Liar's Moon (16 page)

“That’s what I want to know.” Were Karst and Temus working together? “I have to go.”

“Celyn, wait —”

I turned back.

His face was set as he gripped the iron grille, but all he said was, “Wherever you’re going, be careful.”

I didn’t
linger long enough to respond. Back at the guards’ station, no amount of coinage could persuade the guard to tell me who Karst really was or where he’d taken Temus, but from the chilled expression on his normally greedy face, I was pretty sure they
weren’t
headed to any magistrate’s hearing. The hearing that never, ever happened.

I tore down the long spiral staircase, but halted abruptly
halfway down. There was a sound trailing me on the stairs — footsteps behind me, trying not to be heard. I ducked back into the shadows, tense and ready. When a pair of filthy boots came into my sight, followed by scrawny legs and a stained red uniform, I made a grab for him.

“Mmph!” I had my arm around the neck of a small guard — no older or bigger than me — who was struggling in protest.
I let him go, and, coughing, he sagged against the closed stairwell wall.

“I’m sorry!” he gasped out. “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

“What do you want?” I didn’t recognize him, but he had an indecisive and furtive air. “You look like you have something to say.”

The little guard nodded, rubbing his throat. “I work the dock level, round back,” he said. “Usually. My name’s Stotht.
I’ve seen you visiting more than once.”

“And?”

“I heard you asking about that prisoner who was transferred yesterday.”

“Do you know something?”

Stotht glanced past me down the stairs, back up where he’d come from, then leaned in closer. “I saw them together, heading down through the cellars. A while later, the guard came back alone and told me he’d give me a gold crown if I
could deliver a message.”

“What kind of message?” I asked, my blood cold. “What did it say?” Belatedly I realized Stotht probably couldn’t read.

“No, it weren’t a letter,” he said. “He give me a little pouch, said to take it to this big house on the river, and be sure to wear my uniform.”

“Do you know which one?”

“Not who lives there. Just some big house in Nob Circle with
a red roof and guards outside.”

“Charicaux.” Stotht looked surprised. “What was in the pouch?”

“I didn’t look,” he said. “But it weren’t coins; I could tell by the weight. Something soft, wrapped in cloth, maybe.”

I could feel myself frowning. What did it mean? “Thank you,” I said. “That’s very helpful.” I made to move on, but Stotht’s little body was in the way.

“I’ve seen
you in and out of here,” he said again, conversationally. “Who’re you visiting? Your brother?”

“My — what?” I had to get rid of this kid. I dipped into my bodice for the last of my meager supply of bribery money, not quite liking the way Stotht’s eyes followed my hand, and pulled out a couple of copper marks.

“I don’t want any money,” he said earnestly. “But . . .” he paused. “Can I
call on you at your home?”

I blinked, incredulous. Well, why not? “Fine,” I said. “I’m in the Temple District. My name’s Fei.”

He was still thanking me as I headed back down the stairs.

A message to Charicaux? To Lord Ragn. This was getting more and more tangled. My thoughts turning in on one another, I followed the stairs down to the cellars, where Stotht had seen Karst take Temus,
drawn on by a sickening thought. What if Karst hadn’t grabbed Temus to free an accomplice — but to silence one?

The stairs continued downward, into service passages, unused kitchens, and the charnel. Moving deliberately so I didn’t call more attention to myself, I followed the steps down into the dank, dripping darkness.

Unlike the prisoners’ floors, the cellars were unguarded, full
of hidden, empty rooms, with stores of weapons nearby — knives in the kitchen, bone saws in the charnel. Karst could have taken Temus anywhere down here, but there was said to be only one exit from the cellar levels: Marau’s Door in the charnel, where executed prisoners were sailed back to the city. The charnel was a low-ceilinged room with niches carved out of the brick walls and the doorway on
the river. I grabbed a lantern from the hallway and pulled my smock up to cover my face. Inside, there were two bodies waiting to be hauled away on the coroner’s barge, wrapped neatly in linen shrouds. I hesitated, considering one dark possibility after another. One corpse was far too large to have been Temus, but the second . . . Steeling myself not to gag, I peeled back the cloth from the face of
the narrower body.

And saw nobody, just some poor, famished soul who’d no doubt died of starvation or disease in the Rathole. A dark, bearded face, too old to be Temus. Weak with relief, I pushed myself out the service door, onto the little outside landing. I gasped in great lungfuls of fresh, fishy-smelling air and leaned my head back against the curving brick wall of the Keep. I could
tell by the angle of the view that I was on the same side of the tower as Durrel’s cell, and if I looked up —

I didn’t look up. A little rowboat was moored nearby, bobbing merrily on the sunlit river. Beneath the surface of the water, I thought I saw a shimmer of white. Coming closer, I gave the boat a little kick with my foot and sent it out into the river a few feet. The white shape bobbed
higher through the murk, getting larger as the light struck it, until it turned over in the water, and I had to bite back a yelp of shock.

Temus’s wide, dead eyes — already partially nibbled by fish — stared back at me, his white, bloated body bumping the edge of the landing. I gave a squeak and stumbled back against the building. The waterlogged hair floated away from the ghastly face, and
I saw an injury that was not attributable to Big Silver fish.

Karst had cut off Temus’s ear.

My heart lodged in my throat, I scrambled back inside the Keep, ran through the charnel — making the sign for Marau — and sprinted back up the staircase to Queen’s Level. I hit Durrel’s door at a run, and I heard him jump from the bed.

“I found him,” I gasped out. “Temus. He’s dead.”

Inside, Durrel paled. “Are you sure?”

I recalled the ragged gash across his neck, the blank stare. “Someone slit his throat and dumped him in the river.”

“Who? Why?”

The first question we already knew the answer to; the second was the more worrisome. “I don’t know, but we have to get you out of here.” I tumbled the lock on the cell door and slipped inside, closing it quietly behind
me. I told him what Fei had related to me, that Karst had boasted of killing Talth, that Temus had boasted of ripping off the Ceid; and what Stotht had just told me about his delivery to Charicaux.

“Why would Karst need to send a warning to your father?”

Durrel pulled away. “I don’t know,” he said. “I — he wouldn’t.”

And yet he clearly
had
, in language plainer than a letter:
We
can get to anyone, even inside the Keep. We can get to your son.
I thought furiously, frantically. Right now the priority was getting Durrel safe. I backed off a pace, hiked my skirts to my knees, unbuckled my knife, and passed it to Durrel, sheath and all. “Keep this on you. If anything happens, if anyone comes —”

“Celyn, slow down.” But he took the blade and slipped it into his own scuffed
boot. “Maybe we’re overreacting. This might not have anything to do with me.”

“The Ferryman who murdered your wife just killed a man and sent his severed ear to your father. I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I don’t mean to keep counting the bodies. You
need
to get out of this place and somewhere safe.”

Durrel still hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said. “Won’t I be more secure
in here than loose on the streets?”

The way he said that made me pause, the logic of the argument sounded familiar somehow, and infuriating. “No, that —” I shook my head, frustrated. “No. They know exactly where you are right now, and that’s bad.”

“All right,” he finally said. “If you’re serious about this, then let’s think it through. What are our options? You can buy me out —”

“We don’t have the money.” I was pacing, sure I could hear Karst’s heavy footsteps banging down the cellway, even now.

Durrel nodded. “Or
break
me out.”

I shook my head. “Not enough resources.”

“Then it looks like you’ll have to sneak me out. Fortunately I just happen to know the city’s foremost authority on sneaking.” There was a glint to his dark eyes, as if he found some part
of this madness remotely amusing.

“What do you want me to do, hide you in my skirts?” But even as I said it, the thought spiraled out, twisting itself into an idea.

“There have to be plenty of ways. What about forging a pardon, or a transfer order?” I could tell he’d given this some thought, and no wonder. “You’ve been able to get inside my cell,” he added. “And this Karst fellow pretended
to be a guard to get Temus out —”

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s
exactly
it. We need a guard.”

Durrel leaned against the cell door, arms crossed over his chest, and cocked his head at me. “It would appear that an overabundance of guards is actually part of our current dilemma.”

“Oh, but I know one who owes me a favor. It’s almost perfect.” I knew I should leave quickly now, get our
plan underway before — I wasn’t going to think about what came after
before.
And yet I didn’t move. “I don’t like leaving you,” I said. “Promise me you’ll be safe.”

Durrel put a hand against my chest, as if to feel the flutter of my pulse at the base of my throat. “With you to protect me? How could it be otherwise?”

My heart gave a little squeeze, but I shook him off. “This is serious.
Once I leave here, you’ll be all alone, and I’m afraid that little knife won’t be much help against somebody like Karst. If he’s the man we think he is —”

“Don’t
worry.
” Durrel brushed a strand of hair from my face. “Contrary to appearances, I have not spent my entire life locked in towers. I
can
wield a weapon to defend myself. Granted, I’d prefer a sword or a pistol, but you and I have
had good luck exchanging knives before.”

“Don’t remind me.” I didn’t consider any part of what had happened with Lord Daul to be lucky, but I had to admit, without Durrel’s dagger, that skirmish on the cliff would have had a different ending. “Anyway, you’re in close quarters. A knife is more useful than a sword.”

“You see?” he said softly. “I feel safer already.”

I finally pulled
away from him and let myself back into the hallway, making sure I set the locks, just in case. Durrel had followed me to the door; I could barely see him through the high window. “Just — sit tight and wait for me. I will figure something out by tomorrow. I promise.”

His fingers curled around mine on the bars. “I’ll be waiting,” he said, and though he tried to disguise it, I finally heard
the fear in his voice.

After leaving the Keep, I turned toward the city center and made myself walk straight to the Celystra as fast as I could. I had sworn I would never come back here, and this week I’d reaffirmed that vow — but today it had something I needed, something I didn’t want to waste time hunting down elsewhere. Something I was just mad enough today to go fetch from my enemy’s
doorstep.

It took two hours, but he finally showed up, ambling up the long High Street toward the temple complex, his green uniform almost aglow in the low, angled light. His partner walked beside him, looking hulking and gruff and mean, and the look he gave me had all kinds of ugliness in it, and promised all kinds of ugliness if he got his hands on me. I steeled myself to meet his eyes.

“What’s this, then?” he said, a sneer twisting his thick lip.

“Go on inside; I’ll take care of it,” Raffin said. His partner shrugged and swung open the tall side gate, iron ivy twined through stalks of corn, that led into the Greenmen’s headquarters. I suppressed a shiver as my eyes followed him inside.

“All right, peach, you’ve got my attention. Should I change my uniform?” Raffin
fell into step beside me. “Put on something a little more casual?”

I made a face. “No, we’re going to need it.”

“Sounds amusing. What do you have in mind?”

I glanced around. The great temple building loomed over us, its green tile roof seeming to devour the entire sky. I felt breathless and a little sick here in its presence. “We can’t talk here.”

“All right.” Raffin steered
me across the street toward a bustling, polished tavern with big glass windows and tables outside. The place was crawling with green uniforms. I halted in the middle of the road.

“You can’t be serious. A Greenmen’s bar? I’m not going in there.”

“Suit yourself,” Raffin said, turning away from me. “But you’ll never know what I might have said.”

It took a great deal of restraint to
behave myself. “Oh, trust me. You’re going to agree. You
owe
me, Raffin Taradyce. First for that night of hilarity at the prison, and second for bringing the Inquisitor
to my home.
” I was surprised by the venom in my voice, but Raffin sobered.

“About that,” he said. “I —”

“If you’re so eager to make amends, then help me.”

“All right,” he said. “What seems to be the problem?”

I was already exhausted from this conversation. “I need help rolling Durrel.”

Raffin gave a snort. “Not from what I hear, pet.”

That was it. I smacked him, right in the jaw, right there in the middle of High Street, with a dozen Greenmen looking on, not even caring it was a hanging offense. “From
prison
, you idiot!”

Raffin took the blow with equanimity, rolling backward on his heels
and laughing, but he grabbed me by the back of my bodice and dragged me into the tavern as several men in green turned toward us, rising up from their benches.

“Just a little dispute with my lady, boys,” he said. “Nothing to get your dander up.”

I kept my head turned toward Raffin’s broad green shoulder, and for his part, he pulled me securely into a table far in the back near the noisy
kitchen and the fires. Nobody else was stupid enough to sit near the ovens on a hot evening like this, so we had a fair amount of privacy. I took the seat that had my back to the Greenmen, but regretted it immediately. The presence of all those dogs of Celys, where I couldn’t keep an eye on them, made the skin on the back of my neck crawl.

“Easy there. These men aren’t the type to notice
it’s a lady slapping their friend around. Try to stay calm if you don’t want to make enemies here.” He was right, and I knew better. I took a deep breath and nodded.

Raffin ordered a pitcher of beer and a plate of stew, but I shook him off when he asked what I wanted, waiting impatiently for the server to leave us alone. Finally he leaned over his food and said, “All right, let’s hear it.
You’ve got some plan to spring our boy to freedom?”

“I don’t know about freedom,” I said. “I still can’t prove he didn’t kill Talth.” But I explained about the Ferrymen, and Karst, and the murder of Temus inside the Keep.

“Marau’s balls.”
He poured himself a little more beer, his knuckles white on the pitcher’s handle. “So what’s this plan that requires my uniform?”

I almost didn’t
have to explain it. Before I got half a sentence out, he was sharp enough to catch on. Nodding easily, he said, “I’m in. Just say when.”

I tapped my lip with the stub of my finger; he watched with distaste but made no comment. “I was thinking tomorrow. The guards would normally interrogate a prisoner during the day, right?”

“Yes,” Raffin said slowly, stirring the broth of his stew with
his knife. “But we’re less likely to be questioned about it at night. Better do it tonight. How many guards on duty every shift?”

“Four during the day, I think just two in the evening, and they don’t pay very close attention up there.”

“Are they armed?”

“We’re not going to fight our way out!”

He looked at me, eyes hard and narrow, and for a moment I saw the Greenman
inside
the uniform. I didn’t like it. “Are they
armed
?” he repeated coldly.

“Not officially. A couple of them carry blackjacks — big, nasty things with a shaft of iron in them. Mostly they subdue the prisoners just by intimidation.”

“Well, that’s fine,” said Raffin, a grin breaking through his cool Guardsman’s mask. “Intimidation’s my favorite weapon.” He actually sounded pleased by the thought
of ordinary prison guards trying to outstrip the Acolyte Guard in a contest of arrogance. “Now, who exactly will
you
be in this little masquerade?”

“I can’t really be anyone else,” I said, although Tiboran knew a disguise wouldn’t go amiss. “They know me.”

“We can work with that,” he said. “Now, when do you want to leave?”

“Already?” For a moment I felt panicky. There wasn’t any
time to waste, and the longer we delayed, the more danger Durrel was in — but what was I going to do with him
after
we got him out of the Keep? I couldn’t bring him home, and it wasn’t like he could very well go back to Charicaux or Bal Marse.

Raffin was drawing patterns in the stew left on his plate. He leaned back casually, his long limbs thrown out like he owned the table, the bar, and
the whole damn city. The Taradyce always had that air of entitlement, of
ownership
, and life in service to Celys certainly hadn’t tempered Raffin’s attitude any.

“You could get in a lot of trouble for this,” I said. “This could finish you with the Guard.”

He shrugged. “I doubt it. You and our boy do your jobs right, and nobody will raise a peep. Besides, what’s the worst they can do?”

“Send you home to your father without refunding your commission? Have you arrested for treason? Torture —”

“All right, enough! I said I was in; you don’t need to sweeten the pot for me, peach.” He took a swig of his beer. “I say we wait until Zet rises. That’s a couple of hours before midnight, at the beginning of the night shift. It’s also the time when we’re the least likely to be missed
or noticed doing anything . . . untoward.” He gave me a critical look, then nodded. “I’ll meet you at Market Bridge at her moonrise and we’ll go from there.”

I agreed, and after that there was no reason for us to linger there together, but neither of us moved.

“How is he?” Raffin finally said, and I shook my head.

“Still alive. I hope.” I watched him watching the strong drink in
his cup, and I thought about the first time I’d seen him at the Keep docks, a few weeks ago. “You told me there were questions about Talth’s murder. Do you have anything to add to that story?”

He hunched lower in the seat, his long arms spread behind him. “What have you learned?”

It was madness to talk about these things here, in a nest of Greenmen, but what choice did I have? “Magic,
at Bal Marse. Secret shipments in and out of the Ceid warehouse, on a disguised ship. Lord Ragn threatened by a Ferryman. Just a lot of pieces that don’t match up. What can you tell me?”

Raffin had looked up sharply. “Lord Ragn? You can’t think he’s involved in this. I don’t like that idea one bit.”

“I don’t either. Now you tell me what you know.”

His head shook. “Nothing,” he said
firmly. “But I’d say at least one of those things you’ve mentioned definitely bears closer attention. Ah, peach. I should go. Things to do before our little fete tonight.” Raffin rose to leave, throwing a couple of coins down on the table, but he hesitated. “You know, you should really be careful,” he said, and for the thinnest moment, he actually sounded serious.

“What do you mean?”

He watched me, his face impassive, before finally saying, “Girls who share Lord Durrel’s bed have an ugly habit of winding up dead.”

My mouth dropped open and I stared at him. When I could speak again, I said, “Not that it’s
remotely
your concern, Guardsman Taradyce, but for the record: I’m not sharing his bed.”

“Oh, you will be,” he said, sounding resigned. “You’re exactly his type.”

“Really?” I said. “And how’s that?”

He took a deep sigh and met my eyes. “Cosmically unmarriageable.”

The hours until Zet’s rising were intolerable, and I thought
I
would kill someone if I had to wait much longer. I couldn’t help wondering what Durrel was doing right this minute,
and then right the following minute. Was Karst coming back? Could Durrel hold his own in a fight? Karst was big and heavy, and Durrel was thin and weak from hunger and inactivity. Would my scheme with Raffin work, or was I making a bargain with a devil in a green uniform? It was an insane risk, but I lingered outside the Greenmen’s bar for some time, plucking coins from guards as they filed
in and out. But eventually my hand started shaking, and I gave it up.

I wanted to run straight back to the Keep and wait there, but realistically I knew it wasn’t any use. I couldn’t surveil an entire prison by myself; if Karst wanted in, he’d have to get there the same way as everyone else, by way of drawbridge or boat. I did make a stop back at Grillig’s rag shop, giving up another ten
silver marks for a decent secondhand knife more suited to Durrel’s size than my little blade. After taking it to be sharpened, I found myself across town at Charicaux, and just stood in the shadows as the sun set and the moons rose, watching the hired guards patrol the property. I recognized some of them from my last visit, but tonight, Karst was not among their company. What was going on here? What
was the connection between Karst and Lord Ragn? I’d thought that Karst worked for Ragn, but I was beginning to doubt that. It wouldn’t make much sense for Karst to threaten his own master. There had to be more between them. The incident with Temus suggested that Karst was a Ceid henchman instead, and I remembered Koya saying that the family wouldn’t wait for the king’s justice. Had they sent someone
to get their own kind of justice for Talth? But why Karst, who claimed he’d killed Talth himself? And why Temus, if they were actually after Durrel?

The hot, heavy sky grew thick with moisture. Scudding gray clouds settled in, obscuring stars and moons alike, and a wet, stormy fog scented the air. Hells — was Celys going to pick
tonight
for it to finally rain? Jobs were always harder (not
to mention less enjoyable) in bad weather, and smart thieves usually packed it in when it looked like rain. The first fat drops fell as I trotted toward the Big Silver and the Keep, and it was pouring by the time I tucked myself against the arch at the base of Market Bridge. Somewhere in that clouded sky, the bright disk of Zet was waking up, but I couldn’t see her. Eventually I heard whistling,
and Raffin appeared in the shadows, still wearing his Greenman’s uniform — this time with a wide, green hood and mantle pulled up to protect him from the rain.

“Lucky weather,” he said as a crack of thunder shattered the sky. “Shall we get on with it?”

“After you,” I said, and Raffin surprised me by grabbing my arm and dragging me out onto the landing toward the guards’ station. I stumbled
along with him, wondering whether I should be worried. It was
Raffin
, but I was still trusting Durrel’s safety and future to a Greenman — and one who now had me in a grip so tight I couldn’t pull away.

“You’re hurting me,” I gasped, but he ignored me, just whipped out his nightstick and banged the tip of it against the station door.

“Open up in the name of the Goddess!” he bellowed.

I heard a creak, and a cross, squinting face appeared through the bars. “What’s this, then?” It was the same ugly guard who’d been on duty the night of my arrest. I ducked my head, grateful for the brim of my hat for more than rain protection.

“The Court of Blessed Inquiry has dealings with a prisoner in your custody. In Celys’s name, I demand to be let through.”

The guard hesitated.
“What about her?”

Raffin pulled himself up to the limit of his very imposing height, leaning over the guard inside. “None of your concern,” he said. The guard finally ushered us through and cranked down the drawbridge (Greenmen had their own boats, but thankfully the Keep man didn’t ask why we hadn’t just
sailed
here). When he offered us an escort across the bridge, Raffin waved him away
with a sweep of the nightstick.