Clearwater Dawn

by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

  He was in the connecting hall still called the children’s court, though the royal heir he raced for now was hardly a child any more. To left and right, wide doors marked off sewing and art rooms, music rooms and solaria, the chambers of the younger heirs all shut up tight as he slipped through the intersection, the hall splitting off to the north and west.

  He went north, footsteps silent on pale grey marble as he heard second nightbell echo dimly from the tower above, marking off the slow passage toward morning. There’d been no alarm, he realized, but he didn’t slow. In emergency, and in the intermittent garrison drills designed to prepare for emergency, the bell rang constantly. Struck three times, then held for an equal length of silence, then struck again.

  A hundred paces along the corridor, he slowed before a recessed alcove and a set of white-painted double doors, rose vines and lilac stenciled carefully around its edges. This corner of the Bastion tower marked off the last of four chambers along the corridor, the other three holding the younger heirs.

  Phelan and Miani shared the connected rooms he’d just passed — the bright twins, nine years old the previous autumn. There had been celebrations then, but Chriani had been stuck on outpost duty, Barien away while Lauresa spent the High Autumn at her mother’s house at Aldac, near Myrwater in the south. Between the twins and Lauresa, the Princess Peran, just turned twelve. Seven years Lauresa’s junior and soon to be confirmed as Chanist’s heir. Waiting for the Princess Lauresa to take her leave of Brandishear and the title she’d been born with.

  To both sides, evenlamps burned. The only sound was Chriani’s own breathing, slowing as he did, but against the calm he tried to force himself to feel, a sense of anxiety was quickly rising. The urgency in Barien’s voice was still with him, but even in the short run, he was suddenly less sure whether that urgency was truly what he’d heard or simply what he’d felt in the unexplained unfolding of that voice in his head.

  Around him, there was no sign of trouble. No alarm, no movement in the courtyard where Chriani peered out through the narrow windows beyond Lauresa’s doors. In the air, in the silence of the night around him, he could feel the sense of subdued order that clung to the walls like paint to plaster. A sense of security that Chanist worked hard for, Barien and the others of the garrison hand-picked for detail within the Bastion’s walls.

  At twenty-five, Chanist had been only seven years older than Chriani was now when he’d been made prince. All the history that Chriani had been forced to learn at Barien’s side long ago. Chanist’s father had been killed in the disastrous assault at Welbirk, his older brother and sister falling to Ilvani assassins’ blades that same day. A coordinated assault by the Valnirata against the crown that would never be forgotten, not least by the younger princeling who should have died at his father’s side.

  But a shoulder injured in a skirmish across the Locanwater the week before kept Chanist from the saddle that day, saw him on the throne less than two weeks later. It was said that there were factions within the war-court then who had favored deposing the new prince even before his coronation, so great was the fear of his young and untested hand failing in the face of the increasingly uncontrollable Ilvani threat.

  One year later, Chanist had slain the Valnirata warlord Caradar and pushed his armies back across the Locanwater. He had forged the treaty with the other Ilmar nations that saw the Ilvani sue for peace. Few people had doubted him since.

  Look to the princess, the voice had said, and Chriani tried not to think about how much of the fear he felt now might have come just from the thought of that. Having to look at Lauresa one last time.

  They were Barien’s orders, though. Chriani composed himself. He would check her safe in her quarters, apologize for waking her. He would wait outside for Barien’s eventual arrival, or for someone else sent on the warrior’s further orders with an explanation of what was going on.

  He felt the sword bump his leg again, tried to adjust the belt as he listened carefully, still no sound or movement from either side. The three younger heirs had been away most of the summer, gone north with their mother. Returned just a week ago, they were preparing now to see Lauresa off, though it had already been decided that they wouldn’t sail with her for Aerach. None of the family in attendance at the wedding, Barien had said. Political discretion. Lauresa was bound to some duke, marrying down because that was the importance of it all. Peran would probably lay claim to this chamber at the tower corner before Lauresa had even left the harbor, Chriani thought.

  “By your leave, princess.” He heard the bitter edge in his voice swallowed by the silence, carefully tapping the door with the heel of his hand. He was practically within sight of the throne room, the doors that marked the private entrance hall from the prince high’s own quarters standing some thirty strides away down the northern corridor. He waited for what seemed like a long while, called again, knocked a little louder. Still no sound or movement from within.

  He could call someone, he thought. It was late and she was sleeping, clearly, and to make enough noise to wake her would be enough to bring every guard within the prince’s quarter down on top of him.

  Summon none else till I get there.

  He felt the shiver thread through him, but it was just an echo this time.

  He looked around quickly, from instinct. Made sure he was alone.

  As he dropped to his knees, Chriani had the picks between his fingers even before he’d pressed himself to the keyhole, feeling his way across the pins with practiced ease. Chanist’s locksmiths were the best in Rheran, but they were too consistent in their construction, and Chriani had long years of practicing on the identical lock at Barien’s door that gave him an easy familiarity with this one. He’d opened more than a few of the Bastion’s locks in his day, sometimes at Barien’s request and sometimes of his own volition, but always with the very certain understanding of what would happen to him if he were ever caught.

  He’d never broken into a princess’s chamber before, though. He glanced both ways down the corridor again, felt the solid click of the bolt as he twisted and pressed.

  He was through the door without a sound, pushing it closed behind him. You had a better chance of being surprised outside than you did being expected inside, his mother had taught him. Figure out what you’re doing before you go in if you can. Don’t know what you’re doing, figure it out as you go.

  Inside, a small alcove opened up, Chriani’s eyes alive in the faint trace of light through gauze curtains. Evenlamps burned beyond. Listening, no sound. Inside the doorway, a pair of shoes sat, soft blue leather stitched with gold. Nothing else there.

  Slowly, he pushed the haze of white linen aside, found himself in a chamber twice the size of Barien’s. Larger than the others along the corridor by the look of it, the bulk of the space wrapping around from the alcove, centered on the balcony whose door was directly across from him now. Through that door, light flared in the distant darkness, the steep slope that fell off to the north raising this side of the Bastion well above the walls of the keep and the fires of the distant harbor.

  From the sentry post above the stables, he’d watched the princess on that balcony sometimes, standing quietly as she scanned the skies after dark, hidden in shadow from any observation from the keep below. Never suspecting that Chriani’s eyes could pick her out in those shadows so that it might as well have been full day. He’d watched her movements behind the curtains, could hear her singing if the wind was right.

  In the room, Chriani forced his mind clear.

  The princess wasn’t there.

  Like the Bastion itself, Lauresa’s chamber had a kind of conspicuous straightforwardness about it, the same sense of military order here that pervaded the rest of the residence. The princess too like her father, Barien had often noted, though Chriani had never seen her that way. Chanist was earth, he thought. Solid. His oldest daughter was air, unreadable. Invisible.

  Here, two tables of dark wood, one spread with what looked like let
ters, two she was reading, one partly written to her stepmother, the Princess High Gwannyn. A tall shelf of wrought metal and thin marble sheets held four cases of neatly tied scrolls, a dozen bound books he didn’t look closely at. A wardrobe, open. Clothes within, riding boots in buffed calfskin. Past it, three windows were shuttered against the darkness, all bolted tight like the balcony door was bolted as he slipped past.

  By that door, a single chair meant that she wouldn’t accept visitors here, or at least wouldn’t accept visitors she didn’t know well enough to sit with them on the bed. There behind white curtains, another alcove, out of sight. Across from it, a hanging filled most of one wall, painted in what he recognized was the princess high’s own hand. The work of Lauresa’s stepmother adorned the prince’s court and the dining hall, her brushwork done in the delicate filigree style of Caella, capital of Elalantar where she was born.

  He recognized the scene that the silk-cast image rendered — the view from the city, just above the harbor. Atop the slope that rose from the Rheran docks, he was looking directly into the rising dawn. The falcon that was the sign of Brandis, house of princes, soared in that first light, the Clearwater burning orange-white where the shadow of the harbor islands rose along the distant horizon. True as a Clearwater dawn was an expression of oath across the Ilmar, that purity caught in this wash of light and color that Chriani thought he might have fallen into if he’d had more time to linger.

  A haze of evenlamp white shone through sheer lace drapes that closed off the sleeping platform. A tension threaded through Chriani even as he called, already knowing what he’d find there.

  “Lauresa…”

  He hadn’t known he was going to say it like that. Shouldn’t have said it like that. He could have found himself sweeping the stable yard for the rest of his life for addressing anyone in Chanist’s family by their given names.

  His voice had an edge to it that he didn’t like. He was on duty, he reminded himself sharply. Barien’s voice in his head. Look to the princess…

  He’d called her Lauresa, as he used to.

  Where he pulled the curtain aside, he saw the bed empty, turned down but untouched. He scanned the bright shadows, felt something twist inside him, his pulse quickening now. Mechanically inspecting the bed-platform, he noted the nightclothes hanging there, an ivory brush laid aside on a stool, boots standing neatly by the nightstand. The shoes had been by the door, he thought. He took all of it in, felt the impressions click into place as he slipped back to the room.

  No sign of a struggle meant there likely hadn’t been one. Shutters and balcony were bolted, Chriani checking them again one by one. The door was locked but it was the only way out. She’d left her shoes.

  She might simply have been summoned, he forced himself to think. He slowed his racing thoughts, tried to refocus. That was the easy explanation. The princess up late, attending to correspondence, not yet to bed when the knock came at the door. Some emergency that had seen her escorted to her father or the chamberlain. Gone for a short while, back imminently. Or perhaps she was simply spending the night talking with her father. In two weeks, she’d be gone, he thought. What father wouldn’t want a daughter’s company by the fire in those last days?

  And then, even as he slipped through the curtain for the antechamber and the door, he heard the alarm ring out. Three strikes from the tower that might have been third nightbell if they hadn’t come so soon after the second. Then a silence that seemed much longer than it was before the next three strikes rang out.

  Through the door, he found the corridor still thankfully empty, slowing only long enough to turn the lock back, instinctively hiding his entrance. He cursed silently as the alarm rang out again, telling himself that it should have been he who raised it the moment he found the princess gone. He’d have to move fast, head back along the prince’s court and through to the armories, then around to the great hall with the rest of the garrison where they would have already been racing from the barracks. It would have been faster to have simply followed the prince’s court where it turned, its five-sided perimeter marking the area of the throne room and the boundary of the prince and princess high’s quarters to the south. However, the extra distance seemed more than a fair trade for not having to explain his unauthorized presence beyond the warden’s door this night.

  But even as he slipped the picks into their pocket within his sleeve, he stopped. Stared.

  In the shadow that spread from where the evenlamp shone behind him, his eyes caught a subtle change of contrast on the corridor stones. Barely visible, even to him, so that he hadn’t noticed it with the light facing him before.

  Running from the door where he stood, heading southward along the route he’d been about to take, he saw a regular alternating pattern. Bare footprints, spaced at a walking pace. Smaller than his foot by a half-hand where he crouched to inspect them, low to the corridor floor. Breathing gently on the stone, he saw one outline take sharper shape, the moisture of his breath chilling just slightly on matte-finished marble, highlighting the trace marks that bare skin left behind.

  The leather of the shoes she’d gone without would have been nearly silent, he thought, but leather could slip if one found the need to run on the well-soaped Bastion floors. Barefoot on stone gave the best balance of silence and speed.

  As he slowly followed, he saw that she was walking, not running. Careful steps, high on the ball of the foot, trying for silence like those who didn’t know how to walk silently did. No one with her, no other footprints alongside or following except his own.

  Then halfway along the corridor, the tracks stopped. He marked where she’d turned to the left, stood to face the blank expanse of wall there between the doors of the younger princess and the twins. Beyond that point, nothing.

  Chriani carefully fished his mother’s pick from his sleeve. Along the smooth plaster of the wall, moldings of dark oak were spaced at regular intervals, the steel spike scraping carefully along the two seams to both sides of where the footprints vanished. No gap there that he could see.

  Along the floor, though, he felt the slender steel point slip into a narrow depression. A space within the wall itself, accessed through the hair’s-breadth gap between baseboard and floor.

  It took him precious moments to find the catch, three times fishing in that narrow space with three different picks before he felt the wire, pushed it carefully to one side, then the other. There was a faint click that he only heard because his ear was to the wall, no outward sign of what he’d done. But where he pushed with effort, a body-wide section of lath and plaster pivoted, one section of molding on the door where it swung out, the other hiding the seam on the opposite side. Something pushed back on it, a counterweight hidden, shifting silently. In the faint light of the corridor behind him, a narrow stone staircase climbed a circular shaft.

  Chriani felt a chill trace through him where he saw the footprints continue up the first half-dozen steps before they twisted off into shadow above. A secret staircase, not uncommon in the Bastion, but this was the first he’d found on his own. A thing to be smugly proud of under other circumstances.

  Except that the princess was missing, and Chriani knew where those stairs led. His mood was as far from smug as it had ever been.

  Where the alarm had echoed from the stones, sudden silence fell, the last set of three strikes fading against the undercurrent of distant sound, rising now. Konaugo, as captain of the watch, would have arrived at the staging ground outside, would be giving orders. Chriani heard shouts from the distant great hall, listened for Barien, hoped for the familiar bark of the warrior’s voice, but the echo in his mind was the only place it came.

  Stay with her…

  He shook his head to clear it. Behind him, the door swung shut with a faint click and a hiss of trapped air. Ahead, Chriani moved in silence, not looking back as he climbed.

  — Chapter 2 —

  WORTHY OF FEAR

  WITH THE DOOR CLOSED, there was no detail in the g
loom for even Chriani’s eyes to pick out as he went, but he counted on the fact that those eyes saw better than all but a handful of the others in the Bastion. People with a secret, like him. He’d see the light of anyone above him long before they saw or heard him, he knew, but all the same, he felt the chill of fear again.

  He was ascending to the prince’s tower. He slowed his breathing, faster than it should have been.

  He’d never been to the tower before. Had never known anyone who’d ascended to the three stories above the prince’s private chambers, the secret spaces where not even Barien and the other guards went. The tower was the domain of Chanist’s court wizards and healers, it was said — their laboratories and libraries and sanctums there. This much all the garrison knew, but beyond that bare fact were only rumors, of which even the least disturbing were disturbing enough.

  Chriani moved carefully, feeling his way along the rough stone of the wall for a count of fifty-five steps from the bottom. He’d expected doors at any of the floors he must have passed, but there was nothing until he heard the end of the stairwell ahead before he felt it. The faint echo of his breathing came back to him as he approached a blank wall, took a moment to find the catch from this side, the same mechanism as the hallway below.

  He listened carefully before he pushed through into the middle of a silent corridor. To both sides, he saw the telltale glimmer of evenlamps, but their light was shaded by the endless ranks of shelves that distracted his eye, cost him a moment to get his bearings. He was on the uppermost level, that much was sure. No windows here from which to spy the city or the stars, but the corridor looked to be a perfect reflection of the prince’s court below, running mostly north to south, hard turns west at either end. But where the corridors of the prince’s court were almost unnaturally pristine in their emptiness, these tower corridors held an uncountable mass of books and scrolls. Shelves lined the walls to both sides, barely enough room for two people to pass between them in spots. Even quieter here than it was below.