by Carol Berg
In moments he had sketched an outline of the prison block in the sooty remnants of my lamp. I planted the image in my head, then had him rub it out with his boot. “Clearly you’re a good observer. So did you happen to note the guards when they brought you up the stair earlier?”
Though his eyes flicked between my face and my glowing hands, he did not falter with his answers.
“One at each level. Sometimes when Gildas brought me to walk in the inner ward or to study the map, I’d see two at the hall level.”
I popped my head up, blinking until the windows took their proper places instead of whirling one atop the other. “To study the map—the big one in Sila’s sleeping chamber?”
“Aye, that’s it. Gildas doesn’t understand what she does with it, so he studies it when she’s not there, and he has me study it, too, so I can remind him of details he might forget. It maddens him that no paper or pens are allowed here, save the map, your grandfather’s book, and the Aurellian book he uses to interpret the maps.”
The great map…its luster of age and art and magic…its shifting images…had captured my imagination.
I closed my eyes and envisioned the green and ocher washes over the wordless fiché. Made for those who could not read words—Danae, then, or halfbreeds like me and Sila. Just as in the book of maps, Janus’s secrets lay exposed for all to see, if only I knew how to look at it. “Does Gildas say what he suspects about the map?”
Jullian shook his shaggy head. “Only that the features change over time. He thinks the old woman knows a secret about it that even Sila doesn’t know, and that bites him sorely.”
A map made for the Danae…but Kol had shown me they could not interpret maps, even ones without words. What would prompt Janus to make them a map—a map that Sila found use for and that held place in the gap of secrets between Sila and Gildas and Ronila?
I felt the sun slipping lower. Both enlightenment and vengeance must wait, for I’d yet to come up with a route out of Fortress Torvo. “Where did they take you to walk?”
“Gildas would walk me in the inner ward—”
“—where half the north end wall has collapsed? Piles of rubble all around?”
“Aye.” Wind rattled the window bars. Jullian scrambled back onto the bed, shivering, burrowing slowly into the quilts.
I pushed myself up to a squat, summoned all my resolve, and stood up. In hopes that movement might shift the clay in my limbs and rouse some insight, I crossed the room, raking fingers through my hair, trying to reconstruct the scene I’d glimpsed through Sila Diaglou’s arrow loops. “The broken wall once supported a row of privies hanging out over the court. Do you recall seeing a drainage canal on that end of the yard? It would only make sense…the sewage draining out of the privies into the canal.” Unless the privies had been put in after the canal was rerouted, or no one had considered draining the muck from an inner court that was naught but a well in which to trap one’s enemies and pour down death on them.
“A cistern sits in the middle of the court, but I didn’t see a canal. If it’s there, it’s full of rock.”
I grabbed my heaviest wool shirt from the clothes chest, convinced my leaden feet to carry me back to the bed, and dropped the shirt over Jullian’s head. Then I took myself to the window, bathing my skin in the cold afternoon. “Did you notice any grates around the walls? Something as tall as my knees?”
His head popped through the shirt’s neck hole, his eyes curious. “Aye, I saw a rat squeezing through a grate…just south of the broken wall…at the ground where a canal might run…”
I grinned as he wrestled his arms into the warm gray shirt and retied his rope belt to tame its bulk. “I know going inward seems an unlikely route to the outside, but it might serve if we can find no better. You can find the way to this yard in a hurry?”
He gave me his most scathing look. It was all I could do to keep from ruffling his filthy hair.
Footsteps echoed on the stair. I knelt in front of Jullian and took his cold hands in mine. “A woman is going to come here soon. You must hide in the burrow you made, and make not a sound, not a sneeze, not a prayer, no matter what you hear or think you hear. You’ll come out only when I tell you.”
He nodded, solemn faced, curious, but not so frightened anymore.
“Gildas thinks to torment me by prisoning us together, knowing you’ll see what this vile enchantment does to me and what Sila Diaglou intends for me to do here every night. But then, he doesn’t believe in angels or aingerou or any other blessing that a god might send to sinful men. We’re going to show him different.”
Chapter 25
Malena arrived with the early nightfall. I waited behind the door. In the instant the door opened, breaking the barrier ward that bound the room, I touched the lock and quickened the spell I had built throughout the day. Anticipation held my bones rigid…with so much depending on a blindworked spell in an unfamiliar lock…and every alternative sure to draw blood.
As the girl crossed the room with a supper tray, I buried my face in my hands, listening for the latch.
The guard on the stair pulled the door shut. The pins and levers moved…and stopped short, as if a small clot of dirt, oil, and bronze shavings, about the size of an armaments game piece, had slipped into the works and prevented them seating properly. I smiled into my fists.
Again Malena wore naught but flimsy shift and braided hair. Again she set out warmed wine. I had eaten nothing since the previous night, and even the prospect of maggoty bread would have set me ravening had I not spent the last half hour practicing what Kol named closure, attempting to subdue every sense to my will. Three times in the past hour echoes of the doulon had threatened to unhinge me, wreaking havoc in my head and shooting spasms of pain and desire through breath and bone. But I had cut them off like rotted limbs. No matter desire, no matter temptation, no matter perversion, neither Gildas nor Sila Diaglou would control my deeds this night.
“Where is the boy?” said my chosen mate, forgoing all pretense of holy ardor. “I was told he would be here. We’re to send him out to Jakome when the time comes, unless you wish him to watch.”
“Gildas took him,” I said. “They fed me extra vigger’s salt this afternoon and I got a bit…tightwound…
waiting for you.” I shrugged and pointed out the broken lamp, the rumpled bed and scattered cups.
She pouted a bit, as if she had been looking forward to the extra company, then watched in puzzlement as I tied my spare hose over my feet like soft slippers, hiding my gards. The hose would be easier than boots to remove if I had to bare my gards in a hurry. “Cold feet,” I said.
She retrieved the wooden cups from under the clothes chest where I’d thrown them. “Do you wish to sup first or shall we do our mistress’s bidding so I can be away from here the sooner?”
“Our mistress has explained her remarkable…glorious…vision,” I said. “And I understand a great deal more about what we must sacrifice than I did this morning. But I’ve not eaten all day, and I’d not wish to fail in strength or endurance tonight.” I smiled and tugged at the lace that bound up her braid.
I did not want to tip my hand by rushing. The call of fifth watch had not long passed and Stearc’s punishment would not begin until sixth.
Malena did not seem mollified. She dragged a quilt from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. Blessings to Serena Fortuna, Jullian’s hide-away was not exposed.
I took possession of the remaining chair, poured the wine, and offered her a cup. As she drained her cup, I swirled my own and sniffed it. Though I doubted Malena was a doulon slave, and I didn’t think Gildas would risk a second doulon for me in the same day, not after the pile of seeds he’d had me use, I dared not taste it. I did devour the porridge and bread, and when Malena said she had already eaten, I ate hers as well, praying with every bite that nourishment might put some bone in my knees and wit in my skull.
I was not halfway through the second bowl when my body spasmed with a bu
rst of heat that shot me to the verge of ecstasy only to send me earth-ward again, as if I plummeted from Stian’s rock Stathero.
Breathing hard, trying not to lose what I had already eaten, I pushed the porridge away and told myself this was but an echo of the doulon as I had experienced before when I had used too much nivat. Keep moving. Hold fast. Men will not die today because of your weakness.
“What’s wrong?” said Malena, from her perch on my clothes chest.
“Naught,” I said. “I just—Birthing a new race is a great responsibility.”
I beckoned the girl to my lap. She had refilled her cup, and a droplet of red hung at the corner of her mouth. It sickened me.
“A cup of wine can smooth over many a grievance,” I said, and traced my fingers about her face. Her body softened in my arms. When I touched her lips, she nipped my finger and smirked. A few kisses and I set her cup aside, gathered her in my arms, and carried her to the bed. She did not protest at its sagging middle nor did she argue when I took both her wrists in my left hand and drew them up over her head, kissing her neck.
“Shhh,” I said, as I pulled out one of the lengths of rope from the side of the bed and tied her wrists.
“There are many variants of pleasuring, Malena.”
Her eyes grew very wide. She licked her lips and attempted a smile. Only when I snatched my mask out from the same hiding place and stuffed it in her mouth did she understand. She growled and struggled, drumming her feet on the palliasse, squirming and writhing to get out from under me or at least get a knee where she could do some damage. But I had very long legs and arms and the memory of Gerard to force her still.
Once the rope was snug around her ankles, I tucked quilts around her. “We’re going to have a very quiet evening tonight, chosen one,” I said, using spare laces to snug the mask in her mouth. “I do not sit down with murderers. I do not lie with them. Holy Mother Samele grant that you never carry a child—mine or any other man’s.”
Malena’s glare could have poisoned the world ocean itself.
I detached a little bag from my waist, made sure the three lonely seeds remained intact, and tucked the bag between her breasts. “I am returning the holy one’s gift. Gildas gave them to me and told me that Sila wished me to be a slave as well as a whore. Tell her I prefer not.” I trusted her to report my words exactly. I hoped Gildas would be in Sila’s presence as she did so.
And then I peered around the end of the bed, met Jullian’s very large eyes peeking out from his burrow, and grinned. “Time to go.”
Regrettably we dared not take my pureblood cloak with its thick fur lining, so I pinned a plain gray blanket around Jullian’s shoulders. The boy gaped at the writhing Malena as I handed him our remaining lengths of rope and grabbed the bag of knucklebones from the clothes chest. I dropped the dice and the armaments game pieces into the bag, as well, tied it at my waist, and pulled on my gloves to hide the last of my gards. Jullian, looking puzzled, pointed at my discarded boots. I shook my head, pressed a finger to my lips, and doused the lamp. At the last moment, I snatched one of the oaken legs of the chair the boy had broken over my head.
I held the door handle for a moment, listening. Only one person stood beyond the door. I hoped it was Jakome. A shudder of warmth raced up my spine, threatening my concentration, but I held tight to my focus. Making sure Jullian stood behind me, I pulled open the door.
“Malena?” growled the man on the dark landing.
Grinning in unseemly pleasure, I triggered the second piece of the lock spell. The lock burst in a shower of yellow sparks, illuminating Jakome’s shocked face. Backhand, I slammed my arm into the join of his neck and shoulder. He slumped to his knees, retching, and I whacked the chair leg behind his ear to put him out of his misery for the moment.
Before very long, Jakome was bound as tight as I could draw rope, rolled up in a quilt, and deposited alongside Malena. I tied his orange scarf about my head and his dagger sheath about my thigh. His greasy brown cloak hung from my shoulders. As we pulled the iron door shut behind us, I triggered the last piece of the lock spell, unraveling the obstruction and fusing the broken pins in place. Someone would have to ram the door from its hinges to release the two.
Jullian started down the steps, but I snagged the neck of his shirt and forced him to sit on the step beside me. “What?” he spluttered.
“We need to listen for a bit to learn the exact time.” Given the early nightfall, and the span I’d used to eat and secure the two upstairs, the hour should be very close to sixth watch—poor Stearc’s wretched hour. The fortress was filled with muted sounds—barked commands…roaring fires…the boots and grunts of departing patrols…grim laughter. I listened carefully for sounds from Sila’s bedchamber. If the map was left unguarded…
The mystery of Sila’s map grew on me like a boil. What use did Sila find in it? She already had my book and Gildas to take her to Danae sianous. Osriel must come first; to go after the map before securing the prince would be sheer lunacy. I wanted it, though. If I got the chance, I’d take it.
Of a sudden, fire ravished my limbs yet again, then abandoned me chilled and dizzy. The dark stair gaped and deepened in front of me like the maw of hell…
“Brother! Wake up!” Hands tapped my cheek and shook my shoulders in company with this anxious whisper.
I blinked. My heart sank. Jullian’s scrawny limbs were knotted about my arms and shoulders, preventing me from sliding farther down the stair. My head was jammed uncomfortably against the curved wall and seemed to be several steps lower than my feet. “Ow!” I sat up, untwisting my neck and getting my legs below me.
“You fell…just rolled forward off the step.”
“Dizzy,” I said. “Part of that ugly business earlier. I’ll try not to let it happen again. But if I should, just slap me. Kick me. Call me a gatzi spawn and get me moving.”
There was no going back. I shook off the worry, took myself back into quiet, and focused on the plan.
“I wasn’t out for long, was I? They didn’t call the watch?”
“Nay. Not yet.”
“Sixth watch. All hail the mighty Gehoum!” When it came at last, the call rippled through the fortress, passed from one voice to another, advancing and receding around each level according to the caller’s distance from our stair.
“I’m going to treat you like a prisoner,” I said, prodding both of us to our feet. “When we reach the prison level, call for your mam to let me know.”
When the watch cry circled the level just below us and came round again to the stair, I bellowed my own, “Sixth watch. All hail the mighty Gehoum!” I grabbed the neck of Jullian’s borrowed shirt and whispered in his ear, “Fight me.” Then I dragged him down the stair as fast as I could, right past the guardsmen changing their posts. “Filthy little beggar,” I grumbled. “Ye’ll sleep in yer cell again tonight, and every night, if I have my way of it. Don’t think to get out of it by whimpering to no one.”
I was afraid at first Jullian hadn’t understood my instruction, but then he set to pummeling my ribs with such ferocity, I had to wrestle him under my arm, and still he would squirm loose. One of the guards we passed on the downward stair laughed and called after us, “Got a feisty one there!”
No one bothered us as we descended into the depths of the fortress, and Jullian had no need to call for his long-dead mother. The stair ended in a circular pit. Torches burned in sconces on the wall, but their light did not illuminate much past three dark openings in the wall. Mighty gods…
Two of the openings were blocked by collapsed walls or ceilings. The third opened into a passage, and from it issued a low keening I could scarce define as human, as if all the pain and despair this place had known had been drawn together into one terrible voice. Stearc’s voice.
I set Jullian on his feet, but I did not release my hold on him. To Gram, I mouthed, and urged him forward, my hand on his shoulder, ready to sweep him out of the way if we encountered trouble.
The passage appeared to be deserted as the boy had said. And as his sketch had shown, his own cell was first inside the doorway. Its position near the exit and its door of open bars had left him better air, if the thick, unwholesome vapors of this place could be named air. Torchlight revealed straw and blankets and a rusty lamp mounted on the wall unlit. Perhaps it had been a guardroom at one time.
But the cells farther down the passage—all but two empty, according to Jullian—had no such amenities. I held my arm over my mouth and nose and worked as hard as I knew how to keep focused. My king lay dying in this fetid darkness.
We arrived at a thick iron door similar to the one on my tower room, only with a slot at the bottom for passing food and slops, and an eye-level grate for observing the inmate. A lung-stripping cough and fevered mumbling from inside the cell were sufficient to set me working on the lock.
Crude, warded by only the simplest magic, it succumbed more easily than the one on my tower door.
I dragged the heavy door open, hoping the scrape of hinges would not bring guards running. The stench of sickness and rot escaped the cell in a flood, clogging my throat with bile. Torchlight from the passage revealed a dark form curled on the floor of dirt, rubble, and a scattering of moldy straw.
“Close the door all but a crack,” I whispered to the boy. “Keep watch.”
I ducked through the low door, stepped over a tin cup and an untouched bowl of something manifestly inedible, and dropped to my knees beside the prisoner. He clutched a threadbare blanket around his racked shoulders. The cramped cell felt cold as a tomb.
A cough broke into words. “Milkmaids merry ’neath a cherry blossom tree. Spring comes anon and they’re beckonin’ me.” The chatter of teeth punctuated this rasping singsong.
“Quietly now,” I said, and touched his shoulder. He jerked as if I’d stabbed him. The heat of his fever near blistered my hand, even through blanket and glove. “Can you sit up?”
