FOURTEEN

The march from Vitrisi had gone forward without mishap. The Taerleezi soldiers, seasoned veterans all, had maintained good discipline and made good time. The Belandor household servants had proved similarly orderly, while the tavern sweepings, perhaps influenced by the demeanor of their companions, had displayed willingness and obedience. All had proceeded smoothly until Abona, where the force had turned off the VitrOrezzi Bond and taken to the hillside trails, whose narrowness and steep grade obliged Aureste Belandor to abandon his carriage in favor of horseback. The contents of the supply wagons had required redistribution, with transfer of some articles to muleback. This done, the expedition had pushed forward at a fine pace, but the adjustment had cost some time and dawn was imminent by the time Aureste confronted Ironheart.

There it rose, a heavy, stark stone fortress in miniature, its graceless square turrets visible above a girdling wall, darkly silhouetted against a night sky commencing its matinal fade to charcoal. Despite the lateness or earliness of the hour, the place showed surprising signs of wakeful life. Light glowed yellow at several windows. Perhaps Jianna sat sleepless beside one of them; perhaps she somehow sensed her father’s approach. Aureste sent his importunate thoughts winging to the stronghouse, but caught no echo of his daughter’s presence. There was nothing to tell him that she was there or ever had been, not the slightest quiver of the psychic recognition once afforded by his brother’s skill. He had thought to achieve the same result by sheer force of will, but there was nothing at all. Perhaps truly nothing, now or ever again, because they had already killed the kneeser’s daughter?

The thought was insupportable—and untrue. He had touched Jianna’s mind and spirit, not long ago. She lived, awaiting rescue. Inside that stronghouse, just on the other side of that wall.

He issued commands and his soldiers, keeping to the shelter of the woods, made haste to fan out about Ironheart. And once that was done, the need for stealth lapsed and he could permit the men to kindle bonfires lighting their way as they advanced the two highly illicit cannon on carriages into position, aiming both guns low and straight at the big double gate in the wall at the front of the building. The gate was constructed of multiple oaken layers heavily fortified with crisscrossing bands of iron. It was well engineered to withstand the assault of the arrows, pikes, axes, or battering rams employed by wandering gangs of brigands or by the forces of neighboring rustic chieftains. But it had never been designed to withstand artillery fire. Cannon had never thundered across the heights and valleys of the Alzira Hills, but all of that was about to change.

Aureste regarded the quiet scene—the old fortified dwelling, silent and at rest beneath a barely lightening sky; Jianna’s prison—and a tide of rage welled inside him. In his breast pocket reposed a written missive, addressed to the head of the household and offering clemency to all inhabitants in exchange for the immediate return of his daughter, alive and uninjured. He had promised his brother that he would extend such an offer, and he meant to keep his word. At the moment, however, the defenders had no particular incentive to accept. Assuming ample stores of provisions laid in, they might well imagine themselves capable of resisting a lengthy siege. It would serve the best interests of all were he to disabuse them of this notion.

Aureste made his will known. The cannon were loaded, the gunners applied lengths of smoldering cord to the touchholes, and a double flash of fire accompanied by a double roar split the nascent dawn. Two substantial projectiles hit the oaken gate at nearly point-blank range. A drift of powder-reeking smoke briefly obscured the scene, then cleared to reveal the gate in ruins, fragments of oak and iron lying scattered far and wide, at sight of which the soldiers raised a cheer.

Not a bad announcement of his arrival. Aureste smiled. Calling one of his Faerlonnish bodyguard to him—a youthful giant, skilled as a fighter, but also well-spoken and possessed of pleasing manners—he handed over the prepared correspondence, ordering the youngster to approach the stronghouse under a blue banner of parley. His emissary departed.

All watched in fascination as their fresh-faced comrade crossed the courtyard under his blue flag, marched straight to the front door, and was promptly admitted. The door closed behind him. Silence ensued.

Some quarter of an hour later, the young fellow emerged unharmed, hurried back the way he had come, and presented himself to his master.

“The message was delivered to the head of the household?” inquired Aureste.

“Aye, Magnifico. She got it and read it,” the guard replied.

“She?”

“Aye.”

“Tall, strapping woman? Of some years by now. Square face, square jaw, very forceful and resolute?”

“Aye, Magnifico. That’s it, sir.”

“Ah.” Unmistakable. So the dead Magnifico Onarto’s widow Yvenza still lived and ruled her wilderness stronghold. He remembered her clearly from a quarter century past. She had been a young woman then, but strong and already formidable. He would never forget the determination and persistence with which she had raised her voice against him in the last weeks preceding her husband’s downfall, nor would he forget her nearly phosphorescent hatred. Had she been a man, he might almost have feared to let her live. But the new Magnifico Belandor could scarcely war on widowed women; to do so would have made him a monster or a laughingstock. Or both.

“Her reply?” Aureste prompted.

“She says that an offer of clemency isn’t good enough. She says she wants what she called ‘specific assurances’ of safety and freedom for herself and all her people. She says she doesn’t much care to treat with underage underlings. She says she’ll meet with Aureste Belandor face-to-face in order to name a fair ransom and set the exact terms of the hostage’s release.”

“Terms? I refrain from slaughtering every man, woman, and child presently occupying this backwoods dunghill. Those are the terms I offer.”

“She says she’ll meet up with you in the front court, halfway between the gate and the house. And if anything happens to her out there, then the Maidenlady Jianna gets her throat slit on the spot.”

“After which, everybody in the house dies by slow torture. Did you see my daughter in there?”

“No, Magnifico.”

“What did you see?”

“The lady—Magnifica, her people call her—and a gaggle of her folk standing around with weapons drawn on me.”

“Very well.” Aureste reflected. Yvenza was fully aware of her captive’s immense value and would negotiate accordingly. Concessions would have to be granted in order to effect Jianna’s release. Once his daughter was safe, he would avenge himself. “I will meet with Onarto’s widow.”

A blue banner of parley was invariably honored, yet ordinary prudence dictated at least minimal precaution. Aureste took time to buckle on a steel breastplate, invisible beneath his heavy winter cloak. He bore both sword and dagger, and with him brought two helmeted Taerleezi guards, each equipped with conventional weapons, but one also carrying a very newfangled hackbut, the other bearing the blue banner. Thus attended, he approached the stronghouse, passing through the gaping hole in the wall and over the blasted ruins of the gate. Ironheart’s front portal opened briefly. A trio of figures emerged and advanced to meet him: a woman flanked by two armed guards or servants.

Aureste eyed her keenly. Tall, as he remembered, but a dark gown and voluminous cloak disguised her outline. Her hood was raised against the wintry chill; no telling whether her hair had gone to grey, as had his own. Her walk was vigorous and elastic as a girl’s. Her face was shadowed and even as they neared one another, he could not discern her features.

He halted and spoke without salutation or ceremony. “Madam, before I will consent to extend the hand of mercy to you and your household, I require proof of my daughter’s safety. I wish to see her and to speak with her. If this demand is not met—”

The threat remained unspoken. She had continued her progress and now, almost eye-to-eye with him, somehow summoned a short, heavy-bladed sword from the recesses of her generous apparel and lunged. He was not altogether unprepared and yet so sudden and swift was the attack that her blade scraped the steel of his breastplate before his own sword found its way to his hand and he struck her weapon aside. Simultaneously her two followers drew blades on the Taerleezi guards.

She was remarkably strong and quick for a middle-aged woman. Her recovery was immediate and her renewed assault so fierce that she actually succeeded in driving him back a few paces. For all of that energy, however, her technique was crude, almost as if she had been carefully schooled by some bumpkin. He himself had perhaps lost something of speed but nothing of cunning, and a fluid feint penetrated her guard, bringing his blade to her chest. Some almost forgotten principle or lesson of extreme youth momentarily checked him, preventing the slaughter of a woman at his hand, and she seized that opportunity to jump back out of reach. The sudden movement displaced her hood, revealing short cropped hair topping a smooth and youthful male countenance.

Not Yvenza Belandor at all, not even a woman. A deception, a treacherous attempt on his life, enacted beneath the flag of parley. Anger flamed and Aureste lunged for the counterfeit Yvenza, who turned tail and ran for the house. One of the Taerleezi guards felled his opponent without effort. The other leveled and fired his hackbut. The shot roared wide, but the target—appalled by the introduction of unfamiliar technology—fled for safety. Both men vanished back into the house, and the door slammed shut behind them.

A brief flight of arrows winged from a quartet of second-story recessed windows. A couple of them missed. One of them pierced a Taerleezi throat whose owner fell, still clutching the blue banner. Another struck glancingly off Aureste’s cuirass; had the arrow hit squarely, it might well have penetrated the steel.

Aureste turned without visible haste and went back the way he had come, followed by his surviving guard. Once clear of the courtyard, he ordered the two cannon advanced to the gap in the wall and trained full on the doorway through which his attackers had vanished.

“Break them,” he commanded, and as dawn rose the bombardment commenced.

* * *

The destruction of Ironheart’s front portal was easily accomplished. A duo of cannon blasts reduced the door to splinters and scrap metal, but gaining entry was another matter. From the smoking ruin of the doorway issued swarms of arrows, shot by invisible archers. Likewise invisible were the marksmen shooting from the narrow windows slitting the first and second stories. Attempted incursion provoked deadly flights reinforced by flung canisters of powder trailing short lighted fuses.

Equipped with the best helmets, body armor, and advanced weaponry, the expensive Taerleezis suffered few casualties. Aureste’s own household guards, almost as well protected, fared similarly. The self-accoutered tavern hirelings, however, were suffering, and Aureste was obliged to order them back out of range. Tactical revisions were indicated.

Double cannon fire blasting through the demolished doorway into the bowels of the stronghouse doubtless wrought internal havoc. This accomplished, Aureste moved artillery and some men to the rear of the building, where a brief thunder of big guns destroyed the kitchen door, effectively dividing the defenders’ force. Arrows winged from the rear windows, while the attackers’ return crossbow fire bounced harmlessly off the stone walls. Aureste accordingly repositioned his cannon, ordering the gunners to sight on specific windows. Massive projectiles commenced battering Ironheart’s second story, front and rear.

The day wore on. The cannonade continued, and the walls of Ironheart, stout though they were, began to display the effects of the judiciously directed pounding. Half a dozen windows had been enlarged from slits to jagged rents. No less than five defenders, attempting to fire from those formerly protected positions, had been picked off by Taerleezi marksmen. In the midafternoon, a well-aimed cannonball smashed through the second-story masonry dividing a pair of expanded windows to tear a great hole in the wall above the front door, whose defense waxed problematic.

Disinclined to sacrifice his own men without need, Aureste made no attempt to hasten matters. Another three hours of crashing assault wrought gaping damage upon Ironheart’s front façade while claiming the lives of assorted defenders. Arrow flights from within thinned, but the raising of the white-and-black banner, signaling the attacker’s demand for surrender, went unacknowledged. He had expected that communication to draw a counteroffer, bartering his daughter’s life and safety for advantageous terms, but there was nothing. Perhaps they feared to provoke him with an ultimatum, or perhaps they had nothing to bargain with; they had already killed her. Or his own cannon fire had killed her.

He would roast the Widow Yvenza alive.

The bombardment continued, and now the plumes of black smoke billowing from the ruined windows hinted of interior fires blazing out of control. The white banner of surrender never appeared, but the force of the defensive volleys was undeniably diminishing. When the shadows were starting to stretch and Ironheart’s façade was cracked, pocked, and riddled with holes, Aureste judged it time to throw his strength simultaneously against front and rear doorways. At the front, the resistance held firm. At the back, defense was weaker and a band of the skilled Taerleezis succeeded in beating their way into the kitchen, where the opposition of the homespun household guards and servants was swiftly crushed. The Taerleezis ranged efficiently and unstoppably through the ground-floor rooms and galleries, killing as they went. When they reached the front door, they engaged its defenders, who—caught between attacking forces—died to a man. Whooping guardsmen poured in through the front door, and after that it was only a matter of searching through the stronghouse to eliminate all remaining pockets of resistance. Before the winter daylight began to fail, the Taerleezi troops’ standard flew from the tallest turret.

Ironheart had fallen.

* * *

When the stronghouse had been properly searched and its surviving defenders thoroughly subdued, Aureste entered. His immediate demand for news of his daughter drew no satisfactory response from the Taerleezi squadron leader. No female remotely answering the missing maidenlady’s description had been discovered within the confines of the stronghouse; no living girl, no corpse, nothing. And it flashed through Aureste’s mind in the course of a horrible fraction of a second that it had all been a gigantic error. He had misinterpreted, he had placed his reliance upon huge assumptions, he had willfully deceived himself, and all this costly, destructive effort had been in vain. Jianna was not here and never had been.

Not possible. Unacceptable. They were hiding her somewhere and he would compel them to relinquish her. He would use any and all necessary means.

He wanted a room in which to conduct an interrogation, and they led him to a chamber of moderate size, almost undamaged, apparently used as a dining hall. A long table still bore the drying remnants of a surprisingly lavish meal. Ordering the remains removed and the lamps lit, he seated himself and was immediately approached by one of his own household guards, the same youngster who had carried his written message into Ironheart hours earlier.

“Magnifico, a word,” the youngster requested, guarded demeanor and suppressed tone conveying confidential intent.

Aureste inclined his head.

“Sir, we’ve sorted through the dead, and there’s one of them you should know about. Middle-aged fellow, looking like he was hit by flying rubble during the bombardment, carrying papers identifying him as an Orezzian East Reach Traveler. That’s somebody. Didn’t know if you’d want these Taerleezi cocks getting wind of it. Orders, sir?”

“Remove all identification and burn it. Discreetly,” Aureste commanded. “You’ve done well—Drocco, isn’t it?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Expect a reward, Drocco.”

“Thank you, sir.” The enterprising youngster saluted and withdrew.

No sooner had he left than another of the Belandor personal guards presented himself, bearing some sort of a bundle.

“Magnifico, we’ve found something, if you please,” the fellow announced. “Found it in a little sleeping chamber up top.”

“Show me,” Aureste ordered, barely containing his impatience.

The guard shook out his bundle, which unfolded into a woman’s cloak of garnet wool trimmed with bands of black fox. The garment was soiled and tattered, its once rich fur matted, but perfectly recognizable. It was the traveling cloak that Jianna had worn the morning she departed Vitrisi. She had been wearing it the last time he had seen her.

Hope and fear ignited inside him. He concealed both. Frozen-faced, he emptied the room of all save a handful of the most professional of Taerleezis, then ordered the surviving members of the outlaw Belandor clan brought before him. Their number, he knew full well, would not include the proscribed Magnifico Onarto. He could only hope that Onarto’s widow still lived, for she, beyond doubt, had stolen his daughter and attempted his life, and she merited his closest attention.

Slow minutes passed before his prisoners appeared, only three in number. One of them, a towering and powerfully built young man, square and broad of expressionless face, pale-eyed, and seemingly unhurt. A second, another young man resembling the first in feature and coloring, but evidently wounded, his right hand and arm bound in bandages. A couple of guards bore him in on a makeshift stretcher, which they deposited upon the floor. And the third, the object of real interest, the Widow Yvenza; hair streaked with grey and face bitterly lined, but otherwise much as he remembered her from a quarter century past. Still tall, upright, strong, and vital. Still square and grim of jaw, still hard and compelling of eye.

She was inspecting him with equal attention, taking in every detail. The set of her lips altered almost imperceptibly, the minute change conveying eloquent contempt. He had forgotten that mute disdain of hers, forgotten how it had always roused his anger together with the uneasy sense that she saw him too clearly and understood him too well. He had all but forgotten, too, how greatly he disliked the woman, as he had never disliked her husband, the harmless, simple Onarto.

“Cousin Aureste.” Yvenza shook her head as if bemused. “You’ve grown so very old.”

Disregarding the taunt, Aureste inquired levelly, “These are your sons?” His gesture encompassed her two fellow prisoners.

“You ought to know them, cousin. You lived with my boys Onartino and Trecchio at Belandor House years ago, when my late husband in his charity took you in and sheltered you after the war. They are your own kin, closer to you than perhaps you realize.”

The woman’s voice and manner somehow contrived to hint at secret and highly satisfying knowledge. Ridiculous, of course. Vanquished and wholly powerless, she still imagined herself capable of besting him upon some mental level. He had no interest in continuing a battle that he had already won.

“Cooperate fully and I will spare the lives of your sons,” he informed her. “Resist, and I will slaughter them both before your eyes.”

“Surely not, cousin. You were never one to dirty your own hands in the presence of witnesses.”

Her insolence under the circumstances was remarkable. Perhaps it sprang from despair, but she scarcely appeared defeated, much less hopeless, and still she maintained her air of secret knowledge. A pose, an attitude, that he would not deign to acknowledge.

“I’ll not duel with you, madam,” he told her. “The contest is over and I have won it. Restore my daughter and I’ll allow you to live. But act quickly, my patience is limited.”

“The duel.” Yvenza nodded. “But can you truly count yourself a victor, cousin, so long as the prize eludes your grasp? This missing daughter of yours—this wayward wonder—shall we speak of her? How long has she been lost to you? Have you received no word from her, no intelligence of her whereabouts, no ransom demand? If not, how cruel the uncertainty! Tell me, do you not dream of her at night? Do you not imagine her helpless in the hands of strangers, imprisoned, tortured, dishonored and degraded, crying aloud for the father who never comes to her rescue?”

Aureste felt his blood surge. Suppressing all outward sign of rage and terror, he replied mellifluously, “I have come now. You paint ugly pictures of the imagination, madam. How much uglier to see them enacted in reality, before your eyes, upon the bodies of your sons?”

“You speak recklessly, cousin, without consideration of consequences. Perhaps advancing age has begun to erode your intellect. There is no telling, is there, what sort of situation your daughter presently endures—assuming that she still lives. Your Taerleezi hirelings have searched this house from top to bottom and they’ve discovered nothing. You know now that she is not here—if in fact she ever was.”

“Her cloak has been found. She was here, and may still be, locked away in some secret closet or cabinet. I will tear the house apart stone by stone, or perhaps I’ll simply tear the flesh piecemeal first from your sons’ bones, and then from your own.”

“And still you will find nothing, for I’ll satisfy your paternal curiosity so far as to assure you that your girl isn’t here in this house, and that you may believe. Where then could she be? The possibilities are almost limitless. Might she, for example, find herself imprisoned in some hut or cave deep in the woods, guarded by those under orders to strangle her at a certain hour should they fail to receive word from me or mine? Distressing, yes, but at least a hut or cave offers shelter. What if she has none? What if she has been stripped and chained to some tree or rock, left naked to the winter winds and the appetites of beasts, both four-legged and two-legged?

“On the other hand, what if she is sheltered more closely than she could possibly desire? Have you ever heard the tale of the abduction of Count Moverna’s oldest son? No? It is an education. It seems that the kidnappers—masters that they were of cruelty and cunning—placed the stolen child in a sizable box, which they buried six feet deep in a wooded wasteland, with only a narrow tube ascending from the box to the surface allowing passage of air. The ransom was paid promptly, the location of the box was disclosed, and the count’s son was recovered, still alive, but so damaged by his ordeal that he was never robust thereafter, but grew up sickly, melancholy, and timorous.

“The child’s suffering lasted only a matter of hours. What might the result have been had it continued longer? Who can begin to imagine the agony of a youthful prisoner, trapped, buried alive, lying there alone in the cold and the darkness of her grave? Can words convey her sense of horror as the endless hours expire, as the small store of food and water left with her is exhausted, as the air grows foul and nauseous with the stench of her wastes, as her voice grows hoarse with the screaming that goes unheard? Assuming that the air tube isn’t blocked with mud or leaves, she might live thus for many days—each one a torturous eternity. These are such matters as you may wish to consider, cousin, before you go crowing to the world of your great victory.”

He wanted very much to kill her. He wanted to plunge his sword into her vitals and watch her blood flow. At the same time he was conscious of the most abject desire to plead with her, to offer anything and everything in exchange for Jianna’s safe return. Aureste indulged neither impulse. When he answered, his rich voice was particularly musical. “It would seem that you imagine yourself capable of bargaining with me, of naming demands or even setting terms. You delude yourself. For your own sake, abandon this folly.”

“Your concern for my welfare is heartwarming. But what demands have I made, cousin? What terms have I sought? What have you to give that I could want, beyond your sorrow and undoing?”

“Your sons’ lives, perhaps?”

“Your threats are empty. Touch any one of us and you’ll never see that girl you treasure again. The hills are wide and the forests deep. You might search for a lifetime and never find her. If she is still alive to be found.”

Despite her wretched position, she still plainly believed that she held the winning card. She would play it to the limit and beyond, play it for days, weeks, years to come—if he permitted it.

He would not.

“Madam, you are in error,” Aureste returned gently. He regarded the two young men, her sons. The big one, uninjured, returned the scrutiny impassively. His eyes, pale and cold as slush, were also inexpressive as slush, his countenance as a whole perfectly unrevealing. The other one, wounded and stretched out on the floor, appeared at best but semiconscious. His eyes were closed, and from time to time an incoherent muttering bubbled out of him. Clearly an unpromising source of information. Engaging the eye of the nearest Taerleezi soldier, Aureste flicked an indicative finger and directed, “Dispatch him.”

At once the soldier drew his sword.

“Wait.” Yvenza’s tone was so commanding that her listener obeyed. “Have done with these charades. You will not harm us. You cannot, you dare not. We both know this.”

“One of us is sadly misguided.” Aureste repeated his signal.

The soldier shrugged and plunged the heavy blade into the throat of the recumbent prisoner. Blood gushed extravagantly. The victim thrashed and floundered a bit, then died in a red pool. Something like a grunt escaped the watching Onartino; the first sound he had hitherto uttered. His fists clenched briefly.

Aureste’s avid gaze fastened upon Yvenza’s face. She was a mother whose son had just been killed before her eyes; her pain and grief must be unimaginable. And he wanted to see them. Every tear, every shudder, every aspect of her agony—he meant to drink them in. He wanted her to suffer at length; he wanted reparation.

But the Widow Yvenza offered little satisfaction. Her set face was every bit as expressionless as Onartino’s as she met Aureste’s eyes and announced evenly, “Your daughter is a dead woman. Her death will be slow—over the course of years—and very ugly.”

“Not nearly so ugly as that of your older son, should you continue to resist me,” he replied with a smile designed to freeze her to the marrow. Her composure and fortitude were extraordinary, but he would surely break her. “Give me back my daughter, alive and well, and I will give you your son, your only remaining son. Refuse, and you lose everything.”

“You have lost everything, Aureste,” she told him. “You simply do not know it yet. Your daughter is no longer yours.”

That odd look of secret knowledge was back in her face, and it disturbed him, but he thrust his misgivings aside. The woman was acting, or mad, or both. He had no time to waste on her theatrics.

“Perhaps grief has unhinged you,” he suggested drily, and in one corner of his mind he realized that he half believed it. The marble immobility of her face suggested lunacy. “I will endeavor to recall you to reality.” Turning to the nearest of his Taerleezis, he commanded, “Take this woman’s son, strip him naked, and beat him with truncheons, brazen knuckles if you have them, belt buckles, fire irons—whatever comes most readily to hand. Strike to cause maximum pain and injury, but do not kill him as yet, and see to it that he does not lose consciousness. You two”—he addressed a pair of soldiers—“place the woman in a chair affording her a good view, and see that she stays there.”

The soldiers made haste to obey. Before they could lay hands on him, Onartino spoke up for the first time since he had been brought in.

“Enough,” he snapped. “Back off. I’ll tell you all there is to tell about your daughter.”

“Hold your tongue, boy,” Yvenza warned.

“Your stubbornness and your venom have just gotten Trecchio killed,” Onartino returned. “So happy with your accomplishment that you’re trying to do as much for me, Mother? There’s no great secret here to betray. In fact, I say the stew’s tastier if he knows. I’ve said so all along.”

“And when he knows, what then?” Yvenza inquired. “When he’s learned all and has no further need of us, exactly what do you think happens next, my wise and judicious son?”

“Tell me the truth and I will spare your lives,” Aureste reminded her, pleased to witness familial discord. “I have given my word.”

“Your word?” She curved her lips in imitation of a smile. “The worth of your word is famed far and wide.”

“Will you save yourself?” Aureste inquired of the son.

“As you value our lives, boy, hold your peace,” Yvenza warned.

“Trecchio held his. I don’t mean to follow his path. You can go on with your games and plots; I’ve had enough of them.” Turning to Aureste, Onartino declared, “You already know that your girl has been in this house. Well, she’s not here now. Seems the cunning little harlot managed to seduce one of the servants, and he ran off with her last night. We might have tracked them down by now if it hadn’t been for you and your cannon and your Taers, so you’ve got yourself to thank for their escape. One more detail that you might like to know, though—before our little Jianna scoured off, she married me. The ceremony was performed by the East Reach Traveler before a roomful of witnesses, so it’s legal and binding as you please. The girl’s my wife now, wherever she might hide and however she may whore herself, she’s still mine, subject first to my authority. When she’s found, she’s mine. So there you have it. Finished and done.”

“You unutterable fool,” Yvenza remarked, very quietly. “You have ruined us.”

Just as quietly, Aureste inquired, “Where is she?”

“I just told you.” Incredibly, Onartino appeared impatient. “She’s run off. We don’t know where.”

“You expect me to believe that ludicrous concoction?” Aureste kept his voice low, but the rage and hatred, briefly lulled by the prospect of success, were reawakening. These backwoods brigand enemies of his had not only abducted Jianna, held her prisoner, and no doubt tormented her so far as they dared, but now they slandered her name, hindered his search, and insulted his intelligence. “You weave an absurd fantasy. Give me the truth, or I will rip it out of you.”

“You have the truth. If you don’t like it, that’s your affair.”

His captive’s affectation of surly indifference was a creative touch. Had the tale possessed even minimal plausibility, Aureste would have found himself in danger of believing. As it was—

“You expect me to accept the idea that the Maidenlady Jianna Belandor consented to grant you her hand?”

“A woman will consent to anything when it’s put to her in the right way.”

“And you also claim that my daughter—a sheltered virgin—was capable of seducing some species of household menial?”

“She knew how on instinct. With some of them, it’s just there in the blood.”

“You are a liar.” Aureste struck the other’s face and his ring opened a bloody gash.

Onartino snarled and returned the blow. Before his fist hit flesh, a quartet of Taerleezis flung themselves on him.

For a moment Aureste contemplated the immobilized prisoner, then commanded his soldiers, “Follow your instructions. Strip him and beat the truth out of him.”

They obeyed. At first Onartino fought back, struggling mightily to break free, cursing and even kicking. Despite his size and strength, he was no match for the Taerleezis, who swiftly cut the clothes from his body, then commenced beating him with their truncheons, belts, and fists. His cursing increased in volume and his struggles waxed in violence, for a little while. As the blows rained down on his unprotected flesh, however, his vociferation dwindled to grunts and gasps. The thud of a brass-knuckled fist on his nose coincided with a crackle of breaking bone and a spray of blood. A second such blow dislodged both his front teeth. Welts and cuts striped his torso and his resistance was visibly weakening when Aureste raised a negligent forefinger, suspending the assault.

Meeting the prisoner’s pale eyes, gleaming balefully behind swollen and purpling lids, he asked, “Where is my daughter?”

“You stupid kneeser shit, what does it take to get it through your head that we don’t know?” Onartino inquired in turn.

“Perhaps the mother is more reasonable than the son.” Aureste turned to Yvenza, who sat flint-eyed and upright in her chair. “Are you ready to relinquish my daughter?”

She stared at him. Her lips resumed their contemptuous curve.

“Do you understand that you’ll see him beaten to death before your eyes? Be assured that the spectacle will last throughout the night.”

“And your daughter’s fate will exceed it by a hundredfold.”

“You have her, then? You know where she is.”

“I will tell you nothing, cousin. I leave you to the joys of speculation.”

“That is scarcely my sole joy.” Addressing the Taerleezis, Aureste commanded, “The bastinado.”

At once Onartino was lifted, laid out flat on the table, and held down while a pair of soldiers took turns beating the soles of his feet with cudgels. This particular torment, while leaving few visible marks, was notoriously painful, but the sufferer never uttered a cry, much less a revealing word. Whatever his shortcomings, he was clearly no coward, and for the first time it occurred to Aureste to wonder whether he could possibly have been telling the truth, or even part of the truth.

But no. The story was wildly improbable to the verge of impossibility. Jianna, kidnapped and held captive in this guarded stronghouse, escaping in the company of some peasant lover scant hours prior to her father’s arrival? And even more implausible—Jianna married to this hulking, loutish son of her father’s enemy? The ceremony was performed by the East Reach Traveler before a roomful of witnesses, so it’s legal and binding as you please … So the oaf had claimed, and one of his own personal bodyguard, the promising Drocco, had reported the discovery of an East Reach Traveler among the dead, a finding that seemed to corroborate the story. But did not prove it, and the thing was just too fantastic for belief … a roomful of witnesses … He could question the surviving Ironheart servants—who would undoubtedly reply according to their masters’ will. No dependable testimony there.

Frustration heated his anger. He relieved both by setting his men to work on Onartino’s fingernails with pliers; but the extraction of all ten produced no satisfactory information. Likewise futile was the application of radiant red coals to strategic points of naked anatomy, although one such application, resulting in the sizzling destruction of the victim’s right eye, did at last succeed in breaching Onartino’s provoking stoicism. Roars of pain resounded beneath Ironheart’s grim old roof. Aureste drank the outcry, which seemed in part to quench his own inner fires. A measure of relief stole over him, and he signaled his men to desist. His eyes turned to Yvenza, who sat motionless, unblinking eyes fixed on the spectacle before her.

“Give me back my daughter and all this ends,” he offered once again.

Her gaze flicked him and turned away, as if from an object unworthy of notice. In that instant he saw that her eyes were astonishingly devoid of tears; devoid of fear, hate, grief, or any other readily identifiable emotion and therefore alien as the eyes of some visitor from beyond the stars.

Thrusting his misgivings aside, he nodded and the torture resumed, the Taerleezis now hauling their prey upright to endure a merciless rain of cudgel blows to the torso. But Onartino’s response was disappointingly sluggish; his sensations seemed to have dulled. At last a poorly aimed blow glanced off the back of his skull to leave him sagging unconscious in the grip of his captors.

Annoyed, Aureste was obliged to order another suspension of activity. During the lull he repaired to a chamber more tranquil of atmosphere, there to dine on the best fare the indifferent kitchen of Ironheart could provide. Following his meal, he demanded to be shown to the chamber in which his daughter’s cloak had been discovered. It took but moments to investigate the place, a very plain, chilly little room whose door could be barred from the outside. No furnishings beyond a small bed with a threadbare blanket, pot under the bed, a rickety table, washbasin and pitcher. No ornaments, no clothing or personal items, nothing to recall his daughter’s presence. And then he noticed the crude wooden comb lying in the shadow of the basin and all but invisible on the wooden table. He picked it up and found tangled in its teeth a single long, dark hair. The right length, the right color. Hers. His eyes scalded for a moment. He slipped the comb into his pocket then returned to the interrogation chamber, renewed in energy.

Onartino had recovered consciousness. He lay supine and motionless on the floor, his large body crisscrossed with welts and bleeding cuts, splotched with purple-black bruises and red burns, knobbed with discolored lumps suggestive of broken bones. His face presented a shocking spectacle, with its burned-out eye socket surrounded by hugely swollen, livid flesh. He turned to look with his one remaining eye as Aureste reentered, his gaze unblinking and expressionless as a wounded lizard’s. Similarly impassive waited Yvenza, still in the chair where the soldiers had placed her. The soldiers themselves sat at the table, indifferent to the bloodstains marking its surface as they consumed the meal that some servant had evidently been ordered to bring them. They snapped to attention as Aureste came in.

Advancing to Onartino’s side, Aureste halted, looked down, and observed, “There’s still time to save yourself. Where is my daughter?”

“Probably servicing sailors, by this time,” Onartino opined, voice hoarse, words slurred but still understandable.

Aureste came within a nervespan of driving his booted heel straight down on the profane mouth, but controlled the impulse. The loss of all his remaining teeth might render the prisoner incapable of intelligible speech. Therefore turning to Yvenza, he inquired simply, “Well?”

There was no reply. She did not trouble to glance in his direction.

The beating resumed, this time with the soldiers focusing their particular attention on the prisoner’s joints—knees, ankles, wrists, elbows, shoulders. Onartino was no longer able to contain his outcry, but the roars had given way to shuddering moans. No information emerged, however; nothing from the victim or from his stone-faced mother. Presently Onartino fainted. A bucketful of cold water only partially revived him, and once again the proceedings had to be halted.

It was clear that the Taerleezis were losing enthusiasm. The early rush of savage enjoyment had waned, their weakening victim’s initially entertaining responses had fallen off, and their strenuous employment was taking on the aspect of drudgery. Well-disciplined soldiers, however, they dutifully carried on. Aureste’s own satisfaction was similarly ebbing, along with his hopes. The punishment the prisoner had received should have loosened his tongue long ago, if in fact he concealed information of any description. It had become difficult to avoid considering the possibility that he did not. There were no secrets to reveal. He had told the truth from the beginning: Jianna had fled—assisted by some servant, perhaps someone with an eye to a reward, or perhaps simply a person possessing conscience and a sense of decency—and neither Onartino nor his mother had any idea where she was. And if in fact he had told the truth or some toxic version of the truth about her escape—had the rest of his story been true as well? The marriage, performed by the East Reach Traveler, before a roomful of witnesses, legal and binding as you please?

Ridiculous, impossible. And yet, what in the world could have inspired Onartino Belandor to invent such a lie, guaranteed to rouse the fury of his captor? And what had brought the East Reach Traveler to Ironheart, to die with its defenders?

The night wore on, the dark hours passed, and the weary torturers were relieved by fresh Taerleezis who plied their clubs, their dagger points, and their heated poker with zest but no success. Onartino—increasingly distanced from recognizable human normality—furnished no information and little by way of diversion. His moans waxed periodic and monotonous. His spasms seemed reflexive, almost unconscious, and novel techniques—including the amputation of two fingers from his left hand—tapped no fresh wells of anguish. His mother was not much better. Her eyes remained fixed on the scene before her, but the eyes were vacant, the intelligence behind them seemingly elsewhere.

Time dragged on. The Taerleezis grew tired and bored. Onartino’s moans had ceased, and when they kicked him in the groin, he did not react at all. His one eye was open, but it was not certain that he retained consciousness. It had been hours since he had uttered a word.

Aureste commanded another cessation. Like his minions, he was weary; and perhaps unlike them, he was filled with disgust. The night was drawing to a close, and an infinity of torture had extracted no information from Onartino Belandor, who once again lay naked on the stone floor. Aureste looked into the single unseeing eye wide open in the distorted ruin of a face, and finally acknowledged to himself that there was nothing to be had; the interrogation had proved futile.

An uncharacteristic sense of defeat swept through him. He had overcome all obstacles and found his way to this remote fortified place, he had battered his way in, he had made himself master, and yet he had failed. The prize eluded his grasp, just as Yvenza had observed hours earlier. His eyes shifted to her. She remained upright in her chair, motionless and unfathomable, as she had sat throughout the night. But now, as if she felt the pressure of his gaze, she turned to look at him. Her face was petrified, but he fancied that he caught a cold glint of triumph in the depths of her eyes, and the sight was insupportable. His failure did not establish her victory; he would not allow it.

“Hours ago, you taxed me with falsehood,” he reminded her in a conversational tone, and there was nothing in her face to assure him that she heard or understood. “You slighted the worth of my word. The moment has come for me to demonstrate that I can be relied upon to keep my promises. I made one to you, if you recall. I promised that you would see your son beaten to death before your eyes. The task is all but complete, but not quite. Let us make an end.” Still no perceptible reaction from Yvenza, not even when he bade the soldiers, “Finish him.”

Obediently they stooped to their victim, and the thud of their clubs striking his skull was clearly audible. Onartino’s limbs twitched briefly and then he lay still.

“Magnifico, he’s done,” one of the soldiers reported.

“Your choices visited this fate upon him, madam,” Aureste informed Yvenza, every demon within him clamoring for vengeance. “Take consolation if you can in the knowledge that the loss belongs to both of us if, as he claimed, he was my son-in-law.”

No reaction, no response. She sat like a graven image, but he assumed that she could hear him plainly enough.

“During the course of this night, I’ve come to acknowledge the reality of your ignorance and your incompetence,” he informed her. “You abducted my daughter, but you could not hold her. She was too clever for you. She managed to escape, and now you truly have no idea of her whereabouts. Nothing is to be gained in questioning you further. Thus there remains only the matter of your punishment.”

Still no sign that she heard.

“It is within my rights and my power to order your immediate execution,” he continued. “But I’m disinclined to war on broken old women, and even less inclined to grant you the mercy of death. Better by far that you live on—childless, destitute, bereaved, a solitary homeless wanderer in the world, with naught but your memories and your misery to carry you along a beggarly road. Yes, I say homeless. I am turning you out of doors, madam. You may take with you such belongings as you can carry in a sack, and so you’ll go your way. I myself return to Vitrisi and the beauty of Belandor House, but do not imagine, once I am gone, that you will likewise return to this stronghouse. There will be no Ironheart for you, no refuge and fortress, no seat of outlaw power; it is finished. Do you understand me?”

Now she did turn to stare at him, and he read perfect comprehension in her eyes.

Without diverting his gaze from her face, he commanded, “Take her away. Let her gather what she will, with the exception of money and jewelry, then put her out.”

The Taerleezis moved to obey, and Yvenza finally spoke, in tones barely audible. “My sons.”

“What of them?”

“Burial.”

“I’ve no time to waste on ceremony.”

“Give them to me.”

“Ah, you stole my daughter, but expect me to give you your sons? I will take pity on you and offer my charity. If you’ve any of your household servants about, still alive and willing to bear the burden, I give you leave to carry the corpses away.” Addressing his soldiers, he commanded, “See to it.”

Head high, Yvenza departed, closely flanked by her sons’ killers. The door closed behind them. Alone, Aureste expelled his breath in a sigh and let his shoulders sag. Dawn was breaking, and he realized that he was overpoweringly tired. His eyes traveled the room, with its two corpses—Trecchio on the floor in the corner, where the soldiers had placed him, Onartino still lying where he had fallen—and its bloodstains, countless bloodstains. He filled his lungs with atmosphere reeking of blood and sweat, urine, smoke, cooked flesh, and vomit, and his sense of revulsion returned full force, along with his sense of defeat. All that he had wrought—all the destruction, all the bloodshed—all of it was worthless. He had not rescued Jianna. He could not absolutely assert that she still lived, although he refused to let himself believe otherwise. And he had no idea where to look for her.

The dark desolate fancies spun through his mind. He could neither grasp nor control them; and would not, he realized, until he had slept. Exiting the interrogation chamber, he made his will known and was conducted to Ironheart’s best bedroom—plain and simple but decent enough, with solid, mildly battered furniture, a couple of fraying tapestries on the walls, and an old-fashioned cupboard bed made up with freshly laundered sheets. Removing only his boots, he stretched himself fully dressed atop the coverlet, shut his eyes, and let sleep claim him. Just before he drifted off, it came to him as his last coherent thought that the bed he occupied almost certainly belonged to Yvenza. Here she had slept, presumably alone, for years; and further back in time, a quarter of a century past, she had shared this bed with her husband, the late lamented Magnifico Onarto. The thought was distasteful, even a little disturbing, but he did not let it keep him from slumber.

When Aureste next opened his eyes, the angle of light told him that it was midmorning. He must have slept some three or four hours, and the rest had done him good. He had recovered much of his wonted energy, along with his mental clarity. Apparently his mind had nourished and fortified itself while he slept, for his first waking thought reflected renewed optimism. He had failed to recover his daughter, but her kidnappers insisted that she had escaped on her own. If true, then she would head straight for Vitrisi and home. It was not impossible that he would find her waiting there upon his return. She would run to his arms; he would see her smile again.

So heartening was this thought that he was able to breakfast with good appetite before summoning the Taerleezi squadron leader and issuing orders for an exhaustive search of the surrounding countryside, to be conducted over the course of the next several days. His newfound sanguinity was at once undermined by the Taerleezi’s firm refusal. The terms of the agreement, he was reminded, included the taking of the stronghouse known as Ironheart; only so much, and nothing more. Mission accomplished, the squadron was under the Governor Uffrigo’s orders to return at once to Vitrisi, where its skill in the art of crowd control was much in demand. Nor could the offer of higher pay and a generous bonus alter matters. The squadron leader was adamant: His men would depart for the city this very day. The Faerlonnish magnifico could accompany them or not, as he chose.

Thwarted again. He could scarcely remain at Ironheart or even within its environs on his own. Unprotected, he would be murdered within hours if not minutes. There was no choice but to leave with the Taerleezis. And perhaps not the worst decision, although it ran counter to all paternal instinct. As Yvenza had noted, the hills were wide and the forests deep. He might search for a lifetime and never find her. But there was another whose detective abilities far exceeded his own. Innesq’s arcane guidance had served him well in the past and would surely do so again. He needed Innesq’s special talents now; it was indeed time to go home.

But he could hardly afford to leave Ironheart deserted. The door would scarcely have closed behind him before Yvenza and her people would be back inside, safe, comfortable, no doubt busy regrouping their forces and plotting revenge.

No.

Aureste issued commands that fell well within the designated scope of Taerleezi activity, and the soldiers busied themselves with careful placement of powder barrels—most of them grouped in the cellar, but others positioned along supporting walls at various levels of the building. Preparation for departure was completed. Wagons were loaded, mules hitched, horses saddled. The squadron withdrew to a safe position beyond the wall. A final warning was issued to clear the building of humanity; a trio of fleet-footed Taerleezis lit the fuses and exited at a run. Two or three minutes elapsed before a rumble shook the ground. The rumble rose to a roar and a searing blast shook Ironheart from foundation to roof. For an instant the world changed color as fire leaped for the sky. Rubble flew; clouds of smoke and dust billowed, all but obscuring the scene. For an instant the topmost turrets appeared to quiver; and then, with the thunder of an avalanche, the stronghouse fell. So strategic was the placement of explosives that the final collapse occurred almost vertically. The dust thickened, excluding all daylight, and flying pebbles pelted down like hail. Minutes later, when the atmosphere had partially cleared and the air was almost breathable again, it could be seen that the building lay in tumbled ruin. All that remained upright were a couple of sections of ground-story wall.

The soldiers whistled and cheered. Aureste’s own mood was far from triumphant. Long before the dust had fully settled, he turned his back on the wreckage of Ironheart and rode away.