The Two of Swords: Part 11 (3 page)

Mirrored in the lieutenant’s eyes he caught a fleeting glimpse of himself, fifteen years earlier, surrounded on all four sides by Major Blepharo concerning the matter of an illegal still in the harness sheds. He felt a pang of remorse and crushed it. He was, after all, about to save this young idiot from the disastrous consequences of his negligence. “What we need to do,” he said, lowering his voice to strained calm, “is get this wretched animal where it’s meant to be, out of harm’s way and off our slop chit.” He paused to let the significance of the first person plural sink in; the lieutenant wasn’t going to have to face this crisis alone; this godlike stranger would help him, and everything would be fine. “Agreed?”

“Sir.”

“Splendid.” Axeo glanced down at the dog, which was scratching its ear with its hind leg. “Now obviously we can’t get it back across the causeway, and we haven’t got a hope in hell of finding a boat.” No explanation, just a statement of fact. “So our only option, would you agree, is to get the dog inside the State Apartments without anybody seeing, dump it in an anteroom somewhere and fuck off out of it quick before anyone asks what we’re doing there. Questions?”

The lieutenant looked petrified. “Won’t they wonder how it got there, when all the rest of the—”

“Of course they will,” Axeo snapped. “There’ll be an almighty row about it, some poor sod will take the blame and probably end up with his head on a spike, but it won’t be us and there won’t be a massacre. Have you got a better idea?”

“No, sir.”

“Sorted, then. Oh, and one other thing. If you ever mention my name in connection with this, I’ll have you court-martialled. Got that?”

“Sir.”

“Splendid.” Axeo handed the dog’s lead to Ethizo, who swallowed hard and took it. “Right then,” he said. “What we need is a back way into the Capitol. Lead on, lieutenant.”

They had to pass four sentries, all of whom snapped to attention like components in a machine as soon as they caught sight of the nodding red crest of the duty officer’s helmet. Ethizo didn’t like that one bit, but Axeo told him to get a grip and look like he was supposed to be there. He felt bad about that, too, but it served the lieutenant right for being stupid, as he himself had once been, and look where it had got him.

They found an empty bedroom on the third floor of the east wing of the Inner Capitol. Axeo untied the string from the dog’s collar; it jumped up on the bed, curled itself into a ball and went to sleep. They backed quietly out of the room and closed the door.

“Right.” Axeo grabbed the lieutenant by the wrist and squeezed till it hurt. “I’ve never seen you before in my life, got that? None of this ever happened, you never left your post all night, and your men will back you up on that. Understood?”

“Sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Get lost,” Axeo said. “Come on, Sergeant,” he snapped to Musen, and strode off down the corridor without looking round.

“Well, we’re in,” Axeo whispered. They’d ducked into some sort of dressing room off the main passageway. Probably a woman’s room, but with the Court you just couldn’t tell. Axeo sat down on the spindly legged chair, which probably wouldn’t have taken Musen’s weight. “Pause, catch our breath and regroup. You might as well know, I haven’t got a plan for the next bit.”

Musen accepted that in silence. Axeo looked at him. “Put that back,” he said.

A slight hesitation; then Musen took a silver-backed hairbrush out of the front of his shirt and put it on the dressing table.

“When I say I haven’t got a plan,” Axeo went on, as though nothing had happened, “I mean I don’t know where we are or where the stuff is likely to be. That’s not as much of a disaster as it sounds. We’ve got plenty of time, no need to rush. We just search this place from top to bottom. If we meet anyone, just keep your face tight shut. You’re good at that, it shouldn’t be a problem. All right.” He stood up. “Onwards.”

On the way out, once Musen was through the door, he grabbed the hairbrush and slipped it into his coat pocket. Well, why not?

They wandered about for a while, but there seemed to be no obvious logic to the place. Axeo vaguely remembered that before it was an Imperial residence the Capitol had been a monastery, built by a large and affluent order, long since disbanded. That helped. “We should be going up, not down,” he muttered to himself. “If this was a Sky monastery, there ought to be a Dawn chapel, east and central and very high up. Logic dictates—” He stopped and frowned. “This is no good. We need camouflage. We won’t get very far just hitting people.” He thought for a moment, creating stories, doing the geometry. Then he punched Musen in the face, as hard as he could.

“Sorry,” he said, helping him up and inspecting his lip, which was bleeding well. “Now, here’s the idea. I just caught you snooping around, I have reason to believe you’re a thief, after the Imperial regalia. I’ve been wandering around for hours looking for a guard to hand you in to, but there’s never one about when you need one. Got that?”

Musen scowled at him and nodded. A bright boy, just as he’d always thought. Axeo glanced down at his knuckles and was pleased to see he’d skinned them. “Teeth all right?”

“Mphm.”

“Good, no harm done, then. On we go.”

They climbed stairs whenever they encountered them and tried to keep bearing east. They met people, but only footmen and chambermaids; no need to explain, just stay in character. “Remember,” Axeo muttered in Musen’s ear as he frogmarched him down a long, wide gallery, “if we meet anyone, you’re the desperado, I’m the peace officer. Got a knife on you?”

“Yes.”

“Give it here. I don’t want you getting carried away.”

Axeo recognised the knife. It had been his once, and he’d been sure he’d dropped it. “Do you ever steal from anyone else apart from me? Just out of interest.”

“Yes.”

With a pang of regret he dumped it on a window ledge. “Next good knife you steal is mine, all right?”

“All right.”

“Deal. The thing is, I’m a very materialistic person, I like my things. Rather more than I like people, as it happens. You might want to bear that in mind.”

Round the next bend they ran into a pair of sentries, flanking a closed door. There was no time to say anything to each other; nothing but mutual trust would save them now, the sort of faith Axeo generally reserved for the Great Smith. “I caught this one sneaking about in the—” he began to say, and then Musen hit him.

It worked because he really hadn’t been expecting it. No time or capacity for acting his part; the world went soft around him, he tried to breathe but couldn’t, and sank to his knees. By the time he could breathe again it all appeared to be over; Musen was bending over him helping him to his feet.

“Sorry,” Musen said with a grin.

“That’s fine,” Axeo whispered. “Oh, hell, you didn’t kill them, did you?”

Musen shook his head. Axeo looked for himself. They seemed secure enough. “Did they teach you to punch at Beal Defoir?”

“No, I’m just strong.”

Fair enough. “You’d better put them away tidily,” Axeo said. He didn’t like the way one of them was lying, but it could just be a broken leg. But how do you break a man’s leg by punching him on the jaw? “I think we passed a laundry room a little way back.” He searched them for keys, found none. “Dump them in there and cover them with sheets or something.”

The lock was actually quite simple; four massive great wards that turned back easily, a credit to the locksmith for the quality of his filing and stoning, if not his imagination. Axeo turned the handle and opened the door a crack, slipped the lock pick back in between the seams of his boot top and waited for Musen to return. He was gratified by the brief look of surprise on Musen’s face. “Teach you to do that one day, if you’re good,” he said.

“Thanks, I’d like that.”

“I bet.” He put three fingertips against the door and gently wafted it open. There was light on the other side of it. “Here goes,” he whispered, and walked through.

He was at the foot of a staircase. There were two chairs and a brazier, but no guards. Bless the Household regiment for its self-confidence.

It was a long staircase, but Axeo knew they hadn’t gone high enough to be there yet. At the top was another of those damned wide galleries, with tapestries on the walls and rush matting (thank you, someone) on the floor. Whoever used this part of the building believed in being snug. His throat was sore from reflux and his knees were still weak, but he’d felt worse. “My guess is there’s a priest’s cell of some kind, and the stairs to the chapel are in there. Our tough luck if someone’s sleeping in there.”

There were nine rooms leading off the corridor, all unoccupied. At the back of the ninth was a door that had no rational explanation. It opened on to more stairs.

“How did you know?” Musen asked.

“Every Dualist monastery had a Dawn Chapel.” Axeo was breathless on the stairs, but he told himself it was just the after-effect of Musen’s punch. “The abbot went there every morning to greet the rising sun. They kept all their best stuff in there, so it had to be tight as a drum. Logical place for a temporary strongroom.”

The staircase ended in a steel door. The only light came from a lantern Musen had thought to bring with him from the gallery. “Hold it still, for pity’s sake,” Axeo said, scrabbling around the lock plate with his lock pick. “I need to see what I’m doing.”

“I thought it was all by feel.”

“It helps if you can actually see the keyhole.”

Five wards; four flipped easily, the fifth was stiff and nearly bent the pick. “That was so easy, you could’ve done it,” Axeo said, as the door moved under his hand. “Cover the lantern, you idiot. We’re not in the lighthouse business.”

They blanked off the windows as best they could with Axeo’s coat and Musen’s cloak and hood. When Musen unmasked the lantern, they saw a stack of steel strongboxes, floor to ceiling, each one with at least one padlock. Axeo groaned. “How long does a man stay put out when you thump him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it varies.” Axeo fished in his other boot for his spare pick. “Now pay attention. I’m going to teach you how to pick locks.”

To Axeo’s delight, Musen was a quick learner. It helped that the padlocks were deplorably old-fashioned and simple, but the fact remained, the boy had a natural aptitude, a gift. “Fine,” Axeo said. “Now, you take that stack and I’ll do this one. Don’t hang about and don’t steal anything.”

Musen, of course, was the one who knew what they were looking for. Luckily, it was him who found it, in the sixth box he opened. Axeo only realised when he noticed how still and quiet the boy had suddenly become.

“You’ve got it?” he whispered. “Is that it?”

Musen didn’t answer. On the stone floor beside where he was kneeling lay a silver box, its lid hinged open. Musen was staring at something cupped protectively in his hands, the way you might hold an injured bird. “I said, is that it?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Thank God for that. Here, let me see.”

Musen hesitated, then opened his hands. Axeo saw a pile of thin silver wafers – longer and wider than any playing cards he’d ever seen, embossed with figures he couldn’t make out in the poor light. “You’re sure?” he said. “Come on, it’s important. Every human life in Rasch depends on this.”

“I think so,” Musen said. “They’re like the ones back in the village. Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly confident, “it’s them.”

“Give them here.”

For a moment, Axeo was sure Musen would refuse, and that would have been extremely awkward. But then he looked away and held out his hand. Axeo snatched the cards, and scrabbled on the floor for the box. The cards wouldn’t go back in; he tried to straighten them up so they’d fit, and dropped two. Musen took the cards back from him, dropped them neatly in the box, added the two strays and handed the box back.

“You’re absolutely positive,” Axeo said. “We can’t come back again, you know that. It’s got to be right.”

“It’s them.”

Well, Musen was the expert; which was to say, he was the only specialist thief available who knew what the wretched things were supposed to look like. Damn all rush jobs and emergencies. “If they’re not, I’ll kill you.”

“I told you, it’s them.”

“Good enough for me.” Axeo reached to put the box in his coat pocket, then remembered that his coat was serving as a blackout. “Kill the lantern,” he said. “Come on, quickly.”

The two guards were still dead to the world in the laundry room. “We need a new story,” Axeo muttered, dragging dirty washing out of a big wicker basket. “All this making stuff up is incredibly stressful for me. I’m basically a very truthful person.” He held up a long black priest’s robe, then saw the vomit stains on the lower skirt. “This is no good, it’s mostly women’s clothes. What we want is a couple of those beige sack things the clerks wear.”

“Like these?”

Axeo swung round, then sighed. “They’re the wrong colour, and they’re
frocks
. God preserve me from provincials. Just a moment, though.” He shoved Musen out of the way and rummaged. “In the gold,” he said, “score ten”, and held up a pale blue scholar’s robe. There were wine stains on the bottom hem. “How would you like to be drunk?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t drink.”

Axeo thought for a moment. “It’s a very hard thing to pretend to be,” he said. “All right, I’m the drunk and you’re a servant taking me to sleep it off.” He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a gold star on a fine silver chain. “This is actually mine,” he said. “I’m entitled to it. Order of Academic Merit, second class. They don’t give these things away at weddings.” He stripped off his coat, retrieved the silver box and put it down on the laundry basket, then slipped and wriggled into the gown. It was slightly too long for him, but not to worry. He hung the gold star round his neck, then tucked the silver box safely in the deep sleeve of the gown. “Watch and learn,” he said. “I’m good at this.”

A noisy, aggressive drunk who also happens to be a high-ranking scholar is the sort of bad news a sentry can do without. “Would you mind keeping it down, sir?” he asked, ever so politely; in response, the drunk took a swing at him, and only prompt action by the drunk’s enormous servant stopped him from making contact, which would have obliged the sentry to report the incident and made trouble for everyone. The servant rolled his eyes apologetically; the sentry nodded. “Get him out of here,” the sentry said imploringly. “And for God’s sake stop him singing.”