Knight's Lady, page 24
part #1 of Tenebrae Series
Reubair looked upward and made an incoherent noise in his throat. Then he said, “That bastard. I’ll kill him,” and Trefor knew he meant the king. Reubair turned to run back up the stairs, and Trefor followed.
Seventeen
“Reubair!” Lindsay shouted from the top of the stairwell as she heard steps returning. Cool relief washed over her. He wasn’t going to the dungeon. But then the running stopped at the floor below. The guest chambers. The king’s rooms. She took up her skirts and hurried down. Where the stairwell opened onto the first anteroom below, she found Trefor running up. She reached out to grasp his tunic sleeve, and he stopped.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
“You tell me.” He panted from the run and looked a bit walleyed.
“Reubair knows Alex is in the dungeon. He’s going to kill both Alex and Patrick.” Panic rose, and she had to swallow it.
“No, he won’t. But you’ve got to get out of here. All three of you. Now, and no guff. Take my horses from the stable, and don’t argue.”
“How will you get away without a horse?”
In a tone that dripped, Aren't you stupid, he replied, “I’ll steal one.”
She sighed and nodded. Of course.
He continued, “I can’t hold Reubair for long; once he realizes what’s happened and that you’ve gotten away, he’s going to be more pissed than ever. You’ve got to get Alex and Patrick out of here. Now.”
“How will I get them released from the dungeon?” There didn’t seem to be any way she could pull off what Trefor was asking.
“Just do it. Shake that bloody spell, and you’ll know what to do. Just make sure you don’t lead the way to the gate. Ride behind Alex. Let Patrick lead, and you’ll make it through. After that, once you’re through, you won’t have any trouble with the warding.”
“Where will you be?”
A shadow crossed his eyes, and that made her want to ask other questions. But he said, “Never mind me. I’ll make it out later.”
She wasn’t sure about that, but it was plain there wasn’t time to argue. She nodded and left him in the anteroom to deal with Reubair.
Her skirts tripped her, and at the Great Hall she finally decided enough was enough. These had to go. She took a long dagger from a scabbard hung at the entry with all the other weapons surrendered by knights visiting the keep, and cut the skirt from her overdress, leaving only a tunic-length of it below her belt. Then she cut and ripped the bottom foot or so from her shift so it was knee-length. Legs bare, she now felt unprotected from a sword, but was free of encumbrance that would slow her down and get her killed. She took the dagger with her to the lower levels of the keep.
Panting heavily with excitement, she hurried down the steps. It exhilarated her to be in action. She felt alive in a way she’d only felt in battle. She could die today, but instead of fearing it she accepted it so that the only fear was to fail in rescuing Alex. Alex must live, and that was all she cared about just then. Focus. That was what it took to shake the spell.
At the bottom of the steps, she hurried through the torchlit chambers and held the dagger just behind her right thigh, out of sight. The guard in the interrogation chamber looked up from scratching himself as she entered. His eyes went wide at sight of her getup, and he pulled his hand from his trews.
“Come for a laugh, aye, Mistress?” He seemed puzzled as he returned his chair to all fours and stood, but there was a glint of hope in his eyes that she could be there for his personal entertainment.
“Open the cell with the priest in it.” She pointed with her chin to the heavy, ironclad wooden door.
“What’s the matter, my lady? I confess—”
“Now. Just get the keys and open the door.”
His eyelids lowered with suspicion. He was dull-witted, but not entirely stupid, and she couldn’t hide that something strange was afoot. She didn’t have time to hoodwink him. He shook his head. “I’ll need to hear from Himself first today, I think.”
She raised the dagger, her arm cocked in threat. “Open. The. Door.”
“Put the knife down and have someone in authority bring the order for the door to be opened.”
Damn. She was going to have to prove to this idiot she meant business. She would have to hurt him. She took a swipe at him with the dagger and caught his chin with the tip of it.
His head jerked backward. Eyes boggling, he stepped back and felt of his wound. Then he looked at the blood on his hand and sputtered. “You cut me!”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t open the bloody door!”
“You cut me!” He couldn’t seem to get past his shock at the tiny nick.
“I said open the door.”
Finally his focus returned to her, and his expression darkened. “Whore!”
Lindsay sighed and wondered why that was always the first word people thought of when looking to insult her. She raised the dagger again and took a step toward the guard. “Don’t make me kill you.” She would leave him alone if he would only do as she said.
But, witless as he was, he didn’t get that she was more dangerous than he. He hauled off to hit her, and she sidestepped neatly to ram her dagger to the hilt in his gut. He bellowed with a surprise she began to find tedious, and embraced his stomach as soon as her weapon was clear of it. He staggered and retched horribly. The sound nauseated her.
“You bloody idiot! I told you I was going to kill you, and now you’ve gone and made me do it!” There was a stink of bowel, and with clenched heart Lindsay knew the man would die of the wound, but possibly not soon. He knew it, too, and looked up at her with the horror of that realization. He roared again, with the anger and desperation of his doom, and came at her like a bear. Knowing her action would be a mercy, she stabbed him in the solar plexus and shoved upward, to his heart. Blood gushed over her hand and halfway up her sleeve. The guard cried out again with the pain, but all resistance left him and he collapsed. A moment or two of writhing, and then he was still.
Lindsay stared down at him, disgusted, and told herself the man had been too stupid to live. Then she shook excess blood from her dagger and arm, reached down for the key ring at the guard’s belt, and hurried to the cells.
***
Alex opened his eyes from a doze. A commotion outside the cell brought him around to groggy consciousness. Lindsay, shouting. Threatening to kill someone. He raised his head, and so did Patrick.
“What’s going on?”
Patrick listened briefly then said, “The countess is displeased with someone.”
Alex had to chuckle. “Woe to him, then.”
Patrick chuckled also but sounded weak. There hadn’t been anything to eat since yesterday, and no water since the night before.
A key rattled in the lock, and the cell door opened. Light from the torch in the other room fell on them. Alex and Patrick struggled to their feet as Lindsay burst in. “Alex. Get up. Patrick, help me get him up.”
“I’m up,” said Alex, though he was still trying to make his elbows stop trembling as he pushed off the floor. Patrick and Lindsay each took an arm and lifted him so he stood with feet splayed. Balance wasn’t possible; he was barely able to keep from collapsing to the floor. “What’s going on?” He squinted at the light.
“We’ve got to get out of here. Reubair knows you’re here, and he wants to kill you.”
“Where is he now?”
“Not the faintest. Trefor has done something to keep him at bay.” She draped his arm across her shoulders, and indicated to Patrick he should do the same.
Alex peered at Lindsay. “Trefor is really here?” Patrick hadn’t merely dreamed it?
“Yes. He came when he learned I was here. But something extraordinary has happened and I don’t know what. All I know is that we’ve got to get his horses from the stables and run.”
“Trefor is here?” Alex was agog. Trefor had come.
“Yes. Now we must go.”
Alex summoned the strength to move his feet and was able to make a semblance of walking. Lindsay and Patrick took most of his weight, for his knees trembled, but the need to get moving gave him strength he wouldn’t have suspected.
But then he stopped and looked into Lindsay’s face. His wife. “What?” she said. Her voice was characteristically impatient, and suddenly he loved that. He loved everything about her, even that raggedy dress she had on, even with all that blood all over her arms. He kissed her with all his strength. Leaning on Patrick, his arm heavy around Lindsay’s shoulders as well, he tasted her mouth and felt of her lips on his. She kissed him in return, her palm pressed against his bearded cheek.
Then she looked into his eyes and said nothing, for there was nothing that needed saying.
***
They fled the cell and hurried, stumbling, through the rooms of the dungeon. Stairs. Alex’s heart fell. A long flight of stairs loomed, and the claustrophobia of burial pressed on him. Stone everywhere, and the only way out was up this nightmare staircase. He gasped for breath and steeled himself for the climb. One step at a time, but hard on each other, for they would die if they couldn’t get out in a hurry.
By the time they reached the Great Hall he was completely blown, heaving, nearly vomiting. Every muscle in his body trembled, and sweat dribbled from his hair down his face and neck. Each step was a new challenge, and those challenges came quickly. Lindsay and Patrick hurried him along. No rest. No chance to gather his strength or his wits. They just kept moving. The Great Hall was empty. Strange. There should be knights here; there were always courtiers in a Great Hall. Shouts went up somewhere. Alex couldn’t tell where. But he didn’t care to puzzle over that. Patrick and Lindsay hefted his weight again, and he leaned as heavily as he dared as they left the Hall and nearly ran across the bailey. Daylight blinded him, and he ducked his head as he struggled to see. Lindsay guided him to the stables, where castle functionaries surely awaited. But the stables were also empty of people. Even more strange, for there should have been men attending to the animals. It seemed everyone in the castle was off somewhere else. Lucky for him, bad for Reubair. Hope brought a little more strength.
Lindsay paused, listening to the hollering in the distance.
“It’s got to do with Dagda.” She listened more closely, then said, “Something terrible is happening. I hear Trefor and Reubair.” She relinquished hold of Alex, whose weight shifted to Patrick. “I’ve got to—”
“My lady,” said Patrick with desperate urgency. “We must go.”
Alex wondered who Lindsay wanted to go help: Trefor or Reubair.
“Please, my lady,”
“Trefor—”
“He’ll be all right. He has God with him.”
Lindsay considered that, then without another word took up her place beneath Alex’s arm once more. They went down the row of stalls, looking for a likely mount.
“Here,” said Lindsay. “These look familiar: they must be Trefor’s.”
“They’re mine,” said Alex, gasping for breath required for speech. He recognized his favorite charger, the stallion with the feathered fetlocks. “I rode in on this horse.”
“Good. Then we know he’s worth stealing. Get on.”
Alex reached up to grab a hank of mane and groaned. His body was one huge package of pain. Every joint ached as if he might fall apart like an overcooked goose. The stable building was warm. Alex had nearly forgotten what that was like. He had a mad urge to crawl under a pile of straw to sleep, and would have if Lindsay and Patrick had not demanded he mount. Bareback. Not ordinarily a problem for him, but today he doubted he could cling to a galloping horse by himself. He shook his head. “No. Saddle.”
But there was no saddle handy. And no bridle. He would have to control the horse by a lead looped around its head. Patrick was arranging that.
“No saddle,” said Lindsay. “Ride behind me. Hang on as best you can.” She found a mounting stool and leapt onto the horse. When her shift pulled tight, she ripped the skirt of it up one side to free her legs. Patrick helped Alex to mount behind her, then took another horse for himself. Alex clamped his knees astride his charger’s barrel, held Lindsay’s waist with one arm, and with the other reached for a fistful of mane. Even having been ill and starved he was heavier than she; he couldn’t depend on her to keep him on the horse’s back. He braced himself, and Patrick kicked his horse to lead the way.
They burst from the stables at a gallop, and onto the streets of Finias. The curious were gathering at the commotion in the bailey, scurrying across in twos and fives. Some gaped at the escapees, but none thought it prudent to interfere. No business of mine seemed to be the attitude. Somebody else’s problem. They were all off to see what was going on near the keep. Lindsay, Patrick, and Alex were away, and it seemed they were home free.
No such luck. A guard in the bailey raised an alarm at full voice and ran to the stables. Alex looked behind and saw a scurrying of knights to their horses. The chase was on.
Up ahead, it seemed to Alex there were two views. Like a superimposed photograph, he saw two streets. He blinked. Lindsay shouted to Patrick to slow down. She needed to catch up to him, or she’d be sidetracked by the warding spell. If that happened, she’d lose him and never be able to get out. Patrick waited, and she caught up. They headed for the portcullis again.
The guard there had heard the commotion, and the gate was on its way down as the two running horses approached. Lindsay cursed like a true knight and kicked the charger to greater speed. “Go, Patrick! Don’t let me get ahead of you!” Patrick kicked his mount also, and at a dead run the three of them rushed the exit. As they passed under the lowering gate, Alex and Lindsay dodged one of the spikes at the bottom and plunged through. Patrick’s horse stumbled, but recovered, and they were on their way from the castle. The gate rattled the rest of the way to the ground. Shouts from behind came from their pursuers, who commanded the gate be raised for them to pass. There would be a small head start.
Very small.
***
Trefor rushed into the king’s bedchamber and found it empty of people. The bed was turned down, but not slept in, and he figured the king hadn’t made it in for his nap. But where had Reubair gone? Trefor turned a circle, puzzled, for he’d been certain there was no exit for Reubair except past him in the stairwell. For one light-headed moment, it seemed he’d magically disappeared. It was a possibility.
A groan from beyond the bed pricked Trefor’s ears, and he found a faerie knight lying on the floor, wounded. Reubair had been here, and apparently so had Dagda, for it was one of his guard, the candid fellow who had so willingly chatted with Trefor. He had a badly gashed face and leg, but there wasn’t so much blood he wouldn’t live. Trefor stepped over the agonized and panicky knight and pulled back a tapestry hung against the far wall of the chamber.
Ah. It covered an opening in the wall. Trefor started into it but hesitated at the pitch darkness. Quickly he returned to the chamber and lifted a candle from a stand on a bedside table, then slipped into the recess behind the tapestry.
Down it went, rough stairs that sometimes gave way to merely sloping stone, and Trefor realized this passage had been built into the mountain of living rock beside the keep. The better to disguise its presence and its destination from people who might want to guess those things.
After a distance of level going, the tunnel ended abruptly. Dead end. Trefor couldn’t see a way out, until he lifted his candle over his head and looked up. Iron rungs embedded in the stone indicated the passage went straight up into darkness. Trefor wondered how far underground he was, and how far from the keep.
With the candle dripping beeswax all over his left hand, he climbed the rungs to find himself up against an iron door, flat and round like a manhole cover. Heavy. He put his shoulder to it, shoved hard, and with a creak of iron and a crunch of grit it gave way. A fine sprinkle of dirt fell on him, into his face, and made him spit. Quickly he shoved again and hinged it away from the hole, and he climbed the rest of the way and out.
He found himself in the garden between the keep and the stables. Well disguised by overgrowth, the tunnel entrance was hard to see even as he stood next to it. When he let the cover fall with a loud clang, it became nearly invisible. A scattering of dead leaves was all it took to make it so. He extinguished the candle and looked around for Reubair.
“Murder!” The shout was Dagda, calling for help. Trefor turned to hear where. “Murder! Assassin!”
“Reubair!” Trefor ran toward Dagda’s voice and didn’t see anyone until he stumbled upon another faerie knight, this one quite dead, with his sword lying nearby. Reubair had certainly taken Trefor’s suggestion seriously. He was out to kill the king.
There was a scuffling noise in a thicket off to Trefor’s left, toward the wall of the stables. He went, shouting. “Reubair!” He didn’t know whether to yell encouragement or call him off. Minutes ago he had been quite willing to kill Dagda himself, but now he wasn’t so sure. Now he wondered if perhaps Morag had given him a push to it. It was something she would do, and he wouldn’t necessarily have felt it.
He plunged through a patch of berry shrubs and found Reubair faced off against Dagda, whom he had cornered in the thicket by the wall. The king stood helpless, disarmed, bleeding from defensive wounds and gaping with terror. He held out one hand with palm forward, a gesture of warding, his elbow trembling with the effort of the spell. Reubair was playing with him, enjoying his own power. He laughed and lunged, then held back to keep the king cornered and prolong his game. Blood from slashed forearms dripped from Dagda’s fingertips and elbow, and he gasped for breath. His face paled with the bleeding, and as he weakened so did his strength to keep Reubair off. He glanced at Trefor, and the relief showed on his face.
Reubair turned when he realized someone was behind him. In a flash he came at Trefor, who drew his own dagger to defend. He parried Reubair’s thrust, then socked him in the mouth. There was no bellow of pain, though his lip split and his teeth went pink with blood. He only shook his head and snorted, blood flying. Trefor attacked again with his knife.
