by Toby Frost
“Certainly, sir.”
“Good. I want your people armed and with their ears covered up, so they can’t hear. They need to go in deafened, understand?”
Cortaag nodded. He seemed to be beginning to understand what he would have to do.
“Young Giulia told us some interesting things, while she was in the chair,” Azul observed. “I think it’s time we made use of them.” He turned to look at the ships moored along the edge of the canal. “Send Elayne Brown an invitation.”
***
Iacono lived in a large house several roads away from the palace of the Decimus. It was painted bright white in a row of yellowing homes, like the only good tooth in an old man’s mouth.
“It’s not right,” he said, ushering her inside. “I mean, it won’t bloody do. Shutting down the Scola like this – they’re treating us like criminals. It’s ridiculous. Ridiculous.”
Dimly, Giulia realised that he somehow held her responsible. She didn’t care.
“I suppose you need some food,” he said.
“I need a bed,” she replied.
“A bed – right, yes. Has Carla seen to that, Roberto, or is she not being gracious enough to bother these days?”
“She’s done it,” the curly-haired servant said. “Silly old woman,” he added, and Giulia wondered who exactly he was talking about.
She nearly passed out when she saw the bed. It was a broad, high-sided thing with a canopy, the sheets fresh and smelling faintly of lavender. It took an effort to wedge a chair under the door handle, and to lay her crossbow beside the bed with a bolt ready to load. She was just able to toss her knives, bag and belt onto the floor before she flopped back and closed her eyes. Her last thought as she fell asleep was that she was sinking through the mattress, like a cushion of warm dough.
Giulia awoke in a panic, from a nightmare that was forgotten the moment she opened her eyes. The sheets were wound tightly around her fist. She sat up and slowly took off her boots and britches before she lay down again, under the covers this time. Bad dreams, that was all. Back to bed.
She still dreamed. Now she was scrambling up a huge pile of logs, knowing that an enemy was on the other side of the pile, doing exactly the same.
She could not tell who he was, but she knew that she had to beat him to the top. That was all that mattered: that it be Giulia who reached the summit first. She climbed, the logs shifting under her boots, and he sped up to match her. Her strides became scrabbling; she tore at the logs with hands and feet, clambering up the wooden mountain like an ape. And all the time her arch rival was on the other side, and although she dreaded meeting him she had to beat him to the peak.
Someone stood on the summit, at the very top. Someone in a green dress that wafted in the breeze, tied to a stake like a witch. So this was a pyre, she realised. They were going to burn the woman at the top.
Logs skidded out of the pyre, pushed out by her boots, rolling down. She could hear her rival on the other side of the heap, breathing hard. With a groan, Giulia made the final effort, and stood beside Elayne at the top.
Hands appeared at the other side of the pyre, and they hauled a man up onto his hands and knees. It was Hugh.
“Keep back,” Giulia called. “I’ve come for Elayne.”
“Me too,” he called. “Let her go.”
“No,” she replied. “She’s mine.” Giulia looked down, and there was a lit torch in her hand. Hugh pulled himself up, his mouth opening in a shout – and Giulia drove the torch into the logs at Elayne’s feet.
FOURTEEN
Giulia awoke in an unfamiliar room. It took her a moment to remember Iacono and the night before. She rubbed her eyes and stared blearily at the wall.
The things I do, she thought, and despite herself, she smiled.
Then she remembered Edwin and Elayne. Someone knocked hard on the door, and Iacono’s servant called, “Breakfast time!”
Giulia dressed and went downstairs. The mapmaker had spread his papers over the dinner table, and she had to eat standing up.
“Sleep well?” Iacono asked.
“Fine, thank you. Look, I need to know what’s happened to my friend—”
“I know. Sethis sent a messenger last night, while you were sleeping.”
“What did he say? Is Hugh safe?”
Iacono said, “As far as I know, yes. He and Sethis got out with the others. Most of them have fled town. Sethis and his people are meeting outside the city, in a farmhouse about a mile up from the North Span. You know what that is?”
“It’s an old bridge, isn’t it?”
“That’s one way of putting it. He said to meet him up there. You can borrow this.” He picked up a leather tube and held it out to her. “It’s the city and the islands. I’ve marked it on there. Not one of my most decorative maps, but it’s accurate.”
“Thanks,” Giulia said, putting it under her arm.
“Don’t crease it,” he replied. “Some people have no idea how to look after things. I hope you’re different.”
“I’m different, all right,” she said. “Don’t you worry about that.”
Iacono grunted and went back to work. He was clearly waiting for her to wander off, as though he’d slept with her the night before and was now ashamed. She watched him measure distances on his map, enjoying his discomfort at her being there. Then she prepared to go.
Giulia found a tough rucksack in Iacono’s hall. Perhaps he used it when he went out taking measurements for his maps; she put her bag and crossbow inside. At the door she ran through the directions again, and then she said goodbye to the servants and turned to leave. It would have been unprofessional to steal the ornaments on the way out.
A thought struck her as she was about to leave. “Hey, Iacono.”
“Mmn?”
“You must know this city pretty well, right?”
He looked up. “Nobody knows it better.”
“Where would I find a griffon?”
“A griffon? Far out of the city. They live beyond the Island of Quarantine, out on the rocks in the bay. The Decimus keeps a few, because the griffon rampant is the emblem of Averrio, but from what I’ve heard, they’re pretty runty things. There was word that they wanted to train them to fight, the way they used to train wyverns in the Alten mountains – but it didn’t go anywhere. Like a lot of things in this city,” he added, and he gave her a wry smile.
“Thanks,” she said. “That’s interesting. Look, you should get out for a while, you know. Out of town.”
Iacono looked at her. “Out of town? But I live here.”
“The Watch will be looking—”
“The Watch are idiots,” he replied. “I’m going to put in a formal complaint to the Council of a Hundred about their activities. I expect that should do the trick. It’s a miracle people weren’t killed.”
“People were killed. At least stay with someone else for a few days. There are some very bad people behind all this. I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think the people who raided the Scola are going to give a damn about your formal complaint.”
He nodded, very slowly. “Point made,” he said, and he waited for her to leave.
The street was warm in the sunlight, chilly in the shade. Giulia headed north. There were still plenty of scores to settle, but the thought of leaving Averrio, if only briefly, filled her with relief. Dry land, she thought. Thank God for dry land.
***
The North Span crossed four hundred yards of brackish water and tiny islands too sodden for any use. Centuries ago, men and dwarrows had sunk massive pillars into the water and had thrown arches over them in the style of a Quaestan aqueduct: first in wood, then in stone. Finally, marks of permanency had been etched into its sides by the greatest fey smiths, cementing a friendship between the races that had been broken only in the War of Faith.
&n
bsp; The bridge could fit four wagons abreast. Crews of engineers constantly checked its stability, lowering themselves down on gurneys or climbing up from barges piled high with scaffolding. A special company of Customs men patrolled the length of the bridge, and the bodies of traitors and murderers dangled from gallows fixed to its sides, where the crows would peck at them until they dropped into the muck eighty feet below.
That could be me, Giulia thought as she trudged along. After all, I’ve got murder planned. As if to answer her, one of the bodies swung round with a creak of rope and showed her its empty face, made genderless by weather and age. You look even worse than me, she thought. I wonder what you did to end up there.
A big wagon rumbled past, heaped with crates. Giulia took three quick strides and swung herself up onto the back. She sat on the rear of the wagon, watching Averrio shrink with every yard.
I’ll be coming back soon, she promised the city, back to finish this. Azul, Cortaag, Alicia – she’d finish all of them.
But that was a long way away. The cold air pinched Giulia’s nose and cheeks, made her scars feel pink and new. The cart rumbled past a little group of pilgrims who chatted and laughed as they walked, sharing a skin of wine. One of them waved at her, perhaps mistaking her dark clothes for religious garb, and she waved back. She reclined against a chest and wondered if this wagon belonged to Azul’s conspiracy, taking his smuggled gold away.
At the far end of the North Span, the guards were stopping people as they came into Averrio, collecting a toll for the upkeep of the bridge. They ignored the traffic leaving the city, but they would certainly bother the driver on the way back.
She nodded to the Customs man at the end. He smiled back, realising that she was not part of the cargo, amused by her temerity.
The wagon lurched off the bridge and onto the main road. Giulia leaned back and enjoyed the sunshine, content to wait for now.
The road wound to the left, behind a little hill, and the city disappeared from view. The wagon slowed down as the gradient rose, and Giulia slipped down from the back, tugging Iacono’s rucksack after her.
She opened the rucksack by the roadside. Now that she was outside Averrio, she didn’t have to hide her crossbow. Carrying it made her look like a bandit, but it made her feel like an expert, too. Besides, it was best to go armed in the countryside. She had grown up in cities – Pagalia, Astrago and then back to Pagalia – and the country both awed and unsettled her.
She walked past a gang of bored labourers, spades and picks on their shoulders. They were probably part of a maintenance crew, tasked with cutting the trees back to stop robbers hiding by the side of the road. At this time of year it was pointless: most of the trees were skeletal.
Around the next corner, a tall man sat on the raised earth ridge at the edge of the road. He wore a cuirass and tough old clothes, his expression dignified but vague. As she approached, he licked his fingertips and smoothed down his moustache.
“Hugh!” she called. “Hey, Hugh!”
Hugh got up and said, “Hullo, Giulia!” He stood up, jumped down onto the road and strode over to meet her. She embraced the knight, surprising him. For a moment Giulia held him tight, then she kissed his cheek and stepped back. “God, it’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, Giulia. A few more hours and I’d have come to find you. Sethis wanted me to stay put, but you can’t leave a comrade behind.”
“Are you all right? What happened at the Scola?”
His expression became serious, as if he had forgotten that they were in danger until now. “Yes, fine, thanks. It wasn’t much of a fight, to be honest. There were a few rough types – mercenaries, that sort of thing – but I was able to hold them off until most of the others got away. It wasn’t good – but it could have been much worse.”
“I’m glad you’re all right.”
“When the trouble started, we all went out into the garden and into the little wood with Sethis, where you and I went before. We got into Faery but we couldn’t get back to the Scola.”
“That’s because they burned the wood while you were in there. I went back to the Scola last night. They knew that wrecking the wood would keep you out, maybe even trap you in Faery for good. They smashed the place up. I saw at least two dead bodies there.”
“Yes,” he said. “It was a nasty business, to be honest. Arashina knew a way out that got us into a forest a few miles north of here. Then I headed down to find you.”
“Well, I’m back now.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve found some things out. We need to talk about this, somewhere private.”
He frowned. “You know, I didn’t see that Watch lieutenant at the Scola. The one who was after us, back at the Old Arms – Falsi, that’s him.”
Giulia nodded. “He was there, all right. You didn’t see him because his men were busy pounding the crap out of him upstairs. He had a change of heart and helped me get some information. Some of the Watch found out and turned on him. They’d beaten him up in the Scola and left him in the dining hall. I managed to get him out, though. It wasn’t easy. I had to kill his second-in-command. No great loss there, to be honest.”
“I see.” Hugh glanced further up the road. “Let’s go, shall we?”
They started up the road together. The labourers were a fair way ahead, reliably out of earshot. Hugh walked with his left hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. “I can’t say I ever liked Falsi – he always seemed a spineless sort of fellow – but that’s no good at all. So, where’s he now?”
“There was a rowing boat at the waterfront. I stole the boat and took him out the way. He got me to take him to a brothel.”
“What? After all that?”
She laughed. “No, to recover. He knew the madam there.”
“There’s a surprise.”
“I think he’ll be all right. Two of his men took him away – ones he trusted.” She glanced over her shoulder, just in case. “Falsi gave me some information. The little old man – the one in charge – he’s called Ramon Azul. His men are smuggling gold into the city, at a warehouse on the docks. I went there last night. I missed Azul but I shot one of his people instead.”
“You did one of them in?”
“Yes. And I found out a load of other stuff as well. Look, I really need to talk to you, Hugh. Just you and me.” And then what? Giulia thought. What will you do then, when I tell you that your beloved damsel and your best friend are in league with the enemy?
“There’ll be a chance for that soon,” said the knight. “We’re meeting the others further up. We regrouped, you see, while you were away.”
“Regrouped?”
“Yes. The dryads have called a meeting. It seems they want the same thing as us, you see.”
“Is that so? Well then, let’s see what they’ve got to say.”
Hugh nodded up the road, away from the city. A woman sat on a mule by the side of the track, a heavy green cloak covering almost all of her body. Her face was invisible under the hood.
“It’s Anna,” said Hugh, “the dryad girl you spoke to. They sent her down with me.”
Giulia waved at Anna: she waved back. They walked on. “You know,” Giulia said, “I was pretty worried about you.”
“Likewise. I didn’t like leaving the Scola without you, but I didn’t have much choice.”
They reached Anna’s mule. Giulia looked up and saw the huge eyes under the hood of her cloak, like an owl looking out from the back of a cave.
“How are you?” Anna asked.
“I’ve been worse,” Giulia replied. “It’s good to be out of the city for a while. And you?”
“Happy,” the dryad replied. “I will be going back to Faery soon. But I wanted to see you, to thank you.”
“Let’s say we’re equal. You helped me, after all.”
Anna smiled. “We are equal, then.
Good.” She turned the mule, and they followed her up the road.
“This is the place,” Anna said. She nodded towards the west, and Giulia, squinting into the forest, made out a large, barn-shaped building twenty yards from the road. There was a thin path leading to it, hardly good enough for a man to use, let alone a horse.
“Hmm,” said Hugh. “I’m sure it’s better close up.”
“It looks deserted.” Giulia didn’t want to say that it looked exactly like the sort of place where she would have laid a trap.
“The farmer who owns it is a friend of ours,” Anna said. She dismounted and tied the mule’s reins beside the path. Her boots sank into the damp, soft ground.
Giulia had half-expected the forest to turn to summer as they approached, the way it had done in the garden of the Scola, but as they drew near, the tree trunks became denser and even less of the winter sun broke through.
She saw a sliver of golden light in the nearest window, seeping between the shutters. To the side, horses stood waiting in a long stable. She glanced over her shoulder and saw no tracks in the mud leading back to the road. Brambles spilled onto the path, shielding it from view. They hadn’t been there earlier. Fey magic, she thought, and she shivered, aware how far from the city she had really come.
A shape moved beside a tree, and a man stood up. He was a thin, bearded fellow, with a foolish, lopsided smile that belied the sharpness of his eyes. A bow and quiver lay next to where he had been sitting. He looked like a poacher, perhaps a tracker for hire. “Well, then,” he said. “I’m guessing you must be Giulia. Go on in.”
Anna opened the front door. They followed her into a dark wooden hall, strong-smelling and fusty-aired. Giulia glanced at Hugh, but his face registered nothing, as if he had been here many times before.
Thick moss grew in the corners of the room, and a vine had pushed its way through the floorboards at the far end of the hall. It had crawled up the wall and was starting to creep across the ceiling. Giulia wondered if the presence of the fey folk had made the vine appear.