Free Kings of the North by Elizabeth Moon Page B

Cloth Merchants’ Guild, and inside it they found no sign of the door into the passage.
    “They could hardly be unaware of a door on the side of their building,” Marshal Veksin grumbled.
    “It’s behind that angle,” Marshal Tamis said. “Whoever built theplace wanted a secret entrance—the wall juts out just enough—it’s not obvious. And it may have had an innocent use originally.”
    “Maybe, but it’s going to have no use now,” Veksin said. He went off to tackle the Guildmaster; she and the others returned to her house, rolling the priests’ habit into a tight bundle, mask innermost.
    “I’ll take that away,” Oktar said. “We’ll deal with it elsewhere. What are you going to do about that trap?”
    “Tear down the cell walls, dismantle the trap … Will the metal be useful for anything, or is it too saturated with evil?”
    “You’ll have to ask a priest of Sertig about that,” Oktar said. “Or a dwarf. Depends how it’s forged, they say, and if it is imbued with evil, it will take someone who knows forge magery to undo it. All the smiths now operating here were cleared back when we had that trouble.”
    “How should we secure these openings in the meantime?”
    “We did it several ways before. If you take rubble from the cell walls, for instance—any that don’t reach the ceiling can’t be bearing walls—and pile it in that passage, then have a mason block the hole itself, it’ll be effective. Other than that, we can mortar some rocks in there, but someone could break through in time.”
    “We need something for tonight,” Dorrin said.
    “Oh. In that case, close up the holes and—”
    They heard noises coming from the third exit and Dorrin quickly drew her sword, but the dust-streaked men who came out wore palace livery, including an officer of the Royal Guard. “This passage comes out in the saddler’s room in the old stables,” he said. “It’s illegal to build or maintain secret ways into the palace grounds. Who’s in charge here?”
    “I am,” Dorrin said. “Duke Verrakai.”
    He blinked at her, apparently not recognizing the Duke he’d seen in formal court clothes in the mercenary captain’s garb.
    “And I,” the Marshal-General said, “am Marshal-General Arianya. We just found this passage and sent your patrol back to you, suspecting where it might lead.”
    “How long have you been in this house?” the officer said, glaring at Dorrin.
    Dorrin had to think—two days before the coronation, then that, and then today—“Less than a hand of days,” she said.
    “And you didn’t know—”
    “I was summoned here for the coronation,” Dorrin said. “I had duties at the palace.”
    “Oh. And you had not been here before?”
    “Never.”
    “Well, you’ll have to have that passage closed up. We have secured our end; I must see this end secured.”
    “We have three exits to seal,” Dorrin said. “A temporary seal, to start with. On Marshal-Judicar Oktar’s recommendation, I’ll have some of these dividing walls pulled down and piled into the passages and then stone laid into the exits.”
    “I suppose that will do,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to the Marshal—er … that would be you, wouldn’t it?”
    “Right,” Oktar said. “Never mind; we’re all confused by this. Duke Verrakai lost a man today in a trap in this very cellar. I’d recommend you post guards down here. The Duke doesn’t have the resources right now, and the safety of your king demands it.”
    “Post guards in a private house? We don’t usually—”
    “It would be a great help,” Dorrin said. She had not thought of that, had wondered how her remaining four militia could possibly guard the cellar, the front, the back …
    “Would you want any assistance upstairs?”
    “If you could post someone at the front door,” Dorrin said. “My people are understandably upset at Jori’s death. He and Eddes were close friends; Eddes saw how he died. But my concern is that