by Lian Tanner
‘What’s the delay back there?’ snapped Sergeant Bock, and the soldiers holding Duckling and Pummel shoved them up the stone steps and into the great dark tower of the Keep.
The walls of the Keep were so thick that Duckling’s outstretched arms could not span them. The doors were so solid that it would take a dozen axes to chop through them in less than a day. The passages were lit with rushlights and candles, and as the prisoners were marched towards the Great Chamber, countless servants hurried past them, carrying trays, linen, firewood and buckets of water.
By now, Grandpa had moved on to complaining about his bunions, and how he wished he could take his shoes off. ‘But I could not stand before the Margrave in my stockinged feet,’ he said. ‘Slippers might be acceptable, if they were cunningly wrought, and looked like shoes. I do not think they would be noticed.’
Which meant, in the secret language that he and Duckling sometimes used, Granddaughter, once we get to the Great Chamber, try to slip away into the crowd if you can. I would do it myself, but I would be noticed.
Duckling gave a barely perceptible nod, and Grandpa fell silent.
‘About time the old fool shut up,’ muttered one of the soldiers. ‘He won’t be able to carry on like that in front of the Regent.’
A pulse twitched in the corner of Krieg’s jaw. ‘Regent?’ she said. ‘Who is Regent?’
The soldiers didn’t answer. They sped up, rushing their captives along dark stone corridors, where grafs and grafines stared at Krieg in astonishment. But when they saw Sooli, their faces hardened and they growled like barely restrained dogs, and followed along behind.
‘There is no need to bustle us like this,’ Grandpa said plaintively. ‘We want to see the Margrave. That is why we are here. We are cooperating.’
‘Yes, cooperating with a Saffy,’ mumbled one of the soldiers.
‘Saaf,’ said Pummel.
The soldiers ignored him.
And then at last they were standing outside the massive wooden doors of the Great Chamber, with its armoured guards staring at them in shock.
‘Prisoners being brought before the Margrave,’ snapped Sergeant Bock. ‘Traitors and assassins.’
‘But that’s Arms-mistress K—’ began the first door guard.
‘I know perfectly well who it is,’ snapped Bock. ‘Let us through.’
‘And that’s a – a Saffy!’ stuttered the second door guard.
The sergeant rolled his eyes. ‘Do you think I’m blind? Let us through.’
As the guards threw themselves against the weight of the doors, Arms-mistress Krieg said out of the corner of her mouth, ‘Discipline problems, Sergeant Bock? People questioning your orders? I could give you a few tips later, if you like.’
Sergeant Bock flushed an angry red and shoved Krieg through the doorway, hissing, ‘There won’t be a later, not for you. The new Margrave doesn’t take kindly to traitors—’
He was interrupted by the door guard’s loud announcement. ‘Prisoners being brought before the Margrave! Traitors and assassins!’
And Duckling and her friends were marched into the Great Chamber.
First Councillor Triggs, leader of the Privy Council and the richest person in Neuhalt, was not a happy man.
For a start, he had eaten his breakfast too quickly and had had indigestion all morning. But that was a minor problem compared with the message that had just arrived from Captain Rabid.
‘They lost Arms-mistress Krieg?’ he snarled. ‘They let her and her companions enter the Strong-hold?’
The messenger nodded, her eyes still wide with the awfulness of it. ‘Along with a Saffy spy. Or maybe she was an assassin!’
Councillor Triggs did not care about spies and assassins. If the Saffies wanted to waste their time killing the new Margrave, it was no business of his. Another margrave or margravine would pop up in the previous one’s place, and the whole dreary business would continue.
But of course, he must pretend.
He made his eyes as wide as the messenger’s. ‘An assassin? Oh no!’
‘Oh no!’ chorused the other three councillors.
Triggs would have left it at that, but the fool messenger clapped her hand over her heart and gabbled, ‘Gods save the Faithful Throne.’
So then they all had to do the same hand-over-heart nonsense, which hurt the arthritis in Triggs’ fingers.
‘Gods save the Faithful Throne,’ he intoned, wishing all the while that he had a chopping block and could simply cut Captain Rabid’s head off for failing to follow instructions. And the messenger’s too, for bringing such bad news.
He should be able to do it; after all, he was the real ruler of Neuhalt, no matter what the populace thought. The Margrave was merely a figurehead, useful for giving the little people someone to look up to, but utterly powerless outside the castle.
He glanced at his fellow councillors, wondering what they would say if he ordered the messenger’s beheading. Would they support him?
Probably not. They all wanted to be First Councillor in his place. If he made a single false move they would be on him like wild dogs.
He forced a worried smile and dismissed the messenger.
As soon the girl was out of the room, Third Councillor Bagon thumped the table with his fist. ‘This is intolerable, Triggs. I told you that we should have sent Home Defence to support the Snuffigators and the guards. I warned you—’
‘You did no such thing,’ hissed Second Councillor Whet. ‘You insisted that we would not need Home Defence.’
‘You did, Bagon,’ said Fourth Councillor Dred, nodding her head vigorously. ‘And in the end we agreed.’
‘But we were wrong,’ snapped Triggs. ‘And now Arms-mistress Krieg is probably telling the new Margrave all about the salt mines and the slaves. How will he react, hm? Will he demand that we close the mines down? That we stop our dealings with the slavers? Or will he just want to share the profits?’
Bagon and Dred looked horrified. But Whet, who was almost as clever as Triggs, studied her emerald rings and said, ‘He cannot make us close the mines. He cannot make us do anything. If he insists that we stop using slaves, we will simply tell him that we have done his bidding, and he will have no choice but to believe us.’
‘Possibly,’ said Triggs. ‘But we cannot control all the information that goes in and out of the Strong-hold. There is always a leak somewhere. The Margrave can make serious trouble for us, if he wishes to do so.’
‘I wish the Margrave was in his grave,’ muttered Bagon. ‘And all the rest of the nobles too. We don’t need them; why can’t they catch purple fever or something? Why can’t they all die and leave us alone?’
It was not often that the Third Councillor said anything useful. But now Triggs felt as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning.
He leaped to his feet, strode to the other end of the table, grabbed Bagon’s meaty hand and shook it over and over again. ‘An excellent idea, Third Councillor. Give yourself a pay rise. Another fifty silver gloats a day, I think. You deserve it!’
As Bagon stared in open-mouthed astonishment, a watery beam of sunshine crept in through the high meeting room window and illuminated the end of his nose.
A sign, thought Triggs. A sign that I am on the right track.
He cleared his throat. ‘The Strong-hold,’ he said, ‘has leeched off this city for five hundred years, and I for one am sick of it. I am sick of paying homage to the Faithful Throne once a week. I am sick of bowing and scraping and pretending to be poor; pretending to listen to the instructions of people who know nothing about the workings of the real world. I am sick of having to think about them when we have so many more important things to think about.’
He leaned towards his fellow councillors and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘But what if we could be rid of them, hm? What if we could be rid of them forever, along with Arms-mistress Krieg, Lord Rump and the children? That would solve our little problem, would it not?’
The walls of
the Great Chamber were lined with bears, huge stuffed creatures that stood on their hind legs, snarling ferociously. There were idle-cat heads too, and moth-eaten wolves, and slommerkins with their tusks blackened by centuries of smoke.
But the noble-born men and women who turned to stare at the prisoners were far more dangerous than dead slommerkins. Their faces and arms were scarred, and their eyes were merciless. Cursed to spend their whole lives inside the Strong-hold, they lived on plots and intrigues. Violence was their sport, and beheadings were their entertainment.
One of these people, thought Duckling, raised the Harshman from the dead and set him on Otte’s trail. Who was it? How can we find out? And how can I slip into a crowd like this without being noticed?
When they saw Arms-mistress Krieg, with Otte on her back, the eyes of the grafs widened, then narrowed. The grafines murmured to each other, and the sound lapped at the walls of the Great Chamber like the rustling of scorpions. The lean dogs that wound around their legs snarled.
No one bothered snarling at Duckling, though they growled at Pummel, and hissed at Grandpa, both of whom had been in trouble here before. But when Sooli was shoved into the chamber, looking as proud as the recently assassinated Margravine, they leaped forward with their swords drawn and their eyes slitted with fury.
‘An assassin!’ they howled. ‘A Saffy assassin!’
‘Kill her before she gets to the new Margrave!’
‘Take her to the chopping block!’
‘Lop her head off now!’
A man with a scar running right down his bare arm tried to seize hold of Sooli, but the soldiers barred his way. ‘Stand back,’ they shouted. ‘Let the Margrave see the prisoners.’
Duckling and her friends were prodded the length of the chamber, past the growling dogs, past the grafs and grafines, past the chickens that scratched and pecked at the rushes.
When they reached the Faithful Throne they were forced to their knees. And there was the new Margrave, sitting on that great black chair, with a much-too-big sword by his side and a scowl on his face.
No one would have guessed, from Arms-mistress Krieg’s blank expression, that the new Margrave was actually her son, and that she and the late Margravine had swapped their children at birth, to keep Otte safe. Krieg had held the secret for ten years, and she was not yet ready to give it up.
But Otte slid down from her back, crying, ‘Brun, you are alive! I was afraid that the Harshman might have killed you.’ He managed a couple of steps forward before a heavy hand on his shoulder forced him to kneel.
Brun was the same age as Otte, but much more finely dressed, with silver buckles on his belt and silver embroidery on his tunic. His fair hair was cut to just below his chin, and a scar stood out red and angry against the paleness of his cheek.
For the briefest moment, his eyes widened at the sight of Otte. For the briefest moment, he looked as if he might leap down from the Faithful Throne, throw his arms around his friend and demand to know where he had been and what he had been doing.
But a second later, that moment was gone as if it had never existed. Brun’s finger tapped ominously on the arm of the throne, and he said to Krieg, ‘Why have you brought one of our greatest enemies here, into the heart of Neuhalt?’
At the words ‘one of our greatest enemies’, the nobles pressed forward with a growl that made Duckling shiver. But Arms-mistress Krieg turned and glared at them, and it seemed she still had some power in this place, because they shuffled back a little.
Krieg glared at the soldiers then, until they stepped back too, and let her climb to her feet. She made a bow to her son Brun, who was pretending to be Margrave. ‘Your Grace,’ she said.
Then she nodded at the woman who sat on a sturdy chair beside him. ‘Grafine von Eisen. You are Regent?’
The Grafine had a long pale face and a scar that cut across the corner of her mouth, so that anyone who didn’t know her would think she was smiling. ‘Answer the Margrave’s question,’ she said in a hard voice.
Krieg turned back to Brun. ‘Your Grace, we bring news of great danger. It would be best if we spoke to you in private audience.’
Brun opened his mouth to reply, but Grafine von Eisen beat him to it. She leaned forward, her eyes as cold as her name. ‘You do not tell His Grace the Margrave what is best, ex-Arms-mistress. You do not ally yourself with his enemies. You do not commit treachery against the Faithful Throne and expect to keep your head on your shoulders.’
Duckling glanced at the soldier who still held her wrists, wondering how she could get away from him.
‘I have committed no treachery,’ said Krieg. ‘We are here to prevent treachery. Someone has created a monster from the bones of a long-dead margrave; he has iron teeth and burning eyes, just like the legend from the Old Country—’
A roar of laughter drowned out the rest of her words. The grafs rocked on their heels, bellowing, ‘Iron teeth? Burning eyes? Ho ho ho! Krieg has lost her mind.’
‘And soon she will lose her head,’ sneered the grafines. The dogs at their feet panted with open mouths, waiting for orders.
Otte’s clear voice rang out over the tumult. ‘He is not just a legend. He is real. Brun – I mean, Your Grace. You remember the Harshman! You must. You fought him with a leg bone taken from the vergessen.’
‘You did indeed, Your Grace,’ said Grandpa, who was still on his knees and clutching his cane so no one would take it away. ‘This is no legend, but a real creature. A monstrous creature, who followed us south when we escaped from the Strong-hold, and who will shortly follow us north again. You fought him bravely, but a single brave boy will not be enough when this creature returns. We must stand together, all of us. We must turn and face the true danger.’
He clambered to his feet, waving a hand at Sooli. ‘This child is no threat. She may be Saaf but she is on our side. And when the Harshman comes with his iron teeth and his burning eyes—’
His voice soared in those same compelling tones that had talked him and Duckling out of trouble so many times. ‘When the Harshman comes, believing that we will be easy prey, we must stand shoulder to shoulder against him—’
Duckling was watching Brun so closely that she saw his eyes change. He does remember, she thought. The curse is trying to make him forget, because there was witchery involved. But he remembers, and so do some of the others.
Bit by bit, as Grandpa spoke, the temper of the Great Chamber began to change. Instead of bellowing with laughter, the men tugged at their moustaches and raised their eyebrows. The women sidled up to each other with questioning looks, and rapped their dogs over the nose when they snarled too loudly.
Arms-mistress Krieg crossed her arms. ‘I have always served the Faithful Throne honourably, Your Grace. I was Heir’s Friend to the late Margravine, and arms-mistress in her service. If I had committed treachery, I would put my own head on the block. Your Grace, the Harshman is coming and we must prepare for battle.’
Duckling held her breath. According to Grandpa, there was a moment in every argument when things start to slide one way or the other. That moment was now.
The immediate danger was almost over. The soldier wasn’t holding her so tightly, but Duckling no longer needed to slip away. They had Brun on their side, and most of the nobles, too. They could set about hunting down whoever had raised the Harshma—
At the far end of the Great Chamber, the heavy doors crashed open, and a man came running towards the Faithful Throne, slipping and sliding over the rushes that covered the floor.
The dogs dived out of his way. The grafs and grafines drew back like a neap tide. The glassy eyes of the bears flashed, as if they knew disaster was approaching.
Because it was disaster; Duckling could smell it. So could the soldier who held her. His grip on her wrists tightened again. The running man fell to his knees, panting, in front of the throne.
‘Your Grace,’ he croaked, gazing up at Brun. ‘Your Grace, the food carts – they have turned back. They have tur
ned away without making their deliveries!’
The chicken who was really the Bayam had never been in a wicker basket before; somehow, for all her centuries in the Strong-hold, she had managed to avoid being caught. But she had seen other chickens – birds she knew, birds she had roosted beside – taken away in them. And none of those chickens had ever come back.
So when she found herself being carried to the kitchens, crammed up tight against eleven other chickens, with their feathers filling her beak and their wing bones poking her in tender places, she was deeply alarmed.
Eek! she thought.
And when the wicker basket was dumped roughly on a table, and she heard the scrape scrape scrape of a chopper being sharpened, and the bubble bubble of a large pot of water, she was terrified.
EEEK!
All around her, the other chickens were mumbling their protests at being tossed on top of each other and squeezed up so close. They complained about being taken away from their dust baths. They scolded unknown persons for interrupting their day so rudely.
But the Bayam chicken didn’t make a sound. She flattened herself against the bottom of the basket, as if she was just out of the egg and hiding from monsters with hot breath and sharp teeth. So when the lid of the basket was eased up and one of the chickens was taken out, it wasn’t her.
She heard an alarmed squawk, cut off suddenly by the thunk of a chopper. She heard a splash, as something the size of a headless chicken was dipped in hot water. She smelled blood, and scalding feathers.
EEEEEEEEEK!
She crouched lower.
One by one, the other chickens were taken from the basket. One by one, the Bayam chicken heard that awful squawk, and that terrible thunk.
Helphelphelphelphelp! she thought.
But no help came.
Everyone in the Great Chamber knew what the turning back of the food carts meant.
Hunger for the first few days. Then, if the carts didn’t return, slow starvation for every single person in the Strong-hold.
