Imperial Traitor (2 page)

The smell of polish and cleaning wax hung heavy in the air, as it always did in the Palace corridors. Despite the high ceilings and the inevitable smoky odour from the burning torches that lit
the inner walkways, every door, every wooden panel, every surface gleamed with the effort of generations of Palace staff.

As he expected, two guards held post outside the Emperor’s study. They were dressed in full ceremonial armour and were armed with swords, knives, and what looked like miniature crossbows.
Crossbows! That was a development he had not considered. It was most unusual to arm indoor guards with mid-range weapons.

Shalidar held his position. He was hidden in deep shadow some distance along the corridor from where the two men were standing silent and alert. Torches were alight in the Emperor’s study.
He could see the light shining through the narrow windows that opened high in the wall of the passageway. Surabar was there, but the assassin had no way of getting any closer without revealing
himself to the guards. As things stood, he would have to kill them to get to Surabar. He was not prepared to test the guards’ marksmanship in order to get close enough to guarantee clean
kills. The risk was too great. He needed a diversion: something to draw the guards away from the door, or distract them.

Fire was always good, but he did not want to risk burning down the Imperial Palace. No. He needed something spectacular, but not life threatening – an occurrence that would catch
everyone’s attention and draw the Emperor from his study.

The question remained: what? Unusually he found himself bereft of ideas to begin with. Then the seed of an idea germinated within his mind. Within seconds it flourished and grew. It was genius,
he decided – a plan worthy of the Dragon. Everything he needed was here in the Palace. A surge of excitement filled his belly with fire. Hugging the shadows, he slipped away and made for one
of the Palace’s many drawing rooms.

It did not take long for Shalidar to find what he needed. There was a writing desk with all the necessary implements in a nearby room. Writing was not something he made a habit of, as it left a
trail that could be traced. However, in this case it was necessary. He lit a candle at the writing desk and began. Once he had drafted his letter, he rewrote it neatly in a bold, flowing script.
With the final copy finished to his satisfaction, he set fire to the draft. This he threw into the fireplace and watched to make sure it was totally consumed before returning to his polished
version.

He blew gently on the ink for a moment to help it finish drying, then folded the letter neatly and melted wax over the join to seal it. There was a generic Imperial household seal on the desk,
so Shalidar pressed it into the drying wax. It was a nice touch, he decided with a twisted grin.

Next he needed someone to deliver it. Speaking to somebody would generate another piece of traceable evidence that he could do without, but it did not cause him great concern. By the time he was
finished, any lasting evidence would be blurred.

He snuffed out the candle and left the drawing room. Nobody was abroad in the Palace at this time of night. The only people still at work were the cooks, who were preparing the food for the
morning. Shalidar made for the servants’ exit, but not with the intention of leaving. Instead he went to the cloakroom near the external door. It took but a few moments to find what he was
looking for.

Wrapping an Imperial guard’s long night cloak around his shoulders, he gathered his hair at the back of his head and put on a helmet. He turned up the collar of the cloak to hide any
telltale tufts of his unmilitarylike locks trailing from the back of the helmet. Once dressed in his crude disguise, he surveyed the effect in a large wall mirror. His dark eyes scanned up and down
the reflection, noting every detail. His boots were not regulation style, but he did not intend to let anyone see his feet. He would pass at first glance as an Imperial guard, and that was all that
mattered. As a final matter of more important detail, he rubbed at his cheeks to make them flush as if he had just walked in from the cold. Perfect, he decided.

Without pause he turned and crossed the hallway to the entrance to the kitchens. He opened the door a little and leaned through the narrow gap such that just his head and shoulders were
inside.

‘Anyone here know someone called Kalheen?’ he asked, looking around and making eye contact with each of the handful of cooks on the late-evening shift.

‘Yeah, I know Kalheen. He’s floor staff. He doesn’t work here in the kitchens,’ one of them answered, suspicion in his eyes.

‘Do you know where his quarters are?’ Shalidar asked. ‘I have a letter for him. The girl said it was very urgent – something to do with life and death. Might be a family
member or something.’

The kitchen hand looked across with an enquiring expression at one of the older men. The response was a terse nod. ‘No problem,’ he said, ‘I’ll take the letter. If
he’s in his room, I’ll have it in his hands in a few minutes.’

‘Thanks for that. It’ll save me getting into trouble for being away from my post too long. You know what security’s like at the moment. Everyone’s paranoid.’

There was a general grumbling agreement to that statement. Without fully entering the kitchen, Shalidar handed the letter to the man and then withdrew, closing the door behind him. It was a few
steps to the external door. He exited swiftly, pleased with the success of his ploy.

Once outside, he moved instantly into the nearest deep shadow. He needed to give the cook a good head start, so he counted slowly to one hundred. As he counted he removed the cloak and helmet
and stowed them under a nearby shrub. With the count complete, he re-entered through the door. If Brother Falcon’s description of Kalheen were accurate, then the man’s gullibility would
lead him to act swiftly. Shalidar knew he had very little time to get into position. Every second counted.

He set off through the maze of corridors at a brisk walk. His eyes and ears strained ahead for any sign of movement. Intimate knowledge of the Palace served him well, as his indirect route
through the less frequently used passageways gave him a clear path to his observation point in the shadows near the Emperor’s study. Nothing had changed. The guards were still in position.
The Emperor’s study was still lit. As long as Kalheen took the bait, the Emperor would be hard pressed not to come to the door when it began.

Kalheen awoke with a start from his sleep. Someone was knocking insistently at his door.

‘Wha . . . what? It can’t be morning already? Shand! Have I overslept again?’ he muttered as he rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus on something. ‘Who is it? What do
you want?’ he called more loudly.

‘Letter for you. Urgent I’m told. Do you want me to slide it under the door?’ replied a voice.

It was not a voice that was instantly familiar, though something in Kalheen’s mind told him he should know the person to whom the voice belonged.

‘A letter?’ he asked. ‘Who’s it from?’

‘I don’t know. A girl sent it apparently. Said it was a matter of life or death . . .’

‘Mother!’ Kalheen exclaimed, instantly fearing the worst. He leaped from his bed and stumbled across to the door. Flinging it open, he grabbed the letter from the messenger’s
hand with a worried mumble of thanks.

The kitchen hand was a little put out by Kalheen’s abruptness, but the pale look of shock and concern on the servant’s round face was enough to make forgiving his rudeness easy.

‘I’d better get back to the kitchen. I hope the news is not all bad,’ the messenger said, backing away.

‘Thanks,’ Kalheen mumbled, his attention totally fixed on the folded, sealed note held between his fat, trembling fingers. There was no question of his lighting the torch in his
room. His hands were shaking too much to contemplate trying to kindle a flame. Heedless of anyone else seeing him in his rumpled old nightshirt, he walked the few paces along the corridor to where
the nearest lit torch was bracketed and took a closer look at the letter. The handwriting was not his mother’s. Was that good or bad? He did not like to think. It was sealed with an Imperial
seal, so someone here in the Palace had written it. ‘Who in the Palace would write to me on a matter of life and death,’ he thought. Was this some sort of practical joke? If so, then it
was not funny.

He broke the seal and opened up the letter. His eyes widened as he began to read.

Femke! He had hardly seen so much as a glimpse of the Imperial spy since they had returned from Thrandor, and now this. He was to be an agent: an agent for an Imperial spy.
Just the thought of it sent pictures and potential stories spinning through his mind in a kaleidoscope of images. It was all he could do to bring himself to his senses. He had no time to waste in
idle dreaming. Femke needed his help now, and he, Kalheen, would not let her down.

‘Burn the letter first,’ he muttered, lifting it to the flame of the torch and setting light to the corner. The parchment caught and the flame spread rapidly across the sheet. He
held it as long as he could before dropping it onto the stone floor. The flame consumed the letter, leaving only a few wafer-thin pieces of curled black ash.

Kalheen raced back into his room. There was no time to dress, but he could not run around the Palace with nothing on but his nightshirt. He slipped his boots onto his bare feet and grabbed his
cloak from the peg on the back of the door. Wrapping it around his body, he set off through the Palace as fast as he could walk.

The bell tower was located in the main west wing of the central Palace structure. Kalheen did not encounter anyone during his brisk transit. The door to the ground floor of the tower was not
locked, but neither was there any light inside. It took a moment of fumbling around in the darkness before he located a torch and pulled it from the wall bracket. He lit it from one of the torches
in the corridor outside and re-entered the tower.

Once inside, he lit two further torches. There was plenty of material with which to barricade the door. The tower was not in regular use. Its function by design was that of announcing the
passing of an Emperor. As this was such an irregular and infrequent occurrence, the Palace staff had utilised much of the ground floor space for many years as a storage area for excess furniture.
Dressers, tables, chairs, a chaise longue, bookcases and a host of smaller items lined the walls of the lower tower lobby. Aside from the access to the central staircase, there was little floor
space that was clear.

The staircase climbed a single floor to a square chamber with no doors. The chamber was undecorated save for a large, circular rug. The deep pile of finest wool was woven with the Imperial Seal
of Shandar in rich gold and silver against a background of deepest royal purple.

A single rope with an intricate end knot hung through a small round hole in the ceiling. Many spans above, in the lofty heights of the belfry, the rope was attached to the swinging mechanism of
the great Imperial Bell. Access to the belfry was through a trap door via a ladder fixed to the north wall of the tower, but Kalheen had no need to climb further.

After his initial swift scout around to make sure that he was alone, Kalheen placed his lit torch back in the wall bracket on the ground floor and set to work building the barricade. He was
determined to help Femke to the best of his ability, but he was also aware of the time constraints. Using every ounce of his bulk, he heaved a large, heavy bookcase across to block the doorway
first. Then, working swiftly and systematically, he piled more and more furniture behind it. After a few minutes he was sweating profusely. It was the most physically demanding exercise he had done
in months.

‘That’ll have to do,’ he panted softly, surveying his handiwork with a self-satisfied eye. Taking the nearby torch from its bracket again, he headed up the stairs to where the
bell pull beckoned. There was a bracket on the south wall for his torch. He jammed it into the bracket and he grabbed hold of the rope with both hands. ‘OK, Femke – here it
comes.’

At the first toll of the bell, the two guards at the door to the Emperor’s study looked at one another in confusion and alarm. At the second resounding
DONG,
they began talking urgently in fierce whispers.

Shalidar drew a knife from his boot. His heart pounded as he crouched in the shadows. He was poised, ready to leap at the first sign of the Emperor. Would he come out? Would the bell prove
sufficiently appealing bait? Or would the canny old General see through the trap and go to ground?

DONG, DONG, DONG . . .

The bell tolled loud and insistent. All over the Palace people began to move. Groups congregated in the hallways and corridors asking if it could be true. Was the Emperor dead? How had he died?
Why was the bell tolling now? Would it not have been better to wait until morning?

Off-duty guards scrambled to dress. On-duty guards milled in confusion, asking directions of their superiors where they could. Senior guards and guard commanders did their utmost to display a
calm front as they were bombarded with questions from all quarters.