Weapon of Fear (28 page)

So
she was out tonight doing what she was trained to do, surveying the scene,
picking out the best vantage, the most likely approaches and lines of fire,
evaluating obstacles, planning the hit.  But this time she would be trying to
save
a life, pitting her skills against Lady T’s Hunters, hoping to outguess the
Tsing assassins.

Mya
stopped short and pressed herself against the wall as another patrol stomped
by. 
They’re as thick as flies on a horse’s ass tonight. 
But she knew
they had been thicker during the day.  Constables, soldiers, and imperial
guards had surrounded the plaza until sunset, a deterrent to onlookers who
attempted spy on the activity in the plaza.  They had erected tall canvas
barriers around the north end of the square, even cleared out the adjacent
buildings for a time, angering those who labored in the factories and shops
there.  Wagons hauled lumber and other building materials in, and sounds of
construction could be heard until the workers dispersed with the setting sun.

Noise
alerted Mya to two patrols converging on her position.  If she didn’t want to
be seen, she’d be forced to backtrack.  The delay frustrated her.  She had to
get to the plaza, see the layout, anticipate where an assassin might be placed,
and plan her countermeasures. 
But how, with so many constables tromping the
streets? 
She looked left and right as the clattering caps neared.

Think
like an assassin, Mya.  Think like…
 
No, think like Lad!
  She looked up.

Window,
drainpipe, window, cornice, eaves and up.
  Her eye picked out the path like she was casing it
for Lad.  She wondered if she could do it without falling.  The guards closed,
leaving her no choice.  She swarmed up the vertical path, making it to the top
with surprising ease.  Hunkering on the rooftop, she peered down at the passing
constables and smiled.

Easy
as pie
…

Mya
glanced around.  She was still one street over from the plaza, and the roofs of
the buildings here were flat or pitched at low angles.  She had a better
vantage from up here, but the path to the plaza presented some challenges. 
I
can do this
.

Mya
rose from her crouch and dashed across the roof toward gaping space of the
street, gauging the distance to the next building.  Banishing the thought of
what would happen if she missed, she leapt.  Her landing wasn’t as graceful as
Lad’s would have been, but she had made it safely.  A couple of the roof tiles
slipped askew under her feet, but none fell to give away her position.  She
edged up to the crest of the low-pitched roof and lay flat to look out over the
Imperial Plaza.

The
public space was enormous, two city blocks long and one wide.  Since the Night
of Flame, the plaza had been utterly bare, scoured clean of soot, ash, and the
persistent bloodstains of four decades of brutality.  It was no longer empty.

What
in the Nine Hells?

A
broad platform had been constructed at the north end of the plaza, about six
feet high with stairs at the back and both sides.  That was to be expected, but
in the center of the platform stood a canvas-shrouded rectangle the height of
three men.  It wasn’t big enough to be a gallows, and was too big to be a
pillory.

Never
mind that.
  She
directed her attention to the surrounding buildings. 
Where would I place
assassins?

Mya
recalled all the troops accompanying the crown prince the last time he came
here.  Without his blademasters, the number of regular guards would be
increased.  They would surround the entire platform and seal off the streets on
that end.  There was no way anyone—even Lad—could get through such a cordon on
foot.  The attack would come from a distance, but from where?

Too
close and you risk getting spotted.  Too far and you risk missing.  Too low,
you’re obstructed.  Too high reduces your angle to the target.

Three
buildings closest to the platform were the most suitable.  She ruled out the
roofs as being too exposed.  A yarn factory and two storefronts with apartments
above lined the street directly north of the platform.  To the east stood a
warehouse with high, vented windows, and to the west a chandlery, also
windowed.  A sniper could get a decent shot from any of the third- or fourth-floor
windows.  That narrowed the field somewhat, but still left plenty of
possibilities.

I
can’t watch them all alone, but I don’t have to
.  Mya would station her urchins as
high as she could for the best view.  She would tell them what to look for, and
they could use their whistles to alert her of anything they spotted.  She’d
been practicing their whistling system for days, memorizing what each call
meant, though she still needed a lot of work to master the calls herself.

So,
where do I watch from?

Mya
needed to hear their whistles, see everything, and still be able to act to save
the prince’s life, or at least shout a warning if she couldn’t reach the
assassin. 

Where
will a sniper be?
 
She rose to her elbows and peered through the darkness, trying to think from
the assassin’s point of view. 
Where would I
—

Something
moved; a figure at the crest of the chandlery roof backlit for an instant by
the glow of Hightown.  Mya froze and held her breath.  There were constables
aplenty on the streets below, but would they set a
rooftop watch? 
Squinting, she caught a glimpse of black on black as someone edged forward to
peer down at the square.

Not
a constable
, she
realized,
but
an assassin
.

Lady
T had sent one of her Hunters out to do exactly what Mya was doing.

Mya
watched for a short while as the figure scanned the plaza, the buildings, and
the surrounding rooftops with a spyglass.  She held perfectly still,
considering her options.  Killing the assassin might actually thwart the
assassination attempt by depriving Lady T of information.  Moreover, if done
correctly, the dead body might also tip off the constabulary that someone was
planning to knock off the prince. 

Before
Mya made a decision, the sweep of the assassin’s spyglass halted abruptly, the
lens aimed right at her.

Was
she backlit?  What was behind her?  The lights of Midtown perhaps?  She stared
at the gleaming lens, willing it to move, to sweep past her, but it didn’t. 
She swallowed, and the lens suddenly shifted.  The figure moved away fast in a
crouch, over the crest of the roof.  Gone…  Somehow, she wasn’t sure how, the
assassin had spotted her.

Damn…
  Whoever it had been was good. 
Even if she’d been silhouetted against the light, picking out the shape of a
human head on a skyline in the dark was something she’d only expect from
someone with Lad’s skills.

“Magic
maybe?”  It didn’t matter.  She’d surely been spotted.

Still,
they had no way of knowing it was her, only that someone had seen them casing
the plaza.  That might make them more careful in their choices, but it wouldn’t
prevent the assassination attempt.  She’d just have to make sure that she
covered all the possibilities.

Mya
headed for home.  She’d seen everything she needed to see.  Tonight she’d
outline the most likely positions for a sniper targeting the prince on the
platform, and tomorrow morning she’d instruct her urchins what to look for and
place them in the nearby buildings.

Pitting
me and my army of urchins against the Tsing Assassins Guild
…  It would have been laughable if
it wasn’t exactly what she was going to do.

A
rbuckle grunted as the weight of
the chainmail shirt fell onto his shoulders.  It felt wrong to be armoring
himself to face his people, but Ithross had insisted.  Thinking of the poisoned
blackbrew, Arbuckle hadn’t argued.

Not
wise, but necessary
… 
Maybe that should be my new mantra.

He
held up his arms so Baris could slip the surcoat—elegant in imperial blue and
gold—over his head and place the thin platinum circlet on his brow.  Finally
ready, he stepped into his sitting room, took his place with Tennison and Verul
amongst the ring of imperial guards and knights.  The walk to the courtyard was
silent, as if the gravity of the situation stilled everyone’s tongues.  The
future and wellbeing of the empire rode on this day.  Everything depended on
how his judgments were received by noble and commoner alike.

Am
I doing the right thing?

Arbuckle
squinted as he passed through the palace doors into the sunlit courtyard,
paused until his eyes adjusted, and blinked at the size of the procession. 
Knights and squires on horseback, a phalanx of cavalry, and ranks of imperial
guards in blue and gold waited to escort the three carriages.  Two of the
carriages were plain transport for the prisoners.  The third shone like a
gem-studded crown.  The body of the carriage was blue, elaborately embellished
with gold leaf, and the wheels were studded with glittering blue sapphires.  A
team of six perfectly matched white horses pranced and pawed at the cobbles,
their gilded headdresses and harnesses flashing in the sun.

“Oh,
Tennison, no.  That’s my
father’s
carriage.”

“No,
Milord Prince, it’s the
emperor’s
carriage.”  He regarded the prince
solemnly.  “You may not yet have the title, but you will.  Today you’ll show
yourself to be a true leader of the people—
all
the people.”

With
a sigh of contrition, Arbuckle mounted the carriage and settled back into the
plush seat.  He understood Tennison’s point, but wanted to protest. 
What
kind of message does it send that I ride in a carriage more valuable than the
yearly wages of a thousand commoners?

Mya
felt a curious sense of familiarity as the crown prince’s entourage pulled into
the Imperial Plaza.  Hopefully this event wouldn’t end as badly as the last. 
Of course, this had the potential to end much worse.  If she didn’t manage to
stop Lady T’s assassin, the ensuing conflagration would make the Night of Flame
look like a campfire.

Mya
blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes and turned her gaze upward.  She
had stationed her spies atop the three northernmost buildings.  When she asked
the urchins if they could manage to get to the rooftops, they’d laughed.

“Ain’t
nowhere we can’t go,” Digger had told her proudly.  “’Cept maybe the palace.”

She
picked them out one by one amid the crowds lining the buildings’ rooftops. 
Good;
all in position
.

Mya
stood equidistant between the eastern and western buildings, fairly close to
the platform.  She’d dressed herself as a young man once again.  The disguise
was both for safety—the Assassins Guild knew her as a woman—and utility—pants
were easier to maneuver in than a dress.  She had also slathered her borrowed
jacket with manure, hoping the smell would give her a bit more room to work. 
No such luck.  People were packed into the plaza like herring in a barrel.

Mya
dug in her heels to hold her place as the crowd surged forward, and checked the
most likely windows once again.  She’d been surveying the best vantage points
for an hour, scrutinizing movements, memorizing faces and attire.  She’d seen
no one so far whom she could tag as an assassin.  That was the crux of the
problem: what did an assassin look like?

Mya
could generally pick out that certain something that identified someone as a
professional killer, but it took years of practice.  She considered the
diversity just in the Twailin guild: the little old woman who could put a knitting
needle in your eye before you blinked, the beefy thug who could tear your arms
from their sockets bare handed, the dandy with the poisoned sword cane, the
whore with needles in her garters...  Assassins didn’t generally look like
assassins, but their actions often gave them away.

“Look
for people doing things that don’t look right,” she’d told her urchins.  “Look
for someone out of place, not smiling, or smiling too much, someone with a
broom or shovel in their hand who doesn’t look like a maid or a workman,
someone alone in a window when every other window has two or three people...”

 She
watched as the procession of cavalry, infantry, and carriages came to a halt
behind the raised platform.  The lancers positioned themselves on either side
of the structure, their weapons gleaming in the sun as their horses snorted and
fidgeted.  A contingent of resplendently uniformed imperial guards mounted the
platform and formed ranks right and left.  Next came the four accused escorted
by more guards.  It wasn’t hard to pick out the baron in his fine clothes.

Lastly,
Crown Prince Arbuckle mounted the platform surrounded by a tight group of
knights and more guards.  Though his dress was regal, he walked stiffly.  Mya
wondered if he wore chainmail, and thought he might not be as foolish as she’d
guessed, although, surrounded by enough steel to deter a dragon, personal armor
seemed redundant.

The
guards shifted, looking this way and that, but didn’t survey their surroundings
as systematically as blademasters would have done.  Prince Arbuckle looked like
he missed their constant presence.

Like
I miss Lad’s
.

“He’s
like a god come down from the heavens!” a nearby woman cried out.

“Don’t
look like no god to me,” another groused.  “Just some rich bugger what thinks
he’s better than all the rest of us.”

“No,
he’s not like that!”

Mya
ignored the argument, watching her windows and listening to the bird calls that
sweetened the air of the plaza. 
That’s Gimp
, she thought. 
And
that’s Digger.  Nails.  Kit
.  Mya interpreted their tweeting messages as
“All clear.”  So far, so good.

The
crowd’s shouts and murmurs died away when a tall man in imperial livery banged
an even taller staff on the platform.  His voice carried impressively.

“Crown
Prince Arbuckle, Heir to the Throne and the Empire of Tsing!”

Cheers
rang out as the prince stepped forward.  A pair of armored knights bearing
broad shields stepped up beside him, with two more behind.  It made for good
show, but Mya doubted that they could react quickly enough to intercept a
poisoned dart or arrow.

Where
are you?
  She
inspected the surrounding buildings again, checking the most-likely windows. 
Hundreds of onlookers leaned out all around the plaza.  It seemed as if some
people had turned the event into a party, everyone crowding to see, pushing and
jostling for the best view.

“People
of Tsing!”  Arbuckle’s voice carried almost as well as his herald’s, booming
over the crowd’s sudden silence.  “The last time I was here, I told you that
justice would be served under my reign.  Today, I will show you that I spoke
the truth.”

The
few catcalls were quickly shushed.

“I
bring you justice, but I tell you, justice must be impartial.  Three of the
convicted prisoners that I have brought before you today are commoners who took
vengeance into their own hands.  Vengeance is
not
justice!  Only the law
can bring justice, and therefore these three men must answer for their crimes.”

The
prince’s words caught Mya’s attention, and she glanced to the platform to see
the three commoners brought forth, the chains on their wrists and ankles
rattling.  She listened for bird calls and watched the windows as the prince
spoke.

“Raul
Walls,” intoned the prince.  One of the men stepped forward, looking nervous.
“You are convicted of arson, a crime that you admitted to of your own free
will.  I hereby sentence you to five years imprisonment.”

The
man’s eyes widened with surprise, and a murmur swept through the crowd.  Five
years in prison for arson was lenient compared to the swift hanging that would
have been his punishment only a month ago.

“Vance
Walls.”  The next man stepped forward.  “Like your brother, you freely admitted
to committing arson.  I hereby sentence you to five years imprisonment.”

The
prince paused as more murmurs swept through the crowd.  Mya checked the windows
again and noticed a woman with a broom in her hand she hadn’t seen before, but then
two other maids also joined the crowded space.  She heard a whistle of all
clear.

“Torance
Walls.”  The third man stepped up.  “You are convicted of arson, assault of a
constable, and resisting lawful arrest.  Like your brothers, you admitted
freely to your crimes.  Therefore, I hereby sentence you to seven years
imprisonment.”

Though
the man’s jaw was set in a hard line, his eyes shone with unshed tears.

Watch
the damn windows, Mya, not the spectacle!
  She swept her eyes around the plaza, but saw nothing
untoward.  Was she wrong?  Had she scared the assassins off simply by scouting
the scene last night?

“What
about the noble?” someone shouted

“Yeah! 
What about his sentence?” another cried.  A roar went up from the crowd, and
Ledwig’s upper lip curled with derision.

Prince
Arbuckle raised his hands high, and silence fell.  “Uldric Ledwig.”

Mya’s
brows arched. 
They stripped him of his title?
  That would be punishment
enough for some of the nobles.

Unlike
his fellow prisoners, the former baron refused to step up, and had to be thrust
forward by his guards.

Prince
Arbuckle’s expression remained impassive, but she could hear the distaste in
his voice as he called out, “You are convicted of the murder of Macie Walls, a
maid in your household.”

“Justice!”
someone cried, and the demand rang from the crowd until it echoed off the walls
of the surrounding buildings.  Only when Crown Prince Arbuckle raised his hands
again did the cries subside.

Mya
listened and watched the windows, but heard no whistles.  She hoped her urchins
were watching what she told them to watch.

“There
will
be justice,” the prince assured them, his repressed rage clearly
audible.  “Uldric Ledwig, the title of Baron has been struck from your name,
and your name will be struck from the Imperial Register of Nobles.  Your family
will wear black for the span of one year in shame for their tacit support of
your actions.  A blood price will be garnished from your fortune and provided
to the family of Macie Walls, though no coin can ever replace a beloved
daughter and sister.”  The prince paused.  “And lastly, your head will be
struck from your body, and you will be buried in an unmarked grave.”

“Justice!”
the crowd roared.

Well,
I’ll be damned
. 
Mya thought that she just might like this new ruler, and she now understood why
Hoseph and his conspiracy of nobles and magistrates were trying to get rid of
him.  Woe to the status quo when this prince was crowned emperor. 
If he can
stay alive that long
…

At
the prince’s nod, two imperial guards pulled on the ropes that secured the
cover to the mysterious structure on the stage, and the canvas fell aside.  The
base of the frame looked like an unfinished set of stocks, a rack with only a
single hole to hold someone’s head, topped by a tall rectangular frame.  At the
peak of the frame hung a great steel blade, held in place by a latch hook.  One
tug on the attached cord would open the hook, and the blade would plummet.

Though
Mya was no stranger to violent death, her stomach quivered at the sight of such
a brutally efficient implement of execution.