Guardian

by A. J. Hartley

  CHAPTER

  4

  A WHISTLE RANG OUT, long and shrill. It filled the air with a keening panic like the cry of the vervets when the eagle dropped on them. Doors banged, voices were raised in anger and alarm, and booted feet drummed on the hallowed floor of the chamber. The noise filled the great hall and echoed in the dome overhead like the tolling of a dreadful bell.

  Up in the coloreds side of the public gallery, I dropped to my knees and hid. Not too long ago I had been reveling in my connection to the friends and family who were outside of Willinghouse’s lofty sphere, celebrating my own lowliness. In this moment, with the political leader of the region bleeding to death only yards away and every policeman in the city rushing to this very spot, I could think of nothing worse to be.

  You have to get out.

  That, at least, was certain. I flattened myself up to the waist-high screen that ran along the front of the gallery and raised my head slowly and carefully till I could see down. It was a chaos of uniforms below—police and soldiers—shouting orders, running about, clearing a path for the doctor with his bag, who was hurrying in from the back even as they made a preliminary search of the chamber.

  “Lock those doors behind him,” shouted an officer in dress uniform, once the doctor was in. “Alert Black Rod, the Yeoman Usher, and the War Office. Summon the Fourth Harbor Rifles and the Second King’s Own Light Cavalry. Secure the building with guards on every door. Lock down everything from Occupation Row to Cannonade. Now!”

  As he bellowed that last word at the dithering soldiers, I scuttled back toward the door through which I had come, certain that I did not want to be found skulking up here, but I was only half through it when I heard the officer speak again, quieter but with no less cast-iron authority.

  “Mr. Willinghouse, put the knife down very carefully or my men will open fire.”

  I froze.

  For a second I could think of nothing and began to turn back, as if I could call down and explain. The horror of seeing that Mr. Tavestock was dead—or very close to it—had filled me with old fears for my own safety. That they would hold Willinghouse responsible had not occurred to me.

  How inconceivably stupid of me. Of course they would treat him as the culprit. They had caught him red-handed. Literally. And there was no one else in the building.

  Except me.

  Get out! Get out!

  In the sudden stillness below, I heard the faintest clink of metal followed by the officer’s commanding voice.

  “Stay on your knees please, sir. Hands on your head.”

  They were arresting him. He would be shackled and marched through the crowd of soldiers and police, his colleagues, his political friends and enemies, the gawkers straining to see, the reporters shouting questions …

  I felt it all as if I could see it, and it pulled on me like a great chain coiled around my midsection and dragging after me, but I walked, quickly, lightly, almost doubled over, out through the door and along the sweeping hallway that circled the great hall.

  They would be coming, the soldiers, swords and rifles at the ready. The city had just been plunged into the greatest crisis in decades. They would not hesitate to cut down anyone who did not comply with their orders.

  I began to run, wishing I were wearing my own familiar boots, not the dainty shoes that came with dressing as Dahria’s maid.

  Dahria.

  The thought brought me up short, and I almost stumbled, stricken by pained sympathy. How long would it take her to find out? What exactly would she be told? That her brother had found the prime minister’s body? Or that her brother was a killer, a political assassin of the most insidious kind?

  I regained my pace, conscious that my labored breathing and racing heart could not be explained solely by my exertion, and tried to force some order to my thoughts. If I went back the way I had come in, I would be stopped at the door and arrested. I had done nothing. They could prove nothing against me.

  But. But. But.

  I was a Lani woman in the halls of the mighty, a former steeplejack who now had money for reasons no one could explain. I may well have been seen with Willinghouse, with his sister; perhaps my picture would appear in the paper and someone would note my resemblance to a mysterious Istilian princess who had fled an exclusive club on the night of a society murder …

  I could not be caught.

  I kept walking, pausing only at a broad window on my left to look out and down to Occupation Row. People were running about. Even from here, three floors above, you could almost smell their terror, their excitement. If I climbed out of that window and inched round to a drainpipe or recess where I might slip down to the street, would anyone notice?

  I hesitated, chewing my lip, torn between haste and caution. It was noon, and the sun was bright and high. There were no deep pockets of shadow on this side of the building, and even as I stood there in my agony of indecision, the police presence below seemed to swell like a river in flood. It was too desperate a hope to think I might escape that way unseen.

  So I walked farther, listening for the inevitable dragoons as they searched and set guards on every part of the structure, and as I rounded the corner, I saw a door. It was small and insignificant looking, its varnish worn and cracked, and looked like it might be a caretaker’s closet. It was also on my right, which meant it led back into the building, not out.

  No use there.

  I had almost passed it when I heard the brisk boots of the guards coming. I reached back and tried the handle.

  Locked.

  Of course. I looked toward the turn in the corridor, which the soldiers would soon round, but there was nowhere to hide. No swag of curtain, no conveniently bulky table, nothing but open hallway and imminent arrest. Or worse.

  Fortunately, my hands were quicker than my mind. In the time it had taken to assess my lack of options, I had unclasped the ridiculous little purse that went with my servant’s dress and slid out Namud’s lockpicks and skeleton keys.

  I had been practicing with them in the long, hot summer hours at the Willinghouse estate, so the choice of which to use was made by my eyes and my fingers, not my brain.

  I slid a key into the lock, my face turned toward the sound of the soldiers, guiding it deftly by feel, holding the rod in the space between the tumblers and pressing very slightly, searchingly. I felt it, made an adjustment to the depth of the skeleton key, and turned.

  The lock thunked softly and I shouldered the door open, closing it behind me again before I even looked where I was. There was a sneck on the inside of the door, and I latched it, letting go just as the feet reached the door and the handle turned.

  I stepped back. The room—if that was what it was—was almost completely dark, the only light bleeding in from the threshold and lintel of the ill-fitting door. I kept very still, hands clasped and pressed to my lips.

  “You got a key?” snapped one of the guards on the other side and only inches away.

  “Me?” said another voice. “What am I, the janitor? No, I ain’t got no damn key.”

  An irritated sigh.

  “Stay here,” said the first voice. “I’ll go find one.”

  “Be quick. I’m not interested in tackling an assassin by meself.”

  “You won’t ’ave to, mate. They’ve already got ’im.”

  “That Brevard MP? You reckon?”

  “Figured he were movin’ up in the world, weren’t ’e?” said the first voice. “Stands to reason.”

  “Nah,” said the other. “Kill the PM and ’ope he’ll get the job when ’is party’s not even in power? Don’t make sense.”

  “Yeah? Tell you what, smart man, if we find anyone else ’ere, anyone other than Willing’ouse, I mean, drinks are on me tonight.”

  “All right. But be quick about it.”

  One set of footsteps marched back the way they had come, but the sentry on the door snorted and stayed on guard.

  I was trapped.

  My eyes were still adjust
ing to the dark, so I couldn’t risk doing anything that would make a sound. Very slowly, I revolved in place, taking in my surroundings even as I listened to the thoughtless noises of the guard outside.

  There were dusty shelves, boxes of tools, and discarded parts: an old handrail, a set of battered candelabra, a mildewed pile of upholstery fabric, and some cobwebby chairs. A long tea chest with leather handles sat on the floor beside me, and I briefly considered opening it up and climbing in, though I’d have to unstack the dusty books that sat on top of it first. I would fit. Just. But if the guards were even semiserious about their search, they would find me in a second.

  I need a better option than that.

  The room was deeper than I had expected, and though it was now little more than a junk room, it had once been more like rest space for a duty custodian. Eight feet from the door, beyond a stack of musty-looking books, was a tiled hearth and a tight little fireplace.

  The room had been forgotten, rather than closed off, so it was at least possible that the chimney would still be open. I took a steadying breath and assessed my route to the fireplace. I would have to step over the books, but otherwise I could get there without making any noise, assuming the floor was sound. How silently I could get up the chimney, I had no idea.

  The skirt and bonnet would have to go. I was wearing some of Madame Nahreem’s gray silk exercise clothes beneath in place of underwear, and I could adjust my chemise enough that I wouldn’t get arrested for indecency, should I reach the street …

  I shook my head and began to unlace the infernal corset with one hand as I picked my way across the floor, ears open for the sound of the guard returning with a key. How long would that take? Maybe the confusion downstairs would buy me a few minutes, but maybe it wouldn’t.

  My crinoline was nothing like as large or elaborate as Dahria’s, and it was easier to get out of than it was to get into. I stepped out of the cane loops gingerly, removed the petticoat, exposing my silk trousers, and navigated the stack of books, just as the guard outside the door blew his nose so loudly that I jumped. The books wobbled, but I stayed them with a swift hand, then climbed over and squatted on the dusty hearth, reaching up and in for the flue.

  I figured that I was on the top floor of the building with only the dome over the main chamber reaching higher, so I shouldn’t have far to climb to reach the roof. If I could get there and orient myself quickly, there was scaffolding on the northwest corner that I could use to get down. Turning my back to the fireplace, I sat on my heels and leaned back, ducking under the mantel and staring up into the blackness. A foot above my head was the iron damper, which was, unexpectedly, already open. I pushed my head through, kicking myself for not stowing my cast-off hat and skirt in the tea chest.

  Too late now.

  There was daylight a mere fifteen feet above me. My body leapt for it, seizing on the sheer physical fact of climbing as the only thing that had made any sense these last few hours. I found the rough handholds in the crudely mortared brick and pulled myself up in one strong surge from my arms. My half disguise felt clumsy in the tight square of the chimney, the sleeves snagging on the coarse, close walls, and I kicked an exploratory shoe, hunting for a foot hole.

  It was a rash and thoughtless act, and when my foot found something solid and pressed on it, I realized too late that it was the damper above the fireplace. It slid with slow inevitability and rang out like a bell. The rattling of the door handle came seconds later, followed by the shouts of the men in the hall just as I reached the last yard of the stack.

  Spitting cobwebs and bits of abandoned bird nests, I surged up into the air, clawing my way up the sooty brick as if trying to fly vertically into the blue Bar-Selehm sky. As I hauled myself out, I heard the crash of the door splintering in the room below, and rolled quickly away in case someone stuck their rifle up there and opened fire.

  I was nestled between the angular brick of the roof and the slow curve of the great dome. I had to move fast if I was to find a way down before the guard breaking into the custodian’s storeroom raised the alarm outside. I looked quickly around and saw, on the gray lead trim that ran around the base of the dome, a small clear footprint.

  A bare foot, perfectly defined in fine white powder.

  I turned to scan the dome, my eyes climbing the great half sphere to the gold finial and statue on the top, but I was too close to see either. I could see another footprint, however, not as complete as the other, but unmistakable.

  I gazed up. There would be a maintenance hatch in the top of the dome, one that—it seemed—someone had used very recently. Someone small.

  I stared at it wonderingly.

  The footprint would have matched my own.

  CHAPTER

  5

  SPRINTING BETWEEN CHIMNEYS AND the steeply canted roofs that surrounded the dome, I found the corner where the restoration work was being done. There was no one there, but the scaffold was still in place, and the masons had rigged a refuse chute out of sackcloth and large buckets with their bottoms removed. I barely even glanced down before I climbed in feet first. I was steeling myself for the descent when I heard a roof access door boom somewhere close by. I tucked my arms, pressed my legs together, and dropped.

  It was almost a straight fall, and I accelerated fast. I nudged outward with my elbows until I got a little purchase on the coarse fabric of the chute, jolting them painfully as I went through another bucket join, but slowed myself just enough that the final fall into the back of the open wagon didn’t break my ankles.

  Still, I landed hard on chunks of fractured masonry and chipped bricks, tearing clothes and skin, and emerging slowly, covered in soot and brick dust. A white kid in the street sucking vacantly on a piece of peeled yellow fruit became a statue of terrified astonishment when his eyes found me, but then I was out and running clumsily, trying to shake off the pain in my legs and arms.

  The crowds had moved toward the front of the building, leaving this corner about as quiet as I could hope for. I kept my head down and didn’t stop running till I had made a series of sharp cuts to the left and right, which took me into the service alleys running between the grand homes in the northeast corner of the city. I hid for a while in a coal house behind a fancy restaurant, assessing my injuries and getting my breath back, then cleaned off the worst of the filth at a standpipe used for filling animal troughs. I looked absurd, half dressed in mismatched clothes, and those who saw me—turning sourly away as they did so—took me for a homeless person who had cobbled her wardrobe from other people’s garbage. If I was very unlucky, I’d walk into a policeman who might charge me with begging or loitering or soliciting—the usual crimes thrown at young Lani women found in places they weren’t supposed to be—but it seemed they had all been diverted to Grand Parade. I headed west, making my way to the back of Willinghouse’s town home, which I entered by scaling the garden wall and using a combination of downspout and tarashla tree to reach the sash window of the back bedroom kept for guests.

  I got in, I think unseen, shrugged out of my dirty clothes, and lay for a long moment on the counterpaned bed, feeling my heart slow and my mind race. Willinghouse had been arrested. It seemed impossible, but there was no doubt. He was going to be charged with murdering the prime minister, a charge so absurd I suddenly found myself ashamed that I had been poised to demand to know the purity of his political motives. Of course he would sacrifice his place in government for the people he represented. Of course he would share power with the Mahweni even if that meant losing some of it himself. And of course he would not kill the prime minister, a man with whom he had hoped to forge an alliance.

  Anyone could see that.

  But the words of the soldiers patrolling the halls inside the Parliament House rang in my ears.

  Figured he were movin’ up in the world, weren’t ’e? Stands to reason.

  Surely no one would believe that?

  I had to speak to him. To Andrews. To someone. Dahria was in town, so she woul
d eventually come to the house, but she would surely go to the police station as soon as she heard, and may not get back here till late. I had to find her. I had to start making sense of what was going on before it all slipped away. Again I felt a pang of guilt that I had doubted my employer.

  Well, I would make it up to him now.

  I left the room and went down to the kitchen, where I startled the elderly white butler, Higgins.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here.” His eyes flashed over my bizarre mismatched clothes, but he was too much the dignified professional to acknowledge my state.

  “I need some clothes,” I said.

  “Certainly, miss. I’ll speak to the housemaid. Evening wear or—”

  “Lady’s maid,” I said.

  “Very good, miss,” he answered, unblinking. “Perhaps you would like to avail yourself of the facilities while I summon the necessary garments?”

  “Thank you, Higgins,” I said.

  He escorted me to the “facilities,” collecting a decorative box of guest toiletries on the way. In twenty minutes, I was thoroughly washed and dressed to face the world as a Lani servant once more, complete with an ugly and cumbersome bonnet into which I piled my hair. I wore it as low as I could and kept my head down. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I couldn’t risk being recognized by the parliamentary guards.

  The butler showed me to the front door after giving my attire an approving nod.

  “Higgins,” I said on impulse, “by day’s end, you will hear some distressing news about your master. Do not believe it.”

  The butler stiffened, then nodded fractionally.

  “Very good, miss,” he said, his face leaden. “I have no doubt that you will do your utmost to resolve matters.”

  We had never discussed my various duties, and I did not know how much he was aware of what I did for Willinghouse, though he had observed my odd comings and goings in various guises for months. I matched his stoic manner.