The Barrow (80 page)

Arduin, Stjepan, Erim, Godewyn, Caider Ross, Too Tall, and Wilhem Price sprinted up the hill, all partially armed and armored as best they could in a few short minutes, and with lanterns and torches raised to light their way.

They barely paused before they plunged into the entrance shaft, passing quickly down the decorated stone entrance shaft and reaching the main doorway into the inner barrow; the large, flat oval iron plate inlaid with leering faces in copper and bronze was laid flat on the ground, as if pushed over from the inside.

Arduin reached the archway first and skidded to a halt by its side. He pressed up against one lip of the arch and shouted through the doorway. “Annwyn? Annwyn?!”

“Was that fucking Leigh we saw?” hissed Godewyn, eyeing the iron plate face down on the stone mosaics of the entrance shaft. “Or Gilgwyr, come out of this hole?”

“We'll find out soon enough, I fear,” replied Stjepan. “This barrow has secrets still. Everyone stay together!”

He plunged past Arduin into the doorway, falchion bared and a torch leading the way in his outstretched left hand.

They emerged into the first great inner chamber. Godewyn stopped to hang a lantern from a spike they'd set in the wall earlier. Several of them surged forward, the light from their lanterns and torches dancing chaotically on the walls, as if they were going to head to the shrine of Ishraha and then on to the burial chamber where they'd found the first body and the gleaming, enchanted sword, but Stjepan stopped short at the right-side doorway, the first one they'd taken during their initial entry. He scanned the ground quickly.

“No! Not that way! This way!” he cried, and then he plunged into the doorway, followed by the others.

They emerged into the pillared antechamber, slowing as they did. The archway to the empty high-domed chamber loomed darkly on their left. The light of their lamps and torches illuminated some of the scattered bundles and bags of tools they'd left behind. They were quiet, nervous, as they approached the open archway.

Slowly the light illuminated the round and empty high-domed chamber beyond. Stjepan and Arduin were first to enter, followed slowly by the others. A figure stood stock still in the center of the room, wearing a hooded, heavy damask cloak embroidered in gold thread; the figure appeared to be a woman, and she stood with her back to the entrance. Leigh stood a few paces in front of her, facing her, staring under her hood intently.

Stjepan put his sword arm up, and everyone halted in a cluster in the entrance, waiting behind him and Arduin and peering at the woman with Leigh.

“My Lady? Are you all right?” asked Stjepan, raising his torch to better light the figures before them.

“Step away from my sister, warlock. I owe you a death already,” growled Arduin.

Leigh sighed. “I did not harm your knight. I came upon his body as I sought the Lady,” he said patiently.

Annwyn's voice came from beneath the hood very faintly, as though from far away. “There was a visitor to our tent,” she murmured. “A dark shape, foul and masked. It took Malia.”

“You shouldn't be here, my Lady. It's not safe here,” Stjepan said, taking a step forward.

“And where have I ever been safe?” Annwyn asked.

“She needs to be here,” said Leigh. “I brought her here because she needs to be here. She needs to be here. So she can show you this.” Leigh crossed the short steps to Annwyn, turned her roughly to face the entrance, and ripped down her cloak to let it pool around her legs.

She was naked beneath the cloak, but for pieces of elaborately wrought gold jewelry around wrists and ankles and the map's images and words, some parts still, others in motion. Her dead, blue eyes slowly looked up at Stjepan as his gaze fell on a single new word moving across the front of her torso.

“Do you know what this means?” she asked him.

No one said anything for a few moments. Everyone in the entrance to the chamber was frozen in shock, staring open-mouthed at the vision before them.

“
Islik's balls
,” Godewyn managed to finally get out, and Arduin suddenly came to as if out of a terrible dream and he realized what they were all staring at.

“Out! Out! Get out!” Arduin cried, and he turned and stretched out his arms as if partly to block their view and partly to corral them all and begin moving them bodily back into the pillared antechamber, but Godewyn pushed back with his great strength and moved into the room, followed by Caider and Too Tall.

“I don't think so, my Lord,” Godewyn said, almost giddily. Godewyn started to walk a broad circle around Annwyn and Leigh, followed by the two remaining members of his crew. He spoke toward Stjepan next, but his eyes never left the pale, ivory beauty that stood in the center of the chamber. “You been holding out on us, Stjepan Black-Heart. And you told me there was no pleasure to be found on this trip. All those nights alone in her tent . . . looking at this . . .
map
. What was it he was doing in there with your sister, my Lord? ‘E was in there a lot, was our Black-Heart.”

Too Tall grinned and tapped Godewyn on the shoulder as they circled, and indicated Arduin with a leer and a wave. “‘E was in there a lot, too, chief,” he said.

“Shut your mouth, street scum!” snarled Arduin.

The vehemence in his tone caught Godewyn's attention, and he tore his eyes away from Annwyn's naked form to look at her brother. He could see the emotions running across Arduin's face: anger,
shame
. Godewyn laughed as a particularly nasty thought occurred to him. “Oh, oh, oh, my Lord! Maybe more than lookin', eh?” he said with a laugh.
This is going to get good
, he thought.

Arduin began to stalk Godewyn and Caider and Too Tall around the room as Stjepan stepped closer to Annwyn, his head tilted and torch raised high, trying to decipher the new word. Leigh watched his former pupil placidly, but through narrowed eyes, while Annwyn looked upon him with great anticipation.

“A jousting accident, wasn't it, my Lord, when you killed her lover?” said Godewyn as they backed away in a circle from the approaching armored knight. “But everyone says you and your brothers drew lots to see who would do the deed, after their affair was discovered! Everyone thinks you didn't think him grand enough for her . . . but something more maybe? Wanted to take his place, did we? They say rank has its privileges but I do not think the Temple-Priests would approve!”

Erim and Wilhem Price looked at each other in confusion, still standing in the entrance, uncertain of what to do. So they raised their weapons.

Arduin hefted his war sword up, gleaming dangerous in the lamp and torchlight. “Shut your hole, peasant! I've put up with your insolence long enough!” he growled. He started to pick up speed, his pursuit of the three Danian men around the room now in earnest. They started to stumble backwards faster, laughing and cursing and shouting in fear and surprise, weapons raised, Godewyn's eyes flashing with the anticipation of the coming fight.

But Stjepan's voice cut through their cries high and sharp. “My Lord, the map!”

Everyone else in the chamber came to a halt and froze, staring at him and Annwyn, standing in the middle of the chamber, looking at each other under his upraised torch.

“The map, my Lord,” said Stjepan. “It says . . .
dig
.”

Everyone looked at Annwyn, then down at the floor, at the flat earthen ground on which she stood.

Annwyn smiled broadly at Stjepan, then, a look of triumph on her face.

Too Tall and Wilhem Price passed tools and bags of equipment from the pillared antechamber into the high-domed tomb to Caider Ross and Godewyn. Annwyn walked around the chamber, her cloak wrapped tight about her body and her modesty restored, and yet it kept slipping off her shoulders. Stjepan stood in the center of the room as Leigh marked off a circular area of the floor around him.

“So then we dig,” called Godewyn over his shoulder as he set down a set of shovels and picks. “Even with Gilgwyr wandering around here still?”

“I'll stand guard,” offered Arduin.

Godewyn snorted derisively and exchanged glances with Stjepan and Caider Ross as they began removing the heavier layers of their brigandine and leathers and clothing. “Aye, his Lordship will stand guard,” Godewyn said under his breath.

Wilhem Price was about to follow suit and started to unbuckle his cuirass, but Arduin raised his hand to stop him. “No, no, Wilhem, my sister must be removed from this place. Take her back to the camp, and watch over her there,” he said.

Leigh grunted and nodded. “I will be part of her escort. I brought her here; it is my duty to see her safe,” the Magister said gruffly.

Godewyn frowned and looked around to Too Tall. “Here, Garrett, you go with them, too,” he said, and Too Tall shrugged.

“But Garrett's a miner,” objected Stjepan.

“Meaning I've had my fill of digging in the dirt,” Too Tall said with a grin.

Stjepan and Godewyn exchanged a glance, and then Stjepan turned to Erim. “If things look safe in camp, you and Too Tall try making it back here,” he said. “Everyone digs on this one, if we can afford them.” Too Tall shrugged again, and Erim grunted and nodded grimly, joining those who were headed back to camp.

Wilhem Price, Leigh, Too Tall, Erim, and Annwyn slipped one by one from the chamber; Annwyn paused in the archway and took one last look back at them over her shoulder.

Stjepan caught her eye for a moment as he pulled on a pair of tight leather gloves. And then he turned, hefted up a pick, and swung it into the dirt.

Erim stepped back into the inner barrow's first chamber and surveyed the chamber and its exits, holding a lantern high in one hand and her rapier in the other as she cataloged the prints on the ground, the position of the urns and grave goods. She listened, and other than the breathing and light clatter of her comrades behind her, she could hear nothing. She stepped to the side, slipping the handle ring of her lantern over a spike that had been driven into the wall opposite to where Godewyn had earlier left his lantern.