Imperial Spy

by Mark Robson

  ‘Try to delay them as long as you can. I’ll be grateful for any time you can buy me,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ll do my best. Good luck, my Lady,’ he replied.

  The ledge was narrow. The knapsack sticking out from Femke’s back prevented her from facing out from the wall, so she was forced to sidestep along, face to the wall and almost blind. The hem of her dress flapped around her thighs, an added distraction as the breeze plucked at the material with invisible fingers. There were four large window ledges to traverse before she reached her path to the ground. Femke was concerned about being spotted from within as she crossed these, but luck was with her. The rooms she passed were all empty, and as she reached her descent point there was no sign that whoever had knocked at her door was looking outside for her yet.

  Femke craned her neck to look over her shoulder. The nearby tree had seemed much closer to the wall when she had viewed it from the window of her suite. Now the distance between her ledge and the nearest branch made her feel as if she needed to grow wings to successfully negotiate the gulf of air between them.

  Femke paused to consider her options, but they were limited. Although she was only one storey up, the West Wing had been constructed on a grand scale, with all the rooms having high ceilings. If she were to lower herself until she was hanging by her fingertips from the ledge, Femke would still have to drop some twenty feet to the ground below. Dropping that far would risk breaking limbs. At best it would result in bruising and pain that she could ill afford.

  There was the option of continuing around the ledge, breaking in through a window and hoping to avoid discovery within the corridors of the Palace for long enough to get down a stairwell to the ground floor. But with people actively looking for her the risks involved in this were unacceptable.

  Femke was left once more to face the leap into the nearby tree. Her mind baulked at the thought of it. Could she jump that far? If she missed the catch, would the lower branches give her a second chance, or would she have too much momentum to arrest her fall?

  Femke had never feared death and on occasion her bravery tended towards recklessness. This was one of those occasions. Closing her eyes she drew in her focus. For one heart-stopping moment, time appeared to slow and her heart threatened to climb up into her throat as Femke bunched her legs into a crouch. Adrenalin coursed through her veins as her body overbalanced, committing her to the jump. As her body began to topple, Femke exploded out of her crouch and propelled herself backwards into space with every ounce of strength she possessed. Twisting mid-flight, Femke stretched out like a trapeze artist, reaching for the rapidly approaching bar.

  The jump was perfect; Femke’s hands finding the branch that she had aimed for – but to her horror the branch was too thick for her fingers to grip properly. As her body swung past the vertical under the branch, her grip failed and she flipped feet first into the tree. Twisting a second time mid-flight, like a cat righting itself before impact, Femke managed to turn face down in time for her body to smash into a lower branch. The branch caught her full across the stomach with an abruptness that drove the wind from her lungs. Her eyes watered as the initial wave of pain blasted through her body.

  Draped over the branch, Femke did not have time to find her balance. Before she could recover from the impact, she started to tip over, feet first. A frantic scrabble of hands and feet followed before she managed to secure footholds and restore her equilibrium. Temporary safety was restored, but if she remained exposed in the leafless tree for long, someone would spot her. Femke had to get over the outer Palace wall and into the city if she were to stay free long enough to prove her innocence.

  The muscles in Femke’s bruised stomach protested as she climbed limb by limb down the tree, but there was to be no respite. As she dropped from the lowest branch a shout sounded out from the first-floor window of her suite. The chase was on. She launched into a run towards the outer wall, vaguely aware of answering shouts coming from the grounds somewhere to her right.

  The wall towered above her as she reached its base. At first glance the entire face of it looked smooth, but from a previous walk in the grounds of the Palace, Femke knew that this was not universally the case. There were many places along the wall with enough cracks in the stone-work to allow an agile climber sufficient holds to scale it with ease. She simply had to find one of those points, and quickly.

  A new sound brought another lurch of fear that gripped her insides and twisted them mercilessly. Femke turned and for an instant she froze. Royal Guards were running towards her, still some distance away, but closing fast. The sound that chilled her did not come from the guards, though, but from the huge, brutish-looking dogs that loped alongside them.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ she heard one of the guards call. ‘Stop, or we release the dogs.’

  Femke did not hesitate. She exploded back into action, running away from the approaching guards at a full sprint. It was impossible to ignore them, but she concentrated her focus on finding a section of the wall that she could climb. Her first instinct was that the guards were bluffing. They were unlikely to release the dogs on an Ambassador. Surely her diplomatic status would make them think twice? Unfortunately, considerations of diplomatic immunity did not seem to be a part of the guards’ thought processes.

  The pain from her fall into the tree was forgotten and Femke raced alongside the wall, mentally blessing the architect and gardeners for doing such a good job of levelling the lawns. Femke found just the spot she was looking for. She leaped up, jammed her fingers into the first crack and then pulled herself as far above the ground as she could.

  Femke had just found her first good toehold and was pushing higher up the wall when two things happened simultaneously to distract her. First there was a snarling snap as a dog raked her leg with its teeth. A tight fiery pain erupted above her ankle, but the momentum of the dog had denied it a firm hold and carried its body on past her. It took a moment for the animal to land and turn for another attack, during which time a newfound desperation drove Femke to pull her body even higher from the ground. At the same time as the dog made its attack, a crossbow quarrel smashed into the wall to her right, showering her with splinters of wood and stone.

  ‘Don’t shoot her, you idiot!’ someone shouted. ‘The King wants to question her. It’s hard to do that if she’s dead! Quick. Catch her before she gets over the wall.’

  Femke would have grinned if she had not been gritting her teeth against the strain of the climb. Her ankle and stomach were painful. Her right eye was in spasm and watering profusely from a flying stone chip that had struck it when the crossbow bolt shattered against the wall. However, nobody was going to catch her this side of the wall now and a fierce exultation gripped her as she neared temporary safety.

  With a last heave, Femke mounted the top of the wall and glanced back down at the guards who were now at the base of the wall.

  ‘Come down, Ambassador. If you leave the grounds of the Palace, I won’t be able to protect you any longer,’ shouted up the guard whom Femke identified as having ordered the others to stop shooting. Femke reasoned he must be the senior man present.

  ‘Protect me? You call a dog attack and being shot at protecting me?’ Femke laughed. ‘I’ll take my chances outside, thanks.’

  ‘The King only wants to talk with you,’ the guard insisted. ‘Please come down from the wall. I promise I’ll escort you personally to his audience chamber.’

  ‘And I suppose you will then escort me from the audience chamber to your dungeon as well? I don’t think so,’ Femke added sarcastically. ‘I’ve been framed for murder. I’m not about to stay around to see this scenario through to its logical conclusion. Give your King my regards. Tell him I intend to find out who killed the Baron. When I have that information then I’ll come and talk to him.’

  ‘Don’t do it, Ambassador,’ the guard warned in a ‘Don’t push me’ singsong tone.

  Femke ignored him. Lowering herself down the other side of the wa
ll until she was hanging by her fingertips, she let go. Despite landing lightly and allowing her body to collapse, converting her inertia into a rolling motion, the shock of hitting a stone pavement rattled through her body. More pain coursed from head to toe, but Femke knew there was no time to nurse her wounds.

  Hobbling away, she could feel the trickle of blood running down her leg into her low-cut boot as she scouted the nearby streets for hide-outs. She could not remain in the open for long. The Royal Guards would soon be out in large numbers and would purge the upper city streets in quick time. One thing in her favour was the guards did not know she was hurt, so they would expect her to run much further than she intended.

  There were fewer streets in the vicinity of the Palace in comparison with the lower reaches of Mantor, but Femke’s instincts told her the guards would expect her to run like a frightened rabbit. They would not search the upper city with any great care. Eventually Femke wanted to blend into the masses in the lower city, but for now she would happily settle for a hidey-hole in which to evade the initial searchers.

  There were few residences to choose from, as they were all large and widely spaced. The houses were set in enormous gardens, which could work to her advantage. The deserted streets helped. And so far Femke had not seen a soul, which meant no one to tell of her passing.

  It was strange to think that the lower city would be busy now. Stallholders would already be hawking their wares on the flea markets that abounded on the streets, shouting and waving to attract attention to their stalls. Upper city life progressed at a more sedate pace. The residents who lived nearest the Palace had secure incomes or family fortunes that did not depend on rushing around to make ends meet. The busiest time of day here was evening, when the rich gathered to entertain one another with parties and other social gatherings. Mornings were for recovering and clearing up, but this did not mean the rich were ignorant of what was happening around them. Femke knew that care was needed wherever she went in this city.

  Breaking into a house would be fraught with more danger. Normally Femke would stake out a house for some time, preferably days, before breaking in. Patterns of behaviour of the occupants were vital information if she were to get in and out undetected, but there was no time for such preparation now. The only option left was to hide in an outbuilding. A stable or a workshop, a shed or a summerhouse – any would do, providing it offered a quick, easy, effective place to hide.

  By instinct, Femke paused and looked around. Something prickled at her senses like watching eyes, and though she judged it to be her body’s senses working at a hyper-active rate, still intuition sparked the feeling that more danger lurked nearby.

  Whatever had triggered the sensation, Femke dismissed it for now. All danger was relative. Her priority was to stay ahead of the Royal Guards and, hobbling as she was, this would not be easy. Anything else would have to be dealt with on the run. Risks were inevitable; this was but the first of them.

  Femke found what she was looking for a few hundred yards from the Palace wall. An impressive house boasting neatly kept gardens had a small outbuilding, little more than a dozen feet long by about eight feet wide, alongside the main house. With another swift look round to see if anyone was watching, Femke hopped over the waist-high garden wall and limped to the door of the small building.

  The door was locked, but this presented no great obstacle. It was a simple matter to pick the lock and get inside. With a silently mouthed expression of pain she slipped her knapsack from her shoulders and rummaged until she found an appropriate lock pick. The clatter of hooves approaching from the direction of the Palace gave Femke added incentive. Time was running out fast. The Royal Guards had mobilised more quickly than she had anticipated. The combination of time pressure and the pain of her injuries made what should have been a simple operation take an apparent eternity.

  Femke felt trickles of sweat run down her forehead as she worked the pick inside the mechanism of the lock. She knew she was applying pressure in the right place, but the lock was reluctant to yield. The young spy suffered an agonising moment of doubt as the horses approached at pace, then the stiff mechanism of the lock finally turned with a soft grating noise. Femke swiftly drew the door open and stepped inside. Fortunately, the hinges had been better oiled than the lock, and the door swung smoothly and silently both ways. Moments later, Femke had relocked the door from within and she heaved a pained sigh of relief. The searchers were unlikely to open locked doors in their initial search.

  ‘There’s nothing worse than a dry lock to ruin your day if you’re under pressure,’ she quoted, thinking back fondly to lessons with her mentor. How right he had been! What would Ferrand say if he could see her now? This assignment had always promised to be unusual, but Femke could not help wondering how it had gone from being straightforward to a complete disaster so quickly. There had been no hints that anything was awry. The Thrandorians had not exactly welcomed her with open arms, but they had been civil. From what little Femke had seen of life in the Palace there was no suggestion that murder was the norm in Thrandorian politics. Ferrand would have known what to do. He had always appeared in control, regardless of circumstance. Was that what had caused his downfall? Femke still had no idea what had happened to her mentor. It was one of the most widely speculated mysteries in Shandar. Even the Emperor of Shandar had not known the fate of the spymaster, but Femke felt sure her old friend must have breathed his last.

  Ferrand had always been an oddball in the intelligence community. Most spies made their living by remaining grey and anonymous, silently gathering information in the background. Ferrand was rarely out of the limelight. Being a powerful lord, he was a leading figure in Shandese high society, though few knew he was also a master of disguise. For many years he had been the Emperor’s top spy and Femke had been lucky to be his apprentice.

  She sighed aloud at her melancholy thoughts. There would be time for such reminiscence once the present danger was past. Her current hiding place represented a huge gamble. If the Royal Guards had tracker dogs, then there would be no escape. The shed had no back door for her to flee through, which was contrary to everything she had been taught. The attack dogs that had chased her in the Palace grounds were not of a breed known for their tracking abilities, so Femke felt safe from them. However, she did not know what other assets the guards had at their command.

  It was dark in the shed, but not overly so. A small amount of light leaked in through the edges of the shuttered window. After a few minutes Femke found her eyes beginning to adapt to the low light and she felt confident she could move around without accidentally bumping into anything. Making a noise now could prove disastrous.

  From what little Femke could see, the shed was used both as a workshop and as a storage room for gardening equipment. Long-handled garden tools were neatly arranged in a rack to the right of the door, whilst a workbench boasted a plethora of woodworking tools, all neatly arrayed on various hooks and shelves below the shuttered window to the left. At the far end of the small shed a strange, hulking, shadowy shape lurked, like some great monster crouched ready to pounce. Femke froze for an instant before reason took hold. There was nothing to fear here other than discovery by the Royal Guards.

  Wary of making any noise, Femke stepped gingerly towards the black shape. Exploring with her hands, she realised it was a soft dark cloth wrapped over something hard. Suddenly Femke froze again. The sound of someone knocking at the main house door was followed by the sound of approaching boots on the path outside.

  ‘Hello, what can I do for you?’ Femke faintly heard someone say.

  ‘Good morning, my Lord, we’re looking for a woman who was last seen heading in this direction. She’s slim, dark-haired . . .’

  Femke held her breath. As she listened to the guard speaking to the owner of the house, there was a rattle as someone tried the handle to the door of the workshop. A loud thump sounded as he decided to give the door a hard shove to check it was locked and not merely stiff, or bar
ricaded from within.

  Crouching down, Femke silently lifted the edge of the material in front of her and squinted into the darkness beneath. The cloth covered a stack of cut timber. To her delight there was just enough room at the left-hand edge for her to squeeze under the cover and sit hidden from casual inspection. Hardly daring to breathe, she twisted her body into the small space. Femke had barely settled when there was a loud cracking sound and a flood of light shone in through the side window. Whoever had tried the door was suspicious enough to wrench open the outer wooden shutters of the workshop window. If Femke had not hidden, the guard would have caught her like a snake in a pit.

  ‘Hey! Be careful! There’s no need to force those shutters, they’ve got catches top and bottom. I hope you haven’t broken them.’

  ‘Sorry, my Lord,’ apologised a man’s voice, though his tone did not reflect the apology. ‘The outbuilding’s clear, Sergeant,’ the same voice stated. The sound of retreating footsteps caused Femke to expel a silent sigh of relief.

  ‘Well, my Lord, if you do see the Ambassador, please alert the Royal Guards immediately. I strongly advise you not to approach her or restrain her, as she may be dangerous,’ the Sergeant said respectfully.

  ‘Yes, of course, Sergeant, I will be sure to do that. Good luck in your search.’

  Femke smiled and quietly adjusted her position until she was as comfortable as she could be in the cramped space. Her bruised body ached in many places, but as the sounds of the search quickly faded, Femke did her best to ignore the pain, concentrating instead on planning her next move. Her initial instinct was to wait for dark. This would give the guards enough time to become discouraged by the fruitless search and start to get lax. As to where Femke should go next, she could not decide. Her mind flitted from one idea to the next as she turned over the possibilities.