The RuneLords (34 page)

Iome hurt at the sight, did not know whether to feel angry or grateful. With Cleas' death, fifteen people who had given her endowments would have suddenly become whole, easing the overcrowding in the Dedicates' Keep. Yet Iome had lost someone she'd loved. Iome's throat felt tight. She knelt over Cleas, weeping, looked back. Her Days stood watching. Iome expected the woman to be cold and dispassionate as ever, her little V of a face tight-lipped and empty. Instead, she could see lines of sorrow in her expression.

"She was a good woman, a good warrior," Iome said.

"Yes, it is a terrible waste," the Days agreed.

"Will you help me get her to the tombs?" Iome asked. "I know a vault we can use, a place to honor the guards. We will place her with my mother."

The Days nodded weakly. On such a dark day, this small gesture struck Iome powerfully. She felt grateful.

So Iome finished feeding the Dedicates; then she and the Days got a litter, spread a blanket over Cleas to use as a pall, and carried her to the south wall of the keep, laid her on the ground next to five other shrouded litters. Four of those litters held Dedicates who had not lived out the night.

Iome's mother, Venetta, lay under the last black burlap shroud. A slim golden circlet, resting atop her chest, identified the body of the Queen. A black-and-white jumping spider had climbed onto the circlet, hunting a bluebottle fly that buzzed about.

Iome had not seen her mother's face since her demise, almost dared not pull back the shroud to look at it. Yet she had to see if her mother's body had been properly prepared.

All morning, Iome had avoided this duty.

Chancellor Rodderman had come in the night to tend to Venetta's funeral arrangements. Iome had not seen him since. Perhaps he had business outside the King's Keep, but Iome suspected that he had decided it was best to avoid Raj Ahten. He might even have dodged his responsibilities in preparing the body.

Raj Ahten's men had brought the corpse here, to the Dedicates' Keep. He would not have left it in the Great Hall, where custom dictated it be placed for the morning, to be viewed by vassals. The Queen lying dead on a pallet, for all to see, might engender discord in the city.

Instead, it had been secluded within the high and narrow walls of the most inner keep, where only the Dedicates might see.

Iome pulled back the black burlap covering.

Her mother's face was not what she'd imagined. Apart from the terrible wound, it was like gazing into the face of a stranger. Her mother had once had several endowments of glamour, had seemed a great beauty. But at death the beauty had gone out of her. Unexpected threads of gray hair were woven into her black tresses. The shadows under her eyes looked dark and sunken. The lines on her soft face had grown hard and old.

The woman on the pallet had been cleaned, but nothing could hide the gash on the left side of her face where Raj Ahten's signet ring had torn her skin, the indentation in her skull where her head had met the paving stones.

The woman beneath the shroud seemed a stranger.

No, Raj Ahten had no need to fear the vassals. They would not rise up in outrage at the death of this old thing.

Iome went to the portcullis, to the captain of the guard, a dark little mustached man in big armor, a helm embossed with silver. It seemed strange for Ault to be gone, or Derrow, when they had stood under this stone alcove for so many years.

"Sir, I'd like permission to take the dead to the King's tombs," Iome said, holding her breath.

"De castle is onder attack," the captain said gruffly, his Taifan accent thick. "Is no safe."

Iome fought the urge to slink away. She did not want to antagonize the captain, yet she felt that it was her sacred duty to bury her mother, show the woman that one last act of dignity. "The castle isn't under attack," Iome tried to sound reasonable, "only a few nomen trapped in the woods are under attack." She waved her hand out over the burned battlefield before the castle. "And if Orden should attack, you would see him coming from half a mile, and he would have to breach the Outer Wall. No one is likely to reach the Dedicates' Keep."

The little man listened intently, his head cocked to the side. Iome could not tell whether he understood her. Perhaps she'd spoken too fast. She could have spoken to him in Chaltic, but she doubted he'd understand.

"No," the little man said.

"Then let her spirit take vengeance upon you, for I am guiltless. I do not wish to be haunted by a Runelord."

The little man's eyes flashed in fear. The spirits of dead Runelords were said to cause more trouble than most--particularly if they suffered violent deaths. Though Iome did not fear her mother's shade, this little Taifan captain was from a land where such things were taken far more seriously.

"Hurry," the little captain answered. "Now. Go. But take nothing more than half an hour."

"Thank you," Iome said, reaching out to touch him in gratitude. The captain shrank back from her touch.

Iome called out to Chemoise, to her Days. "Quickly, we need bearers to carry these litters--and some charnel robes."

Chemoise ran into the kitchens, brought out some of the deaf and mute bakers, the butcher and his apprentice, kitchen helpers with no sense of smell. In a few moments, two dozen people came to help bear the litters.

The butcher trundled over to the Dedicates' Hall, came out with an armload of black cotton charnel robes, with their deep hoods and long sleeves.

Each pallbearer donned a charnel robe, so that the ghosts in the tombs would know they had not come as grave robbers, and at the hem of each robe was a silver bell whose tinkling would drive off any malicious spirits.

When they had finished, they went to the litters and began carrying the dead to the portcullis. Iome took the front right handle of her mother's litter, as was her place.

When they were ready, the Taifan captain and his sergeant put their backs to work, raising the portcullis quickly, and shooed them all from the keep with a warning. "Be back, twenty minutes. No more!"

It would not be enough time, Iome knew, to set the bodies in place, sing the soothing funerary lullabies to the dead, yet she nodded yes, just to put the captain's mind at ease.

Then she began lugging the bodies to the back of the Dedicates' Keep, to a wooded hollow, the King's tombs.

Iome had never done such heavy labor, so she had not gone two hundred feet past the gate, round the corner of Feet Street, when she found herself, heart pounding, moist with sweat, begging the others to stop.

It was nearly noon. As she waited in the bright sunlight, the smell of ash cloying the air, a dirty young hunchback in a deep-hooded robe darted out from the shadows beneath a market's awning.

Immediately she knew it was Binnesman. She could feel the earth power emanating from him, and she wondered what had brought him back, wondered why the wizard sought her.

The hunchback sidled up to Iome, forcing her back a step. "Let ol' Aleson give you a hand with that, lass," he whispered, pulling back his hood a bit, and he reached for the right front pole to the litter.

It wasn't Binnesman at all. Iome felt astonished to recognize Gaborn's face beneath a liberal coat of grime. Her heart pounded. Something was afoot. For some reason, Gaborn had not made it outside the castle gates and needed her help. And, somehow, Gaborn had grown in the past few hours; had grown in the Earth Powers.

Iome pulled her hood closer to hide her face. For a moment, she felt once again as if all her pride and courage would leach from her. The spell woven into Raj Ahten's forcibles still sought to drain her self-esteem.

Over and over again, she whispered in her mind a litany: This, I deny you. This I deny you.

Yet she could not bear the thought that Gaborn might recognize her. She let him take the litter; then Iome walked beside him as the pallbearers cut through an alley, down the narrow streets that led to the tombs.

The tombs of House Sylvarresta consisted of hundreds of small stone mausoleums, all painted white as bone, rising among a sheltered grove of cherry trees. Many of the mausoleums were designed to look like miniature palaces, with absurdly tall pinnacles, and statues of the dead kings and queens standing at the gates of each tiny palace. Others of the mausoleums, those reserved for trusted retainers and guards, were simply stone buildings.

When they reached the shelter of the grove, Gaborn and the others set down their burdens. Gaborn whispered to Iome, "I am Gaborn Val Orden, Prince of Mystarria. I'm sorry to impose upon you, but I've been hiding all night, and I need information. Can you tell me how House Sylvarresta fares?"

With a start, Iome realized that Gaborn didn't recognize her--not with her beauty gone, her skin rough as bark. Behind her, Iome's Days had her face and historian's robes covered beneath the charnel robes, just another anonymous pallbearer.

Iome did not want Gaborn to know who she was. She could not stand the thought of being ugly in his sight. Yet another fear also struck her heart, for she saw a more compelling reason to keep her identity hidden: Gaborn might feel the need to kill her. She was, after all, a Dedicate to an enemy king.

Iome spoke with a low, frightened, voice; hoping to disguise it. "Do you not even know whose corpse you carry? The Queen is dead. But the King lives. He has given his wit to Raj Ahten."

Gaborn grasped Iome's arm. "What of the Princess?"

"She is well. She was given a choice--to die, or to live and serve her people as regent. She was forced to give an endowment, also."

Gaborn asked, "What has she given?" He held his breath, his face full of horror.

Iome considered speaking the truth, revealing her identity, but she could not. "She has given her sight."

Gaborn fell silent. Abruptly he lifted the litter, signaling an end to the break, and began walking between the tombs again, thoughtful. Iome led Gaborn and the pallbearers to her parents' tomb, which was of classic design. Nine marble spires rose from the tiny palace atop it; outside its door stood statues of King Sylvarresta and his wife, images carved in white marble shortly after their wedding eighteen years before. Iome signaled for the bearers to also bring Cleas into the tomb. As a faithful guard, it was only right that she be interred beside her queen.

As they entered the shadowy tomb, Iome smelled death and roses. Dozens of skeletons of faithful guards lay in the tomb, bones gray and moldering. But last night, someone had brought bright red rose petals and strewn them across the floor of the tomb, to alleviate the smell.

Gaborn bore Queen Sylvarresta to her sarcophagus, in the sanctum at the back of the tomb. It was a red sandstone box, with her image and name chiseled into its lid. The roof above the sanctum was a slab of sheer marble, so thin that light broke through it, shining down onto the sarcophagus beneath.

Here in this deep corner, air breathed into the tomb from tiny slits in the stonework, so that the smell of death did not reach.

It took a great deal of effort for Gaborn and two bakers to slide the lid of the sarcophagus back, exposing the empty casket. Then they lifted the queen into place, and were about to set the lid on the box when Iome begged them to stop, to let her look for a while.

Pallbearers carried Cleas to a stone shelf, pushed back the bones of some loyal guard from a decade past, and laid Cleas in his place.

They did not have Cleas' armor and weapons to bury with her, so a baker took a warhammer from a nearby corpse, laid it across Cleas' chest, wrapped her hands around its handle.

Gaborn stood a minute in the dim light, studying the moldy skeletons, many of them still in armor, bearing weapons on their chests. Though the room was small, only forty feet long and twenty wide, five tiers of stone shelves were cut into the walls. Some guards had been entombed here for over twenty years. Bones from knuckles and toes littered the floor, borne there by rats.

Gaborn looked as if he would ask a question.

"You may speak freely here," Iome told him, still kneeling beside her mother's casket. "These pallbearers are all deaf or mute, sworn to the service of House Sylvarresta. No one here will betray you."

"You bury your dead with their weapons here in House Sylvarresta?" Gaborn asked.

Iome nodded.

He seemed delighted, looked as if he would rob a corpse. "In Mystarria, we bequeath fine weapons and armor to the living, so it can be put to good use."

"Mystarria does not have so many smiths to keep employed," Iome said dryly.

Gaborn asked, "Then no one will mind if I borrow a weapon? Mine was destroyed."

"Who can say what offends the dead?"

Gaborn did not immediately take a weapon. Instead, he paced nervously. "So," he breathed at last, "she is in the Dedicates' Keep?"

Iome hesitated to answer. Gaborn had not said who "she" was. Apparently he was distraught. "The Princess came to the keep this morning, and washed her father and fed him. Raj Ahten's guard put her there for safekeeping during the attack. But she may leave at any time. I think she still occupies her room in the King's Keep, with servants to attend her."

Gaborn bit his lip, quickened his step, thinking furiously. "Can you get a message to her for me?"

"It should not be hard," Iome answered.

"Tell her that House Orden is sworn to protect her. Tell her that I will kill Raj Ahten, that she will look upon my face again someday, no longer a Dedicate."

"Don't...please don't try," Iome said, choking back a sob. Her voice cracked, and she feared Gaborn would hear it, see through her disguise.

"Try what?" Gaborn asked.

"To kill Raj Ahten," she said deeply. "Queen Sylvarresta clawed him with poisoned fingernails, yet he withstood the venom. It is said that the wound of a sword thrust through his heart heals before the blade is withdrawn."

"There must be a way to kill him," Gaborn said.

"You will be forced to kill House Sylvarresta, for both the King and his daughter are Dedicates to Raj Ahten. Lord Sylvarresta himself received eighty endowments of wit last night, all in Raj Ahten's behalf."