Durro pounded at the door with his fist and gruffly hailed those within. The door creaked on its hinges and swung open. Beyond the door, a raised portcullis hung suspended, like wolf's teeth ready to snap shut. Kal and Gwyn were bundled inside and prodded through a guardroom that was milling with armed men, who snapped to attention at the sight of the woman. They came to another heavy door set into the opposite side of the ramparts, the inner side. It stood open. The two were pushed through it and found themselves staring up at a huge bastion, far taller and larger than the towers set into the curtain wall. To the left and the right, Kal saw protected within the walls a town bustling with market stalls and shops.
The imposing structure before them was circled by a moat, over which a drawbridge had been lowered, leading to yet another gateway, one even more imposing and well-protected than the postern gate. They crossed the drawbridge into the citadel itself, to an open chamber lit by torches that gave onto flights of stairs leading both up and down.
"They're yours now," Bethsefra said to Durro. "You know what to do." Without a further word, she departed, bounding up stone steps two at a time towards the upper reaches of the citadel. Kal wanted to shout after her but knew it was pointless. She was gone.
"Time to show you where we entertain spies," said Durro mirthlessly. He plucked up an unlit torch from a pile in a box on the floor and reached up to touch it to one burning in a sconce fastened to bleak, smoke-stained walls. His torch kindled to life in a bright gush of flame. The lieutenant and one of his men turned towards the stairs and began to descend the steps. Lomric lifted a torch to light it as well, then turned to Kal and Gwyn.
"This way, guests. This way to your new quarters," he said with a sweeping gesture, then pushed the Holdsmen stumbling after Durro.
The stairs uncoiled into the rock beneath the citadel. Here and there, branching passages broke the monotony of their descent, and from some of these there blew fresh salt-laden breezes, fluttering the flames of the torches. Kal thought he saw a new glimmer of light filtering through to them from below, beyond Durro and his torch. The light grew steadily stronger, until the stairs gave onto a landing. Beyond the level break in their descent, the steps continued down into darkness. Durro led the group from the landing along a broad passageway, the light growing steadily stronger. They entered a large chamber, a brazier in its centre, where an armed guard warmed himself against the coolness of the stone room. The flames in the brazier wavered and danced in the steady draught of a sea breeze that blew into the chamber from a row of bright and generous openings. Kal blinked at the light. Along the far end of the chamber ran a wall of heavy iron bars partitioned by further grillwork into small cells. In each cell, an opening set chest-high in the thick outer wall was fixed with iron bars. At one end of the cell block, the lone occupant of the prison, an old man, cackled and made a rude noise.
The gaoler stood from the fire and shouted at the prisoner, "Shut up, you old fool!"
"Naughty! Naughty!" The old man waggled his finger at Kal and Gwyn, and began to cackle loudly again, leaning through the bars of his cell.
"I said shut up!" the gaoler yelled, then approached Durro, the old prisoner still clucking and mumbling. "Sorry, sir."
"He's in again?"
"Yessir."
"Stealing again?"
"Aye, picking pockets. Didn't fare well at it, mind. Naught but a few coins. Can't say as he's much of a thief—"
"Needed to buy meat for my children, Cap'n, hmm-hmm, meat for my children," the old man piped up. A broad grin revealed a few half-decayed teeth and a tongue moving wormlike behind pink gums.
The gaoler spun around. "Shut up, you old rotter!"
"Gabaro, hold your tongue," the lieutenant said in a level voice, "or you'll find yourself moved down."
The old prisoner retreated to the back of the cell at the threat and continued to mutter to himself while he eyed the soldier warily. The lieutenant ignored the old man and indicated the two Holdsmen.
"These are captives of her ladyship," he said. "They're to be held here for questioning. I leave them in your charge. Mind them carefully, or it will be your hide to pay."
"Y-yessir," the gaoler stammered. "Right in here, sir." The gaoler fumbled with a large ring of iron keys that jangled loudly in the hollow chamber until he found the one he sought. He stepped to a cell in the middle of the row, fit the key into a heavy lock, and swung the door open. The two Holdsmen were jostled into the cage. There was dry, though musty, straw on the floor, but, other than that, the cell was empty. The door clanged shut behind them. The lieutenant grunted his approval and strode out of the chamber, followed by his men.
At his departure, the old prisoner muttered a stream of half-audible imprecations and began to cackle again. He was silenced by a long glance from the gaoler as he crossed the chamber and returned with a badly dented basin. He pressed the pan through the bars of the Holdsmen's cell and let it fall clattering to the stone floor.
"Mind you don't foul the cell. I like it clean. Use the pan. Dump it out the window." The gaoler turned back to his brazier, sat on a stool, and took up a small block of wood that he had been whittling. Gwyn looked at him with curiosity, but the gaoler ignored both the Holdsmen and the old man, who had taken up a muted conversation with himself.
Any thought of escape that Kal had entertained vanished as he stepped to the window and leaned over its deep ledge, soiled from the activity of the cell's previous occupants. Pressing his head between iron bars set in crumbling masonry, Kal discovered that the window was cut into the sheer walls of the cliff face, falling hundreds of feet to where the surf broke against a jumble of rocks. Above him, the cliff stretched up until it met the curtain wall of the town. He could not see the citadel itself, as it was set back inside the walls.
He looked out into Swanskeld Sound, framed by the long white cliffs that swept away from the window like outstretched arms to welcome and embrace the Cerulean Ocean and the horizon beyond, blue on blue. The sky was clear. Kal filled his lungs with the sea breeze and savoured its freshness. His mind, however, laboured under the burden of their situation—they were held captive in a strange country, with little prospect of attaining their liberty, judging from the disposition of her ladyship and her men; Galli was lost and possibly drowned; his people were abandoned to the fickle mercies of fate and fortune; and hope of fulfilling his greater purpose was, at the very best, faint.
Kal sighed heavily and closed his eyes against the beauty of the scene before him. Unbidden, words drifted to his mind—soft, measured phrases. He began to speak to himself, quietly, in the rhythm of his breathing: "Though these works of thine wax old, thou art ever the same, and thy years shall not fail, from generation unto generation . . . ." As quickly as a summer zephyr falls still, the words ended, drifting into silence. Though the words had brought with them a calm that blunted the edge of his distress, he still felt unsettled and anxious. Kal sighed again and turned away from the window.
Across the cell from him, his back to the iron grille of the door, Gwyn sat on his haunches plaiting straws into an intricate pattern. His face was clear and open and his eyes focused on his task. As if sensing Kal watching him, the mute Holdsman looked up over his handiwork and met Kal's gaze.
"We're in a tight spot now, Gwyn. A very tight spot, indeed."
His companion shrugged almost dismissively and returned his attention to his work, fingers flicking and bending the yellow stalks.
"What? You don't believe we're through? Come now, Gwyn. Check the lock. We're in a prison. Held here for—"
Again Gwyn shrugged his shoulders, then gently shook his head and looked up at his friend. His eyes were intense and sad. It was as if he was chiding his companion. Yet beneath the chastening gaze was a peace, a serenity, that shook Kal.
"You know something, don't you, lad? Though how you know it . . . Well." Kal chuckled to himself. "Ah, Gwyn, I should pay better attention to your humours. You're like a weathercock—you know how the wind
s blow. If I could just learn to read you better. But for now, it seems, the wind blows fair and in our favour!" Gwyn glanced at Kal and half-smiled. Then his hands began to work again at the straw.
Kal chuckled aloud, which attracted the attention of the older inmate and precipitated another round of staccato laughter from the far cell that abated quickly.
"Spies! Spies! Lysak's spies!" hissed the old man. "Seen 'em before. See 'em again. Hmm-hmm, spies." He glared at the two Holdsmen through rheumy eyes, then retreated to the shadows in the far corner of his cell.
Kal glanced at the gaoler. The man had stirred up the fire in the brazier and now sat on the stool, legs spread wide apart, elbows on his knees, with his head lolling on his chest. The man had assumed what was obviously a well-practiced posture of sleep.
"Gabaro . . . ," Kal whispered hoarsely, looking back at the bent figure huddled against the far wall of the chamber.
"Spies, spies, spies . . . ," came the voice thinly from the shadows.
Kal glanced again at the sleeping gaoler. "Gabaro!" He dared to raise his voice. "I know you can hear me. I would talk with you."
The slight form of the man pressed itself again into the light. Knobbled hands, knuckles swollen and deformed by age, clutched loosely at the iron bars. Thin white hair stood out wild in all directions, the stubble on his cheeks and chin bristled, and he glared at Kal through red-rimmed eyes. He began to shake. It looked to Kal as though he would explode in anger and begin yelling at the top of his lungs. Kal glanced again at the guard, who remained in a stupor, oblivious. But then the old prisoner whispered in a voice barely audible, "Spies, spies, spies. Won't talk to spies. No, won't talk." He fell still and silent for a moment, before he made a rude noise again and burst into his hysterical cackling.
Kal turned away from him and sighed. "It's of no use, Gwyn. He's mad. Completely out of his mind."
The mute Holdsman looked up at his companion, then slowly stood and faced the old prisoner, fixing him with a level stare. As he met the young man's gaze, Gabaro's eyes widened and he froze. Kal, too, stared wide-eyed from the young Holdsman to the old prisoner, marveling at the effect the one had had on the other. Then, recovering himself, he cleared his throat.
"Gabaro." The old man blinked at the sound of his name and seemed to relax somewhat. Kal continued, "I am Kalaquinn, and this is Gwyn, and we are not spies—"
"Gwyn, Gwyn, Kalaquinn!" the old man sang quietly.
"Yes, Gabaro. Kalaquinn and Gwyn." Kal pointed from himself to his companion. "Who is Lysak? We are accused of being his spies, but who is he?"
"Spies, not spies . . . Aye," Gabaro fluted, then fixed his rheumy eyes on Kal. "Lysak. Bad man, a bad man. Son of Torras. Of Melderenys . . . Father and son, father and son, father and son . . ."
"Melderenys . . . It's the seaholding north of the Oakapple Isles, where we are," Kal said in response to Gwyn's questioning look. "They're the two Arvonian seaholdings, in the Arvonian Sea. What does Lysak want?" Kal addressed the old man again.
"Father and son, father and son . . ." Gabaro grinned. "The father wants the father, the son wants the daughter!" He cackled. "Hmm-hmm, son wants the daughter!"
"The father?"
"Torras, hmm." Gabaro nodded as if his head were too loosely fixed to his neck.
"Wants the father?"
"Hmm, wants Uferian's house . . . Hmm, his house . . ." The old man continued to nod.
"And Torras's son, Lysak—"
"Wants to house the daughter, hmm, yes, to house the daughter!" He laughed shrilly.
"Bethsefra . . . Are you saying—" Kal tried to gain Gabaro's attention again. "Are you saying that the king of Melderenys has designs upon the rule of the Oakapple Isles, upon Uferian's throne?"
"The Isles, the Isles . . . Spies, Gwyn, Gwyn, Kalaquinn, always spies, spies . . ."
Kal sighed wearily. He felt as though he were swimming against a strong current and decided to take a different tack.
"Gabaro, you've seen spies?"
"Hmm-hmm, spies."
"From Melderenys? From Torras? Lysak?"
"Hmm-hmm, spies."
"You've seen them here? In the prison?"
"They come. Cap'n brings 'em. Hmm, spies come. Then he takes 'em down . . ." Fear had coloured the old man's tone.
"Down? The soldier said you'd be moved down—"
"Hmm, down." Gabaro's eyes darted here and there, and the man seemed to look paler. "Down, down, Gwyn, Gwyn, Kalaquinn. Listen and you can hear 'em . . . the cries, hmm, the cries . . . Spies, spies, spies—but, shhh!" He held a crooked finger to his thin lips, then whispered hoarsely, "He wakes! Shhh!" With that, he retreated again to the back of his cell, muttering to himself.
The gaoler stirred on the stool, stretched and stood, then stirred the coals in the brazier with a poker and went to fetch fuel from a box by the inner wall of the chamber. Kal nodded to Gwyn and silently returned to the window. He stared blankly out to where the wind lifted the surface of the Sound into whitecaps, pondering the fragmented information he had gleaned from the crazed man.
The day slipped away as the patch of sunlight from the barred opening slid across the stone floor. The gaoler left once for several minutes and returned with a flagon of weak, sour wine and a small loaf of heavy black bread, which Gwyn tore in half and Kal picked at with disinterest.
As the horizon purpled into evening and the light from the brazier grew more noticeable, Kal heard the sound of footsteps from the passage leading to the prison. A flickering light grew, until he could see a group of men led by the thick figure of the lieutenant.
"Guard!" the lieutenant barked even as the gaoler leapt to his feet at the party's approach. "Here's another. Mind him, he's a scrapper."
In the lieutenant's wake strode Galli. His hands were bound behind his back, but he held his blond head high, in obvious defiance. His left eye was swollen shut and shadowed by a bruise, and blood trickled from a split and bloated lip.
"Galli!" Kal yelped. Gwyn jumped up and stood beside him at the door to the cell.
"So, you know him," the lieutenant said, glaring at Kal. "I thought you might—not with them!" he yelled at the gaoler, who had made shift to open the door to the Holdsmen's cell. "Over there. That one." He pointed to a cell one removed from Kal and Gwyn's, to which the gaoler scurried. Fumblingly, the gaoler found the key and swung the door open then closed behind Galli.
The lieutenant stepped in front of Kal's cell and fixed him with a steely stare. The torch's flames licked the air above his head. Something flashed in his hand, and his mouth spread in an unkind grin. He flicked his thumb. A silver coin spun through the bars and rang on the stone floor.
"No one carries one of these in their pocket, unless they are in the pocket of Ferabek. As Torras and Lysak are. As Lysak's men are. As all Melderenysian spies are . . . ." He left the implication hanging in the air as he turned on his heel, snapped his fingers for his men to follow, and strode out.
Kal bent, picked up the coin, and ran his thumb over it. Ferabek's face scowled from its stamped surface.
"It's a Gharssûlian groat," he said. "Is it the one we found outside Owlpen Castle? The one Wilum took—?"
"Aye. And the one I took from Wilum's pocket after he had died," Galli said, looking over at Kal, his head hung in shame. "I took it. It was a token, a reminder to me of why I had to keep on fighting. And why I could not give in to despair. Now it seems to have betrayed us, as all things having to do with the Boar will—betray." Galli pushed himself away from the iron bars and slumped against the stone wall. "I'm sorry, Kal."
Kal fingered the coin. He nodded his head slowly, as if in understanding, and fell into a brooding silence.
Twenty
Moonlight had silvered the seascape outside and pooled on the floor of the cell when Kal left the window and looked at the gaoler by the brazier. He slept again, sitting astride his stool in profile to Kal, his chin on his chest. Gwyn slept as well, as did the old prisoner, noisily snoring and mu
mbling in his sleep. Two cells away, however, Galli stood at his window, peering out into the soft night.
"Galli," Kal whispered softly. The broad silhouette of his friend lifted its head and turned to look in his direction. Galli left his window and leaned through the bars of his cell, his face shrouded in shadows.
"I'm really glad to see you alive," Kal whispered again, then tapped an iron bar with his palm. "Even if it's under these circumstances. How did you survive?"
"I'm sorry about the coin, Kal. I should have realized it was stupid to carry it."
"How would you know? Don't worry yourself, Galli. I don't think it makes a great difference anyhow. Even without the coin, they reckon us spies. They all seem to be decided on that point." Kal cast a glance at the gaoler again. The man hadn't moved. "But it's not over yet. There's always hope, eh? That's what's kept us going so far. But how did you manage to survive the storm?"
"It was terrible, Kal. I've never seen anything like it. The wind came up out of nowhere, the Ellyn's bucking, and you're unconscious, lying in the bottom of the boat . . ." Galli shook his head slowly. "Gwyn and I did what we could—cut the rigging, lost the sail, and tried to keep the wind to stern. The storm drove us hard, hard and fast all night. I thought I heard the roar of surf at one point, and that's when you and Gwyn were swept over, when the Ellyn broke apart. I managed to grab a loose line and cling to the wreckage. Most of the bow was still holding together. I got washed up on shore just as dawn broke, and ran into the forest until I was sure it was clear. I was salvaging what I could of our gear, but they found me and caught me. Must have been watching me for a while. They took me by surprise. But not without a fight." Galli's hand instinctively touched his swollen eye, and he winced despite himself.
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