Ambergate (24 page)

“I’ll back you in anything, Titus, as you know, but this is profoundly risky,” said Flint carefully. He looked at his leader’s
face in the dusk, but through the nero leaf smoke he could see only his eyes glittering with dreams of the future. Sometimes
he wondered if Titus Molde were going mad. “We’ve found her, yes, but to deliver her straight into the wolves’ lair…?”

“The only risky part is getting her into the Palace,” said Molde. He inhaled deeply and blew smoke out through his nose. He
needed to relax. He could feel his whole body tensing itself for action that would not come for a while yet.

“We’ve never had anyone in the Palace before,” said Jed Flint.

“The Messenger—he gets in all the time, doesn’t he?” Molde said dismissively.

Flint stared at Molde with incredulity. “But murder—assassination! Using Robert Fane’s daughter to kill the Lord Protector’s
son! The Messenger will be appalled by the plan.”

Molde rounded on Flint in the shadows and caught him by the collar of his jerkin. “He won’t know! You won’t say anything to
him when he returns to the Capital, you understand?”

“Right! I understand right enough, Titus,” spluttered Flint. Molde released him, and he found he was trembling.

“You know you can trust me. Haven’t I given you my support all these years?” He straightened his collar reproachfully. “When
do you propose to tell our men we have her? Before the Seacoal Lane lot get to hear, I take it?”

“I’m not telling them,” said Molde shortly.

“What? You mean you’ll keep her secret?”

“No one else must know any of this,” said Molde heavily. “Not yet, not until she’s killed the boy. If she fails, they may
not accept her. Besides, it’s too dangerous. If it gets out, the three of us could die: the girl, you, and me.”

“The girl’s likely to die anyway, isn’t she?” Molde gave a short laugh. “If she succeeds once she’s in the Palace, then it
won’t much matter. Good for me if she doesn’t die, good for our cause either way—that’s how I see it. The assassination will
put an end to the Protector’s dynastic ambitions and throw the whole of the Ministration into a frenzy of horror and confusion.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Then, while
the Protector is in deep mourning for his dear son, the rebels will strike and I will lead them!”

“You think the girl will pull it off?” said Flint. “Succeed in killing Caleb, I mean? She’s scarcely more than a child and
seems so innocent of worldly ways, so gullible. Hardly surprising, I suppose, given those years she spent protected by the
woman in the cellar.”

Titus Molde blew out a ring of nero leaf smoke and watched it curl up toward the holding column of the Gate. They were now
almost opposite the pilothouse on the far side, close enough to the opening to see between the dripping chains into the wheel
room itself, where the slumped, resting figures of the turning-men were silhouetted against the burning lamplight. On the
facing around the outside walls, the engravings of the Birds of Night were silvered by the rising moon, wings raised, bills
stretched forth to strike.

Molde was not afraid of the Night Birds: he admired their cunning and ruthlessness. He knew his voices did too.

“She’ll kill Caleb,” he said. “Unless the Palace guards kill her first.”

I was so terrified, I would have said yes to anything.

A simple little word that would make me a murderess, but save my life. But which of us was worth saving for the other—Caleb
Grouted or me? Was one life ever worth more than another?

Shut up in that tiny room I had time to regret what I’d said a million times. But I had sworn to kill Caleb on the sacred
texts. If I broke my oath I would be damned.

I was trapped.

I didn’t have the courage to ask why Titus Molde wanted Caleb—a fellow soldier and son of the Lord Protector—dead. Some kind
of military rivalry, I thought. I must have sensed Molde was ambitious; I knew he was dangerous.

As the days went by, marked by the tolling of the Curfew bells morning and night, I tried to pray. My knees grew red from
kneeling. Sometimes tears would run down my face, and I couldn’t stop them. I knew there was no escape, either from that room
or from what lay ahead of me. My task, Titus Molde called it.

The tavern keeper’s wife brought me food and drink and emptied my chamber pot, but she never spoke to me, merely looked frightened
when I tried to speak to her. I thought that she must have been forbidden to do so by the soldiers, Molde and Flint.

Molde came to visit, while Flint lurked by the door. The visits were brief, as if he merely wanted to check I was still alive;
and he was brusque. If I asked a question he would brush it aside as a problem of little consequence.

“How will I get near Caleb?”

“I’ll tell you when the time comes.”

“How will I get into the Militia’s headquarters? Will you take me in, Sir?” I had a picture in my mind of him marching me
in as a prisoner and then releasing me secretly in order
for me to carry out my task. By now I had imagined it many times.

He stared at me irritably and then shook his head as if a gnat whined around it. “Caleb isn’t at the headquarters any longer.
He’s on long leave, in his father’s Palace.”

“The Palace of the Protectorate?” The picture jolted.

“We’ll plan to get you in there. Caleb’s about to get married to Leah Tunstall of Murkmere—as soon as she agrees.” He glanced
at Flint by the door. “The Protector’s working on her.”

“Won’t be long, then,” said Flint with a grin that stretched his lips.

I’d taken in but one thing. “M-Miss Leah is in the Palace?” I stammered, staring at them both. “But she’ll remember me from
Murkmere most surely.”

“The girl has a point, Titus,” said Flint.

Molde shrugged impatiently. “We’ll disguise her, if necessary. It’s not a problem.”

Early on the morning of the second day, Molde came alone, when I was walking around the little room, stiff after lying on
the pallet. The bells for the raising of the night’s Curfew had rung only recently.

He pressed something cold into my hand.

“Get used to the feel of this,” he said. “It’s what you’ll use. I want it to become part of you.”

I looked down. It was a dagger.

I would stand at the window for hours, fingering the handle of the dagger, hoping to see the single swan gliding below me.
If I saw it, it would be a symbol of hope to me, of redemption. But it did not appear again.

On the morning of the third day both men came together. Flint was awkwardly carrying a bundle of clothes, which he flung down
on the pallet.

“You’re to have a bath this morning,” said Molde. “The woman downstairs will take you into the kitchen and stay with you.
Flint will be outside the door, so don’t try anything. Then you must dress yourself in these garments.”

He held up a dress between his finger and thumb. It was made from coarse, dark red wool and had long, tight sleeves. On the
pallet were other garments: a bodice, petticoats, white stockings, a black shawl. A pair of wide kid boots. And a black felt
hat with a half veil.

Molde saw my eyes widen at the veil. “You’ll wear the hat as well this afternoon,” he said. “And thereafter. You caught the
plague last summer but recovered. The pustules left bad marks on your forehead, so you veil yourself.” He came closer and
looked down at me. “That is your story. Repeat it to me.”

I did so, my voice trembling.

“And you must never lift the veil, you understand? On no account must they see your eyes.”

I nodded, bewildered.

“The dress should fit you well enough.”

“Whose is it, Sir?” I faltered.

His face hardened. “That doesn’t concern you. She is dead now. She was of a similar height and build. You must never, ever,
roll up the sleeves, of course—never show your scar—in case someone sees it and realizes you are from a Home. That would jeopardize
your task. You’ll find the boots wide enough to hold the dagger.” He looked at me meaningfully.

“I’m making arrangements to get you into the Palace. Never forget that I’ll be waiting for you to carry out your task.”

I shook my head.

“This will be your last morning here. When I return this afternoon I’ll be bringing a visitor with me. Be dressed and ready.
Do you understand?”

I nodded. “I-I am to go, then?” I stammered, unable to believe that freedom lay ahead at last.

Titus Molde glanced back at me as he left, and nodded. “The little songbird shall fly her cage.”

He was a blasphemous man.

I had to have a bath under the curious eyes of the tavern keeper’s wife. I knew Flint was outside and would come into the
steam-filled kitchen on the slightest provocation, so I
dared not complain. I washed with the dried-out chip of soap she had handed me, and tried to pretend she wasn’t there. Afterward,,
I dried myself as best I could on a rough woolen cloth that was already none too clean, and dressed in the clothes of the
dead woman.

The skirts of the dress were a little long, and the boots a little big, but I was used to that. I had worn secondhand shoes
all my life: my toes were bent and curled from them. In any case, I was glad to be rid of the black shift and yellow stockings
at last.

In the stuffiness of my room, my hair soon dried. The last two days had been warmer; the heat in the little room would grow
unbearable with the coming of summer.

I combed my hair with the tortoiseshell comb and tied it back with one of the faded ribbons. I put on the hat and veil and
pulled them well down, then I looked at myself in the mirror from the box. Many women in the Capital wore veils to hide their
wrinkles, so I would not look too out of place. It felt odd to have the scratchy net against my forehead, and beneath it my
face looked strange to me too: peaked and apprehensive, my eyes robbed of color.

I put the comb and mirror back in the box, on top of the reference from Miss Jennet. Last of all, I slipped the dagger in
its sheath down the inside of my right-hand boot. It was a short, straight dagger; I could feel it there, like a splint. I
waited, and my heart seemed to beat out each second heavily in my ears.

I heard the key turn in the lock on the other side of the door. Flint opened it and stood aside so that his visitor could
enter.

He was a boy, a little older than I, and well dressed in a jacket and waistcoat of fine green wool, his ruffled shirt open
at the neck to show an amulet of green jasper stone, his curly hair shiny and clean. He looked exceeding wary, but he had
an honest face. He was certainly not a soldier; I couldn’t tell who he was. He was carrying a ratha, cradling it, I should
say, as if it were the most precious thing on this earth to him; and the wood had a glow to it, as if it were loved.

He stared at me, and then at the room in all its shabbiness and squalor. “Why is she locked up?”

“For her own protection, Master Kester,” said Titus Molde. He’d put on a solicitous deference quite unlike his usual dominant
manner. “We don’t trust the landlord here. The Saggy Bottle tavern is frequented by a rough sort. We thought it safest to
lock her in and keep the key. She’s not been in the Capital more than a few days. I knew her father and like to take care
of her, don’t I, Mr. Flint?”

By the door Flint nodded. “He’s a good guardian, Master Kester, the best.”

Such lies!
I almost choked. I looked imploringly at the boy, but he couldn’t see my eyes.
Take me away
.

He stared at me again, uneasily. “She can sing, you say? I’d like to judge her voice for myself.”

Molde jerked his head at me. “Go on then, girl, show the young gentleman you can sing.”

“Now?” I had no desire to sing in this dreadful place, which had been my prison.

Molde frowned at me warningly; my heart sank.

“Please, Miss,” said the boy. I thought I saw sympathy in his expressive face, some understanding. He gave a half-smile of
encouragement. Titus Molde sat down on a chair and folded his arms; Flint stood in the doorway, watchful.

And so I did my best for the boy, though my voice was thick and trembled. There was not enough air in the room. I sang “I
Left My Love by the Amber Gate.” After I had sung a verse or two, I faltered to a stop. “I remember no more, Sir.”