She stumbled and the Hellans lifted her up to carry her.
With tears brimming in her eyes, Wren tired to tilt her head back to look skyward, though all she could see was burlap.
Woden, I know you’re a wise god and a kingly god, but you can be a goddamn monster too. So please, don’t be a monster now. Live or die, just don’t let them burn me!
Chapter 7. Prisoners
Tycho heard Salvator coming, but he did not turn to look. He kept his eyes on the northern horizon, on the grim gray sky and the snowy fields and the trees sparkling with ice. The road drew a dirty brown line across the land, snaking away over the hills. There were a few people out there, leading mules and driving wagons, but there were no fleet-footed messengers or mounted soldiers racing back to the city.
Not yet.
“You’re never going to believe this,” the Italian announced. “Just wait until you see them!”
“Not now.” Tycho glanced up at the bright glare of the sun hidden beyond the clouds. “It’s nearly noon. They’ll be coming soon. News from Saray.”
Salvator Fabris, the Supreme Knight of the Order of Seven Hearts, agent and weapon of the king of Italia, leaned against the wall and spat over the edge. He peered down. “This is a very tall wall. I thought you didn’t like high places.”
“You know I don’t. But I want to see them the moment they come back. I need to know about this deathless army. Lady Nerissa needs to know.” Tycho kept his eyes on the horizon. It was easier to ignore the height if he kept looking out there.
“What I know is that waiting here will not bring your messenger any faster, and waiting here will not make his news any happier.”
“Stop trying to annoy me.”
“I’m trying to teach you sense, little man. Either the messenger will come or he won’t, and either it will be good news or bad. You can’t do anything about it, so there is no point in freezing your nose off out here,” Salvator said.
Tycho sighed. “So what should I be doing?”
The Italian’s eyes lit up. “You should come back to the Sunken Palace with me, right now. We have two new prisoners.”
Tycho rubbed his eyes. “More frightened Turks?”
“Better! Much better!” Salvator herded the Hellan dwarf off the battlement and down the stone stairs to the frozen road below where a small carriage waited. It took half an hour to cross back through the long bustling streets of Constantia, across the Galata Bridge to the Golden Horn peninsula. Since the beginning of the siege, the masons and the smiths had been working round the clock on the defenses, repairing walls and weapons, and their apprentices and porters and messengers clogged the streets with bundles of supplies and urgent letters and mule- drawn carts loaded with clay, or iron, or coal. The children were out in force, as always, though they tended to avoid the main thoroughfares to congregate on street corners and in alleys, playing dice and watching rats fight. Tycho caught a glimpse of two young boys boxing in a circle of their peers, and he grimaced.
Fighting is all we know anymore.
By the time they reached the gates of the Sunken Palace, Tycho had only looked back through the tiny rear window of the carriage a handful of times, and each time Salvator had said, “Ah ha ha, no.” And pointed forward until Tycho turned back around.
They dismounted the carriage and turned toward the small mausoleum that led down into the cisterns, but a young Vlachian archer held up his hand and called out in broken Hellan, “Major Xenakis? If you are come for new prisoners, I am to tell you they are not being here. His Highness Prince Vlad and Lady Nerissa did summon them to the court half an hour ago this.”
Tycho frowned at Salvator. “What the devil is going on? Who are these new prisoners?”
The Italian merely cocked an eyebrow. “A Turk and a Rus girl. They say she’s a witch. And the man. Well, what else can I say? He had a seireiken on him.”
Tycho’s eyes widened. “The Osirians really are here? Quickly, quickly, you old fart, go, go!”
They dashed to the carriage and galloped back to the Palace of Constantine, where the driver deposited them at the steps of the Chamber of Petitions in the Third Courtyard. The two men ran up the steps as fast as Tycho’s legs would allow and slowed down only when they approached the doors of the audience hall. The servants opened the doors, and Tycho entered the hall.
As he strode forward with one hand on his revolver to keep it from clinking, Tycho saw the usual faces standing by the light of the windows and the torches. The merchants, the councilors, the soldiers, the tradesmen, the guildsmen, and the ambassadors from all across southern Europa and northern Ifrica turned to watch him pass. By the midday light streaming in through the glazed windows, they examined their documents, prepared their petitions, consulted with their lawyers, and cast suspicious looks at everyone else around them. But in the center of the hall, around the grand dais and the royal thrones, there was no one.
“Officer!” Tycho hailed the guard near the throne. “Where is Lady Nerissa? Have you seen or heard anything about a pair of prisoners brought up from the cisterns?”
“Yes, sir. Her Grace and His Highness are speaking to the prisoners in the council room, in private,” the young man said.
Tycho hurried back behind the thrones to the double doors and began a heated argument with the officer guarding the room about whether he and Salvator should be allowed to enter. Barely a minute into the exchange, the doors flew open and Prince Vlad strode out with a fierce glare, which only grew fiercer when he saw the dwarf. “So it’s you making all the noise out here.” He glanced back into the room, and then out at them again. “Come in. You might as well see this now.”
Tycho and Salvator followed the prince into the room and the guards closed the doors behind them. It was a small room with a tiled floor and unadorned walls. A heavy oak table dominated the space, and it was surrounded by straight-backed armchairs. Vlad sat down beside the Duchess and gestured to the two people who stood manacled before them, flanked by Vlachian soldiers.
Tycho stared.
The man appeared to be Aegyptian or Numidian, and in his middle age judging by his salt and pepper hair. He was well-dressed in a slightly wrinkled and stained but well-tailored Mazigh coat and shirt and boots, and he only glanced at his captors briefly before returning his gaze to the tall windows beside them that overlooked the palace walls and the waves of the Bosporus beyond.
But Tycho wasn’t staring at him.
The girl was deathly pale, like the maidens in old stories about the Olympians and their conquests. Her hair was a riot of long curling red tresses that bounced and shuddered all around her face with every movement of her head. Her thin lips were the palest pink rose, threatening to vanish against her skin. She had golden eyes, not hazel or bright green, but pure gold that made her pupils and lashes appear all the more perfectly black.
But Tycho wasn’t staring at her eyes.
Her ears. By heaven and hell, those ears!
Rising from her luxurious masses of red hair were two tall animal ears, broad at their bases and rising to triangular tips. White fur covered the fronts of the ears and dark red fur covered the backs.
They’re moving.
The ears twitched and swiveled like those of a dog or cat, each one moving alone, each one seeming to track a different person by the soft chuff of a shoe or the clearing of a throat.
That’s impossible.
Tycho glanced up at Salvator and saw the same dumbfounded expression on the Italian’s face that he knew must be on his own, so he blinked and closed his mouth and cleared his throat loudly. He looked at the girl one more time, into her wide golden eyes, and he saw her lip tremble, and he saw the traces of red around her eyes.
