The dead of winter tw 7, p.18
The Dead of Winter tw-7, page 18
part #7 of Thievs World Series
More than one emperor of Ranke had risen (aye, and come to grief) at the will of the soldiery.
He could snatch up the sword Kadakithis left untouched. Be ready when Tempus returned.
Shock Crit to hell, he would. Hello, Crit. Meet the new emperor. Me.
He shivered. It was crazy. He tried to think back to the night and it was full of dark gaps. Memory of things he had done with Ischade that had all the improbability of efreets and krrf-dreams.
They came and went. Her face did. Her mouth hovered close and spoke words and he could read lips, but he could not read that, as if she spoke some language he knew and did not know when he was awake, or his brain would not let him put the sounds together.
And no man had nights like that, no one could, and have another and another and pay no penalties.
There were sore places; there were marks-(witch-marks?) bites and scratches that confirmed part of what he remembered; could a man's soul leak out through such little wounds?
A spider had spun an elaborate web over by the light-vent, across the slats. He found it uncomfortably ominous. He went and flung it down and crushed the spider under his heel; and felt a chill greater than the killing in the barracks had given him.
"Stilcho." It took an expenditure of energy to bring him back. Ischade put her hands on the Stepson and searched deep down the long threads that led where he had gone; and pulled, and rewove, and brought him up again, there on the cold ground beneath the scraggly roses and the brush. "Stilcho. Fool. Come up and let go."
He wept-tears from one eye and a thin, reddish fluid from the missing one. And he did come back-came rushing back all at once and into the world with a scream that would have drawn attention in any town but Sanctuary and in any neighborhood but this one.
"Well," she said, sitting there with her arms about her | knees and regarding this least willing of her servants, i "And where were you?"
He knew her then and scrambled back till he hit the rosebushes and impaled himself on the thorns. He began to shiver; and she caught a little remnant of magics about the place.
"That very fool!" she said, knowing of a sudden that signature and that willful pride. At times Haught amused her with his hunger for knowledge and his self convinced keenness to serve. This was not one of those times. "Where did you go last night?"
"H-h-here."
"Vanity. Vanity. What prodigy did you perform? What did he ask?"
"I-I-" Stilcho's teeth chattered. "Ask-a-ask me-go down-find-f-find-a-answer-"
She drew in a deep breath and slitted her eyes. Stilcho gazed into her face and pressed himself as far in retreat as he could, heedless of the thorns. He flinched when she reached and caught him by the arm. "Stepson. No, I shan't hurt you. I'll not hurt you. What did Haught want to know?"
"N-n-nik-o." Stilcho went into a new paroxysm of shivering. "T-temple-. Said said tell-you-Janni- Janni is out hunting Niko."
She was very still for a moment. A thread of blood ran down Stilcho's cheek from the thorns. "What side is he playing, Stilcho?"
"Says-says-you spend-" Stilcho trembled and a second runnel joined the first down his cheek. "Too much time on Straton. Says think of Janni. Think-"
It all died away very quickly, very quietly. She stared at him a moment, and he stayed still as a bird in front of a snake. And then she smiled, which made him flinch the more. She reached out and straightened a lock of hair above his ruined face. "You have a good heart, Stilcho. A loyal heart. An honest one. Proof against corruption. Of all sorts. Even though you hate what I did. Haught is Nisi. Does that suggest caution to you?"
"He-hates the Nisi witch."
"Oh, yes. Nisi enemies sold him into slavery. But Stepsons bought him. I tell you, Stilcho, I will not have quarrels in my house. There, you're bleeding. Go in and wash. And wait-" She bent and pressed a kiss against his scarred mouth, another against his wounded cheek. He took in his breath at the second, because she had sent a little prickling spell lancing into his soul. "If Haught tries you again I'll know. Get inside."
He scrambled out of his predicament with the rosebush, gathered himself to his feet and went up the steps into the house. In haste. With what of grace a dead man could manage taking his leave of a sovereign lady who crouched thus in the dust and meditated a few tattered, fresh leaves onto the rosebush.
The door slammed. The rosebush struggled into one further untimely surge, thrust out a wan limegreen shoot and budded. She stood and it unfurled, blood-red and perfect.
She plucked it and sucked her finger, sent out a silent summons and a dozen birds napped aloft above where they had clung like ill-omened leaves to the skeletal winter trees.
She tucked the rose into the dooriatch. So much for Haught, who thought that his mistress had grown soft-witted. Who thought that she needed counsel; and who took first a bit of latitude with his orders and then a bit more.
This rose likewise had thorns.
It was noon, and Straton headed to the streets again- quietly, or at least with enough attempt at disguise that those who recognized him would know better than to hail him. He left the bay stabled and went afoot; and wore ordinary clothes. First he paid a visit to the backside of a tavern where messages tended to turn up, if there was a chalkmark on a certain wall there. There was nothing. So one informant failed, which meant two others had, down the line from that one.
But Sanctuary stayed uncommonly quiet-considering the carnage that had happened over by the barracks Downwind-side. Or because of it.
He fretted, and bought a hot drink at a counter, and stood there watching Sanctuary urchins batting something objectionable about the gutter. And took a further walk up the street, past an easy checkpoint into Blue, dodging round a fuller-wagon immediately after. A donkey had died in the street. That was the morning's excitement. The tanners from the Shambles were loading it into a cart with more help from local brats than they wanted. A sly wag spooked the tanner's horse and it shied off and dumped the corpse flat, to howls from watchers curbside.
Strat evaded the entire process, felt a jostle and spun, reaching after a retreating arm-his heart lurched; his legs hurled him into action before he thought, but that was temper, and he gave up the chase two steps into it. The thief had failed, his purse was intact, and the only thought left to him was how easily it could have been a knife. The Rankan hitting the pavements right along with the donkey and the Ilsigi rabble howling with laughter. Or absenting themselves in prudent speed. He felt cold of a sudden, standing there, his thief in rout, the passers-by giving him curious stares as they jostled about him, perhaps seeing a stranger a little tall and a little fair to be standing on this particular streetcorn-er, this low in the town. A battlefield had its terror: noise and dust and craziness; but this day by day walking through streets full of knives, full of sly stares and calculations where he stood out like a whore at an uptown party-
-he was in the minority down here, that was what. He was thunderously alone. Uptown was where a Rankan belonged.
-in the sunlight-
-at the head of armies-
"Hsst."
He turned with a start, caught the sudden dart of an eye from a curly-headed brat, the inviting jerk of head toward alley, down beyond the donkey-crowd. Come along, the gesture insisted.
He froze, there on the street. It was not one of the regular contacts. It was someone who knew him. Or who knew him only as Rankan and a target and any target would do to raise the prestige of some damned death squad crazy who wanted a little claim to glory-
Any Rankan would do, any Beysib, any uptowner.
He walked on down the street, slipping his shoulders through the crowd, ignoring the invitation. It was not a situation he liked-crowds, bodies pressing close against him, pushing and shoving; but there was one way away from that alley.
Another tug at his belt; he reached and turned and lost momentum in the crowd as his hand protected his purse. Another hand was there, on his wrist.
He looked up and it was a dark face, a couple of days unshaven, haggard-eyed, under a dark fringe of hair and a cap that had seen better years.
Vis.
Mradhon Vis pulled at him, edged sideways through the crowd and alleyward, and Straton followed, cursing himself for a twice-over fool. This was a Nisi agent. A hawkmask; and a man with more than one grudge against him. And also a man more than once in his pay.
Vis wanted him in the alley. And of a sudden there was a second man who seemed less interested in the dead donkey than in him.
Fool, Straton thought again, but there were two choices now-the alley with Vis or taking out running, in full flight, and attracting the mob.
3
Moria waited in the antechamber in an agony of uncertainty-cloak close about her and enough muscle waiting out in the street to guarantee her passage through Downwind with jewels on. This foyer of one of uptown's most elegant mansions was no less perilous territory, for other reasons. It was the lady Nuphtantei's mansion, where Ischade had sent her: Haught said so. Haught gave her an escort of some of Downwind's best, bathed and dressed up like a proper set of servants; Haught gave her a paper to hand the servants, a tiny object^ and a set of words to say, and Moria, born to Downwind's gutters, stood in this place which was one of the oldest of all Sanctuary mansions (but not the oldest of Sanctuary occupants) and knotted her hands and professionally estimated the wealth that she saw about her, in gold and silver.
A movement caught her eye. She looked down, gulped and skipped four feet backward from the gliding course of a viper.
So she looked up again, still in retreat, an object lost from her hand and rolling somewhere across the carpet, as a set of skirts swayed into her view, covering the serpent: skirts and small bare feet and (Moria's shocked vision traveled up to wasp waist and bare breasts) a plethora of jewelry and blonde curls and a face painted to a fare-thee-well: (Migods, it's a doll!)
The doll acquired a more stately companion, taller, with straight blonde hair and a shawl of flounces; blonde hair, unblinking eyes and a very sober face of some few more years.
The doll chittered and chattered in the Beysib tongue. "Oh," lisped the tall one. "A messenger? From whom?"
Never you mind, bitch. That was what Moria meant to say; but it came out: "Of no moment to you or me." Pure and Rankene. Her voice rushed, breathless. "Your gold has bought you trouble, your friends have bought you enemies, your enemies multiply daily. I have connections. I came to offer them."
"Connections?" The tall Beysib stared with her strange eyes and fingered a small knife at the edge of her shawl of flounces. One of her necklaces moved, a thing that had seemed cloisonne, and was not. "Connections? To whom?"
"Say that this someone can save you when the walls fall."
"What walls?"
"Say that you serve the Beysa. Say that I serve someone else. And tell the Beysa that the wind is changing. Gold will not buy walls."
"Who are you?"
"Tell the Beysa. Tell the Beysa mine is the house with the red door, downhill from here. My name is Moria. Say to the Beysa that there are ways to safeguard her people. And ways to pass any door." It came out in a rush and was done. She did not know what she had said, except that the two Beysib stared at her and the tall woman's necklace had risen up to stare too, quite unpleasantly.
The doll spoke, rapidly. Started forward and looked mad enough to spit, but the other restrained her. There were men about now, elegant, quiet men, half a dozen of them.
"I'm done," Moria said, and waved a hand toward the door. Backed a step, thought of snakes and decided to turn and look. It was not a comfortable retreat. She turned her face to the Beysib again. "I'd say," she said, and her voice was more her own, "that you better lock your doors and stay behind them. You've been fools to walk about so rich. There's a lot fewer of you than there were. Bread's dearer, gold's cheaper, and two blocks downhill from my house even the Guard won't walk. Think about that."
"Come here," the Beysib said.
"Not with those snakes," Moria declared, and snatched the door open and slammed it after.
Her guard was not precisely apparent outside; it materialized when she came down off the steps, a man slouching along here, another joining them from an alley. Only one walked with her openly, one of her own servants, a nine-fingered man very quick with a knife. He wore brocade and a gold chain and had a sword at his hip which he had not the least idea how to use, but she knew that of brigands on the street she was walking with the very worst, and they took her orders.
She was scared beyond clear thought. She scanned the street and walked down it with the flounced swish that had (since the Beysib) become fashionable; and all the while knew that she had just delivered something deadly to that house. She had let fall a small silver ball, and it had rolled away from her feet and lost itself. Perhaps a Beysib snake would investigate it. It was too small for anything else to notice.
It did not at all shake her confidence that even Ischade's sorceries needed physical objects to anchor them. It shook her more to know how tiny those objects could be, hardly more than a bead, a droplet of silver, undetectable without magic to use in turn-and perhaps not then. If that was not a witch who had met her, then she was no judge.
A lifelong resident of Sanctuary learned to judge such things.
Strat balked at the alley-mouth: he had half-thought of a fast move and a quick break; but so, obviously, had Vis. Vis was not alone. Three men were in the alley; waiting. One more behind. So it was either revenge or a serious talk; and it was easy to get bad hurt trying to get out of this now.
He went on in and stopped as close to the street as he could; or tried to. One caught his arm and dragged and he found the sharp point of a knife in his back from Vis's side.
He stopped struggling then. Kidney-hit was a bad way to go, not that there were good ones. He was a professional himself, and this was not one of the times to turn hero. He let them push and haul him along to a bending of the alley and push him up against a wall-the push was their idea, the wall was his, to get something besides the knife at his vulnerable back; but they followed up close and personal and Vis and the knife followed up against his gut, where it was utterly disconcerting.
"This is a talk," Vis said.
"Fine," Straton said, back to the bricks. "Talk."
"No, this is you to us."
"Uhhn. Who's us?"
Strat had his stomach tight. He waited for the blow to the gut; it failed to come. That puzzled him; and unnerved him more than violence. They wanted more than he had thought.
"Us is the same source you're used to," Vis said. "Us is a man you know. This is all business. Word is something's on the move."
"You and I've talked," Strat said. "You want to get me a little breathing room and we can trade-" He stopped. The knife indicated stop. He was in no disposition to argue. He was careful about breathing for a moment. The dark look of the men about him might have been Ilsigi. It wasn't-quite. He suddenly knew what he had fallen in among. Nisi death squad. In Jubal's pay-maybe.
"You and I have talked," Vis said. "Now I want you to tell me a few things. Like who's giving you your orders. I hear you're in her bed. True?"
He sucked in his breath; mistake: the knife gave him no room to take another. "Soght-ohon," he said, Nisi obscenity. And waited for the knife. Vis grinned. It was a wolf-grin. Mountain-lunatic grin. Men smiled like that who hurled themselves off walls, disdaining surrender.
"She's got you," Vis said. "You're sweating, man. You know that?"
He said nothing. Stood still and breathed in what little space he had, starting to add where he could move and how fast before he might die. Or whether it was time to try it.
-The sun and the armor and the walls of Ranke, Sanctuary become true to its name, the wall behind which-
"She's got something moving," Vis said, and hooked a finger under Straton's jaw, compelling attention. "Word's flying. That mess over Downwind-the barracks-that wasn't any of our doing."
No answers. No answer was the wisest answer and hope to the gods Vis was in control of the other four. Vis had a brain and a grudge the limit of which he knew. The others might be plain crazy. "Let's," Strat said thoughtfully, "not complicate this. Vis. I'm not on your payroll. You're on mine. And let's keep it that way. It's been the same side so far. If something's coming down I'm as interested as you are and I haven't heard- Uhhh."
"You think you still run things, do you?"
"You can kill me. There's those will pay it."
He had meant the Band. Crit. He saw a flicker of something else in Vis's face; and remembered who else would pay it, and whom Vis feared more than he feared Ranke-considerab ly.
"You got your own hell," Vis said. "I want a straight answer. Is it her? Is it her pulling the cords right now? Where's the rest of your lot?"
Quick mental addition. The slaughter at the barracks: dead giveaway of a new wave of Rankan activity among those in a position to know they hadn't done it. And Vis was at least marginally on Rankan funds, not Nisibisi. Vis and his lot hated Roxane and her lot. That they had in common. "A few of the Band's here," Straton said. "Say that-we've funded this and that in the streets. Same as you. And we want that street to stay open. You want any more funds. Vis, you better think again. I don't know what She's up to; and I sure as hell won't hand it out if I find out. But my lads have steered yours clean so far and none of mine have cut your throats. This Jubal's doing? That who's behind this? Is he running your lot? Or is it Walegrin?"
"Oh, we're still bought," Vis said, and the knife eased off. "On all the usual sides. If I was a fool I'd pay you a personal debt right now; but you aren't marked and I'm not a fool." Another of Vis's wolf-grins. "You don't promise and you don't make threats. You just want out of here with as little said as possible. On my side I've been helpful. In spite of some things. I'm telling you now- won't charge you a thing. Something's coming. Debts are being called in. In the Downwind. Moruth's lot. You understand me."
