On the stairs just above the first landing a small, dark-haired woman stood. He had a momentary glimpse of her yellowish eyes as she stepped out of his way. Silent, she watched him pass.
He hit the tower’s outside doors at a rush and burst through into the foggy, moonlit Inner Bailey, feeling as though he could suddenly sprout wings and mount up into the clouded sky. He had only taken two steps before the cat-silent, black-cloaked figures were upon him. They caught him as firmly as the king had, holding both his arms pinioned. The white faces stared at him dispassionately. The Norns did not seem at all surprised to have captured an unfamiliar mortal on the steps of Hjeldin’s Tower.
As Rachel shrank back in alarm, the bundle in her hand fell to the rough stone floor. She flinched at the noise it made.
The crunch of footsteps grew louder and a glow like dawn crept up the tunnel: they would be upon her in a moment. Backed into a crevice in the stone wall, Rachel looked around for somewhere to hide her lamp. At last, in desperation, she put the treacherously bright thing between her feet and bent over it, draping her cloak around her like a curtain so that its hem spread out onto the ground. She could only hope that the torches they carried blinded them to the light that must leak from beneath. Rachel clenched her teeth and silently prayed. The oily smell of the lamp was already making her feel ill.
The men who were approaching moved at a leisurely pace—far too leisurely to miss an old woman hiding behind her cloak, she was fearfully certain. Rachel thought she would die if they stopped.
“... they like those white-skinned things so much, they should put them to work,” a voice said, becoming audible, above the noise of footfalls. “All the priest has us doing is carrying away stones and dirt and running errands. That’s no job for guardsmen.”
“And who are you to say?” another man asked.
“Just because the king gives Red-robe a free hand doesn’t mean that we ...” the first began, but was interrupted.
“And I suppose you would tell him otherwise?” a third cackled. “He would eat you for supper and toss the bones away!”
“Shut your mouth,” the first snapped, but there was not much confidence in his tone. He resumed more quietly. “All the same, there’s something dead wrong down here, dead wrong. I saw one of those corpse-faces waiting in the shadows to talk to him....”
The scrape of boots on stone diminished. Within a few moments, the corridor was silent again.
Gasping for air, Rachel flapped her cloak out of the way and staggered from the alcove. The fumes of the lamp seemed to have seeped right into her head; for a moment the walls tilted. She put a hand out to steady herself.
Blessed Saint Rhiap, she breathed voicelessly, thank you for protecting your humble servant from the unrighteous. Thank you for making their eyes blind.
More soldiers! They were all over the tunnels beneath the castle, filling the passageways like ants. This group was the third that she had seen—or, in this instance, heard—and Rachel did not doubt there were many more that she had not. What could they want down here? This part of the castle had lain unexplored for years, she knew—that was what had given her the courage to search here in the first place. But now something had caught the attention of the king’s soldiers. Pryrates had put them to work digging, it seemed—but digging after what? Could it be Guthwulf?
Rachel was full of frightened anger. That poor old man! Hadn’t he suffered enough, losing his sight, driven out of the castle? What could they want with him? Of course, he had been the High King’s trusted counselor before he had fled: perhaps he knew some secrets that the king was desperate to have. It must be terribly important to set so many soldiers tracking around in this dreary underworld.
It must be Guthwulf. Who else would there be to search for down here? Certainly not Rachel herself: she knew she counted for little in the games of powerful men. But Guthwulf—well, he had fallen out with Pryrates, hadn’t he? Poor Guthwulf. She had been right to look for him—he was in terrible danger! But how could she continue her search with the passageways crawling with the king’s men—and worse things, if what the guardsmen seemed to be saying was true? She would be lucky if she made her own way back to sanctuary undiscovered.
That’s so, she told herself. They nearly had you that time, old woman. It a presumption to expect the saint to save you again if you persist in foolishness. Remember what Father Dreosan used to say: ‘God can do anything, but He does not protect the prideful from the doom they summon.’
Rachel stood in the corridor while she waited for her breathing to slow. She could hear nothing in the corridor but her own swift-drumming heartbeat.
“Right,” she said to herself. “Home. To think.” She turned back up the corridor, clutching her sack.
The stairs were hard going. Rachel had to stop frequently to rest, leaning against the wall and thinking angry thoughts about her increasing infirmity. In a better world, she knew, a world not so smirched with sin, those who walked the path of righteousness would not suffer such twinges and spites. But in this world all souls were suspect, and adversity, as Rachel the Dragon had learned at her mother’s knee, was the test by which God weighed them. Surely the burdens she carried now would lighten her in the Great Scales on that fated day.
Aedon Ransomer, I hope so, she thought sourly. If my earthly burdens get any heavier, on the Day of Weighing-Out I will float away like a dandelion seed. She grinned wryly at her own impiety. Rachel, you old fool, listen to you. It’s not too late to endanger your soul!
There was something oddly reassuring in that thought. Strengthened, she renewed her assault on the stairs.
She had passed the alcove and climbed a flight past it before she remembered about the plate. Surely nothing would be different than when she had looked on her way down that morning ... but even so, it would be wrong to shirk. Rachel, Mistress of Chambermaids, did not shirk. Although her feet ached and her knees protested, although she wanted nothing but to stagger to her little room and lie down, she forced herself to turn and go back down the stairs.
The plate was empty.
Rachel stared at it for long moments. The meaning of its emptiness crept over her only gradually.
Guthwulf had come back.
She was astonished to find herself clutching the plate and weeping. Doddering old woman, she berated herself. What on God’s earth are you crying for? Because a man who has never spoken to you or known your name—who likely doesn’t even know his own name any more—came and took some bread and an onion from a plate?
But even as she scolded herself she felt the dandelion-seed lightness that she had only imagined earlier. He was not dead! If the soldiers were looking for him, they had not yet found him—and he had come back. It was almost as though Earl Guthwulf had known how worried she was. That was an absurd thought, she knew, but she could not help feeling that something very important had happened.
When she had recovered, she wiped her tears briskly with her sleeve, then took cheese and dried fruit from hei sack and filled the plate again. She checked the covered bowl; the water was gone too. She emptied her own water skin into the bowl. The tunnels were a dry and dusty place, and the poor man would certainly be thirsty again soon.
The happy chore finished, Rachel resumed her ascent but this time the stairs seemed gentler. She had not found him, but he was alive. He knew where to come, and would come again. Perhaps next time he would stay and let her speak to him.
But what would she say?
Anything, anything. It will be someone to talk to. Someone to talk to.
Singing a hymn beneath her breath, Rachel made her way back to her hidden room.
Simon’s strength seemed to drain out. As the Norns took him across the Inner Bailey courtyard his knees gave way. The two immortals did not falter, but lifted him by the arms until only his toes dragged along the ground.
By their silence and their frozen faces they might have been statues of white marble magicked into movement; only their black eyes,
which flicked back and forth across the shadowy courtyard, seemed to belong to living creatures. When one of them spoke quietly in the hissing, clicking tongue of Stormspike, it was as surprising as if the castle walls had laughed.
Whatever the thing had said, its fellow seemed to agree. They turned slightly and bore their prisoner toward the great keep that contained the Hayholt’s chief buildings.
Simon wondered dully where they were taking him. It didn’t seem to matter much. He had been small use as a spy—first walking into the king’s clutches, then practically throwing himself into the arms of these creatures—and now he would be punished for his carelessness.
But what will they do? Exhaustion battled with fear. I won’t tell them anything. I won’t betray my friends. I won‘t!
Even in his numb state, Simon knew that there was little chance that he would keep his silence when Pryrates returned. Binabik was right. He had been a wretched, damnable fool.
I will find a way to kill myself if I have to.
But could he? The Book of Aedon said it was a sin ... and he was afraid to die, afraid to set out on that dark journey by his own choice. In any case, it seemed unlikely that he would be given any chance for such an escape. The Norns had taken his Qanuc bone knife, and they seemed capable of effortlessly countering anything he might try.
The walls of the inner keep, covered in carvings of mythical beasts and only slightly better-known saints, appeared through the gloom. The door was half-open; deep shadow lay beyond. Simon struggled briefly, but he was held far too firmly by unyielding white fingers. He stretched his neck in desperation, trying to get a last view of the sky.
Hanging in the murky northern night between Pryrates’ stronghold and Green Angel Tower was a spot of shimmering red light—an angry scarlet star.
The poorly lit corridors went on and on. The Hayholt had always been called the greatest house of all, but Simon was dully surprised at how large it truly was. It almost seemed that new passageways were being created just on the far side of every door. Although the night outside had been calm, the corridors were full of chilly breezes; Simon saw only a few, flitting shapes at the far ends of passageways, but the shadows were lively with voices and strange sounds.
Still clutching him firmly, the Norns dragged Simon through a doorway that opened onto a steep, narrow stairwell. After a long climb down, during which he was wedged so close between the two silent immortals that he thought he could feel their cold skin drawing the heat from his body, they reached another empty corridor, then quickly turned down into another stairwell.
They’re taking me down to the tunnels, Simon thought in despair. Down into the tunnels again. Oh, God, down into the dark!
They stopped at last before a large door of iron-bound oak. One of the Norns produced a great crude key from its robe and pushed it into the lock, then tugged the door open with a flick of its white wrist. A billow of hot, smoky air pushed out, stinging Simon’s nose and eyes.
He wavered stupidly for a long moment, waiting for whatever would happen next. At last he looked up. The Norns’ flat, expressionless black eyes stared back at him. Was this the prison chamber, he wondered? Or was this the place where they threw the bodies of their victims?
He found the strength to speak. “If you want me to go in there, then you might as well make me go in.” He stiffened his muscles to resist.
One of the Noms gave him a push. Simon caught at the door and teetered for a moment on the threshold, then overbalanced and toppled through into emptiness.
There was no floor.
A moment later he discovered that there was a floor, but that it was several cubits lower than the doorway. He hit on broken stone and tumbled forward with a shout of startlement and pain. He lay for a moment, panting, and stared up at the play of firelight across the surprisingly high ceiling. The air was full of strange hissing noises. The lock clanked overhead as the key was turned.
Simon rolled over and found that he was not alone in this place. A half-dozen strangely clad men—if they were men: their faces were almost entirely covered by dirty rags—stood a short distance away, staring at him. They made no move toward him. If they were torturers, Simon thought, they must be tired of their work.
Beyond them lay a large cavern that seemed to have been fitted for animals rather than men. A few ragged blankets were piled against the walls like empty nests; a trough of water, reflecting the scarlet glow, seemed full of molten metal. Instead of a solid stone wall, which Simon would have expected to see at the back of a prison chamber, the far side of the cavern was an opening into some bigger place beyond, a great space full of flickering, fiery light. Somewhere a pained voice cried out.
He stared, amazed. Had he been carried all the way down to the flame pits of Hell? Or had the Norns built their own version to torment their Aedonite prisoners?
The figures before him, which had been standing stolidly as grazing animals, suddenly dispersed and moved quickly to the sides of the cavern. Simon saw a terrifyingly familiar silhouette appear in the open space between the two caverns. Without thinking, he scuttled to one side and pushed himself back into a shadowed recess, then pulled a stinking blanket up to his eyes.
Pryrates still had his back to the smaller cavern and to Simon, shouting to someone out of sight; the alchemist’s head reflected an arc of fire. After a few last words, he turned and came forward, bootheels crunching in shattered stone. He crossed the cavern and climbed stone stairs to the narrow ledge, then pushed the flat of his hand against the door. It swung outward, then thumped shut again behind him.
Simon had thought himself beyond any further fear or surprise, but now he was slack-mouthed with astonishment. What was Pryrates doing here when he had said he was going to Wentmouth? Even the king thought he had gone to Wentmouth. Why should the alchemist deceive his master?
And where is “here” anyway?
Simon looked up quickly at a sound nearby. One of the rag-masked figures was approaching him, moving with the aching slowness of a very old man. The man, for his eyes above the cloth were clearly human, stopped before Simon and stared at him for a moment. He said something, but it was too muffled for Simon to understand.
“What?”
The man reached up and slowly peeled the stiff cloth away from his face. He was almost impossibly gaunt, and his seamed face was covered with gray whiskers, but there was something about him that suggested he might be younger than he looked.
“Lucky this time, eh?” said the stranger.
“Lucky?” Simon was puzzled. Had the Norns put him in with madmen?
“The priest. Lucky that‘un had other business this time. Lucky there be no more ... tasks he needs prisoners for.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Simon stood up out of his crouch, feeling the bruises from his most recent fall.
“You ... you be no forge man,” said the stranger, squinting. “Dirty you be, but there’s no smoke on you.”
“The Norns captured me,” Simon said after a moment’s hesitation. He had no reason to trust this man—but he had no reason not to. “The White Foxes,” he amended when he saw no recognition on the other’s gaunt face.
“Ah, those devils.” The man furtively made the sign of the Tree. “We see ‘em sometimes, but only at a ways off. Godless, unnatural things they be.” He looked Simon up and down, then moved a little closer. “Don’t tell no one else that you be not a forge man,” he whispered. “Here, come here.”
He led Simon a little to one side. The other masked men looked up, but seemed little interested in the newcomer. Their eyes were empty as the stares of landed fish.
The man reached down into a snarl of blankets and at last clawed up a smoke-mask and a dirty, tattered shirt. “Here, take this—was Old Bent Leg‘s, but won’t miss it where he be gone. Look like everyone else, you will.”
“Is that good?” Simon was finding it hard to keep his overstuffed head working. He was in the forge, it seemed. But why? Was this his
only punishment for spying, to work in the castle’s foundry? It seemed surprisingly mild.
“If you don’t want to get worked to death,” the man said, then began coughing, long dry rasps that sounded as though they came all the way up from his feet. It was some time before he could talk again. “If Doctor sees you be a new ‘un,” he wheezed, “he’ll get his work out of you, never fear. And more. A right bad ’un, he be.” The man said it very convincingly. “Don’t want him noticing you.”
Simon looked down at the soiled scraps of cloth. “Thank you. What’s your name?”
“Stanhelm.” The man coughed again. “And don’t tell others you be new either, or they’ll run to Doctor so fast your eyes’ll pop out. Tell ‘em you worked with ore buckets. Those’uns sleep in ‘nother hole on t’other side, but White Foxes and soldiers dump all runaways back through this door, ‘matter which side ’uns ran from.” He reflected sadly. “Few of us left and work to do. That’s why ‘uns brought you back and didn’t kill you. What be your name, lad?”
“Seoman.” He looked around. The other forge men had fallen back into unheeding silence. Most had curled themselves up on their thin blankets and closed their eyes. “Who is this Doctor?” For a split instant the sound of the name had filled him with wild hope, but Morgenes, even if he had lived through the dreadful blaze, would never be someone to occasion fear in men like these.
“You’ll meet ‘un soon enough,” Stanhelm said. “Don’t be in no hurry.”
Simon wrapped the strip of cloth about his face. It smelled of smoke and dirt and other things, and did not seem very easy to breathe through. He told Stanhelm so.
“You keep it wet. Thank Ransomer Himself you’ve got it, you will. Otherwise, fire goes right down your throat and bums innards.” Stanhelm prodded the shirt with a blackened finger. “Put that on, too.” He looked nervously over his shoulder at his fellow forge workers.