by Dave Duncan
He laughed softly. “Lady, you have flattering faith in my power of concentration.”
“You could. Are you not aroused?”
“Very much so. But I need an entire night to make love to you as you deserve. I will begin by kissing you all over and carry on from there.”
She heard the amusement in his voice and smiled gratefully into the darkness. “Promises! You know the risks.”
“I will risk the risks gladly, Sophie. Will you?”
“Eagerly.”
He rose, lifting her. He replaced the chest. “Tomorrow, or the night after.”
“I will be waiting.”
He led over to the bed. “Pretend to be asleep, just in case.” As he prepared to close the curtains on her, he said, “Remember that life is like a diary, Sophie.”
“What do you mean?”
“The front and back covers are provided, but we have to write the pages ourselves.” He chuckled and was gone.
She did not hear the bolt click, but soon light flared up. There was no roar of fury from an outraged Czar. The chamber went dark.
She lay and stared up at the canopy, daring to hope that she had acquired a lover.
• 10 •
The cramped little dining room that Beau had designated the Great Hall contained eight battered chairs and a table on which Acting Commander Arkell had just lost over two million crowns at dice to Pursuivant Dinwiddie. As he could usually win the equivalent of a small county an hour off the herald, this showed how distracted he was. It was almost noon. Just Desert in her scabbard lay in full view beside them, still unclaimed by her owner.
Oak came in and held the door for Wassail, followed by Hagfield carrying his lordship’s cloak and Kimberley with a tray. His Excellency’s glare would melt plate armor. He sat down gingerly. The footman poured him a tankard of breakfast. No one spoke.
After a long draft, he wiped the foam off his mustache and opened his eyes again to scowl furiously at Arkell. “No word?”
“None, my lord.”
“Barbaric! Pursuivant? How do I go about reclaiming my stolen servant?”
Dinwiddie opened and closed his mouth in panic, making Arkell imagine gills flapping.
“Well?” roared His Excellency. He thumped a fist on the table and winced. “How do I get my Blade back?”
“You could try whistling for him,” Beau said cheerily, walking in. “Good chance, my lord.” He took up his sword and slung the baldric around him. Then he sat down and smiled at four angry stares around the table and the two happy smiles on the servants.
“Kim, I’ve asked Percy to run a small errand for me. Would you go and keep an eye on the skivvies, please? If they’re not spies they’re thieves. And send in something for me to eat?”
Kimberley hurried out. Beau was certainly showing no ill effects from whatever had happened. He looked sparkling new—freshly shaved and ironed.
“They have wonderful bathhouses here, my lord. I was advised that the Palace facilities are substandard, and I should try an excellent place two chancellories east of here. There are more out in Kiensk, just off Great Market. They steam you like fish and beat you black and blue with their fists and tip ice-water over you. It’s very…very cleansing. I recommend it. Much favored for hangovers, I understand.”
Wassail’s blood-pudding face darkened several shades. “Is the Blades’ binding truly a state secret? Or did that scoundrel Viazemski just trick us into saying it was?”
Had he tricked Arkell, was the problem. It was Arkell who’d agreed to keep the damned thing secret. He was grateful that Beau did not look in his direction.
“It’s certainly an Ironhall monopoly within Chivial, my lord. The King does not want robber barons setting up private orders of Blades. As to what would happen if the Czar asked his future brother-in-law for a copy of the ritual, I don’t know. Arkell? Precedents?”
“None that I know of.”
“I told dear Igor,” Beau said, speaking more deliberately, “that I could not help him even if I were allowed to do so, and I was sure that was true of all of us. In my five years at Ironhall I witnessed bindings maybe two dozen times. But— as I explained to His Majesty—the rituals are written in incomprehensible Old Chivian, hundred of years old. The prospective ward and his Blade have to be inside the octogram with another six people. Most of them have very little to say or do, admittedly, but three of them have very long conjurations to chant. Some parts are mumbled while the spectators are singing, some of them vary depending on how many men are to be bound. There are a couple of tests involved that I certainly do not understand, and the octogram in Ironhall may have special properties all its own. In short, even if we wished to instruct His Majesty’s Grand Wizard, or whatever his title is here, we could not possibly do so.”
Again everyone looked at Arkell. “I agree. We might recall four fifths of the ritual between us, but that’s as useful as four fifths of a bowstring.”
The Walrus snorted. “Did he believe you, Beau?”
Beau sighed. “I don’t suppose so, my lord. I doubt if he believes anyone.”
“The man wants his own Blades. He trusts no one, that’s his problem.”
“Would you, if you had his record?” Beau grinned at his ward’s apoplectic glare.
An hour or so later, after Wassail and Pursuivant had settled down to inventory the baggage and learn how many of their precious baubles had disappeared en route, Beau put Oak on watch and took his leave, with a nod at Arkell to follow. Carrying the sack Percy had brought him, he trotted up the first staircase, then strode along to Wassail’s bedchamber. Although gloomy and oppressive, it was large enough not to be crowded by the four-poster and other chunky furniture; if the fireplace would not handle a whole ox, a sheep should fit nicely.
Beau locked the door behind them. All pretense of humor had vanished, leaving his face as bleak as Starkmoor in Firstmoon.
Arkell said, “Well?”
“Very unwell, brother.” Beau’s voice was incongruously soft. “I will tell you this once. I will tell Oak—once. Forget it and you will die. Remember it and you may still die. The Czar is a mad dog. He kills people. He kills people for any reason he fancies or no reason at all or just because he enjoys killing people. He cannot tolerate anything that blocks his current whim. He may strike at any moment and without any warning and he is bound by no law at all. Do you understand this?”
Arkell nodded, trying not to shiver. “Yes, Leader.”
Beau’s smile flashed back. “Then I wish you good chance.” He glanced around the room. “If the streltsy attack us en masse, where will you make your last stand?”
“Here, probably. The upper floor would be too accessible to men cutting in through the roof.” To show that he could keep up sometimes, Arkell added, “You still think there’s secret passages?”
Beau’s eyes twinkled silver. “How would you start looking for them?”
“Measure the thickness of the walls,” Arkell said, “and the height of the ceilings and count the steps in the stairs.”
“And what did you discover when you did all that?” It was impossible to deceive him.
“The floors are very thick; a man could crawl along between the beams. The walls are solid, but only the outside ones could contain passages.”
“All the walls are bare stone with mortared joints,” Beau said. Testing.
“But moth-eaten hides on the floors? They may be warm in winter, but they’re filthy and they stink. I went looking for trapdoors close to the outer walls. There’s one here, between the window and the fireplace, and one in your room, too.” Arkell lifted back the edge of the rug, stuck his finger in the knothole provided for the purpose, and raised the slab until he could get a proper grip and lift it free. “That’s as far as I got.”
Beau thumped his shoulder. “It’s farther than I ever would.” He studied the manhole doubtfully. “I think we’d have to put our ward down that in sections.”
“He’ll never go aro
und the corners otherwise.”
“My belief is that it leads down to the cellars. You found it, so you should have the honor of exploring it.”
“No, I’m the brains of the team. And I’m bigger—might get stuck.”
Smirk. “I just had a bath.”
Arkell sighed and started to strip. From his sack, Beau produced a coil of rope, a tinderbox, and a lantern.
Wearing only his smallclothes and the coil of rope, Arkell slithered headfirst into a coffin-sized gap below the floorboards. He waited, legs still in the room and shoulders almost touching the beams on either side, until his eyes adjusted to the lantern’s faint gleam. His guess had been correct. The gap tunneled into the masonry of the wall, to a shaft leading downward. Rusty iron staples provided an awkward ladder.
Shivering already, he squirmed back to where he had started and began again, this time going feetfirst and banging his head on the roof every time he tried to see where he was going. When his feet reached the shaft, he had to roll over to contort himself into it and begin his descent. The need to keep one hand free for his lantern forced him to brace himself against the opposite wall whenever he needed to change his grip, and the stones were cold, rough, and undoubtedly filthy. Old Wassail could not come this way and his Blades would never go without him, so as an escape it was hypothetical. It might prove to have other uses, though.
A score of rungs brought him to the bottom of the shaft and another tunnel between two massive beams, just like the one upstairs. The gymnastics became even more complicated, but eventually he managed to squirm in on his back. Working out the geometry as he went, he decided that he must be under the kitchen. He could see the trap, but he was quite unable to lift it, and something was blocking the finger-hole—probably a chest or dresser.
By that time his feet had found solid timber blocking the tunnel. This secret passage seemed utterly useless except as a source of illicit midnight snacks. He lay and shivered until he worked out the design and realized something was poking him in the back. He rolled over, finding hinges and a metal ring set in the floor.
As usual, then, Beau had been right. The passage did lead to a cellar, and it might just be possible for the Walrus to squeeze through from the kitchen, going straight down. The hatch was gruntin’ heavy, and had to be lifted at an angle designed to give him a double hernia and crushed fingers, but eventually he was able to raise one side a fraction and prop it open with the coil of rope. The space below was dark. He detected a strong smell of apples.
When he poked his head up through the bedchamber floor, the first thing he saw was his leader relaxing on the bed, reading a book.
“Nice cobwebs!” Beau said. “Make you look quite Skyrrian.”
Arkell spat out a few choice words in Fitanish, which had a brutal, bone-grinding sound to it when necessary.
Beau tutted. “Shame! You’re disgusting, a disgrace to the Order. Why don’t you have a good roll on the rugs? What did you find?”
Arkell scrambled out. “I won’t spoil your fun by telling you.”
“Your shoulders are bleeding.”
“Surprise me.” Shivering with cold and grubby as he had ever been in his life, he went over to the washstand. “It goes down to the cellars, a crypt full of apples. Baskets of them, packed to the roof. You can’t get out of the shaft without making them into cider.” He tipped water into the basin from the ewer.
Beau put down the book and stood up. “Wait before you dirty the water. The shaft in my room may have a better exit. You can’t possibly pass up an exciting opportunity to explore it too.”
Arkell regarded his leader with resentment. “Who, me?”
“Why not? I’m not just thinking about escape. I’m planning to go exploring. Tonight I’ll take a look around the cellars. I have a thing about spiders, though; I’m running you through first to clean out the cobwebs.”
Arkell sighed and took up the rope and lantern again. “You’re going to owe me one after this.”
“Possibly.” Beau held the door for him. “How about an hour or two off? You need a bath even more than usual. The house I went to was segregated, but I was told of one that isn’t. Very steamy, I understand.”
Arkell was seriously overdue for some of that sort of relaxation. “Leader, you are forgiven. Lead on.”
• 11 •
All day Czarina Sophie had been telling herself that last night’s bizarre encounter had been nothing but a dream. All day her conscience had been growling that it wasn’t. The touch of his lips, his hand on her breast…even his scent seemed to haunt her.
She must have drunk far too much wine at the reception. It was extremely fortunate that terrible consequences had not ensued.
Nevertheless, she did spend the afternoon rearranging the furniture in her chamber, amusing her ladies-in-waiting and working two unfortunate porters like mules. After a dozen variations, she settled on much the same pattern as before, except that her favorite chair now stood between the window and the fireplace. In winter a candelabra on the mantel shelf would shed good light on her book, she explained, and she would have daylight in summer. The chair she could lift.
Kiss you all over—Those foolish words had been echoing in her head all day. Just a joke. Very vulgar humor.
She had found a length of white tape left over from some dress fitting. She had no intention of using it as the swordsman had suggested, of course, but it might come in handy for something.
So she had been telling herself all day, but when the moment came, when she was left alone with her book at last, she quickly moved the chair aside, pulled up the edge of the rug, and fed some of the tape down the hole. Then she replaced the rug, leaving the chair where it was. She held on to the other end of the tape, ready to pull it clear of the hatch if Igor opened the door.
The classic love story that had been so engrossing two nights ago was now gibberish, meaningless marks on paper. Her heart was racing. She started at every tiny sound. This was the stupidest thing she had ever done in her life. And for what reason? If revenge for neglect and loneliness was her only purpose, then she was risking her life and the Chivian’s for a wickedly petty cause. Blocking Fedor would be a better excuse, but to treat Beaumont as a stud animal would demean him horribly. And if she had merely succumbed to his good looks, then she was no better than a cat in heat.
To share tenderness, he had said; to take joy in each other. Were men capable of tenderness? Was love ever more than a poet’s conceit?
And what was in it for him, that he should risk his life? With his looks he should have no trouble taking pretty girls to bed, girls with rounder curves than hers. Not revenge, he said, but he might be a spy, hoping to learn state secrets, or a thief after her jewels. He might strangle her and no one would know who the intruder had been.
She started at a sound, not having realized she was asleep. The candle was almost gone; she was stiff and frozen. The rug behind her chair was stirring. She pulled the edge back and helped him lift the slab of timber aside. He scrambled out of the trap.
“Wait!” he said quietly. “I’m filthy!” He was almost invisible in dark clothes, the sort of peasant shirt and trousers found on half the stalls in Great Market, plus a head cloth like a woman’s. When he stripped them off, she was relieved to see that he wore other garments underneath—an absurd reaction under the circumstances. Then, with finger and thumb, he snuffed the candle and plunged the room into darkness.
“Now!” He kissed her, and his kiss was as sweet as she had remembered. “This has been the longest day of my life!” he said as he led her over to the bed.
“Why?” she whispered as he removed her robe. “Why are you taking this awful risk?”
He chuckled softly. “I cannot tell you why, Sophie. All the poets who ever lived could never put it into words. I can only try to show you.”
“Do you know what he will do to you?”
“Do you know what I am going to do to you?”
“Kiss me all over?”
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“That will be a good beginning, but only a beginning.”
And so it was. Yes, some men could be tender.
• 12 •
The roosters’ dawn fanfares came much too late to waken Tasha. She had been staring at the darkness for hours, listening to the rain on the roof, thinking of the past, which was sad, and the future, which was both exciting and terrifying. Her face had healed. Today she would leave Faritsov and never see it again. She must say farewell to all the places and people that had made up her life.
In two days she would be back in Kiensk, meeting the Chivian Ambassador, preparing for her wedding—her first wedding. Dimitri joked that she was going to be married in two halves. Imperial Astrologer Unkovskii had not chosen the date yet and the Czar would still have to approve it, but she hoped it would be soon, because after that she would receive royal honors.
First the wedding, then preparations for departure in spring. She was going to need a thousand camels to transport all the absolutely essential baggage she was collecting. And who would go with her? There had been endless discussion while she was in Kiensk and would certainly be more.
Olga Yurievna, of course, her lifelong friend and near neighbor—she would be Mistress of the Queen’s Robes in Chivial. The betrothal treaty said Tasha could take twelve attendants, and she had expected half of those to be servants, but it was heartrending to see so many noble families clamoring to send a daughter or two off in the future queen’s train, all thinking their children would be safer and happier out of Skyrria and yet terrified that the Czar might suspect that they thought that way. Negotiations had been confusing, to say the least. After all, she could acquire mere maids in Chivial.
Sophie’s letters said that King Athelgar sounded like a very good match, a good person. She had not added, “Better than Igor,” but that went without saying.
V
The Road to Morkuta
• 1 •
Darling, be careful!…