The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns (44 page)

The Grays were not far behind them. A half dozen of them burst into the clearing when she and Marcus were halfway across, dodging through the garden furniture. Four of the guards kept running, but two dropped to their knees and leveled their bayoneted muskets.

“Halt!” one of them shouted, with a heavy Noreldrai accent. “Or we fire!”

“Bluffing,” Raesinia gasped. “No good. To them. Dead.”

Marcus nodded, swerved around an errant chair, and ducked through the arch at the other end of the clearing. Raesinia flinched at a shattering crack of musketry from behind them, but the shots had been aimed well over her head, and she heard the balls zing merrily past. Someone swore in Noreldrai before the curve of the hedgerow cut them off again.

It was hard to keep track of directions, but Marcus seemed to be leading them
deeper
into the Bower. She’d thought they would try to pass straight through, perhaps commandeer a carriage out on the main drive, but he kept turning back toward the palace. There was another exit there, but it would surely be guarded.
In fact, they could go around that way and cut us off—

No sooner had she had the thought than they reached another triangular intersection as a trio of Grays turned up from the opposite direction. The guards were as surprised as Raesinia was, and pulled up short, but Marcus let his momentum carry him into them, narrowly avoiding being skewered on a protruding bayonet. He lowered his shoulder and knocked one Gray off his feet and into the man behind him, then came around with a wild swing of his saber that opened a long cut across the stomach of the third.

“That way!” Marcus gestured with his free hand toward the third branch of the intersection. “Get to the fountain!”

That seemed to be the only available direction, and Raesinia was already headed toward it. The word “fountain” filled her with an unexpected chill, though, and she struggled to remember why. Sparkling lights danced in front of her eyes—the binding was working hard to keep her legs functioning, and had no energy to spare for small matters like a lack of blood to the brain.

The two unwounded Grays disentangled themselves, retreating a bit from Marcus’ furious swings, and were caught off guard when he turned his back on them and ran. Both raised their muskets, trying to get a shot off before he disappeared around a corner, but only one went off—the captain’s bull rush must have knocked the second hard enough to spill the powder from the pan. Raesinia heard the ball zip by and crash noisily into the hedges.

She rounded the corner and felt flagstones under her feet instead of dirt. Ahead was one of the fountains in the classical style with which Ohnlei was so generously supplied. A broad, low pool, contained by a stone lip, fired jets of water against a stone pedestal that supported an equestrian statue of Raesinia’s great-great-grandfather, Farus V. It was ringed by a circle of flagstones, already
cracked and uneven in places where underground roots had wreaked havoc on the builders’ perfect order. A low stone wall, backed by a more imposing hedge, cut the little clearing off entirely from the rest of the Bower.

The fountain.
Raesinia realized, belatedly, what she’d been trying to remember.
There’s only one entrance.
She skidded to a halt against the lip, and Marcus clomped and jingled his way to a stop beside her, panting hard. Raesinia had to remind herself to breathe, for verisimilitude.

“We’re. Stuck,” she managed. Marcus, bent over with his hands on his knees, was too out of breath to reply.

A few moments later, Grays started pouring into the clearing. They were disheveled from the long chase, sweating into their tailored uniforms, and most of them had lost their neat little caps. Half still had muskets, while the others had drawn their swords.

“That’s about enough,
alvaunt
,” gasped one, who had a sergeant’s stripes on his shoulders. He took a deep breath and straightened up. “We got you, yes? Sword down, hands up. You come with us.”

“Captain . . . ,” Raesinia began.

“Marcus,” he said, “under the circumstances.”

“I appreciate what you’ve done. But this is enough, don’t you think?”

Marcus let his sword fall. The clang of steel on stone echoed over the quiet babble of the fountain.

“I think you’re right,” he said. He was smiling.

The sound of boots on the flagstones behind them made a couple of the Noreldrai turn. The sergeant gestured angrily for them to keep their eyes on their prisoners, then spun to face the man who’d just sauntered through the archway.

“What in
volse
do you think you’re doing?” he barked.

Janus, wearing his dress blues in place of the civilian costume of the Minister of Justice, put on an innocent expression.

“Going for a walk?” he said.

The sergeant snorted. “You can explain that to His Grace.”

“I think it would be best,” Janus said, “if you and your men would stack your arms and sit quietly against the wall.”

“Excuse me?” The sergeant looked from Janus to his men. “Perhaps I speak your
kishkasse
language not as well as I thought.”

“I just thought I would warn you.”

The sergeant ran out of patience. He gestured with his sword, and the Grays advanced on Marcus and Raesinia. Two sword-wielding men sauntered over to deal with Janus, who wasn’t even armed.

Janus sighed, and raised his voice. “In your own time, Lieutenant Uhlan.”

Everyone froze, looking around to see whom he was addressing. In the same instant, two dozen long rifle barrels slid over the wall that edged the clearing.

Something hit Raesinia hard in the small of the back. It was Marcus, bearing her to the ground. He courteously put his other arm underneath her to cushion her fall against the flagstones, so she ended up pulled tight into a kind of embrace. The staccato
crack
of rifles at close range split the air, and billows of smoke filled the clearing with the scent of gun smoke. One or two blasts, closer to them, indicated that a few of the Grays had gotten a shot off, but in less than a half minute the burbling fountain was again audible.

“Very good, Lieutenant,” Janus said, in a conversational tone. “Captain?”

Marcus relaxed his grip on Raesinia’s shoulders. Raesinia took a deep breath—it had been like being hugged by a bear—and got a lungful of smoke, mixed with the scent of his sweat. She coughed, and wiped her eyes.

“Are you all right, Your Majesty?”

“Fine,” Raesinia said, automatically. She’d skinned an elbow in the fall, but the cuts were already closing.

“No injuries, sir,” Marcus said aloud.

“Nobody hit here, sir,” said another voice, in a harsh accent Raesinia didn’t recognize.

“Good shooting,” Janus said.

There was another shot, not so close, but still loud enough to make Raesinia flinch. Marcus rolled off her, climbed to his feet, and offered her his hand. She took it, feeling a little unsteady. Another couple of shots drifted over the Bower, like distant handclaps. The clearing was wreathed in floating wisps of gun smoke, but she could see men in red uniforms climbing over the wall, long weapons in hand. The Grays were all down, either dead or keeping silent. The red-clad soldiers began to move among them while one bearing a lieutenant’s bars hurried over, saluted Janus, then bowed deeply in Raesinia’s direction.

“Your Majesty,” Janus said, “may I present Lieutenant Medio bet Uhlan, of the First Mierantai Volunteers. His family has been in the service of the counts of Mieran for four generations.”

“It’s an honor, Your Majesty,” Uhlan said, in what Raesinia assumed was a Mierantai accent. It sounded as if he spent his days gargling rocks.

“I owe you my life, sir,” Raesinia said, a slight exaggeration for dramatic effect. “Thank you for your assistance.”

Another couple of shots made both Uhlan and Janus cock their heads, listening carefully.

“Still just ours,” Uhlan said, and Janus nodded.

“Quite a few Grays got shaken loose in the chase,” he said to Raesinia. “They ended up wandering around the Bower, and the rest of Lieutenant Uhlan’s men are rounding them up. We should give them a couple of minutes.” He sighed. “I hope a few of them decide to surrender.”

“We got the bulk of them at their barracks, when Orlanko’s orders arrived,” Uhlan said. “They were ready to fight their way out, but it turned out that some absolute bastard had soaked all the powder in the armory the night before.” His grin was concealed behind a thick woodsman’s beard, but his eyes twinkled.

Raesinia looked at Janus. “You knew?”

“Not for certain, but it’s always wise to plan for contingencies.” He frowned. “Though I must admit this seemed a fairly probable contingency. What our friend the duke does not understand is that a perfect record of treachery is just as predictable as one of impeccable loyalty. You simply must always expect to be stabbed in the back, and you’ll never be surprised. Keeping faith occasionally would make him much harder to anticipate.”

“Orlanko.” Raesinia’s hand twisted into the fabric of her dress, fingers tightening. “Do you have enough men to storm the Cobweb?”

“Not at the moment, I’m afraid,” Janus said. “We have it blockaded, but there are too many tunnels and bolt-holes to cut him off completely. It’s possible the duke has already fled.”

“He’ll hang for this, I swear.” Her breath caught. “What about Sothe? Have you found her?”

“Her Majesty’s maidservant,” Marcus supplied. “She helped hold off the Grays. Last I saw her, she was running for it with a Concordat agent in hot pursuit.”

“I haven’t heard anything,” Janus said. “But affairs are very confused at the moment. And, unfortunately, we have larger problems.”

It was hard for Raesinia to tear her mind away from Sothe, but once she
did she jumped to the obvious conclusion. “The deputies. Andreas—the Concordat agent who came to arrest us—said they were going to be taken in hand.”

“It would be a foolish play to take the palace, only to lose it to the mob,” Janus agreed. “And Orlanko is not
entirely
a fool. I suggest we proceed to the cathedral at once. Lieutenant?”

Uhlan was consulting with a pair of red-uniformed Mierantai who’d just entered the clearing. He looked up. “We’re clear, sir. Got about thirty prisoners. Carriages are waiting in the main drive, and the sergeant commanding the Armsmen says he’s with us.”

“He’d damned well better be,” Marcus growled.

“Don’t be too hard on them,” Janus said. “On days like this, it’s never easy to know which way to jump.” He and Marcus shared a look that spoke of some shared memory, and Marcus grunted. “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”

Uhlan barked orders in his harsh, nearly unintelligible dialect, and the Mierantai formed up around them. Marcus drifted back as the column set off, until he was walking beside Raesinia.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“I could have told you earlier that this might happen.” He nodded at Janus. “He insisted that I not say anything until Orlanko tipped his hand. I think he was worried you might panic. But if I’d said something, Sothe might”—he hesitated—“might not have gotten hurt. I can see she’s . . . important to you.”

Raesinia nodded, walking for a moment in silence. “I can hardly blame you for following orders.”

“Still. I’m sorry.” Marcus squared his shoulders, as though facing something unpleasant. “Whatever Orlanko had planned for the deputies may have happened already. Giforte is there with as many Armsmen as I could spare, but . . .”

“I know.” Raesinia was thinking of Maurisk, Cora, and Sarton. Danton, Jane, Cyte, and all the rest.

“I hope we get there in time to do some good.”

Raesinia nodded grimly. “So do I.”

WINTER

I
n the hundred and twenty years since the Sworn Church had first been expelled from Vordan, the Sworn Cathedral had never played host to a congregation large enough to fill its echoing, vaulted hall. For years, when praying in a Sworn Church had been tantamount to being a traitor to the Crown, it had stood empty. Later, more tolerant ages had seen the Sworn Priests return, chase out some of the bats and rats who had taken up residence, and offer services to those few foreigners and die-hards who wanted them.

The War of the Princes and Borelgai proselytizing had brought a few more into the fold, but Winter was certain the gloomy old building hadn’t seen a gathering like this in living memory. The Deputies-General packed the floor of the main hall—the moldy pews had been hauled outside to clear more space—and members of delegations searching for private space had invaded the warren of rooms, damp corridors, and drafty wooden stairways behind the altar that had once housed the massive administrative staff charged with overseeing the spiritual welfare of all of Vordan.

Giforte and a band of staff-wielding Armsmen were vainly attempting to keep order, but the most they could manage was to protect the floor of the main hall—which, it had been decided, constituted the actual chamber of the Deputies-General—from being invaded by crowds from outside. Eager to get a glimpse of what was going on, the spectators had found the stairs leading up to the old Widow’s Gallery, a wooden-floored balcony that described a broad horseshoe shape around the back of the main hall, about thirty feet off the ground. Getting up took a bit of daring, since the stairways were in bad shape
and the balcony itself was riddled with rotten boards, but it provided an excellent vantage point. From here, the adventurous could get a good view of the proceedings and, in spite of the best efforts of the Armsmen, throw chunks of floorboard at speakers they didn’t care for.

Those proceedings were not, in Winter’s opinion, worthy of all this attention. They had begun well enough, with the crimson-clad Sworn Bishop offering a nervous-sounding prayer, followed by a plea for fellowship and common sense from a pair of Free Priests. Once the clergy had departed, however, the wrangling over the agenda had begun. In fact, as best Winter could tell, things had not yet progressed to the point of arguing over the agenda; the deputies first needed to decide the order of precedence in which they would be allowed to offer points
during
the debate over the agenda, and this crucial discussion had thus far engaged the entire attention of all parties.

It was possible that this was taking an overly cynical view of matters. But in Winter’s current mood, she was inclined to see everything cynically. The spectators on the gallery sat near the edge, as far forward as they dared test the rotten boards, while Winter paced in the back, lost in shadows.

Jane and Abby obviously had . . . something. Of
course
they did. When Winter listened to Abby talk about Jane, she could see an echo of the way she herself had felt all those years ago. Only willful ignorance had kept her from figuring it out sooner.

And,
she thought,
that’s for the best.
It’s only to be expected, isn’t it? For all Jane knew, I was dead, or gone away never to return. Hell, I never planned to return. I wouldn’t have asked to her to spend her whole life pining away for me. And since she did find someone, how can I expect her to just drop everything the minute I come back?

All perfectly reasonable.
So why is it that whenever I close my eyes, all I can see is the two of them?
Jane’s face, and the little sigh she made as Abby’s lips touched her throat. Abby’s hand, sliding up her flank, pushing up her shirt.

She might have told me.
Winter bit her lip.
Either one of them might have told me.
But that wasn’t really fair, either. Jane had made her intentions perfectly clear from the very start, and Winter had turned her down.
No wonder she’s gone looking elsewhere.

Wood creaked and popped under her weight. She found herself on the left-hand side of the horseshoe, near the end, where the balcony most closely approached the altar. The steps leading up to the altar had been adopted as speaking floor, with the silver and gold double circle dangling from its long,
thin chain directly behind the speaker. Someone plump and well-dressed whom Winter didn’t recognize was down there now, in the middle of what had obviously been a long address.

A small group of young women had occupied the very end of the horseshoe. Winter recognized Cyte, along with Molly and Becks from Jane’s Leatherbacks, chatting amiably and apparently no worse for wear after their brief stay in a Concordat prison. The rest were a mixed group of Jane’s girls and other young women from the South Bank who’d drifted up to have a look at the fun.

Before Winter could turn on her heel and stalk back in the other direction, Cyte noticed her and waved her over. Winter reluctantly picked her way through the chattering throng.

“Watch out for splinters,” Cyte said.

“I’m a bit more concerned with the whole thing giving out underneath us,” Winter said, sitting down carefully. “I don’t think it’s had a workout like this since the Civil War.”

Cyte laughed. Her eyes were dark, Winter noticed. Not with makeup, this time, but the wages of interrupted sleep. Her face was thinner than it had been, and more worn.

“It never fails,” Cyte said darkly. “Here come the scavengers.”

“I’m sorry.”

She indicated the fat orator, who was gesturing in the classical style and sweating profusely. “Look at him. A North Bank merchant, if I’m any judge, or maybe a banker. Never done an honest day’s work. And
he
wasn’t out in the streets when Orlanko turned his dogs loose.
He
didn’t storm the walls of the Vendre. But now he’s here, and we’ve got to listen to his self-righteous prattle.”

“The queen called the deputies to represent all of Vordan,” Becks offered. “Like it or not, that includes him and the other North Bankers.”

“At least we’re shot of the damned Borels,” another girl said. “Those are the real bloodsuckers.”

Cyte met Winter’s eye. They got up together and walked a ways down the railing. Inquisitive glances followed them, but no one spoke.

“You know why they call this the Widow’s Gallery?” Cyte said.

Winter shook her head.

“In the old days—the
very
old days, around the time of Farus the Conqueror—the Pontifex of the White decided that the churches had drifted too far toward being social centers instead of places for contemplation of the
sins of mankind. He blamed it on unattached women, who were apparently smashing around society like loose cannons. So Elysium decreed that no women unaccompanied by a husband or male relative would be permitted to attend services.

“Of course, the women still wanted to come, and the local hierarchy was reluctant to lose their contributions. Some bishop came up with the idea that the women would subscribe funds for the construction of a balcony like this, so they could
watch
the service without being
at
it. And, since the unattached women who had money to spare were mostly widows, they called it the Widow’s Gallery.”

Winter forced a chuckle. “I’m glad I wasn’t born in the eighth century.”

Cyte tested the railing, found it sturdy enough to support her, and leaned against it with her chin in her hands. “Sometimes I feel like I was,” she said, nodding toward the floor. “Look.”

Abby was just standing up to speak in answer to the sweaty merchant. Aside from a few wives on the back benches, she was the only woman in the room.

“It was Jane who took the Vendre,” Cyte went on. “She turned the mob into an . . . an
army
, practically. She sent us in to open the gates. Without that, the queen never would have given us the deputies! But if you look in the newspapers, you’d think Danton killed every Concordat soldier himself and cracked the doors of the prison with one blow of his mighty fist.”

“People listen to him,” Winter said. “He’s a symbol.”

“All he does is give speeches. Where is he
now
, when we need someone to shut these idiots up?”

“In his rooms, I think,” Winter said. “He’s supposed to have a big speech before lunch.”

“More platitudes.” Cyte snorted. “It should be
Jane
down there.”

“The queen invited her,” Winter said. “She sent Abby instead. This sort of thing . . .” She shook her head. “Jane isn’t good at it.”

“Did she send you, too?”

Winter colored slightly. “No. I’m here on my own.”

There had been a few tense moments over that, back at the Vendre, which the Leatherbacks were still using as their temporary headquarters. After Jane had told Abby to speak for her at the deputies, Winter had announced that she was going as well. The expression on Jane’s face—half-perplexed, half-hurt, with a tiny hint of guilt thrown in for good measure—was something Winter wished she could forget.

She’d made some excuse about wanting to be present at such a historic moment, which Jane hadn’t bought. But Winter had been adamant. If she’d hung around the fortress, Jane would have cornered her eventually, and then there would be no avoiding the conversation she desperately did not want to have.

So I ran away. Again.

She swallowed and changed the subject. “What about you? You look a bit poorly, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Cyte stared gloomily down at the floor below. “It’s been a busy week.”

“Be honest.”

“I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about . . . you know. That night, in the Vendre.”

Winter nodded, sympathetically. “The first time someone tried to kill me, it was a while before I got a good night’s sleep.”

“It’s not even that,” Cyte said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I was scared—I mean, of course I was. But . . .”

Winter waited.

“There was a guard I . . . stabbed. In the stomach, right through him. I barely even thought about it. He was going to kill you, kill me if he got the chance, and I just . . . did it.” She brushed her hand against her leg, as though trying to wipe something away. “It was so
easy
.”

Winter was silent. She tried to remember the first man she’d killed, but the truth was that she didn’t know. In a battle—even the little skirmishes the Colonials dealt with before the rise of the Redeemers—you rarely knew if a shot had hit or missed. When someone fell it was anyone’s guess if he’d been deliberately killed or clipped by a stray ball. In an awful way, that made it better. She’d felt like throwing up the first time she had to clean up a battlefield and bury a handful of enemy corpses, but there wasn’t anyone she could point to and say, “I ended that man’s life.”

“I know you thought I volunteered for that on a whim,” Cyte said, and raised a hand when Winter started to protest. “It’s all right. You tried to talk me out of it, and I appreciate that. The truth is that I did my thinking before we even got to the Vendre. When we heard what the Concordat was doing, and people in the cafés started talking about marching, I thought . . . this is it. I told myself, ‘If you’re going out there, you have to be prepared for it. Are you ready to die, if that’s what it takes? Are you ready to kill?’ And I decided that I was, but it took . . . I don’t know. It felt like a big thing to decide.

“And then, when it finally came to it, it was
easy
. Just a little thrust.” She held out her hand. “Just like I practiced in front of the mirror. I barely even
noticed what he looked like until afterward. I was too busy worrying if there was someone else behind him who was going to stick me with a bayonet. It was only afterward that I started to think about it, and I wondered, Is that what it’s supposed to be like?” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Or is there something wrong with me?”

There was a long silence. Winter felt as though she were supposed to offer something here, some piece of worldly advice from a sergeant to a young soldier. But this wasn’t Khandar, she wasn’t a sergeant, and Cyte wasn’t a soldier and was only three years younger besides.
And anyway, what the hell am I supposed to say to that?
She suddenly remembered rescuing Fitz Warus from Davis’ cronies, cracking Will over the head with a rock just to get him out of the way. She’d killed him, it turned out, without thinking about it or even really meaning to.

If there’s something wrong with you, it’s wrong with me, too.
But she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it out loud.

“Excuse me,” someone said. “Are you Winter?”

They looked up to find a bearded young man in the colorful clothes of a dockworker waiting with a polite air. He had an odd, gravelly accent, and something about the way he stood gave him a military bearing. She pushed away from the rail, brushing fragments of crumbling wood from her hands.

“I am,” she said, cautiously. “Who are you?”

“Just a messenger.” He took a folded page from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “Read it soon, and make sure you’re alone when you do.”

“Why? Who’s it from?”

The young man’s eyes flicked to Cyte, and he shrugged. “It’s what I was told. Good luck.”

“Good luck?” Winter echoed, baffled, but the messenger was already jogging back toward the stairs, raising little puffs of dust with every step. Winter looked down at the note, then over at Cyte.

“I’ll be with the others,” Cyte said, stepping away from the rail.

Winter unfolded the page. It bore only a few lines, in an elegant, aristocratic hand that made the signature redundant.

Winter—

Concordat action against the Deputies is imminent. I am on my way with help. Stall.

Janus

Her fingers tightened on the page, driven by a sudden, furious anger.
He drops me here for weeks, without so much as a word, and now he tells me Orlanko is on the way and I’m to stall? How? Start a goddamned circus to keep them occupied?
She glanced down at the hall floor, where Abby was still speaking, and fear replaced rage.
Oh, Balls of the Beast. If the black-coats show up here, it’s going to be panic. What the hell does Orlanko think he’s doing?