Hell at the Gates, page 16
“It’s all right,” Kadak said, waving the Fey to back down. “We are all allies here.”
“Allies...” Lethus scowled and stepped up to Kadak, grabbing his sleeve in a shaking grip. “You never said anything about—”
“No, I didn’t,” Kadak cut the Archbishop off. “Because I knew how you’d react.”
“Fey...Janizarries, here in a house of Our Lord...?”
“Will it be any different when they breach the gates?” Kadak asked. “This is the plan, Your Grace.”
“Perhaps...” Lethus swallowed, his eyes on Janizarries emerging from the hole. “Perhaps we have gone too far, Count.”
Kadak grabbed the cleric’s forearm and squeezed until the old man winced. “Do you doubt your treacheries have already earned you death at Cornum’s hand?”
Lethus blinked once and looked at Kadak. The glitter of panic faded from his eyes, became something approaching calculation. “No.” He yanked his arm free of Kadak’s grip and straightened his robes. “No, of course I don’t. This...is the plan.”
“Good.” Kadak breathed an inward sigh of relief. “How went your rabble-rousing?”
“Well, I think,” Lethus replied. “The ‘schism’ is public now and I’ve had members of the church hierarchy loyal to me whispering dissension quietly for some time. It’s actually spread more quickly than I had anticipated, many of the lesser clergy and city-folk already pressed by their fear to the same conclusions.”
“The city divided,” Kadak said. “When the next attack comes, those doubts will be in many of the defenders’ minds. Their resolve to stand and fight it out will not be what it could be and many will rush to preserve their homes and families, seek to simply surrender.”
“Yes.” Lethus rubbed his chin. “There was...a complication today, though.” He met Kadak’s eye. “Cornum’s witch daughter made an appearance, attempted to debate me.”
Kadak nodded, felt a hot current of desire quicken his pulse. “She is ever the trouble-maker. She was taking in the services?”
“No,” Lethus said. “She has been in the Vaults working on something with Dwymli.” The Archbishop stepped close to Kadak, locking gazes as he whispered, “I worry about that one, Count. I fear you have underestimated the meddling that wizard can do.”
“I have underestimated nothing, fool,” Kadak snapped. He glanced toward the clump of wererats, noticed Boethus’ stare, drawn by the mention of the wizard. Kadak grinned. “Dwymli will be taken care of. You just stay at your machinations.”
Lethus nodded and turned to go. Kadak watched the old man and his escorts depart with hard looks at the Janizarries filling the nave in quiet efficiency. He noticed the black-clad Fey staring at him. “Was there something you wished to add?” Kadak asked.
“Nothing at all, Count,” the Fey replied. A glance passed between him and his red-robed accomplices. “Nothing at all.”
CORNUM WATCHED AS HIS daughter shivered with rage at the foot of his throne. “Father, you must do something about him!” she demanded.
“Scheming, traitorous son-of-a-bitch...” Dragonnes growled at his side. The Blood Knight began to pace, seemed nearly as unhinged as Marya.
“It’s more than the Archbishop,” Marya went on. “His subordinates have probably been saying the same things, in confessions, in services. And I have heard rumblings, Father, in the streets, among the people. They all begin to talk as he did today.”
“My Lord, she’s right,” Dragonnes said, turning to glare at Cornum with his hand on the grip of his sword, the knuckles blanching. “My men have heard similar. Lethus means to betray you!”
“Father...” Marya paused, looked carefully into Cornum’s eyes. “You should have him arrested. Master Dragonnes can—”
“No,” Cornum said wearily and raised a calming hand. “No, we cannot do that.”
Marya’s features collapsed into shock. “Father—”
“To arrest him now, after he has been so public in his protestations, will appear to the citizenry to lend legitimacy to his arguments,” Cornum said, his voice hoarsening with anger and the fatigue of so many things fraying, coming apart around him. The Emperor sighed. “He must be allowed to continue to speak out. It is his right. It is free peoples’ right.”
Dragonnes stepped close to Cornum and put a gentle hand on the Emperor’s arm. “Certainly times such as these, sire, allow for a more stringent hand?”
Cornum looked at the Blood Knight and offered his friend a melancholy smile. “And what kind of realm would we then rule after this is all over, Lyonne?”
Dragonnes’ expression went from anger to perplexed thought. He removed his hand and turned away, brooding.
Marya kneeled before Cornum and put her hands on his knees, looked so much for a moment like his little girl, years gone, playing at his feet while Daneah embroidered at his side. “Father,” she said, “if Lethus continues spreading division, we may not have anything to rule when this is over.”
Cornum sighed again. Lethus, damn the fool. Daneah hadn’t trusted him either, had insisted the secretive old man would turn on them as a feral dog does. But in the tumultuous days of Cornum’s succession they had needed all the allies they could hold together. A dark part of Cornum had always wondered if the assassins who’d claimed his wife’s life—had nearly taken his daughter’s as well—had been paid from the church coffers. No! I must not go there...not if I am to hold things together.
“This has been a long time coming, I fear,” Cornum said finally. “When the kingdom was at its height, an Archbishop of Ranai wielded far more power. As our nation’s fortunes have degraded, the Emperor has had...less to worry himself with, has had more time to rule just the city.” He shrugged. “They resent my meddling.”
“So we’re to do nothing but let him turn the city against itself?” Dragonnes rumbled without turning to face him. “Against us?”
“If you march down there and arrest the second highest religious figure in the city on the floor of the Shrine of the One, you will accomplish that far more quickly, my good knight,” Cornum rasped, emotion and fatigue—so much fatigue—nearly taking his voice. “And then your men will be suppressing a riot in the streets while the Fey batter at our walls from without.” He shook his head and cleared his throat, marshaled some of his willpower back to him. “No, I will speak to the fool myself, make no doubt. But Archbishop Lethus will have his say.” He looked back and forth between his daughter and the knight. “That is what it has come to.”
“Father, I cannot—” Marya’s voice cut out in mid-sentence, taken by the same emotions forcing tears to her eyes. She rose to her feet, staring at him, those amber eyes boring into his core, his soul, nearly robbing him at this point when he needed all his strength.
Cornum forced himself to look away, hating himself.
Marya whirled and stormed from the Council Chamber, a muted sob echoing off stone. Cornum only trusted himself to look her way when her back was already disappearing through the exit.
“He divides us,” Cornum whispered. “We divide us.”
“Sire,” Dragonnes said quietly, “I have people...” The knight’s face scrunched at an inner discomfort. “It can appear an accident...”
Cornum looked at the knight and smiled. “You are a good friend, Lyonne, and I appreciate how far you would go for that, and for the kingdom; but no.”
The Emperor looked back to the doors through which his daughter had fled. “This is what it has come to...”
A QUICK, WHISPERED spell brought invisibility and Marya raced through the night, down to the docks where the Witch of Vendar waited. Marya watched crewmen come and go, eyeing each for recognition and finding none. A knot of visibly drunk sailors clambered up the boarding ramp, singing, bawling with laughter and swaying. She saw her opportunity in their racket and followed them up onto the ship.
On the main deck, Marya glanced about. The sailors stumbled aft, for the ladders into the lower decks. The cook and one of the ship’s boys looked up from the glowing embers of the fire box to smile at their passage. With the men gone a bottle passed between them. The ship was still and dark, save light leaking through the cracks of the door to the Captain’s cabin on the quarterdeck. Marya moved that way.
“Where do you think you’re going, Princess?” a voice asked at her back.
Gasping, Marya whirled to see Dayar’ah her back. Momentarily she wondering how it was that she stared right at her, as if seeing her. Then Marya recalled the nature of the dusky-hued woman. She breathed a phrase that returned her to normal visibility and heard the scuffle and raised voices of the cook and the boy, seeing her now.
Dayar’ah’s raised hand seemed to still them.
“I must speak with your Captain,” Marya said.
“You must?” Dayar’ah’s eyebrows went up and her bared teeth stood out white in the dark. “Part of me wonders if we haven’t had enough of your kind of visits, Lady Marya.”
Marya tensed, part of her wondering if she shouldn’t call up defensive spells at the woman’s protective—no, threatening—tone and obvious readiness for a confrontation. She forced herself to calm, to back down from anything that would appear like challenge. “Please,” she said, “there’s so little time.”
“Perhaps it would be better spent where you belong,” Dayar’ah replied coolly.
“Please. I don’t expect any of you trust to me or any of us but believe me; the Captain will want to hear what I have to say.”
Dayar’ah drilled Marya with her otherworldly glare for a long time, the pupils practically flaring with the witch-fire of her power. Finally, after a long breath and a grudging nod, the New Continent woman led Marya aft to the quarterdeck. The cook and the boy watched the women pass in silence, the bottle passing back and forth between them for deep gulps.
At the door to Hamner’s cabin, Dayar’ah paused to give the wood a sharp rap. A voice from within beckoned and Dayar’ah pulled it open, bowing mockingly as she waved Marya inside. The door snicked shut at her back.
Marya squinted in the lantern light. Hamner, lounging on his cot with his boots off, his feet up and a bottle cradled in the crook of one arm, lurched upright, bleary-eyed, nearly spilling the wine. He wiped his whiskered mouth and fumbled for words. “My lady!” He recovered his composure with a lop-sided grin. “This is a surprise!”
Marya regarded the man’s disheveled state, matted hair, red-ringed eyes, and stained shirt hanging partly off his chest. “You’re drunk,” she said with a sneer.
“I am often,” he replied.
“Well sober up,” Marya commanded, “because there’s something you need to know about the activities of your crew.”
“As you command, Princess,” he said with mock seriousness. A confused frown followed. “What activities?”
“Call your men off,” Marya ordered.
Hamner’s brows furrowed. “Call them off what?” At Marya’s ensuing glare, he added, “Princess, honestly, you have me at a disadvantage.”
“Whatever...” Marya waved a hand in disgust. “Call your men off your blood-feud with Lethus.”
“My...” Hamner started to say. He gave his head a shake. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
Marya frowned as doubt began to fill her mind. “I saw two of your men today, at the Shrine of the One, waiting for an opportunity at the Archbishop. They saw me and fled.”
“Do you know who it was?” Hamner asked.
“I don’t know your crew by name, only the faces,” Marya said. “But they were yours, I assure you.”
“My Lady, I assure you, I ordered no such thing.”
Marya stared into the man’s bloodshot eyes, saw grogginess, a little anger, a lot of confusion, but no deception. “I want to believe you,” she said quietly.
“Well, I don’t care what you believe,” he said with a dismissive wave. “And I won’t parade my crew out for you just so you can identify men who may have just been taking in the sights of the ‘City of God’.”
“With swords and pistols?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, these aren’t the safest of times.”
“Please, Captain,” Marya said, a little desperation creeping into her tone, “I’m begging you. Just...pass the word along, quietly. If one of your men were to succeed, the political fallout would be disastrous. It would appear as though my father had had the Archbishop assassinated.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he should.”
“Please, Captain...”
Hamner stared at her. Slowly, his anger subsided, was replaced by his good-natured smirk. “All right. I’ll say...something.”
A heavy breath left Marya. Her ribs ached, as if she had been holding it in a long time. “Thank you.” Her eyes stung with the tears of pent-up frustration and fear and too many nights without enough sleep. She rubbed the moisture away and turned from Hamner, began to move for the door. “I should be going now. It’s not proper that I’m here...again.”
“You look worn, stressed,” Hamner said. When Marya glanced back at him, he shook the wine bottle. “Have a drink?” His roguish grin blossomed. “Oh, come on, it’s just a drink.”
And how often, I wonder, has a maiden surrendered her virtue at such words. Marya fought to suppress a smile. She nodded once and the Captain half-filled a goblet on his desk for her. She accepted it and took a sip, was surprised at how good it was.
“Ladronnus’ best,” Hamner said, taking a pull on the bottle. “Not the swill I give the crew. I sneak a few casks through the intermittent Saedrannan blockades every once and awhile; fetches quite the price in the Confederacy.” He gestured towards the stool at his desk. “Have a seat?”
Marya glared at him half-heartedly. “I said I’d have a drink.”
Hamner put up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right. Just thinking of a Princess’ comfort.” He leaned back against the bulkhead behind his cot, sipping at his bottle and eyeing her thoughtfully. “It must be hard on you, Emperor’s daughter and possessing your...talents. I’ll bet it drives the proper-folk mad.”
“More than you know,” Marya said.
“You probably don’t think you fit in anywhere.”
“What would you know about it?” Marya asked, the rapidly-spreading warmth of the wine making her voice loud.
“About not fitting in anywhere?” Hamner grinned. “Oh, you’d be surprised how well I understand.” He leaned towards her and the grin took on a dangerous aspect. “I drive the proper-folk mad.”
Marya wasn’t certain if it was the wine or the temperature of the cramped cabin but she felt suddenly and uncomfortably warm. More, she felt a desperate need to be out of the cabin, away from this man. She set the goblet down, still unfinished and edged for the door, her skin tacky with perspiration. “I’m sorry...I shouldn’t...the wine, you see.” She glanced back at him then rushed to look away and open the door. “Thank you, Captain,” she said and went.
Outside, the cool of night sent a shiver through Marya’s frame and she pulled her cloaks tight about her. Dayar’ah watched from the railing of the quarterdeck just outside the cabin, eyes alight, arms folded. Marya couldn’t look at her. She scurried for the ladder to the main deck. The door to the cabin banged shut.
A gentle chuckle passed through the crack in the un-latched door. Marya’s faced burned and she rushed to be off the ship.
Chapter Nine
War of the Moles
Edisten scrambled through the dark.
Shirtless, mud-caked volunteers from the City Watch shrank back to allow the gnome what room they could along the tunnel. The passage narrowed ahead and it was hands and knees—even for him—crawling through pools of frigid, stagnant water for fifty yards. His own mass blocked what feeble lamplight there had been and absolute black closed in about him. The air stirred against his face, a gentle current bringing sewage stink and he knew he must be getting near the end. A sliver of light, only noticeable as a lesser darkness drew him the last few feet.
Suddenly, Edisten was amongst a group of men.
“Master gnome,” a voice whispered in the gravelly bass of the Reckoning Knight, Sir Urglass, commanding this work crew.
“I’m told you broke through into a shaft,” Edisten said.
“Ahead,” Urglass replied.
Edisten scampered toward the jagged outline of light. He could smell the men crowded around him, behind him, packed bodies sweating fear. Iron clanked faintly against stone, pickaxes, maces and occasional short swords wielded by Brothers-at-arms, Morabians, and the hardiest of the City Watch volunteers.
The tunnel opened into a circular passage below, the miners having broken through its ceiling. Water droplets echoed hollowly, stirring ankle-deep water reeking of waste and rot. Barely audible behind the noise was the ring of tools on rock and deep-throated barks of command or curse. Faint light emanated from the right and, more ominous, a brighter illumination flared to the left, swaying and casting strange shadows as it glimmered across the slime coating the walls.
Edisten waved the men back and pressed tight against the mine wall, staring with one eye around the crumbling edge of the hole. The light swelled as a group of squat figures came trudging up the tunnel, a lantern held in the knobby fist of the leader. Occasional grunts passed among them but their ratty-bearded expressions never changed. One near the rear of the detail paused to glance up at the hole in the ceiling, dumb eyes flaring momentarily with something that approached sentience. A bestial roar from the leader at the head of the troop drew a wounded-sounding bark from the creature and he scuttled to catch up to his comrades.
A collective breath escaped the men huddled around Edisten. He turned and caught the faint outline of Sir Urglass’ blocky-jawed visage in the dark. “Dwarves,” Edisten whispered. “Of all the Fey’s slaves, theirs is probably the saddest tale; an entire race broken to the yoke.”
“The City Watch folk tell me that this is an old sewer that may have once emptied into the city moat but has since been blocked up,” Urglass said. “They say there are many such spider-webbed through this area.”
