Beneath the Keep

by Erika Johansen

  “Some two hundred men on horse,” Jonathan Charlton muttered, looking through his own spyglass. “And at least twice as many on foot.”

  Coming for us, Aislinn thought. A pang of fear went through her chest, but she hid it as she put down the spyglass.

  “What can we do?” asked Eamon. “My kinsmen have swords and bows, yes, and even know how to use them. But they are not soldiers. We will be easy pickings.”

  “I can fight!” Baylor, the young hothead from Guy’s Creek, shot back. “And I will! We have seven hundred people here!”

  “But how many women and children? Sword and horse make one man the equal of ten unarmed!”

  “There is no help for it,” Charlton said. He was a stout old man, one of the few among them who had actually been in the army once. “An entire battalion, perhaps even two, and all of them bearing steel.”

  They all turned to look at Aislinn then . . . some hopefully, some with badly concealed impatience. These eight men represented the leaders of their respective acreages, and most of them had been appalled to find, upon arrival, that the uprising they burned to join was being led by a woman, and a young woman at that. They would have liked to ignore her, Aislinn knew, or even oust her. But they dared not do that. Downstairs were four hundred and seventy-eight men and women who had been with her from the beginning, who would listen to no one else.

  Our idyll is at an end, Aislinn thought. For more than two months now they had been holed up in Lady Andrews’s castle, comfortable and safe, with warm beds and all the food and water they needed. Even the onset of cooler weather had not been any cause for alarm, for they had raided the castle’s clothing chests as well, and found warm clothes, enough to outfit them all. Aislinn was wearing her first pair of real boots.

  Perhaps it was the boots that lulled me, she thought now, staring down at their soft brown leather. She had deluded herself, and badly. She had truly thought that nothing would change, that they would be able to stay here forever, well sheltered and well fed.

  “I’m going to go down and tell my people,” she announced. “Maybe they’ll have some ideas.”

  “Ideas!” Charlton snorted. “They’ll only have panic, girl. You cannot conduct a rebellion by democratic vote!”

  “How many rebellions have you conducted, Charlton?”

  The old man’s face turned red. “You would do well to heed my advice, girl. The Tear army is not the Mort, but they are not tourists, either. If we don’t make peace, they will kill us all.”

  “And even if we do!” Aislinn snapped back. “You heard Colin’s tales from the city! Lady Andrews has made her complaint, and this is the Queen’s answer!”

  “But Colin delivered our message to the Blue Horizon. They may yet—”

  “The Blue Horizon will not help us,” Eamon said, shaking his head. “Why would they? The Crown has marked us for death.”

  “Elyssa is the True Queen!” Tyre Duncan protested. “She would not betray us!”

  Elyssa has betrayed us, you fool. But Aislinn did not say it, for Duncan was not the only person in the castle infected with prophecy. The Blue Horizon nonsense was like church; there was no arguing with it. But Aislinn was not a fool. All hands were turning against the Blue Horizon now; hadn’t Colin told them as much when he returned from New London? With the withdrawal of Elyssa’s support, the revolutionaries were suddenly hunted; Colin had had to range wide to find so much as a middleman to carry his message, and though he had remained in the city for two weeks, he had received no answer.

  “You can run if you want,” Aislinn told the group of men around her. “But I’m staying here. We won this castle fairly, and we were certainly owed it for our work, our families’ work. Our families’ lives. I won’t leave.”

  “Well, I’ll be taking my people with me,” Charlton announced. “I’d advise the rest of you to do the same.”

  Aislinn turned away, drawing a deep breath. One would think that Charlton had never known any nobles at all . . . but then again, he came from Lord Gillon’s acreage, and Gillon was supposed to be the best of the lot. The others—Duncan, who came from Lord Tare’s lands, and Baylor, who had spent his life serving Lord Williams—knew better. She could see it in their eyes. Peace or no peace, they would hang, along with all the other tenants who had deserted their nobles’ fields. But nothing had changed since that long-ago day when they had strung up the bailiffs. They needed to be here.

  “Go, then, Charlton,” Aislinn replied wearily. “We could use you, but it’s your decision. Anyone who wants to stay, come downstairs with me. Heavy horse won’t help them against thick walls. There must be a way to defend this heap of stone.”

  But it did not take her more than a few hours to realize that Charlton had been right: there was little to be done. The castle was not built for defense. There was no moat, no drawbridge, only the solid stone wall rising from the crown of the hillside. The main gate was made of thick steel; it should stand up well for some time. But the postern gates at the sides and rear were weak, Eamon opined: sheets of iron, each with a single deadbolt, not so much as a portcullis in sight. They would have to be defended by men . . . men with swords, a thing they did not have.

  How did we come so far? Aislinn wondered, following Eamon down the hallway, only half listening as he remarked on the finer points of defensive strategy. How had they come from that single moment, Lady Andrews tapping Aislinn’s chest with a riding crop, to here? She nodded as Eamon suggested putting six men apiece on the postern gates. Charlton had vanished, which was unfortunate; they could have used his expertise. But they did not need his dour predictions either.

  “We will need oil too, lots of it,” Eamon told her. “We should set up as many braziers as we can on the battlements.”

  “Oil?” Aislinn asked. “For what?”

  Eamon gave a sigh of clear impatience, but his response was kind enough. “Hot oil, girl. We have several good archers, but there are too many of them, and they’ll surely bring climbers to scale the walls. Oil will be our best bet.”

  Aislinn nodded sagely, as though she had known this all along.

  “We should move the children to the high floors,” she told Liam. “Find parents who don’t want to fight and send them up there too.”

  They emerged onto the battlements, and Eamon began throwing instructions at her: where to put braziers, where to place archers. Aislinn prayed that Liam was listening too, for it was too much for her to process. A rogue part of her wanted to go downstairs, take her people out and charge at the enemy, make it a clean fight . . . except when had any of them ever known nobles to fight clean?

  “We might have a few days,” Liam said thoughtfully. “The moon’s still on the wane, and they’ll want to come at us in the full dark. Gives them the advantage.”

  “They already have the advantage,” Aislinn said shortly. But Liam didn’t take offense; he never did, only waited silently at her shoulder while she peeped over the battlements at the steadily approaching force below. Liam’s silences were the most valuable thing about him. He did not offer himself as a lover, or even as a friend, and that was good, for Aislinn did not need either. What she needed was a lieutenant, and Liam performed the job well. If he had doubts, he kept them to himself.

  “It’s not too late to flee,” Eamon ventured behind her. “We could still leave, take what we have, and—”

  “And what?” Aislinn demanded. “They have armed men on horse. We would be run down before we’d made it a mile, and the children not even so far.”

  “Still, it’s suicide to stay.”

  “And all are free to leave!” Aislinn snapped. “If they want to steal away like cowards in the night, let them! You as well! But we earned this castle, some of us with blood. I’m going nowhere.”

  Eamon stared at her for a long moment, and Aislinn was struck by the difference in his face. He was a dark-haired man in
his forties, and he might even have been handsome, but for the creeping, craven expression that perpetually marred his good looks. But now that weasel’s expression was entirely gone, replaced by a look of frank assessment.

  “You are not false,” he remarked finally. “You believe . . . truly believe.”

  “Believe? In what? God?” Aislinn laughed bitterly. “God never helped me and mine.”

  “Not in God. In the better world.”

  “Blue Horizon nonsense. I believe in what I can touch.”

  Eamon nodded and turned away, his cheek twitching. He was laughing at her, Aislinn thought, but then Liam cleared his throat, bringing her back to the matter at hand: the army below. She took a deep breath, trying to inject her voice with an optimism she didn’t feel.

  “They’ll be here past nightfall, but not long past. Let’s go downstairs and see about that oil.”

  Chapter 23

  KINDLING

  I come to caution, I come to warn,

  Of the pale horse ridden by Arlen Thorne.

  —Songs of the Shipment, collected by Merwinian

  You said seven o’clock!” Thorne hissed.

  “Fear nothing,” Brenna replied, her voice serene. “They will be here.”

  Thorne grimaced but fell silent, not wanting to show his agitation to Lisk. The Caden commander had been sitting with them for more than half an hour, under a sheltered awning that overhung a rubbish cubicle. The smell was appalling, and Lisk was growing impatient . . . but not as impatient as Thorne. The Queen’s birthday party would begin in less than two hours, and Thorne would be there; Father Timpany would introduce him, on the Holy Father’s orders. Thorne and the Holy Father had a long association, for the Arvath did as much business in the Creche as everyone else, and had a greater need for discretion besides. But that long-standing business relationship only went so far. Thorne had used up all of his capital with the Holy Father to arrange this night, and if it was all for nothing, he would never be able to ask the Church for a favor again.

  “Perhaps she knows about us,” he whispered to Brenna. “Perhaps she deliberately misled you.”

  “She did not,” Brenna replied, and at the supreme confidence in her voice, Thorne felt his own doubts recede. She had been tracking the Fetch and his people for months, with the unwitting help of the maid, who was indeed Blue Horizon—Thorne, who did not take chances, had confirmed this fact himself by following the girl into the Gut two weeks before. As always, he felt himself slightly in awe of Brenna, of the extraordinary power she wielded . . . and slightly concerned, as well. Only loyalty kept dogs on the leash, and Brenna’s loyalty was almost as much a mystery to Thorne as her power, power so great that Brenna could have taken over the Creche herself, if she had been so inclined. But Brenna was born to serve. She had belonged to Thorne’s second pimp, Maxwell, right up until the moment Thorne cut Maxwell’s throat. Thorne was no fool; his first act upon taking control of the stable had been to offer Brenna her freedom. But she opted to stay. She had suffered dreadfully under Maxwell, who had purchased her specifically for her white skin, and that suffering surely explained part of her loyalty . . . but not all. Thorne trusted her, as much as he was capable of trusting anyone, but he did not discount the possibility that she was probing around in his own mind this very moment, and he would never know.

  “Your information had better be good, Thorne,” Lisk growled, clearly sensing the anxious tone of their whispered conversation. “If this is a fool’s errand you’ve dragged us on—”

  “It’s not,” Thorne replied, pleased to find his own voice just as certain as Brenna’s. “Wait, and watch. It will not be long.”

  But still, he was antsy, for in the past few months nothing had gone according to plan. Despite all of Brenna’s careful work, the Princess had refused to take off the sapphire. Arla, too, was proving recalcitrant, and Thorne, who had thought that obtaining the Tear sapphires would be a simple matter of pulling them from two women’s necks, now found himself balked.

  “Why can we not just take them?” he had demanded of Brenna. “Why can’t we simply rip the things free?”

  But Brenna had said no, with the maddening certainty she always displayed in such matters. “The sapphires cannot be taken, only given,” she had told him, as though that should answer all questions. But it only opened up another one: if Brenna had control of Elyssa, as she said she did, then why wouldn’t the bitch simply take the sapphire off?

  Why do you need her to? his mind returned. Why do you need the jewels so badly?

  Thorne shook his head to clear the unwanted thought, but it would not go away. The Red Queen was now offering five thousand Mort marks for each sapphire. Ten thousand marks would be a fine war chest to build upon, but Thorne could not convince even himself that gold was the object, for he was already well on the way to becoming a wealthy man. To the kingdom, the sapphires were merely a symbol of royalty. But to Thorne, they represented something else entirely: vindication. The life he had been born to. The sapphires were earmarked for the Red Queen, yes, but all the same, Thorne meant to have both of them around his neck, at least once.

  “It’s all right,” Brenna said, and he felt her trying to soothe him, almost massaging with the nimble fingers of her mind. But Thorne shook her off, for he did not want to be soothed. Everything stood at a crossroads, and complacency would get them both killed. Insurrection was spreading in the Almont, leaping from village to village like a disease, and now it had infected the city as well. Elyssa had dealt the Blue Horizon a crippling blow with her new proclamation, but now the Almont rebellion was giving them new life. Just this morning, Thorne had arrived at his own offices in the Gut to find them defaced, the windows painted with the Blue Horizon’s damnable sunrise. They were growing bold again. Several of them had been spotted preaching in the Creche, but Thorne knew what they were really doing there: reconnaissance. He knew the Blue Horizon, had studied them as carefully as he had ever studied any opponent across the chessboard. The revolutionaries hated the Creche with every fiber. They meant to close the tunnels down, but Thorne did not understand how, not precisely, and neither did Brenna. The Blue Horizon were a maddening variable, too diffuse to be pinned down, and other variables abounded as well. Lazarus most of all . . . what in great godly fuck was he doing in the Keep? According to Brenna, they called him Mace, and the Queen’s Guard was treating him like their favorite country cousin, but it was Lazarus, all right. And Lazarus was supposed to be dead.

  Arliss, Thorne thought, gritting his teeth. Arliss had played him, offered an empty bounty. Thorne never would have let Lazarus go, not for any price, if he’d thought the man would show up alive. They had found enough children now, and Thorne should already have been in the Keep, consolidating his gains. But he had delayed the move, not wanting to place himself under that murderous gaze. Lazarus had heard things he shouldn’t have . . . not much, and certainly not enough to understand, but enough to cause trouble. Lazarus was a problem for which there was no easy solution.

  “There,” Brenna said, pointing. “That’s him. The Fetch.”

  Thorne peered through his own tiny peephole. Five men were approaching the building across the street, hoods pulled down over their faces.

  “You can’t even see them!” Lisk protested in a furious whisper. “How can you know?”

  “I know!” Brenna hissed back. “I know your Christian name. I know how much you skim from the guild on each job. I know what kind of men you like to fuck.”

  Lisk gaped at her, and Thorne turned back to the peephole, biting a smile. Four of the men had gone inside the building now, leaving one outside.

  “That’s the Cadarese,” Brenna told them, gesturing to the remaining man. And indeed, Thorne could see the dark skin of the man’s hands. The rumors were true, apparently; the Blue Horizon would take anyone.

  “Will he be a problem?”

  “N
o,” Brenna replied. “He’ll go inside when they’re all here.”

  “Then we wait.”

  Thorne expected some pushback from Lisk on this, as the assassin wasn’t exactly a patient sort. But Lisk appeared to have temporarily lost his tongue. Thorne wrapped his cloak around his legs and tried to wait, but it was difficult. The Crown reward on the Fetch had risen to a thousand pounds, and now they finally had him. There was a quotation Thorne had once heard from the Holy Father, but it had been bothering him for days, for he could only remember the first half: Behold, I am come upon you like a storm in the night. . . .

  Now the storm was almost here. All his life, Thorne had been outcast, rejected even by the other pigeons in his stables. His extreme height, his scrawny frame . . . these things had always alienated others. But there was something more. He had been sold into the deepest level of the Creche when he was only a few hours old, but unlike the other pigeons, he had spent his life looking upward, seeking topside. Seeking revenge.

  Not revenge, his mind insisted. Justice.

  Yes, simple justice. That was all.

  People had begun to approach the doors of the mead hall now, furtively, in twos and threes. They were all cloaked and hooded, but here and there, metal winked beneath the cloaks. Blue Horizon, all right; they armed themselves like bandits.

  Go ahead, Thorne thought, with a flicker of alien emotion that was almost joy. All the steel in the world won’t help you.

  They sat there for interminable minutes, waiting while the trickle of latecomers dried up. Thorne, who had been keeping a careful count, calculated that fifty-one of William Tear’s disciples were now inside the mead hall. Fifty Blue Horizon, plus the Fetch himself! The bounties would be a fortune, and though Thorne would have to split the rewards with Lisk, this single stroke would also cement Thorne’s relationship with the Holy Father. If he brought it off, the Holy Father would pave his way to the Queen.