“Stay calm, all of you,” she said. “He can’t hurt you as long as you’re with me.”
“I… it feels… the voice…” The warrior’s voice trailed off, and Anne thought she heard him weeping.
The murmurs grew louder but remained unintelligible until they finally reached level earth once again. Then they seemed to subside as they encountered yet another dead end.
Again Anne knew where the hidden entrance was. She found the latch, feeling as she did so a peculiar tingle.
The wall in front of them silently swung open, and lamplight poured from the tunnel into a low, round chamber.
Something shifted in the new light, something wrong, and she stifled a shriek. Austra didn’t manage to, and her scream reverberated in the hollow depths.
Anne stood stiffly, heart pounding, vision swimming.
It was only after several slow, thundering pulses of her blood that she understood that she was looking not on some sort of monster but at a woman and a man. The man was horribly disfigured; his face had been cut, burned, and who knew what else. His filthy rags covered very little of his body. The woman’s face was smudged and bloody. She wore men’s clothing of a dark hue.
To her amazement, Anne recognized her.
“Lady Berrye?”
“Who’s there?” Lady Berrye asked sluggishly. She sounded drunk. “Are you real?”
“I am.”
Lady Berrye laughed and squeezed the man’s shoulder. “It says it’s real,” she told him.
“Everything says it’s real,” the man gruffed with a strange accent. “But that’s what we tell ourselves, walking in the graveyard, yes?”
“You were my father’s mistress,” Anne said. “You’re hardly older than me.”
“You see?” Lady Berrye said. “It’s Anne Dare, William’s youngest daughter.”
“Yes,” Anne said a bit angrily. “It is.”
Lady Berrye frowned at that and swayed to her feet. Her expression grew trepidatious.
“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t, not again.”
She came closer, and Anne saw how gaunt she was. She had always seemed cheerful, a woman just leaving girlhood, with cheeks ruddy and smooth. Now her skin lay close to her skull, and her bright blue eyes seemed black and feverish. She reached a trembling hand toward Anne. Her fingers were torn and dirty.
The man was also pushing himself up, muttering in a language Anne did not know.
The instant Berrye’s fingers brushed Anne’s face, she jerked them back to her mouth, as if she had burned them.
“Saints,” she said. “She is real. Or more real than the others…”
Anne reached for the hand.
“I am real,” she confirmed. “You see my maid, Austra. These others serve me, as well. Lady Berrye, how did you come here?”
“It has been so long.” She closed her eyes. “My friend needs water,” she said. “Do you have any?”
“You both need water,” Anne said apologetically. “How long have you been down here?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Berrye replied. “I might be able to work it out. I think it was the third day of Prismen.”
“Twice a nineday, then.”
Cazio passed her his waterskin, and she handed it to Berrye. Alis quickly took it to the scarred man.
“Drink slowly,” she said. “Carefully, or you will not hold it down.”
He had a few sips, and then a fit of coughing wracked his body, causing him to fall. Berrye had a little, then knelt to give him a bit more. As she did, she began to speak, though her gaze stayed on the man.
“I am your mother’s servant,” she began.
“I doubt that very much,” Anne replied.
“I am coven-trained, Your Majesty. Not from the Coven Saint Cer, but I am a sister nevertheless. My task was to be your father’s mistress. But after his death, I sought out your mother.”
“Why?”
“We needed each other. I know it is difficult for you to believe, but I have served her as well as I could. I came down into the dungeons to free a man named Leovigild Ackenzal.”
“The composer. I’ve heard of him.” She glanced at the mutilated man. “Is this… ?”
“No,” Lady Berrye said. “Ackenzal would not come with me. Bobert has hostage people he cares for, and he refused to risk their injury for his freedom. No, this is, so far as I can tell, Prince Cheiso of Safnia.”
Anne gasped, feeling as if she had been slapped. “Lesbeth’s fiancé?”
At the mention of her aunt’s name, the man began to groan, then cry out incoherently.
“Hush,” Lady Berrye said, stroking his head. “This is her niece. This is Anne.”
The ravaged face turned up toward her, and for an instant Anne could see the handsome man he once had been. His eyes were dark, and worlds of pain poured from them.
“My love,” he said. “Always my love.”
“Robert accused him of kidnapping Lesbeth and giving her to the enemy. I thought he had been executed. I found him searching for a way out after I discovered that Robert had sealed off most of the passages.” She looked suddenly a bit frantic. “Your uncle, you know—”
“Isn’t human? I’m aware of that.”
“Have you taken the throne from him? Is his reign ended?”
“No. He’s searching for us even now. This was the only tunnel he hadn’t blocked.”
“I know. I hoped I could find a way out in the warrens around the Kept. Instead he has caught us here.”
“You’ve met the Kept?”
“No. Your mother came to see him once, and I was with her. But Robert has the only key I know of. We could not gain entrance.”
“Then we still cannot.”
Lady Berrye shook her head. “You don’t understand. The key is to the main entrance and takes you to the antechamber outside his cell. Outside, you understand? So that he sits within the walls of ancient magicks. So that he can be controlled. Anne, we are in his cell.”
As she said it, the walls seemed to shift like vast coils, and Austra pinched the lamp out, plunging them into utter darkness.
“What?” Anne cried. “Austra?”
“He told me to—I wasn’t—I couldn’t—”
But then the voice was back, no longer whispering but shivering through the stone and into her bones.
“Your Majesty,” it said in a mocking tone. Anne felt acrid breath on her face, and the darkness began a slow, terrible spin.
7
Triey
Leoff smiled at the little flourish of notes Mery added to the normally staid and melancholy Triey for Saint Reusmier.
She had permission to do so—the triey form encouraged extemporaneous elaboration—but where most musicians would have added a doleful grace note or two, Mery instead offered a wistful yet essentially joyful reiteration of an earlier theme. Since the piece was a meditation on memory and forgetfulness, it was perfect despite its novelty.
When she was done, she glanced up at him, as always, for approval.
“Well done, Mery,” he said. “I’m amazed someone your age understands that composition so well.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, scratching the side of her nose.
“It’s about an old man thinking back to his youth,” Leoff expanded. “Remembering happier times, but often imperfectly.”
“Is that why the themes fragment?” she asked.
“Yes, and they’re never quite put together completely, are they? The ear is never quite satisfied.”
“That’s why I like it,” Mery said. “It’s not too simple.”
She shuffled the music on her stand.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“That may be the second act of Maersca,” he said. “Let me see.”
Suddenly his heart felt cast in lead.
“Here,” he said, trying to sound casual. “Give me that.”
“What is it?” Mery asked, glancing at the page. “I don’t understand. It’s mostly shifting chords. Where’s the melody line?”