Beneath the Keep

by Erika Johansen

“Master!”

  He turned from the window, annoyed. “What is it?”

  “We must go, master. Now.”

  “What?” Thorne demanded. “It hasn’t happened yet. I told you—”

  “Yes, you told me, master.” She hated that she could not show him, could not make him understand how delicately the future balanced. “But we cannot watch. Come, we must go, now!”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “The baby is gone.”

  The master’s face darkened. “What do you mean, gone? I thought you had the Blue Horizon girl.”

  “It’s not her, master.” Brenna peered into the brazier again, but the surface lay undisturbed. There was no help there; she looked up at the master, despairing.

  “It’s the Mace, and he has disappeared. I cannot see him at all.”

  Chapter 36

  IN THE QUIET

  My esteemed colleague, Dr. Kerwin, posits that the Mace was a simple man, needlessly complicated by history. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Mace was neither a villain nor a hero . . . or perhaps he was. Not all heroism is simple, as the Glynn Queen herself would surely attest.

  —Lecture by Michael Arnot, Professor Emeritus of History, University of New London

  The baby would not stop crying.

  It was intolerable. She had stayed asleep on the long journey down the stairway and through the inner workings of the Keep, had even stayed asleep while Christian mounted his horse. But as they rode beneath the moat, a drop of water had landed on her cheek, and then the little brat had been off to the races.

  The tunnels were as wet as ever, their walls slimed with mold that sparkled greenly in the torchlight, the air thick and damp in Christian’s lungs. He had not missed the Creche, but he had forgotten how much it simplified things to know every inch of a place, to feel as though you belonged. He had forgotten how comforting it was.

  The baby screamed right in his ear, and Christian hissed, utterly maddened. The bundle in his arms could not be overpowered or reasoned with. He could not tell her that they were now in the Creche, where babies brought a premium. He could not tell her that silence was crucial. He had tried stopping his horse, even climbing down from the saddle to feed her milk from one of the bottles in the saddlebags, but the baby had knocked the bottle away into the dark, squalling. Christian had begun their journey with a torch, but the baby kept waving her arms, batting at it until Christian was afraid she would bring the flame down on top of them both. Now they rode along in the dim light provided by the occasional lamp on the walls. Christian had planned to light the torch again as soon as the girl fell back asleep, but now he wondered if that moment would ever come. With no light, they were moving very slowly, too slowly to outdistance pursuit. Above them, Mace could hear a distant thunder . . . the rebels on the Keep Lawn. Carroll had said that there were more than seven thousand of them out there: rebels and Blue Horizon.

  Niya should have been with them, Christian thought, feeling a wound tear open inside him. He had left Niya there, left her to shoulder all the blame. If the Guard did not kill her outright, then she would die on the scaffold or in Welwyn Culp’s dungeons. Niya had laid down her life, but Christian did not deceive himself that she had done it for him. Niya’s sacrifice had been for the child in his arms, and so, scream as Kelsea might, Christian could not put her down.

  Gradually, he became aware that they were being followed.

  The footsteps were muffled, first distant and then close, their echoes both magnified and truncated, the way sound always was in the tunnels, nearly indiscernible under the baby’s fury. He could not count the footsteps, but they were only two turnings away from Whore’s Alley, and Alley raiding parties always went out in force. Christian knew this stretch well, right down to its echoes, and he judged that his pursuers were now less than a hundred yards behind. They did not need to slow to track him; the child’s wailing could probably be heard in the Deep Patch. This was not how Christian and Carroll had envisioned it, or even Niya. In all their planning, the baby was never crying.

  What else did we forget? Christian wondered, already feeling the futility of the question, the way it fell like a stone into unfathomable waters, unrecoverable. They were here now. Whatever else they had missed, there was no going back.

  Coming around a corner, he felt a draft of warmer air. The wall had ended, and there was an opening, almost an alcove. Christian guided his horse in, then risked lighting a match. They were in a tiny, rounded room that must have been a guardhouse at one point. Next to the small opening he had come through was a thin sliver of wall, only two meters, not long enough to effectively hide a man, let alone a horse. He would have to fight.

  Tucking the child in one arm, Christian pulled one leg from the stirrup and dropped to the floor. Impossibly, the baby screamed even louder when they had dismounted. Muttering a low curse, Christian lit a torch and set it in the bracket on the wall. Light spilled out into the tunnel, but that was no matter; those after him would have torches of their own. Already his mind had frozen, icing over with the welcome coldness of the fight. He pulled his mace from his belt, swapping the child over so that he could use his right hand, and at the sight of the weapon, the baby fell suddenly and mercifully silent.

  “Lazarusssssss!”

  The voice echoed in the darkness of the tunnel outside, slyly mocking. Christian’s blood went cold.

  Impossible! He could never have gotten down here in time . . . unless—

  “Oh, Lazarussssssss!”

  Unless he knew.

  Thorne emerged from the darkness of the tunnel, the witch beside him. Brenna was hooded, her eyes hidden, but that was somehow worse: seeing only her white mouth, drawn up in a smile.

  “Get back!” Christian snarled, turning to shield the baby.

  “I think not,” Thorne replied. He pushed back the hood of his own cloak, and Mace saw something that pleased him: Thorne was not as comfortable as his mocking tones would indicate. He had rushed to get here; his brow was wet with sweat, and though Christian could not be sure, he thought he saw a gleam of fear in the man’s eyes.

  “It was well conceived,” Thorne told him, drawing his cloak aside to step over the broken wall. “And very nearly well executed. But my Brenna has foiled better-laid plans. The guards took the Blue Horizon bitch easily . . . using tricks you taught them, as it so happens.”

  “What of the rebels up there?” Christian asked, shutting the news about Niya away. “You were supposed to be treating with them.”

  “No need to treat with them,” Thorne replied, a chilly smile crossing his face. “They’re well in hand. The uprising is broken, and so is the Blue Horizon. My only remaining problem is that wailing brat . . . and you.”

  “Come on, then. I’m waiting.”

  “This needn’t be difficult, Lazarus,” Thorne said wearily. “You can’t stand against Brenna; no one can. But nothing yet compels me to use her here. Hand over the Princess, and we can go our separate ways, pretend none of this ever happened.”

  “And what happens to the girl?”

  “What do you care? As I recall, the welfare of children was never high on your list.”

  “What happens?” Christian repeated, ignoring the sting of Thorne’s words. “What will you do? Hollow her out, like Elyssa?”

  “Elyssa.” Thorne smiled gently. “When she took off the jewel, we thought it was the end of everything, and now look at her! If I bought a painted marionette in the Circus, she would not perform half so well!”

  The jewel, Christian thought. Yes, that had been the end of everything for Elyssa . . . and now he understood.

  “You don’t want the baby. You want the sapphire. Why? For the Mort Queen’s bounty?”

  “Ah, Lazarus. You think so small. Hand the little one over, and we can both forget about this moment. I will know you took the baby, and you will k
now I took the baby. We will each of us be safe. Elyssa will seek the child, yes, but Elyssa is malleable. She will not last long, and neither will the girl.”

  Reluctantly, Christian was forced to admit that Thorne was right. They had all known it: Carroll, Christian . . . even Niya, though she fought the knowledge like a cat. The child in Christian’s arms was marked for assassination; even with all the might of the Guard, she would be lucky if she grew old enough to walk. She would certainly never make it to nineteen, to ascension. Thorne would make sure of it.

  Then why? Christian wondered suddenly. Why parley with me here? Why can’t the witch just kill me and take her?

  “Think it through,” Thorne murmured. “We both know these tunnels. Children disappear down here all the time.”

  We played right into his hands, Christian realized. Killing the baby up in the Queen’s Wing was, if not impossible, then at least difficult. But down here . . .

  “Think it through,” Thorne repeated. “No one would ever know.”

  And that was the hell of it: no one would. Whether Kelsea arrived safely or not, no one would know, at least until the girl’s nineteenth birthday . . . and who among them really believed that such a day would come to pass? Deep in his gut, Christian knew that Thorne was right: he could hand the noisy brat over and walk away clean. She would be just another Creche child, one of hundreds and thousands. Another thread in the tapestry. For a moment, Christian truly considered it—even afterward, he could never lie to himself and pretend that he had not—but then he blinked and saw the children in the mirrored room, some of them barely older than the girl in his arms. And on the heels of this image came Carroll’s voice, so close that Christian could almost feel the Captain’s breath in his ear.

  Make no mistake, this is how you will be judged: on what you do in the quiet.

  Thorne moved forward another few inches, holding out his arms. Distantly, Christian noted that he had a knife in his left hand. The knife was no danger to Christian . . . but it wasn’t meant for him.

  “Be a smart lad,” Thorne coaxed. “Give her to me.”

  I could. I could. She’s dead already.

  Perhaps, Christian. But does it have to be you?

  A quiet sound came from beneath his chin. Looking down, Christian found the baby looking up at him, her gaze unblinking and strangely contemplative. Her tiny hand reached up, and Christian saw that she was straining for his mace. Instinctively, he began to jerk it away, and then stopped, for her fascination with the weapon was clearly the only thing keeping her quiet. The mace’s points were sharp but clean of blood. He had never covered them in poison, as some men did with their blades. He could watch her, make sure she didn’t hurt herself. And—

  What are you thinking? Do something!

  “Lazarus? Your answer?”

  This is it, Christian realized. The quiet, the place of judgment. And am I Lazarus, or Christian?

  “No,” he heard himself say. “You won’t have her.”

  “Dearest. Take him.”

  The witch pushed back her hood, locking eyes with Christian. He tucked the girl against him, trying to make his arm into a shield, knowing all the while the futility of it. All the old rumors were true. The witch could kill with a glance, turn a man’s mind inside out and smile while she did it. He would die in the Creche; only as this knowledge tore through him, with unexpected pain, did Christian realize how badly he had wanted to end his life topside. He raised his mace, preparing to make a good fight of it . . . and then something happened that he did not understand.

  He would not understand it for another nineteen years.

  Brenna’s smile slipped. She bit her pale lower lip, glaring at Christian as though she might bore holes into him, her icy eyes wide—

  And nothing happened.

  “No,” Brenna whispered. “Oh, no.”

  “Dearest?” Thorne demanded. “What is it?”

  “Oh, God. He has it. Hidden, both of them . . .”

  “Has what?” Thorne grabbed Brenna, shaking her shoulders. “Has what? Make sense, damn you!”

  “The jewels,” Brenna whispered brokenly. “I cannot fight both of them, not unless I abandon you, master. I can’t fight them both.”

  What is she talking about? Christian wondered. But then he felt it . . . burning, almost searing against his chest. He had forgotten the dreadful scene in the Queen’s bedroom, the way her eyes had stabbed into him. The jewel she had hung around his neck.

  “What is this nonsense?” Thorne snapped. “Take the child!”

  “Master, I cannot.”

  Thorne slapped her, sending her reeling backward toward the wall. Christian darted away, behind Fortune, placing the horse’s solid bulk between himself and Thorne. He expected the baby to begin screaming again at any moment—was shocked, in fact, that she had not done so already—but she merely lay quiet in the crook of Christian’s arm as he skidded across the mold-slimed floor, retreating from Thorne, who had begun to edge around the horse’s flank, knife in hand.

  “Are you Blue Horizon, Lazarus?” Thorne asked. “I can think of no other reason for you to be so stupid. So stubborn.”

  “One needn’t believe in the better world to say no to you, Arlen.” Christian said the name with relish, meaning it as an insult . . . but then he stopped, for his mind had finally made the connection, put two and two together.

  “Arlen,” he repeated. “Yes, I see. Cast off?”

  The shot hit; for a moment Thorne’s mask slipped, revealing much of himself.

  “The past does not concern me, Lazarus. Only the future matters.”

  “Well, at least we agree on that,” Christian replied, gripping his mace in one hand, tightening the other around the girl’s squirming body. “Come on, then. No witches, no special tricks. Just you and me.”

  But Thorne remained still, his eyes assessing, and after a moment Christian smiled.

  “You know I can beat you, don’t you, scarecrow? Even with one hand tied.”

  “Master, please!” the witch moaned from the floor. It occurred to Christian that he might be able to kill Thorne in this moment, with the witch down . . . but to attack him would be to endanger the baby. And Christian would not do that.

  “Master, I’m sorry!” Brenna cried brokenly, beginning to weep. “I love you! I didn’t know!”

  “Shut up,” Thorne told her, and Brenna broke into a storm of weeping, rolling to cover her face, her bleeding nose. Christian found himself stirred by pity. The white woman on the ground did not deserve it, but what could one do but pity her . . . or any woman who loved such a creature as Arlen Thorne?

  “We will find the girl,” Thorne said quietly. “No matter where you take her.”

  “You will try,” Christian replied, and though he meant to say no more, he found his mouth running on without him, as though another man spoke with his voice. “But you will have to come through me. I swear it.”

  “And what is your word worth?” Thorne demanded caustically . . . but beneath the sarcasm, his face had gone pale. The sapphire at Christian’s chest burned and burned.

  “I have watched you, Lazarus, more closely than you know. You have no loyalty . . . unless it be to the Creche itself. You’re a fine figurehead for the tunnels. You know where all of us belong.”

  Bubbles in the ale, Christian thought distantly. Here was another Wigan, another great believer in the hierarchy of the Creche, the natural order; Christian only wondered that he had not seen it from the first. Thorne and Brenna were both Creche babies, likely sold in their first weeks of life, just as Christian had been himself, and they had each learned the great lesson of the tunnels: in a world where brutality was a constant, it was infinitely better to be the one holding the whip. Christian was struck with sorrow for the child Thorne, so long lost . . . but he did not confuse that child with the man who stood before him.<
br />
  “Is this about your whore?”

  Christian’s hand clenched on the mace. Thorne was trying to draw him out, he knew it, and yet the draw was effective, for he moved forward a few inches, his feet scuffling of their own accord.

  “Her name was Maura,” Christian said flatly. “I know it was you who brought her to that place.”

  “And why not? The children needed a nursemaid. All the whore wanted was a steady supply of poppy, and I secured it. Who else had ever done so much for her, Lazarus? Had you?”

  Great God, he means it! Thorne truly believed that he had acted the best part here, and in a flash of understanding, Christian realized that Arlen Thorne was just as dangerous as his witch, perhaps even more so. Brenna, after all, was only an instrument, but a man with Thorne’s lack of conscience could justify anything.

  “You took Maura,” he said stonily. “But you will not have the child, not unless you come through me.”

  Thorne stared at him for another long moment, his eyes burning with sheer hatred, and something more pitiable: an impotent fury. Thorne did not just want the sapphire, Christian realized. He wanted to kill the child. More than that, he needed to kill her.

  Why? Christian wondered again. What has she done?

  And then: What will she do?

  None too gently, Thorne pulled Brenna from the ground. Christian winced as he heard the tendons in the witch’s elbow pop. Thorne got an arm beneath her and began hauling her toward the break in the wall. Christian thought they would simply melt away, but in the end Thorne himself was unable; he paused in the opening, turning his baleful gaze back to Christian.

  “You will regret this, Lazarus. One day I will hold the power of this kingdom in my hands, and I will not forget.”

  “Good. Because I forget nothing either.”

  Thorne glared at him for another moment, and then he and Brenna disappeared through the break. Christian waited several long minutes—he would never know how many—with the child clutched in one hand and his mace in the other, before he came to believe that they were really gone.