“Permanent demerit?” Books asked. “It’s not her fault an enemy nation fielded an equally capable cryptographer. The Kyattese are known for academic achievements.”
Amaranthe flipped through more files from the past twenty years. “Since then, she’s made a living as a math tutor.” Her gaze lifted to take in the room. “Hard to imagine that job paying for this house.”
“If she’s warrior caste, she may have inherited it.”
“True.”
“I, for one, find her recovery from her falling out admirable. The emperor’s disapproval must have come with a huge stigma, social as well as professional. She’s an intelligent and fascinating woman.”
Amaranthe smiled. “You’re not falling in love after one evening with her, are you?”
“No.” He sniffed. “But, if I were, I’m sure there are worse people I could fall for.”
Amaranthe looked away, face unreadable. “Yes.”
A rattle came from the front of the house. The doorknob.
“Vonsha!” Books whispered. “We can’t let her find us trespassing.”
He jumped into the hallway while Amaranthe remained calm, replacing the files. The front door was still closed, but a shadow moved beyond a curtained window. Maybe there was time to flee out the back.
He raced down the hallway, toward the rear exit.
“Books, wait,” Amaranthe whispered after him.
He was already at the door. He flung it open and started through.
Amaranthe caught him by the shirt tail and yanked him back.
A crossbow quarrel thudded into the doorframe, passing so close it buzzed his eyebrow. He lurched backward, scrambling for the safety of the hallway.
Amaranthe shut the door and threw the bolt. “Vonsha would have the key.”
“Good point.” Books touched his eyebrow. His finger came away blood-free, but he still snorted in disgust. He kept waiting for Sicarius’s training to turn him into someone whose brain functioned during tense situations.
“I’ll check the roof and windows.” Amaranthe slid the dagger out of her hidden sheath and grimaced. “See if you can find me a decent weapon, please.”
“What kind of weapon am I going to find in a woman’s home? It’d be odd to see a sword—most ladies aren’t fighters.”
“Are you calling me odd, Books?” She jogged for the stairs.
“Eccentric, perhaps.”
“Just check, please,” Amaranthe called over her shoulder.
Books peeped through the small window in the back door. A shadowy figure lurked between two houses on the other side of the alley. He pulled the curtain across the window.
Hoping they had time, he trotted around the bottom floor, checking rooms. Nothing so obvious as a sword or musket perched on a wall. He headed into the kitchen and grabbed the fireplace poker leaning against the wood stove.
His wrist brushed the cast iron. It held a hint of warmth.
Books tapped the stove thoughtfully, an idea germinating. He peeked into the firebox, prodded the ashes with the poker, and unearthed a few orange coals. He tossed dried moss and kindling inside, then turned his attention to ingredient hunting. A canister on the counter held sugar. No problem there. As for the other ingredient…
He lifted a trap door in the back of the kitchen. A narrow stair led to a low-ceilinged root cellar with a packed-earth floor. Jars of pickled vegetables lined shelves, while bins of apples, potatoes, cabbage, and onions sat in the back. A few strings of salami hung from the ceiling. Books nodded. If Vonsha had cured the meat herself, she would have—there: a box on a shelf read “saltpeter.”
“Perfect.”
He grabbed it, returned to the kitchen, and selected a pan in a pot rack hanging from a thick wooden ceiling beam. He poured in sugar and saltpeter and placed it on the cooktop. Amaranthe came in to find him stirring his concoction.
“I’m fairly certain I said look for weapons, not make lunch,” she said.
Books handed her the fireplace poker.
“This is my weapon?” She arched her eyebrows. “Or are we skewering meat for kabobs?”
“It’s all I could find. Do you want my sword?” He plopped spoonfuls of the gooey brownish mixture onto pieces of paper. He grabbed a few matchsticks out of a box behind the stove.
“No, you keep it. We’re not getting out without a fight. There’s one watching the alley, one at the front door, and one on the roof.”
“Are they here for Vonsha? Or is it possible they recognized you through your disguise and are after your bounty?”
“I don’t know. They weren’t wearing uniforms denoting the goals of the dastardly organization they’re working for.” Amaranthe sniffed the hardening blobs on the paper. “Are you going to enlighten me?”
“Combustible smoke-creating devices.”
“Smoke bombs?” She grinned. “You can make those?”
“Very simple, so long as you keep stirring the mixture to keep it from getting black and, er, self-igniting.”
Her grin widened. “How long do your eyebrows take to grow back when that happens?”
Only she could be amused when there were snipers poised to shoot them if they opened a door.
“A couple of months.” As they talked, he tore the paper and folded pieces around the incendiary gobs, creating small packets. He twisted the ends to form rudimentary fuses.
“You could start your own business. Do you know how much Sicarius pays for those?”
“His are probably fancier.”
Glass shattered in a nearby room.
“Work time.” Amaranthe set the poker aside to draw her knife.
“Do you want a couple?” Books held up a packet and a matchstick.
“You handle that.” She eyed the kitchen speculatively.
“There’s a root cellar if you want to hide down there.”
“Too confining.”
Boots sounded in the hallway.
Amaranthe gripped her knife in her teeth, hiked the skirt to her waist, and hopped onto a counter. She climbed up the hanging pot rack and wedged herself between two ceiling beams, poised to drop down on anyone who came through the door. She nodded readiness to Books.
He drew his sword, leaned it against the wall, then knelt behind the stove. He scraped a match along a brick, and its stink filled the air. The kitchen would soon smell of more than sulfur.
Books lit a packet and slid it across the tile floor. White smoke wafted from it.
The footsteps paused outside the kitchen door. He lit another packet and placed this one so its smoke would billow before the stove, hiding him.
The door opened. A man stood in the hall, features obscured by smoke, but Books glimpsed the cold brass detailing of a flintlock pistol.
“What the—In here!”
Leading with his pistol, the man lunged inside. Another set of footsteps pounded toward the kitchen, and a second figure soon loomed in the doorway.
Smoke hid Amaranthe’s face—she had to be getting the worst of the stench up there, and she could not even wipe her eyes. He assumed she wanted him to take on the first man while she dropped down when the second entered. The second had paused, though, and he squinted as he searched the kitchen.
Books dug a cracked piece of mortar out from between two floor tiles and tossed it toward the wall opposite the intruders. It clinked against the window. Both men aimed their pistols that way, and the second stepped into the kitchen.
With all the smoke, Books would not have seen Amaranthe drop if he had not been watching. She landed on the second man. He grunted with surprise and went down beneath her.
Books grabbed his sword, adjusted his grip, and lunged for the first man, who was spinning about to check his comrade. Smoke hid Books’s approach. He slammed the flat of the blade against the back of his target’s head.
The man staggered but was not considerate enough to collapse in an unconscious heap. Trusting Amaranthe to handle the other, Books focused on his chosen foe. He sid
estepped an attack and drove his heel into the side of the man’s knee. This time, the fellow dropped, pistol clacking as it skidded across the tiles.
Books pressed the tip of his sword into the man’s neck. “Don’t move.”
Two steps away, Amaranthe knelt, her knee in her opponent’s back. She had fished twine from a drawer and was unraveling it to make bonds.
Smoke tickled Books’s nose. He fought back a sneeze. “Who do you think—”
Movement stirred the smoke near the door.
“Look out!” he blurted.
Amaranthe was already moving. She leaped from the floor and lunged at the newcomer’s knees. He proved agile and leaped over her, but she anticipated it. Instead of crashing into the hall, she spun, and her knife came to rest on the man’s throat as he landed.
Books’s man made use of the distraction. He rolled away from the sword and toward his lost pistol. Books jumped after him, but the man’s hand clasped the weapon. He spun onto his back and pointed it at Books.
Books hurled his sword at the man and dropped to the floor. The pistol fired. He cringed, expecting a ball to rip into him, but glass shattered behind him instead.
A scuffle sounded at the door. Books scrambled up, intending to go after the pistol-wielder again, but he was dead. Amaranthe’s knife protruded from his neck. She had saved Books’s life, but that meant she had no weapon to hold on the man in the doorway.
Books scrambled about and found his sword. Amaranthe and the other man had disappeared from view. A thud sounded in the hallway. Books sprinted out of the kitchen, grabbing the jamb as he skidded around the corner. He almost crashed into Amaranthe. The last man sprawled before the door, unmoving.
The fading smoke could not hide the blood trickling from Amaranthe’s temple. She appeared otherwise unhurt, though grimness stamped her face. Books could guess at the reason. She was no more a natural killer than he, and they might not have had to kill at all if he had kept his attention focused on his prisoner.
He turned, realizing he had taken his eyes off another foe. Fortunately the remaining living man, the one Amaranthe had downed when she dropped from the ceiling, was unconscious. She tossed a purloined dagger on the floor beside him. Grim and irritated, Books decided.
“Sorry,” he said, feeling guilty afresh. “I’m not very effective in these types of situations.” Another reason this life was not for him. After this current escapade was over, he would find a new line of work.
“You’re improving,” Amaranthe said. “Let’s check their pockets and see if we can figure out what they were after. Me, Vonsha, or something in her house?”
Books patted down the unconscious man, telling himself it was not cowardly to leave the dead blokes for Amaranthe. After all, she had to retrieve her knife. He found a folded paper in a back pocket.
“None of those things,” he said, apprehension burrowing into his gut as he examined the ink sketch on the page.
“What’d you find?”
Books rotated the paper so she could see. His likeness marked the front, along with a caption: MARL MUGDILDOR WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: 5,000 RANMYAS.
“That’s…unfortunate,” Amaranthe said. “I thought Sicarius and I were the only ones with bounties. And Maldynado, I suppose, if you can count his two-hundred-and-fifty ranmya one as a legitimate incentive. He’ll be envious of you now.”
She smiled, trying to cheer him, he sensed. It did not work. All he could think about was that he had waited too long. He had stayed with Amaranthe out of a sense of honor and obligation, but someone had noticed him in the company of outlaws, and now he was one. No walking away and finding a new job after all. Not unless he left the empire completely, and, even then, he would have to worry his whole life, watching his back for globetrotting bounty hunters.
“I’m sorry,” Amaranthe said softly. “I know you were thinking of leaving. This will make things difficult if you choose that route.”
“Yes,” was all he said as he stared at the page.
CHAPTER 9
“Sicarius?” Amaranthe called from the doorway of the pipe room.
He did not answer. She had sent Books off to purchase supplies while making a stop of her own on the way back, and she had not seen any of the men yet. She held a book under one arm for Akstyr, but she wanted to confer with Sicarius first, preferably in private. Books’s interest in Vonsha concerned her, or, more accurately, Vonsha concerned her.
“Sicarius?” she called again, squinting into the gloomy corner where she had seen him last.
The only sounds in the pumping house came from the endless ker-thunks of the machinery. Her mind conjured unpleasant thoughts. What if the water did more than make people sick? What if drinking it proved deadly? What if her men—her friends—were…
Down the narrow hall, a door slammed open. Maldynado, wet and naked, staggered out, a cloud of steam wafting out with him.
“What are you doing?” Amaranthe forced her gaze upward, toward his face, and fought against the blush encroaching upon her cheeks.
Maldynado pushed damp curls off his forehead and squinted at her. “Oh. Hullo.” He yelled a warning through the open door: “Boss lady’s back home in case you want to cover your dangle-sticks.”
Apparently, he could not be bothered to take his own advice. He shuffled down the hall toward her, using the wall for support. She would have guessed him drunk, but supposed he was still sick. That kept her from lecturing him on the inappropriateness of nudity in the pumping house. Even if he did not worry about propriety in front of a woman, there were all sorts of machines with moving parts that could catch unprotected…protrusions.
“The outfit looks good.” Maldynado smirked. “I’d flirt and charm, but I’m not feeling well enough for that.”
“You seem to be doing better,” she said, not wanting to fuel any comments about her attire. “You’re standing…without vomiting.”
Books climbed down the ladder with canvas market bags hanging from his shoulders. He landed in the hallway behind Amaranthe and groaned when he spotted Maldynado. “Why are you wet? And naked? Buffoon.”
“A little better,” Maldynado said, answering Amaranthe and ignoring Books. “We turned the boiler room into a steam bath. Sicarius and Basilard said the Mangdorians sit in steam huts to purify their contaminated blood and sweat out sickness, and some of them live to over a hundred. So we figured we could turn that big old furnace into a steam generator.”
“Did you move my work—all those notes and newspapers—out first?” Books asked.
Maldynado touched a finger to a chin in need of a razor. “Perhaps…not.”
“You thoughtless nude oaf. Why didn’t you go to the public baths?”
“Because we’re sick. And that would have involved walking. Far. And I’m a wanted man, you know. I can’t be too careful what with the bounty on my head.”
Amaranthe could not resist: “Books is wanted, too, now. His bounty is for five thousand ranmyas.”
Maldynado staggered, pressing a hand against the wall for support. “What? How is yours more than mine? You’re not even a threat to anyone. Now, me, I’m threatening.”
“Especially to any paperwork left out,” Books groused.
Amaranthe maneuvered past Maldynado, careful not to bump anything, and left them to squabble. She wanted to talk to Sicarius, preferably not with Books in the room.
Basilard and Akstyr shuffled out as she was about to enter. Thankfully, they wore towels about their waists. Amaranthe stopped, holding the book out for Akstyr, and his eyes locked on it.
“On Healing,” he breathed.
“Is that what it says?” she asked. “I just figured it was a book on magic because the fellow I was talking to was very nervous about having it in his office.”
Akstyr stretched out a hand. “For me?”
“Of course.” Amaranthe handed the book to him. “Thank you, by the way, for taking a chance on getting that key for us in the gambling house.”
E
yes fixed on the book, he did not answer. He almost dropped it in his haste to throw back the cover and examine the first page. He did drop his towel and shuffled off down the hallway without noticing.
“Women,” Amaranthe muttered, ducking into the boiler room. “I should have put together a team of women.”
Heat and steam wrapped around her, obscuring visibility. No lanterns burned, though embers glowed red behind open furnace slats. Water-drenched rocks spat and hissed.
Amaranthe assumed Sicarius would be dressed—or undressed—to a similar degree as the others, so she kept her gaze downward. Well, maybe she peeked out of the corners of her eyes once or twice, but shadows cloaked the room, and she did not see him.
She swept Books’s soggy papers and notes into a stack and met him at the door with them. She did not have to ask him to give her a moment alone with Sicarius, for he accepted them with an aggrieved expression and rushed down the hallway, waving the papers to dry them.
“Sicarius?” Amaranthe closed the door. “Are you better?”
“What fellow?” Sicarius’s raspy voice came from a dark corner.
“Huh?”
“What fellow did you get that book from?”
“Roskar Rockjaw,” Amaranthe said. “I’ve been getting to know some of the other mercenaries and underworld sorts in town. Ally shopping, as my marketing instructor called it. Anyway, I stopped in to see if he’d heard anything about the city water. He hadn’t, and I ended up telling him what we knew since he was sick himself. He did verify that Ergot’s Chance is under protection, but he didn’t know whose. As for the book, I noticed it on Rockjaw’s desk. He said one of his thieves had filched it on accident, and he didn’t want anything to do with the vile thing. I volunteered to dispose of it. I even made him believe I was doing him a favor.”
“Rockjaw is a murderer and a thief,” Sicarius said, an edge to his tone.
“Yes. I don’t imagine he’s quite what Ms. Morkshire had in mind when she spoke of acquiring business allies, but this is the social set I find myself operating within these days.”