Forged in Blood I (20 page)

“Sorry about your wife,” the second officer added once the new shoppers had moved into another aisle.

Amaranthe grimaced. She hadn’t heard all the details when it came to Maldynado’s sister-in-law’s death, but suspected her team would get blamed for it. She pulled out a kerchief and swept up some of the dust balls.

“Yes, thank you, Horat,” Ravido said. “It’s hard to find a woman of the proper lines who’s horny and unfaithful.”

His comrade, Horat, grunted. “You’ll miss her. You’re just as horny and unfaithful. You had a good arrangement.”

“I’m more concerned about
arranging
things with the Company of Lords right now. Unless I’m willing to replace every dissenter in the chamber, it won’t matter how many troops I control or how much of the city I take over. If they don’t make my claim for emperor official it isn’t.”

The hangers squeaked and the men’s boots shifted again as they grunted greetings toward someone passing, then turned their backs toward the room. A couple of salutes might have been exchanged, but it was hard to tell from under the trousers.

“You
can
replace people,” Horat said. “It’s been done in the past.”

“I know, but killing a bunch of warrior-caste men would set a bad precedent for a new ruler. Your father’s on the Company. Talk to him, will you?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I’ve already promised you the Commander of the Armies position,” Ravido said. “What more do you want?”

“You could send a few of the younger, more buxom women in that business organization to warm my toes at night.” Horat chuckled. “No, I jest. I’ll talk to Father. But you better figure out if the boy is really back in the city. With your family connections, you could
have
most of the votes from the Company if you could prove he’s dead, but if he’s not…”

Amaranthe’s kerchief stilled. The
boy
. Sespian.

“If he was dumb enough to come back here, he won’t be alive for long. If my men don’t get him, there are others who will. Besides, my contacts said he’s not even the legitimate heir.”

Horat let out a low whistle. “Truly?”

“I’m surprised the papers haven’t run the story yet. They—”

“Lords General?” came a solicitous call from a few racks away. “I have those uniform designs ready for you to look at now.”

“Good,” Ravido said.

As the two men walked away, the last thing Amaranthe heard was Horat saying, “You better find something you like this time. Those gutter-swinging gang brats can do better than sashes tied around their arms.”

“One can’t rush fashion decisions, old boy,” Ravido said, for a moment sounding exactly like Maldynado. “An impeccably dressed army is full of pride—it makes your men fight better.”

If Horat had a response, Amaranthe didn’t hear it. A pair of alligator-skin boots with lizard-riding spurs clanked into view behind her. She vaguely remembered Maldynado mentioning the Kendorian attire was growing popular in the capital. It hardly mattered. She took the foot traffic as a sign that it was time to scoot out of the shop before someone spotted her. She turned about, preparing to scurry to the next rack as soon as the man passed, but a silver ranmya coin clunked onto the wooden floor and bounced under the rack with her.

She stifled a groan. If he noticed and stopped to hunt for it…

The alligator boots halted, and the man turned around. A knee came into view, then a hand touched down, patting the floor not inches from Amaranthe’s legs. For lack of a better idea, she picked up the coin and rolled it back out into the aisle. Maybe he’d think it had bumped against the rack stand and was coming back of its own accord—his lucky day.

The hand jerked back as the prize rolled out. The blunt, stubby fingers made a grasp, but missed, only bumping the coin and causing it to spin out of sight beneath the trouser rack on the opposite side of the aisle.

A head wearing an outlandish ostrich feather hat dropped into Amaranthe’s view. If she hadn’t known Maldynado was in the building next door—and wearing different clothes—she might have thought it was he. It certainly seemed his style of clothing. But, no,
he
had better reflexes. He would have caught the coin.

While the man patted around beneath the opposite rack, Amaranthe eased backward, thinking she’d risk slipping out that way, even if it wasn’t far from the front window. She could take a side aisle toward the rear of the store. But a fresh pair of boots came into view over there. It had to be lunch hour or something. Or this was
the
trendiest military clothier in the capital. Given that Maldynado had chosen the shopping district, it might very well be true.

She scrunched up into a tiny ball, hoping the shadows would hide her if Alligator Boots looked her way. He was fishing all over for that cursed coin. Couldn’t someone who could afford to shop in Millinery Square afford to lose a coin?

Finally, he knelt back with the ranmya in his hand. He glanced under Amaranthe’s rack. She froze, holding her breath. There
were
shadows. Were there enough? Now and then, Ravido’s voice drifted up from the back of the store—it wasn’t safe to be spotted yet.

The man squinted into her gloom. What was he doing? Hoping there were more lost coins down there?

He must have seen her, for he parted the trousers, letting light beneath the rack.

With no other options, Amaranthe scrambled out. She stayed on her knees, so nobody in the back of the shop—or standing in the street beyond the window—would see her and waved her kerchief up at the man.

“Those are fine ones,” she said. “I’ll only charge you five ranmyas if you’re interested?”

The man rose to his feet, the ostrich-feather hat shadowing his features, but not quite hiding his blinks of confusion. “For… what?”

“Your boots, of course.” Amaranthe waved the kerchief again, hoping the dust smearing it made it look authentic. Of course, boot polish would be better, but she hadn’t come that prepared. “A shine. It won’t take long.”

“You work here?”

Right, her ruffled dress didn’t exactly say shoeshine girl. “During my lunch break,” Amaranthe said, though she couldn’t imagine what sort of daytime job she might claim while wearing the childish dress. “A girl’s got to make a ranmya when she can. For a handsome gentleman such as yourself, I’ll do your boots for four ranmyas.” She beamed a smile up at him and gazed into his eyes—hadn’t Sicarius said something about her eyes being warm and innocent once?

The ostrich-hat turned toward the back of the shop. “Murkos, do you know there’s a shoeshine girl trying to home in on your customers?”

In the seconds his head was turned, Amaranthe slithered under another rack and into the aisle along the wall. Staying low, she darted for the curtain in the rear.

“A what?” came the return question. “No, there shouldn’t be. Grab her, will you?”

Not likely. Amaranthe reached the back curtain, belly-crawled under it so she wouldn’t disturb the fabric, and popped up. Yara was still there, though she stood by the back exit, the door ajar as she peered into the alley.

“We need to go,” Amaranthe whispered.

“My oaf is outside chatting with a squad of soldiers,” Yara said.

“Chatting?”

Yara closed the door. “Chatting at gunpoint.”

“Their gunpoints, I presume.” As much as Amaranthe appreciated the idea of Maldynado surrounding a squad of soldiers by himself, she doubted it was the case.

“Yes, and they’re right in front of the door. Any chance we can go out the front?”

“No, Ravido is still out there.”

“Where’d she go?” a familiar voice demanded from somewhere in the middle of the store—the miserly ostrich-hat man who couldn’t let a coin go.

“Also, it’s possible I’d attract attention going that way.” Amaranthe slipped past Yara. She wanted her own peek outside.

Unfortunately, her peek didn’t reveal anything more appealing than Yara’s. Eight burly soldiers surrounded Maldynado, four on each side of him, trapping him in the narrow alley. Though he was amiably talking and gesturing as they searched his shopping bags, there were no less than six guns pointed at his chest. The men’s white armbands proclaimed the squad belonged to Ravido, detached from the group out front most likely.

Amaranthe closed the door. Yara was right; there was no way they could walk outside without being seen. If they caught the soldiers by surprise, she, Yara, and Maldynado might get the best of eight men in a fight, but with twenty more waiting out front, she didn’t like the odds overall.

“I don’t suppose telling them that their general is in here buying them new uniforms would excite them to the point of forgetting about us,” Amaranthe muttered.

Yara’s only response was a withering look. Probably a no.

Amaranthe peered about the back room, searching for inspiration. The recently tailored uniforms hanging on the wall and the cloth swatches on the worktable might be flammable, but she couldn’t picture creating anything spectacularly explosive using them. Aside from scissors and needles, there wasn’t much else to note. A couple of featureless ceramic busts held wigs, while others supported fur caps in the middle of receiving embroidered designs that signified prominent battles the owner had served in. Amaranthe touched one of the wigs. Explosions might not be the
only
way to escape.

She considered the uniforms again. On some of them, the rank pins hadn’t been removed. She selected one that might do for someone around six feet tall and handed it to Yara with a smile.

“Congratulations on your promotion to—” she glanced at the brass swords on the collar, “—captain.”

“Are you
insane
?” Yara whispered. “Nobody’s going to believe we’re officers. Or
men
.” She waved toward Amaranthe’s chest.

“It’s cold outside. We can bundle up. We only need to pass scrutiny for a minute. I’ll think of something to distract them.”

“Why don’t I find that comforting?” Yara growled, but she snatched the uniform.

“I’m certain I don’t know.” Amaranthe gave a cheery wink and grabbed the shortest uniform on the wall.

“They’d be more likely to be distracted if we ran out naked,” Yara muttered, fiddling with buttons.

“We want to distract the
soldiers
, not Maldynado.”

“…look around, don’t you think?” someone asked from the front. “…was a shifty looking girl… stealing from you.”

Stealing?
Shifty?
Hmmph. Amaranthe tore off her distasteful dress, hid it in a waste bin, and pulled on the uniform trousers. She donned a white shirt, not bothering to button or tuck it in before throwing on the jacket. There wasn’t time to dally over the subtleties of the costume. All she could do was make sure the rank pins on the collars matched those on the hats she grabbed. She’d be the lieutenant to Yara’s captain. She hoped the men outside didn’t stop to wonder why an LT was doing all the talking, or to look too closely at the ill-fitting uniforms. Too bad it wasn’t dark out. That would have hidden a lot of discrepancies.

“What about boots?” Yara whispered.

Amaranthe didn’t see any lying around. The military cobbler’s shop was probably next door. “Just wear your own.”

“We’re going to be the most disheveled officers in the army.”

In the midst of pulling up a pair of suspenders, Amaranthe froze. The “something to distract them” she’d been trying to think up had popped into her mind. “Yes,” she said, smiling. “Yes, we will.”

Yara shook her head in an I-don’t-want-to-know manner and pointed at Amaranthe’s face. “You look too much like a girl.”

Yes, between Yara’s height, more angular features and her short hair, she’d have an easier time passing for a man at a glance, but Amaranthe…

She grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off a swath of hair on one of the wigs. She dug into a brown glass jar labeled
wig glue
and cobbled together the worst fake mustache anyone had ever seen.

“That is
not
going to fool anyone,” Yara said.

“Sure it will,” Amaranthe whispered as she glued hair to her upper lip, “because I’ll be standing behind you and staggering.”

“Staggering?”

“I’ll check in the back,” someone said from the other side of the curtain.

Their time was up. Amaranthe grabbed Yara’s elbow and propelled her toward the door. “We’ve just been mauled in a surprise attack, and we’re injured. Stagger!”

Yara growled again, but she shoved open the door and staggered appropriately. Amaranthe clutched her abdomen, hunched over, and tumbled outside and down the steps after her. She bumped into Yara’s back, adding realism—she
hoped
that was the right word for it—to the staggering.

“What—” one of the soldier’s near the stairs asked.

Fortunately, none of the guns swung toward Amaranthe and Yara, not yet anyway. Maldynado, still surrounded by soldiers, his shopping bags on the ground with their contents strewn about, stared at Amaranthe, but didn’t say anything.

“They’ve got General Marblecrest,” Amaranthe blurted, making her voice as deep as she could. “General Flintcrest’s men.” She flung her arm toward the door, even as she tumbled to her knees. “Hurry, the others are knocked out. Some slagging magic.”

Before she’d finished speaking, soldiers were charging for the stairs. Only a sergeant and private with their guns trained on Maldynado hesitated.

“But, sir, we’ve got a prisoner. It’s Lord Marblecrest’s little brother. He might be in on it!”

“I’ll watch him,” Yara said gruffly, doing her own male-voice impression as she reached for the soldier’s pistol.

The private started to hand it to her, but the sergeant was peering at Yara’s face. “Wait. Who are—”

With the sergeant’s attention on her, Maldynado launched a fist at his jaw. It connected with enough force to spin him about. Maldynado rammed his shoulder into the man’s back, sending him face-first into the side of the stone building. Before the private could react, Yara grabbed his pistol with one hand and slammed her heel into his nose with the other. He reeled back, and she thrust him into the other wall.