Beneath the Keep

by Erika Johansen

  The horse nickered companionably as Christian touched her flank with one hand. He did so almost absentmindedly, staring down at the baby in his arms. She was going to start crying again, and he could not bear it. Slowly, fearing an explosion, he dug in his saddlebags for the other bottle. He offered it to the girl, turning the spout downward to suck. She drank greedily, and Christian was so relieved at the silence that he did not think to slow her down, only settled her in the crook of his arm and sat down among the rubble.

  “What happened?” he asked the child. “What happened there?”

  She did not answer, only watched him meditatively over the rim of the bottle. She was so small . . . Christian could not help thinking, again, of the children in the Devil’s Club, their eyes wide with fright as they clutched Maura’s skirts, as real to him as though they stood close by. And now it seemed to Christian that there was another figure here: a shadow hiding in the corner, or perhaps crouched in front of his horse, its dim silhouette flickering with the torchlight. Not Lazarus, this shadow, nor Christian, but an amalgam of the two: the Mace. He was not a good man, the Mace, but not a bad man, not by a long shot. He could not leave the other two behind, but—

  But I need not bear them with me.

  The baby had finished the bottle. Her eyes were drowsy, her face slackened.

  “I know where we are, I think,” Christian told her softly. “But we can’t stay in these tunnels; you make too much noise, and Fortune makes us even easier to track. I’ll need warm clothing for the journey. We’ll have to get topside, but that’s not an easy business on the north Creche. It’s all ladders. How will we get you topside and get my horse out too?”

  The girl was not interested in such matters. She closed her eyes, her mouth breaking wide in a tremendous yawn. Christian tucked her in one arm, grabbed his reins, and pulled himself back into the saddle. She was falling asleep right in front of him now, her eyes closing for longer and longer intervals. After a long moment’s thought, Christian lifted her and clasped her to him, rocking her slowly, as he had seen Niya and Carroll do. The baby laid her head on his shoulder, digging her face into the side of his neck, and then wormed a small hand beneath the edge of his armor to find the warmth of his chest. Christian settled her firmly in one arm and took the reins in his other hand, unable to define what he felt, only knowing that he must move forward.

  We are in the great quiet now, he thought, and then he shook the reins, guiding Fortune back out into the tunnel.

  * * *

  Less than an hour later, he climbed a ladder. It was a slow process, for the baby was still tucked against his shoulder, sleeping soundly, and he could only use one arm. After some wrestling with the rungs, he reached the top and banged three times on the underside of a trapdoor. At the foot of the ladder, Fortune whickered.

  “State your business!” a voice boomed from the other side.

  “Open up, old man!” Christian growled softly. “Or I will break your other hip!”

  There was a long silence. Then the bolt was drawn and the trapdoor rose, flooding the ladder with light. A silhouette loomed above him, but Christian did not flinch, for he recognized the set of those narrow shoulders, the tiny head with its wisps of flyaway hair.

  “What have we here?” Arliss asked. “Have you become a father, boy? I could set every bookmaker in the kingdom on end with that one.”

  “I need help.”

  Arliss’s silhouette considered him for a long, silent moment.

  “Please,” Christian added, and as he spoke the word, he felt something loosen inside him, some knot long tied.

  “Another beating for the oddsmen,” Arliss remarked. “Quite a day we’re having.”

  Putting aside his pen, he reached down through the door. “Give me that child and haul yourself up, lad. We’ll see what we can do.”

  Christian handed him the girl. Arliss tucked her against his shoulder with a finesse that spoke of some experience, then extended a hand.

  “Well, come on, boy. Or do you want to stay down there forever?”

  Mace climbed into the light.

  Chapter 37

  A STORM IN THE NIGHT

  What we know of Arlen Thorne suggests sociopathy, or at best, a virulent narcissism. But that is only the benefit of hindsight. No one in the Tearling really knew Arlen Thorne, not until a single moment revealed him in his entirety.

  —Famous Traitors of the Tear: A Compendium, Evan Crawford

  Aislinn should have known that something was wrong when the drawbridge didn’t open. They had been out there for more than an hour, their numbers steadily filling the lawn until there was no more room, and the last few were squeezed back onto the enormous boulevard. At the sight of the sea of torches around her, behind her, Aislinn’s confidence had doubled, trebled. In the face of such numbers, Elyssa must appear; she would have to.

  I learned nothing from my years with Lady Andrews, Aislinn thought ruefully. One gold-plated bitch was just like another. If Lady Andrews had had a moat and drawbridge, the rebellion would never even have gotten off the ground. Elyssa would not come out to treat with them; why should she? No, she would hide in her castle, waiting, testing their resolve.

  Very well, Aislinn thought, staring up at the monstrous stone facade before her. We need a rest, and we are certainly well provisioned now. The entire city is behind us. We can wait you out.

  She sat down, feeling them all follow: Liam first, then those behind him . . . a vast wave of humanity, all settling to earth. The grass beneath her was slick with dew; Aislinn wiped her hands on her dress. She and Liam were no more than ten feet from the moat, a choice she now regretted, for the water smelled dreadful. Aislinn ignored it, thinking of the city, the people behind her. They had emerged from the alleys, the hovels, their emaciated faces transported as they joined in, following Aislinn’s people to the Keep. There were so many of them! Aislinn closed her eyes and tipped her head back, feeling a pure joy so acute that it made the stench of the moat fade into nothing. The stone facade of the Keep did not intimidate her any longer, for she felt certain that nothing could hold against them, not so long as they all stood together. Even the enormous silhouette of the scaffold behind her, black against the dark-blue sky, could not intimidate her now. The Crown must execute its traitors there, but her people were not traitors. They were demanding only what was right.

  “Something’s wrong,” the Fetch said. He had reappeared beside her without warning, his masked face tilted upward toward the Keep. “I’ve been up and down the lawn now. There’s no snow.”

  “What?”

  “No snow on the ground.”

  Aislinn looked around, realizing that he was right. The entire city had been carpeted in snow, save only where foot and horse traffic had melted it on the streets. But the lawn was entirely clear.

  “This is a huge patch of grass,” Liam remarked. “It must take sunlight most of the day.”

  But the Fetch was not listening, still looking up at the Keep. “Do you smell that?”

  “It’s the moat,” Aislinn replied. “The water must be putrid.”

  “That’s not the moat.” The Fetch was quiet for another moment, and then Aislinn heard his quick indrawn breath. “Get them out of here.”

  “What?”

  The Fetch tore the mask from his head, and Aislinn had time to see that he was extraordinarily young, only half the age she had imagined. Then he grabbed her shoulders, shouting into her face.

  “A trap! It’s a trap, all of this! Get them off the lawn!”

  Aislinn gaped at him for a long moment, wondering whether he was joking. The drawbridge was closed. Her people numbered seven thousand, more than the Tear army. How could it possibly be a trap?

  “Get back!” the Fetch screamed, and now Aislinn heard the youth in his voice. The fright. “Get off the lawn! Now!”

  But it was too l
ate, for now a fearful scream rose from the sea of people behind her, hundreds of hands pointing into the air. Following their trajectory, Aislinn saw that a line of figures had appeared on the battlements far above. She could not see their faces, but all of them held strung bows. Even at this great distance, Aislinn could see the arrows, because the tips were alight, shimmering with flame.

  “Get back!” the Fetch screamed again, but it was like trying to part the sea.

  “Aislinn,” Liam muttered. He had squatted down beside her to inspect the grass, and now he raised his hand into the light so that Aislinn could see his palm: glittering and slick with dew.

  No, not dew, Aislinn realized suddenly, staring up at the Keep in sudden understanding, sudden horror.

  Oil.

  A man’s voice shouted high above them, too distant to hear the words, and in unison the bows tilted downward, aiming the flaming arrows at the lawn.

  “Run!” the Fetch screamed. “Get off the grass!”

  But Aislinn’s people simply stood there, staring upward, openmouthed. Even Aislinn herself stood frozen, unable to credit the sight before her, around her . . . the oil beneath her feet.

  They wouldn’t, she thought blankly. How could they?

  Shrieks rose behind her, and Aislinn felt a wave of scorching heat at the back of her neck. Turning, she saw flames leaping high at the top of the lawn. They had already set the fire, trapping those at the back, cutting off their escape. If the entire Keep Lawn was coated with oil—and it was, of course it was—they would burn to death. All of them.

  I could run, Aislinn thought. The moat was only ten feet away; she could run and dive into the water, holding her breath until the worst of the flame had passed. The soles of her shoes were slick with oil, but she might make it . . . and then she was sickened at herself. At least half of the people on the lawn were children. Aislinn might make it, yes, and so might the hundred or so other souls who stood at the front, closest to the moat. But what then? She could not save the rest, and so she merely stood there, staring upward, as the voice atop the battlements shouted its last command, as the bows unstrung.

  All lost, Aislinn thought, in the instant before the arrows landed. All lost, and how can that be? How can that be, when we worked so hard, when all we wanted was a just world? How can it end this way?

  There were no answers, only flame. Aislinn’s dress went up first, and she heard them screaming around her, a world of nothing but screaming as the endless inferno tore across the grass and engulfed them all. She looked for Liam, but he had already fallen to the ground beside her, his skin boiling inside the armor he had picked out from Lady Andrews’s armory, that proud day when they had marched inside, feeling themselves unstoppable, immortal with right. The flames rose higher and higher, tearing into the night sky—later on, farmers in the central Almont would claim they had seen the conflagration, even in Billingston, more than thirty miles away—but Aislinn understood, in her last moments of understanding anything, that it was not the height of the blaze that mattered, but the breadth . . . how it covered the entire lawn in seconds, taking them all, even the children, leaving nothing behind . . . no one to remember, no one to build.

  Chapter 38

  THE STRANGER IN THE CROWD

  The dream was always running ahead of one. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.

  —Anaïs Nin (pre-Crossing Fr./Cub.)

  Wake up, bitch! You have a visitor!”

  Niya pulled herself from sleep, as though by inches. Waking was harder than it should have been; Culp had thrown her into a wall this morning—or was it last night?—and she had taken a bad blow to the head. Ever since, it seemed that all she wanted to do was sleep.

  “Wake up, damn you!”

  She opened her eyes to an odd sight: the underjailor, Kreb, setting a chair in the middle of the floor outside of her cell. The High Jailor, Peter, was rumored to be a decent enough man, but Niya was Culp’s bird, and so she did not stay in the dungeon proper, but in the filthy rooms that had been sunken a floor below. Kreb was her jailor, and Kreb hated her like fire, for although he was clearly used to doing as he liked with the rare female prisoner in these cells, he did not dare to come inside Niya’s cage. Culp was the only one who didn’t fear her.

  But Niya did not want to think of Culp.

  “Here, Father. Here is our best chair.”

  If Niya had been more awake, she would have laughed at Kreb’s subservient tone. Like every good Christian she had ever known, the underjailor wore a large wooden cross around his neck, and now he was nearly fawning as he ushered the priest toward Niya’s cell. At the sight of the white robes, Niya rolled back over, closing her eyes.

  “Fuck off, Father,” she muttered.

  “Shut up, bitch!” Kreb cried. “You’ll mind your manners with the Father, or I will tell Culp!”

  “Culp doesn’t frighten me, you little shit. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  But that was a lie, for the blank-faced interrogator did frighten Niya, long after she had thought herself done with being frightened by any man. That was nothing Kreb needed to know, of course. More than once, Niya had been grateful that Welwyn Culp did not like an audience for his art, for Kreb was just the sort to stand there, hard as a rock, storing up the images for later. Now the underjailor could only stare at Niya in impotent anger, his hand trembling toward his keys. Just as well. Culp intended to beat Niya down, and the ache in her head told her that he was slowly and surely making progress.

  “Sit down, Father,” Kreb said, his voice reverting quickly back to dog-slobbering obsequiousness. The chair creaked as the priest sat down, and Niya gave a large snore.

  “I know Master Culp would like to have welcomed you himself, Father,” Kreb went on. “But he’s sleeping. It is very late.”

  “Indeed it is,” the priest said, and at the sound of his voice, Niya’s body jerked involuntarily. A better guard might have seen it, but Kreb was too busy falling all over himself; he noticed nothing. “But we find that the early hours are the best time to attempt such redemptions. In the depth of night, these poor wretches see the dark gulf that awaits them.”

  “Of course, Father! Would you like some water or ale while you work? Or we have cheese—”

  “Confessions are private, my son,” the Fetch replied, and Niya could not help but admire his skill: perfect mimicry of the rich, compassionate tones of an experienced confessor priest, the very sort the Arvath would send for one final wheedle at a traitor’s broken soul, so that the Church could announce yet another miraculous repentance and conversion. “Please leave us alone, so that I may do my best to save her corrupt soul.”

  “Yes, Father . . . yes, of course. I will be outside. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Kreb retreated, and Niya heard the low boom of the door that separated the cells from Culp’s house of horrors.

  “Great God,” she whispered. “You’re alive.”

  “I am not an easy man to kill.”

  “Good thing Kreb left when he did; I was worried he might piddle on your pretty robes.”

  “Me as well,” the Fetch replied with a chuckle. But all humor vanished from his face as Niya rolled to sit up. Half of her face was sheeted with dried blood from the scalp wound she had taken yesterday. One of her thumbs and her third finger were missing. Her arms and legs were crusted with burns; Culp liked to play with flame. There were more bruises beneath the stained grey shift she wore, and they made it hard to sit up. But Niya did so, grunting, scooting backward so that she could lean against the wall.

  “Welwyn Culp did this to you,” the Fetch said flatly.

  “Yes, but hopefully not for much longer; I think he is tiring of me. How did you get in here?”

  “Why, through the front door, of course. Father Morrow, at your service.”

  The Fetch swept her a low bow, w
hich made Niya smile. But his usually merry eyes were hard as flint, and now Niya saw that her injuries were not the only problem. The shadow that had always lain over the Fetch, that shadow that demanded that he take responsibility for all of the ills of the Tearling, was there, and darker than Niya had ever seen it. The Fetch looked like a man damned. Niya wanted to tell him that it was all right, argue him out of it, as she always did . . . but she was so tired.

  I’m ready, she realized, wondering at her own calm . . . she, Niya, who had always fought like a cat when cornered! It had taken four Queen’s Guards to subdue her in the end, including Elston, and Niya’s only regret was the injuries she had dealt them: a broken arm for Galen, and a kick to Elston’s jaw that had shattered most of his front teeth. She had hated hurting them, hated that they thought her a traitor, that they would never know why.

  “What news?” she forced herself to ask the Fetch.

  “Things go well,” he replied. “The rebellion in the Almont is still strengthening. Our people have joined with them, demanding reforms. We have a good chance.”

  Lies, Niya thought. The Fetch was an excellent liar, but she had known him too long, and his tricks no longer fooled her. Something had happened, and if the Fetch would not tell her about it, then it could be nothing good. But she did not press him, for the shadow that lay over him was dark . . . so very dark.

  “What else?”

  “The little Princess is gone. Vanished without trace.”

  Niya blinked, coming awake a bit. The Princess . . . there was something she needed desperately to tell him. What was it?

  “Your doing?” the Fetch asked. “The kidnapping?”

  “And others’,” Niya replied, racking her brain. Thinking was so hard now; she could not seem to remember anything anymore. Her eyes were trying to close again.

  “Why did you come here?” she asked. “I’m glad you did, but why did you come?”