The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [164]
Comfortable or not, view or not, she was trapped in a prison. The walls of the tower were sheer and smooth. Guards were stationed outside her door—Robert’s guards—and the door was securely locked from the outside. From there it was perhaps two hundred steps down a narrow stairwell, past an entire garrison of guards, to reach the inner keep. She imagined it was time to start growing her hair out.
Deciding to ration a view that with time would grow wearisome, she sighed and settled into her armchair to think, but found there was little to think about. She had done what she could, and any further decisions had been removed from her, except perhaps the decision to end her own life, which she had no intention of making. If Robert wanted her dead, he would have to do it himself, or at least give the order.
She heard the outer anteroom door open, then close. There followed a gentle knock on her inner door.
“Enter,” she said, wondering what new confrontation had come to her.
The door swung open, revealing a woman she knew.
“Alis Berrye at your service, Queen Mother,” she said. “I’m to be your maid.”
Fear thrilled through Muriele, and once again it felt as if the floor she had trusted was gone.
“You came back,” Muriele said, her tongue feeling like the clapper of a lead ball. She was tired of this game. “Is my son captured? Is he dead?”
“No, Majesty,” Berrye said in a lower voice. “All went as you planned.”
“Don’t torture me,” Muriele entreated. “Robert has everything now. There cannot be anything he wants except my torture. Unless you hate me for some reason, just tell me the truth.”
Berrye knelt before her, took her hand, and kissed it. “It is the truth. I don’t blame you for doubting, but I saw the ship sail. You took the prince completely by surprise.”
“Then how is it you are here?” Muriele asked.
“You needed a maid. Prince Robert picked me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I suggested it. After he sent you up here, I heard him wondering aloud what servant he could find for you that would most annoy. I chose that moment to wish him congratulations, and he laughed. A few moments later I was on my way here. He didn’t know, you see.”
“You were in the court?”
“I had reached it only just as you were removed—I missed your cataloguing of the praifec’s offenses, though I wish I hadn’t. There was much discussion of it.”
“This is true, not some trick?”
“I am locked in here, just as Your Majesty is. I have no more freedom than you, for Robert would never risk even the possibility that we might grow friendly.”
“If what you say is genuine,” Muriele said, “if you really have determined to help me, then why are you here? You might have done me more good outside.”
“I considered that, Your Majesty, but out there I can’t protect you. If you are murdered, any intelligence I gather will be worthless. Here there are a thousand subtle ways they might kill you. I can detect and counteract at least some of them. And who knows, perhaps I will be granted some limited movement, if we act the part of raging hatred when the guards are within earshot.”
“I asked you to protect my son,” Muriele reminded her.
“He has protectors,” Berrye explained. “You do not.”
Muriele sighed. “You’re as willful as Erren was,” she half complained, “and it’s done now. I don’t suppose you know if there are any hidden passages in this tower?”
“I think there are not,” Berrye said. “It shouldn’t prevent us from searching, but I don’t remember any from the diagrams.” She paused. “By the by, I think it must have been Prince Robert himself in your chambers that night.”
“From what do you conclude that?”
“Why didn’t he just put you in your own chambers?” she asked. “He could just as easily have kept you guarded there, and it is the more usual way of the doing these things. Why put you all the way over here, farther from his sight and control?”
“It’s a symbol,” Muriele said. “The last Reiksbaurg to rule Crotheny built this place.”
“I think he knows about the passages,” Berrye disagreed. “I think he knows you could