Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [123]
Maggie said over her shoulder, “The couriers and kitchen girls sometimes use this room to . . . well, you know.”
I didn’t ask if she had ever you-knowed here. I knew that she had not. I was her first, as she was mine.
“Roger, let me go ahead. To see who is about.”
I nodded. She set down the lantern, climbed the steps, raised the trapdoor, and disappeared.
Alone, I collapsed onto the straw pallet. My breath came heavy and hard. The stump of my wrist began to hurt in earnest, but it was nothing compared to the panic in my mind. How could we get away? And if we escaped the palace, where could we go?
My whole life, it seemed, had consisted of desperate attempts to escape. From Hartah, from the soldiers who had hung the yellow-haired ship wrecker, from the queen, from Lord Solek’s men, from Hygryll. I longed for a place from which I did not have to escape, a place of peace and tranquility. . . .
But the only place like that was the country of the Dead.
I had just hauled myself to my feet and turned to climb the staircase when the trapdoor opened. Maggie’s face loomed above me, her fair hair falling into her bruised eye. The other half of her face was white with shock.
“They are leading the queen to the fire now!” she said. “And Lord Robert rides hard on the horizon with an army!”
31
LORD ROBERT HOPEWELL. I had forgotten him . . . and why not? The last time I had seen him had been months ago, kicking the door of the queen’s privy chamber and bellowing, “Caroline!” And then the queen, barefoot and wearing nothing but a short shift, her dark hair tumbled loose around her bare shoulders, Lord Solek just gone from her bedchamber. Now Lord Robert was riding at the head of an army he had raised somehow, among farmers or outlanders or who-knows-what.
Did he love her still, love the queen’s changeable and ruthless and tender beauty, even though she had betrayed him with the savage chieftain? He must still love her, to challenge the old queen’s Blues for his Caroline’s life.
I looked up at Maggie and said urgently, “Where are they burning the queen?”
“Just beyond the west bridge! So that the villagers can see . . . The pyre is ready. Come up quickly, there was no one around except the servant who told me, and he’s gone to—come!”
But I was not able to climb the steps. Maggie had to descend and then half carry me up. She was incredibly strong. We emerged into a room crowded with pallets, saddles, items of Blue livery, bridles, and the strong odor of horsey men who lived close together. Across the chamber, a door opened onto the bright sunshine of a courtyard. I hobbled toward it, Maggie half supporting me.
“What’s the quickest way out of the palace?”
“Through the kitchens.”
My old route out to the city. After we left the couriers’ courtyard, I recognized the route. But we couldn’t follow it. All at once people filled the corridors, servants with ashen faces, even a few soldiers shouting orders. Maggie dragged me into a side passage to avoid being seen, and then into another, and all the time we were moving farther away from the kitchens. Finally we found ourselves in the courtyard outside the throne room. And there stood Mother Chilton.
“Roger,” she said quietly. She looked not at all surprised to see me. “You should not be up and about.”
“The Blues—” I gasped. “The battle—”
“Yes. I know. Come with me.”
“I can’t . . . I must . . .”
“You must get away. Yes. But not quite yet.”
She walked to my other side, away from Maggie, who shrank back slightly but did not let go of my weight. However, Mother Chilton shifted most of my bulk to herself. She, too, was much stronger than she looked. Was that true of all women, then?
No. Not of Cecilia.
“Drink this,” Mother Chilton said, and I did.
Its effect was immediate.