“What are you saying?”
“Areana was taken into custody soon after you were. I quickly realized the error in that, but as king I must be careful about admitting my mistakes, you see. I must work at things from where I am.”
Leoff’s head swirled.
At one point in his torture he had been told that the entire cast that had performed his singing play had been arrested and publicly hanged and that Mery had been quietly poisoned in the night. That was when he had broken and “confessed” that he had practiced “heretical shinecraft” most foul.
Now he found that they were alive, which brought joy beyond measure. But the threat to their lives was renewed.
“You’re most clever yourself,” he told the king. “You know I will not risk losing them again.”
“Why should you? Your allegiance to Muriele is senseless. She has no mandate to rule, and certainly not the talents. Despite my faults, I am the best the Dare family has to offer. Hansa will declare war on us any day unless I can appease them. Monsters threaten all of our borders and appear in the midst of our towns. Whatever you think of me, Crotheny is better united behind one leader, and that will be me or no one, because there is no one else.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Undo what you have done, of course. Write another lustspell to win them over for me. I have provided you with hammarharp and every book of music the kingdom has to offer. I will make Mery and Areana available to you as helpmates, to make up for the unfortunate state of your hands. I will, of course, have to supervise your work more carefully than did the praifec, and we will hire the musicians who will perform the work.”
“The praifec has branded me heretic before the world. How can any work of mine be performed now?”
“You will be offered as proof of divine forgiveness and intercession, my friend. Where before you took your inspiration from the darkness, now you will take it from the light.”
“But that is a lie,” Leoff said.
“No,” Robert replied drily. “That is politics.”
Leoff hesitated slightly. “And the praifec will go along with this?”
“The praifec has his hands full,” Robert told him. “The empire, it seems, is a veritable hornet’s nest of heretics. You are lucky, Cavaor Leovigild. The gallows make a constant music of their own these days.”
Leoff nodded. “I hardly need you to repeat your threat, Your Majesty. I quite understood it the first time.”
“So it’s ‘Your Majesty’ again. I take it, then, that we’re getting somewhere.”
“I am at your mercy,” Leoff said. “I wonder if you have a subject for your commission.”
The king shook his head. “No, I haven’t. But I’ve seen your library, and it is stocked with popular tales of the region. I trust you will find some inspiration there.”
Leoff gathered his strength of will.
“One thing,” he said. “I will need helpmates, I grant you. But please show mercy and send Mery back to her mother and Areana back to her family.”
Robert stifled a yawn. “You were told they were dead, and you believed it. I could tell you I had sent them home, but how could you know it was true? In any case, I would rather you not convince yourself that you have made them safe. It might inspire you to some new foolish behavior. No, I would prefer you had their company, to steady you in your purpose.”
With that he rose, and Leoff knew the conversation had ended.
Shivering suddenly, he started toward his cot, anxious to close his eyes and lose himself once more in dreams. Instead he remembered Mery when he’d first met her, hiding in his music room, listening to him play and afraid that if her presence were known, he would send her out.
Instead of retreating to sleep, he turned his path and trudged wearily to the books the king had provided him, then began to read their titles.
5
The Demon
The man screamed as the demon-woman plunged her clawed fingers into his chest, through the hard bone and tight skin to the soft, wet stuff beneath.
Anne tasted iron on her tongue as the spinning slowed, stilled, and centered. Her fear suddenly gone, she looked into the face of the monster.
“Do you know me?” the demon roared in a voice that burred through flesh and bone. “Do you know who I am?”
Light flashed behind Anne’s eyes. The earth seemed to tilt, and she was suddenly on horseback.
She was riding with Cazio once more. She remembered Austra gasping behind her and then a terrific stir.
Something struck her to the ground, and then a hard arm wrapped about her, lifting her forcefully into a saddle. She remembered the acrid smell of her abductor’s sweat, the gasp of his breath in her ear. The knife to her throat. She could only see his hand, which had a long white scar that ran from his wrist to the lowest knuckle of his little finger.
“Ride,” someone said. “We’ll deal with these.”
She remembered staring dully over the head of the horse, watching the rise and fall of the snowy forest floor, the trees blurring by like the columns of an endless hall.
“You sit still, Princess,” the man commanded. His voice was low and warm, not unpleasant at all. His accent was educated, slightly alien but unplaceable. “Sit still, give me no trouble, and things will go better for you.”
“You know who I am,” Anne said.
“Well, we knew it was one or the other of you. I reckon you just cleared it up, but we’ll be taking you to someone who knows your face to be sure. No matter, since we’ve got both.”
Austra, Anne thought. They’ve got you, too. That meant her friend might still be alive.
“My friends will come for me.”
“Your companions are probably dead by now,” the man said, his voice shaking with the galloping of the horse. “If they aren’t, they’ll find it difficult to follow us. But that needn’t concern you, Princess. I wasn’t sent to kill you, or you would be dead by now. Do you understand?”
“No,” Anne said.
“There are those who would kill you,” the man replied. “That you know, yes?”
“I most certainly know that.”
“Then believe me when I tell you that their masters are not mine. I am charged with your safety, not with your destruction.”
“I don’t feel safe,” Anne said. “Who sent you? My uncle, the usurper?”
“I doubt that Prince Robert cares much for your welfare. We suspect he is in league with those who murdered your sisters.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“I don’t understand. You say you don’t want me dead. You imply you wish to preserve me from harm, yet you’ve taken me from my most loyal protectors and my friends. So I know you can’t wish me well.”
The man didn’t reply, but he tightened his grip.
“I see,” Anne said. “You have some need of me, but not one that I would approve of. Perhaps you intend to sacrifice me to the dark saints.”
“No,” the man said. “That is not our aim at all.”
“Then enlighten me. I am at your mercy.”
“Indeed you are. Remember that. And believe me when I say that I will not kill you unless I have to.” The knife came away from her throat. “Please don’t struggle or try to escape. You might manage to fall off the horse; if you don’t break your neck, I’ll easily recapture you. Listen and you will know your friends aren’t following.”
“What’s your name?” Anne asked.
Again a pause. “You can call me Ernald.”
“But it isn’t your name.”
She felt him shrug behind her.
“Ernald, where are we going?”
“To meet someone. After that, I cannot say for certain.”
“I see.” She thought for a moment. “You say I won’t be killed. What of Austra, now that you’re certain she isn’t me?”