The Dragonstone (32 page)

Aiko looked at Alos. “Can you manage a rope?”

“Oh, I can slide down one,” replied the oldster, then he looked at his hands, “but I’ll need a pair of gloves. And climbing? Heh, I think I remember how; though strength plays a part, it’s mostly technique, y’ know.”

“Umn,” Egil grunted. “Let us hope it doesn’t come to climbing or sliding at all”—he grinned at the other three—“especially with a squawking bird in hand.”

Aiko smiled, then sobered and looked at Ann. “He does have a point, Dara: we wouldn’t want the bird to sound an alarm. Does the rutting peacock need be alive? If not, we can simply wring its neck.”

“We can knock it in the head and stuff it in the costume trunk,” suggested Alos.

Arin made a negating gesture. “We will merely hood it; then it will make no sound at all.”

Aiko glanced back at the distant mews. “Ah, like the raptors, yes?”

“Yes,” replied Arin. “Now let us go onward. If we must flee, there may be an easier way out than rappelling down a wall.”

They moved on ’round the banquette, as if out for a constitutional stroll, and when they came above the main entrance, they paused as if to rest. As they tarried, Egil talked casually with one of the guards, and discovered that the inner gate ordinarily was kept closed and the outer portcullis down, though during this time of celebration, queen’s merchants and her guests came and went frequently, as well as those invited to perform.

Refreshed by their so-called rest, Egil and the others strolled onward, and when they were beyond earshot, Alos said, “Heh, this will be even easier than expected. I mean, we’ll just come and go like the other entertainers. O’ course, when we go, we’ll have a hooded peacock hidden away, eh?”

Egil shook his head. “What you say is true on the surface, my friend, yet many a thing can go wrong ‘tween now and then. We need at least one other plan in case this one goes ill.” He turned to Arin. “I think I’ll see if Dolph can get us a rope. If he asks, I’ll say we need it for Aiko’s sword dancing tomorrow night.”

“Sword dancing!” exclaimed Aiko, her gaze growing hard. “Hear me: I demonstrate
kenmichi,
the way of the sword. It is not a dance…or if it is, it is a deadly one.”

Egil grinned and bowed. “My error, Lady Aiko.”

Mollified, Aiko canted her head, then said, “Alos needs gloves.”

“And we need something to stuff a hooded peacock in,” added Alos, “if we don’t use the trunk, that is.”

*   *   *

They located Dolph in their quarters and sent him to fetch a rope. When he had gone, Egil said, “Tomorrow, when he’ll not think of it in connection with the rope, I’ll ask Dolph to find us a sack.” Egil glanced at Alos. “To carry the peacock in should we need go over the wall. And speaking of ropes and walls…” Egil rummaged about in his luggage and tossed a pair of gloves to Alos. The oldster tried them on and found they fit well enough.

Grinning his gap-toothed smile, Alos tucked the gloves away, then said, “What say we eat, eh?”

They took their midday meal in the dining hall of the east tower, and afterward explored the castle proper, all but the central spire. As they strolled about, they took special note of all points of egress in the event of a hasty exit. When they finally returned to their quarters, they found a length of rope lying on Lady Aiko’s bed.

*   *   *

That evening, as Dolph had said there would be, they heard the ringing of a bell.

“We are summoned to the festivities,” said Egil, slipping into a dark red jacket, accented in black, matching his accented breeks. His feet were shod in black boots, and ’round his waist was clasped a black belt with red buckle. He stuck his head out the door and called, “Dolph,” and the chamberboy hurried inward. “We’ve not yet been to the central tower; will you guide us?”

“Ja, sir, I will.” Dolph paused, then added, “But with you that axe you cannot take. Stahl only, the queen’s champion, in her presence weapons to bear is permitted.”

“But we’re here to entertain the queen,” said Egil, “tomorrow night, and it’s part of my costume, lad, just as Lady Aiko’s blades are part of her costume.”

“Well, sir, into the great hall your axe you will be permitted tomorrow and Lady Aiko her swords. But for tonight only permitted small ornamental daggers are. Wear them all the lords do.”

“Bah,” growled Aiko. “In the hands of one who knows how to use it, a tiny dagger will kill as swiftly as a great sword.”

Egil sighed and slipped his axe from his belt and laid it
on the table, signing for Aiko to do likewise. Muttering under her breath, she unbuckled her blades and laid them beside Egil’s axe. But she did not remove the four shiruken hidden in a band at her waist.

“Do we look all right now, boy?” asked Alos, craning his neck in his ruffed collar. Alos was scrubbed and groomed and was dressed in green: pale green shirt with ruffles at the collar and wrist, emerald green jacket and breeks, black boots and belt. On his head he wore a dark green hat with a black plume.

Aiko, as usual, was dressed in her leathers, but she forwent her ribands, saying that she would wear them morrow night for her performance.

Dolph looked at them, but he seemed transfixed as his gaze alighted on Arin in her simple yet elegant satin gown of russet that fell straight to the floor from a tan bodice. Brown slippered feet peeked under the hem. Her chestnut hair was garlanded with intertwined beige ribbons, matching those crisscrossing the bodice. In a breathless voice, Dolph said, “More beautiful than you, milady, none will be,” then immediately blushed and turned away.

Egil grinned and murmured to Alos, “Methinks he saw neither thee nor me nor Lady Aiko, but I suspect we are presentable.”

When they came to the door of the great hall, Dolph, his wards safely delivered, sped away. Arin and her companions joined a slow-moving stream of nobles and diplomats and other guests pacing inward past a posted guard. Ahead, within the hall, a steward struck a great staff ‘gainst the floor and called out the ranks and names of the guests as they made their entrances. Slowly the line advanced, and at last the four of them moved past the doors.

They came into a great long chamber, beringed by pillars against the wide-set walls. Spaced along the walls as well were huge hearths, all without fire, for it was early September and summer had not yet fled the land. The walls themselves were hung with tapestries, and staffs jutted out, from which depended the colorful flags of the different fiefdoms of Jutland arranged in descending order of rank—dukes’ flags above those of counts,
counts’ above earls, and so on, down through viscounts and barons—each flag bearing a coat of arms. Overhead, great wooden beams spanned from wall to wall, and dangling down from the timbers were chain-hung braces of lanterns; the chandeliers were lighted brightly, for only lavender twilight streamed in through high windows above. Three broad steps down from the wide entryway landing began a great center floor of smooth, polished stone, the whole ringed around by raised flooring where sat banquet tables. The amphitheater swept forward till it fetched up against four steps leading to a wide throne dais. Though the floor was awash with people, the throne itself was empty.

The hall was abuzz with conversation, and with Arin on one arm and Aiko on the other, and with Alos trailing after, Egil came to an aide standing beside the steward and whispered their names to the man. As other guests passed them by and were announced, the aide looked through a list and then said, “Ah yes. Here you are.” He looked up at Egil. “You will be seated at Baron Stolz’s table.” He pointed to a table halfway along the left side of the chamber. “There, under the green flag with the white boar.” At Egil’s nod, the aide stepped to the steward, who struck the floor with his staff and then called out: “Milords and ladies and honored guests: the Dylvana Arin of Darda Erynian; Lady Aiko of Ryodo; Master Alos of Thol; and Master Egil One-Eye of Jord.”

As they stepped forward down to the main floor, Arin glanced up at Egil and mouthed, [Jord?]

Egil leaned down and whispered, “Aye. Jute and Fjordland are ancient enemies, hence it would be folly to claim my true homeland when I stand in the court of the foe. And so I chose another. Jord and Fjordland are neighbors, and the Jordian accent is much like my own.”

Now they moved down among the guests, and many eyes followed them, widening at the sight of the satin-gowned Dylvana and the leather-clad golden warrior at her side. As to Egil and Alos, the guests gave them little heed, their glances pausing only long enough to note Egil’s scarlet eye patch and Alos’s white eye, though some
did
make surreptitious signs of warding at the sight
of the oldster’s pale orb. Egil though scanned their faces closely, and he said to Arin, “Let us circle, love, for I would find Baron Steiger. Likely he’ll be here, and perhaps by now has remembered where he and I met.”

Slowly they wended among the throng, Alos and Aiko following. Searching carefully, they made one complete circuit about the floor, but of Baron Steiger there was no hint. “Shall we go ’round again?” asked Arin, yet in that moment there sounded a trumpet.

The steward hammered the floor three times and called out, “The queen approaches.” Moving to places more or less in line with their respective feudal flags, people formed a long aisle down the center of the floor from the doors to the throne. With Arin and Egil leading, Alos and Aiko following, the four moved to a place along the aisle forward of Baron Stolz’s flag. Moments later, the clarion flourished again, and the steward smote his staff against the floor three more times and called out, “My lords and ladies and honored guests, Queen Gudrun the Comely, monarch of all Jutland and of the Ryngar Isles, and her consort, Delon the Virile.” Then steward and trumpeter stepped aside and bowed low.

In through the door swept a tall woman. She was dressed in a pale blue long-sleeved silken gown with a tight bodice and a skirt which flared out at the hips to fall widely to the floor. Yellow hair cascaded in curls down her back, and tight ringlets framed her powdered and rouged face. A golden tiara set with glittering jewels crowned her head. About her left wrist was clamped a silver bracelet from which a long silver chain linked her to the silver collar ’round the neck of the man following to her left and a step behind.

He was compact, no taller than she, perhaps five feet eight inches altogether. He had fair skin and pale blond hair and his age was perhaps thirty. He was dressed in dark purple, with bright lavender insets in the puffed shoulders and sleeves, and lavender ruffles at neck and wrist. His purple shoes and belt, with their lavender buckles, matched the rest of his garb, and he wore a wide-brimmed lavender hat adorned with three enormous purple plumes.

Gudrun paused, allowing any and all to admire her, and then permitted the consort to offer his hand as she descended the three steps to the amphitheater floor. Together they paced down the aisle, he once again a stride behind, and they smiled and nodded at the bowing and curtseying guests. When they came to Arin and Aiko, the queen paused and looked at them both, her pale blue eyes glittering. And no amount of powder and rouge could conceal the effects of the passage of the thirty years that had elapsed since the statue of her—the one in the hedge maze—had been crafted. She smiled at Arin, and the consort swept the plumed hat from his head and bowed low and smiled at Arin as well, though no hint of pleasure reached his eyes. Then they both moved on without saying a word.

The queen and her consort came to the dais and mounted up, she to sit on the throne, he to sit on the top step to her left. Her gaze swept across the crowd, and she raised a hand and said, “We are most pleased to have you join us in our celebration of new love.” She beamed down at the consort, a man twenty years her junior, and he canted his head in obeisance. She batted her eyelashes and rattled the chain, the links of silver clinking softly.

Egil leaned over and whispered to Arin. “Adon! She treats him as if he were a pet dog.”

Aiko, overhearing, shook her head. “Worse, for he is unmanned, as no pet dog would be.”

Giggling, the queen stood and gestured left and right and commanded, “Let the celebration commence.”

At these words, people began moving toward their assigned tables, Egil, Arin, Aiko, and Alos turning toward the one under the green flag sporting the white boar. As they took their places, the other guests at the table stared at the satin-gowned Dylvana and the leather-clad Ryodoan at hand. Egil introduced himself and the others, and received their names in return, though one of the seated ladies—the Baroness Stolz—gushed, “Oh, I’ve heard of you, Lady Arin. You are the Elven bard.” She turned to Aiko. “And this must be the sword dancer.”

Aiko growled under her breath, but held her peace.

At the baroness’s side, a sour-faced man, Baron Stolz,
leaned over and whispered to her in a voice all could hear, “Hush, my dear. An Elf if she wasn’t, the queen’s guests at all they would not be. But common entertainers these are.”

Again, Aiko growled under her breath. Egil, though, sketched a bow to the baron and said, “I daresay, dear baron, we are not in any way ‘common,’ as you will no doubt discover in the days to come.”

The baron huffed but made no reply.

In through the doorway, to much applause, marched the entertainers: strong men, jugglers, prestidigitators, acrobats and tumblers, wrestlers and dancers and buffoons. They circled the floor to be seen, and then marched back out the door.

Inward came thralls bearing platters laden with food: fresh-baked loaves of bread, roast pig and lamb and beef, grilled fowl and broiled fish, and stewed vegetables such as beans and red cabbage and peas and parsnips, and great bowls filled with grapes and pears and peaches. More thralls entered, these conveying pitchers of foaming ale and mead and wine to the tables, and Alos looked longingly at each and every one that passed by him, though Aiko prevented him from snagging any.

The boards were set and groaned beneath the weight of the feast, and the guests filled their trenchers with food and their goblets with their choices of drink, all but Alos, for although he could choose whatever he wished from among the food, Aiko would allow him only water or tea, even though he gazed at the other libations and whined, “Just a taste. A little taste. What can it hurt, eh?”