David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"The next alcove is Stronghand's," the gardener said, looking over his shoulder toward the women. "I remember his funeral. My, that was a wonderful day. A splendid pageant!"

"This one's been broken open," called the file-closer who commanded the leading squad of soldiers. He and his men drew their swords, the long cavalry blades they'd retained when the regiment officially became infantry. "Woo-ie! She 's been dead a while, I guess!"

"What!" Madder cried. "No, that can't be!"

The gardener pushed through the troops, oblivious of the risk that he'd slice himself on a bare blade. He gave a wordless cry, threw his hands in the air, and fell to his knees.

The Blood Eagles locked shields in front of Sharina and Tenoctris. "Let me by!" the old wizard said. She tapped the rim of Ascor's helmet with the bamboo sliver she'd taken from her sleeve. "In Wisdom'sname, sir, you're preventing me from doing the one thing that may be of service!"

"Captain Ascor," Sharina said in a tone of aristocratic command. "You and Trooper Lires will please escort us to the alcove immediately."

"All right, soldiers!" Ascor snapped, placing his right hand on a horseman's shoulder and shifting him sideways. "Out of the way of her highness. Now!"

With the pair of Blood Eagles preceding them, Sharina and Tenoctris entered the burial alcove. The walls were covered with slabs of marble, probably a veneer over brick or concrete. Benches faced one another along the sidewalls; on each was a bronze coffin.

The old wizard frowned and half turned. "Please," she said in what for her was a peevish tone. "Don't block the light."

"You heard the lady!" Ascor snarled. In all likelihood the soldiers shuffling for a look inside hadn't heard Tenoctris, but they certainly heard Ascor. "Move it backnow so her highness can see what's going on!"

Sharina felt a moment's surprise that the spectators outside really did back away so that sufficient light penetrated the alcove. She'd been thinking in terms of what would've happened back in Barca's Hamlet-basically nothing, except those in back would've shoved forward harder. These men were disciplined soldiers.

Both coffins been wrenched open; the lids lay askew, half-blocking the already narrow aisle between the benches. The one on the right held a woman. The bronze must have fitted tightly enough to slow decay in the decades since her burial: dried flesh and even some of the skin clothed the skull, pulling the jaws open as if to scream. Her hair had continued to grow for a time after death but without the normal pigment; it formed a red-gold mass.

The other coffin was empty. Tenoctris touched the velvet lining with the bamboo sliver, her lips pursed in an expression of bright interest.

"Oh, this is terrible!" said Madder, who'd entered behind the women. "How could this have happened?"

"Yes, I was wondering the same thing," said Tenoctris. "There must have been a good deal of noise, even though this alcove is on the opposite side of the mound from your dwelling. Could the persons who did this have climbed over the wall, do you think?"

"No," said the gardener forcefully. "No. Not without our noticing it, I mean."

He grimaced. "I'll admit it's been months since me or the staff have been up the mound proper," he said. "Some of the oleander needs pruning bad, I saw that on the way up and I apologize. But the vineyard we work on daily, and the tracks'd show up in the dirt if nothing else. They must'veflown in-oh!"

"Go on, Master Madder," Tenoctris said. "Did you see something flying over the mausoleum?"

"No, no, it's not that," Madder said, kneading his forehead with callused fingers as though squeezing the thoughts into line. "Only a month ago-no, I'm a liar, longer than that, it must be near two, and at the dark of the moon. We all had dreams, me and the mistress and the three boys who sleep in the shed too. And in the morning, the gates were unlocked."

"What do you mean by dreams?" Tenoctris said. She touched the satchel Sharina had taken from the servant when they started up the mound, but she moved her hand away immediately.

"Bad dreams," Madder said. "I can't tell you more than that-and I wouldn't if I could, they werebad."

He rubbed his forehead again and shrugged. "We searched, I don't mean we didn't," he said. "We get plenty people trying to climb the walls and steal fruit, you bet, and they don't try again after they heal from the first beating. But nothing was gone-"

He looked up sharply. "I could tell, you know," he added belligerently. "You may think I couldn't, but I know my crop!"

"I'm sure you do," Tenoctris said calmly. "But you didn't go up to the tombs themselves?"

"No, milady," Madder said with another scowl of inward-directed anger. "No, I surely didn't. It's not like foreign parts, you know-there's nothing in the coffins but the bodies."

"Yes, of course," Tenoctris agreed. "The wealth of the dead, like their temporal power, remains with their heirs."

She smiled, but her face had the look of someone viewing a future which held a great deal of difficulty. "The trouble is," Tenoctris continued, "that there's other kinds of power than that granted by money and political position. It would appear that a wizard with the ability to cast a spell of deep sleep was looking for Stronghand's body in order to get additional power. And it would seem that he's gotten it."

"You'll be well paid for this," Garric said to the pair of servants who'd just given him and Liane their outer clothes. He took the rear pair of handles of the handbarrow heaped with used bedding.

The young male servant blinked and swallowed, looking terrified. Garric didn't suppose the fellow was afraid of anything in particular, but he was obviously concerned that anything so unusual meant some formless disaster was waiting to pounce. The middle-aged female sniffed and said, "I hope I know my duty well enough to do it without thinking your highness needs to pay me extra!"

"Even so," said Liane, taking the front handles. She unlatched the door and stepped into the hallway, her head bowed.

It was drizzling outside, so the servants'd had an excuse to raise the hoods of their short gray capes. The guards had still checked them when they came down the hall with clean bedding-but they wouldn't, Garric hoped, bother to do that again when the servants left.

Garric pulled the door to behind him as he followed Liane out. A three-wick lamp hung over the doorway. It was placed to illuminate the faces of people coming from either direction down the hallway, while those beneath it remained in shadow.

The guards were discussing the upcoming wrestling match between a Blood Eagle file closer and a Blaise armsman from Lord Rosen's regiment. They didn't pay any attention to the servants leaving the royal apartments and shuffling down the hall.

"What they oughta do," one of the Blood Eagles said as Garric and Liane rounded the corner at the slow pace of tired servants, "is let us fight the local talent with training swords. That'd show'em what's what!"

"That'd be the quickest way to start a for-real war, at any rate," said the ghost of King Carus, shaking his head with a rueful smile. "And I wouldn't be surprised if Gyganes-"

Carus knew all the Blood Eagles by name, as well as virtually every other soldier in the royal army whose name Garric had heard even once. It was an ability Garric doubted he'd have been able to equal if he'd made it his life's work.

"-knew that just as well as I do. Of course, we can't have common soldiers deciding policy for the kingdom, and it's nice that the ruler isn't spoiling for a fight either. The way I was when I was king."

Grinning along with his ancestor, Garric said to Liane in a low voice, "It's a pretty pass when the fellow who's supposed to be running the kingdom has to sneak out of his room or he wouldn't be allowed to go."