Strands of Starlight (41 page)

Probably. After all, it had been before.

The candle flickered. A gust from the open window blew it out and left him wrapped in the amber and rose torchlight that the courtyard walls reflected into his chamber.

He gave up on the book. He had been lax with his office for the last eight years, and he could think of no particular reason to become ambitious now. Drawing a bench up to the window, he settled down to watch the burning torches and the movement of men who were just now changing the guard.

Jaques Fornier—that old bloodgutter. And Cranby . . . Clement was probably right: the Elves were an excuse, nothing more. True, they were something to worry about, for eve at best their beliefs could only be called heretical, but the demand of the bishop of Hypprux for a full-scale crusade sounded as though it were engendered by thoughts more of gold and glory than of grace.

The stout monsignor had never met an Elf, though he had read the legends and had heard the stories. Here, in Adria, there were said to be many of that immortal race left. And here also, he recalled suddenly, the toll of the Black Death had been felt the least. Most of the people of Adria had been untouched—some had never even heard of the Plague. Demons? Gugliemino doubted it. A mystery of God? Who knew? Perhaps in some mysterious way, the workings of Divine Providence had, for a moment in eternity, settled here in Adria.

Maybe we should just leave them alone.

Up—high up—above the roofs and infinitely beyond the light of the torches, the stars burned, eternal, illimitable.

Mirya's powers had been growing steadily stronger: Mika was neither cold nor tired, in spite of the massive healing she had undergone.

Her clothes, though, were a mess of bloody rags, but Terrill had foreseen the need. He went through the pack he was wearing and extracted a thin, dark blue gown and a pair of soft shoes. “The gown is of wool challis, madam,” he said. “The night is not cold, and it should be all you need.”

Still half in wonder, Mika nodded and dressed quickly. Mirya went to the door and listened, then watched the patterns forming in the potentials of the keep. She sensed a change in the near future. A glance from Terrill indicated that he had noticed also.

“We have overstayed our welcome,” said the Elf softly. He opened the door into the corridor. The sword belt of a dead guard clanked as Mirya shoved the body aside.

Both Mirya and Terrill kept their swords in hand as they escorted Mika down the hallway. Near the base of the stairs, a decapitated body lay in the shadows. It was visible to a human, but Mirya did not call Mika's attention to it. “Wait here,” said Terrill. “I will go ahead and open the door.” He disappeared up the stairwell. Mirya sensed the lattice changing, and she saw that the probabilities of discovery were increasing. Multiple futures held the promise of combat within the next hour.

“My lady,” Mika whispered.

“Mistress?”

“Do I . . . do I know you?”

Mirya smiled slightly. Was there anything recognizable about her now? She was no longer even human. “Probably not.”

“There's something about you. . . .”

Mirya sighed, recalling the little house near Furze, evenings under its warm thatch, Mika's poultices, and the anxious look on her face when she bent to change the dressings on the mutilated legs and raw hands of a healer girl. “We met once. But I'm sure you don't remember me.”

“It must have been a long time ago.”

“Ages.”

She heard Terrill's voice within her mind. “Get ready.”

She took Mika's arm. “Come. The hand of the Lady be on you.” She led her past the inert body of the guard and up the stairs. Terrill was easing the door open a last inch.

“Through,” he murmured.

They slipped into the tiled corridor, and Terrill closed the door behind.

“Do you see the webs, Terrill?”

“I do. We must choose our paths with care.”

As he spoke, someone came up the walk to the keep and entered the porter's lodge. Voices drifted to them.

“Time to take over, eh?”

“Aye, but he'll want to share my wine, I imagine.”

“Harry's always willing to take advantage of a friend!”

Laughter. Footsteps. Terrill pointed around a corner, and Mirya and Mika slipped out of sight while he, under cover of the loud steps, whisked open the door and vanished back down into the dungeon.

Harry's relief approached the door, swung it wide. “All right, you black devil, I'm coming. You can run into the arms of that whore you call a wife.” He plunked on down the stairs without waiting for a reply, and the door crashed shut behind him.

The webs were in motion, shifting quickly. Mirya did not like it at all.

The guard from the porter's lodge called out suddenly, “Hannes!” When he did not receive an answer, he also made for the door to the stairs. “Forget his damned head if someone didn't remind him,” he muttered.

Pulling the door open, he stuck his head into the stairway just in time to hear a clatter as Terrill dealt with Hannes.

“Wha?” He was drawing his sword when Mirya launched herself at him, Rainfire bright in her hand. A quick stroke, and she kicked the body down the stairs and closed the door quickly. She waited for the muffled thumping and crashing to die away.

After a minute, the latch lifted slowly in her hand. Terrill opened the door. “They must be changing the guard,” he said. “We have little time.”

“We can go out the same way we came in.”

“With Mika? She cannot do what we can.”

Mirya grimaced. The defenses of the keep and the Chateau, designed to keep hostiles out, were quite adequate to the task of keeping them in. “What do you suggest?”

“The upper corridors will be clear for a while. At its closes, the curtain wall is about twenty yards from the building proper and is as high as the windows of the third level.”

Mirya saw the pattern that Terrill was building up in the lattices and she did not like it any more than the movement in the futures. But they could not repeat their stealthy run through the gates with a human in their company.

They led Mika up to the third level and entered the windowed hallway that passed by the council chambers. There was random motion in the webs, but nothing that indicated a problem . . . as of yet.

Mika looked out and down, paled. “Mother of God.” Her hands tightened on the sill and she swayed against Mirya.

“What is it, madam?” Terrill's voice held no impatience.

“I'm afraid of such heights.”

“Well,” said Mirya, “there's not much else we can do. Can you bear with it?”

Mika looked panicky.

“Mirya,” said Terrill, “can you help her?”

She knew what he was asking, and she shuddered. Perhaps Natil could justify altering memories and thoughts, but Mirya wanted no part of it.

Terrill regarded her seriously. “It is the only way.”

Mirya spoke with her eyes averted. “Mika, I can help you. I can take away your fear of heights, but I'll only do it with your permission.”

“Fair One,” said Mika without hesitation, “you rescued me. How can I not trust you? Of course you have my permission.”

“Proceed, then,” said Terrill. He was extracting his climbing hook and stepping to the window.

With a look of apology, Mirya placed her hands on Mika's head and turned within. She went through the darkness, centered herself, and felt through to the webs that were the midwife. In a moment, she had done what she had to, and she blinked at Mika, who stood serenely before her, smiling. “Thank you, Fair One.”

Such trust. Sweet Lady, let me never violate such trust.

Terrill had thrown the hook and made the line fast. A taut rope stretched sixty feet through the air to the curtain wall, and Mirya could foresee that no guards would be along for a while.

But then, looking ahead, she saw the webs explode.

There was an urgency to Terrill's manner when he turned to Mika. “I shall go out first. When I am ready, climb upon my back.”

Carefully, Terrill took the old woman. Hand over hand, he made his way across to the vacant curtain wall, then beckoned for Mirya to follow. She did, quickly, confidently.

“We will need the rope,” said Terrill. “I will go back and untie it. Mirya, please draw it in, and I shall be along shortly.”

“How far can we push this?”

He shrugged. “As far as we must.”

“You've seen what happens to the webs.”

“I have. But we need the rope. Fool that I am, I did not bring extra.”

Without waiting for an answer, he stepped out, balancing on the line like a wire walker, and scampered back to the third level. In a moment, the rope went slack, and Mirya gathered it in.

Minutes went by. Mirya tried to track Terrill through the webs, but the crossings and recrossings were too random, too confused. Even their position at the top of the curtain wall was doubtful. When they had first entered the keep, they had avoided the wall because of the uncertainty, and now, later, the situation was but little better.

A cry. She stiffened, but then there was laughter from the main gate of the outer wall.

More minutes. She understood that Terrill was waiting for a break in someone's attention.

Then, out among the stars, he was talking to her again. “Take Mika down to the outside gorund as fast as you can. Use the grapple and rope. Hurry.”

Carefully, she fastened the hook and took Mika on her back. The midwife seemed light to her as she inched down the wall in the semidarkness. Mika held on trustingly, and Mirya dropped the last foot and found cover behind the shrubbery. A flick of the rope, and the hook fell into her hand.

But as they waited for Terrill, another voice drifted to Mirya. It came from a window somewhere above her head, from a room within the curtain wall, and it was the voice of Baron Roger of Aurverelle. He was saying something about the guards.

Again, she stiffened, her anger blotting out the stars, and for a minute, she was nearly beyond control. She clenched her hands and bit her lip to keep from shouting curses up at the unseen baron.

I can't afford this. Not anger. Not now.

Terrill was elsewhere. She was on her own. Roger's voice went on, complaining, threatening. Mirya fought herself. The anger was a raging column of fire that twisted through her, enveloped her, tried to force her to its will—

Like her power.

Like Roger of Aurverelle.

The thought was a sharp smack in the face, and it made her fight. Deliberately, she turned her thoughts away from the baron. She thought of Kay. Of Varden. Charity. Terrill . . . of that last night on the borders of Malvern Forest when they had both realized how closely they were linked by the Dance and by their hearts. She closed her eyes, felt Terrill's arms about her again, saw his face above her. Behind his head, high above, glittering like many-colored gems, were the stars.

The stars. In her mind they suddenly flashed again in an endless night sky. Her fists unclenched. The baron's voice went on and on, and there was a sound as though he had struck someone. Mirya would not have been at all surprised if he had. The baron, she knew now, liked his sport, whether it was hawking and hunting or murder and rape. And he was willing to travel for it, whether to the gaming grounds in Beldon Forest ten miles to the north, or the the Free Towns to the south.

Terrill appeared beside her a few minutes later. “I have opened the door in the wall that leads to the river. It took time. I regret delaying so much.”

Bent low, the torchlight flickering across the garden paths and playing among the spring flowers, they crept along a narrow avenue toward the river-most section of the Chateau wall. Twenty feet from the door, the lattices gave way.

“
Guards! Ho! Intruders! Seal the gates!
”

Terrill and Mirya each grabbed one of Mika's arms and hustled her forward. There was no time for subtleties, and both knew that for the instant, all eyes in the Chateau would be turned in the direction of the shouting man who stood at the gate of the keep.

“In the dungeon! Make haste!”

“The fools,” said Terrill. They passed through the door. He turned, closed it, wedged it shut.

“The streets of the city will be crawling with soldiers,” said Mirya.

“No matter: we take the river. Mika, can you swim?”

“Nay, master.”

“Then hold on to me. Mirya?”

“I'll be all right.”

In the Chateau, the guards were roused and the reserves called out. The inner and outer walls were quickly manned, but the soldiers were too late to see three figures slip into the reeking waters, kick out to midstream, and drift, with the current, out of the city, past the chains, and into the open countryside.

The first light of dawn found them fleeing southward on horseback, Mika seated ahead of Terrill and held by a strong arm. Nightflame and Cloud were forgiving and understanding both, for though they had been ridden hard for the last several days, still they ran freely, lightly, as though they felt neither fatigue nor resentment.

Occasionally, Mirya glanced back, half-expecting to see some kind of pursuit. There was none. The soldiers of Hypprux had apparently assumed that the intruders were within the city walls.

Before the morning was half-done, Terrill called a halt for the sake of the mounts, and they rode into the cover of a small wood through which a clear stream flowed. The horses ate and drank, and Mika, worn out from memories and flight, slept soundly. A smile was on her lips, and a dappling of sunbeams flickered across her with the tossing of the branches above her head.

Mirya saw to Cloud's needs, then methodically stripped and washed both her clothes and herself in the stream.

“Hypprux is a pisshole,” she said as she worked a stubborn bit of tar out of her hair, “and its river is no better.”

“Our point of view is different from that of humans.” Terrill looked with disgust at his smeared arms. In the hot sun, the pollution was becoming fragrant, and after checking once more on Mika, he joined Mirya in the stream.

“You say
our
,” said Mirya. “In the dungeon you called me Elf. Once you said that I'd have to earn that title. What do you say now?”