by Glenda Larke
Perie, screwing up his nose, asked, “Did you roll in the fish midden down on the docks? ’Cause that’s what you reek like.”
“No better way to stop people looking too close,” she replied. “Barden and I have faces half of the city would recognise, if they cared to glance our way, so this seemed to be the best chance of making sure they didn’t look.”
Just then one of her clerics came hurrying up the street. “They’re on their way. The driver and two men, as usual.”
Fritillary gave a nod, and most of the group melted away into the surrounding alleys. Although all were bound for the main gates of the palace, they split up to take different streets and back lanes to get there. Fritillary, Barden, Perie, Gerelda, Sorrel and Saker remained, as did four others, all well-armed witchery folk.
Saker glanced across at Sorrel. “Sure you can manage a horse and cart?”
“I was a farmer’s daughter, remember?”
She peeked around the corner of the building in the direction of the market. A couple of housewives with laden baskets stood chatting on a corner, some apprentice artisans hurried along to their workshops and two schoolboys dawdled on their way to dame school, pushing and shoving each other as they went.
When the cart approached with two cook’s assistants walking behind, Fritillary and Barden stepped out into the middle of the roadway, arguing. Sorrel hugged the wall and studied the driver. A man of fifty, greying stubbly beard, rotund pot belly, thin face with sunken cheeks, black coat stuck with bits of spilled food, filthy trousers tied over the bulge of his stomach with a piece of frayed cord… Easy to glamour all that as long as she didn’t have to make herself smell as malodorous as it looked.
The driver yelled at the arguing couple.“Shift your arses, ye layabouts! I’m on palace business!”
Neither of them moved and he was forced to halt the cart.
Perie ran to hold the horse’s head. Saker and Sorrel separated and approached the driver from different sides. Gerelda and the other men moved towards the assistants walking behind.
Saker pulled his dagger and leaned towards the driver. “We’re stealing the cart. Get off and we won’t hurt you.”
The man gaped at him, then down at the dagger pinking his ribs, his face a picture of disbelief. “We’re from the Pontifect’s palace! Are you beef-witted? He’ll see you dead in the wink of a gnat’s eye!”
Saker reached out and pulled him from his seat to the ground. Even as the man tumbled, arms flailing, Sorrel was climbing up on the other side into his vacated seat. By the time she’d gathered up the reins, she was that unattractive, pot-bellied fellow.
The man yelled for help at the top of his lungs. Saker drove a fist into his stomach, which promptly silenced him.
“We are going to tie you up,” Saker said in his ear as he doubled up on the ground. “I suggest that afterwards you disappear quietly. Don’t go back to the palace this morning.”
The assistant cooks took one look at the grim-faced armed men and allowed themselves to be frogmarched away into the alleyway by Gerelda and the witchery folk, where they were tied up.
Barden and Perie immediately set to pushing vegetables and goose carcasses from the back of the cart on to the ground. They left the heavier side of beef where it was. When there was enough space cleared, the two of Fritillary’s men who were woodworkers lay down on the boards, while Perie and Barden pulled sacking up over their supine bodies.
“Rot it, couldn’t you have got rid of the beef first?” one of them muttered.
By then, Saker had pulled the cart driver to his feet and was hustling him across the street to be tied up with the others. The man was pale, gasping as if he was about to faint, and he dragged Saker to a halt as he fell to his knees. “Can’t walk,” he whimpered.
Saker looked away from him, to Gerelda. “Give me a hand, will you?” he asked. As she came towards them, he bent to haul the carter to his feet with one hand. He still held his dagger unsheathed in the other.
The cart driver’s weakness was faked. He threw himself at Saker, reaching with both hands for his neck. Instinctively, Saker swung his dagger up. The driver’s impetus drove the blade into the base of his own midriff.
Saker swore, but it was too late to do anything about it. He pulled the knife out and blood and innards gushed.
Sorrel kept a tight hold on the reins, but the horse was apparently inured to the smell of blood. The street was now devoid of pedestrians. Far from coming to the aid of the carter, everyone had melted away.
It paid not to see anything in Fox’s Vavala.
“Blister it, Saker, did you have to make such a mess?” Gerelda said, hauling the dying man off into the alley while Fritillary muttered a hurried prayer for him.
When Sorrel flicked the reins to start the horse on its way once more, a forlorn pile of discarded fruit and vegetables and a pool of blood remained to tell the tale. Barden, Fritillary and Peregrine dropped behind to follow at a distance, the old man lurching, his crooked back and arthritic knees giving him a gait like a crab missing half its legs.
Saker, now walking beside Sorrel, rubbed at the red spatter on his clothing. Both he and Gerelda were wearing an approximation of servants’ livery in the hope that from a distance they would be able to fool the guards on the palace gate.
“That was messy,” Sorrel said.
“Unfortunate and unnecessary,” he said with a sigh.
“Put it out of your mind,” Gerelda said. “What’s the eagle seeing?”
“All quiet. No signs of alarm.”
“Your seagulls?”
“All in place. No one appears to have noticed there are hundreds lined up on the roofs. But then, most people never do notice birds.”
The horse plodded stoically on its way, needing neither guidance nor encouragement, unworried that its usual master had been replaced by a glamoured version. Sorrel looked up at the sky, overcast from horizon to horizon, which was fortunate because it meant the dark glower of the rain cloud now emptying its load of water immediately over the palace did not stand out as something inherently unnatural.
They felt the first few spatters just as they turned the corner into the stretch leading directly to the main entrance of the palace. The towers were almost hidden behind a falling wall of water. Rain lashed the gate and the two guards on duty outside huddled on either side, drenched and miserable.
She draped her piece of sacking over her head and shoulders like a cape.
“Is it one person doing that?” she asked Saker, nodding to the squalling rain. Control of water was specific to the Way of the Flow, and it was normally small-scale: a shower where a crop especially needed it, or the opposite – pushing away rain from where it wasn’t wanted. But this? This was not a summer shower; it was a torrential storm.
“Four,” he said. “Lowmian witans, one on each side of the palace. They are taking water from the river to make the cloud.”
There was a simple brilliance to it: even if Fox did look out of his window, he would never see any of the glow of their witcheries through the rain.
The full blast of the water hit them when they were thirty paces short of the gate. The guards, obligingly, started to open it so they could drive straight through. Saker bent down to speak to the two woodworkers. “We’ll be in position in about a minute. How’s it going?”
“Fine. Just give the word, and don’t go over any bumps until you’re ready…”
“Did you hear that?” Saker asked her.
“No bumps.”
She waved a hand in thanks to the Grey Lancer sentries as the cart trundled through the gateway. Saker ducked his head to hide his face.
There were another six guards in the sentry hut immediately inside the gate. When she was level with the gate hinges, she pulled the horse to a halt and held tight to her seat.
Saker cried, “Now!”
From underneath the cart came the sharp crack of shattering wood. Sorrel’s seat slumped to one side. As it sagged, the
weight shifted and there was another even louder crack. This time there was no doubt of what had happened. The axle had broken. Just as they’d planned, they were positioned so the gate could not be closed. Sorrel jumped down and glamoured herself to disappear. The two woodworkers leaped out at the same time.
The cart was tilted at a sick angle. The horse neighed and panicked as the shafts tugged uncomfortably at its shoulders. It bolted, dragging the remains of the load behind it, shedding pieces as the axle scraped the cobbles and the wheels broke away. The side of beef slithered to the ground.
Both Gerelda and Saker had killed a man before any guard had time to draw a weapon. Peregrine was the first of their company to race in through the gateway from the outside, followed by Fritillary and then a slew of the other witchery folk. Within seconds, noise erupted through the driving rain: the clash of swords, the screams of men, the shouts of alarm.
Barden’s staff whirled into the attack, cracking a guard over the head. Fritillary, gripping Perie by the arm, started running for the stairs leading up to the terrace. Drenched by the rain, Sorrel and Saker followed, taking the steps two at a time. Sorrel abandoned her attempt at a glamour. At the top, she glanced back at the forecourt.
Pandemonium. Men fought. Seagulls swooped and screamed and clawed. Dogs, street curs urged inside by dog charmers, were yapping and leaping up at the guards spilling out from the building. A horde of rats scampered underfoot, running up the legs of guards to bite their hands and disappear inside their clothing. The rain continued its deluge, obscuring details, but she thought she glimpsed the main gate splintering, sending shards of wood through the air like arrows. A woodworker, standing with his hand on a gatepost, was grinning.
She couldn’t see Ardhi anywhere.
Ardhi had quarrelled with Sorrel the evening before, which upset him, but he’d refused to change his mind. He’d decided not to go with them through the main gate and nothing was going to budge him from that decision.
“When you steal a cobra’s eggs,” he told them as they sat around the fire in Proctor House, “it pays to have someone keep an eye on the mother snake. Much better I enter the palace my way, over the wall. Then if anything goes wrong I can divert Fox’s attention from the rest of you.”
“And what if we don’t meet up? If we come face to face with Fox without you?”
Sorrel’s words were calm and rational, but he heard her dread, and his heart ached. She’s been through so much, and still we ask for more. “I’ll be there,” he said. “I won’t let you down.” When she looked dubious, he added, “Remember that from the time the kris was made, it has worked towards keeping Chenderawasi safe. It is still intervening in our lives, still helping us rid the world of a sorcerer. Find Fox tomorrow, and you’ll find me. With Sri Kris’s help, I’ll be there before you are.”
Sorrel said nothing to that, so Fritillary expressed her exasperation instead. “You can’t know that. You’re asking us to believe in a power that no one can see or feel, manifesting itself in something as outlandish as a curvy dagger and feathers?”
“Va-faith does that all the time. With oaks and unseen guardians and things as outlandish as a witchery to influence rats.”
Sorrel muffled a laugh and Saker sucked in his cheeks.
Fritillary breathed out heavily. “Ah. I suppose an oak tree with an unseen guardian must appear somewhat… peculiar to you.”
“You must trust the sakti here today.”
“Does that mean you think such a trust guarantees success?” she asked, her sarcasm still to the fore.
“No. If anything was—” He couldn’t find the word he wanted, so he used a Pashali word and asked Saker to translate it.
“Predestined,” Saker replied.
“If everything was predestined, then we’d lose an element of choice. I run a risk; we all do. I do believe if I die getting to Fox, the dagger and the sakti will still try to help you.”
“You won’t know where Fox is,” Gerelda said. “You don’t even know what he looks like! Peregrine’s the one who can sense the smutch.”
He said dryly, “I think Sri Kris can find a sorcerer.”
“But how will you get into the palace?” Sorrel asked. “They watch all the walls now, all the time.”
“Trust me,” he said. “I can do it.”
The rest of the night, with Sorrel in his arms, and with both of them pretending nothing could ever harm them, had been a joy.
As they left Proctor House in the morning, Saker lingered to say, “Kill as many of those guards as you can on the way in. It will make things simpler.”
“That is my plan,” he said.
“I thought it likely. Take care, swabbie.”
“Look after yourself, squab!” He left then, laughing, before Saker remembered that a squab was an unfledged pigeon.
He set off for the river. He was gambling that the guards on watch would spend most of their time on the lookout for boats approaching the wall, not swimmers. No one, he thought, would be looking straight down, especially in the rain.
Clad only in his breeks and a headband to keep his hair tidy, with his kris thrust through the waistband on one side and an ordinary dagger on the other, he waited dockside until the rain had started, then lowered himself into the water to drift downriver. By the time he reached the foot of the palace wall, the rain had changed from a heavy shower to an onslaught that reminded him of Chenderawasi afternoon downpours. He smiled and started to climb.
As ever, his fingers found the crevices and the roughness of stone, the tiny imperfections that gave him a hold. Long before he reached the top, he was climbing with his eyes closed. If he opened them he was blinded by water anyway. Only when his fingers felt the ledge at the top did he take a look. He levered himself up until he could see both ways along the parapet walkway, but there was no one in sight, and the doors on the bartizans in either direction were shut.
He hoisted himself over the wall on to the walkway. He ran then, through the rain, to the bartizan door on his left, kris in his hand. There were two Grey Lancers inside. One had gone to sleep seated on the floor, propped up in the corner. The other was looking out over the sea through the viewing port, a bored expression on his face. The rain was rattling down on the roof so loud he did not hear the door open. Ardhi came up behind him, kris in his hand.
Cutting throats was messy, but it did mean that the victim didn’t have much chance to call out. Ardhi lowered the dead man to the floor and turned to the other, who died without ever waking.
There were four bartizans, each overlooking the river. He visited every one of them. Every Grey Lancer who died would be one less at Fox’s beck and call.
When he stepped out into the open after the last killing, the rain washed away the sticky mess of blood spatter on his arms and chest.
He moved across the roof to the edge which overlooked the forecourt. Thanks to the weather, no one was looking upwards, but nonetheless, he hid behind a decorative gargoyle that was funnelling water from the roof at the corner. Everything was quiet, and there was no sign yet of Saker or Sorrel or any of the others. He was about to edge away and search for Fox when the gate cracked open. As the gap widened, he saw the kitchen cart approaching. He lingered a little longer, until he was sure that it was a glamoured Sorrel driving it.
Good, everything was on schedule.
He moved across the roof to the servants’ quarters at the back of the palace, aiming for a dormer window he’d seen there on his last visit. Ramming his foot against the wooden window frame, he burst open the latch and climbed through on to a bed. The room was neat and frugal, with three cots, a wooden linen chest and nothing else. Dripping water everywhere, he whipped a cover off the bed and dried himself before peeking out into a long empty corridor. With the aid of the kris balanced on his palm, he oriented himself before padding barefoot along the passage. As he’d expected, all the servants were busy elsewhere.
The kris pointed him down the servants’ stairs to the next s
torey and into a narrow ill-lit service passage which accessed all the public and private rooms. He counted off the doors on both sides, matching them up in his head with Fritillary’s sketch plan. Filing room, treasury, clerk’s office, the archcleric’s chambers… Finally, the rooms that had been Fritillary’s.
Ahead of him, a servant entered the passage from one of the rooms and started walking his way. He opened the door on his left and stepped inside. A gamble, but the kris was quiescent. He found himself in an empty chamber, dimly lit because of the heavy rain outside, silent except for the ticking of a clock. Elaborate candle sconces studded the patterned silk wall coverings. The polished inlay of the floor was mostly smothered by the pile of a thick carpet. A predominant theme of a leaping red fox was repeated everywhere, from the velvet covering the chairs to images painted on vases. A moment’s nostalgia made him long for the simplicity of his home on Chenderawasi, where opened shutters turned bare walls into vistas of the natural world outside.
The quivering of the kris dragged him back to the present. The room had three doors, the unobtrusive one he’d used, an ornate one leading to the main corridor, and another, which stood slightly open, linking the room to an adjoining chamber where a conversation was taking place. The kris pointed in that direction, red streaks blazing angrily in the metal of the blade. Silently, he crossed to position himself behind this third door so he could peer through the crack near the hinges. A cleric, clad in a black robe adorned with gold jewellery which he’d been told was the garb Fox favoured, was leaning over a map spread on a table. The kris struggled frantically in his hand, leaving Ardhi with no doubt that this was indeed Valerian Fox. He was addressing another man, middle-aged and richly clad.
Sri Kris, this is where we’ve been heading since we left Chenderawasi. This is the moment…
The conversation meant little to him because Fox was explaining the disposition of the Grey Lancers along the banks of the Ard and the place names were unfamiliar.