“Cayal has explained to me his desire to end his life,” Brynden said. “I have agreed to aid him.”
“Just like that?”
The faintest hint of a smile flickered over the immortal’s face. “It is a situation from which we will both benefit.”
“So you’ve just decided to help him, have you?” she said to Brynden, deeply suspicious. Then she turned to Cayal. “And you trust this remarkable act of altruism?”
“There are conditions.”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s a shock.”
“You will stay here, my lady,” Brynden said, Cayal nodding in agreement. “Your presence will assure Cayal’s swift return. Of course, the Crasii must leave with him and not come back. My cooperation does not extend to harbouring abominations.”
Tiji opened her mouth to object, but Arkady silenced her with a look. Now was not the time to argue about the Crasii with a Tide Lord.
“And where is Cayal going, exactly?”
“To fetch Lukys,” Cayal said. “He’s the only one who can tell us exactly what needs to be done. I’ll bring him back here and then you’ll be free to go.”
“Does that mean I’m a prisoner?”
“Not at all,” Brynden said. “I will honour Kinta’s request that I offer you sanctuary, in a way that ensures Cayal’s…cooperation.”
“I don’t remember volunteering to be a bargaining chip.”
Cayal looked at her askance. “Did you have someplace better to be?”
He had a point. Other than staying here at the abbey, Arkady’s choices were to return to Ramahn, where Jaxyn’s warrant was waiting for her, along with a squad of felines to escort her home, to be tried and executed—if she was lucky. Or she could head for Elvere, maybe even Acern, and take her chances on her own, with only a passing acquaintance with the language and no money or resources to speak of. “I suppose not.”
“Never fear, my lady,” Brynden assured her. “I have given Cayal my word you will be alive when he returns.”
Alive, he said, not alive and well. Arkady wondered if she should demand clarification on that small but significant point.
“I won’t be long,” Cayal promised. “A couple of weeks at most. Lukys’s place isn’t that far from here.”
“What about Tiji?”
“I’ll see she gets to Elvere in one piece,” Cayal promised. “After that, she’s on her own.” When Arkady opened her mouth to object, he added, “She has diplomatic papers that will see her safely home, Arkady. In fact, she’s better off than you. And she speaks Torlenian far more fluently than you ever will.”
Sadly, he spoke the truth, and although the Crasii clearly wasn’t happy about it, Tiji knew it as well as Arkady.
“Tell Declan what’s happened,” she ordered, certain Tiji would understand Arkady didn’t just mean she was to tell Declan where she was hiding. “Tell him everything. He’ll fret otherwise.”
Tiji nodded in understanding. “Don’t worry, my lady. I’ll make sure he knows.”
That was all she could do for now, Arkady decided. Play along with this, wait for Cayal to return, and then see where the fates took her after that. Cayal might surprise everyone by doing as he promised. Just in case he didn’t, she impulsively hugged the Crasii. “Thank you, Tiji. For everything.”
Tiji didn’t answer. But she hugged Arkady back and then stood glaring at Brynden, as Cayal went to fetch Terailia, so Arkady could return to the abbey, a virtual prisoner of the Lord of Reckoning.
When he returned, he led the camel forward and handed the rope to Brynden.
“Wait!” Arkady called, as Brynden took her arm. “When I get to Elvere, how will I find you, Tiji?”
The Crasii looked at the two Tide Lords for a moment, as if debating the wisdom of sharing such information with them and then turned to Arkady when she realised she had little choice. “There’s an inn near the slave markets called The Dog and Bone, my lady. Free Crasii are allowed to stay there. I’ll wait for you.”
Arkady nodded and smiled with a confidence she certainly didn’t feel. “I’ll see you in a few weeks then.”
Tiji nodded, clearly sceptical of Arkady’s optimism, but she said nothing, just stood beside Cayal—who was acting as if Arkady didn’t exist—watching Arkady being led away.
Chapter 63
With four immortals roaming Herino at will, Declan was forced to operate on the assumption that any and/or all of the Crasii normally on the payroll of either the Cabal or the King’s Spymaster had been compromised.
Or they would be, the moment they came into contact with a Tide Lord.
He was further hampered by the fact that he couldn’t do anything officially as the King’s Spymaster to have Stellan Desean released, nor call on the considerable resources of the Cabal. Freeing Arkady’s husband was a favour to Tilly, and something he would not have bothered with, had she not specifically requested his help.
That left Declan only one place to go for assistance.
Although the thieves and extortionists of Herino were hardly an organised force, little or no crime took place in the city without the permission of a shadowy, almost mythical figure known as the Patriarch. Whispered about in hushed, fearful tones, even among the honest citizens of Herino, he was a man who protected his identity better than most lords protected their wives’ honour.
Making contact with him was no mean feat, so two days earlier, Declan had ordered a raid on an illegal gaming house not far from the Friendly Futtock, where he and Stellan Desean had rescued Prince Mathu from his own folly almost a year ago. The gaming house, which he’d known about for years, was run by Dodgy Peet, a portly, jovial man with a fulsome black moustache.
Dodgy Peet was now cooling his heels in Herino Prison in a cell one floor below Stellan Desean, awaiting his trial and a lengthy sentence for a long list of misdemeanours that up until now had never seemed to warrant the trouble of arresting him. Dodgy Peet’s problem—and the problem for all criminally inclined individuals in Glaeba—was that Glaeban justice was consequential, which meant the worse the perceived consequences of a crime, the stiffer the penalty for the perpetrator.
As Dodgy had been cheating some very reputable people for quite a number of years, there was no shortage of willing witnesses prepared to testify to all manner of dire consequences his house of ill-fortune had visited upon them. The list of minor charges was likely to add up to a considerable amount of time behind bars, once Dodgy’s dissatisfied customers got through with him.
Taking a gamble of his own, Declan put the word out that he wished to meet with the Patriarch, to discuss Dodgy Peet’s fate.
Dodgy Peet, by no small coincidence, was the Patriarch’s nephew.
The Patriarch, who remained hidden in the shadows when Declan was brought before him, even after the blindfold had been removed, had taken surprisingly little persuasion when Declan told him what he wanted. Declan had even told him the truth—up to a point—about why he wanted to free Stellan Desean. It was a favour for a friend, he’d explained, and he couldn’t act officially, nor be seen to be involved.
Because he was known to a great many people in Herino and Lebec as someone who’d grown up on the fringes of society, Declan was one of those rare creatures able to straddle both the legitimate and illegitimate sides of the law with ease. He got away with it, generally, because he didn’t bother harassing those whom both he and the Patriarch thought of as “honest criminals.”
Declan concentrated on the real threats: threats to Glaeba’s sovereignty and the occasional murderer or rapist. He didn’t order random sweeps of the slums to clean them up, or try to impress the nobility with his arrest record. He left enterprising businessmen free to do their business, and it hadn’t escaped the Patriarch’s notice.
His forbearance had bought a meeting with the Patriarch without being beaten to a pulp first.
Under the Patriarch’s sharp and probing interrogation, Declan quite openly admitted Dodgy had been arrested to get the
old man’s attention. He also explained that Stellan Desean would never be free if anybody thought he lived. Therefore, he had to die.
A fire at the prison which left unidentifiable remains would do the trick. Dodgy Peet would be free (Declan had arranged a pardon in advance, forging the king’s signature on the document with no qualms whatsoever), and everyone would believe the former duke was no more.
The Patriarch had seemed rather taken with the idea. Not only would burning down Herino Prison free his nephew, but a great many other members of his fraternity, too, not to mention slowing down the whole process of incarcerating his colleagues in the first place.
A deal had been struck, oaths exchanged, and the details agreed upon days ago.
The Patriarch’s men would start a controlled fire, they decided, the only effective way to terrify a well-trained feline into abandoning her post. With the majority of the prison guards in Herino coming from the king’s own stables, they had little chance of scaring them off any other way, and no hope of surviving if they tried taking them on directly. While Declan was freeing Desean, the Patriarch’s men would create a diversion by freeing as many other prisoners as possible.
It was Declan’s job to get Desean out and away from the prison. He had plans—which he’d not shared with the Patriarch—to send him to Tilly’s house first, and from there arrange to send him to Hidden Valley, once the fuss died down.
With Chikita taking care of his alibi, Declan hurried to the prison to find they’d started without him.
Two streets away Declan realised there was trouble. He could smell the smoke and a crowd had already begun to gather in the streets surrounding the prison. He bullied his way through the throng, only to discover the building well alight by the time he got there.
Declan had been hoping for a bit of confusion to cover his tracks. He was greeted with total chaos. The felines who’d been guarding the gaol were panicked, irrationally afraid of the flames hungrily devouring the wooden structures within the stone prison walls. There was nothing even remotely like an organised evacuation going on, nor had anybody thought to organise a bucket line.
He grabbed the arm of a feline he recognised, wearing a warder’s tabard, and a belt on which she carried a truncheon and a large ring of keys. He turned her to face him. The tabby’s fur was singed, her eyes wide with fear, her tail standing almost straight up.
“What happened?”
“Some…some of the prisoners started to riot,” she said. He could feel her trembling beneath his hand. She was barely holding on. “They set…set…fire to the place.”
That wasn’t the plan Declan had agreed to, but now was not the time to quibble about it. “Have the prisoners been freed?”
She shook her head. “Lockdown…”
“What?” Declan demanded, afraid he’d misheard her.
“When they started to riot…we locked everyone in their cells…”
Declan swore viciously and let her go. “Give me your keys.”
“But…”
“Give me your keys, Sharisha, or go back there and open the cells yourself.”
The feline’s fear of fire clearly outweighed her fear of retribution for letting the prisoners escape. She unhooked the ring of keys from her belt; her hands trembling so hard the keys rattled.
She handed them to Declan. “Our orders…we’re not supposed to let them escape, Master Hawkes,” she reminded him.
“That doesn’t include letting men burn to death,” he replied, snatching the keys from her paw. “Now, instead of just standing about here doing nothing, get a bucket line organised. If this fire spreads, it’ll take out half the city.”
The feline glanced up. “But it should rain again, soon, and—”
“Do it!” Declan yelled in her face, so close he made her jump, and then he turned and ran toward the flaming prison and the broken gate that some of the Herino residents had already battered their way through, in an attempt to free the men trapped inside.
There was even more panic in the courtyard.
Some of the prisoners had been freed and some of the others Declan recognised as the Patriarch’s men. One of them, a rangy, redheaded man Declan knew only as Splinter, ran to him as soon as he saw the spymaster, his face sooty, his breathing short and raspy. Smoke trapped in the central courtyard made it hard to make out what was happening, but there were at least two dead felines Declan could see, men pawing over them to find the keys they carried.
Splinter grinned as he bounded over a burning beam from the gateway. “Some diversion, huh?”
Declan glared at him. “You’ll kill every man here and burn half the city at this rate, you flanking fools.”
Splinter shrugged. “Just so long as it’s the high-born half, what do I care? The Patriarch said you know where they’re keeping Dodgy?”
Declan nodded and coughed, squinting through the smoke. He pointed at the north tower, the one closest to the lake. The tower was already well ablaze, the flaming rooftop lighting the night.
Tides, he thought. We may already be too late.
“Come with me.”
Declan didn’t wait to see if Splinter was following him. He sprinted across the courtyard to the north tower, kicked his way through the narrow door. The fire must have spread to the tower from a stray spark setting the wooden shingles alight, he realised. It was burning from the top down. The lower floors, although choked with acrid smoke, were still relatively free of fire.
He pounded up the wooden stairs, taking them two at a time, the sound of Splinter behind him, his wheezy breath unnaturally loud in the narrow stairwell. Above them they could hear shouting, although it was hard to tell how many men remained trapped in here. It might well be only Stellan Desean and Dodgy Peet, if they were lucky. Stellan was incarcerated in the cell on the fourth floor, in the cell reserved for high-born prisoners, and Dodgy Peet was in the cell directly beneath him on the third floor on Declan’s express orders.
A quick glance at the cells on the second floor had Declan cursing. There were three men locked in them and a very nervous ginger feline pacing in front of the bars, too panicked by the flames to think rationally, or do anything to save either herself or her charges.
“Get out of here!” Declan yelled.
The prisoners began yelling frantically when they spied him. Cursing, Declan shoved the feline aside and ran to the cells, unlocking each cell as he went.
“Go!” he cried, as he released the men. “Get out!”
He returned to the stairs at a run, following Splinter, who was ahead of him now, up to the next floor. Dodgy Peet was alone in the cells, standing at the bars, a torn piece of his shirt wrapped around his face.
He seemed unsurprised, by either the fire, or that one of his uncle’s men had come to rescue him.
“Told you I wouldn’t be here long, Hawkes,” he said with a smug look, as Declan unlocked his cell.
“Yeah, you’re a regular prophet, Dodgy.” Declan threw the door open, stepped back to let Dodgy out, and then turned to Splinter. “You right to get him out of here?”
Splinter shrugged and then looked up at the ceiling. Smoke and the occasional lick of flame were already visible through the boards. “We’ll be fine. You’d better hurry, though, my friend, or you won’t have anything left to rescue up there.”
Declan nodded, and headed back to the stairs. By now the smoke was so thick in the narrow stairwell, he could barely see. Every breath he took was painful. He thought he could hear Desean calling for help, which was a good thing. It meant he was still alive, at least.
The door to the outer room on the fourth floor was already ablaze when Declan reached it. He kicked it clear of the charred doorframe and stepped into an inferno. The floor above was burning fiercely. Like Dodgy on the floor below, Desean had had the wit to cover his face, and he was crouched on the floor to get below the smoke. The metal bars of his cell were glowing red at the top, where they were in contact with the burning ceiling.
The
re were no felines left guarding him. Declan wasn’t surprised. This fire would have been too much for the staunchest creature.
“Hawkes?” Stellan coughed in surprise, when he looked up and realised rescue was at hand.
Declan didn’t waste any precious breath replying. With his eyes watering from the smoke, he ran to the cell door, shoving the key in the lock, hoping the heated bars hadn’t melted the locking mechanism. The floor above creaked and groaned alarmingly. His throat was burning from the stinging smoke as he turned the key, which was growing warm in his hand already. The lock was stiff, but it worked. He stepped back and kicked the door open, aware that touching that superheated metal would have taken his hands off.
“Come on!”
Desean needed no other encouragement. He crawled on his hands and knees through the cell door and then climbed to his feet, still crouching to keep below the smoke. The ceiling was making loud popping sounds now, the other side of the room and the location of the stairwell totally obscured by the smoke and the flames.
And then a crack sounded and the floor above them gave way.
Declan had the presence of mind to shove Desean back into his cell, as the ceiling caved in.
After that it was as if the world had slowed down to ensure Declan was able to register each minute detail.
He heard another series of cracks splintering the timber overhead. Looking up, the air searing his lungs, he raised his arm to shield himself from the fountain of cascading sparks as the ceiling gave way. He heard Desean yell something but couldn’t make out the words; could barely make him out through the wall of smoke and flame. The fire had completely devoured the massive central beam supporting the upper floor. It was no longer able to support its own weight, let alone the weight of the structure above. Declan raised his other arm, too—a desperate, useless attempt to ward off the falling beam; knowing it was futile, wondering why it seemed to be taking so long to fall.
He had time, as the blazing beam crashed down, to realise his cover was blown. Too many people had seen him at the prison for his alibi to pass even the most casual scrutiny. Finding my body here won’t do much for the cause, either, he thought, a little surprised he had the time to find humour in the prospect of his own death.
The Gods of Amyrantha Page 46