"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c14_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)
14
OUT OF THE PRISON PIT, INTO THE FIREPLACE
The ale boy studied his shoes and wondered if he could eat them. The leather made him think of sausages Obsidia Dram had boiled for his supper in Abascar’s Underkeep.
Fainter all the time, he imagined ghosting between the bars, past the guard, and ascending without touching a stair. Slipping into the towerhouse, he’d find a kitchen and fall into the kindness of the dark-haired sisterly, she who had brought him a bread roll, cheese crumbs, and apples neatly sliced on the first day of his confinement. Full and satisfied, he would drift out the front gate, escape the valley of whitegrass, surprise Rumpa, and spirit away to Auralia’s caves. Unless the Keeper deigned to point him to some new task, he would sleep beside a small fire and listen for voices to visit him from the flames.
Anything—even a delusion about shoes made of sausage—was better than worrying about the answers he had given to Ryllion’s interrogation and waiting for more punishing questions.
“A witness.” That’s what Ryllion feared. But a witness to what? The boy could not dispel the soldiers’ suspicion. Days in this muddy pit had given him time to wonder if Ryllion knew his mind better than he did. Maybe he had seen something important out there in the Cragavar. But all he found worth recalling was the sight of young Wynn and little Cortie moving ahead through the trees into the care of Abascar’s guards, who descended from highwatches in the trees near Barnashum. After that there was only the long, lonesome ride through grey lands. If he remained in this prison pit much longer without a meal or warmth, there wouldn’t be anything left in his head for Ryllion to investigate.
Meanwhile the prison guard could find nothing better to do than empty the pockets of his gravy-stained uniform. On a thick woolen mat he had spread across the soil, he scattered a collection of picked-this-up-somewhere and can’t-remember-what-this-is. “Kramm this mud pit,” he muttered. “Dirt walls. Dirt floor. This place needs some heavy work.”
Through the fog of his delusion, the ale boy surveyed the guard’s collection, and before his eyes it was transformed. He saw an array of new inventions sent by Auralia herself. A candle embedded with shell fragments from the flotsam of Deep Lake. A necktie of dried seaweed. Keys carved from prongbull horn. A door knocker—a purple crab shell with a round stone tied between its pinchers.
But when he blinked, they were ordinary objects again—coins, game pieces, a sharpening stone, buttons, the keys to the prisoners’ cages, and a blunt tusk which the guard held up in the red torchlight.
“Can’t wait to show this to my boys,” said the guard.
The ale boy studied him again. The officer seemed too young to be a father—too arrogant to be a good one, anyway. The fellow had a face like a yellow squash and skin wrinkled as if he slept facedown in bathwater. His nose had been broken, and there were spots like bruises under his eyes.
As if sensing the ale boy’s doubt, the guard went on, “My sons have yet to arrive in the world, mind you, but they’ll get here. My lady, Kyntere, back at the sovereign house by the sea, she’s got a brand-new apple that’s ripe and ready to scream.” He patted his belly. “When spring comes, I’ll go back home to my brand-new baby. I got a bet with old Bauris. Told him it’s a boy. Gonna name him Garbal, just like the man who made him. I’ll give him this.” He ogled the tusk as if it were treasure. “Recognize it? Know what it is?”
The beastman ran his pink tongue across his own tusks.
“My lady’s a netter. She nets fish, grease-eels, sea greens, everything. Being loaded with Garbal’s boy hasn’t slowed her down a bit. So here’s the story—she snagged this sea boar by accident one day. It’s a danger. I happened to be standing there. Wrestled that boar down. Took this souvenir. That pretty much settled it.” Garbal sneered garishly. “Maybe I’ll give him one of your tusks instead.”
The beastman laughed, brash and defiant, pacing like a panther. House Abascar’s Gatherers had claimed that some beastmen were smart enough to understand the Common tongue. This prisoner had somehow recognized the heiress, and he had known how to crush her spirit by shouting out a name. Deuneroi. The boy wondered if Auralia’s beastman had ever spoken to her.
“Look at those chompers of yours, you flea-infested freak. You’re part boar, aren’t you?” The guard pocketed the tusk and slapped the knife sheath at his belt. “Shall we cut you open, find out what else you’re made of ? Teeth. Bones. That’s all my boys will ever see of Cent Regus filth. You’re less than human, all those critters mixed up in your blood. When Ryllion’s a captain, we’re gonna clean out the beastman house for good.” He threw a nutshell at the beastman and spoke through a conspiratorial grin. “The Seers are going to help him, he says. He’s going to trick the Cent Regus.”
The beastman dug at the brittle ground with his hind feet like a bull pawing before a charge. Soil sprayed against the back wall.
“The Cent Regus are so blind and stupid that they’ll play right into Ryllion’s hands. But you won’t live to see that, friend. You’re just a little stingerfly who tried but couldn’t sting. Something we swatted on our way to smash the hive.”
The beastman hunched down as if to spring right through the bars.
The ale boy cleared his throat. “Officer Garbal?”
Garbal recoiled as if he’d just been addressed by a pile of potatoes.
“I just wondered, wull…if you would talk with me instead.”
“You wondered.”
“I have stories you’d find interesting. I could tell you a few. About Abascar, or the Keeper, or beastmen if you like.”
“The Keeper? Ballyworms, boy, you think I want to hear about your superstitious notions? I thought you were tired of questions. You should keep quiet and count yourself lucky that Ryllion’s distracted today.”
“Distracted?”
“Since the heiress’s crew arrived, Ryllion’s been spreading more traps for beastmen. So I get to watch you like some kinda nurse in a baby room.” The guard launched a nutshell, and it bounced off the ale boy’s cheek. “You’re a waste of my time. An Abascar leftover. Ryllion says he found you carrying some kind of crazy scarf. Probably belonged to your mother, yes?” He rested another shell on his knee and flicked it. One of the cell bars pinged. “Tell me that story, boy. Did you try to pull her out from under Abascar when it all caved in?”
The boy turned his attention to the beastman, whose claws were carving deeper ruts into the earth. Then a hind claw snagged for a moment on a stone deep in a rut. Before the ale boy could grasp the danger, the beastman jerked the fist-sized stone from the earth and threw it.
Garbal lay still for a moment. The rock fell back out of his face. Beneath the brim of his helmet, where his eyes and nose had been, blood poured out. His legs began to kick. His teeth clacked together. Then he stopped kicking.
The beastman turned to the back of the cage, reached through the bars to the wall, and dug furiously until his fingers curled around a long, winding, petrified root. He tore it out, slapped it against the ground as if killing a snake, then flung its forked, torn end outward to Garbal’s mat. He fished at it until he hooked the cage keys.
As the beastman’s bars swung open and a gruesome clamor erupted, the ale boy pressed his hands to his ears and clenched his eyes shut.
Keeper, aren’t you watching? Won’t you come and fly me out of here?
When the only noise he could hear was the thunder of his pulse, the ale boy opened his eyes. The remains of the beastman’s feast were strewn across the floor, glistening and strange.
The boy also saw the keys. The beastman had dropped them and fled, forgetting all about him in his hurry. They lay within reach.
The ale boy floated across the cell. He ascended the stairs without touching a step. Or so he would swear to anyone who heard his tale in the days to come.
He drifted into the night air, every moment of freedom in Tilianpurth more surprising than the last. He sang quietly to himself the Early Evening Verse of House Abascar as he passed through the dormant garden patches and a stand of brittle beanstalks.
The front gates were open, probably to bait the beastman out of hiding with the promise of escape across the moat. But the boy could see the nervous guards crouched along the wall above the gate, arrows to their casters. If he could see the trap, surely the beastman could.
The guards had reason to be afraid and infuriated. As the boy had emerged, he’d seen soldiers, wild-eyed and shaken, carting away the bodies of the prison pit guards. Two pools of blood reflected torchlight in the frosted moss. He turned away, too weary to acknowledge such horrors.
His capture was imminent, so he felt no urge to hide. He only hoped to find some food before the Bel Amicans caught their fugitive.
Passing through the stables, he offered a timid smile to a trembling stablehand, a boy his own age who held a manure shovel as if it were a weapon. “Don’t be afraid,” said the ale boy. The stablehand ignored him, watching for the beastman.
When the ale boy snatched a pear from a feed basket and took a bite, a blanketed mare, just out of reach, sighed. The boy handed it over. “Were you hoping for this?” He was surprised at how gingerly she plucked it from his hand.
He removed his travel-worn tunic and plunged his head, shoulders, and arms into a water barrel. He jerked back out, amazed that water could be so cold without freezing solid. That woke him up. The dust and sweat of his recent ordeal dripped away to the straw-strewn floor, and he climbed back into his shirt.
Torches drew their soldiers along, flames blurring into streams of light like comets across the sky. He walked through the riot of activity as if he were a drunkard lost in the midst of a dance.
Creeping around the back of the towerhouse, he gazed up at the tower. Each window framed witnesses to the courtyard chaos. All of Tilianpurth was caught up in the drama of the beastman’s escape. Beyond the tower a new threat expanded to fill the sky. Even if he could talk his way out of this bastion, how would he endure the imminent snowstorm without his faithful vawn?
He approached the door at the back of the towerhouse. An explosive cough distracted him. A guard sat in the shadows beside the door. The boy forgot his strategy for a moment, startled by the unusual uniform. The man wore a bedbag over his armor, the kind of cushioned sack that soldiers crawled inside when they slept out in the wilderness, and he had pulled it up to his armpits as a defense against the cold.
“Won’t it be difficult to run if the beastman comes after you?” the boy asked, surprised by his own voice.
“I am the one who asks the questions here,” the guard responded without looking at him.
The boy waited for questions. But the guard sank back into silence, blinking with the world-weary eyes of an old tortoise.
The guard swelled to fill his armor like bread rising in too small a pan. He had a face of fleshy cheeks, a nose like a hairy brown sprout, and a scowl supported by a jutting lower lip. A growth above one eye looked like it had been polished, round and shiny as a grape.
As the boy reached for the door, another congested wheeze burst from the man. “Bring me a bottle, would you? A bottle of something that burns.”
The boy almost laughed. The guard’s request seemed like a voice from Abascar’s Underkeep. “It would be my pleasure, sir. Tell me your name, and I will fetch it straightaway.”
“My name? They shout it all the time, but it’s easily mistaken for a curse. Caroon this, Caroon that. Who do you call to accomplish a job that a bag of apples could do? Wilus Caroon!”
The boy had observed enough soldiers to guess that this one was kept in the dark on important matters. “Sir, there’s a beastman loose in the yard. Seems to me you’re doing a good thing here, guarding the towerhouse.”
“All the young busters get to chase that villain around. I get stuck by the back door.” He laughed, a sound like a rockslide. “I don’t mind. I’ve chased plenty of Cent Regus monsters and carved up those I caught. But now I keep the old sword handy just so I can scratch those hard-to-reach places down the back, you know?” Absently, he scratched at a patch of insect bites on his neck. “You’ll be old soon,” he said. “One day you’ll get shoved into a dark corner behind a pile of bricks. You’ll want to ride away and start over, but your joints will ache. And you’ll itch in so many places that you need to sleep on a bed o’ nails.”
This talk made the ale boy anxious. It was far too early to think about getting old. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but why’s everyone out here at Tilianpurth? Is there a battle coming?”
“Bel Amica’s strong as a mountain. Now that Abascar’s outta the way, this land is wide open for the taking. But first, we’re gonna exterminate those beastmen.” He paused, then roared with a gale-force wind of amusement. “That,” he finally scoffed, “is what they tell us, anyway. What they say and what really happens, well, them’s two different kinds of business.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“The bony grins.” He hooked his cheeks and drew them wide to bare his teeth, and the boy wished he hadn’t. “The chalky giants. The tricksters. The white…outfits. The Seers have plans for Bel Amica, oh so many plans. But the heiress would rather save the beastmen. Even that one.” He gestured to the open yard.
“She wants to…save the beastmen?”
“That’s what I hear. Next she’ll train poisonous snakes to play with newborn babies.” Caroon turned suddenly to take full notice of the boy for the first time, one side of that crooked mouth turning upward in a boastful smile. “I don’t recognize you. And I suspect if I ask questions, I’ll learn things that mean I have to stand up and bother with you. Neither of us wants that. So get me some ale, and we’ll both be happier.”
The boy bowed. “Thank you, Officer Caroon.”
Caroon swung his elbow back and clubbed the heavy door open just enough so the boy could slip sideways into a tunnel.
The tunnel led to a crowded supply room, where servants were hiding and arguing about how the beastman had escaped and who was most likely to catch him. As the boy pushed through, his long-dormant training in Abascar woke within him. What had once been drudgery suddenly seemed a pleasure. He turned, fought back through the hubbub, and surprised Caroon again. “Dark or sunny?” he asked.
Caroon choked. “Huh?”
“What kind of ale?”
As he passed back through the crowded supply room, the ale boy tossed a scrub-towel over his shoulder, grabbed a mop and a bucket of soapy water, tucked his chin low, and stole along past an ornate lift cage toward the wine cellar.
He did not step inside. Ryllion was there, sword drawn, stalking about and searching the shadows between the wine barrels. There was nowhere for the boy to run but up. So he stepped into the lift cage, shrank into the corner, and pulled the cord.
The cage rose from the lowest level to the main floor of the towerhouse. He quickly stepped out and dashed down the corridor toward the steamy kitchen, where he could hear the clink of glass and the clank of dishes.
The ale boy skated along on greasy stone tiles, tripping through bones, plates, and culinary casualties. Apparently the soldiers had helped themselves and shoved the wreckage aside for the staff. Fragrant casks, barrels, and bottles lay drained and dead, some still spinning or rolling slowly to a resting place.
He was surprised to find the place empty. The only sound came from a washbasin in the scullery corner, where dishes and pots clinked and bobbed as if washing themselves. Telling himself to ignore the plates of leftover lettuce, the hunks of bread and cake, and the bowls still sticky with stew that were piled precariously beside the murky washtubs, he scanned the kitchen countertops and cupboards for the sunny ale Caroon had requested.
Dishes continued to shift in the scullery tub, a steady stream of bubbles spluttering to the murky surface. The ale boy paused. Something like a snarl gurgled in the brine. The boy backed away, a clench of apprehension in his belly. A footfall on the stairs startled him. He ran back to the lift.
The gear wheels and chains hummed. The boy was already rising into the tower by the time he could see Ryllion advance from the kitchen with his sword drawn. He clung to the bars as the cage ascended through the circuitous stairway. He passed one level where soldiers, rousted from their sleep, were strapping on armor; another where sisterlies stood in hushed conference; and another where the heiress—the heiress!
He reached for the cord to stop the lift but pulled the wrong strand, and it kept on rising. It moved from the towerhouse into the tower and passed a few landing platforms where guards lumbered about with drawn daggers and snuffling hounds. At the top the lift locked into place. He grabbed the other cord, but a shout—“Thank you!”—dropped his hand to his side. He turned.
A golden glow teased the boy toward an open, curtained door. The sisterly guarding it nodded briskly and motioned him forward. “Sister Em told me I wouldn’t have any help. You’ll find the chambers empty. Give the floors a good scrub. There’s ash everywhere from her sketching.”
The boy held up the mop and bucket as if to say, “I’ve come prepared.”
“Stay out of the heiress’s way. She’s in a terrible huff. Gone off with her guards to find Officer Ryllion. And if she catches him, he’ll have scars to show tomorrow.”
The boy nodded, although he could hardly absorb this flood of information. “I just saw him.”
“I’d suggest you light the oil for the washtub, then fetch her a bottle of ale. Remember—she prefers ale. That’ll help calm her down when she returns.” Then she stopped. “Where did you see Ryllion?”
“Wull, he was in the kitchen—”
If the sisterly had been seated, she would have jumped to her feet. “There are soldiers in the kitchen?”
“Not anymore.”
She put her hands on her head. “They’re supposed to be searching for a beastman, not scavenging for a late supper.” She stepped into the lift. “If you catch a glimpse of anything with nasty teeth climbing in the window, pull that red cord with the tassel beside the heiress’s bed.”
Muttering, the sisterly yanked the lift’s release cord, and the lift dropped away. The boy leaned over the space and called, “I forgot! Wilus Caroon asked for sunny ale!”
Stepping through the curtains and into the firelight, he laughed. Everything glinted like treasure. There was a bed big enough for a family, quilts and pillows like ocean swells and frothy billows. Passing the washroom, he glimpsed a tub standing on sculpted eagle talons over a shallow, tub-length bowl of oil.
In the center of the room, a lantern spread a dim blue mantle over an arrangement of treasures—a ring, a crystal shard, a compass, a humble cup of clay, a man’s ceremonial vest pinned with a feather, a dagger, a bowl, and a helm etched with eagle feathers. They were spread out as if waiting for something, pieces of a mystery.
He set down the bucket, propped the mop against the table, and reached for the dagger, thrilled at the thought of brandishing a blade of Bel Amican royalty. Something near his hand flopped awkwardly to life like a puppet on a string.
He had thought it a gargoyle carved on the edge of the ceramic bowl. It was a bat, and it dropped into the bowl with a splash. Milk splattered onto the tabletop. The boy stood on tiptoe and peered over the lip of the bowl. The bat, bathed in milk, blinked up at him, trembling.
The fireplace drew his gaze. Auralia’s scarf, torn in two, was draped across the mantel.
“What are you up to, ’Ralia?” he asked. He held his hands out into the blaze, almost believing that his fearlessness worried the fire. “Why’d I end up here? Is somebody in trouble?”
He held the tip of a long firestarter in the blue core of the flames until it flared, then moved across the chamber into the washroom and knelt to ignite the shallow bowl of blaze-oil. It flared up green, bright hands cupping the base of the washtub. Small spots of scented oils floated like shiny coins on the water’s surface, and the floral aroma reminded him of the young ladies who had pursued Prince Cal-raven in Abascar.
He ground out the firestarter’s black tip in the mortar between two stones on the wall. On one of those broad stones, someone had sketched a bat.
As he walked back out of the washroom, his foot brushed the edge of a dinner tray. Without hesitation, he snatched a crust of the bread and then tipped the goblet to swallow whatever remained.
Half a goblet of ale was more than he should drink. He felt a bit dizzy immediately. “I know, I know, ’Ralia,” he said. “That’s not the way to enjoy a drink.” He fell against the wall, his hand smearing a sketch of a viscorcat.
“ ’Ralia…look!” Now he noticed that almost every stone in the chamber wall displayed black chalk outlines of animals—simple, playful drawings celebrating the great bushy manes of lions; the strong line of neck, back, and tail of a vawn; the graceful curve of a weeping crane in flight. Rabbits. Gorrels. She seemed especially fond of the lean lines of lurkdashers.
“You’d like this heiress.” He stepped up close again, tracing the line of a large figure. The artist had not given it any detail; it was just a silhouette. “ ’Ralia, doesn’t this one look like your beastman? Like the one who picked me up and then let me go?”
A disturbance on the stairs. Shouts. A woman, furious. A man, insistent.
The boy recognized the voices. He staggered about, seeking a place to hide. The tablecloth did not reach to the floor. The walls bore no tapestries low enough to slip behind. He turned to the window. A climb down would be too risky, unless the stranglevine was rooted firmly.
He turned back to the fireplace. “ ’Ralia, where should I—” His mouth hung open. The scarf gleamed. “Oh very funny.”
Finding Cyndere in his chamber, Ryllion smiled.
The heiress’s rant began. “I hear that the main gate’s standing open.”
“We want the beastman to run,” he replied, unruffled. “My company has spread a net of traps beyond the bastion.”
“I know,” she said.
“We’ll be out of danger if he’s shut outside the wall. But we’ll catch him again. He cannot help but stumble into a snare. I’ll show you how they work one day.”
“That won’t be necessary. I know they’re going to fill up with animals that don’t belong in traps.”
“It’s a small price to pay for—”
“It is not a small price,” she snapped. “I know a good deal about those snares, how they cut deep at the slightest struggle.”
“This convinces the prey not to struggle,” he argued.
“Most animals would sooner lose a limb than wait for capture. They’re braver than you think.”
“I don’t call that bravery. I call it empty headed—”
“Are you calling me empty headed?”
He blinked. “Of course not. I’m not talking about you. You’re not in a snare.”
“I’m not?” She folded her arms and spoke through clenched teeth. “Then why do I feel things closing in? Why do I hear that the intolerable Pretor Xa is coming to Tilianpurth?”
Ryllion shrugged. “I received word several days ago that he would stop here on his return from House Jenta to help us observe the Feast of the Sacrifice. But don’t worry. He’ll leave you alone…if he ever gets here.”
“Maybe he tripped on a wire.” Cyndere turned back to the corridor, too furious to think straight.
Ryllion followed her to the stairs. “Wait, Cyn. You shouldn’t—”
She turned to bar his way. “Don’t call me Cyn! You’re not Deuneroi. You’re not even a captain. When you catch that beastman, I want him caged, not sacrificed. I’m not finished with him yet.”
“Finished with him? My lady, he’s finished with you.”
He followed her to the top of the stair and straight into her chamber, forgetting the appropriate pause and request for entrance. “This is an obsession, Cyndere. You would pick a stingerfly free of a spider’s web knowing it would sting you. Your heart’s full of grand ideas, but you need guidance to pursue them properly. And, yes, this was also true of Deuneroi.”
Ryllion closed the door behind him, a gesture so audacious that Cyndere gasped. She glanced to the table. A mop leaned against it, and Deuneroi’s dagger lay crooked—not at all how she had left it. She looked around the chamber, uncertain.
“I’m here to protect you,” Ryllion continued. “We’ll catch the beastman, and the Honorable Pretor Xa will present him as a sacrifice after the feast. Moon-spirits will help us make the Expanse safe for all of House Bel Amica to walk in the woods again, like you did when you—”
“Don’t throw religion at me. I came here to get away from it.”
“I know I speak beyond my bounds, Cyndere, but my passion is as fierce and noble as yours.”
“Deuneroi and I wanted to help the Cent Regus, not exterminate them.”
Ryllion pressed on. “You want peace with your mother, peace with House Jenta, peace with the beastmen. Where would the world be without dreamers like you? Those are beautiful ideas, Cyndere. I’ve pledged to protect them.”
Cyndere started to reply, but Ryllion pounded his fist on the table. “Bel Amica can put your grand ideas to work, my lady. I’ve already set plans in motion that can make it happen. With the Seers’ guidance, I’m finding ways we might help the Cent Regus. I’m learning how to lure them with what they want.”
“What they want?” Cyndere laughed, incredulous. “It is not about what they want, Ryllion. Their desires are distorted by the curse. It is about drawing them to understand what they need.” Where was her voice? What was this feeble chirp? She was Cyndere kai Thesera, whose arguments shook the Bel Amican courts. “They need to want what they need.” She faced the fire.
“What about you, Cyndere? What do you need?” Ryllion stepped between her and the flames. “Deuneroi shared your dream. But now you’re alone. You’re surrounded by distraction and disturbance. You should be served. Blessed. Adored. You, above all in House Bel Amica. I can offer you safety and solitude. And more, should you desire it.”
“I learned to see through flattery when I was a child, Ryllion.” She walked around the table to keep it between them. “I came here to find peace. You’ve invited trouble. I’ve come to my chamber for quiet. You’ve barged in uninvited and closed the door behind you. You forgot your station when you climbed those stairs. I’m marking every step you take.”
Ryllion quieted, looking to the window. “You’re right. I am not Deuneroi. But I am true to my word. As he died, I promised him that I’d protect you. I won’t fail him there. Let me honor my promise.” He reached across the table and put his hand on the hilt of Deuneroi’s dagger. “If you like, I could take this for the ceremony. When we catch the beastman, I could use Deuneroi’s own weapon and avenge—”
A shape lunged from the milk bowl to Ryllion’s arm. He screamed and flung the dagger away. Staggering back from the table, he waved his right arm, trying to shake free the grey mass bound to it. Then he lurched toward the fireplace.
“No!” Cyndere shouted.
The bat came free, striking the wall and falling to the floor. Stunned, it tried to crawl, and then went still.
Ryllion fell to his knees. “That…that thing bit me!” He unsheathed his own knife and raised it.
Cyndere, having pulled the alarm cord beside her bed, leapt between the soldier and the bat. “Don’t hurt him!”
“Don’t hurt him?!”
“He’s injured. If you haven’t just killed him—”
“What about me?” Ryllion all but shrieked. “What about…” He began to shake. “What’s happening?”
The bat wriggled back through the crack in the wall. Cyndere took the cloth napkin from her dinner tray and wrapped it tight around Ryllion’s wrist. “Get down to the healers. Those dark lines spreading around the wound… That’s not good.”
Ryllion’s eyes bulged. He dropped to the floor.
An urgent knock, and then Emeriene appeared in the doorway. She hurried inside, followed by soldiers she had brought with her to investigate the commotion.
“Take him to the healers. He’s been bitten.”
After the soldiers carried Ryllion out, Emeriene demanded that one stand guard outside the door. Then, closing it tight, she blustered about the room. “I’m staying with you tonight,” she muttered. “There’s a beastman loose. And a bat, apparently.” She snatched a robe from its hook and brought it to the heiress.
Cyndere pulled at her hair. “The noise, Em. I’ve got to get out of here.”
Emeriene stopped, crumpling the robe into a ball. “Should I leave?”
“No, I need your help. With the beastman loose, we already have one too many threats in Tilianpurth. We have to spoil the Seer’s visit. If Pretor Xa crawls in, he’ll win over anyone vulnerable to his potions. He’ll spy on me. He’ll follow me. He’ll lecture me about the moon-spirits. I need a plan, Emmy.”
Emeriene looked at Cyndere for a long time. “Promise me you won’t go anywhere without me,” she whispered.
“Em, you know you can trust me.” Cyndere paused. “Remember that night several years ago, soon after Partayn died, when I helped you slip out of your window so you could steal away and meet someone?”
Emeriene sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes. I was out of my mind.”
“But I trusted you. And you didn’t come back for two nights.”
Emeriene looked into the folds of her robe, where her hands were trembling. “That was…that was a long drop to the ground. And it was a mistake.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. You’ve never explained. But I’ve never asked, have I?” Cyndere began to straighten the items on the table, even those that had not been disturbed. “Trust me, Em. If a Seer moves in, my days will become the worst kind of hide-and-seek.”
“We can deal with them, Cyn. You and me.”
“I know you’re far from your children. I know your husband’s neglectful. I know you lost Partayn. But I can’t replace them for you. I came here for a reason. And if I have to put on a false smile so you’ll stop fussing over me, I’ll scream.”
Her face a mask of puzzlement, Emeriene stumbled to her feet. Her lips shaped words her voice would not deliver.
“You’re trying to send the sun back around the other way, to take us back to childhood. It’s not going to happen. Too much has changed. I came here to let go of Deuneroi and his dream, but now that I’m here, I find I’m not ready yet. He’s still with me. When I last visited the glen, I felt him close by. I need to go back and see this through…whatever it is. And I can’t take you with me.”
Emeriene walked out of the chamber, pulling the curtains down over the entryway, and slammed the door behind her.
Cyndere fell sideways into her chair, and its arms held her like a child. “I need a friend, not a shadow.” She scanned the room from the wild new flames to the wavering curtains, to the washtub, to the tiny break in the wall.
She sat up and leaned forward, calling quietly toward that dark space in the wall. “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you. I promise. It’s safe here. I’m your friend. You can come out now.”
As if in answer, a boy clad in blackened tatters fell down the chimney and stepped out of the flames.
14
OUT OF THE PRISON PIT, INTO THE FIREPLACE
The ale boy studied his shoes and wondered if he could eat them. The leather made him think of sausages Obsidia Dram had boiled for his supper in Abascar’s Underkeep.
Fainter all the time, he imagined ghosting between the bars, past the guard, and ascending without touching a stair. Slipping into the towerhouse, he’d find a kitchen and fall into the kindness of the dark-haired sisterly, she who had brought him a bread roll, cheese crumbs, and apples neatly sliced on the first day of his confinement. Full and satisfied, he would drift out the front gate, escape the valley of whitegrass, surprise Rumpa, and spirit away to Auralia’s caves. Unless the Keeper deigned to point him to some new task, he would sleep beside a small fire and listen for voices to visit him from the flames.
Anything—even a delusion about shoes made of sausage—was better than worrying about the answers he had given to Ryllion’s interrogation and waiting for more punishing questions.
“A witness.” That’s what Ryllion feared. But a witness to what? The boy could not dispel the soldiers’ suspicion. Days in this muddy pit had given him time to wonder if Ryllion knew his mind better than he did. Maybe he had seen something important out there in the Cragavar. But all he found worth recalling was the sight of young Wynn and little Cortie moving ahead through the trees into the care of Abascar’s guards, who descended from highwatches in the trees near Barnashum. After that there was only the long, lonesome ride through grey lands. If he remained in this prison pit much longer without a meal or warmth, there wouldn’t be anything left in his head for Ryllion to investigate.
Meanwhile the prison guard could find nothing better to do than empty the pockets of his gravy-stained uniform. On a thick woolen mat he had spread across the soil, he scattered a collection of picked-this-up-somewhere and can’t-remember-what-this-is. “Kramm this mud pit,” he muttered. “Dirt walls. Dirt floor. This place needs some heavy work.”
Through the fog of his delusion, the ale boy surveyed the guard’s collection, and before his eyes it was transformed. He saw an array of new inventions sent by Auralia herself. A candle embedded with shell fragments from the flotsam of Deep Lake. A necktie of dried seaweed. Keys carved from prongbull horn. A door knocker—a purple crab shell with a round stone tied between its pinchers.
But when he blinked, they were ordinary objects again—coins, game pieces, a sharpening stone, buttons, the keys to the prisoners’ cages, and a blunt tusk which the guard held up in the red torchlight.
“Can’t wait to show this to my boys,” said the guard.
The ale boy studied him again. The officer seemed too young to be a father—too arrogant to be a good one, anyway. The fellow had a face like a yellow squash and skin wrinkled as if he slept facedown in bathwater. His nose had been broken, and there were spots like bruises under his eyes.
As if sensing the ale boy’s doubt, the guard went on, “My sons have yet to arrive in the world, mind you, but they’ll get here. My lady, Kyntere, back at the sovereign house by the sea, she’s got a brand-new apple that’s ripe and ready to scream.” He patted his belly. “When spring comes, I’ll go back home to my brand-new baby. I got a bet with old Bauris. Told him it’s a boy. Gonna name him Garbal, just like the man who made him. I’ll give him this.” He ogled the tusk as if it were treasure. “Recognize it? Know what it is?”
The beastman ran his pink tongue across his own tusks.
“My lady’s a netter. She nets fish, grease-eels, sea greens, everything. Being loaded with Garbal’s boy hasn’t slowed her down a bit. So here’s the story—she snagged this sea boar by accident one day. It’s a danger. I happened to be standing there. Wrestled that boar down. Took this souvenir. That pretty much settled it.” Garbal sneered garishly. “Maybe I’ll give him one of your tusks instead.”
The beastman laughed, brash and defiant, pacing like a panther. House Abascar’s Gatherers had claimed that some beastmen were smart enough to understand the Common tongue. This prisoner had somehow recognized the heiress, and he had known how to crush her spirit by shouting out a name. Deuneroi. The boy wondered if Auralia’s beastman had ever spoken to her.
“Look at those chompers of yours, you flea-infested freak. You’re part boar, aren’t you?” The guard pocketed the tusk and slapped the knife sheath at his belt. “Shall we cut you open, find out what else you’re made of ? Teeth. Bones. That’s all my boys will ever see of Cent Regus filth. You’re less than human, all those critters mixed up in your blood. When Ryllion’s a captain, we’re gonna clean out the beastman house for good.” He threw a nutshell at the beastman and spoke through a conspiratorial grin. “The Seers are going to help him, he says. He’s going to trick the Cent Regus.”
The beastman dug at the brittle ground with his hind feet like a bull pawing before a charge. Soil sprayed against the back wall.
“The Cent Regus are so blind and stupid that they’ll play right into Ryllion’s hands. But you won’t live to see that, friend. You’re just a little stingerfly who tried but couldn’t sting. Something we swatted on our way to smash the hive.”
The beastman hunched down as if to spring right through the bars.
The ale boy cleared his throat. “Officer Garbal?”
Garbal recoiled as if he’d just been addressed by a pile of potatoes.
“I just wondered, wull…if you would talk with me instead.”
“You wondered.”
“I have stories you’d find interesting. I could tell you a few. About Abascar, or the Keeper, or beastmen if you like.”
“The Keeper? Ballyworms, boy, you think I want to hear about your superstitious notions? I thought you were tired of questions. You should keep quiet and count yourself lucky that Ryllion’s distracted today.”
“Distracted?”
“Since the heiress’s crew arrived, Ryllion’s been spreading more traps for beastmen. So I get to watch you like some kinda nurse in a baby room.” The guard launched a nutshell, and it bounced off the ale boy’s cheek. “You’re a waste of my time. An Abascar leftover. Ryllion says he found you carrying some kind of crazy scarf. Probably belonged to your mother, yes?” He rested another shell on his knee and flicked it. One of the cell bars pinged. “Tell me that story, boy. Did you try to pull her out from under Abascar when it all caved in?”
The boy turned his attention to the beastman, whose claws were carving deeper ruts into the earth. Then a hind claw snagged for a moment on a stone deep in a rut. Before the ale boy could grasp the danger, the beastman jerked the fist-sized stone from the earth and threw it.
Garbal lay still for a moment. The rock fell back out of his face. Beneath the brim of his helmet, where his eyes and nose had been, blood poured out. His legs began to kick. His teeth clacked together. Then he stopped kicking.
The beastman turned to the back of the cage, reached through the bars to the wall, and dug furiously until his fingers curled around a long, winding, petrified root. He tore it out, slapped it against the ground as if killing a snake, then flung its forked, torn end outward to Garbal’s mat. He fished at it until he hooked the cage keys.
As the beastman’s bars swung open and a gruesome clamor erupted, the ale boy pressed his hands to his ears and clenched his eyes shut.
Keeper, aren’t you watching? Won’t you come and fly me out of here?
When the only noise he could hear was the thunder of his pulse, the ale boy opened his eyes. The remains of the beastman’s feast were strewn across the floor, glistening and strange.
The boy also saw the keys. The beastman had dropped them and fled, forgetting all about him in his hurry. They lay within reach.
The ale boy floated across the cell. He ascended the stairs without touching a step. Or so he would swear to anyone who heard his tale in the days to come.
He drifted into the night air, every moment of freedom in Tilianpurth more surprising than the last. He sang quietly to himself the Early Evening Verse of House Abascar as he passed through the dormant garden patches and a stand of brittle beanstalks.
The front gates were open, probably to bait the beastman out of hiding with the promise of escape across the moat. But the boy could see the nervous guards crouched along the wall above the gate, arrows to their casters. If he could see the trap, surely the beastman could.
The guards had reason to be afraid and infuriated. As the boy had emerged, he’d seen soldiers, wild-eyed and shaken, carting away the bodies of the prison pit guards. Two pools of blood reflected torchlight in the frosted moss. He turned away, too weary to acknowledge such horrors.
His capture was imminent, so he felt no urge to hide. He only hoped to find some food before the Bel Amicans caught their fugitive.
Passing through the stables, he offered a timid smile to a trembling stablehand, a boy his own age who held a manure shovel as if it were a weapon. “Don’t be afraid,” said the ale boy. The stablehand ignored him, watching for the beastman.
When the ale boy snatched a pear from a feed basket and took a bite, a blanketed mare, just out of reach, sighed. The boy handed it over. “Were you hoping for this?” He was surprised at how gingerly she plucked it from his hand.
He removed his travel-worn tunic and plunged his head, shoulders, and arms into a water barrel. He jerked back out, amazed that water could be so cold without freezing solid. That woke him up. The dust and sweat of his recent ordeal dripped away to the straw-strewn floor, and he climbed back into his shirt.
Torches drew their soldiers along, flames blurring into streams of light like comets across the sky. He walked through the riot of activity as if he were a drunkard lost in the midst of a dance.
Creeping around the back of the towerhouse, he gazed up at the tower. Each window framed witnesses to the courtyard chaos. All of Tilianpurth was caught up in the drama of the beastman’s escape. Beyond the tower a new threat expanded to fill the sky. Even if he could talk his way out of this bastion, how would he endure the imminent snowstorm without his faithful vawn?
He approached the door at the back of the towerhouse. An explosive cough distracted him. A guard sat in the shadows beside the door. The boy forgot his strategy for a moment, startled by the unusual uniform. The man wore a bedbag over his armor, the kind of cushioned sack that soldiers crawled inside when they slept out in the wilderness, and he had pulled it up to his armpits as a defense against the cold.
“Won’t it be difficult to run if the beastman comes after you?” the boy asked, surprised by his own voice.
“I am the one who asks the questions here,” the guard responded without looking at him.
The boy waited for questions. But the guard sank back into silence, blinking with the world-weary eyes of an old tortoise.
The guard swelled to fill his armor like bread rising in too small a pan. He had a face of fleshy cheeks, a nose like a hairy brown sprout, and a scowl supported by a jutting lower lip. A growth above one eye looked like it had been polished, round and shiny as a grape.
As the boy reached for the door, another congested wheeze burst from the man. “Bring me a bottle, would you? A bottle of something that burns.”
The boy almost laughed. The guard’s request seemed like a voice from Abascar’s Underkeep. “It would be my pleasure, sir. Tell me your name, and I will fetch it straightaway.”
“My name? They shout it all the time, but it’s easily mistaken for a curse. Caroon this, Caroon that. Who do you call to accomplish a job that a bag of apples could do? Wilus Caroon!”
The boy had observed enough soldiers to guess that this one was kept in the dark on important matters. “Sir, there’s a beastman loose in the yard. Seems to me you’re doing a good thing here, guarding the towerhouse.”
“All the young busters get to chase that villain around. I get stuck by the back door.” He laughed, a sound like a rockslide. “I don’t mind. I’ve chased plenty of Cent Regus monsters and carved up those I caught. But now I keep the old sword handy just so I can scratch those hard-to-reach places down the back, you know?” Absently, he scratched at a patch of insect bites on his neck. “You’ll be old soon,” he said. “One day you’ll get shoved into a dark corner behind a pile of bricks. You’ll want to ride away and start over, but your joints will ache. And you’ll itch in so many places that you need to sleep on a bed o’ nails.”
This talk made the ale boy anxious. It was far too early to think about getting old. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but why’s everyone out here at Tilianpurth? Is there a battle coming?”
“Bel Amica’s strong as a mountain. Now that Abascar’s outta the way, this land is wide open for the taking. But first, we’re gonna exterminate those beastmen.” He paused, then roared with a gale-force wind of amusement. “That,” he finally scoffed, “is what they tell us, anyway. What they say and what really happens, well, them’s two different kinds of business.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“The bony grins.” He hooked his cheeks and drew them wide to bare his teeth, and the boy wished he hadn’t. “The chalky giants. The tricksters. The white…outfits. The Seers have plans for Bel Amica, oh so many plans. But the heiress would rather save the beastmen. Even that one.” He gestured to the open yard.
“She wants to…save the beastmen?”
“That’s what I hear. Next she’ll train poisonous snakes to play with newborn babies.” Caroon turned suddenly to take full notice of the boy for the first time, one side of that crooked mouth turning upward in a boastful smile. “I don’t recognize you. And I suspect if I ask questions, I’ll learn things that mean I have to stand up and bother with you. Neither of us wants that. So get me some ale, and we’ll both be happier.”
The boy bowed. “Thank you, Officer Caroon.”
Caroon swung his elbow back and clubbed the heavy door open just enough so the boy could slip sideways into a tunnel.
The tunnel led to a crowded supply room, where servants were hiding and arguing about how the beastman had escaped and who was most likely to catch him. As the boy pushed through, his long-dormant training in Abascar woke within him. What had once been drudgery suddenly seemed a pleasure. He turned, fought back through the hubbub, and surprised Caroon again. “Dark or sunny?” he asked.
Caroon choked. “Huh?”
“What kind of ale?”
As he passed back through the crowded supply room, the ale boy tossed a scrub-towel over his shoulder, grabbed a mop and a bucket of soapy water, tucked his chin low, and stole along past an ornate lift cage toward the wine cellar.
He did not step inside. Ryllion was there, sword drawn, stalking about and searching the shadows between the wine barrels. There was nowhere for the boy to run but up. So he stepped into the lift cage, shrank into the corner, and pulled the cord.
The cage rose from the lowest level to the main floor of the towerhouse. He quickly stepped out and dashed down the corridor toward the steamy kitchen, where he could hear the clink of glass and the clank of dishes.
The ale boy skated along on greasy stone tiles, tripping through bones, plates, and culinary casualties. Apparently the soldiers had helped themselves and shoved the wreckage aside for the staff. Fragrant casks, barrels, and bottles lay drained and dead, some still spinning or rolling slowly to a resting place.
He was surprised to find the place empty. The only sound came from a washbasin in the scullery corner, where dishes and pots clinked and bobbed as if washing themselves. Telling himself to ignore the plates of leftover lettuce, the hunks of bread and cake, and the bowls still sticky with stew that were piled precariously beside the murky washtubs, he scanned the kitchen countertops and cupboards for the sunny ale Caroon had requested.
Dishes continued to shift in the scullery tub, a steady stream of bubbles spluttering to the murky surface. The ale boy paused. Something like a snarl gurgled in the brine. The boy backed away, a clench of apprehension in his belly. A footfall on the stairs startled him. He ran back to the lift.
The gear wheels and chains hummed. The boy was already rising into the tower by the time he could see Ryllion advance from the kitchen with his sword drawn. He clung to the bars as the cage ascended through the circuitous stairway. He passed one level where soldiers, rousted from their sleep, were strapping on armor; another where sisterlies stood in hushed conference; and another where the heiress—the heiress!
He reached for the cord to stop the lift but pulled the wrong strand, and it kept on rising. It moved from the towerhouse into the tower and passed a few landing platforms where guards lumbered about with drawn daggers and snuffling hounds. At the top the lift locked into place. He grabbed the other cord, but a shout—“Thank you!”—dropped his hand to his side. He turned.
A golden glow teased the boy toward an open, curtained door. The sisterly guarding it nodded briskly and motioned him forward. “Sister Em told me I wouldn’t have any help. You’ll find the chambers empty. Give the floors a good scrub. There’s ash everywhere from her sketching.”
The boy held up the mop and bucket as if to say, “I’ve come prepared.”
“Stay out of the heiress’s way. She’s in a terrible huff. Gone off with her guards to find Officer Ryllion. And if she catches him, he’ll have scars to show tomorrow.”
The boy nodded, although he could hardly absorb this flood of information. “I just saw him.”
“I’d suggest you light the oil for the washtub, then fetch her a bottle of ale. Remember—she prefers ale. That’ll help calm her down when she returns.” Then she stopped. “Where did you see Ryllion?”
“Wull, he was in the kitchen—”
If the sisterly had been seated, she would have jumped to her feet. “There are soldiers in the kitchen?”
“Not anymore.”
She put her hands on her head. “They’re supposed to be searching for a beastman, not scavenging for a late supper.” She stepped into the lift. “If you catch a glimpse of anything with nasty teeth climbing in the window, pull that red cord with the tassel beside the heiress’s bed.”
Muttering, the sisterly yanked the lift’s release cord, and the lift dropped away. The boy leaned over the space and called, “I forgot! Wilus Caroon asked for sunny ale!”
Stepping through the curtains and into the firelight, he laughed. Everything glinted like treasure. There was a bed big enough for a family, quilts and pillows like ocean swells and frothy billows. Passing the washroom, he glimpsed a tub standing on sculpted eagle talons over a shallow, tub-length bowl of oil.
In the center of the room, a lantern spread a dim blue mantle over an arrangement of treasures—a ring, a crystal shard, a compass, a humble cup of clay, a man’s ceremonial vest pinned with a feather, a dagger, a bowl, and a helm etched with eagle feathers. They were spread out as if waiting for something, pieces of a mystery.
He set down the bucket, propped the mop against the table, and reached for the dagger, thrilled at the thought of brandishing a blade of Bel Amican royalty. Something near his hand flopped awkwardly to life like a puppet on a string.
He had thought it a gargoyle carved on the edge of the ceramic bowl. It was a bat, and it dropped into the bowl with a splash. Milk splattered onto the tabletop. The boy stood on tiptoe and peered over the lip of the bowl. The bat, bathed in milk, blinked up at him, trembling.
The fireplace drew his gaze. Auralia’s scarf, torn in two, was draped across the mantel.
“What are you up to, ’Ralia?” he asked. He held his hands out into the blaze, almost believing that his fearlessness worried the fire. “Why’d I end up here? Is somebody in trouble?”
He held the tip of a long firestarter in the blue core of the flames until it flared, then moved across the chamber into the washroom and knelt to ignite the shallow bowl of blaze-oil. It flared up green, bright hands cupping the base of the washtub. Small spots of scented oils floated like shiny coins on the water’s surface, and the floral aroma reminded him of the young ladies who had pursued Prince Cal-raven in Abascar.
He ground out the firestarter’s black tip in the mortar between two stones on the wall. On one of those broad stones, someone had sketched a bat.
As he walked back out of the washroom, his foot brushed the edge of a dinner tray. Without hesitation, he snatched a crust of the bread and then tipped the goblet to swallow whatever remained.
Half a goblet of ale was more than he should drink. He felt a bit dizzy immediately. “I know, I know, ’Ralia,” he said. “That’s not the way to enjoy a drink.” He fell against the wall, his hand smearing a sketch of a viscorcat.
“ ’Ralia…look!” Now he noticed that almost every stone in the chamber wall displayed black chalk outlines of animals—simple, playful drawings celebrating the great bushy manes of lions; the strong line of neck, back, and tail of a vawn; the graceful curve of a weeping crane in flight. Rabbits. Gorrels. She seemed especially fond of the lean lines of lurkdashers.
“You’d like this heiress.” He stepped up close again, tracing the line of a large figure. The artist had not given it any detail; it was just a silhouette. “ ’Ralia, doesn’t this one look like your beastman? Like the one who picked me up and then let me go?”
A disturbance on the stairs. Shouts. A woman, furious. A man, insistent.
The boy recognized the voices. He staggered about, seeking a place to hide. The tablecloth did not reach to the floor. The walls bore no tapestries low enough to slip behind. He turned to the window. A climb down would be too risky, unless the stranglevine was rooted firmly.
He turned back to the fireplace. “ ’Ralia, where should I—” His mouth hung open. The scarf gleamed. “Oh very funny.”
Finding Cyndere in his chamber, Ryllion smiled.
The heiress’s rant began. “I hear that the main gate’s standing open.”
“We want the beastman to run,” he replied, unruffled. “My company has spread a net of traps beyond the bastion.”
“I know,” she said.
“We’ll be out of danger if he’s shut outside the wall. But we’ll catch him again. He cannot help but stumble into a snare. I’ll show you how they work one day.”
“That won’t be necessary. I know they’re going to fill up with animals that don’t belong in traps.”
“It’s a small price to pay for—”
“It is not a small price,” she snapped. “I know a good deal about those snares, how they cut deep at the slightest struggle.”
“This convinces the prey not to struggle,” he argued.
“Most animals would sooner lose a limb than wait for capture. They’re braver than you think.”
“I don’t call that bravery. I call it empty headed—”
“Are you calling me empty headed?”
He blinked. “Of course not. I’m not talking about you. You’re not in a snare.”
“I’m not?” She folded her arms and spoke through clenched teeth. “Then why do I feel things closing in? Why do I hear that the intolerable Pretor Xa is coming to Tilianpurth?”
Ryllion shrugged. “I received word several days ago that he would stop here on his return from House Jenta to help us observe the Feast of the Sacrifice. But don’t worry. He’ll leave you alone…if he ever gets here.”
“Maybe he tripped on a wire.” Cyndere turned back to the corridor, too furious to think straight.
Ryllion followed her to the stairs. “Wait, Cyn. You shouldn’t—”
She turned to bar his way. “Don’t call me Cyn! You’re not Deuneroi. You’re not even a captain. When you catch that beastman, I want him caged, not sacrificed. I’m not finished with him yet.”
“Finished with him? My lady, he’s finished with you.”
He followed her to the top of the stair and straight into her chamber, forgetting the appropriate pause and request for entrance. “This is an obsession, Cyndere. You would pick a stingerfly free of a spider’s web knowing it would sting you. Your heart’s full of grand ideas, but you need guidance to pursue them properly. And, yes, this was also true of Deuneroi.”
Ryllion closed the door behind him, a gesture so audacious that Cyndere gasped. She glanced to the table. A mop leaned against it, and Deuneroi’s dagger lay crooked—not at all how she had left it. She looked around the chamber, uncertain.
“I’m here to protect you,” Ryllion continued. “We’ll catch the beastman, and the Honorable Pretor Xa will present him as a sacrifice after the feast. Moon-spirits will help us make the Expanse safe for all of House Bel Amica to walk in the woods again, like you did when you—”
“Don’t throw religion at me. I came here to get away from it.”
“I know I speak beyond my bounds, Cyndere, but my passion is as fierce and noble as yours.”
“Deuneroi and I wanted to help the Cent Regus, not exterminate them.”
Ryllion pressed on. “You want peace with your mother, peace with House Jenta, peace with the beastmen. Where would the world be without dreamers like you? Those are beautiful ideas, Cyndere. I’ve pledged to protect them.”
Cyndere started to reply, but Ryllion pounded his fist on the table. “Bel Amica can put your grand ideas to work, my lady. I’ve already set plans in motion that can make it happen. With the Seers’ guidance, I’m finding ways we might help the Cent Regus. I’m learning how to lure them with what they want.”
“What they want?” Cyndere laughed, incredulous. “It is not about what they want, Ryllion. Their desires are distorted by the curse. It is about drawing them to understand what they need.” Where was her voice? What was this feeble chirp? She was Cyndere kai Thesera, whose arguments shook the Bel Amican courts. “They need to want what they need.” She faced the fire.
“What about you, Cyndere? What do you need?” Ryllion stepped between her and the flames. “Deuneroi shared your dream. But now you’re alone. You’re surrounded by distraction and disturbance. You should be served. Blessed. Adored. You, above all in House Bel Amica. I can offer you safety and solitude. And more, should you desire it.”
“I learned to see through flattery when I was a child, Ryllion.” She walked around the table to keep it between them. “I came here to find peace. You’ve invited trouble. I’ve come to my chamber for quiet. You’ve barged in uninvited and closed the door behind you. You forgot your station when you climbed those stairs. I’m marking every step you take.”
Ryllion quieted, looking to the window. “You’re right. I am not Deuneroi. But I am true to my word. As he died, I promised him that I’d protect you. I won’t fail him there. Let me honor my promise.” He reached across the table and put his hand on the hilt of Deuneroi’s dagger. “If you like, I could take this for the ceremony. When we catch the beastman, I could use Deuneroi’s own weapon and avenge—”
A shape lunged from the milk bowl to Ryllion’s arm. He screamed and flung the dagger away. Staggering back from the table, he waved his right arm, trying to shake free the grey mass bound to it. Then he lurched toward the fireplace.
“No!” Cyndere shouted.
The bat came free, striking the wall and falling to the floor. Stunned, it tried to crawl, and then went still.
Ryllion fell to his knees. “That…that thing bit me!” He unsheathed his own knife and raised it.
Cyndere, having pulled the alarm cord beside her bed, leapt between the soldier and the bat. “Don’t hurt him!”
“Don’t hurt him?!”
“He’s injured. If you haven’t just killed him—”
“What about me?” Ryllion all but shrieked. “What about…” He began to shake. “What’s happening?”
The bat wriggled back through the crack in the wall. Cyndere took the cloth napkin from her dinner tray and wrapped it tight around Ryllion’s wrist. “Get down to the healers. Those dark lines spreading around the wound… That’s not good.”
Ryllion’s eyes bulged. He dropped to the floor.
An urgent knock, and then Emeriene appeared in the doorway. She hurried inside, followed by soldiers she had brought with her to investigate the commotion.
“Take him to the healers. He’s been bitten.”
After the soldiers carried Ryllion out, Emeriene demanded that one stand guard outside the door. Then, closing it tight, she blustered about the room. “I’m staying with you tonight,” she muttered. “There’s a beastman loose. And a bat, apparently.” She snatched a robe from its hook and brought it to the heiress.
Cyndere pulled at her hair. “The noise, Em. I’ve got to get out of here.”
Emeriene stopped, crumpling the robe into a ball. “Should I leave?”
“No, I need your help. With the beastman loose, we already have one too many threats in Tilianpurth. We have to spoil the Seer’s visit. If Pretor Xa crawls in, he’ll win over anyone vulnerable to his potions. He’ll spy on me. He’ll follow me. He’ll lecture me about the moon-spirits. I need a plan, Emmy.”
Emeriene looked at Cyndere for a long time. “Promise me you won’t go anywhere without me,” she whispered.
“Em, you know you can trust me.” Cyndere paused. “Remember that night several years ago, soon after Partayn died, when I helped you slip out of your window so you could steal away and meet someone?”
Emeriene sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes. I was out of my mind.”
“But I trusted you. And you didn’t come back for two nights.”
Emeriene looked into the folds of her robe, where her hands were trembling. “That was…that was a long drop to the ground. And it was a mistake.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. You’ve never explained. But I’ve never asked, have I?” Cyndere began to straighten the items on the table, even those that had not been disturbed. “Trust me, Em. If a Seer moves in, my days will become the worst kind of hide-and-seek.”
“We can deal with them, Cyn. You and me.”
“I know you’re far from your children. I know your husband’s neglectful. I know you lost Partayn. But I can’t replace them for you. I came here for a reason. And if I have to put on a false smile so you’ll stop fussing over me, I’ll scream.”
Her face a mask of puzzlement, Emeriene stumbled to her feet. Her lips shaped words her voice would not deliver.
“You’re trying to send the sun back around the other way, to take us back to childhood. It’s not going to happen. Too much has changed. I came here to let go of Deuneroi and his dream, but now that I’m here, I find I’m not ready yet. He’s still with me. When I last visited the glen, I felt him close by. I need to go back and see this through…whatever it is. And I can’t take you with me.”
Emeriene walked out of the chamber, pulling the curtains down over the entryway, and slammed the door behind her.
Cyndere fell sideways into her chair, and its arms held her like a child. “I need a friend, not a shadow.” She scanned the room from the wild new flames to the wavering curtains, to the washtub, to the tiny break in the wall.
She sat up and leaned forward, calling quietly toward that dark space in the wall. “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you. I promise. It’s safe here. I’m your friend. You can come out now.”
As if in answer, a boy clad in blackened tatters fell down the chimney and stepped out of the flames.
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