by Toby Frost
A long table stood in the centre of the room, laid for a banquet that would never begin. One of the dining chairs had fallen over backwards, as though someone had leaped up and fled. She thought about the ghostly thane in The King of Caladon, denouncing the king at his coronation feast.
At the end of the table was a corpse in a chair. It wore a blue Watch tunic, with a bib of blood. The head lolled back. It looked familiar.
She took a step forward, her silver-edged knife in front of her. As she passed the deserted table, the head swung down and Falsi’s one open eye fixed on her. She sucked in her breath and froze.
“Help,” he said.
She glanced around, saw no-one, and hurried to his side. Falsi lay in the chair as if he had fallen from above. He looked tiny and lost, a prince without courtiers. His blood was black in the moonlight.
“What happened?” she said. Her voice sounded high and desperate.
“We got in,” he said, as if that answered everything. It nearly did.
“Where is everyone?”
Falsi licked his lips. They were puffy and split. The right side of his face was badly swollen, the right eye entirely shut. Broken cheekbone, Giulia thought. “They ran off,” he said. “Pixies took them into the garden. They all ran off.”
“All of them?”
“Most.”
“What about Hugh?”
Falsi nodded slowly. “Him too, I think. He was holding us back with some of the others, till they all got out.”
“What happened to you?”
“They got me this morning,” he said. He winced, a convulsive twitch that made Giulia start. “Got me on the Isle – Isle of Graves. Orvo’s dead. Brought me back here to see their man. God knows why, I’ve told them all I know… Cafaro, he did this. Must’ve been waiting for an excuse…” His mouth moved very slightly, as if it wanted to smile. “Looks like it was my turn.”
Falsi’s face turned away from her, and he raised his head carefully and looked at the roof. Above them, the horned man and the chubby women romped at the waterside, swigging from jugs of wine.
“Wish I was up there,” he said.
“Come on,” Giulia replied, suddenly furious with everything – with him, herself, her enemies, this whole stinking business. “We’re getting out. Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s find out. Where’re you hurt?”
“Leg and side.”
She peered at him. “Right. Let’s get you ready.” Giulia crossed the room, drew her knife and slashed at the curtains. They were thicker than she’d expected: she had to hack at them before a length of cloth came away. Quickly, she bandaged Falsi as best she could: he had lost a good deal of blood, she realised, and his shirt and britches were stiff with it. She crouched beside him and tied the bandage tight.
“Left me here,” Falsi said as she tied off the tourniquet on his leg. “Said they’d come back. They went to fetch someone.”
“I know who,” she replied. “That’s the bastard I’m looking for.”
“He’s not here. He’s at a warehouse. The one in the books.”
“A warehouse?”
“Where they bring the glass. Fuck.”
“Listen,” she said, “I’m going to help you out here, but I need to get something. I’ll be two minutes, then I’ll come back. All right?”
He came to life: his eye was wide and desperate. “Don’t leave me here.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“Be fucking quick. I mean it. Please.”
Giulia touched his hand, felt embarrassed, turned and ran out. She knew the way well enough; she ran down a corridor, turned, then climbed the staircase that led up towards the roof.
Hugh’s door gaped open. Hers was shut. She touched the handle and a long hair came away on her finger. She’d put it there this morning.
Three steps took her to the bed, the boards creaking softly underfoot. She crouched down and reached underneath. Her fingers found the crossbow and she pulled it out.
Giulia slung the crossbow over her shoulder and hurried back downstairs. She was twenty yards away from the hall when she heard a man’s voice.
“It comes to all of us, in the end,” the voice said. It wasn’t Azul: this was someone younger and healthier, cocky instead of vicious. She knew instantly that it was an enemy.
Someone had come to finish Falsi off. There wasn’t enough time to load the crossbow. She drew her long knife and crept closer.
Giulia looked into the dining hall. The grand statues were almost luminous in the moonlight. Cafaro stood at the end of the table, addressing Falsi like a jester performing for a drunken king.
“I mean to say,” Cafaro said, and she could hear the amusement in his voice, “if you ride a three-legged horse, you shouldn’t be surprised when it drops you on your arse, right?” His voice rose, became strained and self-righteous. “‘Oh, I’ve got to do right by these ladies. Got to show the world what a perfect knight I am.’ Right, because you look fucking perfect too.”
Giulia bent low and crept into the room.
“I mean, it’s just pathetic. It’s childish, that’s what it is, fucking childish. What did you think, that you’d get them to sleep with you in return? You think you were going to get to fuck a noble lady in return for all this?”
Her eyes were level with the tabletop. She scurried forward.
Cafaro shook his head. “I expected more from you. I thought we were in this together. We were supposed to be together on this – all of us – and now you go and betray us all.”
Falsi’s eye looked straight at her.
“What?” Cafaro demanded. “What? You think someone’s going to come for you?”
He turned. Giulia gasped and ducked under the table.
“What, you think someone’s going to get you out of this shit?” Cafaro’s boots took a step towards her. “I don’t think so!”
Sudden movement, and plates and cutlery were swept down from the table. They broke and clattered around her. She licked her lips. Cafaro’s legs were close enough to cut. She could reach out and slash his tendons, kill him when he fell.
“Because let’s be clear about this: you are fucked!” Cafaro turned, stepped back towards his boss. His voice had flicked from mockery to self-righteous outrage. “You sold us out for nothing. All this shit you are in is because of that.”
Giulia crawled out from under the table. She rose up behind Cafaro, looked for the place to strike.
“Well, you’ve only got yourself to blame. All good things come—”
Giulia grabbed him from behind. She threw her left hand over his face – that always panicked people – and pulled him back. Her right fist rammed the knife into his spine.
She was half-mad with hatred. Giulia staggered back, pulling him with her. She heard his muffled cries, felt his spit and blood against her palm. Her hip caught on the corner of the table and she fell onto her back, pulling Cafaro down onto her.
He flailed, grabbed at her shirt. She yanked his chin back and stabbed him in the neck, gritted her teeth and sawed through his throat.
Giulia shoved him off her and scrambled to her feet. Cafaro clutched his neck, but there was no stopping a wound like that. He stared up at her, his eyes full of horror.
“I’m going to kill all your people,” Giulia said. She was panting. “Every last one of them.” She flicked the blood off her knife and slid it back into its sheath. At her feet, Cafaro was still.
“Good,” Falsi said. His face was drying; in a few places the blood was still sticky and damp. Cafaro had worked him over well: perhaps that was part of the training when you joined the Watch. “Can I go to Albion with you?”
He sounded half-delusional. “What?”
“Go to Albion. With you and your friends. On your ship.”
&nb
sp; “No,” she said. “I’ve got business here. Besides, they’ve gone.”
“No. They’re here.”
“What? Why?”
A laugh came from outside. Falsi flinched, as if from a blow. Giulia felt sick watching him. She’d flinched like that.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Listen, I’m going to pull you up. You’ve got to be quiet. Understand?”
He nodded.
Giulia took both his hands, stepped back and hauled him to his feet. Falsi cried out between gritted teeth, and the sound swelled around them, filling the room like a cloud of noise. She stepped in close and pulled his arm across her shoulder.
“It hurts—”
“Not long now. Just try to keep quiet. There’s guards at the front door. We’ll go out the back.”
They crossed the hall slowly, Falsi struggling at her side. His body felt like a sack of sand, his legs two wobbling sticks. They reached the door and lurched to the top of the stairs.
“I’ll do it,” he said, and she helped him grip the banister with both hands.
She loaded the crossbow and went down before him. Falsi dropped himself down behind her, one step at a time, his boots scuffing the stairs. When she reached the bottom she glanced back: Falsi was still near the top, his teeth bared like a beast. Come on, she willed him, get a bloody move on!
Halfway down the stairs, he said “Wait,” and she cursed under her breath.
A guard called out in the road. Giulia stopped, her hands tight on the bow. Her palms were slick with sweat.
“Nearly there,” Falsi said.
She caught him at the bottom, let him get hold of her and stepped away from the banisters. Her back and arm ached from carrying him. They struggled down the corridor, towards the back of the Scola.
As they entered the garden, Falsi seemed to lose his will, as if the cords that held him together had gone slack. He drooped in her grip, and she nearly stumbled. “I can’t,” he said.
Oh no you don’t, not now. Her skin crawled with impatience. “You can. Come on!”
“It’s too—”
She wanted to throw him down and beat him, to drive him to the boat with kicks and blows. How long before the others came looking for their friends?
“You can,” she snarled, and she half-dragged him through the ruined garden. They lurched between the shattered trees like a lame animal, constantly in danger of falling down. At last she could unbolt the gate, and they struggled through.
She set him down on the waterfront and dumped her bow in the rowing boat, her shoulders light from the absence of his weight.
“Thank you,” Falsi said as she helped him get on board.
“Don’t mention it. Put your legs in.” Giulia glanced over her shoulder. Nobody there. She climbed in, sending the boat rocking and making Falsi groan, and quickly unhitched the rope from the side.
Giulia was tired already. She looked across the canal and thought, This will exhaust me. I’ll be lucky if I don’t just pass out on the oars. She locked one oar into its rowlock and pushed against the bank with the other. The little boat slipped out into the canal.
In the bottom of the boat, Falsi moaned. His face was bloody, but the cuts were shallow. More worrying were the wounds inside him.
“Go to Printers’ Row,” he said. “There’s a place there.”
“Fine.” The night suddenly felt very cold. She pulled up her hood.
“Go right.”
Giulia pulled hard on the oars, and the boat slid across the water, away from the Scola. She kept close to the bank. On the far side of the canal, thousands of lanterns and candles glimmered in the night, like pinholes in a velvet cloth. Smoke rose against the sky, wisps against the risen moon.
They’re at their strongest now, she thought. That’s what the books said: the beasts are strongest when the moon is full.
Falsi’s eyes were closed, his face tensed as if he was about to scream. “Look, Giulia,” he said carefully, “I told them everything I knew. About you.”
“That’s all right. People do that.”
He stared upwards, as if trying to find the right words to describe the night sky. “Starting to think I’m not cut out for this.”
Giulia said, “Nobody’s cut out for it.”
“You are. You and the old man. The others, too. When I let you stay in the Old Arms, I couldn’t work out why. You did magic on me, didn’t you?”
“Just try to rest, would you?”
“Doesn’t matter now,” he said, and he sighed so deeply that for a moment she thought he was breathing his last. But his chest still rose and fell.
Thank God.
Giulia hauled at the oars. Water slapped gently against the hull. “Have you got a family?” she asked.
“Wife and brats. Four of ’em.”
“You need to get them out of town.”
“You’re right,” Falsi said. His eye fastened on her. It was like something hiding inside a dead shell. “Thanks.”
“It’s all right. Neither of us had this coming.” She looked out at the lights. Averrio was slowly sliding into the water, she’d heard. One day the lagoon would swallow it all, and the fish would pick it clean.
“I never meant to stay here,” she said. “You know what Hugh and I were doing, before we came here? Having adventures. Like knights. We were supposed to be on a quest: meeting his old knight friends, having fun, doing some good deeds for once in my fucking life.”
“This is a good deed,” Falsi said.
The oars slapped against the water, louder this time. “Poor old bastard. His magic princess is with his best friend, and his best friend doesn’t even want to be a knight any more. And then that priest turns up…” The rage swelled up inside her, pushing the sorrow aside. “It never fucking turns out right. Not once. I thought I’d got away from all this when I left Pagalia, but oh no, not a God-damned chance.”
The oars dipped into the water. She pulled on them, feeling the ache in her biceps. Falsi was silent.
“You know, back in the day I’d get so fucking angry. All I’d feel was this rage, that these bastards could treat me like shit and get away with it – no, not just that – that they could profit from it. Like I was something they could tread on to get up higher. I don’t know if anyone can die from fury, but I must’ve got pretty close. I’m not much, I know, but it’s not right that they can do what they like and just walk away. Nobody gives a shit if you feel bad. You’ve got to do something – and I know what I’m going to fucking do.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She stopped, embarrassed. She’d almost forgotten that he was there. “I’m going to finish this, Falsi. I mean it.”
“I believe you.” He looked over the edge of the boat, peering at the land. “Left up here.”
Lights reflected in the water, shimmering as the wake of the boat stirred the canal. Seeing the lights move, something shifted in the back of her brain. She thought as she rowed, her thoughts keeping her mind off the ache in her arms.
Let’s say Azul is the same man Sethis talked about, the Inquisition man. Say he’s been here years, maybe since the war, long enough to buy his way into the Glassmakers. Then he finds that he’s in charge of some criminal business – smuggling, maybe. Perhaps it’s his own decision, maybe someone else wants it done. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, he has to do it in secret.
He needs men to help him, men he can trust: where would he look other than to his old soldiers? Varro was one of his wolves – there are others, too. Azul has a warehouse to use for loading and unloading. Varro makes things for him. Maybe they work under the cover of exporting glass; maybe it’s entirely secret.
What about the procurator? He’s below Azul in the hierarchy. Azul pays him to keep it quiet, to deal with anyone who makes a fuss – like me. Through the procurator he controls the Watc
h. But not the Customs.
So he needs to get past the Customs men.
She rowed on, slow and tired. It all made sense so far. She and Hugh – and Edwin and Elayne – had stumbled upon a conspiracy, there was no doubt of that. They had not understood what they were seeing, but the little that they had seen was enough to mean that they had to be removed.
Her arms were numb from cold and strain. “Are we nearly there yet?”
“Not long. It’s a big place, painted pink. Ask for Frannie.”
Giulia wasn’t sure if brothel-keeping was illegal in Averrio: if it was, Frannie wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it. Her house backed straight onto the canal, painted lurid pink, draped with vines and lit up by half a dozen lanterns. Music seeped across the water as Giulia brought the boat in to shore. Her arms felt as if they were coming off: stopping rowing was even worse than carrying on. She left Falsi in the boat and struggled onto dry land.
The thin woman guarding the doorway was long past her prime, if she had ever had a prime at all. She looked Giulia over very slowly, clearly unsure whether she had come equipped for violence, theft or some new form of sexual depravity.
“Uh-uh,” she said, folding her arms. “Whatever it is, take it somewhere else.”
“I’d like to see Frannie,” Giulia said.
The woman sucked in her cheeks. A voice bawled something from the house behind her, just discernible over the sounds of bad music and drunkenness. The woman glanced over her shoulder just long enough to yell, “One moment, love!” before looking back.
“No, sister,” she said. “Just the street for you. Now go before I make you.”
“I’ve got a sick man here,” Giulia said. “The sick man your boss pays to keep this place open. If he dies, so does your business. Would you mind fetching Frannie for me now?”
Frannie looked like a farmer’s wife from a rough border town. Her cheeks and hands were red as though she’d just punched somebody out. Perhaps she has, Giulia thought.
Frannie looked into the boat and cried, “Oh, saints! Maria, help her get him inside!”