by Lian Tanner
The maidservant bobbed again. “He’s looking better, Your Highness. He was very cold a while ago, but we put some more wood in the stove and he’s warmed up nicely. And the wound is clean.”
Harmut, the young margrave of Spit, was asleep in his father’s four-poster bed, his head bandaged and the quilts piled to his chin. The stove in the corner of the room gave out a sultry heat.
Frisia peered down at her friend. The maidservant was right; he was looking a lot better. Still, head wounds could be dangerous things. Frisia’s great-uncle Rulf had ended his days a drooling idiot as the result of such a wound.
There was a creak from the four-poster and Harmut rolled onto his side. “Gold,” he mumbled.
“What?” said Frisia. She pushed her scabbard out of the way and sat down on the bed. “Harmut, are you awake?”
The boy’s eyes snapped open. “Frisia? What are you doing here?”
“Were you dreaming of gold?”
“Was I dreaming? I suppose I must have been. Everything was—strange.”
“There’ll be plenty of gold when we beat Graf von Nagel,” said Frisia. “According to our spies, his war chests are bursting. I’ll ask Father to let you have third choice of the treasure after him and me, if you like. That is if you’re still coming to Halt-Bern with us tomorrow.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Harmut moved again and winced. His fingers fumbled out from beneath the quilts and found the bandage. He blinked in confusion. “What’s wrong with my head?”
“You were—” Frisia broke off. Some of the fog had crept into her mind, and for a second or two she had the oddest feeling, almost like a voice speaking inside her.…
(What am I doing here? A castle? What am I doing in a castle?)
Then the fog drew back a little and she said, “You were wounded during sword practice yesterday.”
“Who hit me?”
“I don’t know. We were fighting in a melee with Ser Wilm and my bodyguards. I heard a clang, and you fell”—(in the water)—“in the training yard.”
Why was she thinking about water? Why did she suddenly have this voice in her head? (Cold water … Icy water, lapping at my throat…)
She shook herself. It was probably just nerves. She had been trained in the art of war since the day she learned to walk and had been in several minor battles, but this would be her first proper campaign.
“Are you still going to Halt-Bern?” said Harmut.
Frisia stared at him in astonishment. “Of course I am. Why would I stay behind?”
“I don’t know. I just thought—”
Frisia felt a surge of anger. “You thought what?” She jumped to her feet. “That I’d become a coward since you saw me last?”
“No. But I thought—I thought I remembered you saying Never …” His voice trailed off.
“Nothing would stop me from going!” said Frisia fiercely. “I am the daughter of warriors and the granddaughter of warriors, and it is my destiny to see von Nagel beaten. And when he is dead and the crows have stripped the flesh from his carcass, I will bring his skull back to Merne. It will make a nice spittoon for Father.”
Harmut sniffed. “Ha! Bold words.”
“And they’ll be matched by bold deeds.”
The two of them glowered at each other. Frisia had been intending to show him the paper in her coin pocket, but now she changed her mind.
“Harmut?” said a voice from the doorway. A small dark-haired girl in a nightgown blinked sleepily at them. “Are you better?”
“Hello, Uschi,” said Frisia. “I’m afraid your brother has lost some of his sense.”
“I’ve got enough left to fight von Nagel,” muttered Harmut.
Another maidservant appeared behind Uschi, fluttering her hands anxiously. “The young margravine should not be visiting people in her nightwear.”
“It’s not people,” said Uschi. “It’s my brother.” She dodged the hands of the maidservant and sat down on Harmut’s bed. “I’m glad you’re awake. I wanted to ask you about the voyage to Halt-Bern. Do you think I should take my second-best bow as well as my best one? I don’t want—”
Harmut fell back onto his pillow with a groan. “How many times do I have to tell you, Usch? You’re not going. You’re too little.”
“Harmut doesn’t think anyone else should go,” said Frisia nastily. “He wants to beat von Nagel all by himself and come home a big hero.”
“That’s not what I said,” muttered Harmut. “I just thought—” He closed his eyes. “My head hurts.”
The first maidservant bustled to his bedside. “The young margrave should try to sleep a little more,” she said, straightening the covers.
Frisia pulled a face and walked out of the room. Uschi followed, saying, “What are you doing now? Where are you going? Can I come with you?”
“You’ll have to get dressed first.”
“Wait here,” said Uschi. “Don’t go without me.” And she disappeared into her bedchamber.
Frisia leaned against the wall, kicking at the heavy tapestry with the heel of her shoe. How dare Harmut say such things to her? What could possibly stop her from going to Halt-Bern? It was her destiny.…
The word echoed in her mind—almost as if she had been in this position before, in another time and place. Knowing that she had been born for something important. Only the last time—was it possible?—she had turned her back on it.
She was glad when Uschi came out, dressed in tunic and hose, with a dagger in her belt. Frisia took the scrap of paper from her pocket and flattened it out. “Look at this. Someone pushed it under my door a little while ago.”
Uschi wrinkled her forehead. “It looks like mouse scratchings. What’s it supposed to be?”
“It’s a drawing of the dungeons, I think. See, that’s the passage, and there are the cells. Shall we go and find out what it’s about?”
The two girls hurried down the main staircase to the Memorial Hall of Frisia’s great grandfather, Ferdrek III. From there, they slipped through the concealed door that led to the kitchens and saucing rooms. The lower floors of the castle had been awake for some time, and the smell of bacon and pickled herring wafted out to meet them.
As they passed from the saucing rooms into the cellars, Frisia loosened her sword in its scabbard. Immediately, deep inside her, she felt the rising snarl of the royal wolf-sark—the battle madness that flared up whenever a king or queen or princess of Merne unsheathed a weapon.
She pushed it back down. She did not think there was any real danger here. The sword was just for caution.
“Do Kord and Smutz know you’re down here?” whispered Uschi. “Did you show them the note?”
“Of course not. They’d just say it was a ruse to get me out of my room. They’d want to come with me.”
“Well, I suppose that’s what bodyguards are for.”
Frisia pulled a face in the darkness. “I can look after myself.”
“And besides, you’ve got me,” whispered Uschi.
In the far wall of the cellar, the iron door that led to the dungeon stood ajar. Frisia could see a faint glow through the gap. “Who’s there?” she called softly. “Show yourself.”
No one appeared, but she heard a whisper, “Don’t you go. What if she’s not alone? What if she’s brought them with her?”
“We’ll go, we’ll tell her,” said another voice.
“He’s not listening,” said a third voice. “Wilm, dearie, why won’t you listen to us?”
Frisia grinned at Uschi and the two girls stepped through the door into the middle of a crowd of small, plump women. When they saw the princess, the women made quick curtsies. The hems of their aprons whispered against the floor. Their white linen caps bobbed up and down like daisies in a field.
Beyond the women stood a slim young man of about twenty years old, dressed in the overtunic of a knight of Merne and holding a wax taper. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and he was bowing deeply.
“Ser Wilm,”
said Frisia. “Was it you who sent the drawing?”
She did not expect him to answer. He had taken a vow of silence, and his servants, who had raised him from childhood and loved him dearly, always spoke for him.
“Your Highness,” said one of them. “We did not know if you would come.”
“We thought you might bring nasty Kord,” said another. “Or Smutz, the big lump.”
Uschi laughed. Frisia said, “It is just me and the young margravine, as you can see. Tell us what has happened.”
Ser Wilm beckoned them toward the crumbling passage that led to the dungeons.
“He wants to show you,” said one of the servants. “Is that wise, Wilm dearie? Be careful.”
The young knight rolled his eyes at Frisia. “But what has happened?” she said as she followed him down the stone-lined passage.
“Didn’t we tell you, Your Highness?” said a servant, scurrying to catch up. “It’s the duchess. She’s been locked up.”
“What?” said Frisia. “But she’s the ambassador-in-exile from Halt-Bern. The king would never dishonor her by locking her up!”
“It was not the king,” muttered another servant darkly. “He is a good man. Hard, but good. He asked us to tell his fate last week, and he paid us for it, which he had no need to do. We think he does not know about the duchess.”
“So who did lock her up?” said Uschi.
“Two men came and took her during the night. We were afraid they would take us too, so we hid in the linen cupboard and did not see their faces. We heard the duchess kicking and scratching, and the men swearing at her. She nearly took one of their eyes out.”
The servants tittered in unison.
Frisia hadn’t been to the dungeons for years, and she had forgotten how grim and silent they were. The ceiling of the guardroom was so low that Ser Wilm’s head brushed against it. Most of the cell doors were open, but one was closed and bolted, with an enormous padlock on it.
“Give me the light,” said Frisia. Ser Wilm handed her the taper, and she held it up to the barred window. At first she could see nothing. Then, in the depths of the cell, something moved.
“Is it her?” whispered Uschi.
“Duchess!” cried Frisia. “Duchess Orla!”
There was a waft of stale air, and a bundle of black rags rose from the floor and stalked toward the window. Yellow eyes glared at Frisia from above a beaklike nose. The duchess’s fingerless black lace gloves gripped the window bars. The iron fetters on her wrists rattled.
Something in Frisia’s stomach turned over at the sound. (Chains. I hate chains.…)
“Have you come to laaaaugh at Orla?” croaked the old lady. “To poke at me as if I were a caaaged beast?”
“No,” said Frisia quickly. “We’ve come to get you out.”
There was no sign of the key that would open the cell door. Frisia handed the taper to Uschi, then set to work on the padlock with her knife and wire.
The younger girl peered, fascinated, over her shoulder. “Where did you learn to do that?”
The question rang inside Frisia’s head like a sword hitting a breastplate. Her fingers faltered. “I—I don’t know. I suppose someone taught me.… ”
She stared at the bent wire, searching for an answer. She could remember who had taught her how to fight with a sword and shoot with a bow. And how to lead men into battle even though she was so much younger than them and less than half their size. So why couldn’t she remember who had taught her to pick a lock?
“Are you going to stand there all niiiiight, Princess?” croaked the duchess.
“Sorry,” said Frisia, and she bent to the padlock again.
Within minutes the door was open and the duchess was dragging her chains out into the guardroom. Uschi took a step backward. The light from the taper flickered on the clammy walls.
“Undo meeee,” croaked the duchess, holding out her bony hands. (Like claws. Like birds’ claws.)
The fetters were harder to open than the padlock, and Frisia’s fingers were slippery with sweat. She beckoned to one of Ser Wilm’s servants. “You will have to hold the knife steady for me.”
The woman’s eyes widened and she backed away. “Pardon me, Highness. I cannot.”
“Do not worry, smaaaall creature,” croaked the duchess. “I prefer my food dead.”
“But how does it get dead?” whispered the servant. “That’s the question, Duchess.”
“Look,” said Frisia impatiently, “she’s not going to eat you, is she?”
Once again the words rang inside her head, as if they were not as absurd as they should have been. The duchess cackled with laughter. The white-capped women whispered to each other in frightened voices. When Ser Wilm stepped forward, they did their best to stop him, but he gently pushed them out of the way.
He wasn’t at all afraid. He smiled at the duchess in his usual cheerful manner, then took the knife from Frisia’s hand and held it in place while she picked the lock.
The fetters fell to the floor with a clang. The ambassador-in-exile stretched her bony arms wide and flapped them up and down to get the blood flowing. “Aaaah, that’s better,” she said. “Now, Princess. Taaaake me to your faaather.”
“We had better go to my apartment first,” said Frisia, “so you can wash. Then we’ll go to the king.”
The duchess set off up the passage with her black sleeves billowing. Frisia, Uschi, Ser Wilm and his servants hurried after her.
“Do you think everyone in Halt-Bern talks like that?” whispered Uschi, as they emerged into the Memorial Hall. “ ‘Taaaake me to your faaather.’ ”
“Shhh,” whispered Frisia.
The little party was halfWay up the Grand Staircase when something fell from the duchess’s hand. The princess bent to pick it up. When she saw what it was, she almost dropped it again. (A black feather…)
No. No, it wasn’t. It was merely one of the old lady’s lacy gloves. And yet, Frisia could have sworn …
For a moment she had the peculiar feeling that there were two people inside her body, instead of one. “Duchess,” she said, swallowing. “Here. You dropped your glove.”
They hurried past the stone wolves and drew up at last in front of Frisia’s door. Her bodyguards had still not arrived at their station, and there was a flash of white under the door that hadn’t been there earlier.
One of Ser Wilm’s servants fell to her knees. “Look, Highness. Someone has put a sheet under your door.”
It was not a sheet, Frisia could see that straightaway. It was a glass-cloth, of the sort that was used to clean crystal. There were several of them, stuffed along the bottom of her door, filling the gap, so that light could not get in or out.
Deep inside her, a half-remembered conversation swam to the surface. (“Light—or air. Poisoned air …”)
The duchess jabbed at the keyhole with her bony hand. “This has been filled tooooo.”
(Poisoned air … Shivers! Assassins!)
Assassins? A chill ran through Frisia. “The king!” she cried.
Without waiting to see if the others would follow, she began to run. She heard the scrape of Ser Wilm’s sword behind her. She turned the corner toward her father’s apartments—and almost fell over two of the royal guards, lying full-length on the floor, sound asleep and snoring loudly.
She dropped her fur robe and leaped over the guards. The door of the Presence Chamber was wide open, and she raced through it, past the enormous throne to the double doors at the far end that led to the King’s Gallery. There, another two guards lay on the floor, their helmets crooked, their eyes closed.
“Assassins!” cried Frisia. “Beware assassins! Guards!”
There was an answering shout, and Frisia’s bodyguards, Kord and Smutz, raced around the corner. But to the princess’s horror there was no sign of the other guards who should have come.
“Duchess!” she cried. “Rouse the castle! The rest of you, with me!”
They ran together down the long g
allery, with the portraits of Frisia’s warlike ancestors glaring at them from both sides. In his eagerness to protect her, Kord crowded against the princess, slowing her down and almost tripping her.
“Out of my way, fool!” she screamed.
Into the Large Withdrawing Room they raced, and out the other end. Through the Library and the Small Withdrawing Room. At each door the men who should have been guarding the king lay sleeping or unconscious.
They reached the Royal Bedchamber and Frisia threw herself against the door. It was locked. “Ser Wilm!”
The young knight ran backward, then launched himself at the door. The lock rattled, but did not give way. He tried again.
(He can’t do it. He’s only a little boy.…)
Frisia shook her head. Where had that thought come from? Of course Ser Wilm wasn’t a little boy! Of course he could do it—
There was a splintering sound and the door flew open. As the princess ripped her sword from its scabbard, the chill inside her became a blaze of heat, surging from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. The wolf-sark roared in her throat! The red mist descended upon her, cutting off all further thought.
With a wild battle cry, she launched herself into the king’s chamber.
A cloud of foul yellow smoke filled the Royal Bedchamber. Frisia stumbled through it, sword in hand, searching for the assassins. The wolf-sark raged like a furnace inside her. The red mist demanded blood. She no longer knew where she was—
The small, clear voice in her head was like an island of sanity. (The king! Hurry!)
Frisia’s hand brushed against something. With a monstrous effort, she dragged her mind clear of the red mist—and recognized the silk hangings that enclosed the king’s bed. She pushed them aside, and there was Father, sprawled under the bedcovers. His eyes were closed and his face was the color of gristle.
(Get him out of here!)
The king was a huge man, and it took Kord, Smutz and Ser Wilm to carry him out of the poisoned bedchamber to the clean air of the library. There they laid him on a daybed under a pile of furs. Frisia knelt beside him, her whole body shaking as the wolf-sark drained out of her.
