Dark Triumph - LaFevers Robin - Страница 17

The door hinges, which should creak with age and rust, are as silent as moth wings. I slip inside and shut the door behind me.

In the faint moonlight shining in through the arrow slit, the dark shadows flutter and float gently through the air. Those that are not huddling next to me are drifting downward. Down it is, then, for ghosts are ever attracted to the warmth and comfort of life.

The stairs descend in a tight circle, and I put my hands on the wall to guide me. It would not do to fall and break my neck. The stone is rougher here and wet with dampness from the nearby river, the steps crumbled slightly with age.

At the foot of the stairs is another locked door. Merde! I should have brought all of the keys with me! But no, this key fits the second door as well. My teeth threaten to chatter and I pretend it is the chill and not my fear as I turn the key and slowly open the door.

It is the smell that reaches me first. A rank mixture of mold and mildew, old blood and human filth. I brace myself for the worst, but I find only an antechamber. On the far side is yet another door, this one with a high window covered in narrow iron bars. Faint light flickers from within. Quiet as one of the ghosts who trail after me, I cross the small space.

When I reach the third door, I press myself against the wall so I cannot be seen through the bars. I wait for a dozen heartbeats, but no one comes.

Slowly, with my heart hammering against my ribs, I inch to the grille and peer inside.

A lone torch casts a faint light into the dark chamber, and shadows bounce and flicker against the stone wall. Someone is moving about and making strange formless noises to himself. In truth, it looks like a small gnome or dwarf from a hearth tale, but then I see it is simply a man who is gnarled and bent over. At first I think he is chortling and dancing, and then I realize that he is lame in one leg and that is merely how he shuffles across the chamber. And the chortling is chewing—he is gnawing on a stale crust of bread. Disgusted, I tear my eyes from him and survey the rest of the room. An ale pot, a chamber pot, a wooden ledge for sleeping and sitting. And another be-damned door sits in the far wall.

I pull away, back against the wall once more. Is that all that is keeping this knight imprisoned? Four locked doors—at least two of which have the same key—and a decrepit old man? Is the prisoner even still alive? I wonder, and then I scoff at the stupidity of my own question. Of course he is still alive, for they would not set a guard—not even one such as the little gargoyle in there—to watch over a corpse.

Unless they wanted to be certain no one found out he was dead.

Holding my breath, I let my senses explore the locked room. I feel the twisted little man’s heart beating strong and steady. Coming from beyond the door, fainter and slower, is the beat of a second pulse. The knight is alive, at least for now.

Almost as if he feels my mind searching out his, the prisoner groans.

The little guard shuffles over to the prisoner’s door and makes some guttural noise through the grille. The prisoner groans louder, and the sound is followed by the rattle of heavy chains. He is manacled, then, and his chains are the origin of the rumors of ghosts.

I stay and watch for a while longer, trying to get a feel for the guard’s rhythm: when he sleeps, and how deeply, and if he ever leaves. But he does not. He pisses in a pot in the far corner. There is a small pile of stores against the east wall, a keg of ale. He pauses to grunt at the prisoner now and then, but whether it is an encouragement or a taunt, I cannot tell. When I have tarried as long as I dare, I inch away from the door. It would not do to grow careless now and kick a stone or shuffle my feet. As I begin making my way up the stairs, I decide it has been a decent enough night’s work. I know where the knight is, that he is alive, and how he is guarded.

What I do not know is how I will get him out of there without getting us both killed in the process.

Chapter Ten

WHEN I RETURN TO MY chamber, instead of crawling into bed, I go to the table and take two fat white candles from their holders. I shove one on the end of the poker near the fireplace, then hold the poker next to the flames. It is tricky, as I do not want the candle to drip away, only to soften enough that I can mold and shape it. When I judge it ready, I pull it from the heat. Working quickly before it cools, I shove the tower key into the soft wax, pushing so that it makes a deep impression. I soften the second candle in the same way, then press it down on top of the first.

Once that is done, I use a knife to whittle away all the extra wax so that my mold is as small as possible. I toss the shavings into the fire and hide the wax casting in one of my velvet jewelry pouches.

It is a long, tense walk back to Madame Dinan’s chamber, but as I go, a plan begins to form, as fragile and tenuous as a spider’s web.

I have followed the convent and Mortain’s wishes so far, and it has brought nothing but tragedy. Even worse, d’Albret is still alive and spewing his evil across the land. It is long past time for me to fulfill the role the abbess had planned for me, with or without her orders. I will kill him, marque or no.

But I will attempt to free the prisoner first. If, as I suspect, he is too wounded and broken to make the trip to Rennes, I will grant him a small mercy and put him out of his misery, for certainly that is what I would wish for if it were me.

I will not even make him beg.

In the morning, I convince Tephanie and Jamette that we must go into town. I cannot march up to a blacksmith and demand he make me a key without raising a host of questions. So instead, I tell my attendants that I must find a silversmith to repair one of my favorite belts. Jamette wants to know why, if it is one of my favorites, she has never seen it before. Tephanie comes to my rescue. “Because it is broken, you ninny!” She is as excited as a young child at the thought of an outing and begins chattering about the monkey one of the soldiers saw in town.

Even though impatience makes me want to hurry, because of Jamette and our escort of guards, I force myself to browse the stalls. I stop to rub some bright red satin between my fingers and admire the thick rich nap in a piece of green velvet. Smelling money, the shopkeepers cluster around us like flies on a drop of honey. I flirt and pretend I am seriously considering a bolt of blue damask. All the while, Jamette watches me far too closely, as if memorizing every move I make, every word that comes from my lips. I half expect her to pull a scrap of parchment from her sleeve and begin making notes, and I have no doubt she would, if she could write.

At last we come to the street of silversmiths, the faint sound of the rapid tapping of their hammers as distinct as a hailstorm. I pretend to shop for a silver bauble, but I am actually searching for a smith who looks stouthearted and trustworthy and not inclined to run tattling to the castle in the hopes of currying favor with the new lord. I find just such a man—or so I hope—at the third shop we visit.

The silversmith puts down his hammer as we approach and comes forward with a bow. He is of middle years with a stolid face and strong hands that are roughened with a lifetime of scars from the hot metals he works with and silver dust is worked into the creases of his skin. A woman who has been sweeping the workroom—his wife, no doubt—hurries to join him.

As the smith draws closer, he glances at the men behind us. His look of pleasant greeting turns into one of guarded suspicion as he recognizes the standard and colors of the house of d’Albret emblazoned on our escorts’ tabards. His wife nudges him with her elbow and keeps her pleasant smile firmly in place.