Casket of Souls

by Lynn Flewelling

  The bluecoat tore the shoulder of Alec’s smock open and yanked his arm out. “You know what the penalty for false begging is, my boy?” he asked, giving him a hard shake.

  “Pity, your honor!” Alec mumbled.

  “Twenty lashes in the Tower,” one of the other bluecoats informed him, as if Alec didn’t already know. “And the pillory. Let’s see what we have here.”

  He reached for the bandage shrouding nearly half of Alec’s face. Mallia was looking on with evident pity, murmuring something to the gentleman with her. One of the bluecoats still had Alec by the arm. The other four had him hemmed in pretty well, and most of them were a good deal taller and heavier than he was. Before the one reaching for his face could touch the bandage, Alec twisted his arm free, dropped into a crouch, and sprang between two of the men at knee level, taking them by surprise. One still managed to grab the flapping tail of his torn smock, but what was left of the side seam let go and Alec sped on shirtless through the evening crowd, dodging the grasping hands of those trying to heed the bluecoats’ calls for help as they pursued him. If he’d been tackled it would have been the end of him, but Alec was fast and agile, and he knew the back alleys and low roads of the city as well as the lines on his own right palm.

  Outdistancing the shouting, he turned into Gannet Lane at a dead run, narrowly missing collision with a pair of young ladies and their escorts. Screams and curses followed as he ran on, searching his memory and Seregil’s lessons for the right combination of turns. He rounded another corner, and another into a narrower street. He’d left the fashionable neighborhood behind. Respectable merchant folk filled the streets here, enjoying the cool of the evening. He earned plenty of disapproving stares as he stopped to get his breath, sweat clammy on his skin. His head rag and bandage were still safely in place, but a half-naked young man was notable in any street. This was borne out all too quickly when he heard someone shout, “There he is. Down there!”

  The bluecoats hadn’t given up the chase after all. Before any well-intentioned citizen thought to grab him, Alec bolted for a narrow alley one street over, barely wide enough to walk down without turning sideways. At the end of it was a locked gate that led down into the sewers. Reaching into his head rag, he took out one of the picks buried in his braid for just such an occasion and quickly worked it around in the heavy lock. This one was well maintained and gave in a moment. Slipping into the reeking darkness beyond, he locked it behind him and felt his way down the steep, narrow stone staircase, following the faint sound of running water and squeaking rats.

  Tamír the Great had laid down these vaulted channels before the first building was erected, and made her new capital the cleanest, least plague-prone city in the Three Lands. Stone walkways ran along the sewer channels, and the high-arched ceilings trapped the evil humurs overhead, allowing the Scavengers to go about their business in relative safety. Grates made of metal bars crossed the channel in places, each with a locked gate that only the Scavenger crews had the right to open. But that didn’t stop footpads called gate runners from using this as their private refuge and highway.

  Alec was acutely aware of the possibilities, and the fact that his current disguise had forced him to go out unarmed. Reaching into his head rag again, he pulled out a small lightstone and by its soft glow navigated his way along the stinking channels, back toward Emerald Street. Fortunately, it proved an uneventful journey. He came across only a woman and two young children—some gate runner’s family, or just a poor woman and her children seeking what shelter they could find. She swore at him and brandished a rusty knife, but he jumped the channel and gave her a wide berth.

  Another stairway let up to a street near Emerald. He jiggered the gate and crept up to the door at the top to peer through the large keyhole. Night had fallen, and there didn’t appear to be anyone about. He left the sewer and found himself in a side street between the back gardens of large houses. Being half naked was just as much of a disadvantage here, for someone who wanted to go unnoticed. The street was deserted, so he scaled a few walls until he found an unattended clothesline and helped himself to a shirt. It was too fine and too clean for a beggar, so he rubbed it around in the gutter until it was suitably filthy. Dressed again, he checked his head rag and bandage, then made his way back toward Marquis Kyrin’s villa.

  It was too dangerous to show himself in Emerald Street again. Keeping his distance from the guards at the marquis’s gate, he found the lane that ran behind the house. The walls surrounding the back courtyard weren’t impossibly high, but they were too smooth to scale without help. There was a gate wide enough for a wagon, but it was securely locked. Of course no one had conveniently left anything as useful as a ladder or rope lying around. Walking up and down the street, he finally found an empty barrel and lugged it back. Upending it, he climbed on top and stretched his arms toward the top of the wall. He was still a foot too low, so he sprang as high as he could and managed to grasp the edge. The barrel fell over and rumbled away down the street, leaving him hanging there.

  At this point, a less stubborn person might have given up, but Alec was tired of coming home empty-handed every night. With the edge of the stonework digging into his palms, he managed to pull himself up until he could see the house and the large garden below. The waxing moon cast just enough light for him to see the holes spaced evenly along the top of the wall, and the uneven remains of broken mortar. There had been iron spikes here originally, pulled out and sacrificed to the war effort. It was a common sight and made a nightrunner’s job a bit easier, too.

  The garden was laid out in a pattern of formal paths composed of crushed oyster shell. There was no sign of a dog. A balcony spanned the back of the house, and lamp- or candlelight showed at two of the five upstairs windows. Through one he could see a small group of fashionable ladies playing cards in an elegantly furnished parlor. Through the other window he could see what appeared to be a library. While he watched, a man walked past the window and the room brightened as he lit another candle.

  Just then two servants, one of them with a lantern, came out a back door of the house and headed toward the gate.

  “I know I heard something,” the man with the lantern, presumably the watchman, was saying to his companion. Alec heard the rattle of a heavy chain being undone.

  There was no time to drop and run. Instead, he pulled his legs up as far as he could and hung there, praying silently Don’t look up! The corded muscles in his arms felt like they were on fire and the edge of the wall was cutting into his palms but he managed to hang on.

  The watchman and his companion found the barrel lying in the gutter across the street.

  “Probably a dog, or a drunkard,” the companion said.

  The watchman held his lantern high, looking this way and that but thankfully not up. Sweat ran into Alec’s eyes and slicked his palms as he struggled to keep still. At last they went inside again and chained the gate shut.

  Alec’s arms were shaking with the strain, but he managed to pull himself up and balance precariously on top of the wall.

  There was still no sign of a dog in the garden, so he carefully lowered himself and dropped into a bed of fragrant flowers. From here, it was a simple matter to scale a wooden drainpipe to the balcony. The first lighted window was the room with the ladies. The casement stood ajar to catch the breeze, and he could hear them laughing and talking over the game. There were five of them, including Lady Mallia. She must have been on her way here. He didn’t recognize the others, but a stately woman with silver-white hair seemed to be presiding, and she sent a servant for more wine as Alec watched from the shadows outside.

  “Really, it’s too hard,” said Mallia. “I haven’t had a new piece made this year.”

  “Pearls are the only reliable jewel these days,” their hostess replied, touching the long heavy strand she wore.

  “Only because no one’s discovered a way to make them into a weapon, Marquise!” another woman exclaimed.

  “At least silk
is still available,” said Mallia. “But what are we to do this winter, if the wool route is still blocked?”

  “I haven’t had a new cloak in two years, have I, Mother?” said the youngest of the group, a dark-haired young woman, to the hostess. Evidently Kyrin had a daughter.

  “It’s the shortage of eligible young men I’d be worried about, in your place,” the fifth woman pointed out. “Let’s hope the queen doesn’t get them all killed. There’s not much to choose from in the city these days, except for cripples, old men, and wastrels.”

  Alec waited until no one was looking his way and stole past the window. The next two rooms were too dark to make out anything inside, but the library was still brightly lit. Reltheus sat with three other men, drinking wine and smoking long clay pipes. An older man—presumably the marquis—rose as Alec watched and put a scroll of some sort into a large painted cabinet, then locked it and pocketed the key.

  “Remember, Kyrin, there is madness in the family,” Reltheus was saying.

  “I hardly think the queen mad,” a middle-aged red-haired man replied, facing the window where Alec lurked.

  “Poor judgment needs no explanation,” said the fourth, the small man with a shock of blond hair Alec had seen with Mallia. “It’s pride on the queen’s part, plain and simple. Nothing short of total victory will suffice for her.”

  “Could that ever be?” wondered Reltheus. “These wars against Plenimar never quite end, do they? No matter who wins, within a decade or two they’re at it again.”

  “I believe one of the sticking points of the truce offer was that Skala would finally take possession of sacred Kouros,” said the ruddy man. “The Plenimarans refused.”

  The blond nobleman puffed at his pipe. “A tiny, useless island, Stenmir. She should let them have it. The Hierophants went from there to Plenimar, after all.”

  “It’s the birthplace of all the Three Lands, Tolin,” Stenmir reminded him. “Skala, Mycena, and Plenimar all have a legitimate claim.”

  “Small and useless,” Tolin grunted around his pipestem.

  “There was a great deal more to the terms of the truce than that. But whatever the case, it’s bankrupting us.” Kyrin put aside his cup and stood to tap out his pipe on one of the dolphin-shaped fire irons. “This has to stop. It’s breeding dangerous unrest. There have already been grain riots.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard any more from Danos?” Stenmir asked Reltheus.

  There was that name again.

  The duke took a folded missive from his coat pocket and handed it to him. The others rose to read over his shoulder.

  “Commander Klia has Sakor’s luck, doesn’t she?” Tolin remarked, frowning.

  “So it’s always seemed,” Kyrin replied with a sigh. “It would be best if circumstance worked to our favor, but she seems to be especially blessed. Now, however, I think it’s time we went back to the ladies.”

  The others knocked the dottles from their pipes and followed him out, leaving Alec with nothing but the laughter of the women and a vague sense of dread. It appeared this Danos was indeed their spy and that Reltheus and the others weren’t on Klia’s side. Or the queen’s, either.

  Alec was about to go back the way he’d come when he heard the marquise inviting her guests to come out onto the balcony to enjoy the night air. That room lay between him and the drainpipe, and the balcony was far too high to jump from without risking a broken ankle. Instead, he slipped in through the library window and pressed himself against the wall beside it. He could hear the women walking up and down the balcony, talking of the latest play at the Tirari. Mallia said something Alec didn’t quite catch.

  “I’ll ask him,” the marquise’s daughter replied, and Alec heard her coming his way. There was nowhere to hide except behind one of the long tapestries. It was a terrible hiding place under any circumstances, but especially in a brightly lit room, where the girl might notice the slight bulge in the fabric, or his broken beggar’s shoes visible beneath the lower edge. He didn’t dare risk taking a look, but could hear her moving about the room.

  “Father’s not here,” she called out at last. “I’ll go find him.”

  Alec heard the inner door open and shut. He waited a few breaths, then cautiously peered out from his hiding place. The other women remained on the balcony, making it impossible to leave.

  He leaned back against the wall again, resigning himself to a long wait. He wanted a look inside that locked cabinet.

  It was hot behind the tapestry, and dusty. As Lady Mallia went on about some other play just outside the window, Alec’s nose began to itch. He squeezed it between two fingers, hoping to kill the urge to sneeze, but that only made it worse. Still holding his nose, he pressed his other hand to his mouth and choked back a short succession of sneezes, nearly at the expense of his eardrums.

  And still the women talked on. His back began to ache from pressing himself as flat as he could against the wall behind him, and he could feel his overtaxed arm muscles beginning to stiffen up. Worse yet, he had to sneeze again.

  As he stood there wishing them all to Bilairy’s gate, the door opened again and he heard someone moving around the room. Little by little, the room went dark and he heaved a silent sigh of relief. It must be a servant. A moment later the door closed again. Better yet, the women finally went indoors.

  As he sidled out from behind the tapestry, the shoulder of his shirt caught on something. He took out the lightstone and discovered a small door set into the wall at about eye level, with a tiny handle and a brass lock plate. The plate looked solid, but when Alec ran a sensitive fingertip around it, he discovered two tiny holes on either side of the keyhole, tamped with wax. This usually meant that a poisoned dart or spring lurked inside, waiting for the unwary burglar to tackle the workings of the lock. Standing to one side, he probed the lock at an angle with a small pick and heard the snick of the trap releasing. Two slender steel barbs shot out, five inches long—long enough to pierce the hand of an unwary thief. Their tips were coated in some dark poison, too. Working carefully around them, he soon had the small door open.

  Inside was a metal box, similar to a military dispatch box. Holding the lightstone handle between his front teeth, he squatted down with the box and quickly got it open. Inside were three small scrolls. The first was a list of names, including Klia, Lady Kylith, Seregil, Duke Laneus, Duchess Nerian, their friend Malthus, and himself, Lord Alec of Ivywell. He felt his heart turn over at the last name—Prince Korathan’s—with a question mark after it. There was no heading to hint at what the list meant. The other two were ordinary shipping manifests, though some of the items included were gold and gems from Aurënen. At the moment all gold was going to the war effort, making any private hoard contraband. Alec wondered if Seregil’s Uncle Akaien was smuggling again.

  There were no writing materials in the room, so Alec had no choice but to replace the documents in the box and lock it away. When the tumblers fell back into place the needles retracted, but the tiny wax plugs had been lost. Hot and dusty, Alec slipped out from behind the tapestry and pinched a dab of still-warm wax from one of the candles placed on stands around the room and used it to seal the needle holes again. Once the lock plate was buffed clean with his shirtsleeve, there was no sign that it had been disturbed.

  The cabinet across the room was fitted with the same sort of trap. In addition to the scroll, there were some leather cases containing various pieces of expensive jewelry and household documents of no interest. The scroll he’d seen Kyrin put away was nothing more than a love poem. He scanned it briefly, then put it back.

  He returned the rest of the contents, locked the cabinet, and replaced the wax, as he had with the hidden cupboard, then went to the inner door and put his ear to it. There were still people talking and moving about somewhere close by. Going to the balcony door, he stepped out and quickly scanned the garden for watchmen or guests. For the moment it was empty.

  The marquise’s salon was dark now, but the win
dow next to it showed light. Moving silently, he glanced in around the casement and saw that it was a bedchamber, fortunately empty at the moment. He hurried past and crouched by the drainpipe just as the watchman came out with his lantern and took a turn around the garden, then went back inside.

  Alec shinnied down the drainpipe and kept to the shadows until he was in reach of the large gate.

  The lock on the chain that secured the gate was too large for any of the picks he’d brought with him, but the wooden crossbars were thick enough to give him a toehold. He quickly climbed over it and headed for the Stag and Otter.

  He was halfway up the secret stair when the door opened and he saw Seregil standing there with a lamp.

  “Bilairy’s Balls, Alec, where have you been?” he demanded as he stepped aside to let Alec into the box room. “I went to Reltheus’s house but there was no sign of you. I was beginning to think you’d been taken up.”

  “Sorry.” Alec gave him a quick kiss, then took off his head cloth and pulled the night’s implements from his braid. “I had a bit of luck following him to Marquis Kyrin’s house.”

  “Kyrin? He’s Korathan’s secretary—” Seregil paused and gave him a pained look. “You’ve been in the sewers.”

  “I left my shoes outside. I didn’t think I’d been down there long enough to pick up the smell.”

  Seregil followed him into the bedroom and sat on the bed while Alec washed himself from head to toe with tepid water in the basin and told him of the night’s events, making light of his near capture by the bluecoats. Seregil let it pass, but Alec had the distinct impression that his lover had been more worried than he let on.

  “From the sound of things, they are ill-wishing both Klia and Phoria,” said Seregil, frowning.

  He grew more serious when Alec got to the mention of the potential spy, Danos, and the contents of the box from behind the tapestry and the cabinet. Seregil had him write down all he could remember of the list of names.