The Deed of Paksenarrion (147 page)

“Not us, my lord. Paksenarrion.”

“You heal, as well as fight?” The Duke looked at Paks. She met his eyes.

“With the High Lord’s permission, my lord, I have been able to. Sometimes.”

He looked at Arvys, and his face hardened. “You,” he said, and stopped. “You—will you say why? You were willing, you said, to share my name—why kill, then?”

She said nothing until Cracolnya shifted behind her, then gasped. “You—petty, base-born lout! Duke, you call yourself—that’s not the title you
should
bear. I was willing to share your name, as long as it served my Lady’s purpose. But you’d have had a blade in your heart someday, as you still shall.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your Lady? And who is that? Is the Queen that angry with me?”

She laughed, a harsh, forced laughter. “Queen! What do you know of queens, who call a mortal human queen? When you see her webs around you, and feel her poison, who has enmeshed those far higher than humans, then you will know a queen. I speak of the webmistress Achrya, whose power no man can withstand.”

“And yet I live, and you are captive. Was Venneristimon also her agent?”

“Why should I answer you?”

“Because your mistress is far away, and I am here. You may wish an easy death, though you would deal a hard one.”

“Kill as you please,” she answered. “Whatever you do, my Lady will avenge me, and him, and give you endless torment.”

“I doubt that.” The Duke looked among the litter of things swept to the floor and picked up a small narrow-bladed dagger, hardly as long as his hand. “This is yours, is it not? Would you wish to taste your own brew?”

“As you will.” She seemed to droop in Cracolnya’s arms; Paks and the others stared, surprised at her. Then Paks gasped as her face changed, shifting from the fair-skinned soft curves she had shown to something older and more perilous. Their cries warned Cracolnya, who gripped more tightly as she shriveled in his hold, her red-gold hair turning gray and her rounded limbs wiry and gnarled. She struggled; Valichi moved to help Cracolnya. Paks hunted on the floor for the sword she had dropped, and scooped it up. By the time the transformation was complete, and Cracolnya held a wizened muscular hag instead of an attractive young widow, she had the tip of that sword at the hag’s throat.

“Here’s something you will like less well,” said Paks. “An elf-blade.”

“You farm-bred brat!” Her voice, as a hag, chilled the blood. “You saved your precious Duke, eh? Did you? And you will take him to his appointed end, I daresay. Do you think he’ll thank you for that? When he dies in the bed
you
make for him?” Her head turned, and more than one in the room flinched from her vicious eyes. “Tell her, Duke Phelan, how you come by your name. Tell her what happened to the last yellow-haired girl to hold that sword.” Her voice shrilled higher. “Or shall I? Shall I tell her how the thriband knew where your wife and children would ride that day? And who suggested that trail, where the wildflowers bloomed? He is safe from your wrath, mighty Duke, but your children will never return.” She laughed, a hideous laugh. “You, Duke Kieri Phelan—no, let us use it all—Kieri
Artfiel
Phelan—you harbored that woodworm and trusted it as your pet. Your wife it was who suggested he be assistant to the steward—and then—”

Paks pushed the blade gently on the hag’s skin. “Be still. You have nothing worth listening to.”

“Have I not? You are eager to kill, little peasant girl. Little runaway daughter of a sheepherder—how many times have you run away? Do you guess that I can tell them? The Duke doesn’t know the worst, does he? The men in Seameadow? The time you ran from the sheepdog—not even a wolf—in Arnbow?” She stopped, and wheezed a moment. Then: “I know many things that you would be better knowing—and him, too—before he trusts you—” and she stopped and clamped her lips together.

“Ward of Falk,” murmured Dorrin, behind them. “Against an evil tongue.”

“In the High Lord’s name,” said Paks. The hag’s eyes glittered but she said nothing.

The Duke had come near, and stood looking from one to another. “When one stabs, and another heals,” he said, “I know which to trust.”

“You! You are no true duke, and she will take you to your end, if you are unfortunate enough not to meet another.”

“I’ll chance that. Paks, you had scruples before about such things: how should she be killed?”

Paks did not look away from the point of her blade. “Quickly, my lord, as may be.”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” gasped the hag, and she lunged forward, managing to scrape her arm on the dagger the Duke still held. Almost at once she sagged.

“I don’t believe it,” said Cracolnya. “Paks—or Val—finish her.”

Paks ran the sword quickly into her chest, feeling between the ribs for her heart. The limp form in Cracolnya’s hold shuddered again, this time shifting from that of a hag to no human shape at all: a great belly swelling below, bursting out of the blue gown Arvys had worn, the upper body falling in to become a hard casing that extended suddenly into more legs. Cracolnya lurched back, loosing his hold. The thing was free, hampered only slightly by the remnants of clothes. The head—no longer human at all—turned a row of emerald eyes on Paks; fangs dripped. Paks alone was able to move; she hardly saw what was happening before her arm went up and a long stroke took off that terrible head. The body twitched; gouts of sticky fluid spurted from the barely formed spinnerets on the belly, but did not reach anyone.

“Gods above,” muttered Cracolnya. “What is
that?
A spider demon?”

“A high servant of Achrya,” said Paks, watching the body on the floor. “They have that power, to change to her form at will.”

“Is
that
what you faced in Kolobia?” asked Arcolin. “Tir’s gut, I couldn’t—” He stopped, choking.

The Duke himself was white. “Paksenarrion, again—you have gone far beyond our thanks—” He shook himself like a wet dog, and looked around the room. “Captains, we must know what all this means, but for now we must be sure where we are. If I understood any of that—if any of it can be believed—this stronghold is in danger, even with them dead. We’ll double the watch. Arcolin, you have been here since we built the place: take some of the older veterans, who know it as well, and start looking for—” He stopped, and rubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what, but anything out of ordinary. Dorrin, are there any of the soldiers from Aarenis that still worry you?”

Dorrin thought a moment. “Not in my cohort, my lord. That Kerin fellow, in Arcolin’s—”

“Arcolin, turn him out.” Arcolin nodded. “Any more, Dorrin?”

“No, my lord.”

“See to it, then. About the house servants—”

“And why haven’t they come in?” Valichi looked around, worried.

“I don’t know. Venner hired them; I don’t know if they are innocent or his agents. Bring in a squad—no, two—and we’ll go through this end as well. Paks—” he looked at her again, and his eyes dropped to the sword in her hand. “By the—you’ve got
her
sword!”

“My lord?” Paks looked at the sword in her hand.

“Tamarrion’s—my—my wife’s—”

“I’m sorry,” said Paks. “I didn’t know—it was the only one I could reach—”

He shook his head. “You used it well. I do not regret that. But no one has wielded it since she—” He took a long breath and went on. “Paks, you and Val stay with me here—you surgeons, as well. We’ll do what we can for Kessim. Cracolnya, take a look in the passage—if we must fight our way out—”

Cracolnya stepped to the door, opened it slightly, and looked out. “Nothing this way, my lord. Let me call the sentry from the door.”

“I think not. He’s better where he is. Paks—” Arcolin and the Duke leaned over Kessim’s slumped form; he had been struck by the battleaxe when Paks deflected the blow from herself. His skull had been crumpled by the blow, and he was clearly dead. The Duke looked up. “Damn and blast that witch! This lad had no chance at all. A fine squire, and would have made a fine man, but for this.”

Paks felt a surge of guilt—if she had not thrown that blow aside—she had never thought of Kessim sitting there unable to move—but the Duke forestalled her before she could speak.

“If you hadn’t, Paks, we’d all be dead. I certainly would, and you, and I can’t imagine the rest would be let live long. Don’t think of blaming yourself. Now—”

“My lord, let me check the kitchen entrance.” Paks had moved to the other door in the room, from which the servants had brought in the food. She opened the door and looked. This passage was narrower than the front one. She could smell cooked food and smoke from the left; the passage was empty. She shut the door again, and pulled a chair against it. “No one in sight,” she reported.

“Good,” said the Duke. “Let’s arm ourselves, then, captains, and get started. Paks, keep that blade for now—until the Company is roused.”

The senior cohort captains left, Cracolnya returning in a few minutes with the Duke’s sword and mail. “I told the sentry we’d had a small problem with the steward,” he said. “He’ll stop any servants from leaving by that door, at least. He heard nothing, by the way. Perhaps Venner’s magic kept any of that from getting out, as well as kept us still. Dorrin’s squads will be here shortly. What shall we do with the bodies?”

The Duke, struggling into his mail shirt, did not reply until he had settled his sword belt to his satisfaction. “If I knew certainly that Venner was human, I would know—as it is, I don’t know whether to burn, bury, or dismember it. Do you, Paks?”

“No, my lord. The shape-changing servants must be beheaded, for they can shift the location of the heart with the change of shape. But Venner—I believe this body is dead, but I don’t know what powers he may still have.”

She felt within for any warning, and found nothing but distaste. “I feel nothing wrong, my lord, as I felt before—”

“Before?” The Duke’s eyebrows went up. “When? Before dinner—no. Not yet. When we’re secure, then we’ll talk about it. Safe or not, I don’t want this mess in my dining hall—we’ll take them out—clear outside the stronghold, and just in case we’ll behead Venner’s corpse as well. Kessim can lie in the other hall, until morning. We’ll hold his service tomorrow, and display the others to the troops, so they’ll know what’s happened.” Then a commotion at the door—Dorrin with two squads, eyes wide but disciplined.

“Gather the servants,” the Duke told her. “Don’t tell them what happened, and don’t hurt them—they may well be innocent—but guard them well.”

By the start of the third watch that night, the stronghold was in a very different mood. The servants Venner had hired over the years were huddled in one of the third floor storage rooms, guarded by Dorrin’s soldiers. They were clearly confused and frightened. Paks, on the pretext of bringing Dorrin messages from the Duke, had wandered among them. None triggered her warnings of evil, and the Duke now believed them to be innocent. But he was taking no chances, and they remained under guard for the next day and a half. Kessim’s shrouded body lay in state in one of the reception rooms, with an honor guard from all three cohorts.

Arcolin and the oldest veterans prowled the stronghold, looking for any signs of hidden weakness. Some they had already found, in the Duke’s quarters. “I didn’t build it this way,” muttered an old carpenter, as he pried a board loose in the back of a closet in the Duke’s sleeping room. “Look—you can see where these boards are newer, and stained dark. ‘Tis easy to open this—like a door—and come through or listen. It’d take a week to do such a job. Who? Not me, is all I say. But that Venner, now, he’d bring folks up from Vérella—my wife saw them, time and again, on the road, but we thought it was your will, my lord—” In the Duke’s study, again, a hidden panel swung out giving access to the next room, where files had been stored.

On the walls, the doubled watch peered through the night. They knew from their sergeants’ faces that this was no night to gossip when they met at the corners or ask questions at the change of watch. Many had seen the blanket-wrapped bundles carried out the watch-gate: they didn’t know who, but they knew trouble had already come.

The Duke seemed to be everywhere, with Paks at his side. He walked the walls himself, midway of the second watch, and strolled through each of the barracks. In the infirmary, he paused by each bed, until the sick had seen and recognized him. He paused to speak to sentries and guards at each post. Gradually the Company settled into watchfulness. The Duke was alive, and obviously well, and very obviously in command. Some of them looked sideways at Paks and wondered why she carried a longsword, but they did not ask.

Midway of the third watch, Arcolin had found nothing amiss in the front court. “It will take days to search everything, my lord,” he reported. “But Siger and I think we’ve covered the most obvious places for trouble. I’d expect a passage outside, for instance, but there isn’t one. We thought of the jacks pit, but the gratings are still locked in. But in here—”

“Yes.” The Duke looked tired; he sat heavily in the chair in his study. “We’ve found so many things already. Mostly ways of spying on me, or on you captains. I daresay we’ve hardly said a word, these last years, that he did not know. I think I know now how the regency council found out about that last campaign in Aarenis.”

“Did you—could you hear what he said as he and Paks fought?”

“No. After the dagger, I heard and saw nothing.”

“He did more than that, Kieri. He—”

“Later. I suspect more. But for now—
did
he have a way outside, and are we going to be attacked? And when?”

“More when than if, I think. Has Dorrin checked the lower levels?”

“Not yet. There’s so much up here—”

“Did he ask permission for any construction, and changes, in the past year or so?”

“I don’t—gods above, Jandelir, he did! The new wine cellar—remember?” Arcolin nodded. “He said he wanted to enlarge, if we were all staying here—and I told him to stay within the walls, but—”

“Let’s go.” Arcolin stood, and stretched his arms. He yawned widely. “Why that rascal couldn’t have started this after I’d had a good night’s sleep—”