Free A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess by Ron Miller

spiral stairway. Assuming that up is the most desirable direction, the baron takes the first of the narrow steps.
    The climb seems interminable, though the baron has probably ascended no more than fifty feet. He at last, however, comes to a slot in the outside wall, through which a cool current of air is leaking. Although heavily burdened with the oily, fishy odor of the Slideen River, it smells like the freshest country breeze to Milnikov. In spite of his anxiousness to escape the dungeons he takes a few moments to flush his lungs of the poisons they had accumulated, and to reaccustom his nose to the sensation of genuine air.
    The slit faces upstream so all he can see of the river is a dark grey surface reflecting a sky just beginning to silver with dawn. On the distant bank is the egress of the Muchka River, a small tributary at the mouth of which he can see the lights of some building or another. Dawn is good, he thinks; there will be far fewer people afoot than he might encounter later in the day.
    The top of the staircase is blocked by another heavy door. It has a small window protected by a lattice of iron straps. Peering through this the baron sees a small section of a broad corridor. For the first time since escaping from his cell he hears sounds produced by other human beings: no doubt servants prepanng for breakfast and whatever other absolutely necessary things servants and household staff did at dawn. He can only speculate what one of them would do if he were seen. Does he look disreputable enough to raise an alarm? Probably. Undoubtedly. He has only the trousers and sleeveless undervest he had been left with and which he has been wearing for weeks. Both are unspeakably filthy. He has lost a dozen pounds or more and has to clutch the waist of his beltless trousers with one hand to keep them aloft. He is barefoot and his once tidy moustache and imperial are now as lost as unkempt weeds among the thicket of weeks-old greyish beard.
    He takes the ring of keys, carefully, to keep them from jangling, and cautiously tries them one at a time in the lock. The eighth key fits. With a rusty screech that raises the baron’s hair, the key turns. He feels the bolt slip from its moorings and the door is now free to be opened. Giving one final search of as much of the outside corridor as he can see through the grating, the baron opens the heavy door a fraction of an inch. Peering out, he can see nothing in either direction The hall is well lit, however, and appears to be some functioning part of the underpalace. The same vaguely busy sounds still come from one direction or the other.
    He hastily withdraws his head as a figure appears. He watches cautiously as it goes by. It is only a portly maid carrying an enormous wicker basket of what appears to be laundry. For no particular reason he decides to follow her and, as soon as she disappears around a corner at the other end of the passage, he slips from his hiding place in pursuit. He arrives at the intersection just in time to see her entering a room through a pair of oversize swinging doors. As she barges through, hissing sounds and a whiff of steam escape around the bulging figure. The baron hurries to the doors, arriving while they are still listlessly swinging, and holds one ajar so that he can see into the room beyond. It is evidently the palace laundry; large vats or cauldrons are set half-sunk into the wet, tiled floor. Two or three boiled-looking women with papier-mâché faces are stirring the contents of the vats with what look like canoe paddles. The air smells incredibly fresh and clean, so much so that he has to hang onto the door frame weakly, to keep from falling.
    “Who are you?” asks a voice, not in challenge but with simple curiousity, from the vicinity of his elbow. He looks down to see that he had not noticed the arrival of another maid. Like the first, she is burdened by a vast basket of dirty laundry. Does the palace hire nothing but midgets? Apparently