“Is she Sir Basil’s lady?” I asked, for her fierceness seem to sort well with that of the outlaw knight.
“She’s her own,” said Higgs. “And you do not ever want to be her kitchen slave.”
“I shall try to avoid her,” I said, though I knew that, as long as I remained here, that choice would not be mine.
“And that,” Higgs said, pointing out a building, “is the treasury. Your money lies there, and my goods, those that haven’t been sold.”
“It looks like a temple,” I said. It was a sturdy, square building, with a portico and four pillars. What had probably been a tile roof had been replaced by the same crude thatching used in the rest of the camp.
A roughhewn wooden fence surrounded the building, with gaps between the pickets, so that no one could hide there. A large padlock secured the timber door. I saw something slither along behind the pickets, and I felt a cold hand touch my spine.
They undulated across the ground like thick-bodied snakes, their scales lawn green and midnight black, but when one of the beasts seized a picket the best to view me, I saw that it had small, clawed hands. Malevolence and hatred glittered from its eyes. I could not bear its stare, and turned my own eyes away.
“Ay,” said Higgs. “Wyverns. Sir Basil raised them from their eggs, which he found up in the Peaks. Stay clear from them, for they breathe fire.” He pointed out another structure. “Their master lives in the next building.”
There was the clop of hooves on the turf, and the master himself came trotting up on a dapple gray courser. “You, Quillifer!” said Sir Basil of the Heugh. “Come up to the keep! Your master’s body needs burying!”
Dogs had to be chased away from Gribbins’s body. I and the other servants of the Embassy Royal carried the body in a blanket to a sward below the old fort, where four graves already lay in a row. It was full night by the time we began to dig, and the only light was that of the stars and the slow-matches of their two guards, who each carried a sword as well as a blunderbuss so kindly provided by their captives.
Afterward, sweating and dirty, we were taken to confinement, locked in the echoing dungeon of the fort, surrounded by massive great stones at the base of the keep. There we were shown our places by the light of a horn lantern, pointed at the slop tub in the corner, and then left alone in darkness while the sound of the slamming door echoed in their ears.
I rolled up my cheviot coat for a pillow, and wrapped myself in the coarse blanket I’d been given. I was asleep at once, and I dreamed of Ethlebight, strong and intact, the brilliant window glass of Scarcroft Square shining in the sun. I walked the streets of my city, admiring the beautiful brickwork, the ornate gables, the detailed carving on the wooden frames.
But I walked the streets alone. The city was empty, and I saw no other person, and heard no sign of life beyond my own echoing footfalls. I was walking a city of the mind, and no one shared my dream.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I came up the stair to see the courtyard filled with activity, the bandits cleaning their weapons, seeing to their horses, saddling their mounts, or filling their bags with supplies. Sir Basil rode about on his gray, then saw me being marched to my breakfast and rode up to me. He prodded me on the shoulder with a whip.
“Your intelligence had best prove true!” he said. “My dirk thirsts for the blood of a liar.”
“I wish you the best of luck in your hunting,” I said, and then one of my captors shoved me along and I staggered to keep from falling.
Breakfast was a buckwheat porridge. The latrine was a trench dug in an open field. And then we captives were rounded up and marched back to the dungeon, where we were again shut up in the darkness. Sir Basil was marching with so many of the bandits that few were left to stand guard, and so we were to be locked away till he returned.
I disposed myself on my blanket. “Does anyone know a song?” I asked.
“Shut up, ye puisny, longshanked dew-beater!” snarled one of the footmen.
“He who likes not a song lacks a soul,” I said.
“You’ll lack a soul ere I’m done with you,” said the footman.
At which point, grim silence and darkness prevailed.
* * *
We were allowed up that evening, a few at a time, for more buckwheat gruel and another trip to the latrine, escorted by a pair of bandits armed with blunderbusses. The two monks I had seen earlier, and who apparently had no employment, watched from a distance and joked with each other. Then it was back to the dark hole for another night of captivity.
I had drowsed through the day, and now I drowsed through the night. Bites and itches kept me from sleeping soundly: I was now as alive with vermin as any man in the kingdom. I could no longer feel superior to the great ambassadors and their lousy bedding.
There was more gruel for breakfast, but this time made of oats, and it was eaten in pouring rain. The dry cellar of the keep was a relief after the freezing deluge.
On the afternoon of the third day I heard the thudding of hooves in the courtyard, and then the door was thrown open to brilliant sun. I blinked my way out of the dungeon and saw the bandits returned with a large number of captives, twenty at least, along with their horses, magnificent animals with expensive, jingling equipage. The prisoners were tied, and had baize bags on their heads; but the superiority of their clothing, with finely worked leather and swags of lace and silver spurs, showed the majority of them gentlemen of quality. When the bags were removed, despite a certain amount of disorder, the faces revealed were groomed, with long hair well dressed. Some bore bruises and cuts, but most seemed to have suffered few ill effects from their capture.
Apparently, I thought, one brought barbers and hairdressers when riding off to commit treason.
The Marquess of Stayne was tall and lank, with long graying hair and a trim little beard that framed a small disdainful mouth. Beneath his ornate black leather riding clothes, his silk shirt was a brilliant yellow, and falls of lace dripped from his sleeves and flowed over his boot tops. He looked about in grim silence, his eyes shifting from one bandit to the next as if memorizing every face, in order perhaps to bring retribution later.
The luggage was brought out and opened. Silks and lace spilled on the moss-covered cobbles. Money rang as it fell into the wooden bowl. There was a great deal of armor found among the captives, along with banners and weapons, all clanging uselessly onto the cobbles.
“So many swords and pistols!” cried Sir Basil. “Breastplates of proof! Tassets chased with silver! And yet they offered so little resistance!” The quality of the booty almost had him dancing in delight.
The outlaw floated up the steps to his place on the floor of the broken keep, then swung to face his audience, the skirt of his coat sweeping out behind him. “I am Sir Basil of the Heugh,” he proclaimed. “Perhaps you know of me.” He doffed his hat during the dramatic pause that followed, then produced his knife. I saw that he was wearing Lord Utterback’s slinkskin gloves. “This is my dirk! For two centuries it has been in my family, and was crafted by the dark brotherhood of the Nocturnal Lodge of the Umbrus Equitus!”
There followed much the same scene that had been enacted three days before, and in much the same language. Lord Stayne was brought up for his interview, and then taken away to share the Oak House with Lord Utterback. The other captives were brought up in their turn, and pens and ink distributed so each could write his ransom note.