a result, she and Bishop Hark were only a few days’ fast ride from Sherrik’s landward gates.
The size and frequency of the refugee groups increased the first day until finally there was just a line of them, disheveled, downtrodden, and defeated, their bleak faces hollow and haunted. The next day the number of refugees gradually decreased, and the road was empty of them by the third day. Scavengers rummaged the discarded baggage the refugees left in their wake and scuttled away like startled crabs as Rina and Hark galloped past.
They topped a low hill and caught their first sight of the city. Or rather sight of the wall that separated them from the city, carved of great gray stones and forty feet high. The gates were double doors fifteen feet high and forged of iron. From this vantage, Sherrik looked more like a grim fortress than the glittering cosmopolitan jewel Rina had always heard about.
Hark must have seen the look on her face and guessed her thoughts. “Most travelers and merchantmen approach from the sea, where Sherrik presents its better face.”
They reined in their horses before the gate, craning their necks to look up at the top of the wall.
“Hello, the wall,” called Hark. “Hello, the gate.”
A second later, two silhouettes appeared atop the wall, leaning out to look down at them, helmed men with spears. “Be off!” one shouted down at them. “The city is closed.”
“Then open it!” shouted the bishop. “We didn’t travel all this way to be told to go home.”
“Don’t give a shit if you walked barefoot all the way from the Glacial Wastes with King Pemrod on your back. I said get lost!” yelled one of the guards. “Or you can start sprouting crossbow bolts if you prefer.”
Hark looked at Rina. Rina shrugged.
Hark went red and blew out an annoyed burst of air. “I am Bishop Feridixx Hark, and I ride with Duchess Rina Veraiin.”
“Right, and I’m the great sorcerer of Fyria.”
“Fools!” Hark bellowed. “Are Sherrik’s walls manned exclusively by the mentally infirm, or is there someone with half a brain up there who can make a proper decision? Think fast, for I’m not made of patience. Perhaps I’ll have a word with your Captain Sarkham and have you stationed on the seaward wall so you can be first to greet the Perranese when the fighting starts. And be warned that I will snatch out of midair any bolts you loose at me, break them in half, and return them to you up your arses. Go now and find an officer!”
The silhouettes put their heads together, conversing, and then one left in a hurry.
The hint of a smile on Rina’s face. “Haven’t seen you so furious before. Or was that the wrath of Dumo you were channeling?”
“Well.” Hark looked slightly embarrassed. “Somebody had to set those louts straight, and a duchess shouldn’t have to deal with such lowly matters.”
“Thank you for sparing me from such grubby matters,” she said. “I am a fine and delicate flower after all.”
Hark cleared his throat and looked away. “I just hope Sarkham is still master of the city guard. It’s been some years since I’ve visited Sherrik.”
A moment later, the other silhouette appeared again and pointed to his left. “Go to the west door, sir. They’ll take care of you there.”
Rina and Hark turned their horses from the main gate and followed a narrow track west around the city wall. As they went, a shallow ditch along the wall widened into a moat fifty feet across, two feet of muddy water at the bottom. Fifteen minutes later, the track intersected with a narrow road that led away north, probably to outlying villages. A narrow bridge spanned half the moat, then stopped. A wooden drawbridge was up on the other side. A small stone building guarded the intersection.
Rina dismounted and knocked on the guardhouse door. “Anyone there?”
No answer.
“I imagine they’ve all pulled back to the other side of the wall,” Hark said.
A minute later, the clank of heavy chains drew their attention. The drawbridge lowered, revealing a portcullis no larger than an ordinary doorway. The drawbridge thudded into place, completing the way across. Hark and Rina led their horses across the span, the portcullis raising as they arrived and lowering again after they entered the narrow walkthrough, barely big enough to accommodate the horses. Rina glanced up, imagining murder holes and all sorts of other nasty defenses. If an army wanted to take Sherrik, she didn’t think squeezing through here would be the best way to do it.
They emerged through another portcullis into a courtyard on the other side. Walls rose up high and close all around them, and soldiers atop the walls pointed crossbows down at them. Three soldiers walked toward them, two men with spears and a third who looked like an officer, if the gold badge pinned to his tunic was any indication. He wore a breastplate with chain mail underneath and a simple, open-faced helm. A long sword hung from his belt on one side and a dagger on the other. He had a well-trimmed black beard and moustache with just a little gray creeping in at the sides, a sharp nose and deep brown eyes.
Rina felt an air of gentle authority radiating from the man, but maybe that was just something she hoped.
The officer grinned suddenly and stepped forward, clasping hands with Hark.
“Good to see you again, Bishop,” he said. “Although you’ve picked an odd time to visit Sherrik. Can you really snatch crossbow bolts out of midair?”
Hark laughed. “Please don’t ask me to prove it. And my thanks for letting us in, Captain Sarkham. You’re looking well. Jeela and the children?”
“Gone to Kern out of harm’s way,” Sarkham said. “Jeela has cousins there.”
“Good, good. Glad to hear it.” Hark turned and gestured to Rina. “Captain, please allow me to introduce—”
“Duchess Veraiin.” Sarkham bowed politely. “Welcome to Sherrik and to General Braxom’s side door.”
Rina raised an eyebrow. “General Braxom’s side door?”
“The door and bridge were ordered built nearly two hundred years ago by the general of Sherrik. A man called Braxom.”
“Why?”
Sarkham grinned. “Because he’s a general, and generals get what they want.”
Ah.
Sarkham glanced back at Hark, looking mildly embarrassed. “Forgive me, old friend, but it’s the duchess you should thank for your safe passage into the city. When the duke heard who was at the gate, he ordered you both be admitted immediately. He waits for you even now.”
Rina nodded to him. “Well, then. I don’t suppose it’s polite to keep a duke waiting, is it?”
In the tall grass, behind a fallen log, two Perr
anese scouts watched the duchess and the bishop cross the bridge and enter the castle, the drawbridge pulling up again behind them.
“Well, they’re in now, and that’s all there is to that,” said the first. “There’s no getting her back now.”
“Suits me fine,” said the second one.
“Maybe we should have tried to take them.”
“The two of us? Pull the other leg. You know what she can do.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said the first.
“What about the door and the drawbridge?”
“Even if we got the bridge down and the portcullis up, that tunnel looked pretty narrow from here. We’d get slaughtered going in single file. Go back and tell Yano what we’ve seen and that I’m going to keep circling the city west to see if there’s a better way inside.”
The other Perranese warrior slithered away on his belly in the long grass, keeping out of sight of the watchful eyes atop Sherrik’s wall.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When Stasha Benadicta showed up again in his cell with those two bruisers Bune and Lubin in tow, Giffen sensed it would be different this time.
He’d always had a ratlike cunning for self-preservation, and some instinct told him that he might have another beating coming. Previously, he’d made the beatings stop by simply telling the evil woman what she wanted to know.
But this time was . . . different.
How it would be different or why Giffen thought such a thing remained to be seen. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe there’d be no beating at all. Wouldn’t that make for a nice change of pace?
Stasha Benadicta gestured at him as if indicating a pile of goat shit that needed to be cleaned up. “Bune.”
Bune seized him by the back of the neck and slammed him face-first into the stone floor of the cell. Giffen spit blood, blinked, and saw stars. The great oaf held him pinned against the floor.
Not that Giffen had any immediate plans to get up.
So it’s to be another beating after all, Giffen thought. If I had a sharp gentleman’s blade and two minutes alone in the dark with that bitch . . .
“I need to know something,” Stasha said.
Bune gave Giffen’s neck a squeeze for emphasis.
“I presumed as much. It’s not as if you come down here to socialize.” Giffen put as much contempt into the words as he could muster, considering his face was being pushed into the cold stone floor.
“Good,” Stasha said. “Then you understand our relationship.”
“No,” Giffen said. “It’s going to be different this time.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” It has to be. I can’t go on like this. Eventually I’ll run out of useful information, and then there will be no need to keep me around.
No need to keep me alive.
She knelt next to him, had something in her hands. It was wrapped in soft leather. She began to unwrap the object. Giffen watched her, held his breath.
Stasha revealed the object. It was a flawless ruby the size of a walnut, valuable beyond reckoning in and of itself, but it was no mere gemstone. The ruby was set in a silver disc with obscure runes set at different stations around it. On the reverse side of the disc were four metal prongs of various lengths, ranging from an inch to three.
Giffen had never laid eyes on the object but recognized it immediately.
The last piece. She knows.
“We met the man at the place and time you told us, Giffen,” Stasha said. “He had this with him. Care to tell us about it?”
She doesn’t know? “Didn’t he tell you?”
“He told us what he told us,” Stasha said. “Now you’re going to tell us. And if what you tell us doesn’t match what he told us . . . well, someone’s going to have to be held responsible for that, aren’t they?”
“It’s the last piece. The one that opens the doorway.” He pressed his lips together tight, refusing to say more. That would either match up with what Harpos Knarr told her or it wouldn’t.
Stasha nodded slowly. “Good. Thank you, Giffen. Then you can imagine what questions are coming next. Why don’t you be a helpful chap now, eh?”
“No.”
“No? You want to bring Bune and Lubin into the conversation again. We know how that goes.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Giffen said. “You don’t think I know what happens once I’m no longer useful. No, Lady Chamberlain, we need to work out something else. I realize I can put off a beating by telling you what you want to know, but then what? We’re going to start thinking long term, you and I.”
Stasha bit her lower lip while she thought about that. “What do you want?”
“Out of this dungeon.”
“No.”
“I don’t expect you to set me free. I’m not a fool. But lock me in some room with a bed and light. I can’t tolerate this dank hole any longer.”
“You tell me what I want to know first.”
“No,” he said. “We need to figure some way to trade what we want. I don’t trust you, and I can’t imagine you trust me. I have three pieces of information I know you will need. As we go along, other issues might arise, and perhaps I will have answers, but at the very least, I possess three items of information, which are essential, and I am the only one who has this information. On that you must take my word. Here is what I propose. The first item of information is an object you must possess.”
“I thought this was the final component.” Stasha indicated the ruby in her palm.
“To the doorway, yes,” Giffen said. “But where is it? How to find it? Without my help, you could look for a hundred years and never get close.”
“Go on, then,” Stasha said.
“I tell you what the object is, and in return, you move my incarceration to a more hospitable location,” Giffen said. “It will take you some time to locate this thing, and I don’t fancy rotting down here in the meantime.”
“Tell me what it is,” she said.
“No, first your promise,” Giffen insisted. “I tell you, and you let me out of this sodding hole. Then when you’ve found it, I’ll tell you how to use it.”
Stasha considered, then said, “You have my word.”
“The duke’s signet ring,” Giffen said.
Stasha frowned. “What of it?”
“Klaar is one of the oldest holdings in Helva,” Giffen said. “The Veraiin house is centuries old. The ring is more than just a symbol of Klaar, more than just an heirloom. It’s been handed down from one generation to the next to guard a very specific secret. I am privy to that secret. When you find the ring, I’ll tell you the rest.”
Giffen allowed himself a smug smile. Searching for the ring would keep the bitch busy a good long while, and in the meantime, he could enjoy a proper bed in a room not crawling with rats and that didn’t stink of his own excrement. During the Perranese occupation of Klaar, Giffen had searched high and low for the ring and had finally assumed the brat Rina had taken it with her when she fled the city.
Stasha considered Giffen for a moment, her face blank. Maybe she was trying to decide whether Giffen were telling the truth.
Stasha Benadicta dipped two fingers into her blouse between her breasts and came out with a thin silver chain. At the end of the chain hung a ring.
“Do you mean this ring right here?” Stasha asked.
Giffen gaped. Damn the woman.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Darshia stuck her head into the Birds of Prey barracks and counted the girls. Nine. The rest were either on guard duty or attending to personal matters. She thought about picking the three she wanted, but the fact was they were all good. They trained hard. They wanted to be Birds of Prey. They were proud of it. It wasn’t just some job. It was a way out of an old life.
And into a new one.
“Hey!”
All nine of them stopped what they were doing and looked up. They knew the sound of their captain’s voice.
“I need three volunteers right now,
” she said. “Armor up and follow me.”
She turned and left without waiting to see who volunteered. Let them work it out among themselves. A second later, she heard them clanking down the hall behind her, buckling on sword belts and strapping on armor. She glanced back over her shoulder. All nine of them followed her, slipping on bracers and straightening helms.
Okay, full points for enthusiasm, but we’ll need to work on listening skills later. They were all coming along well with the sword training, but they were newbies and hadn’t quite gotten the hang of being a military unit. Listen to yourself, Darshia thought. As if you were some old war veteran.
There was a pang of grief as she thought about Prinn. She wished her friend were at her side now. She wished Tenni were still alive. She’d have been proud to see what the Birds of Prey had become. She wondered where Tosh was, if he was okay.
She shook her head, dispelling the thoughts. Focus on what you’re doing.
Darshia led them up the stairs and down the hall to the residential wing of the castle. At one time, the duke, his wife, and his daughter had occupied the wing. Now it was empty, two of them dead and Rina off on some mission.
Stasha Benadicta stood waiting for them at the end of the hall in front of a closed door. She stood back straight, chin up, hands clasped primly in front of her. She had an air of authority. She made a good steward, Darshia thought. Not everyone respected her because of where she’d come from, but Duchess Veraiin had been smart to leave her in charge.
Darshia stopped in front of the steward, nodding respect.
Stasha looked past her, raising an eyebrow at the women in tow. “So many?”
“I can send some away if you want,” Darshia said.
“Never mind,” Stasha told her. “Follow me.”
She went through the doorway behind her, and Darshia followed. The room within was spacious and well lit, a bay window taking up almost one entire wall. A writing desk. Cushioned chairs arranged facing a cold fireplace. Shelves with many books. A thick rug. A small sideboard with a stoppered decanter half full of wine, and a pair of pewter wine goblets.
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