The keep of fire, p.48
The Keep of Fire, page 48
“No, I can believe it,” Lirith said quietly. “The heart is a mysterious artifact.”
Durge did not look at the witch but only stared out the window.
Grace shook her head. “I wish we could talk to her. There’s so much I need to ask her about the—Tira!”
As Grace spoke, the barefoot girl had clambered past her, hopping onto the low windowsill. Evading Grace’s grasping hands, Tira slipped through the window and onto the ledge beyond. The sound of Grace’s shout echoed off stone walls. Below, the queen came to a halt, then turned her veiled face upward.
Tira grinned and waved at her.
The ladies-in-waiting stared up in round-mouthed shock. Queen Inara hesitated, then lifted her hand in a tentative wave. Grace finally got her hands around the elusive girl and hauled her back in through the window. Below, the queen and her entourage continued on their way, passing out of sight.
Beltan closed the shutters as they stepped away from the window. Grace hugged Tira to her chest.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she said, her cheeks flushed. “Do you understand me?”
Tira did not struggle. Instead she shut her eyes and leaned her scarred face against Grace’s breast.
“Is something amiss, my lords, my ladies?”
They looked up to see Lord Siferd walking across the great hall. Behind him came a servingman bearing a tray of pewter goblets.
Melia drifted forward. “No, my lord. All is well.”
The chamberlain beamed and bowed low. “Your rooms are nearly ready, fair lady. I beg your patience for just a short time more. Please, refresh yourself while you wait.”
The chamberlain scurried from the hall again, and the servant approached. Each of them took a cup of pale wine from the tray. Travis sighed as he drank. He was thirsty, and the wine was crisp, cool, and just slightly sweet.
Beltan grunted as he set his cup back down. “It’s not ale, but I could get used to it.” He picked up two more goblets as the servingman stared with wide eyes.
Most of them sat as they waited for the chamberlain’s return, while a few wandered the great hall or explored side doors that opened on small antechambers. Travis sat on a bench, staring into his wine cup. Could he really do what he intended? But there was no other way to be sure he would never accidentally hurt someone he cared about.
“What lies through that door, Travis?”
He glanced up. Melia approached the doorway next to the bench where he sat.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked.”
Melia tried the knob, and the door swung open. Her eyes glinted. “Well, I’ve always held that if the door’s not locked then it isn’t snooping.”
Travis grinned at her. He couldn’t argue with that. She opened the door and passed into the room beyond. Sighing, Travis bent back over his wine.
A gasp drifted through the open doorway, followed by a soft but clear voice.
“Oh, dear!”
A moment later came a soft thump followed by the clang of metal against stone.
Shock jerked Travis to his feet. He stared at the doorway, then dashed toward it. Beltan was already ahead of him. The two men came to a halt in a small room. Light from a high window illuminated scant objects: a chair, a table, and a marble bust on a pedestal that depicted a handsome man. However, none of those things held Travis’s eyes. He gazed down, and the blood drained from his heart.
A small figure in blue lay on the floor in a puddle of spilled wine. The goblet had rolled from her limp hand, and her eyes were shut in her ashen face.
“No!” Beltan’s cry echoed off stone. He fell to his knees beside the small, still form as the others rushed into the room.
“What is it?” Falken said from the doorway.
Travis turned around—he felt as brittle as glass—and met the bard’s eyes. “It’s Melia,” he said.
72.
At dawn two days later they gathered beneath the shadows of many towers in the castle’s lower bailey. Grace clutched her cloak around her shoulders. After the sweltering heat of the journey east, she had yet to grow used to the chill that permeated the stones of Spardis.
Falken started to mount his black horse, then paused and regarded Grace with haunted blue eyes.
“You’ll take good care of her, won’t you, Grace?”
She spoke in a voice made steady and reassuring by years of practice. “I’ll do everything I can, Falken.”
He nodded, then swung up into the saddle.
“Are you prepared, my lady?” Durge said from his vantage astride Blackalock.
Lirith adjusted her riding gown over the withers of her palfrey, then nodded. “I am ready.”
Grace tried to swallow the lump in her throat but failed. She was the only one who had come to the outer bailey to see the three off on their journey. Beltan could not be parted from Melia’s bedside. Travis had stayed with the knight, and Aryn was looking after Tira. Grace knew she should have stayed as well, but she couldn’t let her friends leave without saying good-bye. Not when she knew that, if they indeed reached their destination, they might never return again.
Besides, she had instructed Travis to come find her if there was any change in Melia’s condition. Not that she expected any change. She still had no idea of the cause—no one had seen Melia fall, and there was no visible sign of any illness or trauma—but Melia had slipped into a deep coma.
Falken had wanted to go alone on this journey, of course. Until last night he had been adamant that only he venture into the Barrens, to find the Keep of Fire, and to wrest Krondisar from the Necromancer before it was too late.
“I’m the only one who knows Dakarreth and the things he can do,” he said, pacing like a caged wolf in the chamber adjacent to where they had laid the small woman’s unconscious form. “Besides, you heard Sfithrisir. If either Travis or Grace goes to the Keep of Fire, they’ll die there.”
Lirith stepped toward him, her dark eyes intent. “The dragon spoke nothing of my going to the Keep of Fire.”
“Nor of me,” Durge said in a solemn voice.
Falken had opened his mouth, but at last all his arguments had been spent. Instead he had nodded, then turned away.
A wind sprang up, stirring the mist and catching Durge’s charcoal-gray cloak. “We should be going,” the knight said. “If we linger in the courtyard too long, the chamberlain is likely to see us preparing to depart.”
Melia had worked her trick almost too well on the chamberlain. Lord Siferd was now convinced they were important guests and friends of the regent, and no doubt he would protest any of them leaving the castle before the regent’s return.
“Will we be able to get by the guards at the gate?” Lirith said, glancing at the bard.
Now the old wolfish grin cut across Falken’s haggard mien. “We’ll find a way.”
“Farewell, my lady,” Durge said to Grace, bowing low in the saddle. “It has ever been my honor to serve you.”
Lirith cast one of her mysterious smiles at Grace. “I’ll miss you, sister.”
Grace nodded. An ache welled up in her chest. There was so much she wanted to say—that she loved them all, that she wanted them to take care of themselves, and that she was so terribly afraid they would never come back. But the mist seemed to creep into her lungs, constricting them, and all she could say in a soft voice was, “Good-bye.”
The three wheeled their horses around and rode across the bailey. After a moment the fog closed behind them, and they were gone. Grace gazed into the mist, then sighed, turned, and headed back into the castle.
It took her longer than she had intended to return to their chambers. However, in Castle Spardis—she had discovered over the last two days—the shortest distance between two points was nothing even close to resembling a straight line. She passed through archways to nowhere, walked down corridors that led her in circles, and climbed stairways that ended in blank walls.
In a way getting lost was welcome, for it gave her time to think—something she had not had in great quantities since leaving Calavere. Falken, Durge, and Lirith had their mission, and Grace had hers. And it wasn’t simply determining the political situation in Spardis.
Once again, in her mind, she went over every aspect of Melia’s condition she had been able to assess. Melia’s breath rate and pulse were depressed, and she exhibited no pain response. However, her pupils still responded to light, and there was no sign of reflexive contraction in her extremities. That was good—it meant there wasn’t brain damage. If brain damage was even something one like Melia could suffer from.
And that was part of the problem. Melia was not mortal. Grace had no idea what effect that had on her physiology—if the lady even had a physiology. However, Grace had no choice but to treat her as she would anyone, and so far there was nothing that indicated a diagnosis.
She had examined the room where Melia fell, but she had found nothing of interest—some furniture, a tapestry, and a marble bust of a man. That was all. Beltan had suggested the wine might have been the cause, but all of them had drunk of the same wine, and Lord Siferd was the last person in the castle who would have wanted to poison Melia. Besides, Lirith had examined the residue in the wine goblet with the Touch, and she had detected no trace of toxin.
Before Grace found any answers, she found their room. With a breath she opened the door and stepped through. Travis looked up from the chair in which he had been slumping.
“Well,” she said, “they’re gone.”
He nodded, his gray eyes dim behind his spectacles.
Grace glanced at the door that led to Melia’s chamber. “How is she?”
“The same. Beltan’s with her. He still won’t sleep. I think he’s waiting until he collapses on top of her. But Aryn and Tira are resting in the other room.”
“You should get some rest yourself. You look awful.”
He grinned up at her. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Travis lay down on a cot. Grace set his spectacles on a table and covered him with a blanket. Then she rose and started to turn away.
“Do you think they’ll do it?” His voice was low and hoarse. “Get the Stone of Fire from Dakarreth.”
Grace turned around. His eyes were shut.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Yes, I believe so. I think maybe I have to.”
Travis did not open his eyes, but he nodded. Grace watched him until his breathing grew deep and even—it took a minute, perhaps less—then she moved across the room and slipped quietly through the door, into the corridor beyond.
Now what?
She sighed. There was nothing more she could do to help Melia. She supposed she might as well work on her other mission, the one given her by Boreas, although it hardly seemed important. If Falken failed, then who ruled what Dominion would be moot. Dakarreth would rule them all. But if she really believed the bard was going to succeed, then it was important to find out who this new regent was, and whether he had Queen Inara’s and Prince Perseth’s best interests in mind.
Renewed purpose brought energy to Grace’s limbs. She started down the corridor.
Five missteps, a half-dozen questions asked of servants, and thirty minutes later, she found herself in front of a gilded door in the castle’s north wing. Exactly which north wing it was she couldn’t say, for Spardis seemed to have three of them. As she approached the door, two guards in black polished armor intercepted her, crossing spears to bar the way.
“No one is to disturb Queen Inara,” one of them growled.
Grace took a quick step back to avoid having her nose sliced off. “Then could I please send a message to her?”
“The queen is taking no messages during her seclusion.”
She lifted a hand to her chest. “By whose orders?”
“By command of the regent. If you wish to send a message to the queen, you may petition the regent when he returns.”
Grace ducked her head, then turned and walked down the corridor before she got a spear stuck in her. She hadn’t thought she would be able to get in to see the queen, but the attempt had been interesting. If Inara really was in seclusion, shouldn’t the prohibition against communication have been her own?
Not if it’s a forced seclusion. You have to admit, it’s a convenient way to keep her out of the picture. If she breaks the mourning, she looks callous. So she has no choice but to stay in her room and watch the regent rule things for her.
She was jumping to conclusions, of course. For all Grace knew this regent had Inara’s complete support. If only there was someone else she could talk to. But maybe there was.…
It was afternoon before Grace finally found the room she was looking for. She spoke to a dozen servants, but as soon as she said who she sought, each cast a startled look over his or her shoulder and scurried away. Finally she found a boy carrying a bucket of refuse who, in exchange for a silver coin, was willing to talk.
“My grandmum is watching him,” the boy said. “You’ll find his room in the east wing.”
“Which east wing?” Grace said with a sigh.
A grin split his scabby face. “Why, there’s only one, my lady.” Then he had scampered down the hall.
Surprisingly, the boy’s words had proved accurate. Grace hesitated, then knocked on the door.
“Come in,” a cracked voice spoke from the other side.
Grace opened the door and stepped through, then nearly fell back against the stench. She lifted a hand to her mouth, steeled herself, and moved farther into the dim chamber.
So this is what happens to sick dukes in Spardis.
There was little more to the room besides a cot and a chair. On the cot, propped up with ragged pillows, was a middle-aged man in a filthy bedshirt. His hair was greasy and unkempt and his cheeks unshaven. He stared with blank eyes while spittle rolled down his chin. In the chair sat an old woman who looked little cleaner than the man. She leaped to her feet when she saw Grace.
“My lady!” she said with a clumsy curtsy.
Grace moved closer to the bed. The scent of feces was strong. When had his sheets been last changed? She studied the man’s unseeing eyes, then looked at the old woman. “Is this Duke Falderan?”
“Aye, it is.” The woman pawed at her snarled hair, utterly failing to smooth it down. “I’ve been set here to care for him, I have.”
Grace clenched her teeth. What use was there chastising the old woman? She knew nothing about caring for the infirm, that was clear. No, it was the one who had sent her here who deserved Grace’s wrath.
She knelt beside the bed and snapped her fingers in front of Falderan’s eyes. No blink response. Then she noticed the bandage on the side of his head, dark with old blood. She looked up at the woman. “How long has he been like this?”
A shrug. “Since I came to him, my lady. Over a moon it’s been now.”
“Do you know the nature of his illness?”
The woman let out a harsh cackle. “A disagreement with the regent, that’s what his illness is, my lady. He took a tumble on the steps, but not without help, I’d say.”
Grace rose. There was nothing she could do for Falderan.
“You think the regent had this done?” she said.
Now the old woman’s eyes went wide. She backed up against the wall. “Oh, bless me! Are you a spy then, my lady? But it was only a jest. Yes, a jest. I love the regent, I do. Gods be with him.” Tears streamed down her dirty face. “Bless me, oh, gods bless me.”
“It’s all right,” Grace said. “Really.” She reached out a hand, but the old woman howled as if stuck with a knife, cringing and sniveling in the corner, snot running from her nose. Before she made things worse Grace left the chamber, shutting the door behind her.
Outside, she drew in deep breaths, trying to clear the stench from her lungs, but the reek of death followed her all the way back to her room.
73.
Travis moved down the corridor, glancing left and right, wondering if anyone had seen him.
What do you think, Travis? This is Spardis. Probably two dozen people have noticed you in the last minute.
But he was not concerned about any of the scheming residents of the castle spying on him. It was the eyes of his friends he was trying to avoid. He didn’t want any of them to ask him where he was going. He didn’t want to lie to them. And he didn’t want to wound them with the truth.
You’ve got to get away from the others, Travis—before you hurt one of them—and this is your last, best chance. Beltan’s not going to leave Melia, not while she’s sick. And Grace has a mission here she’s got to finish. With what she found out about Duke Falderan the other day, it looks like there’s plenty for her to investigate here.
As for Aryn and Tira—Travis knew they would stay wherever Grace was. He gripped the felt-wrapped runestaff in one hand, shifted the bag he had tossed over his shoulder with the other, and kept walking.
He had nearly blown it all that morning. He had taken breakfast with Grace, Aryn, and Tira in their chamber, and gazing on their faces—for what he knew was likely the last time—had conjured bitter tears.
“What’s wrong, Travis?” Aryn had said, touching his arm lightly with her left hand.
“I’ve just got something in my eye,” he had said—the lie had come easily—then turned away.
After that he looked for Beltan—not to say farewell, he couldn’t do that—but just to see the knight one last time. Of them all, Travis had thought most of Beltan since his decision to leave. He wasn’t entirely certain why; maybe it was just that Beltan was his Knight Protector. Regardless, Travis wondered if he would ever again feel as safe as he did when Beltan was close. But now it was his turn to be the protector. After all, how long would Beltan be safe if Travis remained?
The knight had actually left Melia’s bedside that morning—to stretch his legs, he had told Aryn, although the baroness believed that Beltan had gone to find a shrine of Vathris where he might pray. Travis had searched for an hour, then had finally seen the knight heading away from him down a corridor.
“Beltan!” he had called out.
