Shadow Over Kiriath (67 page)

What they didn’t know was that his army had been disbanded. With the Gadrielite forces that had defeated Rennalf approaching from the north, and the rest of them ensconced in Springerlan to the south, Abramm had reorganized his forces right there on the road back from Sterlen, breaking them into small squadrons under the command of independent officers, each of whom had their own set of orders. Some were camped now in the caves along the River Hennepen, waiting for the dawn, when they would come down to hit the defensive lines along the city’s boundaries, providing the diversion Abramm needed for his primary operation to succeed. Others were even now using the old ways of the Terstan Underground to infiltrate the city. By morning most would be secreted along the route down which the prisoners would be taken from the High Court Chamber to the Execution Square tomorrow.

That square was the objective of their current reconnaissance, Tarker now leading them up a charred stairway to a second-floor window overlooking it. Dating back to the reign of Alaric the Bold some six hundred years ago, it was one of the oldest parts of the city. A low stone wall surrounded a square plaza flanked with two opposing sets of stone risers. Buildings surrounded it on three sides, and a busy street ran across its uphill boundary. On the downhill side, the wall was set with a fence of vertical iron bars, beyond which lay a small second yard where more spectators could gather. At the center of the plaza, between the risers, a stone platform stood holding a wooden block where the condemned would rest his head. Iron staples pounded into the stone around it provided means for securing the prisoners, and a groove cut into both wood and stone served to channel the blood.

It had not been used for centuries, the beheading of condemned criminals having been replaced by hanging. Most public executions now took place to the north of the city at the Riverbend Hanging Tree, leaving this square to the washerwomen. For some reason the Mataians seemed to think executions should be bloody again and had reinstated the beheadings, many of which had been preformed in recent days. None, however, had drawn the crowds that tomorrow’s killings would, and Abramm could see the place was scurrying with guards.

In a low voice Tarker noted the potential dangers, obstacles, hiding places, and escape routes in the scene before them.

When he finished, Abramm regarded the square for a moment, then turned away. “It’ll be heavily guarded . . . and it’s too open. There’ll be a crowd, too. . . .” He paused a moment more, then decided. “We’ll do it along the route from the Court Chamber. On the third switchback, which is not only the shortest but also the narrowest.”

“We won’t have much room to work.”

“No, but we won’t need it. And if we can get a riot going in the square it leads into, it’ll be the perfect excuse for the coach to go around by way of Southdock.” Where his own men, uniformed as prison guards and having replaced the driver at the outset of the attack, would stop the coach long enough to let its cargo out. Then they’d drive on up to Execution Square, park the empty coach, and if all went as planned, be well away before events settled enough that anyone thought to look inside. By then Maddie and the rest of them should be safely aboard the waiting galley and gliding toward the mouth of Kalladorne Bay. “Meanwhile we’ll lead the guards away up the hill.”

He was counting on his face and form to do the leading. Once the men realized whom they were chasing, he was pretty sure nothing else would matter.

“I don’t know,” said Simon. “If we go up the hill, we’ll be heading directly into the greatest concentration of troops. It’s not going to give us much of an escape route.”

“It’ll be enough,” Abramm said, starting back down the stair.

They went round to the various sites where his small squadrons had set themselves up for tomorrow, and Abramm explained to each of them precisely what he wanted done and when. It was deep into the night when he finally returned to his hiding place in a cellar between the High Court Chamber and the Holy Keep.

“I don’t like this plan to reveal yourself, sir,” said Simon over a quick meal of smoke-tainted bread and cheese. “I’d be more comfortable knowing you were far away when the action started.”

“My face is too valuable an asset not to use.”

“It’ll set them into a frenzy, though. And you know it won’t be common soldiers guarding that street. It’ll be Gadrielites, men who see you as Moroq in the flesh.”

“Frenzied men are more easily led.”

“We’ll be outnumbered.”

“Aye.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I know, Uncle. I’m not too wild about any of it myself. But we have no other choice.” He fingered the crust of bread that remained on his plate. “Have you heard anything about my boys?”

“So far, no. It may be they don’t have them. . . .”

“Or else they’re keeping them hidden so we don’t try to rescue them, as well.”

“That’s possible, of course.” Simon sighed and they fell silent, contemplating the dreadful outcomes of such a situation.

Not long after that, Abramm retired to a side room to try to get some sleep, though it turned out to be an exercise in futility. Without anything else to occupy his mind, it was free to dwell upon the things to come tomorrow— and upon the question of whether what he was doing was right or not. When he’d first seen the forces they faced and contemplated the logistics of trying to get everyone safely away, he’d despaired. Outnumbered, in a city full of people who could not be trusted, with a face as recognizable as his was, he didn’t see how he could carry it off.

He believed it was Eidon who had first nudged him in the direction he was now headed. Everything that had happened in the last few days seemed to have been leading him to this inevitable end. How could he have not gone to face Rennalf? And if in hindsight he acknowleged it had not been good to leave with so many Mataians in the city . . . he’d had no reason at the time to think they would do what they did.

No. He was where he was supposed to be. And he knew why.

Those who bore the shield did so because Tersius had been willing to suffer in their place on that hill outside Xorofin. They remained in this world to be made like him, to live as he lived and, if they were ever ready, to suffer as he suffered.
“As men did to him, so they will do to you. . . .”
Kesrin had said in that last lesson.
“Do not be surprised. Be ready.”

No man would ever suffer to the degree that Tersius had, but the same Light that had sustained him through the worst nightmare a man could ever know would sustain Abramm in whatever he would be called to endure.

It was an honor to be entrusted with such a call.

He knew what the rhu’ema—who had brought all this about—would ask of him. And he spent the last hours of that night praying he would have the clarity of mind and strength of will to refuse them.

————

The next day’s drizzle did not keep the crowds from coming out to pack the Mall of Government around the steps of the High Court Chamber in hopes of seeing the queen, the princess, and the Duke of Northille led out in irons after their trial.

Abramm had deliberately placed himself in the third rank back from the front line of the crowd, his position lined up with the face of the stairway Maddie would descend so that, if she happened to look up, she would see him. He hoped that would happen but doubted it would, for the crowd was hostile, and she had surely seen enough hate-filled faces to last a lifetime. His height would make him more noticeable, but that was a double-edged sword, and he knew it. This was probably the riskiest and the most foolish part of his plan. But knowing how things were likely to end, and how much this moment would mean to him in the hours to come, he had to take the risk.

Besides, the plan had plenty of places for error and discovery, so he’d long ago committed it all to Eidon’s hand, knowing that if it was going to work, Eidon would have to see that it did.

A black-sided coach with two narrow-barred side windows stood near the foot of the stair, its back door open to receive its passengers. If the three were condemned to die—as expected—it would straightaway bring them down to the square, where the headsman’s ax could do its job. The Mataians had intended to bring them down in an open cart, for all to see and mock, but Abramm had made sure that all such carts turned up broken or misplaced. The only ones available were closed coaches. Even if his enemies were to guess it was no accident, he did not think it would matter.

Time dragged as the crowd grew steadily, packing in around him. He stood hunched over and periodically fell into coughing fits that served to maintain a well of space around him. The University clock tolled the half hour, then the hour, then the half again, at which point he had expected the trial to be over. By now he was growing chilled, for the dampness had permeated his cloak and his clothing all the way to his skin.

Finally the double doors opened. A line of armsmen marched out, followed by a cadre of dignitaries and then the prisoners. Trap led the way, hands and feet enchained, Carissa after him, not chained but walking awkwardly, her pregnant belly bigger than ever. Last of all came Madeleine. He lifted his head and looked at her, feeling like a man dying of thirst.

Her hair was braided in the long single plait, but frizzy and mussed, her clothing torn, dirtied, and wrinkled as if she’d been living in it for the last five days. Her face was gray and dead looking, her expression one of such hopeless grief he could hardly bear to look—and could not bear to look away. He thought he would be right in his prediction that she’d never look up, but in the end she did, just as she came up behind Carissa, who was waiting to climb into the coach.

When she met his gaze directly, he knew she had probably recognized him the moment she’d come out the door, refraining thereafter from looking at him so as not to draw attention. And perhaps for other reasons, as well.

Now those wonderful eyes, gray as the clouds and glittering with tears, fixed upon his for a long moment of deep and inarticulate communion. Then she looked away, and he dropped his head, hiding his face in the cowl again. He should leave now, or at least start pulling back, but he didn’t. He heard the wooden door shut, heard the key grate in the lock, then looked up one last time. As the coach pulled away, he glimpsed a pale face in the shadows at the narrow barred window, caught the shine of the tears that had spilled down her cheeks, and wondered if in that strange way of hers she’d guessed what he meant to do, when no one else yet had.

Finally the coach turned, and he could see her no longer. It was like a door closing—all the emotion that had welled up in him suddenly shut off. He blinked away the moisture brimming in his eyes, swallowed hard, and stepped back between the people around him who were already surging after the departing coach. He spotted Tarker to his left, heading for an alleyway at the mall’s edge. Abramm followed, careful not to hurry, keeping his attention on the coach.

Uniformed guards stood at the alley’s entrance, but their focus was into it, not on the doings in the mall. Tarker passed them in a clot of onlookers hurrying down to the next level for another look. Abramm hunched himself over a bit more and followed, carried along by his own clot of citizens. Once past the guards, the two men came together and ducked into another alley, then made their way up a narrow stair, along a balcony, and across several rooftops, their route shared with many others eagerly searching for a place to watch the coach pass by.

Descending to street level again, they threaded the labyrinth of the Guildman’s Sector and finally emerged from an underground tunnel into a house that butted against the back of an inn along the third switchback. The house’s attic gave egress to its roof, from which they stepped through one of the inn’s third-floor windows left open for them earlier. From there they made their way down to the street and took up the position Abramm had chosen for his own point of attack. The only people with them were those who had exited the surrounding homes and businesses right after the guards had gone through clearing the crowd to make room for the coach and its attending horsemen. Last night the guards had conducted a sweep of the area, searching every structure and questioning closely everyone they found within.

Abramm had feared they might conduct a second such sweep this morning, but they had not, most likely because they lacked the manpower to do so. At this moment the portion of his own troops who’d remained outside the city were seeking to penetrate its defenses. Whether his enemies realized it was a diversion or not, men would be needed to stop it. It had been his hope that that, along with the need for securing the High Court Chamber, the Mall, Execution Square, and all the blocks of street in between, would tax the Gadrielites’ resources and allow for a few third-floor windows to be left open here and there.

Now he scanned the flat faces of the buildings across the narrow street, each butting up against the other, some of them actually sharing walls. People hung out of every window and doorway, eager for a view of the infamous prisoners soon to pass by. He noted with satisfaction the lack of a breeze and the continuing drizzle. A wind could disrupt the flight of the arrows, and the drizzle had turned the street’s cobbles slick, which would cause the driver to slow and thus give Abramm’s bowman plenty of time to aim.

Across the way he saw his men moving into place, cowled and cloaked as he was, their weapons carried close to their legs to conceal them. They made no eye contact with him, as he had instructed, but all had seen him.

He stood at the mouth of the alleyway down which they would escape, ironically only a few strides from the trio of Gadrielite soldiers who guarded it. Soldiers who seemed more interested in the coming of the prisoners than in watching their surroundings for sign of enemy infiltration. He smiled slightly.
Such are the flaws by which battles are so often won or lost . . . people who think their part is irrelevant, yet they can make all the difference
.

He coughed and hunched himself farther. The soldiers glanced at him and edged away.