Allegiance, page 30
part #3 of River of Souls Series
But no sign of that vermin, Khandarr.
She was tempted to track him down, even if that meant a visit to the royal chambers. No. Khandarr might be closeted with the king, but she had the sense that she would lose all if she tried to chase the man through this maze of a palace.
Even so, if he does not return soon, I shall have to urinate on his doorstep.
“Nadine, my love.”
It was the senior guard captain. She thought the woman had departed hours ago.
Nadine smiled and glanced upward through her eyelashes. “Katja. Captain.”
“Watching our friend?” the captain said. She came originally from one of the southern provinces, dark and with thick springy hair pulled back into tight braids. On an ordinary day, Nadine would have found her irresistible. But since Heloïse …
Katja watched her closely, and so she smiled again, more lazily than before. “He fascinates me, my dear captain. So much influence. So much poison concentrated in a single broken body. When does your watch end?”
“In three hours. I think I shall want attention. Your attention.”
Nadine laughed. She drew the captain into a kiss, which she made slow and deep and languorous. “Would you like some sausage?” she whispered into Katja’s ear. “Or do you prefer ripe red cherries? I could peel each one for you, slowly and carefully, until nothing hides the fruit from view. Then I would pop it into your mouth. Oh, yes. That is very nice. Dear, sweet, delectable captain.”
The captain drew back, breathless from Nadine’s attention. “He is not there. He is with the king,” she said. “Three hours. Yes?”
“Three hours,” Nadine said. “Call for me in the courtesan wing.”
Alone she returned to her watch. She considered her promise to Katja Keller, given so easily and meaning nothing. She cast her memory farther back, through her years as a courtesan in Raul Kosenmark’s pleasure house, soft and delightful, despite the knife edge of danger that even the dimmest member of that household could not ignore.
I could have left them all, Kathe and Ilse and the others. I could have gone back to my family in the hills and led a peaceful life.
She laughed, silently, at such a picture.
Then came alert as a runner—one of Khandarr’s senior runners—galloped into view. The man pounded on the grand wooden doors, decorated with gold leaf and precious gems. Nadine was certain he had flattened a god’s face with his fist. Then guards admitted the runner, who tumbled inside.
A quarter hour later, six runners spilled out the doorway and hurried off in six different directions.
No Khandarr, but a message from the man. Of that she was certain.
So. Play the spy and see what scheme Khandarr has laid.
She slid through shadows and behind tapestries after the most senior of the runners. At the next guard post, the runner approached the squad captain. Nadine could not hear their exchange, but the night lamps cast enough illumination that she easily saw the man’s shock, the sudden blankness she associated with a disagreeable order.
Moments later, a dozen guards streamed toward the royal visitors’ wing. That was unexpected. Unless …
Nadine sped to the nearest servants’ corridor. She crossed over to the next wing along an open-air bridge, then circled upward to the floor where Duke Kosenmark and his family had lodged at the king’s special invitation. She had but a few moments before Khandarr’s minions arrived.
Two liveried guards stood outside the doors. Nadine stopped and held out her hands to show she carried no weapons. “Wake the duke,” she said in low quick voice. “Tell him the guards are coming to arrest … I am not exactly sure which of them, maybe the entire family, but most certainly the duke.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed as he scanned her face. “I recognize you. The Lady Heloïse’s companion. Is it only the duke we should warn?”
“Everyone,” Nadine said. “Now.”
He nodded. “My ladies are awake. You will find them in the library at the far end of this passage. I will tell his grace.” To his partner, he said, “Stay here. Do not admit anyone else, not even the king himself.”
Nadine did not wait to hear the rest. She was already pelting down the corridor for the library. All three Kosenmark daughters sprang to their feet as she burst into the room. “Danger,” she gasped. Panic had overtaken her unawares.
“Who?” Olivia said.
“The king,” Marte said softly.
“No.” Heloïse was smiling, a feral tooth-tipped smile that sent a river of cold down Nadine’s spine. “Markus Khandarr. He might act in the king’s name, but the plans are his. Am I right?”
“I do not know. I only know he has sent off a half dozen runners. One of them handed orders to a squad of guards, who are marching here. You and your sisters and your father must leave the palace at once.”
She was up and almost away when Heloïse called out, “Where are you going?”
“To Ilse Zhalina. Go. I will find you later.”
* * *
ILSE WOKE AT once to the pounding at her door. She bolted upright, heart thundering against her ribs. The king, the duke, a messenger come with terrible news … She stumbled from the bed, her feet tangled in the bed linens. The tiny room assigned to her, a servant’s bedchamber, was little more than a closet, and she had just escaped from the bed when the door crashed open, and a hand seized her shoulder. Ilse grabbed her attacker’s arm with both hands—it was a woman, the arm slim but strong. Ilse twisted the arm as she rolled to her feet. She shoved the woman away and swept up the knife from under her pillow, calling up the magic current.
Light flared from a candle. Nadine stood opposite her, breathing hard. Her eyes were bright and angry. She, too, carried a knife.
“Beloved,” she said. “How delightful to see tokens of your adoration. Alas, we do not have the luxury for dalliance tonight. Tell me, how much do you love your idiot Lord Kosenmark?”
Ilse stared. “What?”
“I said, how much do you love that man? Because you must act now. Markus Khandarr has sent a fleet of runners off in all different directions. He nearly had the duke arrested—I say nearly because I fervently wish the entire clan succeeded in shutting up long enough to escape. At least I hope they did,” she said in an edged whisper. “What you must know is this…”
She gave a succinct report of her spying. Ilse listened as she hurried into her plainest clothing—trousers and shirt and boots—and armed herself with the weapons she had yielded before. It was impossible that Markus Khandarr would act against the king’s explicit orders. She could only think that Khandarr had persuaded Armand to break off the trial. “I will go to Raul’s cell,” she told Nadine. “Tell Benno and Josef. They have quarters down the next corridor. If the king had decided against us, he and Khandarr will have them arrested as well.”
On impulse, she pulled Nadine close and kissed her passionately. Then she was off.
* * *
OLIVIA COLLECTED THEIR best swords and knives. Marte handed out leather helmets and the chain-mail shirts she had packed along with their other gear and clothing. It was Heloïse, however, who knew the swiftest passage to the outer gates. Within moments of Nadine’s warning, they and their father were racing down and around the nearest stairwell.
All along their father protested. “We must get word to the council.”
“We will,” Marte snapped. “As soon as we have you safely out of the palace.”
Two landings down, they emerged into a broad hallway lined by statuary. Starlight and moonlight illuminated the enormous glass windows at either end, enough to determine the hall was empty. On the opposite side, a small doorway gave into a servants’ corridor that paralleled the public one. Their goal, Heloïse said breathlessly, was a courtyard near the kitchens, where the scullions loaded up wagons with trash from the palace. There would be guards, but not as many as by the public entry gates.
Down another flight of stairs to the ground floor. Then through a maze of passageways that ended in an airy public chamber, its high ceiling hung with chandeliers, and galleries overlooking the patterned floor. Silently Heloïse pointed out the small archway across the chamber. Leaning close to her father and sisters, she whispered that it would lead to the region occupied by the main palace kitchens.
They each checked their weapons. Touched hand to hand in a final reassurance.
Olivia took the lead. Marte and Heloïse flanked their father, who had drawn his sword. Halfway across, they heard an echo of footsteps to their left. “Hurry,” Marte whispered.
Too late. A squad of ten guards appeared from the farther doorway.
“Duke Kosenmark…”
“You are mistaken,” Heloïse said. “We are four envoys from Ysterien.”
She drew her sword. Olivia gave a warbling cry and charged forward, a blade in one hand, a metal-studded baton in the other. “Go!” she called out to her sisters.
“Not yet!” Marte, too, had her sword ready.
The fight had begun.
* * *
ILSE PAUSED ON the ground floor to catch her breath. She had stopped a passing runner for directions to the prison quarter. The boy—no older than Damek Rudny—had delivered the information in a monotone, all the while staring at her weapons. She had wanted to shake him, tell him that she was terrified as well, but when a distant shout distracted her, and he broke free, she did not try to pursue him.
It was possible, just possible that Nadine’s fears meant nothing. That the king would not act against Raul. Except her own instincts yammered at her—it was not the king, but Markus Khandarr she feared. He might do anything.
The crash of sword against sword broke into her thoughts. Her head jerked up. Yes, it came from the same hallway as that shout.
She launched into a run for the next stairwell.
* * *
NADINE WOKE MANN with almost no effort at all. Iani she had dispatched with numerous arguments. The man was worse than any scholar she had seduced, insisting on an exact assessment of the situation. He refused her assistance in escaping the palace. He had more important tasks to accomplish. Wonderful. She left him to his own devices. To her joy, Mann asked no questions, merely requested that she permit him to follow her to whichever catastrophe required their attention.
At last, she thought. Someone who does not argue.
She had cause to regret that opinion within the hour.
They had descended five flights of stairs to the palace’s ground floor. From there, Nadine dragged Mann through a convoluted maze of passageways that wound between the acknowledged public audience rooms, the more private interview rooms, and those others used by the courtesans when under orders from the king. She could almost tell which courtesan favored which room by the lingering scent of perfume. There was Georg, there Evanna, there the delicious Ava, who had arrived the month before Nadine and defied sexual identity.
They were approaching the outermost ring of corridors, where Nadine hoped to find a gate or doorway unguarded, when a mob of soldiers rounded the corner.
Mann never hesitated. “Follow me,” he shouted, and dived through the nearest door.
Nadine dived after him. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not,” he replied with unholy glee. “I am dancing over my fate. You see, my brother said I would die. Perhaps I shall.”
She grabbed his arm and hauled him into a closet, one she knew held a secret door for the convenience of servants and courtesans. Mann was laughing, she was cursing. He did not resist, however, when she kicked the next door open and propelled him through it. The passageway was cramped and dark, and the dust stirred up by their trampling had them both sneezing. Mann was babbling about his brother and the void between worlds. Once more, she wondered if she ought to have fled home to her family and spent the remainder of her years in quiet boredom.
She shook Mann by the arm. “Shut up.”
He gulped down the laughter and obeyed. Soon they had reached her next goal, a ladder leading into the sewers below the palace. Just in time. From above came the shouts and curses of their pursuers.
Nadine poked Mann with her knife. He clambered down the ladder. She heard a splash and winced. Idiot. Cursing her choice of companions, she descended to find Mann hauling himself onto the ledge that ran along the main channel. She helped him to his feet and then surveyed their surroundings.
They stood on a narrow brick ledge. In the dim light from the opening Nadine could make out the low, arched ceiling, overgrown by moss and slime, the wide expanse filled by dark sludge. Her eyes burned from the stink of the channel and Mann himself.
“Which way?” Mann said.
“I don’t know. Wait. To the right. That leads to the outer walls.”
“And the left?”
“Does it matter?”
“Oh, yes. It all matters.”
From above came the clamor of voices. More voices echoed down the passage to their right. Another moment and the guards would trap them. Mann, covered in mud and slime, laughed wildly. He drew a sword she had not realized he possessed. “Go,” he shouted. “Go find the council. Find Lord Alberich de Ytel. Tell them what you know. And do not argue.” Still laughing, he turned back to fight off their attackers.
* * *
“HE IS BLEEDING,” Marte said to Olivia. “He cannot walk.”
“Will he live?”
Duke Kosenmark lay panting on the ground as his daughters examined him, with an impersonal efficiency he found particularly maddening. Agony twisted his guts. One leg burned with white fire. A guard had smashed a truncheon against his knee. Olivia had dispatched the man before he could do more. Kosenmark had plunged his own sword into the next guard before he collapsed.
He dimly recalled the rest of the guards falling around him, like so many trees driven down by unrelenting winds. He whispered a prayer to Lir and Toc to send these men and women, who had vowed their allegiance to the king, to a more merciful life.
Olivia poked his leg. He grunted. “Find me a physician and I will live. And stop pretending I cannot hear you.”
One of his daughters laughed. Marte, he thought.
Together, they raised him to standing. Heloïse slung his left arm over her shoulder. His other arm hung limp. Only now was he aware of the throbbing in his shoulder, the pain lancing through his chest. More injuries, taken while he had charged like a young bull at those guards.
“I am not dying,” he breathed. “Not yet.”
“Oh, certainly not,” Marte said. “Else you would not complain so much. Olivia?”
“The passage ahead is clear,” Olivia answered.
“Less than a mile and we are free,” Heloïse added.
She did not mention their brother, but all three sisters thought of him.
* * *
ILSE VAULTED DOWN the last six steps to the prison quadrant. Guards attempted to block her passage. She glared at them. “I come in the duke’s name.”
“These are the king’s domain. You need his authority—”
Ilse did not wait for him to finish. She gathered up the magical current and flung a fistful of fire at the guards. They all fell to the ground, writhing.
Her stomach twisted, but she could not pause for sympathy. She leapt over them and sped down the corridor, to the next intersection, down a second flight of stairs, where she veered to the right and Raul Kosenmark’s cell.
Too late.
That was her first thought when she saw a knot of guards in the corridor. Four men, with swords drawn.
She slowed to a walk. If the king had decreed Raul should die, they would kill him before she could stop them with blade or magic. She had to delay them long enough for her to convince Armand himself.
One guard swung his head around. He spoke to his companions, and they all turned to face her, their weapons held ready. She drew closer, her skin alight with a fire of nerves.
“My lady,” said one at last.
Ilse stopped. “My name is Ilse Zhalina. I spoke before the king today.”
All of them stirred. So they recognized her name.
One glanced into the open cell. Ilse’s throat squeezed shut as two more guards emerged with a prisoner between them. It was Raul, his hands manacled behind his back, his cheeks bruised and his mouth swollen and bleeding.
All her frantic thoughts of the king and his intentions vanished at the sight. Ilse glided forward to Raul, hardly noticing how the guards parted to either side. Raul’s head swung up just as she reached him. “Ah,” he breathed. “My love.”
“My love.”
She embraced him gently. His heart was beating swift and light. His skin radiated a heat far beyond what she expected. Had magic been involved? She could not tell. She only cared that she had reached him in time. Whatever Armand had decided, she would convince him otherwise. She would …
“Mistress Therez.”
Ilse recoiled. Raul stiffened.
Theodr Galt stepped from the cell. He was dressed in dark civilian garb. He also carried a heavy sword in one hand. A strange smile lit his face.
“Your lover is dead,” he said. “Or he will be, soon enough.”
“By whose order?”
“The king’s.”
Ilse laid a hand on Raul’s arm. He was trembling. So was she.
“Let me see the king’s order,” she demanded.
“You have no right,” Galt said.
“Wrong,” Raul said, and tilted his head toward the guards. “They know. A king’s order is a public matter. I am no traitor, but if the king believes me one, then let the world know. Show her the papers, you miserable impostor.”
Arguments followed. The king’s order needed no witnesses, Galt insisted. Nor were they a secret, the senior officer replied. Besides, they had all listened to the Lady Ilse’s testimony. She had a right. It was not just their own doubts about the matter, she realized. They disliked Galt for assuming authority where he had none.
“Show me the order,” she said quietly. “Please. If the king has ordered Lord Kosenmark to die, then…” Her voice caught. “If he must die, let me say farewell.”
