This was where the knowledge gleaned from their previous visit was invaluable. They did not have to search for lodging; they knew where to go. "Elsewhere" was all the way across the city, in a section not far from the Warren, a place Robin had noted against future need. Inns there sold sleeping space on the floor of the common room; they would have two or three large chambers above, where people would sleep in rows of cots, and perhaps four or six tiny chambers, hardly larger than closets, for those who wished a little more privacy. Their coins would go a long way in this section of Gradford.
All things considered, though, it was a good thing that their silver all bore the stamp of the King and not of any nonhumans. Otherwise, those coins would go straight to the coffers of the Church. Robin rather doubted that anyone in this town would accept a coin with the nonhuman stamp.
Her stomach was already in knots, and she had the feeling that things were going to get a lot worse.
They had to cross the Cathedral square in order to get there; it appeared that Padrik had decided that business was too good for the small merchants who had been setting up there. There were small stalls set up facing the Cathedral, selling the same merchandise as before, but they were all manned by young men in Novices' robes. There was even a stall selling God-Stars, both the pendants and the wall-decorations! But Robin noted that the workmanship was distinctly inferior, and from what she could see, so were the materials. A small victory, and a petty one, but this was the only bright spot so far.
"I guess the licenses weren't enough for him," she said in a low voice, after a quick glance around showed no one close enough to overhear a careful conversation.
"Aye," Kestrel replied sardonically. "L-look at the h-houses, th-though—"
Something about the square had struck her as odd, though she couldn't put a finger on just what was different about it. But once he said that, she took a closer look at the fine mansions that faced the Cathedral—
The outsides looked the same as before—but the windows were black and empty. It was getting dark, and there should have been lights in those windows, curtains across them. There was nothing, and there was no sign of life about them. Only bare, blank windows, like the empty eyes of a madman, staring at the Cathedral.
"They're deserted!" she exclaimed, keeping her voice to a surprised whisper.
"My g-guess," Jonny confirmed.
She could only wonder why. Had their wealthy owners decided that what had happened to Orlina could all too easily happen to them and cut down on their households and visibility—or had they decided that Grad-ford itself was no longer a healthy place for them and gone off elsewhere?
Or had Padrik decided that where Orlina had gone, others could follow? Were the prisons full of other "heretics," waiting to receive their own pendants?
If so, Padrik was going to get a big surprise eventually, when all of them surfaced to testify against him in Kingsford.
Always providing, of course, that the Justiciars at Kingsford did not consider High Bishop Padrik too dangerous a man to cross . . .
Robin was glad to be out of sight of the Cathedral, and away from a place where so many Guards and Constables were patrolling. The far shabbier quarter where they found themselves had fewer figures of authority in it—and even the street preachers were the kind they were familiar with; the disheveled, ill-kempt, near-lunatics. They found the class of inn they were looking for, as full night descended and the lamplighters made their rounds, giving the street preachers light to see and be seen by. It was small, nondescript, with the barrel that signified an "inn" hanging over the door, in a building flanked by a shop and a laundry. Both of those were, for a miracle, still open.
Robin stopped in the shop long enough to buy candles, sausage, cheese and bread, and despite Jonny's obvious nervousness and impatience, went to the laundry as well, for a spirited bargaining session. It was nice to do something as normal as bargain; for a moment she was able to forget her tension, and stop watching over her shoulder for Church Guards. When she came out, she had several old, but clean, blankets folded over her arm, and it was obvious from Jonny's expression that he did not understand why she had bought them.
"If they give us any bedding in here, it's not going to be much, and it'll be full of fleas," she said, very quietly. "This is stuff that was sent to be cleaned but never picked up. We can get clothing that way, too. That's why I wasn't worried when we didn't have much appropriate clothing. We'll be able to buy things that already look worn, not new." His eyebrows rose, and he nodded shortly.
They went in; the common room had a bare earthen floor, pounded hard and covered with rushes, with the only light coming from the fireplace at one end. That fireplace evidently served as the rude "kitchen" as well, since there was a large pot of something hanging over it that smelled strongly of cabbage, and a stack of bowls over the mantle. Furnished with crude trestle-tables and benches that had seen a great deal of hard use, it held two or three dozen people who looked to be the same class of farming folk that Gwyna and Jonny pretended to be. As Robin had expected, there were no Guards at the door here, but the innkeeper perused their "papers," reading slowly and painfully, with his finger under each line and his mouth moving as he spelled out the words. Then he required them to make their "marks" in a book, copying their names beside the marks, before he would rent them their room.
A scrawny boy, summoned from his station beside the fireplace, led them to it. It lay on the third floor, at the top of a steep and rickety stairway, in a narrow corridor with seven other rooms, and was lit with a single lamp. The lamp did not give off much light, which was probably just as well; Robin wasn't certain she wanted to see just how derelict the place was. They were allotted one tiny stump of a candle for light, given to them by the boy, who flung open the door and vanished after shoving the candle end at Kestrel.
The room was barely large enough for the bed; as Robin had expected, it was nothing more than a thin mattress on a wooden platform. Jonny lit the candle stub at the lamp in the hall, and stuck it on top of a smear of waxy drips, on a small shelf by the door. Robin closed the door, and looked around.
In the better light from the candle, it seemed that her worst fears had been groundless; the place was clean. The thin pallet held no fleas or bedbugs. The floor wasn't dirty, just so worn that there wasn't even a hint of wax or varnish, and gray with age and use.
There was one window, large enough to climb out of; that was good, if they ever had to make an unconventional exit. She dropped her pile of blankets on the bed, and opened the shutters—there was, of course, no glass in the window itself. The window overlooked a roof, and a bit of the alley in back of the inn; a rain-gutter ran beside it up to the roof, and the roof of the laundry was just below.
She smiled tautly in satisfaction. Curfew or no curfew, here was a way to come and go at night without being seen.
She closed the shutters again, and turned back to Jonny. "It isn't The Singing Bird," she said, apologetically.
"It's also n-not th-the g-gaol, or a d-dry s-spot under a b-bridge," he replied. "And it s-seems c-clean."
"Very true." She bent down for the blankets, but he beat her to them, unfolding them deftly and helping her make up the bed. "We'll have to take everything with us whenever we go out openly," she told him, "or it likely won't be here when we come back."
He turned to pull the latch-string in, barring the door to anyone who wasn't willing to break it down. "I t-take it w-we w-won't b-be d-doing a l-lot of th-that?"
"Probably not." She spread out her purchases on the bed. "The food here is going to be pretty dreadful, that's why I bought all this; since neither of us can afford to be laid up with a flux and cramps, we'd better buy our dinners elsewhere. They tend to buy rather dubious foodstuffs for these places—well, look at the candle, they buy these stubs in lots from the Cathedral and the homes of the rich, who won't burn a candle down to the end. The food'll be like that. There won't be any facilities here other than a privy in the alley
. The laundry has a bathing room we can rent." She sliced up bread while Jonny dealt with the cheese and sausage. "One of us should stay in the room when the other leaves officially. That probably ought to be you."
He nodded. "B-between th-this st-stutter and th-the f-fact th-that you m-might n-not b-be s-safe here alone, I th-think you're r-right. J-just d-don't let any P-Patsonos s-spot you."
She winced, but he had a perfect right to remind her of that. And a few weeks ago—I would have been angry that he had. Now it simply seems practical . . . . "Right. Well, it looks as if our plans just got thrown right out. We can't take pleasure parties around to the inns doing magic tricks . . . and I'm not sure that any of the Houses are still in operation, except in the Warren itself." She frowned with thought. "I'll have to go in the Warren and start spreading the word about how Padrik actually works his 'miracles.' Maybe the people in there can do something. I'll start with Donnar, and see if there's anywhere I can go from there."
He ate several bites before replying—and as their candle-stub threatened to flicker out, took one of the new candles and lit it from the last flame of the old, pushing the unlit end down into the melted wax from the stub. "I d-don't l-like you g-going in th-there alone. B-but th-there's n-no ch-choice." Then he smiled shyly. "B-besides, you're p-probably more c-competent in there th-than m-me."
She glowed briefly with pleasure at his words, but then sighed, and ate a piece of cheese, pensively. "I only hope we aren't too late to do anything at all."
Donnar was willing to see her, but as she shared a jug and a plate of fried dough-bits with him, he listened to her brief explanation and shook his head.
"Ye're too late," Donnar said, flatly. "There's not a thing ye can do, now."
She glanced around his establishment, which was only half-full. The customers drank with one eye on their liquor, and one on the door. The Guards and Constables had not yet "cleaned up" the Warren, but rumor had it that they were getting ready to do so, and those rumors had every petty thief and freelance whore jumping at shadows. No one had molested Robin in any way on her way in; no one had any time to worry about one small, drab female, when there was so much more threat from other sources.
"What happened?" she asked, feeling desperation creeping into her voice. "Has everyone here gone mad?"
Donnar shook his head. "Ye'd think so," he sighed. "Padrik's got the Mayor an' the whole damn Council in 'is pocket. Couple three days ago, all of a sudden, like, comes all these new rules—an' all these new Guards an' Constables t'enforce 'em, an' the Mayor an' Council just back 'em right up. Padrik must'a been plannin' on this fer a while; most'a these clods ain't from Gradford. I heard they been in trainin' since summer, off on Church land somewheres. But whether that's true—" He shrugged. "I dunno where th' copper came t'hire 'em, but I'd bet it's from Church coffers, an' not the town's."
"So even if I could tell you, not only how Padrik does all his 'miracles,' but who showed him how, it wouldn't do any good?" she asked, tension and fear putting an edge to her words. How could this have happened? Never for a moment had she thought that there would be nothing they could do!
Donnar stared at her for a moment, then said, slowly, "Evr'one in th' Warren is a lawbreaker; either he started out like that, or th' Church an' th' law forced 'im into it. Who's gonna listen to us?"
He had a point, and she stared at her mug, utterly deflated, and all in a single moment. "No one," she replied, dully.
He nodded. "Tha's 'bout the size of it. He's got ev'thing but th' Warren, an' now there's rumors he's gonna take it, too. I dunno if Padrik's really gonna clean up th' Warren or not. Thing is, I kin think 'f one way he could do it, if he didn' give a fat damn what happened t'nobody, an' didn' have th' men t' do th' job."
She stared across the table at him. "How?" she whispered, rather certain that she was not going to care for the answer.
She didn't.
"Burn it down," he replied, succinctly, and a chill left her frozen in her place. "An" thas' why I'm leavin', soon's I can. Tomorrow, mebbe next day, at th' latest. Out through the Back Door, what I tol' you about."
The Back Door was a way out of the city via the sewers. Only the desperate took it, but it did avoid the Guards at the gates, who were stopping not only those going into Gradford, but those trying to leave. If things had gotten bad enough that Donnar was going to take the Back Door out, then they were bad indeed.
And the average citizen is probably pleased with all the new Constables to guard him and his property—so pleased, he doesn't realize he's been locked into a prison he can't escape.
She thanked him, in a daze, and went back out into the street. She still had a few errands to run; things to buy—
Like a couple of sets of lock picks. She hadn't wanted to bring any into the city; there was only so much she could fit into the hems of her clothing. But there was certainly a locksmith here in the Warren, and in the Warren, he wouldn't be selling just locks, he'd be selling the means to open them.
It took her a while to find the man she wanted, but for once in Grad-ford, her sex worked for her in convincing him that she was not an agent of the Guard or Constables. Apparently, no woman would ever be considered by Padrik's people for any important job.
The lock picks were expensive, out some of the finest she had ever seen—and if it turned out that they needed them, they would have been worth any price.
Those she hid under more prosaic purchases of food and drink—as she had expected, the food in the inn was dreadful, and the beer was worse, awful beer to start with, now gone flat and stale.
While she walked back to their inn, Donnar's last words kept coming back to haunt her. He was right. If Padrik didn't care about how much damage was wrought, or how many people died, that would be the easiest, perhaps the only way, to "cleanse" the Warren. All he had to do would be to set Guards in the streets to arrest anyone boiling out of the district, then set fire to buildings in a ring around it. With real mages working with him, the fire could probably be confined to the Warren and perhaps a few buildings nearby.
Padrik could even have the fire set "accidentally" and the Guards stationed there "coincidentally." Or, for that matter, he could have one of the mages create that Cathedral-tall angel, and this time, give it a sword of flame, and make it appear that the Sacrificed God Himself had set the blaze going.
And the average citizen would think him a hero, for clearing out all the "criminals." It won't occur to the people that the same weapon could be used to threaten his home, his family, if he ever opposes Padrik.
She shivered inside her shabby, warm coat. Padrik had already proved, many times over, that he cared for nothing except the path to power. She could only hope this scheme had not yet occurred to him; that he was whipping up a state of panic in the Warren by spreading rumors with no substance behind them.
And meanwhile, now that their best plan for uncovering the High Bishop's fraud had gone awry, she and Jonny would have to think of something else . . . .
There had to be something, some solution. There was always something else that you could do.
Wasn't there?
* * *
In the next several days, they spent most of their time in their room, trying to think of that "something else." In the meantime, the rumors of the cleansing of the Warren had not yet come true—
But the Cathedral-tall angel put in his appearance, right on schedule.
Neither of them was there to see it, but while the vision had many people who had seen it speaking of it in awe, there were some who were just a trifle less than enthusiastic.
This was the first time that Robin had ever heard Padrik's devotees speak of him and his works with a little less than full enthusiasm and belief. Evidently Padrik had overstepped himself this time, for the angel only called to mind other illusions that these folk had seen, put on for the purposes of spectacle at festivals and other city-wide celebrations.
And when they were asked to describe what it had looked lik
e, they told the tale in just those terms.
"Kinda like that red an' green dragon th' Mayor had conjured up fer the Midwinter Faire ten, fifteen years ago," one grizzled oldster said in answer to Gwyna's questions. "Yah, that's what it was like. Like that big ol' dragon. Ye could see through it, ye know, an' it didn' seem t' see anythin'—just smiled an' waved its wings, lazy-like."
Contributions to the hospice-fund were reported to be disappointing, although attendance at the Healing Services remained high. But Gwyna took a little more heart; if people would only start to think instead of simply following along like so many sheep—
There was no sign of whether or not Brother Reymond had managed to free the Ghost; but then, there probably wouldn't be. The spirit had no interest in staying around, after all. In all probability, the only interest it had was in getting rid of the men who had kept it bound all this time; the Abbot and Padrik—the former was within reach, but how would the Ghost know how to reach the latter? If Robin had learned anything on Skull Hill that night, it was that the spirit bound there was a great believer in expediency as well as revenge.
By now, he's gone, she thought more than once, but with only a feeling of relief. For even if Padrik was sending poor victims outbound with spell-laden pendants, Reymond was waiting at the other end of the road to free them.
She decided that it was time that the two of them started attending the Healing Services again. Perhaps, if they studied what was going on, they could get some notion of how to disrupt one of the services. Hopefully without getting arrested afterwards—they wouldn't do any good stuck in a cell, after all.
Jonny agreed.
"I'm g-getting t-tired of sitting around h-here, d-doing n-nothing," he told her. "At l-least, if w-we g-go w-watch, w-we'll b-be t-trying."
The Robin and the Kestrel Page 31