The Tears of the Sun (73 page)

“Yes. That is . . . this way, please!”

She exchanged a glance with her second-in-command. Their own swords came out, and sped up to a trot; silent with her party, and a ramming clank from de Stafford's, there was no way to move fast and quietly in armor. They went past the guard detail, who, she was pleased to see, were keeping their eyes front, and not turning around to look behind them except for a designated cover man—there were any number of classic misdirection ploys which relied on the natural impulse to focus on the place the noise was coming from.

The family quarters of the Counts were splendid but not ostentatious by the upper nobility's standards. Subtle signs showed recent modifications, including more locally made post-Change work, including several small elegant bronzes of wildlife, probably to mark the switch from the first count to his son—or to his son's wife, which was often the case. A library-study full of wood paneling and leather furniture and glass-fronted bookcases showed the first signs of the attack; bodies being carried away, blood, furniture overturned and scorch marks where fires started by overset lanterns had been hastily stamped out. The broad windows needed for light were probably why the enemy had picked this room for entry.

Tiphaine pursed her lips. “I'm glad I advised him to go overboard on numbers,” she said, absently rubbing the back of her right hand.

Rigobert jerked his blond head in agreement. “I can think of a lot of operations which failed because not enough force was used,” he said. “But other things being equal—timing mainly, and concealment—I can't think of a single damned one that failed because
too much
force was used. Subtle buys no bread.”

Tiphaine nodded. A pair of crossbowmen were being given emergency care near the big doors from the library into the rest of the suite, and another lying on his back looked as if someone had grabbed his helmeted head and twisted until he was looking out over his shoulder blades. She bared her teeth.

Heard about that before,
she thought.

Through a corridor, with two dead Cutters in it; these ones had shetes, the broad-tipped slashing swords favored in the far interior, and they were wearing cloth masks that covered everything but the eyes. Next was a door with firing loopholes that had been hit so hard that it sagged on one hinge; she bent slightly to check as she went by. The pattern of splintering around the lock confirmed what she'd thought; someone had slammed their hand into it.

“They thought they could pin them in this corridor and shoot them down,” Rigobert said thoughtfully. “Didn't work, for some reason.”

“Their point man broke the trap open from the inside,” Tiphaine said.

Rigobert's fair brows went up. The chamber beyond was some sort of social space. Probably mainly a ballroom, judging from the superb parquet floor and the mirrors and spindly tables around the edge and the brilliantly lit crystal gas-chandeliers above. This was where the killing had mainly been, pitilessly illuminated by the lights designed to bring out jewels and bright cloth; her nostrils flared at the familiar scents, and the floors were never going to be the same. The local dead had been dragged out and laid in a row with their arms folded, and she saw stretchers disappearing out the other side of the big chamber as she entered.

Count Felipe was sitting on one of the chairs near the three-deep pile of enemy fallen. The spindly seat creaked dangerously under his armored weight. Two men with bolt cutters were working on the bevoir of his suit of plate, which had been bent so badly beneath his chin that the usual hinges and clasps were all irredeemably stuck; it came free with a clang, and another got the equally damaged gauntlet off his left hand.

Felipe swore again, his handsome swarthy young face showing as much chagrin and anger as pain. A chirurgeon began to work on the hand. By then the two western nobles were close enough to see that the fleshy pad at the base of the thumb there was mangled, besides the bruising where the little overlapping plates had been bent; the doctor was examining it carefully, and then got to work with tweezers and a small very sharp pair of scissors, and a spray of disinfectant.

At mere pain the Count's face went impassive, though a film of sweat covered it. He started to speak, and then something gripped Tiphaine's left ankle with crushing force and
jerked
.

Reflex saved her; she had the sword coming down before she hit the ground, curling up and using the grip that anchored her leg as a brace to strike. The edge of the long sword hit and bit, and the fingers started to relax as tendons cut. Another slash and she was free, rising in a flickering shoulder roll. Half-free at least; it took a stamp and the use of her point to get the hand off her ankle. Blades were rising and falling, amid half-hysterical shouts of loathing. She tested the ankle and found it only a little sore.

She looked up. A man had risen from the pile of bodies, half-risen at least. Six crossbow bolts studded his torso, and one eye was dangling down his cheek, and an arm ended in an oozing stump. The sole remaining eye
looked
at her.

The voice was a rasping guttural, and air wheezed out of the chest from the other openings as well. If cinders could speak, they would use that tone. For a moment it was as if she were locked in endless hot stone, and then there was a dry wind and a rustle that might have been broad wings hunting in the night or the wind in narrow olive leaves of silver-gray, and the world returned.

Rigobert's long sword was up in the two-handed grip with the hilt beside his face. He stepped and struck, pivoting his torso in a beautiful
suihei
horizontal cut and follow-through. The head toppled away from the body, and the torso fell back with a thud.

Thank you, Lady of the Owl!
Tiphaine thought.

Men were crossing themselves all around her, touching their crucifixes or saint's amulets. Her own hand had gone to her throat, for the owl medallion hidden there, and she grinned for an instant at the tinge of scorn she'd have felt for the others only a few years ago.

I'm finally a full-fledged Changeling, not caught betwixt and between,
she thought.
Poor Sandra! She got the world of her dreams and she'll never really be at home here.

Aloud she went on: “You men! Get that head and body, wrap them in mats and blankets, and take them away. Wear gauntlets. Burn the body and everything that's touched it, somewhere where you're upwind of the smoke. Don't touch it if you can help it. Wash afterwards. Wash
thoroughly
and discard your clothes and gloves. Have the floor here ripped up, cautiously. Scrub everything with lye and bleach, burn the wood. And get a priest to do an exorcism. Do it all
now
.”

The Walla Walla men hesitated, looking at their lord. He flushed and snapped, “She's the Grand Constable, you fools, do what you're told! Do it all, do it right! Sir Budic, take charge and see that the Grand Constable's instructions are followed to the letter. Now! And get the rest of this carrion out of the palace.”

A little more gently: “You've all done well and bravely, and I will not forget who stood with me this night. Now show good vassalage once more, and keep your mouths shut about this until I give out what's happened. We don't want a panic.”

The men scattered about their tasks, though Tiphaine doubted any secrecy would last more than about fifteen minutes. When they had some small degree of privacy Felipe looked at her and ducked his head.

“I am in your debt, my lady. I and my House. But for you, I and my wife and our unborn child might have been caught by surprise by that . . . that
thing
and its minions. Even as it was—”

He looked around.

“I thought you were being overcautious when you recommended so many men waiting. Remind me not to doubt you again.”

Lioncel silently returned her sword, clean once more, dropped a cloth into the pile that the Count's men were getting ready to burn, and then stripped off his gloves and added them as well.

She nodded, sheathed the weapon and went on to her host. “I don't claim to be infallible, but I've had some experience with this. With those creatures in particular, and I've made it my business to investigate. And the High King told me more.”

“What
was
it? I . . . I had my sword through its belly, I swear I did, and then it put its hands around the bevoir of my suit and started to squeeze as if it were trying to throttle me through the metal, and I could feel the steel begin to buckle! I was holding it off with one hand against its face and stabbing it, and it
chewed
through the bison hide on the palm of my gauntlet!”

“That,” Tiphaine said, “was a High Seeker out of Corwin. You don't really need the red robe to recognize them once they get into action; and if you kill them . . . well, you kill the man that was. But the . . . whatever . . . lingers, even stronger, for a few moments. Be flattered, my lord; the enemy have paid you a great compliment.”

Her face was glacier-calm; inwardly she was cursing herself for overconfidence. Her little trap had worked perfectly . . . against normal assassins. It had been only marginally acceptable at what had shown up, and that only because the main effort had happened to hit here. If the Seeker had come after
her—

“The High King had a similar experience on his quest,” she said. “And Lady Juniper a little east of here, though she was better prepared.”

Then she looked at the palm, stopping the chirurgeon for a second. “This was a bite?”

“He'd have had the thumb off in another moment, but someone hit him on the head with a war hammer.”

“That would be what popped out the eye. Well, my lord, if you're going to be taking my advice from now on, after it's dressed I'd send for the Mother Superior.”

The doctor gave her an offended stare. She glanced back at him and he opened his mouth, closed it, finished his work and left with a deep bow to join the others working on the casualties.

Felipe's face changed as he followed her thought.

“My lady, my lord,” he said. “I think we need to consult.”

Rigobert's squires removed his armor as the Count's did his, and then they walked after him as he went, limping slightly. Their path led farther into the family quarters; when they stopped at a door that looked as if it had a solid steel core so did the reinforced guard detail. When the door closed behind them the noiseless
whuff
and the abrupt silence confirmed her suspicions; she blessed his parents' paranoia. The room within was probably his wife's, from the decorations, which included a big oil painting of a snowbound landscape realistic enough to make Tiphaine shiver a little at the black pines shedding wisps of ice crystals. Certainly his wife was in the chamber, dressed in a thick night-robe trimmed with marten fur. The only windows were narrow and thickly barred, though open to the air. She started up, reached for his hand, and then stopped at the bandage.

“I'm fine,” he said.

They embraced a little cautiously, for his bruises and injuries and her pregnancy, and he kept the bandaged left hand well clear of her. Ermentrude followed the words with close attention as he spoke, then curtsied to Tiphaine, and again to Rigobert.

“Please, be seated, my lady, my lord,” she said, gracious but pale. “Refreshments?”

Felipe grinned at her, a tired expression. “I think we could all use a stiff brandy, my beloved,” he said.

“Not for me,” she said, and touched the slight swell of her stomach for a moment. “But how I wish I could.”

She did the honors, poured herself a cordial, and they all sat around a table that bore some sewing gear and a copy of
Sense and Sensibility
with a tooled leather cover and a silk ribbon marking a place. It rested on another with the title,
Birds of North America
.

You never knew everything another human being. Tiphaine sipped at the brandy, which was excellent, not quite as smooth as the pre-Change salvage Sandra preferred, but demonstrably on the same road. Though at present raw hooch distilled from potatoes by peasants would have been welcome.

“You said that I should send for the Mother Superior of the house of the Sisters of Charity here,” Felipe said, and raised his injured hand. “I presume not for their medical skills, excellent as those are?”

“No,” Tiphaine said. “We are contending with . . . I think the expression is
principalities and powers
, my lord. And I'm not a superstitious person by natural inclination, as you may have heard.”

He'd probably heard scandalized whispers that she was the next thing to an atheist, which, until fairly recently, would have been absolutely correct.

“Not the archbishop?” Ermentrude said curiously, but she sounded curious about Tiphaine's reasons rather than disagreeing with the judgment, from the tone.

“No. I'm sure he's a pious and learned man”—which took care of the formalities—“but what you need right now are certain . . . personal qualities. An archbishop is inevitably something of a politician and that is not what's required.”

Felipe and his wife exchanged a glance, and he went on.

“Very well, my lady Grand Constable, I will do as you recommend, and light candles and pray to St. James, the patron of my House. Could you tell me exactly
what
we're facing? I know in general terms that the Church has denounced the CUT as diabolists and done everything but proclaim a Crusade . . . they'd need His Holiness for that, of course, and Badia is so far away . . . but could you give me some details? It would be very much appreciated.”