“I just knew there’d be secret passages in this castle!” the King said, rubbing his hands together and beaming.
In fact, the Castle was riddled with them. The kings, queens, and other nobility and servants of the Castle were a secretive lot. Over the years, passages had been added, altered, or removed. Willow kept the updated map in her head. As far as she knew, she was the only living person who knew the entire network.
King Eric used to favor this particular route because it was reasonably close to his bedchamber and because he loved sneaking into the servants’ quarters: the one place he had no business being.
Willow had accompanied the King on many nights just like this one, only with a different goal. King Eric was an old lecher and he craved the companionship of nubile girls. Agents scouted the countryside for such girls, and would report to the King once a fortnight. The King would then select from among the girls the scouts described. The next chance he had, he and a handful of trusted guards would visit the farm or mill under the cover of night.
Those nights would start out the same. The King’s guards would claim to have been stranded by a broken-down coach, and would ask the family in question if they minded terribly if His Majesty and his men stayed the night? Awe-struck, they offered their hospitality and lent the King their own bedrooms while the families would sleep in the barn, if they had one, or else under the open sky.
Sometime after midnight, the King would send a guard to fetch the girl. Of course, her parents would object, but what choice did they have? The guard would lead the terrified girl shaking to the bedroom and leave her with the King. Sometimes, Willow heard sobbing behind those doors, but usually not. Say what you like about King Eric, he could charm a Katchin priestess into eating meat.
Willow’s job was to guard the door to the house, deflecting any concerned parents or siblings. The King was the King, she would tell them, and his word was the law of the land. If he decreed they had to stay outside while he lay with their daughter, well, then that was how it would be.
She didn’t know why, but sometimes Willow would cry when the night was done. Over a century of discipline had hardened her heart. What did it matter to her if some virgin got deflowered a year or two ahead of schedule?
Yet it was as if something deep within her identified with the plight of those girls and responded to it. She cried every time, though she kept her tears hidden, lest she lose face with the King and his Guard. She had worked too long and too hard to get where she was to lose her position through such childishness.
The following mornings, when they returned from their outings, Willow would retreat to her office. There she would perform calisthenics until she was too exhausted to think, let alone move. She would crawl into her cot and try to sleep.
She never was able to sleep, for some reason; she couldn’t figure out why. Each time, it felt like a battle was raging in her mind. Part of her trying to remember: part of her trying so hard to forget. Yet, she would feel fine the following day: tired, yes, but otherwise fine.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” the King said.
Willow shook her head, snapped from her loathsome memories. She hated the past; she preferred living only in the now. “What?”
“I said I just stepped on a nail!” the King said, looking down at his feet.
The blood drained from her face. She started to kneel so she could examine the wound. “Your Majes—!”
“Just kidding,” he said. “I remarked how well your party dress moves on you.”
She glared at him for a moment. He smiled back.
She turned to lead on, but then the King placed his hand on her shoulder. She raised an eyebrow as if to say, what now?
“Willow,” the King said, his voice unexpectedly gentle, “are you all right?”
She looked at him as if he was crazy. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
He extended his index finger toward her face. She recoiled from the touch, but he shushed her as one would a frightened animal. With the delicacy of a surgeon, he brushed under her eye. He showed her the fingertip; it was damp.
Willow wiped her eyes unceremoniously with the sleeve of her bodice and shrugged.
“Odd. Must be the smoke from the torch,” Willow said, genuinely puzzled. But in her head, she heard the sobs of the young girls trapped with a lecherous king.
“Look, if you’re really worried about your rapier …”
“I’m fine. I trust you will keep it safe, sir.”
“Thank you, Willow, but I’m still very concerned ab—”
“Your Majesty,” Willow whispered with exasperation, “we are trying to sneak out of the Castle. Our chances of success might increase if we don’t carry on loud conversations the entire way.”
The King smiled. To Willow’s confusion, he withdrew his orange rapier from his bag and drew it from its sheath. The torchlight reflected vividly from the steel of the blade, making it too seem alight.
He held up a single finger in a now-watch-this-gesture.
He opened his mouth as wide it could go, and without warning, he jammed his lit torch into it.
“Your Majesty!” Willow hissed, reaching for him.
The King withdrew the extinguished torch from his mouth, and Willow could see that he had been completely unharmed by the flames.
Now he gestured for Willow’s torch, and she handed it over without thinking. She realized her mistake a moment later, but it was too late: the King had put his mouth around that torch, too, leaving them in total darkness.
“Are you injured, sir?” she growled.
“Never better,” he said, and she could hear the smile on his face.
Of all the idiotic stunts…
“I hate to spoil your magic trick, Your Majesty, but I feel compelled to point out that we are in a series of complex passages, and you have just extinguished our sole sources of light.”
“Have I?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. What in the hell was wrong with him?
“You know you have!”
“Shhh,” he said. “Keep your voice down, Willow. We are trying to sneak out of the Castle. Our chances of success might increase if we don’t carry on loud conversations the entire way.”
He was mocking her: throwing her own words back at her.
“Ha. Very witty, sir,” she said in her least enthusiastic tone of voice.
Willow heard his rapier whistle through the air, and she reflexively back-stepped and crouched, listening in the darkness for his position. Had he gone mad? Was he now trying to kill her?
She fished the knife from her right boot. She hoped not to have to use it on him, but it was better to be alive and on the run for regicide than to be dead and rotting in these tunnels.
Once more, she heard the rapier cutting air.
“Darn it, I keep forgetting how tricky this is,” the King said.
The blade whistled twice more. Willow tried to time the strikes so she could lunge in between them, tackle the King, and hold him down until, she hoped, his madness fled.
She crouched down. The rapier whistled one more time. She prepared to strike.
Except that suddenly, the passage was ablaze with light. Willow shielded her eyes against the sudden brightness.
“Aha!” crowed the King victoriously. “Got it!”
Willow’s eyes widened. The King’s rapier had caught fire!
“Your Majesty, we must … we must …!”
She closed her mouth. She couldn’t think of what they must do.
The King chuckled, looking devilish in the “torch” light.
“Don’t be concerned, Willow,” he said. “Flame is a magical blade. (Long story.) It can light our way.”
Willow put her hands on her hips. “We had two perfectly good, ordinary torches!”
“Yes,” said the King with a wink, “but now there’ll be no more smoke in your eyes.”
Chapter 46
The rapier Flame emitted no discernible h
eat, but was like a torch in every other respect. When Willow opened the hidden door that exited into the dungeons, the rapier’s flames danced in the sudden gust of dank air.
“We need to be especially quiet now,” Willow said. “The Chancellor’s office is down here and we’ll be walking right past it.”
A mischievous glint appeared in the King’s eyes.
“Don’t even think about it, Your Majesty,” Willow said, gripping his shoulder, prepared to restrain him.
“Too late,” he said with a grin. “I thought about it.”
Sporadic torches held in sconces fastened to the stone walls lit the dungeons in a flickering light that distorted shapes and made shadows grotesque. The King flicked his wrist and the flames from his rapier were extinguished.
They moved along the wall, following Willow’s lead. At least the ridiculous shoes the King had her wear were softer than her boots, hence quieter. Women’s fashion was bizarre; the bodice she wore could serve as an implement of torture, yet the shoes were more comfortable than her boots.
Willow led the King through a number of turns. When she had first learned this path, she could only traverse it if she had her hand-written map; only after several visits over a period of months did she at last memorize the route.
After a half hour or so, Willow stopped and nodded at a wooden door across from them. It was constructed of plain oaken planks, with a rusted iron ring to open the door. The only thing that suggested the Chancellor’s office was its size: the door was over seven feet tall.
“The Chancellor’s office,” she whispered.
The King grinned wildly and started for the door. Willow yanked him back by the collar.
“Is that how you treat royalty?” he whispered, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
She ignored his jibe and continued down the hall. The King hesitated a moment, and then followed.
At length, Willow halted at what would appear to be an arbitrary spot in the dungeons. She checked the hall in both directions, and then knelt. Using her fist as a measuring tool, counted up until she found the proper stone. She pressed it and it slid deeply into the wall. She felt more than heard the bolt withdrawing. She then shouldered the section of the wall. At first, it wouldn’t move, but then stone began to grind against stone, and the door swung inward just enough to create space for one person to enter.
She gestured for the King to enter and he did without hesitation. Magical torchlight erupted within once more, spilling flickering shadows into the hall.
Willow followed and then shouldered the door closed behind her. She felt the bolt slide back into place. There was no going back; the only exit from the passage was in the center of town.
“We don’t have to be as quiet now,” she said. “No one can hear us.”
“Lovely!” the King said. “Shall I sing you a song then, fair lady?”
She sighed.
“No one can hear us if we’re careful,” she amended.
The passage gradually sloped upward until it met a series of stone steps. She led the ascent until she reached the ceiling, where again she found the stone tile that when pressed, unlatched the hatch in the wooden ceiling.
The hatch opened into a storeroom of a disused shop. Cobwebs crossed from wall to wall. The King cut his way through with his burning rapier.
“Be careful of the cobwebs,” he whispered.
“Why?” she said, picturing spiders scuttling under her hood and down her neck. She recalled the Mother of All Ice-Spiders rearing on its hind legs, the mouth on its belly snapping at her. Willow shuddered. At some point, she would have to deal with that creature, or forever lose the use of her glyph.
“The webs will cling to your mantle,” the King said. “Also try not to kick up any dust.”
They navigated among broken casks through to the boarded-up storefront. The door was locked. The King knelt and inserted a thin metal lead into the lock.
Lock picks. Of course. Why did that not surprise her?
Willow cleared her throat, and when the King glanced at her, she fetched the key from above the doorframe and unlocked the door. The King shrugged and tossed the pick back into his bag.
The door opened onto a disused section of the Merchant District. It was disused because the land had been secretly purchased over centuries by subsequent generations of the Royal Family. From time to time, a business was permitted to lease one of the buildings to keep up the pretense, but the primary reason this neighborhood existed was to provide a discreet exit from the tunnels through which they had just traveled. Different nobles had used the passage for different reasons over the years, but while the safety of the Royal Family was the officially stated reason, the actual reason more often than not turned out to be carnal in nature.
Willow led the King through a maze of alleys and semi-paved roads. The homes became increasingly affluent as they proceeded, and the paving fancier, until at last they found themselves on a well-lit road paved with cobblestones with reflective flecks embedded in them.
“Nice area,” the King commented.
“Nicer than the Castle,” Willow agreed. “We’re almost there.”
She led them down a street with increasingly large houses, and then turned left at the corner. Halfway down that street, a velvet rope blocked casual passers-by. Attending the ropes were two burly men in bright orange robes.
“The pumpkins grow very large in Bryanae,” the King remarked, his voice taking on a deeper timber. He had his mask fastened to his face.
“Name?” one of the pumpkins said when they approached the corded-off area.
“How do I know?” the King said. “We’ve only just met!”
“No,” the pumpkin said with a sigh. Evidently, he’d already heard that line more than a few times this evening. “Your name.”
“Ah! I see!” The King performed a flourish with his free arm and presented himself and Willow to the guards. “The name is Gianelli. Lord and Lady Gianelli.”
Willow started, but the King pressed his hand firmly against her back as if to steady her, so she kept silent. But of all the foolish, impertinent things to do …!
The pumpkin’s finger trailed down the scroll of names he carried until he stopped about a third from the bottom.
“Yes, milord,” he said, his tone suddenly deferential. “I have your names here.” He untied the knot sealing the corded off area, and held it open for them. “Please, come in.”
They entered the corded off area and strolled alongside other approved guests as they headed for Four Fingers’s mansion. Ahead, servants were proffering platters of hors d’oeuvres and glasses of wine.
“Lord and Lady Gianelli?” she asked. Not only did the King not seem to care whether she knew he was an impostor, he almost seemed to be daring her to do something about it. Once more, Willow wondered about his sanity.
“Ah yes,” he said, keeping his voice soft. “It’s amazing what 20 pieces of gold will buy you.”
Yes, she thought, like a farm, twelve servants, and four horses.
However, she said nothing.
“Our pawn shop friend Mr. Honest James was reluctant to exert his influence on our behalf at first,” the King said, “but money is an amazing lever capable of lifting the heaviest of obstructions.”
Willow, who had more money than she could ever spend, merely shrugged.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Chapter 47
The King guided Willow with his palm placed against the small of her back through the partygoers mingling on the street. The sensation of him touching her was not entirely unpleasant.
Masked revelers congregated on the street around the gated perimeter to a four-story home. One could kill a bear with one of the palisaded gate’s iron spikes. The revelers wore finery of roughly the same quality as that which she and the King wore. She was, however, the tallest woman in sight.
When the King passed a liveried servant bearing a tray of crystal wineglasses, he appropriated a pair. He fum
bled with the two glasses held in one hand until he was able to hand one off to Willow. He took a sip from the other and raised his eyebrows in appreciation.
“Our friend Mr. Fingers knows his wines,” he said.
“Four Fingers,” she said.
“A finger is generally used to measure whiskeys and not wines,” he said, “but I suppose the pun is apt.”
Willow did not answer. She disliked being in such a large crowd without her rapier. The King was vulnerable, surrounded by criminals of all sorts. She had her knives, but those were insufficient. She needed something with length to handle a crowd of this size.
“Relax,” he whispered up into her ear. “There is very little danger here at present. The last place these thugs would dare to commit an act of violence would be at Four Fingers’s private residence. Can you imagine the repercussions?”
In fact, now that he mentioned it, she could. If someone were, say, to be murdered here, it would give the Guard all the reason it needed to investigate the premises—and what crime lord would want his home investigated? She suspected that the thug who brought that down upon Four Fingers would have a very short life expectancy indeed.
“If anything does happen,” she whispered back, “promise me you’ll hand me my rapier immediately.”
He nodded. She wasn’t sure that constituted a promise.
They were almost at the house. A flight of gold-flecked stone stairs ascended to an entryway guarded by another pair of the orange-clad guards, who were checking invitations. This had been a spectacularly bad idea. She should never have mentioned the party to the Chancellor. What had she been thinking?
Most of the partygoers were harmless, merely sheep in the wrong place at the wrong time: senior tradesmen, low-ranking officials, and so on. Nevertheless, she spied a number of wolves among them, predatory eyes scanning the room for victims.
The orange-clad guards looked to be medium-level muscle: dangerous if they surrounded you or caught you by surprise, but otherwise no real threat.
“Give me my rapier,” she whispered.
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