Closer to the Heart (35 page)

The Healer stumbled into the room, his eyes on Mags. He looked terrified. Did he think Mags was going to attack him? And what was in that potion? Was it whatever he'd been given while he was unconscious? How long would it take to wear off? Cuburn was very, very good at holding barriers against having his thoughts read, but then, Healers generally were. They had to keep up Empathic barriers so the pain and turmoil of their patient didn't overwhelm them, and Empathic barriers acted very nicely as thought-barriers, too.

What to do? There was absolutely no way that he could avoid drinking whatever that was. If he refused, Thallan would call guards, hold him down, and pour it down him. If he knocked it out of Cuburn's hands, Thallan would only order the Healer to make more. There would be no chance in this bare cell for him to use the sort of sleight of hand Lord Jorthun
had taught him, and appear to drink the stuff but actually pour it away . . . not wearing white clothing, he couldn't.

:Dallen, I—:

:I know. You can weather this. We've been through worse and come out the other side. Whatever it is, it will wear off. You can make it wear off faster by working at it. If all we have is half a candlemark between doses, we'll work with that. I'll find you, Mags, I swear I will!.:

And Thallan clearly intended to keep them alive, so the situation for him and Amily was not that dire. . . .

But Thallan could do a
lot
of damage, and it could take decades to make it all right again, if it ever could be . . . black despair flooded up over him, and in that moment, if the bottle had held poison, he would gladly have drunk it. He'd tried to do everything right, and yet he'd been out-maneuvered and now there was nothing he could do to stop the avalanche.

Cuburn leaned over him and handed him the bottle. “This will fix your headache right up,” the man said. There was something in the
way
he said it that made Mags look up into his face, sharply.

Cuburn had his back to Thallan.
Just drink it,
the Healer thought, so strongly it was practically a shout in Mags' mind.
Then pretend to sleep. It's all I can do. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I'm so very sorry I can't do more. You must stop this fiend. He'll destroy this land for the sake of his own pride. He's a madman. I wish I had never seen him.

Mags did not show his surprise. He took the bottle from Cuburn with a little sneer. “Ye might'a brought me summat t'eat. Potions go down poor on'a empty stomach.”

“Just drink the damned stuff, boy,” Thallan snarled. Mags started to down it and nearly choked on the bitter, burning taste, as Cuburn scuttled back out the door, and then out of sight. His Sleepgiver memories automatically cataloged some of what he tasted. Raw alcohol, but not enough to make him
drunk. A lot of bitter willow. Some yellowflower. Bristlehead, lanceleaf, and corris-root. Nothing poisonous, and nothing that would render him unconscious . . . but would any of it wipe out his Mindspeech? He just didn't know; he wasn't like Bear, with the knowledge of thousands of herbs and their interactions at his fingertips.

Thallan locked the cell again, and loomed behind the bars of the door. He could not have been said to stand, since he was deliberately being as menacing as possible. Mags just put his back to the wall, glared back and waited for his sense of Dallen to fade away. The fear in him ran deep and cold as a mountain river at flood. Not so much fear for himself, as for everything else.

But the only thing that began to fade was his headache.

It didn't actually go away, not entirely, but . . . whatever Cuburn had given him was taking the edge off. His Mindspeech was just as sharp as ever, maybe more, since it wasn't troubled by headache pain.

And taking that as his cue that he should probably begin pretending to pass out, Mags began nodding . . . and jerking his head up to glare at Thallan . . . and nodding . . . he had seen enough people who'd drunk themselves into a stupor that he knew what it should look like.

Finally he let his chin sink to his chest, then slowly toppled over sideways. Thallan uttered a satisfied chuckle and Mags heard his footsteps retreating.

:Scummy bastard. Not you, Dallen.:

:You could call me anything you liked, I am so grateful to still be able to hear you.:
Dallen heaved a long, mental sigh.

:We're still right where we was,:
Mags objected.
:Amily an' me are still stuck in 'ere, this crazy lunatic kin do wut he pleases an—:

:I'm working on that. Right now, please talk to Amily, she thinks you're dead or headblind or worse.:

He turned his attention to Amily; he quickly discovered she was not anxious, she was furious. The things she wanted to do to Thallan would have shocked him, had he not been sharing the same sentiments.

:When ye git done fixin' t' take 'is skin off an' boil 'im alive, kin ye tell me iffen ye found a cat'r somethin'?:

Relief nearly made her incoherent for a moment.
Not yet. I'm working on it.

With some of his pain gone, he could think—it did gall him to feel even the least little bit of gratitude to that snake, Cuburn, but he had to admit the Healer had done him not one, but two enormous favors.

:Dallen . . . is there any way we kin cut Thallan off from 'is men? I mean, he ain't given th' word t'attack yet. Whatever Guard Post 'e managed t'take over, has t'be on the Border, an' somehow 'e'ed haveta reach 'em with a message. We're still pretty much where we were afore, right? An' if 'e don't git back an' take over whatever Guard Post 'e managed t' gull, ain't nobody gonna step up an' do it, right?:

:That might work, Mags. That just might work. All we need to do is figure out where you are. And by extension, where he is. There are only a limited number of ways he could send a message . . . but my feeling is he would want to command in person.:
There was silence for a long while. Mags used it to rest and let Cuburn's potion do its work on his splitting head. And think.

As long as we're 'ere, we kin be used as hostages. So we still need t'get out. There's gotta be a way.

There's just got to.

A
mily was disassembling her wedding finery, quietly, so as not to arouse any attention. She already had triggered the hidden latch on the soles of both boots that let the soles swivel at the toe and release the thin daggers hidden in each. She'd pulled the bones out of her corset that turned into a tiny bow and half-sized arrows, and gotten the sinew-bowstring from beneath the embroidery on her bodice. She'd removed the really nasty little weapon from the hem of her tunic, that was a chain with weights on each end. That one could kill a man with one blow if she struck him in the temple, and at the moment she was visualizing doing just that to their captor. Thallan hadn't really paid any attention to her so far; he had stopped just long enough at the door to her cell to sneer. She had just stared back at him, stone-faced. She would let him read into that whatever he chose.

Probably that I'm too terrified to move. Someone like that would be sure that a woman in a pretty dress was useless, helpless, and petrified.

Her head hurt, but whoever had hit her had been very good at knocking people out; it had been just a little tap, that had left a bit of a bump, and a bit of a sore place. She thought, from the taste in her mouth, that she must have been given some sort of drug, but now it was completely worn off.

She wished she knew how to pick locks.
I'd hide out of sight until he came back, then get him as soon as he stepped into the cell to look for me.
The thought of
thwacking
him in the temple with that lead weight was infinitely satisfying.

The sight of that toad, Cuburn, scuttling past had made her gorge rise. Now more than ever she regretted the fact that the King hadn't locked him up in a gaol in Haven and thrown away the key. Or locked him up in the gaol for the worst sort of prisoners and made him act as their Healer. Or . . . well she could think of a lot of fates she'd like to consign him to right now.

Then again . . . he hadn't done what he'd been told to do. He hadn't drugged Mags. She wasn't feeling charitable enough to give him the benefit of the doubt however. She didn't think any sort of altruism had inspired
that
gesture. It was more likely that he was hoping that when Mags and Amily were rescued, or got themselves out, he'd get clemency.
I guess he discovered someone he's completely terrified by. Good. I hope Thallan gives him nightmares. I hope Thallan keeps him chained to a dog kennel.

Once she had her weapons out, and either hidden on her person or under her skirts, she closed her eyes and began searching once more for animals. A cat would be best. Maybe she could induce it down into the dungeon with a suggestion there were mice down here. She had discovered that, although she could not command animals to do anything, she could make them think there was something they wanted where she wanted them to be. She had also discovered that, within limits, there were things she could suggest they might want to do.

She found the pigeons before she found a cat.

At first, she didn't know what she had found; just a mass of sleeping birds; not sparrows, not chickens, not crows—nothing she'd ever had much to do with. Then some of them woke up a little and cooed in their sleep, and she realized with a start what they must be. Not just a lot of pigeons roosting in a roof, but
messenger
birds, in their closed-up dovecot. Well, that answered the question of how Thallan was communicating with the rest of his men so far away on the border.

Hmm. I wonder. . . .
There just might be something she could do with this.

She sent her mind roaming farther, and as she had hoped, she found owls. Eagle-owls, specifically, which nested
very
early in the year, and now had a clutch of two youngsters to feed. They were looking for prey. The easier the better, as the fledglings were learning how to hunt at this stage.

I'm sorry, pigeons. . . .

The female was hunting already, lofting silently along, and Amily flew with her. Now she was very glad she had been memorizing maps for as long as she had. As the owl flew over a village, and then a town, she recognized by the configuration of the latter, and especially by an outsized and very imposing temple to the goddess Hestapha of the Hearth in the very center of town. This place had been mentioned quite a lot in the Heraldic Chronicles of this part of Valdemar. Women came to this temple from all around, when their men were going off to war; Hestapha was reputed to bring them home to their own hearths again in time of battle. One of the Chroniclers had noted wryly that there was no guarantee on the part of the priests what sort of shape the men would be in when they returned, but enough grateful spouses, sisters, and daughters had made thank-gifts over the centuries that this temple was quite splendid indeed.

The village was Swallownest. The town was Hestaford.
And there was a mostly unused Guard garrison-post just above the town, about two leagues away. Not
abandoned;
this post was a relic of the old days, when even the capitol of Haven could be menaced by bandit-lords, warlords, and other hostile sorts. The post was kept in good repair, just in case it might be needed for some other purpose—to house people rescued in the event of a disaster, or the Guards sent to rescue them, or both. It took very little to maintain a set of buildings in good repair, especially if they were made of stone, with slate roofs, as these were. From time to time, especially in wartimes, the garrison was put to use as a recruiting and training station for the Guard.

And that answered the question of where she and Mags must be. Thallan must have taken over the fortress. There would have been no one there to question or oppose him, and it was within striking distance of Haven.

She suggested to the owl that there was tasty prey at that normally empty garrison. Having found starlings and wild pigeons there in the past, the owl hooted a summons to her family, and bent her wings in that direction.

It was very, very odd to experience this flight through an owl's senses. Everything was black and white, of course, the owl could see an
enormous
amount, and her eyes were as keen as any falcon's. But better still was her hearing. She actually heard the pigeons cooing in their sleep before Amily spotted, through her eyes, the dovecote that had been put up in the observation tower.
They must have put it there so the pigeons would get a good start flying, and to protect them from weasels.
If Amily hadn't alerted the owl to its presence, though, likely enough the owl would never have known it was there, either, until Thallan and his men were gone.

That cooing certainly got the owl's attention.

She had never seen a dovecote before, however, and as her mate and two owlets landed on the rail behind her, she prowled
the little structure, staring intently at it, the pigeons inside utterly oblivious to what was about to happen.

Because as the pigeons shifted on their perches, made soft little noises, and slept on, Amily pointed out the place where the thatch covering the top of the dovecote was thin, and put an image in the owl's mind of how using her powerful talons to tear it apart at that point would bring a rich reward.

A few moments later, there was carnage.

A couple of the pigeons escaped the adult owls slaughtering the rest in the dovecote by flying out in a panic, but it was
dark,
and they landed almost immediately, becoming easy prey even for the unpracticed youngsters. The owls ate their fill of the best parts, then each seized a bird and lofted away, carrying it back to be cached near the nest for another meal later. They left behind nothing but blood, headless birds, and feathers.

Not one pigeon escaped.

And, of course, besides cutting off Thallan's means of fast communication, now Amily knew exactly where they were jailed.

:And now so do I,:
said Rolan, triumphantly.

• • •

:We know where you are,:
Dallen said, interrupting Mags' search to identify every man within the walls of this place. He left off what he was doing and lay down for a little on the mattress; the straw inside crackled and gave off a clean scent of dried grass. His head might not have been hurting as much, but it had been a very long time since he last ate, and he was feeling a bit nauseous and a little weak. He had to get through that. He couldn't afford weakness.

:Well, th' bad news is, they're locked up tight's ticks in 'ere, they're all right cozy, they're bein' careful, an' this place was made fer a siege. Thallan pretty much has 'em set up as
if they
was
in a siege. Ain't crackin' this place soon.:
Mags had drifted through minds waking and sleeping, and learned that although the garrison was small, it was of handpicked, battle-hardened men who knew exactly how best to defend what was essentially a fortress. Unless someone needed to enter or leave with a cart, the main entrance was kept shut, barred, and the portcullis down. There was a hidden postern-door around the back of the fortifications that the men used in case only one or two needed to get in and out. They had not revealed themselves to the people of the town; they'd brought in their own provisions, and they had brought a
lot.
This had not been an impulsive move on Thallan's part. He had planned to be here, right now, probably because he had correctly deduced that getting Menmellith to declare war on Valdemar was the weakest part of his plan. These were probably not all of the men he had brought North with him, either. He probably had the great portion of them scattered around Haven, each with a particular set of Companions to target. They would fit right in. No one ever looked twice at a member of the Guard in and around the Palace, nor in and around Haven.

Mags had located Cuburn, but the Healer had his shields up again, and there was no getting inside without alerting him to the fact that someone was trying to read his thoughts. He thought about forcing his way in . . . but it was unlikely he'd learn anything of use. The Healer was cowed and rattled, a very different man than the one that had bullied Bear and informed on Bear to Bear's father. He'd spill whatever information he
had,
if Mags got hold of him and pressed him, but it was highly unlikely that Thallan had told him very much.

He'd also located Thallan, who was asleep. He'd taken the best room in the garrison, but it was fairly sparsely furnished. Whatever was motivating this man, it wasn't greed, nor a desire for the luxury that came with rank.
Could
it be that he was driven by patriotism, as he claimed?

:If so,:
Dallen said dryly,
:It's not the sort of patriotism that you and I would recognize as such, at least not for this land. He thinks he is the only arbiter of what is right for Valdemar. He thinks the King is weak because he is merciful; he thinks the Heralds are unnecessary at best, and an impediment to getting things done at the worst. He's perfectly prepared to bring fire and the sword to innocent people in order to bring about the sort of changes he wants to see here.:

Mags regarded the man's dreams, which were, oddly,
not
full of the sort of martial imagery he had expected. No first-person view of battle, although there was battle raging in this dream. It was all at one remove, as if Thallan viewed it from above. As if it were all a military sand-table, where counters were moved to represent, not individual troops, but groups of them on the battlefield. As if troops were not people at all, but things, toys he could use and discard.

:I don' think he's ever been in a real fight,:
Mags said, slowly.

:I don't think so either. I think he's
sent
men to fight, but never fought himself.:

If anything, that made Mags even sicker. This was one of those despicable men who didn't even regard his own men as human and important. They were just counters in a grand game, to be used up and dispensed with as it pleased him.
:You think he plans t'make hisself King?:

Dallen's reply surprised him.
:No. I think if his wildest wish came to pass and Kyril was murdered or deposed, he'd pick some amiable, empty-headed highborn in the line of succession and set him up as a puppet. But I think what he intends to do, practically speaking, is that same thing in Menmellith. He's going to win the pretender's throne for him, then call in the debt and become the power behind the throne. He might well advise the new King to make Menmellith a client-state of Valdemar, but I doubt he'd ever let Heralds across the border. I think that is what this is all about; putting himself in real
charge of an entire country, behind a figurehead that can be used to deflect all blame.:

That made an ugly sort of sense.

Dallen had more information, this part of it somewhat better.
:Amily has just eliminated the likeliest means of his sending a message. She's arranged for some owls to remove all of his messenger pigeons. That leaves only sending a human as a messenger, or gathering up his men and just making a charge for the Border or for Haven. He'd be an idiot to march on Haven; he has to know that by now Haven's been warned.: