Nancy Berberick - Prisoner of Haven

Usha sat propped with pillows, a small book on her knee. She glanced at the doorway, then at Loren. Wine goblets and a plate of untouched food sat on the small table in the center of the room. Usha had Loren eat, but the food remained, the wine barely tasted.

Usha put aside her book, the pages unread, the words hardly understood.

“Loren, I want to go back to the Ivy.”

He looked up. “Why?”

She wanted to find Dez, to get word to her that Sir Radulf knew about Qui’thonas . This she dared not say, and so she said, “I want to see how things are in my studio. There’s work yet to do, and I have been neglecting it.”

The explanation seemed to suit, for he settled again, returning to staring at the ceiling.

“I’ll have Rowan take you in the morning.”

Usha put her book aside. “We’ll see. I might like to walk.”

He raised none of his usual objection to that, and though she thought it was strange, the whole night had been strange. “Good night,” she said and kissed him.

He returned her kiss then leaned up on his elbow. “I love you.”

The sudden passionate declaration startled her.

“I love your generous heart,” he whispered. “Your soul always open to wonder.” He touched her hair, her face. “Shaper of images, married to a man who cannot see what he has and what he’s losing.”

The words sent a pang of sorrow through her.

“You are the most mysterious woman I’ve ever met.” He sat up now and took her into his arms. Usha felt his heart beating, hard and fast. “All that I love, Usha. You fill a place in me that has been too long empty.”

His voice shook, his arms trembled a little. She had felt him tremble with passion, but if strong emotion shook him now, it was not the same thing.

“Loren-”

Loren shook his head. He moved away, and his expression was closed to her. A chill ran down Usha’s spine, and in the moment it did, the closed expression left him, as though it had never been.

Tamara ran like a ghost through alleys she’d never known existed. She felt like a phantom, a wraith ripped out of her body. She ran in darkness, a woman who had never gone anywhere unattended. Terror spurred her faster, even as she pleaded with fate to keep her from running into men with weapons who would escort her back home. Her stomach turned. If they knew where she was going, what she planned, the knights on watch who caught her would drag her bound and gagged to Old Keep.

A cat screamed outrage in the darkness. Another howled.

Tamara stumbled and fell hard onto slick cobbles. Pain shot through her knee. Her hands slipped in something foul enough to make her gag.

Something clattered against the fence beside her. A woman’s voice, ragged and shrill, screamed, “Damn cats! Shut up!”

Tamara staggered up and righted herself as panting breaths became sobs. She knew where she wanted to go, but she didn’t know where she was. The last time she’d been at the Grinning Goat, she’d gone in daylight.

Weaving from weariness, Tamara dragged breath into her lungs in rough, painful gasps. She didn’t know him, the man to whom she fled. Madoc Diviner they called him. Radulf had mentioned him once or twice. He’d said Madoc was a ragged wreck from the days the gods left Krynn, a fallen son of a noble family, a ruined mage who couldn’t find anything more to do than spy and listen and attempt to turn a profit from rumor and word.

Radulf said the mage had his uses, but not many. Better, for Radulf’s use, to put Sir Arvel into the bar, to glean what was true and what wasn’t from those who came to Madoc Diviner.

Tamara had a word for Madoc Diviner. Qui’thonas .

Images of blood and torment, the horror of a man driven to betray his friends, his cause, for the mercy of death pursued her. Qui’thonas must be warned.

Tamara sobbed. There had been traitors all around tonight. Radulf, her father… and she had done a traitor’s work, too. She’d betrayed herself for a man unworthy of her. She’d eaten the dark knight’s food and draped herself in the silks he gave her. She had been ready to climb into his bed while Haven’s people hungered and died. If she could warn someone that Qui’thonas had been discovered, it might not be redemption, but it would be part payment.

The noisome alley ended in a garden fence, the slats split, the whole thing rickety and slumped across her way. Tamara scrambled up to the ragged edge, looked, and saw a shabby house, a little shed. Out of the darkness, a dog came raging. She cried put, jumped back, and the hound hit the thin fence. From the house came a cry and a curse.

Tamara turned, looking for a way back, and stopped, frozen. A shadow slipped across the ground some yards behind her.

The dog slammed against the fence again, and wooden slats cracked loudly. Tamara flung herself back and staggered against a pile of refuse. A rat skittered out from the shadows, a squealing, filthy gully dwarf in pursuit.

The shadow was gone as though it had never been.

Tamara found the Grinning Goat, coming at it suddenly and from the back where the narrow street, barely an alley itself, descended to the sad garden by cracked stone steps.

The sour stink of old drink and ancient frying grease crawled on the night. The barman, a dim figure seen through an open window, leaned on the bar, yawning. He looked up, a swift, predatory glint in his eye when she came in. In the dim light of guttering candles, he seemed to recognize her. She was Sir Radulf’s woman and off limits.

Tamara didn’t know his name, but he didn’t seem to care. He told her Madoc had been in earlier then gone out again.

“I don’t keep track.” He scratched his belly. “Stay here if you like. Madoc comes in, he’ll be here. He doesn’t, he won’t. Me, I’m here till the next watch.” He looked around and shrugged. “If you’re here after that, you’re locked in or locked out.”

Outside, the wind awoke. Refuse scuttled across the garden. The fresher air outside made the thick, rancid odors inside the tavern even worse.

“I’ll wait in the garden for a while,” Tamara said, but he had turned away, gone into the kitchen. If the barman heard her or cared, he didn’t reply.

Outside, clouds slipped across the sky, black between the stars, silver before the moon. Their shadows flowed like water on the ground. Tamara sat on a cracked stone bench, arms wrapped tightly around herself. The wind grew stronger, pushing the sky. Watching the shadows, Tamara laughed-a thin, harsh sound. They reminded her of Usha’s sketches, the terrible images of death and terror.

Tamara stood, restless. She paced the garden, listening to the night, the faraway sound of the river, the clop of a horse’s hooves a few streets over. Nearer, from one of the tumbledown shacks that staggered along the street beside the Goat’s garden, a child cried-the desperate, infant wail of hunger.

In the tavern, the barman stood by an unshuttered window. His eyes met hers then turned away.

A shadow spilled down from the street.

Tamara jerked her head up, heart slamming. She became aware of two things at the same moment-a woman’s eyes alight with anticipation and the cold kiss of steel across her throat.

Madoc stood on the first of the six stone steps down into the garden of the Grinning Goat. Behind him, Dezra halted.

“What?” she whispered, her voice barely heard.

They were old hands at slipping past the night watch, old hands at seeming to be invisible to anyone who would wonder what they were doing out past sundown. Madoc wouldn’t have known Dez was speaking if he hadn’t felt her breath on his neck. He nodded toward the garden. Something lay in the shadow of one of the crumbling walls. No light touched it; it was a darker patch of night.