City of Lies (21 page)

Frisia grinned at Uschi and the two girls stepped through the door into the middle of a crowd of small, plump women. When they saw the princess, the women made quick curtsies. The hems of their aprons whispered against the floor. Their white linen caps bobbed up and down like daisies in a field.

Beyond the women stood a slim young man of about twenty years old, dressed in the overtunic of a knight of Merne and holding a wax taper. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and he was bowing deeply.

“Ser Wilm,” said Frisia. “Was it you who sent the drawing?”

She did not expect him to answer. He had taken a vow of silence, and his servants, who had raised him from childhood and loved him dearly, always spoke for him.

“Your Highness,” said one of them. “We did not know if you would come.”

“We thought you might bring nasty Kord,” said another. “Or Smutz, the big lump.”

Uschi laughed. Frisia said, “It is just me and the young margravine, as you can see. Tell us what has happened.”

Ser Wilm beckoned them toward the crumbling passage that led to the dungeons.

“He wants to show you,” said one of the servants. “Is that wise, Wilm dearie? Be careful.”

The young knight rolled his eyes at Frisia. “But what has
happened
?” she said as she followed him down the stone-lined passage.

“Didn’t we tell you, Your Highness?” said a servant, scurrying to catch up. “It’s the duchess. She’s been locked up.”

“What?”
said Frisia. “But she’s the ambassador-in-exile from Halt-Bern. The king would never dishonor her by locking her up!”

“It was not the king,” muttered another servant darkly. “He is a good man. Hard, but good. He asked us to tell his fate last week, and he paid us for it, which he had no need to do. We think he does not know about the duchess.”

“So who
did
lock her up?” said Uschi.

“Two men came and took her during the night. We were afraid they would take us too, so we hid in the linen cupboard
and did not see their faces. We heard the duchess kicking and scratching, and the men swearing at her. She nearly took one of their eyes out.”

The servants tittered in unison.

Frisia hadn’t been to the dungeons for years, and she had forgotten how grim and silent they were. The ceiling of the guardroom was so low that Ser Wilm’s head brushed against it. Most of the cell doors were open, but one was closed and bolted, with an enormous padlock on it.

“Give me the light,” said Frisia. Ser Wilm handed her the taper, and she held it up to the barred window. At first she could see nothing. Then, in the depths of the cell, something moved.

“Is it her?” whispered Uschi.

“Duchess!” cried Frisia. “Duchess Orla!”

There was a waft of stale air, and a bundle of black rags rose from the floor and stalked toward the window. Yellow eyes glared at Frisia from above a beaklike nose. The duchess’s fingerless black lace gloves gripped the window bars. The iron fetters on her wrists rattled.

Something in Frisia’s stomach turned over at the sound.
(Chains. I hate chains.…)

“Have you come to laaaaugh at Orla?” croaked the old lady. “To poke at me as if I were a caaaged beast?”

“No,” said Frisia quickly. “We’ve come to get you out.”

There was no sign of the key that would open the cell door. Frisia handed the taper to Uschi, then set to work on the padlock with her knife and wire.

The younger girl peered, fascinated, over her shoulder. “Where did you learn to do that?”

The question rang inside Frisia’s head like a sword hitting a breastplate. Her fingers faltered. “I—I don’t know. I suppose someone taught me.… ”

She stared at the bent wire, searching for an answer. She could remember who had taught her how to fight with a sword and shoot with a bow. And how to lead men into battle even though she was so much younger than them and less than half their size.
So why couldn’t she remember who had taught her to pick a lock?

“Are you going to stand there all niiiiight, Princess?” croaked the duchess.

“Sorry,” said Frisia, and she bent to the padlock again.

Within minutes the door was open and the duchess was dragging her chains out into the guardroom. Uschi took a step backward. The light from the taper flickered on the clammy walls.

“Undo meeee,” croaked the duchess, holding out her bony hands.
(Like claws. Like birds’ claws.)

The fetters were harder to open than the padlock, and Frisia’s fingers were slippery with sweat. She beckoned to
one of Ser Wilm’s servants. “You will have to hold the knife steady for me.”

The woman’s eyes widened and she backed away. “Pardon me, Highness. I cannot.”

“Do not worry, smaaaall creature,” croaked the duchess. “I prefer my food dead.”

“But how does it
get
dead?” whispered the servant. “That’s the question, Duchess.”

“Look,” said Frisia impatiently, “she’s not going to eat you, is she?”

Once again the words rang inside her head, as if they were not as absurd as they should have been. The duchess cackled with laughter. The white-capped women whispered to each other in frightened voices. When Ser Wilm stepped forward, they did their best to stop him, but he gently pushed them out of the way.

He
wasn’t at all afraid. He smiled at the duchess in his usual cheerful manner, then took the knife from Frisia’s hand and held it in place while she picked the lock.

The fetters fell to the floor with a clang. The ambassador-in-exile stretched her bony arms wide and flapped them up and down to get the blood flowing. “Aaaah, that’s better,” she said. “Now, Princess. Taaaake me to your faaather.”

“We had better go to my apartment first,” said Frisia, “so you can wash. Then we’ll go to the king.”

The duchess set off up the passage with her black sleeves billowing. Frisia, Uschi, Ser Wilm and his servants hurried after her.

“Do you think everyone in Halt-Bern talks like that?” whispered Uschi, as they emerged into the Memorial Hall. “ ‘Taaaake me to your faaather.’ ”

“Shhh,” whispered Frisia.

The little party was halfWay up the Grand Staircase when something fell from the duchess’s hand. The princess bent to pick it up. When she saw what it was, she almost dropped it again.
(A black feather…)

No. No, it wasn’t. It was merely one of the old lady’s lacy gloves. And yet, Frisia could have sworn …

For a moment she had the peculiar feeling that there were
two
people inside her body, instead of one. “Duchess,” she said, swallowing. “Here. You dropped your glove.”

They hurried past the stone wolves and drew up at last in front of Frisia’s door. Her bodyguards had still not arrived at their station, and there was a flash of white under the door that hadn’t been there earlier.

One of Ser Wilm’s servants fell to her knees. “Look, Highness. Someone has put a sheet under your door.”

It was not a sheet, Frisia could see that straightaway. It was a glass-cloth, of the sort that was used to clean crystal. There were several of them, stuffed along the bottom of her door, filling the gap, so that light could not get in or out.

Deep inside her, a half-remembered conversation swam to the surface.
(“Light—or air. Poisoned air …”)

The duchess jabbed at the keyhole with her bony hand. “This has been filled tooooo.”

(Poisoned air … Shivers! Assassins!)

Assassins? A chill ran through Frisia. “The king!” she cried.

Without waiting to see if the others would follow, she began to run. She heard the scrape of Ser Wilm’s sword behind her. She turned the corner toward her father’s apartments—and almost fell over two of the royal guards, lying full-length on the floor, sound asleep and snoring loudly.

She dropped her fur robe and leaped over the guards. The door of the Presence Chamber was wide open, and she raced through it, past the enormous throne to the double doors at the far end that led to the King’s Gallery. There, another two guards lay on the floor, their helmets crooked, their eyes closed.

“Assassins!” cried Frisia. “Beware assassins!
Guards!
”

There was an answering shout, and Frisia’s bodyguards, Kord and Smutz, raced around the corner. But to the princess’s horror there was no sign of the other guards who should have come.

“Duchess!” she cried. “Rouse the castle! The rest of you, with me!”

They ran together down the long gallery, with the portraits
of Frisia’s warlike ancestors glaring at them from both sides. In his eagerness to protect her, Kord crowded against the princess, slowing her down and almost tripping her.

“Out of my way, fool!” she screamed.

Into the Large Withdrawing Room they raced, and out the other end. Through the Library and the Small Withdrawing Room. At each door the men who should have been guarding the king lay sleeping or unconscious.

They reached the Royal Bedchamber and Frisia threw herself against the door. It was locked. “Ser Wilm!”

The young knight ran backward, then launched himself at the door. The lock rattled, but did not give way. He tried again.

(He can’t do it. He’s only a little boy.…)

Frisia shook her head. Where had
that
thought come from? Of
course
Ser Wilm wasn’t a little boy! Of
course
he could do it—

There was a splintering sound and the door flew open. As the princess ripped her sword from its scabbard, the chill inside her became a blaze of heat, surging from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. The wolf-sark
roared
in her throat! The red mist descended upon her, cutting off all further thought.

With a wild battle cry, she launched herself into the king’s chamber.

A
cloud of foul yellow smoke filled the Royal Bedchamber. Frisia stumbled through it, sword in hand, searching for the assassins. The wolf-sark raged like a furnace inside her. The red mist demanded blood. She no longer knew where she was—

The small, clear voice in her head was like an island of sanity.
(The king! Hurry!)

Frisia’s hand brushed against something. With a monstrous effort, she dragged her mind clear of the red mist—and recognized the silk hangings that enclosed the king’s
bed. She pushed them aside, and there was Father, sprawled under the bedcovers. His eyes were closed and his face was the color of gristle.

(Get him out of here!)

The king was a huge man, and it took Kord, Smutz and Ser Wilm to carry him out of the poisoned bedchamber to the clean air of the library. There they laid him on a daybed under a pile of furs. Frisia knelt beside him, her whole body shaking as the wolf-sark drained out of her.

By now, everyone in the castle was awake. The alarm bell tolled and servants ran hither and thither. Off-duty members of the royal guard stumbled into the library, their boots half buckled, their faces white with shock. The hunt for the assassins was already under way.

Physician Hoff arrived in her nightgown. “More furs!” she bellowed, rolling her sleeves up her plump arms. “Light some torches so I can see what I’m doing. And get those stoves going. We must sweat the poison air out of him.”

“Will he live?” said Frisia.

The physician held a potion to the king’s lips. “Who knows?” she muttered. “It is in the hands of the gods.”

(Flick your fingers. Quickly.)

Frisia did not understand where the strange voice in the back of her mind had come from, or why it was talking to her like this. But it had helped save her father, and so she
was willing to trust it. She flicked her fingers. Ser Wilm looked at her curiously.

Physician Hoff had managed to get the king to swallow a very small amount of the potion. The king spluttered and began to cough. His eyes flickered open. “What is—”
Cough cough
. He shook his head, and some of the color came back into his face.

The physician begged him to drink more, but the king pushed the bowl away. His voice was like the crackling of old parchment. “What is this—you are feeding me—Hoff? Are you trying to—kill me?”

Physician Hoff’s plump face was unreadable. “I am simply trying to mend you, Your Majesty,” she said.

“Consider me
”—cough cough
—“mended.” The king tried to raise himself on one elbow, but he was too weak. “Was it von Nagel’s—assassins? Of course it was. The treacherous creatures—they nearly got me this time.” His fierce gaze swiveled to the princess. “And Frisia
”—cough
—“saved me? Good. Good. You are your father’s daughter.”

He turned back to the physician. “What was it they used? The smell—”

A woman’s voice came from the doorway. “Burning stinkroses. They drugged the guards and slipped a fire-pan into your chamber.”

The speaker was tall, elegant and extremely thin. Her eyes
were dark, and her gray velvet gown was trimmed with rat-skins, lying nose to tail around the neck and wrists.

Frisia had no idea who she was.

“Common stink-roses,” said the woman. “Who would have thought they could do such harm?” She strolled up to the daybed and kissed the king’s pallid cheek. “I am glad that you are still with us, Ferdrek.”