I didn’t need him to finish. Hurriedly, I pulled myself out of the pile of stale straw where I’d been sleeping. We had figured out the day before that you could get to the stable roof quite easily by pulling yourself up on a railing and using the lintel as a step. I did that now, kicking away a couple of offended chickens who were nesting in the thatch.
Latoya was already up there, and she gave me a curt nod without moving her eyes from the tower. Ariadne’s flag was there, almost too tiny to make out, a bright speck against the white stone. Red.
“Oh, for the love of—”
My vocabulary got a workout then. I used every curse that I knew, in every language that I knew, some of them backwards and all of them loudly. The thatch of the roof shuddered around me as I went at it. Latoya waited patiently until the torrent slowed.
“Better?” she asked.
“ . . . on a stick!” I said desperately, finishing. “I knew this would happen. She could be dead, Latoya, she could be dying, she could be—”
“Anything,” Latoya agreed. “So we need to get to her. How?”
That was the question I had dreaded, and just hearing it exhausted me. I sat down on the soggy mildew-smelling thatch and ran a finger over the calluses on my sword hand.
“We can’t,” I admitted at last.
Latoya’s eyebrows went way, way up.
“We spent all of yesterday trying to hash this out. And we don’t have a clue how to get into the castle, unless we use Ariadne’s plan. We can’t climb, we can’t dig, we can’t stow away, we can’t fly. We could poke around the city and see whether an opportunity falls in our lap, but if we keep tramping around the streets, then sooner or later, someone will realize that we don’t belong here. We could run at the walls howling and hope for a miracle, but we can’t just throw our lives away. We’re all that there is, Latoya. Lynn has no one else to come after her. We are it. She loses her only chance if we charge in blindly. We need to wait and take our best shot.”
It was all true, and yet, and yet . . . I fixed my eyes on that tiny speck of red in the distance.
Latoya heaved a sigh. “Which of us are you trying to convince?”
“Me,” I said miserably. “I’ll go down and tell Regon. We need to do something useful while we’re waiting.”
WE DID NOT do something useful while we were waiting. Our clothes were still salty and battered from our raft ride, so we attracted strange looks whenever we went out the door. We couldn’t afford to be questioned by watchmen, so we huddled in the stable, not talking much. Around noon, it began to rain again, and a puddle collected below a leak in the roof. Every few seconds, a drop of rainwater smacked into its centre, and the reflections on the water rippled, as if forming a different horrible picture. Drip—and Lynn was writhing in Melitta’s grip, her left arm broken. Drip—and she was thrown into an oubliette under the walls. Drip—and she was raped by a grinning soldier. Drip—
As the minutes crawled, I flogged my brain, trying to think of some way, any way, to get up the castle that day. The massive white walls loomed in my imagination, stark and blank.
When the rain started to come down harder, Latoya and Regon left me to my mood, slipping out into the grey streets. They came back with armloads of plunder—a few loaves of bread, melons, oranges, a wedge of sheep’s milk cheese. Dinner the night before had been a few handfuls of wizened hazelnuts that we’d found at the bottom of an abandoned saddlebag, so I did my best to get through my share. Every bite tasted like ashes.
I SLEPT VERY little that night and woke with a pounding headache. As I staggered towards the stable door, I stumbled over Regon’s prone body, and he gurgled in protest.
Once again, Latoya was already on the roof. This time, she was sitting cross-legged in the damp thatch, studying the distant flag.
“Red again,” she observed.
“Right,” I said, and bit my hand in frustration.
“Bigger today,” she went on.
That was true. The red speck in the distance had become a long red tail billowing from the window. Ariadne must have tied together every red piece of cloth that she owned, letting it all float free in one big banner.
“Things are bad,” I said, translating the obvious message. “Things are very bad—buggering fuck. I don’t know what to do. I’m empty here. Completely dry. I don’t do the plans, Lynn does the plans, I just yell at people. And sometimes I snarl.If you can think of anything, Latoya, anything at all, then hell on a biscuit would it ever be a good time to say so.”
Latoya’s brow furrowed and her eyes turned to slits. The signs of deep, deep thought. I waited, chewing my lip.
At last, she said, “What’s that on the end?”
“What’s what on the end of what?”
“The end of the flag. Look.”
I glanced up, hassled. The tip of the red banner was divided in two, like a snake’s tongue. “That’s a pair of bloomers. Silk ones.”
“A pair of what?”
“Underwear. Fancy underwear.”
“That . . . that . . . is underwear?” I could see Latoya mentally measuring the size of the billowing knickers. Her head was cocked to the side in fascination.
“Underwear for a noblewoman. The richer you are, the more important, the more layers they make you put on.”
“But why?”
“Probably because it’s harder to get ’em naked that way. Extracting a noblewoman from her clothes is a little like getting at the meat of a crab. You can do it, but you need a lot of patience, sometimes some special equipment . . .” I shook away old memories. “Does this help us? Like, at all?”
“No,” she admitted. “I’ve just never seen anything like that before.”
“Fine,” I announced to an uncaring sky. “Fine. Wonderful. Lovely. So we have no plan. I’ll go see whether Regon can pull a rabbit out of his ass—”
“Captain?”
“It’s a figure of speech, Latoya.”
“How do you get a girl?”
I had never heard Latoya, with her barrel of a chest, speak so softly, and despite my panic and misery, that stopped me short. “How do you get a girl—you mean, how do you get a girl to . . . um . . . be with you?”
Latoya gave a small, embarrassed shrug.
It was the first time in my life that anyone had ever asked me for advice about women, and I had never in my life felt less qualified to give any. But Latoya had followed me to virtually-certain death, so it wouldn’t have been fair for me to respond with a snarl and a well-aimed boot. I rubbed the back of my head and tried to think.
“Well, in my experience . . . you wander the seas rescuing peasants and fishermen until a girl storms out of nowhere and challenges you to a duel. Then you haul her on board your ship, tie her to your mast, and within a few days she’s running the place. Is that helpful?”
Latoya gave me an exasperated glare.
No, not helpful. I rummaged around in the dark cobwebby corners of my mind where I stored information about romance. “I guess . . . I guess . . . you try to recognize opportunity when it comes along. Opportunity is terrifying, by the way. That’s how I always recognize it. When the right girl comes, you take your chance, and damn the consequences. And if you don’t let her get kidnapped by a goat-testicled slave-stealing sack of shit, then you’re doing better than me.” I poked Latoya in her shoulder—it felt like I was poking a solid slab of beef. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
MORE WAITING.
Latoya confiscated all our knives and put a fine edge on each of them. The slow, measured sound of the honing rasped on my second-last nerve. Regon whistled tunelessly, and that rasped on my last one.
After an epoch of waiting, I pulled a shutter ajar for the thousandth time and saw that the sun was finally down.
“Let’s move out,” I ordered, with vast relief, and tickled my palm with a fresh-honed knife point.
ALL THE STREETS in the lower city were narrow; space is at a premium when you live in a fortress town
. The three of us were crouched in alleyways that connected with the main road. From my post, I could have reached out and touched the leg of any passing horse.
Ariadne’s planning was perfect. It was an hour after sundown, just as she had calculated, when the carriage came rattling up the narrow street. The moonlight glistened on its gilt trim and on the silver buttons of the coachman. The coachman, two footmen . . . they were all the attendants that I could see. I glanced to the other side of the street, where Latoya and Regon were waiting, for confirmation. Latoya nodded, holding up three fingers.
Three men was a ridiculously small escort for a lord as important as the one riding inside the coach. But, as Ariadne had told me, Iason was so afraid of assassination attempts that he didn’t allow even his most important visitors to bring their own troops and bodyguards into the city. For once, his paranoia would work in our favour. I cracked my knuckles and waited.
When the carriage came abreast of us, we all struck at once. Regon bounded up onto the shafts, his knife a silver flash as he cut the traces. The horses, spooked, bolted free; Regon thrust the knife between his teeth and raced after them. The carriage box skidded to a halt. The gaping coachman sat frozen, holding the ends of the useless reins. He was still gaping when I put him out with a chop on the neck. From behind the carriage, I could hear the muffled thuds as Latoya took care of the footmen. Pounding each of their heads against the cobblestones, so far as I could tell.
While all of this was going on, a piping, peevish voice within the carriage was shrieking its objections. As soon as I got the carriage door open, I found the face that fit the voice—a young man whose downy face was cranky, whose hands dripped with gold rings, and whose plum velvet suit must have cost as much as the average warship.
“Lord Jubal?” I asked him. “Jubal of Oropat?”
“What?” he said, surprised. “Yes.”
“Good,” I answered, and swung my homemade cosh. It was a rock tied into the end of a rag, nothing more than that. Very simple, but very effective. One quick blow sent him snoring.
After that there was no need to discuss anything. Latoya stuffed the three prone bodies into the box of the carriage, Regon brought back the horses and repaired the traces with a few expertly tied knots. We ghosted back to the stable through the quiet streets, hauled the bodies out onto the stable floor, stripped them, and tied them up with old pieces of harness.
For once, it had all gone right. I just hoped that we hadn’t used up our entire store of luck.
AN HOUR LATER, I sat in the gently rocking carriage as it rolled through the last of the castle gates. I was about as uncomfortable as a person can possibly be when sitting on a velvet bench. My breasts were tightly bound so that I could fit into Jubal’s fine shirt and doublet, and I was encased from the waist down in his foppish purple hose. Grey gloves, mink-lined cape, and a cascade of lace cravat completed the ensemble. Breathless, overheated, and sweaty, I was almost miserable enough to forget about being terrified.
So far, no problems. Ariadne had been right again. The guards at each gate had gone through the motions of asking for pass tokens and passwords, but when I flew into a temper and threatened to have them all impaled, they backed off pretty quick. Nobody wanted to be the one to throw Lord Iason’s very special guest out the front door.
We were in. Now came the hard part. The part where I had to introduce myself to Lynn’s father.
Regon was smirking wide as the moon when he opened the carriage door. The coachman’s uniform fit him well enough, though we’d had to cut off the ends of the trousers. “Captain, you look good enough to eat with a silver spoon.”
“Thanks for that,” I muttered to him, stepping down into the courtyard. “I still think you should be playing Lord Jubal.”
“I couldn’t hack it, captain. No one would be convinced.”
“How am I going to be more convincing than you? I’m not even a man.” A palace steward was bustling over to us across the courtyard. I directed a patronizing little nod in his direction.
“You’re a noble. Or you were, once. That’s all that they’ll see.”
True enough. I hadn’t been to court in years. I’d believed that part of my life was over for good. But now, just the feel of the velvet and gold against my skin was causing old instincts and feelings and understandings to flock back. I was remembering the thousand habits and mannerisms that nobles absorb as a matter of course during their upbringing.
So when the steward came panting up and bowed so low that his forehead nearly touched his pointy shoes, I didn’t even acknowledge him. Instead, I sneered around at the castle courtyard as if it wasn’t nearly as big as I had expected.
“Lord Jubal,” the steward said reverently, and bowed even further, almost tipping over. “We are most honoured that you have chosen to favour the Lady Ariadne with your courtship.”
“Naturally,” I said, with a sniff. “That being the case, why is it that I’m being welcomed by Iason’s butler rather than the man himself?”
The steward coloured. He had obviously been afraid of this question. “My apologies, my lord—my deepest apologies—but my Lord Iason receives guests only in his own chambers. He will make no exceptions. If you will follow me, I will take you to his private dining room for refreshment.”
I sniffed again and stalked past him, so the tubby man had to scamper to take up a position in front of me. Lord Jubal wouldn’t have looked back at his servants, so I didn’t look at Regon and Latoya. I just hoped they’d find a way to stay close, so they would be with me for the disaster towards which we were no doubt lurching closer and closer with each passing second.
And gods help me, I was wearing tights.
A PRIVATE DINING room. What a stupid way of showing off.
The stupidity was compounded, in fact, because it was on the fourth floor. I couldn’t think of any reason that anyone would want a dining room on the fourth floor, unless they got a kick out of forcing their servants to run up four flights of stairs with platters of meat and cauldrons of hot soup, and down again with the stacks of empty dishes.
The steward prattled on as he trotted in front of me. Back where I came from, I mused idly, a servant who talked so much would be given a good whipping—then I caught myself. Where the hell did that thought come from?
“And here we are, my lord,” the steward said at last, bowing me through an open door. “May I humbly wish you the best of luck in your wooing.”
The thought of me wooing Ariadne was so very wrong on so very many wrong levels, but there was no other way. It was no accident that Jubal had been summoned so suddenly to the castle, right after Goat-Boy dragged Lynn back there. Lord Iason, who had been putting off his daughter’s marriage for years with various excuses, now needed to make it happen as quickly as he could. Once Ariadne was safely married, Lynn would be expected to fulfil her function—to give her father grandsons who would inherit his throne and his name.
It occurred to me suddenly that Iason might well be planning for Jubal to be the father of his grandchildren. If so, he intended Jubal to do things to Lynn that I couldn’t even contemplate without panic. Silently, I cursed myself for a fool. Back in the stable, when I was removing Jubal’s tights, I should have taken the opportunity to remove a few other things from him as well. It wouldn’t have taken more than a minute with a string and a razor. Too late now.
I gave the steward one last sniff and stalked through the doorway.
The room beyond glistened, there’s no other way of putting it, with silver plate and candles, with gold-edged doublets and jewelled brooches. It took a few seconds of blinking before I could even make out the people. There was Lord Iason, ensconced at the head of the table, so splendid in his crown and brocade that you didn’t notice all at once how short he was. There was Ariadne to his left, primped and powdered into a kind of doll, though the eyes that glared out from under the curly bangs were keenly sharp. Further down the table was a clutch of other men—generals, perhaps, or minor
lords. And at Iason’s right . . .
The only thing I could think of, looking at the Lady Melitta, was . . . ordinary, ordinary, ordinary. Dark hair, a pleasant-enough face, lined around the eyes and cheeks. Her green gown was sleeveless, in the new, fashionable style, and the flesh of her arms was soft, drooping a bit with middle age. This was the demon of Lynn’s childhood? The youngest of my sailors could have knocked her to the ground and rolled her around for an hour without breaking a sweat. Lynn had fought experienced soldiers before, had fought them barefoot, with no weapon except a coiled garrote and a small sharp blade. She had pressed her every advantage, pounced on their every weakness, forced her enemies to respect her. How could this fleshy old broad give her any trouble?
Shell Game Page 28
