We shifted quickly, shying away from the keep and sticking to the tree line. We checked over our shoulders as we moved, not speaking. The forest hung with an aura of dread. Something bad was going to happen. You could feel it. Whether we would be part of it, I couldn’t say.
Moments later the dark outlines of the horsemen appeared. They traced a broad arc along the edge of the woods only yards from where we had been waiting. There were perhaps sixty of them, silent and controlled, moving ominously forwards, rolling slowly down towards the keep. But they didn’t go in, not yet. A rider wearing the horned helm I had noticed during the raiders’ attack on the coal trotted over the bridge, and we heard the muffled voice of a sentry. Then the doors swung open and the raiders moved en masse. But there was no slow, measured caution now. They were charging.
“What is going on?” I whispered.
In seconds they were across the narrow bridge and through the gatehouse. Cries of confusion quickly replaced the music and merrymaking in the fort. Then screams, an occasional clash of metal, and then nothing. Less than five minutes later the raiders rode out two abreast, turned towards the mile-wide gap between the Elsbett and Iruni woods to the southwest, and rode away. A heavy mist was gathering about them before they were completely out of sight, and I knew we wouldn’t be finding any telltale hoofprints in the morning.
Ten minutes later, as the birds were beginning to sing in the woods and crows had begun to gather on the turrets of the little castle, we went in. We scurried from wall to wall, whispering and glancing about us constantly, but there was no one left to raise any kind of alarm. There were bodies transfixed with red-feathered arrows slouched across the parapets or sprawled on the stairways to the walls, and our fear slipped away from us. In its place came only revulsion mixed with a shoddy relief. The raiders wouldn’t be coming back, though why they had turned on the man who seemed to have been their ally, we had no idea.
We entered the banquet hall and found the revelers lying amidst pools of spilled wine and overturned plates of venison and suckling pig. It had been a sumptuous feast. The Razor had been a large, cruel-looking man. He was sprawled out on the table, his flesh still glistening like a dish ready for the carving. There was blood everywhere. It collected in pools on the floor, soaked the fine silks of the dead, and ran into the golden goblets that had fallen with them. A banquet for the dead, I thought to myself. It looked like the final scene of a play.
It was the stuff nightmares are made of, of course, but I was still alive, and the Razor had probably got no more than he deserved. These days it seemed I took my comfort where I could get it.
It was less easy to keep things at arm’s length when we got back to what was left of the inn. The innkeeper was dead, and the stable boy could tell us nothing that we hadn’t guessed. The raiders had asked for us by name before they ransacked the place and set it on fire. The crossbowman in the Hopetown tavern had been no random guest. For whatever reason, the Razor’s honeymoon with the raiders had ended abruptly, as had ours. Whatever purpose we had served had come to an end. They were looking for us, and we could expect no mercy from them now.
SCENE XXXIX Watching
I slept most of the afternoon in the Bricklayer’s Arms, back in Hopetown, while Lisha passed on what we’d learnt to the others. It didn’t seem to me like we had much to report, apart from the knowledge that we would probably be dead by lunchtime.
The Joseph groups, it seemed, had been keeping a low profile over the last couple of days, tending their stalls in the market and having no mysterious visitors or secret meetings. We were no nearer even to determining which group might be connected to the raiders, let alone explaining what that connection was or how we might exploit it. Another blind alley?
Garnet appeared as soon as I woke up, but I was in no mood to defend myself for the state he had been in when I left.
“Don’t start,” I grunted into the pillow. “How was I supposed to know you didn’t drink?”
“Never mind that,” he said hurriedly with a slight twitch. He wanted to know every detail of my experiences at the Razor’s keep. He listened too attentively, and kept asking about what Lisha had done or said or thought. For the first time, I wondered what his feelings for her really were. It probably should have occurred to me ages ago.
“How’s the market?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Tedious,” he said, suddenly gloomy.
“With all that hustle and bustle and trading and sales talk and gold,” I exclaimed, “surely not. Let’s go. Maybe we could get a beer.”
He gave me a pained look.
“Listen, Will,” he began, “about that night. I’d rather you didn’t talk about it in front of the others. About my getting, you know, a bit tipsy.”
“Tipsy?” I said. “No, mate. My grandmother, if I had one, would get ‘tipsy’ on a glass of sweet sherry before dinner. You, on the other hand, got wrecked. Steaming, roaring drunk. Plastered. Blotto. Ratted. You might have been tipsy for a moment three sips into your first beer, but by the time you were tossing your salad all over the bar, you were well and truly monstered.”
“Well,” he muttered, with an embarrassed cough, “be that as it may. Only Renthrette knows, I think, and I’d prefer it if. you know.”
“Say no more,” I agreed chummily. “Silent Will, at your service. Not a word. Water. or, in this case, beer, under the bridge.”
He gave me a doubtful, sidelong glance and we went to the market, or at least I went and Garnet sort of tagged along.
“So which are the stalls we are supposed to be watching?” I asked.
“One of them hasn’t set up today, but that one over there,” he nodded, “the one with the crates in front of it, belongs to Caspian Joseph. Don’t look, though. It’s too obvious.”
“Right,” I said, “I’ll sneak up and buy something.”
I strolled nonchalantly over to Caspian Joseph’s stand and began to paw things over without looking up. It was mainly jewelry: silver brooches set with semiprecious bits of stone. Most of it was glitzy, obvious stuff. In other words, junk. Still, I’ve seen worse. Come to that, I’ve sold worse.
“Can I help you, sir?” said a voice.
“Just looking, thanks.”
He was a burly man of about fifty with a blondish beard streaked with gold and full, flushed cheeks covered with tiny blood vessels fine as cobwebs.
“Something for your wife, perhaps.”
“I’m not married.” I smiled.
“Girlfriend?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“What about a bracelet set with turquoise or amethyst?”
“I don’t think so, thanks.”
“A necklace, perhaps?” he suggested. “I can do you a good discount on one of these. Ironwall silver and imported Thrusian jet. A lovely piece. A nice contrast. What color are the lady’s eyes?”
“Blue,” I said, wondering for a moment if they were.
“Then the jet is too dark. A brooch with a tiger’s-eye pin? Or one of these silver snakes with turquoise eyes? Isn’t that lovely?”
“Yes,” I said, concealing my distaste, “but no thanks.”
“Earrings are always a nice gift. We have a good selection covering a wide price range. Would you care to see some?”
“No, really. I’m just looking,” I said, flustered by his pushiness.
“What about a pendant? We have some just in.”
“Sorry?”
“A pendant. Like this one with the blue sun disk. A very unusual piece. The sapphire is flawed but genuine. I could make a very good price for you. Sir?”
“Yes, all right,” I said quickly. My throat felt dry.
“You’re sure?” said Mithos.
“I’m positive,” I assured him.
“Not just similar?”
“No, this is it. I got a good look at it. He was on his way out of Ironwall as we arrived. I thought of him when we were at that all-you-can-drink blood ritual. The man who took us s
aid something about the victims of the attack. Silver traders. I bet it was the wagon we passed. The merchant was wearing this.”
“So now what?” asked Garnet.
“We have our evidence linking Caspian Joseph to the raiders,” I said.
“It’s not enough to bring the duke down on them,” said Mithos, “and I doubt that arresting him would do more than show our hand. He may not even know anything. We’re better off watching Joseph and tailing anyone he has contact with. That way he could lead us to the next rung in the ladder. We have to get to whoever is controlling the raiders and where they are. At least we can stop watching the other house.”
Garnet-who thought this plan didn’t involve anywhere near enough axes-frowned, but the rest of us agreed.
“And the duke?” asked Orgos.
“Let’s keep this to ourselves for a while,” said Lisha. I gave her a swift look, but her face said nothing.
“You don’t trust him?” Renthrette ventured.
“I’m just not clear on a couple of things. Like how the raiders knew we were in the Sherwood last night.”
“Those guys at the bar heard us talking,” I said.
“Perhaps.”
I gave Renthrette the pendant, as a peace offering for getting her brother wasted. I still didn’t think it was my fault that he couldn’t handle his beer, but it seemed the diplomatic solution. I never saw her wear it.
I couldn’t sleep that night and volunteered to watch the Joseph house. Renthrette walked me down to show me the best spot. I suggested she let me put my arm round her so that we would look like a normal couple, but she was having none of it. It was a warm evening and she wore her sleeveless bottle-green dress with the narrow waist and lowish front. I told her that she looked good in it, and while she shrugged it off with a knowing smile, she didn’t actually threaten me.
As soon as we got to the little hawthorn hedge that was to be my lookout spot for the evening, she left me. I lay on my stomach and wondered what it would have been like if she’d stayed. Pretty much the same, probably.
The rear door into the yard, wide enough to get a wagon through, was ajar. The sun hadn’t quite disappeared, so there was enough light to see by. I would just look. No more.
I ran softly over to the perimeter wall and squashed myself flat against it. There was no sign of life, so I inched along to the doors and peered in.
There was a courtyard and a row of sheds joined to the back of the house. Four big men, stripped to the waist, were pulling something out: a large high-sided wagon. A moment later, grunting and sweating, they brought out two more. The bearded man who had served me at the stall, probably Caspian himself, was supervising the loading of the wagons with crates and boxes from the house.
I ran into the street and across town as if there was an army after me, which, in the circumstances, wasn’t out of the question.
I didn’t stop till I reached the Bricklayer’s Arms and blundered in shouting to the others.
“They’re moving out!”
“Positive?” said Mithos, leaping to his feet. They were all sitting downstairs, having a last drink before bed.
“Yes, they’re packing up to leave.”
“When?”
“You people never stop asking questions till you find one I can’t answer. I don’t know,” I said. “It will take some time to get those wagons loaded. They probably won’t go until morning, but I could be wrong. It has, as I don’t need to tell you, been known to happen.”
Obviously we had to follow them, but that wasn’t going to be easy. Big wagons like that needed major roads, and that meant long open stretches where anyone following would be ridiculously obvious. We couldn’t guess where they were heading and they could leave the road at any point and vanish, leaving few or no tracks in the hard summer ground.
Garnet took a horse and rode down to the house, ready to report back if they moved off.
“We need a trail,” said Lisha.
“I’ll give them some bread crumbs,” I muttered.
“Mithos,” Lisha continued, ignoring me. “Do you still have the triggers we used to set the crossbow traps in the Hide?”
“In the green trunk.”
He went upstairs, and returned with a device the size of his fist, a collection of gears and springs fitted to a brass plate. Lisha took it in her hand and pushed a cog round carefully. On the fourth complete rotation a tiny hook snapped back and then closed up again.
“If we could add some gear wheels to the axle of one of the wagons, we could adjust this so it would click over every half-mile or so.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“It could release a stopper or plug or something. Paint, perhaps. Then it would leave a spot on the road each time it clicked over.”
“Paint is too obvious,” said Orgos. “What about chalk dust?”
“Can you do it?” said Lisha.
“I need the parts,” said Orgos, turning the wheel. “There’s a clockmaker’s in the next street. They should be glad of the chance to sidestep the trade tax.”
“Hang on,” I said suddenly. “How are we going to get at the wagon?”
“Not sure,” said Lisha. “We’ll meet in the street outside the house. Make your way there as indirectly as you can. Will, you get the chalk.”
“What? Where from? It’s the middle of the night. Where am I going to get chalk dust at this time?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Great. It was midnight and I was out looking for chalk dust. Who works with chalk? Artists? Circus weight lifters? I didn’t know many of those. I had some vague idea it might be used in metal casting, but I wasn’t sure. Then it hit me.
Bread crumbs.
Not far from the Bricklayer’s Arms was a block of buildings hung with the aroma of fresh bread and pastry. At the far end, where the run-down houses leaned erratically and the roads were potholed and overgrown, was the house I had entered with Orgos, the first of the three Joseph houses to have been crossed off our list. I could hear running water not too far away: a stream. With the bakeries all clustered in this area it seemed safe to assume there’d be a mill.
There was. I ran across a rickety wooden bridge, and rapped on the door.
“What is it?” said a floury middle-aged man in overalls. His arms were thick and powerful and a cloud of white hung about him, stirring as he moved.
“I want to buy some chalk dust.”
“Are you trying to be funny, pal? I ought to punch your face in. And if you’re from the union or the food marketing committee, I want to see some papers. I’m saying nothing until I do.”
“I’m not,” I assured him calmly. “I just want some chalk dust and I want it now.”
“You’ve got a cheek coming round here-”
I held out six silver pieces and he shut up as if thumped with half a brick. He gave me a doubtful look, returned his gaze to the coins, and said, “How much do you want?”
I gestured with my hands, showing an area a couple of feet square.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Wait here.”
In a moment the exchange was complete.
“That ought to be plenty,” he said. “Half of one part chalk to one and a half parts flour. More than that and the bread’ll taste like powdered rocks.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Strolling back into the inn’s stable yard ten minutes later, I looked up and saw a face peering through the curtains of one of the guest rooms’ leaded windows. I had seen him in the bar the night before and had had the idea that he was too obviously doing nothing. He was in his late thirties, a lean, sinewy man with a pink complexion and hazel eyes. He was smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe and looking fixedly into space. I remembered the pipe, and was sure I had seen him before coming to Hopetown. Across a barroom back in Shale? His tobacco, I remembered, was strong with a curious flowery scent. He stood at the w
indow looking down at me, the slim white pipe balanced between his fingers. Just a traveler preparing for bed? Perhaps.
“All right,” said Lisha, “here’s the plan.”
We had taken our food up to her room and I had been busily eating as she and Mithos whispered with Orgos. Garnet was standing by the door, ax in hand. Renthrette inexplicably offered me a bite of her apple.
We turned to Lisha and she rolled the map out for the hundredth time.
“If they know we’re following those wagons, we are in trouble. We have to make it look like we’re still here.”
“We must also be especially alert tonight,” added Mithos grimly. “They know where we are and want us dead.”
There was a thoughtful silence, and then Lisha said, “That would actually be quite convenient.”
“Of course,” I agreed, deadpan, “I mean, still being alive next week would simply wreck my schedule.”
“If they attack us and we can convince them we didn’t survive. ” Lisha mused.
“. it could buy us some time,” Mithos finished.
“That will depend on their method of assassination,” said Orgos like a man choosing between fish or chicken.
“Someone will have to watch the Joseph house,” said Mithos. “And get that chalk device fitted to one of their wagons.”
“Garnet and I will do it,” said Renthrette quickly. She was sick of waiting around while People Less Qualified (me) got to do stuff.
Mithos looked to Lisha, and there was a pregnant pause before she nodded. “Just be careful,” she said.
Garnet glanced at his sister and both of them grinned broadly. So this was how you cheered them up: offer them the kind of task any sane person would give their right arm to avoid.
“Can we take Tarsha?” Renthrette asked, trying in vain to stifle her excitement.
“No,” said Mithos firmly. “If anything will get you noticed, it’s that damned horse.”
Renthrette would have said more but Garnet gestured suddenly for silence. He tipped his head to the door. A moment later came the sound of careful footsteps coming towards us in the corridor outside, then a knock.
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