“Yes,” she replied. “But it means that I must reveal to you the location of our secret treasury. You must swear your most sacred oath that you will never betray this secret to another soul. Kneel and swear.”
Time was ticking away. Noel, however, knew that to argue with her would only delay them more. He knelt upon the hard stone floor.
“I do most solemnly swear,” he said, “by my honor, my rank, and my position in the realm of Kedran that I will hold this secret fast within my heart and reveal it to no one.”
“Very well said, Sir Noel.”
He jumped to his feet and grabbed her hand impatiently. “Come on! Which way?”
“Through here,” she whispered and led him toward the passageway.
The light grew stronger as they progressed. So did the smell. Noel wrinkled his nostrils at the fetid stench from something dead or unspeakable that came wafting along the tunnel.
“What is it?” he finally asked. “That stink?”
“Oh, just the dungeons,” she said casually, still leading the way. “It is always worse in the spring. The thaw, you know. The garderobe is worse.”
The dregs of macho pride still in him would not let him place his hand over his nose and mouth or even make gagging noises while she was so unconcerned. He wondered what else could be found in the dungeons besides rats and rotting corpses. The sewer?
She stopped and pointed at a flight of straight steps leading up toward a torch burning on the wall. “Up them. Quickly. And mind, good sir, that you make no noise, for we can easily be heard along this way. If we are stopped, you are my ser-”
As she spoke she glanced over her shoulder at him. Her eyes flew wide, and her scream rent the air.
Startled, Noel seized her by the shoulders and shook her hard in an effort to shut her up. “Are you mad? What the hell are you doing?”
“You!” she shouted in a fury and began pounding on his chest with her fists. “You evil, treacherous dog! You lying, filthy, wicked brute!”
She screamed again, so enraged he could do nothing with her. Hearing the sound of running footsteps and a voice raised in query, Noel shoved her away from him and looked about for a way to escape.
But guards seemed to appear from nowhere, surrounding him. Noel found himself pinned against the wall with the barbed tip of a pike held to his gut. He glared at Sophia, who stood there glaring back with her fists clenched and her beautiful face red and contorted with rage.
“You sought to trick me!” she said. “You called on my pity, and you twisted every word into such persuasion I nearly undid the secret that I have sworn to protect unto my dying breath. Oh, how clever you think yourself, Lord Leon, but you are evil through and through. God shall surely strike you down one day for what you do!”
“What?” said Noel stupidly. “But I’m not-”
“At last!” said Sir Magnin’s voice, booming off the stone walls as he descended the steps. He looked resplendent in his pierpoint tunic cut of heavy silk that shimmered richly in the torchlight. His sleeves were very wide, revealing the snowy cuff of his linen shirt as he raised one hand to quell the noise. “Our fox is run to earth at last, and such a chase you have given us. For an impostor you amuse us greatly.”
“Who says I’m an impostor?” said Noel, but it was false bravado, and he and Sir Magnin both knew it.
Sir Magnin merely smiled and turned to regard Sophia, who had run out of breath and epithets and now stood like stone, her blue eyes wide and accusing behind the sheen of tears, her skin so pale she looked ghostly. Her blond hair flowed down her back nearly to her knees, and she held it bound back from her face with only a narrow circlet of finely worked gold filiagree. She looked like a queen, but she had the intelligence of an ant. Noel watched the bewilderment and doubt flow into her face, and nearly lost his temper again. What in the world had possessed her to bring everyone down on them like this?
She was staring up the stairs at the small crowd of onlookers who had clustered there. If possible, she grew even paler. “I do not understand,” she whispered. “Is it sorcery you practice, Sir Magnin? How can you command two such creatures?”
Sir Magnin’s robust laugh echoed loudly. “Oh, my dear lady, you have tricked yourself, it seems. What a perfect joke. Such exquisite irony. I really don’t know when I have enjoyed myself more.”
He glanced at Noel, who was frowning at him without comprehension, and snapped his fingers at the staircase in a summons. “Come down, my shadow, and meet your counterpart.”
A figure detached itself from the others and came down the steps into the clear light. Noel stared into his own face, into his own eyes, and could not believe what he saw. It was not possible. It couldn’t be.
“Lord Leon,” said Sir Magnin in a voice like cream, “come and allow me to introduce you to-I don’t believe you have given us your true name, sir.”
Noel felt as though he were standing over his head in water. Everything had a bent, unfocused quality to it. His hearing seemed to be fading in and out. He could not feel anything in his body except the pulse beating hard in his left temple.
Somehow he managed to speak. “I am Noel,” he whispered.
“Ah,” said Sir Magnin. “Lord Leon, I give you Noel. Truly, the likeness is most amazing.”
The twin, the duplicate called Leon, stared back at Noel with equal astonishment. It was like staring into a mirror. He frowned at Noel, then seemed to realize that Sir Magnin’s brows were raised, signifying that he awaited a response.
Leon nodded to his master. “Indeed, I am sore amazed by this.”
His voice jolted Noel, for it was like hearing himself on a recording. A dozen questions flashed through Noel’s mind, but he had no time to speculate, for Sir Magnin’s smile had changed to a scowl.
“And why did you not tell me about this brother?” he demanded.
“Nay,” said Leon nervously, backing away from Sir Magnin. “I did not know I had a-a double. We were not born this way. I swear to you that I didn’t-”
“You lie!” said Sir Magnin in a voice like thunder. He gestured at his guards. “Throw both of them into the dungeon.”
CHAPTER 8
Narrow, tanned faces with straight noses and angular jaws. Crisp black hair, gray eyes widening in turn each time they looked at one another.
The shock of recognition traveled between them again and again as they were escorted down into the putrid depths of the dungeon. Noel barely noticed the stench that was now thick enough to make him cough. He saw the rack standing in one corner, with old bloodstains soaked into the wood. The iron maiden dangled from the ceiling beam overhead; its occupant moaned softly as they entered. The thumbscrews lay neatly arranged upon a table. The boot waited for its next victim. A fire burned in a raised, circular hearth, and branding irons and pokers for the putting out of eyes lay with their ends red-hot in the hissing coals.
Beyond the torture area stood the cells, black, airless holes cut into the bedrock of the mountain itself, ripe with the stinking filth of all the occupants who had been there before.
“It’s full,” said the jailer, gnawing on a cud of something stuck in his jaw. “Where do I put ‘em, eh? Answer me that.”
“Sir Magnin says put ‘em down here, so we put ’em down here,” replied the guard. He stuck out his jaw and faced down the jailer. “You want me to tell him you can’t do the job?”
“No, no call for that,” said the jailer hastily. He chewed a moment, his gaze vacant in thought. “We’ll put ‘em in together, see? And double up another cell.”
It took time for this to be arranged. Prisoners suffering terrible, untended wounds were dragged out. One man screamed horribly each time he was touched. His right foot was swollen, bloody, lacerated to the ankle. Noel averted his gaze, certain the injury must have been caused by the boot.
He caught Leon staring at him and the shock came again. Where had Leon come from? Was he created by whatever anomaly had upset the time stream? But how? Or was it the anomaly that had brought Noel and his twin together? There was an ancient theory that said each person had a twin somewhere in the world. Was there also a
