Prisoner of Haven

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  The dwarf’s face shone white above his dark beard. He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his onyx ring.

  “Might be you don’t know him so well as I do. He’ll hold out. So get it into your head. I’m not leading a pack of damned knights right to where Barthel is going to die to keep them from getting.”

  “Could we not do this?” Dezra snapped. “Later, if we live. But not now.”

  Dunbrae grunted, but Madoc ignored him.

  “The catacombs,” Madoc said. “We’ll go that way.”

  Dez shook her head. “No one knows how far they go. You could wander around down there for days.”

  “No dwarf with half an eye wanders anywhere like that for days,” Dunbrae said. “You think people just dig and go and dig and go? There’s always a plan and a structure. These are catacombs. People like to find their dead when they’re lookin’ for ’em. Just because Haven forgot about it doesn’t mean the place isn’t orderly. There’ll be a way in and a way out.”

  “But out where?”

  “Anywhere not on a… dangerous doorstep,” Madoc said quietly, “is a good place to start.”

  Anywhere far from Aline.

  The conversation had not inspired hope in the refugees. The elderly man looked from Dez to the dwarf, avoiding Madoc’s eye when the talk turned to catacombs. In Dezra’s arms, the frail old woman wept. The child had fallen silent on Madoc’s shoulder, exhausted or terrified.

  Madoc put the child foot to ground, and Dez helped the old man settle her frail burden as best they could where the wall was strong and the floor not too wet.

  “Dez, it’ll be a while of walking. Find a way up and let people know what’s happened.” He looked at Dunbrae. The dwarf nodded as though over a forgone conclusion. “We’ll find our way back.”

  They parted, Dezra slogging ahead as Madoc and Dunbrae shepherded the trembling refugees toward the catacombs. As they went into the deeper darkness, the child asked in a tremulous voice about dead people and ghosts.

  “We’re not going to worry about that,” Madoc said with a wink. “Live people run faster than dead people.”

  Dunbrae snorted. “Quit trying to scare the child, mage. Dead people don’t run at all.”

  Usha sat in the carriage beside Loren, her hands composed in stillness that did not reflect the turmoil of anger and fear within. Loren sat very still, his hands clenched in fists on his knees, the knuckles bone white. Usha put her own hand over one of those fists and found it cold.

  It had been Sir Radulf’s habit to send for Loren if he wanted to speak with him. He would have a knight escort him, carrying him to the keep on dragonback. Sir Radulf had not sent for Loren today. Loren went at his own will, and he would arrive unannounced. Loren was going to Old Keep to take back his daughter.

  As Loren would go, so would Usha, for she ignored his every objection.

  When Loren didn’t so much as glance at her to acknowledge the touch, Usha returned to looking out the window. Haven had a sad shabbiness about it these days—ruined gardens, houses with shutters torn off, taverns with windows boarded up. The people went about their business in whatever of their clothing had survived the flood. Old men and young went scavenging through the streets for wood that might be dried in the sun. Girls and women had sacks over their shoulders to reclaim clothing, pots, candlesticks, sodden boots… whatever they could find that might be salvaged from the storm. Once-proud Haven looked like a village of unhappy, overgrown kender.

  Rowan took the carriage into the courtyard of Old Keep. The ancient tower loomed like a dark finger pointing to the sky in baleful accusation. High over the tower flew dragons, reds patrolling the city, others coming and going on other business. Sir Radulf’s own black soared over the river, wings wide and slipping along the air currents, patrolling the waterway.

  Rowan leaped from the driver’s seat and opened the door.

  “Usha, you needn’t come,” Loren said, looking at the tower.

  Usha didn’t dignify that with an answer. Of course she would go with him. All the way to the top of those stairs. She extended her hand to Rowan, who helped her down.

  Loren crossed the courtyard beneath the scornful eyes of dark knights. Usha knew he went with all the pride he could muster, and beside him she looked neither right nor left. Her heart thundered in her chest, but not with fear anymore. Now, she was simply angry—on behalf of the stolen girl, the father made helpless, and the city that had fallen. Usha climbed the long stairway with the easy grace of a woman ascending a staircase in her own home. Loren stopped before tall oaken doors. Usha slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. For the first time since she’d refused to stay behind, he looked at her, his eyes offering silent thanks for her support.

  To the side of each door stood a knight, eyes forward, each with a hand on the sword at his side. Usha wanted to smile when she saw her lover straighten to his full height. If he was supposed to beg entry, Loren didn’t. If he was to wait as a supplicant outside the doors, he wouldn’t. His daughter was within. Ignoring the knights, they entered the keep.

  Tamara had been at Old Keep two days and a night. For this reason above any other, Usha had insisted on coming. She would not say it to the girl’s father, caught between dread and anger, but he might find his daughter more in need of a woman’s help than a man’s.

  Usha hoped it wouldn’t be so. Loren had sent for Tamara, and he had been told it was her wish to stay. Upon receipt of a letter written over her name but not in her hand, Loren had gone to take his daughter home. He had been given a glimpse of her in the gardens behind Old Keep. She’d stood with a little merlin hawk on her wrist, lifting it to the sky. The hawk had cried and spread its wings, Tamara had turned, and she might have seen him.

  Loren’s escort that day had been Lady Mearah. He had not been able to speak with Tamara, but the lady knight assured him that Tamara was well. And then she’d taken Loren back across the river by dragon, leaving Rowan to follow through the winding streets with the carriage.

  That night, Usha sat on the bed watching Loren pace, now and then stopping to look across the river to Old Keep. He jerked his head in short rhythm. She knew he was counting the lights in the tall, narrow windows, trying to imagine which bright rectangle was the room where Tamara lay. Once, he stopped in mid-stride. Usha joined him at the window as a figure passed before the window facing Steadfast.

  “It’s Tamara,” Loren said.

  She’d put her arms around him, leaning her head on his shoulder. She felt his heart beating beneath her hand, fast and hard.

  “I’m sure she’s well, my love,” Usha said, not at all sure and hoping he didn’t hear that uncertainty in her voice.

  He heard something, for he said, “No one can know if Tamara is well. No one can be sure.”

  He was right, of course. Tamara might be at Old Keep against her will; and she might be at Old Keep with all her consent. She had been strange and wild these last weeks, like a bright flame consuming all the pure oil in a lamp’s well. She’d spoken often of her hopes for the marriage with Sir Radulf. The city would recover because of him. The people would understand that everything he did, he did for the well-being of all.

  Sir Radulf Eigerson, the Red Wolf, who allowed his second, Lady Mearah, to hang men and women for the least infraction. This was her knight. Tamara never spoke of the growing unease in Haven, the mood shifting into grim foreboding. She never once asked whether Loren thought trouble could spread through a city whose people grew a little bit hungrier every day, the wealthy becoming as thin as the poorest gully dwarf.

  None of this seemed to concern Tamara. It was as though she knew what others didn’t about her betrothed—or believed what others couldn’t.

  This morning Loren had said to Usha, “I will have my daughter back. I will go and take my child out of there, if I have to go with stones in a sack and a sling.”

  When he’d refused to let her go with him, she’d said, “You will not go without me, Loren. If I have to follo
w you on foot, I will.”

  And so he’d sent word to Sir Radulf that Tamara would come home with him tonight, and Sir Radulf could object standing in blood—Loren’s or his own.

  Now, in the bright light of day, Usha walked into Old Keep beside him. Knights lounged around the armory that had been Old Keep’s great hall—some laughing and gambling, others honing weapons or testing their skills against each other. The place rang with rough laughter and the clang and clatter of iron when Usha and Loren entered, but silence followed in their wake as they climbed another set of stairs, these winding down from a gallery. Someone muttered unintelligible words, another laughed in a way that made Usha think that if she knew what the first knight had said, she’d have wanted to slap his face.

  At the top of the stairs Loren stopped outside a vaulted chamber. In a city where wood was too wet to ignite and little kindling existed, where candles had been washed out of flooded houses and oil made useless, it seemed to Usha that all the light in the world had come into Old Keep. Every torch, every brazier, each lamp and rush light—and on the vast stone table banks of candles to illuminate a feast of food not seen in Haven since the great storm.

  Dragons, carrying supplies for the garrison, had carried the means of illumination as well as food, and into this dazzle a slim figure came from the other corridor—Tamara dressed in blue and gold, her arms white, her midnight hair piled high on her head like a crown.

  “Father!” Tamara cried, and she sounded as startled as she was pleased. She ran to Loren, her sapphire eyes glittering, her fair cheeks flushed. Usha’s heart contracted to see Loren sweep his daughter into his arms and hold her tightly.

  “Tamara!” he rasped. “Are you all right?

  Tamara laughed—a thin, crystalline sound. “I’m fine, father.” She turned to Usha. “Why have you come?”

  “To be with your father. To learn what’s happened.”

  Tamara went still, like a deer scenting danger. Then, carefully, she stepped out of Loren’s embrace. The look she gave Usha, cold and scornful, reminded her of hard glances of earlier days.

  “I’m fine, thank you. As you can see. I’m here because I want to be.” She lowered her eyes, her lips curved in a smile, then she looked up at Loren. “Father, he has been all you would want him to be. Radulf has been a knight of honor.”

  Usha saw Loren shudder, but his daughter didn’t seem to feel it as she took his hand and led them inside. “Come and sit. Radulf will be here in a moment.”

  Like the lady of a fine house, Usha thought as Tamara took them into the solar and seated her father beside the head of the table. Usha seated herself beside him. Tamara’s own chair was opposite them. The chair at the head was empty and waiting for the master of the hall.

  On the table lay a brace of hares, roasted and displayed on a silver platter. Beside them a burnished copper pot steamed, filling the room with the aroma of tender pork stewed with onions and carrots, parsley and sage. There were apples piled in bowls and boards of bread.

  This was more food than Usha had seen in three weeks. It was more than she expected to see for weeks to come. In the houses of the wealthy and the hovels of the poor people ate what they could find. They hoped for ships to come upriver with supplies. They fished in the river, old men and young children, and they were sometimes lucky, catching enough to eat, sometimes enough to dry and hoard. They never found herb or vegetable or fruit to help the pale diet.

  Sir Radulf, it seemed, had better supplies than Haven could hope for. The sight of the food, the smell of it, turned Usha’s stomach.

  Tamara, well-fed and pale as a fever victim, cheeks splashed with hectic color, hands quick and trying to hide a small trembling, didn’t seem to be benefiting from the fine fare.

  A shadow slipped across the floor, and a footstep sounded sharply on the stone.

  “Loren,” said Sir Radulf, “it’s good of you to come.” He bowed to Usha. “And Mistress Usha. As ever, I am your servant.”

  He said it coldly as he straightened the collar of his white shirt. His men went armored, but he did not. Sir Radulf dressed in finest linen. His breeches were of soft, dark leather, his boots glossed and well tended. He looked like a lord come to supper, a man with weighty matters on his mind.

  Usha said nothing and neither did Loren.

  “I’ve been detained by business,” said the knight. “I hope you haven’t minded the wait.”

  “I am here,” Loren said. “I’ve come to take Tamara home.”

  Tamara moved restlessly, her glance darting between her father and her betrothed. It rested on Sir Radulf. “I don’t want to leave. I… I’m staying until the wedding, father. We’ll be married in Old Keep.”

  Loren’s neck flushed with anger. Usha, fearing what that anger could unleash, put her hand on his knee. The flush did not die, but whatever he would have said went unspoken.

  The knight took his seat, shifting the chair to an angle that allowed him to touch Tamara’s hand. The gesture turned Usha’s stomach. She found she could hardly look at the man, and yet she dared not take her eyes from him.

  Tamara curled her fingers around Sir Radulf’s. He leaned closer, his shirt sleeve brushing her arm. On the cuff of the shirt’s white sleeve, Usha saw a mark—a small dark stain, as though Sir Radulf had been careless with his wine.

  The knight’s hand slipped from Tamara’s and slid lower, to her leg. She blushed, confused before her father. Her sapphire eyes darted to Usha as Sir Radulf stroked the thin blue fabric of her gown.

  “Take your hand from her,” Usha said, her voice deceptively gentle. “It isn’t proper, sir. Not with a lady.”

  The knight’s eyes flashed then stilled. He did not move his hand.

  Loren rose. “Remove your hand.”

  Sir Radulf stood, tall and whip thin, and once again Usha saw such anger in Loren that she feared. She touched his hand and glanced across the table, reminding him that his daughter stood within hand’s reach of Sir Radulf.

  Loren understood her meaning, Usha recognized the stain on the knight’s shirt sleeve. It was not rich red wine. It was blood. There was more—a splash near the inside of the elbow, a rusty streak drying on the inside of his palm.

  “Sit,” said Sir Radulf.

  Loren sat, gesturing to Tamara to come to him. She hesitated and glanced at Sir Radulf, the pulse in her throat racing so hard that Usha could see it from across the table. As though the matter were one not worth his concern, Sir Radulf shrugged.

  “You will be happy to hear,” he said as Tamara went to stand beside her father, “that I have learned a thing I’ve long been wanting to know.”

  Usha’s heart beat hard as the knight turned over his palm, looked at the blood there with a feigned expression of surprise. Now Usha saw blood crusted beneath his nails.

  “I’ve learned that there is, in fact, more than luck involved in the way people have been vanishing from Haven.”

  A chill crept along Usha’s spine.

  “Do either of you know the word, Qui’thonas?”

  Loren said, “Elvish, isn’t it?”

  “Specifically, Qualinesti. It means, ‘the path away,’ or so I was told.”

  Beneath the table, hidden by linen, Usha’s hands trembled.

  “I’m inclined to believe it. The man who screamed it was past the point of pain where he could dissemble. They get a look in their eyes. You know when something has broken and truth leaks through.”

  Beside Loren’s chair, Tamara shuddered.

  “Radulf,” she whispered. “What… what have you done?”

  The knight glanced at her, but with little interest, then turned away. “I haven’t learned all I want to know, but I will. For now, I have learned something interesting. Qui’thonas used to be active in getting elves out of Qualinesti. They were based in Haven.” He shrugged. “It used to drive them mad in Qualinost, knights watching elves slip away into the dark and the river, never finding them. I doubt they knew of an organized effort or had t
he wit to imagine it. It took them a while to tighten the borders, but they did, and left the problem neatly in place across the river for me to discover.

  “Qui’thonas is operated by a very enterprising person, someone who has reversed the course of the path and now ferries people out of Haven.” Sir Radulf’s eyes narrowed a little, as though he were considering something. “We know the head of Qui’thonas is a woman.”

  Loren said nothing, apparently surprised. The roaring in Usha’s ears was the sound of her blood racing, her heart hammering, yet she managed to keep her expression one of curiosity.

  “We can guess that she’s well-funded. We will find her. She cannot he allowed to live, and she cannot be allowed to vanish. When she is executed, all of Haven must know about it.”

  The silence hung like a question between them, an invitation to speculation. Who is she? Who among Loren’s wealthy circle could be the mastermind behind Qui’thonas?

  Usha glanced at Loren, feeling his tension, knowing his mind must be racing to think of the name of a woman in Haven with the funds to manage such an organization.

  Hidden, her hands shook harder. One name would come to mind, must come to mind. Few women had more wealth than the widow Wrackham. Homely Aline, the sweet-tempered young woman who had come from Solace to marry the wealthiest man in Haven. Everyone knew her for a quiet young woman. After the death of Lir Wrackham she hadn’t tried to assume his place among the influential in Haven. She kept to herself, and after her husband’s death no one in Haven could match her wealth.

  Loren glanced away from Sir Radulf, just as Usha saw the knowledge in his eyes that Aline was the woman the knight sought.

  The knight shrugged, having seen nothing.

  “No matter. There’s a tenacious shred of life left in my… resource. I’ll learn the name.”

  Tamara made a sound like choking. She clutched Loren’s shoulder. It seemed to amuse her knight. “Such sensitivity, my dear. You surprise me. Does it trouble you to think I know how to get what I need?”