by Wen Spencer
“A trick I picked up. If someone has written on the top sheet of a pile of papers, the next sheet down retains an impression of the writing. You can capture the impression by shading the page with a graphite pencil.” Raven grinned smugly. “The drawings are written thieves' cant. Apparently the thieves wanted the cannons elsewhere. During the trip, they tried to talk the captain into changing the scheduled stops and couldn't. They also tried to hire the ship out once they arrived at May-fair, but didn't want to wait for the two-day layover that the Onward had planned. They borrowed paper to write out this note and sent it by runner. A short time later a woman showed up with some roustabouts and wagons to unload the cannons. Lucky for us, the gentry returned the unused paper.”
Ren gazed at the crude drawings. “Can you read it?”
Raven's mouth gathered into a chagrined smile. “No.
I'm trying to track down someone who can read it and yet would be unlikely to be involved in this case. I don't want to tip off our thieves.“
Ren stripped out of her sleeping shirt and started to dress in the clothes laid out for her. The idea of waiting chafed. The longer they waited, the less chance they had of finding these murderers. She was buttoning her slacks when an idea came to her. “I wonder—do you think the Whistlers still know their thieves' cant?”
Raven shrugged. “Can't hurt to ask.”
Eldest Whistler nodded through their explanation as she wordlessly studied the paper. When it was clear that they had no more to say, she shook her head. “It isn't cant. It looks like cant, but it isn't.”
“Are you sure?” Raven tapped a square with two wheel-like circles at the bottom of it. “This is wagon. Everyone knows that much cant.”
“Yes, that's wagon.” Eldest went on to name a few other words that even Ren could make out just by the pictures. “There's lots of commonly known cant in it, but the rest—it's like someone made up pictures for the words they didn't know.”
“Are you sure the cant hasn't changed since your grandmothers knew it?” Ren asked, since it had been over fifty years since the Whistlers were part of the Sisters of the Night.
Eldest shook her head. “The Sisterhood assumes that anyone can learn enough cant to fake a message, so cant has a second level which acts like a security check. There are things like the number of pictures per line, and a certain set of words that have to appear at least once in the message. Sometimes there's a series of items listed—like five gil, two pistols, and seven quinces—where the items aren't important, only that all but the last number add up to the last number. Five and two are seven. Written cant started out as a way to communicate with illiterate members of the Sisterhood, but it evolved into a means to do business without having to worry about the authenticity of the message.”
“So someone is throwing suspicion on the Sisters of the Night.”
“Or just stealing a good idea,” Eldest said. “Part of this is a set of directions on where to take the cargo. Mill on Dunning Street. I can't read the rest, though this part might be a woman's cant name: Black Hat.”
Eldest Whistler and Corelle volunteered to join Ren in the pursuit of the cannons, reclaiming their weapons with great enthusiasm. As they rode down off the palace's high bluff, listening to Raven outline her plan to storm the mill, however, their eagerness faded into distaste.
“If it's not to your satisfaction, Whistler,” Raven finally said in her blunt way, “what would you suggest?”
Eldest shot the captain a cold look, and then shrugged. “You're doing the best with what you have. Troops, though, are best for fighting big noisy wars on battlefields. Hours before you manage to push those troops through city traffic, the thieves are going to know you're coming. Not only could this get very messy, but there's a chance they could slip the cannons out in the confusion.”
“And?” Raven said with the air of not hearing anything she didn't know.
Eldest shrugged again. “If you had a smaller force of women, doing what my grandmothers did under Wellsbury, they could move through the West End without notice, scout the mill, and take out the thieves with much less fuss.”
“Unfortunately, I don't have such a force,” Raven said. “Your grandmothers were singular in their training.”
“Not quite. They trained us.”
Ren saw where this was going and started to shake her head. “No, I'm not going to put you at risk! These women have killed everyone who has crossed their path.” Jerin would hate me if I got you two killed.
“And there's only two of you,” Raven added. “The reports put twenty roustabouts in the employ of ten gentry. You would need a miracle to eliminate that many by yourselves.”
Eldest shook her head. “I wasn't talking about taking them out. We could scout the mill, find out what your troops will be marching into, and make sure the Prophets aren't slipped out.”
“Your Highness?” Raven turned to Ren with a clear look of “They will be your sisters-in-law.”
“Whistler honor.” Eldest held up her hand in pledge. “We won't run unnecessary risks. We'll be fine.”
How could Ren keep them safe and yet keep them as equals? In truth, she couldn't do both. And equals they had to be in her eyes or there would be no hope of the Whistlers being considered peers by the nobility. She would release a noblewoman on her word of honor, and so she must let the Whistlers take their risks.
“I seal you to your word—no unnecessary risks.”
Ren worried as they rode to the barracks, gathered the troops, and marched them into the city with the rattle of drums and the incessant call of “Make way! Make way!” The narrow city streets required the column to be four abreast, twenty-five rows stringing out to create a scarlet centipede stamping its way through West End. A narcissistic young lieutenant by the name of Cowley rode at the head of the column on a showy white mare. Raven kept shadow-close to Ren and her guard in the rear.
Many of West End's streets were meandering tracks, following what once were footpaths through a wood of live oaks. Dunning Street, however, turned out to be a long straightaway, narrowing slowly in degrees, ending at the doors of the mill.
Ren scanned the crowds of onlookers as they made their way down the street, looking for the Whistlers. What had happened to them?
Cowley called for a halt, and the drums rattled and dropped silent. Over the heads of the infantry women, Ren could see Cowley dismount to try the tall, wide mill doors. The lieutenant obviously found them locked as she moved off to one side and motioned the first rank in position to force them open.
Suddenly gunshots, muffled by the walls of the mill and distance, echoed up the street. A single shot, then a score, sounding like a string of firecrackers.
The women in the front line ducked out of habit, but didn't move to return fire—obviously the shots weren't aimed at them.
The Whistlers! Ren cursed hotly. “Get the door open! Get inside!”
The shooting continued as Cowley barked out orders and the second line crowded up beside the first, shoulders to the door. The drummer took up a beat to coordinate their efforts.
Come on! Come on!
A long sharp whistle from a nearby rooftop caught Ren's attention. She glanced up and saw Eldest Whistler crouched beside a chimney. Eldest pointed down the street to the doors, shouting something unheard over the wind and the rattle of the drum. She made a hard chopping motion with her hand, made a fist, and let it fly open, then pointed urgently to the shop door beside Ren. She started to repeat the whole sequence when Ren recognized the first hand signal.
Trap!
But what kind of trap did you lay for an army? Ren gasped as the second signal became clear. Grapeshot! The thieves had the cannons loaded with grapeshot and pointed them down the street.
“Ambush!” Ren shouted, throwing herself off her horse. “Get to cover!”
“Take cover!” Raven repeated, though it wasn't clear if she had seen Eldest herself or just took up the cry. “Take cover!”
There was
a muffled thud and a flash of fire from the mouth of the street. Out of the corner of her eye as she raced for the shop door, Ren saw the mill doors flying outward on a plume of fire, blown off by small explosives set at their hinges. Flame and smoke engulfed Cow-ley and the front line, as the great doors skipped and jumped down the street on the force of the explosion.
The tableau beyond the blasted doorway stamped itself on Ren's vision. Two cannons, the cyclopean eyes of their barrels pointed straight down the street, sat in temporary cradles behind a wall of sandbags. Like so many cornered river rats, twenty women in dirty ragged clothes crouched around the cannons, two already lowering the burning wand of a fuse lighter.
“Take cover!” Raven shouted again, somewhere behind Ren.
The cannons roared, spitting out flame and screaming grapeshot.
Ren flung herself through the shop door. She had an instant impression of heat and fresh bread—it was a bakery. Then, through the open door behind her, like a sharp hailstorm of death, the grapeshot blasted up the street, shredding everything in its path. Women shouted in horror and screamed in pain; some of their cries cutting off abruptly. The abandoned horses went down, great bloody slashes laying them open.
And then there was silence.
“Return fire!” Ren shouted, scrambling back to the shop door, hoping that someone was alive to hear her. “Stop the next volley! Return fire!”
The street reeked of blood and viscera. Her troops had tucked themselves into every alcove and doorway. Her yelled commands shook them out of their shell shock, and they returned fire in a thunderous volley.
Where the hell is Raven? Has she been killed?
Half the thieves were reloading the cannons, ignoring the rain of bullets, while the other half kept the royal troops at bay. If they managed to reload and fire, her troops would be cut to ribbons.
“Set bayonets and charge! Engage in hand-to-hand!” Ren shouted, working her way down the street from niche to niche, tearing her voice ragged in an attempt to be heard. “Charge!”
They heard her and obeyed, probably out of fear of facing the cannons once more. More than half her women lay dead in the street, but the remaining ones surged forward. Forty trained soldiers against fewer than twenty river trash. The fight was bloody but quick.
Silence fell again, broken only by the moans of the wounded.
“Take a horse,” Ren said to a private, a young girl who looked barely sixteen. “Return to the barracks. Tell the commander we need wagons for the wounded, and more troops to clean up this mess.”
The girl nodded repeatedly, eyes wide, as if she had seen too much today.
Ren set the remaining survivors to searching for the cannons and thieves. She also gave them descriptions of the Whistlers and instructions that they shouldn't be harmed. Raven still hadn't made an appearance, so Ren stumbled back up the street, heartsick, looking for the captain's body among the dead. Her other bodyguards had been from the palace guard, a rotating handful from nearly two hundred women. Raven, though, had been with her for over ten years, had been there on the night of the explosion, had been her captain since that night. To lose Raven would be like losing a sister.
She made it back to the bakery shop without a sign of her captain.
“Hoy! Princess.”
Ren looked up at the call and found Corelle Whistler, leaning against the doorway of the bakery, splattered with blood, looking pale but smug. “Corelle!” Ren cried. “Where's Eldest? Have you seen Raven?”
“We found the captain out cold. Eldest is patching her up. I'm afraid that any others you're missing are dead.”
Ren nodded, too relieved to care now. She'd mourn later. She brushed past Corelle, anxious to see Raven with her own eyes.
“You're alive,” Eldest said, glancing up when Ren entered. Raven slumped in a wooden armchair, face pale under a stain of blood, eyes closed, coat off, and blood-soaked shirtsleeve cut away. A strip of white bandaging was wrapped about her temple, a spot of red growing on it as Ren watched with concern. “We thought with so many trigger-happy regulars, we should keep out from underfoot.”
“How is she?” Ren asked, torn between staying out of Eldest's way and wanting to reassure herself with a touch.
“I'm not sure.” Eldest mummified Raven's shoulder, her hands and the bandaging blood-tainted from Raven's wound. “I don't have my grandmothers' experience with battle wounds. Head wounds always bleed a lot, and the shoulder looks shallow to me. You'll want someone who knows what they're doing to look at her, though.”
“I'm—I'm fine,” Raven muttered, her eyes fluttering open. She eyed the shop as if seeing it for the first time. “Ren, Your Highness, were you hit?”
“No.” Ren reached out to grip Raven's unhurt shoulder. “I'm fine.” She thought then to inspect the Whistlers. They looked as if they had been dragged down a bloody street behind a wagon, but there were no visible bullet wounds. “Thanks for the warning. Are you two all right? What happened? We heard shots.”
“It's why we came along.” Eldest shrugged, then looked sheepish. “We had worked our way into the mill. When we realized they were laying a trap for you and tried to pull out, they spotted us. It might have been trickier for us if your people hadn't started beating on the doors. It kind of spooked them.”
“What happened with the cannons?” Raven asked.
“There were only the two to be seen,” Eldest explained. “But the others might still be in the city. They had coal wagons and buckets of coal. I think they were loading cannons on the wagons, then spreading coal on top of the cannons. It's an old trick.”
Raven started to nod, and then winced. She reached up with trembling fingers to explore her bandage, but Eldest caught her hand before she could.
“Eh, eh,” Eldest scolded. “It's almost stopped bleeding. Touch it, and you'll start it going again.” After she was sure Raven listened to her, Eldest continued her story. “There were five door guards and fifteen more women inside playing cards, sleeping, and waiting. There were three women that seemed to be running things: walking rounds to the guards, keeping the others quiet, and such. Soon after we heard the drums start, two gentry rode up.”
“Gentry?” Ren asked.
“They were all spit and polish,” Corelle said. “High boots, tan leather riding britches, and broadcloth coats, neat as new. The three in charge all bowed and said 'yes, madam' to them.”
Eldest nodded. “As Corelle said, nothing flashy but good-quality riding clothes, both about five foot seven, maybe about fourteen stones. Same build, same walk, like they were sisters. They rode up on bloodstock, a trim bay mare with four white socks, and a black mare.”
“They wore executioner's hoods,” Corelle added. “One in black silk and the other in red.”
“They were still adjusting the hoods, so they must have pulled them on just as they rode up, before we noticed them,” Eldest said. “They came in snapping orders, not like they were scared, just in a hurry. At first I didn't see the rhyme and reason to what they were doing.” Eldest frowned, apparently angry at her own lack of understanding. “And then you were nearly on the street and we were hemmed in. We backed out quietly as we could, but they spotted us and we exchanged fire.”
Ren offered up a prayer of thanks that neither one of them had been killed.
“I hit the one with the red hood,” Corelle boasted. “Grandmas told us to always aim for the commanders—you do more damage per bullet that way. I think I nailed her fairly good.”'
“Remind me to keep you on our side.” Raven said dryly.
Ren leaned outside and called one of the troops to her. “Spread the word. One of the wounded or dead thieves was wearing a red executioner's hood. I want her found.”
The soldier saluted and hurried off. The Whistlers continued recounting their adventure, in greater detail. They had found the doors all guarded, but found a broken, unguarded window on the second story. They had moved quietly to a place where they could view the thieves. When th
e gentry arrived, the action shifted to in front of the doors, out of sight from their original position.
Telling Corelle to stay put, Eldest had worked around to where she could see them.
“Even then, there was a wagon blocking my view of the cannons themselves, or I would have figged to their plans immediately. When I heard them discussing the grapeshot, I realized it was a trap.” Eldest's eyes went winter cold. “We'd given you our word not to take them on single-handed, or I would have tried to nail them. It felt wrong to just cut and run.”
Corelle took over the explanation. “They spotted Eldest and started to shoot. I laid down some cover for her, taking out one of the commanders to throw them into confusion. After she was clear, I made myself scarce.”
Eldest put out a hand and squeezed her sister's shoulder. “You did good.” She turned back to Ren. “I came across the rooftops to warn you. Highness. I wish we could have done more.”
“You saved myself and a goodly number of my women.” Ren said. “Thank you both.”
A soldier appeared at the door with the news that the dead red-hooded thief had been found.
The woman wasn't lying where she had been hit. A trail of heel marks and blood showed where she had been dragged to a back corner of the mill, beside a trapdoor. The red silk executioner's hood had been peeled back, revealing a smashed pulp of flesh and bone framed by short gold curls. A fist-sized hole had been punched through her chest, leaving her fine clothes a soggy red mass of cloth. Her silk-lined pockets were turned inside out, coins littering the ground like bright tears.
Eldest shifted the woman onto her side, grunting at the deadweight. A small neat hole marked the entrance of the bullet that had caused the massive chest wound. “She was shot in the back, then in the face.”
“I hit her in the back,” Corelle said, and then added defensively, “She was facing away from me, shooting at Eldest.”
“You did right,” Raven murmured.
“She was shot in the face so she couldn't be recognized,” Ren growled. “Her sister searched her pockets, left the money, but took anything that would reveal her identity.”