The Warrior's Bond

by Juliet McKenna

Temar shook his head. “It is another’s secret. I swore I would not tell.”

  I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Trying to get Temar to break his word belittled us both. “Did you tell Esquire Camarl about this? Is there any way we can send word to warn Demoiselle Avila?”

  “We can let her know to be on her guard as soon as she returns.” Temar looked through the postern at the long shadows and the splendid sunset beyond. “She cannot be much longer, she is due to dine with Den Castevin with me.”

  “I wonder if she learned anything useful from Guinalle. You can tell me when I get back.” I was ready to go, Charoleia’s letter tucked in the breast of my jerkin, my sword waiting in the gatehouse.

  “Avila can make my excuses to Den Castevin—” Temar began.

  “Messire will have my hide—”

  “Ryshad!” Stolley was beckoning by the postern, a figure beyond him indistinct against the darkening rose and gold of the sky.

  I hurried over. “Yes?”

  “Message for you.” Stolley moved aside to let the newcomer enter. It was Eadit, Charoleia’s Lescari-bred lad.

  I picked up my sword from its peg inside the watch room door. “Outside.” We stepped out through the gate to lose ourselves in the shadows under the trees. Temar came too, but short of slamming the postern in his face I couldn’t think of a way to stop him.

  “I thought I was to call on your mistress?” I queried Eadit.

  “Some news came that changed her plans.” His eyes sparkled. “I’ll take you to her.”

  “Is this something to do with the matter I raised with her this morning?” I wasn’t sure how much Charoleia was in the habit of confiding to this boy.

  He grinned. “She’s run your quarry to ground for you and she’s watching the earth as we speak.”

  “Then I most assuredly will come with you,” Temar insisted.

  “No,” I told him, exasperated.

  “I come with you or I follow you,” he told me bluntly. “Or will you tell Master Stolley to chain me alongside the thief? Nothing less will stop me!”

  “It’d serve you right if I did,” I said grimly. But then I’d have to explain to Stoll where I was going and why Temar couldn’t come too. Then I’d have Stoll rousing half the barracks to back me. He wouldn’t miss a chance to succeed where Naer had failed and redeem himself in the Sieur’s eyes.

  “We should go,” Eadit said, looking uncertainly between us.

  And bringing half a Cohort down on her wouldn’t endear me to Charoleia either, not when she’d been so insistent on the need for discretion. Stoll would certainly want to know where I’d got my information, him and Messire.

  “All right, you can come,” I told Temar. “Go and get a sword from Stolley. Look haughty enough so he won’t ask you why you want it. But you do exactly as I say, you hear? If that means hiding under a barrel until all the fighting stops, you do it, understand me?”

  “Of course.” He was as eager as a child promised an evening at the puppet shows.

  “The Sieur’ll wipe that smile off your face,” I warned him. “He’ll be furious when we own up to this.”

  “We had best make sure we have something to show for it,” Temar replied. “Success can gild the most brazen act, after all.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I muttered as I watched him go back to the gatehouse. As soon as he reappeared we followed Eadit down the road.

  He paused by the conduit house. “Got your purse, chosen man?”

  As I nodded, he flagged down a hireling gig and we all climbed in. “Where to?”

  “The shrine to Drianon down this end of the Habbitrot,” Eadit told the driver.

  “Is that not—”

  Eadit shot Temar an angry look and I silenced him with a sharp nudge. We all sat mute and expectant as the gig took us to that uncomfortable quarter between the southern docks and the lowest of the springs. A great swathe of the city is given over to making cloth hereabouts, dyeing it, printing it, cutting and sewing. Over to the east, where the land begins to rise again, pattern drawers and silk ribbon weavers live in comfort and prosperity. Down in the hollow where damp leaches up from hidden streams, women go blind knitting coarse stockings by firelight while their men search the refuse of the rich, knifing each other over bones to sell for bookbinders’ glue or rag for the paper mills. The Habbitrot is the main road cutting through the squalor and I noted the Valiant Flag as we passed. Quite some distance past, Eadit turned to our driver. “Anywhere here, thanks.”

  I paid the man off and we watched him whip his horse into a brisk trot to get them both back to safer streets unmolested.

  “Down here.” Eadit led us down a rutted lane, the summer-parched earth beaten hard underfoot, which was one blessing. Identical row houses faced each other, doors and windows cramped together beneath an unbroken roof ridge, all built many generations since by landowners eager to cram as many households as possible on to the smallest piece of land.

  The lad moved confidently, gaze flickering constantly from side to side, lingering on any shadow that might conceal an unexpected threat.

  “Parnilesse or Carluse?” I asked him suddenly. That was the most recent fighting that would have offered a lad like him the chance to serve with a mercenary corps.

  “Parnilesse, up near the Draximal border. Where my people are from.” Disillusion clouded Eadit’s eyes so I didn’t pursue the matter. As long as I was sure he knew which end of a sword has a point, I was content. He turned into an irregular yard between two terraces, the gates open and ready.

  “Good evening, Ryshad.” Charoleia was sitting in a shiny gig, an elegant bay horse idly chewing in its nosebag.

  My blood ran cold at the thought of such a beauty waiting alone out here, with a horse worth more coin than the wretches round here would handle in a lifetime. Then I remembered how Livak had admired Charoleia’s ability to take care of herself, and I’d met proven men more apt to need rescuing than my beloved. “I thought I was to call on you.”

  “I decided to save time.” She tilted her head. “There’s chatter running all along the gutters about this theft, given your Sieur’s going to stretch the man’s neck on the strength of it. The braver scum are egging each other on to try stealing a little magical power for themselves, the cowards just want to get their hands on the gold and melt everything down.”

  Temar made a retching sound beside me.

  “Fortunately, none of them know where to go sniffing for it, as yet.” Charoleia gestured casually with her whip. “I, on the other hand, do. It’s all a matter of knowing whom to ask for what.” Her voice turned serious. “When this is done, you’ll both owe me, and I don’t mean just a card to the Emperor’s dance, Ryshad.”

  “This is my responsibility.” Temar was pale beneath the lesser moon still facing down her slowly waxing sister.

  “I answer for my own debts.” I tried not to contradict him too flatly.

  “Glad to hear it,” Charoleia said dryly. “That’s the house where your man’s hiding.” She pointed some way down the narrow, foetid street.

  “How do we know he’s still in there?” I looked at the shuttered house, a candle glowing in a garret the only light. “I wonder who owns this district, come to that.”

  Temar whirled round as a door opened behind him, his sword rasping in its sheath. Charoleia’s maid Arashil pressed back against the doorpost, hands clasped to her cheeks, and I swallowed an oath.

  “Is our friend still at home?” Charoleia enquired.

  Arashil nodded rapidly.

  “Has he gone out at all today?”

  “Has anyone left carrying anything?”

  Temar’s urgent question followed hard on the heels of my own. Arashil shook her head to both, evidently a woman of few words.

  “We’d hardly have brought you here if the man had gone elsewhere.” Charoleia’s rebuke was mild but unmistakable. “A gang of luggage thieves live in the lower half of the house. They’re gone for an evening’s d
rinking, but I don’t know how long you’ll have before they come back.”

  Temar moved towards the gate but Charoleia barred his way with her whip. “Let Eadit unlock the door first.”

  The Lescari-bred lad winked at Temar before sauntering idly out of the yard, head back and whistling. As he drew level with the house we were watching, he stopped, eased his breeches and stepped into the doorway. It was a quiet night hereabouts and we all heard the trickling sound.

  I glanced at Charoleia as the noise stopped and Eadit remained in the entrance. “How good is he?”

  “Good enough.” She sounded confident. “Livak taught him.”

  I stared into the darkness. Charoleia presumably bought letters or any memoranda recovered by these thieves who cut chests and coffers from any carriage slowing long enough to be robbed. For all her beauty, Charoleia was deeply mired in this nether world of dishonesty, just as Livak had been for so long.

  “There he goes.” Temar gripped my arm. We watched Eadit walk casually down the street until he turned into an alley.

  “We cannot leave you ladies here unprotected,” Temar said with sudden concern.

  “He’ll be back soon enough. That ginnel comes around the back of here.” Charoleia pushed me. “Go on. The game’s all up if someone in there finds the door unlocked.”

  I walked confidently out of the yard, hand on my sword hilt, Temar doing the same at my shoulder. As we walked openly up to the door I mimed a pull at the bell rope. After waiting a breath, I took a step back, hand raised as if greeting someone opening the door to us.

  “What are you doing?” Temar whispered.

  “Looking as if we’ve a right to be here. Get inside.”

  The house seemed empty but had an expectant air, as if its rightful masters would be back at any moment. The door opened straight into a wide room, a simple curtain half pulled across an entrance to a filthy kitchen beyond. Pewter plates smeared with the scant remnants of a tripe and pease dinner were scattered across the greasy table, a few dry crusts of bread on the floor. The low fire was banked with small coal, ready to be stirred up to heat the battered kettle hanging above it.

  “Up there?” Temar was already moving towards the rickety stair.

  I nodded and touched my figure to my lips.

  Temar walked carefully, weight on his toes, heavy boot heels making no noise on the bare wood. I followed, keeping a watchful eye first below and then on the upper rooms as we emerged on to a narrow landing. Two doors faced each other over a stained pallet heaped with filthy blankets. The place reeked of urine, sweat and decay, laths showing through the grey and crumbling plaster.

  Temar looked a question at me. I chewed my lip, thinking. Ideally I’d want to know if anyone was in those rooms, but we might open the door on a man who’d fight or a woman who’d scream. Then our quarry in the garret would be instantly on his guard, whether or not this reeking place was in the habit of nightly fights. I took a slow breath and regretted it as the stink nearly made me cough. Shaking my head I gestured towards the sagging ceiling and drew my sword taking pains not to make a noise. Temar did the same, wielding a workaday blade not worth a hundredth of his heirloom sword.

  Something halfway between a ladder and a stair ran up to the garret, turning back on itself to an open trapdoor. Temar climbed slowly up, ducking down as he reached the turn, hiding until the very last moment possible.

  “What the—” As the man above swore in consternation, Temar sprang up the remaining stairs. I was after him, two and three steps at a time, into the garret and slamming down the door.

  Temar had the thief up against the blind chimney breast rising up from the floors below, one hand gripping the man’s throat, the other holding up his sword in silent warning.

  “The house is empty,” I said in low tones. “Start yelling and we’ll gut you.”

  Temar reinforced my threat with a tighter grip and the man raised futile hands to his purpling face. He was older than me, wild curls retreating fast from temples and crown, face thin from a hungry life.

  “Enough,” I warned Temar. We’d taken the man by surprise, but that wouldn’t last long and I didn’t want him fighting back any sooner than necessary. “Have you got him?”

  “Like the rat he is.” Temar leaned all his weight into holding the man as I searched him rapidly for weapons. Knives at his belt and boots were easy enough to find, and thinking of Livak I also found them strapped to his forearms and one hanging from a thong round his neck. I slid all of them into a brimming chamber pot in the furthest corner of the room.

  “Bring him here.” A broken-backed chair was piled high with unwashed clothes that this villain had never paid good coin for. I tossed them to the floor and Temar forced the man to sit. The shock was starting to wear off and he swung a kick at me, hands trying to break free of Temar. It was a valiant effort for a slightly built wretch, doubtless born and bred in these meagre streets. He’d probably have been scraping a living from hand to mouth until someone realised his stunted form was better suited than most for climbing in through narrow windows. That would have meant better eating, but nothing would restore his lost growth.

  I slapped the thief hard across the face to stop his nonsense and found a belt among the litter of clothes. I bent back a little finger to distract him from his struggles, and, as he winced, had his hands tied behind his back. “Temar, see if the goods are here.”

  Dismay flickered in the thiefs face as I was securing his legs to the chair but he didn’t betray any hiding place with any instinctive look, trying to spit at me instead. I slapped him for that insolence, not with all my strength but an open hand was enough to split his chapped lip. I stepped back and laid my own sword across his shoulder, smiling with all the menace I could muster.

  “Here!” Temar was on his knees, dragging a leather bag out from under a rope and plank frame supporting an infested straw mattress.

  The thief couldn’t hide his consternation. I snapped my fingers in his face. “Is that everything? Have you passed anything on?”

  “No.” The man was looking from me to Temar, eyes always returning to the bag.

  “I think all is here.” Temar sat back on his heels, unable to hide his relief and surprise. “That was easy.”

  “It had better all be there.” I pressed the flat of my blade down hard and stared unblinking at the thief. I didn’t fancy trying to track down anything already lost, not if it meant more evenings in cess pits like this, not to mention a deepening debt to Charoleia. “And now we’ve got our goods back, we want to know who put you up to this.” We could spare just a little time to see if we could kill two birds with our stone.

  The thief clamped obstinate lips tight shut. I set my sword down and drew gloves out of my pockets, putting them on with exaggerated care. “You’re going to tell me, you do realise that.” He was wearing a black velvet jerkin, the soiled pile rubbed bare across the shoulder. I ripped it down to pin his elbows to his sides. The man screwed his eyes shut, waiting, tense for the first blow. I obliged him with a smack around the ear, sending him rocking sideways. He grunted and recovered himself, opening his eyes to stare directly ahead, jaw set.

  There was defiance in this studied blankness. I looked at Temar who was holding tight to the leather bag and then to the trapdoor. That had been open. The scoundrel had only cried out when he realised Temar wasn’t whom he expected. So who was he expecting, and how soon?

  I punched him at the base of the breastbone, a practised blow that stops the breath and causes agony out of all proportion to the damage it does. We may not beat up malefactors with the relish of some less honourable cohorts, but D’Olbriot’s men are all taught how to use our fists. He gasped, tears starting from his eyes, falling on to his grey breeched knees as he hunched over. I grabbed a handful of matted hair and pulled him upright.

  He tried to spit at me again so I shook him like a terrier with a rat, slapping him fore- and backhanded. “Who put you up to this?”

  He tri
ed to twist his head out of my hand, determined defiance still nailing his mouth closed. This bastard had some hope to cling to, which meant beating the information out of him would take three times as long and we didn’t have that time to spare. Perhaps we could wait to see who was coming to take the artefacts, but only from a safe vantage point.

  I let go and patted the thief gently on the cheek, taking a pace backwards. “So you’ve more backbone than Drosel.”

  He opened scornful eyes. “You can forget that bluff, bought man. Drosel wouldn’t talk, and anyway, he doesn’t even know this place.”

  “He said enough,” I shrugged. “How do you think we found you? Still, my congratulations; you’re holding up well for a man hip deep in horseshit.”

  “Save it for someone who cares, bought man,” he sneered. “Turning friendly won’t help you.”

  I laced my fingers together and stretched them thoughtfully. “How about ducking you in that a few times?” I nodded at the noisome chamber pot.

  “I would not do so. He might pick out a knife with his teeth, he is so brave a man.” It wasn’t Temar’s mockery that made uncertainty fleet across the thief’s eyes. What was it?

  I looked at the thief. “So, I can’t be bothered to waste my time beating it out of you, and I don’t fancy dabbling my fingers in your piss. All right, what’s it worth?”

  Surprise flared in the man’s eyes. “What are you offering?”

  I pretended to consider the question. “What about Drosel?”

  “Don’t make me laugh.” The thief recovered a little self-possession. “Dro knew the risks. He wouldn’t lift a finger to save me if the runes had rolled the other way.”

  “And if we traded him to you, you’d only have to split the gold you’re hoping to get for that little lot.” I sighed. “If his life’s of no value, what about your own? Do you want to share a ferry ride with him and argue over who pays Poldrion for the privilege?”

  “My life won’t be worth shoe buckles if I talk to you. They’ll kill me, and where’s my profit then?” He wasn’t joking.

  “You could flee the city,” suggested Temar, walking round to face the man, the bag secure on his hip. “Perhaps with a fat purse for your trouble?”