“If they did something to Radd, I would feel as if I had betrayed him. It wouldn’t break me,” she said. “I don’t have any other family.”
“How did you come to work for him?”
“One of the masters at the College sent me to him.”
“How did you come to be at the College?”
“My father arranged it.”
“Soldiers don’t usually have that kind of pull.”
“That’s all he told me.”
“You never questioned it? You assumed that whatever came to you, you were entitled to?”
Anza knew she was being goaded. The other students had been the children of nobles and wealthy commoners. She had no name, no wealth, no family to match theirs, nothing but a letter from her tutor and a promise from her father. Within a few weeks her awareness of her poverty had faded from her consciousness. She was good at what she did.
She said, “I succeeded.”
“Your place—both of them—resulted from a bribe, most likely.”
“My father was an honest man!”
“An honest man who taught his daughter illegal weapons?” Sparrow said sardonically. “So Radd is a weak point. On the other hand, if you need help he’s trustworthy.”
“You know him?” The thought made Anza uncomfortable. She wanted to keep the parts of her life separate.
“I have observed him,” said Sparrow. “I won’t go into details.”
“Did you observe him taking a bribe from my father?”
Sparrow blinked. “No. The customary way to get a clerk is to send to the College, and the College makes the selection. It will be one of the masters who did the dealing with your father. It won’t have been the first time it happened. Their pay comes from the Crown, and it’s not sufficient.”
“I thought—the students—they pay to be there. Where does it go if not to the masters?”
“They get a small stipend. Much of the rest goes to pay the tax the Crown requires. The College paid a high price not to be shut down entirely. Not all the masters who left were expelled, you know. Some of them refused to teach with Karolje breathing down their necks and left on their own before he was crowned. You can be sure that the ones who did not make it safely to Milaya are still under close watch.”
Anza had known the College was observed by Karolje’s soldiers. She had seen them at the gates and squares every day. Sometimes the classes had been visited too, by quiet grey-clad men who she realized now with a shock must have been examiners.
Sparrow stood and put on her cap. “Let’s leave while there is still some light.”
Anza followed Sparrow out. She had passed the first test, it seemed.
The sun was down. Color had not completely faded from the sky yet, but the haze had lifted, and there were stars in the east. The streets were unlit.
Sparrow walked quickly despite a slight limp that must have been from a long-healed injury. She led them east past more dingy taverns and faceless warehouses, then turned south into a narrow alley. Anza smelled old garbage, years of it, the brick walls and dirt alley so odor-impregnated they would never smell clean. The increasing darkness put her on edge. Beggar Island was said to be thick with cutthroats.
The alley went straight south for perhaps half a mile, terminating in a square. On Citadel Island it would have been patrolled and empty after dark. Here, people sat next to fires or stood, most in clusters, a few alone. After a moment of staring, Anza realized the strange shapes scattered about were low tents made with a blanket propped up on a stick. She had brought nothing except the key to Radd’s office and a little money, thinking not to tempt thieves. It might be a lot of money here. She wished she had a weapon.
They turned left onto a street, narrower than the alley, that wound its way up a low hill into a slum. Anza’s back tightened with wariness that someone might be watching them. The buildings were shacks, crowded together, curtains hanging in the doorways, roofs flat. Most were dark. The street was rutted, and Anza stumbled once. At the top she paused to wipe her hands on her trousers. She knew not all her sweating was from the exertion.
The road descended, steeply this time, and they went cautiously. When they reached the bottom, Sparrow made two rapid right turns, a left, another left, a right, and a final left among more shacks. Several blocks on this route took them to the first wide street they had been on since they left the Anchor. The houses were actual houses. Sparrow walked to the fourth one on the right and opened the door.
Anza stepped in behind her and exhaled in relief. It was darker than outside. She shut the door as Sparrow lit an oil lamp. In the flaring light, Anza saw a small square room with a steep stairway against a wall and an open door in the back to another dark room. Spacious, compared to the rest of the buildings she had seen so far on Beggar Island. The furniture consisted of two splintering crates, a stool, and a battered armless chair.
“Do you live here?” Anza asked, slightly appalled.
“Only sometimes,” said Sparrow. “Rarely more than a week at a time. Often enough to discourage squatters. There are two pallets upstairs. Nothing is illegal except what’s in my head. Tell me what you observed on the way here.”
She shook off the last remnants of tension. “It would be easy to get lost. People must die of cold in winter. It’s not as dangerous as rumor has it, but there’s no place to hide if you have to run. Those roofs would not provide any cover and are dangerous to be on anyway.” As the recitation ended, Anza realized that her father had trained her more than she knew. To observe, and to report.
“If you got cornered in there, how would you get away?”
A much harder question. The shacks provided no shelter or escape path. “They’d have to kill me,” she said. “I could get by one of them, I think, if he wasn’t expecting it, but not past two of them. I’d fight.”
“If you were attacked by soldiers and not by common criminals, they wouldn’t kill you. They would capture you. Karolje always wants prisoners. Can you kill yourself?”
A week ago, she would have unhesitatingly said she could. She knew how much better death was than an interrogation. Now she remembered the cell in the Citadel, where she had never once thought of suicide. She had clung instead to a hope that innocence would be enough to free her. When the examiner tugged the belt around her neck, her only thoughts had been of breath.
“I don’t know,” she said. She and the resisters with her at the raid had known they were surrounded and had decided to fight. In the chaos the soldiers had not made it to the attic before the rain started and she fled. “I thought I could. But I might be too much of a coward. I’m sorry.”
Sparrow gave her a long, unsettling look that made Anza’s insides squirm. Then she said, “It’s not cowardice to want to live. That’s why you’re fighting.”
“I don’t want to ever give away resistance secrets.”
“The resistance doesn’t depend on any one person. Not even me. Sit down.” She pointed at the chair. “I’ll bring us some wine. There’s no food, unfortunately. If I leave any when I go, the rats get at it.” She disappeared into the back room.
Anza sat gingerly and toed her sandals off. Her feet were dusty. She was still being tested. It was not unlike the questioning by the prince. Sitting, waiting for judgment.
Sparrow came back carrying two glasses of wine and offered one to Anza, then seated herself on the stool. “Do you obey orders?”
That too required an honest answer. “I always have, if you don’t count some of the College rules. But no one’s ever told me to do something unconscionable.”
“You believe in something besides vengeance, then. The gods?”
“They aren’t why I have a conscience,” she said. She tasted the wine. If Sparrow could buy wine of this quality, she definitely had more money than the poverty of the building suggested. “There would be no point in fighting Karolje if I didn’t think there could be someone better.”
“Are you good enough to pick your target ou
t in a crowd and not kill the wrong person by accident?”
Anza looked at her hands. The cut from the roof was scabbed over and no longer required the bandage. She pictured herself holding the bow, pressing the arrow to the string, the movement of the muscles in her shoulder as she drew back.
“No,” she said reluctantly. “I’m good, but not that good.” She would keep to herself her other thought. It had been easy to shoot the soldiers at the raid because she was afraid for her own life. Because it was dark and she did not have to see their faces. In cold blood was different. She would have to learn.
“If you are skilled enough with the bow, we will find a way for you to use it. Don’t doubt it. Now, tell me what happened three nights ago.”
At last they were getting to the meat of the matter. The present, not the past.
“We were caught. I have no idea how they found us. They set soldiers at the front and the back and waited until after dark to break in.” Thuds against the door, screams of pain, the thunder of many booted feet on the stairs. “Mink had brought an explosive, and he threw it at the soldiers on the street. I shot at them and killed three before the rain started. I was in the attic, and they hadn’t got there yet, so I went onto the roofs.”
“Mink should have discharged the explosive in the building.”
“If he had, the whole block would have been damaged. It wouldn’t take much to start a fire. The houses there are all wood.”
“Did they capture everyone else?”
“I don’t know. Mink died. There was fighting. And screams.” Her voice shook a little.
“What had your group been planning?”
“Hare said we were to cause general disruption. That’s as much as I knew. But Mink was making explosives. Not in the house, he brought them with him to show us. We were trying to decide where to use them. At first Hare—he was our leader—wanted to destroy a bridge, but Mink said they weren’t powerful enough for that and we should use them to put holes in boats. Then there was the question of what boats to sink, and when. Hare said he would get names.” Saying it, Anza heard the absurdity. Sinking boats would have made merchants lose money, but in the long run all it would have achieved was more soldiers at the docks.
“It’s an awful plan,” said Sparrow. “Not in its aim. Getting merchants to turn on Karolje is a good move if it’s the right merchants. But not by putting holes in their ships with explosives.”
“Why not?”
“If you heard explosives were used, would you think it was the work of the resistance?”
“No,” Anza said, understanding. She had known something about the plan was wrong but had not been able to say what. “I’d think it was the Tazekhs.”
“Precisely.”
Tazekhs were good with mechanical things, and they used incendiaries and explosives for everything from blasting rock to killing people. Anza had heard stories of explosions that had brought down entire buildings. A few thousand Tazekhs lived in Karegg, some as sellers of the fine wool made from the hair of Tazekh mountain goats, others as clockmakers and locksmiths and tinkers. The women never left the Tazekh area of the city. A handful were wealthy; most were not. In the war, after the queen vanished, they had been taken by force and confined to a prison in the hills. Radd had told Anza that many had starved to death.
The Tazekhs were more hated than Karolje. The king was a tyrant, but he was Vetian. He had lawfully inherited the throne, been anointed by the priests. The Tazekhs dined on the flesh of their dead and sacrificed infants to their gods, according to the stories. They kept witches at their sides instead of burning them, skinned their captives alive, and worshipped a three-headed dragon that was a monstrous creation of the wizards in an earlier age. If a woman lay with another woman or was adulterous, she was buried to her waist in the desert and stoned to death. Anza thought that was probably the only one of the rumors that was true.
If attacks were blamed on the Tazekhs, the Vetians frightened of Karolje would slaughter the Tazekhs in the city and turn their anger south. Karolje could ride that rage to another war. The resistance would fall away in disregard or be crushed altogether.
Sparrow went on. “The resistance can’t survive another Tazekh war. Karolje will clamp down harder, and more and more people will choose to become collaborators. It would not surprise me if Karolje were to start rumors that our attacks were directed by Tazekhor. We have to claim our struggle.”
“And that means no explosives.”
“It means no explosives that aren’t discharged publicly by one of us. Hare should have known better. I’ll have to send someone to Mink’s house to get any that are still there. I don’t want them used.”
“Publicly means innocent people get killed.”
“Yes,” said Sparrow. “Which is why we haven’t done it, and won’t. It’s no use killing ordinary citizens to put pressure on Karolje. He doesn’t give a damn. We have to strike directly at his soldiers and his supporters.”
Anza tried to conceal a shudder. Sparrow’s voice was so cold, so methodical. Her objection to killing innocent people was one of utility, not morality. If it would get her what she wanted, she would do it. I’m in, Anza thought. I can’t get out.
“If explosives are no good, what weapons do we have?”
“We have two. The first is fear. Karolje’s aides, his soldiers, his men who keep order, are vulnerable. Magistrates and tax collectors. The merchants who support him. We have destroyed the supplies meant for the Citadel and killed soldiers in their guardhouses. We’ve smashed windows and ransacked offices. We leave handbills that claim responsibility and make threats.”
Anza was surprised they had a printer. A press was a hard thing to keep hidden.
“Who are we trying to frighten?” she asked. “The king’s supporters, or the citizens of Karegg?” It would have been a useful question to ask when she first joined, but she had been so bent on action it had not occurred to her.
“The king’s supporters. Unfortunately, it went sideways at the raid you were in. That can’t happen again.” She took a coin out of her pocket and flipped it in the air, caught it neatly. “The second pincer is money. We have to hurt the right people. It won’t be Karolje, that’s a given. But we can make sure that Karolje’s supporters lose income. We don’t have to know where every lord is aligned to hurt the ones that matter most.”
“Soldiers aren’t paid well. You might be better off bribing them than killing them.”
“It’s been considered. The problem is that the ones who aren’t bribed will rat out the ones who are. So for now we will aim at the lords. There are two in particular I would like to bring down. The chancellor is one. Lord Doru Kanakili is another.”
“I know his wife,” Anza said. She and Thali had been lovers for a few months several years ago and had parted in bitterness, not speaking to each other at all Thali’s last year at the College. When Anza heard about the marriage, she wondered if Thali and Doru had each made it to spite someone else. “But he doesn’t have any position in the Citadel.”
“No named position. In practice, he’s Karolje’s spymaster. He has his hands in everything and can order an assassination whenever he wants. The chief interrogator reports to him. Is there any chance you were released as a favor to his wife?”
“Ha!” Anza said. “If she knew they had me, she would have come down to watch the torture.” She did not really believe that; Thali had been a selfish woman with a vindictive streak, but not cruel. It made Anza feel a little sick, imagining Thali in bed with a man so evil. Thali could not have known when she married him, could she?
“I see,” said Sparrow. “In any case, both the chancellor and Doru have entrusted their money to banks that can be brought down. Once we do that, anyone who has dealings with the men will be nervous about their own funds. When the lords in the Citadel start turning on each other, Karolje’s power will ebb.”
“What about his sons? Will they be our targets too?”
“If they s
upport him, which we will have to assume they do unless they act against him.”
Anza did not respond immediately. She wished she knew what the prince had been thinking. Now was the moment to tell of his involvement in her release, if she was to tell of it at all. It seemed too improbable to be believed.
Overthrowing the Crown could send the country into war. Someone who thought he had a right to rule would acquire more soldiers, more wealth, more resources to claim the throne for himself. The house of Kazdjan might die, but the house of some other man would take its place.
She said, “If the lords start turning on each other, then what?”
“We have people in more places than you can imagine. Many of them watch and wait now, but when the time comes they will act.” Sparrow bent forward and traced a pattern in the dust on the floor. A spiral. “We will place this symbol throughout the city. Throughout the Citadel, even, if we can. And our people will know to prepare to rise.”
“What will they do? Is the resistance large enough? Most people aren’t good with weapons.”
“Once it starts, people will follow.”
“That’s an awfully big risk,” Anza said, thinking. Karolje was hated, but he might be feared more. There was no way to tell. If the resistance failed to start a revolution, it would be crushed and have to begin afresh.
“We aren’t here just to inconvenience the king,” Sparrow said dryly. Anza realized the argument must have been had among the resistance leaders many times. Her own criticism was neither insightful nor earned. She was embarrassed.
She looked at the spiral again. Sparrow had started at the outside and drawn it inward, a tightening, a coil. “Why a spiral?”
“It’s easy to draw, recognizable, and unlikely to be made by accident.” She tugged the scarf. “Get something yellow to wear when it’s time. It is one way we can recognize each other.”
The Vanished Queen Page 8
