Beneath the Keep

by Erika Johansen

  And could you really do that anyway? her mind demanded. When she’s carrying Gareth’s child?

  Niya didn’t know; she, who had once been so clear in her course, so certain of the right thing to do, now felt certain of nothing. She still believed in William Tear, in the Blue Horizon, but for what? Nearly fifty of her brothers and sisters had died in the Gadds Fire, and the remainder had dived deep underground after Elyssa had hired the Caden to hunt them down. There was no Blue Horizon anymore, only a collection of frightened mice, crouching in whatever holes they could find. The Caden were expert mousecatchers.

  “Come along, all,” Elyssa said lightly. “See the show.”

  Niya didn’t want to go. She knew what awaited them on the Keep Lawn, and she could not face it again. But Elyssa would not let her plead off . . . not this new Elyssa, with the sick gaze of the witch glaring out through her eyes. Barty, too, looked unwell, his face pale and betrayed as he stared at Elyssa’s retreating back.

  Help us, William Tear, Niya prayed, as she followed Elyssa out the door and down the corridor. Nothing was permanent; Tear, who had watched the collapse of his great society, had known that as well as anyone. Even Elyssa’s reign would fall one day, to be replaced by something better—or worse—and now Niya wondered whether the better world was even possible. It was the nature of humanity to cycle, to move from great to dreadful, utopia to terror. Even if they reached the better world, how could they possibly hold it against each new day’s onslaught?

  They went through Bowler’s old quarters and emerged onto the balcony: a wide parapet that overhung the face of the Keep. The freezing air hit Niya like a slap, for now, in late January, the entire city was packed in snow. The first blizzard had come in early December, and although the city had greeted the snow with near ecstasy, the storm had come far too late to help the Almont, where famine was now laying waste. Elyssa no longer showed Niya the Crown reports, but Barty still saw them, and his summaries to the Guard stinted no detail. Entire Almont villages were in the process of starving to death, and in the out-Reddick, where winter always hit first and hardest, there had been scattered reports of cannibalism. Niya didn’t like to believe these reports, but she had no reason to doubt them; in fact, knowing the army as she did, Niya thought it likely that such incidents were being deliberately underreported.

  The Almont Coalition, realizing the dangers of the growing rebellion at this late date, had arranged for distribution of its members’ hoarded stores. But that was a mere drop in the barrel, no match for the reaper who stalked the Almont. As the stores dwindled, slow starvation was beginning to creep its way into the city as well, with the poor suffering the worst, as always. The mob besieging the Crown storehouses was the first sign of open revolt, but it would surely not be the last.

  Do they still think she’s the True Queen? Niya wondered. The old Elyssa would have opened the Crown storehouses without a thought, given food to everyone. What did the city think of her now? With the Fetch dead, the Blue Horizon scattered, there was no one Niya could ask.

  Leave, then, her mind whispered. There’s nothing for you in the Keep anymore, if there ever was. Why are you still here?

  Because she’s not wholly gone, Niya replied stubbornly. Not yet. And there was another reason: the Fetch had given her a mission. His death changed nothing. The Fetch had told her to watch Elyssa, and Niya took orders from no one else.

  Elyssa had moved to the edge of the parapet now. Niya tried to hang back near the doors, but Elyssa beckoned her forward, right to the edge. Niya forced herself to look down on the white expanse of the Keep Lawn, the enormous scaffold comprising five platforms, five nooses hanging down. Only three of the nooses were filled today; Niya supposed she ought to feel grateful for that, but she was beyond gratitude for anything, for she had already recognized Amelia’s tall, thin form on one of the platforms, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders.

  Elyssa’s appearance on the balcony had clearly been the sign for things to commence, for now one of the soldiers stationed on the scaffold had begun to read some sort of announcement. Niya could not make out the words, but she didn’t want to.

  “What of the rest of them?” Elyssa asked Barty. “The plot against my mother?”

  “Highness, we have found no evidence of any plot. The Blue Horizon are not—”

  “No evidence?” Thorne broke in. “What of the poison? The signed confessions of the maids?”

  “I do not trust those confessions,” Barty replied coldly. “Those women had been with Queen Arla since her adolescence.”

  “And what of that?” Thorne asked, his tone amused. “Loyal maids are so hard to find.”

  Niya almost flinched. Behind her, Brenna emitted a low chuckle.

  “The matter is proven,” Elyssa announced. “My mother’s maids laced the dress with poison, and they did so at the behest of the Blue Horizon. I want the man who dealt the poison.”

  “Highness, we cannot—”

  “Cannot, cannot, cannot,” she repeated softly. “Barty, I grow so very tired of hearing the same words out of your mouth.”

  Barty’s mouth dropped open, his eyes wounded. Niya, unable to stop herself in the face of the old guard’s pain, grasped his arm, leaned close to whisper in his ear.

  “It’s not her who speaks, Barty. You know it is not.”

  Barty drew a shuddering breath, then spent a moment mastering himself. “I will redouble the search, Highness.”

  “Do that,” Elyssa replied, her eyes on the execution below. Then she grimaced, placing a hand on her belly.

  “Stop kicking me, little heir.”

  Niya edged closer, unable to help herself. There was real tenderness in Elyssa’s voice; her eyes were soft as she looked down at the swell beneath her hand. It was always the child who seemed to bring on these rare moments, recalling Elyssa to who she was.

  “She’s a stubborn one,” Elyssa remarked.

  “She, Highness?”

  “My little girl. She kicks and kicks.”

  “Is it you, Highness?” Niya asked suddenly, caution overborne by hope. “Are you still in there?”

  Elyssa blinked, and then looked up at Niya, her face tightening into its usual cold lines.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Highness,” Niya replied, turning away. Tears had filled her eyes, but she did not want Thorne or his witch to see. Below, on the lawn, the soldier had finished reading, and now another man climbed the stairs of the scaffold, pulling a black hood over his head.

  Thorne had moved up to stand on Elyssa’s other side now, staring down at the scene on the lawn, his face betraying nothing, neither pleasure nor dismay. For a single, seemingly endless moment, Niya thought of pulling her dagger, shoving Elyssa aside, and burying the blade in Thorne’s chest. She had never been so close to Thorne before, and she fingered the handle up her sleeve, considering. She might be able to reach him; they were only five feet apart. Of course, she herself would die afterward, but that might almost be worth it, might be—

  “Barty! Don’t!”

  A low shriek echoed behind her. Niya whirled and felt her blood go cold.

  Oh no, she thought. No, no, no.

  Barty had wrapped an arm around the witch’s throat from behind, and his other hand held a knife aimed at her jugular.

  “Release her, witch,” he snarled. “Whatever you have done to the Princess, you will undo it, right now. Or I will end you.”

  “Will you?” Brenna’s voice was lilting, full of laughter . . . but her face was as cold as the winter moon. For a moment Niya thought she could even see the witch’s bones, so pale that they shone nearly silver under the fine skin of her cheeks. Brenna’s eyes seemed to blaze with white fire.

  “Do you think I fear your knife, Captain?” she asked Barty. “I am a child of the Crossing, and I know each of you, better than you know yourselves. William T
ear himself would fear me, if he could see me now.”

  Something snapped, as short and sharp as a twig underfoot. Barty fell with a howl, and Brenna darted away. Barty was groaning, clutching his knee; Niya began to go to him, but she was arrested by a cold voice in her mind: the Fetch, when she was no more than fourteen years old.

  Diversion, Niya. Diversion is our most powerful weapon, for so much can be accomplished under cover of the noise.

  And then: The witch belongs to Arlen Thorne.

  Niya took a short, speculative look around the balcony. The Guard was busy, huddling over Barty as he writhed in pain. Elyssa had not moved, did not even seem to have noticed the uproar; she was watching the crowd. Brenna was leaning against the double doorway of the balcony, rubbing her throat. The witch might be invulnerable, but the witch was only a tool, and the man who wielded her stood just beside Elyssa, less than five feet away. In that single, seemingly endless moment while the guards fussed and clucked over Barty’s wounded knee, Niya reached for her knife.

  A low, venomous hissing rose behind her. Glancing backward, Niya saw the witch staring at her, her body tensed like that of a snake.

  She sees me! Niya thought, horrified. She sees every thought in my head!

  And now she realized that another figure stood beside Brenna: a dark figure, his skin blackened with burning. The only thing not black was his eyes, bright brown and horribly alive. As Niya hesitated, he began to totter toward her with outstretched arms.

  No, she thought. It’s not him. He’s dead. This is only her witchery. Elyssa had succumbed, but it was precisely for Elyssa’s sake that Niya could not. She shut her eyes for a long moment, calling up every ounce of her own strength, willing the dreadful apparition to be gone.

  “Take hold, Barty,” Coryn’s voice murmured behind her. “This will be bad.”

  “Don’t coddle me, boy!” Barty snarled. “Get it done.”

  Another snap, and Barty cried out. Niya opened her eyes and found, to her immeasurable relief, that the Fetch had vanished . . . but so had the opportunity. Thorne had moved down the parapet, out of range. After another moment Niya released her dagger, pulling her hand from beneath her sleeve. Brenna settled back onto her heels, her eyes never leaving Niya’s face.

  “Have a care, Mistress Niya,” Thorne remarked from the far end of the balcony. His gaze had not left the crowd, and now a small smile played upon his lips. “Death is never distant.”

  A loud crack echoed below them. Niya closed her eyes, willing herself not to look, but it made no difference, for she could see it behind her eyes, all of it: Amelia falling, her legs dancing, seeking purchase in the air and finding none. Niya could even hear her, though she was too far away to hear any such thing: gagging and coughing, and worse, cheering, the crowd roaring its approval as Amelia kicked and twisted. The witch giggled, and Niya suddenly understood that she was doing this as well, making Niya watch, forcing the images into her mind, the sounds into her ears, if for no other reason than that Niya was desperate to shut them out. Amelia grabbed the noose, trying to claw it from her throat, and now Niya could not hold back the tears.

  “Elyssa,” she whispered. “If you’re in there, please . . .”

  But Elyssa did not seem to hear her. She was admiring her new dress again, running her hands over the blue velvet of the sleeves, swaying back and forth so that the skirt rustled against her legs. And now Niya understood, finally and for the last time, that there was no True Queen. There would be no better world, no shining future, only the terrible present: witchery, starvation, and the tall marionette in blue who stood at the end of the parapet, smiling pleasantly, as good people strangled beneath her feet.

  Chapter 27

  THE DEVIL’S CLUB

  The sun told the moon they should play,

  But the moon said no, they should hold,

  For the sun’s place was warmth and kindness,

  And the moon’s place was dark and cold,

  But the sun persisted, longing for danger,

  And the moon was compelled to proceed,

  The sun ran screaming in terror,

  The moon said, “A fine play indeed.”

  —Lost Rhymes of the Creche, from the Apologist’s Apocrypha

  Christian had not known that he missed the tunnels. He had been so overwhelmed with the wonder of the Keep, the light, that for a time he thought that he would never tire of it. But now, ascending the stairs in the blackness, he realized that there was great comfort in the familiar, even if the familiar was poison, and that some part of him would always feel most at home here, surrounded by stone and wrapped in dark.

  He had spent the three months since the Queen’s collapse exploring the extent of the labyrinth that stretched inside the walls of the Keep. There were tunnels on nearly every floor, all of them joined by a none-too-stable staircase that towered at least several hundred feet in the hollow darkness between walls. Christian had seen many strange things in these tunnels: rats as big as small dogs; a strange discarded pile of high-quality oaken furniture; even, at one point, Elston and Kibb, embracing in a dark recess behind the guard quarters. They had been far too intent on each other to notice Christian, and he had slunk away without a sound. The frocks in the Creche condemned such things, but Christian, who cared little for God and even less for any frock, had decided that the incident was none of his business and resolved never to speak of it. He had never seen Elston or Kibb or any other guard in the tunnels again, and so he felt comfortable there, free from the scrutiny that hounded him in the Queen’s Wing. When Elyssa had sacked Barty from the Guard, Christian had felt quiet relief, for Barty had always watched Christian like a hawk, clearly waiting for him to do something wrong. Barty had been foolish to attack the witch, but it had been a brave bit of foolishness, and it had earned Christian’s respect. He had turned out, along with most of the Guard, to watch Barty leave the Keep: an old man, his shoulders slumped and defeated, limping across the drawbridge on his busted knee. His departure was a loss to the Guard, and they all knew it.

  Christian supposed the punishment could have been worse; Elyssa might have chosen to have Barty tortured, or even executed. The younger Elyssa had supposedly loved Barty like a father, and Carroll believed that this Elyssa—“the old Elyssa,” as the Guard referred to her—had spared his life. But Carroll had also explained to Christian that, for a Guard, exile was worse than death. Christian supposed there was something to that, for Barty had been spotted in any number of pubs in the Gut, where he was apparently determined to drink himself to death. Carroll’s statement revealed much to Christian about this place and these men. They feared loss of honor above all things, but that was only because they had never truly faced death. They were good men; Christian had even grown to like several of them, particularly Elston and Coryn, but he would never see the world as they did. They were of the Keep, but Christian was not and never would be. They all knew it as well, because even with Barty gone, the scrutiny had not abated.

  Elyssa had appointed Carroll to take Barty’s place, though no one understood why; Carroll was one of the most inexperienced members of the Guard, and surely had the softest heart of any of them. Christian and Carroll had a comfortable working relationship, bound not only by professional respect but by the unspoken memory of that night in the Creche. If Christian had been another man, he might even have said they were slowly becoming friends. But Christian was still on probation, not with a single man but with the entire Guard, all of them watching and waiting . . . Galen, Coryn, Dyer, Elston, even Carroll himself. What were they waiting for?

  At the bottom of the staircase a single tunnel stretched underneath the moat and into the city proper. This tunnel allowed Christian to come and go at will, and he had spent much of the past month in the city, seeking information on Lord Tennant. Tennant was a fixture at Elyssa’s court, but court was not where he did his black business. Latimer
and his cohorts had been down on the third level of the Creche; they clearly knew the tunnels, and after days of tailing Tennant, Christian had hardly been surprised when the man ducked down one of the staircases that peppered the Gut. But he did not head downward, toward the Creche; instead, he went under the moat and up the stairs. Into the Keep.

  Oddly, Christian’s first thought as he followed the man up the staircase was not of Maura, or revenge, or even violence. Rather, he thought: We must get these tunnels guarded. If Tennant and his wretched friends could get into the Keep so easily, others would be able to as well. The tunnels were a liability, one that must be addressed.

  It’s almost as though you’re a proper guard, his mind mocked. You’ll be reading books next.

  Christian frowned, for the reading was a sore spot with him. The rest of the guards no longer bested him with sword and knife; Christian came off the winner as often as he lost these days. Old Vincent the swordmaster was gone—he had quit in protest when Elyssa sacked Barty—but even with the inferior Venner now running the arms room, Christian was improving at a steady clip. One day, he knew, he would surpass them all at swordcraft . . . but he still could not read.

  Carroll had offered to teach him, several times, but Christian had refused. He meant to earn his place here, and he felt that he could not bear to be any further in the other man’s debt. He had tried to teach himself, using the notes that other guards left each other, but it was all wiggling lines and incomprehensible marks, and he finally ripped the notes to pieces, furious. Swords were easy; why must this be so hard?