“What?”
“Let them out!”
And then we were scrambling to release the familiars, all of which took off down the hallway. I took off after them, Rosier on my shoulder, because hopefully they knew where their mistresses were. But even if not, I liked this corridor better, since it was going in the opposite direction from the guards.
Who sounded pissed.
Damn, I wondered what my knives had been up to.
I didn’t worry long, because it took everything I had to not get lost in the mazelike layout of the place. We thundered down the hall and through a door at the end at a dead run. Then turned into another, slamming into the wall on the curve, before immediately diving into a third. After that, I didn’t even try to keep up with the twists and turns, because what was the point? It wasn’t like I knew where I’d been to start off with.
But I knew where I’d ended up. Because if anything had ever said “queen’s private chambers,” that was it. I braked and jerked back behind a wall.
But the herd didn’t.
They went barreling through an elaborate antechamber, full of rich fabrics, beautiful woods, thick carpets, and elaborate mosaics, yowling and barking and knocking things over. And a moment after that, the two guards who had been bookending an arched doorway were cursing and running after them. Rosier and I followed, through the door and into another line of small, interlocking rooms.
It wasn’t the same one Pritkin and I had been in. That had been done up in greens and browns, while this one was water hues, every tone of blue and white and green imaginable. But it had a lot in common with the other, like the fact that it was full of places to hide.
I dove behind a pierced screen as the two guards came back, carrying a pack of very unhappy runaways.
They passed by, the birds cawing and flapping, the dog snarling, the cats hissing and scratching the hell out of one guy’s ear. And I picked up a blanket to cover Rosier and walked quickly in the other direction. Nobody looked at me twice, not even the duo of guards near the end of the line of rooms, because of course they didn’t.
I was just a slave.
And then we were in.
“I asked the same question.” It was a man’s voice, but I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see much of anything; there were too many butts in the way. “They say their population is growing and they need more food. They also hinted that they enjoyed the idea of weakening you. They worry about a possible alliance of you with the Dark Fey.”
“The Dark!”
That was a woman—or a female, anyway. The voice was too lyrical to be human, although the scorn took the edge off slightly.
“You have common cause,” the man argued. “The Svarestri’s expansion is squeezing both of you. If you were to ally, they fear their ability to hold against such a union, one bolstered by the army of half humans you’ve built for yourself.”
“They say.” The scorn was dripping now. “And you believe them.”
“What I believe is that they are willing to hold the borders for a regular shipment of food. No
slaves. They don’t use them, Nimue; they never have. And if they’re as strong as you—”
“Are they? Are you sure about that? You had best be, Arthur. Betray us and you’ll have more than the Saxons to worry about!”
Arthur?
My head came up.
The butts belonged to guards, who ringed the room ahead. I was in a small antechamber, dim because their bodies cut off most of the light, and unable to do anything to improve the view because of two more guards on the door behind me. They were facing the other direction, but might notice if I started climbing around on the furniture. Like the ones in front, standing in front of two pierced screens on either side of a small opening, could decide to turn.
And then someone did, but only to shift slightly, giving me a narrow view of the room through the gap. And of Pritkin, kneeling in the center, naked except for his trousers, with those powerful arms bound behind him. And balancing on the balls of his feet as he watched a dark-haired woman argue with a mirror.
Okay, I guessed she was actually talking to the man in the mirror, big and blond and red-faced, and rapidly getting redder.
“I’m not betraying anyone,” the man—the king—said as I stared at him. “I have given you options; you choose not to take them. What do you expect?”
He did look like Arthur, I thought. Or the myth, at least: golden hair held in place by a shining circlet, close-trimmed blond beard, the weathered skin of a warrior, but with jovial crow’s-feet at the eyes. But there was fey in him, too, if you knew where to look: eyes too blue to be human, movements too liquid, a voice that was almost an independent entity, with power behind it, rebuking, cajoling, entrancing . . .
Well, except to Nimue, who didn’t appear impressed.