The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [149]
“What are you up to, then? Where could you possibly go?”
“Crotheny. I have one small thing in Newland to tidy up, and then I’ll be on to Eslen.”
“Anne will execute you.”
“You know I can’t die. You tested it with my own knife.”
“True. So your head will live after it’s struck off. Perhaps Anne will keep it in a cage as an amusement.”
“She might, but I don’t think so. Obviously, or I wouldn’t go back there. It’s all about to happen, Muriele. I’ve no idea how things will turn out, but I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
“What’s happening?” Muriele asked. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he said. “I didn’t really come here to drag you back into politics. I’m here to bring you a gift.”
“A gift?”
“A musical gift from your own court composer.”
Music started then, a soft chord growing louder, and she saw that Robert’s companion was playing a small thaurnharp.
Neil sighed and backed toward the gate, hoping to keep from being surrounded.
“Lady Berrye,” he said softly. “I can only hold them for a moment. Do what you can.”
“I will, Sir Neil,” she said.
“Do not die cheaply, Sir Neil,” Brinna said. “A little time should help.”
“It will be very little,” Neil said.
Alis laid her arm on the princess, and they suddenly became difficult to look at. He couldn’t put his gaze on them, but that was just as well, because he had a lot to pay attention to.
The lead knight cut at him, and Neil dodged to the side so that the weapon scraped through the metal bars of the gate. Neil hit the outstretched arm with his off-weapon hand, forcing him to lose his grip on the sword. With his weapon hand he cut at the knee of the knight to his right and felt it shear through the joint, setting the man—quite understandably—to screaming. Neil suppressed a shriek of his own as his arm shot with the pain of the blow, and his fingers loosened their grip. Gasping, he lunged at the third knight, wrapped his arms around the knight’s knees, lifted him and dumped him on his head. He fell, too, rolled, and came back up. The first man had recovered his sword and was advancing on him.
He heard horses blowing behind him and the thump of hooves.
He hoped that Alis had gotten Brinna away.
But then something odd happened. The knight straightened and looked past him.
“Put that away,” a voice said. “I command here.”
Neil turned and found Prince Berimund and about ten riders behind him. The gate was being raised.
“But my Prince, this man was—”
“My sister is in my care now,” Berimund said. “And so is that woman and this man.”
“The king—”
“You may take this up with me now or with my father later. You will not have the chance to do both.”
The knight hesitated and then bowed. “Yes, Majesty.”
“Come along, Sir Neil,” Berimund said. “Your queen has been asking after you.”
They rode west into country that quickly became rugged and verdant. Berimund and his men seemed to know their way, moving through the dense forest as if they had been born there. Neil reflected that he never would have imagined this Berimund from the one he’d met on the road. This Hansan prince was more in his element, freed of the fetters of court and the restraints upon honor they created. He and his men seemed almost to be able to hear one another’s thoughts, to be the band of brothers they claimed to be in name.
Kaithbaurg wasn’t a black fortress, and the prince of Hansa was a man with a history, friends, and scruples. He was still, of course, an enemy, but an enemy Neil would gladly call a friend if the times changed, and one he could kill or die by the hand of with a warrior’s dignity.
Brinna he was having trouble even thinking about. She was still very much the woman he had met on the Lier Sea whose voice and expression had haunted him since he’d first opened his eyes to her. But there was something cold in her center he’d only sensed then, the thing that allowed her to poison someone and speak of it as if she had put a cat out the door.
But if she was