01 - Honour of the Grave (21 page)

“Have we been introduced before, milady?” Franziskus cringed at the stupidity
of his own words. Of course they had not been introduced.

She shuffled over to him and extended her hand midair, fingers curved
earthward. “My name is Petrine Guillame.”

He bowed to take her hand and kiss it, but she retracted it as he was halfway
through the gesture. Her cheeks coloured. “Beg pardon. I am presumptuous. I have
no right to expect niceties from you, Franziskus. You do not know it, but I have wronged you
terribly.”

“I don’t see how you could possibly have—” The wind picked up, bringing the
tang of the barnyard from the crumbling stable behind him. “Perhaps we could go
somewhere more amenable to discussion—”

She surged ahead, clasping her hands together. “No, I am afraid that there is
no time.” She now stood close enough to him that he could smell the scent she
wore on her neck. He could not place it, but it reminded him both of spices and
of fruit. A thin skein of hair loosened itself from her pearly headpiece and
fell over her forehead. “It is I who paid your enemies, Toby Goatfield and the
others, to abduct poor young Lukas.”

He gasped, a little. “You? Why?”

Petrine looked down. “Not all women are creatures of resourcefulness and
means, like your friend Angelika. The rest of us, when fate abandons us, must
favour the possible over the virtuous. To survive, we must seek the protection
of powerful patrons. Yet when a woman without means attaches herself to a man of
power, she is compromised. She is expected to do things. Sometimes these things
are not right, but we have little choice, except to perform, as asked.”

“Who is this man, who oppresses you?”

“You have just come from his manor.”

“You followed me?”

She moved to a crumbling wall and heaved her shoulders against it. “Yet
another sin I have visited upon you. But this time I transgress in fervent hope
of redemption. If the town walls fall, Davio will order poor Lukas slain. As a
Tilean, vengeance is his foremost thought.”

“He does not seem to think the Castello is in much danger.”

“It is bravado only. Trust me, I know no man as I know Davio Maurizzi. The
town will die, and then, so will Lukas. That is why I have been so impudent as
to approach you, fine sir.”

“Please, I am not—there’s no need to…”

With nimble fingers, she opened a calfskin pouch that dangled from her belt.
She withdrew a roll of vellum, tied with a piece of hairy twine. “This is a map.
It will take you to the location where Lukas is being held.”

“He is not here, in the town?”

“No, the prince would not risk it. To the east, up in the hills, there is a
secret encampment, a bolt-hole where Toby and his associates hide, with others
of his halfling gang. I have marked how to find it. You must find Angelika,
wherever she is, and go with her to this place, and take Lukas from them.
Otherwise, they have orders to break his neck, if the Castello falls.” She
pressed the map into his fingers, crumpling it.

He held onto her hands. “But what of you? Will the prince not know you’ve
betrayed his scheme?”

She pulled back and closed her eyes. “Perhaps. But, for once, I must not
think of myself.”

“Come with us, so I can protect you.”

She turned and hurried down the twisting lane. “No, I cannot put you in
further peril.”

He grabbed her, spun her around. She fell into him. His breath caught in his
throat. “But it is not necessary for you to trade your life for Lukas’. Come
with us, and we’ll all find safety together.”

Petrine pushed him away, but he could tell she didn’t want to. “I have not
mastered the manly arts, the way your Angelika has. In woods or mountains, I
would be but a hindrance to you. Worry not about me. I will find a way. I always
have.” With her forefinger, she touched him on the tip of his nose. “It is the
nature of existence, that circumstances are never what we wish them to be. Were
you and I in another place, with different histories… Your Angelika, she is
lucky to have you.” She stepped back, her eyes staring at the ground in front of
Franziskus’ feet. It was as if she was drawing a line there, forbidding him to
cross. Then, in a twirl of her gown, she had her back to him again, and was
fleeing down the street.

“But she’s not my Angelika!” Franziskus said, watching her go. He’d meant to
shout it to her, but it had come out as a whisper, so, in truth, he talked only
to himself.

Despite the blanket of quiet that smothered the town, the Dolorosa La Bara
bulged with shouting, laughing, coughing patrons. Items of gold, from brooches
to chalices, sat heaped on a table, where drinkers frantically threw dice, sweat
pouring down their faces. They’d decided, evidently, to at least feel the
ecstatic mortification of losing their possessions in a game of chance, instead
of giving them up to the soldiers outside the gates. Franziskus, ensconced at
the bar on a well-padded stool, wondered what the eventual winner was supposed
to do with his haul. Bury it, perhaps, and hope to come back later?

The young Stirlander had forgone his usual ale, electing instead to knock
down cups of watered-down rum. It was diluted but burned his tongue and gullet
all the same. He twitched his hand at Giacomo, the barman, who refilled him and
slid his pennies from the damp wooden counter. Behind him, a hawk-nosed young
man in torn mendicant’s robes screamed something about the apocalypse. He’d
renounced forever his vows of temperance, though Franziskus suspected that
tomorrow morning’s hangover might provoke their abrupt renewal.

Angelika slid onto the stool next to him. “Evening, Franziskus,” she’d said.

He hadn’t seen her come in. But, then again, it had been hours since he’d
stopped looking at the doorway. “Did you learn anything?”

“About Lukas? No.”

Giacomo needed no prompting to set a cup before her, and fill it with brandy.

She sipped, and stuck out her tongue. “This is hard to take, after that
Angoumelle.”

“Did you enjoy his finer vintage, the one he had upstairs?” Franziskus
regretted the words as soon as they passed his lips. Or rather, their tone gave
him away; he’d meant to sound offhand and comradely, but sarcasm had crept in
anyway.

“We didn’t get to it,” Angelika said. She set her brandy down and peered into
it.

“So he continued to deny any knowledge of the boy?”

She nodded.

“You didn’t believe him, I hope.”

“You think me the sort of person to lose all reason over a glittering pair of
grey eyes and a lovely wolfs grin? Please!”

“Then why did you—” He caught himself short. He thought everyone in the bar
would be looking at him, after this outburst, but the volume of his voice was
nothing compared to the hysterical bellowing around them, so not a single head
turned their way. He finished his drink and slammed the cup on the bar. Angelika
looked at him with obvious disgust. “Pardon my indiscretion,” he said.

She did not give him the relief of a reply.

He tried to catch Giacomo’s eye, but the barkeep was occupied with the
unintelligible shouts of a fat-cheeked dwarf across the way. “It merely seems
inadvisable to… to render yourself… vulnerable to the very person we suspect
of being our adversary. Not just suspect—we have good reason to believe—”

“I’ll be my own judge of what’s safe,” she said. “Besides, one thing has
nothing to do with the other.”

“Don’t think that I think I have any sort of claim on you,” Franziskus said.
The rum made him feel apart from himself, like it was some other fellow he could
hear talking to her. He wondered why someone didn’t make this fellow shut up before he dug his grave
any deeper. “Because far from it. I don’t and I wouldn’t want to. The man’s a
villain, and I don’t understand. But, as you’ll remind me, what right have I to
understanding? You just want me to go away, don’t you?”

“We should get you home to bed, Franziskus.”

“That’s what this was about, wasn’t it? Your reminding me
of how unwanted I am here.” He stood up, weaved, and slumped over, leaning on
the counter for support. “You didn’t want him at all. He was just to hand,
that’s all. To teach me a lesson. A lesson I deserve.”

She clapped him on the arm. “Stop talking, Franziskus.”

He slumped back onto his stool. “See, that’s what I keep telling myself, that
I should stop talking. But there’s something I
keep meaning to get to, except that we haven’t got to it yet. The point is, I
have this.” He slapped the map, its neat roll now crushed flat, onto the
counter. “While you were—off doing what you were doing—I was on Lukas’
trail.”

She propped him up on the way home to their rented hovel. In the morning, she
fed him a greasy meal of sausage and egg, and asked him if he remembered,
perchance, who had given him the map that supposedly led to Lukas.

“That I clearly recall,” he said, massaging his temples, “it’s what happened
later, after I started to drink, that eludes me.”

“Which is for the best, believe me.”

“The woman’s name is Petrine Guillame.” He recounted his meeting with her.

“She hired Goatfield?”

“She serves Davio, as his executor of dirty dealings.”

“And you think she was honestly remorseful? That it wasn’t a trick of some
kind?”

His eyebrows hurt. He wiggled them around. “I believed her at the time. But
who knows?”

“Davio acquainted me with several of his good qualities, but, still, he
styles himself a prince, so he can’t be taken at his word.”

“Who do we believe, then? Should we flip a coin?”

“Either of them might be lying. But this woman of yours, she at least has
given us a direction to go in.”

“But you’re saying it might be a trap.”

“Was she as beautiful up close as when you saw her in the doorway?”

“Yes.”

“And she seemed willing to fall into your embrace?”

He shrugged. It hurt to shrug. “I wanted to think so.”

“You should have pressed your case, and found out for sure.” She picked up
her pack and took out its contents, laying them out on a rough-edged pine table.
“You’re one to freely dispense advice, Franziskus. Would you like to hear some,
in return?”

“Not really, but proceed, anyway.”

“Pleasure is rare enough in this world, Franziskus, and we all end up in our
graves sooner than we think. To hell with what the priests say: few joys are
more intense than that of skin against skin. If you get a chance with one who
quickens your heart, take it.”

“She was in distress.”

“A little upset can heighten the sharpness of it.” She opened the larder door
in search of dried meat. An under-nourished rat scurried deeper into the
cupboard; tiny bits of salami lay scattered across the shelf. She closed the
door. “We’ll have to get provisions from the stalls, outside.”

“There has to be more to it than that, Angelika. More than the physical.”

“So say the poets. But I say, to hell with them.”

They headed to the gate, which was still open to allow the last few refugees
to exit. Not wanting to give up their property to the Averlanders, they scaled
the Castello wall to angle past the checkpoint. Even so, a stray soldier
challenged them, and they had to buy his silence with silver shillings. They
stopped to purchase field rations from one of the vendors and then vacated the
siege camp. They hiked across the valley floor and up into the hills, as
Petrine’s map indicated. Initially, Franziskus worried he might collapse on the
trail, but the exertion did him good. By mid-afternoon, they neared the site of
the bolt hole. According to the map, they had another half-mile or so to go, up
the overgrown road they’d been travelling. Like the rock cut back at the
Castello, this old road was a remnant of ancient dwarf engineering.

“Smoke,” she said, pointing to the sky. A thin white stream snaked thirty feet
above the treetops before dispersing.

Franziskus looked at the map again, wishing there were something on it to
suggest exactly what form Toby’s hideout took. Petrine’s “X” lay off to one side
in what looked like a small clearing. They left the road, avoiding a patch of
rash-weed, and walked through tall pines. They followed the smoke to find the
clearing.

The smoke rose from a hole in the earth, its sides dense with bushes and
large, leafy plants. It looked like it might have been an old sinkhole, now
overgrown. A fence of poles and wires surrounded it. They looked around them to
see if they were being watched. Side by side, they edged out from the woods.
Angelika pointed to a squarish patch of ground ahead of them, where the weeds
and grasses stood out from those immediately around them. They skirted it, but
got close enough to see that it was a pit trap.

Chimes and bells, mostly of brass, that were dangling from the wire fence,
rang out gently. If they touched any of the wires, the chimes would clang
violently, alerting the bolt hole’s inhabitants.

Angelika bid Franziskus to go first. She had the better chance of success,
but there was no point in her carefully making her way past if he was going to
set it off anyway. He gave the wires a serious look, clasped his hands briefly
together, then slowly contorted himself, lifting one leg, then the other,
insinuating his way through the fence. Angelika gestured her approval and
slipped between the wires after him.

They drew weapons and crept to the hole’s edge. They peered in. A roof of
planks sealed the hole off, about ten feet down its sides. Around the back, they
could see a set of metal stairs, obscured by foliage. It led to a trap door in
the planking.

“How quietly can you step?” she whispered. Angelica was now at the bottom of
the stairs. She reached out with her boot and tested the planking as if it were
a pool of water. She shifted her weight onto the platform. It creaked. She
stopped. She let her other foot lightly down on the wood. It cracked. She heard
banging below. She stopped. The banging ended. Then there were voices. Her weight was too far forward for her
to keep her balance. She shifted. The boards made a complaining noise. She held
her breath, and waited.