David Drake - Mistress of the Catacombs

“What do you want me to do?” he said in a husky voice. He probably wanted to turn his face, but Sharina’s eyes held him like a vole facing a blacksnake.

“Do you have a long cloak in here?” Sharina said. Garments hung on a rack at the foot of the bed, ready for the steward to offer in the morning; she didn’t dare look away from Lerdain to check them, though.

“I guess,” the boy muttered. The Pewle knife prodded him a little harder. “Ouch! Yeah, there ought to be a…”

He nodded toward the rack. “Can I look?”

“Yes,” said Sharina, nodding and drawing the blade back slightly so Lerdain could turn. She put her hand on his right elbow as he rummaged through the shadowed rack, warning the boy that no matter how quickly he turned he wouldn’t be able to grab her knife wrist. It would take a braver man than most to lunge at the Pewle knife with open eyes.

“Here,” Lerdain said, pulling down a campaign cloak of dark, closely woven blue wool. It was what a common soldier used for blanket and shelter when no other was available. “Is this all right?”

“Yes,” Sharina said. The only reason the count’s son would have such a garment was to become anonymous in event of disaster. “Put it on, but don’t raise the hood yet; and don’t do anything foolish. There’s no reason you shouldn’t live for the next half century if you don’t make me kill you tonight.”

She wondered how she sounded to the boy; like some sort of demon, she supposed. She wasn’t angry. She spoke the way the butcher did when he made his rounds through the boroughs north along the coast of Haft. The butcher killed hogs not because he was angry at them, but because it was his job to clamp the beasts’ snouts with toothed tongs and to thrust his keen blade into their throats while each owner’s wife held a bowl of oatmeal below to catch the blood for pudding.

The boy must have understood that; he shrugged into his cloak, careful not to seem hasty. The Pewle knife’s broad blade would slice him from kidneys to collarbone if Sharina needed to kill him.

“I’ve put the cloak on,” Lerdain said, stating the obvious to prod Sharina into giving the next order. She wasn’t quite conscious. Rather, the part of her mind in control wasn’t her intellect. That part of Sharina os-Reise wouldn’t have been able threaten to slaughter a boy, even to save the kingdom.

Lerdain was barefoot, but the cloak hid his sleeping garment. In this warm weather, many of the soldiers wouldn’t bother with footgear while they were at leisure.

“Step over to the back of the tent,” Sharina said, nodding. “I’ll open it. Stick your head out and quietly ask the two guards there to come over to you.”

“Open it?” the boy said with a frown. “It’s—”

“Move,” Sharina said. She guided him by her grip on his right elbow. “ Now .”

When Lerdain stood by the tent’s smooth silk panel, looking sideways at her, Sharina made another lightning stroke with the Pewle knife. It went in and down, ripping the tough fabric as easily as it could have let out the boy’s life.

Lerdain’s mouth fell open. He must have had a similar thought.

Sharina gestured curtly with her left hand. Obediently, the boy leaned out through the slit, and said, “Ah—could you…? I mean, would—”

There was a clang like an ironbound chest slamming. “Oh!” said Lerdain as he jerked his head back into the tent.

King Carus forced two dazed-looking guards through the opening, tearing the fabric wider. He held the men by the necks. One had lost his iron cap; the other still wore his, but it’d been displaced when Carus slammed the guards’ heads together as they stared at Lerdain. There was enough construction noise, even at this hour, that the risk wouldn’t be great.

Carus tilted the latter guard so that his cap fell off also, then crunched their skulls into one another again. Sharina’s mouth tightened as though she’d bitten on a lemon.

“Is there time to tie them?” she asked.

“No need,” said the king. He’d taken off his helmet and sword belt. He’d waited in the shadows as planned till Lerdain drew the guards’ attention, then struck like a leopard.

Blood trickled from the guards’ nostrils and ears. Sharina thought of twenty thousand hogs being slaughtered—except that hogs don’t scream, “ Mother! ” and “ Oh, it hurts, it hurts so bad…. ”

She was sorry for the guards. She’d pray to the Lady for their souls, if the Isles survived and she survived.

“All right, boy,” Carus said to Lord Lerdain. “We’re going to walk to the gate. You keep your face hidden and your mouth shut. Understood?”

“What happens then?” the boy said. He was standing very straight, with his eyes focused on the wall past Carus’ shoulder.

“Nothing bad,” the king said with a shrug. “The wizards of Moon Wisdom decorate a gallows, but that’s not something any decent human being ought to regret. Now—does the lady there with the knife scare you?”

“No!” Lerdain lied. “I’m not afraid!”

“Then you’re a fool,” Carus said with a smile. The smile changed, drawing the boy’s eyes and holding them. “And if I don’t scare you, you don’t have the brains of a maggot. Because I’ll do anything to save the Isles, do you see? Absolutely anything.”

The king’s voice had a gentle lilt. A weasel’s chittering had more mercy in it.

Carus drew up the boy’s cowl and snugged it over his forehead. “Good,” he said, still smiling. “I’m glad you understand. Let’s go, then.”

He left through the slit panel. Lerdain hesitated, then followed when Sharina prodded him with the tips of her left fingers. When she slipped out in turn, Carus already wore his helmet and was belting on his sword and dagger.

The tents crowding the area behind Lord Lerdain’s held common soldiers. They weren’t marshalled in straight lines, and their guy ropes interlaced as randomly as sticks in a squirrel’s nest.

A dice game was going on in one, spilling lanternlight out of the open flap. Carus guided his companions past, paused to check his bearings, and set off in the direction of the east gate at a swinging pace.

He began to whistle. Sharina’s memory supplied the words: Me oh my, I love him so; broke my heart to see him go….

“They sang that in your day too?” she asked.

Carus chuckled. “‘My True Love’s Gone for a Soldier’?” he asked. “Aye, girl, they did. And they’ll sing it or a song like it as long as there’s women and armies, I shouldn’t wonder.”

They were nearing the east gate. Several of the men on guard were talking to figures on the other side through gaps in the log gate. They continued their negotiations while their fellows straightened at the approach of Carus and the two cloaked figures a half pace behind.

“Where’s your officer?” Carus asked in a mildly irritated voice. The troops wore leather breeches and carried spiked halberds instead of spears; Sharina couldn’t guess which island they came from.

“Yeah?” demanded one of the men who’d been chatting through the gate. He wore a bright gold gorget decorated with polished—not faceted—jewels.

Sharina put the fingers of her left hand on Lerdain’s spine, just at the base of his neck. The only threat was what the contact implied about her other hand, hidden beneath her cloak.

“Moon,” said Carus. He gestured to the gate with his left hand. “We’re going out.”

“Did the sun addle your brains?” the guard commander said. “Why’re you doing that?”

Carus shrugged. “Tomorrow I’ll be able to tell you—if I make it back,” he said. “But if I make it back, you’ll already know. All right?”