For Want of a Fiend (39 page)

They reached the safety of the palace, and once Katya had informed her father of what had happened, he had no choice but to lock the palace down.

*

Da paced up and down the sitting room rug while he read from a paper one of his clerks had given him. “There are fires breaking out all over the city.”

It had only been hours since the incident, and already the city was ablaze. Katya shook her head. Roland lost no time. She and her companions had barely moved from the royal sitting room since the trouble had started.

“How can they think we’d do something like that, kill that many people?” Katya said.

“Some of it has to be pyramid influence, doesn’t it?” Starbride asked.

Castelle shrugged from where she leaned against the wall. “Mobs take on lives of their own, and the people involved start to enjoy it.”

“You’ve seen a lot of them?” Starbride asked.

“A few and we’ve all seen people give in to their animalistic natures more than once.”

Katya turned back to the room at large. “So what should we do? Is there any calming the people down?”

“Have you spoken to your captain friend, my girl?” Da asked.

“She hasn’t sent word. And we could really use her right now.”

Castelle pushed off from the wall. “I could go find her.”

“No noble will be looked on with a friendly eye out there,” Katya said.

“I can be discreet when I want to.” Castelle cast a glance to where Hugo sat next to Brutal. His eyes had roamed from face to face, but he’d offered nothing to the discussion.

When he caught Castelle looking at him, he straightened. “You want me to come with you? I’ll do it.”

“Good man,” Brutal said.

Starbride cleared her throat. “I should go, too.”

“Star…” Katya searched for the words to express how idiotic she thought that idea was. “They’re looking for you more than they are for me. They think you killed those people.”

“Do we have another pyradisté to send? Do you know someone else who can counter a pyramid?”

Katya tried to squelch her anger, but it seemed determined to come out, even if it was just through her ears. “You cannot do this.”

“Oh?” Starbride said. “I
cannot
?”

Castelle cleared her throat. “She does have a point, Katya.” Everyone else was studying the walls.

“You stay out of this,” Katya snapped.

“I’ll go in secret,” Starbride said, “and no one will ever know that it’s me. Katya, think.”

Katya felt like tearing her hair and settled for rubbing her temples.

Ma crossed to the door to her private sitting room. “In here, I think.”

Katya strode through the door without looking back. She heard it shut quietly, Starbride’s doing. Her eyes were steadfast, but also a little pleading, as if asking Katya again to let her go.

“I know you’re capable, Star, but…”

“You have to stay here; you have to protect your family.”

“You’re my family.” All their recent troubles seemed to settle on her shoulders, and she was ashamed to feel tears in her eyes.

Starbride’s arms were around her in a moment. “I’ll come back in a few hours. It’ll go so smoothly that I’ll be able to pick up some of those sweets you like.”

Katya laughed a breathless laugh as she held her tightly. It was the only sensible course. They needed information they could trust, and Starbride had proven she could take care of herself. “I’m sorry I’m always asking you to stay behind. It’s just…”

“I know what it is. You’re a lovesick fool.”

Katya kissed her deeply. “Only for you.” She glanced at the door and thought briefly of Castelle. Anything she’d felt then paled to how Starbride consumed her. “I love you, Star. Get Captain Ursula and as many of the Watch as you can grab. They can be stationed outside the palace, and the king’s Guard can help them keep order. If we start here, we can spread order through the city.”

“I love you, too. I’ll be back before you can miss me.”

“Too late.” Katya had to shut her eyes as Starbride left. She wondered when she could stop doing that, when her worry would be less. Never, she decided. Parting would always be like a knife in the chest. The day she didn’t feel it would be the day she died.

Castelle, Pennynail, Hugo, Dawnmother, and Starbride crept through Marienne. They kept to the shadows and tried to stay out of the lamplight. Castelle’s friends crept with them but didn’t stay by their side; that would have been too many people trying to walk together.

They’d already dodged several mobs, though Starbride couldn’t be sure of their intentions. Her party went armed and cloaked. It was all about a show of force, or so Castelle said. She had forsaken her big hat for a cloak with a hood. Pennynail had a hood pulled over his mask and walked with them instead of skirting the rooftops. Starbride didn’t try the disguise pyramid again. She feared it had only made her a target before.

They passed a few groups like theirs, smaller knots of hooded people trying to get their business done quickly. They passed the occasional fire but kept well away from the flames. Smoke drifted through the city in eddies and currents; it swirled around the streetlamps like ghosts. Now and again, they heard the clanging bells of the fire brigade, but could they move fast enough to get every fire?

When they got near the Watch house, they stopped at an alley. Starbride asked Pennynail why they didn’t take the rooftop approach again, and he pulled her to the side and whispered that the thieves were out in droves during the chaos, and they had less of a chance of trouble on the streets.

A mob had gathered around the Watch house. So far, they just yelled and threw the occasional bottle, but some drank and staggered about, growing louder by the second. Watch officers hovered in the doorways of their house. One or two told the mob to shove off. Some did, but others only walked a few feet away and then returned.

“Captain Ursula must not have enough officers to disperse the crowd,” Starbride said.

Hugo shrugged. “Or maybe she’s hoping that if she abstains from violence, the crowd will follow suit.”

“We could try rushing through,” Castelle said. “We form a wedge with Starbride and Dawnmother in the middle and push through before anyone realizes what we’re doing.”

“If they grab at us,” Hugo said, “it could get ugly.”

“What if we act like part of the mob?” Dawnmother asked. “We mingle with them until we get close enough to the gate and then run for it.”

“Then we might have the Watch tackle us,” Castelle said. “And if it looks like we’re townsfolk getting in a scuffle with the Watch, that could ignite the crowd, too.”

Starbride nodded. “Then we need to move the mob, at least enough for us to get through. We need a distraction.”

Castelle smirked suddenly. “I’ve got just the thing.” She crossed to the other side of the street to where her friends waited. Starbride heard some abbreviated laughter, and then the friends were off around the corner.

Castelle crossed back over. “Get ready to run.”

Starbride looked to the Watch house, hoping like hell there wasn’t about to be a rain of arrows or a charge from Castelle’s friends. In a few moments, she heard shouting and laughter. The mob around the Watch house heard it, too. They turned to look, especially as one male voice shouted, “Naked parade!”

The mob glanced at one another and repeated the phrase in confusion. They crept away from the door of the Watch house, clearing a path.

“Not yet,” Castelle said.

A group of men and women jogged across the street a few streets down, completely naked and laughing, swinging one another around and shouting, “Come join the naked parade!”

The mob moved that way, jollity or shocked laughter lighting their faces. One or two even pulled off their shirts.

Starbride had to admit, it was hard not to stare. When Castelle said, “Now,” she had to pull her eyes away and sprint across the street with the others.

A few lingering drunks turned to stare at Starbride’s party; one shouted something, but the others couldn’t tear their eyes off the naked parade. The Watch seemed a little alarmed by the charge, but Castelle brought them up short just inside the gate, before the Watch house door.

“We need to see Captain Ursula,” Castelle said.

The officer frowned and opened his mouth. Starbride stepped forward and tilted her face up to the light so the man could see her Allusian features.

“Can we see her now?” Starbride asked.

The man swallowed whatever he’d been about to say and waved them inside. Pennynail stayed inside the doorway while Starbride led the way to Ursula’s office. She stared at a map of the city and glanced up with irritation as they entered.

“I was just about to head out again,” she said when Starbride lowered her hood. Soot darkened Ursula’s face, but not as much as the circles under her eyes.

Starbride started with, “I didn’t kill anyone,” and went on with all that had happened in the streets.

Ursula waited until the end of the tale to respond. “I knew you hadn’t killed those people. Doing so would net you nothing but trouble. So this adversary you told me about, this pyradisté enemy of the crown started all this strife. To what end?”

“Probably to propel Magistrate Anthony to a position of power,” Starbride said.

Hugo snorted. “He’d have to kill every noble in order to get it.”

“No, just those we care about.” Starbride rubbed her temples since Katya seemed to do it so often, but it didn’t help with the stress at all. “Without the Umbriels to rally around, I expect many of the nobles would fold.” She glanced at Castelle and Hugo. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“Of course,” Castelle said with a small smile. “But you’re right. Those that didn’t cave to pressure would run to their holdings and move the country toward a civil war with at least eight or nine sides.”

“Are you telling me to arrest a magistrate?” Ursula said. “Because if he’s obeying this pyradisté willingly, that’s a crime. If not, I can only arrest the pyradisté.”

Starbride thought back to her meeting with Roland before the council and shuddered. “He’s made it clear that if we try to expose him, he’ll attack.”

Ursula shrugged. “If he does, we’ve got all the proof we need.”

“You don’t understand,” Starbride said, “all the trouble with Lady Hilda will be nothing compared to the grief this man will give us. Innocent people will be killed.”

“That might be preferable to sitting back and watching him tear this town apart,” Hugo said. “Innocent people are getting hurt right now.”

Ursula planted her fists on her hips. “Some of the fish we caught know of another rebel bolt-hole. Your pyradisté and the magistrate are probably hiding there. I’ll get some officers together. Gather the people you left outside, and we can a put a stop to this right now. If this man is manipulating Magistrate Anthony, we can break his hold, and the magistrate can help us bring order to this chaos.”

Starbride looked to Castelle, who shrugged. “If we have a chance to strike…”

“Katya’s going to kill me,” Starbride said.

Hugo nodded. “She’s going to kill all of us, but at least the city will be safe. We can take that to our graves.”

“We’re in for a big fight,” Starbride reminded them all. And they wouldn’t have a greater Fiend to help them. Starbride clutched her satchel closer and wished Katya were there, both for the support and also for another ready blade.

Ursula sent messengers to her other captains, telling them about her decision to move, that she’d heard of another mob uprising and hoped to nip it in the bud. She didn’t report to the watch commander. “He’ll have his hands full,” she said with a sly smile.

Starbride didn’t question it. It would take too long to explain to the commander anyway. Surrounded by officers of the Watch and Castelle’s now-clothed people, Starbride and her friends made their way into the poorest district of Marienne.

“It’s an apartment building,” Starbride said when she saw it. The narrow building reminded her of a similar one in Dockland, but this one was much better maintained, even though most of the shutters were sealed. “How many people are in there?”

“My friends and I could go in first,” Castelle said, “and see if we could evacuate quietly.”

“You wouldn’t get anyone to do anything without an officer with you,” Ursula said. “Even then, with the current climate, you might get a brick in the face for your trouble.”

They glanced at Starbride, and with a start, she realized she was the highest ranking person there, the one who might be a queen if the right series of unfortunate incidents happened.

Still, there was a time for rank, and a time to depend on expertise. “Did your captives tell you where in the building they met?”

Captain Ursula shook her head.

“If we go inside for anything other than a fight,” Starbride said, “we lose the element of surprise. Let’s make them come to us. What’s the quickest way to empty a building?”

Ursula’s face turned to stone. “If you’re suggesting we light that building on fire, you’re under arrest.”

“I’m delighted that you feel that way,” Starbride said. “But I was thinking we make the occupants think it’s on fire rather than light it up.”

Castelle and Hugo both grinned.

“The Watch goes door to door, floor to floor,” Dawnmother said, “claiming the building is burning but making sure the people don’t stampede. Enough buildings are on fire that they might believe it.”

“Even the magistrate and his assistant will have to believe it,” Hugo said. “He couldn’t risk staying inside.”

Ursula turned to two of her men. “Get some straw and some water. We’ll need smoke to make it convincing.” She nearly grinned. “We may get the better end of this yet.”

They brought bundles of straw and set them alight at the corners of the building, well away from the walls but concealed by alleys. Each bundle was attended by several officers with buckets of water.

As the smoke rose, Ursula sent her officers into the building. It wasn’t long before people streamed out. Officers on the street ushered everyone down the block and told them to find somewhere to take shelter.