The Element of Fire (28 page)

Kade was whispering, "Moonlight, shadow, moonlight, shadow..."

Thomas thought,
Thank God we're downwind.
Then he saw Grandier, walking toward the bizarre thing. A moment later the creature was aloft, soaring upward at an incredible speed.

Kade slid down the wall to sit in the mud.

The illusion around them dissipated into tiny sparkling droplets of light that fell to the ground like beads of dew and disappeared. Fayre glamour, Thomas realized. He said, "Very good," and gave Kade a hand up.

Kade swayed a bit as she stood, not bothering to brush the mud and dirt off her dress. She shook her head frustratedly and ran a hand through her hair. "He let the wards move back into place, after he was past them. Why did he do that?"

Thomas assumed it was a rhetorical question. At least, he had no idea how to answer. The door to the Guard House swung open and torchlight poured into the court. There were shouts from the direction of the Albon Tower. The timing was too good. He wondered if Grandier had cast another spell besides the one to extinguish the candles, a spell to create confusion and keep everyone else inside.

Then Kade demanded, "What did he do with Galen?"

She was looking up at him, those clear gray eyes angry and beginning to be afraid. Not having read the priest's document, she would not have understood that part of the conversation. He said, "Galen's dead."

* * *
 

"Mother, this seems like cowardice," Roland said. He stood huddled in a heavy fur cloak, attended by Renier and two servants, all dressed for hard riding in frigid weather. The other knights charged with guarding him paced about warily, a short distance away. It was barely dawn, and the sky was a solid gray roof, low and threatening. A half hour ago the wind had died and the snow had begun to fall.

Ravenna pulled her hood up over her tightly braided hair and adjusted her gloves. "No, dear, it seems like survival." She turned to Elaine, who stood quietly at her elbow. "Wrap your scarf more carefully, child; this cold could ruin your skin."

Thomas folded his arms and tried not to show his frustration; it was just like Roland to balk at the eleventh hour. Staying in the palace, at Grandier's mercy, was impossible.

They stood in the court below the Albon Tower, an island of relative calm amid the bustle of preparations for the evacuation. Under his cloak Renier wore a gold-embossed gorget and back- and breastplates as many of the Albon knights did. Thomas and most of the other guards preferred the heavy leather buff coats which offered almost as much protection as the awkward armor pieces and allowed more freedom of movement. In the dim morning light servants ran past, coaches and wagons were being loaded, horses saddled or harnessed, all in apprehensive haste. Nothing had been said about last night's confrontation in the Albon Tower, and nothing would be said, unless Roland was an utter fool.
Which is not entirety out of the realm of possibility,
Thomas thought.

"I'm not deserting my court," the King muttered stubbornly.

"Roland," Ravenna said with a sigh. "You are the court, the crown, and the throne. This place has only symbolic value; you can rule just as well from Portier or the Granges. But only if you're alive."

The King looked away, a little mollified. "I dislike having them say we ran, that's all." He hesitated a long moment, and Thomas silently contemplated the gray sky and braced himself to let Ravenna handle the next objection. But Roland said, "Is it really true about Dr. Dubell?"

Panic and rumor had spread through the crowded halls, and Thomas had spent most of the night trying to quell it. Ravenna's eyes went hard and she said, "Yes, it is true." The news had not sat easily with her; she had hated the thought that she could be deceived along with everyone else.

Roland bit his lip, not meeting her eyes, then nodded. "I see." He turned abruptly and went back toward the tower, the snow crunching under his boots, his servants and knights trailing him. Renier shook his head and followed.

Ravenna smiled ruefully. "A pretty speech I gave about symbolic value, don't you think? One might imagine I believed it." She eyed Thomas with mild annoyance. "I'm still angry with you. I didn't enjoy being coerced into this, but you've got your way, and I suppose that's the height of male ambition."

"That's amusing coming from you," Thomas said without rancor. They had been through this all last night, when he had finally persuaded her to accept his plan for the retreat.

"Perhaps." She watched him a moment, a flicker of something other than cool control in her eyes. "For all your faults, I trust you'll come out of this alive." She started across the court without waiting for a reply.

Though he needed to be elsewhere now, Thomas found himself pausing to watch her. Occasionally he was surprised anew by the idea that someone so frail could also be so strong.

"Captain."

He looked up. Denzil stood only a few steps away, dressed in heavy brocades and a fur-trimmed cloak, snow collecting in his hair. Ravenna and Roland's presence in this section of the court had for the moment cleared it, and the servants loading wagons near the Guard House were making enough noise to cover their voices. Though, undoubtedly, eyes watched them from most of the surrounding windows. Thomas said, "Are you sure you don't want to save this performance until you have a better audience?"

The Duke acknowledged that with a smile, but said, "At times your impatience with Roland is ill concealed. From your manner one would be tempted to think you despise your King."

"I don't despise him, I pity him. He actually loves you."

"Of course he does." Denzil's smile widened, and for the first time Thomas felt he was being allowed to see the man's real face, the truth behind the sham he put on for Roland, for the court. The petulance, the pretense of shallow vanity, were gone, replaced by intelligence and an amused contempt for those the mask had fooled. "And it was well done, wasn't it?"

"It furthers your purpose."

"Whatever that is." Denzil paced a few steps. "I can say anything I want to him, do anything I want to him, cause him to do whatever I want" -- he looked up, his blue eyes mocking -- "I can tell you about it with perfect impunity. And I have made him love me for it."

Thomas looked away, seeing and not seeing the wounded being helped into a wagon near the door of the tower. He felt stupidly, irrationally angry for Roland's sake.
Why? You'd think I'd know better than to give a damn about the feelings of a boy-king who spits on me.
He was as block-headed as Renier, who actually believed in his oath of knighthood. But he said, "And what a conquest it was. A boy whose father taught him to take abuse. Undoubtedly he believes he deserves you."

"Perhaps he does. Weakness is its own reward."

Denzil was just as crippled as Roland, but in his own way, with his hate turned outward instead of festering within.
But Denzil's intelligent enough to see it. Probably he does see it. And probably revels in it.
Thomas said slowly, "You are a piece of work."

"Yes, but it's my own work," Denzil answered easily, sounding pleased. "And I've gotten nearly everything I've ever wanted."

And now you're getting a reaction from me, something else you've always wanted.
Thomas put a little bored doubt in his voice and said, "Have you?"

"Nearly everything. I wanted you, once, before I realized how much it would have harmed my cause with Roland."

Still watching the wagons, and inwardly a little amused, Thomas said dryly, "How flattering."

"My pride demanded it, because I could sense how you hated me."

A flurry of wind tore through the court, scattering snow around their boots.

Thomas searched for the words that would deal the deepest wound, and after a moment he said, "I know. I found your motives transparent." He looked back at Denzil, and was rewarded by the ill-concealed anger in those cold blue eyes.

"Words," the Duke said softly. "Ravenna is growing old, Thomas. Take care that when she falls, you don't fall with her."

"You take care. When I fall, I'm taking you with me," Thomas said, and walked away.

* * *
 

The Prince's Gate yard, the buffer area between the smaller inner gate and the towering bulk of the outer gate, was closed in by a wall and the south side of the Gate Bastion. Queen's guards and Albon knights manned the walls, last night's tensions forgotten among this morning's fears.

Thomas's horse danced sideways in the churned mud and snow, glad to be out of the stables, and he reined her in. Fifty of the Queen's guards, with Vivan and most of the surviving Cisternans, sat their horses with him, waiting for the lookouts on the walls to give the clear signal. Snowflakes caught like crystal in their hat brims, hair, and the fur of their cloaks. Renier waved from the top of the wall, then the main gate swung open and they rode out.

Many of the wealthy houses along the row had been caught by surprise. The doors and windows had been smashed through, revealing dark empty openings, snow blowing freely in. They would prove perfect daytime lurking places for the fay. A few houses across the way were still tightly shuttered and bore no outward sign of invasion, but nothing stirred as they rode out into the street.

There were a few bodies half-buried in the snow. Their horses, battlefield trained to ignore such things, would have walked right over the first had Thomas not guided them around. The Unseelie Court could not appear while the sun was visible, even when it was dimmed by the gray snow clouds. They would not be faced with the power that had driven them out of the Old Palace unless the clouds grew considerably darker, blocking out most of the light. But the dark fay that followed the Host were not so handicapped. There would be things that flew, that traveled beneath the snow, that would leap down at them from the rooftops and the broken windows of the houses around them. So Kade Carrion had told them.

Thomas wondered where Kade was, if she was watching or if she was back in Fayre. After Grandier's escape they had gone into the kitchens attached to the Guard House to talk. The servants had fired the ovens and it was almost warm. It was not deserted either; men and women were packing supplies for the journey. Along the side where the stores were kept, among barrels of apples, flour, and barley and shelves stacked with rounds of yellow and white cheeses covered with wax, they had stopped. Kade sat on an apple barrel, fixed her eyes on the rubies in his cloak pin, and said, "How do you know he's dead?"

He had brought the copy of Grandier's confession, and handed it to her.

She read it through twice, her eyes bleak. He said quietly, "He wanted us to be completely dependent on one sorcerer, and he chose Galen Dubell. He killed Dr. Surete and Milam after Surete had convinced Ravenna to let Dubell return. He told me how himself, after the golem attacked you in the Grand Gallery. He said it would have been simplicity itself to give either the Court Sorcerer or his assistant an enspelled object, especially if it seemed to come from a friend. So they died, like Dubell himself, his servants at Lodun, that clown in your acting troupe, a spy called Gambin, and Lord Lestrac, who knew too much of their plan and was prone to dangerous mistakes. Maybe there were others. We'll probably never know.

"I thought Denzil was Grandier's agent in the palace. That he'd taken the keystone. But Denzil didn't know where it was kept--only Dr. Braun and Dubell knew that. The night Braun was killed he must have thought of something or found something that he believed important, and he was afraid to tell me with Denzil so nearby. He was on his way back to the King's Bastion. Dubell was coming along the same way toward the gallery. They met, and Braun must have decided to tell Dubell what he had meant to tell me. They went into that salon and... Braun idolized the man and had no reason to be suspicious. He would never have thought twice about turning his back on him. Neither would I, for that matter, and I don't do that lightly. Grandier played his part very well."

Kade turned the paper over, and studied the blank back of it.

Thomas said, "You told him you were going to get into the palace with an acting troupe, didn't you?"

She nodded. "He said he never received the letter."

"But he did. You were right when you said the golem was after you. All Grandier had to do was find out which troupe was likely to get the invitation to court and plant the golem among them. You were the one who knew Galen Dubell the best; you were the one most likely to expose an imposter.

"I think it was Denzil who brought him here. Lestrac and Dontane were the contacts between them, so Denzil wouldn't know that Grandier had taken Dubell's place. That way Grandier could talk Roland out of leaving Bel Garde its walls, and we'd think of Dubell as his own man and no friend to Denzil. Denzil's antagonism would be real, and no one would suspect the link between them. It was the only way for him. Grandier was scarred and crippled by torture, and it would've been impossible to go unnoticed with his own appearance. He used this to move around undetected in Bisra and have his revenge on the priests in the Inquisition, to cause the plague and the crop failure."

For the first time Kade met his eyes. "Why did he let the wards close again? He could have held them apart and let the Host down on us. He could have done that at any time."