The Cup and the Crown (23 page)
“I know, Uncle: fly straight toward the mountains till I’ve caught the wind and feel I’m in control, then bank to the left, not dropping any more than I have to, and head straight south and over the walls—”
And the landing?
“It’ll be hard, and I might tumble. I need to find a bare field, then drop down, arching my back at the last minute so the wings will tilt and slow my progress—then run.”
Good. I believe you are ready.
It was harder than she’d expected. The wings were wider than the window opening, so she had to stand at an angle—one wing inside, one out. Just climbing onto the sill had been tricky since she’d needed to keep a grip on the handles so the contraption wouldn’t slide down. Then once she’d made it up there, she had no way to steady herself; and the wind started tugging at the outside wing, throwing her off balance. She’d looked down, always a mistake, and was suddenly jolted by a moment of terror such as she had never known before—which, considering the life she’d led, was saying something.
“Uncle, am I going to die?”
No, Molly dear. You’re going to fly. Just follow me.
He pushed off the sill and rose with beats of his powerful raven wings, then flew straight north. Now it was her turn. Molly took a deep breath, bent her knees, and sprang into empty air.
But it wasn’t working, she realized with a stab of terror. She was falling, falling, falling—until suddenly there was a lurch and a loud
whomp
as the wind caught her silken wings, and fear gave way to elation. She was flying—the wind rushing at her face and lifting her up, the sun shining through the crimson silk like a blessing.
Oh, my stars,
she thought,
this is wonderful!
Up ahead, Uncle banked to the left and Molly followed, doing it neatly, staying high. She was in control. Like that ancient prince of Chin, she had harnessed the wind to do her bidding.
Below she saw rooftops, streets, people—and not too far ahead the city walls, and beyond them the fertile valley, greener than green. She began searching for a landing spot. Two or three stubble fields side by side would be ideal, in case she couldn’t stop herself fast enough and had to keep on going. And it should be away from the village; she definitely didn’t want to go crashing into somebody’s chicken coop.
Suddenly Uncle gave a distress call—
Kraaaaaaw!
Watch out!
—but Molly couldn’t see any sign of danger. “What?” she shouted, her words almost swallowed by the wind.
Below, on the ramparts!
She saw the archers then, staring up at her, their bows drawn; and the first arrow had already been loosed. It missed, but the second one pierced her right wing, very near her elbow. And then, as if someone had written it there, three amazing words came into her mind:
Archers, stand down!
To Molly’s astonishment they
did
stand down, lowering their bows as one. But at the same moment she heard the sickening rip of fabric as the pressure of the wind tugged against the arrow hole, tearing the silk from the front edge to the back. She began to tilt, her balance lost as the right wing spilled air through the gap. She knew what happened to kites when they lost control: they went spiraling down with alarming speed till they crashed against something hard and broke into pieces. Now that was happening to her.
Except it wasn’t. Something was holding her aloft, guiding her straight toward the valley. Above she could hear a fierce beating of wings—
whomp
,
whomp
,
whomp,
whomp
,
whomp
! She looked up and saw bird-shadows against the garnet silk; and through the tear in the fabric she could see the movement of wings. Uncle’s rooks and jackdaws, it had to be!
As she continued over the city walls, she saw the archers up close; they still gazed at her, but their threatening manner was gone. They simply gaped with amazement at the flying girl in Magus wings being carried by a flock of large black birds. Not something you saw every day, even in Harrowsgode.
Down they glided, quickly but gracefully, Uncle still in the lead. He had chosen a landing spot and was guiding her there. Molly watched, her gut in a knot, as the ground rose up to meet her.
Arch your back,
she remembered,
then run as fast as you can
. But when? Now?
Never mind—they were doing it for her. The wings jerked back, rather suddenly, so that she was upright now, her legs circling in the air until the moment they touched the ground.
A stubble field is nothing like a smooth, flat meadow. It’s all lumps and dips, and is full of hard, dry stalks. Molly staggered as she ran, twisting an ankle, the rough stubble catching at her pantaloons. She was going to fall—there was no help for it—and the whole apparatus would land on top of her, pressing her down into the dirt and the sharp things sticking out of it. But no, the birds still held her wings aloft, steadying her until she finally came to a stop, let go of the handles, and slipped out of the harness. They were like an army of very small servants helping a gentleman off with his cloak.
When she was free of her wings, they let the contraption fall and rose in unison. She looked up at them, raising her arms in gratitude. “Thank you, oh, thank you!” she called to the rooks and the jackdaws as they flew back toward the city, filling the air with their raucous cries. Then she trudged across the field in the direction of the village, Uncle still showing her the way.
Villagers had gathered outside their cottages to watch. They clapped and waved as she passed by. She felt for just a moment like a queen in procession—a very ragged queen with wild hair, dressed in pantaloons—so that she couldn’t resist a few head nods, acknowledging their acclaim. When she saw Stephen running up the road to meet her, she laughed out loud.
“Stephen!” she shouted. “Did you see? I flew through the air!”
“Yes!” he said, breathless, taking her arm and urging her to pick up speed, hurrying her back toward the town. “It was astonishing—we really must hurry, my dear—and when the archers . . . oh, and the birds! Well now,
that
was something!”
“Are the horses ready?” She was gasping now, too.
“They have been since this morning.”
“And everybody got out?”
“Yes.”
“And Jakob has the cup?”
“Yes.”
“Tobias? Is he all right?”
“Can you run, lady? We don’t know what they’re likely to do next now that they’ve seen you escape.”
The others were already mounted, hidden behind a large barn at the very edge of town—Winifred, Mayhew, Jakob, and another man who had to be the wonderful Richard. Hanging on each side of his saddle was a wicker basket, each holding a little dog with pointed ears. Three riderless horses stood ready and waiting. That would be hers, Stephen’s, and—
“Where’s Tobias?”
“He stayed behind,” the man who must be Richard said, “so he’d be there to help you if you didn’t make it over the walls.”
“And you let him do that?”
“I had no choice. He’s bigger than I am, and very stubborn. But he’ll be on his way now, I’m sure.”
“Then we’ll wait.”
“No,” Mayhew said. “We won’t. We need to get up that blasted narrow trail and into the safety of the canyon before darkness sets in—or they’ll lower their blasted drawbridge and send an army in our wake. Don’t worry about Tobias. He knows the way.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Molly said. “Absolutely. You go ahead. I’ll wait for Tobias.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you’re impossible!”
“Go!”
“I will not!”
“Suit yourself then. I’m not leaving without him.”
Finally Mayhew took a deep breath, snorted, and directed his troops. “Stephen, you get the others up to safety. We’ll follow as soon as we can.”
Stephen nodded, and without a word he turned his horse into the road. The others stared at Molly, unsure what to do, until Mayhew roared at them to go and do it bloody quick.
“You take care, Molls!” Winifred said as they rode away.
“Don’t I always?” she replied.
TOBIAS HAD CALCULATED
the probable trajectory of Molly’s flight from the tower. From that he’d determined the most likely landing spot, in the event she couldn’t make it over the walls. With this in mind, he’d chosen a good spot to hide: a cluttered yard behind a bakeshop in the southern part of the city. It had the advantage of being close to an alley, so he could run out quickly when the moment came. It also offered a good view of the towers of Harrowsgode Hall.
There he now waited, skulking in a dark corner, a cap pulled low over his head. He’d traveled there by night and had been waiting all morning, though she’d said she wouldn’t leave till midafternoon. Several times people had come out of the bakeshop to use the privy, and Tobias would always duck behind a ruined butter churn. It was small and he was large, so half of him was still in plain sight, but so far no one had noticed him.
The shadows grew shorter, gradually moving from west to east, marking the passage of time; and still Tobias stayed at his post, gazing upward, going over and over in his mind the many problems that might occur. As each of them occurred to him, he searched for some way to help. But in this he was unsuccessful. If she’d been prevented from leaving, for example, or if she dropped like a stone to her death—well, there was really nothing anyone could do.
And then, finally, there she was, soaring out into the open from the back of Harrowsgode Hall with the savage grace of a hawk on the hunt, her wine-red wings, lit from behind, glowing like the sunset. Tobias reached the alley, then, sprinting out onto the road, followed her with his eyes. How splendid she was, so unbelievably brave!
But what was that—an arrow? Surely it was—yes! And there went another one, with a truer aim this time, barely missing Molly and tearing a wing. He started to run now, with such dangerous speed that people leaped out of his way as they would from a runaway horse. His heart almost burst with the effort. Then it registered on his consciousness that the archers had lowered their bows. But it was already too late; a wing was torn. . . .
What happened after that had been so miraculous that he and everyone else in Harrowsgode could do nothing but gaze in wonder at the flying girl with the wounded wing being held aloft by a flock of ink-black birds, floating over the great walls of Harrowsgode and out into the countryside!
Tobias turned and dashed back toward the tunnel. But he didn’t get far before an officer of the Watch shouted and stepped in his way. Deftly, Tobias danced to the side and kept on going. Soon others joined the chase. He could hear their shouts and the sound of hurried footsteps. They didn’t know what he had done that deserved pursuit, only that he was a foreigner, out where he didn’t belong, and his behavior seemed suspicious.
Tobias ran with the endurance of youth, taking great strides with his long legs, drawing steadily ahead of the crowd. He was heading straight for the windowless shed where he and Constance had spent so many nights. He reached it, slammed the door behind him, and since it couldn’t be locked from the inside, dragged a couple of rubble sacks over to block it.
But he doubted that would keep them out for long. There seemed to be a lot of them, and if they worked together they could easily push his makeshift barricade aside. Then they’d see the tunnel entrance straight ahead of them, and the chase would simply continue—down the tunnel, out the narrow opening, and into the village, complicating everyone’s escape.
He found the lantern where he’d left it, just by the door, and lit it with the flint. Then he set it on the floor in the middle of the room, swinging down the metal shields on three of the sides so it would only shine straight ahead and not on the back wall where the tunnel entrance was. When his pursuers entered, they’d be blinded by the jarring blast of light out of a sea of darkness.
But that would only slow them down, he realized, and he needed to stop them altogether. He could hear their shouts in the distance. He probably had a minute, maybe a little more, before they’d have the door opened. He hauled another bag of rubble to his barricade. It might help a little. And as he was doing it, inspiration struck. He knew exactly what to do.
He grabbed another sack from the far corner and scattered its contents in a broad semicircle around the glowing lamp. He paused for the briefest moment to admire his ghoulish tableau: a sea of dead rats rather past the time when they ought to have been buried in the rat-pit—some of them bloated, all of them stinking, the whole lot of them brilliantly lit.
Thanking Constance one more time, Tobias fled, hands outstretched in the darkness, running—running through rat-muck, running toward the faint light that beckoned at the end of the tunnel.
MOLLY SAT SPRAWLED
in the dirt, graceless as a guttersnipe—picking, picking, picking at the stitches that held her skirt together. If she was to sit in a saddle, they must come out. If she ruined her gown, so be it.
She was glad Mayhew was looking elsewhere—first at the castle gate to see if the drawbridge had been lowered, then to the western corner of the city walls around which he hoped to see Tobias coming, preferably very soon. Back and forth he went, from one side of the barn to the other, peering around the corner, saying nothing.
Rip
,
rip
,
rip
,
tear
—Molly would break the thread, then take hold of a free end and pull again, the fabric of her gown pleating itself until it would go no farther, at which point she’d break the thread and start again.
She heard a hiss from Mayhew. “I see him!”
“Tobias?”
“Yes.”
He unhitched his horse and the other one for Tobias. Seconds later he was away, leading the riderless mount by the reins.