Traitors' Gate (53 page)

In the deserted central garden, she brought Warning down. The mare's hooves stirred up the neatly raked lines in the gravel. She dismounted and led the horse over to and up onto one of the four long porches that faced the courtyard. Standing at the mare's head, she embraced the beauty of the humble garden as she inhaled the scent of late-blooming sweet-gold.

A whiff of fetid air brushed her nose. A whisper hissed and faded. She was not alone.

On three sides the porches were lined with barred doors built with hinges like smaller models of the hinged double gate in the northeast corner. Marit paced the length of the porch. Behind every hinged door was confined one, sometimes two, people: sleeping, weeping, moaning, muttering disjointed words, some mute with a despair that stung like poison on her skin. This was no meditative court, remarkable for its exquisite tranquillity. It was a prison.

At the end of porch lay a storeroom with racks of shelves. She grabbed a rake and erased hoof-and footprints until Warning gave a snort that cut through her crazed fit. What in the hells was she doing? Best just to get out of here. She raked her way back to the porch anyway. As she was hanging the rake back up on its pegs she heard voices and the thump of a door. The storeroom was large enough to accommodate Warning, and the mare ducked into the space willingly, as into a stall. Windows cut under the eaves allowed light and air to enter; she could count the shelves and the gardening tools and the other implements; there were many knives, lovingly polished and cradled on silk, and bundles of short staffs.
Reeve batons.
Ten bundles, at least. How in the hells did they have a hundred or more reeve batons?

“Who are you?” A man's muffled voice came from the adjoining cell. “You're not one of the guards.”

Aui! “I'm—eh—a gardener.”

“You aren't. There's a horse with you, yet the gates didn't open.”

“Are you a prisoner?”

“I am. There are forty-three prisoners being held here, maybe more. The cells opposite are for criminals. To the left are rebels. This wing is meant for those accused of being gods-touched, which they call cursed, but they killed two some days ago and there's been none brought in since. Now they've an overflow of other folk stuck on this side.”

“And what are you? A criminal, a rebel, or gods-touched? You've an odd way of speaking, ver.”

“I'm an outlander. Who are you, with your horse who can enter a courtyard through closed gates? Who hides her horse in a storeroom, and rakes away the tracks she's left on the gravel?”

The big gates ground open. The prisoner ceased speaking as feet tramped in, marching in unison, and ceased their march with the clap of a command.

“Bring out the condemned,” said a woman.

Warning nipped at Marit's sleeve. She, too, knew that voice: it was the cloak of Night.

Bolts clicked; bars scraped; doors bumped open. Gibbering and weeping and begging rose to a tumult as folk were dragged into the courtyard. Then, as the last door was shut, a fearful silence fell. Through a gap under the eaves behind her, she heard the huffing and puffing of that cursed man and woman having at the Devourer in the adjoining garden, in mocking counter-rhythm to the ragged breathing of the prisoners.

“You are brought before me, who are condemned,” said Night. More fool Marit for venturing into the center of the pit. “The punishment for your crime is cleansing.”

A wail rose among the prisoners: “Please just kill me quickly I beg you!” “I'm innocent! I never did it!” “She murdered my brother for his coin and laid the blame on me!”

“Enough! All is known to me already.”

“Then you know I didn't do it!” shouted a man. “Your gods-rotted cronies laid claim to our clan's land and sent me here to die because I wouldn't shut up and lie down and take it. And you let it happen. You're a lilu, a cursed—” He grunted. His voice ceased.

She continued speaking without any change of tone. “Without order, there can be no justice. Those who foment trouble disturb what is orderly. They cannot be allowed to damage the peace the rest have so laboriously constructed. Yet I am inclined to mercy, when mercy has been earned. Bring forward these to the stone of judgment.”

She spoke five names, none of which meant anything to Marit, but one at a time Marit heard sobbing, the crunch of footsteps on gravel, and after the cessation of movement a sudden burning cut shivered the air as if the wind had been sliced with a fearsome blade. Spirit shaved from body. The Spirit Gate unfolds, and the departing spirit passes beneath to the other side.

Night had wielded her staff and killed them.

“The rest must be cleansed as an example. Transfer them to Malinna for execution.”

“You're as corrupt as those who serve you!” shouted the man who had cursed her before. “The orphaned girl would weep, seeing what had become of the Guardians she begged the gods to raise!”

“Kill him,” said Night in a deadly quiet voice. “Let him be bathed in his own blood in exchange for his crude words.”

The killing was swift: the salt of the man's blood released into the air by a blade's cut. In the adjoining cell, the outlander slammed foot or shoulder into the wall, as in anger, and it seemed the entire building shuddered. Warning bobbed her head. A feather glimmered in the air, and Marit caught it before it touched the ground; she tucked its length inside her jacket.

Eihi! How then the others begged for such a merciful, swift release. How they debased themselves with frantic words and desperate pleas. Marit burned with humiliation, because she could do nothing as they were hauled away to whatever transport wagons awaited them. How useless the power the gods
had conferred on her. All for nothing! Cloak of Night could not execute her without five staffs, but what if she ordered her servants to stab Marit and remove her cloak? She had almost certainly destroyed other cloaks in exactly that way. The cloak of Night was old beyond measure and so corrupt that she appeared sweet to the eye and kind to the ear. It seemed unlikely to Marit that she knew anything about cloaks that Night had not already considered.

“What of those accused of being gods-cursed, Holy One? We've brought in eleven since you were here last—” Running footsteps interrupted the officer. “The hells! You know better than to burst in—”

“Let the messenger approach, Captain Tomash. What is your name?”

“Peri, Holy One,” he said in a voice choked with fear. “Sent from Stragglewood with all urgency. The guards let me through when I explained—”

“Look at me.”

Feet shifted on gravel. A man coughed uneasily. The lad sobbed once, then was silent.

Night spoke. “We must march to Stragglewood at once. Captain Tomash, make ready your company. The impostor wearing the cloak of Death has walked into their town and demanded to preside over their assizes. Can the news I received at dawn be a coincidence?”

“What news is that, Holy One?”

“Ah. I had not yet told you that I may send you and an entire cohort to High Haldia?”

“High Haldia is a cursed long way, Holy One.”

“So it is, but I need someone sensible and competent to lead an extended hunt. At dawn, Lord Bevard informed me he has seen and spoken to two cloaks in Heaven's Reach. One of them is Sky! Long thought lost, and yet now in company with the renegade outlander demon who has stolen the cloak of Mist. Crags is perhaps months' journey on earth, and they'll already be running, yet does it not seem to you, Captain, that suddenly the whole lies within our grasp? Lord Radas also communicated
with me at dawn. The traitors in Nessumara will be dealt with as soon as agents infiltrate the city. Meanwhile, his cohorts are bringing lower Haldia and Istria under our complete control as we take direct action against the reeves. Steward Kallonin, when will the other cohorts requested by Lord Radas be ready to march south?”

“The Thirteenth Cohort has already marched, lady. On the usual route.”

“Send a messenger after them. Have them march instead through the Haya Gap. They can take what supplies they need as they march.”

“Yes, lady. The Fourteenth is in the field enduring their final initiation run. They will be ready to depart in one month. The Fifteenth will follow perhaps three months from now.”

“So long?”

“We learned with the disastrous expedition to Olo'osson that poorly trained troops are no better than untrained rabble. After the Fifteenth marches out, we must wait to see who among the new recruits survives the first phase. It would be useful if we could recruit from among those in Haldia and Istria who may be persuaded to join us. We continue to hear reports of a foreign captain training a significant militia in Olo'osson.”

“He is being dealt with. Are there any other reports I need hear before I depart for Stragglewood?”

“More depredations in the orchards, lady. We've flogged and caged suspects—”

“None I interrogated knew anything of the matter.”

“So it seems. No one knows who is stealing fruit, and in truth, lady, it seems a paltry crime.”

“Such small crimes, let go, turn into large ones. Find the culprits and cleanse them on Wedrewe's posts. Anything else?”

The steward cleared his throat uncomfortably. “We've received an unsubstantiated report from the port of Lower Amatya that a reeve and eagle have been sighted over the Elia Sea. What is your command?”

“This is unwonted news,” she said in the tone of a woman who is not pleased to hear unwonted news, and the poor
messenger—who had nothing to do with this distressing news—sobbed as if he'd been struck. “There should be no more reeves in the far north. I must consider before I take action on the other fronts, but in this case, detach a cadre—no, a full company—of experienced men to investigate. Sail all the way to the Eagle's Claws, if necessary.”

“That is a month's hard journey or more, lady. Dangerous, and on treacherous seas. As I know from having taken the journey before.”

“You promised me there were no survivors. Go back and finish what you've left undone, Kallonin. Leave at once.”

“It is understood, lady,” he said in a flat tone that could not disguise his horror at the assignment.

Captain Tomash laughed. “Suddenly High Haldia and Heaven's Reach don't seem so cursed far away, eh, Kal?”

“Bastard,” muttered the steward, but he, too, laughed, in the way of friendly rivals jesting with each other. “Lady, I'll leave at once and travel night and day to Dast Elia, where I'll hire a ship. It's my mistake. I'll rectify it. Have you other orders?”

“None, for now.”

“When can Steward Hefar expect your return, lady? It's four days' journey each way over the Liya Pass to Stragglewood, I believe—”

“He can expect me when I arrive. Captain Tomash, I'll meet up with your company at dusk. Expect to march all night.”

The sigh and flutter of wings fell heavily as Night departed.

“The hells,” said the steward. “We're in for it, eh? Eagle's Claws! Heaven's Reach!”

“Shut your complaining,” said the captain with another laugh. “We've got the soldiers and the coin, never forget that.”

“I never do. Heya! Men! Get moving!”

The guards dispersed with heavy steps. Quiet settled. An insect buzzed.

A hand scratched at the wall, and the outlander whispered. “You're that cursed cloak, aren't you? If you've come to preside over the assizes, you're too cursed late.”

“Why weren't you taken out to be judged?”

“I'm a hostage.”

“An outlander hostage! For whose good behavior?”

“My brother's,” he said bitterly.

She cracked the door and peered through. The courtyard was empty but for six corpses. Five sprawled on the gravel, seemingly untouched; they'd been killed by Night's staff. The sixth, collapsed atop the rock, was splashed by blood. Could a Guardian execute a man with her Guardian's staff on a whim, just because she wanted to, or only if that man was
actually guilty
of the crime he was accused of? Had the cloak of Night spared these five from the agony of the cleansing to be merciful? Or had the others been sent to be cleansed because they were not guilty of a crime she could execute them for?

The double gate was pushed open by a man dressed in humble laborer's garb. A cart creaked in, pulled by a second man walking between the shafts. Both men had the debt mark tattooed by their left eye: slaves, not hirelings. They slung the bodies into the cart like so much firewood.

“She was merciful, eh? Six spared from the cleansing. You have to rake, Erdi?”

“Neh, I'm not assigned that duty today, nor washing off the rock. I'm hells glad about that, eh, for that one sure bled. Look, we've got blood all over. I don't want it drying on my kilt. It's the only clothes I got.”

“Let's take a wash now. Corpses'll wait, eh?”

They grabbed up buckets from the end of the porch and trotted out the gates. Marit was out the door as soon as they were gone. The cell doors weren't locked, only barred. She shifted the heavy bar and shoved the door open. He emerged at once, holding a vest and a blanket in one hand. He pulled the door shut, set the bar in place, glanced at the winged horse nosing out of the storeroom, then turned to confront Marit.

“The hells!” she said, retreating a step in shock. “You look a cursed lot like an outlander named Hari. Could he be your brother?”

His body was lean and strong and, since he wore only a kilt, there was a lot of body to admire. But it was his stare—so
intense she might have thought him half crazed—that disturbed her most, until she realized he was gods-touched. Veiled to her sight.

“Death's cloak,” he said. “You're the one called Marit, aren't you? It's because of you the others don't trust Hari. What did he do? Seduce you?”

She grinned. “Neh, nothing like that. I seduced him.” He almost grinned, but his was a serious face to go with that gods-rotted powerful body. “Aui! Listen. There's no Sorrowing Tower in this town, which means they must take the dead beyond the walls. Hide under those corpses. The slaves will haul you out the gates. It's the best I can do.”