chapter SIXTEEN
For some time silence reigned within the carriage while Corin plotted. He had learned much in the brief exchange between the lord protector and his reluctant guard. This Yeoman Kellen seemed hesitant to execute Ephitel’s cruelty, and that could prove a boon. If Corin could just find the best approach, he might make an ally of their captor.
But Avery spoke first. He leaned forward, hands still bound by the elven knot, and fixed his jailer with a vicious glare. “So,” he said, “this is Yeoman Kellen, the famous coward of the Royal Guard!”
It seemed a foolish provocation. Corin looked sideways at his hero.
Kellen rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Be careful how you address me, Violets. You are still bound.”
“And you are still a coward.”
Corin said softly, “Careful.”
Kellen nodded. “You should listen to your accomplice here. You’ve given me more than one reason to make you bleed.”
Avery laughed. “I doubt you have the nerve.”
Shocked, Corin turned to him. “What are you doing?”
Kellen answered for him. “He’s lashing out. His actions cost his house its standing, and he hates the lord protector for enforcing Oberon’s law.”
“A mere pretext,” Avery spat. “Ephitel despised my father long before I started making waves.”
Corin sighed. These were the politics he’d so hoped to avoid. But now he needed some cooperation between these two. He caught Avery’s eyes. “And why do you hate Kellen for Ephitel’s actions?”
“I hate all his little toadies,” Avery sneered.
“Yet he has never said a word,” Kellen answered. “Except he’s heard my name, and he thinks I am toothless.”
“I’ve heard your name, for it was you who clapped my father in his chains,” Avery said. “When your father had once been my family’s friend.”
Kellen bit his lip. That told Corin all he needed to know. The yeoman turned away. “I had my orders. I could not disobey.”
“And so I’ll say again, you are a coward.”
Corin rolled his eyes. “You are a bore.” He turned back to Kellen. “We have no quarrel with you, Yeoman. In fact, our enemy and yours might be the same.”
Kellen frowned. “Who do you mean?”
It was a gamble, but Corin was a gambler. He shrugged. “I mean your master, Lord Ephitel.”
Kellen shook his head. “He is not my master, merely my superior. I have no master but King Oberon.”
Corin hid his grin. He scooted to the edge of his seat. “Then even more you should consider us your friends. Our only goal is to protect the king. Lord Ephitel has made himself a threat.”
“These are courageous accusations,” Kellen said. “Ephitel is powerful, and he is trusted by the king.”
“Perhaps, but the lord protector keeps his secrets. Do you know that he is hoarding writs of provender?”
Kellen frowned. “Why would he do this?”
“To field an army. To defy the king. The druids have recognized the threat he poses, and now the lord protector turns his malevolence against them.”
“How does that concern you? You are not a druid.”
“They have asked me to carry a warning to your king.”
Kellen frowned. “You show great foolishness, sharing your intelligence with a soldier in the Royal Guard.”
“I count it little risk,” Corin said, “for you are loyal to the king, and Ephitel has shown how poorly he esteems you. We would show you more respect—”
Avery interrupted. “Speak for yourself, manling. Some of us know the Kellen name.”
Kellen’s eyes flashed fury.
Corin stopped himself from kicking Avery’s shin, but just barely. He kept his attention fixed on the yeoman. “If you but help us—”
“Help you?” Kellen demanded. “Assist the lord protector’s enemies? I would have to be a brave man indeed to take that risk. I prefer the company of honorable men.”
“There was no honor in your lord protector’s accusations. How can you serve such a man?”
“There are words,” Kellen said, “and then there are actions. I bear the mark of the respect you offered me.”
Corin shook his head, frantic. “We could not have known you were loyal, while you stood with Ephitel in opposition to our efforts for the king.”
Kellen raised his chin. “You argue well, but I have never known a criminal without a smooth tongue. You will have a chance to make your case, but it will not be here before me. Keep your silence.”
Avery sighed. “What else could we expect? I’d leave another mark upon him if I could.”
Corin turned to him. “It does not help our cause to gain this man’s enmity.”
“Trouble yourself not,” Avery said. “It would not help our cause to gain his favor, either. No, we will have to find our freedom by another means.”
Kellen shook his head. “You will be lucky to find freedom at all. No one leaves the lord protector’s dungeons.”
Corin tried to apologize, but Kellen silenced him with a firm shake of his head. “I will hear no more from either of you!”
Silence fell again, and Corin brooded. Avery had shown some talent. There was one small mercy. But his arrogance now made an enemy of a man who might otherwise have been a useful friend. An ally in the Guard would have served them well.
But Corin only sighed. Such was his fortune in this place. He’d found no more aid from friends than he’d received from his own crew within the cave. The druids had recruited him, then sent him off all on his own. True, they’d shown up for his jailbreak, but only…
No, he realized. They had not shown up for him. They could not have known what Corin planned. The riot had been a project of their own, with no other aim than to rescue Aemilia. When Corin appeared, they had let him break into the jailers’ carriage for them, then left him high and dry, at Ephitel’s mercy.
So why had he fought so hard to guard their secret? Why had he lied to Ephitel to protect those who had betrayed him? He chewed his lip, considering, and it was not until he raised his eyes to Maurelle that he found his answer. She huddled in the corner, silent through all the argument between her brother and her captor, but her eyes burned on Corin with a feverish hope—a desperate need to make things right.
And there was his answer. In all this wretched city, they alone dared to defy Ephitel. She saw it in Corin, and he saw it in the druids. Corin had no hope that he might be the man who killed a god, but whatever he could do to serve the druids, if it hobbled Ephitel, he would gladly make the sacrifice.
But what was he to do? He’d hoped a plea might be enough to gain him a royal audience, even if it were a trial. With that avenue cut off, he’d have to manage an escape. The raucous clatter of hoofbeats outside the coach’s walls proved Ephitel had kept his word. The prisoner transport traveled with a healthy escort. Easier then to wait until they’d been forgotten in some stinking cell and escape from chains and bars.
It would not be the first time Corin had accomplished such a feat, though he’d never faced a palace dungeon before. He could have some aid from Avery, but—for all the damage they had done Kellen—the reviled soldier still seemed their last, best hope. Corin tried again. “Yeoman Kellen—”
He got no further. Faster than a blink, the soldier drew his sword and pressed its tip to Corin’s throat.
“Not another word,” the soldier said, his voice as hard as the blade’s edge, “or I’ll betray my pledge as your secure steward and likely win a commendation for it.”
“That you would,” Avery said softly, sounding a bit impressed. “You very likely would.”
Corin held his tongue. A moment later Kellen nodded, satisfied, and laid the blade across his knees. He didn’t sheathe it, and no one spoke for the rest of the rattling ride.
When they stopped at last, the open doors revealed not the grand front gates or a majestic palace entrance, but a barred and fortified carriage yard somewhere else within the palace grounds. Somewhere far more…military.
The escort was there as Ephitel had promised it would be—easily half a hundred men, crowding the courtyard and bristling with pikes and crossbows, all of them aimed at the three prisoners. Ephitel himself came forward to watch the prisoners leave the carriage. Corin watched him, wary. The strutting lord should have gone off to see the king. It was unsettling to see him here.
Kellen was the last out, and he stumbled when he saw the lord protector. “My…my lord! I understood that you intended to go directly to the king.”
Ephitel didn’t meet the soldier’s eyes, but still he answered. “I have had time upon the journey to reconsider. I would prefer to have some answers from the miscreants before I attempt to make a report to Oberon. Come.”
He turned, and the crowd of soldiers opened a path to a heavy door, barred in iron and secured by half a dozen locks. It opened with a groan and revealed a stairway walled with stone that plunged down into the darkness underneath the palace. The soldiers jostled Corin, Maurelle, and Avery until the prisoners fell into a single-file line, which was all the narrow stairway would allow. Yeoman Kellen went on ahead, Corin close behind him, and from the sound of footsteps Corin knew that only one more escort accompanied the brother and sister behind him. He never doubted who that might be.
Once or twice along the long descent, Corin passed a narrow landing before the path turned back and down. At each such landing, a pair of wardens stood attentive beyond a gate of iron bars, armed with heavy crossbows more than able to cut down any prisoner attempting an escape from below. Down and down they went, deep beneath the earth, until at last Corin stepped onto a landing that had no further descent. Here, too, a gate looked out onto the landing, and Kellen approached it with all the dignity and authority Ephitel had denied him before.
He saluted the two wardens standing watch, then called out in a strong, clear voice, “Three prisoners, upon the mercy of the king, arrested under order of Lord Ephitel for breach of peace.”
In the wider landing, Avery stepped up beside Corin. He spoke under his breath. “I could garrote him with his own elven cord. How funny would that be? I guarantee those guards would only watch and laugh.”
Maurelle stepped up beside Avery and clutched at his arm. Irritation and worry creased the lordling’s brow. It only grew worse when Ephitel stepped past them and into the wardens’ torchlight.
“Calm yourself, Kellen,” Ephitel said smoothly. To the wardens, he said, “These are troublemakers who must be well watched. And I count not three, but four.”
“My lord?” Kellen asked, a quaver in his voice.
“As I said, I had time upon the journey to consider. What I discovered looked too much like a plot. Five good men rode with you to bring back my druid and my elf. Five of them are convalescing now, sick with druid poison. But you alone suffered only superficial blows—”
“They were hardly superficial! I’ll vow I’ve suffered more than those sleeping from a nettle’s sting.”
“Yet you were not incapacitated, when all the others were. You stink of complicity.”
Kellen trembled with a futile rage. “I detest these criminals.”
“And we return the sentiment,” Avery offered.
Ephitel casually backhanded the gentleman, never moving his gaze from Kellen. “Yeoman, I cannot believe that one manling vagabond and the worthless daughter of a dishonored house might have overcome a squad of my best men. Not without some aid.”
“I would never—”
“Nonetheless,” Ephitel said, “this matter bears close scrutiny, and I will not risk your liberty before it is settled. Find a cell.”
Ephitel nodded to the wardens. They turned a heavy key and swung wide the landing’s gate. Kellen stood for a moment, jaw working without words, then turned on his heel and slunk through the open gate. Beyond, a narrow passage separated half a dozen tiny cells, all empty. Kellen chose the second from the left, trudged inside, and slammed the heavy iron door behind him.