to explain to the children the meanings of any that had been changed. They passed a double door, which had been flung open, and as he looked in, Verkade was singing and chopping something, although he couldn't quite see what it was.
One of the slop buckets bumped into the door frame as they passed and Verkade stopped what he was doing, turning around to look at where the noise originated. Natalia looked at him, and now that the man had turned, Winterburne could see that he was cutting cabbage with a large chopping knife. He lifted the knife high above the bench, and keeping his eyes on the child's face he slammed it down, slicing through the leaves and onto the work surface. Winterburne saw the girl gulp, but Verkade just smiled and returned to his work.
'Don't worry,' Winterburne said, to the girl, 'he just tormenting you. He wouldn't dream of hurting you. Keep going.'
Up ahead, at the end of the corridor stood the door to the compound, as everyone in Conn's group called the area beyond. Winterburne pushed it open and the bright light of the morning sun blasted through, making the three of them squint out the worst of the assault.
Although the space outside was called the compound by all the men, in truth it was a glorious garden with bushy shrubs and all manner of wonderfully colourful flowers laid out in some intricate design, the point of which was lost on them all. A rough stone wall, fifteen feet high, ran around the whole perimeter of the garden, and the wall was thick enough for a walkway to have been built atop it for security guards to patrol in a complete circuit. Winterburne wondered who might have been able to afford for such a place to have been built for them, but he knew better than to even ask questions like that.
Throughout the week or so of their captivity, the children had grown used to the routine that they had been instructed to follow and now they wandered ahead to the designated slop area. They emptied the buckets onto the flower beds and then Natalia diverted across to the pump where she would be able to clean out the buckets. Sofia walked the short distance to the tools to fetch the rake. Oh well, Winterburne thought, smiling, if nothing else, the roses should be good next year.
He watched the children follow through with their chores for a minute or two and then out of the corner of his eye he caught some movement, at ground level, away on the far side of the garden deep within the bushes and ivy that clung to the perimeter walls. He must be imagining things, he told himself. But, as he continued to watch the undergrowth in the direction that he thought that he had seen the movement, a hand poked out and beckoned to him.
'What the hell?' he said to himself, frowning.
He looked across at the children but they were none the wiser and were smiling and laughing as they ran around in the sunshine. Let them have their moment, he thought, as he turned his attention back to the distraction.
Winterburne looked up to the top of the walls. One of the men traced his way around the parapet, and he must have seen him looking up him since he raised his hand in acknowledgement. Winterburne returned the gesture and sauntered towards the wall, approaching the point where he had seen the hand movement. It was an old trick, he knew, pander to a guard's inquisitive nature and then when he was vulnerable, attack him. His hand moved to the knife at his belt.
Sofia ran up to him, across the grass, and tugged at his sleeve.
'What you looking at?' she asked.
Winterburne looked down at her. 'Nothing,' he said, smiling. 'I was just looking around the garden.'
The girl glanced back in the direction that she had seen Winterburne looking, but then shrugged her shoulders, seeing nothing.
'Do we have to go back inside now?' she said.
'In a minute,' Winterburne replied. 'Go make sure your sister is alright. Enjoy the sunshine a little longer.' She nodded at him and then ran back to Natalia.
Winterburne wandered over to where he had seen the hand but stopped five or six feet short. He glanced up at the wall again. The guard was far away on the other side of the compound and looking out over the city, unaware of what was going on down below.
'You're a nurse-maid now?' a man's voice said, keeping the volume low.
Winterburne turned his back, smirking. Rampton had found a good spot, that was for sure. He looked across at the children as they ran between the flower beds.
'Someone has to be,' he said. 'Rather someone who cares whether they live or die than someone who would have no qualms in cutting their throats while they slept.'
'I wouldn't speak too soon,' Rampton said, 'you may yet be given that task.'
'Then they would have to kill me first.'
'Hmm,' Rampton said, 'Big words. One man against how many?'
'Conn seems to trust me, as does Verkade.'
'Who's Verkade?' Rampton asked.
'The cook,' Winterburne replied. 'But he has Conn's ear, and more power than he would dare admit. It's Conn's second that I need to watch, though. A man named Spen. I swear he looks at me as if he is just waiting for his time.'
'Just be careful,' Rampton said.
'Aw!' Winterburne smiled. 'Are you worried about me?'
'Well, you're hardly an experienced deep undercover agent, are you?'
'And you are?'
'Maybe not,' Rampton replied, 'but I've seen more action than you.'
Winterburne looked behind him. He had to admit that the soldier had done a good job of finding somewhere to hide, with the amount of cover that he had keeping him away from prying eyes.
'How long have you been hiding in there?' he asked.
'Since the early hours of the morning.'
'And you had no troubles getting passed the security?'
Winterburne wondered how Rampton had dodged the men in the compound, and on the walls, as well as the City Guard patrolling the streets.
'What security?' Rampton said. 'Call this security? 'Cause I don't.'
Winterburne nodded, the man was largely right. 'Now that the biggest part of the work is done, Conn has ordered the bulk of his men back to the forest, beyond the river. There's only a handful of guards left in the villa so that we don't attract the attention of the city guards themselves.'
He looked across the garden again, but the two children were still making the most of the sunshine, running around the lawns and in and out of the rose bushes.
'Aren't you bored?' Winterburne asked.
'Not really, but I could do with a pee.'
Winterburne chuckled to himself, then looked up at the high walls again. The guard was almost around to his position but the man was still ignoring the compound and keeping his watch out over the streets beyond the walls.
'So why did you come here?'
'I followed you into the city and I've been watching you for days from a distance,' Rampton said. 'Who are these children anyway?'
'It's a long story, and I don't have time right now,' Winterburne said. 'I'll need to get them inside shortly but there is something that I need you to do. You should know this, John, the man behind this group is known as The Hood.'
'The Hood?' Rampton said. 'That's dramatic.'
Winterburne turned a little so that he could look into the bushes and ivy, searching for the man's face.
'John,' he said, 'The Hood, it's Courtenay.'
'What?' Rampton said. 'Our Courtenay? But I thought he was dead.'
'Yes, well, it seems that he is not.' Winterburne did not intend to go over the old ground with Rampton, and certainly not here. 'Listen carefully.'
'Of course.'
'I found out from the children that their parents are all Electors.' Winterburne looked around the walls again, but the guard was far away on the other side of the compound.
'Electors?'
'They are members of the council that chooses the monarch. I'm guessing that Courtenay will try to use the children to force the Electors to depose Queen Ysabel.'
'Honestly?'
'I can think of no other reason why the children would have been taken, other than as just a common ransom, but that is too petty a reason for the likes of him.
'
'What do you need me to do.'
'If I'm right, then I expect Courtenay to make this look like the normal course of democracy in action. And, if he succeeds, no one will question that whoever replaces the Queen is not the rightful monarch.'
'So he could get away without anyone from the Commonwealth even challenging him.'
Winterburne nodded. 'Precisely.'
'The sly bastard. But what's his reason for doing that?'
'I think he means to place a puppet on the throne, and then use them to escalate the war.'
'Then we don't stand a chance,' Rampton said. 'We can't take on the whole country.'
'No we can't, but at the very least, the Queen will need friends if she is to survive this.'
Winterburne looked up to the walls again; the guard was on his return leg and would soon be near their position again.
'But there's only the two of us!' Rampton said.
'Not just the two of us,' Winterburne replied. 'Find this Colen Marek that Frederick told us about,' he said. 'Tell him to mobilise whatever network of men he has at his disposal in and around the city.'
'To do what?'
'If Courtenay does this how I think he will, then the Queen will need protection. Do all you can to make sure that she is safe.'
'And you?'
'I'll try to keep the children out of danger for as long as I can.'
38
The Twenty-Second Day of Lo-autumn,
Imperial Year 2332
The Palace hallways were strangely silent as Ysabel made her way along the approach corridor to the Council Chamber. She had been summoned to attend impromptu council meetings before, many times in fact, but none that had seemed to be so urgent as