“Here,” she muttered, and crouched down by a large rock that jutted out from the hillside. Without hesitating, Ravenna knocked on the rock once, then four times, paused, then twice again.
Instantly the rock rolled to one side and a worried face peered out at them.
“Thank the gods that you’re here!” the waiting monk exclaimed, and then they were all slipping below the level of the earth again, and the rock rolled silently closed to hide their secrets.
They were only just in time, for as the rock rolled closed eyes fluttered awake around the Veins, and Jack muttered and stirred as Garth and Joseph stood watching them silently.
“What?” Jack grumbled as he slowly rose to his feet. The other two guards and the sentry were also stumbling and yawning their way to their feet.
“We’re waiting for you to take us to Section 205,” Joseph said pleasantly. Garth had related an amazing tale in the two hours since the three monks had left with Maximilian, and Joseph had questioned his son closely. Joseph was proud of his son, although that pride was mixed with lingering resentment that Garth had not told him earlier, but he wondered if they would all live to enjoy the fruits of their adventure. Whoever had incarcerated Maximilian down here was not going to be pleased when he found out that the prince had escaped.
“Section 205?” Jack frowned, then his face cleared. “Oh, yes, of course. The fungus. Come on, then.”
And without another word he marched down the tunnel.
Joseph and Garth hurried after him, trying to look as if this was not the second time they had hurried down this tunnel today, and behind them came the two guards still rubbing sleep and confusion out of their eyes.
Apparently, none of the guards remembered that an extra three guards had come down in the cage with them.
Part-way back to Section 205 they met one of the gang’s guards, his face alive with alarm.
“One of the prisoners has escaped!” he gasped, and Jack turned and bellowed down the tunnel.
“Sound the alarm!”
Above, warned by some guilty instinct, Furst’s head leaped from his desk in mid-snore and he stared wildly about his office.
Maximilian had relaxed once they were beneath the level of the earth again, although the well-lit chamber into which the monk led them made him blink and turn his head aside.
The interior of the hill had been hollowed out and lined with the rock that had been excavated so that it made a great and airy chamber. There were narrow shafts that led to the outer world for air—their mouths well hidden with shrubs—and lamps that flared from eight or nine brackets on the stone walls. Scanty but comfortable furniture stood about, enlivened here and there with the lively colours of cushions and rugs.
Ravenna helped Vorstus lay Maximilian on a bed, and pulled a blanket over him. He rolled away without a word so that he faced the wall, his eyes closed tightly.
“I’ll get some water,” she said softly, “so that we can see what the prince looks like underneath his grime.”
Then she tipped her head back and laughed, the sound so startling that Maximilian rolled back and stared at her.
She dropped her eyes. “And once we have that grime off you, Prince Maximilian, you will doubtless be able to walk about a free man, for no-one will recognise you as the escaped Lot No. 859.”
Her grin faded, and she reached out a gentle hand. “Lot No. 859 will disappear with that grime, Maximilian. Believe it.”
Men rushed about from building to poppet head, then back again. Guards rushed to form into units, then rushed for the cage. Orders were relayed that no ships were to leave the loading pier, and no new ships were to berth. Within the Veins themselves, gangs were chained to walls and hurriedly counted.
Furst rushed from his office to the shaft head. He seized the first guard who emerged from the cage. “Which one?”
“From Section 205,” the guard gasped, and Furst paled. “Lot No. 859.”
“Find him!” Furst seethed as the alarm bells pealed about the complex. “Find him!”
Then, releasing the guard, he turned and looked due south for a moment, as if he could see into the heart of Ruen itself.
Deep in his red-walled palace, Cavor writhed amid the silken sheets of his bed. He’d laid down after his noon meal, seeking some relief from the cursed festering of his arm, but now the dreams that claimed him were far worse than the waking nightmare of the mark.
He murmured and twisted some more. “No!” he cried, and his hands gripped the silk until it tore. “No!”
He was in a dark place, welcoming, familiar, but then cruel hands seized him and hauled him towards the sky in a basket woven of iron. A witch amid the clouds bared her teeth at him and the sun pierced his eyes.
“No!”
Now the hands of his tormentors were wrapped about his leg, sliding down, further and further, and nothing Cavor could do could dislodge their hold. One held a pick and the other a hammer, and they chortled with laughter as they raised their implements and crashed them down into his ankle.
“Noooo!” Cavor screamed into his chamber, and lurched out of his dream.
He scrambled into a sitting position, his chest still heaving with the terror of his dream, and stared at his ankle.
It had a red and festering mark about it, as if it had been scored with hot iron.
Then the mark on his arm flared into white-hot agony, and Cavor screamed again, and this time the sound was enough to bring his servants running.
SIXTEEN
INSIDE THE HOLLOW HILL
They broke the iron band from his ankle with a hammer and pick, and threw it and its remaining length of chain as far away as they could. He refused to talk, lying still and with his head turned away, as Ravenna and Vorstus washed him and rolled him into a soft linen robe.
Instantly his hands began to pluck at it, as if it itched his skin.
Ravenna looked at Vorstus. “I can hardly believe that there was a man underneath that grime.” Maximilian’s skin had proved soft but pale, and his body lean but tightly muscled. Scars occasionally marred the beauty of his skin, reminders of the dangers of working so close to the hanging wall, and an ugly and thick burn scar rippled across his upper right biceps, but Ravenna and Vorstus found it hard to believe his obvious vitality after so long trapped within the Veins.
Vorstus sighed and beckoned her away from the bed. “Leave him be for a while, Ravenna. The others have prepared a meal for us. Maximilian,” he leaned close to the man’s head turned to the wall. “We will not be far away. Turn your head and you will see us.”
He received no reply but the plucking of the man’s fingers across the cloth of the tunic. Vorstus pulled a blanket over him and joined Ravenna and the other three monks as they sat at a table. Silently, they began to share a simple meal of bread and cheese and olives.
Maximilian lay for some time, his hands gradually stilling, listening to the silence. He was disorientated, unsure. Was this a dream? Would he wake any moment, wake to the security of the hanging wall and the labour of the eight men to his left?
His hand crept down his body and felt about his left ankle. It felt weightless…almost unclean without the comfort of the thick iron band that had been there.
And they had called him Maximilian.
Maximilian. He had not thought of that name for a very long time. When he lived in the darkness of the gloam it would have been to slide into madness to think that name and to remember that life, but here he allowed himself to first embrace the name, exploring all its nuances as he ran it silently about his mind, and then to…ever so gradually…embrace the idea that the name belonged to him.
His hands stilled.
Maximilian. Was he Maximilian? Was he?
“Maximilian?”
A soft voice sounded, and, startled, he turned without thinking. A young girl stood there, to his right, where before had only been silence and stillness and privacy. What was she doing there?
“Maximilian? I have something for you to drink. Here, take it, it must have been many hours since you last drank.”
Drink? Yes, he did feel thirsty. Warily, lest she trap him with some hidden device, he rose on one elbow and took the mug from her hand, careful not to touch her fingers with his own. It was warm, and his eyes widened in surprise. Could drinks be warm? Had there ever been a time in his life when drinks had been heated for his comfort?