“Or a wife entering labor?”
“A silly girl who is afraid of how her body is changing?”
Vlad reached out, resting his hands on her shoulders. “I do not believe you will ever be described as silly. And I would tell you that I would thrash any man who dared say so. I also believe, my dear, you would have thoroughly dealt with such a foolish man well before I had a chance to intervene.”
She looked up, a tear glistening in an eye, but she smiled. “I have practiced my thumbs red with a dueling pistol, to my father’s delight and disgust.”
Vlad brushed the tear away, smudging her cheek. “Princess, my lack of belief in your feeling for me is no fault of your own. No, please, let me explain.”
He smiled, suddenly warmed by the memory of her sitting behind him on Mugwump, her arms tight under and around his shoulders, as the wurm first slid beneath the river. She had laughed with surprise, killing the sound as she closed her mouth quickly. She clung to him, her breasts pressed to his back, her body shaking. Only after he surfaced, tugging Mugwump up quickly, did he find her shaking with delighted laugher. Drenched, her clothing hanging from her, she did not care about appearances, but she wished to take a deep breath and go under again and again.
“I have spent so many years, Princess, dreading the day a bride would be chosen for me. I had hoped, honestly hoped, that my aunt would see the possibility of my having children as a threat to the throne. I hoped, and fervently believed, that when she did send a wife for me, it would be some old Morvian dowager duchess who would hate me, hate everything I do, and resolve to remain on the Continent while I stayed here.
“And here she has chosen someone who is perfect for me, who is intelligent and beautiful, practical and witty.” Vlad shook his head. “It is a dream which I fear will end.”
Gisella hung her hands around his neck. “Kiss me, Highness. I promise this dream will not end.”
His arms slipped around her, drawing her to him, pressing her tight to his chest. He lowered his mouth to hers. That first kiss, warm and firm, tightened his stomach. He held her closer, not wanting to let go, not wanting to break it, not wanting to even breath. And she held him tightly, not letting him go, not letting him break the kiss.
And she took his breath away.
He could not tell how long they kissed. Empirically he knew it had to have been less than two minutes, since he could only hold his breath that long. Realistically it didn’t matter. It could have been a heartbeat, but might as well have been forever. In that moment, a part of himself that had been shut away for so long became free.
The look on her face as their lips parted said she read it all in his eyes. He had no words for the emotions racing through him. The freedom, the towering joy. It was every bit as exhilarating as the first time Mugwump had dived beneath the river with him. It was the complete satisfaction of having found something he never even knew he had lost. And he wondered how he could have survived so long without it.
He laughed silently, then kissed her again. Is this love? He knew lust was involved, certainly, for hungry were their kisses and hot their desires. But he found more there, more that was frustratingly elusive. He could not measure it nor describe it—an ability for which he had to grudgingly admire the much-disparaged novelists. And yet, even though it escaped measurement, it existed because it quickened his pulse and brought him such great joy he could not stop smiling.
Reluctantly he released her. “I fear, Princess, Mugwump is a very poor chaperone.”
“This may be, my lord, but he is a silent one, which could make him a wonderful chaperone.” She laughed lightly and he adored the sound of it. “But we shall not do anything which would besmirch von Metternin’s honor.”
“It’s best we don’t.” He took her hand and led her back to the ladder. “And we need to refill the boiler.”
He bled the steam off, then opened the boiler. They took turns pumping water and hauling it to the boiler. When they’d filled it two-thirds full, he sealed it again, then climbed back down into the pit to stoke the fire.
She remained above, leaning on the rail, smiling down at him. “I find your working this way very attractive.”
He smiled, but stopped himself from preening foolishly. He raked the coals around and started laying in more wood.
“I have a question for you, Princess.”
“Ask, my lord.”
“In your family, the women bear strong children?”
She nodded, her golden hair shimmering. “Very, my lord.”
“So then, by three or four, my sons will be able to tend the boiler on cold nights?”
She grinned. “Only if, my lord, you excuse them from hunting jeopards, which they will want to do from two.”
“Very good, my dear, very good. We are splendidly matched. Perfectly.” Vlad beamed for her sake and tossed more wood onto the coals. And I wonder, when my aunt discovers this fact, what she will do to ruin us.
Chapter Forty-One
October 15, 1763
Anvil Lake, New Tharyngia
"It’s time.” Owen threw back his bedclothes. “Quarante-neuf, we go tonight.”
The pasmorte shook his head. “It is too dangerous. It is too cold.” Owen stood and unlaced the leather covers over the shackles. “The wind will bury our tracks with snow. This is the only chance. I need your help.”
“You can hardly move.”
“This is why I need you to help me.” Over the last six weeks du Malphias had taken great delight in having pasmortes chase Owen down. Because Quarante-neuf would stop them from harming him, the game really had no purpose, but Owen played it anyway. His clumsy efforts gave du Malphias data concerning the magick shackles.
Quarante-neuf had learned through the exercises as well. He broke other pasmortes instead of reintroducing them to death. Repair made more work for du Malphias. The Laureate, in turn, taught Quarante-neuf enough magick to affect basic repairs, mending bones and flesh.
He pulled the sharpened nails from beneath the shackles. “Pull on your glove. Now, pinch the flesh at the back of my thigh. Get a good handful. Yes, now, shove one of the nails all the way through the fold.”
“I cannot. I would hurt you.”
“No, you’re preventing hurt.” Owen held nails out. “Please, you have to do this. I can’t.”
The pasmorte sank to a knee behind him. He grabbed a hunk of flesh and drew it away from the muscle. The nail popped through and out again, more of a burning sensation than pain, but nothing in comparison to the magick hobbling. Quarante-neuf repeated the procedure on the other leg.
“How does that feel?”
Owen took a step. He felt the tug at the back of his leg, and some of the magickal pain triggering, but less. Another step and another, longer each time. “The iron mutes the magic. I need more nails. Another above the knee. One below. One below the calf, and maybe at the small of my back. Please, my friend, hurry.”
“Yes. Let me prepare things.” The pasmorte quickly bent the nails into a gentle curve. He tore the shackle covers into rectangular strips and pierced them with the nails first. He used the strips to pinch the skin, then inserted the nails through Owen’s flesh and the leather. The wounds burned, and blood welled up to stain the leather.
Once all the nails had been set in place, Owen made several circuits of his cell. He moved more easily, but couldn’t run. Then again, with the deep snow, what could? This will have to do.
He dressed, careful not to catch clothes on the nails. He wrapped one thin blanket around him and saved a corner as a hood, then pulled on the leather tunic Msitazi had given him. They tore the other blanket into strips and bound his feet in several layers, then tied them in place with strips of canvas. The remaining canvas he pulled around him as a cloak, and used the last two nails to hold it closed.
Quarante-neuf nodded. “Ready?”
“Wait, I need Agaskan’s doll.”
The pasmorte produced it from a drawer and Owen tucked it inside his
tunic. “Now I will be safe.”
Owen followed the pasmorte from his prison, hunching himself over. He moved haltingly, imitating as best he could the pasmortes circulating as sentries. He mimicked their awkward gaits and ducked his head as he turned north. The full brunt of the storm battered him. He snarled defiantly and forced himself toward the wall.
Snow drifted against the walls’ northern faces. He fought the wind and reached the stone wall construction inside the north wall. The open end and ragged line of stones allowed him to easily scramble up to the top. He crouched, searched through the blizzard for any sign of pasmortes nearby, but saw nothing.
He couldn’t see a dozen feet in any direction, but that hardly made him feel safe. He imagined du Malphias had some arcane means of piercing the storm’s curtain. Or he might have a way to track me or Quarante-neuf. That thought soured his mouth, but he dismissed it.
Knowing where I am and dragging me back are two different things in this blizzard.
He grabbed the wooden wall’s points and hauled himself over. He fell for a yard, then sank into snowdrifts. He floundered for a moment, then another body crunched down beside him. Quarante-neuf grabbed his arm and pulled him from the snow. The pasmorte wore no heavy clothes, but did have a pack on his back. “Come.”
Owen began wading through the snow. “You have to get me away from here. I will kill du Malphias if I stay.”
Quarante-neuf nodded. “Thank you, my friend…” His voice trailed off for a moment. “Is it that we are truly friends? Can it be?”
“Of course.” Owen leaned heavily on the pasmorte’s arm. “Why would you think we are not friends?”
“I am dead, Captain. I may not remember much, but that cannot be forgotten. The dead have nothing to offer the living.”
“Not so, Quarante-neuf, not so.” They stepped free of the largest drift—which had totally filled the trench—and made their way across the wind-scoured glacis. They forded another drift, then pushed on straight north, toward the looming hill from which he had first scouted du Malphias’ domain.
They paused in the lee of another drift. Quarante-neuf knelt with his back to the wind, providing Owen shelter. Snow caked the pack and his clothes, but he did not seem to notice. He did not shiver, he did not brush snow away. He remained untouched by the storm.
Then he grabbed Owen by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. “Come, Captain, we must go.”
“Just a moment longer.”
“No. Every step away from here makes my master safer.” The pasmorte nodded. “And it brings happiness one step closer for your Bethany.”
Owen smiled and warmth coursed through him. “She is a good woman, kind and smart. You would like her. But I am bound for the reunion with my wife.”
“That does not mean your Bethany will not be pleased to see you. I shall get you to her.” Quarante-neuf dragged him through another drift, then they began the long, slow trek up a half-carved hill. They cut toward the lake halfway up and around into the forest, then started working down again.
Owen began to shiver. He tucked his hands up under his armpits, seeking some warmth, and feeling the lump that was Agaskan’s doll. I have more friends to see when I am safe.
Already his nose and ears had begun to burn. He’d lost feeling in his cheeks for the most part. The wind whipping through the trees lost some of its intensity, but dumped snow from high branches that drifted down to coat his hair, melt, and freeze eyelashes together.
They crested the hill and Owen sagged against a tree. “Just a moment’s rest.”
“Be quiet, Captain.” Quarante-neuf shucked his pack and leaped to the right. Snow half-blinded Owen, but could not hide three forms looming from within the woods. Quarante-neuf pounced upon one and bones cracked. He lunged at another and vanished into the storm.
A pasmorte appeared at Owen’s side, reaching for him with boney fingers. The Norillian lurched forward. A branch lashed him across the face. He twisted, his knees buckled. He went down and began sliding across the frozen snow on the hill’s windswept face.
Owen could do nothing to slow himself. Snow sprayed into his face, then he barked a shin against a sapling. He spun and slammed his shoulder into another tree. Twisting forward and back, spinning helplessly, he caromed from one tree to another and finally, battered and aching, slid into a deep drift at the hill’s base.
He huddled there, his hands drawn in. His body ached from the collisions, but he forced that away. He listened, waiting for sounds of an enemy’s approach. He slipped one of the cloak-clasp nails into his right hand. Crush the skull with a shackle or stab it with this nail. That has to work.
The snow and howling wing mocked him. He couldn’t have heard a cavalry charge above the wind. Anyone coming downhill for him would have the wind carrying away the sound of their approach. But if he moved he would give himself away. He shivered, despair seeping into him.
A hand grabbed his ankle.
He kicked at it, but it held tightly. “Captain Strake, I have found you.”
“Quarante-neuf?”
The pasmorte dragged him from the drift and rolled him over. “Are you hurt?”
“Banged and bruised. Ready to go on.” He looked to the north. “There has to be a canoe here. There must be.”
Quarante-neuf smiled. “There is, my friend. We will find them closer to the lake.”
Owen looked up at him. “You sound happy.”
The pasmorte’s gaze drew distant. “Happier, I think. I am free. Destroying the others I did because I wanted to, not because I was compelled to.”
“Good, my friend.” Owen nodded, fighting against dread. How long will you remain free? Owen could not forget the first pasmorte they had found, all curled up and chewed, the journal showing evidence of deterioration. Quarante-neuf might be free, but there would come a point where the magick would run out.
“Tell me you have some vivalius.”
“I chose not to steal any.”
“What? The Prince could re-create it from a sample. He could keep you alive.”
“Not possible, my friend, for I am dead.” Quarante-neuf helped him over a fallen log. “I shall not fail you. But I would not have anyone else know what I know. The emptiness. Memories that hover just beyond remembering. I feel as if I am waiting, always waiting, but for what I do not know.”
Owen grabbed him by the shoulder. “But…”
“I will return you to your Prince and your Bethany.” The pasmorte smiled. “Then I shall return to the grave in peace.”
The wind’s shrieking and a blast of snow silenced any counter-argument Owen would have offered. As they struggled toward the lake, an emptiness grew in Owen. He did not want Quarante-neuf to die. But if this is a fraction of what he feels, I understand.
After a short time, Quarante-neuf leaned against a tree, letting the storm rage around him. The pasmorte slipped down into a small depression and drove his hands into the snow. He grunted, then straightened, flipping over a canoe. Two paddles lay in the hollow beneath it.
“Come, Captain Strake, get the paddles.”
They put the canoe in the water. Owen got in the front. He knelt, sitting back on his haunches, which, oddly enough, quieted the lingering pain. Quarante-neuf launched the canoe, then waded out and climbed in.
The wind hit them immediately, driving them south toward the shore and the fortress. Owen had intended to go north and cut around the same route he’d taken to reach the fortress originally, but the wind made that impossible. They turned the canoe to the southeast and paddled hard. They heard nothing but the wind, which is why when the first cannon ball splashed beside them, it came as a complete surprise. Only after the second and third hit did a momentary lull in the wind let him hear a cannon’s dying roar. They had drifted perilously close to the fortress.
Du Malphias does have a way to track me. His mind immediately flashed to the symbol du Malphias had cut into his shackle’s bronze bolts. It had not been to mark Owen as chattel. It
had been to allow du Malphias to locate him.
Owen looked back over his shoulder. “We have to go out and get past the river. We have to do it now. He knows where we are.”
Quarante-neuf dug his paddle deep. The canoe surged forward. Another cannon ball sprayed water over them, but the pasmorte ignored the danger. Owen bent to the task of paddling, trying to match the pasmorte’s strength, but it took his utmost to keep the canoe headed deeper into the lake.
As the cannon balls splashed behind them, Owen surrendered a little to the wind and sent the canoe toward the southeast shore, just beyond the Roaring River outlet. The wind began to slacken, and Owen laughed aloud. “Just when we could use its push!”
Quarante-neuf laughed as well, for the very first time in Owen’s memory. An aborted sound, like a burp from a child who has realized that burping was not allowed in polite company. The pasmorte broke his paddling rhythm, then laughed again, a bit longer. Owen looked back, reading surprise and a hint of delight on his companion’s face.
“It’s a good laugh, my friend. Let it out.”
“I will. I remember laughing. I liked it.”
Suddenly the wind died. Clouds cracked enough to allow moonlight to ignite the snow. The fortress menaced from atop its hill. Owen swore he could see a tall, slender man pacing the walls, but something else urged him to paddle with renewed vigor.
Behind them, in two large, broad boats the Tharyngians called batteaux, two dozen soldiers pursued them. A man in the lead boat stood and shouted, then raised a musket and fired. He moved too easily to be a pasmorte, but the tireless repetition of the oarsmen’s strokes suggested they were.
“Make for shore. We need cover.”
The two of them paddled harder, fervently wishing the wind would rise again. It didn’t. Their hunters took turns shooting. As the two of them reached the shore, one ball skipped off the water and holed the canoe. Water gushed, but it didn’t matter. Quarante-neuf’s powerful strokes drove the canoe up onto the shore with such force that stones ripped the bottom out.
At the Queen's Command Page 32
