Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) (35 page)

She squeezed his hands then, and Foxbrush shuddered. His face was pale and gray in the growing light of day. “I will give you both my hands, Nidawi,” he whispered. “To seal the bargain.”

“What?” She made a face, sticking out her tongue and wrinkling her exquisite little nose. “What would I want with your hands? I’m not one to collect such gruesome trophies! Keep them, mortal. Use them well and kill my enemy!”

“But . . . but the story. I’ve read the story. I’m to give you my hands to save—”

“I don’t want them.” Nidawi dropped her hold on him and stepped away, older and fiercer than she had been a moment before. “I want Cren Cru dead!”

“Dead! Dead! Dead!”
said all the Faerie beasts together.

“Lead us, king!” cried Nidawi. “Lead us to our vengeance! Lead us to our victory!”

And all the immortals raised their voices in such a shout that those in the village heard and fled to their homes in terror at the sound. The orchard itself shook with the thunder of it, and even Eanrin, caught up as he was in his anger and disappointment, found his heart beginning to race, thrilling at the power of those eager voices pledging faith and fight to this one humble mortal.

But Foxbrush, when the noise at last subsided, responded quietly, “Um. Can someone please point the way?”

F
ELIX
HAD
KNOWN
a number of interesting experiences in his young life. He had survived more than one dragon attack (a feat few could boast); his body had been taken over by a goblin enchanter while he suffered under the influence of dragon poison; he had lost his mind and many times nearly lost his life, only to be healed at the last. He had held the sword of swords, the mighty Halisa, in his own two hands and with it brought low the Bane of Corrilond herself (though, granted, he hadn’t known it was the Bane of Corrilond at the time . . . or Halisa either, for that matter).

All this to say, Felix was a lad with adventures aplenty under his belt. But that did not make this current adventure any more palatable.

For one thing, it didn’t seem sporting to hide behind a door while the baroness summoned one of her guards inside, then to hit the guard on the back of the head with a decorative urn the moment the door shut behind him.

The guard fell like a toppled oak and lay inert amid shards of urn.

A knock at the door, and the pretty lady-in-waiting called from without, “Is everything all right, my lady?”

The baroness stepped swiftly forward and used her voluminous skirts to hide the fallen guard just as the door opened and the lady peered in. Felix, holding bits of broken pottery in his good hand, his sprained wrist pressed to his chest, ducked out of sight. The baroness said lightly, “Oh, everything is fine, Dovetree, my pet! I dropped an urn, that is all.”

“Over Sergeant Fleet-Arrow’s head?” asked Lady Dovetree, who was no fool. She looked pointedly at the booted feet sticking out from under the baroness’s skirts.

“How clumsy of me, yes?” said the baroness with a laugh. “Now do run along, dear, and let no one disturb us.”

Lady Dovetree raised an eyebrow but curtsied and departed, shutting the door with a firm click. Felix sprang out of hiding and turned the key in the lock. He then remembered how to breathe and stood gasping, pressing a piece of pottery to his heaving chest.

The baroness began undoing the buckles on the unfortunate Fleet-Arrow’s boots. “Come help me, lovey,” she said with a smile at Felix that was simultaneously winsome and commanding, a formidable combination. “You look as though you’ve seen a fright! Have you never hit a man before?”

“Not with an urn,” Felix admitted. “Won’t she tell someone we’re assaulting guardsmen in here?”

“Who, Dovetree?” The baroness giggled and, with a surprisingly vicious tug, pulled the first of the guardsman’s boots free. “No, she is loyalty herself. Absolutely devoted to me. Do hurry, sweetness!”

Felix, in a bit of a fog, obeyed, kneeling and working at the armor buckles and straps with the trembling fingers of his good hand. Between the two of them, they stripped the man to his linens. Then, at the baroness’s direction, they rolled their victim onto a rug and dragged him to the adjacent dressing room beyond the study. This was made difficult by Felix’s wounded wrist, but the baroness proved stronger than she looked.

“Lionheart was a bit squeamish himself about hitting the page boy,” she said conversationally as they went. “What little mouses young men are these days! My dear baron wouldn’t think twice about clunking another
fellow over the head if it served his purpose. But then, I suppose there aren’t many men like my dear baron!”

Her dear baron against whom she was actively plotting. Felix rolled his eyes heavenward and began to think longingly of his nice quiet home up north, that which so recently had seemed dull. He thought he maybe could do with a little dullness just about then.

The baroness flung open a wardrobe, and a page boy tied up in curtain cords blinked out at them. Felix nearly dropped his hold on the guardsman.

“There’s someone in your wardrobe, my lady!” he gasped.

“Of course,” said she with a disarming smile. “How are you, Cubtail? Head feeling better?” she asked the boy, who was gagged but who shrugged agreeably enough. He even slid over obligingly as Felix and the baroness hefted the guardsman into the wardrobe. The baroness then hurried to grab a number of belts and the sash off a dressing gown, with which she trussed up the unconscious guardsman with shocking expertise.

“Now, sit tight and don’t make a peep,” said the baroness, patting the page boy on the head before she shut the wardrobe door once more. She turned to Felix. “Let’s see about getting you into that uniform!”

“It’ll never work, you know,” Felix said as he followed her back to the study and the pile of discarded armor and leathers. “I’m too pale, for one thing. And they’ll spot me by my accent, for another!”

“Oh, it’ll be too dark up in the tower for them to see you, and you won’t need to talk,” said the baroness, holding the breastplate to Felix’s chest. “This doesn’t fit right.”

“It’s upside-down,” said Felix, taking it from her. “Why won’t I have to talk?”

“I’m sending Dovetree up with you. She’ll say the wine is from me, in thanks to those noble souls willing to risk life and limb for the sake of my dear baron, and so on. They’ll sip the wine, they’ll fall over unconscious, and you’ll get Lionheart to let you in.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Felix in last feeble protest as he pulled the guardsman’s jerkin over his head and the heavy boots on his feet, “why you need
me
for all this. I’m not even a Southlander!”

“But you jumped to save Lionheart.”

“Yes, but that was . . . different.” He didn’t think it worth trying to explain the vision of Prince Aethelbald standing in midair. It didn’t make sense in his own mind anyway; he might just choose to forget it.

“Besides,” the baroness continued in what was probably intended to be a comforting tone, “if they catch you, they probably won’t execute you, you being the crown prince of our strongest ally. They wouldn’t think twice about hanging Dovetree, or me, for that matter! But you might just pass it off as a lark and be no worse for wear.”

Somehow, this wasn’t the reassurance Felix might have wished.

“I only wish she’d seen fit to tell me of this mad scheme of hers a few minutes
before
expecting me to carry it out.”

Lady Dovetree led the armored guard with the shuffling gait through the corridors of the Eldest’s House, muttering angrily as she went. He dared not respond for fear of having his accent overheard. He wasn’t certain he could speak above his thudding heart in any case.

“I mean, she’s a dear old thing,” said the lady-in-waiting. She carried a bottle in the crook of one arm and a couple of flagons emblazoned with rampant panthers in the opposite hand. “But she is
so
forgetful! Imagine concocting an elaborate plot like this and forgetting to inform the chief participants?”

It was about four o’clock in the morning, and the House had quieted down since the explosive events of the previous day. Nevertheless, Felix couldn’t help looking over his shoulder, terrified that someone would overhear Lady Dovetree’s complaints (justified as they might be). They progressed on their way unimpeded, however. Felix, the bandages on his wrist hidden beneath a flowing guardsman’s sleeve, bore with him a sack full of what he assumed were supplies for Lionheart and the imprisoned baron. Knowing the baroness, she’d probably stuffed it full of pastries and confections and neglected to add little extras like water.

But it wasn’t his plan. And it wasn’t his rebellion. In fact, it wasn’t his business at all, and Felix was dragon-eaten if he could figure out how he’d
ended up stuffed into an ill-fitting Southlander uniform and following this strange girl (who was very pretty, if rather ill-tempered) through these silent halls.

“Aethelbald wants me to help,” he muttered, quietly enough that Lady Dovetree couldn’t hear above her grumbling. It wasn’t a reason that made a great deal of sense. But somehow, Felix knew that he would keep on this strange course until the end. He would do anything for the Prince of Farthestshore.

They met almost no one until they reached the Great Hall. Here, at the heart of all the dire doings, the House was alive and throbbing with fear. Barons whom Felix did not know whispered together, exhausted from many hours of hopelessness but unable to retire to their beds for rest. Guardsmen stood along the fringes, their commanding officers conferring with the barons, all equally at a loss.

When one of the guardsmen stopped Dovetree and questioned her, she said brusquely, “A message from the baroness to the duty guard of North Tower. She sends succor to them in thanks for their efforts.”

The guardsman looked rather longingly at the wine in Dovetree’s arm but let her pass, never so much as glancing at the sweating Felix, who kept his head down, hiding beneath his spiked helmet. They proceeded with a few more similar pauses across the Great Hall and at last to North Tower itself. Dovetree, her peevish mutterings now suppressed, moved with an assured stride that impressed Felix. One would never guess she was about treasonous doings that could easily get her hanged were she caught.

They climbed the stairs, which were dark and difficult to navigate, for none of the kings of the last many generations had thought to install lamp sconces in this particular stairwell. When they wound at last to the top, however, they found three guardsmen sitting in a pool of lamplight. Three chamber doors stood behind them, but it wasn’t difficult to pick out behind which Lionheart and his prisoner were ensconced. That door, the one on the far right, was battered and dented from all the attempts to break through.

“Greetings from Baroness Middlecrescent,” said Dovetree crisply as they stepped into the guardsmen’s vision. At the sight of an elegantly dressed
lady-in-waiting, the guards quickly pulled themselves to their feet, standing at attention and surreptitiously tugging their armor straight. “My lady wishes to express her thanks for noble duty in the face of need.”

The guards exchanged looks at this. After all, sitting outside a locked door didn’t strike any of them as a particularly noble duty. But they had been up here in the silent dark, ineffective and frustrated, for several hours now while great men below plotted (equally ineffective and doubly frustrated). As Dovetree poured out and passed the wine their way, they took it gratefully enough and drank deeply.

“Keep up the fighting spirit, men,” said Dovetree, reclaiming the flagons. “Silent Lady grant you strength, and all that.”

“Silent Lady shield us,” they muttered in halfhearted response.

Dovetree turned and started back down the tower stairs. Felix, surprised, hurried after. He waited a few turns before reaching out in the dark and catching what he hoped was her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” he whispered. “They didn’t fall asleep! What are we supposed to do?”

“
We
aren’t doing anything,” Dovetree replied, shaking him off. “I have fulfilled my part of the plan. Now you will fulfill yours. Don’t worry,” she added in a kindlier voice, “they’ll nod off any moment now. You’ll have your chance. Wait here.”

With this, she left, and Felix stood alone in the darkness, clutching the sack of supplies. His mouth was very dry, and sweat soaked his stolen garments, though it was not hot up here in the tower.

But he had only to wait a few moments before he heard a heavy
thunk
overhead, followed soon after by a thickened voice saying, “Lumé, mate, what are you . . .” This trailed off into another
thunk
swiftly followed by a third. Soon after, snoring.

Perhaps the baroness would prove a cunning conspirator after all.

Lionheart guessed that he had probably been
more
tired than this upon occasion. During that long voyage to Noorhitam in the Far East, Captain
Sunan of the good ship
Kulap Kanya
had made Lionheart work for his passage. Those were some long days followed by sea-sickening nights . . . and sometimes even the nights were spent freezing up in the lookout, too high above the deck for anyone’s comfort as the ocean rolled and murmured secretive threats beneath him.

Certainly those had been far more exhausting times, the threat of death by falling or drowning as present as the current threat of hanging.