Closer to the Heart (34 page)

“There's that, I s'pose that keeps 'em from havin' t'clean th' cells out,” he said, and then heard footsteps approaching, echoing through the stone hallway. Hallways? There were a lot of echoes. This must be a big place, with a lot of cells.

Amily must have heard them as well, for she fell silent. Mags went back to his mattress and sat there, cross-legged.

The footsteps were slow and deliberate. From the sound of them, the walker was a man. The sound suggested weight, so he was either overweight or heavily muscled. And from the way he was walking, Mags guessed that he was using his slow approach to deliberately induce apprehension or anxiety in his prisoners.

Mags had plenty of that, and he bet that Amily did, too. Still, he couldn't, shouldn't betray that. To be greeted with neither might throw their captor off a bit.

So Mags composed himself, controlled his expression, and simply listened as the steps drew nearer.
Don't show anythin'. Make 'im do all th' work. Make 'im have all th' slips.

Finally the footsteps stopped. The walker was just out of sight, beside the door.

Do I talk first, or let him?
There were advantages to both. But the man was staying silent, and out of sight, and appeared to have the patience to wait him out. Whereas Mags was dealing with a pounding head, and not a lot of energy.

Finally he decided. “Ye already know I'm awake. I'm kinda curious t'see m'host.”

A chuckle drifted in through the door. “Well. What if I'm not anxious for you to see me?”

“Then go 'way an' lemme go back t'sleep, an' ye walked a long way fer nothin',” he replied.

“Hmm. A point. And how is your head?”

“No worse'n I got playin' Kirball,” he said truthfully. “Ye should try it sometime. I'd like ter see ye on th'field. Learn a lot 'bout a feller in Kirball. They do say th' true nature of some'un comes out i' th' game.”

“Do tell,” the speaker replied, dryly. “I suppose you would say that.” And then he stepped in front of the door.

Of course with the light from the lantern behind him, there was nothing at all to be seen of his face. But Mags didn't need to see his face; the man was instantly recognizable given the memories he had from Master Rolmer, and from the general silhouette, he knew that this was the mysterious “General Thallan.” Which was something of an unpleasant shock, since he had assumed that “General Thallan” was somewhere in the south, not so near to Haven.

But all the time the man had been standing there, Mags had kept tight control over his expression, so he was certain he showed no more than a calm interest. “So, I don' suppose ye got somethin' fer m'headache? Or at least somethin' t'eat?”

The man at the door regarded him without moving. Impossible to read his expression, of course, since his face was hidden by the shadows, but Mags could
easily
read his surface thoughts, and it wasn't that hard to get even deeper. He was annoyed that Mags was calm. He was even more annoyed that Mags wasn't groveling, or begging. He had expected both. Evidently he did not know Heralds very well.

:Dallen, tell Rolan to tell Amily t'be a ice-girl wi'this lad. Annoys 'im no end.:

“I'm rather surprised you are thinking of your stomach at a moment like this,” the man said, with just a hint of testiness
in his voice. “I thought you were supposed to be terribly clever. Are you so dull you haven't considered the repercussions of the fact that you are in my custody?”

Mags shrugged. “Wut else am I gonna think of? Ye got me locked up in 'ere, I ain't goin' nowhere, an ye ain't 'xactly supplied me wi' Bards an' dancin' girls. Besides, been a long time since I et.”

That annoyed the man even further. This was a good play. Get him irritated enough and he might just spill something. “You might like to know that now that you two are missing, that play-pageant of a wedding has been called off. There is no reason for Ambassador Aurebic to remain a moment longer. As soon as the delegation from Menmellith arrives, he will be constrained to leave by them, and as soon as they are past the border, the Regency Council will declare war on Valdemar. Valdemar will be forced to hold the border at least. And meanwhile I have supplied the rebels with another lot of arms. The true King, Astanifandal, is heavily in my debt at this point. And he is well aware that by the time he takes his throne back from that child, much of the cropland will be ruined, and he will require still more aid. He will be willing to pay quite a price to get that aid.”

Did he actually
know
we were doing all that?
Mags thought, startled, and suddenly feeling the chill of fear. He probed deeper, and what he found did not reassure him. No, Thallan had not been told this by an insider to the plot. He had
deduced it
from their actions. That was what had brought him up here, away from his men. He knew he needed to stop the wedding in order for his plan to continue working. He really was that clever. That made him horribly dangerous.

“Ye think?” Mags responded coolly. “Well, I reckon there's people who got 'nother say in that, most 'specially th' Heralds.”
Don't give anything away. Let him be th' one doin' the talkin'. Don't let him guess that Amily's already taken Rethwellan outa the picture.

“And if there are no Heralds in all of Valdemar who are able to oppose all this?” The man's voice took on tones of menace. “If the Heralds are paralyzed and unable to act, including the King and the Prince? You forget,
boy,
all you white-clad do-gooders have hostages to fortune, and even your lives, in the form of very large, easily targeted Companions. And we know where every one of them that matters is. Eliminate the Companions, and you eliminate the Heralds. Eliminate the Heralds, and the King will grasp at anything in the way of a lifeline that is offered.”

Mags went cold. Then in the next moment,
:I heard!:
Dallen exclaimed.
:Rolan is shouting it now to all the others.:

And in the moment after that,
:We are going into hiding, Chosen. In half a candlemark, neither we, nor many of our Heralds, will be able to be found.:

:Don't
you
get caught!:
he urged.

“Reckon ye must'a learned that particular lesson from th' lad wut tried t'burn down Companion's stable,” he drawled. “Should'a figgered ye couldn' come up wi' an original plot t'save yer soul.”

The man spluttered with anger for a moment, but then got control over himself. “It doesn't matter. What
does
matter is that even if the Regency Council elects not to attack Valdemar, I have another plan. I have enough men willing to cross the border in support of the rebels to help them win the day, good, loyal Guardsmen who know what an opportunity for our Kingdom this is. The result will be the same. Valdemar will be drawn into war, the rebels will be supported, King Astanifandal will have his crown and he will know that to keep it, he will have to petition Valdemar to become a client-state. You're a fool, boy. You think you are serving Valdemar!
I
am the one serving Valdemar here! I am making it possible for Valdemar to annex Menmellith! I am making it possible for you little white law-givers to bring peace and prosperity to a lot of
barbarians! I am assuring Valdemar's future by giving us a flanking border on Karse, so Karse cannot slip their agents into Valdemar through Menmellith ever again!
I
am the patriot here, you puling little infant, with your ridiculous games and your misplaced pride!
Me!
I will make Valdemar great, while all you can do is bat a ball around a field!”

His voice rose with every word until he was shouting. And he finally realized he was shouting as he came to the end of his speech, and stood there, clutching the bars of the door, and panting with rage.

:That's . . . a very cunning plan. And he can pull it off. All he needs is for the King and Prince to be getting no information from the Border, and he can do that if the Heralds are out of play. By the time the King discovers what has happened, it will be too late. Or if he is truly maniacal, all he needs is to have as many of the Companions as he can killed, and that will throw such confusion into the country he can do as he pleases for quite some time. Even merely
threatening
us has done exactly what he wanted. Now we're in hiding. Now our Heralds are out of play. Now the King has to come up with a counter plan, and meanwhile he does as he pleases.:
Dallen seemed stunned, and Mags wasn't feeling much better.

I gotta keep 'im off-balance. I gotta make 'im rethink ever'thin'. I gotta make 'im think we got somethin' right now as can stop 'im an' make 'im waste 'is time tryin' t'figger out wut it is.

“Fer a great patriot, ye sure do seem pretty set on doin' shit thet risks th' whole damn country,” Mags replied coldly. “Fer a great patriot, ye sure don' seem all that innerested in followin' laws. I reckon ye figger laws don' apply t'ye. Happens there's been other lads as thought th'same. Happens they all end up th' same place.” He shrugged again. “Think wut ye want,
big man.
Jest make sure some'un brings me an' Amily sommat t'eat.”

For a moment, as the bars of the door rattled as the man shook with rage, Mags thought he might just come in there and beat Mags to a pulp. But instead, he tore himself away, and his angry footsteps pounded off into the distance and faded away.

“Well . . . now he's angry,” Amily said carefully. And then she shut up. Mags had an idea that she was trying to talk to him mind-to-mind, and he reached out to her and listened, very carefully, to her thoughts.

Now we know his plan,
she was thinking, over and over.

:Yes we do,:
he replied, placing his words into her mind. He sensed that she had heard him.

And now the Companions are safe.

:Yes, they are.:
But this wasn't something that would hold for very long. Valdemar could not be without its Heralds. For them to just vanish would eventually cause a panic. And meanwhile. . . . “General Thallan” would be carrying out his alternate plan. Or plans. No good strategist ever relied on just one plan; there was no telling if the man was
good
or not, but it would be folly to assume he wasn't. After all, he'd gotten away with illegally smuggling arms to the Menmellith rebels all this time. There was no reason to think that the discovery and subsequent reaction of the Menmellith Regency Council hadn't also been in his plan.

All right, so he hadn't directly eliminated the Heralds or the Companions, and now that the Companions were all going into hiding, he was not going to be able to blackmail the King into doing what he wanted by threatening the Companions but . . .

He still held all the high cards at the moment. He had Amily and Mags. He might believe that he still might be able to get something out of the King by threatening his hostages, once he realized the Companions were no longer in play. And he surely knew that the Companions could not vanish for very long.

:Now that I made 'im mad, I think mebbe 'e's gonna leave us be,:
Mags explained carefully, even though placing each word in Amily's mind made his own head ache with the effort.
:That'll mebbe give us a chance t'get outa 'ere. I'll look fer guards an' all down 'ere that might be close.:

There was a long pause, and he “watched” as she thought quickly and hard, her mind whirling a bit too fast for him to read. Then came the concrete thoughts again.
I will try and find a rat or a cat or something that can show me the way out of this area. There must be something living that prowls the halls.

:Brilliant,:
he thought warmly, then went about his own task. Bracing his back against the wall, he calmed his anxieties and opened his mind to everything immediately around him.

It was excruciatingly hard. His head throbbed with pain, and his neck muscles cramped. He had to fight the urge to lie down and sleep. He had to fight off the last effects of the drug. But it was no harder than it had been to fight against the Sleepgiver potion and remain himself.

One by one, he identified those guards that he had known must be there. There were not as many of them as he had thought. But there were still too many to overcome easily. He and Amily were the only prisoners down here, so he and Amily were the only people the guards needed to pay any attention to.

When you added it all up . . . their odds for escape were not very good.

His spirits sank right down to the bottom of his toes. And that moment was when he heard footsteps again. Two sets of footsteps.

This . . . cain't be good. . . .

He recognized the heavy, angry footsteps. Thallan was back.

And with him—

A timid face looked in at the door. It was the Healer that had been responsible for so much grief and pain to Bear back
when they were both Trainees, who had been sent into virtual exile on the Border for his role in providing information to what Mags now knew were Sleepgiver assassins assigned to destroy Valdemar.

Healer Cuburn.

Mags felt his heart doing double-time. Cuburn was no friend. If it hadn't been for Mags, he never would have been caught.

“This Healer has something for your headache, boy,” Thallan said, in an oily tone of voice that told Mags that what Cuburn had was nothing like that. “He's a good Healer, even if he
did
irritate everyone so much at his last posting that they couldn't be rid of him fast enough.” He laughed. “Our good luck. He learned manners quickly enough with us.”

Thallan unlocked the cell, and gave Cuburn a little shove when he didn't move. The Healer had a bottle in his hands. Thallan's surface thoughts told Mags everything he had been dreading. Without a doubt, it contained one or more of those potions that dulled or blocked Mindspeech.