“Then we must prepare.” Veressa began clearing the table. But as the rest of them were hurrying out into the courtyard, they heard something unexpected: a heavy knocking on the wooden door separating the botanist’s house from the main castle.
27
With an Iron Fist
1891, June 29: 7-Hour 34
Palace Gardens, soil guidelines—
Western Rose garden: import ONLY from the Papal States
Center garden and fountain: native (central Baldlands)
Periphery, juniper bushes: Northern Baldlands, coastal
—Martin’s notes on the gardens
“WHO IS IT?” Veressa asked through the closed door that connected with the palace.
“The royal guard requires entry, Miss Metl,” a voice replied. “An intruder was seen entering the greenhouses. We need to search your apartments.” As the guard finished speaking, a chorus of barking dogs erupted.
Veressa looked at her friends and father with alarm. Martin was hurriedly rolling down his pant legs. “I’ve only just gotten out of bed. Can’t you come back later?”
“I’m sorry. We have orders to search now. If you don’t open the door, we will have to enter forcibly through the greenhouses.”
“All right, all right.” Her voice was deceptively calm. “Give me just a minute to find my robe.”
There was a pause, then a terse reply: “One minute.”
Veressa hurried into the courtyard. “All of you—there’s no time. Hide in the greenhouses and try to make your way out if you can.”
“Certainly not,” Burr said indignantly. “Calixta and I will present ourselves when you open the door.”
“I can’t allow you to put yourselves in danger. Once the dogs get near my father”—who looked away as she gave him a worried glance—“our lives will not be worth protecting.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Calixta said, taking Sophia and Theo each by the arm. “All the more reason for us to stay. I’ll hide these two, along with my sword and pistol. Burr, you’ll do the same,” she said firmly. Burr strode off to his room. “And we’ll just make sure they don’t search every room. Come with me, sweethearts.” Calixta spoke calmly but quickly. “We will answer the door while the two of you wait in this bedroom.” She threw her pistol and long sword into one of her open trunks and locked it. “I very much doubt they will want to search the entire place after we are done speaking with them, but if they do, I am sure you will have noticed that this window”—and she pointed—“leads to the gardens.”
Sophia and Theo nodded. Calixta straightened up, instinctively reaching for her gun belt before remembering why she did not have it. For a moment, the beautiful pirate looked strangely vulnerable as she let her hand fall against her skirts. She recovered herself quickly. “Back in a moment!”
As soon as she was gone, they pressed their ears to the wood, straining to listen. First they heard Veressa’s clear voice as she admitted the guards. There was conversation; Sophia heard a deep voice, but she could not tell how many guards there were. The whining and barking of dogs punctuated their speech. Then what seemed to be Martin’s voice launched into a long-winded monologue followed by a brief silence, and then, unexpectedly, a shout. Sophia could not tell whom it came from. A moment later she heard the unmistakable clang of sword on stone. The dogs burst into unrestrained snarls. Sophia and Theo looked at one another in alarm. “Your reliable pirates,” he whispered. “I guess on land the quartermaster ignores the captain’s orders.”
There was an escalating commotion, and then a shot rang out from what must have been Burr’s pistol. A moment later, someone came running down the corridor. He tried the door of the bedroom and found it locked. “Open this door!” a voice shouted.
Sophia and Theo made for the window, leaping easily over the sill onto the ground below as the pounding on the door grew more urgent. For a moment they crouched in the flowerbed, looking out into the garden. Sophia clutched her pack to her chest. Behind them, the pounding had turned to battering. “I came in that way,” Theo said, pointing. “In the corner behind the bushes, there’s a loose bar in the fence.”
Sophia noticed a long walkway bordered by bougainvillea hedges that cut diagonally through the garden. “If we go through there, they might not see us.”
As they ran, Sophia glanced over her shoulder more than once, but all she could hear was the sound of running water and the chirping of birds. In the shelter of the bougainvillea, it was as if the castle didn’t exist at all. Even the glass spires and the high juniper hedges along the garden wall were out of sight.
Guards shouted in a distant part of the garden, but as they reached the end of the path, the sound of rushing water grew louder. They emerged abruptly onto a lawn with a tall stone fountain; mermen and mermaids crowded around its wide bowl, and a great rush of water fell over them in wide arcs. Sophia saw through the mist of the fountain what she’d been hoping: the high juniper bushes at the southeast corner of the garden. They rounded the fountain and rushed toward the junipers. “Where’s the opening?” she asked nervously.
Suddenly a shrill whistle, like the distorted cry of a bird, sounded from across the garden. Sophia and Theo turned to see a guard approaching with his spear held high, his cloak fanning out behind him, the feathered mask trembling as he ran. He glided like a bird of prey descending toward its target. Theo pushed at the hedges, searching for an opening. “Here! Here it is,” he exclaimed. Taking Sophia’s hand, he pulled her through into a narrow space between the bushes and the iron fence. He scrambled at the base of the fence, trying the bars in order to find the loose one. He found it and began wriggling it free.
Sophia pressed her face into the hedge and saw with horror that the guard was only a dozen paces away, his teeth bared with exertion as he closed the distance. “Theo,” she said with panic in her voice, “he’s coming.”
“It’s out!” Holding a half-length of iron nearly six feet long, he pushed Sophia through and followed her into the street. They were not a moment too soon. The guard threw himself against the fence, trying furiously but uselessly to squeeze after them, the bird of prey suddenly caught in a cage. His feathers mashed against the iron bars and he glared from behind his mask. Then he stopped struggling—and smiled.
Sophia turned with a sense of foreboding. Another guard towered over her, his spear raised high. For an eternal moment she could not move. His fierce mask had the keen aspect of a raptor, and his bare arm strained as he thrust the spear toward her and Theo with all his might.
And then something inexplicable happened.
Theo shoved out his right hand—a useless gesture of self-defense—and met the head of the spear. The obsidian blade hit his palm and stopped, the force of the blow pushing them both toward the fence. Sophia found herself pressed up against the bars behind Theo, his hand still raised. They stood there, pinned like butterflies, while the guard’s eyes blinked in surprise and he continued to strain uselessly against Theo’s right hand. Then Theo raised the iron bar in his left and swung, hitting the guard squarely in the ribs. The man groaned, releasing the pressure only slightly, but it was enough. His captives broke free. They ran across the avenue, dodging the spear that flew after them.
They dove into the narrow streets of Nochtland, their feet clattering on the cobblestone. Neither turned to look behind them as they jostled passersby and stumbled over the uneven paving, flying past avenues and side streets. “Here!” Theo shouted at the sight of a narrow alley.