Dirk turned away with a snarl.
“You dreamed of the Wizard,” she reminded.
“Coincidence,” Dirk snapped.
She watched him a moment, then turned away, smiling gently.
But Dirk didn’t notice; he was carefully avoiding her eyes.
Damn it, there was no reason for him to feel like a fool! Suspended animation was a common phenomenon; it happened to billions of animals every winter! It even happened to people occasionally; they called it “catalepsy,” or something like that.
But it didn’t happen to two people at the same time in the same place—did it?
He shrugged it off. It was just a coincidence—but why did that word have a superstitious ring to it, suddenly?
Somehow, without any reason for it, he had a hunch Gar would answer that question.
The Farmer came back as dusk was blurring the forest. “He is in the dungeons,” he explained, “and had not yet been harmed, an hour ago. The Question waits for a visiting lord.”
Dirk frowned; that had a very ominous ring. “You mean they won’t start till the guest gets there?” The Farmer nodded.
“Lord Core,” Dirk said thickly. “Name your odds—it’s Lord Core.”
Madelon frowned. “Why should it be?”
Dirk shrugged. “He’s Privy Councillor—and he was at the field where the sky-ships land, warning us not to try dropping anyone—meaning me. It stands to reason, doesn’t it?”
“Of a sort,” she agreed dubiously and turned to the Farmer. “Can you get us in?”
The Farmer nodded. “I shall lead you to a man who shall lead you. Come.”
They went the way messages went among the churls—from hand to hand, and surprisingly quickly. The Farmer took them into the village again, where a second Farmer was waiting near the common. He fell into step beside them; their first guide disappeared into the darkness.
“I am Oliver,” the new guide said. “I bear word from Felice.”
Madelon nodded. “Is she safe?”
Oliver nodded. “She looked back once, to see her house in flames, and never looked back again. She and all her children are safe with the outlaws. Word was brought to her husband while you still were fighting; he laid down his hoe and went straight to the forest. He is with them now.”
Dirk kept his face carefully impassive; but he was, as always, floored by the efficiency of his own people. They each knew what to do in any given situation, and did it, without question or hesitation. Inbreeding couldn’t account for it; he wasn’t sure what could.
Oliver led them up to the castle and around to the side. Dirk looked up at the frowning granite pile, looked down at the slimy green of the moat, and felt his own grim dedication renewed. Eighteenth-century France—the culture the Lords imitated—had favored châteaus of the elegant-palace sort, not medieval fortresses. Of course, they hadn’t had radio, or radar, or laser pistols, either. The Lords made a few concessions here and there; they seemed to be very much aware where the loyalties of their subjects really lay.
Oliver fumbled next to the bank, came up with a rope, and yanked on it. A log floated out from the bankside toward them. Oliver lifted its bark off, revealing a long, narrow canoe. He gestured; they climbed in, carefully. Oliver took up a paddle and sent them across the sixty feet of moat with five slow, even strokes. He turned the canoe broadside and grappled the bank while Dirk and Madelon climbed out, and a postern gate opened in the shadows. Madelon went toward it, and Dirk turned to thank Oliver; but he was already halfway back across the moat.
Chills chased each other up Dirk’s back as he turned back to the gate. They acted like parts of a machine, with perfect timing and perfect coordination—and in a situation like this, it was a fair bet they hadn’t had much rehearsal.
He stepped through the postern, and it closed behind him as a hand closed on his arm. The pressure was gone as quickly as it had come, and a slender, liveried silhouette was moving away from them. Dirk followed, and glanced down to see Madelon cloaked in a black, hooded robe. Again the sense of eeriness shimmered over him; they thought of everything.
They moved silently across a courtyard in the shadow of the wall. When they reached the keep, their guide opened another shadowed door; they stepped through into darkness, and the door closed behind them. Then Dirk heard the chink of flint on steel, and light flared in a tinderbox, revealing a young, fine-boned face under a powdered wig. The footman took a candle-stub from his pocket, lit it, and handed it to Madelon while he doused the tinderbox. The candle wavered, and strengthened as Madelon cupped a palm around it.
The footman slipped the tinderbox back into his waistcoat. Over it he wore a pinch-waisted, burgundy, velvet coat-dark enough to blend into shadow. “We can speak here, in whispers, while we go down the stair—but then you must be silent as the dead.” He took the candle and started down the steps.
Madelon followed him; Dirk brought up the rear. “Where is our friend? In the dungeons?”
The footman nodded. “Of course.”
“Has the other Lord arrived?”
“Nearly an hour agone. He dined quickly and lightly, and went to the dungeons. They have been putting him to the Question for perhaps fifteen minutes.”
Dirk swallowed. He knew these Soldier torturers; they could do a lot of damage in that much time.
“How shall we rescue him?” Madelon murmured.
“That I shall tell,” hissed a voice from below. Dirk froze; the harsh accents were those of a Soldier. Then he reminded himself sternly that anyone helping them was laying his neck on the line. All right, it was a Soldier—but they could trust him.
Which, Dirk decided, was something decidedly new. He started walking again.
The bobbing pool of candlelight picked out the gleam of a steel helmet and the chain mail beneath it. A few steps more, and it showed them the face—rough-hewn and scarred, with a mouth like a snapping turtle. Even if he was an ally, Dirk didn’t like meeting him in a dark alley.
The footman stepped to the side, let Dirk and Madelon step past him, then turned back up the stairway, taking the light with him. Dirk fought down the panic of being alone with a Soldier in a dark hole, and hissed, “What do we do?”
“There is an alcove off the torture chamber, with a squinthole and a door,” the Soldier muttered. “The Lords can rest there if they wish to watch the torturing without being seen.”
“They are not using it now?” Madelon demanded.
“They are not,” the Soldier confirmed. “No lord has, for many years. The door-latch is rusted. But I have brought oil. It will take some time to work, and then we must use main force to open it. Then I will leave you. I must remain, trusted, until DeCade calls.”
Dirk swallowed a surge of annoyance at the superstition. “I did not know Soldiers would fight for the rebels.”
The stairwell was frighteningly quiet for a moment, and Dirk cursed himself mentally, bracing his hands on his quarterstaff.
“We, too, are churls,” the Soldier growled, and somebody breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Dirk wondered if it was himself.
But he couldn’t let it rest. “How many of you will rise when … when DeCade calls?” The words tasted bad; but he had to use their idiom. The Soldier hesitated. “No man may be sure. All other churls hate us; how we will fare if they win, none can know. Nor can any know if they will win; so each Soldier’s thoughts are hidden, even from his brothers. Each man must decide for himself—when DeCade calls.”
“We waste time,” Madelon hissed. Immediately there was a slight grating noise, and light speared in as a door cracked. The Soldier oozed around it and was gone; a moment later, his hand came back, beckoning.
Dirk bit down on his courage, narrowly missing his tongue, and followed Madelon out.