On the road, we had been a very conspicuous, slow and under-defended target. We had to change as much of that as possible. We worked like the fevered, throwing ourselves into the tasks needed to change us from a royal carriage party into a family of wood carvers. The boys alternately cursed me behind my back and marveled at my energy as we stripped the bandits and used what clothing of theirs we could. Next we used hammers to remove all family crests from weapon scabbards and burned every scrap of Aelia’s heraldry as well as the boy’s shields.
No, I don’t have the right to call them boys any more. They have fought and died beside me. They were men, and I let them know it. Even as they smiled proudly at me a dark voice snickered in the back of my head, Outrunning the thoughts of all that gold?
We unhitched the horses and took axes to the carriage, prying off chunks of gold moldings and hewing thick oak beams with endless strikes. I soon buried worries about my darker desires in a shower of sweat. By that time the last few bits had been rendered down into thick planks. We set the least luxuriously carved pieces aside for our costumes, and then placed the barely recognizable broken skeleton of the carriage on the bonfire. At least we were warm for the night.
There was no way to hide most of the wreckage, so we made it completely obvious and patently faked. The bandits provided mutilated bodies. The dead horses provided massive amounts of blood. The chest we left in the middle of the road, empty and broken open. The entire scene, broken wheel, corpses, and empty chest, would allow anyone who came by to draw precisely the wrong conclusion.
Aelia came forward, smiling resignedly at the ruined coach and then proudly at me. At least it was proud until I handed to her the roughest, poorest dress she owned. They were not hunting, but plain riding clothes. They were of far higher quality than any peasant would own, but they were in muted colors and of simple cut. She made a face, but she dressed in them, but even there it took some careful fraying with the razor edge of a knife and a few handfuls of dirt to make her a convincing peasant. The cleric was easier, owing to her owning poorer clothes to start, and the boys easiest of all.
Now if I could just get them to stop walking like guards, we might survive. But, once again, they were not the ones giving me the most headaches.
“It will cost me money I severely need to replace those goods in order to be presentable for the Dwarves.” Aelia groused. Again.
I gazed along her form, now only covered in a simple brown and tan dress and stained, dull red cloak. The perfect kind of thing to wear if you were going to be playing in a place with a lot of horse manure, dirt, and sweat, “Your enemy will have spent more still.”
“How do you know?”
I turned to her slowly. “Because they have failed with thugs and they have failed with mercenaries…” I let all mirth leave my voice, “…the assassins guild’s talent is not cheaply bought.”
Those words lay in the center of the group like a sputtering bomb, quelling further discussion. Now, with Gelia and Aelia dressed simply, I had the boys load the horses with the gold plaques ripped from the carriage and weapons, disguised underneath the beautifully carved wooden beams. Once the horses began to protest at the weight, I doled out packs and sling bags, similarly laden, to the boys. I took one myself onto my shoulders, but there was still two packs worth of gold left to carry.
Gelia started to ask an indignant question, but Aelia waved her to silence and bent to pick one up. She stifled a grimace at how the pack cut into her shoulders. I smiled at her, an expression that came from the deepest parts of myself. Gelia stiffly took the last of them, wincing at the cold heaviness.
It could have been worse. We had only our clothes, our weapons, and three days of food each, very little horse feed and a few skins of water besides. We were now under deadline cast harder than any iron forged by any dwarf. In three days we would be out of our sparse supplies of food and water. More than two days after that and we would begin losing gold as we slaughtered the horses to eat. Even with all of that Aelia decided that Leoncur shouldn’t have to walk, she carried her pet in her arms as we set off.
I will never understand nobles.
But, to her credit, she never complained about the weight, not once. We left the road, paralleling it a mile off. It took four cold, hungry days to reach Carolaughan instead of two, but we arrived unmolested.
Like a dark festival day, fifteen small armies of fifty to a hundred men sat outside the walls, courtesy of the other Dukes and Duchesses in residence. These groups had not built castras but were spaced far from one another to avoid accidental conflict. These were highly motivated, antagonistic, violent men and having them anywhere near one another was a colossally bad idea. But the Grand nobility were here to bid, some against mortal enemies, and many dealings amongst my ‘betters’ have turned to bloodshed in the past to ignore that a war might start here. I was utterly certain every camp kept wartime watches, and they were fully manned. I did not see the King’s banner and cursed. No one would start a war if the King were here, but he was conspicuously absent.
Above it all, Orphan Mountain stood alone. White topped even in summer and always wreathed in clouds, it sullenly stared at the awaiting carnage.
We entered Carolaughan as peasants, discovered the bidding would not begin for a few days yet, and made it to this bar. While the boys quietly ferried the gold to the room, I had all day to rest and recover from the exertions on the road. It was late, and any assassin would surely be waiting for us on the few roads leading to the more affluent areas of town. He may be out there right now, waiting patiently, but I was damned if his job was going easy. The beds here were infested, the tankards were dirty, and for dinner I think I ate the cat that had been drowned in the beer I was drinking. It was also the safest (read: Least likely) place in town for a noble and her retinue, for now.
I had determined that I was not going to order a fifth rancid beer when a purse fell onto my table. The dull sound from inside was not from coin. I looked up at the owner, an old man with a mouth full of blackened and rotten stumps. His breath was decay itself as he sat and smiled across the table at me.
“Well, ‘tis a fine night.” His voice was rattish, lazy. He scratched at an old scar beneath his sparse white beard. He looked as if something unwholesome had burrowed in and sucked all the spare flesh and color from him; From his white hair, pale eyes and jaundiced skin to his yellowed nails. I simply leveled the practiced, steady gaze of a killer at him. He waited, sipping at a mug grasped like life itself to his breast. He cleared his throat and hawked a gobbet upon the floor.
“ ‘tis a fine night…” Apparently, his parents were not only inbred, but had dropped him repeatedly as an infant. I reached across the table and grasped the Phantom’s sheathe. His eyes widened, and sweat beaded his brow. “ ‘tis a fine night…?” he said, almost desperately as I stood, looming over him like a gallows.
He finally got the message and hissed, “Fine, just take it! I never liked you. Ragmen never respect Whisperers, but you are a true bastard.”
I felt my pulse stop as he hustled off into the crowd with the expertise of an urchin born to the city. He was almost to the door before my numb limbs began to respond again, but when I reached the door to the night-time street he was gone, swallowed by the darkness.
I turned back to the taproom, where everyone was pointedly staring at their drinks. In the center of my table, in the middle of some of the meanest cutthroats in the city, the pouch sat unmolested. I gathered up the small package and staggered up the stairs. Theo was outside Aelia’s room, alert and awake on his guard. I waved absently to him and entered my room before opening the canvas throat of my package. The scrip contained hundreds of gold coins worth of unset gems and jewels. There also was a scrap of paper: ‘They were well pleased. Your fame will grow. Offers exist. Contact soon if ready.’
I read it three times, unknowing of its meaning. ‘I never liked you,’ the wretch had said… Someone here knew who I was, even if I did not. What offers?
Why did I hold a king’s ransom in my hand? Alright, it was a Knight’s ransom, but it was still more money than most people see at one time in their life. No matter the question I asked, the Fog remained silent.
That night I dreamt of walking through a black forest where the leaves were all silent ravens. They all watched me with unblinking eyes.
10
The True Nature
of Black
There were two ways to do this. The right way involved all of us hopping from street to street, moving like mice in a cat’s barn-our eyes roving, watching for threats. I should have been picking apart the shadows with my mind, dissecting any place from where a poisoned knife could spring. Even as we would have dodged from alley to alley, half would watch forward while half watched our rear. I would watch both ways and up besides. Our tortured pace of doubling back and searching for the perfect moment to move across busy streets would reduce everyone to panting dogs before long.
Would…if we weren’t leading three horses, seriously overloaded with gold and wooden trim. The horses alone necessitated plodding along though the streets, coming to a grinding halt whenever animals were driven across the road, or an old lady dropped her basket of fruit, or children decided to come out and play tag between the legs of the horses. In short, we stopped a lot.
Only Theo was keeping pace with me, and he was worn. Then again, from the odor emanating from inside my shirt, I was not in prime condition at the moment. The problem was we all looked like we were being hunted. This was very bad, but I don’t see as you can sell dung as a diamond, even to a blind man. All this before midday. We crossed the street quickly, huddled together like a family of frightened cats. All I could do is set my jaw and glare at any city personage that even considered getting in our way.
The back of my neck tingled and chill sweat raced with the air to frost up my veins. Our group was horribly exposed, and there was nothing for it but to keep our heads down and plod along, hoping nobody noticed the weapons hidden in bundled blankets on the saddles. We entered the rich quarter and found a place to stalk the front of the inn where the negotiations would take place.
The Grand Sage, like all buildings in this town, was built for war. Carolaughan represents the quickest way from the frigid north to the heart of the Kingdom without going around the Sorrow Wood. The taxes and prestige this valuable trade route offers means no matter how often it is attacked, or how much of the city is burned to the ground, some noble simpleton will always see it resettled, by force of personality or by force of arms. Rich, decadent, and on the edge of the Sorrow Wood where dark fae and worse things held sway, it was virtually guaranteed that this city would be besieged during any and every significant conflict.
Carolaughan has come under fire every time the barbarians had rallied a significant army, but it has never fallen completely. Each time the penetration of the city stalls out a little faster, leaving a few more of the buildings behind. Every time they rebuild the city little larger and a lot sturdier than before, and not just to withstand the siege of the city, but of each and every building.
Eventually, seeing the power offered by the City, it was claimed by the Grand Noble family of O’Riagáin and made the capital. The Grand Sage was richer, and thus more unassailable, than most. A wall, as tall as two men and topped with pig iron spikes, surrounded the square three floor structure. The windows were thin, placed so that if the leaded glass panes were kicked out, they would be serviceable arrow-slits. As my eyes picked out each of the defensive measures, the next became more obvious. From the ornamentation of the wrought iron gates to the wooden bridge that rose over the pool that blocked easy access to said gate, it was all covered by a thin veneer of civility, but was brutally functional nonetheless. Combined with the walls, spikes, and gates and it became painfully obvious that this wasn’t an inn, it was a castle. The fact that the great and the good wanted to call it an inn, however, made it an inn. Like a laugh that punctuates a lie, a guard stood outside, resplendent in shining mail beneath his gentlemanly attire.
The guard came to attention, snapping his halberd on the stone at his feet as if we were about to see the King himself. His eyes were sharp and his uniform clean, telling more of etiquette than skill at arms. His locked-rigid back spoke more of servant than soldier. In a crisp, clear voice he sung out. “Approach and be recognized!”
Hey, dung-balls, does it look like we want to be heralded to the whole world? I didn’t say.
Aelia moved forward to address the watchman. The miles and the fear and the blisters on her feet melted away until a Royal Princess stood before the guard. “I am Aelia Conaill, Grand Duchess of Conaill, I have a set of suites reserved for the bidding.”
The guard smiled ruefully, “Shove off.”
Fine. The princess, Grand Duchess actually, was wearing her old and stained riding clothes. She was also a bit disheveled and suffering from the runs from the meal of roast rat she had eaten last night. She was a week gone from her last bath and at least that long separated from the use of laundry or perfume. Her green eyes, however, had lost none of their nobility, “I beg your pardon?”
His bemusement faded into annoyance “I said shove off, or I’ll have the city watch throw you into the stocks. You have no business here-” He smiled nastily, a highly paid servant looking down upon a gaggle of tramps. “Your Grace.”
Now, gentle reader, you realize that this is the type of man I wipe my boots on. You also realize I was standing in the middle of the damn street with a damn Grand Duchess who, more than likely, had a damn assassin drawing a bead upon her damn back with a damn crossbow at this very second, right? You also probably remember that I am, by nature, impatient. That is why I took one, swift glance to make sure the guardsman was not wearing a gorge and then back-handed him in the throat.
Gorges are uncomfortable things, bits of bent steel fit over the throat apple, they make your neck all stiff and sweaty, they also stop people like me reducing you to a hacking pile of offal on the street with a fist in your throat as I had to Captain Faux De’ La Guarde. I removed the oversized iron key from his belt and unlocked the gates, gesturing everyone inside, slapping horses and cursing at boys and kicking the herald once to make sure he stayed put.
If you guessed Gelia hated me again, you would be correct. I was beginning to believe you can’t please some people. People like Gelia…and the six definitely not ornamental guards who had surrounded us as soon as we had entered the front doors. Their eyes were fixed on me, their breath coming in smooth rushes as their bodies primed to kill. This is a fight I wasn’t going to live through-
“Aelia!”
-unless my string of bad luck had finally taken a wee trip to bother someone else. I held up my hands in surrender (and prepared to kick the first bastard that moved on me directly where he forked his horse), and waited for someone else to solve the situation for once.
“Aelia!” The guards melted back into their niches before the boisterous voice. “You look simply dreadful!”
He was made up like a street whore, color brought to pasty, flabby skin only by paints and blushes. His voice could only barely be contained inside his rotund majesty. His voice had exactly the same quality as I had tried to capture on the road with Captain O’Conner. He eyed me like I was some manner of strange beast, then turned back to embrace Aelia like a lost relation. Considering the inbred nature of nobles, that was a real possibility. They nattered back and forth like hens at a seed-pile, as we were efficiently, and swiftly, booked into our suites.
I was impressed at the service, not impressed enough to be distracted from the hired swords who had turned out to see Aelia’s defenses. Each of the noble families, there were over a dozen here, had their own troops of servants and guards that eclipsed our own. Each also had hired a killer, either freshly purchased or sworn to loyalty, and some had two. It’s like wolves, really. We watched each other’s movements and weapons; Feeling, smelling and posing. Each time, a bit of mutual forewarning went out- a bond
of kinship toward another skilled warrior, and an acknowledgment of willingness to die in order to kill. We were professionals and it was our job to die, all at once or bit by bit. The dwarves also had a caravan in residence, though I saw none as of them as of yet.
I lent half an ear to Aelia and the fop, who turned out be Horatio O’Riagáin, Grand Duke of The Sorrow Wood and the Golden Hills. If I have ever been impressed with noblemen, I doubt I ever will be again. He was a pattering juvenile; However he did have some information of interest to me completely by accident. The auction was still on for a week from now, even though several nobles had sent word that they would not be coming due to various ‘misfortunes’.
Being installed in our rooms was pleasant and surprising. The suites were groups of three or four rooms, linked to other, smaller and less luxurious rooms for the servants. Baths, privy, bedroom, dining room, reading rooms; All linked together as a hedonistic apartment that could have housed a dozen peasant families. Within the hour our- the boys and mine- backs were screaming even more loudly as we funneled the sacks of gold from the horses to the suite. By the time we were done, tailors had been fetched and rushed here to fit us for new clothes.
The boys got new uniforms, the cleric got new robes, and Aelia was measured for an even dozen new dresses. The drapers, seamstresses, and tailors then turned their attention upon me like a pack of wolves. Only once I was enveloped in a storm of needles, thread, and measuring devices did I see a way to turn them from an annoyance into an asset. I slipped into a mental costume of jovial eccentricity.
I needed several sets of black clothing for formal affairs. Black is the color that makes idiots believe you are a dangerous assassin and leave you alone. It is the color that blends least well at night- or anytime really- and is thus absolutely the last thing you want to wear for stealth. Funny enough, professionals will be convinced one is not an assassin simply by one wearing a lot of it.
I Know Not: The Legacy of Fox Crow Page 13