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Twenty minutes later, the soldier came sprinting back, and after he had gotten his breath and spoken with the officers for a minute or so, the first officer put his mask on and said to the hillichmagnars, “You are invited to attend the duke at the Bocburg. I am to escort you there.”
“About time,” said Ellard.
Caedmon thanked the officer and took the lead, spurring his horse around the tollgate and onto the high-arched bridge. So far he hadn’t seen anything to make him worry. Ellard seemed to think that it was an insult to make them wait, but what was the duke supposed to do? Earstien only knew what kind of confidence men and tricksters might be riding around the country pretending to have magysk cures for sale. It was only right that his grace should be cautious.
When they were halfway across the bridge, the wind shifted, and a strong smell of charcoal and burning meat reached them. Caedmon looked to the west, beyond the city walls, and saw long pits there. Some were open, and tall red flames and black smoke were rising from them. That was a necessary precaution, to keep from spreading the pestilence, but the officer got a bit hysterical, and told them all to cover their mouths and noses, lest the “vapors” infect their lungs. Caedmon put a hand over his nose, partly to make the man happy, and partly to make the smell go away. “I really wish,” he thought, “that I did not know the scent of burning bodies quite so well.”
One of the ordinary soldiers, who did not seem to rate a mask, and who had to make do with a linen handkerchief, trotted alongside Caedmon and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I was wondering....”
“Yes?” prompted Caedmon, when the young man seemed loath to continue.
“This bridge, sir. It’s called the ‘Aldred Bridge,’ sir. Well, we—me and the other fellows, sir—we were just wondering if that’s the same as—”
“Yes, it is,” said Caedmon, smiling down at the soldier. “And in answer to your next question, yes, I did.” It was always nice to be remembered for his accomplishments.
At the gate into the city, there were more soldiers, and more officers in masks, but they stood aside and bowed as the hillichmagnars passed. And then they were in the narrow, twisting streets of the west end of town. There were a lot of tanneries and butcher shops in these neighborhoods, but now, all Caedmon could smell was the burning flesh from the pits beyond the walls.
The last time he had been in Leornian, these streets had been teeming with life—a little too teeming, in fact. Now the streets were empty, and the only signs of life in the houses were occasional flutters of the curtains as people peeked out to see who dared to stir out of doors on a burning day. Caedmon noticed that on each house, either on the door or the doorpost, someone had written numbers in chalk. Some of the numbers had been rubbed out and rewritten several times. One house had a “6” on its door. The next only “3.” A particularly dreary tenement had an impressive “22.” With a start, Caedmon realized these were the totals of the dead. Keeping track of the numbers who died was an unpleasant business, but a very necessary one. It was good that someone had thought to do that.
After passing though the empty cloth market, Caedmon instinctively turned to go down Addle Street, which was the quickest way to the castle. One of the officers ran up beside him, though, waving his arms. “Not that way, sir. Please.”
Caedmon glanced down the street and saw a cart, stopped several blocks away, already piled high with the pale bodies of the dead. Two soldiers in beaked masks stood on either side of it. They were carrying censers on long poles and waving them slowly about, leaving a thick cloud of perfumed smoke around the cart. As he watched, two more masked soldiers emerged from a house, carrying a body between them. They threw it on the cart with no more care than if it had been a log of firewood, and then they moved on to the next house.
The soldier standing next to Caedmon reached up and tugged at his sleeve. “Please sir. We’ll go the long way.”
So Caedmon and the other hillichmagnars followed the soldiers around through a series of little streets and alleys, until they came out again at the far end of Addle Street, and saw the mighty front gate of the Bocburg rising before them.
The gatehouse was taller than Caedmon remembered; another story had been added, and there was a glass roof at the top that might have been a greenhouse. The thing about castles was that however big you made them, there was never quite enough room. So things like greenhouses, gardeners’ sheds, forges, privies, and baths tended to get stuck in the most unlikely places. Every king who had ever lived in the Bocburg, and probably every duke, as well, had started out with great plans for tearing everything down and starting afresh. But even when that did happen, it only took a generation or two before the sheds and outbuildings came creeping back, like a particularly persistent species of fungus.
Once they had passed under the heavy portcullis and trotted up the dark, wet cobbles into the main courtyard, a squad of soldiers in white robes and masks ran up to take their horses. Caedmon let Ellard give instructions for their luggage, so he might examine and reminisce for a moment.
He stood, turning slowly, and took in the old walls and the high-arched windows of the ancient palace. He stopped and stared at the tower on the west side of the gate. When it had been built, it had been called the Finsbury Tower, named after a now long-forgotten dynasty. Everyone knew it today as The Queen’s Tower. In the 4th Century, King Ethelred had imprisoned his wife, Queen Merewyn, there for twenty years, which had led to tragedies and pain he could never forget.
But that was far from the only memory he had of the castle. He turned now and saw that someone had torn up the rose garden that used to run between the west gate and Earnwald’s Tower. He had paced around that garden with Terrwyn, more than seven centuries earlier, arguing about whether a young princess was going to have to marry a man she did not love for the sake of the kingdom. That man, of course, had been Edmund Dryhten, the first to bear the title of King of Myrcia, and a peerless warrior. He had also been a terrible husband to the poor princess he had been forced to marry. But he had been one of Caedmon’s best friends, too.
Caedmon turned toward the northern end of the courtyard, and saw that the library had been greatly expanded, and the little chapel had metamorphized into a much grander and larger structure. He couldn’t even begin to count the number of times he had found Edmund passed out in the front pews there. When the man was very drunk, he didn’t like to have to climb the stairs all the way up to his chamber.
Caedmon had other, more bittersweet memories of the chapel, however. He remembered another princess, much later, who had gone there to pray for the life of her dying father, because she did not want the burden of being Queen all by herself. Caedmon had told her that he would support her in any way that he could, and that he would never leave her. It was a promise he had kept, even though it had ended up costing him, and the kingdom, a great deal.
He started to cross the courtyard toward the front steps of the palace, but the officer who had accompanied them from the bridge ran to catch him. “I’m sorry, sir, but our orders are quite strict. You’re to be taken directly to your rooms in Leofe Tower. No offense.”
“So we are to be quarantined, then?” Caedmon asked. The officer nodded and took a step back, as if expecting a burst of angry spells from him. But Caedmon understood the necessity for such measures, and he willingly followed the white-robed soldiers and the other hillichmagnars toward the oldest, tallest, grandest, and most magysk of the towers.
It soared above the rest of the castle like a crystal stalagmite reaching for the roof of the sky. In some places, the walls were made of sheer, translucent glass, blending into the stonework as smoothly as polished steel. Sunlight passed entirely through these floors, making the tower seem to glow from within. Leofe, the first Machtigmagnar, had built it as a symbol of her power after she had married into the royal family. She had been the Queen of Leornian, idolized by all her people. And then she had fallen into madness. She was the reason that Diernemynster had a rule against marriage and romantic relationships.
Caedmon looked around to see Ellard walking toward the tower, and behind him, following at a cautious distance, Stasya. “Let us hope,” thought Caedmon, “that we will all be more fortunate this time around.”
***
STASYA HAD EXPECTED that they would be taken immediately to see the duke, or at least to see his chamberlain. But when the white-robed soldiers led them up the stairs, she understood that they were being quarantined. She knew that was only sound policy, but she hoped being trapped in a room with the other three would not mean that she would be obliged to endure another lecture from Caedmon. She could just see it—Ellard would be friendly and kind, and then Caedmon would glower at her and say something about how she needed to be more ladylike.
He had so flustered her with all his talk about Ellard’s destiny and so on, that she hadn’t been able to think of what to say. All the way from the manor house to the bridge, she had been turning it over in her mind and trying to decide exactly how to explain to the great man that she didn’t have the slightest interest in Ellard that way. Not that he wasn’t handsome, of course. Or funny. Or smart. Or kindhearted. Or helpful. He had managed to teach her more about Wiga and combat shield spells in one hour than Evika had managed in nine years. And he had saved her life in the fight. But that didn’t mean she felt anything more for him than friendship and respect. Perhaps, though, until she had straightened things out with Caedmon, it might be best to avoid Ellard as much as possible.
It turned out, however, that this was not going to be a problem. When the group reached the third floor of the tower, the guards pointed Stasya and Pallavi down the hall, while indicating that Ellard and Caedmon should continue up the winding staircase. Before he disappeared at the turn in the stairs, Ellard looked back at Stasya, smiled, and winked. Probably it was supposed to be a reassuring gesture, but it left her flustered and confused, instead. She hoped Caedmon hadn’t seen it. Or Pallavi, either, for that matter.
She had just enough time to wonder how annoying Pallavi might be, if the two of them were confined together in a single room, when the guards pointed for the Sahasran woman to go into a chamber to the left, and Stasya to the right. The door shut behind her, and then she was alone.