by Lian Tanner
Still she didn’t move.
But at last the cold lessened, and the people on either side of Duckling groaned and stretched. The dogs whimpered, as if they were waking from one nightmare only to find themselves in another.
Duckling groaned and stretched too. She shook her head as if she wasn’t sure what had happened. Then, like everyone else, she stood up and goggled at the Harshman.
She had last seen him two and a half days ago, in the far south of the country. He had been a terrifying sight then – now he was worse. The air around him quivered with a cold, ugly power. His eyes burned more fiercely, his iron teeth clattered more loudly.
Most of the people in the Chamber cringed away from him. But a few seemed drawn to him – they slunk forward with hungry expressions on their faces and their hands clasping and unclasping at their sides. Their dogs whined and tried to pull them away, but they did not listen.
Krieg lay on the floor in front of the throne, still bound.
‘You,’ rasped the Harshman, and for one awful moment, Duckling thought he was talking to her. But his bony finger pointed to a huge graf whose name she didn’t know.
‘Where … Is … The … Heir?’ demanded the Harshman.
A confused expression crossed the graf’s face. ‘The Heir?’ he said. ‘The new Margrave has only recently taken the throne. He has not yet chosen—’
The Harshman interrupted him. ‘The … Boy … Who … Was … Heir.’
Now the graf looked even more confused. He peered at Brun, who was dragging himself upright. ‘He is there.’
The Harshman’s teeth clashed like a sword on a breastplate. His fist thumped the arm of the Faithful Throne so hard that the ancient ironwood splintered.
‘The … True … Heir! The … Boy … Who … Has … Returned … To … The … Strong-hold.’
There was a moment of great puzzlement, when everyone in the chamber (including Duckling, who was acting for her life) looked at each other, wondering what on earth he meant.
Someone in the far corner said, ‘Surely he does not mean Otte?’
And someone else said, ‘Of course he does not. Otte is Kreig’s son, not the Margravine’s.’
And someone else said, ‘Mind you, they were born within minutes of each other. Could they have been …’
They all stared at Brun, who looked haughty, unapproachable – and a little bit dismayed. A rumble of protest started at one wall and spread right across the chamber.
‘Silence!’ cried the Harshman. ‘Where … Is … He?’
‘The boy Otte is missing,’ said one of the grafs. ‘He was locked in the dungeons, but he escaped.’ He pointed to Arms-mistress Krieg. ‘With her help.’
The Harshman stared at the arms-mistress, lying bound in front of him with her head still on the block. ‘Untie … Her,’ he ordered.
‘B-but she is a traitor,’ stuttered one of the grafs.
‘UNTIE … HER!’
Krieg staggered a little when she was dragged upright. But then she caught her balance and stood straight and firm with the ropes in a tangle around her feet.
‘Where … Is … The … Heir?’ growled the Harshman.
‘I do not know,’ said Krieg.
It was then that something truly ghastly happened; something that made Duckling even more afraid than she already was. The Harshman clanked down the steps from the throne until he loomed over Krieg. His eyes flared. ‘Where … Is … The … Heir?’
No sooner had he finished speaking than Krieg’s mouth opened and she said, ‘He will – he will be – h-h-hiding.’
It was clear from the horror in her eyes that she had not meant to speak, that the words had been dragged out of her against her will. Every single person in the Great Chamber gasped. Some of them edged further away from the Harshman. But some crept closer, as if the sight of such power entranced them.
‘Do … You … Know … His … Hiding … Places?’ asked the Harshman.
‘N—’ said Krieg. ‘N-n-n—’ Sweat stood out on her forehead. Her teeth ground together as she fought the influence of the Harshman with all her considerable strength. ‘N-n-yes!’
The Harshman’s lips peeled back in an awful grin. ‘Find … Him … And … Bring … Him … To … Me. Bring … His … Companions … As … Well.’
Krieg tried to shake her head, but it became a nod. She turned around, her face a mask of agony.
‘You … You … And … You,’ said the Harshman, pointing to three of the grafs who had crept closer. ‘Go … With … Her. Find … The … Heir … Or … I … Will … Kill … You.’
The three grafs leaped to obey him, hustling Krieg out of the Great Chamber as if she was a horse that needed to be tamed. The noise in the chamber rose again, as people shook off their initial shock.
Duckling edged backwards bit by bit, until she was close to the main doors. She crept past a huddle of grafines and dived around a couple of elderly grafs.
The doors were still open. The huge candles on either side were squashed like overripe plums. There were no guards.
Duckling slipped out without a backward glance, leaped down the stairs and ran as fast as she could for the Bear Tower.
To Grafine von Eisen’s dismay, she had fallen asleep as quickly and easily as everyone else in the Great Chamber, despite the iron pins in her sleeve and tunic. She had used those pins to raise the Harshman from the grave, and they should have protected her from his influence. But they had not.
Now, with her back half turned to the chamber, she drew the pins from her clothes and whispered over them.
The Harshman did not even flinch. He sat on the broken throne, saying nothing, doing nothing. High above him, in the rafters, his hawk glowered at the crowd below.
Most of the nobles were trying very hard not to be noticed. That was the only cheering thing about this whole appalling spectacle – the sight of Grafine von Spek and Graf von Walder creeping around with hunched shoulders and nervous glances.
Mind you, they had more sense than Graf von Mot and his family. They were fawning over their new leader, begging to be sent on important errands.
The Harshman ignored them all.
After that one sweeping glance, so did the Grafine. She had more urgent things on her mind than von Mot. She must get the Harshman back under control before he found and killed Otte. Afterwards, it would be too late.
She did not want to be noticed, so she made herself walk slowly and quietly to the little door behind the throne. When she was sure no one was looking, she slipped through the door into the small corridor behind it.
There, she took out the three intricately carved pins that had sat above her heart for the last few weeks, and pricked her fingers until the blood welled up. She whispered, ‘Iron teeth and veins of ice, with my blood I pay the price.’
Then she turned around and said, ‘Come to me, creature of ice and bone. Come and do my bidding. I command you!’
For a gut-wrenching moment, nothing happened. Then the Harshman’s foot appeared, followed by his knee and his fist and the rest of him, as he passed through the solid wall as if it was an open door.
Something unwound inside the Grafine’s chest. She still controlled him! He might be bigger and stronger than before (she had to crane her neck to see his face), but she was in charge.
‘You have displeased me,’ she said, in the voice that made lesser grafs and grafines tremble. ‘You think the Faithful Throne is yours? It is not. It will never be yours. You are my creature and without me you are nothing. Do you understand?’
On that last word, she jabbed one of the pins into her finger again, knowing that it hurt the Harshman far more than it hurt her. ‘Now go and search for the boy yourself,’ she snarled. ‘And do not come back until you have found him.’
The Harshman’s iron teeth clashed together with a sound like a trap closing. He took a step towards the Grafine.
A thrill of fear ran up her spine. ‘I said go!’ And she jabbed her finger so ha
rd that blood dripped onto the flagstones.
This time, the Harshman flinched. But instead of giving way, he continued to advance. Above his head, the hawk suddenly appeared, its wings spread so wide and dark that the Grafine had to fight the impulse to flee.
She had always been capable of quick decisions. Quick and brutal, that was the path to power. All her life, she had used other people as tools, and if one of them failed, she destroyed that one without mercy.
She took a breath, seeing the life that should have been hers. Freedom from the Strong-hold. Ruler of Neuhalt – and other countries, too, once she hit her stride. Power. So much power.
But it was not to be. Her tool had failed, and she must destroy it before it destroyed her.
She had memorised the Mystery that would send the Harshman back to his grave. Now she spat out the words, rolling the pins between her fingers so they ground against each other in a welter of blood.
‘Ice to water
Hawk to slaughter
Bones to dust
Iron to rust—’
She had only two lines to go when the Harshman raised his enormous fist and knocked her to the ground. The rest of the Mystery vanished from the Grafine’s head. She tried to remember it, but she could not.
‘Iron to rust,’ she mumbled. ‘I-i-iron to rust.’
Above her, the Harshman drew his sword …
Pummel, Otte, Sooli and the chicken had barely got back to the rathole when Duckling came scrambling in after them.
‘The Harshman’s here,’ she gasped, dragging the stone closed behind her.
‘We know. We fell asleep.’ With shaking hands, Pummel lit one of the candles they’d found.
Sooli passed Duckling a chunk of bread and a ragged slice of cold roast beef, together with a flask of weak ale. ‘Eat,’ she said. ‘Someone on the third floor was hoarding food.’
As Duckling bit into the bread, Otte leaned forward and whispered, ‘Arms-mistress Krieg. Is she—’
‘She’s alive,’ mumbled Duckling. She swallowed, and said, ‘The Harshman’s sent her to search for you.’
‘She will not do it,’ said Otte. ‘She will defy him, as she defied the Grafine.’
Duckling took another bite. ‘She tried. He made her.’
Otte shook his head furiously. ‘No one can make Arms-mistress Krieg do anything.’
‘The Harshman can. He sort of … took her over.’ Duckling shuddered. ‘Made her say yes when she wanted to say no. She’s looking for you, Otte, she really is. She’s looking for all of us.’
‘Oh,’ said Otte. Then, in a small voice, he added, ‘I went into a trance while we were searching for food. Someone is going to get hurt, but I do not know who it will be. I was afraid it might be Arms-mistress Krieg.’ And he showed Duckling the sheet of cloth he had taken from a chest.
Pummel felt sick from eating his roast beef too quickly, and sick at the thought that the Harshman could make Arms-mistress Krieg do things that she didn’t want to do.
He felt even sicker knowing that someone was going to get hurt. Otte’s witchery never failed; the younger boy went into a trance, during which he took out potions or bandages. A short while later, someone would fall sick, or drop a hammer on their foot, or get wounded in a fight, and Otte would turn out to have just what was needed to mend them.
He had used up all his potions and bandages in the salt mines, and the bag he kept them in had been lost between there and Berren. But the trances still came, and Otte picked up whatever was close to hand.
For a little while, the children ate and drank in silence. There was not much roast beef, but there was plenty of bread, and everyone, including the chicken and Otte’s mice, made the most of it.
Pummel was picking up the last few crumbs when he heard a scratching sound directly outside the rathole. He froze with his hand halfway to his mouth. The candle guttered. The Bayam chicken squawked. Sooli seized her, but it was too late. Whoever was nearby must have heard that unlikely sound.
Pummel’s heart banged against his ribs. He pointed to the tunnel, but no one dared move.
Outside the rathole, someone said, ‘Proooowl?’
Duckling’s eyes flashed white in the candlelight. ‘Frow Cat? Is that you?’
‘Prooowl noooow,’ replied that unmistakable voice.
Between them, Duckling and Sooli dragged the stone open. And there was the cat, cleaning her paws and looking as unimpressed with the world as ever.
‘Frow Cat,’ said Pummel. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Grafiiiine,’ said the cat, pausing in her cleaning. ‘Dyyyyying.’
Otte gasped, and clutched the sheet of cloth. The mice, which were back on his shoulder, chittered to each other.
Pummel said, ‘The Grafine is dying? Where? How?’
‘It does not matter how,’ said Sooli. ‘This might be our only chance to get the raashk back and to learn how she raised the Harshman. We must go to her.’
Duckling looked at the other girl as if she was mad. ‘They’re searching for us, I told you. If we go out, we’ll be caught.’
‘You were not caught,’ said Otte.
‘I can pass myself off as a kitchen hand,’ said Duckling. ‘Sooli can’t. Neither can you, with your wooden leg. And Pummel looks like Pummel, no matter what he does.’
In an odd sort of way, that felt like a compliment. But Pummel agreed with Sooli. The raashk was their only chance of defending Otte from the Harshman, and he was willing to take considerable risks to get it back.
‘We have to go, Duckling,’ he said. ‘You know we do.’
‘I don’t know any such thing,’ said Duckling. ‘You might want to put yourself up against Krieg, but I don’t.’
To which the cat, with more than a hint of impatience, said, ‘Noooow.’
‘No,’ said Duckling. ‘Maybe later. When it’s dark.’
‘Then it’ll be too late,’ said Pummel. ‘The Grafine’s dying.’
Duckling scrubbed her face with her hands, as if she was trying to think. ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘But just me. No one else.’
‘I must go too,’ said Otte. ‘I might be able to save her.’
‘I will not stay here alone,’ said Sooli. ‘I cannot put a do-not-see on all of us, not without the help of the – of the chicken. I do not have the power. But I can put one on myself.’
‘And if Otte and I were dressed properly,’ said Pummel, ‘we wouldn’t stand out nearly as much. There are tunics and hose in the next room. I saw them when we were searching for food.’ Before Duckling could protest again, he stood up, saying, ‘I’ll go and get them.’
His skin crawled all the way to the next room and back again, and he kept thinking he heard Arms-mistress Krieg’s voice. But he saw no one, and by the time he returned, laden with an assortment of clothes, Duckling had caved in.
‘But you have to do what I tell you,’ she said. ‘Go when I say and stop when I say. That’s the only way I can protect you.’
With that agreed, she became as impatient as the cat. ‘We’ll keep watch while you two get changed,’ she said. And she and Sooli squeezed out of the rathole and crept to the top of the stairs, with the cat stalking beside them and the chicken crooning quietly to herself.
Pummel threw off the clothes Duckling and Lord Rump had stolen for him in the back streets of Berren, and dragged on a rumpled pair of hose and an even more rumpled tunic. He helped Otte pull his hose over his wooden leg, and handed over one of the two belts he had found.
Otte looked and smelled more like a pig herder’s boy than the rightful Margrave, but that was probably a good thing. He and Pummel inspected each other and nodded. Then they went out to join the others.
They hurried down the silent stairwell and stopped just inside the main door of the Bear Tower. ‘I know it feels right to creep,’ said Duckling. ‘But you’ve got to walk as if you’ve every right to be here. Otherwise people’ll notice you.’
Pummel and Otte nodded, and straighte
ned from their furtive crouch. Sooli nodded too. At least, Duckling thought she did. The other girl had woven herself and the chicken into invisibility, and Duckling wished she could do the same.
But she could do the next best thing, which was to send her breeze ahead of them.
She blew on the little windmill that never left her side, and hummed up the breeze. When it tickled her chin, she whispered, ‘We have to go to the Keep, and we mustn’t be spotted. Can you stir up a bit of dust as we cross the bailey? Blow it in the eyes of anyone who might look towards us? Make them turn away?’
In reply, the breeze whisked out the door, and seconds later a tiny whirlwind rose, laden with dust and small bits of gravel. It teetered this way and that, then moved off across the bailey, towards the Keep.
‘Right,’ said Duckling, and with every sense alert, she stepped out into the first bailey. To her relief, it was deserted.
‘Where is everyone?’ asked Otte.
‘Still in the Great Chamber, maybe,’ said Duckling. ‘With the Harshman. And Krieg must be searching somewhere else. But it’s our good luck, so let’s use it.’
Because there was no one to see them, she and Pummel picked Otte up between them and ran across the first bailey as fast as they could. The cat galloped beside them, and Duckling hoped that Sooli did too. The air was bitterly cold.
At the side door of the Keep, Duckling called her breeze back, and asked it to warn her if there was anyone ahead of them. Then they set off through those dark stone passages, with the cat leading the way.
She took them up to the second floor, to the same little corridor behind the Great Chamber that Duckling had used when she was hiding from the soldiers. The air in the corridor stank of fear and hatred. On the wall, a candle was almost burned to a stub. And under the candle lay the body of the Grafine, with a great wound in her chest.
‘Dyyying,’ said the cat.
Duckling’s heart was beating so hard and fast that she thought she might be sick. She ran forward and knelt beside the Grafine, whose tunic was sodden with blood. The woman’s bones stood out stark against the skin of her face, and her eyes were closed.
