Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda (18 page)

The birch-bark torch hissed and spat as they walked inside, taking a moment to let their eyes adjust to the dark before they walked farther in.

Kethol’s right hand couldn’t seem to keep itself from the hilt of his sword, although that was silly. There was no evidence on the floor of the tunnel that any animal was using the cave, after all, and there wouldn’t be anything else in there that was dangerous.

The central chamber was as they had left it: large, easily the size of the great hall at the Residence, and almost empty. Three wooden chests lay in a preposterously straight line near the raggedly curved far wall, although one of them was already starting to rot — the crack in the outer wall had let the rain leak in as much as it was now letting a ragged band of light splash into the chamber, making the torch unnecessary.

A cairn of rocks lay squarely in the middle of the chamber.

On the day that they had built the cairn, when they finished it the light through the crack had caught the rock pile full-on, and the blade of the sword that stood at the head of the cairn had seemed to glow with an inner fire.

The sword still stood there, of course, but now it and the cairn itself were cast in shadows.

He took a step forward. Durine’s sword was rusty; there was almost no reflection of the light from the flickering torch.

That seemed wrong, somehow.

The sword had cost Durine more than a year’s wages. Like Pirojil’s, and Kethol’s, it had been made of good dwarven wootz. The metal had been heated, hammered, sprinkled with a mixture of glass chips, iron dust, oyster shells, oak leaves, charcoal, and a dozen other things in some secret combination. Red hot, it had been folded over and hammered more, then quenched, and the process repeated more than a dozen times before the dwarf blacksmith had been sufficiently satisfied to begin shaping it. Yes, there were cheaper, easier ways to make swords, but what of that? This sword was light enough to bend rather than break; sharp enough to part flesh on the slash or the cut; and heavy enough to cut through leather armor and flesh and bite into bone.

The pommel was of white bone, not wood like Kethol’s, nor brass like Pirojil’s.

Durine had always been careful with it, as all of them were with their weapons. Whether the sword got wet from rain, or from having been run through a man’s bowels, it was important to clean it as soon as possible, then dry it and carefully oil it before putting it away.

You had to take care of your weapons, after all, just as you had to take care of your companions.

As Durine had taken care of them.

His body lay beneath the pile of rocks, Kethol knew, and dead, he would have no more use for his sword than he had for the massive right hand that had gripped it, and which now was just broken bones and rotted meat lying beneath the sharp stones that caused no pain at all.

“Well,” Pirojil said, “I guess he hasn’t gone anywhere, has he?”

Pirojil squatted down next to the sword, and touched his fingers to the blade. His ugly face turned up toward Kethol’s, as though asking him to say something, but Kethol just shrugged, and Pirojil just squatted there, silently, his fingers resting on Durine’s sword.

“Durine,” Pirojil finally said, quietly. “We beat Elanee. We didn’t just kill her — although we did that, too. But we beat her. The bitch had it figured out, oh so cleverly. Let her little pet dragon be the only dragon in the Middle Lands, with Ellegon dead. The Emperor would have to come to terms with her, and even if not, even if she failed, Miron would still likely inherit the barony. I’m sure that he knew what she was up to, but there’s no proving it.

“The thing is, though: we beat her. We won. You, and I, and Kethol. No, the four of us — I have to include Erenor, too, come to think of it. He and I have to remember not to call him Kethol anymore — we have to call him Forinel, and think of him as Forinel, but it’s Kethol who is the baron; it’s Kethol who will take the lands and the villages and the titles on the taxes and everything that she wanted for her son — even Leria.” He smiled. “I know you liked Leria. Right now, she sits in Elanee’s garden, eats with her utensils, and sneers at Elanee’s son. We’ve not settled with Miron, not yet, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to, I really don’t. But we’ll watch for an opportunity, I promise.”

You weren’t supposed to take it personally. Soldiers were supposed to die; of the dozen that had gone with the Old Emperor on his Last Ride, only Kethol, Pirojil, and Durine had reached the sands of Melawei, and perhaps it was surprising that even two of them were left.

You had to be careful not to swear vengeance, not even to yourself, because it was important to do what you said you would do.

Ignoring Kethol, Pirojil rose and walked from the chamber, not looking back.

Kethol stood silently for a moment, and thought about something to say, but Durine was dead, after all, and there was no point in saying anything.

Or doing anything. Not really.

All three of the chests at the far end of the chamber were empty, and while they were rotted, they were dry, so it didn’t take him much time at all to smash them to pieces against the hard stone, and less time than that to push the pieces into a pile, and touch the torch to that pile.

He threw the torch down and watched the fire grow until the smoke had his eyes tearing, and then he turned and walked down the tunnel into the daylight.

As they rode away, smoke was already filtering up from the hillside, only to be shattered on the light breeze, instantly.

***

Pirojil was thoroughly hungry by the time that Lord Moarin’s castle gleamed in the sun ahead of them, looming whitely above the town below. He caught a whiff of something garlicky roasting — more likely chicken than beef, although it could just as easily have been pigeon rather than chicken — and that set his mouth watering, and reminded him just how long it had been since they’d made their sketchy noon meal.

A few soldiers from Moarin’s House Guard lazily stood watch on the walls, although there didn’t seem to be much point — the breach that the Biemish cannons had made during the war had not been repaired, and would not be repaired until the occupation was lifted.

The walls had been whitewashed, but not repaired. There was something strange about that. The castle was now just a home to Lord Moarin, and his family and retainers.

It had been something else entirely: a weapon. Weapons didn’t have to have a sharp edge or a narrow point; they didn’t of necessity have to be able to crush bone and shatter flesh. A weapon didn’t need to be able to be carried around by a man on a thick belt or towed by a team of tired horses.

The castle was a weapon. At the very least, the castle had been a collar hammered around the necks of the conquered; occasionally, a weapon thrust by the conqueror into the guts of the conquered.

The Holts had done the same thing when they had overthrown the Euar’dens as the Euar’dens had done to the Tyneareans before them: attack, crush, conquer … and then build.

Let the peasants and what remained of the previous nobility revolt. If the nobles couldn’t put a rebellion down with their own troops — and, of course, most of the time they could — they could always retreat behind the hard stone walls, sallying forth to fight at times of their choosing, not of the rebels’. Or they could simply wait in safety until armies of allied nobles would arrive, and crush the rebellion from both within and without the castle.

There was no way to tell who had built it, originally, at least not just by looking, but the Holts had improved on it — the outward slant of the plinth was Holtish, not Euar’den or Tynearean. While such a broad base to the wall wouldn’t have made it impossible for even human sappers — not to mention dwarvish ones — to tunnel beneath, it did make it almost impossible for any conceivable sapper tunnel’s collapse to bring the wall down with it. And while it was always possible, at least in theory, to break a siege by sending troops in through a tunnel, the defenders would have been able to concentrate their defenses on the mouth of the tunnel, pouring a rain of arrows, rocks, and flaming oil on the invaders.

Pirojil hadn’t been in this part of Holtun during the war, but he’d seen the same thing elsewhere — once in Barony Niphael, when they had retaken it from the Holts, and three times during the conquest of Adahan.

There had been something detached, almost unwarlike about watching the Biemish cannons that had, hour after hour, pounded away at the stone. Six teams of sweaty cannoneers would grunt as they’d load the gunpowder into the cannons, then grunt as they’d load the cannonball, then grunt as they’d cover their ears when the battery fired, then grunt as they’d start all over again.

While no single cannonball could crack the wall, sooner or later, it would give, it had given, and the stones would tumble, and the cannoneers would fire off a few more salvos before dropping to the ground to watch the rest of the battle, as though they were now just spectators, and no longer participants.

And then the attackers would rush in through the breach.

Pirojil had been one of those attackers, four times. Four times too many.

A soldier couldn’t be weak of stomach, so Pirojil didn’t like to think of himself as weak of stomach, but even more, he didn’t like to think of what he and the others — yes, including Kethol and Durine — had done when they had burst through that breach, into the smoke and the screams, hacking and slashing their way through armor and flesh, ignoring the screams and the smells and the sounds until there was nobody left to kill, and they, too, dropped to the ground, too tired to raise their heads above the blood-slickened stone.

Pirojil wasn’t sure why the governor didn’t permit the rebuilding of the walls.

Any revolt of the Holtish nobility could be met with those same cannons, again. Rebuilt walls could be broken, again. Armored soldiers — yes, and terrified men, women, and children with nothing to protect themselves save the hands that they imploringly held out — could once again die, screaming, on the edge of the blade, or impaled on the sharp point of a storming spear.

Still, perhaps the governor was wise, even if only by accident.

Perhaps it was best to keep the walls breached, to let the nobles and the common folk look up to the castle on the hill and remember how vulnerable they were, to see that evidence, every time they looked up the hill, of how nakedly exposed they were to Imperial power.

Maybe, perhaps, hopefully, possibly, that would prevent any revolt, and would let men who otherwise would have been much like Pirojil be able to sleep through the night without seeing all those faces, hearing all those screams, smelling the shit-stink of the freshly dead.

He shook his head to try to clear it.

It was different now. He had to concentrate on how different it was — shit, right now, the only blood that flowed in the narrow streets of the town below the castle came from a butcher’s stall.

The Empire had brought peace, and peace was a good thing.

Today was a market day here, and the markets in the town that cupped the bottom of the hill were filled with stalls where peasants hassled endlessly with merchants over the cost of a bushel of turnips; where freshly slaughtered pigs hung from hooks, their rib cages spread wide with wooden laths; where laughing ragged children played their endless games of touched-you-last in the cobblestone streets, ducking under the curses and occasional halfhearted slaps and kicks from tradesmen and merchants; and where, as a pair of Imperial soldiers in their silver and gray walked down the street, locals simply stepped out of their way instead of fleeing and running in terror.

That was, indeed, a good thing, and it was, indeed, a fine day, and he had ridden for hours with nothing more than water to pass his lips.

So Pirojil didn’t really understand why he wasn’t hungry anymore.

***

“Both of you will stay this evening and spend the night, of course,” Lord Moarin said, smiling. He smiled too much. “I was planning on having to dine alone, and thank you in advance for your company.”

His thin gray hair was freshly oiled, and his clean, silver-rimmed silk tunic spoke of a sudden change of clothing at Forinel’s arrival. His teeth were far too straight and white, a tribute to the local Eareven priest, no doubt. Spidersect healers were better with wounds, although not as good, of course, as the Hand, but the Eareven were much more adept at smoothing a pocked face, regrowing a lost tooth, and suchlike.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Forinel softened the words with a smile, as he shook his head. “I promised to be home tonight, and I can tell you that if it’s much after dark and I’m not back, old Thirien will have half the barony out looking for me, fearing some improbable disaster.”

“Thirien’s worries should remain his own, and not bother his betters.” Moarin waved the issue away. “I could send a messenger on a fast horse, with a note, perhaps?”

“Please don’t. I’ve been too long away, and I want to get used to sleeping in my own bed, under my own roof.”

Moarin gave in with good grace, or at least, with simulated good grace. Which, as far as Pirojil was concerned, was entirely adequate.

On their arrival, they had quickly been brought into the center courtyard of the keep and offered refreshments, and the servants had been dismissed.

The courtyard had surely been ruined when the castle had been taken, but it had long since been repaired. Lamp poles stood waiting for night, and planters were overfilled with an explosion of flowers that left fresh bloodred and sunny yellow petals scattered on the polished marble squares.

Gnarled apple trees rimmed the courtyard; Moarin had, with his own hands, picked several of the fruit, allowing his guests the first choice, and politely taking a quick bite of the remaining apple before setting it down on the stone table where they sat.

Next to the table, two yellow songbirds chirped and sang in wicker cages. Pirojil had assumed that they were captive, and was surprised to see Moarin open one of the cages; the bird had immediately leaped to his outstretched finger, and let him pet it for a moment before it flittered off to perch on the back of a nearby chair.