Cat took her hand again. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They didn’t speak again until they’d walked quite some distance up the riverbank and entered North Alexis. There were more guards on the streets here, patrolling houses and makeshift redbrick flats that were clearly only a few years old. Emily shuddered, remembering just how many of those tenement blocks had fallen down a year or two after they’d been built. It would be a long time before Cockatrice, let alone the rest of the country, developed the concept of planning permission to make sure that the buildings were structurally sound before construction actually started. No one was even sure where to begin.
Cat chuckled. “Idiots.”
Emily squeezed his hand. “They could have had us,” she said. “They were just too professional.”
“Yeah,” Cat agreed. “I was afraid they’d want to...have fun with you.”
“I know,” Emily said. Randor might have ordered his troops not to play games with the city’s womenfolk, but the men might not follow orders. “They didn’t, though.”
“No.” Cat shook his head. “What did you make of the fortress?”
Emily took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Impregnable, at least on the surface,” she said, slowly. “It would take a small army, with combat sorcerers, to take the fortress. And it would be bloody.”
“Very bloody,” Cat agreed. “We might be able to sneak through the water entrance, but I’d bet half the family fortune that they have that side sealed off tighter than a...tighter than a very tight thing.”
“Indeed,” Emily said, deadpan. She’d heard worse from her stepfather. “And we don’t happen to have an army.”
Cat let out a long breath. “And we don’t even know the layout inside. Did you not visit when you were a noblewoman?”
Emily shook her head. “Never,” she said. “The king never offered me a tour.”
“Their wards are brute-force affairs,” Cat said, after a moment. “Very crude, but very hard to break from the outside. I’d bet the rest of my family fortune that they have all the weak spots under heavy guard and some of the guards will be sorcerers. I don’t see how we can get inside.”
“Me neither,” Emily admitted. They could blast down the wards, if they could muster enough power, but it would require a dozen sorcerers working in unison and a carefully-prepared circle within bare meters of the target. Somehow, she doubted the guards would sit still and let them set up the ritual without intervening. “There has to be something.”
Cat shrugged. “We could let ourselves be taken prisoner...”
“The king would have us all killed within seconds,” Emily said, quickly. She could see the logic, but it was the sort of plan that worked better in stories than real life. “The ink wouldn’t get a chance to dry on the execution warrants before we were dead.”
“He’d have to be insane to kill you,” Cat said. “You’re popular. And your father would seek revenge.”
Emily scowled. Cat didn’t know Void wasn’t her father, but Randor did. He knew he had no reason to fear a Lone Power seeking revenge. And she doubted she was popular enough for the entire country to rise in her name. Cockatrice, perhaps. But one barony couldn’t take on the rest of the country and win.
“We’d be trapped, locked behind wards, chained to the walls and probably drugged,” she said, instead. There were plenty of ways to keep a sorcerer in a prison cell, with a little preparation. She had no doubt that Alassa was being drugged to keep her under control, even though there was a risk the potions would harm the baby. “I don’t think we’d have a hope of getting free.”
Cat looked disappointed. “So, what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “We’ll have to think about it.”
She tossed ideas around and around in her mind as they slowly started to circumvent the castle and make their way back to the inn. Brute force wasn’t going to work, unless they had an army...and they didn’t have an army. Jade and Cat could try to pose as a couple of guards, perhaps, but she had a feeling that everyone in the guard force knew everyone else. It was how she would have arranged it. And while they could use glamours or transfiguration spells to change their faces, there would probably be plenty of signs and countersigns to make sure that the newcomers were legitimate. Randor was a paranoid man with plenty of reason to be paranoid.
And he knows a great deal about what magic can do, she thought. Randor wasn’t a strong magician–Alassa was a great deal stronger–but he was cunning. And he knew enough to be extremely dangerous. He won’t have too many problems sealing all the holes.
Cat sucked in his breath. “More guards,” he said. “They’re blocking the road.”
Emily looked up, sharply. They were close to the far end of the Royal Mile...too close. The guards had set up a barricade, directing traffic away from the Royal Mile. They didn’t seem to be looking for anyone in particular, but...Emily cursed under her breath as she looked past the guards and saw the darkened building. The Assembly Hall looked as though it had been completely abandoned. It cost her a pang to see it, even though she hadn’t expected anything else. Randor had never liked the idea of being accountable to commoners–or anyone, really–and he’d taken advantage of the chaos to shut the Assembly down once and for all.
“We’ll take the long way around,” she said, as traffic flowed away from the Royal Mile. “I don’t want to risk getting any closer than we have to.”
“Understood,” Cat muttered. He spat on the ground. “What are we going to tell Jade?”
Emily winced. “The truth,” she said. There was no point in trying to lie to him. “He might have an idea.”
Cat tensed. “There’ll be someone in charge of the Tower,” he said. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. She hadn’t taken any interest in the Tower when she’d visited Zangaria for Alassa’s Confirmation. “But Cat, whoever it is will be very loyal.”
“We might be able to find a way to bribe them,” Cat said. His voice hardened. “Or even threaten them.”
“Maybe,” Emily said. Bribery was one thing, although she doubted they could scrape up enough money to induce a high-ranking nobleman to commit treason. Randor wasn’t fool enough to underpay his loyalists. But threatening their lives? Or their family’s lives? The thought was sickening. “We’ll have to work out who we’d have to influence first.”
“It’ll be someone close to the king,” Cat said. “What about his wife?”
Emily shook her head. “The Queen was unwell, the last I heard,” she said. In hindsight, it was clear that the Queen taking to her bed coincided with Randor’s affair with Alicia. “And I don’t think he let her have any real power.”
“We could kidnap the Queen,” Cat said. “Or the king’s brother. And then offer to trade.”
“I don’t think Randor would care,” Emily said. It was cold, very cold, but she suspected it was true. “He would see it more as a chance to remove a nuisance without getting the blame.”
“So?” Cat glanced at her. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. “I just don’t know.”
Chapter Fourteen
“WE ARE MAKING SOME ENQUIRIES INTO who survived the purge,” Jade said, once they had returned to the inn and checked the wards. “We just have to be very careful.”
“Yeah,” Cat said. He sighed, heavily. “The Tower of Alexis is damn near impregnable.”
“There’s no such thing as an impregnable fortress,” Jade said, sharply. He sat down on the bed, looking tired. “What happened when you walked past the Tower?”
Cat glanced at Emily, then launched into a detailed description of everything they’d seen and sensed around the Tower. Emily watched Jade, more concerned than she wanted to admit. She had no idea what Jade had discussed with Mouse, and his other contacts, but she suspected that none of them could really help. Anyone with the sort of presence in court that might lead to them having useful information would
be reluctant to risk it. Jade’s wife and unborn child were at stake. He had to be feeling frustrated–and helpless.
“We may be able to find a way to slip up to the rear gate, assuming it actually exists,” Cat finished. “We couldn’t get a proper look at it from the riverbank. But they’ll have made damn sure that no one can get any further without being stopped.”
Jade ground his teeth. “So you’re saying it’s pointless? That we might as well give up and walk away?”
“I’m saying that it will be very difficult to break into the Tower,” Cat said. His lips twitched, mischievously. “Unless you want to surrender and hope you get sent straight to the Tower yourself...”
Emily scowled at him. “Jade would be beheaded on the spot and you know it,” she reminded him. Jade almost seemed to be considering it. “He’s too dangerous for Randor to keep around.”
And his death would force Alassa to marry someone else, she added silently. Her father wouldn’t let her choose her second husband.
Jade stood and started to pace the room. “There has to be another option.”
“We were thinking about trying to dicker with whoever runs the Tower,” Cat said. “Do you know who does?”
“No,” Jade said. “The identity of the Tower Warden was always a secret. If Alassa knew, she never told me.”
Which makes sense, Emily thought. Randor wouldn’t want anyone to know who runs the Tower.
She considered a handful of possibilities for who ran the Tower, but none of them stood out above the rest. It wasn’t Alassa herself, although she held the Low and Middle Justice. Randor himself held the High Justice, which included treason against the crown. And he couldn’t take time out from being king to administer the Tower himself. Nightingale? Emily didn’t think Randor trusted him that far. Lord Burrows? No, he’d been sent away when he’d married Alicia. Whoever ran the Tower had to be someone who lived in the city.
It might even be someone of low rank, on the face of it, she thought. Paren hadn’t been the only commoner to be ennobled for great service to the crown. Sir Roger or someone along those lines...
She shook her head, reluctantly. They couldn’t start trying to bribe–or threaten–noblemen at random. If Jade didn’t know, the chances were good that very few other courtiers knew either. And everyone who did–the men under his command, perhaps–would probably have a binding on them to ensure the secret was kept. It would have to be someone the king trusted completely, or as much as he trusted anyone, but who?
“Then we’re stuck,” Cat said, quietly. “Unless you want to try a frontal attack...”
Jade glared. “Do you think that getting ourselves killed would help?”
Emily looked from one to the other, then sighed. “We need to identify the person in charge of the Tower. Or, at least, figure out who might know.”
“Nightingale,” Jade said. “That little”–he ground his teeth in frustration–“has his tongue so far up the king’s ass that he’s...”
“Thank you,” Emily said, quickly. She really didn’t care for the mental image. “If we can get our hands on him...”
“That might be hard,” Jade said. “He won’t want to leave the king’s side. There are a dozen other people just oozing around, hoping for a chance to take his place.”
“It’s a good place to start,” Emily said. She had few compunctions about kidnapping Nightingale and demanding answers. “And...we should move, perhaps somewhere close to the Tower. If we keep a list of who goes in and out, we might be able to figure out who’s in charge from that.”
“If we can get lodgings somewhere closer to the Tower,” Cat said. “You saw how tight security was. I’d expect questions to be asked of anyone who moves into the neighborhood.”
“Then we hire street urchins to watch the gates,” Jade said, brightening. “Or...”
He smiled, humorlessly. “What about Sir Xavier? The king’s hired spy?”
Emily frowned. She’d be astonished if Sir Xavier, the head of the Black Daggers, was also the Tower Warden. Randor wouldn’t want to put that much power in one man’s hands. She rather suspected the king had a plan to dispose of Sir Xavier in a hurry, if he had the slightest doubt of the man’s loyalty. He certainly wouldn’t want to lock the man up in a prison he’d formerly controlled. But Sir Xavier might know who was the Warden...
Warden, she thought, wryly. Does he punish naughty children too?
“We could try,” she said. “But he’s not going to be easy to catch.”
Jade’s face darkened. “He’s in the best position to know, short of the king himself,” he said sharply, still pacing the room. “And I’m pretty sure the king trusts him more than Nightingale.”
“He’s also a wily man who’s survived for years in a snake pit,” Emily countered. “He won’t be taken easily.”
“We need to either find a way into the Tower or put pressure on the king,” Cat said. “Are there no other options?”
Jade stopped, suddenly. “He has a son,” he said. “A bastard son, but still a son. We could kidnap the son and offer to trade...”
“No,” Emily said, without thinking. “We can’t kidnap a baby.”
Jade rounded on her. “A little brat the king happens to want!”
“And a baby who happens to be a bastard,” Cat said. “The kid isn’t an immediate threat to Randor’s power, Jade. Alassa, on the other hand, is. He’s not going to make the trade, even if we...even if we threaten to kill the kid.”
“Then what do we do?” Jade’s voice hardened. “Is there no other way?”
“We could try to replace a couple of the guards,” Cat said, slowly. “And then...”
“The wards would catch us, even if the other guards didn’t,” Jade said. “And we couldn’t take control of the wards without being inside the Tower already.”
“Randor might have a way to bring down the wards from the outside,” Emily mused. “He wouldn’t want the Warden turning the Tower into a private fortress.”
“It isn’t as if someone could use the Tower as a springboard to take the city,” Jade said. “And the key is probably configured to Randor personally. We’d have to capture him...”
“What if we did?” Cat leaned forward, excitedly. “Capture the king, then force a trade.”
Jade looked up, sharply. “It might work...”
Emily shook her head. “It wouldn’t. And it would put Alassa’s life at even greater risk.”
“Explain.” Jade’s eyes bored into hers, all the harder for the sudden lost hope. “Why can’t we capture the king?”
“First, Randor spends most of his time in the castle,” Emily said, reminding herself that Jade’s wife was in danger. She didn’t need to take his anger personally. “That castle is a heavily-warded fortress, with most of the inner wards keyed to Randor personally. I’d bet that whatever permissions he granted you and Alassa have been revoked by now. You wouldn’t be able to get into the castle without being caught.”
“There are more holes in that system than you might think,” Jade growled.
Emily took a breath. On the face of it, Jade was right. Warding a huge castle wasn’t easy, certainly not without a nexus point. There were so many people going in and out of the castle, from noble courtiers to servants, that Randor wouldn’t be able to ward the building as thoroughly as he might like. There would be so many people permitted to pass through the wards that fooling them wouldn’t be that hard.
But Randor would know that too. She had no doubt of it. The inner sections would be tightly sealed, particularly the king’s bedchamber. Randor might even have moved his bed to a whole different part of the castle, just in case Jade managed to break into the castle and came looking for revenge. And if they were caught and trapped...she’d torn a hole in his wards, once. She doubted she could do it again.
And we can’t get into the secret passages without Alassa, she thought. There was a whole network of catacombs under the city, but the tunnels that led to the castle–or
at least the ones she knew about–were carefully warded. Alassa might be able to use the passages, if she’d been with them...Emily’s lips twitched. If Alassa was with us, we wouldn’t need to break into the castle in the first place.
She forced herself to concentrate. “Second, if we do capture the king, what next? He won’t be in any position to give orders, let alone enforce them. Will they free Alassa, on the grounds she’s the next in line to the throne, or summon Duke Traduceus? Or...or will they kill Alassa? Nightingale won’t want her to take the throne.”
“Nightingale doesn’t have the nerve to kill a defenseless woman,” Jade stated. His voice was so flat that Emily knew he was angry. “He wouldn’t fucking dare.”
Emily had her doubts. Alassa would be drugged, warded...perhaps even chained to the wall, if the king had allowed paranoia to dictate how his daughter would be treated. She would certainly be in no position to fight back if someone tried to kill her. Nightingale wasn’t the only one who’d have reason to fear her taking the throne. And even those who didn’t fear Alassa personally would be concerned about a female monarch. Zangaria had never had a woman on the throne before.
And then the nobility might try to take advantage of the chaos, Emily thought. The loyalists would be hesitant, unsure what to do, while the rebels would have a chance to scatter the king’s men and impose their own order.
“She’s right,” Cat said. “If we managed to kidnap Randor, we would plunge the kingdom into chaos. And even if we let him go at once, a great deal of damage would be done.”
Emily sighed. Randor would lose face if he was kidnapped. His enemies would laugh, while his allies would start to slip away. He wouldn’t be the first monarch of Zangaria to face hard times, but none of his predecessors–even Bryon the Weak–had been kidnapped and used as a bargaining chip. Women were bargaining chips, not men. The mentality that believed a woman could be married off to seal a bargain also believed that any man who lost control to the point that he became a bargaining chip himself was a laughingstock.
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