The Still (18 page)

“Through the gate.” He shucked his own garments, donned the guards’ clothing.

A time passed, moments or hours. Kerwyn, ridiculous in a trooper’s jerkin, led two horses. Behind him came Genard with two others.

Rustin adjusted his own helmet, mounted his chestnut mare. “We’ll need to show swords and shields; all we have is that half-sword of yours. I’m going to the armory.”

“You’ll be recognized.”

“Your household troops and the men of Verein still don’t know each other.” He clattered to the door in soldier’s garb and boots, reached down to the catch. “Besides, no one looks at a soldier’s face. I grew up in a soldier’s house.” He was gone.

Genard fussed at his uniform. “It overflows on me. How will I keep the arms from—”

“Quiet.” Griswold rolled the boy’s sleeves and leggings so they seemed less outlandish. “You’ll be a small young soldier. Kerwyn, keep your faceplate down; everyone knows that nose of yours. I want you both back, soon as it’s safe.”

The door swung open. Guards with torches, their swords drawn. “Stableman, have you seen the boy Prince?”

Griswold’s eyes never strayed to mine. “Not of late.”

I blinked, coming at last into the remainder of my senses. My fingers played at my guardsman’s knife. I said, “We’ve already searched, trooper.”

“Captain Stire was attacked. He’s livid.” The man’s eyes flickered to Kerwyn, and the stableboy in man’s clothing. Then past the shirt thrown casually on the hay. “I’ll try the kitchens.”

After they left I eased myself back on the hayroll, hoping the others wouldn’t see the tremble of my knees. I gathered my wrapped crown to my chest, hugged it. We waited in silence, until steps approached. Rustin.

He grinned. “Three swords and scabbards. And shields.” He distributed them. “I used Stire’s name.”

“They’re looking for me. Fostrow must be loose.”

“No matter, now.” He handed me the reins to a snorting gelding. “Up, my prince. Stay close, and let me speak. I’m the captain.”

He wheeled his mount out the door, clattered toward the gate. We spurred to follow. “Lanford!” A bellow. “The ale-man’s cart! Where is it?”

The gatekeeper frowned. “Left an hour ago, guardsman. They finally got the wheel high enough to repair—”

“And you let them through? The Duke will have your ears, if not worse!” Rustin’s horse pranced with conveyed excitement “You fool!”

“What—why shouldn’t I let—they were desperate to get down the hill and away, before Tantroth’s troops blocked the road.”

“The boy Rodrigo was on the cart!”

“We checked every barrel. And looked under—”

“He was the helper in brown, perched on the backboard! Open the cursed gate. Hurry, they can’t be far down the hill.”

Swearing, Lanford swung open the gate, and we charged through. Behind us the doors thudded shut.

The wind tore at Rustin’s exultant cry. “He’ll have your ears!”

“N
OW WHAT?” RUST SLOWED
his mount, sideslipping to avoid a cart full of sacks and squalling babies, pulled up toward the castle by a gasping townsman.

“Down the hill like the demons themselves were after us.” I sounded as sure as I felt. “From the towers they can watch us almost to Llewelyn’s keep. If we dawdle, they’ll wonder why we were in such an all-fired hurry to get out.” I spurred.

The hill was crowded with refugees. As we rode I peered below to the harbor whenever shrubbery was sparse enough to permit.

Castle Stryx faced west. In the last rays of daylight, Tantroth’s black-sailed fleet lay silhouetted against the pale pink sky of the inlet. Sensibly, the Duke of Eiber had made no attempt to land at the wharves along the waterfront near Llewelyn’s stronghold. Instead, their ships were beached a league south, where their foreguard could get a foothold before Llewelyn’s men fell on them.

I was appalled at the number of townsmen struggling toward the gates. There was ample room within the castle’s outer walls, but if Tantroth succeeded in mounting siege, how long could our stores sustain such a quantity of folk?

“Make way for the guard!” Rustin, sword raised, cleared a path by gesture and voice.

“Look, Ma, it’s the Prince!” A youngster tugged at her mother’s hand; the woman shook her head. “No, not that one, Ma! The one behind!” Her voice pierced, and other faces swiveled to peer at us.

I thrust down my helmet, did my best to look inconspicuous, but word of my passage leaped down the hill.

“Sire, do you join the guard below?” An old man clutched at my bridle. “Will you save the town?”

Never mind the flimsy hovels of the city; how could I save myself? Not if I stopped to parlay with fools. I threw an airy salute, cantered past.

The most difficult stretches were the sharp bends where our road nearly doubled back on itself. There the path was choked with wagons, bullocks, handcarts, mulesters, crying babies, anxious women, sweating peasants. At least we need not fear scrutiny from the ramparts; the road must look like a disturbed anthill.

“Roddy, look!” Rust pointed. For a few paces we had a clear view of the sea road from Llewelyn’s keep past the swordsmith’s, into the town of Stryx. A small troop of cavalry clattered south toward the invaders; one lonely scarlet banner drooped on a standard.

“Are they all we can muster?”

“Those aren’t the first, I’m sure. And my father has to hold the keep, as well.” Rustin sounded defensive. “The stronghold guards this very road to the castle.”

Thanks to the congestion, we were barely halfway down the hill. “Rust, let’s rest at Besiegers’ Pond.” The turnoff was near, and my mind reeled from the crowd of events. Scarce an hour before, we’d broken into the vault, after setting fire to Castle Stryx.

“We haven’t time.”

Ignoring him, I spurred off the road to the familiar path. For lack of choice, my companions followed.

After the mad fear of the townsmen, the wood seemed a peaceful refuge. I picked my way toward the brackish pond, an eagerness arising.

Kerwyn pressed his mount forward. “Sire, if there’s no further need, I’ll turn back.”

“Very well.” I dismounted. “I need a moment to think.” I knelt by the still water. A thirsting mosquito buzzed, settled on my hand; I flicked it off.

Rust frowned. “This is no time to—”

“Do as I say.” In this familiar place of solitude, I felt a strange confidence.

Perhaps, hours or day hence, Tantroth’s soldiers would settle on these banks, while awaiting the fall of my ancestral home. Had I a duty to climb the hill, join my people for what awaited them? How could I be King, and abandon my realm?

“Am I not traitor, that I flee in time of battle?” I’d scarce formed the thought before I realized I’d spoken it aloud.

Rustin sat cross-legged at my side. “No, my lord. Preserve thyself, to succor thy kingdom.” The intimacy of his high speech warmed my courage.

An avid blue-winged dragonfly, flicking in the day’s last grudging rays, drew intricate designs in the humid air.

“Easy to say, to justify my escape. How then shall I be King, and succor my people?”

Rust had no answer.

I raised my hands, brought them palm down to the waters. “Would that I had my Power, and the wisdom it brings.” I closed my eyes, seeking calm.

Rustin snorted. “Modesty, at last.”

Returning to the castle was not the solution; Uncle Mar held Pytor, sought Elryc, and had reduced me to the status of a child. Despite honeyed words, Duke Margenthar had seized power in Caledon.

Behind my shoulder, Genard coughed. “How long will you sit and stare at a lake like an addled Ritemaster?”

I opened one eye. “I could throw you in, and contemplate the ripples.”

“Aye, that’d be like you, m’lord.” But he settled, stirring only to slap an occasional mosquito.

After a time I sighed. My vigil had brought no peace, only the sense of more pressing urgency.

We made our way through the undergrowth to the cut of the road. The folk laboring up the hill moved with heightened anxiety. Perhaps it was that dark was nigh, and terrors swelled with the receding light. Cries and warnings floated up the hillside, from below.

We descended the few remaining bends to the keep that straddled the road. With the last turn, its high outer wall came into view. Soldiers at the battlements brandished long-tipped spears. Below us, beyond the Tradesmen’s Cut, Castle Way ran through a high gate, passed between the inner and outer walls of the keep, and emerged again at the turn just above the seafront.

To save asking entry at the keep, what had started as a cut across a muddy field had over the years become an awkward bypass, used by tradesmen and riders alike. The cut now streamed with townsmen.

A blare of trumpets; sweating villeins turned their carts aside lest they be run over by a returning troop of Llewelyn’s horse. One townsman cursed roundly, raising his fist at the ruckus as the guardsmen shot past. He stood thus a moment, then froze, staring down the road toward Stryx.

My grip tightened on the pommel.

The man whirled to his cart. He tugged at it, glanced over his shoulder, abandoned it to dash toward the sandy shore. Others, on the shortcut, made desperate haste with their loads.

“Rustin, what’s—”

A clatter of hooves.

On the beach, the cartsman threw himself down, as if to bury himself in the sand.

Trumpets sounded. A few foot soldiers scrambled toward the gate of the keep. Some tossed away their weapons as they ran.

Cries of exultation. Shouted commands.

A troop of black-clad horsemen swung into view, slashing at all in their path.

My voice was hoarse. “They’re not ours.”

They made for the gate, hurling spears upward at the defenders as they shut themselves in. Others of their band veered toward the Tradesmen’s Cut, barely fifty paces beyond us.

“Tantroth comes!” Rust gauged the distance to his keep. “Make for the gate!”

I spurred, but reined in on the instant, driving my horse half-mad. “No time, and they can’t open!”

An enemy captain pointed to our party. I glanced about “To the pond!” I wheeled about, raced up the slope. Genard led our retreat, heels stabbing at his mount’s sides. I shouted, “Past the pond, to the keep’s north gate!”

“In the dark?” Rustin spurred to keep pace. I stroked my gelding’s mane. If the cutoff to the pond wasn’t so near, I wouldn’t dare run him upward so.

An arrow flicked through the brush, buried itself in a tree. My back prickled. I bent forward to cut the wind, hoping I wouldn’t receive a shaft in the rear. Passing frantic townsmen, I gained steadily on Genard.

“Hold, Roddy!” Rustin’s mount foamed at the bit. “My mare’s played out.”

I slowed my pace a trifle. It was a mistake. A panting churl seized my leg, jerked me out of the saddle. We landed together in a heap. My mount neighed, reared.

The peasant seized the bridle. He’d have swung himself up but for the lash of Rustin’s whip. He staggered, and fell. I swarmed into the saddle so fast I nearly went off the far side, kicked madly onto the pond trail. At full gallop I plunged into the concealing brush.

Behind, a shriek of dismay.

Rust swung off his foaming mare. “Genard’s down!”

“Too bad. Hurry.”

“Go for him! My mare’s done!”

I swallowed. Rustin always expected too much. I cantered back to Castle Way.

Genard lay in a pool of blood, his leg pinned under a feebly kicking horse. A dozen black-clad troopers panted up the hill, a handful of terrified townsmen scrambling for safety a few paces before them.

I looked about. The stableboy was dead, so—

“Help, m’lord!” Genard struggled to free himself.

Cursing, I jumped down, grasped his saddle, hauled upward until my head swam. The horse was dead weight, immovable. I strained harder.

Genard slithered out.

The peasants were upon us, clawing for my horse. I hauled my half-sword from the scabbard, slashed at arms, managed somehow to remove him. In one desperate motion I scooped the weeping boy onto the saddle, wheeled, galvanized my steed with a mighty kick. We crashed into the underbrush. “Ride, Rust! To the keep!”

Llewelyn sipped his wine, while his wife, Joenne, watched in unhappy silence. “The keep is our main defense, not the sea road.”

“Still, we must leave before first light.” I finished the last of my beef, a headache throbbing.

Rustin said, “The keep’s seawall splits the beach in twain. Tantroth’s men have to swim around, or climb a steep wall. They’ll do it, or land upcoast, but not while they’re still off-loading their main force.”

Llewelyn nodded agreement. “We’re well stocked, and the walls are thick. We’ve birds to send messages to the castle, and they to us. If worse comes to worse, Margenthar will sortie to our defense.”

I yearned for sleep, but Lord of Nature knew where Hester would roam with my brother. “We must go,” I said again. With Rust’s help, I’d make my way to Hester and find what she’d done with Elryc.

Rust stirred. “What
will
break the siege, Father?”

“Time, and Nature willing, the weather. Fall is nigh upon us. It’s damp and aguey, especially for men in tents or huddled round campfires. And come winter, their supply ships will be harbor-bound.” Llewelyn warmed his hands at the crackling fire, as if in anticipation of the chill to come.

I squinted through the open portal into a night lit by the blaze of torches. From time to time an unsettling thump rolled across the garden, and a grinding, dragging noise occasionally made itself heard. The unfamiliar sounds grated against my headache, and it was all I could do to be civil.

As if reading my mind, Llewelyn said, “They bring up their siege engines. By morning they’ll invest the north wall. The tide is lowest at the fifth hour, and then they’ll struggle across the seawall.”

I sighed, resisting the folly of rest. “We’d best go soon.” Thank heaven Ebon was waiting in Llewelyn’s stables. Without him I’d feel even more lost.

Rust rose to his feet. “I’ll ready my gear.” He left.

Llewelyn paced. “My son says your relations with the Duke are not cordial.” Llewelyn paused. “But for that, you’d be safest within the Castle walls.”