hall but did not quite reach them along this colonnade. Noel was glad of the shadows, glad those eating took little notice of his passing behind them. A gaunt dog blocked his path, snarling and growling, but one of the guards swore at it and kicked it in the ribs.
Yelping, it slunk off with its tail between its legs. Sir Magnin noticed. He turned his head, and for a moment he and Noel stared at each other. The hairs on the back of Noel’s neck stood up. Sir Magnin merely smiled and swung his attention back to Sir Geoffrey, who was speaking to him with many earnest gestures. Sir Magnin yawned widely, making no effort to mask his boredom.
On his other side, however, Lord Harlan lifted his head slightly from between his hunched shoulders and followed Noel with his gaze. He looked like a scrawny vulture, his white skeletal fingers tearing a joint of chicken apart, his cap clamped tightly to his narrow skull. For a moment he smiled at Noel, half toothless and malevolent, then dispatched a page boy on an errand.
Past the colonnade stood a door flanked by guards in livery. They let Noel and his escort pass through into what proved to be a narrow corridor. It ended at another guarded door, beyond which stood a short flight of about four steps leading through an open archway into a sizable chamber furnished with benches and massive chairs covered with carving. Byzantine frescoes and French tapestries decorated the walls. Tall, arched windows lined one side of the chamber. Noel stared at them, wondering what they overlooked, wondering how high off the ground this room was.
Queer, heavily swirled glass in tiny panes mirrored the chamber back at him. He could not see through them into the night. The guards released him and left him alone there. As soon as the door closed and was bolted, Noel hurried about the chamber in a quick circumference, peeking behind the tapestries for a hidden door.
He found it, but it was locked.
“Damn!” he said aloud.
A fire crackled upon the stone hearth, fragrant with burning apple wood and cedar. The benches lining the walls and the very sparseness of the other furnishings told Noel that this must be an antechamber, where suppliants waited for an audience with the governor.
The eyes in the faces of the frescoes seemed to watch him. He warmed his hands at the fire, then told himself to get on with it. Striding across the room, he picked up one of the two chairs, finding it heavy enough to wrench his side. He lifted it high with a grunt and swung it against the center window.
Glass shattered into a thousand shards, the brittle noise of its breakage crashing over him. Cold air rushed in, and the fire blazed up the chimney with a roar.
Shouts from without the door warned Noel he had only seconds. He bashed at the ragged edges of glass still jutting up from the sill and flung a leg over.
He was one story up, above what looked like a tiny, walled garden. A tree spread its branches close by, but it was too small to support his weight.
The door to the chamber burst open, and the guards ran inside with shouts. Noel swung the rest of himself out and dangled a moment by his hands in hopes of finding a ledge, however narrow, beneath him. His groping toes found nothing but the straight stone wall.
A hand seized his wrist. Fear and reflex enabled Noel to jerk free of those clutching fingers, but he lost his hold altogether and plunged straight down. He closed his eyes, certain that when he hit the ground he would shatter both legs.
Instead he crashed into a taut awning that sagged, groaning beneath him, then recoiled like a trampoline, hurling him sideways into a massive bush. Birds burst from their nests, chirping and fluttering in panic. Noel flung out his arms, seeking to grab anything that would stop his impetus. But the bush could not support his weight. He went crashing down through the center of it, limbs snapping beneath him like pistol shots, and landed on a hillock of pungent compost, straw, and crushed flowers that gave off a heavy fragrance. The jolt of hitting immovable ground knocked out the last bits of breath left in him.
He lay there, stunned and weary, his ribs protesting with every breath he attempted to draw. His head had had enough.
From above him, voices cursed and shouted, raising the alarm. Groaning, Noel forced himself to his hands and knees, then to his feet.
Stumbling over plants, flagstones, and something about the general size and shape of a sundial in the darkness, Noel searched for a gate in the garden wall and found none. A guard was climbing out the window. Noel’s heart pounded harder.
There had to be a way out. He just had to find it.
The only door he discovered, however, was a narrow one that led back into the palace. It came open at his touch.
Reluctant, every instinct screaming at him that he was going the wrong way, Noel entered. He found himself struck in the face by a musty, ecclesiastical scent of beeswax, leather, damp wool vestments, and incense. A lone candle burned upon the small altar, casting a feeble nimbus of light at the feet of the madonna statue.
It was a tiny chapel, cramped and dark with wood and stone. A tarnished chalice and plate rested upon the altar cloth; cobwebs hung in the corners like veils. Noel crept between the pews and nearly stumbled at the sight of a boy stretched prostrate on the floor before the altar. He was dressed in a mail shirt, leggings, and coif, but he wore no surcoat, spurs, or weapons. A sword lay upon the floor inches from his head. He was muttering prayers to himself in a hoarse chant that sounded worn with fatigue.
Noel’s heart seemed to stop; it was a hell of a time for someone to be having an all-night vigil.
The boy’s eyes jerked open and stared up at Noel. He blinked and lifted his head, his eyes widening in obvious surprise. For a moment Noel thought he would speak. Noel opened his own mouth, but he’d lost his breath and his tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth. They looked at each other for what seemed an eternity, then the boy frowned and clenched his eyes tightly shut.
Pressing his face to the floor, he began a new prayer.
Apparently no distractions of any kind were permitted to interrupt a vigil. Noel dragged in a breath, giving thanks to tradition, and hurried to the rear of the chapel.
He eased his way out, leaping into an alcove dark with shadow as guards came trotting past. One of them entered the chapel with a bang of the door, only to emerge almost at once, shaking his head.
When they were gone, Noel touched his bracelet. “LOC,” he said in a fierce whisper. “Activate. Show me the way out.”
The LOC made no response.
“LOC!” he said with urgency. “Activate now.”
It didn’t. He could have wept with frustration. But more men were coming. Some of them had pikes and they were probing the alcoves along this passage with a savage clanging of steel upon stone.
Noel whipped from hiding and ran for it, hoping he could make the stairs ahead without being seen.
“Look yon! There he is!”
The shout brought a fresh rush of adrenaline through him. Noel picked up speed and drew ahead of them, for they were lumbering a bit in the weight of their armor. His only encumbrance was his exhaustion, but for the moment he forgot that and ran like the wind.
He started up the steps, then changed his mind and went down, plucking a torch from its wall sconce as he did so. The narrow steps spiraled tightly. He prayed he would not slip and tried to hold the torch at an angle to keep the breeze from extinguishing it.
Going down didn’t look like such a good idea. Wiping sweat from his eyes, he thought about cellars and dungeons. He thought about being trapped like a rat down a hole. He thought about never seeing daylight again.
But going up into the main part of the palace offered no better advantage. He figured he had a ninety-five percent chance of being caught, no matter which way he went.
Voices came from behind him, drawing closer. They must have split up, taking both directions on the stairs just in case. Noel reached the bottom, finding himself in a low-ceilinged area supported by posts of rough-hewn wood. He started toward the open passageway at the far end, then caught himself with one hand on a post and swung himself around in a slingshot effect toward a row of huge fermenting vats along the wall.
Fashioned of aged oak staves bound with iron rings, the casks stood upright on end. Each was taller than Noel and large enough to hold half a dozen men at once. Noel ran from one to another, searching for enough
