The Margrave

1

When the work of the Makers stopped, Halen fell silent. He answered no one. He climbed far into the hills and built a fearsome castle. He built it in a day and a night, and no one came there but himself. Throughout its dim corridors, there were mirrors.

Book of the Seven Moons

THE SLAP WAS HARD, and when she dragged her head up she tasted blood.

Breathing deeply, she stared at the Watch captain. Fury almost made her quiver. Fury and fear.

“I said, get in line,” he snarled.

Carys stepped back, giving one glance at the old woman who lay collapsed on the verge of the road. The Watch captain turned and prodded the inert body with his boot. When it didn’t move he kneeled and took out a knife.

Carys stiffened.

But all he did was slice the rope that held the woman to the rest of the prisoners.

“Are you just going to leave her there!” Carys snapped.

“She’s no good to us. You there, at the front! Walk!”

The razorhounds snarled and scrabbled at the mesh of their cages, and the small line of prisoners stumbled quickly back into motion, the jerk of the rope tugging Carys on despite her anger. The road was steep, rutted with recent cart-tracks, a great gash along the flank of the mountain, plummeting on the left to a dizzy ravine. All the hot day they’d stumbled up it, with water only once at a stream, hours ago.

Carys sucked her swelling lip. Her hair and clothes were filthy with road-dust and she was almost too tired to think. Only anger kept her going. She clenched the knotted ropes around her hands as if anger was a thing she could hold on to, tight.

Around her waist the second rope slackened, sagging as the weary group closed up, stung by the irritating dartflies that had followed all day in a buzzing cloud.

With the old woman gone, Carys was last. It was a relief not to have to hear that terrible gasping, or have the constant jerk of the rope as the woman stumbled, but the thought of the frail figure lying on the bleak road, without water, a prey to night-cats, was unbearable. Carys cursed herself for talking to the woman, for getting to know her. Her name had been Alys. At one of the pauses she had whispered to Carys that she “had a granddaughter, dear, very like you.”

She looked back. The Watch captain, Quist, was far behind, striding up fast.

“Turn around!” he yelled, and she turned, grim.

They were taking no chances with her. Not now that they knew who she was. Speaking up for the woman had been useless, she’d known that. Before she met Galen she’d never have done it. But before she met Galen she’d never have been in such a mess.

It had been three days since she’d been caught. The patrol had jumped them in seconds. How the Sekoi had gotten away she had no idea, but they’d loosed the razorhounds after it instantly, thin silver beasts streaking into the wood. An hour later their handlers had dragged them back, bloodied. They’d certainly caught something.

The line stopped; she slammed into the prisoner in front. A lanky youth, older than her, pimply and stinking of sweat, one of his teeth black. “Rest,” he gasped, crouching and clutching his side.

Carys didn’t waste breath talking. Instead she watched Quist walk past her to the front. His number was 8472. High. No child from a Watchhouse, but a volunteer, enlisting as an adult. A dangerous, agile man.

The first thing he’d done was have her searched, and he’d found the Watch insignia. Galen had warned her often enough to get rid of them, the small silver discs with her old number, name, hard-earned promotions. But they were still part of her. She hadn’t been able to let them go. Seeing them glint in the sun in Quist’s fingers had been strange; as he’d read them and looked at her curiously she’d felt as if some last protection had been snatched away.

Sitting now on the edge of the road she rubbed sweat from her neck and looked around. The road edge was sheer, plunging down to a valley far below. She couldn’t see over. Behind her was woodland, some squat, dark species; ahead, the road rose along the arduous slopes of the mountains. Where it led she had no idea, but it had seen heavy traffic lately, its surface cracked and worn.

The patrol was an eight-man standard. Three horses and a cart, with the razorhounds’ cage and various food sacks. Ten prisoners left, all roped in line.

Water was being passed back. She stood and grabbed it from the boy’s hand, clutching the dirty jug with both fists, drinking fast, then splashing the last drops on her face.

For a second, he was standing quite close to her. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, grinning slyly at her. “There’s a plan.”

She stared in astonishment. “What?”

“It’s all fixed.” He winked. “I’m in on it. I’ll see you safe, at the castle.”

He was serious.

Carys didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. But before she had time to say another word, the jug had been snatched by a Watchman, the rope jerking her to her feet.

“What’s the rush?” she muttered, sullen.

“Orders. To be in before dark.”

“In where?”

But he’d gone, and the line was already moving.

All the hot spring afternoon and into the evening they tramped nonstop, climbing along a narrow track, so treacherous in places that loose rock slid away under their feet, rolled over the edge, and dropped for a long silent second into the distant, crashing branches. The landscape was arid; stunted lemon trees and calarna sprouting from high ravines, the road winding up under natural arches and along the very brinks of drops that made Carys dizzy to look down.

These were the Broken Hills, a shattered, convulsed highland infested with lizards and the scurrying, manyjointed purple scorpions that could kill a man with one sting. The peaks above her had slipped and shifted; it was as if some terrible bolt of the Makers’ lightning had smashed the whole range to pieces centuries before. Perhaps it had. Galen would know.

The road had been repaired. Stumbling around the flank of a vertical cliff, she passed piles of cut stone, great heaps of sand. There must be quarries up some of these side-trails. Away to the west, green foothills still glimmered with late sun, but as the road wound up a riven hillside where all the trees had been hacked and felled, far over the horizon she saw the smokes and vapors of the Unfinished Lands, amazingly close.

And on the last ridge, she saw the castle. It was black, half ruined or half built, some eerie Maker-structure. It was no ordinary Watchtower; the whole thing was more like a fortified hilltop, with immense walls and towering gates, and as the prisoners stumbled on she saw it was crowded with people, all working, hauling stone up scaffolds, dragging great blocks of mined rock, the racket of hammering and chiseling carrying clearly on the mountain air. As Carys gazed up, the curfew-horn sounded; a familiar distant blare from the highest part of the Keep. Abruptly all hammering stopped, the workmen climbing down wearily.

So she was part of a work-gang. If they needed them, the Watch dragged in criminals and outlaws to build their Towers; she seemed to have walked straight into that. Though this place was immense. And secure.

By the time the weary prisoners straggled through the main barbican, dusk had fallen; as they stood to be registered the faint smells of cooking from the shuttered huts and houses filled Carys with a groaning hunger. Behind her the sentinels dragged the heavy wooden gates shut with a hollow clang, then rattled enormous chains across. Under the vaulted arch it was suddenly dark, stinking of marset dung and woodsmoke.

A number was stamped on her neck; she could feel it, but not see it, and she knew it would take months to wear off. The Watch used corris-juice; she’d done it herself.

Then the line was moved on, through the twilit streets, climbing through archways and cobbled alleys between what seemed hundreds of squalid, crammed huts and shelters, up toward the Keep.

In one street a shutter slid apart; for a second Carys glimpsed a pair of eyes watching her, but a Watchman glared up and it was slammed tight. The lanky boy turned and winked at her. She looked away, and then remembered with a tingle of surprise that he had called this place the castle, as if he had known where they were going. Was he a spy? That was only too likely. It was best not to talk to any of them.

Between the great inner Keep and the rest of the castle was a chasm, too black to see into. The bridge over it was so narrow that only one person could cross it at a time. It was lit by flaring torches, guttering at the corners.

In the very middle of it, Carys shuddered. Something had rattled and slid under her feet; breathless she took four quick strides. She knew about the trapdoors in bridges like these, opening underfoot without warning, plunging intruders to an endless, screaming fall.

On the far side was another great gate; eyes looked out of a grille and some question was barked. Quist pushed a piece of paper through and waited, whistling through his teeth, arms folded, impatient. Once he glanced back and caught her eye; she looked away immediately.

When the gate was finally opened it led to a stone tunnel; on each side were guardrooms. Above her head were murder-holes, and she saw slots for the sudden swordracks that sprang out sideways, both doors and weapons at once. Getting out of here would tax the cleverest Watchspy.

Alert, she glanced into the chambers as she passed, but only the relentless red letters of the Rule marched down the bare walls. A hand grasped the back of her neck, twisted her head painfully.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten you,” Quist muttered in her ear. “Keep your eyes front. I hear you’ve done enough damage already.”

He stayed close behind her. Across a dim courtyard and down greasy steps, into a corridor where the prisoners’ breath made the damp air smoke, and along a series of doorways that were obviously cells. At the door of each, a prisoner was untied and thrust inside: the two farmers, the woman with the fair hair, the lanky youth. As he went he grinned at her cheerfully. The door slammed shut behind him.

She was the last.

There were more cells, but they hurried her straight past. Quist in front now and two burly Watchmen close behind her. As they climbed some broad steps, Carys allowed herself a wry smile. She was obviously a big threat.

The steps were Maker-material, unworn. At the top was a door; Quist knocked and went in. In seconds he was back.

“Inside,” he said. And then, to the Watchmen: “Stay here. No one to come in or out.” Pushing Carys before him, he stepped in behind her.

THE ROOM WAS LONG. At the far end was the biggest desk she had ever seen, and sitting on a corner of it, watching her, was a woman. Carys was thrust forward. As she walked, the distance made her feel small; she passed an empty fireplace and a dead fly on the floor. There was nothing else in the room. She lifted her head, defiant. Maybe the fly was lucky.

The woman was pretty and small, with a sharp, narrow face. Her hair was scraped back; she wore a castellan’s emblem on her shoulder. Her face was calm and quite unreadable. Carys walked up to the desk and stopped. There was a small stool; the woman nodded, and Quist pushed her onto it. She had forgotten the rooms of the Watch were so utterly cold.

The woman’s scrutiny was thorough; her gaze traveled over Carys, taking in every scratch, every muscle of her face. Carys tried to keep the fear out of her eyes. The silence chilled her. And then she noticed the woman was fingering something. Some silver discs on a chain: the insignia. Before she thought she said, “Those are mine.”

The castellan showed no surprise. Instead she put the slithering chain on the table. When she spoke her voice was oddly husky. “Welcome back to your family, Carys Arrin.” Then she pushed the discs over the desk. “If they’re yours,” she said, “put them on.”