Angel's Deceit (Angelwar Book 2) Page 18

  ‘You know why I’m here.’

  Kol Siadore was perfectly still. He hesitated a moment, and Tol felt sure he would deny it, but instead the lord nodded once, a muffled “yes” emanating from behind the gag. Tol tried to hide his surprise. I thought it would be harder than this.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, slowly drawing a dagger and holding it between them. ‘I’m going to loosen your gag,’ he told kol Siadore. ‘Shout and it will be the last thing you do.’ He waited until the man nodded, then Tol reached behind him, and loosened the knot. He leaned back and studied the lord’s face. A middle-aged man, grey at the temples, and crow’s feet stamping round the eyes – eyes which didn’t seem as fearful as they might.

  ‘Thousands of Gurdal are marching to the Spur,’ Tol said quietly. ‘If the full might of the Meracian army isn’t there to meet them, your country will fall. Whatever they’ve promised you and the others, they won’t honour it.’

  Kol Siadore’s head twitched in a nod. ‘I know that now,’ he said through the gag.

  ‘Then help me stop this.’

  ‘It’s too late, and once you kill me the others will hunt you down. Half the city will be hunting you. They killed my wife,’ kol Siadore said, his face purpling. ‘They didn’t have to, I could have kept her quiet.’ He gazed into Tol’s eyes. ‘They did it to show me how far they were willing to go. And to remind me I still have a son to lose. They will hunt you down, and leave you begging for death – these are the men you have set yourself against.’

  Tol clenched his teeth. ‘They’ll be dead before they know what’s happening.’ He adjusted his position and—

  ‘Wait.’

  Tol held the dagger steady and met kol Siadore’s eyes.

  ‘The others will not talk, they have too much to lose and too much to gain. Do not try – just kill them, it is your only chance.’

  ‘Thank you.’ There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

  The lord nodded and closed his eyes. ‘Be on your way.’

  Tol took a deep breath and plunged the dagger between kol Siadore’s ribs. Knowing he had been right about the plot and its conspirators didn’t feel like much of a victory.

  25.

  ‘You survived.’

  They were the first words Kartane had spoken since Tol had rejoined him. Now, leaving the boat moored, the pair were working their way towards the heart of High Mera’s central district, and the home of Savellus Borleia, the second target of the night. The streets were quiet now, even drunkards and whores abed for the night. Tol’s near-silent footsteps sounded loud in the still of the night, and he was anxious to leave the main avenue where the risk of encountering a patrolling watchman was rapidly growing.

  ‘Took your time though,’ Kartane added quietly. He gestured left, and the pair stepped into a narrow side street. ‘Did he have much to say?’

  ‘The others killed his wife,’ Tol said.

  ‘Typical Meracians!’ Kartane lowered his voice. ‘They’re so paranoid they can’t even trust each other.’

  ‘He warned me of the other conspirators, too. Said there was no point trying to talk to them.’

  ‘Sensible man,’ Kartane said with an appreciative grunt. ‘Might have liked him if he hadn’t been a traitor.’ He gave Tol a suspicious glance. ‘Anything else?’

  Tol shook his head. ‘Just a warning that half the city would be coming for me.’

  Kartane laughed quietly and clapped him on the back. ‘Just like old times.’

  Tol managed not to remind him about how that had worked out for the pair of them: one imprisoned by the city’s duke and the other fleeing for his life. Hopefully this time it will go better. With Kartane involved, Tol wasn’t sure how realistic that was.

  ‘This way.’ Kartane turned left at the junction and led Tol into another of the district’s avenues – narrow by the nobles’ standards, but wide enough for a dozen guards standing shoulder-to-shoulder. ‘You remember the plan?’

  As plans went, it wasn’t much of one, and Tol figured his companion had concocted it in the latter stages of inebriation rather than early on in his sampling of ales. Kartane would cause a distraction at the front gates (Tol hadn’t asked how, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know) which would draw the attention of the guards at the gate and the ones patrolling the inner estate. Tol would then slip over the wall, gain entry through the servants’ quarters, find Lord Savellus Borleia, kill him, and slip out without anyone realising what had happened. The getting out part, Kartane had kind of brushed over, slurring something about knights needing to think on their feet. That, and he’d said not to try leaving through the main gate – not unless Tol wanted a new job as a pincushion. Not reassuring. Not in the least. Still, it was the only plan they had, and during the course of Kartane’s day-long liquid feast he seemed to have acquired some knowledge of both the mansion’s layout and Borleia’s habits.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Good.’ They came to a stop at the rear wall of another estate. Kartane put his back against the ivy-covered stone. ‘Wait five minutes,’ he told Tol. ‘I’ll have the distraction ready by then.’

  He had a curious glint in his eye, and Tol suspected that Kartane might mean “murder in a gruesome and noisy manner” rather than “distraction”. ‘How will I know?’

  Kartane grinned. ‘You’ll know.’ He braced himself against the wall and laced his fingers together, resting them on a scrawny thigh. ‘Don’t get dead.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Tol muttered, lifting a foot and dropping it into cradled fingers. ‘You too.’

  ‘Don’t get caught either,’ Kartane grunted as he heaved Tol upwards towards the lip of the wall. ‘Don’t want to tell your father I had to kill you.’

  *

  Have I missed it?

  Kartane’s mischievous grin seemed to suggest that whatever the distraction, it would be noticeable – and most likely loud.

  Where is he?

  Tol waited at the base of the wall, chewing his lip and wondering whether the knight had wandered off, fallen asleep, or simply just forgotten. He was, most clearly, drunk, and the only way this could be a good thing for Tol was if Kartane turned out to be a mean drunk. Which, he conceded, was more than likely.

  He’ll probably turn up tomorrow and – if I’m still alive – claim it was his intention all along, some kind of bloody lesson in doing things myself.

  And then he heard it.

  Faint at first, but the sound became clearer as it drew nearer. Slurred and atonal, but finally resolving itself into the first verse of My Meracian Lady. A moment later Tol heard one of the guards call out – without fear or suspicion, oddly – and thought he heard movement beyond the wall: heavy footsteps heading towards the front gates. Then, of all things, laughter. Close by, and drifting towards the front of Borleia’s estate.

  Tol jumped up, gripping the lip of the wall with his fingers and cautiously poking his head over the top. A glance left and right showed no guards lingering along the side of the mansion. He hauled himself over the top, dropping silently to the grass between a couple of bushes. The servants’ quarters were thirty yards away across a sea of verdant green; open space.

  Too late to back out now. Tol glanced towards the main gate, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Four of the guards were gathered at the spectacle, watching Kartane stumble around in the street as he sang, waving a – almost certainly empty – flagon of ale. Except for his boots, he was completely naked. Tol looked away, stepping out from between the wall’s bushy border and hurrying towards the servants’ entrance before the guards stopped lost their humour and chased Kartane away.

  The entrance was near the back of the mansion, a small annex added on as an afterthought. Tol reached it as the guards’ voices rose – their tone switching from humour to displeasure. I have to work fast. The door was locked, and Tol fumbled with a couple of lockpicks. Discovering their secrets had been one of Father Michael’s more interesting lessons.

  The lock yiel
ded on the fourth attempt, and Tol slipped inside, closing the door behind him with a faint click. Now for the hard part.

  The corridor ran parallel with the side of the mansion, a woefully small, single-storey addition to the main building that hugged the rear third of the mansion’s exterior. Tol held himself motionless, peering ahead into the gloom and listening for any sounds of movement. His eyes slowly adjusted, taking in the corridor’s narrow width – barely wide enough to swing a sword. Satisfied he was alone, Tol stepped away from the door, working his way past the rough-hewn doors – so close together the rooms could barely be big enough for a cot – towards the back of the mansion. All the way along until he reached the wall, a doorway yawning on his left. Tol paused, listening again, and risked sticking his head into the gap. A kitchen – almost the size of all the servants’ rooms together – sprawled ahead, the aroma of supper still lingering hours later. Tol stepped inside, a dim light at the kitchen’s exit ahead of him, and a huge oak table dominating the kitchen’s centre. He stepped around it, heart racing now, and worked his way towards the exit. Tol felt his pulse racing as he put his back to the kitchen wall and listened for movement in the hall beyond. He was close now, and if Kartane was right there was a good chance that Lord Savellus Borleia might still be in his study. And that, he knew, would make getting out a whole lot easier. Especially if I’m discovered.

  Another few seconds of waiting, and still no sound. Tol leaned around the jamb and took a quick peek down the corridor before retreating back out of sight. He closed his eyes, building the picture in his mind: the hall ran straight and true through the mansion, the ornate double doors at the corridor’s terminus ringed by a wide, semicircular reception hall; a staircase next to it, leading to the upstairs rooms; and several rooms branching from the main corridor like tiny little tributaries. And he might be in one of them.

  From the information Kartane had gleaned, there was another large corridor running parallel to this one, dividing the ground floor into three neat sections. The pantry was almost directly opposite the kitchen – the rear-most room in that row. Next to this – a little way along, towards the reception hall – an open doorway loomed invitingly. It should – if Kartane’s information was solid – mark the family’s private dining room. The rest of that side of the corridor was broken only by a single doorway: the large public dining room, reserved for large-scale parties and receptions. Tol stuck his head out again, this time looking the other way. A single door opened onto the rear of the estate, its upper half broken by a torso-sized glass pane, perfectly transparent. Tol ducked his head back into the kitchen and cursed silently. There had to be at least one guard out back, and the glass pane would leave him exposed as he crossed the corridor. He took in a deep breath. Nothing for it: I’ll have to chance it. He stepped out into the corridor, walking normally in the hope – however foolish – that anyone outside seeing him might think him another guard. He walked the dozen paces to the family’s dining room, stepping smartly inside as he heard the faint slap of approaching footsteps. Tol pressed himself against the wall, eyes sweeping the dining room’s dark interior. It was large, more than ample for a small contingent of knights, and a rectangular dining table the size of a large skiff sat in the room’s centre like a small island.

  The footsteps were drawing slowly closer, but Tol realised the guard was probably only at the reception hall.

  Is there time?

  He looked to the room’s far side and the closed door which led to the second corridor. Another step sounded and Tol made his choice. He stepped away from the wall and crossed the room, reaching the door as the footsteps approached. He put his aand on the handle then paused, waiting until the next footstep. Tol twisted the handle as it struck, muffling any squeak. As the next footstep resounded he opened the door in one fluid motion and slipped through into the other corridor. His gaze swept its length, and Tol fought the urge to sigh as he drew the door closed behind, leaving it ajar for the return journey.

  Three doors lined the other side of the hallway, leading to the rooms lining the mansion’s outer wall. The door closest to the front of the estate was the large sitting room – used for visiting dignitaries, much like the public dining room – and the central door led to the family’s own, smaller sitting room. Tol veered right, eyes searching the back door’s glass – a twin of that in the first corridor – for any signs of movement. He approached the third door silently, and unsheathed his throwing knife. A faint light was visible under the door. He’s in there. Tol altered his grip on the dagger, cold steel pinched between thumb and forefinger. The rooms were larger than Tol was used to – an excessive grandeur that he suspected Meracians loved – and there might be a dozen yards or more between the door and his target; an angel might cover the distance before Borleia cried out for aid, but Tol knew he’d be lucky to get halfway.

  So, he decided, throwing knife it is. Not knightly, perhaps, but the Reve had always preferred practicality over morality, results over methodology.

  Tol placed his hand lightly on the door handle, took a slow breath and savoured the last moment of peace.

  For Kalashadria.

  He opened the door.

  26.

  Tol launched himself under the lintel into the room beyond, his left hand gripping the door handle. Lacquered wood preceded him, a polished eyelid lazily retracting to reveal a dim view. Tol cocked his right arm, trying to separate the shadows that shifted sharply in the weak candlelight twitching at his entrance. A few seconds at most, he thought as the door sped past forty-five degrees, the eye half open. A few seconds till he yells. The shadows shivered at the door’s passing, and within their folds, bunkered behind a desk, something else moved. Tol exhaled as his leading foot touched down. Now! The dagger left his hand as his mind pieced together the details of the face in shadow.

  Hand still on the door handle, Tol halted the door’s progress with his left hand as the dagger left his right. He heard the faint squeak of an ill-oiled hinge, and saw the head behind the desk twitch, Savellus Borleia looking up from his papers. The lord’s head jerked further back as Tol’s dagger struck the centre of his throat, his body jerking spasmodically.

  Tol closed the door behind him and strode across the room as the dying man gurgled like a fast-flowing brook. His arms and legs were flapping now, an inkwell knocked over with its contents pooling out over the desk’s surface. Tol stepped quickly round the desk, Borleia’s face one of blind panic now; all intelligence gone, only the animal remaining. A mercy you probably don’t deserve, Tol thought darkly as he grabbed the dying man’s head between his hands. He snapped the head round, heard a frozen twig snap and then the body was still, dead-weight.

  He stood there a moment, staring down at the corpse. There was no other choice, Tol reminded himself. He retrieved his throwing knife and wiped it clean. No other choice, but it didn’t make him feel any better. This is not a knight’s work.

  He scanned the loose documents scattered across Borleia’s desk as the ink lapped at their edges, mingling with a thousand tiny drops of blood. There was nothing useful there, not that Tol could see. Two down, he thought, one to go. He stood there for a while, staring, until he finally remembered where he was and the obstacles that yet remained. He gathered himself and walked slowly back across the room. Best get gone, he decided.

  He listened at the door for half a minute, but Tol’s blood was pounding so hard in his ears that he figured a whole regiment could be outside and he wouldn’t know until he opened the door. In the end, there was the only choice left.

  Tol stepped out into the corridor, veering left and striding silently to the rear door – only a dozen paces away. Too late, he remembered the roving ground floor guard. Maybe I’m lu—

  ‘Intruder!’

  Shiiiiiiiit!

  Tol spun as the guard’s shout boomed down the corridor, the dagger leaving Tol’s hand before he had even realised it, before he had even seen the man. He continued his spin, rotating in a complet
e circle and racing the last few yards to the back door as he heard something large and heavy crumple to the tiles behind him. He yanked the door inwards, and hurled himself out into the night as the patter of running footsteps echoed off the walls behind him. Two paces, then three, building up speed as he ran towards the rear wall. Tol glimpsed the lone guard halfway down the garden, off to his right. The shouts from within had alerted him, and as Tol sprinted towards the rear fence he heard the hiss of steel being drawn. It’s going to be close, Tol realised as the guard started running towards him. He heard the echo of heavy footfalls behind him, the dull percussion of running men, and knew that even if he reached the fence, escape wasn’t certain. Two more steps, and Tol was sprinting at full speed, the distance between him and the guard lessening with every moment.

  I’m not going to make it, he realised.

  He reached for his dagger, lost a half-step as he fumbled, then realised he’d already thrown it.

  Too late now, Tol realised, the guard only yards away and his blade already rising to strike.

  He reached for his sword, knowing it was too late as the distance between them dwindled to feet then inches. Then the guard was falling, toppling earthward as his weapon fell from his hands. Tol ramped up his pace, sparing a glance over the wall as he raced towards it. A shadow moved in the branches of a tree, and Tol heard the whine of another arrow. He couldn’t make out the features, but when the figure offered a jaunty wave then dropped from the branches, Tol knew he hadn’t been abandoned.

  Kartane.

  Tol hurled himself at the wall as he heard more guards racing across the garden. He heaved himself up with his hands, hooked one foot over the wall’s lip and levered himself over, a snatched glance showing four guards close behind.

  Tol dropped into a rosebush, ignoring the scoring thorns and stumbling away, building up to a loping run. He raced across the garden, bending his run towards the mossy path that ran around the side of the house. A figure loomed ahead, bow pointed straight at Tol. He carried on, felt the arrow whizz past his cheek, and heard the first pursuer fall. Kartane was already moving, shouldering his bow and leading the way back to the road. Tol raced after him, stumbling onto the weathered cobbles a few moments later. Kartane was disappearing into a narrow alley opposite, and Tol headed right, following the road and frantically searching for another route out of the noble district.