The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  She might have told me. Winter bit her lip. Either one of them might have told me. But that wasn’t really fair, either. Jane had made her intentions perfectly clear from the very start, and Winter had turned her down. No wonder she’s gone looking elsewhere.

  Wood creaked and popped under her weight. She found herself on the left-hand side of the horseshoe, near the end, where the balcony most closely approached the altar. The steps leading up to the altar had been adopted as speaking floor, with the silver and gold double circle dangling from its long, thin chain directly behind the speaker. Someone plump and well-dressed whom Winter didn’t recognize was down there now, in the middle of what had obviously been a long address.

  A small group of young women had occupied the very end of the horseshoe. Winter recognized Cyte, along with Molly and Becks from Jane’s Leatherbacks, chatting amiably and apparently no worse for wear after their brief stay in a Concordat prison. The rest were a mixed group of Jane’s girls and other young women from the South Bank who’d drifted up to have a look at the fun.

  Before Winter could turn on her heel and stalk back in the other direction, Cyte noticed her and waved her over. Winter reluctantly picked her way through the chattering throng.

  “Watch out for splinters,” Cyte said.

  “I’m a bit more concerned with the whole thing giving out underneath us,” Winter said, sitting down carefully. “I don’t think it’s had a workout like this since the Civil War.”

  Cyte laughed. Her eyes were dark, Winter noticed. Not with makeup, this time, but the wages of interrupted sleep. Her face was thinner than it had been, and more worn.

  “It never fails,” Cyte said darkly. “Here come the scavengers.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She indicated the fat orator, who was gesturing in the classical style and sweating profusely. “Look at him. A North Bank merchant, if I’m any judge, or maybe a banker. Never done an honest day’s work. And he wasn’t out in the streets when Orlanko turned his dogs loose. He didn’t storm the walls of the Vendre. But now he’s here, and we’ve got to listen to his self-righteous prattle.”

  “The queen called the deputies to represent all of Vordan,” Becks offered. “Like it or not, that includes him and the other North Bankers.”

  “At least we’re shot of the damned Borels,” another girl said. “Those are the real bloodsuckers.”

  Cyte met Winter’s eye. They got up together and walked a ways down the railing. Inquisitive glances followed them, but no one spoke.

  “You know why they call this the Widow’s Gallery?” Cyte said.

  Winter shook her head.

  “In the old days—the very old days, around the time of Farus the Conqueror—the Pontifex of the White decided that the churches had drifted too far toward being social centers instead of places for contemplation of the sins of mankind. He blamed it on unattached women, who were apparently smashing around society like loose cannons. So Elysium decreed that no women unaccompanied by a husband or male relative would be permitted to attend services.

  “Of course, the women still wanted to come, and the local hierarchy was reluctant to lose their contributions. Some bishop came up with the idea that the women would subscribe funds for the construction of a balcony like this, so they could watch the service without being at it. And, since the unattached women who had money to spare were mostly widows, they called it the Widow’s Gallery.”

  Winter forced a chuckle. “I’m glad I wasn’t born in the eighth century.”

  Cyte tested the railing, found it sturdy enough to support her, and leaned against it with her chin in her hands. “Sometimes I feel like I was,” she said, nodding toward the floor. “Look.”

  Abby was just standing up to speak in answer to the sweaty merchant. Aside from a few wives on the back benches, she was the only woman in the room.

  “It was Jane who took the Vendre,” Cyte went on. “She turned the mob into an . . . an army, practically. She sent us in to open the gates. Without that, the queen never would have given us the deputies! But if you look in the newspapers, you’d think Danton killed every Concordat soldier himself and cracked the doors of the prison with one blow of his mighty fist.”

  “People listen to him,” Winter said. “He’s a symbol.”

  “All he does is give speeches. Where is he now, when we need someone to shut these idiots up?”

  “In his rooms, I think,” Winter said. “He’s supposed to have a big speech before lunch.”

  “More platitudes.” Cyte snorted. “It should be Jane down there.”

  “The queen invited her,” Winter said. “She sent Abby instead. This sort of thing . . .” She shook her head. “Jane isn’t good at it.”

  “Did she send you, too?”

  Winter colored slightly. “No. I’m here on my own.”

  There had been a few tense moments over that, back at the Vendre, which the Leatherbacks were still using as their temporary headquarters. After Jane had told Abby to speak for her at the deputies, Winter had announced that she was going as well. The expression on Jane’s face—half-perplexed, half-hurt, with a tiny hint of guilt thrown in for good measure—was something Winter wished she could forget.

  She’d made some excuse about wanting to be present at such a historic moment, which Jane hadn’t bought. But Winter had been adamant. If she’d hung around the fortress, Jane would have cornered her eventually, and then there would be no avoiding the conversation she desperately did not want to have.

  So I ran away. Again.

  She swallowed and changed the subject. “What about you? You look a bit poorly, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  Cyte stared gloomily down at the floor below. “It’s been a busy week.”

  “Be honest.”

  “I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about . . . you know. That night, in the Vendre.”

  Winter nodded, sympathetically. “The first time someone tried to kill me, it was a while before I got a good night’s sleep.”

  “It’s not even that,” Cyte said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I was scared—I mean, of course I was. But . . .”

  Winter waited.

  “There was a guard I . . . stabbed. In the stomach, right through him. I barely even thought about it. He was going to kill you, kill me if he got the chance, and I just . . . did it.” She brushed her hand against her leg, as though trying to wipe something away. “It was so easy.”

  Winter was silent. She tried to remember the first man she’d killed, but the truth was that she didn’t know. In a battle—even the little skirmishes the Colonials dealt with before the rise of the Redeemers—you rarely knew if a shot had hit or missed. When someone fell it was anyone’s guess if he’d been deliberately killed or clipped by a stray ball. In an awful way, that made it better. She’d felt like throwing up the first time she had to clean up a battlefield and bury a handful of enemy corpses, but there wasn’t anyone she could point to and say, “I ended that man’s life.”

  “I know you thought I volunteered for that on a whim,” Cyte said, and raised a hand when Winter started to protest. “It’s all right. You tried to talk me out of it, and I appreciate that. The truth is that I did my thinking before we even got to the Vendre. When we heard what the Concordat was doing, and people in the cafés started talking about marching, I thought . . . this is it. I told myself, ‘If you’re going out there, you have to be prepared for it. Are you ready to die, if that’s what it takes? Are you ready to kill?’ And I decided that I was, but it took . . . I don’t know. It felt like a big thing to decide.

  “And then, when it finally came to it, it was easy. Just a little thrust.” She held out her hand. “Just like I practiced in front of the mirror. I barely even noticed what he looked like until afterward. I was too busy worrying if there was someone else behind him who was going to stick me with a bayonet. It was o
nly afterward that I started to think about it, and I wondered, Is that what it’s supposed to be like?” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Or is there something wrong with me?”

  There was a long silence. Winter felt as though she were supposed to offer something here, some piece of worldly advice from a sergeant to a young soldier. But this wasn’t Khandar, she wasn’t a sergeant, and Cyte wasn’t a soldier and was only three years younger besides. And anyway, what the hell am I supposed to say to that? She suddenly remembered rescuing Fitz Warus from Davis’ cronies, cracking Will over the head with a rock just to get him out of the way. She’d killed him, it turned out, without thinking about it or even really meaning to.

  If there’s something wrong with you, it’s wrong with me, too. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it out loud.

  “Excuse me,” someone said. “Are you Winter?”

  They looked up to find a bearded young man in the colorful clothes of a dockworker waiting with a polite air. He had an odd, gravelly accent, and something about the way he stood gave him a military bearing. She pushed away from the rail, brushing fragments of crumbling wood from her hands.

  “I am,” she said, cautiously. “Who are you?”

  “Just a messenger.” He took a folded page from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “Read it soon, and make sure you’re alone when you do.”

  “Why? Who’s it from?”

  The young man’s eyes flicked to Cyte, and he shrugged. “It’s what I was told. Good luck.”

  “Good luck?” Winter echoed, baffled, but the messenger was already jogging back toward the stairs, raising little puffs of dust with every step. Winter looked down at the note, then over at Cyte.

  “I’ll be with the others,” Cyte said, stepping away from the rail.

  Winter unfolded the page. It bore only a few lines, in an elegant, aristocratic hand that made the signature redundant.

  Winter—

  Concordat action against the Deputies is imminent. I am on my way with help. Stall.

  Janus

  Her fingers tightened on the page, driven by a sudden, furious anger. He drops me here for weeks, without so much as a word, and now he tells me Orlanko is on the way and I’m to stall? How? Start a goddamned circus to keep them occupied? She glanced down at the hall floor, where Abby was still speaking, and fear replaced rage. Oh, Balls of the Beast. If the black-coats show up here, it’s going to be panic. What the hell does Orlanko think he’s doing?

  She hurried back to where Cyte and the girls were waiting. Curious eyes followed her as she grabbed Cyte and dragged her away again, out of earshot of the rest.

  “What?” Cyte said. “What’s going on? Was that a message from Jane?”

  Winter shook her head. Impulsively, she tore a strip off the bottom of the note, removing the signature, and handed the rest to Cyte.

  “Who’s this from?” Cyte said, glancing at the scrap in Winter’s palm. Winter crushed it into a ball.

  “Someone I trust,” she said. I think.

  “Then you really believe—”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s insane. The queen invited the deputies here. It’s treason.”

  “Be sure to mention that to the duke when you see him!” Winter snapped.

  Cyte was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Give me a minute.” She glanced at the pack of girls, all of whom were now watching Winter and Cyte instead of the dull proceedings on the floor. “Let’s see if we can get them out of here, to start with. Once we’re downstairs I’ll try to find Giforte. There’s Armsmen here—maybe we can organize a barricade.” And he owes me a favor.

  “Okay.” Cyte blew out a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you’re armed?”

  Winter shook her head again. “I didn’t think I’d need it.”

  “Me, either. Saints and fucking martyrs.” Cyte swallowed hard and straightened up. “Let’s go.”

  —

  Corralling the girls and convincing them that they needed to leave—and never mind why, lest someone scream and spark a panic—took longer than Winter would have liked. They got them moving in the end, though, and nothing untoward seemed to be happening as they trooped along the unsteady gallery, past other curious onlookers.

  The main stairs to the gallery were at the bend of the horseshoe, near the rear of the main hall. On the far side, at the very end of the right-hand stretch, a small walkway led to a stone door letting on to the cathedral’s warren of second- and third-floor rooms. Winter led her charges toward the stairs, letting Cyte watch the girls while she stayed a couple of strides ahead.

  The stairway was a long switchback, and when they got there it was shaking under the tread of many feet. No one was descending from the gallery, though, which meant that a crowd of people was coming up. Either some big group downstairs decided they want a better view, or else—

  Four men came around the switchback, standing shoulder to shoulder to block the stairway. They weren’t immediately recognizable as Concordat—no black coats or shiny insignia, just plain homespun and worn tradesmen’s overcoats—but all four wore swords, and something about their purposeful formation shouted trouble to Winter. She backpedaled up the steps, only to collide with Cyte and Molly coming in the other direction. The rest of the girls pressed them forward, still chatting obliviously.

  “Back,” Winter said. “Up the stairs. Go—”

  Someone down below barked an order. Each of the four drew a pistol from under his coat.

  One of the girls screamed. At the same time, shouts rose from the main floor, then cut off all at once at the sharp report of a pistol.

  “I am Captain Richard Brack,” boomed a voice, carrying beautifully through the high-vaulted chamber. “Of the Ministry of Information, Special Branch. And everyone in this room is under arrest!”

  “Everybody on the floor!” drawled one of the four ahead of them. “All you girls, get down now!”

  “Get back!” Winter shouted, pushing the screaming Becks up the stairs. The other girls needed little encouragement to flee, stairs creaking under their panicked footsteps. “Cyte! Go that way!” She gestured frantically to the right.

  “I said stop!” one of the men repeated, stepping forward of the line and lowering his pistol to point directly at Winter. “We’re with the Special Branch. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Winter met his gaze, and there was a moment of contemplation. He held the pistol awkwardly, and his sword belt looked brand-new and poorly fitted. And there was something in his eyes—a bit of fear, she thought. This wasn’t one of Orlanko’s trained killers, Winter was certain. She doubted he’d ever fired the weapon he held.

  Special Branch must mean the reserves. Not the regular Concordat agents, but some cadre of thugs and mercenaries summoned into service for emergencies. Men who were more used to bullying helpless civilians than to actual combat, who expected to command respect simply by virtue of having a weapon, without having to use it . . .

  If she’d been facing an experienced soldier, what she did next would have been suicidal. But an experienced soldier would never have stepped so close to her in the first place. Winter’s left hand shot out and grabbed the pistol around the hammer. The Special Branch man gulped and pulled the trigger, convulsively, but he’d hesitated too long, and the flint slammed down hard on the back of Winter’s hand. This hurt like hell but produced no sparks. The thug’s eyes broadened in comical surprise, and Winter brought her right hand up and delivered a hard blow to his wrist. His fingers opened automatically, and she plucked the weapon from his grasp. Before his companions realized what was happening, she reversed it, clicked the hammer back, and leveled it at his forehead. He froze.

  “Fucking Beast,” one of the others said, and three other pistols swung to bear on her.

&
nbsp; “Don’t be stupid.”

  Winter stepped back, carefully maintaining her aim, and climbed toward the shaky wooden walk. She desperately wanted to look over her shoulder, but if she took her eyes off the Special Branch men, the fragile moment could shatter. Five steps? Four? Three?

  “There’s no way out,” said the man whose weapon she had taken. “We’ve got the building surrounded.”

  “No reason for you to get shot, then,” Winter said.

  That seemed to be the general opinion. They held their aim but didn’t fire, and she kept backing up. Something creaked beneath her, and her groping foot couldn’t find the next stair, throwing her dangerously off balance. Before she could trip, though, someone caught her from behind, and she heard Cyte’s soft grunt. Winter steadied herself on the top step.

  “The first head that comes up those stairs,” she said, “gets a lead ball through the ears. Got it?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she ducked around the corner, dragging Cyte with her. Jane’s girls waited in a huddle against the wall. Down below on the main floor, she could see more of the Special Branch men moving through the crowd with weapons drawn.

  “Come on,” Winter said, shivering all over with released tension. She gestured with the pistol at the second-floor exit. “We may be able to get out that way. There has to be a back staircase.” When none of Jane’s girls moved at once, she let a touch of army sergeant into her voice. “Move!”

  Floorboards creaked behind her as the Special Branch men came up the stairs. If she fired, they’d know she was unarmed and rush her; she closed the lock on the pistol, thrust it into her waistband, and ran for it. Cyte ran beside her, and together they chivvied the girls down the length of the Widow’s Gallery like dogs herding a flock of geese.

  The motion attracted some notice from the Special Branch men on the ground floor, but they had their hands full for the moment with the unruly crowd. Winter could hear several deputies competing to shout the loudest denunciation of Orlanko’s “illegal and treasonous” actions.