Mistress of the Catacombs (29 page)

* * *

The high-pitched shriek brought Cashel to his feet from a dream in which he explained to Sharina that he owned all the sheep on the hillside below. "Tilphosa!" he shouted, his staff crosswise before him.

If the sailors'd harmed the girl after he'd warned them, then they could pray to the Sister for mercy. They'd get none from Cashel or-Kenset.

Tilphosa jumped up also. She eeped and threw herself flat as an iron buttcap whistled past her ear. Cashel'd nearly knocked her silly on his way to rescue her.

It was bright day, not much short of noon. The light hadn't kept Cashel from sleeping like an ox after plowing, but it made it easier for him to get his bearings now that he was awake. Tilphosa was fine, just flattened on all fours as she looked up cautiously to judge where the quarterstaff was. The sailors were gone, all three of them.

The scream repeated. Now Captain Mounix was bawling in terror besides. The noise all came from the direction of the waterfall—and the birches. No surprise there.

"Stay—" Cashel said as he started lumbering toward the cries. His mouth closed. Stay here alone, where who-knows-what might be waiting for a chance to grab you?

"Duzi!" he said in frustration. "Do as you like!"

Which, being Tilphosa, she was probably going do no matter what he said. She loped along at Cashel's side, discretely beyond where she'd be swiped by the staff. She held her chunk of rock up by her shoulder, ready to chop or throw.

Captain Mounix was in the grove, his back to them. He was tight up against a birch, hammering it with both fists and bellowing. The branches weren't holding him or anything like that so far as Cashel could see.

"What's the matter?" Cashel said. Ousseau and Hook were here too, clasping other trees. Hook was the one who screamed like a boar being gelded. "What're—"

He grabbed Mounix by the shoulder and tried to pull him back. Mounix roared in pain and terror.

The nymph he'd been embracing trilled silvery laughter. She'd looked completely human at Cashel's first glance, but her slender body was becoming wood and bark again even more swiftly than he'd watched her form when first he'd entered the grove the previous dawn.

"Don't bother with her, big boy," called the nymph from a nearby birch. Her fully human body stood out from the tree trunk. "She's taken, but I'm not."

She laughed with demonic cruelty. Cashel looked at her, then stared down at the captain, his tunic lifted and groin pressed closed to the bole of the tree.

Oh. It wasn't the nymph's arms that held Mounix; but he was held, and held beyond any easy way of freeing. The captain's eyes closed and his whole body was going rigid.

Cashel stepped away. He drew his knife while he thought things over. The quarterstaff wasn't going to solve the problem, and even if he'd had a proper axe he wasn't sure he could cut Mounix loose. Not safely, anyway.

Tilphosa stepped close to look. "Don't—" Cashel said, but she paid him no more attention than he'd expected she would. She lifted her rock high in both hands and slammed it as hard as her strength allowed into where the nymph's face had been.

The stone flew out of Tilphosa's grip, bouncing from Mounix' shoulder and falling to the ground. The captain paid no attention to the blow. His body shuddered, then froze; and shuddered again. The dent in the soft birchwood filled and began to recover itself with bark.

Cashel could see Hook in profile. He was silent now. His eyes were open but blank, and his arms were limp. The sword he'd taken from the captain lay beside him, its blade broken a hand's breadth below the hilt. He must have been hacking at the nymph who'd trapped him, but any damage to the tree had healed completely. Bark covered the whole trunk and was beginning to grow over Hook as well.

"Cashel?" Tilphosa said in a small voice. "I think that must be Ousseau over there."

She pointed toward the other side of the grove. Cashel could see cloth on the ground, maybe a torn tunic.

"He's just a lump against the tree, now," she said. She closed her eyes. "Cashel, can we leave?"

Cashel put his knife back in its horn sheath and walked over to Hook. He picked up the sword hilt and handed it to Tilphosa.

"Here," he said. "It's not much, but it's better than what you had. Let's get going."

All of the birches had reverted to the look of simple trees, but Cashel heard a tinkle of laughter as he and the girl walked quickly back the way they'd come.

"I don't know where we're going," Cashel said.

"I don't care where we're going," Tilphosa said. "We're going away, Cashel. We're going away!"

* * *

"They put this up quickly," Sharina said as she mounted the steps to the wooden platform built out over the south gate into the palace compound. "It seems as solid as the palace wall, though."

The supports were bamboo tied into a lattice as strong and open as a huntsman's net. Reise, Garric's major domo, had provided tapestries to give a look of luxury to the plank floors and railings. The covered treads made Sharina step carefully, but she couldn't have seen her feet while wearing court dress anyway.

"Builders use the same sort of scaffolding to set keystones," King Carus muttered. "I guess it ought to hold a few people who aren't too badly overweight."

He punched his stomach with the heel of his left hand. Despite Carus' insistence on a daily hour of sword practice, he complained that the round of meetings filling the rest of his time had him as badly out of shape as a calf stalled to provide veal for a banquet.

"We need a proper stand for public announcements, though," he added. "I don't think a thousand people can see me from here, and a king ought to be seen!"

"Perhaps the Customs Tower in Harbor Square?" suggested Liane, the last of their party. "With the booths cleared from the square, most of Valles could gather there."

Lord Attaper stood at the base of the stairs with a platoon of his men. The additional Blood Eagles full armor outside the gate concealed the heads of their javelins with gilt knobs. They were a guard of honor unless something went wrong, whereupon the knobs would come off very quickly.

"You want to train people to think of me when they see the tax collector?" Carus said with a laugh. "Maybe not, hey? But some sort of tower down by the square might work."

Chancellor Royhas, Lord Waldron, and four attendants already stood on the platform, facing the steps. The nobles bowed to greet the king. In past generations the servants would have knelt, but Garric had decreed that no man in his kingdom knelt to another in his public capacity. Today bows—rather deeper than those of the nobles—sufficed for the servants as well.

The crowd shouted and waved as Carus appeared. The cheers started with people sitting on the tiles and in dormer windows, but as quickly as flames crossed a field of stubble it passed to those packing the boulevard below. Ribbons, pennons, and kerchiefs painted with fanciful portraits of the royal household fluttered in hands and on staffs.

Carus might think the crowd was small compared to his memories of the public squares of ancient Carcosa, but then the Isles had been united for a thousand years and the capital's facilities were built to serve the whole kingdom. It amazed Sharina, though, the numbers and the enthusiasm both. Many were crying, "Princess Sharina!" at the top of their lungs and flailing the air with what they fondly imagined was her painted likeness....

The boulevard leading to the palace gate, and the street that crossed it paralleling the compound's high brick wall, were full of spectators for as far as Sharina could see. The buildings were of two and three stories with sloped tile roofs and occasionally a dome. Normally thatched or fabric awnings shaded merchandise on display in front of the shops, but these had been taken down—or torn down—when criers went through the city announcing that Prince Garric would speak at midday in front of the palace.

An usher in a black robe with scarlet sleeves stepped to the railing, raising his hands to the crowd. They cheered even louder. He chopped his hands for silence—and most people continued cheering.

Laughing with gusty good humor, King Carus put his left hand on the attendant's shoulder and gently moved the embarrassed man back. Carus hopped onto the rail, balancing there on the balls of his feet.

Liane put her fist to her mouth. Royhas cried, "If you break your neck—"

"Relax, chancellor," Carus called over his shoulder. His shout was barely audible over the shrieks of amazement from the crowd. "I've climbed more masts than many who call themselves sailors."

Carus made a megaphone of his hands and bellowed, "Silence!"

Few if any could hear him, but they understood the pantomime. An active quiet, more like the hush of a forest than of a human gathering, fell over the crowd.

"Citizens of the Isles!" Carus shouted. "My people!"

The other three attendants on the platform were scribes; this at Liane's insistence. They began scribbling madly when Carus started to speak, two on wax tablets and the third with an ink-brush on a roll of paper cleverly mounted on the bottom of a thin plank. By nightfall full copies of Carus' speech would be on notice boards in every district of Valles.

The king stood with his fists on his hips, arms akimbo. Though Sharina stood behind him, she'd seen the ancient king's expressions often enough now—so different from her brother's, though wearing the same flesh—to imagine the broad reckless grin he was wearing now. His posture was relaxed. She suspected he could do handstands on the railing if he wanted to.

"There's those who'd bring the kingdom down in blood!" Carus said. "They'll not be permitted to. Lord Waldron—"

He reached his right arm back toward the army commander. Waldron was already as straight and stiff as a swordblade; he quivered noticeably at the recognition, however.

"—and I will see to that, at the head of the forces of the Isles. The kingdom has a sword, now. It's your sons and brothers, not strangers from aboard, who man the fleet and the army."

The crowd cheered again. Sharina suddenly understood where Garric had gotten the skill with which she'd watched him move groups of people since he came to Ornifal. Here was the man who'd taught him, using his voice and his posture with the same practiced ease that whipped his sword through a crowd of enemies.

Carus held his hands up for silence—and got it, while the scribes wrote madly to complete their shorthand accounts of his previous words. The usher on the platform with him, a middle-aged man, watched with undisguised envy.

"The government, under our monarch Valence the Third—"

Carus was as careful as Garric and his ministers to pay lip service to the fiction that Valence remained the King of the Isles. Officially the king's adopted son Prince Garric merely handled day-to-day chores.

"—will remain in the capable hands of our council, headed by Chancellor Royhas."

Again Carus reached back without looking behind him, this time gesturing toward Royhas with his left hand. The chancellor's court robes of creamy silk brocade hemmed with scarlet in token of his position. He remained almost impassive. The smile that lifted the corner of his mouth could only be seen by someone on the platform with him.

The crowd below was too thick for peddlers to work it. Trays of candies, water jars with cups of varied sizes, and bundles of cloth and metal trinkets were mired in the thick mass of spectators. There'd be time enough for sales when the assembly started to disperse.

Carus silenced the roars with another gesture. He half turned and with a roguish smile gestured Liane forward. She looked surprised, but she obeyed.

Carus stepped down backwards as easily as he'd hopped up. He took Liane's right hand in his left and raised it. The crowd had already shouted itself hoarse, but people tried to outdo themselves until Carus lowered his arm and Liane's.

Lord Royhas glanced sideways toward Sharina and lifted an eyebrow. She shook her head minutely. She had no more idea than the chancellor did—or Liane, either one—of what the man in Garric's body intended to do now.

"My people!" Carus said. "My fellow-citizens, my friends! There are decisions that only a person, not a government, can make. Here in your presence I announce my betrothal to Lady Liane bos-Benliman and her appointment as my surrogate in all matters that would otherwise have to wait for my return from campaign. Give her your honor and your obedience, for her sake and for my own!"

Liane's mouth was open, but any words she'd intended to speak had dried in her throat. Carus caught her by the waist in both hands, kissed her, and then lifted her above him in a display of strength and agility while the crowd thundered.

He set Liane down. Sharina stepped to the couple's side and embraced both of them. Liane's body was rigid, and her expression was sheer horror.

"Don't worry, child," Carus said, grinning triumphantly. "This won't make any difference to you till Garric comes back, save that you won't have the trouble with the nobility you'd otherwise face when I made you my viceroy."

"But...," Liane said, her eyes wide. "But when Garric does come back...."

"He'll have to go through with the marriage," Sharina said, completing the thought Liane was too embarrassed to articulate. "Which is just as well, I think."

"So do I," Carus said. Royhas and Waldron had hesitated; now both men stepped forward to offer congratulations. Carus waved them back, then bent to speak to the women in a voice no one else could hear over the crowd's shouted joyfulness.

"A king must marry," the ancient king said. "Your Garric—"

He nodded to Liane.

"—is a brave fellow by any standards, but being raised by a she-wolf like his mother Lora would put anybody off marriage. I'm doing what a good regent ought to do, preparing the kingdom for the rightful ruler who'll succeed me."

Putting an arm each around Sharina and Liane, King Carus stood for a moment looking out over the ecstatic citizenry.

"Besides," he added, barely audible even to Sharina. "I like the lad!"