we did best: we ran.
There had been no point in my bringing either weapon or disguise into the city since the guards would confiscate them, so I was in the intriguing position of being totally recognizable and unable to defend myself. Renthrette may, for the moment, go where she pleased, but my unwelcome and beaten face would certainly excite inquiry. I didn’t know what would be best: to walk brazenly down the palace’s long echoing corridors, to skulk in the shadows, or just to sprint until my lungs exploded.
Renthrette led with a brisk walking pace that looked like she was going somewhere, and I scuttered behind in a kind of jog that looked like nothing of the kind. We passed a sentry getting a dressing down from his corporal for a dirty tunic. As we got clear, Renthrette muttered out of the side of her mouth, “Where are we going?”
“To the wine cellars.”
She almost broke stride and shot me a look that challenged me to say anything about feeling like a drink. Instead, she said, “The fair folk don’t drink wine.”
“I know,” I said, “but the Stehnites did.”
“Stehnites?”
“Goblins.”
“Right. So what do we call the ‘fair folk’?”
“I told you,” I said. “The Arak Drul. That’s what the er. . Stehnites call them. Deadly Dull, might be a good translation.”
“And where are these cellars?”
“Under the kitchen that serves the main banqueting hall.”
“That’s right by the main garrison,” Renthrette exclaimed.
“Yes. Keep walking.”
“It’s where the palace guardhouse is and where the king’s elite troops live.”
“Yes.”
“We have as much chance of getting out of there alive as we do of walking on water.”
“About that: yes,” I agreed. “And it looks like we’re about to get our feet wet.”
A company of six soldiers and an officer had just rounded the corner and clearly intended to speak to us. “Lady Renthrette,” began the officer, “where are you taking Mr. Hawthorne?”
Renthrette looked at me blankly and opened her mouth like a large carp.
“I was hungry,” I inserted. “After a hard day of getting lumps kicked out of me by your worthy men, one gets a little peckish.”
“So I was taking him to the kitchens,” said Renthrette, throwing the carp back.
“I’m sure something could have been ordered for Mr. Hawthorne in his room,” said the officer.
“I’d just as soon stretch my legs,” I said weakly.
“I mean,” said the officer with a labored earnestness, “that though you are presently our. . guest, you should probably stay in your room until we get express word from Sorrail or one of the other duty officers.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “The moment I’ve eaten, I’ll go right back to my room and stay there.”
“No, sir,” began the officer, “I’m afraid. .”
“Now you listen to me,” I snapped, raising my voice, “I’ve had just about as much of this as I can stand. I came here as a witness to aid your army and was set upon by your thugs. Now all I ask is something to offset my hunger and rebuild the strength your troops knocked out of me.”
“Even so,” said the officer, a little sheepishly, “I really must insist that. .”
“Mr. Hawthorne has a rare blood disorder,” said Renthrette, to everyone’s surprise. “He must eat on the hour, or he is likely to collapse.”
I nearly did. My mouth fell open and I began to burble something, but she kept going:
“His feeding time is long overdue, and the only way to keep him awake is to keep him moving. Come on, William, stir yourself up and down a little.”
I gave her a wide-eyed look. She stared at me and said, “You must keep your blood flowing, William. Keep those legs moving.”
She slapped at my thighs and, in slow disbelief, I began to hop lightly from one foot to the other as she seemed to be suggesting.
“That’s right,” she commended. “A little higher. Now,” she said to the soldiers, “I promise I’ll take him back as soon as he is fed, all right?”
The officer hesitated and glanced awkwardly at his men. I continued to dance about, executing some bizarre form of jig, while trying to look as if this was perfectly normal. I flicked my heels up behind me, now humming to give myself something to cavort to. The soldier watched me for another moment and then nodded silently. We set off immediately down the passage, Renthrette marching swiftly, I reeling off some lunatic country dance.
As soon as we were round the corner I began walking normally. I growled at Renthrette, “And what the hell was that supposed to be?”
“I thought that was rather good,” she remarked, without looking at me. “You know,
“ ‘His feeding time’?” I muttered. “What am I, some kind of sideshow ape?”
“William Hawthorne in a sideshow?” she remarked archly. “No, you’re strictly a main stage attraction.”
“But still an ape,” I added.
“A pretty smart one,” she said, grudgingly.
“Thanks. Where are these bloody kitchens?” I muttered.
We rounded a corner, chose a door, moved quickly down a narrower passage that ran around a small, cloistered herb garden where the air was cold and fragrant, and passed through an arch into a broad room floored with ceramic tile and dry with the heat of ovens. In one vast hearth a woman was stewing cabbage, and the scent, sour and slightly metallic, hit us like a large animal. Several others went on with their chopping and skinning and whatever else they did in this hellish place to ruin whatever food came near them. No one paid any attention to us at all.
It didn’t take us long to find the cellars. There was a narrow flight of steps down into a bricked arch with a heavy door whose paint was black and flaking. There was no keyhole and the bolt was clumsy and ill-fitting. We opened it and descended.
I had been shown a plan of the palace cellarage, but it was several generations out of date and no one knew exactly what it would look like today. The Stehnites were pretty sure their enemy didn’t know about the secret means of egress from the city, but
The area below the kitchen had once held an extensive wine store, but the wine had long since been used or thrown away. The Arak Drul did not replenish, I had been assured; they merely consumed. There were a few shelves of salted pork, some bags of white flour, and several barrels of the thin, flavorless yellow beer they made, but otherwise the place seemed empty. There were alcoves and cupboards with shelves, stone cold chests, and a meat locker with hooks, but little of it looked used. You could imagine the place fragrant with cheeses, hanging with sausages, and piled high with bottles of rich and flavorful wines and barrels of hearty ale, but the palace’s new inhabitants apparently ate merely to stay alive. With me, I thought dryly, it was rather the other way round.
Renthrette watched me as I paced around the dank and freezing cellar. “Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“Where is this passage?”
“I’m looking for it, aren’t I?”
“It looks to me like you’re thinking about food.”
I gave her a shocked look. “You misjudge me,” I lied. “Give me a hand with this. My ape strength seems to be failing me.”
Between us we shifted a large-but empty and partly rotten-cabinet. One of its doors flapped open as we lifted it, twisting its corroded hinges till it was barely hanging on. Setting the piece of furniture down we found a large hatchway where it had stood. This was latched but not locked, and it opened upward with a long, high-pitched creak. Renthrette lit her lamp and the cellar flared with leaping orange tongues before settling down to an amber glow.
