Free Mistress of the Catacombs by Drake David Page A

couldn't let herself think about it now.
    One of the soldiers on the margin held out his javelin so his fellow floundering in the water could grab it behind the point and be dragged to safety. Voices all around babbled. Several Blood Eagles lifted Garric away from Sharina with the care owed a priceless treasure; they laid him on the grass.
    Sharina grimaced. She didn't need help getting out of the water, but she had to swim two paces down the coping to clear the out-turned hobnails of the soldiers bending over her brother. The pool was deeper than she was tall, and the several feet of mud on the stone bottom didn't help matters.
    A few minutes ago this corner of the palace had seemed as sparsely inhabited as a stretch of plowland. Now scores of soldiers, servants and officials descended from all directions. Most of them were shouting.
    Garric lay belly-down on the grass, his face to the side. Blood Eagles surrounded him; one was making a clumsy attempt at artificial respiration.
    Sharina slipped between a pair of black-clad soldiers to her brother's side. A Blood Eagle grabbed her shoulder. She turned her head back and snarled, "No, you cur!" as though he'd touched her importunately as she served in her father's inn.
    "Princess!" the soldier blurted. "My pardon!" He snapped his head around to face the gathering crowd.
    "Here, let me have him!" Sharina said to the fellow massaging Garric's back muscles in apparent hope of restoring the victim's breathing. Garric's chest rose and fell without help, though the deep, shuddering nature of those breaths showed that something was wrong.
    Garric's eyes opened. For a moment his expression was blank; then—
    Sharina couldn't have said what the change was. She only knew that the soul behind those eyes wasn't her brother's.
    Blood Eagles returned from the bridge to the circle of their fellows, holding Echeus. The Intercessor wore the expression of calm dignity appropriate to a gentleman buffeted by circumstances.
    Garric put a hand on the grass and lifted his torso, coughing up a swallow of pond water. He looked at Sharina, saw her stricken horror, and smiled. "It's all right," he whispered. "It'll be all right."
    Lord Attaper, the commander of the Blood Eagles, pushed through the crowd of jabbering civilians. His tunic was short—military-style—but it was embroidered in gold and purple, and he didn't wear armor.
    "What's happened to the prince?" Attaper said in a tightly controlled voice. He asked the way he would have demanded word of a flanking attack sure to overwhelm his line. Attaper's left hand was on the ivory pommel of his sword, holding it tight for a charm.
    "We got him!" said one of the guards holding Echeus. "This is the guy who—"
    The soldier stopped. He didn't know what had happened; and since he'd been watching when Garric fell, he knew that Echeus hadn't been within arm's length of the prince.
    Eyes turned to the Intercessor. "Prince Garric greeted me on the bridge," Echeus said. He spoke in a high tenor, not an unpleasant voice but thinner than the man's bearing suggested. "I replied, and his eyes suddenly turned up. I'm afraid the prince may have had a fit. Before I could catch him, he'd toppled into the water."
    Garric reached toward Sharina; their eyes met again. She took his hand, supporting him as he rose dripping to his feet. A Blood Eagle tried to help; Garric angrily shook him away. He looked at Echeus.
    "Are you all right, your majesty?" Attaper said. The guard commander had faced death a dozen times without quailing, but he was frightened now.
    Sharina understood the grim logic in Attaper's mind. If Garric died, Attaper had failed in his duty. And if Garric died, the Isles would crash into ruin.
    Echeus looked at Attaper and pitched his voice for the gathering crowd, as though Garric himself weren't present. He said, "From the expression I saw as the prince fell, I'm afraid he may have lost his mind. Occasionally even a youth like the prince may have a