The small beds and the bench on which the flagon had stood were the only furnishings. There was a door opposite the beds. It had metal banding across it and a lock plate as large as Roane’s palm. She had no doubts that if she managed to reach it she would find it securely fastened. There was no question that they were prisoners. But of whom and where?
Carefully she put the flagon back on the bench and struggled to her feet. Her head swam and she closed her eyes, fighting vertigo. From the bench she lurched in the direction of the window, bringing up against that opening. But at least she kept her feet.
What she saw below was a courtyard with a wall around it, a solid gate fastened by a bar. Beyond that wall showed the green tops of trees, and yet farther away were rises of heights not un- like those about Hitherhow. Hope glimmered in her. If they were in that country she could find her way back’to camp.
“Hot—thirsty—” The murmur from the bed brought Roane around, holding to the wall for support as she moved.
The Princess struggled up. She was pulling at the lacing of her bodice as if to loosen it. The delicate lace of her collar was crumpled and her fine dress smeared with dust and badly creased.
Roane preserved her balance as best she could, made for the bench, and then to the bedside with the flagon. She held it with both hands for the Princess to drink,
Ludorica drank, sucking with the same desperate need Roane had known. And when she signified she had had enough, there was very little left.
Now the Princess surveyed the room. Her eyes fixed upon the window and she wriggled off the bed, wavered to the wall, and inched her way to that opening, catching the bars with her hands. Roane joined her.
“Do you know where we are?”
Ludorica did not look around as she answered.
“As to where we are exactly I cannot say. But that peak”—she loosed her right hand to point—”I know. It is within a half league of Hitherhow. And I think we must be on some minor stead-perhaps Famslaw—so it is Reddick after all.”
“You mean this is his land?”
“Land of close kin. But how—” Then she gave a little gasp.
“Look there!”
At one side of the courtyard very close to the wall was a coach with a brilliant device painted on its door. It had carefully curtained windows, and although there were no harnessed duocorns and no coachman, Roane was certain it was the one which had brought them here.
“The coach—” she began.
“Of coursel But that symbol—on its door—”
Roane could not understand the importance of that but the Princess was continuing: lob
“That is Lord Imbert’s own! No coach with that on it would be stopped at the border. That was how they got us across.”
“Wait—” Roane’s memory stirred. She thought back to the dusky courtyard at Gastonhow, when Lord Imbert had handed them into what was to become a prison. She had seen the door in the lantern light; there had been no design then—or else it had been covered in some manner. “That was not on the door before.” “What does it matter? It served its purpose.” From somewhere over their heads there was a sharp call, which was answered by a horn note. And that fanfare was answered in turn by activity. Men appeared in the courtyard. They wore green or gray and fell into two lines at attention while two of their number ran to draw the gate bar. “How dare he?” demanded Ludorica. “What is it?”
The Princess turned a flushed face to Roane. Her eyes were wide and there was about her such an aura of barely leashed anger that Roane was glad it was not she who had aroused that emotion in her companion.
“That is the royal call! No one but those of the Blood dare use it. It is my call—mine—by birth alone. I am heiress to Reveny— there is no other!”
The gates opened and once more the call sounded close and loud, as the trumpeter himself rode through. Over his tunic he wore a loose-sleeved coat stiff with metallic lacing, one half red, one yellow. Behind him came a second rider wearing a yellow uniform tunic, his hat hiding his face. But the breath came out of the Princess in a furious hiss.
“Reddick! And he rides behind the heir’s own herald! Treachery, black treachery!” Her hands closed and wrung upon the bars as if she would pluck them out of their stone setting and hurl them spear-fashion at her cousin.
10
Roane pressed against the iron-barred door, her ear laid to its surface, but she heard only the pounding of her own heart. She longed for one of the snoop devices of stellar civilization. Even time she could not measure, but she thought it had been a long interval since they had come for the Princess, leaving her here alone.
Ludorica had gone willingly, apparently only too eager to face her kinsman-jailer, as if that royal trumpet had carried her in flaming anger over the border of caution. Roane had been startled by that response, since she had looked upon the princess as able to keep a cool head.
Only this was no quarrel of hers. Since Ludorica had left, Roane was able to see the whole situation in proper proportion. She had only one duty, to get out of this strongbox and back to camp. And the Princess had given her that mountain as a guide.
However, there was escape from this room, the keep itself, to negotiate first. Without any tools but a stunner and a beamer, how could she do it? For a second time she knelt on the floor to
1OO examine the lock. This type was archaically simple, of course. She could force it if she had proper tools. But there was nothing useful in her precious belt, nothing in this masquerade on her back (the clothes she had enjoyed so much when she put them on, now crumpled and soiled, made her impatient for her coverall). Her cloak and the Princess’s lay on the bed. Roane went back to run her hands over fur and fabric—and so discovered that Ludorica’s hood had a stiff support to hold the fur in place.
Roane picked at the seam, finally, with her teeth, breaking the threads at one end. She pushed and pulled until she held a length of wire. With this in hand she returned to the door.
The sun which had awakened her was gone from this side of the keep, and the hills were throwing long, dusky shadows out to clutch at the walls. Her jailers had brought her a plate of bread and dried meat when they had taken away the Princess, and she had eaten all of that. They had not been near her since.
Roane crouched, listening. Sounds at last. But not from beyond the door—rather in the courtyard. She ran to the window. Duo-corns saddled and ready. Four men—seven mounts. Lanterns were lit to banish the dusk.
Out of a portal immediately below her issued a party of three. One was Reddick, by his uniform, and he came with one hand around the Princess’s wrist, though she moved without a struggle toward the waiting mounts. The other man was dressed in dark colors and had a cloak collar up about his throat, a peaked hood pulled over his head.
He held his hands at breast level stiffly before him and between them something glinted in the lantern light. When they came to the duocoms, he swung around to face the Princess. What he held so carefully he raised to eye level before her. And at the same time Roane caught faintly his voice intoning words she could not distinguish.
Reddick boosted the Princess into the saddle, where she sat quietly. But the reins of her duocorn he kept in his own hand. And as the gate bar was withdrawn and they rode out he con- log tinued to lead the princess’s mount. Then the gate closed behind them. ‘
Roane could only guess at the meaning of what she had seen. It was apparent that they had the Princess under some kind of control. She had seen too many like scenes in the past. But how they had achieved that (save that it must have something to do with the object the man held) she did not know. At any rate, their going left Roane on her own, to make her break for freedom. Waiting was always hard. She kicked and pulled at her hampering skirts as she paced back and forth. These would be a hazard to her. Perhaps somewhere in this pile of stone she could find more suitable clothing.
She had no lamp and as soon as the dusk was thick enough, she knelt again at the door to begin her delicate manipulation with the wire. A job such as this needed patience. She had to keep her mind and hands under control as she worked. But at last there was a click and she edged the barrier open a little at a time, relieved to see there was no show of light on the other side. She slipped through and shut the heavy door carefully behind her. This was a narrow hall with two other doors. Beyond was a stairhead. Even as she stood listening, able now to hear muted noises made by other inhabitants, the click of approaching footsteps rang an alarm in her mind.