by Brian Fuller
The next day dawned cold, brooding clouds moving slowly and spitting flurries or drizzling coldly in fits. They met briefly to review what supplies they should gather for their trek to Mikmir.
“I’m afraid we’ll likely have to contend with the snow around the lake,” Maewen predicted, “so we’ll need warmer clothes for the young men. We need a bow for Gen, as well. Do we have enough for horses?”
“Barely,” Torbrand answered, “I am not sure if the prices have come back down since the lockdown was lifted. They had risen fairly high. If we can’t afford them, we will be stealing them. I am not walking all the way to Mikmir. Those with scruples can return with payment later.”
Torbrand, Volney, and Gerand left after taking the morning meal, and the day passed slowly. The boredom and inactivity wore on Hardman the worst. He paced, mumbled, and swung Destiny around listlessly, itching for an opportunity to go stir up trouble. Maewen sat against the door purposefully, throwing Hardman a withering look anytime “Just one drink downstairs?” passed his lips.
Ducking Destiny’s careless trajectories in the cramped room provided Gen with a modicum of entertainment while they waited, watching the weather providing the rest. The storm worsened as the day wore on, and when Torbrand and his companions returned, they dripped all over the floor, the two young men shaking with the cold.
“We’re all set,” Torbrand announced. “Let’s eat and hope Mikmir has better weather than this.”
“What time of day will it be when we pass through?” Volney asked.
“Midday, I believe,” Torbrand replied. “The Portal we will pass through leads to Lipgate, about a day east of the town of Portal Gate along the lake.”
“Let’s move then,” Hardman grumbled. “I am tired of Tenswater.”
Mena twisted her hands nervously. Her bold companion sat perfectly at ease, having replaced her more magnificent dress with the plain robes and veil of a servant. Mirelle had set her mind to play the Aughmerian serving woman today in hopes of speaking with her companions in the dungeon and finding some word about Gen. The Chalaine’s message about Athan’s baiting Gen by causing her fake pain set Mirelle to pacing and plotting.
“Surely he would not be so foolish as to come to Ironkeep!” Mena had suggested two weeks after delivering the Chalaine’s message. She hoped as much to comfort the Chalaine’s mother—who clearly cared for Gen a vast deal—as to deter the machinations of her plotting mind that so plainly manifested themselves in her troubled eyes.
“You are wrong,” Mirelle had answered without deviating from the set course of her pacing. “When it comes to the Chalaine’s safety, he will undertake anything, however foolhardy. He will come if Athan keeps at it, and even if he doesn’t come, Athan’s men are combing the world for him.”
After three days, Mirelle had returned a message to the Chalaine that she had a plan to warn Gen to steer clear of Aughmere and Ironkeep, but she said nothing of how save that Mena was to find a way to her quarters on Seventh Day after next.
The time passed slowly, Mena fretting over her unknown role in the former Queen of Rhugoth’s plans. The Chalaine expressed full confidence in her mother’s abilities, but Mena felt strangely vulnerable under the scrutiny of the Church elite wandering the halls, and she was humbled by her close association with Mirelle and her Holy daughter. She almost missed her father, for no one dared glance at her with even a hint of malice under his obsessed gaze. With him gone, she felt unprotected.
While she was allowed to leave the Chalaine for short periods at a time, Mena could not stay away long without rousing suspicion. In order to help Mirelle, Mena had located another serving woman with Mirelle’s height and complexion with which to switch places for the time she was gone. This, in itself, did not worry her, for one of the veil’s only virtues was facilitating this kind of deception. The women of Aughmere had practiced it for years. Thoughts of what Mirelle had planned and what discovery would cost them both set loose the butterflies in her stomach and sapped the energy from her limbs.
On Seventh Day, she walked into Mirelle’s quarters to find the former First Mother dressed in servant’s garb. Mirelle, a prisoner, intended to walk the halls of Ironkeep right under the nose of Church Mages and soldiers. Mena wrung her hands as she approached, but Mirelle’s carefree manner calmed her. Perhaps the First Mother only planned for a short visit to her daughter and it would all be over.
“When are our replacements to arrive?” Mena asked.
“Any time now,” Mirelle replied, affixing the plain brown veil mesh over her head and smoothing the brown frock. “I asked for my breakfast late this morning.”
“I don’t know of any woman here as tall as you are,” Mena warned. “I fear you will be conspicuous. You also walk the wrong way.”
“Is there some other way to walk than one foot in front of the other?”
“Well, no,” Mena returned nervously, “but you strut about as if you own the place. You must walk as if the place owns you. Hunch a little. And it would be best if I did the talking. I don’t think you could come off as properly meek.”
“As you wish. This is foreign to me, but my need is great and it will inspire my better efforts, I assure you.”
A knock at the door signaled the start of their adventure as their replacements entered. The woman Mirelle was to mimic was fully four inches shorter than her counterpart and not as blonde. “I am the best they could do,” she apologized. Mirelle waved off her concern and ate her breakfast calmly while everyone else engaged in an informal fidgeting contest.
“Where do you intend to go?” Mena inquired as Mirelle finished up.
“Well, I need to get into Athan’s head, but his quarters will have to do.”
“What!”
“After that, I should like to get into the dungeon and speak with some of my people there. If we can manage it, I want to see my daughter.”
Mena, flummoxed into muteness, could only follow dumbly along as Mirelle gathered the plates and strode for the door. The former First Mother was crazy.
“Ah, yes,” Mirelle said, “the place owns me.”
Stooping slightly at the shoulders, Mirelle put her hand on the door handle and turned back to Mena. “When I leave the room, do I go left or right?”
She pointed to the left and Mirelle yanked open the door without further delay. Mena rushed up behind her, not daring to look at the Eldephaere guards as they passed by, but feeling their icy stare, nonetheless.
“I will need you to lead, Mena,” Mirelle whispered after they were safely away.
Mena gulped and struck out toward the kitchen.
“Tuck your veil into the neck of your dress,” Mena instructed.
“Why?” Mirelle asked, complying.
“It signals to the others that you are up to no good, and the women in the keep will know not to hinder or engage you.”
“Clever.”
Mena gained confidence the farther they went, noticing that the Churchmen and soldiers barely spared them a passing glance despite Mirelle’s utterly unconvincing attempt at ambulatory humility.
“Slower!” Mena admonished between the frequent “Hunch!” and “Eyes down!” Only the general thickheaded unobservant nature of men in general would spare them a cell. Every serving woman they passed gawked unobtrusively at the swan trying to pass for a chicken in the coop. Once they managed the kitchen, Mena breathed easier.
“How do we get to Athan’s quarters?” Mirelle asked after setting the dishes on an already overflowing table and pulling Mena into a dank pantry.
“I know the wing where the Padras are quartered, but I cannot say which door is his. We will need to inquire. We also need a good reason for going there, and I personally would like assurances that he will not be there.”
“He will not,” Mirelle assured her. “I’ve already learned that he rarely visits his quarters during the day.”
“And who did you learn all this from?” Mena whispered.
“Leda and
Brince,” Mirelle answered. “They serve the Padras during the day.”
“Look,” Mena implored. “You stay here while I go ask around. If you keep your veil inside your dress and if you stay inside this pantry, no one will bother you. You are too tall and too regal, no matter how you are dressed.”
“As you wish, dear.”
After Mena left the pantry, Mirelle leaned against the shelf and tried to conjure up a way to warn Gen to stay away from Ironkeep. When she had first arrived in the Aughmerian stronghold, she resigned herself to a dull winter and spring isolated from news and good company. Fortunately, the sisterhood of the repressed Aughmerian women surprised her with their ability to work around their restrictions and bring word of the world at large. Even so, there was little to tell until Mena managed to send Leda with news of Athan’s plans to lure Gen to Ironkeep. Mirelle needed no other incentive to act.
Mirelle turned and squinted out a crack in the pantry door as Joselin, Shadan Khairn’s first wife, entered. Mirelle knew Athan had requested that she and several other of Torbrand’s wives and progeny come from the Ellenais shard to attend to the management of the household while Chertanne and the Padras lodged there. Joselin, while arrayed like all the other women, carried her stout frame with an unmistakable authority, and her voice cut through the din of the kitchen with a warlord’s edge.
Mirelle remembered well Joselin’s visit to her on the first day of her confinement, probably out of curiosity rather than necessity. While Mirelle could not fairly say that Joselin possessed a mean-spirited temperament, the way she profusely apologized for Athan forcing that “monster child” Mena on the Chalaine and the lengthy diatribe afterward about Torbrand’s favorite daughter, men, and Ironkeep in general, Mirelle knew a bitter woman when she saw one.
“What’s this I hear about some skulking business going on today?” she thundered, ending all conversation. The serving girls worked twice as quickly but silently while Joselin afflicted each one with a withering glare. Mirelle slunk back into the pantry and prayed that Mena had the good sense to stay away until Joselin cleared out.
“A flock of mute magpies, are ya?” Joselin grumbled. “Well. Hmmm. If I see any veils tucked in today, someone will be swimming in cauldron grease and chamber pots until Eldaloth says otherwise!”
Mirelle yanked the veil out of the neck of her dress and hoped that Joselin had no quarrel with the pantry. She breathed as quietly as she could while Joselin stalked around the kitchen taking time to personally criticize each woman there.
“And what a surprise,” Joselin exclaimed, interrupting one of her more spirited attempts at demeaning her underlings, “Mena.”
Mirelle cursed under her breath and chanced a peek out the crack, finding Mena rigid in the kitchen doorway facing Joselin like a deer trapped by the hunter. “I should have expected that with reports of an uppity woman with her veil tucked in roaming the halls that you would be involved.”
The pudgy accuser sauntered closer, clearly relishing this opportunity to debase someone she truly hated rather than merely despised. She grabbed a wooden spoon from off of a nearby table and thrust it in Mena’s direction.
“Don’t think that just because the Padras have assigned you to the Chalaine that you can do whatever you please in my house. She won’t be here forever, and your father is a fugitive now. When the time comes, I’ll have my claws in you as deep as I can push ‘em!”
“Yes, Mistress,” Mena squeaked.
“So what are you up to? I see your veil is tucked in.”
“Nothing, Mistress. The Chalaine. . .” A sharp whack of the spoon to the head brought Mena up short.
“Don’t nothing me. You’re never up to nothing, you spoiled, lazy wretch!”
“If I am lazy, then certainly I must be up to nothing sometimes.”
Whack! “Don’t sass me, smart mouth. What are you up to?”
“The Chalaine wanted more food! The baby grows, and she is hungry!”
Joselin raised the spoon reflexively but found no cause to strike. “So why is that a cause for tucking in the veil? Seems harmless.”
“Padra Athan monitors her food closely. The Chalaine didn’t want him to know.”
From the pantry, Mirelle felt like applauding Mena’s quick thinking.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the Chalaine shouldn’t be snacking behind the Padra’s back, and I am surprised you would go along with it! What if the Chalaine got hold of a rotten ham or old fish? Or maybe a rat’s done his business in the wheat and the Chalaine got sick and lost the holy baby? How would you feel then?”
“I do not wish to undermine the Padra, but I cannot disobey the Chalaine! She is the Holy Mother of prophecy! Guide me, Joselin! Should I comply with the Chalaine’s request or return and tell her that you say she is in the wrong and should stay hungry until Padra Athan’s command?”
“Well,” Joselin mumbled, stalling after Mena’s unexpected transfer of the onus of the issue to her. “I suppose that you should do as the Chalaine requests, only you tell her to get permission from Padra Athan himself in the future.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Well, get on with you, then. Eldaloth knows the women in Ironkeep have seen you lollygagging around quite enough these past months.”
Mirelle exhaled as Joselin marched from the room. Mena retrieved a serving platter, rubbing the bumps on her head with her other hand.
“The Chalaine will heal those for you, if we manage to see her,” Mirelle said as Mena joined her in the pantry. “Did you find out what you need to know?”
“Yes. We are fortunate. The women who clean the Padras’ quarters will let us join their party today. They await us in the Great Hall. I suppose I won’t be needing this.” Mena put the tray on one of the shelves. “Now remember. . .”
“I know,” Mirelle stopped her. “Hunch. Eyes down. Slow. The place owns me. Let’s go.”
As they walked toward the Great Hall, the number of men and women they encountered increased. Mirelle had to remind her nervous companion to slow down and stop fidgeting as they crossed through the tall, dark doors that led into the immense room. Four other women in brown dresses awaited them there, having brought buckets, brooms, and cloths enough for the addition to their party. Wordlessly they set off through a side door, Mena grabbing a bucket and Mirelle a broom. They climbed a flight of slippery polished wooden stairs, the women ahead of them talking quickly in low tones.
“You’re holding that like a scepter!” Mena whispered.
“There can’t be two ways about it! How is one supposed to hold a broom?” Mirelle inquired with some irritation. The women in front of them snickered.
“Not so straight up and down,” Mena counseled. “Haven’t you ever swept before?”
“I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve ever handled this particular cleaning instrument.”
“You would be worthless around here,” Mena observed.
Mirelle smirked. “True, though I find the thought bothers me little.”
All talking died as they ascended into a brightly lit hallway furnished with soft red rugs, lamp light beaming through the crystal glass that imprisoned the flame. An Eldephaere guard stood at post in front of every door. Mirelle’s breath caught in her throat as Padra Nolan left his room, face somber, and regarded the group. Athan’s lackey. Mirelle wanted to claw his face, too. Remembering their subterfuge, she hunched doubly as deep and tried to install as lowly an opinion of herself as she could while the Padra walked unwittingly by.
Mena’s bucket stopped shaking as Padra Nolan’s steps faded down the stairs. Taking Mirelle by the arm, she led her past the stoic guard and through the first door on the left, the other women breaking up and passing through other doors farther on. Mena shut the door and exhaled.
“Open the shutters,” Mirelle ordered, leaning her broom against the wall. “I long to see the sunlight.”
“It will be cold.”
&nb
sp; “I can live with the cold for a bit if I can just see the sun.”
Mena complied, and both looked out over the snowy courtyard. The sunlight, while winter-weak, infused Mirelle with energy. The massive iron-banded gates of Ironkeep stood open as wagons, horses, and soldiers passed through. A couple of Padras wandered about, overseeing everything.
Mirelle sighed. “We’d best be about our business.”
“What are we to do?” Mena asked.
“You clean. I’ll look about.”
Mena humphed. Mirelle regarded her with a smile. “Careful, or you’ll risk appearing as useless as I am.” Mena swept listlessly as Mirelle rifled through the papers on Padra Athan’s table.
“Anything good?” Mena asked after a while.
“Not really, though it is humorous how he goes on about how Chertanne is deciding this and organizing that. Chertanne is much busier dead than he ever was alive. Being Pontiff has certainly invigorated his work ethic. Nothing I can use, unfortunately, but I think my best bet lies over there.”
Mirelle crossed the room to where a simple chest sat on the floor.
“It’s locked,” Mena stated flatly, dipping the rag in the water to start some dusting. “And likely has spells on it.”
Mirelle grinned. “Well, I hope you can keep a secret.”
Mena dropped the rag on the floor and crossed to her. “What’s that?”
“Well, I’ve a few skills of my own.” The former First Mother removed a pin from her hair. “The spells I will have to risk, but my first Protector knew a few things he passed onto me.”
Mirelle bent the end of the pin, and after she probed in the keyhole for several long moments, the lock clicked and opened. She lifted the lid easily and stared inside, eyes wide.
“How did you. . .”
“That son of a whore!” Mirelle exclaimed, face livid. There in Athan’s chest sat the mirror Ethris had stolen from the Church, the Assassin’s Glass. She plucked it out, holding it like a dagger. “I should have known!”
