Prisoner of Haven

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  One road or all—they led to Tamara’s death at the Goat tonight, and to danger for Aline and Usha.

  Madoc knocked on the door of Dunbrae’s house. Nothing stirred within. He tried again. Nothing. Dogs barked at the sound. In the house next door someone passed before a window, lifting a lamp, then blowing it out. A modest house, a modest street, and no one liked to see what was going on outside the window these days.

  Cursing, the dwarf opened his door.

  “Damn fool with all the racket! Get in here!”

  The night breeze made Dunbrae’s candle gasp and dance. He sheltered it with his hand, demanding to know whose house was on fire as Madoc pushed past him and slammed the door.

  White in the face, Dunbrae heard Madoc out. When the mage was finished, Dunbrae said, “Loren Halgard. He knows Mistress Usha well, doesn’t he?”

  “Rather well.”

  “But—”

  The little flame trembled. Shadows wavered and did not settle as Madoc explained a connection Dunbrae didn’t see, one he had himself made, weeks ago while he and Usha sat at the Goat watching Tamara and Sir Radulf in the garden. Usha Majere—Aline’s friend, Dezra’s sister-in-law, Loren Halgard’s lover, and in her way Madoc’s own patroness—had touched each of them in ways that made their disparate enterprises work, revealing truth where truth was not easily found.

  “Dunbrae,” said Madoc, his voice low. “Tamara was killed at the Goat, and they say she was looking for me. If this doesn’t lead Sir Radulf to Qui’thonas at the first step, it will put him there at the last. Where’s Aline?”

  Dunbrae pulled on his breeches. “Home. Safe.”

  “All right. Dezra’s on her way there.” Madoc looked out the window in the direction of Rose Hall. He couldn’t see it, and he wished he could. Suddenly, fiercely, he wished he could see Aline and know she was well.

  Dunbrae looked at him, dark eyes grim. “It’s time to break camp.”

  Madoc nodded. “You get to Aline and help Dez. You know Aline’s going to want to wait around to close things down.”

  “She might want to,” Dunbrae said, grimly, “but I’m not going to let her.”

  “Good. I’ll find Usha. And, please gods, she’ll be at Steadfast, or else there’ll be the trek through the city to find her.”

  There was not much more to do than appoint a place to meet, and every moment spent doing that clawed at Madoc’s nerves. So much could still go wrong. So much might have already gone wrong and changed their every plan. It was as though he could hear a bell tolling or see sand slipping down the last curve of an hourglass.

  “Dwarf,” he said, turning on the doorstep. “Whatever happens—”

  Dunbrae nodded. “Aline gets out.”

  Usha opened the shutters and let the scent of the wind and the river into the studio. Dawn brightened the sky. In the street a dog barked. From blocks away came the harsh clang of a bell—one of Sir Radulf’s criers beginning a round through the city. He would be announcing a death. These days the criers had little else to proclaim but news of executions.

  Restless, Usha turned from the window. She’d wanted to walk from Steadfast to the inn. The morning was cool, the river smelled fresh, but in the end she’d allowed Rowan to drive her.

  “ ’T’isn’t you Loren will be angry with mistress, if he finds out I let you go alone into the city.” The half-elf had said that smiling, but Usha understood.

  Unable to settle, Usha wandered from one end of the studio to the other. She picked up brushes and put them down. She straightened a canvas lately primed so it leaned just so against the wall. She unpinned sketches from the wall and laid them out neatly on her work table. Time had come to sort them, toss out the old ones, and think about whether there would be new ones.

  Here it is high summer, she thought, looking around her. High summer, yet the room had a feeling of autumn about it.

  The sound of the crier’s bell faded. Usha’s restlessness increased. She gathered charcoal sticks and tied them neatly. She took up her brushes again, cleaned them one by one, though each had been tended after its last use. When they were clean, she tied them into bundles according to size. She did not return them to the basket. She took the basket and set it on the window sill, empty. She did all this as though she were a housewife preparing to remove from one house to another. The color of autumn deepened in her mood. She looked around for her paints, wanting to see the color she was feeling, umber or smoke.

  A thunder of horses and carriage wheels erupted in the street below. Usha ran to the window in time to see Loren leap from his carriage. White in the face, his eyes like dark holes, he ran for the inn.

  Usha left the window and flew to the stairs to meet him. Loren was there before her, like a force of nature, a fury on him Usha had never seen. He took her by the shoulders and shoved her back into the studio, cursing her when she resisted.

  Shaken, Usha stumbled ahead of him. Once inside the studio, she flung away from him. Turning, her own anger matched his.

  “Have you lost your mind? What’s wrong with you, Loren?” He took a step. She did not back away. Heart pounding in fear and anger, she pointed to the door. “Tell me what’s wrong. Or leave.”

  The clang of the crier’s bell came closer. Usha thought it must be ringing only a block away now. The back of her neck prickled.

  Loren looked like a man demented—eyes hollow, skin drawn tight across the bones of his face. His voice no more than a hoarse gasp, he said, “Tamara is dead.”

  The breath left Usha’s lungs as though she’d been struck. She tried to speak. No sound came from her lips, and her heart beat painfully.

  Loren pushed past her. When she turned she saw him at her worktable, sweeping charcoals and brushes to the floor, ransacking her sketches.

  “What are you doing? Loren, get away from—”

  With a bitter cry, Loren flung a sheaf of sketches at her feet. Cold, Usha bent to retrieve them, but she knew what she’d find. These were from the session she’d had with Tamara, the failed sketches. The dark strokes of charcoal writhed on the pages, unstable again. Wolf, raven, sword, they did the demon dance, never resolving shape.

  “You killed my daughter, Usha. You told me—”

  “Loren, no!”

  He pointed to the sketches in her hand. “Look! You told me you would never harm my child. You told me if you worked with good will—” He grabbed the sketches from her, tearing one and crumpling the others. On the two halves of the torn sheet the images finally resolved—into a bloody sword. Lady Mearah’s sigil. “In the name of the gods what kind of will made that?”

  “Not mine!”

  She didn’t make the doom. She simply saw the doom. That’s what Usha would have said, trying to make him believe what he had never truly understood. He gave her no chance.

  “My child would be alive today if it weren’t for you, Usha.” His face like a skull, white and hard, Loren said, “But she was murdered last night. Her throat was cut, her body found behind the Grinning Goat.” On a ragged sob, he said, “She was executed. Mearah’s writ left on her… on her body.”

  “Loren…”

  He turned and walked away. The sound of his footfalls mingled with the clang of the crier’s bell as it grew fainter with distance.

  Alone, Usha shivered. She wrapped her arms around herself but found no warmth. Her thoughts were all cold, of the child who had been wagered and lost. She wanted to weep, to grieve the dead girl. But the time for that would come later. Now it was time to find out why Tamara had been killed, why her poor body had been left at the Goat. She felt in her blood the tingle of patterns, shapes, and lines coalescing into some image of betrayal stretching farther than Tamara’s death. When she closed her eyes, she saw the image of a path, sinuous and fluid as a snake in motion.

  Qui’thonas.

  In the common room, Rusty leaned his elbows on the bar. He gave Usha a long look. He said nothing about what he might have seen or heard.

  “You’re look
ing for Dezra,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Rusty nodded. “Have a seat, Mistress Usha. Perhaps a cup of water, eh? I’m sure Dez will be around soon.”

  He went to get the water and came back with it, as well as some toast. “It would be wise if you have something to eat.”

  Usha accepted the toast and drank the water. It wasn’t long before Dezra came into the common room, eyes glittering, face flushed.

  “You look like you ran all the way,” Usha said.

  Dez crooked a humorless smile. “You look like you’ve been washed overboard and come dragging up from the sea. Happy to see you, sister.”

  “Dez, I have to tell you—”

  Dez held up a hand. “I probably know a lot of it already. Hard things were done last night.”

  “Tamara…”

  Dez’s face was set in grim lines. “It wasn’t an execution. It was revenge.”

  “But for what?”

  Dez hushed her with a gesture. The common room was empty. Even Rusty had gone to the kitchen. Still, Dez lowered her voice so Usha had to lean close to hear.

  “Later. Now we need to keep our wits about us and move fast. We’re finding a road home, Usha. One more path away, and we have to do it pretty quick. We’re going to Aline’s now, in daylight, two sisters going to visit a friend. After that, things get different.” Dez took something out of the pouch at her belt, a wad of crumpled paper. “Found this blowing around on the ground outside. Yours?”

  Usha smoothed out the pages, and her throat ached with the swelling of renewed sorrow. They were two of the sketches she’d made to start Tamara’s portrait. Loren must have thrown them away. There had been three.

  On her way out the door, Usha looked for the other. It wasn’t to be found, and she could only imagine it had blown away.

  Sunlight splashed golden across the wide desk, glinting from the neatly aligned nibs of quills placed precisely midway between two bottles of ink. Rowan put the wrinkled sheet of parchment carefully before Sir Radulf.

  “I don’t know what it is,” said the half-elf, though he did. “I found it on the ground near the Ivy.”

  Sir Radulf looked at the strange lines, like runes dancing. He didn’t touch the page. “Where the Majere woman is staying?”

  Rowan nodded. “They say her work is valuable. It certainly is strange. I thought you’d like to know.” He hesitated, for he’d come to the place where treachery could betray him. What did the knight see on the page? A sketch of a dead girl’s face? The chaos of writhing strokes and curves? Or did he see something else?

  “They say,” said the knight, “that more than image is created on the canvases of Usha Majere. They say that sometimes a truth is revealed.”

  Rowan let his breath out slowly and said, “I’ve heard my master say so.”

  The knight grunted. “Your master… he doesn’t know you have this?”

  “No. He does not.”

  “Why did you bring it here?”

  Why, indeed? Rowan didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t despise Loren Halgard. He didn’t consider him a hard master. He liked him, in fact. And yet—he had to admit it—Halgard had lost a hard gamble for power when his daughter refused Sir Radulf. It is with servants as it is with their masters. A man has to ally himself with power if he wants to prosper.

  “Sir knight, some say it’s dangerous to speak the truth to power. I think it must be. Maybe, though, it is more dangerous to speak the truth about power. Usha Majere speaks the truth about power.”

  Again, a soft grunt. “Good. You’ve done well to bring this to me, half-elf. Now tell me, what do you see in the images?”

  Rowan’s blood raced, pounding in his ears. “I… see you, sir knight.”

  Sir Radulf called out, and a knight came into the room. “Find the woman Usha Majere. Start with Loren Halgard.” He looked at Rowan, eyes narrow. “From what this fellow tells me, I think Halgard wouldn’t mind handing her over if he knows where she is.”

  The knight saluted smartly and left. Sir Radulf touched the edge of the sketch with one finger, turning it around to show Rowan a different angle.

  Rowan felt his belly shrivel as the images changed to become a portrait of his own death. He looked up. The knight’s face was cold and still.

  “Sir… ?”

  A chill smile slid across that face, and two hard hands clamped down on Rowan’s shoulders from behind and yanked him to his feet. Rowan tried to turn to see who held him, but he could not move.

  “This one has betrayed his master,” Sir Radulf said to the unseen knight. “Take him out and hang him.”

  23

  Usha found a pair of breeches in the pile of clothing Aline dumped onto the bed. She ransacked another pile for a shirt to fit.

  “And hose,” she muttered.

  Safe-house clothing, the gear Aline sent forward to supply the houses where refugees might spend a night along their path away.

  Hose dropped from Dez’s hands. Usha snatched them gladly and looked around for shoes.

  “Boots,” Dez said, dropping those down, too.

  At the window, Aline paced restlessly. Usha looked up and warned her friend back from the window.

  “He’s all right,” she said. “Madoc has been taking care of himself for a long time. He’s not about to forget how now. Keep away from the window.”

  Aline protested. “It’s not as though people know I’m the head of Qui’thonas and could point me out to a dark knight from the street.”

  Usha gathered up her borrowed clothing. “Aline, you don’t know what Sir Radulf has learned since last night. No one knows… no one knows what Loren has guessed.”

  Aline turned from the window, her green eyes bright, her homely face softening with sympathy. “Usha, would he tell Sir Radulf if he guessed?”

  “Can’t take the chance,” Dez said before Usha could answer.

  “Won’t take the chance,” Dunbrae agreed. He glanced out the window at the color of the sky and the thinning light. “Madoc better be here soon. He could have gone to Steadfast and back three times by now.”

  Unspoken among them was the fear that Madoc had gone to Steadfast looking for Usha and was not able to return.

  Usha wanted to say that Loren wouldn’t betray her, no matter what he guessed or knew about her or about Qui’thonas.

  “I don’t know,” she said, carefully around pain. “Loren thinks I killed his daughter. He thinks I’m a doom-weaver.” She laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “As if I couldn’t paint a better fate than this.”

  Glances passed between Aline and Dez.

  Dunbrae cleared his throat with a rumble and said, “All right then. Madoc knows where to meet. He’ll be there if he can, but we have to be ready to go when the light fails.”

  He returned to Aline’s desk and the work of destroying her papers and ledgers. By Aline’s order, nothing must remain in Rose Hall to implicate anyone who ever worked with Qui’thonas. Her servants would know in the morning that she was gone. They would be guiltless of her vanishing. Usha took her borrowed clothing into another room and quickly changed.

  When the light was gone from the sky, they were ready. They slipped quietly out of the house and into the garden. Madoc hadn’t returned, and Usha felt a gathering of grief when she looked in Aline’s eyes.

  Dunbrae pointed to the shed and cocked a lean grin. “A fine set of tunnels down there, Mistress Usha. A bit muddy these days, but there’s a—”

  Color drained from his face. His cheeks went ashen. Like winter suddenly fallen, terror washed through Usha, fear so strong she cried out as though in pain. Dez shouted, Dunbrae cursed, and in the sky a dragon appeared with the suddenness of lightning. A gout of flame shot from between the beast’s fanged jaws. Usha lunged for Aline and dragged her out of the way as the shed burst aflame. They staggered away from the fire, the two women still in the grip of dragonfear. Trees caught fire as the dragon dipped down then soared high, wide wings fanning the flames and runni
ng shadow on the ground.

  Howling curses, Dunbrae punched Dezra’s arm. “Let’s get ’em out of here!”

  For her part, Usha didn’t need anyone to get her out of there. She only needed to know where to go. When Dez cried, “Follow me!” Usha grabbed Aline’s wrist and ran.

  The dragon circled, stirring fear in Usha’s heart as though it were stirring a cauldron. She ran after Dez, yanking Aline along with her as they scrambled across fences, through alleys, into dry stream beds and ponds scummed with foul smelling algae. They ran like ghosts through Haven’s back alleys and forgotten paths, while overhead two dragons circled.

  Mounted knights thundered down the streets, and once when they stopped to catch breath, Usha looked back to see the whole quarter of Haven where Rose Hall stood on fire. Flames rushed up into the sky, and billows of black smoke painted out the stars.

  “It’s like Haven falling all over again,” she said.

  “Haven hasn’t finished falling yet,” Dunbrae said.

  Usha ran on, following Dez, picking up Aline when she fell, climbing to her own feet when Aline thrust down a hand to help. Always Dunbrae was behind, keeping their backs. She had no idea where they were, she could only trust Dez and Dunbrae. Smoke filled her lungs, she ran gasping and coughing. Cries of fear and anger rang from the wider streets as people ran to get home and see to family or goods, or fled from burning houses. In the back alleys and narrow lanes they ran, people were seldom seen.

  Usha ran bent over, trying to breathe, trying to shove away dragonfear and the terrible need to fall to her knees. That never got better, but the farther they got from the fires, the easier it became to run.

  They stopped again, and Usha leaned against a stone wall overrun with briars. She hardly felt the sting.

  Aline said, “Look,” and pointed to the roiling sky. White fire flashed out of a cloud—a black dragon dropped down, circling.