by Mark Robson
Being framed for one murder was bad enough, but now the young spy had another corpse to deal with. If she were found anywhere in the vicinity, it would look as if she had been caught red-handed. For a moment her shock held her motionless as her brain tried to come to terms with this latest turn of events. Someone, somewhere, was intent on making trouble for her, but Femke did not have the slightest clue as to whom or why.
It appeared these events were directed at her personally, but Femke could think of nobody she had alienated sufficiently in the short time that she had been in Thrandor to warrant this sort of reprisal. Was someone trying to make trouble for the diplomatic process that she had begun, or was someone using her as a convenient scape-goat for crimes planned before her arrival? If this last theory held true, then Femke had been incredibly unlucky to choose the house of Count Dreban as her initial hiding place.
‘There’s no chance in this,’ she whispered quietly to herself. ‘Dreban was the one in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killer must have followed me from the Palace, or somehow intercepted me during my escape.’ Femke had been fairly desperate by the time she had dropped over the Palace wall. She was not overly surprised that she had not noticed anyone following her.
‘Come on, Femke! Pull yourself together,’ she muttered, taking a deep breath and forcing herself back into action.
Carefully avoiding the Count’s body, Femke stepped into the kitchen and was delighted to find her pack and clothing was still there. The pack was open. Someone had rifled through it. But as she quickly emptied everything out onto the side it became apparent that nothing was missing other than the knife used to kill the Count. To her surprise, even the money was still there.
Speed was of the essence. Femke quickly dressed in dark coloured clothes from her pack and bundled the dress she had been wearing during her escape from the Palace in with her other recovered equipment.
Femke was not squeamish, but recovering the knife from the Count’s body was not a pleasant task. As she pulled the blade from his throat, Femke noted the accuracy and force with which the blade had struck. Whoever had thrown it had known what he was doing, she thought grimly. There were not many who could throw a blade that hard and that accurately – a fact which narrowed her field of search.
Although it was tempting to sneak around the Count’s house to look for more clues to the killer’s identity, Femke knew that doing so could invite further trouble. She was unlikely to find anything even in daylight, but to risk lighting lamps would be foolhardy in the extreme. No, it was time to leave. There would be time enough to puzzle through the conundrum once she was safely tucked away in a quiet inn somewhere in the lower city.
Femke slipped out through a side door to the house. As she left, she heard sounds of multiple booted feet approaching the front of the house. The heavy thump of someone knocking at the front door with a clenched fist sounded loud in the stillness of the night air. Her decision not to search the house looked to be the best choice she had made all day. Silent as a shadow, the spy closed the door and slid around the rear of the house to seek another exit from the grounds. Fortunately there was plenty of shadow for her to use as cover. Femke’s body was still extremely stiff and sore. It also occurred to her that with the shock of finding the Count, she had forgotten to clean up her face of the dried blood from her earlier escapades.
As an experienced spy, Femke knew that blaming the stress of the situation for mistakes was all very well, but it did not change the fact that she was still making crucial errors. So far she had managed to improvise around those mistakes by using hidden skills, desperate tactics and a lot of luck. This was no way to progress if Femke was to solve the mystery and prevent the potential diplomatic disaster that could easily ensue.
So much for Surabar’s trust, she thought grimly. He should have sent a proper diplomat. All I’ve done is cause mayhem. Why did I have to run? If I’d stayed at the Palace and done what any normal diplomat would have done, then at least the situation wouldn’t have worsened. I seem to be attracting disasters like moths to a lamp.
There was a wall to a neighbouring garden ahead under the shadows of a line of three mature trees. Femke gave silent thanks that the wall was not high. She had no problems scaling it noiselessly without provoking much additional pain to her battered body. Her mental hourglass was trickling down the time remaining until the soldiers found the Count’s body. There was not much left, but Femke knew that in the dark her chances of escaping undetected from the Count’s residence were much improved.
Crouching into the shadows close up against the wall, Femke moved at a silent run through the garden and up along the edge of the large neighbouring house. The curtains in the windows were all drawn, but experience and her recent run of bad fortune made her take no chances of being seen by those inside.
Cracks of light spilled out from where the curtains in some of the rooms were not fully closed, or did not quite sit flush against the inside wall. These shafts of light were brilliant in comparison with anything that she had seen since being locked in the Count’s cellar. Because her eyes had now adapted to the dark Femke avoided the temptation to look at them for fear of losing her night vision. The starlight felt bright and she could see clearly without the aid of artificial light.
Femke moved quickly around to the other side of the house and was rounding the corner when she heard the commotion that signalled the discovery of the Count’s body. There would be a few more minutes now whilst the soldiers searched the house and generally discussed what to do next, she decided. Then they would send for more men. It would depend on who led the party that had called at the house as to how quickly the inevitable chain of events would progress. Again logic told her the lowest ranking person likely to lead a party to a count’s property would be a sergeant. If it were a sergeant, her luck would be running particularly badly. Officers tended to think they should do more themselves before calling for help. Sergeants often applied more common sense to situations and organised things more quickly. Silently, Femke sent up a prayer for someone with no common sense to be leading these men. Any edge now would help.
Femke raced along the side of the building to the front corner of the house, where she paused, still shrouded in shadow. Nobody was visible in the street, but the curtains would soon start twitching. The initial commotion Femke had heard from Count Dreban’s house had sounded loud to her, but was unlikely to be heard inside other houses along the street. If she had been leading the patrol that had discovered the body, Femke would have been quick to send men to every neighbouring house to check for more surprises. She would also have warned people to lock their doors and be alert for possible intruders.
There was no choice. Cover from here to the corner of the street was sparse. The streetlamps were bright, lighting everything in a way that accentuated any sudden movement. She would have to run for it and hope for the best. So, not allowing time for nervous thoughts, Femke made a break for the nearest deep shadow at the end of the street.
The end of the street was further than it looked from the corner of the house. Femke expected to hear shouts and sounds of pursuit with every pounding step she took, but they never came. When she lunged gratefully into the shadow again, she paused for a moment. Her chest heaved painfully against the earlier scrapes and bruising, and her leg ached madly where the attack dog had raked her with its teeth.
Femke looked around. Something was not right. The hairs on the back of her neck were prickling as some sixth sense warned her that despite the lack of outcry and obvious pursuit, someone was watching her. It was a skin-crawling feeling, but no matter how hard she looked, Femke could see no sign that her senses were not overreacting to the extreme circumstances. If there were someone out there, then he was not doing anything to impede her escape. It remained, therefore, to ensure her watcher did not manage to follow her to wherever she decided to spend the night.
Judging by the position of the constellations, Femke assessed the time to be before
midnight, so there would likely be a number of people still abroad in the lower city. As most professional villains went about their work at night – or at least they did in Shandrim, and there was no reason for Femke to believe Mantor was any different – care was needed if she were not to blunder blindly into more trouble.
If you’re out there, you’re going to have to work hard to follow me, Femke vowed silently to her imagined watcher, and with that she set off down the hill towards the lower city.
Femke took all precautions as she moved. The young spy moved silently from shadow to shadow, taking a random selection of turnings to avoid falling into any pattern, but constantly seeking to work her way towards the lower city. On many occasions she stopped suddenly in deep shadow and paused, sometimes for several minutes, to see if she could detect anyone following her. Nothing appeared to move. Strangely, rather than relaxing, her tension increased. The feeling of being watched heightened until she became convinced that somehow, someone was following her. It was most unnerving.
Femke tried every trick she knew to catch her imagined shadow. Altering speed, hiding behind corners, doubling back on her tracks – but none yielded results.
As she descended to the lower streets of the city, more and more people were abroad. Catching her tail, therefore, became more difficult. Keeping to the shadows prevented most people from seeing what a state she was in, but she knew there would come a time shortly when someone would notice the dried blood on her face and in her matted hair. Questions would inevitably follow – questions that could lead to trouble.
Although the feeling that she was being shadowed had not abated, there was still no obvious pursuit by the Royal Guards. However, there were no guarantees that the guards were not closing in on her. The need to get cleaned up and into a disguise that would fool her pursuers grew stronger with every step. Once in disguise, Femke knew she would gain thinking time, which in turn would allow her to formulate her next series of steps.
From what Femke had learned of Mantor over the last few days, there was a natural spring somewhere within the walls of the city that produced a supply of water in the event of a siege. Unfortunately, Femke only knew it was somewhere in the northwest quarter of the city, and she did not want to spend all night looking for it. Ideally she hoped to find either a dimly-lit tavern where she could use a washroom before anyone noticed anything wrong, or to break into an empty residence. The second option, although illegal, made more sense under the circumstances, as that way nobody would have a chance to witness her transformation.
Breaking in anywhere this early at night carried risks, but no more so than being seen as she was. Femke could not afford to spend all night staking out a house, so she decided to gamble.
The houses here were nothing like the Count’s extensive residence. They were basic, terraced rows that belonged to the lesser merchants, the middle ranks of the military, or the better tradesmen. The trick was not to work out to whom the houses belonged, but rather to decide if anyone was at home. There were plenty of clues aside from the obvious ones of lights shining between the cracks of closed shutters, or wisps of smoke emanating from chimneys. The custom of most hereabouts was to leave their boots in the porch on entering the house. If there were no boots on the doorstep, then there was likely to be nobody at home.
Femke had also noticed that many in Mantor preferred to attach washed clothing to lines of cord strung across garden areas in order to let the clothes dry in the open air rather than hang clothes over wooden frames and place them in front of the fireplace to dry. This was supposed to make clothes smell fresher, but Femke doubted the practice would ever catch on with the Nobility. Because clothing was likely to become damp again if left out after dark, it stood to reason that people would bring their washing in from the garden area before night fell. Therefore, houses where there was still washing out on the line had a good chance of being empty.
Femke realised this would not always hold true, but it helped to build a picture of whether the house was empty and how long it would be before the occupants returned. There was little point in breaking into an empty house if the owner was going to return imminently. What Femke needed was a bit of breathing space and a chance to regroup.
It did not take her long to identify a likely property. It took even less time to break into it. Once inside, Femke decided to take a chance and light one small lamp. All the shutters were closed and there was little chance that anyone passing by on the street would consider it strange to see one steady light. What she knew to avoid was moving her light around, as it would look suspicious. The trick was to make it seem as if the occupant were involved in something in one room of the house, or as if a light had been left on as a deterrent to anyone considering breaking in.
Femke decided the best place to light the lamp would be in the kitchen. She wanted to get cleaned up, but also wanted to be able to spread her things out on the kitchen table and give time to changing her appearance sufficiently for her to roam Mantor without fear of discovery.
With the light on, it did not take Femke long to find the water butt outside the back door and a child’s mirror that was fine for her purposes. Using a square of cloth she found in the kitchen, together with a bowl of cold water, Femke proceeded to wash her hair and clean up her face. The dried blood was difficult to shift at first and the cut on her head began to weep despite her care in washing around her scalp. With gritted teeth, Femke applied some table salt to the wound in an attempt to help close it. The pain was instant and sharp as the salt entered the cut, but it was short-lived, reducing to a throbbing ache within a minute or two.
Femke treated her leg as best she could. There was always the chance of infection from an animal bite and Femke took no chances. Most households in Shandar would have kept a jar of liquefied brimmel root, which was known for its disinfectant properties. If the owner of this house had anything like this, it did not turn up in Femke’s search of the likely cupboards, so she was forced to concentrate on cleaning out the long line of torn flesh as thoroughly as she could with cold water.
As the young spy finished her first-aid efforts and was tying off a self-styled bandage made from a strip of material torn from her dress, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind and she felt the telltale prick of a knife point at her throat.
‘Hello, Femke! Fancy meeting you here. Don’t even think about shouting out or I’ll cut the voice from your throat.’
The whispering tones of Shalidar were unmistakable. Femke’s heart leaped with shock and then froze in her chest with the cold, paralysing fear that the assassin’s voice brought. Her mind, wearied though it was from the traumas of the day, instantly raced through a welter of possible actions, as Femke realised she could be dead or dying within the next few seconds unless she did something spectacular. The knife-point did not waver at her throat as Shalidar removed the hand from her mouth to allow her to speak.
‘Hello, Shalidar. Did you enjoy the evening stroll through Mantor? You should have joined me earlier and we could have enjoyed the sights together.’
It was impossible to keep the strain completely from her voice, but Femke was pleased that even to her own ears she remained calm and confident. If she could keep him talking for a while, Femke knew there was a small chance she could get Shalidar to relax enough to make a mistake.
‘Ah, but then I may have been seen conspiring with a murderer. I wouldn’t want to stain my reputation by being linked with a dangerous criminal,’ Shalidar responded, almost gleeful. ‘The authorities here are most keen to lay their hands on you, Femke. It’s said you’re here posing as some sort of bogus Ambassador for the Emperor of Shandar in order to get inside the Royal Palace and kill the King. Speculation is running wild that the Emperor sent you as an assassin to bring chaos to Mantor before sending his next wave of soldiers across the border into Thrandor.’
‘What rubbish!’ Femke spat scornfully. ‘I doubt the King believes this pack of lies.’
‘You would be surpris
ed at what King Malo is willing to believe, Femke. He has recently come to terms with the fact that magic is real, making him the first Thrandorian monarch in several generations to do so. I agree that you’re implausible as an assassin. A real professional would not have made anywhere near as many basic errors as you have, but then Malo doesn’t have any assassins of his own, so he has nothing to compare you with. All he knows is two of his Noblemen are dead, including his best friend of many years. He’s not thinking as rationally as he normally does.’
‘Why this visit, Shalidar? Are you planning to kill me here after framing me so neatly? What’s the point in that? Or are you worried I’ll prove capable enough to get back to Shandar and escape the King’s gallows?’ Femke asked, deliberately goading her captor.
It had become clear to Femke that Shalidar was not about to use his knife, or he would have done so by now. Femke got the impression that the assassin was here to gloat. The Emperor had warned her that Shalidar would want revenge, but had assumed he would take it by attempting to kill her. Femke doubted that anyone could have predicted Shalidar would go to these lengths to exact a simple act of vengeance.
‘Oh, no, my young spy friend. Nothing like that, I assure you. You see the gallows await you in Shandar as well. I’ve sent messengers to the Emperor with the tale of your treachery here. I’m sure they will find it easy enough to convince Surabar that the Thrandorians are preparing to launch a military strike in response to the murders you’ve committed. If you consider the Thrandorians have now seen both an invasion and an assassin sent by the Emperor, why should they not respond with force? If I read Surabar correctly, then he’ll mass a defensive force at the border, which will be seen in turn by the Thrandorians as another invasion force. It should not take much of a spark to set off full-scale war from there.’
Femke was stunned. ‘Why?’ was all she could think to ask. ‘Why break your own precious Assassins’ Creed and force the two countries into another war?’
