Maarken stood at the north postern gate, a fingerflame conjured near his shoulder. “Yes, that’s it—right through here and out to the Long Sand. Meet up with the others at the ruins of Sandfall, then continue on to Stronghold. Goddess watch over you.”
The Vellant’im directed their bombardment of stones at the walls and courtyard only. Maarken would have considered this stupid, but for the fact that they could not have guessed that yet another keep would be abandoned. He hated what they were doing—they all did—but with Rohan he believed in the strength of the Desert. Their Desert.
He was learning not to flinch, but the irregular pounding of stones was maddening. With Kazander he prowled the barracks, selecting soldiers to ride out by night with the wounded who could sit a horse. Traveling with only the clothes on their backs and the swords at their belts, they would wait in the half-hidden shelters along the way. Six groups of twenty each departed between midnight and the black time before dawn—ten able-bodied to protect ten wounded. They rode dark horses with bridles wrapped to stifle sound. Maarken listened for alarms from the Vellanti camp that would mean discovery, but there was only the incessant, nerve-shredding rattle.
“They use the bones and teeth of the Desert against us,” Kazander murmured as rocks danced their way down the barracks roof.
“But they don’t understand her flesh,” Maarken replied, surprising himself with the imagery. Kazander was contagious.
The young man grinned beneath his mustache. “May they sink into her soft golden arms like eager lovers—and die of her caress.”
He couldn’t help grinning back.
They passed Feylin and Chayla, dozing fitfully in the part of the barracks sectioned off for the wounded. Maarken paused to stroke his daughter’s hair. She murmured in her sleep and awakened, blinking at the tiny flame that followed her father through the night.
“What—? Oh. Papa. Is it time yet?”
“No. Go back to sleep.”
Shaking her head, she stood, stretched, and grimaced as a clatter hit the roof again. “The sooner we get out of here, the better!”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, and smiled before walking away, the fingerflame tagging dutifully beside him.
Kazander accompanied Chayla to the well just outside, drawing water while she waited in the safety of the arcade. Neither of them said a word until he returned to her, blithely ignoring the rain of large stones ten paces away.
“I suppose it’s too late for music,” She gave him a rueful sidelong glance.
He did not pretend to misunderstand her meaning; she was not talking about the time of night. “Never, my lady. At Stronghold, I promise to make you forget all this.”
“For the length of a song, anyway.” She smiled, and his heart turned to water.
Rohan and Sioned actually lay down between blankets for a while at midnight. She mimed sleep better than he did. As he slid from under the covers and reached for his clothes, her soft question about where he thought he was going startled him into a muffled curse. He accused her of faking sleep to her own purposes; she replied that her purposes and his were pretty much the same. He admitted it ruefully, they smiled a little, and got dressed to go downstairs again—he to the stables for a conversation with the grooms, she to help Hollis with the packing before preparing a trick of her own.
Chay, Betheyn, and Walvis sat in the latter’s study, poring over drawings of the keep. Sioned had earlier made a list relayed from Myrdal through Morwenna. Beth, daughter of an architect, carefully marked the little secrets and explained to the astounded men why each was not only plausible but logical, even elegant.
“I knew about the room off the main stairs, of course,” Walvis said. “But there can’t be a second room just behind it. Where would it fit?”
“Here.” Betheyn chuckled as she pointed to the plans. “Oh, I wish I’d met whoever designed this castle! See how this room tucks in neat as you please? I like the passage under the gatehouse, too. All those tiles set at intervals in the ceiling, with matching ones on the floor above—but they’re not on the floor, they are the floor, with empty air between them! Ail we need do is smash through and rain hot oil or water or whatever we like down on them.”
“But we can’t leave someone behind to work it,” Walvis objected. “What use it is if—“ Suddenly he gave a whoop of laughter. “When the inner gate opens, a bell rings up in the gatehouse! Connected by wires! Set hot oil in pots beside the holes, wire them through the bell-hole down to the gate—and when the gate opens, the wire pulls the pots instead of the bell, and they’re drenched!”
“I like it,” Chay announced. “What else have we got, Beth?”
“There’s another series of ceiling holes in the long arcade between the postern gate and the barracks. Supposedly, they let in light.” She chuckled.
Walvis looked more shocked than ever. “Feylin and I have been trying to get rid of the noise for years! We almost tore it all down once to rebuild it!”
Beth nodded gleefully. “The stones shift. If we move enough of them out of position ourselves, when the postern opens, half the arcade ceiling falls in.”
Chay grinned broadly. “You’ve got a flair for this kind of thing, my dear.”
She looked startled for a moment, then shook her head, “It’s just that I remember when Sorin was finalizing the plans for Feruche, Myrdal put in the same kind of deadfall— just in case. We laughed over it all night.”
“All night?” Chay asked.
Betheyn turned a delightful shade of pink. He winked at her. She became even more flustered and took refuge in Sioned’s notes. “Myrdal says there’s an underground room here—“
“There can’t possibly—“ Walvis sighed. “Ignore me. Go on.”
She smiled her sympathy. “I know—it’s rather unsettling, isn’t it? Anyway, the granary floor can be rigged to collapse. She’s not sure how. But it’d be very useful because below it is solid knives.”
“Stronghold’s supposed to have one like it,” Chay mused. “We’ll make an inspection tomorrow morning and think it over. What else?”
“A passage and a stairwell that go nowhere. I’m not sure how to use them.”
Rohan came in then and was apprised of Remagev’s hitherto unsuspected deadfalls. Having spent five years here as squire to his kinsman Hadaan, and having had a hand in the refurbishing, he was as startled as Walvis.
“You’ve got to admire these people,” he said. “Sun-runners and sorcerers traded castles back and forth as their fortunes rose and fell—and left little surprises for each other. Must’ve made life interesting. I know how the knife chamber works at Stronghold, but it’s all in stone. You say the granary floor is wood. That may be a problem.”
“Well, there’s enough else here to keep them busy,” Walvis replied.
“Rohan, where have you been that you stink of horse?” Chay asked suddenly.
He grinned. “I’ve been playing physician.”
The older man drew himself up. “What have you done?”
“We’re splitting up into four groups when we leave. That doesn’t do us much good unless they split up to follow. Sand doesn’t hold hoofprints. So I’m giving them something to track.”
Chay gave him an awful glare. “Sacrifice even one of my horses, and I’ll leave a trail to follow—in your blood!”
Betheyn’s eyes widened, although years at Radzyn had accustomed her to its lord’s sense of humor. Rohan, who had known him roughly seven times as long as she, pretended outrage.
“Chay! Not horse blood, and certainly not horse bodies! Horse shit!”
Walvis shook with laughter. Beth frowned as she tried to puzzle it out. Chay let out an explosive breath and nearly took a swing at his prince.
“The ones we’re riding to Stronghold will be cleaned out by morning,” Rohan explained blithely.
Betheyn hesitated. “But won’t they know the difference in the—the—“
“Texture?” Walvis supplied helpfully.
“I thought of that. The others won’t be dosed. They’ll be fed as usual—and enough fodder taken along to keep them nice and regular along the way.”
“Rohan, only you would think of such a thing.” Chay grimaced. “My poor sweethearts and their ruined digestion!”
“Better theirs with a dose of salts than yours with a sword in your guts.”
Pol and the two squires, Dannar and Daniv, spent part of the night helping pack various instruments of war that must not fall into enemy hands. The armory was denuded of extra swords, shields, spears, knives, and battle harness. Some were parceled out to those leaving Remagev that night, after careful wrapping to ensure silence.
Occasionally Pol paused to stroke the hilt of a fine Cunaxan sword, wondering when his fury would find outlet in its use. He didn’t know who was its primary object: his father, for prohibiting the battle that sense demanded; his father-by-marriage, from whose lands these swords came and whom he had to protect whether he liked it or not; or the Vellant’im responsible for all this.
After he sent the boys upstairs to see to the personal possessions of those they served, he sat on a bench near Sionell’s cactus garden and finally admitted that the only person he could rightfully be furious with was himself.
Lived soft and fat at Dragon’s Rest, had he? Literally as well as figuratively; he’d lost flesh these hectic days of autumn, but his belt was still a bit tight. In battle he’d not moved as swiftly as he’d expected, and was sore in places he shouldn’t have been. But at least he’d done something. At least he’d fought. Rohan was too old to join in the actual battle, of course—but his was the power to order battles fought. A thing he refused to do.
What angered Pol more than anything was the anger itself. What was wrong with him? He felt all unbalanced, every nerve raw, every emotion magnified as if by one of those pretty, useless lenses his father enjoyed peering through. His mind snagged on the image, and he realized that part of his trouble was that he felt as if he were on the wrong end of that lens, being inspected for flaws. Rohan found plenty, Goddess knew; Pol had seen it in his eyes.
Well, perhaps it was time he did a little examining of his own. Perhaps the problem wasn’t with him. Perhaps it was
Rohan. The tough question was whether he still trusted his father. He rubbed his aching shoulder and frowned.
He knew how Rohan’s mind worked. But he wondered if his father understood why he did what he did—or, more to the point, didn’t do. Forcing events put one in control of them. That was power. Rohan was wary of using his power. Pol even understood why. There had been times when it scared him, too. But to fear its necessary use ... was he calling his father a coward?
He bent over, elbows on knees and face in his hands. Do something, he begged silently. Win this war or give me leave to win it for you. Make me believe in you and trust you again.
The moons had risen late, three pale glowing discs behind the haze. Pol gave a start as he felt light break over him, free of clouds. Straightening, he wondered if it would last long enough to weave. But where would he go? Radzyn, Whitecliff, Riverport, Graypearl—and torture himself with sight of the destruction. Syr or Ossetia, where armies fought battles he wasn’t allowed to. Goddess Keep, where Andry slept—or Dragon’s Rest, where Meggie probably could not sleep. Guilt stung him. She hadn’t been in his thoughts more than an instant in the last days. She must be terrified, poor darling. But Dragon’s Rest was remote and secure. Laric and Edrel were there. He had nothing to worry about regarding his family and his palace. He had more immediate concerns.
He plaited moonlight automatically, not knowing where he would fling the strands, not caring. It was blessed escape, exercise of well-loved skill. Clouds had blown northeast, and no new ones billowed up from Dorval, so he could take his time and enjoy his creation. The power he was allowed to use.
Faolain Lowland was surrounded by the enemy. He left it quickly behind and avoided Riverport, seeking High Kirat instead. The immense keep sat its hilltop like a prince his throne. Sentries walked the torchlit walls, and there was a light behind the fine glass windows of Princess Danladi’s chambers. Light, too, shone from the court Sunrunner’s windows, but thin pale curtains were drawn and Pol could not pass through them.
He moved on to Catha Heights, wanting to see how Patwin’s splendid castle did now that its traitorous athri was dead. The place crawled with Vellant’im—walls, courtyards, battlements, even the famous gardens Pol had despaired of bettering when planning his own at Dragon’s Rest. He left, still sickened by Patwin’s betrayal. Too bad Mirsath was such a good shot with a bow—the death should have been slower.
Through the Catha Hills, small lakes shone like silver coins sewn together by bright ribbons of rivers. Thick forest hollowed into meadows that always rippled with flowers. Pol felt his spirit ease as he hovered above the land. Half his heart belonged to the Desert’s stark, sere beauty, but the rest of him breathed of green woods and broad meadows and water.
And dragons—ah, dragons. He saw them emerge for a night’s hunt from hidden caves. These were their wintering grounds, where deer and elk stayed fat and storms were soft. He drew back, not wishing to collide with a dragon by accident as his mother had long ago. But then he recognized a blue-gray sire silvered by moonlight and smiled, following Azhdeen back over High Kirat to the mouth of the Faolain.
The dragon’s purpose was instantly known to Pol. A certain kind of fish lived only in the deep, broad estuary where salt water met fresh. Pol had experimented with stocking a pond at Dragon’s Rest, but all the fish had died. Evidently Azhdeen had a craving for it tonight. Pol grinned as five huge dragons soared high, plummeted down, and time and again came up gulping.
It took them quite a while to eat their fill. Pol had always wondered how they avoided swallowing half an ocean of water along with their meal, but surmised they used their teeth as a strainer. Azhdeen finally flew to a large boulder above the sand, belched his satiation, and shook his wings dry.
It frustrated Pol that he wasn’t near enough to conjure the pictures by which they communicated. He needed to touch Azhdeen’s riot of rainbow colors, feel the dragon’s pride of possession as he conversed with his human, siphon off some of the dragon’s supreme confidence to bolster his own. It was better than dranath, that feeling—he’d taken it once in wine just so he’d know what it did, and concluded that time with his dragon was infinitely more sustaining.
Azhdeen rose from his rock into the air. Pol skittered back from him too late. They were caught in each other, tangled like yarn in the wake of a playful kitten.
The dragon missed a wingbeat, recovered, and opened his jaws in a roar. The other dragons instantly fled into the night. Pol retreated from the clash of colors, sliding back along his woven moonlight.
Azhdeen followed.
The empty husk of Riverport lay below. Azhdeen circled it, jaws open in a long, keening howl. And Pol heard him. He saw the blackened rain down below and he saw the dragon flying above it and as Azhdeen bellowed again he heard his own voice cry out softly at the same time.
Reeling, he tried to unthread himself from the dragon. But they were still chaotically entwined, perceptions and emotions spun together. Azhdeen was the stronger; Pol struggled to keep himself from being wrapped in the dragon’s powerful colors—and feelings.
The tense skeins loosened a little. His own emotions welled up. He had failed at Radzyn, and at Remagev; he no longer fully trusted his father; he had no plan for certain victory over the enemy. At last he realized that the reason he was so furious was that he was ashamed.
Azhdeen shook his head in confusion. Humiliation was unknown to him. No other sire had ever bested him in combat; none of his chosen females had ever escaped him. His throat pulsed in a series of short, sharp cries and the whirl of colors intensified, skimmed nearer to Pol’s own. He was more ashamed than ever that he had burdened the dragon with his uniquely human emotion.
Azhdeen took exception to what Pol was feeling. He spread his wings wide, baring his teeth in fury. Any attempt to soothe him was foredoomed to failure. Dragons had complex colors but very simple emotions, and were utterly single-minded. What they felt, they felt with every nerve.
Pol concentrated on unsnarling the delicate moonlight. With every link lost between them, Azhdeen grew more upset. Pol cursed himself and ripped away from the dragon, to the accompaniment of what felt like a dagger-thrust in his skull. He fled back to Remagev as fast as he could.
Azhdeen followed. Not with his wings, but with his colors.
Shock gushed from them both in waves of blinding light. Pol held his head between his hands as if to keep his skull together. He could hear-taste-srnell-touch-see the dragon’s voice, just like a Sunrunner’s voice, but the dragon had no words. Cries and shrieks and deep-throated growls filled his brain and drowned his senses.
Please! Don’t! Azhdeen, it HURTS!
The abruptness of the dragon’s leave-taking hurt even worse. Pol gasped in air, blood pounding acidly along every nerve. It took forever for his vision to clear, and longer still before he dared lift his head.
He’d toppled from the bench to the fine gravel path. The moons shone cold on SionelFs little garden, white-frosted the twisting shapes and the walls and towers of the keep. Pol shivered and rose carefully, aching to his bones. Once he regained the bench he could move no more, and sat hunched and shaking until the moons fell.
It was Dannar’s very bad luck that morning that the outer door of Lord Chaynal’s rooms was open. He took it as invitation to enter. Two paces into the antechamber he stopped in his tracks, the errand to fetch his lordship for the High Prince flying clean out of his head.
“Get back in bed, you stubborn bitch!”
The inner door was open, too. Princess Tobin was standing—surprise enough. But the sight of her fiery black eyes reminded him of a conversation between his brother Riyan and their father about the princess’ marriage contract. Dannar reflected that she didn’t need a knife; she looked perfectly capable of running Lord Chaynal through with one of her canes.
“Senile—old—fool!” she hissed. “Get ... Sioned!”
“No!”
She was facing the door and saw Dannar. Pointing the cane at him, she grated, “Sioned. Now.”
The boy scurried from the room. By the time he returned with the High Princess, Tobin was seated by the windows, weak morning sun on her face. Chay was hauling on his boots. Rising, he stomped each foot to fit the boots more securely and flung a fulminating look at his wife.
“Shriek yourself into another seizure, then!” he snarled on his way out. “Shatter the sunlight for all I care!”
Sioned gave a low whistle. “What did he do that you deserved that?”
Dannar blinked. What Lord Chaynal had done that made
Princess Tobin deserve a tongue-lashing? In all his eleven years, he had heard his own parents shout at each other exactly once. When Alasen and Ostvel fought, they did so in a silence colder than icicles dripping off Castle Crag in winter.
“Idiot,” Tobin snorted, “Sunlight. Please.”
“Wait outside, Dannar. I need you to help me later.”
He stood in the corridor and listened to the sudden silence, not understanding why a man like his lordship put up with such rages. When he married, his wife would be quiet and respectful and never raise her voice or glare at him or—
“Dannar? Ah, there you are. Will you carry this for me, please?”
He accepted a large, heavy bound book from the High Princess’ hands and read the title. “Lady Feylin’s book on dragons?”
“Yes. And we’re going to have to find her notes as well. Sweet Goddess,” she sighed, “as if I didn’t have enough to do today! But this is important—and we’re more capable of doing it than Princess Tobin.”
“She seemed very angry, my lady,” he offered as they walked down the hall.
“Lord Chaynal is a little overprotective.” She chuckled. “What he doesn’t know is that she’s been up and walking very nicely for some days now. But today he caught her at it.”
“What’s so important about the book?”
“The princess has quite rightly reminded me that the Vellant’im are very much in awe of dragons. Lady Feylin manages to demolish all misconceptions about them in her book.”
Dannar mulled that over. “Oh—I see! If they knew the truth about dragons, they wouldn’t be scared anymore.”
“Precisely.” She paused suddenly and smiled. “Listen to it, Dannar—the quiet.”
“Maybe they ran out of rocks.”
She laughed and went to open the library door.
To Dannar, there weren’t enough books in the room to merit its being called a library, not compared to Dragon’s Rest and Stronghold and his parents’ collection at Castle Crag. It was more like a workroom, the large table strewn with parchments and books and scrolls.
“We’re not going to burn all these books, are we, my lady?”
“Good Goddess, no! We’re going to hide them. But we must burn some,” she added grimly. “Just enough to make it seem we burned them all.” She went to the narrow bookshelf on the east wall, reached behind it, and muttered something before turning to him again. “Dannar, help me shift this aside.”
Mystified, he did so. She felt the stones with slim, clever fingers, and a few moments later tossed a smile over her shoulder.
“Your father says there are all sorts of secrets like this at Castle Crag. Did he ever show them to you?”
“I know about the one in his office. He showed me how before I left.”
“This one works along the same principles. You wiggle your finger into this space—so—and push in while pulling the little catch to the left, and—“
The wall moved back and to the side. Not just a section of stone, as at Castle Crag, but half the wall. Dannar gaped.
“Come on, let’s start stacking the books in here.”
They made quick work of it, as there were little more than a hundred volumes to be moved, but it was dusty work just the same. They were both coughing and sneezing before they were done.
“We’ll keep these for burning.” Sioned pointed to the scrolls and parchments left on the table. “And the dragon book as well.”
“There are other copies, aren’t there?”
“Quite enough. Although it grieves me to lose this one...” She ran dust-grayed fingers over the leather binding.
“Isn’t there some way we can save it, my lady?”
Her head tilted to one side as she regarded him. “Do I detect the makings of a scholar?”
He shrugged, uncomfortable with the question. “It’s a beautiful book. It’s not right to destroy beautiful things.”
“I agree. But Tobin insisted. She says the one we partially burn has to look impressive.”
“Partially?”
She only smiled.
A little while later they had closed up the wall and moved the shelf back into place. They also made a sufficient mess of the room to suggest hasty sorting of vital scroHs and parchments. Walvis possessed no rare or unique volumes, but still Sioned chose ones she knew to be outdated or so common as to make scant difference if they died. That was how she thought of it: she was about to kill books.
With little to do besides practice walking, Tobin had had much time for thought. What puzzled her most, she had told Sioned on sunlight, was the reaction of the enemy to dragons. Andry says they fell on their faces—as if they were not just terrified, but worshiped the beasts. Goddess alone knew how many dragon legends were believed by the Vellant’im, but it was Tobin’s opinion that with Sunrunners able to speak to dragons, it might be possible to use them in some way. Any advantage we can get, had been her reasoning, and Sioned agreed.
But it reminded her of a conversation with Rohan after her first contact with Elisel. “Dragons in battle—if there’s a way to do it, someone will.” She swore it would not come to that. Still, if the Vellanti fear of dragons could be used against them...
Which meant that they must not find this book, or Feylin’s notes. The latter she tidied as best she could and rolled into a scroll case for packing. But the book, Tobin’s copy with Maarken’s drawings faithfully copied and painstakingly colored ... this book had to die.
She had Dannar drag over the large iron brazier that warmed Feylin’s feet on cold nights when she worked, and called Fire to it. They fed the flames with page after page of books and scrolls. Sioned hoped there would be enough ash and half-blackened parchment to suggest the burning of many, many books. She glanced around the library. Ransacked shelves with harmless volumes scattered on them and the floor; tallies of glass ingots and goats and other produce left lying there as if too unimportant to burn—yes, it just might give the right impression.
But the most important illusion was still to be conjured.
“You take half,” Sioned told the squire, and cut pages from the heavy binding with her belt-knife. It was hard going, but eventually the book lay in shreds on the table. “Look for things you’d want the enemy to know, things that would frighten them. We’ll save those pages and burn the rest.”
Dannar coughed smoke from his throat and said, “I’ve seen my lord speaking to his dragon, my lady. Is that something we’d like them to know?”
“Hmm. If you run across anything like that, let me look at it.”
She had the last-half of the book, including a section wherein Feylin listed all the superstitions about dragons without comment. If the author had been present, Sioned would have kissed her; nothing could be more perfect for her purposes than stories of princesses and virgins sacrificed to angry dragons, warnings about poisoned blood and teeth and talons, cautionary tales about not looking into their eyes and never entering their caves. That last was fine advice, actually—dragons would never use the Threadsilver Canyon caves again, for people had been gathering up gold there too long.
Sioned ripped those pages out and set them aside. The rest was the last bit of a comprehensive dragon anatomy. Feylin had worked from the skin in; Sioned scanned sections on heart, lungs, and digestion, recalling days at Skybowl when Feylin had systematically carved up a dead dragonsire to find out how he worked.
“I think all this has to go, my lady,” Dannar reported. “The first part makes fun of the legends.”
“Absolutely, it must go. But we’ll leave them some of the bones and wings to chew on,” she added, grinning. “And a bit of the guts as well.”
He grinned back. But they both sobered as the beautiful script and painted pictures were eaten by flames.
“Now for the hard part,” she muttered. “Hand me these pages one at a time, Dannar. I have to burn enough to make it look good, but not too much.”
Myths, warnings, superstitions, charms for appeasing or avoiding, a little anatomy—all of it was artfully scorched. Sioned held each page by the upper comer and directed a tiny fingerflame to burn most, some, or a little of the parchment. When a page was burned to her satisfaction, she let it drop to the floor where Dannar stamped on it a few times to put out the flame and then kicked it to whatever corner of the room he happened to be facing.
“Princess Tobin planned to do this herself, didn’t she, my lady?”
“Yes. Page by page, hating every moment of it—just like us. But she’s a clever woman. This book is more use to us half-burned than whole.” She coughed at the smoke. “What do you think? Will they buy this little scene?”
Dannar stood at the door and surveyed their creation. At last he smiled. “I think they’ll pay more for it than they know, my lady. But the brazier should be kicked over. And a chair, too. We’re supposed to have done this in a hurry.”
“How did you learn to be so devious?”
“Not me—my sister Jeni.” He chuckled. “She was always the one who made it look like somebody else besides us did the damage.”
When all was arranged to their satisfaction, Sioned called Fire to the book’s cover—careful to leave the title intact. The back cover she singed and kicked into the pile of ash near the overturned brazier.
“That’s that,” she said, taking the scroll case of Feylin’s notes and locking the library door. “There’s something else I’d like you to help me with. In the kitchens, this time.” She smiled grimly. “That I can’t boil water is the joke of my whole princedom. But this recipe calls for sorcery, not seasoning.”
Pol’s headache succumbed at dawn to a noxious medicine. He went to Chayla for it because Feylin would have asked questions he wasn’t particularly eager to answer. Not that Chayla missed his bleary eyes and the wince brought by sunlight, but she only arched a brow and mixed herbs into half a cup of wine.
“I should warn you it tastes like a middens.”
He bolted it down. “I never met a medicine that didn’t.”
“That’s why I thought up this.” She handed him a small wafer. “Slide it under your tongue. It’ll cure the taste.”
“Thanks.” After a moment he nodded. “You’re right. Skillful and merciful as well as beautiful—you’ll have to beat them away with a stick, Cousin.” When she sighed, he shrugged an apology. “Been hearing that a long time, hmm?”
“It was old before I learned how to walk.” There was no smug pride in her voice, nothing but rueful resignation that people would always remark upon her beauty.
“Well, then, you ought to be used to it by now.”
“Are you?” she asked pointedly.
It had been a very long time since anyone had embarrassed him about his looks—though, unlike Chayla, he had long ago learned how to use them. He winked and left her to attend to her patients, himself seeking out Betheyn.
He had noticed something about the arrangement of deadfalls at Remagev that had escaped the others—perhaps because of them all, only he had built his palace stone by stone and watched Myrdal’s suggested “improvements” being constructed or installed. Remagev’s design herded invaders to the west door.
“What about the granary?” Bending over the architectural plans, Beth answered her own question. “No, I see— that discourages them from getting in through the kitchen side.”
“Right. I thought there might be some clue in the glassworks, but they were completely rebuilt in 710. Anything useful there is gone.”
“But why the west door?” She frowned, tracing the path with one finger. “It looks an ordinary hallway, my lord, inconvenient for the rest of the keep.”
“Locked and ignored for Goddess alone knows how long,” he agreed, assuming his most innocent face.
A delicate snort greeted his portrayal of virtue. “Let’s ask Lord Walvis.”
They found him up in the gatehouse, helping smash floor tiles. Spearheads, ruined in a good cause, were breaking through brightly colored Kierstian ceramic to reveal arm-length shafts beneath. The lower tiles shattered with more difficulty, being unworn by years of bootheels.
“The west entry?” Walvis asked when they posed the question to him. “No, we’ve never used it. Why?”
“How long has it been locked?”
“Lord Hadaan and I opened it one summer to see if it’d help ventilation. But it sucked up the afternoon wind like a blast furnace, so we locked it again. That was—oh, twenty or thirty years ago, now.”
Pol led Betheyn back down the stairs to the sound of more cracking tiles. “You see? It’s inconvenient, it’s useless for cooling, it’s got no purpose at all. So why build it?”
“Is there something like it at Dragon’s Rest?”
“There are ways of herding people where you want them to go—in our case, to the upper corridor of the servant’s quarters.” He did not elaborate on exactly what waited up there after proper preparation. “I’d make a pretty substantial wager there’s something about that west entry we can use.”
Feylin jingled with the key to every lock at Remagev on a chain attached to her belt. Unable to remember which applied to the west door, she gave them the whole collection.
“This could take all day,” Pol sighed, surveying the stiff locks set at shoulder level in the twin doors.
“Not at all.” Betheyn selected a key. Pol bowed an apology as the lock yielded. He shoved the doors open, hinges creaking a protest. “Needs oil,” Beth commented critically, and led the way inside. Sunlight didn’t reach very far in and there were no windows. He conjured a fingerflame, startling her slightly as she paced slowly forward.
“How would it work?” she mused as she walked. “They come in slowly, suspecting more traps. Double doors, no other exit. Hmm. Low wooden ceiling — not the floor of the room above, which is stone. They reach the door, open it — “ She tugged at the heavy iron bar crossing the wood.
Pol heaved at the bolt and it slid into the stone wall. Halfway in it stuck, one door freed. He pushed harder. The iron moved, caught again, and sound snaked across the ceiling toward the entrance.
Betheyn gave a delighted cry. “The catch springs the outer doors by a connection through the ceiling! I thought they were a touch too stiff. Trap the enemy in here and herd
“To freedom,” Pol pointed out. “And access to the keep.”
“Not necessarily.”
He slanted a frown at her smug smile. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“It’s noon and the only light is from your little Fire. If they come in at night, and if we fix the catch, then the only way out is through this door, leading into the corridor. But that’s locked from the other side.”
“I’m beginning to like this,” Pol said with a grin. “But we can’t just trap them, Beth. We ought to entertain them while they’re trying to get out. And I think I know a way to do it.”