This land is good. This land is fair. This land is rich.
Gather the tithe! Gather the tithe!
He rubbed his face with one hand, the same hand warmed by the killing stroke. Then he bent and picked up Daylily, cradling her in his strong arms. She clung to him, and he thought she wept.
“I have no time for this,” he growled, but his voice was gentler now. Against the instinct pounding in his head, he carried her back down the incline and on across the country, making for the gorge.
Tocho lay at the base of his totem stone, never to move again.
19
LIONHEART STOOD, heart pounding, upon the winding stair, the Baron of Middlecrescent powerless in his grasp with a knife pressed to his throat. He stared at the bolt on the door, heard the pound of weapons and hands without.
But the bolt held, for the moment.
“You fool!” gasped the baron, his voice strangely gurgling against the cold blade. “I’ll stretch your neck for—”
Lionheart did not let him finish. With a strength that belied the trembling in his limbs and the sickness in his gut, he hauled the baron around to face the winding stair, shifting the blade to point into the side of his neck. “Move,” he said, his voice husky with fear. Recognizing the threat of death when he heard it, the baron started climbing.
The shouts of guardsmen and the uproar of all those gathered in the hall below faded as they wound their way up. The North Tower had once been used as a prison for high-ranking captives. More than one traitorous noble had spent his last weeks in comfort there. Its lofty height offered a fine view for a man awaiting his execution. He might even be able to watch the scaffold being built.
That was a few generations ago now. But while the chains had long since been cleared away, the iron rings remained in testimony to this former practice.
Lionheart propelled the baron up to the very summit of the tower, where a landing made a sort of hallway and three doorways led to three chambers. What had the baroness told him? The one on the right? Did she actually know her right from her left?
There was no time to investigate. A crash below told Lionheart that they had breached the lower door.
He pushed the baron before him to the right-hand door, which proved to be unlocked as the baroness had promised. He slammed the door shut and gasped, “Silent Lady bless us!” in desperate relief.
For although this chamber was a prison and all the locks were meant to be on the outside, just as the baroness had promised, the lock on the right-hand chamber had been reversed.
Lionheart turned the key, withdrew it, and dropped the first of three bolts in place with a finger-crushing thud, only just removing his hand in time. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he saw a shadow fall across the door. He dropped to his knees as a knife embedded itself in the wood where his head had been, driven by the powerful fist of the baron.
Lionheart twisted and kicked; his foot connected with the baron’s knee and sent him sprawling. He should have known the baron would not go unarmed to his coronation, despite the ancient protocol!
The baron, his eyes bugging from his face with pain, rolled up to a crouch and lunged at Lionheart, both hands reaching for his throat. Lionheart, being younger and spryer, dodged and brought an elbow down hard into the small of the baron’s back, knocking him flat. “How many other blades, Middlecrescent?” he growled, grabbing the baron’s right arm and twisting it behind him. The baron rasped out a curse and struggled, but Lionheart tightened his grip and twisted harder. “How many other blades on your person?”
“None!” barked the baron. A lie, and Lionheart knew it. He could see the baron’s free hand scrambling for his boot.
Lionheart, his knee pressed into the baron’s back, kicked with his other foot, knocking that searching hand away. Pressing more of his weight painfully down, he grabbed the baron’s arm and twisted it to join its mate. The baron groaned, agonized, and Lionheart felt a dart of guilt. But he daren’t back down now.
The door of the chamber thunked with the cleaving weapons of guardsmen beyond. “My lord! My lord!” muffled voices cried. As the baroness had promised, however, this prison door was so thick that those beyond could scarcely be heard.
The baron, his face pressed into the stone floor, grinned suddenly. “You will pay, Lionheart!” he spat. “They’ll have you out of here like a rat from its hole, and I won’t stop the dogs from worrying you as a rat deserves!”