The Pillars of Creation (17 page)

Jennsen thanked the woman who sewed country scenes and gave directions. Only after Jennsen had started down the hall did she realize that she didn’t even know the woman’s name. It didn’t really matter. They both had mothers. Both understood and shared the same feelings.

Now that the devotion was over, the noise of all the people in the palace rose again to resound off marble walls and columns. Laughter could be heard ringing out across the hall. People had gone back to their own concerns, buying, trading, discussing their wants and needs. Guards patrolled, and palace staff, most in light-colored robes, went about their business, carrying messages, seeing to matters Jennsen could only guess at. In one place, workers were at the task of repairing the hinges on a huge oak double door to a side passageway.

The cleaning staff was back, too, busy at dusting, mopping, polishing. Jennsen’s mother had once been one of those women, seeing to the work in the sections of the palace closed off to the public, official rooms where matters of governance were conducted, the sections that housed the officials and palace staff, and, of course, Lord Rahl’s rooms.

After chanting the devotion for hours, Jennsen’s mind was as clear as if she had had a long and needed rest. In that calm but refreshed and wide-awake state, a solution had come to her. She knew what she had to do.

She moved quickly, back the way she had come. There was no time to lose. On balconies above, people who lived at the People’s Palace gazed down on the hall as they went about their work, watching those who had come to marvel at the great place. Jennsen focused on keeping her wits about her as she moved through the throngs.

Sebastian had warned her not to run and cause people to wonder if there was something wrong. He had cautioned her to act normal, lest she give people reason to take note. Yet, so acute was the danger of being at the palace, that he had been captured despite knowing how to act. If she raised suspicion, then soldiers would surely stop her. If the soldiers got ahold of her, and found out who she was…

Jennsen ached to have Sebastian back. Her fear for him urged her down the hall. She had to get him away from the D’Haran soldiers before they did something terrible to him. She knew that every minute they had him, he was in mortal danger.

If they tortured him, he might not be able to hold out. If he confessed to who he was, they would put him to death. The thought of Sebastian being executed almost made her knees give out. Under torture, people would confess to anything, whether true or not. If they decided to torture him to make him confess to something, he was doomed. The mental image of Sebastian being tortured made her sick and dizzy.

She had to rescue him.

But to do that, she had to have the sorceress’s help. If Althea would help her, cast Jennsen a protective spell, then she could try to get Sebastian back. Althea had to help her. Jennsen would convince her. Sebastian’s life hung in the balance.

She reached the stairs where they had come up. People were still emptying up into the hall, some sweating and huffing with the effort of the climb. Few were going down, yet. Standing at the edge, hand on the marble rail, she took a careful look around, making sure she wasn’t being followed or observed. Despite her urge to run, she made herself look around casually. Some people looked at her, but no more than they looked at anyone. Patrolling soldiers were a good distance off. Jennsen started down.

She went as quickly as possible without looking like she was running for her life—for Sebastian’s life. But she was. If not for Jennsen, he would not be in this trouble.

She thought that going down would be easy, but after hundreds of steps she found that going down was tiring on the legs. Her legs burned with the effort. She told herself that if she couldn’t run, she could at least not stop but keep going and in that way make better time.

On the landings, she cut the corners, saving steps. When no one was looking, she took the stairs two at a time. When she had to traverse passageways, she tried to screen herself behind clumps of people as she went past watchful guards. People sitting on benches, eating bread and meat pies, drinking ale, talking with friends, casually noted her along with everyone else who passed, just another visitor going by.

Lord Rahl’s half sister among them.

On the steps again, she went quickly, her legs trembling from the nonstop effort. Her muscles burned with the need of a rest, but she gave them none. Instead, she pushed faster when she had the chance. On an empty flight of stairs between two landings screened from sight because they turned from different directions, Jennsen raced recklessly down. She slowed again when a couple, arm in arm, their heads close together as they giggled over whispered words, reached the landing below and headed up.

The air grew colder as she descended. On one level, with guards thick as flies in a barn in spring, one of the soldiers looked right into her eyes and smiled. Stunned to a stop for an instant, she realized that he was smiling at her as a man smiled at a woman, not as a killer smiled at his victim. She returned the smile, polite, warm, but not so much as to give the impression that she was encouraging him. Jennsen pulled her cloak tight and turned down the next flight of stairs. When she glanced over her shoulder as she turned the corner on a landing, he stood above, one hand on the rail, watching her. He smiled again and waved a farewell before turning back to his duties.

Unable to contain her fear, Jennsen sprinted down the stairs two at a time and ran down the hall, past small stands selling food, brooches, and finely decorated daggers, past visitors sitting on stone benches set before the marble balustrade, on toward the next flight of stairs, until she realized that people were staring at her. She stopped running and fell casually into walking, trying to flounce to make it look as if she had just been dashing from youthful vivacity. The tactic worked. She saw the people who had been eyeing her seem to chalk it up as nothing more than a spirited girl dashing along. They turned back to their own business. Since it worked, Jennsen intermittently used the same trick and was able to make better time.

Breathing hard from the long descent, she finally made it to the cavelike entrance with the hissing torches. Since there were so many soldiers at the portal into the great plateau, she slowed and walked close behind an older couple to make it look as if she might be a daughter with her parents. The couple was engaged in a spirited debate of a friend’s chances of making a go of it with his new shop selling wigs up in the palace. The woman thought it a good business. The man thought his friend would run out of willing sellers of their hair and would end up spending too much of his time looking for more.

Jennsen could imagine no more foolish conversation when a man had been taken prisoner and was about to be tortured and probably put to death. To Jennsen, the D’Haran palace was nothing more than a vile death trap. She had to get Sebastian out of there. She would get him out.

Neither one of the couple noticed Jennsen close behind, head bowed, matching their slow pace. The gaze of guards skimmed over the three of them. At the mouth of the opening, cold wind swept in to take the breath from Jennsen’s lungs. After being in the lamplit darkness for so long, she had to squint at the expanse of bright daylight. As soon as they were in the open-air market, she turned down one of the makeshift streets, hurrying to find Irma, the sausage lady.

Stretching her neck, she looked about for the red scarf as she rushed down the rows of stalls. The places that before had seemed so splendid now looked shabby after she had been in the palace. In the whole of her life, Jennsen had never seen anything like the People’s Palace. She could not imagine how a place of such beauty could hold such ugliness as the House of Rahl.

A hawker pushed in close. “Charms, for the lady? Good luck for sure.” Jennsen kept walking. His breath stank. “Special charms with magic. Can’t go wrong for a silver penny.”

“No, thank you.”

He walked sideways, right close in front of her but off to the side a bit. “Just a silver penny, my lady.”

She thought she would trip over the man’s feet. “No, thank you. Please leave me be, now.”

“A copper penny, then.”

“No.” Jennsen shoved him each time he bumped into her as he pushed in close, yammering about his charms. He kept putting his face in front of hers, looking back up at her as he stooped and shuffled along, grinning at her.

“Good charms, they are, my lady.” He kept bumping her as she tried to walk, as she craned her neck, looking for the red scarf. “Good luck for you.”

“No, I said.” Almost stumbling over the man, she gave him a stiff shove. “Please, leave me be!”

Jennsen sighed in relief as an older man came past going in the opposite direction and the hawker turned to him. She could hear his voice fade behind, trying to sell the man a magic charm for a silver penny. She thought about the irony that here this man was offering magic, and she turned it down because she was in a hurry to be off to try to get magic from someone else.

Past an empty space, before a table with wine casks, Jennsen halted abruptly. She looked up and saw the three brothers. One was pouring wine into a leather goblet for a customer while the other two were lifting a full cask from the back of their wagon.

Jennsen turned and stared at the empty place. That was where Irma had been. Her heart felt as if it came up in her throat. Irma had their horses. Irma had Betty.

In a panic, she seized the arm of the man behind the table as the customer departed.

“Please, could you tell me where Irma is?”

He looked up, squinting in the sunlight. “The sausage lady?”

Jennsen nodded. “Yes. Where is she? She couldn’t be gone already. She had her sausages to sell.”

The man grinned. “She said that being beside us, selling our wine, had helped sell her sausages faster than she ever sold them before.”

Jennsen could only stare. “She’s gone?”

“Too bad, too. Having sausages for sale next to us really helped sell wine. People ate those spicy goat sausages of hers and had to have some of our wine.”

“Her what?” Jennsen whispered.

The man’s smile flagged. “Her sausages. What’s wrong, ma’am? You look as if a spirit from the underworld just tapped you on the shoulder.”

“What did you say she sells?…Goat sausages?”

He nodded, looking concerned. “Among others. I tried them all, but I liked the spicy goat sausages best.” He lifted a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his two brothers. “Joe liked her beef sausages best, and Clayton, well he liked the pork, but I favored her goat sausages.”

Jennsen was shivering and it wasn’t the cold. “Where is she? I have to find her!”

The man scratched his head of disheveled blond hair. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know. She comes here to sell sausages. Most folks around here have seen her before. She’s a nice lady, always a smile and a good word.”

Jennsen felt freezing tears run down her cheeks. “But where is she? Where does she live? I have to find her.”

The man grasped Jennsen’s arm, as if fearing she might fall. “Sorry, ma’am, but I don’t know. Why? What’s wrong?”

“She has my animals. My horses. And Betty.”

“Betty?”

“My goat. She has them. We paid her to watch them until we got back.”

“Oh.” He looked gloomy to have no better news for her. “Sorry. Her sausages pretty much sold steady till they were gone. It usually takes her all day long to sell what she cooks up, but sometimes it just goes better, I guess. After her sausages were gone, she sat around and talked to us for a long spell. Finally, she let out a sigh, and said she had to get home.”

Jennsen’s mind raced. The world felt as if it were spinning around her. She didn’t know what to do. She felt dazed, confused. Jennsen had never felt so alone.

“Please,” she said, her voice choked with tears, “please, could I rent one of your horses?”

“Our horses? Then how would we get our wagon home? Besides, they’re draft horses. We don’t have any saddle or tack for riding or any—”

“Please! I have gold.” Jennsen groped at her belt. “I can pay.”

Feeling around at her waist, she couldn’t find her small leather pouch with her gold and silver coins. Jennsen threw back her cloak, searching. There, on her belt, beside her knife, she found only a small piece of a leather thong, parted cleanly.

“My purse…my purse is gone.” She couldn’t get her breath. “My money…”

The man’s face sagged with sorrow as he watched her pull the remnant of the drawstring from her belt. “There are wicked people prowling around, looking to steal—”

“But I need it.”

He fell silent. She looked back behind, searching for the hawker selling charms. It all flashed back through her mind. He had bumped into her, jostled her. He was really cutting her purse. She couldn’t even recall what he looked like—just that he was scruffy and ill kept. She hadn’t wanted to look at his face, meet his eyes. She couldn’t seem to get her breath as she frantically looked this way and that, trying to find the man who had stolen her money.

“No…” she whined, too overcome to know what to say. “No, oh please no.” She sank down, sitting on the ground beside the table. “I need a horse. Dear spirits, I need a horse.”

The man hurriedly poured wine in a cup and squatted down beside her as she sobbed. “Here, drink this.”

“I have no money,” she managed to get out as she wept.

“No charge,” he said, giving her a sympathetic, lopsided smile of straight white teeth. “It’ll help. Drink it down.”

The other two blond-headed brothers, Joe and Clayton, stood behind the table, hands in their pockets, heads lowered with regret for the woman their brother was tending to.

The man tipped the cup up, trying to get her to drink as she cried. Some spilled down her chin, some went in her mouth and she had to swallow it.

“Why do you need a horse?” the man asked.

“I have to get to Althea’s place.”

“Althea? The old sorceress?”

Jennsen nodded as she wiped wine from her chin and tears from her cheeks.

“Have you been invited out there?”