Читать книгу Hero Risen - Andy Livingstone - Страница 8

The girl was still nervous in his presence. He liked that. It was a refreshing change from the confidence of the crone, and the fact that the old woman was usually right in what she said. But since the young one had started working for him, learning from him, striving to impress him, she had grown more adept at covering the nerves from all but eyes that sought it. He liked that more.

He did not look up from the fire. He also liked to maintain the nerves. And in the fire, he also saw welcome heat in the chill of the evening.

‘You have news?’

‘I expect you know I do, my lord.’

The nerves may still have been there, but had lessened sufficiently to allow room for boldness to creep in. Not a bad asset if she were to be effective for him, but he could not allow her to know he approved in even a small way where the boldness was directed at him.

He barked at her, his dry voice harsh. ‘You forget who you address, girl. You served the princess well, but she is here no more and you have but one master now, regardless of what the Steward of the Household Staff may think.’ His head snapped round, eyes boring into her. He could see from the slightest of flinches before she caught herself that his glare had retained its potency despite his years. Maybe the age added to it. There must be some few counter qualities to infirmity, surely.

She dropped her eyes. ‘Apologies, my lord. I do not forget your eminence, but do forget myself. Forgive me.’

If it was an act, it was the right act. He grunted and waved a hand dismissively, looking back at the fire. ‘Your news, now that you have remembered your manners?’

‘The boy and his companions. They were heading in the direction of a town called Belleville.’

‘I know it.’

‘You know a town in the north of the Vine Duchies?’ The surprise was clear in her voice. ‘I do remember who you are and who you were, my lord, but this town is not a part of Sagia. Not even close to the border.’

His voice grew softer – slightly – as his mind drifted decades into the past. ‘Sometimes to rule an empire, you must act outwith the empire. By accident or design, that town is located with great strategic advantage. There was no need to waste resources in a campaign against the Vine Dukes to add their lands to ours. We already had beneficial trade agreements and the dukes were merchant dukes, not warrior dukes. They were no threat, and we had what we wanted from them. But it was clear to me that Belleville had potential. It did no harm at all to make a gift of enough Scribes to help them establish an effective administration.’

He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘No harm at all, when there are Sagian Scribes running a town along Sagian principles.’

Innocence suffused his tone. ‘We are a benevolent people. I saw a chance for our principles to enhance the prospects of the people in a town where there was potential for commercial growth. Under our guidance, many there have become wealthy by the passage of travellers and trade through their town.’

‘Passage that is carefully controlled and documented, I am sure. With records available to the higher echelons of the Empire’s Scribes, should it be desired. And certain individuals among those record-takers who would report instead to someone other than the higher echelons of the Empire’s Scribes.’

He shrugged slightly. ‘There were, of course, fortunate benefits.’

‘So if the boy…’

‘The boy is a man now, in life if not in years. And he had better be, or he is of no use to us.’

‘Apologies, my lord. If the…’ She could not bring herself to say it, he noted. The remnants of bitterness may prove useful or may require handling. ‘If he does pass through there, he will find available to him records that could tell him of he whom he follows?’

‘Possibly.’

‘There will possibly be records?’

‘There will certainly be records. But he may or may not be able to gain access to them, or even know they exist. Our associates there do not know of him, or the significance of his prey. But that prey, remember, has his own network, greater than mine in numbers.’

‘That is to be expected. He is the Emperor’s Source of Information, after all.’

‘Greater numbers is rarely an advantage in the war of knowledge. To be overwhelmed with information is as paralysing as having too little. With spies, it is far better to have a shrewd person picking gems than a hundred shovelling piles of ore that take days or weeks to sift through. Fortunately, I have pickers while Taraloku-Bana has labourers.’

‘If I may say, my lord, I doubt it is left to fortune to govern your recruitment policy.’

‘That, you may say.’ He grunted. ‘So, the party we follow with interest. How long before they reach the town, if they hold to the same path?’

‘Already or soon, given where they were and how long it took my source to reach here.’

‘And your source is reliable?’

‘Even apprentice Scribes are meticulous. Even more so, in fact, in that they must impress to advance.’

‘Meticulous, but not known for being any more free with information than a corpse.’

‘Scribes are not celibate.’

‘You took him to your bed? I understood your bed companions were drawn from the gender banned from the Order of Scribes.’

‘Where information is concerned, my bed companions are governed by necessity. But no, I did not take him to my bed. Nor did I visit his. After several weeks on the road, merely the suggestion of such was enough to spark his tongue to life.’ She laughed suddenly – an unusual sound from her recently. ‘I mean he talked.’

It took him a moment to mask his amusement – something else that was rare in recent times. ‘And did he know who you asked about?’

‘He did not. I had to do a little sifting and prompting before I could pick your gem for you.’

‘You are learning. Make sure you continue.’

‘You require obedience and wit, my lord.’

‘Then leave me now, and persevere to give me more of both.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Three words only, but enough to let him hear that she had heard the compliment he had given her. Or, at least, as close to a compliment as he would give. The girl was growing into her role, and he could see it before him, which was good.

The one of whom she had spoken had grown into what was needed – now that one needed to rise to what he must do – and all this old man could do was sit and hope, events unfolding unseen, and unknown, until they were weeks in the past.

He hated that.

He felt the chill of the evening. He looked into the fire, and saw danger.

****

Brann thumped into a seat in the tavern, the weariness of travelling in his bones but the fire of enthusiasm in his head. Marlo was ensuring the horses were well-tended by the grooms at the livery yard across the road, and Hakon was ensuring that sufficient food and drink were going to be available from the innkeeper’s wife, while managing at the same time to eye the woman in the corner with the laces of her top just loose enough to show most of her cleavage; she in turn was eyeing Hakon’s purse.

‘So,’ Brann said, ‘once we have eaten, we can start trying to gather information.’

Gerens nodded across to the stairs leading to the bedrooms, where Hakon was disappearing with the loose-laced woman. ‘Looks like you may have to wait for the big man.’

Brann slapped the table in frustration. ‘Does he ever think with his head?’

Grakk laid a calming hand on his arm. ‘Fret not, young Brann. He means that it might be best to wait until Hakon has returned to plot our next move. It seems that Hakon is more keen even than you to start gathering information.’

Brann frowned. He was not convinced.

Cannick grinned. ‘Take it from me, Brann. If you want to know what is happening in a town, spend a week talking in markets and taverns or spend five minutes talking to a whore.’

Brann grunted. ‘Maybe you’re right. But I still don’t think that’s all he’ll be doing up there.’

Breta guffawed, startling a man behind her into almost choking on his ale. ‘There is truth in that. Better give him ten minutes, then.’

It was almost exactly ten minutes when Hakon rejoined them, oblivious to the amused looks passing between his companions.

‘You took your time,’ Sophaya said, as Brann and the recently returned Marlo stared at the floor, shoulders shaking.

Hakon’s big shoulders shrugged. ‘We had a lot to talk about.’

It was too much. Brann’s spluttered laughter was replicated around the table. Grakk just smiled gently and slid along on the bench to leave room for the perplexed Northern boy. ‘Ignore them, they are releasing accumulated stress at your – if I can describe it as such? – method of releasing accumulated stress.’ The hilarity only redoubled at that, and Grakk raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Sit, young hearty fellow. The food will arrive soon, and once these buffoons have composed themselves, you can tell us what you have learnt.’

Hakon cast his confusion aside as an irrelevance in the face of impending food, and lowered himself beside Grakk. Brann wheezed as his laughter subsided, his face and his ribs aching alike. The learned tribesman was, as ever, correct – he had not laughed as helplessly for as long as he could remember, and he felt better for it.

The appearance of the food and another round of ale forced them to compose themselves, although the mistress of the tavern, who looked no stranger to a sharp word if she thought it warranted, showed no sign of disapproval at their raucous behaviour. Laughter in an inn spoke of happy customers, and happy customers attracted more customers who wanted to be happy. And they needed more liquid fuel than those nursing their sorrows.

‘So,’ Cannick said once the food was served. ‘What can you tell us, Hakon my lad?’

Hakon’s shaggy head leant forward conspiratorially, although the noise in the rest of the common room was enough to make even those at the other end of his own table strain to hear him, never mind anyone elsewhere.

‘Loku was here.’

Brann felt himself tense.

‘He stayed a few days, then left a week ago.’

Brann leant forward. ‘Left for where?’

The big shoulders shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Was he with anyone?’

‘Left with two men.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘How does she know?’

Sophaya snorted. ‘Men lose secrets as soon as they lose clothes.’ Gerens looked at her, and her smile in return was sweet and innocent. ‘So I have heard, my darling. And once a secret is out, all the girls know it.’

Brann was anxious, however. ‘So who did speak to him?’

‘Don’t know.’

He felt his palms burn as hot as his frustration as he slapped the table. ‘Oh, for the love of the gods, Hakon! Do you know anything?’

That Hakon was puzzled was painted across his big honest face. ‘Of course I do. Why else would I come to tell you something?’

‘Well why don’t you tell us?’

Hakon frowned. ‘Because you keep interrupting me.’

‘I’m asking questions to try to find out what you know!’

Hakon was now quite obviously confused. ‘But how do you know the right questions to ask if you don’t know what I have to tell you?’

Brann paused. It was a good point. ‘I don’t.’

Hakon nodded sagely. ‘That became clear when you kept getting it wrong.’

Konall flicked a chunk of bread at Brann’s head. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested in his languid tone, ‘you should let the boy speak?’

Brann saw Cannick looking at him as Grakk leant to speak in the veteran’s ear. He realised everyone was looking at him, and felt his cheeks grow hot. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

‘Right,’ Hakon said cheerfully. ‘What she did know is that her friend took money from the captain of the Duke’s personal guard.’

Sophaya perked up. ‘Her friend is a thief?’

Brann grinned. His brain was starting to work at last. ‘Her friend was doing what whores do with captains of guards. And at the end, one purse was heavier and one lighter.’

Sophaya grunted and took a bite from a chicken leg. ‘Always warriors and whores. Why do we never get to meet any nice thieves?’

‘Maybe there are just no nice thieves about,’ Marlo offered brightly. Sophaya glared at him. ‘Oh,’ he said, colouring, and taking a sudden interest in tidying the crumbs on his platter.

Hakon cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, the captain of the guard is a regular customer of Joceline’s friend. Joceline is the nice girl from upstairs.’

‘We guessed,’ Brann growled. ‘Anyway…?’

‘Yes, well, he told Joceline’s friend that a man calling himself Loku had stayed with the Duke for several days, and had been locked away in discussions with him for much of that time. He said that the man must have been important, because the Duke wasn’t rude to him.’ He looked around at the questioning faces. ‘Apparently, the Duke is rude to everyone, so that was a big thing.’ He laughed. ‘I know, it sounds a bit trivial, but it seems that he is ruder than most around here, and this is not a very polite town as it is.’

Cannick snorted. ‘I can vouch for that.’

‘So,’ Mongoose said, ‘I think we need to have a chat with this rude Duke.’

‘Just what I was thinking, too,’ Brann said. He looked at Hakon. ‘Do you think Joceline could arrange to let us meet with her friend, so we can work out our best approach?’

Hakon’s face split into a proud grin. ‘Already asked her. It cost me extra, but if we go up to her room in an hour, they’ll be there. The man the friend meets with has tastes in gratification that had, of late, turned to a more, er, painful type for Joceline’s friend, but while the friend would like to end the relationship, the man is controlling and powerful and, it appears, even gains gratification from his power to keep the friend visiting unwillingly. I get the impression that if we can help with this situation in any way, the friend will be amenable to helping us in return.’

Grakk filled Hakon’s flagon with ale. Even in a land renowned for the quality of its wine, the Northern boy’s tastes remained constant and straightforward. ‘Well done, young Hakon,’ the tribesman said. ‘You have indeed been a credit to yourself tonight.’

Hakon drained the flagon and reached for the pitcher to refill it, burping happily. ‘Thank you, Grakk. It was hard work, but it was worth it in the end. I think my father would have been proud of me.’

Marlo almost spat his own drink across the table, and the laughter of the others filled the air above it. Brann, though, felt a stillness creep through him, and he stared into the large fire in the hearth, but the flames he saw were not those warming the room. He saw a mill alight, and a man in the doorway, holding off attackers before being driven inside the building. His home and his family, burning together. He shuddered and got to his feet, muttering about needing some fresh air.

The courtyard at the back of the tavern was quiet, a place of sharp contrast against the boisterous cheer of the common room inside, and a small barrel provided a convenient seat against the back wall of the building. Night had fallen completely, and a thin crescent moon slipped occasionally into brief sight between drifting clouds. Darkness had dropped across the sky in ul-Taratac in what seemed like a single breath compared with the gradual change he had been used to as a child, and while the dusk had been longer here than in the Empire, still it seemed fleeting here than at his home.

Home. He sighed and rested back against the wall, staring at the sky. Movement from the doorway to his right saw him relax almost as quickly as he had tensed. It was strange how, on a journey, you become attuned to the tread and breathing of your companions to an extent where you know who approaches without even realising what your ears have heard.

Cannick pulled over a small crate and sat beside him, groaning as he eased himself down. He laughed. ‘You know when you are getting older when you make a noise every time you sit down or get up. Every so often you forget to try to hide it from those around you.’

Brann smiled, and touched his fingers to the ribs on his left side. ‘Just like an injury.’

‘We all try to hide what bothers us, lest it betray a weakness.’ The grey head turned in the shadows to look at him. ‘Don’t we?’

Brann sat for a moment, then sighed. He waved a hand upwards. ‘That sky. We could be anywhere. I was just wondering if the same sky is looking down on my home.’ He stopped, his breath catching sharply in his throat for a moment. ‘But then I wondered if I have a home any more.’

‘You have seen much. You have changed and grown and are not the boy who left that village. You have seen and endured more than most people would ever experience in a dozen lifetimes.’ A big hard hand rested itself on his shoulder. ‘It is only natural you would question where you fit in.’

The hand on his shoulder felt good, comforting, protective, understanding… fatherly.

He stood up quickly, tears stinging his eyes. ‘It is that, yes. I meant it that way.’ He wiped a sleeve across his eyes and cleared the roughness out of his throat. ‘But I also meant it in a literal way. The last sight I had of my village was to see it under attack from those pirates you fought after I… after I came aboard your ship. The last sight I had of my home was it aflame. And the last sight I had of my father was him fighting men at the doorway. They forced him inside.’ He took a deep breath. ‘At least he was with my mother and my sister when he died.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘The last words he ever said to me were to drive me away over my brother’s dead body. He wished it had been I who had died. The irony is, if he hadn’t rejected me, he would have got his wish – I would have been in the house with them.’ He sat down again and looked at the shadow of Cannick’s face. Honesty lives more easily in the privacy of dark than the glare of day. ‘There are times when I wish I had been in there with them. And with them now, wherever we go after,’ he waved an arm expansively, ‘all this.’

Cannick sighed. ‘The life we live and the things we see, boy, there are times when we all think that way. But we still cling to life, and fight to cling, and use every last bit of strength to fight. It is what we do.’ His hand ruffled Brann’s hair. ‘You are not alone. Remember that.’

Brann leant back against the wall again with his shoulders and head, staring at the darkness of the fragments of sky and the darker clouds framing them as silence fell over the pair. The clouds filled a space they could see but could never touch. Occasionally clouds came to earth and touched people, but people could never go up there to meet them. It was a world they knew was there, but could never reach. And beyond that world… Who even knew what was there?

‘Cannick?’

‘Yes?’

‘What you were talking to Grakk about before. About the gods, and religions, and priests, and all that. Do you think there really is something after this life?’

The silhouette changed as the veteran warrior turned towards him. ‘I think we don’t know if there is or there is not. If there is, and we have lived life as well as we can here, then we can face whatever lies beyond as it comes to us. But if there is not, then it would be a terrible waste being given this life if we were not to live as much of it as we could, don’t you think?’

Brann nodded. It made sense. ‘But what do you believe? You must have seen so much. You must have heard so many priests, and listened to men talking about their gods. Is there nothing that makes sense more than the rest?’

Cannick laughed. ‘In the right words, they all make sense. But let me ask you this: you have seen a fair bit yourself, and you were brought up respecting your own gods. What do you think?’

Brann stared into the darkness. ‘I think,’ he said slowly as his mind worked. ‘I think that it is the people who matter, because religions are guided by people and followed by people.’

‘Exactly. There are temples that preach violence and hatred, but they are few and badly followed. Why? Because of what people mostly want from religion: reassurance, understanding, hope, all connected with the things we don’t understand or know.’

Brann remembered a comment from the campfire several weeks before. ‘But Breta said that religions have started more wars than anything else.’

Cannick barked his harsh laugh. ‘Take it from an old soldier, people start wars, not religions, and for all sorts of reasons. Power and fear being two of the main ones. Religion is a tool some use to do that, but it is the most powerful tool man has ever known for that end. Like everything else, what one man can use for good, another can use for bad.’

‘So it is just a sham? A tool for controlling people?’

Cannick laid a calming hand on his arm. ‘You tend to overthink things, Brann. It is what it is. It feeds needs that we all have, and if it makes people get on, take care of each other and respect the world around them, if it gives people peace and calms them when they worry about answers they can never know for sure in this life, then what does it matter what names they give their gods or what position they adopt to speak to them?’

Brann sat in silence. This simple soldier’s life had given him an outlook that strangely mixed common sense and cynicism to create tolerance. But there was something else. ‘But what about those savages Loku had gathered in the mountains of Halveka? The ones who captured Hakon and Gerens, and who tried to overthrow Einarr’s father. They seemed to worship death, and gods of death. They revelled in torture and suffering; they lusted to inflict pain and despair, and not just there – it was the same with the story we heard when the ship put into the South Island.’

Cannick spat between his feet. ‘That was no religion, that was Loku. That was a sham, used to control carefully selected people, not a message of belief spread to anyone who would listen. That bastard took the scum, the dogs who enjoy dishing out suffering. The bullies, the cut-throats, the murderers, the sort who revel in disorder and feed off any opportunity to indulge themselves. You will find them in a hysterical mob, joining for the fun of it; you will find them in the shadows when they see a vulnerable victim; you will find them in the crowd at an execution, baying with bright eyes when the axe falls or the noose tightens. It is a thrill they crave.’

A chill ran through Brann. ‘Gerens?’

‘No. Gerens is different. Whatever has happened to that boy, there is not that love of inflicted pain these others have. Were there that in him, he would not be with us. He would not be one of us. When he does anything, he does it without any feeling at all, like if that innkeeper in there killed a rat in his food store.’ Cannick sighed and sat staring ahead, as if choosing the right words to fit his thoughts. ‘Some people come arrive in this world to a life that is close to nature. For some – like him – it seems there is little difference between animals and men in certain respects: we are all creatures, and there is a certain amount of truth in that.’

Brann frowned. ‘But he is not a monster.’ His loyalty to Gerens had forced out the words more harshly than he had intended, and he gathered himself before continuing. ‘He is practical. The way he sees it, if something needs to be done, he just does it.’

Cannick put a big hand on Brann’s shoulder. ‘No, he is not a monster, but he is different. There is no getting away from that fact, and to deny it is to deny Gerens for the person he is.’

Brann shrugged. ‘We are all different.’

Cannick smiled gently. ‘Some differences make more of a difference. But you are right, and I say again, he is not a monster – he has feelings.’

Brann nodded. ‘For Sophaya.’

‘For Sophaya, yes. And for you.’ Brann looked at him sharply, and Cannick snorted in amusement. ‘Not in that way. He feels a loyalty. A protective urge without reason, without question.’

‘That’s Gerens, though, isn’t it? He doesn’t question; he just acts.’

‘Well,’ Cannick said quietly, ‘be thankful that he acts in your favour. And I do mean: be thankful. Few men have their back guarded so fiercely.’

Brann looked at the veteran warrior pointedly. ‘Einarr does.’

Cannick nodded. ‘For different reasons.’ He stared at the sky with the expression of a man who looked not over distance, but back through time. He grunted. ‘Those are reasons for another conversation. But simply put: yes, you are right. So never forget, or underestimate, his place in your life. And never see him either just as he who would kill in aid of your safety as easily as blinking. Yes, put a knife in his hand and he is coldly efficient without compassion or remorse – but remember always that, though his emotions work in his own way, they still exist. They are as much as part of him as the other side.’

It was true. ‘Like me, now.’ The thought frightened him when he allowed himself to consider it. ‘After the City Below. And after the… the treatment in Khardorul. One me normally, another me when I fight.’

Cannick grunted. ‘Like all of us have to be when we fight. We do not have the luxury of being able to care in those moments. It is what humans do to survive. With Gerens it does not need the heat of conflict to do that, it is there all the time, ready. But he is different from those others, Brann, the ones who Loku gathers, who he fosters. Gerens may not do it with regret, but also he does not do it with pleasure or desire.’

‘But others do. We saw as much at the village in the mountains before we travelled south with Einarr: people acting worse than animals; people craving the suffering of others and finding some sort of euphoria when they inflict it. Is this common?’

‘Fortunately not, son, fortunately not. There are just some people, Brann, and thankfully only a few in every hundred, who like that sort of thing but they are usually not bright enough to do anything more than inflict random violence when a chance presents itself… unless a leader finds them. Look in every army and you’ll find one for every score or more of ordinary soldiers. Loku set himself up as a leader for them. The “religion” he gave them of sick and twisted viciousness was not a religion at all, of course, it just took the pleasure they already had and built up its flames with constant feeding and by surrounding them with similar people, like taking a man who is a slave to ale and putting him with others the same and giving them an endless supply of the stuff.’ He spat into the dust at his feet. ‘In his case, it was a sham and a way of controlling people to his own purpose, but they became intoxicated so much that life without it would seem lacking – and they were enjoying themselves too much to want to change it, anyway. It justified their actions and encouraged them. We were lucky you found that group in time, but there will be others in Halveka and in the South Island, as we know.’

Another memory came back to Brann. ‘When I was first taken onto your ship, there were riders who came to the beach, who we narrowly escaped from. They wore masks – hideous masks – like I had never seen before.’

‘I’m guessing those were leaders, recruiters, instructors, call them what you will. They were too organised for the slavering rabble we have seen in action.’

Brann’s breath caught in his throat. ‘But it means they were on my island. Close to my home.’

Cannick’s tone was grave. ‘I would expect so. They will spread, and endeavour to do so, like a pox.’

Brann felt several emotions surge through him as one. ‘My family may be dead, my village may or may not still exist, but the thought of them walking on the ground where I am from… I feel sick.’ He looked at the figure beside him. ‘Cannick, why are they doing this?’

‘That is the question that is driving this journey of ours, remember, young man? We need to find Loku, find his master and his master’s master, find whoever is driving this plot that is spreading savagery and terror across entire countries and ask them that question, and then you will have your answer.’

And with that, Brann felt his resolve return. ‘And first we need to find this Duke. We have plans to make.’

He stood, and Cannick laughed as he did likewise. ‘And I am sure that by the time we discuss them, they will already be made in your head, young thinker.’

He was right. Brann’s head was already moving, running through scenarios, information they had and information they needed. Actions and possible consequences, consequent actions, and further consequences, and on and on. Who would do what, and who could do what best.

But then the old soldier in front of him opened the door to step back into the inn and the light spilled out over his lined and weather-beaten face, a face with eyes that had seen so much and still spoke of the caring within, and Brann’s thoughts stopped.

‘Cannick,’ he said, and the man turned. ‘Cannick, I… You…’

The creases in the soldier’s face multiplied as he smiled. ‘I know. An old sergeant had the same sort of conversation with me when I was not much older than you. I reckoned if he was an old sergeant then he must know a thing or two about how to get old without dying first, and he must have picked up a thing or two along the way since then. If I’ve helped you tonight, I have repaid him.’ He winked. ‘When you don’t know if there is something or nothing awaiting you in death, it puts a little warmth in an old heart to know you have left something of you in those who come after.’

Brann stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug, and the brawny arms gripped him back. It felt like it said more than the words he couldn’t find.

Breta’s voice boomed from the passage that bent its way to the back door. ‘Brann, Cannick! Are you out there?’

Brann jumped back at the thought of her seeing him that way, and his heel kicked over the small barrel Cannick had used as a seat. The lamplight from the doorway illuminated it as it rolled and spilt the remnants of what it had once contained, a trickle running through the dust on the flagstones of the yard to mix with a small puddle in a gutter. Watching it, a thought entered his head and he smiled, his head filled once more with plans. Again they were interrupted, this time by Breta as she filled the entrance.

‘That’s trollop’s friend has arrived, apparently, and is waiting upstairs.’

Brann smiled. ‘I note that she is “a trollop” but the handsome young men you spend time with when you pay for some pleasure are “handsome young men” when you talk of them.’

‘Of course,’ Breta said, a frown betraying her puzzlement. ‘If the men were not handsome or young, why would I spend money on them?’

Some arguments, Brann thought, were just not worth having.

The others were still at the table and Cannick waved at them all to remain seated.

‘Yes, we know: this friend of Joceline is waiting upstairs. I don’t think all of us traipsing up as a group would be as low-key as we would want. Maybe just Brann and Grakk?’

Nods of agreement saw Grakk rise, but Gerens got to his feet also. ‘How do we know this is not a trap? We do not know this girl. Her friend might be half a dozen armed thugs looking to cut their throats and take their coins.’

Brann looked at Cannick, who shrugged and nodded.

‘Top of the stairs, turn right, third door on the left,’ Hakon said.

The door creaked almost as much as the stairs and the floor had on the way to the room. There was little or no chance of sneaking up on someone here, which was probably exactly the way the inhabitants liked it. Brann had his long dagger, its black blade that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, drawn and he noticed that the others had done the same. The door had swung only half open, blocking their view of most of the room and, before he could move forward, Gerens shouldered him roughly to the side and pushed the door wide.

The dark-eyed boy must have seen his surprise. ‘Don’t want to be unmissable for a crossbow bolt, do you?’

Brann nodded that indeed he did not.

No missile had come their way, however, and Gerens pushed past him. Grakk did likewise, and it was only when the wiry tribesman had moved clear of the entrance that Brann was able to make his way into the room.

Joceline, the woman he had seen with Hakon, stood to one side, while across the room from them a couple, just a few years older than Brann and fine-featured with such similarity that they could only be brother and sister, stood nervously in front of a large bed draped in ostentatiously colourful fabrics. The man stood slightly forward and, while his fingers toyed apprehensively with the hilt of the knife on his belt, Brann sheathed his own weapon. The dagger was the only apparent weapon on the man and, although he had learnt many times that looks could be deceiving (and had used that fact to his own advantage on more than one occasion), he felt fairly sure that if this girl was placing her trust in her brother for protection from rough violence, it was trust misplaced.

He nodded past the man at the girl behind him, trembling at the sight of the three who had walked in with blades in hand, although it was not clear what scared her most: the situation, the appearance of Grakk or the stare of Gerens. ‘We will not hurt you. We are grateful that you have agreed to talk to us.’

‘Actually,’ the young man said, coughing to try to clear his throat of nerves. ‘Actually, it is I with whom you have arranged to speak.’

‘Eloquent of speech,’ Grakk said approvingly.

The timid girl shrank into herself even further at the sound of Grakk’s own words, incongruous from a tribesman of such fierce appearance.

Brann stared at him. ‘You?’ He looked from brother to sister to brother in confusion. ‘But…’

The man raised his eyebrows. ‘You think all whores are women? That all men prefer women? You are unaware that this is not the case?’

‘Actually,’ said Gerens solemnly, ‘you would be surprised at the number of things he is unaware of.’

The man turned to Brann and spoke patiently. ‘Would it help you to know the background?’

Brann nodded vaguely. He couldn’t think of anything else to do.

‘I did not plan this career. My sister, Eloise, and I – I am Philippe, by the way – we came here as members of a troupe of actors. Some months before, I had met a man in another town and, to my surprise, he had offered to pay for, shall we say, what I had expected to be a fleeting experience of mutual enjoyment. I became aware that there were men who were willing to enter into the same sort of transaction with me in every town and village our show visited, and it became a more than useful method of augmenting an income that, let’s face it, could have been improved by a change of career to pig herder. It became even more lucrative than I had envisaged, in fact, because these men pay for two elements, gratification and discretion, and when the transaction is between two men rather than a man and a woman, the desire for discretion transpired to be greater, and therefore more expensive. However, in this fair town, my efforts to keep my lucrative sideline hidden from the leader of the troupe ceased to be successful and, on his discovering my infidelity to him in both a professional and emotional sense, I found that I was no longer a member of the troupe. And so I stayed here, and my sister with me, this new profession replacing, rather than augmenting, our acting.’

‘Believe me, my dear,’ Joceline drawled as she sauntered across the room, ‘all whores play a dozen parts every day. It just so happens that these two play them with more skill than most, and are lucky enough to have the stunning looks to help them along the way.’

Brann looked at the girl, a picture of nervous innocence. ‘These two?’

Eloise straightened and gave him a brazen smile. ‘Admit it, you felt sorry for me, didn’t you? Would you have found it easier or harder to cut my throat with that fancy knife of yours, having felt compassion towards me?’

Brann nodded weakly at one more surprise to rock him. ‘Not all would have felt so reluctant, though.’

Joceline put an arm around Eloise. ‘Men as bad as that would have done what they were going to do, regardless. Better to reduce the chance though, my love, don’t you think?’

Brann sat on the edge of the bed to process his thoughts. Philippe looked at him enquiringly and Grakk coughed politely.

‘Should the rest of us retire from the room, young Brann?’

He looked at Grakk, then at the man standing by the bed. His eyes went wide and he jumped to his feet, taking a quick step away. ‘No!’ He edged closer to Grakk and Gerens. ‘No, I… er… I mean…’ He looked at Philippe, waiting patiently. ‘Oh! I mean no offence. You seem a very nice person and I’m sure you’re very good at your job, but…’

Joceline’s laugh cut through the room, and Brann saw the amusement on the faces around him. He smiled sheepishly. ‘I think we had better move the conversation on.’

Brann composed himself. It did make some sense. And it opened up new possibilities for his plans. A guard captain with even more to hide…

‘Please excuse my ignorance,’ he said. ‘We have much to discuss.’

Brann awoke the next morning in a chair in Joceline’s room, having slept where he sat after plotting through the night. The others seemed to assume that Brann would devise a strategy, and he had pushed aside his initial discomfort at being left to do so by people with far more experience or education in such matters to use the time productively. In ones and twos, the others had returned to join the discussion after Brann had worked out the skeleton of the plan and, once they were all sure of the role each would play and how it connected to those of all others, most of the party had retired to the room they had taken for the night. Most of the party: Breta had decided that the large bed where they were was much more suitable than the bunks in their own room, and had thoughtfully left Joceline a small space at one side of her own mattress, where the whore was still sleeping despite the stentorian snores of the huge warrior beside her.

Brann stretched, feeling the sharp pain of the wound down his ribs as it pulled against the stitches. The gash on his arm was healing more quickly, but he had to be careful not to open the big wound whenever he twisted or reached, and it was annoying him. Still, he had suffered worse, and survived worse.

He ran back over the plan in his head. It was not intricate – the simpler, the less there was to go wrong and the easier it was to adapt as, inevitably, any plan has to do – and it didn’t even involve all of their group, but he was happy it should serve the purpose. It was not even a complicated job they were attempting. After all, they just wanted to gain access to the Duke of this region in his bedchamber at the top of his tower home, with an entire contingent of his soldiers filling the grounds around the building and the floors beneath the man’s quarters.

Despite Breta’s sound snoring, he woke her with an ease born of a warrior’s instant readiness and padded down the corridor to the other bedroom where he roused Marlo and Hakon – the three would complete the delivery of the oil before joining Cannick and Mongoose outside the town, ready to greet, and if necessary defend, the exit of the small party who would visit the Duke.

Brann thought of the barrel he had kicked over in the yard the night before, and shook Marlo’s shoulder as the boy sat rubbing his eyes, slower to alertness than the experienced fighters. ‘Remember, when you take the barrels…’

‘Yes, yes,’ the Sagian boy grumbled. ‘Only take two and pick up the other two from here to take out of the town to the others. But what about the merchant? He will be expecting four.’

‘Did you not hear last night?’ Brann was exasperated. He only felt comfortable if everyone understood what needed to be done.

‘The fire was warm and the night was late,’ Marlo shrugged. ‘How could I not fall asleep?’

‘Next time, stay further from the fire,’ Brann growled. ‘All you have to say is that when the wheel fell off, two of the barrels dropped from the cart and smashed. He will only pay you for two, but we already covered the full cost to the carter, so all is fine. He’ll grumble and you can look apologetic, and there will be nothing else anyone can do about it, so he’ll just have to accept it.’

‘Excellent!’ Marlo beamed infectiously as ever, and Brann found himself unable to resist smiling back, as ever. ‘I can manage that.’

Brann nodded. ‘Good. We’ll see you outside the walls. Cannick will organise you all out there.’

The hours of the day stretched out interminably, as waiting always did. It was with relief that night fell upon them, and they eventually left the inn, guided by Joceline and Eloise as they wound their way through the cobbled streets. It was a clearer sky than the previous night, allowing them to see their way without the revealing light of lanterns, and making for a more marked contrast between moonlit areas and the shadows cast by buildings, but Brann would have preferred by far to be moving through a deeper and more general gloom, particularly when he thought ahead to trying to remain unseen in the grounds of the Duke’s tower.

He need not have bothered worrying about the weather. Moon or no moon, clouds or no clouds, it made no difference. Eloise had halted them at a corner across a narrow street from the plain stone wall around the tower’s compound, around a man-and-a-half in height and with a gateway fronted by two lounging guards halfway along the wall to their left. What had caught their attention, however, was not the expected barrier but what came from behind it: even from here, the glow from lanterns or torches that must illuminate the area within was bright enough over the top of the wall to suggest that they may as well have been in daylight. Philippe’s assignation with the guard captain was after the man had overseen the final shift change of the sentries, and if the young man was to be able to distract the guards from outside the door to the Duke’s chambers, then the time when the captain slumbered after his exertions would be the perfect opportunity. The only opportunity.

He looked around the group. Konall, Grakk and Gerens were frowning as strongly as he was at the blazing light, but Sophaya merely squinted at it appraisingly. She looked around at the others.

‘What? You thought they would create some nice shadows and maybe a hedge or two to let intruders hide on their way to the tower?’

Gerens still wasn’t happy. ‘You are incessantly magnificent, it is true, but you still think you can get us into that tower? With the guards watching that whole area?’

‘Look at them, dear Gerens,’ the girl said with an impish smile. ‘Like any sentries, they look outwards, and only inwards if something should catch their attention.’

Konall’s look was cold with disdain. ‘We could hardly fail to catch their attention if we wander about in that light.’

But Brann looked at Sophaya and smiled. ‘People only see what they are looking at. So if they are looking at something else…’

‘So,’ Grakk murmured, ‘this would require their eyes to be diverted away to something else. Would you have a suggestion?’

‘Oh, that’s easy.’ They all turned at the sound of Eloise’s voice, which changed in the space of a breath to a tone of exaggerated despair, supported by extravagant and flailing gestures. ‘Oh, how seldom people see beyond the wafer-like crust of a surface to the depths beneath! Oh, how quick people are to disregard the years that went before the last day they have seen!’ She snapped back to herself, grinning. ‘I am an actress. If you can somehow help my brother in his situation, then I can be for those guards whatever we need me to be.’

She tousled her hair and smeared a little dirt from the gutter across her face as if the result of a fall. That fall quickly seemed liable to be repeated as her eyelids drooped and her body sagged and swayed, working to stay upright in the face of the excess of intoxication that she had never actually imbibed. She paused, seeming not quite satisfied with the effect, then pulled at the front of her blouse, ripping it open slightly and just enough to expose an expanse of what lay within. A button fell free and she bent to pick it up, staggering as her fingers closed on it and lurching into Brann.

He felt her lean into him to steady herself and looked at the face that turned to leer up at him. ‘Oh, you are a lovely one,’ she drawled at him. ‘I’ll save you for later.’ She pressed the button into his hand, and winked. ‘Remember me by this, my lover.’

Joceline laughed softly at her antics as Eloise pushed herself away from Brann. He slipped the button in beside the coins in his pouch as, in a low voice, she said to them all, ‘Remember, further along to our right and then, immediately around the next corner, ivy has grown unchecked on the wall. Not a great deal, but enough to let you gain the top of the wall.’

Sophaya was not impressed. ‘Sloppy. I’m surprised others haven’t tried to rob him.’

Eloise shrugged. ‘The walls of the town protect him from those without, but it is his reputation that protects him from those within. To catch the eye of the Duke does not usually end well, and no one in this place wishes to court the possibility. Why run towards the danger they fear and hide from?’

Grakk was curious. ‘What is it that is so terrible? I have seen rulers who rule by fear, but the impression you give is that it goes beyond the normal.’

Joceline spoke, her face as dark as her tone. ‘He has tastes. Desires that he satisfies. He calls it study, but…’ A strange look came into her eyes.

Grakk frowned. ‘He does what, precisely?’

Eloise started to speak, then hesitated, looking at Joceline, who herself shrugged. Eloise seemed to gather her resolve, a troubled look on her face. ‘I don’t know, nobody really does exactly. Sometimes noises come from the tower, sometimes fragments of stories emerge, but not one person who is taken there has been seen to return.’ She hesitated again. ‘People don’t like to make trouble about it, or even talk of it, because then they come to the notice of the Duke’s men. And… well… who would risk losing a child?’

Brann looked sharply at Grakk and then Gerens. He could see they had the same thoughts: they had all been present on a ship off the coast of Cardallon, the southern of the Green Islands, when a shore party had returned with news of the slaughter of a village; a massacre of a sort that had sounded chillingly similar to the love of torture and killing that they had witnessed among Loku’s recruits in the mountains of Konall’s homeland. And prominent amongst its victims, too, had been children. ‘I feel more than ever we need to have a word with this Duke.’

Eloise gathered her skirts as she continued. ‘No one knows the full truth, and that is exactly why I do not like Philippe being so close to that man. If we are to do this, I would that we do it without any more delay.’

Without waiting for a reply, she pointed at them and then at an alleyway running parallel to the road between them and the wall, then slipped into its equivalent heading in the opposite direction. Moments later, the rambling shouts of a drunkard were heard arguing with a rat, before they saw her stagger into the open near the compound gate and lurch in surprise at the sight of the guards. She weaved her way towards them, her words inaudible to Brann’s ears but her demeanour making it clear that the two men were targets of her desire. From the way they came alert, it appeared that the attraction was mutual.

Her less than quiet antics had, however, attracted further attention, and a shout from behind the wall saw one of the guards open the gate. A brief explanation from him and further instruction from inside saw her ushered within, much to the apparent irritation of the guards on the gate, although her swaying gait maintained their attention after she had disappeared from Brann’s view.

Joceline nodded back down the street they had come up. ‘At the next junction is the edge of an area where girls can be seen offering their services. I am not usually so public about my work, but I can look like I fit in there. I will wait there to guide you on your return.’ She cast another look back at the gate to the compound. ‘Now go, for the sake of both of them. Please ensure they come back from that place.’

Brann nodded, as did the others. The courage of Eloise had affected them all. They ran quietly along the alley and turned to meet the road at the first opportunity. They were only a bowshot from the corner, and they reached it in a few rapid heartbeats. Brann blew out his breath in relief as he saw the ivy, and before he could say anything, Sophaya was on top of the wall, lying along it on her stomach. She nodded and dropped silently from sight.

Brann tested the strength of the plant and then realised that it mattered not – he had no option but to try dragging himself up without any further delay. It held well as he grabbed large handfuls to try not to put too much pressure on individual roots, and with Konall using his height to advantage and pushing from below, he managed to haul himself to the top with his one good arm, the light dazzling from countless lamps on tall stands that were dotted across the expanse within. The wall was the length of his forearm in thickness, and he blinked his eyes shut and open rapidly as Konall started to follow. A glance down saw Sophaya moving tight to the wall, and Brann hurriedly dropped to the rough ground below to leave space for the Northern boy, looking for Eloise as he landed in a crouch. She had wandered towards a tall guard who seemed to hold some level of authority, from the way that the other two guards with him on the short flight of steps to the door of the tower moved back instantly at his wave. Two sentries between Brann and the unfolding scene were amusedly watching her, while another just inside the gate was equally engrossed.

The tall guard stepped forward and took Eloise by the arm, looking to usher her inside the building. Brann froze. He did not like the thought that she should be taken inside by those men at all, but it had been inevitable from the moment she had stepped through the gate, and should the watching men lose the object of their interest from view too soon, at least one of them would notice the four figures who would be running around the perimeter of the compound. Admiration filled him, though, as Eloise remained both in character and true to her purpose, pulling free from the man and embarking on a drunken rant. Only the occasional word reached Brann, but it was enough to understand that she was berating the onlookers for only being interested in one aspect of a woman. If that was what they wanted, she yelled, why not feast their eyes, and she started peeling off her clothes with the combination of extravagant flourishes and staggering lack of balance that only intoxication can perfect. Grinning, the tall guard folded his arms to enjoy the spectacle, and if the other onlookers had not been giving every shred of their attention to her before then, this was no longer the case.

Brann set off immediately in the footsteps of Sophaya. Konall had already landed and followed closely behind, and soft crunches in the dirt told him that the other two had dropped from the wall only a few breaths later. As he ran, his eyes scanned the area, as much in wariness of coming across guards as to discover the nature of their surroundings. The ground was flat and mostly paved, empty of any character and populated only by the tall poles supporting the lamps that bathed the area in near as much brightness as daylight and stretching from the wall the length of around a hundred paces to the tower, which had been built exactly in the centre of the compound. The building itself was square and around twenty paces on each side; Philippe had described seven storeys in all, with a roof terrace, and only the top four levels had windows, each with shutters as a means to keep the weather at bay, but each with those shutters lying open to the world to encourage what little comforting breeze the humid night offered. The Duke’s chamber occupied the top two levels, accessed on the sixth level where his living quarters were, from which a stairway led to the sleeping area – a sleeping area that was sacrosanct, where no one, without exception, was permitted to set foot. If they could corner him there, it was likely they could do so without risk of being disturbed.

He cast a look back. Eloise was now completely naked and twisting with flailing arms to make it difficult for two laughing guards to take hold of her. Difficult, but not impossible, and they soon had her in their grasp, starting to lead her towards the entrance to the tower. Brann redoubled his efforts, chilled by thoughts of what may await Eloise inside the building and anxious as much to be in a position to help her as he was to escape being spotted. As he approached the next corner of the wall, the rear of the compound became visible and he could see the difference that brother and sister had described to them: a garden area that filled the space from the back of the tower to halfway to the outer wall. Trellises, low shrubs, and stone animals with decorative paths snaking among them were not the best of cover, but it was better by far than the exposure that lay on every other side.

The three following caught him as he rounded the corner. Sophaya was out of sight and presumably already in the garden, and the quartet left the wall together and angled directly towards the shrubbery in their haste to reach what little cover was available before the guards resumed their duties. Brann vaulted a knee-high hedge and caught his foot, tumbling and rolling onto short grass that muffled the sound of his fall but was not soft enough to prevent the flash of pain from his ribs. The hedge enclosed the grass on all four sides and, with a grunt, he gathered his legs under him and made for the side closest to the tower, stepping over it carefully this time and dropping to lie hard against it. He found Sophaya and Konall already doing the same, and the boy pushed a lock of his white-blond hair from his face as he looked at Brann.

‘You never cease to entertain,’ he said drily.

Sophaya looked up at the building, and Brann followed her eyes. Some of the windows were dark, some let light spill out, but one – on the second-top level – had a lantern sitting directly on the sill. Philippe had left his sign. The lamp was placed not only to signify the window that was their target, but also that the guards on the Duke’s door had been lured away to tend a sudden and violently painful illness afflicting the captain and brought on by a powder supplied by Grakk and slipped into his goblet by Philippe. The two windows to the right of the lamplight were in darkness, lending credence to what Philippe claimed was common knowledge among the staff: that the Duke would retire religiously to the top floor at fall of darkness every evening, never to be disturbed and with only dire consequences awaiting any fool who risked doing so.

‘No time like the present,’ Sophaya murmured and rolled into a crouch, but Brann grabbed at her ankle.

‘Wait,’ he hissed.

She scowled at him, either from irritation at being stopped or from the insult to her professional judgement, but she slid back down to hide once more, her head close to his. Her voice was a whisper, barely more than a breath. ‘The boy said that the guards are lazy, that they patrol only occasionally.’

Brann kept his words equally as quiet. ‘But when would they be more likely to wander around than right after they have been disturbed from whatever they have been doing?’

She looked at him as she considered it, then nodded.

They waited.

It seemed at first as if he had been overcautious. Then they heard the voices. Two men rounded the corner at an amble, one grumbling at the sergeant always taking whatever benefits came their way, the other content that they had been treated to entertainment beyond the ordinary. The grumpy one stopped at the edge of the garden. Brann caught his breath, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword. He watched through the sparser branches in the lowest few inches of the hedge, slowly gathering his legs ready to roll and spring. He heard a soft scrape – Konall must be doing the same. He reached out a foot, feeling the boy’s arm, and pressed against it in restraint. Wait, he thought, cautioning himself as much as the other boy. Nerves erode judgement. Wait until you know you cannot wait. He eased his head round with excruciating slowness to find Grakk and Gerens; the tribesman was curled behind a waist-high bush clipped into an onion shape, while the boy was kneeling behind a statue of a boar, his eyes flicking fast between Sophaya, Brann and the two guards. With Grakk and Gerens further away, Brann and Konall would have to deal with any discovery themselves, and swiftly.

Still grumbling to his companion, the guard turned to face them. Brann’s fingers tightened on his sword, and his toes dug slightly into the surface of the soil. But the man did not peer in their direction; he did not call his colleague’s attention to something unusual; he did not reach for his sword or ready his spear. The man reached only to loosen the front of his breeches, and he relieved himself beside a small bush.

Brann felt the tension release him from its iron grasp and fought instead to stifle laughter born as much of relief as of the ridiculous situation he found himself in. The guard finished and, spear tucked under one arm, fixed his clothing as he walked away. Not one of the hidden group dared to move until the two men had disappeared around the corner of the tower.

The instant they were out of sight, however, Sophaya rolled and rose, moving in one motion to a sprint to the wall of the tower. All of the others remained where they were, keeping to as much cover as was possible until they, too, would have to move – all but Gerens who, with sword drawn, was crouched beside the girl. While she faced the tower, he had his back to the rough stone, head swivelling constantly, eyes scanning for danger, ever the protector.

Sophaya settled a coil of rope, stained a similar colour to the stone blocks of the tower, more securely over one shoulder and down to the opposite hip, and without hesitation reached up and started to climb. Brann had witnessed her agility many times and knew of feats she had achieved in defeating every physical barrier that was placed before her, but this was the first time he had seen her in action, and he marvelled at her. He would have been amazed had a creature of the forest found purchase on such a surface, so his mind could barely grasp the way that Sophaya moved with sure and rapid grace up the wall: fingertips and toes – clad in soft tight-fitting boots barely thicker than hose – finding grip where he could conceive of none.

His wonder seemed to freeze time and his brain, and it was only when Konall’s soft words broke his trance that he jerked his attention back to the surroundings to check for any danger that Gerens might have missed, however unlikely the baleful boy was to do that.

‘Squared corners.’ The Northern boy’s voice was thick with scorn. ‘A few flung boulders and that’s knocked away, and then all above is coming down.’

Brann looked at it. ‘I suppose they reckon it is far enough from the town walls that it is liable never to be a target for siege catapults. Squared corners mean more conveniently shaped rooms inside. This is built for comfort and prestige, not defence.’

Konall’s disgust was undiminished. ‘A whole town should be built for defence.’

Brann grinned. ‘Not every populace is as well versed in siege architecture as yours, you know.’

‘Cretins.’

Smiling, Brann looked back at the wall, Sophaya had closed on the window with the lamp. She reached the lip and, after a brief look over the edge, slipped inside in a fluid movement. The lamp receded until the glow grew instead in the windows to the right, growing brighter beside one opening as it was, presumably, set close. Moments later, the rope uncoiled down the side of the building, and the three joined Gerens as he grasped the end, tying it in a large loop.

His dark eyes locked on Brann’s. ‘Remember, this goes around you and under your arms. Do not attempt to pull yourself up – you are in no fit state. Konall and I will pull you up once Grakk has reached the room.’

Konall held the end of the rope steady to let Gerens start to climb, walking his legs on the wall. The blond head turned to Brann. ‘Konall may not bother. Konall is wondering why we let you insist on coming along in the state you are in.’ His eyes turned to the bush still dripping at the edge of the garden. ‘Although I suppose you do have your uses.’

‘At least,’ Grakk said, ‘that incident did prove one thing.’ They both looked at him, and found his calm eyes looking back impassively. ‘They have no expectation that danger will visit them within these walls.’

Brann frowned. ‘Because one guard has no respect for his superiors and is not afraid to talk about it?’

Grakk smiled. ‘Because there is one part of a man’s anatomy that he will never risk taking out if he thinks there is the slightest chance of sharp-edged objects being swung about at any point in the near future. And that was it.’

Brann was about to laugh at a rare Grakk joke when he saw the look in the tribesman’s eyes. And, when he thought about it, Grakk was right. He looked up to see Sophaya help Gerens through the window and moved to let Konall grasp the rope to start his climb. That his ascent was slightly slower than that of Gerens owed more to physique than anything else – while Konall was lean and strong, Gerens’s rangy build lent him an agility beyond Konall’s assured but steady style, although when it came to Grakk, the man of the desert tribes scampered up the wall as if the rope were a bannister on a stairway and made Gerens look sluggish in comparison.

Brann looked around, suddenly very aware that he was alone. The area in sight was empty, which was good, but the bright light and the sense of danger made him want to shrink against the wall. Even though he knew the guards’ rounds were seldom carried out, still he couldn’t help looking back and forth, expecting at every moment to see armed figures appear. He felt at the loop of rope that Grakk had dropped over his head before he had left him, tucking it into place and patting him on the head with a wink. It was rough, the thickness of a finger, and seemed strong. He hoped it was. He nestled it more securely under his armpits and, just as he did so, he started as he felt the rope pull tight against him.

Grakk’s head popped out of the window to satisfy himself that Brann was ready and, at a nod from the bald head, he felt the rope tighten and lift him from the ground. He started to spin and, alarmed, grabbed the rope with both hands, scrabbling with his feet at the wall to try to keep him facing the surface. His ribs and the wound on his left arm stung, but he managed to get into a rhythm, half-walking and half-bouncing with his feet as he was pulled upwards in rapid lurches. He was concentrating so much on maintaining his balance that the thought of discovery from below was forgotten. One step, then the other, he was jerked upwards. He looked up, and was surprised to see the window only the height of a man above him. He could just make out the sound of soft whispers, and grinned at the thought that he would soon be among his friends.

The whispers stopped. The movement of the rope stopped. Everything seemed to stop. In the silence and stillness, Brann became aware of the soft wind blowing his hair across his eyes, a breeze that would have been welcome at ground level but served here only to remind him how exposed he was. How vulnerable. He was at the mercy of others from above even more than below. Who would think to look up, much less launch any sort of missile almost six storeys upwards with any accuracy? On the other hand, any loosening of the rope above…

He hung, totally dependent on the rope. It was bearing his weight without even the slightest give; it could only be that it was tied off. But why? His mind raced. The whispered voices had stopped abruptly, but there had been no further noise. They must have heard something and be either trying to remain unnoticed or preparing to defend themselves. If it was the latter, it went against his nature not to help them. And in either case, he hated not knowing.

He flinched at the sound of a door crashing open. Shouts burst briefly, then a quiet voice spoke. Brann could not make out the words, but they were shortly followed by the clatter and clang of metal hitting stone: dropped weapons. His stomach knotted. His breath came loud in his ears. He started to haul himself up, hand over hand, his left side searing with pain, the agony overpowered by his urge to reach his friends. The rope creaked as he moved, but softly; he could only hope it was soft enough to merge with the noises of the town beyond. In any case, the consequence of it being heard, grave as it would be, was still preferable to being discovered a short distance below the window and a long drop above the ground.

And in any case, the idea of doing nothing while his friends were in danger had started his muscles moving even before his mind had debated the issue.

He reached the window undiscovered. He forced his heaving breath to be still and eased the last few inches that let his vision clear the sill. And he froze.

His friends stood unarmed, each with a lightly armoured guard on each arm and a blade at their throat; Sophaya closest to the window and just to its right, the rest extending away in a curved line. To the left, regarding them calmly across the room, was a well-dressed man, diminutive in height and almost unhealthily slender, who pulled thoughtfully on a bottom lip that was as thin as his face was pinched and pale, features that merely emphasised the sunken depth of his eyes. He ran the hand through thin dark hair and sighed. ‘But you are all so ordinary! How could you possibly think you could succeed?’

A door beyond him stood open and Philippe, his face wild with fear and marked with a swelling on one cheekbone, was dragged through by a lean guard with hard eyes, unarmoured but wearing a tunic that was black like the tabards of the other guards – in his case with a red stripe down the centre.

The small man smiled. ‘Ah, you thought yourselves so clever, did you not? A man on the inside; a man with a potion.’ He took a goblet from the guard holding Philippe. ‘Thank you, captain.’ He sniffed the dregs curiously. ‘No odour. Instantly dissolved, I believe.’ The captain nodded. ‘Fast acting, too, I hear. Interesting. Most interesting. If any of you have more of this most effective powder on you, I will enjoy investigating it further in due course.’ He looked at them. ‘Yes, effective, though you see my captain standing here before you, most decidedly awake. You see, you thought you knew everything, I am sure, but you did not know me. You did not know that I have no interest in the minor issue of how my captain or anyone else sates their desires as long as they can still serve me as I require. My captain has no need to be secretive from me, and no fear of anything needing to be hidden from me. So when your pretty boy here did not hide well enough his inept attempt to slip powder into a drink, my good captain was able to subdue him and alert me that something must be afoot. The rest was simplicity, waiting to see if someone would come to me, as the boy is incapable of doing anything of any great importance himself. Waiting, moreover, to see who would come, how they would come, why they would come.’ He chuckled with the contentment of a man who is more clever than all around. ‘We have seen the if and the how – and soon we will hear the who and the why.’

Brann’s arms were beginning to shake, but he forced his fingers tight around the rope. Now was not the time to give himself away. Or to fall, for that matter. The rope groaned as his weight rolled slightly to one side. He caught his movement and his breath in the same instant.

But the small man was pacing nonchalantly as he looked at the sullen faces staring at him, his footsteps loud enough to mask any small noise from across the room and outside the window. ‘What, no conversation? Let me start it off, then. What was your purpose? Robbery? Or perhaps murder?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘No answer?’ He looked at one of the guards holding Sophaya, her eyes defiant and glaring. ‘If these gentlemen remain so rudely unresponsive the next time I ask, please cut her throat. Keep the head unmarked, though, as I have plans for it.’

Gerens’s eyes bulged, and his voice growled. ‘You said she would not be harmed if we gave up our weapons.’

The Duke, as Brann assumed he could only be, smiled indulgently. ‘Of course I did, and she was not harmed, was she? But that was then, and this is now. I have further use for this bargaining tool, do I not? Especially as it proved so effective the first time.’ He pursed his lips in consideration. ‘Maybe we should just slice her soft throat now as a statement of intent…’

Gerens roared and strained at his captors, managing a step forward. The Duke turned again to regard Sophaya, but Grakk’s calm voice dragged his attention away once more.

‘Strangely enough,’ he said, ‘it was actually a quick chat with yourself that brought us here. Perhaps we could dispense with the unnecessary gripping of arms and just pull up a chair.’

The Duke looked with intrigue at the precise speech and cultured tone, then laughed in delight. ‘I think I will keep you till last. But unfortunately, you do not seem willing to give me a sensible answer, so…’ He looked at Sophaya again. ‘Kill her.’

Brann moved.

He yanked at the rope to fling himself forward, all of his senses focused on the scene before him and far from any pain in his wounds. In the instant between his hands leaving the rope and reaching for the inner edge of the windowsill, he felt a coldness settle over him, his eyes hungry for movement that made his choices for him. He pulled at the sill and his legs came up under him, bracing on the ledge. As he launched, he saw the Duke’s eyes widen with the sharp surprise that hits hardest at a man who is convinced he has control, and then he was tumbling to roll on one shoulder. On the way down, his long knife slashed, parting, like thread, the rope as it tensed against the wall sconce it had been tethered to, and as he came out of his roll it sliced just as easily across the back of the knees of the guard lifting his blade to execute Sophaya.

The man screamed as his legs buckled and the girl wheeled, the soldier’s knife in her hand. Almost faster than Brann’s eyes could follow, she had cut across the back of the hand of the man to her right, his fingers spasming and releasing his sword and, as her second movement opened his throat, Brann came to his feet and battered his shoulder into the dying man, knocking him into the next guard along. The guard had let go of Konall and was turning towards them, but now found himself entangled in the arms and slipping in the blood of the body thrown against him. Brann’s hand flicked his axe up from his belt and, with a roll of his wrist and a wild swing, cut the black metal through the dead man’s arm and into the neck of the struggling soldier. It was not a time for finesse.

He wrenched the axe free and blood sprayed into the face of a man poised to stab a short spear at him. He dropped to a crouch, away from the line of the lunge, and thrust his axe forward, hooking the head behind the man’s ankle. Jerking the axe as he stood, the man was upended and he continued the movement to swing the axe over and down to stop with a crunch in the centre of the man’s forehead. It was quicker to draw his sword than drag the axe free, and he spun in a crouch, blade held ready, as he sought the next danger.

He saw carnage. It had been a natural reaction for the guards to turn towards unexpected danger, but it had also been a fatal reaction. As the captives were released, each had instantly reached for the closest weapon, either their own from the floor or whatever they could reach from the belt of the guard.

‘Wait!’ The Duke’s voice cut across the room, and they stood, chests heaving, blood dripping, every guard lying dead. Every guard but one – a sound came from a man curled around his entrails, a low bubbling moan was all that could emerge from the half of his face that was left.

Gerens bent down, and now every guard lay dead. They faced the Duke, and saw the captain beside him, Philippe held in front with a knife at his throat. The captain grinned.

Brann’s hand reached fast behind his neck for the throwing knife he kept strapped at the top of his spine, but Konall grabbed his wrist.

‘Too risky a target for anyone, and I have seen you throw when you have time to think about it.’

He let out his breath, the cold fire of combat fading. The Northern boy was right. Brann’s throwing was atrocious.

He flinched as a flash flickered past him, and the captain screamed in agony, his hand clutching at an eye suddenly gushing blood. Philippe stumbled and ran from him and, as the man swung wildly with his knife, Grakk neatly ducked under the swipe and finished him with a thrust of a sword up under his ribs and into his heart.

With a low growl, Gerens leapt for the Duke, but Grakk was quicker, placing himself in the way. ‘Not just now, young Gerens.’

The boy’s eyes burnt darkly still, but he halted and nodded, looking at the captain’s corpse and then at Philippe. ‘Well, at least that has saved us the bother of stopping in to visit that bastard for you on the way out.’

Philippe smiled weakly, but the relief in his eyes was strong.

The Duke glanced at the door, but saw Konall standing in its way, arms folded and a cold smile on his face.

Without taking his eyes from the Duke, the boy closed the door and, with exaggerated deliberateness, slid home the bolt.

The Duke’s eyes lingered on the broken and bloody bodies of his guards but, rather than fear, his expression was lit by an excited fascination.

Grakk came to stand before him. ‘Now,’ the tribesman said, ‘perhaps we could have that chat we mentioned.’ He looked around the room. ‘Although perhaps it might have been easier to have it when I first suggested it.’

The Duke’s eyes were still alight. ‘But then I would have missed your exhibition of such magnificently efficient brutality.’ He turned his lascivious gaze on Brann. ‘And this one – oh, I could find some wonderful uses for one such as he.’

Brann looked back impassively. He had seen this man’s sort before, baying and slavering in the crowds at the pits of Sagia’s depraved City Below. Such people meant nothing to him.

A noise came from behind them and all spun, weapons in hand. A small girl, aged no more than six years, stood at the bottom of a winding staircase, staring up at the group. Barefoot and dressed in just a simple shift, she looked around the room. With a cry, Sophaya rushed to her, sweeping the girl into her arms. She felt over the small figure quickly. ‘Unharmed, I believe,’ she said over her shoulder.

Brann looked at Grakk. ‘And unmoved by the gore,’ he said quietly.

Grakk nodded. ‘Unhurt physically, perhaps, but…’

Sophaya took the girl to a chair at the far side of the room, sitting to cradle her and speak soothingly to her.

Brann turned to Gerens and Konall. ‘I’ll take a look up there with Grakk.’

‘You will not dare!’ the Duke screamed, fury filling the words. ‘No one goes up there but me. No one!’

Brann looked at the sudden emotion with interest. He pointed at the girl in Sophaya’s arms. ‘She did. And now we will.’ The Duke screamed in rage, his eyes bulging, and Brann looked at Konall and Gerens. ‘You two keep an eye on him. If you have to ensure he stays still and quiet,’ he gave a half-smile, ‘please do it in a way that will still allow him to speak.’

The pair said nothing but turned to stand and stare at the Duke. His ranting continued, and Gerens punched him hard in the face. The man fell silent but still quivered and stared, his anger barely controlled.

Grakk followed Brann up the stairs, and they emerged into a room the same size as the one below. A lavish bed sat against the far wall and a desk strewn with documents lay between them and it, but it was the shelves around that drew their eyes. Jars contained organs and body parts, the former suspiciously human-looking and the latter definitely so, all floating in liquid. A trolley lay in front, the top lined neatly with an assortment of shining blades, saws, pincers, and other instruments that Brann had only seen before in the rooms of the top physicians in Sagia, those who tended the elite, and expensive, gladiators. His eyes moved past the trolley and came to a table of metal and…

His head swam. He felt his knees go from under him. He staggered to one side and retched onto the floor.

A boy – a boy’s body – lay on the table. His face was untouched, revealing that he had been much the same age as the girl downstairs, but his torso had been sliced to allow the skin to be peeled back to either side. Ribs had been clipped away to allow complete access and for the organs to be exposed. Some of those organs had been removed and lay neatly to one side. The rest were still visible.

And the heart was still slowly beating.

‘Oh by all the gods,’ Brann whispered. ‘What evil is this?’

A sheet of notes in neat and precise script lay beside the boy, and as Grakk moved to seek some clue from it, he noticed a small empty vial near the child’s head, and sniffed it briefly. ‘What little consolation there can be is in the fact that he has slept through this.’

Pain constricted Brann’s throat, making his voice hoarse. ‘But when he wakes?’

‘He must not wake.’ Grakk picked up a slender blade, its tip curved, from the trolley and deftly nicked a vein in the small boy’s neck, dark blood swiftly pooling on the table top. ‘He will not wake.’ A single tear ran down his cheek, but the tribesman seemed unaware. ‘The gods will have him now.’ He moved beside Brann and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You wondered about the gods? This is where we need to believe they are there to care for those such as this poor soul.’

Brann nodded, but felt a fury building in him. He rose and reached for his knife.

Grakk’s hand tightened on his shoulder. ‘I know,’ the man said. ‘I know. But we are here for a purpose. We have seen the monstrosity of our enemy in the past, and for the sake of other children like this, we must not let further examples of the same divert us from our course.’

Brann nodded, and forced his breathing deep and slow. He looked away from the table. He would not look back. He gasped as his eyes lit on two cages, tall as a man’s waist and narrow – in one, a small boy crouched. Brann almost slipped as he rushed to it, but as he drew close he saw his haste was wasted. The eyes were open but unseeing. The hands were missing several fingers, but still grasped the bars with what ability they had possessed. He had been cut and stitched with precision in multiple places, with some wounds having partially healed while others were clearly more recent. Again, a sheet lay alongside – a quick glance revealed a list of dates and notes, but a quick glance was all Brann could bring himself to give it. The body was stiff to the touch, but he still felt at the small neck for a pulse. He had never thought he would find himself glad to find a child to be dead.

Two similar cages sat alongside, both empty. On one, the latch was bent and the door ajar – it seemed most likely to have been the home of the little girl.

Grakk was at the desk, looking through the documents. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘This is what we seek.’

Brann moved across, averting his eyes from the boy on the table and glad of something to take his attention that did not involve the torture of children.

Grakk indicated piles of paper, one a map and the rest covered with text or diagrams. ‘There is more here than we can peruse at this time.’

Brann shrugged. ‘So we take it all.’ He pulled a sheet from the bed and laid it by the desk, lifting the papers onto it. Grakk nodded and helped him, tying it into a bundle when they had finished. Brann looked back at the bed. ‘To think he slept here, chose to sleep here, in the midst of all of this.’

They couldn’t leave the room quickly enough, and wound their way back down the stair.

The scene was much as they’d left it, except that the Duke had acquired a swollen eye and was clutching one wrist to his chest. Brann stood in front of him, staring, and wondering what happened in the head of such a man that made him capable of such things.

‘You saw my workroom, then?’ the man said brightly, almost proudly. ‘So much has been learnt in that room. So much has been discovered, such advances achieved, such help that will be brought to those who seek to progress the human condition. If you can grasp even a fraction of the enormity of what has been achieved in that room, you will thank your gods for the work wrought by such higher thought.’ His eyes glittered, and he shook with excitement. ‘If you will but permit me to share just some of my findings…’

Brann fought to control himself. ‘Right now, I thank the gods that I am ordinary.’ He looked past the Duke. ‘Gerens, it is time for this man to answer our questions.’

Gerens nodded solemnly. ‘The slow way or the quick way?’

‘To be honest,’ Brann said, ‘I would love the slow way, but we are not blessed with time. Those who knew that something was amiss, I would expect, are all in this room, dead or alive, so we can do what we have to do. But I would rather we were on our way,’ he thought of the scene in the room above, ‘sooner rather than later.’

‘The quick way, then.’

He marched the Duke to the window and pushed him backwards until he was lying on the sill. Grabbing an ankle in each hand, he tipped him until the man was hanging upside down above the drop.

‘He’s gone quite rigid, chief,’ Gerens said. ‘I think he’s a bit frightened.’

Brann was sure he was. ‘Are you sure you can hold on to him? Remember we need information.’

‘He really is very light,’ Gerens reassured him. ‘There’s actually nothing to him.’ To demonstrate, he let go with one hand, then leant out of the window slightly. ‘Now, don’t wriggle. You might break free, don’t you think?’ He reached out and grabbed the free ankle again. ‘There, we go. Don’t want him to get too scared to speak, I suppose.’

‘Good,’ Brann said. ‘Ask him about Loku.’

Gerens leant forward. ‘My friend would like to know if you have encountered a man called Loku recently. Or maybe you know him as Taraloku-Bana?’ There was a muffled sound from outside, and Gerens spoke over his shoulder. ‘He knows him as Loku, and he was indeed here when we thought he was. It appears he is a colleague.’

‘Ask him who he reports to.’

‘My friend would like to know who your boss is in your affairs with Loku.’ He turned his head again to Brann. ‘He says Loku was arranging a meeting across the water with others like them, to report to he who controls them and receive instructions. This dangling man is to meet this boss for the first time at that meeting.’

‘Ask him where Loku is now.’

‘My friend would like to know where that bastard Loku has gone.’ He relayed the message once again to the room. ‘He says there is a camp near here, a day’s ride to the east. He might still be there. Some have already been sent to the next stage of fulfilling their purpose, and he was to assess who would be ready to go next.’

Konall strolled across and looked with interest over the top of Gerens. ‘I must say, this Duke is being fairly eager to help.’

‘Would you not, in that position?’ Brann asked.

Konall frowned. ‘It would be impossible. I am too heavy for Gerens to hold for such a length of time.’ He noticed something and eased partially past Gerens to peer out of the window at an angle. ‘Excuse me,’ he said politely to Gerens.

‘Of course,’ Gerens said, leaning flat on the sill to allow Konall to lean further. A moan came from outside the window.

Konall turned back to the room. ‘Two guards have come round the corner. The fools are chatting enough that they are unlikely to look up here, but the man hanging from Gerens’s hands will be able to see them very soon, and I’m pretty sure he will start shouting.’

Brann looked at the others, and saw that they were looking at him. He considered the options and the situation. ‘We need to shut the Duke up, and we need to divert the attention away from the front door.’

Gerens turned from the window, empty-handed. ‘That’s easy. Anything else?’

The Duke’s wail was cut short by an audible thump, precipitating shouts of alarm.

Brann shrugged. ‘That should do it.’

‘A quicker end than he deserved,’ Konall reflected.

Brann kicked a stool, sending it careering across the room. ‘You don’t know the half of it. Let’s go.’ He looked at Sophaya. ‘Ready?’

She nodded and stood, the waiflike figure still huddled in her arms. Grakk ripped a curtain from its hanging at the opening to the stairs leading upwards, and they wiped the worst of the blood from their faces and hands. They retrieved what weapons were still protruding from the various bodies lying around the room and cleaned them also, sliding them back into their sheaths. Grakk pulled the object from the captain’s eye and wiped it on the curtain, turning it over curiously in his hand. It was a flat piece of metal, shaped into a star with barbed points, and the tribesman looked at Sophaya. ‘An interesting weapon,’ he observed. ‘I have heard of such among some guilds of assassins in the Empire.’

She stroked the child’s hair. ‘You mix with all sorts when you work in certain sections of society in a big city. It pays to develop contacts, especially when you can learn from each other.’

Grakk was still examining the star, weighing it on his hand and turning it on his fingertips.

‘Keep it.’

Grakk smiled. ‘Thank you. You are kind.’

She shrugged. ‘I have several.’

Brann sheathed his axe, eager to organise their exit. ‘For the first few floors, at least, we will try to pass unobtrusively. Or, at least, as unobtrusively as can be managed by a group that looks like us.’ He turned to Philippe. ‘We need someone to lead us down.’

Konall looked at him askance. ‘We just keep going down stairs, surely, until we reach ground level. How much leading does that need?’

‘No,’ Brann said, his eyes still on Philippe, ‘we need someone to look like they are leading us down, at least for as long as we can manage before someone realises that something is wrong. Every step we don’t have to fight for, hastens our departure.’ He put his hand on Philippe’s arm. ‘Can you act a part?’

The young man smiled weakly. ‘I may be useless at drugging someone, but I have spent so many years acting in one way or another that I’m not sure if I can do anything else. What do you want?’

Brann chewed his lip, gathering his thoughts. ‘People in here recognise you. If you are directing us, explaining loudly about things as if we were guests of the Duke and you have been asked to show us out, it would be good. The more you look to draw attention to yourself, the less people think you don’t want them to look closely. They just get irritated and hope you go away quickly. Or at least, I hope they do.’

Sophaya grunted. ‘Only one way to find out. Now can we go? There may not be much to this little one, but she’s not made of feathers.’

Gerens made to reach for the snuggling girl, but she just pressed harder against Sophaya, who shook her head briefly. He nodded in acceptance, but stepped close, loosening a large knife in its sheath. No one would harm either girl while he could still move.

Brann took a deep breath. ‘Yes, we should move, but one more thing, Philippe. Eloise is downstairs. In the guard room.’

His eyes widened. ‘You only thought to tell me this now? Why have we dallied here?’

He made for the door in a rush, but Brann restrained him.

‘I’m sorry, but we came for a purpose and could not leave without it. And to rush without thought would be to rush to death, and we cannot help her if we are lying bleeding on a stairwell.’ He gripped him tighter. ‘Can you do this?’

Philippe stared at him for a moment, before the actor returned to his eyes. He straightened. ‘I can. But we do it now.’

No more words were needed. They followed his abrupt exit. No more words on that matter, but Philippe had already slipped into the overbearing conversation of one who looks to show off their petty importance. ‘If you follow me, I’ll show you the guard room, as the Duke requested of his most trusted servant.’ He turned and said in a low voice. ‘If people think you are going somewhere else inside, they won’t think about you heading outside. Do you think that’s right?’

Brann wasn’t sure it was necessarily so, but nodded with a smile. It did no harm to encourage Philippe, and the main thing was that he kept talking. As Philippe continued his guided tour, each proclamation more strident and pompous than the last, Brann ran over in his mind the layout the young man had described to them. A single winding stairway ran from top to bottom, wide enough for three men abreast and with a landing at each level. Below the Duke’s chambers on the top two floors were the late captain’s rooms, and then the kitchens situated where they could serve those above and below equally as quickly. The next floor down housed storerooms: half for the cooking staff and half for the guards’ equipment, while the level below that held sleeping quarters for guards and servants. At ground level were more sleeping rooms and the main guard room, and below was a cellar with half-a-dozen cells around a central area where prisoners could be questioned in view of those awaiting the same fate.

They passed the captain’s level quickly, Philippe averting his eyes from the interior as they did so, and approached the kitchens. ‘I will show you the guard room as agreed,’ Philippe pronounced even more loudly than before, his words audible over the work of those servants preparing for the next day. ‘But if you care to look into the kitchens on the way past, the Duke said that you would be welcome to do so.’

At the sound of the reference to the Duke, Brann noticed the heads of the servants stare down, every one wishing to avoid being noticed. That was fine, it suited them.

The store level was passed quickly, but, as they approached the upper sleeping quarters, three drowsy guards stumbled into the stairwell, roused by the shouting outside.

‘Quick!’ Philippe yelled, his voice filled with panic and his hands grabbing the first soldier and propelling him down a few steps. ‘There has been a most terrible accident! The Duke! A fall! The garden! Oh my, we must all help, we really must! Please hurry!’

Clearly dreading the consequences of not being on hand to help the Duke in his time of need, the men almost fell in their haste to run down. Brann and the others followed fast – who would question anyone rushing in the company of guardsmen?

They reached the ground level and Philippe cut past the front entrance and flung open a door with clearly no consideration of his own safety. They piled into the guard room behind him with weapons drawn – and stopped.

Alone in the room, Eloise crouched in a corner. She had managed to retrieve a shift from the pile of her clothes on the floor, but had dressed no more, as if she only had the energy for the minimum to cover herself. Her hands were pressed to her lap, where the pale material was stained red, and she turned a face to them that was swollen and cut beyond recognition of the girl who had left them on the street outside. It was her eyes that struck Brann hardest, though. As a child, he had been at a friend’s house when old Rewan, who tended the ailments of villagers and animals alike, arrived to end the misery of a working dog that was too injured to recover. The animal had seemed to know Rewan’s purpose, and Brann now saw the same look in Eloise’s eyes: a cornered fear, a shrinking from the inescapable, a desperation for mercy.

Philippe cried out as he rushed to her. His arms wrapped her into him, and he rocked, singing a soft tune into her ear, a melody Brann could only guess had seen the pair through times both hard and lonely. He looked up at them, his own eyes stricken, his voice a whisper of horror. ‘How could you let her face this? How could you leave a girl to face them?’

Brann couldn’t answer. He was asking himself the same questions.

Grakk knelt beside the pair. ‘It was beyond our power,’ he said softly. ‘All we thought, all she thought, was that she would dally by them at the gate, turn their eyes to her. When they took her inside, when she went with them, what she did – it was bravery on a par with anything I have seen on a battlefield.’ He put a hand on Philippe’s shoulder. ‘She did this that we might help you.’

Philippe looked again around them. ‘Those last words do not exactly make me feel better.’ But the anger left him in a long sigh, leaving abject acceptance in its place. ‘We both knew something like this can happen; does happen. Everyone in our… our line of work knows that. You just have to think it will not happen to you or those you love, or you could not carry on.’ He smiled weakly, humourlessly, grimly. ‘I know, that sounds stupid.’

Brann walked over. ‘Not to a fighting man, it doesn’t.’

Philippe nodded, and drew strength into him with a slow breath. ‘Eloise, my darling, we need to go.’ He leant in close and spoke into her ear, and his words gradually had effect. She unwound her body to stand, leaning on her brother.

‘Yes,’ she said, her tone as flat as her eyes. ‘Go. We must get go. Away from here. Far, far away.’ She looked at him. ‘Take me away.’

Konall lifted a cloak from a hook on the wall and wrapped it around her as she passed, while Gerens took her free arm, supporting her at that side as well.

Brann glanced around the room. His attention had been so caught by Eloise that he hadn’t noticed a large opening in the floor: a stout wooden hatch lying open and allowing him to peer cautiously over the edge. Steps led down and, as Brann moved to a better angle, he could see a wide square room, the central features a slab of a table with metal restraints set into the wooden top stained with blood old and new and, around the sides, barred cells.

Memories stirred at the sight of the cells, and he pushed them away. Approaching footsteps indicated that another room lay beyond his vision, and he held his breath, reaching for the hatch. When the three guards came into his vision, though, they walked across the way, never thinking to look up the stairway. It was the prisoner held between two of them that caught his attention and stayed his hand on the hatch. A young woman, her build athletic and strong, her hair the colour of the summer sun and framing a face golden of hue and heart-shaped, who moved as can only a dancer or a warrior. When pale blue eyes turned to meet his, he knew she was no dancer.

On impulse, he slid the knife from the sheath strapped to his right forearm, and reached down to set it on the step at the extent of his reach. A slight frown creased the space between her eyebrows, then a nod was the last he saw of her as the guards continued their way to a cell. He suspected that his knife would be put to use before long, but whenever it would be, they would be gone by that time. Still, it pleased him that it would be put to use by her.

His intention had been to close the hatch and bolt it to trap any guards below, but instead he rested it back open as he had found it. If events in the cells reached the conclusion he was sensing they would, there would be no guards able to exit in any case.

The others were already out of the guard room and he ran quietly to catch up. They moved as quickly as Eloise could manage, down the steps at the front of the tower and straight for the gate.

Brann looked around. The courtyard was empty – all must be around the rear of the tower, at the Duke’s body. There was certainly enough noise and consternation echoing from that direction. He fixed his eyes on the gate.

Thirty paces. Twenty. Ten.

It was at five paces that two guards ran around the corner of the building. They saw the bedraggled group and veered away from the tower entrance to face them. They stared at each other.

‘Philippe,’ Grakk said from the corner of his mouth. ‘How many guards are there here in total?’

‘At least two dozen, maybe more,’ he said, his voice starting to tremble.

‘We can’t engage these two without them raising the alarm,’ Brann said. ‘And we can’t take on all of them without at least some of us dying.’ He looked at Eloise. ‘And we can’t outrun them.’ The men were coming towards them, shouting across questions. ‘So maybe we need to wrong-foot them.’

He waved his arm frantically, urging the guards to hurry over. ‘Please, hurry! There is someone else hurt. We need to get them to a healer.’

The guards stopped, one with his spear lowered, the other with a sword held warily. They both eyed the four armed men before them. ‘What are you talking about?’ one said.

Brann automatically ran his eyes over them. A spear thrust would come across the attack line of the swordsman, hampering his movement forward. Neither had a shield. The distance could be closed in moments. They were not even wearing helmets, dishevelled hair as if they had just woken all that lay between a blade and a blow to the skull. Their eyes moved nervously…

He paused. The faces seemed familiar. The hair… as if just out of…

They were two of the three men they had run into in the stairwell. They had just been roused from sleep. They knew nothing about Eloise’s arrival at the tower. It opened up a possibility.

‘It’s this young woman,’ he said, pleadingly, indicating the figure hanging between Philippe and Gerens. ‘She seems to have been brought in for the Duke. We don’t know what happened, but she is in a bad way. She needs help.’

The guards looked at each other, and one nodded at the other. ‘Well, it’s not as if the Duke has any need of her now.’ The spear lowered and the sword was sheathed.

The older of the two, a bearded man, smiled slightly. ‘Look, friend, I have no idea who you are, or what the Duke wanted of this girl, though I could come up with a few suggestions. But he’s not in a position to want anything any more and some would say that’s not a bad thing. Probably best for all if we open the gate to check the street outside and you just go about your business. Better for us, better for you and,’ he looked at Eloise, ‘best of all for her. Take her as far from this tower as you can.’

Brann relaxed. ‘Thank you.’

The man shrugged, unbolting the gate and swinging one half inwards. ‘Sometimes straightforward is as complicated as life needs to get.’

They all breathed a little easier.

Then Eloise lifted her head. She did not see the faces. She had not heard the words. But she saw the tabards, and the Duke’s insignia. She shrieked and hurled herself at the nearest guard, Gerens’s knife in hand. Before he could react, she had sliced across his throat, blood spraying beneath a face frozen forever in disbelief. She launched herself at the other, who had stumbled back in shock, his spear coming up in defensive reflex. The point took her in the chest but her momentum took them both down, the spear ripped from his hands in the fall. Amid screams and snarls that turned to coughs, she stabbed three, four five times into his chest and throat and horrified face. She stabbed for the few short moments that she had left to live, then lay still in the shared mess of their blood.

Grakk and Brann reached her just as she stilled, Gerens and Konall casting around for danger with weapons drawn. Sophaya kept the child’s head turned from the bloodbath. Grakk bent over Eloise and checked the obvious, then shook his head to confirm it. Philippe was on his knees, hands held in supplication, eyes struggling with comprehension, every part of his face straining, a silent scream tearing itself from his soul.

‘So what now?’ Konall said.

Brann took a last look at the scene, as Konall hauled Philippe to his feet.

‘Now we run.’