by Toby Frost
But bravery only went so far. He needed bandaging. She strode to the far end of the room, looking for cloth. She saw aprons on hooks. “Herbs,” Sethis croaked.
Giulia nodded and pulled down a rack of little bottles from one of the shelves. She paused, listening, waiting. The soldiers had stopped trying to get in, but the room was not entirely silent. She could just hear something, a muffled, steady, repeated sound. Like footsteps.
“Someone’s coming,” Sethis said.
Giulia held her breath, eyes half-closed, listening. Yes, there it was. Careful but not furtive, someone was moving quietly and slowly at the far end of the room. She swung up her bow, saw a little service door there and cursed herself for missing it. Something was behind it.
There wasn’t enough time to lock the service door. Giulia crouched down and worked the ratchet under her bow, drawing back the string. She took out a bolt and laid it in the groove.
The doorknob rattled. She heard a slight grunt of breath. His head will be a small target, she thought. Have to shoot quickly or he’ll just duck out of view.
The door swung open. She saw hair, messy and gummed with blood and sweat. The man took another step. Giulia put a little pressure on the trigger, and the whole face came into view.
“Hugh!”
The knight stopped just inside the room.
“Giulia?”
“Hugh,” Giulia said, and she lifted the bow and relaxed. “Thank God it’s you!”
“Likewise.”
“What the hell were you doing, running off like that? Why didn’t you tell me— shit, what happened to you?”
He closed the door behind him. “I need a sit-down,” he said.
Hugh needed more than that. His face, always pale, was sickly white except where it was smeared with drying blood. His moustache was solid with blood, his right eye blackened and almost shut. As he stepped forward, Giulia saw that it was even worse: half a crossbow bolt had pinned the armour to his left shoulder, and blood was oozing through a bit of cloth tied around his left thigh.
“Hello there,” he said, seeing Sethis. “Bloody hell, Giulia, this fellow’s wounded—”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorting a bandage out. The griffon attacked us. We got washed up: Sethis wasn’t supposed to be here. But you—”
“It’s nothing too bad,” Hugh explained. “Took a couple of hits back in the dining room. I got quite a few of these swine, though. I’m not letting them get away with this, you know.”
Giulia wanted to hug him. “Come on,” she said. “You need new bandages.”
“It’ll hold,” he said. He looked at Sethis and frowned. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“It’s not perfect,” said Hugh, tying off the bandage, “but it’ll have to do.”
Sethis sat on an old chair. His shirt was open and three torn aprons were wrapped around his midriff. They were already moist with blood.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Fine,” Giulia said. His chest was lightly muscled and sleek, without much hair. Had he been human, she would have liked his shape.
“Good as new, son,” Hugh said, wincing as he stood upright. “I’ll do this,” he said. “You check the doors.”
The doors by which they had entered were now heavily barricaded. Giulia’s arms still ached from dragging a butcher’s block in front of them, now joined by two tables and a heap of pots and pans. She had bolted the small door Hugh had used to get in, and had wedged a chair under the handle and several kitchen-knives into the frame. They might be trapped in here, but nobody would be getting in easily.
The room was weirdly quiet. Azul’s men had given up on the outer doors, but she knew that they would be looking for a different way in.
It was getting dark outside, and the last sunlight put a queasy edge on the room. Every object seemed to have its own halo. It made Giulia feel as if she was about to hallucinate.
A few candles flickered on the table. From his seat against the wall, Sethis watched her approach. His stare made him seem like a lizard. Hugh sat bare-chested in the candlelight, holding a bloody wooden spike six inches long.
“It was an armour-piercer, luckily,” he explained. “No barbs.”
It occurred to Giulia that he had pulled – or cut – the thing out of his shoulder without making a sound. “Good,” she said, and she took a knife to another apron, slitting it into strips.
Without his shirt, Hugh looked like an old man, his pale chest threaded with veins and scars. He was not heavily muscled: most of his ability as a fighter came from efficiency and skill, not brute force. But he was wiry, she saw, gaunt and hard. He had always been careful to avoid showing her his skin, for it embarrassed him, and she tried to be businesslike as she wrapped the cloth around his shoulder.
“You need stitching on this,” she said. “It’s pretty deep. Can you move your arm much?”
He flexed it. “Yes, it’s not too bad.”
Giulia said, “I’m fucking glad to see you, Hugh.”
“Thanks. Glad to see you too.”
“I thought you’d get yourself killed, taking off like that. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have wanted to go with me.”
She cut the second apron lengthways, and waited as he wrapped the strip round his arm. The wind had risen outside, and it whipped around the tower at the edge of her hearing. “Of course I’d have gone with you. Azul’s here, isn’t he? I owe that bastard.”
“I mean about Elayne. You think she’s on his side, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
Giulia held the knot in place as Hugh secured it.
She thought, If Elayne makes a move against me, I’ll fight her no matter what. But what then? What would Hugh do to Giulia if she killed Elayne? She shoved the thought away, with all the other things she didn’t want to think about. She had to get Azul, then find a way out for them all. That was what mattered. The rest was secondary.
Sethis raised one of the herb bottles to his lips, tipped it like a cup and chewed slowly, miserably.
Hugh finished bandaging his leg and stood up. He looked as ungainly as a newborn colt. He pulled his shirt on, then his breastplate. He said, “We ought to get going.”
“Well, we’ve got a problem there,” Giulia said. “They’ve bolted the door from the other side.”
Hugh looked down. “We’re locked in? You know another way?”
“Unless the door you came in by leads upstairs, no.”
He shook his head. “It goes straight back to the servants’ dining-hall, I’m afraid. We’ll have to break those other doors down.”
“It’d take too long. By the time we get through, they’ll have their friends up here.”
“We can’t just stand about talking,” said Hugh. “Elayne—”
“Yes, I know about Elayne. I know we have to go fast,” Giulia said. “But we can’t get through. There must be something else.”
“I’ve got powder,” Sethis said. They looked round: Giulia had half-forgotten that he could talk at all. “I took some for the guns. Could blow the locks off.”
“I doubt there’s enough,” Hugh said.
Giulia turned away, fear rising inside her once again. She wandered into the main kitchen, trying to think. Could she climb up the chimney, perhaps? No, not a hope – even if she could fit into it, it would go nowhere. She grimaced, searching the room for a way out. The window, perhaps? Could she climb the glass outside?
Three piles of dirty plates lay on the floor, stacked neatly in front of a square hatch built into the wall. Giulia opened the hatch and saw more plates. Behind them, clockwork twinkled. She reached in and found two ropes. It reminded her of a device that the scholars of the University of Pagalia had used to move heavy objects, a chamber that could travel up and down.
She stepped back, suddenly alert. “Hugh,” she called, “I’ve just found the way up!”
SEVENTEEN
Every few seconds, the rope creaked and the dumb-waiter lurched a foot closer to the floor above. With each rattle of gears, the little box rocked and scraped the walls, and Giulia struggled to keep still.
For the love of God don’t let me fall, she thought. God and Saint Senobina, let me come out of this alive. She had a sudden image of the rope snapping, of the box meant for a few dishes plunging into the depths of the tower. She could imagine the terror, the sensation of the world dropping away. Stop it, she told herself. Why the hell did I think this was a good idea?
The sound of her breath echoed off the walls as if she shared the box with an animal. She wanted something to hold, all of a sudden: a holy sign to clutch in her fist, prayer beads to wrap around her hand, something more than her crossbow.
The clockwork rattled, and the dumb-waiter rose another twelve inches.
A sliver of light appeared above her. That’s it, she thought, the way out.
She pulled back the bow-string and loaded a bolt.
***
“So you can imagine the sort of coinage that I’m talking about,” Azul concluded. He was sitting again: he felt comfortable and confident. “As to when supplies would be exhausted, I would say that it would take an extremely long time: years, if not decades. Which means, of course, a very considerable sum available both to the cause we serve, and to ourselves.” He had been staring into the middle distance, rapt. Now he lowered his eyes and focussed on the hand that had gone up in front of him. “Yes? Is there a problem?”
“Your man said there was trouble downstairs,” the fat man said. “He said that there’d been fighting.”
Azul waved an irritated hand. “Don’t worry about it, Fontaine. Some fool tried to cause trouble in the men’s dining hall. There was a scuffle, a momentary lapse in discipline. That’s all.”
“A guard?”
“No. Some idiot from outside. A drunkard.”
“From outside?” The chins swung as Fontaine drew up in his chair. “How did they get onto the island? I thought nobody knew that we were meeting here?”
“They don’t know you’re here. No-one does.” Azul clenched his fist by his side. “One of the young men overreacted, that’s all.” He smiled. “Everything is fine.” You’re quite safe, you bloated idiot.
“Well, good,” Fontaine said, and he settled back in his chair. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Now then, does anyone have any questions?”
“Yes,” a voice rasped from the other end of the table. It was Dravaignac, white-haired and lined around the mouth. He spoke with a heavy Mittlestadt accent. “This plan of yours. You believe it to be foolproof?”
“As good as any plan can ever be. If you want to call that foolproof, go ahead.”
“Do any of our enemies know about it?”
“No.”
The man glared at him, somehow unsatisfied. “You sound uncertain.”
“There was a priest associated with our group. He turned out to be morally unsuited to the work, too sentimental. I disposed of him.”
“Did he have associates? People allied to him?”
“None.”
Dravaignac scowled. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. He acted independently. I’m sure we all remember men who lacked the guts to follow their orders through, and we all knew how to deal with them.”
“I hope so,” the old man said. His voice was not used to being corrected. “Exposure of this plan would cost us way too much.”
“No-one will ever know, as I have explained,” Azul said patiently. “This is a private venture, using trusted people. You can rely on me to—”
“I hope so, Azul. I, for one, am disinclined to trust you to keep our enemies away from our business, when you can barely keep drunks out of your own dining room.”
You stupid old prick, Azul thought. He said, “As I said, it is completely safe.”
Praxis leaned over and whispered something in Dravaignac’s ear. He swallowed and seemed to shrink in his chair. He looked at the tabletop.
Torvald raised a hand. “I’d like to know more about how the money is split,” he said. “We fund this expedition, hire more men and ships, and the gold comes back here.”
Azul nodded.
“You take the majority of the money,” Torvald continued, “and we take ours. How is our share calculated?”
“Well, as I’ve said, our ability to bring in gold is limited only by considerations of space and weight. Provided we’ve got the ships, it can keep coming. I would divide up the proceeds in direct proportion to the amount you’re prepared to provide to fund the venture. I think that’s fair. By my reckoning, I think a ten percent investor would be looking at about twenty thousand in profit every year.”
Torvald nodded, apparently satisfied. “What does your cut go towards? Does any of it go towards our cause?”
Azul said, “Yes, half goes to me, and half to the cause. I’d expect the same from everyone. I’m afraid I can’t give you precise details, but a percentage is used to pay our associates in the Fiorenti Bank. Some of it will be used to help our brothers who have fallen on hard times. The majority will go towards projects of a more discreet nature. I can’t go into details on those, at least not until you’ve joined the consortium.”
“Wait a minute,” someone said. “I want to know—”
“Dravaignac’s right,” another voice put in. “This is risky, Azul. What if your men in the New World can’t deliver? What if someone else turns on us?”
“We can’t take risks like that,” Dravaignac barked. “Not now.”
Azul looked down the table, aware of their eyes on him. “Gentlemen,” he said, his voice soft and reasonable, “I have told you already. There is no risk of our men either running out of gold or of the savages preventing them from taking it. There is also no risk of our business being discovered. I have taken care of that.”
“How?” Dravaignac demanded.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Why not? This is dangerous,” Dravaignac said, before Azul had the chance to respond. “I will not be involved in a situation where we risk being exposed. I want proof that this is absolutely safe before I agree.”
“Of course it’s safe!” Azul tried not to shout. It was not easy.
“I don’t want any part in this,” Dravaignac said again. He pushed his seat back and folded his arms. He sat there sullenly, shaking his head as if ruing the foolishness of the young. “I’m sorry, but there it is.”
Azul thought, I will have you killed. It might put a bit of backbone in the rest of them.
There was a moment’s quiet. Men looked at each other across the table. Eyes met. A sort of agreement seemed to be formed among them.
Good, they’ve seen sense.
Torvald pushed back his chair until the headrest touched the green glass wall. “I’m out. I’ll wait in the corridor if you’d prefer.”
“What? What’re you doing?” Azul demanded.
“I’m sorry,” Torvald replied. “Before I agree to join you, I need to know more about this scheme of yours, and I need to have promises that it won’t backfire on us. You seem to be unwilling to give them. Right now, it’s too risky – and I don’t just mean in terms of money. If this goes wrong, they’ll find us.”
All they needed was that little prod. Suddenly it seemed that all the guests were muttering, shaking their heads like a bunch of worried cows, filling the air with the sound of chair-legs scraping on the wooden floor. “Just not viable,” someone grumbled. “Far too uncertain,” another said.
Azul met Brother Praxis’ eyes, and the little man shook his head helplessly. Azul waited for the noise to stop. He listened to his gue
sts fretting and whining, their petulant voices filling the room like billowing smoke. He closed his eyes: it gave him only a moment’s pause from the idiocy before their stupid protests pushed their way back into his mind. They had started to argue amongst themselves now, calling out across the table. He could not rid himself of them, could not make them go away, could not make these fools shut up—
“Silence!” he cried. He was on his feet, towering over them. “How dare you? You will all be silent, right now!”
They looked at him as if he was deranged. He stared back, and the words kept coming.
“You’re useless! All of you – useless! Do you think we conquered Alexendom by being afraid that things weren’t safe?
“Yes, I have enemies! So what? The weak always hate the strong. I remember that. I crush my enemies instead of hiding from them. I’ve been working to make us powerful again, not sitting round dreaming of the past! I—” —he jabbed himself in the chest— “I want to see our cause where it belongs. I am a loyal soldier, not some— some weakling, whoring and idling my life away! I give you this opportunity, and all you want to do is cut and run. You deserve nothing. You sicken me!”
He stopped, panting. They stared at him, but their expressions didn’t matter. They meant nothing to him now. He had seen something much more important behind them all.
There were lights in the window behind the dining table. A cluster of lights was sliding across the water towards the island. A ship, he realised. A large one.
There were not meant to be any boats coming to the island tonight. Something was wrong.
“Wait here,” he said, and he strode out of the room.
***
Half a mile from the shore, Edwin stood at the railings, feeling the vessel slipping through the water far faster than it had any right to do. To either side the storm was rising: Portharion sat at the stern, redirecting the wind into their sails. Even Elayne could not control the weather like this.
Edwin flexed the fingers of his right hand and prayed that his damaged arm wouldn’t hurt too much. It was bandaged and in a sling, his cloak slung over his shoulder to shield it from the rain. He’d taken potions that had left his arm and shoulder numb. He wore his sword, ready to draw. He hoped the medicine wouldn’t slow him down in a fight.
