The Sword-Edged blonde

by Alex Bledsoe

  He nodded at the window. “Lean out a little and look to the north.”

  I did, and saw a dark plume of smoke rising into the sky. It came from one of the warehouses along the docks. “The Dragonfly?”

  “Yep,” he nodded. “Already burning down. The fire crew is down there trying to save the other warehouses, the legitimate ones. No telling how many bodies we’ll find in there.”

  I felt a brief pang for spike-necked Allison, but her fate was out of my hands. “Hm. Quite a coincidence.”

  “And you had nothing to do with that, either?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Bernie ran his hand along the mantel above the fireplace. “I got no reason to doubt you, I suppose. And nothing to really hold you on. In a few months, I may decide you’ve done me, the city and the common good a big favor.” His eyes snapped up to meet mine. “But for right now, I’d just as soon you left town. Quietly. And don’t come back for a visit before winter. By then, I should be your pal again.”

  I nodded. I didn’t offer my hand, and neither did he. I left without another word.

  I RETURNED QUIETLY and quickly to Arentia. I took a room above a pub in one of the far-flung suburbs of Arentia City. I wasn’t yet ready to approach Phil; at least one major task remained to be accomplished. But I needed reliable, discrete assistance.

  I didn’t know how to reach Sir Michael Anders directly without giving myself away to the rest of Arentia’s officialdom. But he’d been quite free with the details about his young lady friend Rachel, and I recalled her highborn family from my own youth. I sent a messenger boy to her requesting she forward my confidential request to Anders. It took several days, but eventually he showed up at the pub, dressed like any other tradesman on a day off.

  He sat down next to me at the bar without a glance, and when the bartender moved out of earshot said softly, “You look awful.”

  “That’s because I work for a living,” I murmured back. “We need to talk; meet me out in the barn in ten minutes.” His nod of assent was so slight I barely caught it.

  I paid for my drink and went behind the building to the stable, where Lola stood patiently in her stall. I picked up a brush and stroked her neck and mane while I waited for Anders. He arrived casually, although I knew he’d verified that no one followed him. If I hadn’t been alone, he would have feigned confusion and asked for directions back to the main road.

  He leaned against the door of the stall. “Hey, that’s the same horse you stole in Pema.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you would’ve made horse stew of her by now.”

  “She’s not so bad. Better than some people I know. Excluding present company.”

  “Thanks. So what’s so urgent you had to worry my girlfriend to reach me?”

  I stopped brushing Lola and looked at him seriously. “I need a huge, possibly career-ending favor from you.”

  He didn’t blink. “Like what?”

  “I need to get in and see Rhiannon alone.”

  He chewed his lip for a moment before saying, “I guess you know about her sentence.”

  “Just what I’ve heard second-hand.”

  “The king imprisoned her for life at the main city gate. Her cell is built into the actual wall itself. During the day she has to come out into a cage, sit on a stool and basically take any shit anyone wants to throw at her, symbolic or literal. At night, she’s locked into her chamber. The guards are forbidden to let anyone else near her; even they can’t speak to her except to give instructions. I know them; they won’t bribe, and I’d hate to take them on in a fight.”

  “Can we trick them?”

  He shook his head. “If it were any other prisoner, maybe. Not this one. She’s all they have to worry about.”

  “I have to see her alone, Mike. I can’t tell you any more than that right now, but it’s the only way to get Phil back his son.”

  It took a moment for this to register. He only reacted with his eyes. “The prince is alive?” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “And you know where he is?”

  I nodded again.

  “Then why aren’t we going to get him?”

  “Because he’s safe where he is. If we bring him back here, I have to be sure there won’t be another try on his life. And to be sure, I need to be alone with the queen.”

  Anders nodded. He climbed onto the stall gate and idly swung back and forth, like a thoughtful adolescent. Finally he said, “I outrank them. I can order them to leave their post. It won’t stay secret for long, though.”

  “I don’t need long. Twenty minutes will be enough.”

  He stepped back to the ground. “You’re right, I’d be risking my career to trust you. If you let me down, my new job will be kicking your ass.”

  I grinned. After the sleazy folk I’d met in Cape Querna, working with Anders was like rain on a hot afternoon. “Fair enough.”

  We scheduled our jailhouse visit for the following evening. The next day I entered Arentia City on foot with the rest of the proletariat during the morning rush. I wanted to see Rhiannon’s public punishment for myself.

  The walls around Arentia City dated from a time when their strength meant the very survival of the culture. Fifteen feet thick and thirty feet high, they now served mainly as traffic control, funneling pedestrians and wagons onto the four main thoroughfares. Every few years a city commissioner or busybody noble would suggest either tearing down the old wall or knocking extra gates in it, but nothing ever happened. For one thing, it would mean redesigning all the money, which prominently featured Arentia City’s walled skyline.

  The wall, though, wasn’t a solid barrier. It housed a network of passageways and rooms designed to shelter soldiers under battle conditions. One of these rooms had been remodeled and secured to function as Queen Rhiannon’s permanent prison cell. It contained a cot, a small table and the basics of toiletry, but nothing else was allowed. She could have no comforts or personal belongings at all. Food was delivered through a slot, and dishes passed out the same way. She was issued one candle a month.

  Her cell opened straight out of the wall on the city side. A metal cage bolted to the stone enclosed the doorway and the space in front of it, where a crude stool became her new throne. The exposed sides allowed the citizens an unobstructed view of their fallen queen when, every day, she emerged at dawn to take her place in the cage and endure her public punishment.

  In the time I’d been gone, a cottage industry had sprung up around the queen and her crime. Two books had been rushed through scribing, and there was talk of a major theatrical production. A singer named Stephanie something was packing them in with her song about Rhiannon. An enterprising artist had produced a line-drawing parody of the queen’s official portrait, modified to show a tiny foot hanging from her mouth. He sold this image on flags, tunics and ale mugs.

  Folks working the early shift had made the queen’s morning humiliation part of their breakfast routine. A hundred people had already gathered around the cage by the time I reached it. Some sipped tea and nibbled on toast, others exchanged gossip or greeted old friends. It felt more like a temple social than a public shaming.

  Then a hush spread through the crowd. The metal door inside the cage opened, and Rhiannon emerged from her cell. She was now gaunt and pale, with dark circles under her eyes and hair frayed and ragged with neglect. She wore a dress made entirely of old muslin rags haphazardly sewn together. Her bare feet and legs were dirty. She shuffled to the stool without looking up at the crowd.

  I stayed far enough back that I doubted she’d either spot me, or recognize me if she did. I saw an awful lot of sympathy on the faces of the folks watching, who’d witnessed the gradual breakdown of the once-proud beauty. As far as they knew, she’d committed one of the worst crimes imaginable, but that had happened out of sight, in the great castle that looked down on them. Her slow decay in the cage was front and center every morning, and I doubted anyone could see it day after day
and not feel something.

  Rhiannon settled onto the stool. The frayed dress revealed generous amounts of skin, but there was nothing erotic about it. She was too drained and insubstantial. Finally she looked around at the faces, some of which must have grown familiar. Her eyes shone with either fever or tears. She lowered her head and her posture collapsed as she prepared for the day’s abuse.

  No one spoke at first. Some folks muttered “bitch” and “murderer,” but not loudly enough to be identified. A few walked away in disgust. Had the novelty of tormenting the queen worn off so quickly?

  Then four teenagers, two well-dressed rich boys and their adoring, giggly girlfriends, wormed their way to the front of the crowd and pressed their faces against the bars. They hooted and laughed at the despondent queen. Rhiannon glanced at them for a moment, then cast her eyes back down.

  “Hey, do you know how a baby is like a grape?” one of the boys loudly asked.

  “They both give a little whiiiiine when you stomp them!” the other boy cackled.

  The girls laughed as well. A few onlookers tittered or glared at the kids, but most of them simply looked elsewhere. No one spoke up for the queen.

  “Hey, you know what’s pink and spits?” one of the girls asked. “A baby in a frying pan!”

  Again they laughed. And still no one chastised them or defended Rhiannon. She sat, head down, hands limp in her lap. My own temper raged at these amoral punks, but I reminded myself that, for them, Rhiannon was guilty of a truly ghastly crime. This was part of her legal punishment. Still, the cruel enjoyment they got from it turned my stomach, and I saw from other faces in the crowd that they felt the same way. But no one stepped forward to do anything. Including me.

  “Come on, this is booooring,” one of the girls said, and pulled at her boyfriend’s arm.

  “No, wait, I got one more,” he said. “Why do you stick a baby in a boiling cauldron feet first? So you can see the look on its face!”

  Satisfied that they’d asserted their moral superiority, they pushed their way through the crowd to the main road and disappeared in the traffic. A ripple of relief passed through the spectators. “Goddam spoiled brats,” one man muttered. “Assholes,” snarled another.

  Rhiannon hadn’t moved. She remained hunched over, small and weak and broken, a shadow of the glamorous prisoner I’d seen only weeks earlier. Her filthy hair hung stringy and loose, where previously it had shimmered like gold.

  Murmuring conversation resumed around her, and the watchers drifted away to their respective jobs. Finally there were too few people for me to hide very well, and I turned to depart. Although we’d only met once, I couldn’t count on her not recognizing me. I couldn’t count on anything about her.

  Movement caught my eye. A tiny bird dropped from its perch on the bars across the top of the cage and hovered for just a moment beside Rhiannon’s slumped form. I couldn’t see if it touched her or not. Then it skittered away back into the sky.

  Rhiannon took a deep breath, and suddenly sat upright. She tossed her unkempt, dirty hair from her face and looked out at the watchers. It was as if somehow the bird had given her a shot of energy, or as the one in my dream had done, taken away a big chunk of her anguish.

  I recalled the birds on her windowsill in the prison tower the day I met her. Had they been the same kind? The same birds that lurked around Epona Gray’s cottage?

  I discreetly hung around the area for the rest of the morning and watched the other watchers. Most people simply ignored Rhiannon, and she paid them no mind. She occasionally looked around or changed position, but most of the time she just sat, head down, immobile.

  The resemblance to Epona Gray had been strong before, but now it was uncanny. Rhiannon had lost so much weight that her once-show-stopping curves had straightened into angular lines, and the occasional ragged cough spoke of potential illness. Like Epona, she was dying. Unlike Epona, I might be in time to help.

  When a summer storm hit shortly after lunch she sought no shelter, but remained on her stool as the rain beat down. I gathered it was the closest thing to a bath she got. As I watched from beneath a shop awning, she cupped her hands and drank the collected water. She raised her face to the sky, eyes closed, and let the rain pummel her. In the gray light she looked blood-drained and colorless.

  My thoughts turned to Phil, ensconced in his luxurious castle. I didn’t have to see him to know his condition. He was in agony as well, knowing his wife and child were suffering and unable to do anything to help them, except trust me. Trust the guy who’d caused his sister’s death.

  I had a theory that explained how the woman in the cage could be both Epona Gray and Rhiannon. If I was right, I was a goddamned genius. If not, then it was a cold, heartless universe and I didn’t want to live in it anymore.

  Thunder boomed overhead. Rhiannon flinched.

  I would know soon.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Fifteen minutes,” Anders said.

  “We talked about twenty.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s an imperfect world.”

  He pressed the key to Rhiannon’s cell into my hand. Then he went to wait at the guard station where, moments earlier, he’d dismissed the two men on duty. They had not been happy about it, and left with promises to go straight to their division commander. Those lost five minutes were probably a measure of how upset they were.

  The room inside the wall had originally been a siege armory, and the old weapon racks remained, rusted and empty. A bunk allowed one guard to sleep while the other remained on duty. A table bore evidence of a recent card game. And at one end of the room, a new wall closed off what was now the queen’s chamber.

  Except for the narrow meal slot, the inner cell door had not been opened since Rhiannon was first incarcerated. The key took some real effort to turn in the lock, and the bolt mechanism scraped like a frying cat. The lamp from the antechamber threw a shaft of yellow light through the opening.

  Awakened by the noise, Rhiannon sat on the edge of her bed and clutched the blanket around her. Her ragged clothes, still damp from the rain, lay neatly across the table. “Who are you?” she gasped, fear in her voice. “Please, no one’s supposed to be in here.”

  “That’s true,” I said as I lit a candle. “Not even you.” The room smelled of sweat and dirt, a damp odor that invoked the creepy feel of mold and fungus. I held up the light so she could see my face.

  “Mr. LaCrosse,” she said blankly.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” I said as I put the candle on the table. I grabbed the blanket and yanked it away from her; the thin fabric ripped as she tried to protect her modesty.

  “No, please!” she gasped, pitiful and helpless. She wrapped her arms around her emaciated torso and pressed her legs together. “This isn’t right, you shouldn’t do this,” she said without looking at me.

  I pushed her back on the cot, held her down with one hand over her mouth and used my knee to part her legs. She screamed, but it was so thin and muffled no one outside the room could’ve heard it. She had no strength to fight, but she thrashed and struggled as best she could.

  I lifted her left leg to see her inner thigh in the candlelight. And there it was: the same horseshoe scar as Epona Gray. I’d touched her, so I knew she was tangible; and now that I’d confirmed the scar, I knew a lot more. I released her, climbed off the bed and tossed the blanket back at her.

  She wrapped herself in it and huddled back against the wall. “Why did you stop?” she spat. “Was I too dirty? Now that I’m just a common prisoner, I don’t even rate your brutality? Is that it?”

  I couldn’t look at her. My voice was very quiet when I said, “I needed to satisfy myself about something. Now I have.”

  Her fury, though, was just getting started. “You still think I’m lying about my amnesia, don’t you? Well, look around you. Would I lie just so I could be kept here for the rest of my life? What secret could be worse than this?” She tied the blanket under her arms and got to her feet. �
�You said you were Philip’s friend. That meant you were supposed to be mine, too, because he loved me then! Where were you when he was condemning me?”

  I faced her. “You didn’t kill your son. I know it, I can prove it, and even more, I know exactly where he is.”

  She did not react for a long moment. Finally, in a tiny voice, she asked, “Where?”

  “I’ll get to that. First I need you to do something that’s going to seem kind of strange, but if you don’t, you and anyone you care about will never be truly safe.” I reached into my pocket and brought out the small opaque jar I’d claimed at the Dwarf’s house to hold my souvenir. I opened the top. “Hold out your hands. And it’s pretty disgusting, so be ready.”

  I poured the contents into her cupped palms. She jumped, but didn’t drop it. She turned slowly toward the candle, as if more light would make it less repulsive. “What is it?”

  “It’s a heart.”

  She looked at me, eyes wide inside their dark circles. “A human heart?” she whispered.

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  At least it had been once, when a rough-hewn sailor washed ashore on a beach five centuries earlier. And when I’d attacked the Dwarf in his little sanctuary, pinned him with my weight and used my knife to carve the organ from his chest, deep down I truly thought it would turn out to be a normal human heart. Certainly the hot blood that spewed from him seemed mortal, as did his terrified screams for help. Thanks to his overconfidence, though, there was no one in the house to hear them.

  But it wasn’t until I held the bloody thing in my hand and stood up that I realized the full extent of Epona’s curse. Five hundred years earlier she’d doomed him to a life of unending pain and torment; that meant that even though I’d removed his most essential living organ, he would not die. He writhed on the floor, experiencing every moment of the agony that would’ve long ago killed anyone else. The sounds he made barely qualified as human.