THE RAVEN MASK

When darkness shrouded the castle grounds and evening passed into the deep of midnight, and when all was quiet but for the third watch of the guard and those restless souls tossing and turning in their beds, the Raven Mask scaled the wall of the castle’s east wing. Dressed in tight-fitting black and dark gray, with soot smeared across his face beneath his silk mask, he blended into the night as he crawled upward like a spider, his limbs splayed as he searched for finger-and toeholds among the ashlars, gutters, cornices, and decorative embellishments of the wall. If Morry knew what he was up to, the old man would probably keel over from heart failure. So Morry had not been told.

Up and up the Raven Mask pulled himself, his fingers seeking the barest of crevices in which to anchor. The tiniest mistake, the least of slips, could culminate in disaster. Even if he survived the fall, his body would be broken and bleeding, and even worse, he’d be caught. He was thief enough to deserve being locked up by the constabulary till the end of his days. What he was doing now could merit execution, though if all went as planned, this would be the least of his deeds.

Despite the frosty chill of the night, sweat slicked his sides. He prayed that the soldiers on duty would not espy him, would not think to look for intruders on the wall. He hoped they all searched for danger outward beyond the castle walls, not inward. The arrival of the Eletians had been a serendipitous event, for everyone, not just the soldiery, was looking outward and paid little heed to what occurred on castle grounds, not taking any special note of one impoverished aristocrat wandering within their walls.

He had used the unexpected diversion well, picking out routes up the wall, and studying the routines of the castle and the habits of its guards. He’d taken time to become friendly with servants and to learn their ways through the warren of service corridors within the castle. There were many more corridors left abandoned that he itched to explore, but though they could be useful, he hadn’t the time to figure them all out.

Right arm up, finger-walk to the next seam between ashlars. Left arm. Right foot up, left foot. Stretch the right arm again and—his left foot slipped and he saw it all in his mind’s eye, the fall, the long tumble to the ground, the explosions of pain, his body lying broken and helpless.

He dangled there by the fingertips of one hand, his arm stretched taut, the muscles and sinews searing and strained. With a grunt he swung up his left arm and scrabbled for a hold, and when he found it, he worked his toes back into the crevices and leaned into the wall, pressing his cheek against cold stone, his heart pounding.

That was close.

He swallowed hard and worked to control his breathing. When he mastered himself, he continued his climb upward, disregarding the pain in his right arm and shoulder. He crawled until his toes stood securely on a cornice, and certain this was the desired level, he shuffled along it counting windows as he went.

Those three are for the chambers of Lord and Lady Coutre, he thought as he sidled by them. Two more for the sisters.

When he came to her window, he paused and sat upon the sill, which was flat and wide enough to hold him. No light shone within, but a shred of moonlight illuminated a square of floor and a corner of the bed.

How easy it would be to enter through the window, to steal across the floor and place a kiss upon her brow. He had done it a hundred times before, slipping into the bedrooms of highborn ladies—those who had so much wealth and glittery jewels that they’d not miss just one ring, or one brooch, or one necklace. Some anticipating, if not outright hoping, for his visit into their bedrooms left choice gems in the open for him, especially if they wished him to return certain “favors.” Sometimes he did, and sometimes he chose not to.

He thought he’d like to find the bedchamber of the lady who had confronted him at the museum. The thought of climbing through her window aroused all kinds of delicious sensations. He’d made discreet inquiries among the aristocratic circles about “Lady Karigan,” but no one seemed to know her. A pity, for he’d enjoyed riling her up, how her color rose. He’d continue to ask around. Who knew, but maybe by mere chance he’d come upon her bedchamber some night. The thought brought him pleasure.

Often he must remind himself that his work was not just for pleasure, but to help his foundering estate from being totally dismantled, leaving him a landless beggar without title. His grandsire, the first Raven Mask, had done as he now did: resorted to thievery to preserve their lands. But then his father, through terrible management and drunken gambling, had lost nearly everything his grandsire attained.

So, Xandis Pierce Amberhill the Third had taken up where his grandsire left off, training as he trained, learning the arts of the stealthy, and stealing from those who could afford to miss a trifle. Slowly he worked to rebuild the family’s wealth. His dream was to purchase back all the lands his father had squandered, and it might very well happen sooner rather than later if his latest task succeeded. He would earn a handsome sum.

Morry disapproved of the whole scheme, disliked their co-conspirator, the plainshield, thought the whole thing lacked honor and was too risky. Risky, very risky—Morry was right on that count, dear Morry his cautious manservant, who was so much more: surrogate father, teacher, and the one who had taught him the arts of the Raven Mask, for Morry had served his grandsire as a young man.

It was the servant in Morry who submitted to Amberhill’s desire to partake in this plan, this challenge, this opportunity to regain the wealth of his estate.

His breath fogged the window as he peered into it, discerning nothing. It was not his object this evening to slip into the bedchamber of Lady Estora Coutre and steal her jewels. He would not chance awakening her or her maidservant who must sleep at the foot of her bed. To do so could rouse the Weapon who stood guard on the other side of the door, causing a confrontation the Raven Mask did not desire, and ruining all his plans. It would bring him to no good end. He had risked enough already just by scaling the castle heights to sit on Lady Estora’s windowsill.

It was as surreptitiously close as he dared get to her on castle grounds. It was important for him to try, though, important for him to know whether or not this approach, via the wall, might work, but before he had gotten very far, he ruled it out, for he believed there were less perilous ways to accomplish his task.

He gazed out into the night. Distant lantern lights bobbed along the walls that surrounded the castle grounds as guards went about their patrols. Others walked the paths below. Fortunately their light would not reach him.

It wasn’t just the desire to restore his lands that drove him to take such risks. No, something about his secret work, about climbing one of the most secure walls in all of Sacoridia thrilled him, made his pulse rush, made him feel alive. It was like stepping on death’s threshold, but cheating it. He guessed his grandsire must have felt much the same in his youth, and maybe there was something of a gambler in him, too, like there was in his father.

He was about to begin his descent when light grew in Lady Estora’s chamber. He stopped himself and peered into the window again, careful to edge away from view. Lady Estora entered the room, her maidservant behind her bearing a lamp. So she hadn’t been in bed at all. He surmised the lady had been wandering the corridors again, which he observed her doing several times. He wondered what she thought about as she walked at night. What had she to concern herself with? Her father and clan were prosperous, and she was about to make the best marriage match in the land.

The servant took away Lady Estora’s shawl, folding it and storing it in a wardrobe, then returned to start unfastening the hooks on the back of the lady’s dress. At first he watched transfixed as the dress began to fall, revealing pale skin and the corset, then he averted his eyes, blinking in confusion.

He was a gentleman, not a voyeur, he reminded himself. A gentleman who crept into the sleeping chambers of ladies and sometimes bedded them. How different was this? Was it not less invasive? Who would know if he watched?

I would.

He glanced through the window. The maidservant was now untying the bonds of the corset. He swallowed, taking in the curve of Lady Estora’s bare shoulders and arms, the plumpness of partially revealed, creamy breasts that had never known harsh sunlight. And again, he forcefully averted his gaze, feeling overheated.

This was his future queen, his cousin’s wife-to-be, not some courtesan to toy with. He had gazed in like a hungry animal and it was difficult to withdraw his gaze; it was equally difficult not to peer in again. Most considered her the greatest beauty of the land, and he could not argue, but it made him feel base, a beast unrefined, wild.

He struggled within himself for an unmeasurable time, but his will held out and he did not look in again until he deemed the danger well past. When he did so, he saw that the maidservant had left. Lady Estora sat at her vanity gazing into her mirror without expression. Her white nightgown flowed from her shoulders in elegant folds, pooling at her feet. Her golden hair, now unbound, tumbled down her back in waves that shone in the lamplight. If possible, he found her more lovely than ever, the heat rising in him again.

She then placed her face in her hands, her shoulders trembling as though she wept. This was somehow even more embarrassing to view than her undressing. What sadness afflicted her? Certainly it could not be his cousin, could it? Zachary was a just king and treated her with kindness. It would be beyond the best dreams of most ladies to be marrying one such as he.

He found himself pitying her for whatever sadness assailed her, but in his guise as the Raven Mask, he could not allow himself to get caught up in it. To do so would endanger his task. He drew away from the window and began his descent.

Amberhill crept through the window and into the house as stealthily as he would any he was intent upon stealing from, but his aim wasn’t to pilfer jewels. Rather, this was his own house he rented in the noble quarter, and his object was to not rouse Morry.

The house was, by necessity, the smallest in the neighborhood. He could not afford one of the larger, ostentatious manses that dwarfed this one, though by some standards his rental was perfectly spacious and elegant. It also served his purposes well. Tucked back from the street and shrouded by shrubbery and trees planted by an overzealous gardener, it offered the Raven Mask concealment for his comings and goings. Since he often hunted the noble quarter for his trinkets, the location was perfect.

He closed the window behind him and latched it shut. He peeled off his mask and stood there in the library releasing a long, tired sigh and flexing his sore arm. It would be fine in a few days. He just wouldn’t scale any more walls in the meantime.

He’d left himself a lamp at low glow and now he turned it up, only to find, to his surprise, his manservant sitting in the shadows by the unlit fireplace.

“Morry!” Amberhill exclaimed. “What are you doing up?”

The older gentleman was in his sleeping clothes and a robe, but quite awake.

“You did not tell me you were going out tonight.”

Amberhill ran the silk mask between his fingers. Usually he told Morry precisely what he was up to when he went out as the Raven Mask, but even so, it rankled that Morry should need to know his every move as if he were still a boy.

“It is not necessary for you to wait up every time I go out,” he replied.

“The idea is that I be included in the plan in case there is trouble,” Morry said.

“I wasn’t anticipating trouble.” There easily could have been, but Amberhill wasn’t about to admit it.

“Well, then, what treasures did you bring home?”

“Er, none.” Amberhill hadn’t expected to be interrogated upon his return, and he found himself grasping for an explanation that would not reveal what he’d really been up to. He didn’t care to imagine Morry’s rebuke if he found out the Raven Mask had been scaling castle walls and peering into Lady Estora’s window. “I was out practicing my skills. More of a walk in the shadows, really.”

“Is that why your arm seems to be sore?” Morry demanded. “Because you were walking?”

Amberhill frowned. Morry would know just by glancing at him that the slightest thing wasn’t quite right. Even minor pain could alter a man’s posture, and after all these years of training together, Morry knew him as well as he knew himself.

“It is of no matter,” Amberhill replied.

A suspicious gleam remained in Morry’s eye, but the older gent, as paternal as he might be, was still a servant, and Amberhill knew each of these conflicting roles fought to assert itself over the other. The servant won this time, at least for the moment, and Morry did not pursue the matter.

“I was afraid you’d gone and done something rash,” Morry said.

“You know I’m more careful than that. I won’t do the job until the conditions are perfect.”

Morry shook his head. “I’m not sure the conditions ever will be. It’s not a proper sort of—”

“Nothing the Raven Mask does is proper,” Amberhill snapped, aggrieved he must always defend his decisions. He strode over to a table that held a bottle of brandy. He splashed some into a glass and downed it in a single gulp, then poured some more.

“Some things are less proper than others,” Morry said, undeterred. “Especially when they are traitorous.”

“Such things were commonplace centuries ago, and were considered an honorable way for one noble to express disagreement with another, or to show himself as a rival for an intended wife and to benefit from a token ransom as solace.”

“I doubt the women involved ever saw it as ‘honorable,’” Morry said. “In any case, King Smidhe outlawed the practice of honor abductions long ago because it created disunity among the clans. In some cases it was an excuse for them to commit war upon each other.”

“You know as well as I do that honor abductions still go on in remote provinces where the king’s law holds less sway. Coutre, for instance. And to my thinking, there is still a place for some of the old traditions.” It had been a long night already, and Morry’s interrogation was not soothing Amberhill’s irritation. If anything, it added to it. “Did you always question my grandfather’s decisions this way?” he demanded.

“Your grandfather,” Morry replied, stroking his chin, “practiced and practiced his art to its fullest, and was well-seasoned before he attempted some of his more dangerous thefts. Such tasks were extensively planned before execution, creating a seeming effortlessness on his behalf that baffled the authorities. That was the art of it—no one knew just how much work went into it. They saw only the results. A man who could melt into shadows and charm the most happily of married women. A man who could steal a highly guarded gem without being detected. An act of seeming ease that was in fact an exercise of great intellect and the culmination of much sweat.”

“So you are saying I’m an impulsive whelp.”

“That is what you are saying,” Morry replied. “Your grandfather was a man full grown when I came to serve him, and I was just a boy. He’d been the Raven Mask for several years already. Did I question your grandfather’s motives and actions? No. Not at first, but as time went on and I grew in experience, I learned to question him if I thought an endeavor too risky. Usually it turned out everything was so well-planned, I was the one who learned from it. After all those years of serving your grandfather, I should think I have some words of value to share with you. I offer it out of love, and offer it now, especially since you have been the Raven Mask but a short time.”

“I’ve been very successful,” Amberhill said, still irked.

“And I do not deny it, for I have trained you well.” Morry smiled, but it was fleeting. “You must understand, Xandis, that it is only because of my regard for you, and my concern for the young woman, that I raise questions. And certainly I do not trust the plainshield. He will not reveal to us his liege lord. Who is this noble who seeks an honor abduction of the most prestigious lady in all of Sacoridia? The whole scheme smells rotten to me.”

“I will see to the lady’s safety myself,” Amberhill said. “I swear it.”

“Even plans well-laid sometimes go wrong.”

Amberhill tightened his grip on the glass, then relaxed. “I’ve already agreed to this thing, and on my honor, I will finish it. The Amberhill estate will be restored, and the Raven Mask can retire once again.”

“What is the greater honor, I wonder,” Morry muttered, but before Amberhill could retort, the older man stood and said, “It is late and I need my bed.” He started away, but then paused. “Your new boots were delivered today. Good night, sir.”

“Good night,” Amberhill murmured. He watched Morry make his way from the room and into the dark corridor beyond. He was trim and unbent despite his years, and worked hard to maintain himself, mostly by training with Amberhill. Amberhill loved Morry, but as a son will chafe against a father, so he resented Morry’s challenging his decisions.

It is, after all, my decision, Amberhill thought. He’d become the Raven Mask with one goal in mind: to restore his estate. And so he would. As an impoverished noble, he couldn’t hope to win anything but a wife of mediocre status with a scant dowry, and then he’d never be able to establish the horse farm he dreamed of. He would die wanting, his life unremarked upon.

At one time, his family had been very wealthy and powerful within Clan Hillander, owning vast expanses of land. Now he had but a crumbling manor house and the small acreage it sat upon to call his own, despite the prominence of his ancestors. The gold the plainshield offered would help him reclaim much and launch the horse farm, and he’d manage it all scrupulously to bring the estate back to its former splendor.

No more pinching jewels from the bedchambers of ladies. Unless he felt like it.

As determined as Amberhill was to see this through, the tension between him and Morry hurt. Never did Morry call him “sir,” except in public.

He shook off his feelings of guilt and doubt when he espied the package on the large library table. His boots! He set his glass aside and unbound the boots from their protective linen wrappings, inhaling the intoxicating fragrance of new leather.

This purchase represented one of his few extravagances. With the currency the plainshield advanced him, he’d gotten fitted for the boots in the finest shop in all of Sacor City. He chose only the best grade of leather, pliant but sturdy, which he now caressed, the lamplight gleaming off the polished, black finish. He could wear the boots unrolled to his thighs for riding, or rolled down as desired.

The expense was unbelievable, but he grew tired of wearing old things, things his father and grandfather once wore. He owned some garb specifically for thieving as the Raven Mask, but could not wear it when he was being himself, so he had to settle for the old things. He wished he could purchase a whole new wardrobe, but not only did he dare not squander his funds all at once, it would appear suspicious for him to suddenly dress like a well-off aristocrat. Comments would be made, and questions asked. He’d be noticed. Too many knew his father had gambled away the family holdings, and questions would lead to guesses about where he’d acquired the funds. He could not take the chance his role as the Raven Mask be revealed.

No, Amberhill dared only make careful purchases for now, and by the time his fortunes were transformed, no one would think to ask questions.

I will tell them I made a profitable business deal, he thought. And it will be the truth.

For all that Morry might worry, Amberhill saw only a bright future of opportunity and wealth.