Shadowdance (36 page)

He stood with his back to the door, laving himself with a soft wet cloth, wiping away the thick dust and grime from his skin. When he wrung the cloth and rinsed it, the water turned brown.

"That was some act," Baktus said from the doorway. Innowen glanced at him over his shoulder. The fat man stood leaning against the jamb with his arms folded over his massive chest. He shook his head as he stared at Innowen's naked legs. "Not many men would've crawled around the street like you did to keep up a disguise."

Innowen dropped the dirty cloth back in the water, causing a few drops to spill over onto the table's rough surface. As Baktus watched him from the entrance, he wrapped his loins with a length of linen fabric.

"Sorry I couldn't offer you a bath," Baktus continued. He leaned against the jamb with his arms folded casually over his thick, hairy chest. "There's just not enough water for that, though. This drought's killing us. I had to take that from our drinking supply."

Innowen finished his winding. "I'm grateful," he acknowledged. "As I am, also, for these garments you obtained for me." He picked up another length of black cloth and wound it into a short kilt about his middle and pinned it with a small copper clasp. Over this, he fastened an unadorned belt of plain leather, which he laced over his navel. "Tell me," he said as he dressed, "do you have any other guests in your inn?"

Baktus frowned. "There's only one other room besides this one. When the invaders first came, they forced their way in on all of us. Inns, private homes, barns—it didn't matter. Had two of them here, too, and no mention of rent, let me tell you."

"What happened to them?" Innowen asked as he sat down on the side of his bed and laced on a pair of sandals. The soles were not leather, but made from pounded water reed fibers. Not Isporan. He wondered silently how Baktus had come by them.

"One soldier found better quarters the next day." He hesitated, looked down, and rubbed his chin with one hand. "The other I mentioned before, the one at the bottom of the well outside."

Innowen finished lacing the sandals and stood up. "Tell me," he said slowly. "Did that one by any chance look like he came from Samyrabis?"

Sheepishly, Baktus shook his head. "I told you," he said, looking askance. "He came from Nimrut."

Innowen suddenly knew where the sandals had come from, and, he assumed, the rest of his new garments. Nimrut and Samyrabis were neighboring kingdoms.

"They're not dead man's shoes," Baktus said defensively, realizing the reason behind Innowen's question. "I mean, he wasn't actually wearing them when I did him. I wouldn't do that to the son of Minarik." He moved away from the door jamb and pulled himself erect, looking as if he'd done something wrong for which he feared punishment. "That would be terrible luck. I just took them from his room. I mean, why not use them, get some good out of them?" Slowly, he hung his head as he muttered, "The other things came from his room, too." He looked up again, shame-faced and apologetic. "I'll give you back your coin,"

"Keep it," Innowen told him, moving close enough to set his hand briefly on the innkeeper's shoulder. "I gave it to you to obtain clothes, and that's what you did." He patted the lacings over his belt and brushed one hand over his bare chest. "Are there any weapons in his room?"

"Everything he brought with him remains," Baktus answered. "If his body is ever found, my story is simply that he never returned here. See, I kept his room and his possessions as he left them. Brigands, rebels maybe, must have dumped him in the well as he came home one night. Or maybe he got drunk and fell in and broke his fool neck."

Baktus disappeared from the doorway only to return a moment later. He carried a short blade in a scabbard of bull's hide. He exposed half of the copper blade before he passed it to Innowen.

Innowen examined the blade more closely. It was an unornamented weapon. Both its edges were keen, though it showed signs where nicks and notches had recently been whetted away. He sheathed it with an approving nod. The scabbard had a stout strap, which he passed under his belt and fastened to a buckle on the bull's hide.

"I owe you much, friend," Innowen said. Going to his bed again, he picked up the black cloak that lay draped across it, another of the dead soldier's possessions. Next, he reached under his pillow and drew out his leather purse. The drawstrings slid open with a gentle tug, and he dipped two fingers within, extracting two gold
cymorens,
which he pushed deep inside his belt so that they rested cool against his flesh. Turning again to Baktus, he set the purse and the rest of its contents down on the table beside the wash basin and stepped away.

"If I return tonight, I may need some of this again. If not, it's yours."

Baktus' eyebrows arched with surprise. Then his brow furrowed. "Petroklos has already paid his rent and more," the innkeeper reminded him. "Times are hard, yes, but I do not take charity."

Innowen shrugged. "You have done me favors, Baktus, important favors. You've earned this. And as I said, I may be back."

Baktus folded his arms across his chest stubbornly. "Take it with you. I don't need charity."

Innowen frowned and shrugged again, but he picked up the purse, hefted it on his palm, then tucked its drawstrings down into the side of his belt. "As you wish," he said with a conciliatory gesture. "Now, if you would leave me, I require a few moments of privacy."

Baktus bowed and retreated to the threshold. "I'll have a taste of beer waiting for you," he said as he prepared to draw the door closed. "It's dark outside, but it's still warm."

Innowen called after him. "Do you have any customers who might see me depart?"

Baktus made a face that was a mixture of amusement and irritation. "Most of the locals are still afraid of your Witch's soldiers. They stay behind their doors and shuttered windows after the sun goes down. And the soldiers, well, you'll find plenty of them about, but mostly at taverns closer to the garrison or the palace. That's all right by me. I don't much want their business."

Innowen waited until he was alone, then set the purse of coins back on the table. Sometimes peasants could be too stubborn for their own good. No customers meant hard times. He understood pride, but Baktus had daughters to think of, too. There were coins enough in the purse to send them to someplace safe until Parendur settled down.

He drew a deep breath as one hand slid along the sword he wore at his side. His palm glided over the coarse bull's hide. It had an almost sensual feel against his fingers and where it brushed his bare thigh.

Beyond the wall of his small room, he heard the wind. He rolled back his head and closed his eyes and listened to see if it bore a whisper from the Witch. It had been so long since he had heard her voice in the wind.

No matter. One way or another, she would speak to him tonight.

He cast his cloak back down on the bed, then checked the door and threw the bolt on his side. Pressing the tips of his fingers anxiously together just below his chin, he glanced once more around his quarters. The room was cramped. He could not move too wildly.

He listened again for the wind. It was there. It was always there, even when others could not feel it or hear it, still it was there.

Dance, it said to him, dance away the world.

* * *

The streets were black as pitch. Here and there, the barest light from a lamp or candle drew a narrow line under a closed door or down the crack between a pair of shutters. Overhead, a peppering of stars shone palely between the rooftops in the utter dark of the heavens. None of it penetrated the stygian gloom of the outer city.

Innowen paused and leaned against a rough stone wall. Unconsciously, he rubbed the fingers of one hand over his chest near his throat in a useless attempt to ease the odd tightening he felt there. He loved the night, yet there was a queer quality to this darkness that gnawed at him. The air felt too thick, too close, and the buildings seemed to press in on him. The streets were so narrow, and the alleys sometimes no more than passages that forced him to inch along sideways with mud bricks at both his shoulders and his nose, never knowing quite when or where he would emerge in the darkness.

It was, he thought, like making his way through a maze blindfolded.

He almost wished he'd taken the lamp that Baktus had offered him. But that would have made him too conspicuous. Soldiers might see him, or thieves, long before he saw them. He didn't want to risk any kind of confrontation. Indeed, despite the heat of the night, he kept his hood up and his cloak pulled about his shoulders. No one would see him unless he wished it.

He moved down the street again, his steps soundless in the soft dust of the road. He made his way carefully, navigating by the narrow strip of stars above him and by occasionally dragging one hand along the walls on either side, choosing any path that took him southward toward the palace.

Once, he nearly fell over an empty rain barrel, but he recovered his balance and caught the barrel before it could make a clatter. Another time, a stool left outside a door by some craftsman caught him in the shin. He bit back a curse at both the pain and the racket, and quickly melted into the darkness before anyone came to investigate, though he doubted that anyone would.

He turned a corner and found himself before a stone stepway that served several upper room apartments. He hesitated, then mounted them quietly.

At the first door, he paused. A thin light oozed under the thick, planked door. Muffled voices whispered on the other side, and soft footsteps pattered back and forth, as if whoever lived within were pacing.

Innowen moved on, climbing to the next and highest apartment. Again, he paused. The light beneath the door was even thinner, and it wavered, perhaps shed by only a single candle. Unmistakable, though, were the soft squeals and throaty moaning he heard as he set his ear to the wooden door. A small grin creased his lips, and he resisted the mischievous urge to pound raucously on the door like an enraged father or brother. For all he knew, it was a married couple within.

He climbed the staircase to the roof and let go a long sigh. The stars spread across the sky now, a glorious panorama, and the tightness in his chest eased. The breeze swirled around him, fluttering his hood and the ends of his cloak. He pushed the hood back briefly and let the playful wind cool his face and dry the thin beads of sweat that dotted his cheeks and brow.

In the south, he could see the outline of Parendur's palace. Its windows burned with the light of mirrored lamps, and pitch-soaked torches burned on its parapets and in its courtyards.

The moon had not yet come up. It would be risky to make his way over the city's rooftops, but this way he would make faster progress. He pulled his hood up again and crept to the edge.

It was little more than a wide step across an alley to the next rooftop. He was careful to land as lightly as he could because the apartments in this part of the city were old and poorly constructed. A careless step and he might plunge through someone's ceiling. Even if the roof was safe and solid, he didn't want his footfalls to disturb the tenants below.

Nevertheless, he moved with greater speed and surety, gaining confidence in his own stealth, until it became like a dance to him, each step with its own timing, each movement with its own peculiar rhythm. His senses seemed to sharpen, as they did when he danced. He could see any obstacles long before they tripped him up.

He flew from rooftop to rooftop across alleys and narrow roads like a dark bird.

Voices from the street below brought him to an abrupt halt. He crouched against a low parapet, rose slowly with his hood clutched close to his face, and peered over the side into the street.

Three men leaned casually against the wall immediately below him, bathed in the light of an oil lamp that hung suspended on leather straps from a tavern sign. The door on their right opened, and another man stepped out, gave the three only a cursory nod as he set a crested helmet on his head, and walked away with a barely perceptible weave. The three watched him go, then resumed their conversation.

Soldiers, Innowen realized. He backed a few paces, then ran, set his foot atop the parapet and leaped into space. For just an instant, he thought he'd misjudged as he hung in the blackness, but then his feet touched the next rooftop. He rolled to soften his landing and rose immediately. Though half tangled in his cloak, he hadn't made a sound.

He crept back to the edge and peered downward again. From his new vantage, he could see the soldiers' faces. Though shadows cast by the overhead lamp obscured the details of their features, he thought they were Isporan. However, the fact that they wore weapons confirmed that they were soldiers, rebels, probably, who for reasons of their own had joined the Witch's ranks.

He turned to face Parendur's palace again, and wondered. Did she feel him coming?

Gradually, as he neared the palace, it became more difficult to travel the rooftops. The streets widened, making the jumps more dangerous, and the parapets that surrounded certain roofs rose higher as he moved into wealthier neighborhoods, where rich men sought to prevent just such intrusions into their dwellings. Finally, Innowen took once more to the streets.

There, he advanced with even greater caution. Many houses hung lamps on wooden pegs outside their doors, and the windows to some shops and inns were unshuttered to encourage late-night customers, most of whom were soldiers. The lamps cast plenty of shadows, though, and he wrapped himself in them.