The Born Queen Part 57

Other towers jutted up all around, a virtual forest of them.

"Where are we?" he asked. "This doesn't look like anyplace I saw in the city."

"This is Kaithbaurg-of-Shadows," she said.

"You live in the city of the dead?"

"I get my visions from the dead," she said, "so it is convenient. Besides, haliurunnae are considered to be more dead than alive. Many people feel polluted by our presence."

"That's terrible," he said.

"Can you jump that far?" she asked, pa.s.sing the issue back into wherever seldom spoken of things belonged.

"Why not just lower us down to the ground?"

"The rope isn't that long," she said. "I took it from the boat, thinking I might have need of it one day, but I was only able to manage so much without it being noticed in my things."

"Well," Neil said, "I'll jump it, then."

He tossed the hauberk and sword first, worried at the echoing sound of their impact, and then flexed his knees.

He knew he wouldn't manage to land on his feet, and he didn't. He hit the bottom of the window with his breastbone and caught his arms over the edge. His left arm cramped up in a ball, and the right went weak, but he managed to get one elbow up, then the other, so that he could squirm through.

Alis tossed him the rope, and he tied his end on a roof beam above the window.

He waited impatiently as Alis tied off their end, then showed Brinna how to hang on the rope by her hands and knees. Even though it was a downward slope, he could see the princess was having trouble. Although she didn't make a sound, tears were running from her eyes by the time Neil received her on his end.

He was astonished at the lightness of her body as he drew her in, at the feel of her. For an instant their gazes locked, and he wanted to brush the water that had collected on her cheeks.

He set her down instead and followed her gaze as she looked at her hands. They were bleeding, and he suddenly understood that she almost hadn't made it, that what he thought of as a minor physical effort was at the further limits of her ability. Living one's life in a tower didn't do much to toughen the body.

Courage, he reflected, was a relative thing.

Alis came across as quickly and surely as a spider while Neil armed and armored himself.

They had no choice but to untie their end of the rope and let it dangle on the other side to inform pursuers of where they had gone. Not that there was anywhere else to go, really.

Alis had brought a lantern, which she unshuttered to reveal three rickety chairs and rotting tapestries on the walls.

"Down," Brinna said.

They had to cross the next room to continue, and there they were greeted by a skeleton in a rotted gown looking very relaxed in an armchair.

"My great-grandmother," Brinna informed them. "When we die, our rooms are sealed off, and we remain in them."

That seal was their next obstacle; a wall obstructed the stairs; fortunately, it was of rather desiccated wood rather than brick or stone. Neil was able to smash through it with the hilt of the broadsword he had chosen, and they continued down through the crypt until they reached the lowest level, which was sealed by an iron portal that, also fortunately, was not locked.

The northern wall of Kaithbaurg loomed a few kingsyards away, casting a permanent shadow on the bases of the cl.u.s.ter of fifteen towers that formed the heart of the shadow city. Moss was thick and springy underfoot, jeweled with colorful mushrooms.

"Quickly," Brinna whispered.

They set off north on a path paved in lead brick, through the mansions of the dead that crowded up to the h.e.l.lrune towers, into the meaner dwellings beyond, and finally to the tombs of the poor, ma.s.s graves with nothing more than dilapidated wooden huts to act as shrines. It began to rain, and the path, no longer paved, quickly turned to viscous mud.

They came at last to a large iron gate flanked by stone towers in a wall that enclosed the necropolis and went around to join the one guarding Kaithbaurg.

A man in lord's plate stepped from the gatehouse, raising his visor so that Neil could see the aged features within. His breastplate bore the hammer of Saint Under, marking him as a Scathoman, a guardian of the dead.

"Majesty," the knight said, his voice formal and quavered by the rain. "What brings you here?"

"Sir Safrax," Brinna said. "It's raining. I'm cold. Open the gate."

"You know I can't do that," he said apologetically.

"I know you will," she replied.

He shook his head. "Princess you may be, but my holy task is to see to the dead and keep you where you belong."

Neil drew his sword. It was heavier than Battlehound.

He didn't insult the older knight by saying anything. He just took a stance.

"Alarm!" the knight shouted, then drew his weapon and came at Neil.

They circled for a moment before Neil took the first swing, stepping in and cutting hard toward the juncture of neck and shoulder. Safrax turned so that the blow glanced from his armored shoulder and cut back. Neil ducked that and went under his arm and behind him. His arms already were aching, so he spun and hammered the blade into the back of the other knight's helm, sending him down to his knees. Two more strokes ended it.

But by then three more knights had come clattering out of the tower, and he heard a horn blowing to broaden the alarm.

Robert smiled and gestured toward an armchair.

"Have a seat, my dear," he said. "We should chat, you and I."

Muriele took a step back, then another.

"I don't believe I will," she said. Every fiber of her wanted to run, but she knew that she would only sacrifice her dignity if she did so. Robert would catch her.

She tightened her belly and stood her ground.

"I don't know how Hansa has put up with you this long," she said, "but now you've killed your host's men. I think you've worn out your welcome."

"I'm going to sit," Robert said. "Join me if you wish."

He folded his lean frame into a second armchair. "There are a few things wrong with your supposition," he said. "The first is that anyone will ever find these bodies. The whole point of this place is that it is secret, yes? And if Berimund returns-and that is itself a very large if because his father is quite mad with rage at him-there is no reason for him to suspect my hand in this. But a much more profound trouble with your reasoning is the fact that I'm leaving Hansa anyway. It proved a useful haven, but I'm not so foolish as to believe that Marcomir would put me on the throne."

"What are you up to, then? Where could you possibly go?"

"Crotheny. I have one small thing in Newland to tidy up, and then I'll be on to Eslen."

"Anne will execute you."

"You know I can't die. You tested it with my own knife."

"True. So your head will live after it's struck off. Perhaps Anne will keep it in a cage as an amus.e.m.e.nt."

"She might, but I don't think so. Obviously, or I wouldn't go back there. It's all about to happen, Muriele. I've no idea how things will turn out, but I have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

"What's happening?" Muriele asked. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing for you to worry about," he said. "I didn't really come here to drag you back into politics. I'm here to bring you a gift."

"A gift?"

"A musical gift from your own court composer."

Music started then, a soft chord growing louder, and she saw that Robert's companion was playing a small thaurnharp.

Neil sighed and backed toward the gate, hoping to keep from being surrounded.

"Lady Berrye," he said softly. "I can only hold them for a moment. Do what you can."

"I will, Sir Neil," she said.

"Do not die cheaply, Sir Neil," Brinna said. "A little time should help."

"It will be very little," Neil said.

Alis laid her arm on the princess, and they suddenly became difficult to look at. He couldn't put his gaze on them, but that was just as well, because he had a lot to pay attention to.

The lead knight cut at him, and Neil dodged to the side so that the weapon sc.r.a.ped through the metal bars of the gate. Neil hit the outstretched arm with his off-weapon hand, forcing him to lose his grip on the sword. With his weapon hand he cut at the knee of the knight to his right and felt it shear through the joint, setting the man-quite understandably-to screaming. Neil suppressed a shriek of his own as his arm shot with the pain of the blow, and his fingers loosened their grip. Gasping, he lunged at the third knight, wrapped his arms around the knight's knees, lifted him and dumped him on his head. He fell, too, rolled, and came back up. The first man had recovered his sword and was advancing on him.

He heard horses blowing behind him and the thump of hooves.

He hoped that Alis had gotten Brinna away.

But then something odd happened. The knight straightened and looked past him.

"Put that away," a voice said. "I command here."

Neil turned and found Prince Berimund and about ten riders behind him. The gate was being raised.

"But my Prince, this man was-"

"My sister is in my care now," Berimund said. "And so is that woman and this man."

"The king-"

"You may take this up with me now or with my father later. You will not have the chance to do both."

The knight hesitated and then bowed. "Yes, Majesty."

"Come along, Sir Neil," Berimund said. "Your queen has been asking after you."

They rode west into country that quickly became rugged and verdant. Berimund and his men seemed to know their way, moving through the dense forest as if they had been born there. Neil reflected that he never would have imagined this Berimund from the one he'd met on the road. This Hansan prince was more in his element, freed of the fetters of court and the restraints upon honor they created. He and his men seemed almost to be able to hear one another's thoughts, to be the band of brothers they claimed to be in name.

Kaithbaurg wasn't a black fortress, and the prince of Hansa was a man with a history, friends, and scruples. He was still, of course, an enemy, but an enemy Neil would gladly call a friend if the times changed, and one he could kill or die by the hand of with a warrior's dignity.

Brinna he was having trouble even thinking about. She was still very much the woman he had met on the Lier Sea whose voice and expression had haunted him since he'd first opened his eyes to her. But there was something cold in her center he'd only sensed then, the thing that allowed her to poison someone and speak of it as if she had put a cat out the door.

But if she was cold, why did she seem like white fire from the corner of his eye? Why could he still feel the heat on his hands from touching her, even through the steady drizzle of rain?

He glanced at her and found her studying him, or thought he did. It was too dark to see her eyes beneath the eaves of the hat her brother had given her to keep the rain off.

They rode through the day as the rain grew steadily colder and more miserable. Mists lay heavy in the trees, dying dragons dragging themselves off to watery graveyards. Berimund's men lit torches that hissed and sputtered and trailed noxious, oily fumes but still burned, until at last they reached a stone face concealed by a sort of wickerwork grown over with vines, which Berimund shifted to reveal a stout wooden door. He stood looking at it for several long moments.

"What's wrong?" Neil asked.

"It ought to be locked," he said. "It isn't even closed."

Neil was off his horse before the thought to dismount was even conscious. He drew his stolen weapon and stalked toward the door.

"You'll follow us, Sir Neil," Berimund insisted. "We know this place, and you do not."

Two of his scouts went ahead, and then they all dismounted, tying the horses near the entrance. Stairs carved in living rock took them down.

Not much later they debouched into a large chamber carved in antique style but furnished much like Berimund's hall in Kaithbaurg.

The floor was littered with the dead. He heard a sudden, sharp sob from Berimund, who flung himself at the corpses, lifting their heads, kissing them, moving from one to the next in the vain hope that one still breathed.

Then Alis pushed past him and flew across the floor, the muddy hem of her dress dragging a snail's trail behind her.

Neil saw then, too, and ran after her, knowing his heart would fail.

Muriele did not look like she was sleeping. Her lips were almost black, and even in torchlight he could make out the bluish tinge of her skin. Alis had the queen's head cradled in her arms. Her eyes were open, her features twisted into a look of utter and desolate despair such as he had never seen.

Something lay on the floor beside her. In a daze he reached for it and found that it was a half-withered rose.

He rose up, choking back tears but letting the rage rise up, each breath filling him with red light. He stepped toward Berimund, who still knelt with his own, and stepped again, nearly treading on a dead man staring up at him with the same forsaken expression as Muriele.

Berimund hadn't done this. Berimund hadn't known about it. But Berimund was the only enemy before him, and by the saints, the floor was going to be red.

"No," Brinna said. "Stop there, Neil."

It arrested him. He hadn't seen her enter the chamber or follow him to Muriele's body. Her tear-jeweled eyes caught him like iron bands.