Into the Narrowdark, page 40
“The road? You want me to go to Winstowe? Where the Thrithings-men are besieging the castle?”
“It is likely too late to catch Simon before he gets there,” Tiamak said. “So, yes, I suppose it is Winstowe.” He had begun searching through the clutter of objects on his table as if he had lost something important. “Do you trust me, Brother?”
Now Etan was the one caught by surprise. “Trust you, my lord? Of course I do. Utterly.”
“Good. Because events may give you cause to doubt that trust in days ahead. But I swear to you, Brother, my wife and I have only the good of the kingdom and the High Ward in our hearts.”
“I am confused, my lord.”
“Just as well. The less you understand, the quicker they will realize you had nothing to do with this. Now listen carefully.” He held the letter out but did not immediately let Etan take it. “You must deliver this to King Simon and no one else—no servant, page, or other intermediary, no matter what anyone tells you. If you cannot put this straightly into his hand and you see no chance of doing so, then it must be destroyed. Do you understand?”
Etan had never seen the little man like this, and his own fear was mounting. “Yes! Yes, I understand,” he said. “I swear on my faith, I will give it to the king or destroy it.”
“Good.” Tiamak seemed a little easier, but he still held Etan’s gaze. “If something terrible happens and this falls into someone else’s hands, and you are asked how you got it, you must say I gave you the letter before you had the chance to tell me about the bishop’s death.”
“But that would be a lie,” said Etan.
“Yes, a lie to preserve you from being tortured or at the very least put in shackles. Remember—you told me nothing. Say that, before you could inform me about Boez, I gave you the letter and ordered you to leave at once to follow the king. I beg you, for the sake of your life, admit nothing else.”
Etan felt as though he had walked into St. Sutrin’s only to hear the cathedral’s ancient stone floor tremble and crack beneath his feet. “This frightens me, my lord.”
“As it should.” Tiamak opened a drawer beneath his table. He took out a pouch and shook it once to make the coins clink, then handed it to him. “This will help you with food and lodging if you need them.”
It felt like a substantial weight. “May God protect us all,” Etan said.
“I can only echo that,” said Tiamak. “I fear we have been far too confident about far too many things.” He did not explain what he meant, saying instead, “Go, Brother Etan! May your God lead you safely to King Simon. Go now. And know that you are doing nothing but your duty for your monarch and your faith.”
“My lord Tiamak, I—”
“I know. This is a terrible way for us to part. If Heaven allows, we will see each other again one day and I will make all clear, but for now—make haste!”
* * *
Pasevalles was on the stairs leading to the second floor of the Residence when Father Wibert found him. The counting-priest’s hood was crooked, his habit disarrayed, and he was waving his arms like a man who had only discovered he could not swim after falling in.
“Oh, praise Usires,” cried Wibert, “there you are, my lord! A terrible thing has happened!”
Pasevalles put on a look of concern. “What is it?”
“It is Bishop Boez. He is dead—poisoned, the surgeon says!”
Pasevalles altered his expression to one of appropriate shock and surprise. “Mother of God, no! How terrible! Are you certain he’s dead?”
Father Wibert was panting with the exertion of having run across the keep. “The surgeon . . . he says that the body was cold and stiff when he was brought in. They think he must have died in the night.”
“Dreadful. May God grant him peace in Heaven.” Pasevalles made the sign of the Tree, then hesitated. “I apologize, old friend, but I must give you another errand.”
Father Wibert looked as though he would rather go lie down in a cool place and catch his breath, but he did his best to appear willing. “Yes, Lord Pasevalles?”
“Find Lord Captain Zakiel. Tell him to meet me here as quickly as he can with at least a half dozen Erkynguards.”
“Are you not coming to see Boez?” Wibert was still fighting for breath.
“I fear there is nothing I can do for the bishop,” Pasevalles said. “But there is still something I can do to save the kingdom.”
Wibert’s eyes widened. “The kingdom?”
“No time to explain, I fear. Go and find the lord captain. I have something I must do, but the safety of the throne itself may rely on you telling Zakiel I need him, and swiftly.”
Wibert nodded, clearly wanting to ask more questions, but also suitably affrighted by Pasevalles’ grim words. “Yes, my lord. I go now. God watch over you.”
“And over us all,” said Pasevalles and once more made the sign of the Tree.
As soon as the priest was gone Pasevalles sprang up the stairs as quickly as he could. He dispensed with his normal caution and reached the uppermost floor in a matter of a few dozen heartbeats.
He was annoyed that Zhadu the grasslander had taken so long to remove Boez. He had hoped that the bishop would succumb while the king was still in the Hayholt. He had wanted to be able to witness what would have happened next, but Pasevalles had always prided himself on his ability to adapt, to keep his goals in mind while bending to circumstance. Having the king gone might not be such a bad thing after all. With Osric in bed healing from his wounds, and Eolair departed for the west, there was no one in the castle who stood high enough to interfere with him.
He threw open the door of the room—his room, as he often thought of it, since he alone knew all its secrets—and went immediately to the hidden door. Just a short while earlier he had remembered that although he had returned through Granary Tower after his last sojourn beneath the castle, he had come through the door here. He had not expected to spend so long with the Master Witness and had quite forgotten about the door he had used to enter the castle’s secret places.
The crack between the door and the wall stones was clearly visible, and Pasevalles was annoyed with himself that he should have been so careless. What if someone had come in and seen it—even opened the hidden door? It could have been particularly disastrous if the Wrannaman had discovered it.
But whatever might have happened hadn’t, he reminded himself—and Lord Tiamak would not be a problem much longer. He pushed the door closed until he heard the latch that held the great wedge of stone and mortar in place fall shut. Now even if someone stumbled into the room, they would not find it. Only Pasevalles knew the hidden devices that would allow the door to open from either this side or the other, and now the secret was safe again.
He left the chamber, descending as swiftly as he had climbed, and reached the bottom just as Zakiel and a half-dozen guardsmen came hurrying toward him, armor clanking.
“My lord, have you heard the news?”
“I have, Lord Captain. I had feared something like this might occur. I will curse myself forever for not better anticipating what he might do.”
“He? Bishop Boez?” Zakiel shook his head, puzzled.
“No, the bishop is but an innocent victim—a martyr to a treacherous plan that has already meant death for many, I fear, and might have eventually seen the king himself assassinated.”
“What?” Zakiel looked stunned, which was just as Pasevalles wished it. “Whose plan? Are you saying we have a traitor among us?”
“We most certainly do,” said Pasevalles. “Terrible as it is to realize. Come, follow me upstairs—there is no time to lose.”
As the guardsmen followed them, all quite agog, Pasevalles clutched Zakiel’s elbow and pulled the captain close until they climbed side by side. “I had suspicions,” he said quietly into Zakiel’s ear. “No, not just suspicions—fears, I may fairly call them—when Boez first came to the king. Someone has been stealing money from the privy purse for several years. And not a small amount, but thousands of gold pieces.”
“By the Good God!” said Zakiel, then sketched the Tree on his breast. “Forgive me for taking Our Lord’s name in vain, but I am astonished. Do you know who did this?”
“I fear I do, and I should have seen it sooner. Boez told me that he had examined everyone who had access to the money and could find no evidence that any of them had done this terrible thing. The only one he did not investigate was Lord Tiamak, because he was so close to the throne, and because Boez feared to upset King Simon—especially after the queen’s death.”
Zakiel stopped on the stairs. “Are you saying that the little Wrannaman did this? Stole all that gold—and killed Boez, too?”
“Who else could it be? Boez was beginning to think Tiamak was the thief, and I fear he may have confronted him. You know that the Wrannaman and his wife are masters of herbs and potions—and poisons, too. Small wonder if they decided they had no choice but to silence Boez for good while the king was away.”
“I admit I have never much liked the fellow,” said Zakiel, hastening upward again. “But I would never have guessed him to be such a monster.” The guard captain looked pale, but set his jaw in a determined line. “We must arrest him at once.”
“Yes. Do not let him or his wife destroy any parchments or books.”
“You think his wife is a traitor, too?”
“I cannot say for certain yet, but I fear she must be.”
They reached the top hurried along the corridor toward the rooms that Tiamak and his wife shared. A pair of chambermaids who were shaking out a bedcover in the hallway saw them coming and shrank back against the wall.
“Stand beside me,” Pasevalles said when they reached the door. “We must not give him a chance to destroy anything that might show his guilt. When I give the sign, Lord Captain, your men must break in the door.”
Zakiel nodded. Pasevalles reached up and rapped sharply on the door with his fist. “Lord Tiamak!” he called. “It is Pasevalles. I need to have words with you!”
They listened but heard no sound from inside. Pasevalles pushed and the door swung inward. The guards stumbled through, pikes and swords at the ready.
The chamber was in disarray, books and parchments strewn everywhere, but there was no sign of Lord Tiamak or his lady. Two of the guards hastened to the bedchamber and Pasevalles heard them opening chests and moving the bed as they hunted for the fugitives, but they returned a moment later, empty-handed.
“Where could they have gone?” Zakiel asked.
“Anywhere.” Pasevalles was furious with himself for having misjudged the timing. It was one thing to have the Wrannaman in chains and under a charge of murder, but quite different to have him running loose somewhere, knowing more than he should and capable of doing mischief to Pasevalles’ careful plans. He turned to the youngest-looking guard. “You—hasten to the gate and tell the sergeant there that no one must go in or out of the keep without my approval. And to especially watch for Lord Tiamak and his wife. If they are found, bring them to me with no delay.”
The guard saluted and hurried off down the corridor.
“A spy and traitor.” Zakiel shook his head. “The king’s close friend and counselor. Who would have believed it?”
“It is a wicked, fallen world, Captain,” said Pasevalles as he began to gather up the pieces of parchment scattered across the table. “It is dangerous to trust anyone too far. But we will find those two and they will pay for their crimes—I swear it.”
* * *
Lillia had found the first stairway at the end of the corridor and had even gone down it a short distance. She could hear things in the darkness, faint voices, odd sounds. She thought it must be people in the residence nearby, the voices changed and made strange by distance, but she could not entirely convince herself.
She sat on the steps, trying to work out whether she was brave enough to go any farther. Even though her candle was made of fine beeswax, it was nearly half-burned, and she had a sudden, horrifying thought about what it would be like to be here in this dark, strange place if it went out. She had no way to light it again.
Her heart racing now, she got up. She would figure out how the door opened and closed, she told herself—there must be a handle or a latch somewhere—and then she could come back when she wished. Her next trip she would be better prepared, with more than one candle and perhaps even flint and steel. She had always wanted to try lighting a fire with flint and steel ever since Morgan had proudly showed her how to do it after accomplishing the feat himself.
I’ll bring something to eat, too, she told herself. That way I can spend as long as I want down here.
But she would have to make certain that she wasn’t missed by Auntie Rhoner or the nurses, of course—planning for that would take thought. I’ve done enough for today, she decided. And it is so dark and dreadful down here. She didn’t want to admit it even to herself, but she was beginning to lose her nerve. She had never been so separated from the other people in the castle before. If I fell and hurt myself, no one would even know.
That decided her. Lillia got up and made her way back up the stone stairs, then down the winding length of the corridor until she arrived back at the door. It seemed different than she had left it, and she stared at it in growing confusion until she realized what had changed.
It’s not open anymore!
Suddenly very frightened, she tried to reach into the crack between door and wall, as she had from the outside, but the gap was now too narrow for even a child’s fingers. She pushed, hoping the door would swing outward, but she might as well have been pushing on a wall of solid rock.
Her panic growing, Lillia pushed and pulled and scratched at the door until her fingers were scraped bloody, but it would not move. At last she began to shout, then to scream, calling for help over and over until her voice was ragged and her throat hurt, but no one came.
21
Needle
They mounted the crest of the hills in late morning of the second day’s riding. The valley called the Fingerdale stretched before them, still bottomed in fog though the sun was in the sky. The Laestfinger was a wide, curving smear of pewter at the valley’s center, and the pale stones of Winstowe Castle could just be seen above the mist, on a prominence at the river’s bend. Simon was relieved to see Count Aglaf’s standard—an image of a chimerical creature, part river-pike and part lion—still rippling defiantly above the tallest of its square towers.
“That is a gladsome sight, at least,” said Baron Snell, whose Brockfordshire levy had joined the king and Count Pieres that morning. Snell had brought nearly a dozen of his household knights and ten times that many foot soldiers. The baron was a veteran campaigner who fought bravely in the last Thrithings War, so though his pikemen were mostly farmers, Simon felt confident they had been well trained. Surrounded by other, richer landowners, Snell believed in being prepared at all times.
As the sun rose higher and the royal guard and levy-men made camp on the hilltop, Simon peered out over the valley floor below the castle. As the fog burned away, he could still see the rising smoke of hundreds of fires scattered in the valley, countless red spots like the eyes of rats, and he knew every fire marked the presence of at least a few grasslanders.
“How many would you guess they are, my lord Snell?” he asked.
“Hard to say for certain, Majesty. Perhaps two thousand or more. And most of them mounted.” The baron shook his head. “That is where they are fiercest—on their swift horses, loosing arrows as they ride.”
“I remember.” Simon had thought more than a few times of the last battle he had fought with the grasslanders, two decades past. He and the Erkynguard captain Sceldwine and a few hundred men had held the high ground against half a dozen times their own numbers. Sceldwine had died at Simon’s side, and Freosel of New Gadrinsett had taken an arrow in the fighting that, although not immediately fatal, had taken his life within a few months.
If only I’d had Tiamak and his wife on that field, he thought, we might have saved that good man Freosel and dozens more. I wish I could have them here now, but praise God they are back home instead, watching over Osric. We will need him badly in the days ahead, or I miss my guess.
It seemed strange even to think about the future. Since the moment the sun had come up, waking him from a shallow and, as usual, utterly dreamless sleep, Simon had been haunted by a strange feeling, as though just for a moment he had been given a presentiment of his own death. He had thought he no longer feared dying, not with Miriamele gone on before him, but now he felt ashamed. Too many are counting on their king for me to waste my life. He also felt a flush of anger. How did this happen? When I was the poorest of the poor, ordered about from dawn to dusk by Rachel and the scullion-master and nearly everyone else in the castle, I was still more free than I am now. If I wanted to risk my life, I did—and more than a few times. When he had been young, exploring the Hayholt, especially climbing to forbidden spots like Green Angel Tower, had been his fondest pursuit. Now if I sneeze, a dozen surgeons leap to my side. Thank God for Tiamak and his sensible natural philosophies, though I understand not a morsel of it.
He looked down on the mass of Thrithings-men now materializing as if by dark magic out of the fog that had blanketed the Fingerdale. The sun was high now, almost at its noon peak, but the sky was slate gray with a wide blanket of cloud. On the hilltop, Simon shivered. Another day of death, he thought. Fighting and dying, but for what? Unver’s pride? Mine? These are only mortal men, like us. What a horror, that we should fight while the Norns stand by, ready to war against all of us. And if they do, this Unver Shan’s horsemen will fare no better than those of us who live in stone castles.
