“Why should now be different?” the jester inquired, shrugging elaborately. “It always seemed to me that dungeons were ever awful.
Are some hours more bitter than others?”
“The Queen is within,” the guard whispered, and Fallomar reacted with shock.
“You mean, she’s sent herself to jail?”
The guard laughed at that, and Pelmen took advantage of his laughter to try again to get past him. He stopped when the business end of the pike was leveled at his nose. “You halt!” the guard roared, and Fallomar did just that
“I… just thought…” he began lamely, and the guard slipped the pike under his left arm and slung him toward the door. He crashed against the masonry and down to the floor. The guard became solicitous.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked with sincerity.
“Only my backside,” Pelmen answered honestly, “and it quickly heals…”
“Then take it out of here!” the guard ordered.
“But I only wanted to amuse the Queen! I know many humorous tales about dungeons and I thought this the perfect venue ”
“Shut up!” the guard ordered. Pelmen responded to the authority in the man’s voice. He shut up. “How many times must I tell you, clown, that this is not the time?” He said this quietly, but with great force.
“Then another time ”
“Hush! No. No other time. No one enters this dungeon without authorization either from Queen Ligne or the Lord Joss. Anyone who succeeds in entering it otherwise will never get out do you understand me?”
“But I only…”
“Quiet! By my orders you should be in a cell already, for attempting unlawful entry. Get out of here before she returns and makes me keep you!”
“If you could tell me why ”
The guard sighed in exasperation and lowered his voice into nothing more than a whisper. “Security is incredibly tight. Ever since the Princess ” The guard slammed his mouth shut, then cursed. The deadly look in his eyes, though only dimly perceived in this foul gloom, convinced Pelmen it was time to retreat. He bolted up off his knees and out the door into the corridor. He didn’t stop running until he’d reached the safety of the kitchen.
Once again into its safe, well-lighted expanse, Pelmen leaned against the wall to catch his breath and ponder his options. The guard had let slip “the Princess ”… so Bronwynn was an occupant of the dungeon. In the choking silence of the catacombs, somewhere below his feet, Rosha’s lady lay in chains. What other explanation fit the facts he’d uncovered? Pelmen imagined the treatment she surely must be receiving from the jealous Queen’s hand perhaps this moment and his jaw clenched.
Was there no way to get to her?
“I thought you’d be back in short order,” the cook said. “The Queen is very particular about who visits her dungeons and who don’t.”
Pelmen turned around to watch as the cook dropped sliced olives and cashew nuts atop a curious looking culinary concoction. “Who feeds them?”
“What?”
“The prisoners. How are they fed?”
The cook shook his head. “I’ve got no idea. All I know is, we never have any leftovers. The Lord Joss has all leftovers collected off the trenchers before they even come out of the great hall of washing.
That’s all the more I know about it” The cook sauntered toward the bank of ovens on the far wall and shoved his creation into one of them. “If you’ll pardon me, Fallomar, your interest in the doings below us seems quite unhealthy to me. Are you planning an act that might land you there? It’s not that infrequent for fools, you know…”
“So the guard informed me.”
“But it used to be, with Talith on the throne, that the old man’s temper would subside after a time, and folks would be let out Since this Queen’s come to power, I’ve seen a lot , of souls go below but not a one’s come up again.”
Pelmen spun the possibilities in his mind, hoping that the random swirl of ideas might produce some new, unconsidered option. “You say the dungeon stretches below us here?”
The cook frowned at Pelmen and held that frown on his features as he took a steaming pie from another of the ovens. The kitchen filled instantly with its delicious aroma. “Do like me, Fallomar. I forget it’s there.” The culinary expert turned away then and walked slowly toward the pantry in the back end of the kitchen. It was nearly time for his servants to begin arriving, to start preparing the midday meal.
The cook felt sure that Ligne had at least one spy, maybe two, scattered through his host of helpers. He hoped to discourage the clown from any further inquiries into the matter.
Pelmen’s eyes cast around the kitchen in desperation. They fell on the low stonework wall that formed the lip of the cistern. It wasn’t twenty feet from where he was standing. If the dungeon stretched directly below them…
When the cook came out of the pantry, Fallomar was gone. “Good,” the cook muttered to himself. “He’s decided to keep himself out of trouble.”
Jagd usually had a dozen cloaks in his closet, all of them either solid purple or solid red. At the moment, however, his closet was empty. His guest rooom in the royal quarter of the castle resembled wash day at the laundry, for he had hung all his cloaks on the walls, on a dozen strategically placed pegs. He hoisted the last one into place and stepped back to look. It appeared that all textured surfaces were covered. Since spy holes normally were hidden in the textured panels to prevent discovery, and the only wall space now visible to him was smoothly plastered, he felt relatively safe. He did not know if secret passages circled his room, but he always assumed their presence in a castle of this age. Ligne could attempt to spy if she liked all she would see would be darkness.
He doused the oil lamp that sat on the ornate table beside his bed, then set it on the floor. Then he pulled a heavy chest out from under the bed. He found its buckles by feel rather than sight. The latches sprang open in his hands like living things, and he opened up the chest.
The precious object inside glowed dimly. He pulled it out and set in on the table before him. As he peered into its glassy face, the strange blue light within it fanned into a new, brighter life. This was one of three very precious crystal pyramids possessed by members of the Council of Elders. Used together, they permitted instant communication between three members of the Council, wherever in the world they might be. While Jagd valued it as a complex machine of very fine craftsmanship, he had yet to recognize it for the awesome magic tool it really was.
“I see you’ve finally deigned to join us.” That voice, mediated by the pyramid, made Jagd wince in irritation. It belonged to Flayh, who possessed the second of the three objects.
“I must be careful Jagd replied sarcastically, peering into the crystal’s depths. “Remember I’m no longer free to live in my own house, since certain persons seem disposed to try to assassinate me.”
“So you’ve said,” Flayh answered. As the parties each concentrated on the objects before them, the link between the three grew more stable.
Jagd could now see Flayh’s sneering face on the inner left-hand facet of his pyramid. On the right-hand facet he saw the sluggish, dull features of Flayh’s obese nephew, Pezi. “I called a meeting of the Council, Jagd, in part to deal with your problem. I fear your absence will mean that problem gets very little attention.”
“I do appreciate your consideration,” Jagd replied snidery, “but perhaps that’s the best I could hope for. Had I attended, I’m sure the problem would already have been resolved much to your satisfaction.”
“Whatever do you mean by that, Jagd?” Flayh asked with pretended civility.
“It would have been finished in Dragonsgate, with me OB the sharp end of a slaver’s sword. Thank you, Flayh, but I’ll find my own solution.”