The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [81]
After lighting her small lamp, she entered the secret passage. Stairs immediately took her downward. She guessed it to be two stories, perhaps more. It was difficult to tell with no landmarks to guide her. She reached the bottom, and by the flickering light of her lamp she could see a narrow stone tunnel running to the right. She followed it, holding her arms tight to her side, partly because of the cramped space and partly because of the horrible draft. Her lamp was equipped with a glass shield, but it still guttered and threatened to go out if Atiana moved too quickly.
She tried to retain her sense of direction, but the tunnel took several turns, and none of them at right angles to one another, and so soon she had no idea where she was going. She finally reached a fork in the passage, and was forced to stop. Mileva hadn’t mentioned such a thing, and so she had no idea which one she should take. What if there were more? What if she got lost in these tunnels and never found her way out again? Who knew how extensive they were? Radiskoye was among the largest of the palotzas; she might find herself caught in a place from which no amount of screaming would rescue her.
She took the right-hand fork, vowing that she would head back if she came across any more. But after another, she told herself that she could find her way back as long as she consistently chose one direction to follow. It happened a third time, and still Atiana went on, taking several flights of stairs upward.
Thankfully this tunnel came to an end.
She searched for a latch and eventually found it. On the other side was the rear of a similar closet within the bath house. One large pool was set into the floor here, and another smaller one, for children, lay beyond it. She had been here a few times and knew that it lay two levels below the floor where the Khalakovos slept. She was nearly there.
She padded to the bath house door and opened it slowly. The hallway was empty, so she left the bathhouse and walked to the main stairwell serving this wing of the palotza. She took it two levels up.
And stopped.
For sitting on a bench was a large black rook. It watched her closely with intelligent eyes, and by the time she had taken two steps forward, she knew that Saphia had assumed the bird, and that she had been found sneaking about like a thief in the night.
CHAPTER 22
“How may I serve, Matra?” Atiana asked.
The rook emitted several clicking sounds before speaking. “Have the hallways of Radiskoye so caught your interest”—it clicked again—“that you must skulk among them while the sky lays dark?”
“Nyet, Matra.”
“Another reason, then...”
“I only thought...”
The rook cawed. “Go on.”
“I wished to speak with your son, to apologize to him.”
“Apologize?”
“For my actions the other night. For besting him at our dance.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it was the only thing she could think of.
The rook cawed again, and to Atiana it sounded like a laugh. “There’s little enough for you to apologize for. You held your own, child, which is more than I can say for Nikandr.”
“He did very well, Matra. I practiced that one dance for weeks before coming here.”
“To show him you were better.”
Atiana pulled herself taller. “To show him I would not stand in his shadow, but at his side.”
The rook was motionless for a time, staring. “As it should be.”
Atiana suppressed a small smile. “As you say, Matra.”
“You asked how you may serve...”
For the first time Atiana realized there was more to this meeting than had at first met the eye. “Of course, Matra.”
Footsteps echoed from down the hallway, and out of the gloom stepped Isaak, the palotza’s seneschal, holding a large, unlit lantern and wearing thick winter night clothes.
“You can accompany Isaak to the drowning chamber.”
Isaak bowed his head and held out a night coat as the rook flapped up to his shoulder.
With no small amount of trepidation, Atiana accepted it and pulled it over her chilled frame. She walked the cavernous halls of Radiskoye with Isaak, their footsteps echoing off into