The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain
They halted and dismounted before the steps leading to the keep’s entrance. A soldier took their horses while another stepped from the entrance to ask their business.
“A message for the lord-governor from the king,” Karigan said.
“Follow me, please.” The soldier turned smartly and trotted up the stairs.
Karigan hesitated and took a deep breath. The sooner this was over, the better. It was her duty, she reminded herself, and her real mission was not so much to hand over the message to Timas Mirwell but to make contact with Beryl Spencer. She straightened her shortcoat, threw back her shoulders, and climbed the steps at her own pace. She would not be cowed as if she were still a schoolgirl.
Stepping into the keep was like entering a cave, especially when the great doors closed behind them, shutting out the daylit world. A combination of torches and lamps offered smoky illumination, but the dark lingering in the corners was as heavy as the stone walls surrounding them. Just as well. There wasn’t much to look at—a few suits of armor along the walls, faded tapestries recounting the glorious and bloody history of Clan Mirwell, and shields painted with coats of arms of the vassals that were protected by Clan Mirwell.
The soldier led them across the entry hall and a short distance down a corridor. Karigan closed her eyes for a brief moment to collect herself as the soldier knocked on a door. Without waiting, he entered.
“Idiot!” a voice shouted from within. “Wait until I give you permission.”
The soldier backed out and reddened. “I’m sorry, my lord.”
“You will be if this isn’t important.”
The soldier stiffened, swallowed hard. “My lord, messengers from the king.”
A pause, then, “Very well. Out with you, Clara.”
A feminine giggle trickled out into the corridor and shortly a girl, a few years younger than Karigan, emerged from the chamber, tying her bodice as she left. From her dress, coarse and plain, Karigan presumed she was a servant. She frowned.
“Let them in, stupid,” came the harsh voice from within.
With a sympathetic look to the Riders, the soldier gestured they should enter the room. When they did so, he closed the door behind them. A surge of panic threatened to overtake Karigan until she forced herself to calm, and only then did she realize that the young man in front of them, who was buttoning up his trousers and tucking in his shirttails, was not Timas at all, but one of his friends from school.
“Barrett,” Karigan murmured. He was sharp featured, tall and lanky, and had grown, or had attempted to grow, a sparse beard. She wasn’t surprised to find him dallying with a servant. Rumor in school was that he had coerced many a poor girl into his bed with promises of his eternal commitment and of support for her family, but had only ruined her reputation and left her on her own if she became pregnant. One rumor claimed he’d told a girl to, “Drop the brat off a cliff for all I care.” Karigan believed it.
“That’s Lord-Steward Barrett to you, Messenger,” he said.
Steward? The thought of him in so important a position disturbed Karigan, but it explained his being here in this office with its fine furnishings.
He squinted at her. “Do I know you?”
“Very unlikely, my lord.” Karigan prayed he wouldn’t ask her name.
“Then how did you know me?”
“The soldier.” Karigan didn’t like to lie, but right now her loathing of Barrett overrode her sense of duty. She did not want him to remember her. It was a small lie anyway, and wouldn’t hurt anything. “The soldier told us.”
“Oh.” Barrett sat in his cushioned chair, crossing his legs and looking relaxed and self-important. He gazed at her expectantly.
“We have brought a message from the king for Lord Mirwell.”
“Let’s have it then,” he said.
“I’m sorry, my lord, but the message is written in the king’s own hand for Lord Mirwell’s eyes only.”
Barrett sat up, his expression one of displeasure. “But I am Lord Mirwell’s eyes. I’m his steward.”
“Duty requires I present the message to—” and here Karigan faltered, almost saying “Timas” “—to Lord Mirwell.”
“Is it urgent? Life or death?”
“I do not know what the message contains, but I was not given to believe it was urgent.” Truly, she knew the message was of little importance, for this exercise was really about giving her a chance to contact Beryl.
Barrett sat back again, tapping his fingers on the armrest, his gaze calculating. “Then you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“What?” Karigan was flabbergasted. No one had ever sent her away before a message, a message from the king, had been delivered.
“Tomorrow,” Barrett said. “You can’t expect Lord Mirwell to come at your beck and call. He’s busy. He can’t see you today.”
No lord-governor or his staff had ever treated her this way. “But—”
“If it’s not urgent, and if you won’t leave it with me, you can try back tomorrow.”
Karigan tried to maintain her composure. “Very well. Good day.”
“Wait a moment,” Barrett said before she could escape. “Are you sure we’ve not met?”
“Quite sure,” Karigan said.
“Pity. Perhaps we’ll get to know one another before you return to the king. It is customary for the lord-governor to offer lodging to the king’s messengers—”
“We’ve already lodging in town. Good day, my lord.” Before he could stop her again, she gave him a cursory bow and retreated through the door. She hastened through the keep and out the entry as fast as decorum allowed. She headed straight for the horses, being held for them in the courtyard. Once she and Fergal were off the keep’s grounds, she sighed. Then she muttered some curses worthy of the sailors she grew up around on the docks. Fergal knew enough to stay quiet.
“That,” she said, “was another of my schoolmates.”
“So you did know him,” Fergal said.
“Unfortunately. He was in Timas’ circle, of course.” She couldn’t get over the sensation of slime coating her skin after being in Barrett’s presence. “And unfortunately we’ll probably see him again tomorrow.”
Tomorrow she hoped to conclude their business here and return to Sacor City. Tomorrow she hoped she’d see Beryl. If she didn’t, she did not know how to ask after her without arousing suspicion. But that was tomorrow’s worry.
The next day found Karigan and Fergal mounting the steps to Mirwell Keep behind the same soldier as yesterday. An ache had begun building in Karigan’s head throughout the morning. The thought of seeing Timas was bad enough but Barrett, too? As they crossed the entry hall, she glanced around, hoping to spot Beryl. Surely Beryl would have heard by now that two Riders had visited the keep. In hopes word would travel, Karigan mentioned to the soldier in a conversational way where she and Fergal were staying.
Once again they were led to Barrett’s office, but this time he did not shoo a serving girl out. He appeared to be actually working, poring over some papers on his desk.
“Ah, you’ve returned,” he said.
“We wish to deliver Lord Mirwell’s message.”
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to try again tomorrow.”
“May I remind my lord that this is a message from the king?”
“You may, but unless you’ve changed your mind about leaving the message in my care, you’ll have to come back tomorrow. Lord Mirwell cannot receive you today. He is busy.”
Karigan bridled her annoyance and managed to take leave of Barrett without exploding. He was worse than most bureaucrats she’d met. She paused in the entry hall, almost tempted to search out Timas herself, and maybe find Beryl in the process, but one did not do such things when one was a Green Rider.
On their third visit to the keep, Barrett rose when they entered his office. “Well, well, the diligent Greenies are back.”
Karigan wanted to smack the smirk right off his face.
He ci
“Are you sure,” he said, “we haven’t met? What’s your name, Greenie?”
Damnation, Karigan thought. She considered giving some false name, but that was not as simple a lie. She’d be found out. It would be dishonest and dishonorable to the king and the Riders. “Karigan,” she said, not willing to give him her full name.
“Karigan,” he repeated softly, standing to her side, close enough that she could feel his breath against her cheek. She forced herself to stare straight ahead. “Karigan. You know, that seems awfully familiar to me, an unusual name like that. What is your family name?”
Karigan wanted to squirm, run out, but by force of will she stilled herself. “G’ladheon, of Clan G’ladheon.” She did not offer him her service as was customary and polite.
Barrett stepped back and barked out a laugh. “Oh, very good! How amusing. I remember you now. Selium. The good old school days. How could I forget? You were the little bitch that took Timas out in swordplay. I wish you could have heard all he said about you later that day, and all the things he swore to do to you if ever he saw you again. Unfortunately you ran away before he could carry out his revenge. But here you are now. How very interesting.” Barrett’s expression was one of pure delight. “We all said we’d help in his revenge.”
Karigan turned to face him directly; looked him in the eye. “I am here on king’s business to deliver Lord Mirwell a message.”
“How it must gall you,” Barrett said, “to be in so subservient a position.”
“It is my honor to serve the king.”
Barrett chuckled, and Karigan figured he had little use for “honor.” “Timas, Lord Mirwell, is going to be pleased to see you again. Oh, yes, he most surely will. But not today.”
“You’re sending us away again?” Karigan asked in disbelief.
“Are you so anxious to see him?” Barrett moved in closely again.
Karigan rested her hand on the hilt of her saber. It centered her.
“Tsk, tsk,” Barrett said, not missing the movement. “Seems the Greenie is feeling threatened. I might have to ask you to remove your saber. And perhaps other things, as well…”
“I’d remind the lord-steward,” Karigan said, her voice now frigid, “that Green Riders answer only to the king, and the king does not take kindly to disrespect toward his own messengers.”
“Too bad he’s all the way in Sacor City with so many more worthy problems to preoccupy him than one lowly messenger.” Barrett actually reached out to stroke her braid.
Karigan knocked his hand away and heard steel drawn. Fergal stood there holding his saber at the ready. Though taken aback, she hesitated only half a moment.
“Fergal,” she said, “put it away.” When he didn’t obey immediately, she snapped, “Now! This one is not worth it.”
Fergal sheathed his blade, though reluctantly.
“Did you think to spill my blood, boy?” Barrett demanded. “Did you? I should call the guards in right now to throw you into a cell and teach you a lesson.”
“Lord Barrett,” Karigan said, a tight smile on her lips. An icy calm had settled over her like a mantle. The headache was gone, her absurd fear of meeting with old classmates had dissipated. “The young man’s name is Rider Duff, and I shall remind you that king’s law supersedes all others. You will not imprison him. I don’t think you comprehend how much the king values his own Riders, and he will certainly be informed of our treatment here. Never forget it was the king himself who meted out justice to Lord Mirwell’s father.”
Before the flabbergasted Barrett could respond, Karigan turned on her heel and walked out, Fergal falling in behind her. By the time they were halfway across the crowded entry hall, Barrett had regained his voice.
“Just you wait till you see Timas, bitch!” he yelled. “Then you’ll be sorry.”
Karigan shook her head in wonder at how childish Barrett sounded, and in front of all those soldiers, servants, and nobles, too.
At last, tomorrow, she could finally give Timas the dratted message and be done with it. If she didn’t see Beryl? Then she’d have nothing to report when she returned to Sacor City and it would be up to Captain Mapstone to decide what to do next.
Beryl could not remember how she came to be here, or where “here” was. It was some sort of encampment, off in the haze around her. She hardly remembered who she herself was. She was caught in a spiderweb network of gold chains anchored to her flesh with hooks. If she moved a hand, it yanked on a hook embedded in her neck. If she shifted her leg, it buried a hook deeper into her back.
The gold chains were filament fine, exquisite, like something a noble lady would wear clasped about her neck, and Beryl couldn’t say if they were real or imaginary, only that pain, akin to a razor slashing at her skin or a dagger sliding deep into muscle, racked her body at the barest movement.
So she did not move. She sat cross-legged on the ground, hands folded across her lap, and with her whole being, with everything she was, concentrated on not moving. The sounds of the encampment fled her hearing and she saw little beyond the haze. Maybe two or three times a day someone came and slackened the tension on her chains so she could relieve herself and eat the pittance of food they gave her. Trying to move her limbs at these times was almost as excruciating as the hooks grappling her flesh, and if she wasn’t careful and moved beyond the loosed length of the chains, the hooks tore flesh, spread a whiteness of pain through her mind.
In truth, she did not even know if she bled. If the wounds were real.
She tried to envision pleasant places like lush valleys and serene lakes, her Luna grazing at pasture. These visions helped until she fell asleep. All the hooks ripped through her, leaving her in red agony until she could once again find the position that would prevent pain. She could not allow herself to sleep, and from then on recited marching cadences in her mind, all that she had learned throughout her military career, over, and over, and over.
The lack of sleep and too little food and water weakened her. She was too well-versed in dispensing torture not to know it was a matter of time before she gave in, but she had no idea what her captors wanted from her, for no one ever questioned her. Maybe it was torture for the sake of torture. At least when she utilized it, she was always after a confession or information. If she simply wanted someone out of the way, she killed them and did not make them suffer.
Once in a while she became aware of the Little Girl sitting on the periphery of the haze playing string games. Games Beryl once played when she was a child. Child? Had she really been a child once? Little Girl wove the strings about her fingers making designs until Beryl felt caught up in the strings; bound, prey in a spider’s web, only the web was gold chains, beautiful and painful.
At other times Little Girl threw pebbles at her, trying to make her flinch. When Beryl learned to endure pebbles, pebbles became rocks, and Beryl thought the hooks would flay the flesh off her bones when she reacted to being hit in the face.
Sometimes Grandmother took Little Girl by the hand and led her away, scolding her.
Beryl was chanting the infantryman’s basic half-time cadence in her mind when she became aware of two people standing on the edge of the haze.
“What are we going to do with her?” It was the gravelly-voiced man whom she was certain she knew, but she dared not divert her mind from the cadences to try and remember his identity.
“She’s strong,” Grandmother said. “We will leave her.”
“We should just kill her. Or torture her conventionally. This is not useful.”
“Now, now. Do not underestimate what you cannot see. She will break eventually, then we’ll decide if she is useful to us. I’d like to discover the source of her ability. Long ago the Green Riders were ordered to give up their magical devices. Their maker, Isbemic, was forced to destroy them. Some deceit has been at work all these centuries and I wish to unravel it.”
The voices ebbed from Beryl
AN UNEXPECTED MESSAGE
Much to Karigan’s amusement, Barrett was still angry enough from the previous day’s encounter that he communicated with her and Fergal using only single words and sharp gestures.
This time they were actually going to see Timas, and Barrett led them up a winding staircase. Karigan felt battle ready, almost eager to spar with her old nemesis, but she could not forget what she was and who she represented. It meant she must remain moderate in her words and actions, to always reflect well upon the king and the Green Riders. It was unfortunate to be constrained by her position, but there were other, subtle ways to nettle Timas.
She hoped Beryl would be there, beside Timas, as she’d always been for Timas’ father.
The stairway opened into another corridor just as dark and narrow as anyplace else in the keep, lit by torches that blackened the ceiling with soot. The keep had a primitive quality to it that reminded Karigan of the abandoned, ancient corridors of the king’s castle, but these weren’t abandoned.
Barrett led them to the far end of the corridor where a large door with a raised carving of a war hammer breaking a mountain sealed off a room. He opened it and entered the room, the Riders behind him.
The lord-governor’s receiving room was like a small throne room, long and narrow with an elaborate chair gilded in gold set on a dais at the far end, a hearth gaping behind it. Armor and weapons displays lined the walls, along with portraits of, Karigan assumed, Mirwells through the generations.