Chapter 42 Liron
Liron
If Corin returned before the army reached Liron, Niel didn’t know.
He hadn’t seen any sign of his brother as the army dispersed.
Some soldiers had gone to the barracks outside the city, which Niel did not remember seeing before.
They must have been erected during the summer, with the beginning of the war.
Others had gone to their family homes and villages to rest a few months until the northern passes began to thaw with spring.
It had been a long, brutal week, marching through snow in chains, bracing himself every time someone neared him, never getting a full night’s rest. The sight of Liron’s palace, sparkling in the morning sun, Queen’s banners streaming in the brisk wind, was a cold comfort.
The march was over. Now came the punishment.
He only remembered three visits to Liron.
Once, as a squire, plagued by nightmares both sleeping and waking, dragged in his father’s tow to confront a Queen who did not care to listen.
A second time, to receive his shield quest from the Queen; she’d challenged him to find and destroy whatever monster had been preying on men in the villages east of the castle, where three men had been reported missing.
He’d expected to find a murderer, but it had been a bahkauv that had come down the river from the mountains.
The creature—four-legged, fanged, and serpent-tailed—had been an easy kill after all his father’s training.
And the third time in Liron, plotting for his father’s war, had been to feel out alliances and take the court’s measure at the princess’ tournament.
He’d never come before as a prisoner, in chains. He felt faces staring from alleys and windows as they led him through the city, but with soldiers to either side and the knights before him, Niel could see very little.
He was so exhausted that he felt barely conscious as he was led into the throne room and made to kneel in front of his aunt.
Distantly, Niel felt he was in danger. He could see the look in her eyes, like a raging dragon-fire, that his father sometimes had; that even he sometimes had.
The tile floor was cold and hard beneath his knees.
But it was only one of a long list of complaints.
His whole body ached from cold and from the multitude of small, clever bruises the soldiers had left him over the week’s course.
He could barely feel his toes. The shackles had rubbed his skin raw even through the layers of clothing, and he had not lain down properly in over a week.
His hair was unwashed and tangled, his jaw covered with thick new beard growth that itched constantly.
And he was hungry. They’d fed him, but never as much as he wanted.
The Queen came down from the dais slowly, measuring each step dramatically.
Apparently, she had wanted a public audience for this, though he knew she usually preferred private ones.
His aunt wore a long sleeved red gown, her dark hair braided around the gold crown glittering on her head.
Groups of courtiers Niel barely knew clustered in the room’s corners, watching him with wide eyes and hushed whispers.
His cousin Isabel, crown princess of Enar and only a year younger than Niel, remained on the lowest step of the dais, watching with a grimly tight mouth and wide eyes.
“Well, boy?” Queen Maribel asked.
He looked up at her, from where he rested on the floor. Niel could not think of a single thing to say.
“You have betrayed your country, your oaths, and your blood,” she said when he didn’t answer.
“You have committed high treason. You besieged your uncle’s city, you stole another nobleman’s castle before killing him, and you declared war against the crown you swore to serve. What do you have to say for yourself?”
There was a long silence in the room. He felt her impatience looming like a long shadow. A small part of him wanted to admit it all, in front of the court. To tell them what Hannes had done, and that their Queen had chosen to ignore it.
But even beaten, exhausted, and hopeless, it was a shame he felt so keenly he could not bring himself to share it. If he could barely tell Ayla, he certainly couldn’t tell a room full of uncaring, spoiled courtiers.
“Well, I didn’t start it,” Niel said at last. “And you know I didn’t start it. I am sorry about Ironcliff. That was purely for logistics. I’ve no quarrel with my mother’s side of the family. The rest is what it is.”
“Repent, you fool child.”
“I’m not going to beg,” Niel told her flatly. “And if I were, it wouldn’t be to you.”
Her lip curled down unpleasantly.
“Mercy could not save you from the headman's axe if you did. But I will have an apology from your lips if I have to draw it out with hot tongs myself.”
He understood a threat when he heard one, even in his present state, and he glared up at her in defiant silence.
“Your majesty,” Herdan said, with a deep bow. “I have a message from Sir Corin. Might I…?”
The Queen gestured to him. Herdan straightened, approached, and delivered the words quietly. Niel watched as the expression on his aunt’s face shifted from a furious tempest to pure irritation.
“Well, how much longer?” he heard her ask, her voice louder than Herdan’s. The knight responded, and Maribel pursed her lips.
“Your brother wishes to be there when you die,” the Queen said, her voice like ice. “I reward loyalty, Niel. That is a lesson you seem not to have learned.” She stepped back, and looked at the other men instead of at him. “Take him from my sight. To the dungeon. We will continue this later.”
Herdan and Melchior raised Niel back to his feet. His muscles protested, and he stumbled as he rose, the chains clanking. He was too tired to feel embarrassed.
“Come, lad,” Herdan mumbled, so soft Niel doubted the rest of the room could hear it. “Corin wanted time; he’s got it. Let’s see your new quarters. I doubt you’ll like them.” Niel shuffled out between the two of them like a pony on a lead-line.
“Did you tell her he’s at Ashbrin?” Niel asked as they led him down the empty hall towards the stair. His aunt knew why all of this had started. If Bradhan was right, and Corin had gone to Ashbrin, what would she make of it?
Would she still stay an execution until Corin’s return?
“Sorry, lad. My loyalty is with Corin and the crown,” Herdan said. “Perhaps… it’s best we don’t talk, outside necessities.”
But Herdan hadn’t denied Corin was at Ashbrin. That was something. What had his brother pieced together? What did Corin suspect, or hope to find there? Hannes would never admit to any of it.
Niel let them lead him down the stairs. The dungeon door was guarded, and the man stationed there unlocked it and opened it just wide enough for the knights and prisoner to slip inside before the door clanged shut behind them.
They descended into the dank, stale dungeon, lit by sputtering torches that barely illuminated the crawling dark.
The cells, carved into the bedrock, were spaced far enough apart that no prisoner could see the others.
Into a cell he went. The rough-hewn floor was strewn with straw and a moldy pile of it was heaped in one corner to use as a bed.
There was a privy-bucket in the corner and a stack of blankets that had seen better days.
Melchior drew out the key to use on Niel’s wrists, but Herdan stopped the younger knight with a hand on Melchior’s forearm.
“Best not,” Herdan said. “They’ll want him already bound when they come to get him.”
Two lone knights on horseback traveled far faster than an army of marching soldiers. Corin could return at any hour. Or he might have lingered at Ashbrin, and be days from arriving. No way for Niel to know.
“But he’s in the cell,” Melchior said softly. “Surely…”
“All the same, lad. I know it’s an unpleasant business. Let’s be off.”
Melchior gave Niel an apologetic look. The two knights locked the door to the cell.
And then, Niel was alone. Or nearly. The cage bothered him less than the shackles. He couldn’t escape, but he was alone inside the bars. Nobody could touch him here. Death might be waiting for him, up in the castle, but for the moment, he could rest.
“New boy,” another prisoner shouted, from the cell he thought was next to his. “New boy, what you in for?”
“Shut up afore I knock your teeth in,” another yelled.
Niel ignored them, and curled up on the straw bed, and let himself fall into the black oblivion of sleep.