Player's Ruse

by Hilari Bell

“Look, if you lot don’t settle down, I’ll call the guards—”

  “Excuse me,” Fisk murmured. His face was suddenly thinner, with a most lugubrious expression. “My captain and I have an—”

  “—evict you. And take those dogs outside!”

  “—appointment to see the master of the exchequer. I believe—”

  “Yes, yes, take a seat, sir. Stop that! You can’t do flips in here!”

  At the word “flips,” half a dozen dogs started doing them, so it hardly mattered that Rudy obediently stopped.

  Fisk and I took our places against the wall and proceeded to enjoy the show. The harassed clerk was forced to summon half a dozen guardsmen to help the Barkers take the dogs out.

  Then the clerk mopped his brow with a clean handkerchief and explained to Gwen Makejoye that, yes, she and her friends could visit the prisoner, but only in groups of two, and only if they permitted the guards to search them for concealed weapons.

  “That’s no problem,” said Falon. “I’ll give them to you now.” He stripped off his coat, revealing an arsenal of throwing knives, and began unloading them onto the desk, despite the clerk’s startled squeak. They made a tidy pile even before he started pulling out the concealed ones.

  Edgar Barker opened the door, poked his head through, and asked if everything was going all right. The clerk’s voice rose half an octave telling him to stay out.

  Fisk asked the armsman who stood at the foot of the central stair, staring with widening eyes at the still growing pile of cutlery, where he might find a privy. He then followed the guard’s directions to the corner of the room and down a shallow staircase.

  Falon was persuaded to keep his weapons until the guards asked him to surrender them, and the fascination of watching so much steel vanish into one man’s clothing entranced both the armsmen stationed in the hall. And myself as well, in truth.

  Edith Barker poked her head in to ask what was taking so long, and a small dog peered around the door.

  The clerk’s face turned scarlet, and he said something quite unbecoming to a man of his dignity.

  My ribs were beginning to ache, and judging by the guffaws around me I wasn’t the only one.

  Callista told one of the guards that she didn’t carry concealed weapons, but she supposed he’d have to search her too. The guard suddenly forgot to breathe, and his comrades looked on jealously.

  Fisk came back up the unobtrusive stair and told me he’d encountered the exchequer clerk in the corridor, and his master could see us now. He could have said that Lord Fabian was ready to have us dance naked for him, for all the attention anyone paid us. And that was before Edith Barker looked in again and caught Fisk’s slight nod. The dog at her feet shot into the hall, dodged the startled guard’s grasp, and dashed up the stairs.

  Edith ran in pursuit yelling commands, which the dog, trained to signals, ignored. The rest of the pack followed at her heels.

  I staggered through the melee, wheezing and clutching my sides, as helpful bystanders tried to capture the dogs for the shrieking clerk. They were amazingly quick. The dogs, that is. Rudy was walking on his hands.

  I followed Fisk down the steps—six of them; then he took me around behind them and opened a small door that led to a dark closet beneath the stairs. I crouched and crawled in.

  The ceiling at its highest wasn’t much more than four feet, and it lowered quickly. The largest part of the closet held several wooden chests, stacked upon each other, which I assumed held documents. In the shallower end were brooms, pails, and a feather mop on a long handle. That was all I had time to see before Fisk entered and closed the door behind us, and it promptly became very dark.

  “That’s that.” He sounded incredibly smug, small blame to him. “The best way to get behind a locked door is to be on the right side when they lock it.”

  His voice was low, but not a whisper. Judging by the way the uproar above us had been muted, we probably could speak freely.

  “What if they need a broom or a pail?” I asked. “What if one of the dogs piddles?”

  “That’s why we’re going to move the chests,” said Fisk. “And we’d better do it before they get the riot under control.”

  We worked by touch, but ’twas not difficult to drag the stacked chests forward a few feet and wiggle though the gap to sit behind them. ’Twas not uncomfortable with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out before me, Fisk’s booted feet nestled beside my hip.

  “What if someone notices the chests have been moved?” The muted sounds of chaos and mayhem were fading, so I lowered my voice to a whisper. “What if someone wants one of the documents, or whatever’s in them?”

  “Judging by the dust, it would be the first time in a decade; but if they do, they do, and we’ll probably accompany Makejoye to the flogging stake. Why do we always end up burgling places? And don’t say it’s my destiny—I hadn’t done this for years till I hooked up with you. Now I’m always breaking into something.”

  “That’s ridiculous. It would never occur to me to do this, and we haven’t burgled anything since Worthington’s house, a year and a half ago.”

  “What about the mayor of Fennic’s house?”

  “That didn’t count—’tis not burglary if you’re putting things back. Especially if you didn’t steal them in the first place.”

  Fisk can brangle endlessly when he’s in this mood, but now he had something else on his mind. “Have you thought about what this means? Aside from the immediate consequences.”

  As it happened, I hadn’t; but I thought about it now and saw what he meant. “ ’Tis the third shaft aimed at Master Makejoye and his troupe,” I said slowly. “And like the Skydancers, and that magica wood that turned up so conveniently, ’tis designed to force him to leave. But Quidge couldn’t have done this, so it seems . . .”

  “Makejoye has an enemy,” Fisk finished. “One who’s prepared to do him real harm.”

  “But this is the first time he’s been in this town—how could anyone hate him? Besides . . .” The implications of that thought stopped my voice.

  “Besides?” Fisk prompted impatiently.

  “No one from the town could know about those scripts. No one knew about the secret cupboard in his wagon except his own troupe—and us.”

  “Well, it wasn’t us,” said Fisk. “Even I’m not paranoid enough to suspect you or Rosa. But I’m not so sure no one else could know. Most players are rumored to have such things, and Makejoye’s plays . . . It would be easy to guess he had them somewhere. As for the cupboards, any of his troupe who hates him is free to pack up and leave. And I can’t see him evoking such hatred in anyone without Gwen being aware of it. She’s no kind of fool.”

  “Mayhap hatred has naught to do with it,” I said. “Mayhap someone simply wants to drive him off, as we thought Quidge did.”

  Hard as we tried, we could think of no motive for anyone to want such a thing, much less go to such lengths to obtain it, but our speculation passed the time. Which was just as well, because we’d a great deal of time to pass.

  A dim glow crept under the door. Eventually I could make out the outline of the chest I crouched behind, but that was all. The stone floor and wall grew harder as the hours passed; in a space two feet wide and four feet high the number of positions you can sit or kneel in is very limited. I went through all of them twice, and the more comfortable several times, before the steps of the solitary night guard, whose rounds Fisk had insisted on timing for a ridiculously long period, passed over our heads once more. Fisk waited for a small eternity and then signaled that ’twas safe to for me to crawl out and stretch my cramped limbs. He dragged the satchel full of plays and burglary tools out of our prison and shut the door behind us. I must confess to an ignoble satisfaction that he rose as stiffly as I did.

  “I wish we could hear the clock chimes from here,” he fretted in a whisper. “My guess is that the guard’s making his rounds on the hour. That’s going to go awfully fast, now that we’re mo
ving.”

  “Then let us move,” I said softly. Lord Fabian’s office was on the upper floor. All we had to do was climb the stairs—avoiding the guard—break into the locked and sealed strongbox, replace the plays, and depart, without leaving a trace of our presence. Compared to sitting one more minute in that cramped hole, it sounded ludicrously easy.

  The corridor was lighted by a single oil lamp, no doubt to aid the guard’s peregrinations. As Fisk stretched, groaning quietly, I crept forward to the base of the stairs and started up them. I took care to keep low; we knew how often the guard passed, but we’d no idea where he went when he left our corridor.

  The entry hall, lit by two lamps in brackets on the walls, was as empty as the hallway behind us. I heard no footsteps near or far, so ’twas safe to assume that he wasn’t on the gallery above our heads.

  Fisk came up behind me and stood, listening as intently as I. Since he was the expert, I waited till he nodded before stepping out onto the polished stone of the floor and hurrying toward the central staircase.

  I’d not taken three steps when a gray shadow oozed from behind the stair, a growl building like distant thunder in its throat. And why I say shadow I know not, for the beast glowed like a swamp wraith. Ordinarily, I would have no doubts as to my ability to handle a guard dog. As it was . . .

  “Fisk, back up.”

  “I have.” Indeed, my squire’s voice sounded some feet distant, but I dared not take my gaze from the dog to look. Its intelligent golden eyes were fixed on me, and it started forward, claws clicking on the stone. The warning growl grew louder.

  “I’m leaving, there’s a good lad,” I said soothingly, easing back as I spoke. “You’re a good dog and I won’t challenge you.”

  My Gift for animal handling rose, as familiar to my wielding as Chant’s reins, reaching out to the beast to convince it I was its friend, accepted and trusted. Any other dog would have lifted its ears and tail, and its growl would have faded, but Burke’s magica hound came on. At least it had been trained to warn before it bit. I retreated, steadily, but did not run. Nothing tempts a predator more than fleeing before it.

  The first of the steps caught me by surprise. I stumbled, and might have fallen if Fisk hadn’t caught me. I recovered my balance on the third step, my eyes flashing to the dog. But far from charging, it—he, I now saw—tucked his hindquarters and sat. The growl stopped, and if his tail didn’t wag, at least his ears lifted a bit.

  “He’s been told to keep people out of the entry,” I told Fisk softly. “As long as we stay here, we should be safe.”

  “So persuade him to let us up,” said Fisk.

  I stared at him in astonishment before I remembered that he was blind to what I saw so clearly. “He’s magica, Fisk. This is one of Master Burke’s hounds. He said he lent them out, if you recall.”

  Fisk also remembered what else Burke had said. “Your Gift won’t work on him?”

  “No. I tried it.”

  Fisk’s frown deepened. “This isn’t good. I poked around quite a bit on my way to the privy, and as far as I can tell, that stair is the only way to get to the upper floor.”

  “They often made the old keeps so,” I told him. “So if anyone broke in, the inhabitants needed only defend one stair. And they could shoot from the gallery, as well.”

  Fisk had no interest in historic architecture. “How does the guard get past the beast?”

  “The dog’s handler would have introduced him. But he didn’t introduce us.”

  “If we could get a guard’s tabard—”

  “Dogs go by scent, Fisk. You’d have to smell like him, not look like him.”

  “And you can’t get us past?”

  “Let me try again.” I spoke soothingly to the dog, remarking what a good fellow he was, pouring my Gift into the words. He let me climb the stairs without fuss, but the moment I set foot on the foyer’s parqueted floor, his ears dropped and his growl rumbled.

  “No,” I told Fisk, falling back to the bottom of the steps. “I can’t get us past him.”

  I expected his face to mirror the near despair I felt, but his expression was intent. “He only started to growl when you stepped onto the floor.”

  “I told you, he was ordered to keep people out of this room.”

  “But for him, the room is the floor?”

  “I don’t follow you,” I admitted.

  “I’m going to try something.” Fisk stripped off his boots and doublet as he spoke. “If this doesn’t work and he sounds an alarm, get back under the stairs—if you don’t get caught, you’ll be free to act later.”

  I was also the one who’d get into the most trouble if we were caught, but I couldn’t allow Fisk to take extra risks because of it.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  He was already at the top of the stair and waved me to silence. “Nice doggy,” he announced unconvincingly.

  The dog watched with unwavering yellow eyes.

  “Here goes,” said Fisk nervously. He stepped onto the baseboard. ’Twas near a foot high but only an inch wide, and he had to grasp one of the lamp brackets to keep his balance. I moved forward to catch him, but he eased his feet along the narrow stone ridge and into the entry.

  The dog cocked his head—he whined softly, uncertain. But he made no move to attack as Fisk transferred his grip to the crevasses of a decorative bas-relief of the Waterweis crest, then made his way forward till he could step onto one of the stone benches.

  He turned slowly and looked at the dog, who looked back with an intensity that promised a charge at the first wrong move Fisk made. But not yet.

  “You’re right,” I told my white-faced, sweating squire. “The room is the floor. But neither the benches nor the baseboards run between this stair and the central one, so unless you can climb to the gallery over sheer wall, I don’t know what we’ve accomplished.”

  “It’s not sheer,” said Fisk. “There’s carved bits all over it, and a nice three-inch ledge all around the room, right at gallery level, if you could just get up there.”

  “But you can’t,” I exclaimed in some alarm—he looked far too serious about it.

  “No,” said Fisk. “But I know someone who can. Wait till I get back to you, and we’ll go fetch Rudy.”

  ’Twas not so preposterous as it sounded, for the players had chosen to await us at an inn not far from the town hall. And as Fisk pointed out, as long as one of us stayed behind to let the other in, we wouldn’t have to break in again. But it felt strange to slide the bolt on the rear door and watch Fisk slip off into the darkness.

  I shot the bolt behind him and went into the nearest office to await his knock, preparing to hide behind the desk if the guard wandered by.

  In truth, ’twas not the oddity of interrupting a burglary to go and fetch someone else that troubled me, but the fact that I didn’t want to work in so close and precarious a matter with Rudy Foster. Yet he cared more for Makejoye, had more right to come to his aid, than Fisk or I. Would I have questioned Falon’s right to help? Or Gloria’s? I feared not.

  The guard did pass as I waited, though he didn’t trouble to open the door to the room where I crouched, not even breathing, in the darkness.

  I had time to imagine a number of things that might happen if Fisk should knock when the guard was passing, but the knock came some time after the guard had gone by.

  “How long ago did the guard go by?” was the first thing Fisk said when I opened the door. He and Rudy surged in on a wave of cool, fresh air. Rudy’s eyes were wide with excitement, but his expression was one of steady determination.

  “How should I know? There’s no clock in here.”

  Fisk took Rudy’s arm and drew him down the hallway. “You must have some idea—five minutes ago? Almost an hour?”

  “Somewhere between that,” I replied, earning myself a glare. “All right, I’d guess ’twas about twenty minutes. What difference does it make?”

  “It makes a difference because I
don’t want him strolling by while Rudy’s spread over the wall like a tapestry,” said Fisk. “The sure way is to hide under the stairs till he passes again—then we’d know we have a full hour.”

  That idea held no appeal. “I think it was about twenty minutes,” I assured him.

  “If the wall’s like you described, I can get up it pretty quickly,” said Rudy.

  Fisk hesitated at the foot of the steps; then he nodded. “All right—let’s do this fast.”

  I introduced Rudy to the dog as best I could, while he examined the wall and removed his boots. The urgency of the moment made the coiled power in my gut stir sluggishly, awakening to the possibility of adding itself to my useless Gift. Even as I crushed it down, I wondered if that might work—if I let my magic enhance my Gift for animal handling, would it overcome this beast’s magic resistance? And if it would, did I have the right to reject it at the risk of Hector Makejoye’s pain? Or would its power burn my weaker Gift away, that I might never use it again? Or make it so strong I couldn’t close the door upon it, so that every animal I met fell madly in love with me, and followed me down the streets and byways. The possibilities were endless and almost all bad. No, I had a choice this time, and I refused to use it.

  Rudy was a far better climber than Fisk. He slid along the baseboard and onto the bench, then paused to examine the challenge before him, his hands twitching as he mapped future hand- and footholds. Then he grasped a lamp bracket, hooked his toes over the top of the Waterweis crest, and started up.

  I held my breath as I watched. He made use of the smallest cracks and protuberances, and I hadn’t even imagined a man could climb so. His toes were as strong and flexible as his fingers, and I noticed, with a sudden lurch of my stomach, that he was missing one of them on his left foot. The scarring at the stump was white with age. I looked at Fisk to find his steady gaze upon me, and looked away.

  I couldn’t blame Rudy for what he’d done, but he was my rival for Rose’s hand, Rose’s love; and the crumpled paper in my pocket was a weapon that could bring him down. Not kill him, of course. Not even do him much damage. But if I wrote to the sheriff of that far-off fief, sooner or later someone would come, deputies, bounty hunters, and they would call him a killer and take him away. Rose would weep and ask to go home, and I would escort her, console her, and show her that another, better love awaited her.