The Element of Fire by Martha Wells (top novels TXT) 📕

that foolish young lord to die. He looked back at Thomas and said softly, “It was you who shot at us in the palace, wasn’t it? How very foolish of you to go back there. The Duke of Alsene isn’t dead, you see. He’s very much alive. And you are going to regret that.”

If they had caught or killed Kade outside, surely Dontane would brag of it. “I have regrets already. I regret you weren’t on our side of the siege doors when the Host attacked, where after sufficient persuasion you would have accused Denzil and informed us of Grandier’s disguise. I regret I didn’t spare the time today to blow your head off—”

He didn’t even sense the blow coming. It rocked his head back and for a moment he sagged in the grip of the troopers as everything went black. He had time to hope that it would stay that way before the world slowly but relentlessly reasserted itself. The stable roof swam into hazy focus, and he swallowed blood and managed to lift his head. He said, “Careful, you might bruise your knuckles.”

“Grandier wants you alive.” Dontane stepped closer. “What does he want with you?”

Thomas heard the underlying tension in that cool contemptuous tone and sensed a possibility opening up before him. If only he could pull his pain-scattered wits together enough to take advantage of it. “Ask him.”

“It’s easier to ask you.”

“And I had the impression you two shared confidences.” Thomas knew he was provoking the other man too much, losing what little control he had over the situation. He had the sudden impulse to goad Dontane further into rage, just because he could, just because it was so easy, no matter what the consequences to himself. It was astonishing how difficult he found it to suppress that urge.

Dontane struggled for calm and managed to lower his voice to say confidently, “Cooperate with me and it will go easier on you. Or do you really want to be handed over to that old madman?”

“If you’ve taken him as your master, you’re far madder than he is.”

Dontane snarled, “That’s your last—” and Grandier’s mild voice interrupted, “That’s enough.”

Grandier stepped into the circle of lamplight, appearing suddenly out of the dim cold twilight outside. From his tone he might have been encountering the younger man at a promenade or a market square, but Dontane whipped around to face him.

Grandier regarded him imperturbably. Dontane started to speak, thought better of it, and stepped back.

Moving forward, Grandier said, “An unexpected pleasure, Captain.” He still wore the baggy black scholar’s cope, still wore Galen Dubell’s face.

That was the hardest part. Now that I know who he is, he should look like a monster, not like… Not like an old friend. Thomas tried to pull free of the troopers and was surprised when they allowed it. He stood on his own, swaying a little. “Are you getting what you want out of all this?” he asked Grandier. About ten of the Alsene troopers were grouped around him; he thought about fighting but his bad leg was trembling, threatening to give way, and the room kept swaying. He thought about attempting it anyway.

Grandier regarded him silently for a long moment, his gray eyes calm as ever. “Not yet. But soon.”

At that moment it occurred to Thomas just why Grandier might want him alive.

Grandier turned away, and while the troopers’ eyes were on him, Thomas dove sideways and slammed into one of the men, ripping the sword out of his surprised grip and slashing upward at him. But a hilt cracked down on Thomas’s head from behind, and in the end they took him alive.

*

Roland walked along a colonnaded porch open to the interior court of Bel Garde, his knights surrounding him, feeling as if his mind were a rusty clockwork that hadn’t been wound in far too long. Everything felt out of proportion, and time seemed to move in fits and starts. He said suddenly, “The steward of this place must have known about the powder store. Arrest him at once.”

“Sir Renier has already done so, my lord.”

“Oh. Good.” God, he realized suddenly. My mother is gone and there’s no one to think of these things. He looked up, seeing the confusion in the court for the first time, recognizing the figures in the center of the milling crowd of servants and guards. It was Falaise, sitting her horse in her riding clothes with Queen’s guards around her, obviously just come through the gates.

Breaking free of his escort, Roland ran across the court to catch her bridle. He had never made the effort to get to know Falaise very well, but he was glad out of all proportion to see that she still lived. It seemed to promise that the world as it was had not been completely destroyed. “Falaise, we thought you were dead! Where were you?”

She looked down at him, startled. Her expression was frightened and there were dark circles of weariness under her eyes. Her horse stamped and tried to nibble Roland’s sleeve. She said, “My lord, I must see Ravenna at once. There is something I must…something I must…”

“My lady,” he said, not quite recognizing his own voice, “my mother is dead.”

Falaise turned white, the blood draining out of her face as if she were dying in front of him. Shocked, Roland called for help. Guards came to help the Queen from her horse; her ladies and servants appeared in the court. An Albon knight urged Roland away, saying, “My lord, you must come inside. It’s not safe out here.” Numb, Roland let the man lead him into one of the rooms off the court, thinking, Something has happened. What is she so terrified of?

The room was long, with many windows to look out onto the garden court, their lace curtains woefully inadequate to stop the drafts. Roland paced tensely, rubbing his cold hands together, ignoring his knights and unsure of just what he was waiting for.

Falaise appeared in the doorway, half-supported by the Queen’s Guard Lieutenant Gideon. Past them, Roland could see two of the Queen’s gentlewomen waiting outside, huddled together like children expecting punishment. Holding tightly to the lieutenant’s arm, Falaise managed to cross the room, then collapsed at Roland’s feet. He looked at Gideon in bewilderment, and the lieutenant bent over the Queen, saying, “My lady, you must tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Roland said. Sickness hit the pit of his stomach suddenly, and he groped for the table to steady himself. He remembered that Falaise had disappeared at the same time as Denzil.

Falaise looked up at him, her face tear-streaked and frightened, but something in his expression must have encouraged her because she said, “My lord, I should have spoken days ago.”

Roland listened in agonized silence to Falaise’s story of more treachery, of how Denzil had deliberately kept the Queen from leaving the city so that she would be in his power. “Before this, he had offered me marriage if you were to die, Your Majesty. I… I don’t mean to accuse him but…”

“No.” Roland had to stop her. He didn’t want to hear how she had concealed treason out of fear of him. He understood her reaction to his mother’s death now. She had been counting on telling this to Ravenna first, counting on Ravenna to protect her from him. More nails in my coffin, he thought. “It’s all right, really. I don’t blame you. There are… Other things have come to light which… Perhaps you should go to your ladies now.”

The lieutenant led her away, and Roland stood at the table, staring at his own reflection in its polished surface. He had never loved Falaise, knew he never would, but this was the first time he had realized that he might have saved a great deal of trouble bysimply making a friend of her. When Denzil is with me it’s as if I can’t think. His fist struck the table and the face in the reflection twisted. Oh God, let him have an explanation.

*

Thomas didn’t remember much of the trip back to the palace. They bound his wrists and got him on a horse, and he leaned over the saddlebow, unable to sit up. The cold grew intense as night took the city in a dark wave and the freezing air was raw on his throat and lungs. His stomach was cramping with nausea, and dizziness kept overwhelming him.

He came back to full consciousness only when they were passing through St. Anne’s Gate. He lifted his head and shook back the hood of the cloak someone had thrown over him.

They were passing between the Cisternan Barracks and the Mews, as he had days earlier bringing Galen Dubell into the palace for the first time. I couldn’t have been more helpful if I’d been in the plot with them, he thought. He hadn’t even been able to get them to kill him.

The barracks were a gutted ruin. The wooden panels over the three arched doorways had been torn open, exposing the dark pit of the interior and the piles of snow that had drifted inside. With the outer gate closed and guarded, the assault from within the palace would have caught the Cisternans completely by surprise. In the narrow corridors of the ancient stone structure the attack by the fay must have had the devastating effect of a hunter blocking all the holes but one of a rabbit warren, and then releasing his ferrets.

The gates into the old siege wall stood open. As they rode through and toward the towering wall of the Old Palace, bogles dropped out of the eaves of the two long stone city armories across the court. Gray-skinned, ugly, distorted creatures, their yellow eyes gleamed in the gathering darkness. Each was short and squat, their arms hanging disproportionately long and their wide mouths grinning with rows of pointed teeth.

Sniggering in almost human voices, the bogles ambled toward them; the nervous horses shied away.

They stopped in the paved court beneath the bulk of the Old Palace, where lit sconces illuminated the high double doors of the westside entrance. Thomas managed to get off the horse on his own without falling. He held onto the saddle a moment while his head and legs became reconciled with the notion of standing. The troopers hung back from him now, watching him warily. He wondered if it was due to his unpredictability or his apparent familiarity with Grandier.

Inside the circular entrance hall the few lamps made hardly a dent in the shadows. This area of the Old Palace seemed remarkably undisturbed, the untouched rooms and short halls leading off into darkness and silence.

Grandier was standing beside him suddenly, and Thomas was too weary to be startled. Grandier said, “This way.”

Both Dontane and the sergeant in charge of the Alsene troops turned to look at him, but Grandier ignored their unspoken questions. He said to Thomas, “I want to show you something.”

Grandier led the way down a lesser-used series of rooms, lit only by the lamps the soldiers carried, and to a staircase leading down to the lower levels. At the third turn of the stairs Grandier led them into an old stone-walled corridor, and Thomas realized they were going toward the same cellar where the keystone had been concealed. He looked at Grandier walking beside him, but the older man’s features betrayed nothing.

As they moved through the cold rooms the flickering light revealed the sheen of sweat on a soldier’s face, a white-knuckled grip on a swordhilt or musket that told volumes about the troops’ relationship with the fay invaders.

They reached a plain wooden stair leading down, and