by Steven Gould
“Malnutrition, is that Siegfried?”
“Yes.” Leland was watching her with an intensity that reminded her of that first encounter, so long ago in the library.
She looked at the other two bodies and a man crouched before Siegfried, face knotted in some deep emotion. “Did you do all this?”
Leland looked back at the room and the intensity of his expression faded, became weary. “Yes, sort of.” He waved a hand at Siegfried’s bloody side. “Bad ukemi.”
Ukemi? Well, he’s a friend of Charly Sensei. I should’ve realized he studies.
He stepped back to the corner of the shop and picked up a translucent headpiece from the workbench. “I suspect we should leave now.”
Marilyn nodded. “Yes—one of the guards ran for help. What’s that?”
Leland looked down at the object in his hands and said, “A great deal of trouble.” He crouched beside the kneeling man and said, “Bartholomew—it’s time to leave.”
Bartholomew looked at him with wet eyes and said something that Marilyn couldn’t catch.
“Very well,” Leland said, standing. “Bring him, then.”
Bartholomew leaned forward and gathered Siegfried into his arms, unmindful of the blood. He staggered to his feet.
“Are you sure you can manage?” said Leland. “We’ll probably be too busy to help.”
Bartholomew nodded. His face was calmer.
Leland studied Bartholomew’s face for a second, then nodded, satisfied. “How many of our people are in the Station?”
Bartholomew looked confused and Leland amended the question. “Natives of Laal. Prisoners.”
“Oh. Perhaps thirty-five. They’re all in the old kitchen staff quarters.”
Leland blinked. “That’s only five small rooms.”
“Yes. It’s very crowded,” said Bartholomew.
“We’ll have to do something about that.” Leland looked down at the object in his hands. “But first I need to hide this.”
Marilyn thought about the elevator shaft.
“I know just the place.”
Sylvan came back into Laal Station and had to wait for the guards to notice they’d returned. When the gate finally opened he screamed at the guard commander. “What the hell is going on here!”
The man flinched. “Your father, sir. Something’s happened down in the plating shop!”
Nothing anybody said made sense so he took two squads down into the lower levels. He found men treating two unconscious guards, a guard breathing painfully through a damaged larynx, and a guard with a scalp wound. There was blood all over the floor.
“Where is my father?”
“We don’t know,” said one of the uninjured men. “Except for Graves,” he said, pointing at the man with the throat injury, “they were all unconscious when we got down here. We’ve searched this level and we haven’t found him or the prisoner.”
“De Laal. What about Bartholomew?”
The man shook his head. “No sign.”
“What happened here?” he asked Graves.
Graves tried to say something, but it came out as a rasping noise.
“How about you?” Sylvan said, tapping the man with the scalp wound. “What happened?”
“Uh, the prisoner attacked us. He slammed Rael’s head into the wall and then threw me. My head hit the chair.”
Sylvan stared. “Before he was strapped into the chair?”
“No, Guide. After.”
“After? Didn’t my father use the Helm?” He looked around suddenly. “Where is the Helm?”
The man shook his head. “It was here. The high steward used it on the prisoner, just like he did to the spy in the Blue Whale.”
“And de Laal still attacked you? After?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened to my father?”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know. He and Bartholomew were here. I was knocked out.” He pointed to his scalp wound again.
Sylvan looked at Graves. “Did Leland attack you, too?”
Graves shook his head.
“Who, then?”
Graves pantomimed long hair and breasts with his hands. “A woman?” He frowned. Oh! “Was it Marilyn de Noram?” The man looked puzzled.
Sylvan said, “Was it the woman I brought with me when I came from Noram?”
Graves nodded.
Marilyn and Leland. And whose blood is this? He looked up from the puddle on the floor. “Find them. Find them right now.”
They had to wrap Siegfried’s midriff several times to keep the body from trailing blood everywhere they went. Marilyn guided Bartholomew from fish barrel to shelf, helping boost the body up through the gap she’d made in the ceiling planks. Leland followed, replacing dislodged items and dusting the more obvious footprints away.
Perched on the elevator roof, in darkness, Leland replaced the planks while Marilyn lit her candle. “I didn’t know this was here,” he said, watching her every motion.
“Then you haven’t read every book in your own library. I found it in the Station Renovations Log.” The candle caught and she shook out the match, then looked at Leland. “What?”
“Pardon?” Leland said.
“You were staring at me like…like you’d never seen me before, or something.”
Like I might never see you again. “Sorry. I’m very glad to see you, Marilyn. Why are you here?”
“Treachery. Betrayal.” Her eyes narrowed and her mouth became a straight line.
Leland hazarded a guess. “Ah. Sylvan?”
She nodded.
“But you escaped?”
“They think a warrior is a large man with weapons. This puts them at a disadvantage.”
Leland laughed softly. “They should be more flexible.”
“You never said how you got here.”
“Treachery. Betrayal. Bartholomew, here, lured me into a trap.”
Bartholomew, crouched beside Siegfried’s body, nodded matter-of-factly without taking his eyes from Siegfried’s face.
Marilyn frowned. “And you brought him with us?”
Leland looked back at Bartholomew and nodded. “Yes. It wasn’t his fault. Which reminds me—” He lifted the Helm and looked at it. “Lend me your candle.”
Marilyn handed it to him. He twisted to the back of the shaft and held the candle down behind the elevator cabin. There was a large gap at the back, perhaps half a meter, and he could see that it extended below the elevator itself. He handed the candle back to Marilyn, then pulled off his extra shirt and wrapped the Helm with it.
“You’re right—this is a good hiding place.” He pushed the Helm into the gap and held it down as far as he could reach, then let go. It fell with a slight clatter and stopped with a soft thump. He sat back upright and looked up the shaft. “I’m trying to picture where it opens on the kitchen floor.” He remembered scrubbing the floors around the kitchen countless times.
“By the library, the shaft is covered by paneling. There’s also a woven rug hanging over—you’re doing it again.”
Leland shook his head hard, as if to clear it. “Sorry. There’s a stretch of paneling in the passageway between the Great Hall and the kitchen. That must be it. How are the prisoners contained, Bartholomew?”
“They’ve reinforced all the doors with iron bands and installed drop bars. They never open more than one room at a time and, when they do, they bring in extra men. They feed them through a slot and let one prisoner empty the chamber pots once a day.”
“How many guards are there now?”
After a moment Bartholomew said, “Perhaps three, in the kitchen. Siegfried stripped the Station to reinforce the passes, so they let the doors do most of the work.”
Leland and Marilyn exchanged glances. “Just how many Cotswolders are in the Station now?”
Bartholomew tilted his head to one side. “Depends how many troops have come in. They’re retreating up the valley and it could end up being a considerable number. It was dow
n to forty-five this morning, and Sylvan took most of those with him to collect hostages in the village. He’s probably back.”
“Hmmm. What shape are the prisoners in?”
“So-so. Until last week they were using them as work crews so they were feeding them. When Siegfried sent troops up into the passes, they stopped because it took too many to watch them.”
Leland looked at Marilyn. “It’s a lot of people to get out of the Station.”
Marilyn nodded. “So we’ll just have to take the Station, instead.”
One of the searching men found a bloodstain, a drip that had been walked upon, in one of the hallways, but all the rooms and storage areas nearby proved empty of the fugitives or further signs of their passage. Sylvan stormed through the passages shouting at the men. “Damn your hides! Find them!”
He’d stationed two squads at the entrance to the underground river, lest Leland leave the way he’d arrived. Both stairways up were guarded by a squad, and four more squads were scouring the floor. There were barely enough men left to man the lookout posts on the walls or watch the prisoners.
There’d been a man on each stairway all day and the fugitives hadn’t passed, but still, after thirty minutes of vigorous searching, they couldn’t be found. “Dammit. There must be secret passages or hidden rooms. Keep guards on the stairways and the lower passage, but widen the search to the rest of the Station. Find them!”
Just how trained is he? Marilyn thought.
They’d left Bartholomew in the elevator shaft with Siegfried’s body and forced open a section of panel outside the kitchen. She’d expected him to talk about some strategy for dealing with the guards, but he’d just set her staff against the wall, pushed the panel roughly back in place, then walked casually down the hallway. She’d scrambled to keep up.
As he entered the kitchen he began talking to Marilyn in a normal conversational voice. “What are you going to do after all of this? When it’s all settled, that is?”
There were two guards sitting at the kitchen table near the ovens, and they looked up at the sound of Leland’s voice.
Marilyn, glancing at the guards, said, “I, uh, hadn’t really thought about it.” What are you doing?
Leland kept walking, toward a passage at the back of the room, presumably the rooms where the prisoners were being held. “I suppose you’ll be going back to Noram City. I wonder if I could find a position with the university—”
“What are you doing here!” one of the guards said, standing.
“—maybe a janitor or something,” Leland said, ignoring the guards. “I’ve got lots of experience.” He turned toward the guard and waved his hand airily. “Don’t mind us. We’ll just help ourselves.”
Both guards were up and moving now, and Marilyn started to wish for her jo.
“Cornelius would love to have you on his staff. But not as a janitor.”
Leland said, “Well, anything that let me be near you.”
Marilyn felt her ears heat suddenly and, despite the two closing guards, she couldn’t help smiling.
“I said”—one of the guards spoke loudly—”what are you doing here?“ They drew their swords.
That’s torn it. Marilyn was wondering if she could protect Leland when he turned suddenly, leaning slightly forward, his eyes suddenly fierce and wild.
The first guard flinched, then lifted his sword and cut at Leland’s head, but as the sword dropped he found Leland standing beside him, away from the second guard, Leland’s hand between his own on the sword hilt. As the sword dropped, Leland extended that arm ahead and the guard flew forward, without his sword.
The second guard cut sideways at Leland and Leland pulled his hip, increasing the gap. The tip of the sword whistled past, then Leland moved in before the sword came back, blocking the man’s elbow, then moved in and threw the man down hard with kokyu-ho, using the back of his upper arm first to lift the man’s chin, unbalancing him, then continue the motion over in an arc. The guard landed on his back, hard, and Marilyn could hear the air rush from his lungs.
Okay, I don’t have to protect him. She took the sword from the second guard’s nerveless fingers and placed its edge against the neck of the first guard, struggling to rise. “Just lie there, why don’t you?” He dropped back to his stomach.
“You really think Cornelius would give me a position?” Leland asked.
“Leland, I’d give you a position, if you’d come live in Noram. But is this really the time to talk about this?”
“Well, soon, then.” He gestured at the guards. “Can you manage?”
“Certainly.” She winked, then said slightly more loudly, “If necessary, I’ll just kill them.”
Leland laughed and went on, to the back of the kitchen.
She kept her eyes on the two guards but heard a clunk followed by the sound of a timber clattering on the floor. Leland’s distant voice came to her. “Well, are you going to just lie around all day?”
There was an explosion of voices stilled suddenly, and she heard Leland say, “Release the others. We’ve things to do.”
Returning to the basement level was the last thing Marilyn wanted to do. “Well, I’d go alone, but I can’t bear to be away from you.”
She looked for some trace of irony or sarcasm in Leland’s face but he looked perfectly sincere. “What’s wrong with you?”
Leland looked confused for a moment. “Is this feeling wrong? It feels like the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Get over it.”
Leland sent Bartholomew with the freed prisoners, making sure they all understood what was to be done. Bartholomew nodded affably, then trailed after the group, staggering slightly under his load.
Marilyn shook her head. “He can’t carry him around forever.”
Leland shrugged and said, “That’s okay, he’ll drag him.” He looked at Marilyn with that intense stare again. “We all carry our burdens. Are you coming?”
Marilyn shifted, uncomfortable. “I don’t know. What’s your dan ranking?”
Leland shook his head. “What’s that have to do with anything?”
“I want to know if this is a suicide run.”
Leland blinked. “I’m unranked. If it matters, Denesse Sensei awarded me a shidoin certification.”
“And you’re unranked? But only the—” She shut up abruptly. “I’ll go.”
“What were you going to say?”
Marilyn shook her head. “Later.” Under her breath she added, “If there is a later.” They descended the elevator shaft again in darkness, not bothering with the candle, then down into the storage closet.
Leland turned left out of the old elevator, away from the plating shop, a direction Marilyn hadn’t explored. She tried to remember where this passage went, from her study of the station floorplan, but could recall only that the baths lay this way. They moved quietly past rows of storerooms and shops, many with their doors ajar, contents disarrayed from the recent search or earlier looting.
Leland talked quietly. “How often do you think I could see you if I moved to the city?”
Marilyn, trying to listen for Cotswold soldiers, shook her head. “Can we talk about this later? Did you get hit on the head or something?”
Leland laughed. “Something.” He checked a cross passage before moving on. “You know how Bartholomew is carrying Siegfried around?”
“Yes.”
“Siegfried used the Helm on Bartholomew, to compel him to obedience. That’s why Bartholomew betrayed me to him. It’s irresistible, really. He was going to do it to lots of people—you, your father, your sister, my brothers.”
Marilyn stopped walking, horrified. “That’s awful.”
Leland stopped and faced her, nodding. “Siegfried tried to do the same thing to me.”
Marilyn took a step back. “But it didn’t work, obviously.”
“Not as he intended. Instead, thanks to a previous experience with the Helm, I was able to focus on something else. Something
I was already obsessing upon, anyway.”
Marilyn shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I focused on you.”
“You were obsessing on me before?”
Leland shrugged. “A crush. Nothing abnormal, really.”
Marilyn frowned. Just a crush? “And now?”
Leland waved his hands vaguely in front of him. “Now I’m obsessing.”
There were footsteps from the far end of the hall and Leland pulled her into an open storeroom. They slipped behind the door and stood quietly while booted feet walked briskly in their direction. Leland peered through the gap by the hinges and Marilyn stood behind him, suddenly aware of the warmth radiating from his body, the line of his neck.
He needed a bath.
Obsession? Is that like love?
She tensed as the soldiers, several of them by the sound of the footsteps, passed.
After a moment Leland said, “I think we can go now.”
She checked the corridor. “Yes.” They moved on.
They were in a damper section of the cellar, and the vibrations from the river were more evident. Leland paused at the corner and held up his hand. “Hmmm. There are guards. Oh, well. Let’s go.”
She stepped around the corner with him. Ten meters down the hallway stood two men on each side of a door. “What are we going to do?”
Leland looked at her. “Do? We’re not going to do anything. This isn’t practice. If they attack us, something will happen, that’s all. That’s what aikido is really about. I wonder if we could get an apartment near the university. I don’t think I want to live in Laal House. It’s not close enough to the dojo.”
Marilyn stared at him.
“Are the rents high?”
The guards saw them or, more likely, heard Leland, and turned, then drew their swords and walked toward them.
Leland kept walking. “You will live with me, won’t you? I didn’t really ask.”
She shuddered. “Now is not the time.”
The guard in the lead said, “Stop right there.”
Leland smiled at the man. “Why?” He walked faster, closing the gap between them and pulling slightly in front of Marilyn.
The guard looked worried, then said, “I’ll give you a reason!” He stepped forward and thrust his sword at Leland’s midsection.
