Queen of Demons (29 page)

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Authors: David Drake

BOOK: Queen of Demons
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Ilna laughed without humor. “
My first duty
,” she corrected herself, “I should rather have said, is to Liane bos-Benliman. I treated her worse, and with less cause, than I did most people in the recent past. But Liane seems quite capable of taking care of herself.”
“Mistress Ilna?” the boy said in a small voice. He was staring at his feet. “If I promise to—”
Four figures leaped from where darkness had hidden them in the bow of the adjacent ship. They weren't men, though they wore sailors' clothing and were man
like
except for their bestial features and the faint shimmer of scales where their skin was exposed. Ilna hadn't seen the creature her brother had found in a cider royal cask, but she could recognize Scaled Men from his description.
The noose was free in Ilna's hands before she was consciously aware of danger. The Scaled Men carried hardwood belaying pins from the ship's furniture. All of them had daggers as well, and a curve-bladed sword was tucked beneath one's leather belt.
Maidus gave a shriek of anger that stopped with the
toonk!
of a head blow. Ilna turned, casting the noose as she did. There were two more Scaled Man behind her. She didn't know where they'd concealed themselves. Maidus was on the bricks, bleeding from a torn scalp, and the Scaled Man who'd struck him was raising a belaying pin for another blow.
The silken loop settled over the neck of the creature who'd knocked the boy down. Ilna jerked the Scaled Man into the path of its fellow, ducking as she did so. The club aimed by one of the quartet from the ship slashed past. The noosed creature flailed like a headless chicken, choking as it tangled its fellow.
Ilna snatched Maidus up by the sturdy tunic she'd given him. Her own cape pulled away, delaying her for an instant she couldn't afford. She dropped the noose and had her paring knife half out of its bone case when scaly hands caught both her wrists.
The creatures were silent. The Scaled Man on her right didn't make a sound even when Ilna drew her sunbeamsharp blade across its arm.
Hands gripped her hair. She squirmed and bit flesh as dry as a snake's skin.
She didn't feel the club hit her, but she heard the hollow ring of the blow. The night went white. She was as blind as if she'd been staring into the noonday sun.
Ilna hadn't called for help. No one was likely to run to a frightened woman on the docks, except perhaps to demand a turn for himself. She would be
damned
before she wasted breath on a vain exercise.
Hands lifted her. She thought her wrists and ankles were being bound, but she wasn't sure even of that. She could hear voices, and they weren't human.
She was lowered again. She lay on a wooden grate, smelling bilge water below. She was sure her limbs were bound, but the light behind her eyeballs still blinded her.
Mooring lines thumped on the deck. Wood squealed, a sound Ilna identified after a moment as sweeps being fitted into oarlocks. She felt the ship rock.
The River Erd was unbuoyed as a defensive measure: no enemy could sail up its winding reaches by night to take Erdin unaware. To attempt it was to go aground on a mudbank or nose into a blind slough.
But the Scaled Men were unquestionably under way, taking Ilna os-Kenset with them.
G
arric hadn't been blindfolded, but the lanterns on the arched gateway were only orange sparks as Royhas' coach pulled into the enclosure. They must have been just extinguished.
The coach pulled around the back of a mansion and halted. The two guards who'd ridden as postillions threw open the vehicle's left door.
Lord Royhas was opposite Garric, facing the rear of the compartment; the remaining guards sat on the outside of both benches. The nobleman's hand, a pale blur, flicked toward the opening. “Quickly,” he said to Garric. “And don't make any noise.”
Garric's hands were still bound, but he didn't need King Carus' insight to know that Royhas didn't plan to have him killed. Not just yet, at any rate. He stepped down without comment and followed the guards into the house.
A servant opened the door but hid behind it as the passengers from the carriage entered. Garric saw only a vast stone bulk as his guides bustled him inside. Royhas and the others were close behind.
The corridor was unlighted, but a candle glimmered through an open doorway at the end. The floor creaked underfoot like the puncheon floors of his father's inn. The walls were paneled to waist height and frescoed above
that, though in this illumination they were differences in shading rather than pictures.
Or again, maybe he was mistaking water stains for art. He grinned.
The chamber was intended as a winter dining room, but the broad windows along the south wall were now covered by heavy velvet. Not drapes, Garric realized: the fabric had been tacked to the casements so that no one could possibly look in, nor would any gleam of light escape.
Royhas was taking no chances anyway. Only a single wax taper was lighted in a wall sconce holding nine.
The table and twelve chairs were of a dark wood Garric, didn't recognize, but from growing up in an inn he could appreciate the amount of rubbing required to bring out this luster. A man wearing an outfit of mauve silk—sober to look at, but it must have cost the price of a good horse—waited inside the door with his hands crossed over his plump belly. From his combination of obsequiousness and wealth he was of the better class of servants, probably the majordomo.
The guards led Garric inside, then turned to face their master. Garric looked over his shoulder.
Royhas said, “Loose him,” to the guards. He spoke with a tinge of irritation as though it was their fault Garric was still bound. One of the men tugged at the cord. The knot slipped open immediately, though Garric's surreptitious twisting during the coach ride hadn't gained him so much as a hair of slack.
“Maurunus,” the nobleman said to the servant, “some other gentlemen will be arriving shortly. Show them here when they arrive.”
Garric kneaded his wrists. The soft cord hadn't chafed his skin, but his fingers tingled as blood returned to their tips. Though the guards watched him with expressions of bland innocence, they were tautly ready to hurl themselves on Garric if he suddenly attacked their master.
“Lord Waldron arrived a few moments ago, sir,” the majordomo said. He nodded toward the chamber's other
door. “I put him in the buttery since I didn't think you'd want him waiting in the main hall. Shall I—”
“Sister take the man!” Royhas snarled, the first honest emotion Garric had seen him offer. “Is he a wizard himself, then? The courier must have met him on the way here.”
Maurunus waited with a look of polite attention, his hands still folded. He didn't speak.
Royhas shook his head in exasperation. “Wait for the turn of a glass, then send him through,” he said. “I'll speak with my guest here in private.”
The servant bowed and went out the other door. His steps were so small and quick that he seemed to be gliding.
“Leave us,” Royhas said with a curt gesture to the pair of guards who'd preceded Garric into the chamber. A slight tension at the corners of their mouths was their only sign of protest.
“And shut the door, you fools!” the nobleman shouted at their backs. The second man had swung the panel to the jamb but hadn't fully closed it.
“Well, Master Garric,” Royhas said with a smile Garric would have known was false even without watching Royhas deal with those who served him. “I suppose you're wondering why I've brought you here.”
“I
suppose,” Garric said, “that you're hoping to use me as a willing puppet in a plot against King Valence.”
He smiled without warmth at the startled nobleman.
Garric had met men like Royhas before, in the borough and more often among the drovers and their guards at the Sheep Fair. Fellows like that ran roughshod over everybody who didn't push them back—hard. Garric had learned early that he felt better after a fight than he did after backing down to somebody.
What had been true in Barca's Hamlet was true here in Valles. Royhas could have Garric killed out of hand—but if he'd been willing to do that, Garric would be buried in the grounds of the ancient palace. Garric had nothing to
gain by cringing and a good deal to lose, including his self-respect.
“I'm not a traitor!” Royhas said. He'd thought he was dealing with an ignorant peasant—and because he was a nobleman, he didn't realize that a shepherd had more experience than civilized folk about how members of a group jockey for position. Rams or men, it was all the same at the most basic level.
The medallion of King Carus was a warm presence on Garric's chest. Cashel would have known what was happening just as Garric did. Because Garric drew on the memories of his ancient ancestor, though, he also understood how to deal with this particular
form
of dominance behavior.
He raised an eyebrow as though he were amused by a child denying the obvious.
“Listen, boy—” Royhas said.
“You'd best bring your flunkies back before you next call me ‘boy,' Lord Royhas!” Garric said in a voice that made the candle flame quiver. In a quieter tone he went on, “Alternatively, you can treat me as the scion of kings and the man on whom your plot depends. In that case we'll get along better.”
He didn't know how much of that was Garric or-Reise and how much came from Carus, but he did feel the king's personality bellowing with laughter deep in his mind. The guards had taken Garric's sword belt away, but he hooked his thumbs behind his hipbones and splayed his elbows out, grinning at the amazed nobleman.
Royhas was a solidly built man, but he was neither as big nor as young as Garric, and he wasn't as strong by a half. For a moment his face was contorted with anger; then he considered what Garric had said rather than just the fact that a peasant had talked back to him.
In a careful voice Royhas said, “We're all under a degree of strain, Master Garric. My associates and myself are as loyal as any men to King Valence. It's quite obvious that Valence is unable to respond to the threat posed
by the queen, however, so we've been forced to consider other courses of action for the sake of the kingdom. And for Valence too, I shouldn't wonder.”
“Go on,” Garric said. Royhas must originally have planned to tell him to agree with whatever Royhas said during the meeting of conspirators and otherwise to keep his mouth shut. Still, if Maurunus had turned over a sand glass the size of those Garric had seen used on shipboard to judge speed against a drag line, there was still a little time to talk.
Royhas grimaced in frustration. He'd been knocked off his line, and he wasn't any happier than a young ram whose fellow had spilled him on the meadow.
Garric smiled. Of course, most years
all
the young rams were slaughtered come fall. That was something a shepherd understood too.
Royhas probably thought Garric was laughing at him, but he swallowed his anger and said, “The queen is sending her own minions to take over important positions in the city. Gate guards, the customs assessors in the port. The chancellor's office, even. There's always somebody willing to do a monster's dirty work if the money's good enough.”
Garric cleared his throat. Carus' agreement with the last statement was such a fierce, angry surge that for a moment it took Garric's breath away.
“She can't be buying everybody's support,” Garric said as soon as he could. A thought that wasn't entirely his own floated into his consciousness. “Or do the common people support her?”
“Nobody supports the queen!” Royhas said. “She's a demon in all truth, a wizard and worse. Mobs stone her officials, but that just makes it worse. Whatever the reason, riots mean shops are looted and people are mugged because they looked like they had the price of a drink in their purse.”
Someone tapped softly at the door by which the majordomo had left. Royhas looked up and started to speak.
Garric raised a hand to forestall him and said, “My friends? They're to be brought to me immediately.”
Royhas scowled. “I don't even know if they've been found,” he said. “You were our real concern.”
“When you find my friends Liane and Tenoctris,” Garric said, “they're to be treated like the noblewomen they are. Because you're a gentleman, Lord Royhas, I'm not concerned that you'd think of using them as hostages to compel my acquiescence in your plans—but because some of your co-conspirators may not be gentlemen, please make it clear to all concerned that I would fly into a berserk rage if anything of the sort were to happen. I doubt that any number of guards could prevent me from killing the culprit.”
Royhas flashed Garric a smile of some amusement. “I'm not in the habit of taking hostages from peasants, young man,” he said. “Perhaps things are different on Haft.”
Garric laughed aloud. He wasn't hysterical, but the release of tension was greater than the tension itself had seemed a moment before. “No, Lord Royhas,” he said. “Things aren't different: Haft peasants are just as capable of overvaluing themselves as the highest nobles on Ornifal are.”
He nodded to the door. “We should let them in,” he said. “So long as you oppose the queen, we should be able to get along between ourselves.”
Royhas took his position behind the chair at the head of the table and motioned Garric to stand on his immediate right. “Enter!” he said.
Maurunus opened the door, but he stayed outside when the four cowled figures who'd been waiting in the hallway pushed past. The last of them slammed the door behind him, then searched for a bolt. There wasn't one.
“I don't lock myself in to dinner, Sourous,” Royhas said tartly. “If you like, we could meet in the old slave pen in the subcellar.”
“There's no need for names!” Sourous said. He was a
surprisingly young man with delicate features, from what Garric could see. Unlike the others, Sourous hadn't thrown back his cowl when the door closed.
“There's every need for names,” Garric said. “Mine is Garric or-Reise of Haft, and I'm a direct descendant of Carus—the last
real
King of the Isles.”
The words weren't his own, though they rang with bell-like clarity from his lips. Carus was speaking through him, but he was speaking the words Garric would have used if he'd had the experience to choose them.
“So you say,” said the first man to enter the room. He had chiseled features and the thick wrists of a swordsman. Though about sixty and the oldest of the five conspirators, he looked extraordinarily fit.
“So the wizard Silyon said, Waldron,” Royhas snapped. “I don't trust that Dalopo savage any more than you do; but since he was right about Master Garric's appearance, I think we have to assume he knew something about the gentleman's provenance as well.”
There was no love lost between these two men. Garric supposed that was an advantage, since he could stand as the keystone between their competing pressures, but he didn't imagine it would make his coming tasks more pleasant.
The plump man in green pulled out a chair and sat. “If we fight among ourselves,” he said, “the queen won't have to waste effort hanging us, will she?”
He spoke with a wheeze. To Garric he seemed more peevish than frightened.
Royhas smiled tightly and nodded to the seated man, “Lord Tadai bor-Tithain,” he said, “and—”
He gestured to the last man, a haggard fellow who looked as though a cancer were eating his bowels.
“—Lord Pitre bor-Piamonas. You've met Waldron and Sourous already, Master Garric.”
“We'll all hang,” Sourous muttered. “Or worse, who knows what that she-demon will do to us? What if one of her fire wraiths appears here right now?”
“What happens if the sun goes out right now?” Waldron said without trying to hide his disgust. He shook his head. “Your father and I had our differences, Sourous, but at least I never doubted that I had a man to deal with!”
Tadai wheezed with laughter. “What did I say?” he remarked to the air. “We should hire ourselves out as buffoons for the Feast of the Lady's Veil.”

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