Prisoner of the Iron Tower (24 page)

“But what possible proof could you have?” burst out Andrei.

“The testimonies furnished by two of Linnaius’s students,” said Abrissard smoothly. “They confirmed that this self-styled ‘Magus’ can command and control the winds.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“We have a witness. The night of the storm, one of the grooms at the Palace of Swanholm confirms that he saw Linnaius create a storm that brought down trees in the parkland. I should emphasize now that this intelligence is of the highest confidentiality.”

Andrei sat back, trying to grasp the full implications of what Abrissard was saying.

“This should not be so difficult for you to accept, Andrei Orlov,” said Abrissard in the softest, smoothest of voices. “You, who have been touched by a daemon.”

“You’re implying that Eugene ordered Linnaius to sink my ship? Doesn’t that count as assassination?” At first, the news had left him stunned; now anger began to burn through.

Abrissard shrugged eloquently. “In war, such terms do not apply.”

“And my sister has married this man!” Andrei could sit still no longer; he rose and strode to the window to gaze out at the sea. A watery sun had begun to show beneath the clouds, catching the tops of the waves with flecks of silvery gold.

“You’re ambitious, Andrei Orlov. Do you care about the future of Muscobar?”

“Of course I do!” Andrei said hotly.

“Then come to Francia. King Enguerrand assures you of the warmest welcome at his court. He has plans—great plans for the future. Those plans will include you, if you so wish.” Andrei turned and stared at Abrissard. He heard what the ambassador was saying—and yet not putting into words. Francia had old scores to settle with Tielen.

“You were born to rule, Andrei,”
the daemon-spirit had whispered to him in Mirom. Now he began to see that that ambition might be fulfilled with such powerful allies at his side. If it were not for the fact that Astasia had married Eugene.

“And my sister?”

Abrissard’s proud gaze grew colder. “Your sister has committed herself to Eugene. It may be difficult to persuade her to change her allegiances.”

CHAPTER
20

Gavril felt warm sunlight on his closed eyelids. He opened his eyes and saw a cloudless sky above him. He lay on grass, coarse and springy; as he turned his head, he saw little tufts of white clover and daisies in the grass, and smelled their faint honeyed scent.

“Where am I?”

“Near your home. But you need human nourishment to sustain you.”
He heard the Drakhaoul’s voice resonating within his mind like a dark breath of fiery wind. He had never imagined he would feel so glad to hear that voice again.

“How long have I been here?” It was an effort just to form the words. He was so tired he just wanted to lie back in the sun and drift back into unconsciousness.

“Long enough for me to heal the injuries to your brain. But you are still weak from loss of blood.”

Gulls circled high overhead, white against the brilliant blue of the sky.

“Why did you come back?” he asked drowsily.

“Your need was too great.”

Sleep washed over Gavril. When he awoke again, the sun had moved across the sky toward the west. It was late afternoon.

He sat up and began to take stock of his bearings.
“Near your home,”
the Drakhaoul had said. Was he on the cliffs above Vermeille Bay? He tried to get to his feet but his legs were so weak that he crumpled back to his knees in the grass.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Looks like he’s been injured. Could be one of the rebels from the citadel.”

Voices sounded close to Gavril. Prison warders? He threw up his arms to protect his head.

“It’s all right, son. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Slowly he realized that they were speaking Smarnan. He opened his eyes and saw two men—vineyard workers, from the look of them—bending over him in the golden light.

“You’ve taken a nasty cut to the head there, boy. Have you been in the fighting?”

“Fighting?” Gavril repeated, confused.

“Fighting the Tielens.”

“Tielens.” Gavril’s fists clenched at the hated name.

“Can you walk, son?” The older of the two nodded to the other, and between them they hoisted Gavril to his feet. “Where are you making for?”

“Vermeille.”

The two workers glanced at each other.

“I wouldn’t go back there right now. Not in your condition. Vermeille is swarming with Tielen soldiers.”

“He can come back with us tonight, Jarji, can’t he? He can sleep in the barn.”

They hoisted Gavril up onto their ox-drawn cart and jogged back through the warm dusk to the vineyard.

The vineyard women made a fuss of him, tutting in horror over his wounds and insisting on feeding him soup fortified with their own rich red wine to “build up his strength.”

It was so good just to sit in the kitchen, feeling the warmth from the fire on the range and to smell the hot peppery steam rising from the spicy meat soup. Good to hear the chatter around him in his native language. Good, above all other things, to know he was free.

“How’s things in the citadel?” Jarji asked him suddenly.

Gavril blinked, at a loss to know what to say.

“How can you ask him that?” said Jarji’s wife, Tsinara. “It’s a wonder he can remember his own name with a head wound like that. What did you find out down at the village?”

“Professor Lukan and the students have taken Governor Armfeld hostage. They’re threatening to shoot him if the Tielens don’t withdraw. But now they say an imperial war fleet’s on its way.”

One of the workers came into the kitchen.

“Haven’t you heard? The fleet’s been sighted off Gargara. It’s making straight for Vermeille Bay.”

Listening to their conversation, Gavril began to realize that Smarna was not a safe place to be.

“Vermeille Bay?” It was the first time he had spoken in a while and they all stared at him. “But if they fire on the citadel, it’ll be a massacre.”

The sun-gilded sands of the Smarnan shore swarmed with Tielen soldiers. Warships, anchored out in glittering Vermeille Bay, had trained their powerful cannons on the Old Citadel of Colchise perched high on the cliffs beyond the pink and white stucco villas.

Elysia stood on the balcony of the Villa Andara and watched the guns from the warships blast the citadel. Tiles shattered to flying shrapnel, flames spurted from roof timbers, clouds of smoke besmirched the clear blue sky. The ancient walls began to crumble under the relentless bombardment.

“No. Oh no,” she whispered to the bright morning air. “RaÏsa. Iovan. Lukan.”

The cannonfire shook the villa to its foundations, deafening as overhead thunder.

A man came stumbling into the orchard garden below.

“Elysia!” he cried in a voice rough with fear and exhaustion. “Help me!”

“Lukan?” She grabbed up her skirts and went hurrying down to the garden.

He had collapsed to one knee in the dewy grass. As she reached him, he raised his face to hers and she saw blood trickling from a jagged gash above one eye. “They’re after me.”

“Can you make it to the villa? Here. Lean on me.”

The guns thundered again and she felt him flinch, his weight heavy against her shoulder. She braced herself and started slowly forward, a step or two at a time. The cannonfire made her heart thud like a kettledrum in her chest. Suppose they turned the guns on the houses next? They would all be blown to pieces.

“Why?” she said, breathless herself now with the effort of supporting him. “Why has Eugene attacked us?”

They reached a wrought-iron bench beneath the balcony and Lukan sank onto it. She sat beside him and pressed her handkerchief to the gash, trying to stanch the blood.

“Eugene is a tyrant. He doesn’t believe in negotiating.”

His voice came faintly now, and she saw from the greyish pallor of his skin that he was near to fainting. He was too heavy for her to carry into the house on her own. What would revive him most efficiently, brandy or water?

“Just because Eugene got his hands on some ancient ruby from the Smarnan Treasury, he thinks it gives him the right to own us all. . . .”

Brandy, she decided as Lukan rambled defiantly on. He needs brandy.

“We must fight to remain independent. It’s our birthright. . . .”

Another violent barrage of cannonfire shuddered along the cliffs. From where they sat they could see the fiery explosions, the jagged, broken walls of the citadel, with smoke pouring out as the fires took hold.

Shouts erupted at the far end of the garden. Elysia recognized the clipped tongue all too well. “Tielen soldiers!” She rose in alarm. “Inside, Lukan; quick.”

The handkerchief dropped as she was hustling him in at the garden door. Too late she glanced back as she locked the door and saw it lying there by the bench, stained bright red with Lukan’s blood. Too late to go back for it now.

“I thought I’d given them the slip.” Lukan slumped against the wall, one hand clasped to his gashed head. “Let me out at the front, Elysia. If they find me here, God knows what they’ll do to you and Palmyre.”

Elysia was busy with her keys, unlocking the door to her studio, trying to steady her shaking hands. “You’re not going anywhere in your condition.”

The door swung open and she pushed him inside, hastily locking it again behind them.

Canvases lay stacked in piles against the walls. Easels had been draped with dust sheets to protect the unfinished works that lay beneath. Dim light seeped in through long linen blinds; the air was pungent with the smell of oil paints and turpentine, tinged with the dust of long months of neglect. Elysia had not yet confronted the task of cleaning up in here.

Men called to one another in Tielen.

“Quick. Under this dust sheet.”

She pushed Lukan down, forcing him to crawl behind a pile of tall portrait canvases and draped more sheets on top. Booted feet came clattering up the wide steps.

“Open up!”

A man stood high on the rocky promontory, gazing out across the sea.

He stood motionless, tensed for action. But within his heart and mind there blazed a cold and vengeful rage.

He could see them in the bay below, the imperial war fleet, sent to crush the rebellion in Colchise.

“Eugene!” he cried, his voice strong, rasping raw with anger. “This time you’ve gone too far. You took my freedom, my name—but you shan’t take Vermeille!”

The rage burned more fiercely within him, flooding through his veins with galvanic power. The Emperor’s war machine would show no mercy to the Smarnans.

“But they have a chance if we go to their aid.”

He slowly stretched his arms wide. Blue light crackled and hissed from his clawed fingertips.

He stared at the phosphorescent flickers of light, the physical manifestation of the daemonic energy he felt pulsing through his body. Such terrible power . . .

Far beneath him waves crashed against the jagged rocks, sending up bursts of white spray. If he had misjudged, he would fall to an agonizing death, his body smashed against the rocks.

“We are Drakhaon.”

He took a step back, steeling himself. “Then don’t fail me now.” And crouching low, he ran toward the edge of the cliff and leaped into the void.

“Open up!” This time the Tielen soldiers used the common tongue and there was no mistaking their intent. One battered on the villa door; from the din it sounded as if the butt of a carbine was being used.

Elysia met Palmyre in the hall.

“Listen to that! If they’ve damaged the paintwork, they’ll have me to deal with,” Palmyre said, rolling up her sleeves.

“Stall them,” Elysia whispered. “Tell them I’m ill.” She hastily retreated to the upper landing, where she could watch what was happening.

“Coming, coming,” called Palmyre loudly, bustling back down the corridor. She reached with a shaking hand for the door handle and opened.

Tielen soldiers stood there: big lads, raw-shaven, in their blue and grey uniforms.

“Move aside.”

Palmyre positioned herself so that her generous figure filled the doorway, arms folded across her chest. “What do you want?”

“You’re harboring a rebel. We saw him come this way. We must search your house.”

“There are no rebels here.”

“Then how do you explain this?” He dangled the bloodstained handkerchief under her nose.

Palmyre took in a deep breath. “I can’t let you in without my mistress’s permission. I’m only the housekeeper.”

The Tielens glanced at one another. The one who was acting as spokesman colored a deep red. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty, Elysia thought, brashness barely concealing his lack of experience.

“Then fetch your mistress.”

“She’s ill in bed.”

“Too bad.” He nodded to the others.

“Stop!” Palmyre cried, raising her arms wide to block their way. They took no notice, rudely barging past her into the hall. Elysia hastily pulled a silken
peignoir
over her day-dress and tugged the pins from her hair, letting it tumble about her shoulders.

“Two of you take the stairs and search the upper floors,” the Tielen ordered. “And you two follow me.” He had kept to the common tongue, Elysia realized, so that Palmyre should not mistake his intent.

She took a deep breath and went to the head of the staircase just as two of the soldiers came running up, taking two stairs at a time.

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” she asked in a faint voice, one hand clasped to her forehead as if she had a headache. They hesitated a moment, glancing uncertainly at each other.

“Take her downstairs,” said one.

“You. Come with me.” The other raised his carbine, pointing it at her.

It would not be wise to provoke him, Elysia decided, doing as she was ordered.

She came downstairs just in time to see the young officer fling open the double doors to her salon. His men followed, their boots leaving smears of mud all over her precious Khitari carpets.

The windows of the salon overlooked the bay. As Palmyre and Elysia stood helplessly watching the soldiers thrust bayonets into the sofas and cushions, they could see the Tielen fleet still firing upon the beleaguered citadel, could see flames rising from houses in the shelter of its walls.

The Tielen soldiers paused a moment to watch as another salvo crashed into the citadel.

“Our lads’ve breached the walls!” one said, grinning at Elysia. “It’s all over for you Smarnans now.”

Elysia, lips pressed together to avoid speaking her true feelings, could see only too well. The beach was covered with running men, line after line of grey and blue uniforms, bayonets fixed, advancing relentlessly on the citadel.

And then a shadow passed across the sun, dimming the spring brightness of the morning.

“What’s that?” The Tielens gazed up at the sky.

Elysia moved toward the windows, peering apprehensively out at the bay.

“Dear God,” Palmyre whispered, “what
is
that?”

Swooping down from the peerless blue sky came a dark cloud, moving swift as the wind, casting its shadow over the soldiers on the sands. Even as they stopped to gaze up at it, a terrible brilliance emanated from it—a glittering breath of flame so bright it seared Elysia’s eyes.