Kingshold

by D P Woolliscroft

  Motega stepped forward. “What do you want with us, Mother Sharavin?”

  “Hello, Hawk. I didn’t realize you could speak.” Sharavin’s attention moved to Motega as he’d hoped. “I want to set an example to the guild of what happens to those who turn their back on their brothers and sisters. How do you think I should do that?”

  She was playing with them now, like a tarot reader turning over one bad omen after another. There was only one hope.

  “Mother, you could kill us to set that example.” Trypp turned to face Motega and gave him a what-the-fuck-are-you-doing look. “You could easily kill us, with all of your crossbows. But we would kill many of you first. What do you think, Florian? Ten, eleven?”

  “Twelve,” said Florian, fully focused on their situation. Motega knew he’d be on the balcony before most would be able to respond.

  “The man says twelve. So, what would you achieve?” asked Motega plaintively. “You’ve killed us, but you’ve lost twelve of yours, and all because Trypp here was a steaming turd and did wrong by you. Now, I understand that doesn’t sit well. But I know something to make it feel better for all of you.”

  Sharavin had noticeably relaxed. She stood straight with her arms crossed over her chest, staring intently at Motega. “And what, little bird, is that?”

  “Coin, of course,” he said simply. “We buy our way out. Make reparations. What’s your price?”

  She considered the offer in silence for a moment. Motega worried that maybe she wanted a piece of Trypp more than gold. And then she spoke. “I want a demon. I want a say in this election. I’m the head of this household. But a thousand crowns is a steep price. Buy me a pyxie, Hawk.”

  Motega had cased the lord treasurer’s abode from the safety of his room at the Royal Oak. His view from the falcon’s eyes being sharp and clear, with the added benefit of it being much less conspicuous than him walking around outside.

  Hoxteth’s home was a four-story building with a pitched roof and expensive windows secured with iron bars on the lower floors and iron latches on the upper floors. There were only three doorways: the grand central front doorway, a side door leading to the carriage house and the walled courtyard, and a door to the kitchens for staff and tradesmen. All of the doorways were heavily guarded throughout the day and night, with regular changing of shifts to avoid boredom and lack of concentration.

  It wasn’t possible to see from the street or sky, but there were likely to be numerous cellars, and the sewers were much more substantial in the upper quarter, so that was a potential means of entrance, but required some specialist knowledge.

  For the past few days, he and Trypp had been working the inns and taverns to gather information on Hoxteth’s house from loose-lipped servants and low-scruple merchants. The challenge with this job was they had to acquire incriminating evidence, but they didn’t know what it would look like and where it would be. The only thing they could go on was the assumption any documentation would likely be in an office.

  Some sources had confirmed the presence of Hoxteth’s primary office off a waiting room near the main hall on the ground floor. Intriguingly, they’d also heard from a former carriage man that there was a second room where he worked adjoining the bedroom Hoxteth shared with his wife. This former employee had never seen it, but he’d been present in the kitchen when there was a request to take up refreshments in the early hours one morning.

  Six days had passed since they took the job from Artur and that meant they still officially had nearly four days to figure out the rest of the plan, but Sharavin had changed that.

  Motega had taken the offered price of freedom, but they only had half of the money, and that took everything they had from Artur for the last job, along with what coins they had in their pocket on arrival in Kingshold and the small emergency stashes of gems they each had sewn into their clothes. And Sharavin wasn’t willing to wait ten days for the second half of the money; a week was all she’d give them.

  So now they had to get into Hoxteth’s well-fortified house, find something they didn’t know existed, and do it all in the next two days to be able to pay on time.

  They weren’t out of the frying pan yet, but as usual, Motega found himself enjoying the pressure and the thrill of being in a scrape.

  Outside, it was dark, it being two bells past midnight. Motega and Trypp were now staying up all night and sleeping during the day. They’d decided pretty early this was going to have to be a night job. There was practically zero chance of being able to infiltrate the house during daylight hours.

  Florian had yet to switch to the late shift. He’d been gathering various items of equipment they’d need, as well as working on a particularly important component of the plan, and so, he was asleep in the bed opposite Motega in their shared room. Trypp, meanwhile, had been out and about for some hours.

  Per had continued to be Motega’s eyes to reconnoiter the house, and from the lights in use during the night, he was pretty sure where Hoxteth’s sleeping quarters were and where the second office was. That was the good news. The bad news was Hoxteth didn’t seem to sleep very much. The upstairs room stayed alight until around this time each night, and given the time of year, dawn would break before the fifth bell.

  “Mot, Florian!” Trypp burst into the room as Motega re-centered himself into his own body. “We’re doing it today. Got to be today.” Trypp looked excited and a little out of breath.

  Florian was a light sleeper and now sat up on his bed, hand automatically on a sword he kept close by. “What’s up, Trypp? Close the door and come in.”

  “I was at The Eagle’s Nest chatting with Lizzie, that bar lady with the big… Anyway, I heard this woman talking about her night off getting shifted. Because Hoxteth is throwing a party tomorrow at the merchants’ guildhall, or they’re putting it on in his honor. Either way, he’s going to be out until late. I went over to the Crooked Weight, too. Heard the same thing there. Shindig’s not going to start until after dark.”

  Motega smiled and nodded. “Should give us a lot more night time to play with, but there’s risk around when he’ll come back. What if he’s not the partying type? Just shows his face and heads home?”

  “Well, my friend,” said Trypp with a bright white smile, “let’s just hope he’s like Florian here and can’t stop at one drink.”

  The three friends had walked across the rooftops to the building opposite Hoxteth’s mansion, dressed in black and moving soundlessly and confidently over the pitched slate roofs. Per flew overhead, but Motega needed to be sure of his feet, so he relied on his own eyes. Opposite them was a fourth-floor window, three feet high with a small ledge at the bottom.

  Motega unslung his bow from its berth across his back, strung it, and prepared the arrow he and Florian had designed some years ago. It had four barbed hooks extending forward from a typical sharp arrowhead, and an eye through which he threaded a braided rope of silk. He fired the arrow into the wooden ledge and then pulled on the rope to confirm it had buried itself securely, before tying it off on a metal staple Florian had secured in a nearby chimney.

  Trypp tested his weight on the tightrope before dashing across to the window high above the street, arms out slightly to keep his balance. At the window, balancing one foot on the ledge and the other on the rope, he pulled a small roll of implements from a pocket at his waist.

  First, from a metal vial attached to a thin tube, he applied Drakic acid onto the window, dissolving a small circle of glass with a slight hiss. Then Trypp fed a long L-shaped instrument through the hole in the glass to flip the window fastener, and finally used a small crowbar to pop open the window. All of this done while balancing forty feet above the cobblestone streets. Trypp was a master of his craft.

  The thief quietly climbed through the window, disappearing from view for a minute before reaching back outside to quietly hammer in two staples to secure the trip wire for his heavier companions. He gave a signal it was safe for Motega to come next, who darted nimbly acro
ss the tightrope and disappeared into the window, with Florian to walk last.

  The room Motega entered was small with a simple oak desk in the middle, a leather chair pulled up close. Stacks of parchment cluttered any available surface: some in rolls and others piled flat. The desk looked like it’d been in use for many years, perhaps something sentimental for Hoxteth.

  Motega checked the single exit from the room as Florian climbed through the window. So far, their research seemed to be correct. The next room was the bedchamber. Thankfully, it was empty; however, the sounds of staff in the house were audible above the silence of the night.

  Trypp searched through the papers on the desk, scanning the contents for any mention of Pyrfew or Emperor Llewdon. Florian did likewise with the documents stored on one side of the room, and Motega took the other. Motega saw letters of credit, shipping manifests, warehouse inventories, even correspondence from a number of banks regarding the financial security of the realm, which didn’t seem that secure, but nothing that appeared to be related to Edland’s ongoing struggles against Pyrfew.

  Trypp clicked his fingers once to beckon Motega over to him.

  “Have you found something?” asked Motega.

  “No documentation, but look here.” Trypp showed him a small chest he’d discovered in the desk. The lock was already picked, and he opened it carefully. Inside were many diamonds, rubies, and sapphires—a small fortune beckoning them.

  “Trypp, we’re not thieves,” whispered Motega. “Well, we are kind of thieves, but we’re not thieves like that. We need nobody to know we were here. So lock it back up and put it away. Then let’s find what we came here for.” Trypp did so grudgingly.

  They continued their search by the light of small lamps worn on their foreheads. Some years ago, when they’d been exploring a forgotten barrow to acquire one particular treasure, they’d discovered a type of moss on the walls that gave off a dim light, equivalent to a candle or two. Motega had taken samples of the plant and kept it alive with a diet of beer and honey, enough for it to grow steadily. Trypp had the idea to fashion a small glass container for the lichen, with one side mirrored on the inside to help reflect and focus the light, which he was then able to fasten to a leather strap worn around the head. It wasn’t very bright, but in total darkness, it provided him with enough light to do a job like they were doing now, and, most importantly, it enabled him to keep his hands free if any trouble arose.

  Minutes passed, and the search of the documents turned up nothing of interest. Motega wondered if they were missing something obvious. The use of a code name or something, but there wasn’t the time for a more thorough study.

  “Trypp, Florian, I have nothing,” said Motega, calling a halt to what they were doing. “We have to go check the other office.”

  Motega had been hoping this wouldn’t be necessary. Breaking into the upstairs room undetected didn’t worry him, but descending three flights of stairs when the household was still up was going to be much more challenging and require a good deal of luck.

  Trypp led the way out of the office and into the bedchamber, closing the door behind them. It was a long room with three more doors at the far end. Two of the rooms connecting were in darkness and looked to be dressing rooms for the lord treasurer and his wife, Lady Grey, but the third led into the rest of the house, brightly lit with many wall-mounted oil lamps.

  The stairway was wide and made of oak, and the first stroke of luck was the thick green pile carpet muffling their steps. They descended two flights of stairs before they saw anyone.

  Seated on a chair opposite the main entrance, and in front of the waiting room, was a single guard. Most of the others were either outside the house or had departed with Hoxteth an hour or two earlier. Trypp signaled his two friends to stand still, and he walked silently to the banister of the landing above the guard, pulling from his cloak a little pouch. Motega nodded to himself in agreement with Trypp’s plan.

  He placed powder from the bag into a thin metal tube, no longer than a handspan, and with the pipe to his mouth, Trypp leaned over the banister and blew the dust down in front of the guard’s face. The dust was hardly perceptible as it fell and went unnoticed as the guard inhaled. Before a count of three, the guard’s eyes had closed, and his chest rose and fell steadily. Crumian powder, in higher quantities, could cause a coma, but in small amounts, it just generated a deep sleep. The guard would probably be fired for sleeping on the job, but better for him than a knife in the back.

  They descended the final flight of stairs and could hear laughter and singing from the back of the house in the direction of the kitchens, the staff enjoying the time their master was away. Across the hall, through the waiting room, and into the office was a good forty feet to travel in the open, and with servants so close it would be a challenge for most others in their profession. But this was easy compared to their other jobs.

  Motega remembered how one time they had moved so silently through the shadowed eaves of a temple to Mother Marlth, while the pews had been packed with the congregation; no one heard or saw them. They had spiked the oil used for the ceremonial lighting of the Mother’s body with diluted liquid fire. Paid work, of course, not just for the enjoyment of seeing hundreds of people quiver in terror when the explosion greeted the end of the service; it made them think Marlth was passing judgment.

  Lamps lit the downstairs office, and once again the three companions began their search of the room, opening drawers in desks and dressers, paging through books lining the shelves and reading the most recent correspondence resting in trays on the largest desk in the center of the room.

  “This is going to take too long.” Trypp was holding up a bound leather book three inches thick. “This one book alone could take me a whole bell to go through it properly. We could have completely missed what we’re looking for already!”

  Trypp was whispering, but an edge was coming to his voice. He’d not spoken much about the meeting with Sharavin when they got back to their rooms at the Royal Oak. All three had become focused on the job, but it was evident to Motega the sentence weighing over his head was now getting to him. “Do the best you can. Scan,” said Motega. “Hopefully, we still have an hour or two before Hoxteth returns.”

  And that was when their luck ran out.

  A bell rang out from the courtyard along with a repeated cry of “Master returns!” The sounds of the street came into sharp focus: horse’s hooves and carriage wheels on paved road, the turning of the iron wheels on the gate to the courtyard as it was dragged open. The laughter of the household staff abruptly stopped, and the sounds of feet as they rushed back to their positions to welcome their master home.

  “Mot, we’re fucked,” Florian stopped leafing through the pages he had in his hand. “Too many people moving all around the house. I don’t want to have to cut my way out of here. You need to do it, now.”

  Motega’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he could see through the eyes of Per, looking down on the street below and the black carriage of the lord treasurer waiting to enter his compound.

  The falcon leaped from its perch and picked up a leather loop attached to a glass bottle where Motega had left it by the tightrope. The bird beat its wings to climb up over the house before circling once, twice overhead before descending to fly over the courtyard and release its grip on its package above the carriage house. As the bottle hit the roof of the carriage house, it erupted in flame. Undiluted liquid fire, flammable on contact with air and a bastard to put out.

  Now the bellman shouted, “Fire!” and the cry was picked up and repeated by multiple voices in the house. Footsteps turned heavier as the household staff ran, hopefully to the fire to start a bucket chain to try to extinguish it.

  Motega’s eyes refocused on the room around him while the three friends waited for the sounds of footsteps to die down. Trypp opened the door from the office to the waiting room and gave them the nod to move out.

  Silence was still necessary, but their p
ace was fast as they climbed up the stairs. On reaching the landing of the first floor, they heard from below, confident, measured footsteps and a voice calling out, “Keep an eye on them, darling. Don’t let them burn the bloody house down. I need to change.” Hoxteth was right behind them and moving up the stairs.

  Motega followed his friends up the stairs, steps muffled by the combination of the carpet, their soft-soled leather shoes, and years of practice, staying one turn ahead of the owner of the house. They made it to the bedchamber as Hoxteth gained the top floor, and Trypp realized they weren’t going to make it across to the open door of the office without being seen, so he ducked into the nearest door, which Motega closed behind them.

  From the light of their head lanterns, they could see they had entered Lady Grey’s dressing room, and now Hoxteth was next door, between them and escape.

  Motega took stock of his surrounding while Trypp listened at the door. There was a small fixed window in this room, probably just large enough for him and Trypp, but Florian’s broad shoulders would never squeeze through. Rows of gowns, tunics, and trousers hung from rods around the room, a full-length mirror fixed to the wall next to a dressing table, two portraits on the far wall and framed map hung close to him. The chart was of the Jeweled Continent, nicely done, but it looked different somehow, though he couldn’t place what it was. On a hunch, he took a knife from his belt, cut it from its frame and rolled it up to tuck under his belt.

  “Who’s there?” The voice from the bedroom made Motega stop his exploration of the room. He and Trypp exchanged glances. Had Hoxteth discovered them?

  “No! You don’t need to do this!” The voice from the bedroom sounded terrified. “I’ll double whatever he’s paying you!”

  Trypp opened the door a crack, each of them peering an eye around the door frame just in time to see a figure dressed head to toe in black, only his eyes visible through a gap in the tight-fitting mask. The figure took two quick steps forward and pushed a stiletto through the lord treasurer’s eye and into his brain. Hoxteth had begun to cry out as the assassin had stepped forward, but ceased as he fell to the floor.