Che regarded her doubtfully. ‘And that will work, will it?’
‘No guarantees.’ Maure’s mouth twisted. ‘He may just sit there in her mind, like a grub in a tree and not be drawn. He may prove too strong for me, in which case I’ll need your help.’
‘Me?’
Maure shrugged. ‘Your strength, the power you’ve been gifted with, the authority you’ve assumed, whatever you prefer to call it. With you beside me, I’m willing to venture it.’
Che thought about that. ‘When you say “open the doors”, does that mean other ghosts might…?’
‘Well, if I set my wards correctly, we should have an exclusive audience,’ the mystic declared. She noticed Che’s expression. ‘But I can leave them open, just a little while, and if there is some other ghost, some echo of someone linked to you…?’
Che was silent for a while, reaching out for an empty space within her. I have thought about it since I first met this woman. Would it do any harm? We had so many things we never said.
‘They have the Wasps lodged in some retainer’s hut outside the walls,’ Maure informed her briskly, breaking the mood. ‘I have the directions. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel welcome enough to spend the night in Castle Leose, and besides, I find I miss Varmen more than I expected. Have your sister come to that hut, which is far enough from this castle for me not to have to deal with generations of Salmae ancestors battering at the door. Then I’ll see what I can do.’
Thirty-Five
Tynisa had wondered how a Commonwealer noble would be able to confine her enemies, in a castle of the Inapt, where there were no locks, and where those prisoners could most likely possess the Art to fly. It was an eventuality that the ancient builders of Leose had apparently anticipated, however, for there were so many cellars underlying the castle that it seemed remarkable the structure was not undermined to the point of collapse. The largest and most central of these was reached by a narrow and easily defensible stair leading down from the guards’ quarters on the floor above, and alternatively through a trapdoor set into the courtyard, wide enough for a horse to be lowered through it should the need arise. The lords of Leose clearly did not want to see their enemies dragged through the castle halls on their way to imprisonment. So, when the surviving chiefs of the brigands had been brought in, it was a simple matter to decant them straight into the bowels of the castle.
There was only one cell down there: a pit excavated into the floor, some fifteen foot deep, and walled in smooth, slick stone. Of course, that would prove no obstacle to most Commonwealers, but the grille that covered it was held down at each corner by a heavy block of stone. Tynisa had watched the captives installed there, seeing those same weights swung into position on ropes that were balanced by counterweights. It was as intricate a system as the Inapt had ever designed, and plainly dated from whatever ancient era the castle was first constructed in. Only the cane grille and the ropes themselves would have needed periodic replacement, and the masters of Leose had held their enemies here in such a manner since time immemorial.
She had now come back to view the prisoners – her prisoners as she felt justified in considering them. For had she not led the charge? Had she not been the vanguard of the assault that had scattered their army and captured them? She looked upon them, almost fondly, with a proprietorial air. My gift to Alain.
As she approached, stepping lightly down the narrow, winding stair from above, she heard a hurried movement, the flurry of wings, and knew that one of the prisoners must have been crawling about the underside of the grille, testing it for weak points. The canes themselves were as thick in diameter as Tynisa’s arm, and they were bound together with wire, as well as cord that had been soaked first and then dried tight. Even those prisoners whose Art had furnished them with blades would not be able to pry this prison apart.
As she stepped to the edge, they were all waiting with upturned faces, pale or sallow or the gold of Dragonfly-kinden. The only one bound was the Wasp-kinden, who had his arms twisted behind him and lashed together, that being a lesson the Commonwealers had learned well enough. She gave them time to recognize her, as she stood gazing down on them like an empress.
A mixed bag they were, too, about a score of them, looking more like tired, wretched vagabonds than dangerous brigands. They included a ragbag of Grasshoppers and Dragonflies, the one brooding Scorpion, the Wasp, and a Spider-kinden who must have been very far from home. The Scorpion’s glare was baleful but defeated, and only one seemed to retain a spark of defiance. She almost smiled at the sight of their leader: the Dragonfly known, she had since learned, as Dal Arche.
‘Come to gloat?’ he asked, and the walls of the pit took the soft words and conveyed them up to her easily.
‘To see justice done,’ she retorted, and he nodded philosophically.
‘That time is it, then? Are you the executioner?’
‘You have a few days more to brood on your defeat,’ she declared, noting the shadows of anger and despair that passed across their faces. In truth, Salme Elass was saving them for something suitably public. She had sent messengers to cordially invite Felipe Shah to witness the death of these enemies of the Monarch’s peace, and Tynisa knew that the woman would then press for the retaking of Rhael, so as to finish off the extermination of all the scum that had gathered there in defiance of the rightful authority of the princes. Still, the brigand’s suggestion had some merit in it. ‘I shall ask to be appointed as your executioner, and why not? For who else has that right, more than I?’
The Dragonfly looked up at her, almost smiling, with eyes narrowed like a man looking into the sun. ‘Since you’re in a talkative mood, what’s all of this to you, girl? They paying you well, are they?’
‘I’m no mercenary,’ she told him. ‘I just know what’s right. You’re lawbreakers and rebels against the Monarch.’
‘Well, that makes us sound grand,’ Dal Arche replied wryly. ‘I hadn’t realized you’d met the Monarch. I never saw her myself.’
‘You know what I mean.’
He shrugged. ‘I won’t deny that the laws of princes don’t sit happily on my shoulders. I travelled a long way to get out from under them but, wherever you go, it seems there’s always someone trying to tell you what to do, whether they call themselves prince or emperor. I thought I might as well come home, in that case.’
Tynisa shook her head, crouching by the edge of the grille to see him better. ‘Oh, that won’t carry weight, brigand. I’ve seen the Empire, and you can’t equate Imperial rule with the Commonweal.’
‘Lived there, have you? And lived a life here, to compare?’ Dal challenged her.
‘ His people killed my father,’ she hissed, jabbing a finger at the Wasp, who flinched back, startled.
‘Don’t drag me into this. I quit,’ he muttered, but Dal was already shaking his head.
‘If you want to play that game, then one prince or another has killed pretty much everyone I ever knew,’ he said. ‘Oh, certainly it was the Wasps who held the sword, but it was my own kinden, my glorious betters, who threw the victims onto it. It’s been some prince or other who’s taxed my kin so that we could only live hand to mouth, and never build anything more on what we had. It’s been your darling prince and his mother here who knocked us down when we tried to set ourselves up like decent folk in Siriell’s Town.’
‘I saw Siriell’s Town,’ Tynisa snapped. ‘There was nothing “decent” there.’
‘Well, I’m sorry we didn’t all live in the castle,’ Dal Arche retorted, a little more fire in his voice now. ‘Perhaps then we’d have fitted your idea of how decent folk live? Tell me, who are you to judge us, living here without care as a guest of the Salmae?’
Tynisa leant closer, feeling obscurely gratified that she had made him angry at last. ‘I’ve seen more of the world than you, old man. I’ve seen the Empire and I know what they value there: tyranny and slavery. I’ve seen Helleron and I know half the Lowlands is just greed running riot, or places like Collegium where good intentions are never quite enough. But I know… I know the Commonweal. The Commonweal makes good people, who fight for the right things: heroes. I know what the Monarch believes in. I recognize truth and honour and honesty when I see it. A friend taught me about the Commonweal, by the example of everything he ever did. He was the best man I ever knew, and he knew what was right and what was wrong. That’s how I can judge you, thief and murderer that you are. You have rebelled against your rightful rulers, and for that you’ll die.’
She waited for an explosion of wrath, of counter-accusation, even of pleading, but it did not come.
