The Red Tower was just such a secure place. It had gained its name and colour when the city first declared for the Emperor, during that delicate few months when the second autocrat of the dynasty listed his allies, his enemies and what to do to each. The tower, created as a fortress but finished as a home, was a friendship-gift from Egisburg to make sure the city went in the proper column of that list. Since red was already the Imperial colour, it was accepted at once. Since then a goodly number of people had passed through the tower’s lowering portals and though most had been accounted for one way or another, a score or so were never seen again.
As if the sombre crimson building had swallowed them.
*
Because of their façade as safe, comfortable accommodation for individuals of consequence, and since a few regained full rank and privilege along with apologies of varying sincerity, the Tower apartments were luxurious and their guards downright polite.
Dewan ar Korentin had told Aldric about it over a drink; one of the many Imperial subjects they had discussed in the short time for him to learn about them. Soldiers and their officers saw a posting to duty there as a good-conduct award, so the attitude of the entire garrison from its commander down was distinctly relaxed. After all, the construction and appearance of the Red Tower was such that it deterred all but the most determined escape attempts, not that any had ever succeeded.
For those same reasons, nobody would ever want to get in.
Except, reflected Aldric, that certain people did and somebody, somewhere, seemed to suspect it. Why else were there checkpoints in all the streets leading to Tower Square, manned by soldiers with Warlord Etzel’s crest and colours? Aldric was growing weary of seeing that jagged four-pointed star disfiguring what he still regarded as his own clean black and silver. They were turning away all without the proper written authority, even those who by the sound of their protests lived in the sealed-off streets.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “They can’t expect us. Can they?”
“No.” Prokrator Bruda sounded confident and unconcerned. “This is standard practice. A precautionary drill.”
“Precaution against what?”
Bruda had no answer.
There was a travelling fair in town and from what he knew of the Imperial Secret Police, Aldric guessed that several of the jugglers and acrobats were tulathin. Nobody had told him or even hinted at it, but they probably hadn’t told Lord General Goth either. The fair also kept company with more respectable entertainments such as professional storymakers, and a theatrical troupe putting on an impressive show for their last performances before winter. It was a festival which had drawn more people than Egisburg could hold, so more strange faces wouldn’t attract attention. Bruda or whoever had planned this venture must have known about it, which explained his tight timekeeping.
Despite the crowds it proved easy to find lodgings. Their cavalry escort had billets with the city’s garrison; despite tensions among the politicals, army regiments were still as amiable as old rivalries allowed. That was how they had travelled with such arrogant ease from Goth’s headquarters, and why the Lord General made Aldric wear Imperial armour. It made him part of one big happy military family, with such rank that he needn’t fear casual questioning. No checkpoint serjeant would dream of questioning a hanalth without a triple-thick, lead-lined, copper-bottomed damn good reason to hide behind.
And if he had one, it was already far too late.
Officers didn’t live in barracks when there was better, and in Egisburg there was much, much better. For all the teeming host of visitors there were still rooms vacant in the inns beneath the brooding shadow of the Tower. Forbidding rumours of just who might be in the citadel, which varied from unlikely to downright impossible, were enough to convince all but the bravest and the richest to find rooms elsewhere. Those who remained were men and women armoured by wealth, with courage in proportion to their cash. Several were very rich and very bold indeed.
The explanation came from Bruda, prompted by Aldric’s concerns about staying in a barracks where unfamiliarity with army protocol would show up like a candle in a cellar. They were riding through the crowded streets, letting the throng part in their own time before the horses rather than forcing a passage. This casual drifting was much more natural in Egisburg’s holiday atmosphere, as natural as the reluctant smile it created on Aldric’s face as he appreciated the citizens’ cheery mood. It was the first such mood, and the first unforced smile, he had experienced in far too long. More interesting still, the leisurely pace gave him time to overhear the storymakers who were close enough not to drown in the background babble.
Aldric had long known these professionals were different to their Alban counterparts like the man who had harped and sung at his Eskorrethen feast almost four years ago. Four years ago this month! he realised with a slight start. That harper had memorised scores of old legends, old stories, old folktales and the old, approved way to tell each one. But all, like their teller, were old, while Imperial storymakers spent as much time creating new material as they did in learning classics. It was no accident that, though Jouvaine by birth and Vreijek by inclination, the playwright Oren Osmar had produced his most enduring and popular works under Imperial patronage. Tiluan the Prince was still original, daring and controversial eighty years after its first performance.
Not that daring or controversy touched on anything to do with the Empire’s policies. Generations of strict theatrical censorship had seen to that, and Aldric wasn’t so naïve as to forget it. Yet it was intriguing to hear familiar stories told in a foreign language and an unfamiliar style that changed them more than somewhat. There were also tantalising lines from tales entirely new, though noisy approval from their audiences showed they were familiar favourites here.
“…As far past as yesterday, as far distant as the moon…”
“…When every sea was dry, and every land was sea…”
“…Be sure you return before the bells sound midnight, for otherwise…”
“…The petals turned to gold and the stems to silver, and each raindrop was a diamond, but the droplet on the thorn stayed ruby red…”
“…It was a blade such as he had never seen before, gleaming bright and dark by turns, and it had an edge to shave the cold off a winter wind…”
“…The falcon spoke with a human voice, like all creatures of that time, and it said…”
“…If you doubt my tale, she told him, go there yourself, and then come back to name me false if you have the breath of life to do it…”
A slap between the shoulder-blades jolted Aldric back to awareness of his purpose in this city. It was a far harder blow than any hautheisart should strike a hanalth, no matter how close their friendship, and there was no friendship in Voord’s expression when Aldric swung round with a stifled oath to glare at him. The Vlechan’s bruised lips stretched back from his cracked teeth in a grin more ugly than amiable, and both men knew the other saw it that way.
“There’ll be a time for sightseeing later, sir,” he said. “But later. Not now.”
*
Two Imperial officers sat in the otherwise-empty taproom of a fine tavern, drinking white wine from a flagon chilled by compacted snow. They were alone.
Hautheisart Voord had gone out for a walk, and if there was any ulterior motive behind that loudly-announced decision on the heels of his comment about sightseeing, non-one thought it worth a comment. Aldric had gone looking for the tavern’s bath-house, and that too passed without remark. Bruda had expressed no surprise; he knew the Alban people and their customs, and though it was possible this Alban was implying that the company he kept made him feel dirty, any insult subtle enough to pass unnoticed was no insult at all. So Bruda and Tagen drank their chilled wine and chatted about inconsequential matters as if they were in Egisburg for no more important reason than the festival.
Aldric came in before the flagon was more than halfway empty, damp-haired, clean-shaven and the merest to
uch scented, like any Drusalan officer on an off-duty evening. He was back into his own clothing as far as pretence allowed, with only brassards on his tunic to show what he was supposed to be. The rank-robe with his other insignia was doubled, not folded, over his sheathed longsword, and as he took an unoccupied chair he flung the robe across its back. The sword, however, he leaned respectfully against its arm.
“You should wear that,” said Bruda after a disapproving glance at the contrasting treatment.
“The sword, or this?” Aldric reached behind him, pulled the rank-robe further down to make a better cushion, then without asking or invitation poured a cup of wine. “You aren’t wearing yours.” Bruda’s eyebrows twitched together in a frown, warning Aldric not to push impertinence too far.
“I concede the point,” he said. “But I’m entitled to my rank. I earned it. Yours is borrowed. So you’ll wear the robe whenever you go out of this tavern. Is that understood?” The order was acknowledged, if only just, with a salute from Aldric’s winecup that earned a long stare before Bruda turned back to his interrupted conversation. “All right, Tagen. You’ve seen the Tower, what do you think? Any ideas about getting in?”
“What?” Aldric sat up from his slouch, then flinched and shook cold wine out of his sleeve. “This isn’t the time or place to play things by ear!” Bruda’s gaze flicked from the spilled wine to Aldric’s face and back again in any eyeblink.
“Mop that up,” he said, taking a drink of his own. “And I wasn’t talking to you. Tagen, you’re from the hill country. Opinions?”
“I think, Prokrator,” said Tagen, “that hill-climbing and the Tower don’t go together. No natural toe or finger-holds thanks to the glaze, and if you tried to hammer in a spike you’d have the whole garrison out to answer your knocking.”
“Conclusion?”
“As well try to climb a mirror, sir, as go up by any normal means.”
“I see.” Bruda shifted in his chair. “Well, hanalth Talvalin? No comments yet?”
“No. Not yet.” There was more on Aldric’s mind right now than sarcasm.
“Sir?” said Tagen in the voice of one struck by a sudden thought. “I could get a grapnel onto a parapet.”
Aldric opened his mouth to say something like, ‘What, ten-score feet straight up, and in the dark?’ then closed it with a snap as Tagen reached for more wine and heavy muscles shifted beneath his tunic. Possibly he could throw a grapnel that far; more to the point, if Voord contrived another fight then Tagen would be a more dangerous opponent than Garet ever was.
“Not even your strength could manage that,” said Bruda.
“Oh, not throwing it, sir.” Tagen laughed, flattered by the compliment. “I was thinking of a crossbow.”
“You’d have to pad the hook,” said Aldric. “Metal’s noisy when it hits stone. And you’d have to place it first time. Could you?”
“Not first time, nor second, most likely. But I could promise third or fourth.”
“By which time the whole garrison would be out to answer your knocking.” Aldric echoed Tagen’s own doubt, but Bruda wasn’t amused. He set down his goblet with a sharp click that drew all eyes and turned it around and around as silence fell.
“Well done,” he said. “You’re skilled at picking holes, Aldric-erhan.” Using the Alban term for ‘scholar’ the way he used it now was a deliberate affront. “Let’s hear something positive.” Aldric stared at the two Imperial faces, hard faces, foreign faces, and knew he was taking a risk even to voice his thoughts aloud. But he did at last.
“Try sorcery,” he said, and that was when the door opened and Voord came in as if on cue – or as if he had been listening outside, which was as likely.
“Alban, you deserve credit for sheer gall, though little enough for wit.” The hautheisart spoke in a disbelieving rasp. “Recommending the Art Magic to a Chief of Secret Police must rank among—”
“Look at the warships of your gallant fleet, Commander Voord,” snapped Aldric, “then tell me more about how the Empire outlaws magic.”
“So you know about our Imperial proscriptions?”
“I know.” Who didn’t, for Heaven’s sweet sake? They were the harshest edicts ever to appear in a legal statute-book, enforced with unwavering rigor in the fifty years since they were drawn up. Except, it seemed, where raw power could order them set aside.
“If you know,” said Bruda, deceptively amiable, “then perhaps you could suggest where I might find a sorcerer. Vreijaur, perhaps? Or even Alba?” It struck Aldric that the man might not be as sober as he had first appeared, or had played things that way for reasons of his own.
“Your lieutenant has already pointed out that you’re Chief of the Secret Police,” he replied. “Why don’t you tell me?” There was a chilly pause, then Bruda threw back his head and laughed with a harsh bark of mirth which startled Aldric considerably.
“All right,” he said, still grinning, “I will. There.” One hand pointed to where Voord was leaning against the door-post. “That’s your wizard.”
“Him?”
“And why not?” Voord smirked like a fox finding an unlocked henhouse. “Where better to practise secret arts than in the Secret Police? We all have our little vices. I already know some of yours. This is one of mine. One day, hlensyarl, you might find out what the others are.” His smirk went thin and nasty. “Or they might find you.”
“My personal retainers are men of many talents, Aldric,” said Bruda. It was impossible to tell if the fact pleased him, but somehow Aldric fancied not. “Many and various.”
“So it would seem.” Aldric poured more wine and rinsed the sourness from the inside of his mouth with a careful sip. He met Bruda’s eyes and held them with his own. “I’ll remember that.”
“Best you do.”
“Prokrator,” Voord cut in, “I was a little late. What are we discussing?” All we Imperial officers, was what Aldric heard, not the play-acting foreigner.
“The Tower, and getting out of it without walking through the gate,” said Bruda. “Well, would magic be of use?”
“Perhaps…” Voord’s voice tailed off as he studied his over-filled winecup. He brought it to his mouth without spilling a drop, winced as its acid contents stung his split lips, and then took a long draught. With the steadiness of his hand confirmed despite discussing something that should make it shake, he nodded in agreement. “Yes, perhaps.”
“Prokrator, what have all these speculations to do with the careful planning you bragged about?” Aldric wasn’t so much surprised as angry that a scheme whose earlier stages seemed geared to the fine tolerances of an expensive clock had degenerated into speculations over wine.
“ ‘Careful planning’?” echoed Voord before Bruda could say anything. “But it is, Talvalin. It is. All of these ‘speculations’ as you call them, have been discussed before, by men who know what they involve.”
“Yet you all talk as if you’d never seen the Red Tower.”
“This is the first time for most of us, but it’s been surveyed. For the sake of secrecy my agent preserved the information in his memory rather than on paper.”
“So much secrecy that I see no evidence of what he learned. Where’s this careful…?” Aldric’s voice trailed off as he stared at Voord and the answer became obvious. “Ah.”
“Yes,” said Voord. “Garet.”
Aldric could think of no sensible response, but his mind was in a whirl. It was ridiculous that such a delicate enterprise hinged on one man’s knowledge, a man thrown away to prove a point. It was so ridiculous that Aldric felt suspicion plucking at his sleeve yet again. Learning that Voord of all people had a fondness for sorcery was nudging other suppressed and half-forgotten memories into place. Memories from Seghar.
“What plan for us, then?” he wondered aloud, almost too nonchalant. “Do we climb ropes like spiders or tulathin or such vermin, or do we—”
“Walk in through the Tower’s front door?” Bruda finished Aldric’s question
for him. “Yes. That’s what we’ll we do. The bold approach. I’ve got all the proper written authorities and,” he smiled, “most of them are genuine.”
“Walk in,” repeated Aldric softly. “Just like that.”
“What could be more realistic? Anything else would be abnormal.” Aldric’s brows quirked in a sceptical look he didn’t try to hide. “Oh yes. You’re forgetting, ilauem-arluth Talvalin, that we’re senior officers of the finest Army in the world. Important people, man! We’ll pay our respects to the garrison commander later this evening, and to any high-ranked guests. He knows we rode in today, and if we didn’t visit him the breach of protocol would cause too much comment.”
“I hope you’re right, Bruda. Indeed I do. For all our sakes.”
Aldric stood up and settled Isileth Widowmaker’s cross-strap on his shoulder, then hooked her scabbard to his weapon-belt. It wasn’t peace position, and he didn’t care. The longsword hadn’t been more than an arm’s length away since her return, even though it was impolite to carry a battle-furnished and thus threatening taiken when it wasn’t necessary. But those were manners for Alba, among Albans. Here the sword’s presence would be necessary for as long as Lord-Commander Voord lurked in the background. He glanced at Bruda and lifted the black and silver rank-robe from his chair.
“Satisfied, sir?”
“No, hanalth. That robe isn’t fit to be seen in public. Have it pressed and made good before you put it on again – and as I said before, don’t leave here without it.”
“Yes, sir!” Aldric snapped a neat half-salute for Bruda’s benefit, turned to leave the room and found Voord blocking his path.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the Vlechan snapped. Aldric considered various responses for an instant, then brushed past him.
The Dragon Lord Page 21
