by Hilari Bell
The resignation in his voice was quite convincing—if Weasel hadn’t been a consummate liar himself, he might have been convinced.
The prince was convinced; he made a small, choked sound of protest. He wanted what he thought was justice to be carried out. Fortunately, the Prince wasn’t in charge. A man who would bargain with justice was what Weasel needed.
Pettibone’s gaze turned to him. “I didn’t know you were reading your father’s papers, Highness.”
The prince shrugged uneasily. “Why should you? It was just … something to fill the time.”
“Yes, but I know you have some difficulty with reading,” said Pettibone. “So it seems an odd choice.”
Prince Edoran had trouble reading? Weasel stared in astonishment, and color rose in Edoran’s pale cheeks. Then his mouth tightened, and he went back to cleaning the shield.
The arrival of the guard captain broke the increasingly uncomfortable silence.
“Here he is, Regent Pettibone.”
Three palace guards ushered Justice Holis into the room.
He was thin, too thin, and dirty hair straggled to his shoulders. But his ironic expression was unchanged … until he saw Weasel standing beside the prince.
“Ah. I wondered to whom I owed this … unexpected invitation.” His face was still controlled, but warmth blossomed in his eyes, and Weasel felt his own eyes fill with tears. He started to run forward, but the regent’s cane swung out and stopped him.
“Where did you find the shield, young man? Now.”
Weasel looked at Justice Holis. The game was still on; the danger all too real.
“It was in a hidden passage, beneath the old wing of the palace. That’s how we … I escaped. When I first found it, I didn’t realize—”
“A hidden … There’s a way into the palace that we don’t know about?” the guard captain exclaimed.
“That’s how I got in without being stopped,” Weasel confirmed.
“Of all the … Excuse me, sir, but this is most disturbing. I need to secure that passage immediately!”
“So you do,” said Pettibone. “And you should take a squadron of guards with you. While you attend to the breach in your security, they can look for the sword.”
“I’ll have to show you where it is,” said Weasel. “The entrance… it’s tricky to find. But he’d better be here when I get back.” He jerked his head to indicate the justice, but his eyes were fixed on the prince.
“He will be,” Pettibone promised.
The prince’s nod was almost imperceptible.
“And captain?” Pettibone added.
“Yes, sir?”
“You might remind your men that, although the reward for the shield has been claimed, the reward for the sword remains available.”
The captain’s face brightened. “Yes, sir!”
How big was this reward, anyway? And how many men in a squadron? The Falcon said she needed to take at least two hundred by surprise.
Weasel cast a last look at Justice Holis before following the guard captain out of the room. The justice’s ironic expression had given way to a bright curiosity that was even more achingly familiar.
“Am I to take it that this is the shield?” the justice asked. “The real one? How do you—” The closing door cut off the rest of the sentence.
“Come with me,” the captain said curtly.
Weasel did. “How many men are there in a squadron, anyway?”
Weasel stood outside a door in the palace guard’s barracks while the captain briefed his chosen squadron—all twenty of them.
That news had shocked Weasel so profoundly that he hadn’t noticed they were moving even farther away from the old wing till they’d almost reached the barracks. Twenty.
The Falcon had said they needed to trap a hundred in the passage and take out another hundred for their uniforms, to have any chance against the remaining guards.
Twenty men. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t sacrifice her followers for nothing. She’d take out the captain’s squadron and go back down the tunnel, and when Weasel didn’t return with the sword …
Maybe he could find an old sword somewhere, something that would pass…. But Prince Edoran knew how to identify the real sword, and Weasel and Arisa had already searched the storerooms for weapons and found nothing.
Weasel leaned against the door, his eyes closing in despair. He could hear the guardsmen’s voices on the other side of the door—it had taken some time for the captain to gather the men he favored for this “important duty.” Now they were dividing the task, and the reward, among them—with the biggest cut for the captain, no doubt. He might be loyal to Pettibone, but he’d seized this opportunity….
The image of the fish flashed through Weasel’s mind. For a moment he’d have sworn that the single eye winked at him. Opportunity. Was there some way he could use this catastrophe? Turn it to his purpose?
Not if he stood by the door like an obedient loon and waited. The Falcon had hoped to keep the night shift out of it, but Weasel was here, now, and so were they. It hardly seemed fair for just twenty men to split that reward, did it?
The door to the first of the big rooms, where ten men slept together, wasn’t locked. Weasel looked at the snoring, blanket-covered lumps, walked over to the nearest, and shook his shoulder.
“Hey. Wake up. Those soft, withless slugs on the day shift are about to get rich.”
By the time the captain emerged with his chosen twenty, the corridor was full of men, still pulling on their boots and buttoning waistcoats. Most of the night shift was present, and more were appearing every second.
The captain in charge of the night shift stalked up to him.
“My men and I are volunteering to assist you in dealing with the dangerous breach that has just been discovered in palace security,” he announced. “And to assist in any other task you may need help with.”
The watch captain glared at Weasel, who shrugged. “I don’t want to wait a day and a half while you take twenty men on a search that needs hundreds.”
“Given the urgent nature of the security breach,” the night captain added, “I believe that taking only a single squadron shows a lack of judgment so severe it might call your promotion into question … if it came to the colonel’s attention.”
The watch captain transferred his glare from Weasel to his fellow officer. “My intention was to investigate the intruder’s claim before … overreacting,” he said stiffly. “If this boy is lying, it would be foolish to rouse over a hundred men from their beds.”
“Well, we’re up now,” said the night captain, with an edged smile. “Please, allow us to assist you.”
The captain of the day watch looked over the corridor, which now teemed with soldiers—most of whom were babbling about getting rich. You couldn’t have stopped them with a cannon. Weasel fought down a grin.
The captain sighed. “Very well. Hogan, Marks, Lydell, bring the boy with you. And keep an eye on him. He’s sneaky.”
A hundred men marching through the palace corridors attracted a lot of attention from the guards already on duty. And if some friend on the night watch didn’t answer their shouted queries, Weasel did. Most of them promptly decided that manning their post wasn’t all that urgent, not compared to such a severe threat as a secret passage. It was their duty to help secure it, and search the place. Thoroughly. Who knew what might be lurking there?
By the time they reached the old wing, and Weasel was called to the front of the column to guide them, the passage had acquired a room full of gold and jewels to go with the sword. More than two hundred men flowed behind him, as he drew them through the tangled hallways.
Leading them down the corridor toward the storeroom, Weasel felt sweat popping out all over his body. He didn’t hear a sound from the closed doors that lined the passage, but he knew the Falcon’s men were there.
The door to the first storeroom had been relatched, with a piece of wood that looked suspiciously new to Weas
el’s eyes. Certainly newer than the one they’d broken.
His mouth was dry. This was the tricky part. If they dragged him in with them … The Falcon might try to trade Weasel for one of the guardsmen, or she might not. Justice Holis was a stranger to her.
“This is where I found the shield,” Weasel lied loudly. He swung the door wide, revealing a vista of dusty boxes, chests, and furniture. It was a fair approximation of a treasure room, at that.
The two officers were the first ones through, and their men streamed after them. They paid no attention to Weasel, who stood aside, politely holding the door. He knew he wouldn’t have much time before the officers realized that this was only a storeroom, with another beyond it, and came back for their guide. But it didn’t take much time for a hundred eager men to rush through an open door. Over half the troops that Weasel had lured into the trap were in the storeroom when the whistle sounded.
Doors flew open all along the corridor, and the Falcon’s men burst out.
One of them grabbed the man in front of Weasel and threw him into the wall, then slammed his head against the stones. Another man pulled the door from Weasel’s hands and banged it closed, dropping the latch. “Quick,” he cried. “The bracing!”
The guardsman nearest Weasel slid limply to the floor, and he heard the Falcon shout, “No blood! No blood unless you can’t avoid it. I want those uniforms clean!”
Weasel looked at the man sprawled at his feet. He wasn’t bleeding. He didn’t seem to be breathing. She’d said “no blood,” not “no deaths.”
Looking up, he saw men on the floor all down the corridor. Most of the Falcon’s men held makeshift cudgels. Some of the fallen men were moaning, but many lay still. Even if they were alive now, Weasel knew that concussion could kill as easily as a sword—more easily. It just took the victim longer to die.
Some of the Falcon’s men had kept their pistols and blades, now held against the heads and throats of the guardsmen still standing. Looking at their faces, Weasel suddenly understood the difference between the Falcon’s method of tax collection and Pettibone’s. People might not want to pay their taxes, but they did so grumbling, not in terror for their lives. And if they chose not to pay, they had time to think it over and change their minds—without dying for it.
The Falcon’s men weren’t decent country folk, like those who’d refused service to the guardsmen who held Arisa—they were road bandits. They were the kind of men who drank in the Empty Net.
It’s all about people, Justice Holis’ voice whispered in Weasel’s memory. He shivered.
He couldn’t trust them. He couldn’t trust the Falcon, either.
“That was beautiful!” Arisa’s face was alive with excitement. “I just finished the count—we’ve got almost a hundred uniforms! We’re bound to find someone they’ll fit. And there are more than a hundred guardsmen trapped in the storerooms. You did great!”
Some of the Falcon’s men had stripped a door from its hinges. Now they laid it flat against the door to the storeroom—on which the soldiers inside were already pounding. They braced the door with four stout timbers, cut to fall against it at just the right angle. No battering ram would take that barrier down. Those men were trapped until the Falcon, or the army, released them.
The remaining guardsmen were pushed, or carried, into the smaller rooms off the corridor and locked in. Some of them had stirred as their uniforms were stripped off, but some of them hadn’t. Some of them were going to die, and he had brought them here. He had set this in motion.
“If you tell me this is for the rebellion, I shall vomit,” said Weasel, between clenched teeth.
“But it is.” Arisa sounded startled. “Was … Has something happened to Justice Holis?”
“No.” Weasel took a steadying breath. “Justice Holis is fine, though we still have to get him out of Pettibone’s hands.”
He could no longer tell Father Adan that he’d never killed anyone, but all things had a price. It just didn’t seem fair that the guardsmen should pay so high for his master’s life.
“It’s Pettibone’s fault,” said Arisa softly. “Not yours. He’s city-bred, and cares nothing for anyone else. He started this war, and soldiers die in war. These men chose to work for him, knowing what he is. Do you know why my mother’s doing this? Whose portrait is in that locket she’s wearing, right now, under her shirt? My father was a naval officer. That’s why she’s got … ah …”
“Are you going to lie to me again?” Weasel demanded. “Don’t bother. I don’t care—”
Arisa’s chin rose proudly. “I was going to say, that’s why my mother has the support of the navy. My father was killed in Pettibone’s purge. He wasn’t even part of that first conspiracy, my mother says. But his captain was, so he was hanged. Just because Pettibone wanted to make sure he got them all. She saw him hang. Pettibone started it.”
Weasel shook his head in confusion. Was she right? Wrong? Something in between? Justice Holis might know.
But if the Falcon had the navy backing her, the odds of her rebellion succeeding were considerably better than he’d thought. He had to tell Justice Holis about this. He had to make sure Justice Holis survived—everything else would wait.
“I need a sword, an old sword. Something I can claim is the sword for long enough to get near Pettibone. Or he’ll take Justice Holis hostage.”
And if that happened, he didn’t trust the Falcon not to shoot.
They took an old, slightly rusty sword from the hands of a suit of armor soon after they reentered the occupied part of the palace. It was much cleaner than the shield, but it might get Weasel close to Pettibone for the moment he needed to take the man off guard.
Two fights broke out, when palace guards who hadn’t joined the excursion to the old wing realized that the men clad in their uniforms were strangers. The Falcon simply waved off enough men to subdue them and followed Weasel, who never even paused at the sound of clashing swords. He had to get to the justice before Pettibone realized the palace had been invaded.
He broke into a run as he neared the dining room, and the Falcon and her men jogged after him. Her hard grip closed on his shoulder when he reached the door.
“Calm down,” she murmured. “No reason to run. Not if the sword’s real.”
She was right—they needed to keep Pettibone from suspecting anything, so she could bring more men into the room. Weasel took a deep breath. He should probably have smoothed his hair and tidied his clothes, but his hands were clenched around the hilt of the sword.
The Falcon knocked softly, opened the door, and stood back for Weasel to enter.
“… have it read in every village, every hamlet, even if it’s only two cottages and a duck,” Pettibone was saying.
Justice Holis stood near the regent, too near, but he wasn’t bound. And the guardsmen were standing back, careful not to intrude on the regent’s business. The two footmen and the master of household were gone, but three more guards had replaced them.
Master Darian, the clerk who’d overseen Justice Holis’ arrest, stood beside his master taking notes. Too many men. Too many men who were loyal to the regent, and Justice Holis was too near him. At least the prince was seated at the far end of the table—hopefully far enough to keep him out of everyone’s way.
“What is it?” Pettibone demanded—then his gaze fell on the sword. “You found it so soon?”
“We found a sword,” said Weasel. “We don’t know if it’s the sword or not.” He walked toward the regent, the blade held flat on his palms, his awareness fixed on the men filing quietly into the room behind the Falcon. They didn’t dare come in too quickly.
Please, don’t let the man wonder why Weasel carried the sword instead of a guardsman. Why it shone silver in the lamplight, when the shield, still in Edoran’s hands, was black with grime.
Pettibone’s gaze was locked on the sword. “Bring it here!”
Weasel came forward and laid the sword on the regent’s lap, old, heavy … and s
o clearly not a match to the shield that even Weasel could see it.
He wasn’t surprised when the regent’s gaze, suddenly suspicious, flicked up and around the room. His eyes stopped on the Falcon’s face and widened in astonishment.
She smiled. “Hello, Horace. It’s been a long—”
The regent cried a warning and surged to his feet, reaching for Justice Holis with one hand while the other twisted the top of his cane. The Falcon’s troops were already in motion, and Pettibone’s guards as well, but Weasel knew that none of them could reach Justice Holis or the regent in time.
He hurtled all the weight of his body into the regent’s stomach, knocking him to the floor, the great sword entangling both their legs. As Weasel had already ascertained, it wasn’t very sharp.
Beneath the slithering silks, the regent had a wiry strength, and he twisted in Weasel’s grasp like a ferret. Weasel clambered up his body, swept back a fist to punch … and froze as the point of a dagger pricked beneath his jaw.
His gaze rolled down to the regent’s neat, beringed hand. He could see enough of the blade’s grip to identify it as the top of the cane the man was always playing with.
Then Pettibone rolled to his feet, pulling Weasel against him as a living shield. The pressure of the blade at his throat never wavered.
Justice Holis was unharmed, though he was shaking his hand as if it hurt. Master Darian sat against the wall, clutching his nose. Blood leaked through his fingers. Had the justice punched him? Weasel hadn’t thought the elderly scholar knew how!
But Justice Holis’ freedom was the only good news; the Falcon had taken a hostage too. Prince Edoran stood in the iron circle of her arm, but instead of a knife, she pressed a pistol against his head. The shield lay on the floor near the end of the table, where the prince had dropped it.
Even as Weasel looked, the last of Pettibone’s guardsmen sank to the floor, but the battle wasn’t over. Sounds reminiscent of a full-scale war came from the corridor outside.
The Falcon frowned and jerked her head toward the door. Her men hurried out to join the fray, dragging the unconscious guardsmen with them.
