Ludis stared at him malevolently. Count Perivos was suddenly aware of
the fact that he was surrounded by troops who owed him no personal loy alty, but who received their pay in the lord protector's name each month. "You climb far out on a thin branch," Ludis said at last.
"But what do you gain by this? Why give an innocent man over to the cruelties of that… that monster, Sulepis?"
Ludis laughed harshly but turned away, as though still not entirely com¬fortable meeting the count's eyes. "Who wears the crown here, Akuanis? Your reputation as a siege engineer gives you no right to question me. I protect what I must protect…"
He broke off at the sound of shouting. A soldier wearing the crest of the Esterian Home Guard shoved his way through Drakava's Golden Enomote and threw himself down on the mosaic in front of the throne. "Lord Pro¬tector," he cried, "the Xixies have come over the wall below Fountain Gate! We're holding them in the temple yard at the foot of Citadel Hill, but we have only a small troop and won't be able to hold them long. Lord Kelofas begs you to send help."
Akuanis strode forward, all thoughts of Olin Eddon blasted from his mind. The temple yard was only a couple of miles from the townhouse where his wife and children waited in what they thought was safety-they and thousands more innocents would be overrun in a matter of hours if the Fountain Gate defenses collapsed. "Give me some of these men," he de¬manded. "Let me go and hit Sulepis in the teeth now-this moment! You have a thousand around this building, but they will be like straws in a gale if we don't keep the autarch out."
For a moment Drakava hesitated, but then an odd look stole across his face. "Yes, take them," he said. "Leave me two pentecounts to defend the treasury and the throne."
After all the harsh words, Count Perivos was astonished that the lord protector would give up his troops so easily, but he had no time to won¬der. He dropped to his knee and touched his head to the floor-bowing not to Ludis, he told himself, but to all the Hierosoline kings and queens, emperors and empresses, who had sat on the great green throne before him-then rose and hurried off to the taksiarch of the men encamped around the treasury. He could only pray that the engineers and workers he had left behind in the Empress Gardens had almost finished the wall, or holding the wall at Fountain Gate would mean nothing.
"Make us proud, Count Perivos," shouted Ludis as Akuanis and the tak¬siarch got the men into fast-march formation. The lord protector almost
sounded as though he were enjoying some theatrical spectacle. "All of Hierosol will be watching you!"
Eril was so furious with his young mistress that at first he wouldn't even speak to her, but only followed with his sword nearly dragging in the dust as they set out from the Sivedan temple toward the Citadel Hill. As they climbed upward on the spiraling road, breasting a great tide of folk hurry¬ing the opposite way, he finally found his tongue.
"You have no right to do this, Kuraion! We will be killed. Just because I am a servant doesn't mean I should die for nothing."
She was surprised by his vehemence and his selfishness. "I couldn't do it unless someone came with me." That seemed obvious to her and it should have to him as well, now that he'd been given time to digest it. What did he want, an apology? "The poor king needs our help-he's a king, Eril."
The servant gave her a look that in different circumstances she would have reported to her mother. Pelaya was shocked-old Eril, silly old Eril, acting as though he hated her!
"Anyway," she said, a little flustered. "It won't take long. We'll be back before supper. And you'll be able to tell the gods you did a good deed when you say your prayers tonight."
Judging by the noise he made in reply, Eril did not seem to find much consolation in the thought.
Although there were still many people on the grounds of the palace and in the stronghold, mostly servants and soldiers, it quickly became clear to Pelaya that Olin Eddon wasn't one of them. His cell was empty, the door standing open.
"But where is he?" she asked. She had come so far and taken so many risks for nothing!
"Gone, Mistress," said one of the soldiers who had gathered to watch this unusual performance. "The lord protector had him moved somewhere."
"Where? Tell me, please!" She brandished her forged letter. "My father is Count Perivos!"
"We know, Mistress," said the soldier. "But we still can't tell you because we don't know. The lord protector's Rams took him somewhere. You'll have to find out from him."
"You talk too much," another soldier told him. "She shouldn't be here- it's dangerous. Can you imagine anything happens? It'll be our heads on the block, won't it?"
She led Eril out of the stronghold and across Echoing Mall toward Kos-sope House, ignoring his complaints. If the servants were still in their dor¬mitories, especially the dark-haired laundry girl, perhaps they'd know where Olin was. Servants, Pelaya had discovered, usually knew everything important that happened in a great house.
As the echoes of distant cannon echoed along the colonnade, Pelaya saw that whether the laundry women were here or not, many other servants had remained, although they did not look very happy. In fact, many of them seemed to glare at her as though it were somehow her fault they'd been left behind. She was glad Eril had his sword. Pelaya could almost imagine these abandoned servants, if left here long enough, turning entirely wild, like the dogs that roamed the city midden heaps and cemeteries after dark.
"The one I want to talk to is in here," Pelaya said, pointing toward the large building on the far side of the palace complex. "Poor thing, she has such a long way to walk each day."
Eril muttered something but Pelaya could not make it out.
When they reached the dormitory they found that the residents were guarding it themselves: three strong-looking young women with laundry-poles stood before the door, and they gave Eril a very stern look before let¬ting him accompany Pelaya inside.
To her delight and relief they found the laundry girl almost immediately, sitting morosely on her bed as though waiting for a cannonball to crash through the roof and kill her. To Pelaya's shock, the dark-haired girl not only wasn't pleased to have a highborn visitor, she seemed frightened of Eril.
"Follows me!" she said, pointing. "He follows!"
Eril scowled. "She never saw me, Kuraion. I'm sure she didn't. Someone told her."
"He followed you because I needed to know where you lived," Pelaya said gently. "He's my servant. I had to find you quietly, when King Olin wanted to speak to you. Now, where is Olin? Do you know? He's' been taken out of the stronghold."
The girl looked at her in blank misery, as if Olin's whereabouts were of no particular interest compared to her own problems, whatever those might be. Pelaya scowled. How could she converse usefully with a laundry maid
who could barely speak her language? "I need to find him. find him. I'm looking for him."
The girl's face changed-something like hope flowered. "Help find?"
"Yes!" Finally, sense had been made. "Yes, help find."
The girl jumped up and took Pelaya's hand, shocking the count's daughter more than a little, but before she could protest she was being dragged across the dormitory. It was not Olin that the brown-haired girl led Pelaya to, but another laundrywoman, a friendly, round-featured girl named Yazi who seemed meant to translate. The new girl's command of Hierosoline was not much better, but after many stops and starts it finally became clear that the brown-haired girl hadn't agreed to help find Olin, she herself wanted help finding her mute brother, who had been missing since the middle of the night.
"He not go," she said over and over, but clearly he had.