“I know.”
Aisa raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t thought much of Levieux, who had left the Keep more than a week earlier. He was handsome, but good looks meant nothing in a scrap. His man Alain did know good card tricks, but they weren’t a patch on Bradshaw’s. A magician might be able to get into the dungeons of the Mort Palais, but the Mace didn’t trust magicians.
“The Red Queen will surely face a problem on her right flank now,” Arliss mused. “There’s no plunder . . . no gold, no women. I don’t know how she got her army to walk away, but they won’t be happy.”
“So much Levieux has surmised. Unpaid soldiers make wonderful rebels. He expects to be able to recruit heavily when the army gets home.”
“And what is that to us,” Pen demanded, “if we don’t have the Queen?”
“We’ll discuss it later, Pen,” the Mace admonished. “Be soft now.”
Aisa frowned. The Mace kept coddling Pen, trying to talk him out of his foul moods, ignoring it when Pen was insubordinate. Aisa would have given Pen a long stretch of suspension and, failing that, a sharp slap to the face.
“Continue to send me reports about the withdrawal,” Mace told Hall, “but your focus is the Queen. Pick two of your best to follow her into Mortmesne. Make sure we don’t lose sight of her. Dismissed.”
Hall and Blaser stood and bowed, then headed for the doors.
“We need to talk about the Arvath,” said Arliss.
“What about it?”
Arliss gathered his papers and put them aside. “A mob did some damage in the city this morning. They seem to have gathered in the Circus and gone from there, all the way to Bethyn’s Close.”
“There are always mobs.”
“This one was special. Their main point of contention seemed to be the lack of morality in the Queen’s government.”
The Mace frowned, and so did Aisa. Even as the problem of the Mort rapidly receded, another had sprung up to take its place: the Holy Father. The very day the Queen left the city, the Arvath had publicly announced its refusal to pay property tax, as well as intent to absolve any layman who refused to do the same.
“What connects this mob to the Arvath?” Coryn asked.
“Nothing,” Arliss replied. “The mob disbanded long before the city constables could get near, and there’s no army to deal with civil unrest anymore. But they broke into a house on the edge of the close and brutalized the two women who lived there. Immoral lifestyle.”
A muscle had begun to twitch in the Mace’s cheek. “The Holy Father thinks if he pushes me hard enough, I won’t collect the Queen’s taxes. He’s wrong.”
“The nobles still refuse to pay their taxes, except for Meadows and Gillon. The Creche will take the bulk of the Treasury. We’ve lost the income from the toll gates on the bridge. In a few months, we’re going to be in real trouble.”
“They’ll pay.” The Mace grinned, such a cheerful, murderous grin that Aisa recoiled, but a moment later his face sobered. “Any word on the two priests?”
“Not a peep. They’ve vanished. But the Arvath has heard that we’re keeping up with their bounty.” Arliss dug through his stack of papers again. “Yesterday’s message from the Holy Father demands that we retract our own reward for Father Tyler, in hope of heaven.”
“In hope of heaven,” the Mace repeated. “One day, I’m going to send that man to meet Jesus myself.”
“One more troubling report. Two days ago, one of my runners spotted several priests leaving New London, taking the back road around the city.”
“Where did they go?”
“Demesne, most likely. My man tracked them well down the Mort Road.”
The Mace’s face darkened.
“Should we pursue it?” Elston asked.
“No,” the Mace replied after a few moments’ thought. “If he’s dealing with the Red Queen, my source in the Palais will tell us what passes. What else?”
Arliss looked down at his list. “We have to bring in the harvest before the snow comes. The entire kingdom is starving for fresh fruit and vegetables. I would think the first farmers to get back out there and cut a crop could command their own price.”
“That’s no incentive to those who farm a noble’s patch.”
“Yes, but all the nobles are still in New London.” Arliss smiled, a smile of such mischief that Aisa could not help liking him in that moment, foul-smelling cigarettes and all. “If Lord Such-and-Such fails to mind his own land while the Mort cross it, who’s to say where the produce went?”
“And what if the Mort do their own looting on the way home?” Elston demanded.
“They’re not. I asked Hall’s second. They’re leaving the land untouched, God knows why.” Arliss shrugged. “Let the farmers go and cherry-pick. Even a few days’ crops would help them cover their winter, if they managed to be the first to market. And their success would beckon the rest.”
The Mace nodded slowly. “You handle it.”
“Merritt is still outside, sir,” Elston reminded him.
“How many Caden with him?”
“Three.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, sir. But not just any three. The Miller brothers.”
“Oho.” The Mace considered this information for a moment. Aisa didn’t know who the Miller brothers were, but there had been a bitter debate about letting any Caden into the Queen’s Wing. Elston didn’t like it, and neither did most of the Guard, but the Mace was determined to have them, and Aisa hoped he would have his way. She longed to see real Caden up close.
“Well, bring them in.”
The Mace ascended the dais, and Aisa held her breath, waiting. But he ignored the throne entirely, merely settled himself on the top step as Devin let the Caden through the doors.
The leader, Merritt, was well over six feet tall, but he moved like the Mace, with the easy lope of a big man who could summon great speed if needed. An ugly scar marred his forehead. Aisa, who had taken several knife wounds to her hands and arms over the course of her training, didn’t think the scar was clean enough to have been made by a blade. If she had to guess, she thought it came from human fingernails. She had heard of Merritt; everyone had, for even among Caden, he was elite. But the three men behind him were a puzzle.
They entered the room in a triangle, one in the front and two at the back, a defensive formation that Aisa recognized from her own training. Their blood-colored cloaks were incongruously bright against the grey stone of the Keep walls. Physically, the three men were unlike: one tall, one medium height, one short, and they displayed varying shades of brown hair, from sandy to dark. Yet they shared a curious similarity, not physical, that Aisa could not pinpoint. When one moved, so did the other two; they oriented themselves as a triad without speech or other overt signals, and Aisa sensed that they had worked together for a very long time. Elston, in his capacity as provisional captain, had decreed that none of the Caden were to come within ten feet of the Mace, and now Aisa was glad for his caution. These three looked like trouble.
Merritt pointed to his three companions in turn. “Millers. Christopher, Daniel, James.”
The Mace considered them for a moment and then said, “I heard you three were cast out of the guild.”
“The guild thought better of it,” Christopher, the tallest, replied mildly.
“Why?”
“We are useful, Lord Regent.”
“You were useful six years ago. I’ve heard nothing of you since.”
“Yet we haven’t been idle,” said James.
“Of course not.” The Mace’s voice sharpened. “You were hunting the Queen.”
The three men remained silent, staring truculently back at him, and finally the Mace relented.
“Past is past. I have a job for you, and for as many members of your guild as wish to come.”
“Our guild is very busy,” James replied, but the response sounded automatic to Aisa. She wondered if they always said no the first time.
&n
bsp; “Yes, you are busy,” the Mace replied, a thread of mockery entering his voice. “We’ve heard the stories. Caden as highwaymen, Caden as rent boys, Caden running dogfights and worse.”
“We do what we have to. What of it?”
“These things are beneath you, not what you signed up for. They damage your guild’s prestige. I have a better job. Difficult and dangerous work. Some finesse required, as well. Even if I still commanded an intact army, I would not trust soldiers with such work.”
The third Caden, Daniel, spoke up for the first time. “What job is this?”
“Cleaning out the Creche.”
James chuckled. “That’s easy. All you need is a cistern.”
“Not easy at all,” the Mace replied, unsmiling. “Close quarters down there, women and children in conditions of considerable danger. Men, too, the Queen would want me to note. I want the innocent out safely, the pimps and promoters alive and in custody.”
“What’s the price for this job?”
“Flat fee. Ten thousand pounds per month for three months full. If your guild can’t do it by then, I doubt it can be done.”
“Bonus for early completion?”
The Mace looked to Arliss, who nodded grudgingly and said, “Get it done—and mind you, I mean done—in two months, and we’ll pay you for three.”
The Millers turned inward, muttering to each other while the room waited. Merritt did not join the huddle, merely stood by, impassive. He had already agreed to help them for free; Mace said the man owed the Queen a debt. But Aisa had her doubts. What sort of debt would make a Caden work for nothing?
Above her, the Mace watched the three brothers with an indifferent expression, but this no longer fooled Aisa. Something was driving him. She had never heard of the Creche before the bridge, and no one would tell her of it directly, but by now she had overheard enough to have the measure of the place: a warren beneath the city where the worst vices were tolerated, where children younger than Aisa were sold for profit and entertainment. The idea of the place haunted her. Da had been bad, but he was only one man. The thought that there were many such people, all of them doing terrible things, that there was an entire underground world of children going through the same nightmare . . . it ate at Aisa, kept her awake at night. It seemed to eat at the Mace, too, for he and Arliss were focusing much of their energy on the Creche, though Arliss grudged the money. No one argued with the Mace on this matter, but nothing could move quickly enough for him, and now Aisa was almost certain that she saw the Queen’s shadow over his shoulder, goading him. Driving him.
The Caden came to some sort of agreement and turned back to the Mace. Christopher spoke for them.
“We will present your proposal at the next full meeting of the guild. In the meantime, the three of us will look into the job, without price or commitment.”
“Fair,” the Mace replied. “Since you’re working without price, I will not give you deadlines. But time is of the essence. I wish to have this business sewn up before the Queen comes home.”
The three Caden looked up sharply.
“What makes you think she’s coming home?” James asked.
“She is,” the Mace replied, in a tone that closed all discussion.
“If you accept the job, you will deal with me for payment,” Arliss told them. “There will be no advances or other rubbish of that kind, so don’t even try.”
“But I will ask for a small advance, all the same,” Daniel replied. “The girl, there.”
He pointed at Aisa.
“We’ve heard about this one,” Daniel continued. “They say she has a knife hand, but we’ve never seen such a thing. Before we go, may I beg a demonstration?”
The Mace frowned. “You wish to fight a child?”
Aisa scowled. She hated it when they remembered her age.
“Not a real fight, Lord Regent,” Daniel replied. “Only a demonstration.”
The Mace tipped a questioning look toward Aisa, and she nodded eagerly. To spar with one of the Caden! Even a draw would be an extraordinary thing.
“If you take a wound, hellcat,” the Mace murmured, leaning closer, “you will be the one to explain it to your mother.”
Aisa was already tugging at the straps on her armor, shedding it and pulling her knife from its sheath. Fell had commissioned this knife especially for Aisa, of the same shape and make as the knives carried by the rest of the Guard: fashioned on the old Belland model, both a flat and a curved cutting edge. But Aisa’s hands were small, and Venner thought she needed less circumference in the hilt, as well as a thinner blade. Fell had given the job to a weapons forger he favored, and the result was a solid knife that was a joy for Aisa to wield. Venner always said that a good knifeman made the weapon part of his hand, but Aisa sometimes felt that she had gone beyond even that, the knife not only part of her hand but part of herself, keeping her demons at bay. Even Da would fade into the distance when she was armed.
The Caden, Daniel, had dropped the rest of his weapons, but his knife glimmered, half hidden, in his hand, a longer blade than her own. Venner had seen it too, for he pointed at Daniel’s weapon and called out, “Not a fair fight!”
“Disadvantage is a natural part of battle,” Daniel replied, addressing the Mace. “I have more than a foot of height on her as well. However, since she’s a child, I will hold my blade farther up the hilt than I would normally do. Fair?”
The Mace looked to Aisa, and she nodded. She would have fought the man with even steeper disadvantages; more glory in it that way.
“Watch yourself, girl!” Venner called. “Remember your gifts!”
Aisa took a good grip on her knife, holding it edge-down. Venner had told her many times that her size would always be a disadvantage in a fight, but that she could make up for it with speed and trickery. The rest of the Guard had gathered to give them a sparring floor perhaps twenty feet in the round, and a distant part of Aisa’s mind heard bets being laid all around her.
“I do not aim to wound you,” Daniel told her, positioning himself ten feet away. “I only want to test what you’ve got.”
This statement meant less than nothing. Venner and Fell did not aim to wound her either, but Aisa already had several healed slashes on her hands and arms. The fight was the fight.
“Take a swipe at me,” Daniel ordered, but she did not. Venner had taught her that early aggression was a mistake. Attacking when she had no advantage would cost her the protection of her ribs and throat.
“Cautious, eh?” Daniel asked.
Aisa did not respond; she was too busy sizing him up. He kept his arms tucked in close to his ribs, conserving energy. His reach would be longer than hers. If she was going to get close to him, she would have to take at least one blow off her forearm. She began with a series of controlled lunges, each of them slower than she could move, none as far as her actual range. Her blood was singing now; Venner would say it was adrenaline, but Aisa knew that it was really the song of the fight, of being all alone in a corner with nothing to rely on but herself and her blade. She tasted metal in her mouth.
The Caden suddenly leapt forward, waving one arm to distract her while stabbing with the other. But Aisa had learned to keep her attention on the knife hand, and she ducked it easily, rolling beneath the thrust and ending up on her feet.
“Quick,” Daniel remarked.
Aisa did not reply, for she had spotted something as the Caden turned to follow her: his left leg was weak. Either a limp, or, more likely, a recent wound. He was protecting the leg, subtly keeping it out of the zone of contact. Aisa feinted, making a halfhearted lunge for his throat, and hissed as his knife slashed across her forearm. But at the same time, she released a sharp kick toward his left kneecap, pointing her toe as the Mace had taught her. The Caden gave a muffled grunt of pain as he stumbled and went down to the floor.
“Ha! That’s the stuff!” Venner shouted. “Close, girl! Close while he’s down!”
She jumped on the Caden’s back,
aiming her knife for his throat, but he had already moved to block, and she could not get a good grip. He gave a tremendous heave, throwing her over his shoulders, and now it was Aisa’s turn to groan as she landed on her back, thumping her head against the stones.
“All right, Aisa?” the Mace called.
She ignored him and scrambled to her feet, keeping her eyes on the Caden, who circled her. She had hurt him when she went for his knee, but he had hurt her as well; the cut on her forearm was deep and her free hand was slippery with blood. Venner had been training her to increase her endurance, but she already felt herself tiring, her muscles slowing down. She adjusted her grip, seeking a new opening. The Caden would never let her near his weak leg again, but her earlier clumsy feints might have worked; he was not protecting his ribs so well as he had before. She would have a shot with one good lunge, but it would cost her.
“Watch your footing,” Daniel advised her. “Blood on the floor.”
“You’d like me to look down, wouldn’t you?”
Grinning, he swapped the knife to his right hand. The guards around them grumbled a bit at this, but Aisa wasn’t bothered; Venner was switch-handed as well. She kept her eyes away from the spot she wanted, the poke of his ribs behind his left forearm, just outside the protection of his armor. She was facing a superior opponent, taller and faster and better skilled, and in a fight to the death she would have been finished. But here all she needed to do was score a touch.
She knew the moment he meant to come for her, for he took a deeper breath just before he lunged, sweeping his knife in a broad arc, going for her shoulder. Aisa ducked and raked her knife across his ribs. The jab was not clean; it nearly jerked her knife from her hand, and at the same time she felt a stabbing tear in her bicep. But she heard him hiss in pain, just before he grabbed her and whirled her around. Aisa lost her balance and a moment later stood helpless in his grip, his knife at her throat. She forced herself to hold still, panting. The Caden wasn’t even out of breath.
“Let her go,” the Mace commanded.
Daniel released her, and Aisa turned to face him. For a moment they merely stood there, staring at each other, as the guards around them began to argue and hand over coin.