A fire and no alarm raised? How could that be in a residence this size? We have to get out of here before we're all smothered in our sleep!
Kheda took as deep a breath as he could without coughing again and opened the door a crack to slip into the corridor. He walked slowly towards Janne's room, one hand tracing the cool marble wall, the nagging impulse to cough almost choking him, eyes stinging as the smoke swirled around him like tangible malice. He found the door to Janne's apartment ajar.
When did Birut last go to sleep without securing his mistress's safety?
Kheda opened his mouth to call for the slave but the acrid smoke tore into his throat again and he coughed convulsively, chest heaving. No one inside so much as stirred, not the musicians, the maidservants nor the porters. This room was darker than his own; someone had let down the awnings outside and tied them tight across the shutters to block out both light and air. Kheda stumbled across sleeping bodies heedless on feather-filled pallets as he struggled to find the door to Janne's sleeping chamber in the cloying darkness. Flinging it open, he fumbled his way to the bed, barking his shins painfully on some dress chest. Thrown off balance, his next step found Birut, asleep on his pallet at the foot of the bed.
'Wake up!' Kheda seized the man's naked shoulder, shaking him roughly.
The man rolled unresisting beneath the assault with a faintly resentful murmur. Kheda dropped to his knees, bending close to feel Birut's laboured breath slow against his cheek. Moving with new urgency, Kheda reached for Janne, finding her curled up beside Itrac in the wide bed, both women lost in sleep too deep to be natural.
'Janne, dear heart.' Feeling for the beat of her blood, Kheda found it suspiciously sluggish. He stroked the hair from her forehead before slapping her cheek, lightly at first then with more force. 'Janne! You have to wake up!' Dread as well as the heat of the night sent cold sweat trickling down Kheda's spine.
So how do I wake everyone before this smoke stifles them in their sleep? Well, let's see if we can't get rid of some of this smoke first. In fact, let's see what's going on, rather than flailing around in the dark.
Dropping to one knee, he found Birut's tunic and rummaged in the slave's pockets for a spark maker. Finding an oil lamp on the table beside Janne, he lit it with careful hands. The women and the slave slept on, undisturbed by the light. Kheda was not sanguine, seeing thick coils of smoke drifting through the shadows of the room. Taking the lamp out into the corridor he saw the double doors dividing these apartments off from stairs at either end of the corridor were closed. Dark smoke was sliding through the cracks around the set to the north. Kheda hurried to the southern doors and shoved them hard. They wouldn't shift. He set down the lamp and put his shoulder to them. Nothing gave. They were locked.
'Lizard eaters,' Kheda muttered furiously before picking up the lamp again and cautiously approaching the doors at the other end of the corridor. He didn't have to touch the polished wood to feel the heat coming off them. He could hear the hungry crackle of fire digging into the wood on the other side, getting a firm grip. That same strange taint he'd tasted on waking caught at the back of his throat.
These corridors are lined with marble, floor to ceiling. What is any fire going to burn, to get from room to room, from door to door? This fire's been set deliberately and as soon as those doors burn through, we'll be blinded by smoke and burnt like Olkai in the flames.
Something's riding on this smoke, an intoxicant of some kind. We always suspected Ulla Safar knows his poisons, even if he pays scant attention to curative lore. Is this his final touch on some murderous plot, a smoke to send us into a stupor we'll never wake from? Was there something in the food at the banquet as well? Something to keep the Ritsem and Redigal contingents sleeping through any uproar while we of Daish get a second dose in the smoke, just to be sure we sleep while the fire does its work?
Though fires are always a peril at this season, with everything so dry and everyone on edge and distracted because of the heat. You'll be so distraught, won't you, Safar, that such a thing should happen in your very residence. You may even be burning a few of your own slaves, to quell Ritsem Caid's suspicions. Well, forgive me, Safar, if I make sure all your efforts are wasted.
Kheda left the doors well alone and returned to Janne. He caught up a water flagon from the washstand, kicking Birut and Itrac's new slave Jevin mercilessly, both men still sound asleep by the bed. Exasperation rising to rival his anxiety, Kheda dashed the water he'd so painstakingly boiled earlier all over Janne and Itrac. Banging the metal vessel on the marble wall, he raised a deafening clangour.
'What—' Birut looked up in blurred confusion.
'There's a fire!' yelled Kheda.
Fierce, instinctive loyalty drove Birut to his knees. He grabbed at the carved foot of the wide bed. 'What?'
'Fire!' Kheda was shaking Janne with ungentle hands. 'Get everyone moving!'
Janne stirred but only to push Kheda away with a murmured apology. Biting down on another cough, he rolled her over to administer a stinging smack to her silken buttock. The unexpected shock finally penetrated Janne's stupor. She reared up, one arm flailing to fend off her attacker.
Kheda grabbed her hand and held it painfully tight. 'Janne, wake up. There's a fire.'
'What?' Janne looked at him, uncomprehending.
Birut was stumbling towards the door to the audience room. 'Everyone's asleep.' He looked foggily surprised as a coughing fit seized him.
'We have to get out of here.' Kheda reached across Janne to drag Itrac over and slap her rump as well. 'Birut, we have to get out into the garden.'
'Itrac!' Janne seized the girl and began shaking her. When he was satisfied both slaves and women were sufficiently awake to realise their predicament, Kheda hurried back into the audience room, banging on walls and tables with the dented brass ewer as he went. At his shouts and kicks, servants and musicians began to stir, looking grog-gily to Kheda for instruction.
'The fire's that way' Kheda pointed and everyone heard the menacing susurration of the growing blaze. 'The other doors are blocked. We have to get out into the garden.'
Partly stupefied or not, those closest to the outer doors immediately began pushing, heedless of the sharp carvings digging into their hands and shoulders.
'It won't open!' Kheda heard panic in the flute player's words. 'It's jammed on the other side.'
'Someone get out through the windows.' Kheda looked up at the dark shutters too high for a solitary man or woman to reach.
'Where are the poles for the shutters?' wondered one bemused maid.
'Someone help me get up there.' Jevin, Itrac's new slave, appeared, a scrap of torn silk masking his face.
'Here, on my back.' One of the supposed porters turned to face the wall, arms outstretched, legs bent to brace himself. Jevin clambered up on to his shoulders, flattening himself against the smooth marble as he reached up with one desperate hand. He just managed to catch hold of the lower sill, swinging his other hand up to heave the shutter.
'Up you go, lad.' Another of the porters was ready. He seized Jevin's foot, propelling him upwards.
The slave hauled himself up, teetering on his stomach before he managed to swing a foot round to pull himself astride the opening. 'What do I do now?'
Kheda took a pace forward. 'Open the garden door!'
Jevin swung himself over the sill, lowering to the full extent of his arms for the drop to the garden. As he disappeared, Birut emerged from the sleeping chamber supporting Janne and Itrac on each arm.
'Forget everything but the jewels,' Janne snapped, her brow creased in a scowl of pain. 'You, and you, fetch your lord's personal coffers and his physic chest.' She stabbed a finger at two whimpering maidservants. At the sound of her voice, other girls began frantically cramming silken draperies into chests.
Banging came from the other side of the door. Jevin was shouting, and at some command from the unseen slave, all four porters shoved on the door. With a vicious splintering, the doors
yielded.
'Wedged, my lord.' Jevin held up a split and dented block of wood.
Night air flowed in, almost cool after the fug in the apartment. Everyone in the room stopped still for a moment, in the relief of a clean breath and of seeing their way out. That solace was short-lived. The crackle of the fire beyond the doors in the corridor audibly quickened, deepening to a hungry snarl. With the door to the garden open, the room and the corridor drew air through the fire like a chimney.
'I'll fetch Telouet,' Kheda shouted to Birut. 'Get everyone outside.'
Birut didn't need telling twice and half carried Itrac and Janne to the door, the women and musicians pressing behind them, Jevin and the porters dragging those worst affected by the smoke.
Kheda grabbed the lamp, unable to stop himself coughing as he went out into the corridor. Smoke swirled thicker than ever in the darkness, motes dancing in the halo of light. In his own sleeping chamber, Kheda hurried to lift Telouet from the bed, slinging one of the slave's brawny arms over his shoulder and seizing him around the chest.
'Come on, it seems we must decline Ulla Safar's hospitality.' Telouet was still too deeply asleep to be more than a dead weight in Kheda's arms. Catching up his lamp and dragging the slave out into the corridor, Kheda saw flames. The far doors had yielded to the fire and were now burning fiercely.
As that realisation struck Kheda, so did a solid blow. If Telouet's arm hadn't broken the force of it, Kheda would have been knocked senseless. As it was, he staggered forward, letting Telouet fall heavily. He whirled round, trying to dodge any second blow and to see who could be attacking him.
A burly figure masked against the thickening smoke loomed out of the darkness. He swung a studded club in a two-handed grip, aiming for Kheda's knees. The warlord sprang aside, his agility surprising the would-be assassin. Realising his victim was neither stunned nor doped for an easy kill, the man's next blow connected with Kheda's thigh, knocking him sideways. He fell to his knees. The assassin raised his club to smash the side of Kheda's head. The warlord threw the lamp full in the man's chest, glass shattering and burning oil splashing him. The man reared backwards then froze, mouth open on a cry of angry pain, before collapsing forwards.
The fawning zamorin servant pulled a broad-bladed dagger out of the assassin's throat and held out a hand to help Kheda to his feet.
'If he'd had a sword, he'd have had me,' Kheda gasped, shaken.
The zamorin shook his head as he replaced the dagger in the would-be killer's own sheath. 'Too hard to explain how you came by stab wounds, when your body's found beneath some beam or fallen door jamb.'
Between them, the two men got Telouet up from the floor. Kheda reached out to grasp the lackey's shoulder. 'Thank you.'
The lackey nodded to Janne's room and the garden beyond. 'Raise as much noise as you can. He can't pretend ignorance if you rouse the whole fortress.'
Kheda halted. 'You won't be suspected, will you?'
'No.' He stopped by the doors, now unlocked. 'This was my task, opening these, so we could all lament how you failed to find such an easy way out, disoriented in the smoke. I'll just say I found him dead.'
Resting Telouet's weight against the wall, Kheda smiled. 'I was always proud to call you my brother, you know that.'
'And I you.' Kheda heard rather than saw the zamorin's grin before the man fled on noiseless feet.
As he hauled Telouet bodily into Janne's apartments, two of the so-called porters rushed to Kheda's aid. 'My lord!'
'Are you hurt?' asked one, alarmed at the blood on Kheda's bare chest and shoulder.
'What?' Kheda looked and realised it was the assassin's blood. 'No, I'm fine.' Though as he spoke, he realised Telouet's arm was deeply scored where the assassin's club had struck him.
They fled for the garden together. The first breath of cool night air made Kheda's head throb unbearably. A shudder ran though him and he coughed convulsively. When he finally managed to stop, his head was swimming as if he'd been guzzling some distilled barbarian liquor.
'What do we do now?' Janne clutched at his arm, her legs bare beneath a tunic not her own, hair half pulled from its night plait, naked face showing every year of her age. Beyond her, Itrac sat huddled on a chest, face hidden in her hands, shoulders heaving. Jevin knelt before her, his gestures eloquent of uncertain attempts at reassurance.
'Raise an alarm,' rasped Kheda. He looked up with abrupt fury at the blind shutters of the inner citadel's higher levels. 'Find something to throw at those. Shout as loud as you can.'
The maidservants needed little encouragement to lift their voices in frantic cries for assistance. After a moment's thought, one of the porters gleefully shoved a substantial glazed urn from its plinth, the others catching up the bigger shards of rim and base to hurl at the upper windows. Lights soon began showing up above, to Kheda's grim satisfaction.
Let Ulla Safar's people try to ignore this commotion.
He took a careful breath of clean air so he could speak without coughing. 'Listen to me, everyone. We're going back to the galley. If Ulla Safar's servants can't show a modicum of care with night-time candles, we will be safer there.'
'We certainly can't use these rooms until they're restored to some order.' Janne rallied her wits. 'If we return to the Rainbow Moth, we won't discommode Mirrel Ulla by requiring alternative accommodations.'
Shouts were coming from inside the fortress now, genuine consternation beyond the smoke-filled rooms that the Daish contingent had fled. Some of the instructions were clearly audible, calling for buckets of earth and palm flails to beat down the flames. Musicians, maidservants and porters alike looked at their master and mistress, alert for unspoken instructions as to the attitude they should adopt.
'Let's get to our ship as soon as possible. Itrac is plainly most distressed. This unfortunate accident has doubtless redoubled her memories of those fires that have ravaged the Chazen domain.' Kheda caught Janne's eye and she nodded her understanding.
Let Mirrel open up the most lavish suites this fortress has to offer. Once we're back aboard, Janne won't shift from polite refusal to subject Itrac to any more upheaval. So that'll be them safe at least.
Kheda sat on a convenient bench of pierced wood. 'Birut, did you get Telouet's swords?'
'Of course, my lord.' Birut came over. 'And my own.'
Kheda realised with weary amusement that was the only reason the slave had bothered with a breechclout, to give himself something to thrust his scabbarded swords through in lieu of his proper belt.
'Bring them to me.' Kheda took the weapons and weighed them in his hands before handing one to the porter who'd been watching anxiously over Telouet. He jerked his head towards the other burly men. 'Birut, give one of them your second sword and get Jevin's off him. Draw lots for whoever has to end up with a stick.'
As the man departed, Kheda knelt to look at Telouet's new injuries. Lifting the slave's bloodied forearm, he carefully tested the bone and cursed under his breath as he felt the distinctive grate of a break. Worse, a foetid smell wrinkled his nostrils. Their murderous attacker had smeared excrement on the studs of his club.
'Janne!' Kheda looked over to see her making a sharp-eyed inventory of everything the maids had managed to salvage, despite their orders to leave with nothing but the essentials. 'Do you have my physic chest? You, Jevin, get me some bits of wood.'
One of the girls brought it clutched in white-knuckled hands. Kheda rummaged inside for the salve to curb the foulness that could leave Telouet's arm festering. Smearing pungent yellow on a length of cotton, he bound it tightly over the deep scores before carefully splinting the broken bone. New purpose burned through Kheda's weariness, even mitigating his headache a little.
My most faithful slave isn't going to lose a limb to Ulla filth, not if I can help it.
'My lord, are we waiting to send word to the ship by one of Ulla Safar's servants?' The porter was back, Jevin's second sword held purposefully in one meaty fist. One of his companions stood
at his shoulder, holding Birut's other blade. Both looked incongruously happy to have weapons in their hands. 'Or shall we take a message to the landing stage, make sure they summon the galley at once?'
'It's Gal, isn't it? And Durai?' Both were faces from the rearmost ranks of the Daish swordsmen and Kheda had barely looked at either of them on this trip, not wishing to draw any attention to them.
'Dyal, my lord,' said the second.
Kheda looked around the garden. There were windows to rooms on three sides but all those corridors would lead back towards the fire, which was still blazing unrestrained. There would no getting back inside the fortress until that was under control. He turned to look at the tall wall behind them that reached up to a parapet with low towers watchful on either side, though, curiously, no sentry had appeared to see what all the commotion was about.
'I don't feel inclined to wait for Ulla Safar's minions to sort out their mess before coming to our assistance. We'll get up to the walkway.' He pointed. 'Then we can follow the rampart round to the other side of the fortress and signal the Rainbow Moth ourselves.'
I should have suspected a scorpion under the bed, shouldn't I, when Ulla Safar put us so far away, quite out of sight of our galley. How could I have missed some hint of this in all the auguries I took before we sailed?
As Kheda thought this, a streak of light high above caught his eye. A shooting star or firedrake seared its brief path across the night sky. He stared, open-mouthed.
That's out of season, or at least early, with the rains not yet come.
'What have we got for a rope?' Dyal was already catching up lengths of discarded cloth trailing from the I garden's battered perfume trees.
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