PART II Chapter 2

Four days later, as Ashanta lay in her bed, pretending that she was very ill, and feeling a strange mixture of boredom and terror, she heard a tap at her window. Turning to see what had caused it, she saw a small bird balanced on the sill. On his leg was tied a small scrap of paper. Cautiously, Ashanta walked over to the window and opened it just far enough to allow the bird into the room, where it perched obediently on the headboard of the bed. Ashanta bent over to untie the paper, hoping that the bird would cooperate with her. To her surprise, the bird held perfectly still while she removed the paper, chirped twice, and then flew back out the window, which Ashanta promptly closed. There was no point in being caught with an open window when she was supposed to be too ill to even leave her bed. It was well known that there was nothing that was so dangerous for an invalid as fresh air.

The window safely closed again, she returned to her bed and carefully unfolded the scrap of parchment. On it was written, in the tiniest writing that she had ever seen,

"Highness,

"The king will not kill you before you are delivered of the child. He will cast you aside as his queen and imprison you until the time of the child's delivery, and then have you executed. The child, in his plan, will be sent to the priests to be raised. This must not happen. You must live, and deliver the child in freedom. There is no time now to plan an escape. The king is even now fording the river and will enter the castle within the hour. You must be brave, for we cannot avoid your imprisonment, but with the intervention of the gods, perhaps we can free you before the end.
"In greatest hope, Sharra."

Ashanta sighed at the message. It was not quite as bad as they had feared that it might be, yet it was not good either. At least she need not appear in her current condition before all of the people of the castle. Probably she would be taken directly to the dungeons by means of the back stairway that she had used on that night six months earlier. She supposed that there was some hope in the fact that she was not likely to be delivered for some weeks yet. Surely by then Lingqui would have solved the mystery of the characters. Of course, he had been working on them, or so she had been led to believe, for months now with no success. It was the only thing she could hope for though, for once she was in the dungeon she knew that she would not be able to escape through the main gates of the castle without, at best, being chased by a whole army of guards. No, she would have to hope that somehow she would be able to escape through the passage, which meant that Lingqui must not only manage to solve the mystery of the writing on the wall, he must also be able to relay the message to her.

As she lay thinking, an imperious knock sounded at her door. So soon, she thought, for she had expected to have nearly an hour to compose herself for what was to come. Probably it took some time for the bird to fly to me, she reminded herself. Perhaps I was fortunate to have any warning whatever. The door swung open, and Firth entered, followed by six fully armed guardsmen wearing grim expressions and full armor. Ashanta nearly burst out laughing. Did they think that she could escape from even two armed guards? Of course, if Sharra were to drug their wine, but Sharra was not here, so the guards were at little risk.

Without a word of complaint, for what would be the point, she allowed herself to be pulled from the bed and marched rather roughly to the head of the steps. There the guards, perhaps believing that she had in fact been as ill as she had pretended to be, took it in turns to carry her down the dozens of steps into the dungeons. She was placed in the largest of the cells, which, unlike those she had seen on her previous trip into the dungeons, contained a bed with a thin blanket and pillow, a small table, and a wooden chair. The guards deposited her rather unceremoniously on the bed, covered her with the blanket, and left, closing and locking the door behind them, which left Ashanta in near total darkness.

At least she would not need to pretend to be ill any longer she thought. No one will care now that I have been condemned to death. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness in her cell and she realized that, under the door of the cell, came the thin light of the torch burning in the bracket outside the door. She arose from the bed and walked carefully over to it. The floor was uneven and she did not wish to fall. Holding the scrap of parchment that she had secreted in her dress sleeve flat against the floor next to the crack, she realized that she could just make out the words. So Sharra and perhaps Lingqui might be able to communicate with her after all. Her heart leaped for joy, and then fell again with a thud as she realized that she had no way of letting them know that she could communicate with them.

Fear gripped her then. So this is what the end was going to be like, confined for the remainder of her pregnancy in a small, almost blackened cell. It seemed likely that she would deliver the child here as well, alone and in the dark. Perhaps she would die in childbirth. Many women did, she knew, including her own mother, who had died in delivering her. And if she survived the birth, what then? An ignominious death at the hand of the king's executioner. She felt that she must run, flee from the cell that held her. She found her fists pounding on the oak door of the cell, trying desperately to attract the attention of someone who might open the door. Might at least speak with her. Calm her. From the outside of the door she heard absolute silence. Had she been abandoned down here? Would someone find her bones, as she had found the bones in the cells in the older, unused part of the dungeon, and think that the man who had locked her up was barbaric.

She forced herself to breathe deeply, in for the count of five, and out again, and in again, and out, until she felt the tension in her muscles ease, and the pounding in her chest calm. You cannot control what others do, she reminded herself, only what you do. If they do not return, then you must face your end as bravely as may be, but surely Sharra and Lingqui will somehow ensure your escape. Somehow, she said again, though she did not see how it was possible. Even if Lingqui were to discover the word to unlock the secret passageway out the the surface, how was she to reach it unless someone opened the door to her cell? It seemed hopeless to her, and Ashanta returned to the bed, and lay down on it in the dark. What was the point, anyway?

Ashanta had been lying there for some time when she heard the door creak open, and a tray was shoved in through the opening. The door was promptly shut again and locked, but the tray, Ashanta saw, contained a lit candle, a pitcher of something, she supposed that it was water, and a large piece of bread. So I am to be on a bread and water diet in here, she thought to herself. She was tempted to leave it, but she realized that she was hungry, and even bread and water would fill her belly.

Halfway through the hunk of bread she bit down on something that was certainly not bread. Pulling it carefully out of the piece of bread, she spread it carefully on the table and brushed the crumbs away from it with her hand. It was a small piece of parchment that read, "Highness, we will send you messages in this way as often as possible. Muerth has agreed to hide them in the bread at great risk to his own life. When you have read the contents of the messages, use the flame of the candle to burn them so that they cannot be traced back to any of us should they be found. Know that we are searching as hard as we can for a way out for you. Firm in the hope of the gods, Sharra and Lingqui." So I have three on my side now, Ashanta thought. Whether it will be enough, I do not know, but I will follow the advice of my friends and keep hoping. Careful not to burn her fingers in the process, she reduced the scrap of parchment to ashes and brushed them from the tabletop to the floor where they would be indistinguishable from the rest of the dirt.


Ashanta picked up the candle carefully. She estimated that there were about three hours left before the candle burned out, and wondered if she ought to save it for later. How would she relight it if she blew it out? She could not, for she had no matches, no flint, no way of making a spark to relight the candle. Better then, she thought, to use the light of this candle to make a thorough investigation of the space in which she would quite possibly spend the rest of her life. With luck, there would be candles sent with her other meals as well, and perhaps, somehow, Sharra and Lingqui would figure some way that she could communicate with them as well.

She decided to begin with the door, and make as minute an examination as possible. Holding the candle up to where she imagined that the lock should be, she noticed that there was a gap between the door and the wall of the cell. It appeared large enough to pass parchment, and perhaps even a pen, through should she ever have the opportunity to communicate that way. She shook her head. It was unlikely that the door of her cell would be left unguarded for even the few minutes that it would take for her to  to slip something through the crack to someone, and the lock appeared strong and fully engaged. Any escape from there would require the use of the key.

Ashanta next inspected the walls of the cell, searching for places where the large stones that made up the walls might be loose, or broken. Save for one small stone that she was able to pull from the wall, and which revealed behind it a scrap of parchment so old that it crumble to dust in her hand, she found nothing. Perhaps the space would provide somewhere to hide messages that she did not wish to burn lest she forget their contents, but it did not seem to her that it would provide a way out of the cell. The rest of the walls stared back at her, solid and slightly green with the moss that grew from the constant damp darkness of the cellar.

That left the floor, and, Ashanta supposed, the ceiling, though how she was supposed to get to the ceiling escaped her. She moved the pallet that served as her bed to the side, panting with the effort, and uncovered for her pains, an expanse of hard packed dirt that did not seem to have been touched since the castle had first been built. Sighing, she dragged it back in place. There was no point in revealing her work to her captors. They might decide to make things more difficult by chaining her to the rings that were built into the stone wall in back of the cell. Over near the table she found a place where the ground had obviously been loosened, but a close investigation revealed that the excavation went no more than six inches into the hard-packed dirt floor of the cell. Some other unfortunate, she thought to herself, hoping to tunnel out of the dungeons perhaps, but meeting the end of his imprisonment before he had a chance. Ashanta knew that few people left the dungeons of the castle alive, at least under the rule of King Rafe. The knowledge lent a sense of poignancy to the excavation.

Though she did not see how it could help her, Ashanta shone her candle last at the ceiling, even daring to stand atop the table for a closer look. Nothing. She sighed, and climbed down from the table. The candle was beginning to sputter now as it reached the end of its time. Best to go back to the bed and blow out what is left of the stump, she thought to herself. She heard her stomach rumble and wondered when she would next be brought food. Was it morning or afternoon or dead of night? It was impossible to know in the near total darkness of the dungeon. Perhaps she should try to sleep, she thought. It had been mid afternoon when the bird had brought her the message, so the meal she had been brought was likely supposed to be supper. In that case, it must be nighttime now, and the next food would not be coming until the morning, at any rate. She lay down on her bed, pulled the thin blanket over her, and tried to sleep.