by Dave Duncan
The light was brightening as the moon headed bravely for a wide expanse of black sea between cloud islands. Dog knelt to fumble through the cloak.
“Got more tricks in here…You’re sure we’re right over the Rivergate?”
She nodded, then said, “Yes.”
“Going to send a signal…Got a boat standing by, but the Yeomen may get here first. I’ll lower you on the rope to the dock. Do whatever I say, no arguing. Ready?”
“Yes. Oh, I love you!” She kissed him, but he cut it off.
“And me you.” He stepped up on the chair and reached out through the bars. He must have thrown something down to the dock, because a moment later a brilliant flash lit the towers overhead. A ball of white fire sailed up from the landing into the sky, brightening the entire Bastion before it faded and disappeared.
Dog grabbed Sword from her hands, unsheathed it, and repeated, “Stand back!” Then he swung it against one of the bars he had bent down. Clang! Clang! Like a woodsman loping branches, he chopped iron, abusing that magnificent weapon, treating it like an ax. Clang! Clang! Clang! After the third blow there was a quieter ring as the bar broke off and hit the flagstones. But the racket must have been audible all over Grandon; and voices were raised now, candles flickering in windows, sounds of men running. Then a drum, rousing the Watch. Clang! Clang! Ring. Another bar fell.
“There!” Panting, Dog dropped Sword and grabbed Malinda in both hands. He almost threw her up through the gap he had made. Voices high overhead showed they had been seen. She felt her dress tear on a jagged end, found a purchase, doubled over on the ladder to haul herself up, and Dog transferred his grip to her feet, pushing her. She scrambled onto the bars and rolled to the flat top of the outer wall, which was four or five feet thick. She turned to help Dog and a coil of rope was thrust in her face. Then Sword in its scabbard. Then Dog himself, who did not need help. Voices were shouting all around, the drum beating. She heard the hard thwack! of a crossbow, but could not tell where the quarrel went.
“They’re coming!” Dog said. “There, see?”
Moonlight glimmered on a sail. Heeled over by the wind, a boat sped toward the landing stage, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Thwack! again and now the clink! of the quarrel bouncing off stonework, much too close.
“They’re shooting at us!”
“Let them,” Dog said, looping rope around her, under her arms, knotting it. “Lucky to hit a tower in this light. Got you. Go!”
Trusting him, she stepped backward off the edge and began walking down the wall. The rope cut into her ribs. It was hard to keep herself away from the rugged, abrasive stonework—she had not realized how weak she was. Unexpectedly her feet met air and she swung free, striking her shins against the capstone of the Rivergate arch. Then she spun, banging a shoulder against iron-studded timbers as Dog lowered her the rest of the way. She landed in a heap at the base of the gate. The rope went slack. She freed herself and jumped up.
The landing stage was a stone shelf along the base of the wall. It was closed off at the ends by the protruding towers and could be reached only from the Rivergate or the river itself. The tide was in, so waves slapped foul-smelling spray up onto the paving.
Time had stopped. The boat was coming, but painfully slowly. It had seemed much closer when viewed from above. She could see faces, though, and light flashing off steel.
Dog was visible against the clouds, climbing over the top of the wall, starting to work his way down the rope. Crossbows sang their death song, thwack! thwack! and the quarrels replied from the stones: clang! clang! Fortunately crossbows took time to reload. The archers were up in the towers, shooting, she supposed, at Dog. The great Rivergate itself was still closed but even as she stood up, a smaller postern beside it swung open and a Yeoman ducked through and straightened up. Moonlight flashed on the spike and blade of his pike. She turned to flee on legs that suddenly felt like reeds. A quarrel rang off flags at her feet.
She came to the end of the quay, right under her cell, and there was nowhere left to go. She turned at bay. A dozen Yeomen had emerged now, and the leaders were on her already. A hand grabbed her arm. She tried to claw at the man’s face and that wrist was seized, also, and twisted up behind her back.
“Take the bitch back to her kennel!”
They pushed her forward so she almost fell. That seemed like a good idea, so she let herself go limp, and as a result dropped to her knees. She screamed and went on screaming. She tried to kick, without much success.
“Behave, bitch!” one said. The rest of the troop arrived and got in the way. The two holding her hauled her upright, took her by the arms, and began to run her back toward the gate. She screamed, yelled, tried in vain to struggle, but they kept her moving. Despite all her efforts, she was too weak even to slow them down.
The boat caught an eddy of wind off the Bastion. The sail went limp, then rippled. Voices cursed. It rolled, momentarily helpless. Slowly it regained way, but it was not coming fast enough for the men on board to save her. Once she was through the postern, she would be lost. She was too weak; they were too many. They were at the gate. Feet stumbled on the unneeded coils of rope.
She looked up. Dog had stopped halfway and had somehow turned over, so that he was looking down at her and the Yeomen. He had his feet against the wall and the rope over one shoulder; he was stretched out from the stonework like some bizarre gargoyle. As the two men holding her were about to push her in through the postern, he howled at the top of his lungs and let go. It was deliberate—he threw himself down on them. Several of the men were hurled to the ground, including one who was gripping her. She went with them in a tangle of limbs and bodies and pikes. A couple were flung into the river. There was shouting, screaming, confusion. As the boat swept in, a dozen swordsmen leapt across the gap, some falling on the stones, two in the water, the rest landing on their feet. Battle was joined—but briefly, because a Yeoman against a Blade was a very unequal struggle and the newcomers had the advantage of numbers.
Malinda was not interested. She was on the ground, tending to Dog. Blood was jetting from his chest, a black fountain in the moonlight. His eyes were wide, stark white.
“They’re here!” she said. “You’ve saved me…Dog? Dog?”
He tried to speak and made horrible grating noises.
“What?”
It sounded like, “Told you…”but more blood gushed from his mouth and the sentence was never finished. It was probably, “Told you I would die for you.”
“Come quickly, my lady!” Audley shouted. “Oak, Fury, get him aboard—”
“No!” Malinda screamed. “No! I will not allow this.”
41
The invoked are in no wise to be trusted and assuredly will seek to bend the vaticinators to their purpose, for they hold firm to the desires they held at their dissolution, yet know not the gentler prospects of the living, viz., not pity, love, nor hope.
ALBERINO VERIANO, INVOCATION OF THE DEAD
Judging by its smell, the boat’s normal business was something involving fish. Caught in the lee of the Bastion walls, crammed to the gunwales with the living and the dead, it responded reluctantly to its rudder, tipped dangerously as it scraped along the tower’s masonry, and took several more hits from quarrels before it broke free to open water. After that it was out of danger.
Shivering, Malinda crouched on the boards with Dog a dead weight in her arms and his lifeblood cold all over her. No tears, not yet. Perhaps never. This could not be true. He must not be dead. It was some horrible illusion, some torture Horatio Lambskin had dreamed up.
“We must go to an elementary quickly,” she said. “Dog needs healing.”
Audley beside her: “He’s dead, my lady.”
“He must not be!”
“He fell on pikes, Your Grace! It was quick. But he is dead.”
“No!”
He sighed and looked up at the faces gathered around.
“What’s the tally,
other than Dog?”
Men’s voices answered from the dark.
“Bullwhip.”
“Reynard.”
“Victor’s missing. Could he swim?”
“Lothaire took a bolt through the gut, needs healing soon.”
“Brock?” Audley said. “You bring those conjured bandages?”
“Be all right,” said a shaky whisper.
“Mercadier and Alandale need healing too.”
“Piers has concussion, can’t be sure how bad.”
“Jongleur’s wrist is broken.”
“Just sprained,” said another voice nearby. “Nothing serious.”
Then others still: “And a dozen Yeomen!”
“I only counted eight.”
“Not enough of the bastards, anyway!”
More chorused agreement.
The words were slow to line up and make sense to her. So many men dead or injured. Just to rescue her. And many of the enemy, who had only been obeying orders. She struggled to free herself of Dog’s dead weight; willing hands helped her. They sat her on a thwart, wrapped her in two blankets, and gave her a flask of strong wine to drink. The boat rocked on over the dark waves. The moon had gone, but the helmsman seemed to know where he was headed.
“Thank you.” It was hard to talk, her teeth kept wanting to chatter. “I am very, very grateful to you all. I am heartsick at the losses. It may not be so bad, if we get them to an octogram right away.”
Audley said, “They all knew the risks. They all came freely, unbound.”
“How did you do it? I know Dog had a conjured cloak.” Why had they sent Dog into the worst danger?
They were huddled around her, anonymous shapes in the dark, about a dozen of them. Some of the names she’d already heard were of much older men than Audley, yet he still seemed to be Leader.
“We knew we couldn’t do it without spiritual help,” he said. “Lothaire…you remember Master of Rituals? He’d gone back to the College. We got his help, and Sir Jongleur’s. You may not know him…older knight, senior conjurer—”
“Yes, I know him.” A pompous graybeard, and she had left him on his knees in the mud.
“Well,” Audley said, “between them they provided us with all sorts of gadgets, mostly inquisitors’ tricks, like that light and the cloak. Trouble with the cloaks is that they’re pissy hard to use. Most people never get the hang of them. Dog did it first try.”
“Why?” Why must chance be so cruel? Why Dog of all of them? Why couldn’t she think? Her mind was a tub of slop.
“It needs a special sort of courage, Your Grace,” Jongleur said. “The cloaks require total concentration, so any hint of fear in the wearers disables them. Sir Dog didn’t seem to fear anything. We had him walk right in the Bastion gate and out again in broad daylight and the guards never batted a lash.”
“Explains a lot,” someone murmured.
She would never forget him on the anvil, calmly waiting for her to put Sword through his heart. Even their first kiss had taken courage after what had happened to Eagle. “Tell me about Chivial. I know absolutely nothing since I was put in that cell. Neville took the throne—I know that much, but that’s all.”
“Winter?”
“Smaile put him on it,” Winter said. “Lord Smaile, the former Lambskin, who was your Grand Inquisitor. Suddenly Courtney was dead, Smaile locked you up for murdering him, and Neville was the only candidate left. Lambskin put Neville on the throne; Neville made Lambskin an earl and chancellor, and now he’s running everything.”
“Is he doing a good job?”
“No!” voices shouted.
Audley said. “There’s a lot of unrest, Your Grace. They deal with it roughly—bloodshed, torture, mock trials, executions. Lot of peers are in the Bastion and others have fled overseas. Of course, you’re the rightful queen, so nobody could do much while they had you in their clutches, but Blades are being hunted down—Snake, Grand Master, Felix…. Half of Parliament seems to have gone into hiding.”
She recalled how easily Lambskin-Smaile had cowed the commissioners at her trial. “Has Eurania acknowledged Neville?”
The boat was into the Pool, now, where the oceangoing ships anchored. The helmsman changed course through the swaying forest of rigging; spray whipped over the boat. Lights twinkled and flickered.
“Some countries have. Isilond, for one. Some are still considering. Baelmark…They did end the Baelish War, but that was the new king in Baelmark, mostly. Now you’re safe, we expect people to start declaring for you.”
Civil war? There had to be a better way out of this. She thought she knew what it was. Whether she could persuade anyone to try it was another matter altogether.
“Where are we going?”
“To a ship. Thergian. Seahorse. You have a friend.”
Even from the lowly aspect of the approaching fishing boat, Seahorse did not seem much of a step up. Winter said, “In Thergy they call this a staten jacht, Your Grace, a sort of dispatch boat. Also used by important people in a hurry.” It was single-masted and sat low enough in the water to be boarded without the need for unpleasant rope ladders. A sailor on board dropped a set of steps, and Audley handed the Queen up to the deck in her regalia of two very smelly blankets.
A man bowed to her. “Welcome aboard Seahorse, Your Majesty. You do us honor.”
“I am infinitely more pleased to be aboard than you can possibly be to welcome me.”
“Sir Audley? You were not followed. I hope?”
“Not that we could tell,” Audley said warily. “This is Sir Wasp, Your Grace.”
“I should prefer to sail at once, if that be possible,” Malinda said.
The Blades at her back were passing up the bodies. The crew was a vague group of shapes in the background, watching and waiting to see what decision was reached.
“Your Majesty will understand,” Wasp said, “that navigating a winding river like the Gran at night in a half gale without a local pilot would be a somewhat desperate endeavor. We are showing no lights and you left no footsteps. Here, in a crowded anchorage, we should be safe from detection.”
“No,” she said, nettled. Did he think she was some halfwit female scared without reason? “The Dark Chamber has a conjuration called a sniffer. I have slept for the last six months on the same straw mattress. It should bear enough imprint of me for spirits to track me down.”
“Your pardon, my lady. I was not aware…” He spoke in a tongue she supposed was Thergian and one of the sailors replied at length. “Captain Klerk says we can ride the tide and carry only enough canvas to maintain steering way, but we still risk running aground, and then we shall be in the pillory when the sun rises.”
And then there would be more deaths. Too confused to make the decision, she said, “Leader?” desperately.
Audley said, “I think the Usurper will go to any lengths to recapture Her Grace. We must get our injured to an elementary soon and nowhere near here will be safe. Weigh anchor, if you please, Sir Wasp.”
The man sighed and spoke again to the captain.
Malinda said, “You are still Leader, Sir Audley? This does you great honor.”
“Indeed it does, my lady, but they are loyal to your cause, not to me. We are pitifully few now, the last of the Blades. We call ourselves the Queen’s Men.”
Wasp said, “This way, if it please Your Majesty…”He led the way aft—only a few paces—then rapped on a door. After a moment it opened and he stood aside to let her enter.
She stepped into darkness with Wasp and Audley at her heels. After the door closed someone unshuttered a lantern, then another and another. She screwed up her eyes against the golden glory. The cabin was no larger than her cell in the Bastion, yet it must occupy the rear third of the ship. After the night outside it seemed numbingly warm and bright with soft rugs, gleaming brass, fine paintings on the walls, furnishings of bright leather and polished wood. The benches would make into bunks; they concealed chests and cupboards. Important
people were rich people, of course, and this was real luxury, all the more imposing after half a year in a stone box. Clearly the whole purpose of Seahorse was to move this cabin and its occupants wherever they wished to go. So into this sumptuous place came a deposed queen wrapped in bloodstained rags and stinking blankets, with her hair in rattails and a reek of wine on her breath.
The woman curtseying to her was Chancellor Burningstar in robes of sapphire blue. She rose with fury in her eyes and surged forward to clasp the visitor in a very informal embrace. “How dare they! Come and sit here, Your Grace. How dare they treat you so? I am overjoyed to see you free again. You are hurt?”
Malinda shook her head. Feeling dizzy, she sank gratefully on the bench and huddled herself in her blankets. Voices shouted outside in a language not Chivian, feet pounded on the ceiling, the anchor chain clanked.
“Then whose blood is that?”
“Sir Dog’s,” Audley said. “We also lost Reynard, Bull-whip, probably Victor. Lothaire took a bad one. A couple of others hurt a bit, but the rest of us came back still breathing. I won our bet, Your Excellency.”
“You think I care about losing?” the old lady snapped. “I never thought they’d get Your Majesty out at all. Wine, Your Grace? Food?”
Malinda shivered. “Not wine.” She hoped that they were taking proper care of Dog.
“Wash that blood off? Clothes? We have some garments, better at least than those.”
“Not yet. Soon.”
“Then what? Sir Wasp can produce any miracle you want on this boat of his.”
“Ship!” he said sharply. He was around thirty, with lines starting to show in his face. Short and trim, he had the rapier look of a Blade, yet he did not wear a sword. What he was wearing was obviously worth a tidy sum, and she would not have expected any man less than a duke to own a vessel like this. Just the emerald at his throat would buy a coach and four.
“Ship then.”
“If you can manage some hot soup,” Malinda said, “I will believe in miracles.”
“That one’s easy.” He blew into a speaking tube, listened for acknowledgment. “A jug of hot soup right away.” He replaced the tube on its hook.
