“How so?”
“We will see, and I will say no more.”
Silence came over them and stood there for some time. Their hearts still raced at their narrow escape. At length the silence was broken, but not by any of them. A muffled scratching noise came from the wall, from the statue of the king.
“The devil is upon us,” Lorenzo said, “He saved me once, but I do not herald his return.”
Lorenzo opened his mouth as if to continue, but before he could, a louder noise came from the statue. They turned to the stone king, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, it swung open to the right, revealing the secret passage. A head was pushed through into the prison cell. It was a blond head, with thin lips and noble eyes. The newcomer carried a lantern, and in a second was in the cell with them. Several more men remained in the tunnel behind him.
The prisoners stood chained against the wall but Lorenzo still found a way to dance about in joy. Celestine stood with a calm, expecting smile upon her face. Vahan’s features were blank, for he had no emotions in his surprise. Alfonzo stood still, his countenance immovable. It was as if he had been expecting the man to appear.
“A well-executed plan, Blaine,” Alfonzo said. “The guards have just left us.”
“That’s right, sir, the diversion is taking place,” he answered. “Your face is pale.”
“He was badly tortured, Blaine,” Celestine whispered.
Blaine’s face was filled with a righteous wrath; it gave him a noble air.
“We must hurry, sir,” he said, “We have to gain the inner courtyard: our decoy may need rescued.”
“Of course,” Alfonzo said, as he was unchained. “Let us finish what we have begun. Have you brought swords? We will need them above.”
Chapter 36
The night was clear and the air sharp with cold. Far above, the moon gave a silvery tint to everything it touched, even the shadows that covered the forest road. All was silent in the forest, but from the road came the sound of a troop of galloping horses. The dust was thrown into the air as they went, catching the light of the moon and focusing it into a beam that fell upon the riders.
There were twenty horsemen, dressed in silver plate mail with only a yellow crescent on the chest and shield. The horses had no spot of a color on them, but were wholly black. There were two riders in the front; those behind rode three abreast. The first was a beautiful woman, clothed entirely in white and riding on a white mare. Her hair was as rich as the night sky, and as dark, falling halfway down her back. The second leading rider was an imposing man: not tall, yet strong and graceful in his holding and covered by a black cloak that extended into a hood over his helmet. Still, as his mount ran oddly along, the hood fell back to reveal a golden helmet, ornamented with silver inlays. His mount was not a horse, but a gigantic black bear.
“The lights of the city draw near,” Ivona whispered to Willard with a smile, her lips the reefs of the ocean and her teeth the pearls upon their surface.
“Yes, it will be no more than a moment, my lady, the Queen of Saxony,” he laughed in his silent fashion, “From here, you do the talking. I will sit and look fierce.”
Ivona turned her head into the forest, her green eyes shining in the moonlight.
Willard ignored her implied response and continued, “Blaine will start down the passage to the dungeon when we enter the city gates. Once there, we turn our faces toward Gylain’s castle.”
“And then?”
“We trust to fate.”
“And God.”
“Yes, of course,” he smiled, as if saying a falsehood. He turned to the horsemen and said loud enough for them to hear, “Keep silent, for they will know your accents.”
They came to the southern gate of the city. The wall of stone that separated the forest and the city was fifty feet tall, a sort of demarcation line between civilization and the wilderness. Each rose up to show its full power, and, between the two, mortal man seemed powerless. The gate was of metal and rose a few feet higher than the wall. There was a second gate a dozen yards after the first, and the area between the two was walled and covered by two stone towers. Ivona led them directly to the gate and halted, giving the guards a moment to react before Willard blew the horn that announced the queen’s arrival.
“Halt, who goes there?” cried the guards.
“The Queen of Saxony,” Ivona yelled back, her voice a mixture of indignation and surprise that they should question one so great as her.
The guards opened the gates without further proof, dispatching a messenger to alert Gylain of his coming guests. The troop rode through the city without delay, with the stiff demeanor of a royal retinue. Willard, having passed through the city earlier in the day, guided them.
Eden was composed of circles of buildings, each forming a complete seal around the park or garden that filled their center. There, in the common yard, the community of the circle would spend their evenings. At this time, the populace was in these yards, and the streets were mostly clear. At times they were especially narrow – where the closest edges of the circles came together – and at others they were almost spacious.
On either side of the streets, the buildings rose up for hundreds of feet and blocked the direct moonlight, though there was still an aura of silver that lit the way. Many of the houses were lit from top to bottom, and most of the stores were still opened, their front rooms almost hanging into the cobblestone streets. Some of the city dwellers still walked the streets, passing from one building to the next. At some points there were parks that took up an entire circle, wherein larger gatherings were taking place.
At length, they reached the castle quadrant in the heart of the city. The castle walls were three hundred feet tall. But the buildings surrounding them were just as tall, and the castle was not as great as it would have been, if it had been alone. Most of the buildings around the castle were lit and busy, except a circle of five, adjacent to the drawbridge. These were dark, and it seemed that a cloud hung around them.
Ivona glanced over and shuddered at them.
“The clouds of darkness,” she said. “I am glad that is not our destination.”
“Let us hope they will be, ere the end has come, Ivona,” Willard answered.
Two dozen yards separated the buildings from the castle walls, and through that space ran a small river. It passed through the commercial section of the city – including the area by the rebel’s secret entrance – and was used as a canal until it emptied into the Floatings. In this area, it was diverted from its path to wrap around the castle, partly for defense and partly for customs. Because the roads in Eden came close together halfway through the circles, large numbers of wagons could not pass through them without clogging the traffic. Therefore, it was commonplace for the manufacturers, tradesmen, and artists of the city to place their wares into large barrels, and float them down the river to the harbor. There they were loaded onto ships and sent out into the Floatings, the maritime market. As the canal passed around the castle, the customs officers had only to station themselves on the drawbridge to collect their taxes.
Barrel shepherds would guide the barrels with long, wooden poles as they traveled down the river. This was commonplace, and no one wondered when a herd of barrels floated by, even after the fall of darkness.
They stopped in front of the river, waiting for the drawbridge to lower. As they stood there, an old, stooped man herded two dozen barrels past them. Half of the barrels were floating heavily in the water – as if full – and the other half were floating lightly – as if empty. Ivona and Willard stood directly before the spot at which the drawbridge would reach the ground. Just as it came down, the old man stopped in front of them and his barrels came to a halt under the drawbridge.