The lath and plaster construction of Lower Town ended when Oloron Road did, at a cobblestone road wide enough for two wagons to pass each other. Now she needed to move more cautiously, because even with martial law in effect, she was sure the wealthier residents of this part of the city would insist on regular patrols. They also hired private guards who had a longstanding rivalry with the city guard. Willow had more than once taken advantage of the animosity between the groups to slink inside an otherwise well-guarded mansion. She hoped the snow would lower their alertness.
Oh, it was beautiful being home, darting from shadow to shadow and following paths she’d laid out for herself long ago. It was one of those nights where everything was perfect, where she was one with the night, where she knew where the guards would be even before she sensed them. Her blood sang with the thrill of doing what she did best. Hanging from the eaves of a tall stone mansion while two guards passed by on her left, she felt a moment’s regret at having given all this up. But the moment passed, and she remembered Felix and Kerish, and knew this elation would pass, leaving her cold and downhearted. Midnighting was a temporary thrill, and one she didn’t have a problem sacrificing.
She turned onto Queen’s Way Road, named for some long-dead Queen, no doubt, and kept close to the mansions built of granite blocks bigger than she could put her arms around. The palace gate was probably closed and certainly guarded, but if it was neither of those things, it was also her best way onto the palace grounds. Would they let the dogs out on such a night? No, it was too cold. But even without dogs prowling the grounds, it was going to be hard to reach her destination.
Queen’s Way Road ended at the palace gates, and Willow found she’d been half-right: the freezing wrought iron of the gate was fully open, and two guards stood there, pacing back and forth, probably to keep themselves from turning into icicles. Willow backtracked and made her way through the streets until she saw the iron and stone fence again. It was about seven feet tall and topped with iron spikes. Willow had never climbed it, since she’d never had cause to steal from the palace before, but it looked like an easy enough climb. Clearly they were counting on the dogs to deter any would-be intruders.
Willow bounced on the balls of her feet a few times, looking in all directions for unexpected witnesses, then took a running start, bounded up the stone base and got her hands on the topmost bar of the gate. The iron froze her already chilled hands through the gloves. She used her momentum to haul herself up and carefully over the spikes, then dropped lightly to the ground. One hurdle down.
The land beyond the fence rose gently toward the distant palace, which was invisible behind rows of trees and bushes that would hide it from casual onlookers. That it also hid any interlopers from the palace’s eyes had likely never occurred to anyone there. If Felix really were going to be King, one of her first actions would be to clear the grounds of anything that might provide cover for a thief. Anyone trying to steal from the palace on her watch would be in for a huge surprise. She’d heard it said it took a thief to catch a thief, and maybe that wasn’t true, given how many thieves had lost their hands over the years, but it was certainly true that only thieves thought like thieves. How funny, that she might turn her midnighting skills to a non-criminal use.
She ran lightly across the lawn, leaving footprints in the thin snow that covered the ground. They’d fill with more snowflakes that would cover her tracks soon enough. At the top of the rise, a thick hedge, black in the moonlight, bordered the long drive that ascended from the palace gates to the great front door and then split to circle the palace proper. Crouching, Willow followed the hedge to her right, not bothering to peek over the top to see how far she’d come. The front door, which lay at the top of a flight of marble stairs, was well-lit at night, as if thieves might be stupid enough to try to enter the palace there. She could see the glow from the lanterns through tiny gaps in the hedge, which was more than enough for her purposes.
Eventually, she left the light behind, trading it for the whiff of horses and manure. The stables took up a quarter of the palace complex, filled not only with scores of horses but a dozen carriages of varying degrees of luxury. A few more steps, and the hedge came to an end, leaving her within full sight of the stables.
Willow took a couple of quick steps to conceal herself behind a thick-bodied oak tree and paused to run over her memories of the palace grounds. If you imagined you were a bird looking down on the palace, you would see a huge irregular blotch like spilled ink, with dozens of smaller outbuildings ranged here and there like smaller ink splatters. Willow had examined the palace thoroughly over the years, strolling in during the day as if she had legitimate business there, and she could picture that bird’s-eye perspective easily. The stables, sprawling across the grounds, were the biggest of those ink splatters.
Just beyond the stables were the mews where the stable hands lived, a bunch of tiny rooms built by boarding up the old stables and roofing them more securely. Kerish had told her once there was a neglected door somewhere in the mews; it was how he’d gotten Felix out of the palace. That would be useful information if she intended to enter the palace. As it was, she sorted it away for later consideration.
The walls of the stables, and then the mews, made nearly a straight line that then took a sharp left turn toward the east wing of the palace, curving as if the palace were an apple someone had taken a big bite out of. At the top of the arc was a narrow gap in the wall—not terribly narrow, at least ten feet across, but by the palace’s standard that might as well have been a hair-fine crack. The gap led to a passage about twenty feet long and fifty feet high; it had made Willow feel claustrophobic, as if she’d never see the sun again. But it was worth the momentary discomfort, because at the end of the passage was a courtyard, and on the far side of the courtyard, emerging from the walls of the palace that in that place were black and stony, stood Old Tower.
Willow checked for observers, then dashed for the next oak tree. She needed to get past the mews and into the narrow passage without being seen. The stables were safe unless someone was helping an animal give birth—she remembered being mistaken for a stable hand and pressed into service for this very purpose—but the east wing, with its many large windows that overlooked the palace grounds and the Army’s training grounds beyond the wall, could be a problem. She had never found out what the east wing was used for, but she guessed it was living quarters, probably for Ascendants. Who knew how many of them might still be awake, watching the snow fall?
She ran for another tree and pressed against its rough trunk, feeling the bark catch at her cap and the hair sticking out from beneath it. A few of the east wing windows were bright with candlelight, but she couldn’t see movement behind any of them. She’d have to take the risk.
She glanced around. The stables were still quiet; at this distance she couldn’t even hear the noise of horses whickering in their sleep. The mews apartments had no windows, so she couldn’t tell if they were occupied, but if they were, the lack of windows worked in her favor. She settled her gloves again, a nervous habit, then, with a swift prayer, she left the shelter of her tree and ran.
A few yards of lawn extended past the row of trees, then she was on gravel that crunched and sprayed underfoot. She ran as lightly as she could, hoping there was no one around to hear her. The corner of the palace loomed before her, a black shape against the dark night, and she swerved around it and ran faster, keeping within arm’s reach of the palace wall and hoping she looked like nothing more than a moving shadow. The black Valant coat wasn’t the best for sneaking around, but it was better than nothing. Imagine trying to do this in Quinn scarlet and blue.
She swung around the curve of the wall, trailing her fingers lightly over the stone, looking for the gap. She almost missed it, couldn’t see it in the darkness, but suddenly her fingers touched nothing but air. She ducked into the gap, ran a few paces, then paused to catch her breath. Despite the cold, a light sweat touched her brow and the back of her n
eck, and her fingers inside their gloves were warm and limber. Perfect.
Willow walked slowly down the corridor that was as black as Terence Valant’s heart, again touching the wall. She could see nothing but a faint glow, high above, that was a sliver of moonlit sky where the walls didn’t quite meet. As she walked, she counted her heartbeats, seven, eight, nine, and on the tenth she let out a deep, calming breath that made a cloud of mist that rose silently into the sky. The snow had all but stopped, here in this timeless gap between the real world and the secret inner courtyard. Willow took another breath. This was her time, the midnighter’s time, and as she stepped out of the passage into the dark courtyard, a shiver of excitement ran through her.
There were no lights in this courtyard because there were no doors or windows opening onto it. She had no idea why it even existed. Probably some King or other, in expanding the palace, had built out from the tower in one direction, then in another—or it might have been a different King; the rulers of Tremontane were fond of building onto the palace. By the time their varied construction projects were finished, Old Tower would have been forgotten, at least as far as its outsides were concerned. If Lord Quinn were right—and she prayed fiercely to heaven that he was right, or all of this was for nothing—someone cared enough about its insides to lay ready a signal fire atop it. She patted the flint and steel tucked into her pocket. He had to be right, that was all.
Old Tower looked as if it had been stuck to the wall as an afterthought, its square base out of place against the rounded wall of the palace. Willow circled it, or at least went around it as far as possible. No snow had stuck to its black, irregular stones, some of which jutted out so far it was a miracle they hadn’t fallen out. She ran her gloved palm across its surface, imagining how its cold roughness might feel against her skin. Climbing barehanded would be a challenge, sure enough, but tonight she meant to take every advantage she could.
She bent to untie her boots and pull them off, swiftly donning her midnighter’s shoes before too much snow could melt onto her feet. Her long boot knife went through her belt, securely lying along her hip. She tied the bootlaces together and slung the boots round her neck, then took a few experimental jumps to see how they moved against her chest. Too much. Resignedly, she dropped the boots on the ground. If she had to leave via the stairs, she’d likely never come back to this courtyard again, and she liked those boots, damn it. But getting to the top alive was more important.
She bounced again on the balls of her feet, which were growing cold thanks to her shoes not being all that much protection against the elements, flexed her fingers, and reached for the first grip.
It was as easy as she’d always imagined. The rough surfaces of the ancient stones clung to her gloves like a dog begging for its master’s touch; her feet found purchase on the narrowest of ledges. She made herself go slowly. This was the tallest thing she’d ever climbed, and it would get difficult before long.
Bright particles of snow, the only visible thing in the darkness, blew across her vision and clustered on her eyelashes. She blinked them away. She had no hands to spare for wiping her eyes. Her world narrowed down to a pair of hands, groping for the next grip, a pair of feet carefully finding support, a pair of eyes skimming her surroundings, watching for danger. The stone smelled bitter, like wormwood and gall and stale wood smoke, and she paused to control a sneeze. She was far enough up already that falling would hurt, and sneezing could rattle her into a fall.
Her ears strained for some indication that she’d been spotted. There were guard posts at intervals along the palace walls, but she’d chosen the side of Old Tower facing only two of these. More of a protection was that the guards were almost certainly focused on possible outward threats, not an attack from within the palace complex. But being seen had always been a potential danger, one of the many calculated risks she’d decided to take. So she listened for the sound of shouting, and heard nothing.
Three more feet. She was starting to feel as if she’d done nothing else in her life but climb the tower. Her feet were growing colder, but not numb, not yet. She once again quelled the urge to scramble up the tower, as if she were a spider who could cling to any surface she liked. Spiders were interesting. Why couldn’t Felix’s obsession run to spiders instead of snakes?
Her hand slipped, and for a moment she dangled, feeling gravity wrap its fingers around her arm and tug. In the next moment, she’d found another handhold, and she resumed her slow climb upward, ignoring the hammering of her heart. How much farther did she have to go? She couldn’t see the end of the tower, and the moon was too low in the sky to illuminate her surroundings, not that it shed much light in that phase. She had to keep going.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Then another. The third time, she recognized it correctly as a man shouting. He might not be looking at me. She reached for another stone.
A bright silvery bee flew past her with a whining hum, well to one side of the tower. Arrows, she thought, and two more came singing past, these ones closer. The time for being cautious was over. Willow ascended as quickly as she dared, taking a sideways path and zigzagging up the tower, hoping it would make it harder for the guards to target her. How far away were those guard posts, anyway? Not that it mattered. Not that she could do anything but climb, hand over hand, praying she wasn’t about to die here on this tower or, worse, on the ground a hundred feet below.
Sharp pain creased the outer edge of her right thigh, making her foot slip. She clung desperately to the wall, feeling around for a foothold somewhere. More arrows plinked off the stones around her. Much longer, and they wouldn’t have to hit her, she’d fall to her death. Her questing foot found a jutting stone and pushed off. She reached for another handhold and found nothing but empty air. She slapped her hand down on the ledge of the tower’s top, brought her other hand up, and hauled herself up and over the edge, rolling away until she fetched up against something hard with sharp edges.
Willow lay with her eyes closed, breathing in great lungsful of knife-edged air, and took a moment to be glad to be alive. The tock of an arrow striking the stones near where she lay brought her back to the present. The unseen archers were still shooting at her, though they couldn’t see her beyond the tower’s parapets. Staying out of their way would be easy, so long as she paid attention to the arrowheads.
She sat up, crouching to stay below the parapets, and examined the thing she’d bumped into. It was a giant brass basin, bigger than she could put her arms around, nestled into a base of stone. Her weight bumping against it hadn’t disturbed it at all. She cautiously put her head up to look into the basin and glimpsed a sizable pile of wood cut into short lengths before she had to duck out of the way of another arrow. The shouting was growing louder, and it was only a matter of time before guards came bursting through the doorway whose outline she could barely see at the opposite side of the tower.
She stood and tried to spark a fire. It took her a few precious moments to realize what she’d only been peripherally aware of: there was no kindling, nothing for a spark to ignite, and she was wasting time. More arrows whizzed past. She dropped to her knees, cursing under her breath, and stripped off the Valant coat and drew her belt knife. With a couple of quick slashes, she tore most of her right shirtsleeve free and wadded it up under the wood. The wood felt slightly damp, but Willow judged that was from the light snowfall rather than a thorough soaking. She dodged another arrow and struck another spark, letting it fall on the grimy linen.
The cloth caught immediately and began burning the way linen does, shriveling wherever the flame touched it. One of the chunks of wood smoldered, blackening, but didn’t catch fire. The linen burned itself out without starting a fire. Cursing again, Willow yanked free the rest of her sleeve, then hacked at the wood until she had a handful of splinters. The arrows had stopped firing, which meant nothing good.
The second piece of linen started burning after a few sparks, and this time, the splinters caught fire. Willow
blew gently on the tiny flames, wishing she’d thought to bring a flask of alcohol to soak the wood. Well, how was she to know the fire would need so much help? The fire brightened. Flames ran their hot fingers over the wood, starting new fires wherever they touched. Willow stepped back to examine it. This was definitely a blaze everyone would see. She picked up the Valant coat, conscious of her missing shirtsleeve, and put it on. Time to go.
Streaks of silvery light flashed at the limit of her senses, some distance below her. Below, and beside, and rising quickly—someone was coming up the stairs. She’d have to risk the arrows. Willow ran for the side of the tower and slung one leg over the parapet.
Feet pounded up the stairs. “Stop!” someone commanded her. “Stop or we shoot!”
Willow looked over her shoulder. Two men with crossbows and short swords stood beside the door. Two more crowded up the stairs behind them. Now, could crossbows shoot straight down? It didn’t matter. Climbing down the tower was suicide under these conditions.
Willow slowly swung her foot back over and sat on the parapet. She held up both hands to indicate she wasn’t armed. “You’ve caught me, fellows,” she said. “Now what?”
The man in the lead grinned at her. It wasn’t a friendly expression. “Now you learn why it’s a bad idea to break into the palace,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They had nothing to bind her with, but they took her knives and her midnighter’s wire, patting her down roughly without lascivious intent. She might as well have been a statue. One of them slid his hand over the wand in its sheath and plucked it out. “What’s this?”
Champion of the Crown Page 26