No mention of money, Lizanne noted. Even though stepping beyond the bounds of Imperial territory without express permission is punishable by death, she’s prepared to take the risk. Why? “All eminently achievable,” Lizanne assured her, putting the question aside for now. “But also dependent on results.” She leaned back, eyebrows raised in expectation.
“I recall the box well enough,” Tekela said. “Though I was only eight or so when he brought it home. Mother was angry he spent so much and they had a terrible row. After that he rarely took it out. Mother didn’t like to be reminded of it.”
“Did you ever see inside?”
“Once. There was a jumble of cogs and spindles in it, like the workings of a clock. Father said it showed the passage of the three moons but I couldn’t see how. Then Mother came home and got angry. Father sent me upstairs to play.” A sad frown bunched Tekela’s smooth brow. “I could still hear them though. Mother could say very bad things when she was angry.”
And not sparing with the switch either, Lizanne recalled, thinking this girl and her father may have been better served by the woman’s absence. “Did he ever speak of it again?” she asked. “Explain what it was for?”
Lizanne shook her head. “I never saw it again until the day he took it to the auction house. He seemed very sad, now I come to think on it.”
“The device it contained had been removed before he sold it. Do you know what became of it.”
Tekela moved her slim shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t really pay much attention to his enthusiasms. It may still be in the house, though I couldn’t say where.”
“Does he have other hiding-places like the one in his study?”
“I didn’t even know about that one.”
Lizanne smothered an exasperated sigh. She didn’t doubt the girl’s honesty but this was hardly worth the promised expense. She was calculating how to combine the right amount of threat with encouragement when Tekela spoke again.
“Uncle Diran might have it, I suppose.”
“Uncle Diran?”
“I call him ‘uncle,’ but he’s really just Father’s old friend. Diran Akiv Kapazin. He works at the museum. They spend endless hours together waffling about old things.”
The museum. Where better to hide it? “You are close to this uncle?” she asked.
“Not especially.” A smug smile curved Tekela’s lips. “His son’s regard, however, is of a higher order.”
“His son?”
“Sirus. He works as Uncle’s assistant, when he’s not penning yet more inept verse to send me. Last time he rhymed ‘the gentle wind blows’ with ‘your tiny bud nose.’”
“So if you were to visit the museum it wouldn’t appear out of place?”
“I only go when Father drags me there for some tedious function. Although, Sirus is always offering a guided tour so it would be an easy matter to arrange it.”
Lizanne returned her gaze to the passing streets, pondering the information and ignoring Tekela’s insistent gaze. As they made their way past Victory Park she saw something she had noticed the previous day when making her way to the Burgrave’s house, her eyes being attuned to seeking out high points in any landscape. A tall spire rose from what appeared to be a temple of some kind. Religious observance varied widely throughout the empire, as did forms of belief, but she knew this to be an oracle site, a place where those with the supposed gift of reading the future had once dwelt, growing fat on the offerings of gullible supplicants. Oracularism had fallen into disuse in recent decades, largely because the Imperial family had eschewed it in favour of a return to the once-defunct Imperial Cult which elevated the emperor to near-godlike status. But here and there the old temples lingered on, though most, like this one, were long since unoccupied.
Her eyes tracked the length of the spire and, given its position, she judged it would offer no view of the clock-maker’s house. However, it would afford a clear line of sight to the dress-maker’s.
“What do you want me to do?” Tekela asked, as they turned a corner into Careworn Street. The excitement Lizanne had noticed earlier was back now, the girl’s gaze more intense, eager even. Already she begins to enjoy the game, Lizanne thought, feeling a twinge of self-recognition. She hadn’t been much older when an Exceptional Initiatives agent had first piqued her interest in covert matters.
“For now,” she replied as Rigan brought the carriage to a halt outside the dress-maker’s, “try on the lovely dress I’ve found for you. You will buy it, after an appropriate amount of fussing, then make a scene and take the carriage. You will tell Madam Meeram you have sent me on an errand to find shoes to match the dress and she should not expect me until after dark. You understand?”
Tekela’s eyes flicked to the shop beyond the carriage window. “There’s something here, isn’t there? Something you want.”
Lizanne leaned forward, taking hold of Tekela’s small hand and squeezing hard enough to make her gasp. “Information flows but one way, miss. Now”—she released her and opened the carriage door, slipping back into Varsal and raising her voice—“let us do some shopping.”
—
Tekela’s second attempt at an intemperate outburst was considerably more convincing than her first, albeit a trifle overplayed. “I’ll have Father order Madam Meeram to cane you,” she said, wagging a finger in Lizanne’s face, tone shrill with shrewish zeal. “You see if I don’t! Ungrateful slattern!”
Lizanne lowered her gaze and glanced back at the dress-maker’s shop in apparent mortification. She could see the elegantly attired woman inside offering a sympathetic wince through the window. They had spent the better part of an hour in the shop as Tekela tried on the dress, a narrow-waisted arrangement of pleasingly complementary silks and lace. She appeared quite fetching to Lizanne’s eyes but the girl was evidently practised in finding fault with even the most skilled work. “The hem’s too low,” she told the elegant woman. “Don’t you know the fashion is now an inch above the heel?”
“A detail easily remedied, miss,” the woman replied. “The alteration should take only an hour or two.”
“The sleeves also,” Tekela said, straightening her arms and angling her gaze at the tall mirror. “Too plain.”
“Perhaps a touch of silver braid about the cuffs,” the woman suggested. “If it were to be matched with appropriate earrings and necklace, the effect would be quite breath-taking. However, the price would also require modification . . .”
“Then modify it,” Tekela said, waving a dismissive hand. “And take the waist in another half-inch. I’m not a sow. Bill to Burgrave Artonin, Hailwell Gardens. My girl here will collect on the morrow.”
“Very good, miss.” The woman moved behind the counter to write up the transaction. She appeared every inch the proprietress of a dress shop, from the impeccably arranged hair to the finely made but otherwise unadorned gown she wore; anything too elaborate might outshine the customers. But something was off: her back a little too straight and stride a little too precise, like steps learned on a parade-ground. Military training had a tendency to seep into the soul and was consequently always difficult to mask. Also, her hands, whilst as elegant as the rest of her, were possessed of an evident strength that went beyond the seamstress’s arts.
Cadre, Lizanne decided. But is she Blessed?
“During your walk home,” Tekela said, climbing into the carriage with Rigan’s assistance, “you would do well to ponder if you truly deserve a place in my father’s house.”
She slammed the carriage door closed and sat with her nose raised to a near-exact forty-five-degree angle. “Sorry,” Rigan whispered to Lizanne in apology. She favoured him with a small smile of understanding before he climbed up onto the duckboard and set the carriage in motion. She stood watching them depart for a moment then sighed and began a weary southward trudge.
—
She spent an hour
or more wandering the park, ostensibly smiling at flower-beds and partaking of the roasted chestnuts or iced creams offered by various vendors. In reality she was conducting a thorough reconnaissance of the area surrounding the oracular temple and its useful spire, taking note of the patrol routes and routines favoured by Morsvale’s constabulary. She was unsurprised to find this city more heavily policed than Carvenport, the constables patrolling in pairs at annoyingly regular intervals and regarding their fellow Imperial citizens with often glowering scrutiny. She was, however, gratified by their uniform absence of any obvious sign of true intelligence or individual initiative; a stupid enemy was always easier to evade, or kill.
She filled the final hour before nightfall by throwing bread-crumbs to the ducks and swans occupying the park’s boating lake, then secluded herself in a suitably dense cluster of bushes whilst the park-keeper hustled lingerers to the exits. She lay prone on the dirt, uncaring of any stains to her dress, stirring only when the last rattle of keys in the iron gates had faded to nothing. She took the Spider from her handbag and strapped it to her arm before hoisting her skirt and drawing the Whisper from the holster fastened to her thigh. In idle moments she often wondered how ordinary women went about their daily business encumbered by the ridiculous under-garments they were obliged to wear in these supposedly modern times.
She found the temple boarded up and adorned with various signs warning against intrusion and proclaiming the place due for imminent demolition. A small drop of Green was enough to enable a swift removal of boards from one of the smaller windows and she climbed inside to find a gloomy interior of dust-shrouded marble. She made her way to the south-side of the building where a narrow flight of winding stairs led upwards into the spire, the Green facilitating a rapid ascension to the top. The spire was crowned by a roofed viewing platform, the rafters of which were busy with the annoyed cooing of pigeons unsettled by her appearance. She climbed outside onto a narrow ledge to avoid the constant patter of bird droppings, considering that, for all its excitements and rewards, the life she had chosen was rarely a glamorous one.
She crouched, ingesting more Green to enhance her vision and ward off the inevitable ache to her muscles. She could see a light inside the dress-maker’s, flickering a little as the occupant moved about. After a few minutes the light abruptly faded and the elegant woman emerged from the shop, pausing to secure a grating over the window and door before locking them in place. She then made an unhurried progress north to the junction with Needlecraft Row, turning right and making for the more spacious streets of the town’s western quarter. Lizanne’s suspicions were confirmed by the woman’s progress, pausing at every corner, frequently doubling back on herself, all standard practice for an operative proceeding towards a secure location. For a few moments Lizanne was worried she might lose her as the distance between them broadened, but fortunately the woman came to a halt at an apparently nondescript house on Ticker Street. It was a neighbourhood mostly occupied by what the Corvantine noble class termed “the middling sort,” the bookkeepers, lawyers and petty government officials who provided the bureaucratic glue for the empire’s myriad workings. She watched the woman approach the front door and knock three times, pause then knock twice more. The door opened after a short interval and she disappeared inside.
Lizanne took a moment to scan the surrounding roof-tops, picking out a guard positioned on the house opposite, lying prone with a repeating carbine at the ready. The house behind was obscured from her sight but it was a safe assumption another marksman had been placed there also. Safe house, she decided. Anything more important would be better guarded. Her gaze returned to the shop and the boarded-up clock-maker’s house opposite. She still saw no sign of surveillance which meant whoever had charge of this operation was far too skilled for her liking and the risks of mounting a close inspection were too great.
She huffed in frustration, leaning back on her haunches. It was aggravating but not disastrous; the Cadre had provided her with intelligence on their organisation and she had uncovered one of their agents. Also, she now had a keen new asset to exploit. Lizanne smothered the upsurge of nostalgic recognition provoked by the memory of Tekela’s earnest gaze. Sentiment was always unwise and here would most likely prove fatal. You know the girl has to die . . .
CHAPTER 15
Clay
For a second everything was red, the grip of Ellforth’s Black lingering for a few heart-beats despite the sudden absence of his head. Clay could only stand rigid as blood, brains and skull fragments spattered his face. Release came when what remained of Ellforth slumped against the bar and slid to the floor, the last vestiges of Black leaking from his body. Clay’s every muscle seemed to spasm at once, the world reeling around him as his legs gave way and he collapsed onto the headhunter’s corpse, retching and quivering.
“Longrifles up!”
Clay turned his twitching head to see Uncle Braddon standing near the tavern door, jacking a spent cartridge from his rifle. There came the scrape and tumble of chairs as his company scrambled to obey. Braddon unslung a second rifle from his shoulder and threw underhand, Clay tracking the weapon’s arc towards Preacher. The rifleman caught it with almost casual ease, worked the lever and brought it to his shoulder, aiming at something to Clay’s left. Foxbine had both pistols drawn and aimed in the same direction whilst Skaggerhill stepped to her side and thumbed the hammers back on his shotgun. His old friend Stallwin was backing towards the corner, one hand on the revolver at his side.
Clay blinked bloody grit from his eyes and swivelled his gaze to the right. Most of the boatmen who had been engaged in such raucous merriment only seconds before now lay flat on the floor, hands over their heads, whilst others were scrambling under tables or clambering out of the nearest window. However, there was a group of ten figures in the centre of the tavern who seemed content to bide awhile longer. They were all dressed in the same kind of blue riverman’s coat worn by Ellforth, though like him they were all adorned with tooth necklaces, each face featuring a unique pattern of scars. Ellforth’s crew, Clay realised, taking dim satisfaction in his own judgement. Fella like him never makes a move on his own.
The headhunters, three women and seven men, stood with hands on their weapons, carbines and pistols half-drawn or half-raised, every face hard with a keen desire for retribution. One, a tall Old Colonial with a large-calibre pistol gripped at his side, bared his filed teeth in evident eagerness for the coming confrontation.
“Lawful killing,” Braddon said, his tone absent any note of conciliation. If anything he seemed mightily angry. “Your man should’ve expected nothing different. Any of you worthless shit-heels don’t want the same, leave your weapons on the floor, find a window and crawl your sorry behinds on out of here.”
Although the tall headhunter’s grin broadened yet further at the warning, Clay saw a flicker of uncertainty flash across the faces of his companions. Glances were exchanged and they began to edge backwards, weapons lowering. The tall man, however, was having none of it. “Fuck the law, Captain,” he told Braddon in an oddly conversational tone. “And fuck you t—”
His head snapped back in a blur, his final word choking off into a hacking gurgle, blood streaming down his face from the short-handled knife buried in his eye-socket. Clay turned to see Silverpin drawing her arm back for a second throw. This one sent the knife into the tall man’s other eye, evidently buried deep enough to find the brain from the way he fell to the floor, all vestige of life suddenly drained from his limbs.
A multiple thudding sounded as the remaining headhunters dropped their weapons and began to back away. “I got a long memory and an unforgiving nature,” Braddon told them. “Catch sight of any of you again, I won’t be minded to be so nice. Now get gone.”
The headhunters fled, battering their way through the tavern’s rear windows in their haste to be elsewhere.
“Clay,” Braddon called to him. “Time to go.”
&n
bsp; Clay tried to rise then slumped back onto Ellforth’s corpse, arms and legs still suffering the after-effects of the Black’s grip. “I’m alright,” he said, waving a hand as Skaggerhill moved to help him up. He lingered for a second, fighting his gorge at the stink and sight of the headhunter’s shattered skull, then got unsteadily to his feet.
“They got sharpshooters on the roof-tops outside,” Braddon said. He caught Silverpin’s gaze and pointed her to the corpse of the tall headhunter. She moved to it, quickly drawing her blades from his eye-sockets then unsheathing the broad knife at the small of her back. Clay turned away as she went about her work, though the sound of it was enough to finally make him spew.
“’Salright, kiddo,” Foxbine said, rubbing his heaving back. “It’s what he would’ve wanted.”
This made the others laugh, apart from Preacher, who stood at his uncle’s side, keen eyes scanning the darkness beyond the door. The tumult that had covered the town on their arrival had faded now, leaving a palpable and expectant silence. “One opposite,” Preacher reported. “Another hunkered down by those barrels on the wharf. Can’t see the others.”
“Headhunters move in packs of twenty or more,” Braddon said. “Means at least a half-dozen we can’t see.” He raised his voice, casting it out into the dark. “Your captain and your Blood-blessed are dead! There’s no profit to be had here!” He nodded at Silverpin and the Islander tossed her grisly trophy through the doorway. Braddon let it lie on the board-walk for a good few seconds before speaking again. “We’re coming out! You know me and you know what’s like to happen if a single bullet comes my way!”
He turned to the company, speaking low. “Preacher, take the lead. Miss Foxbine, Silverpin, keep Clay between you. Skaggs, you and me bring up the rear.”
Skaggerhill nodded then turned to raise a hand to Stallwin. “Wish we coulda talked longer, Kleb. You know how it is.”