Sir Roland Brightshield's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Roland studied the great tree from a walkway two hundred paces out. The fortress rose above the canopy on a trunk wider than a house. Iron spikes ringed the lower platform. Armed men paced the rails. The front gate was a slab of banded oak at the end of a single rope bridge. One man with a sword could not cross that bridge and live, and if he tried, the child inside would be dead before he reached the second landing. Lucien crouched beside him and said nothing, which Roland took as agreement. "We need another way in," Roland said. Lucien pointed down through the branches to a sagging roof half-swallowed by moss. A forgotten hut clung to a lower bough, its shutters broken, its door hanging on one hinge. "The old priest lived there," Lucien said. "He used to bless the tree on solstice. They let him through the gate." They climbed down. The hut smelled of damp wood and mice. Inside, a rack stood against the back wall, and on it hung layered robes stitched with gold trim, a stole, and a heavy outer vestment. Dust coated the shoulders. Roland lifted the outer robe. It would fit him. Lucien said, "Solstice is tonight. They'll expect someone." "They'll expect the priest they know," Roland said. "Not me." A voice behind them said, "Then bring someone they'll look at instead." A woman stood in the broken doorway. Dark hair, a red dancing dress, veil pinned back. She said her name was Theodora Slyshade. She said she had followed the boy down from the upper walkway because he moved like someone with a plan. Roland put a hand on his sword. She raised both of hers, empty. "I dance at feasts," she said. "Guards watch dancers. They stop watching doors." Roland asked what she wanted. She said a name. She said there was a man inside the fortress who kept a list, and she needed one line off it. She would not say more. Roland weighed the bridge, the gate, the child, the hours left. He put on the robe. He gave Lucien the brass prayer wheel to carry at his side like an acolyte. Theodora tied a scarf across her hair and picked up a small drum from the hut's floor. They crossed the rope bridge at dusk. Theodora walked ahead, drum tapping, hips loose. The two guards at the gate looked at her and kept looking. Roland lowered his head under the hood and rolled the wheel. Lucien walked at his elbow, quiet. One guard laughed at something Theodora said. The other pulled the gate open a hand's width and waved the priest through without a second glance. The gate closed behind them. Roland was inside the stronghold, robed, unarmed at the belt, with a boy and a stranger and a child somewhere above him in the dark.