Kalimpura (Green Universe) (25 page)

It did not take me so long to don my leathers. My long knife went in my thigh scabbard. My god-blooded short knife was tucked into my right forearm. I had not yet replaced the left knife.

This would be simple, easy. Just a little reconnaissance. I might even be lucky enough to find what I sought. I knew nothing would go wrong, I had that much confidence in myself. Our secrecy would be preserved, and we would know more than we did.

More to the point, I would have taken action. Done something for myself, for Samma and Corinthia Anastasia.

For all of us.

Departing the house was no great trick. As I’d written to Chowdry, we were not prisoners. Not in the conventional sense. There were no locks except on the outer gates, and those keys we ourselves held.

Still I went over the wall, for practice and stealth both, and left my promises behind. Some needs were greater than others. I was finally listening to my conscience.

*   *   *

The Bittern Court also stood on Shalavana Avenue, near the intersection with the Gita, a ceremonial highway of ancient times long since converted to a city street. Their compound was a large complex even by the standards of wealthy property in this city. Where we had been sheltering in a great house, in the Petraean sense, the Bittern Court was quite literally a palace.

For all that Surali and the schemes of the Bittern Court had reached into my life so deeply, I had never set foot there before. I was out this night against my given word to learn something. Anything, in a sense, but most specifically the disposition of their prisoners of my conscience.

I ghosted along the little jig-jagging street that ran roughly parallel to Shalavana Avenue, serving as a sort of alley behind the great properties that lined that road. To my left loomed walls and gates and stable arches and little docks where carts could unload whatever the needs of the wealthy and powerful had caused to be delivered. To my right were rows of modest homes, all of them much smaller, that housed servants, guards, and lesser relatives, along with anyone else whose affairs required such constant closeness to their betters.

The silent walls of the wealthy bore me little threat. I was more concerned with watchful eyes from the windows of their retainers.

Still, as I had long known, there is an art to skulking. It largely consists of not seeming to skulk. I walked boldly in my leathers, whistling silently—not being a complete fool—for the air it gave me.

This would not be a case of rushing the front gate with weapons in hand. I’d done that before, most notably to Surali’s rented house in Copper Downs with the Rectifier at my back. My gigantic pardine friend was not here, however. More to the point, I did not want to draw anywhere near such attention to myself. Alerting Surali’s guards that I had trespassed their grounds would be more dangerous to Corinthia Anastasia and to Samma than almost anything else I could do.

My steps faltered with that thought.

Dare I?

The stillness was a torture of its own. Lying low served as a kind of defeat. Once I’d scouted, I’d be much better prepared to lead the Blade allies Mother Vajpai kept not-quite-promising me.

We would not go blind into this place. Yes, I assured myself, this was the responsible thing to do.

Over the years I have come to realize that most decisions are made in the absence of ratiocination, convenient facts being marshaled afterwards to support the deeds of the moment. That night may have been the nadir of such behavior on my part.

Still, even now, I would rather reason with forward momentum and sufficient force than lurk like a woman-spider in some web. The irony of this does not escape me, and the much younger Green in that alley would have laughed to see me now.

I approached the Bittern Court’s back wall with a confident stride. This would be roof work, and windows, along with subduing both guards and servants before they could spot me. If I found myself in a stand-up fight tonight, I would already have lost before the first blood was drawn.

*   *   *

The wall presented no great challenge. It was not so much defense as boundary. I scrambled up a stack of broken-down crates awaiting the wood cart and slipped over the top into the thick garden beyond. I had been certain of my destination thanks to the bushy treetops gleaming in the moonlight from above the wall’s height.

In this, I was not disappointed. The garden was another matter. Someone with sense had trimmed back the undergrowth so I had no cover beneath the papaya trees but night’s shadow. Much of what grew before me in the open ground beyond the trees had been planted in great iron or clay pots. The ground was largely raked gravel.

At least no one was out for a midnight stroll. The guards, wherever they were, did not seem to be in evidence here with me.

I crouched back into the shadows and studied the way the garden unfolded, and the buildings beyond. They definitely were buildings in the plural, I noted with no little disappointment. I had been expecting something like the great house in which we were sheltered.

Kalimpuri architecture was more idiosyncratic, less enclosed, than the run of buildings on the Stone Coast. Much less need to shelter from the weather encouraged creativity in the placement of walls, I supposed. But this place had been built as what the Petraeans would have called a folly.

A large central building dominated the land. It was quite tall, perhaps four storeys, with a swaybacked roof peaked at each end and long, sweeping eaves, all covered in tile that glittered pale in the night. The side I could see, the
back,
was faced with enormous pillars three or four rods high. In the shadows, I thought I could spy a pair of massively tall doors.

A hall, then. A throne room, in fact.

Almost a dozen lesser structures surrounded the central building. Some were barely more than pavilions; others had the thick-walled look of kitchens, storehouses, or barracks. Roofed walkways joined them together. Certain of those had screened or paneled walls; others were wide open. A few were elevated, passing across plantings, ponds, and other walkways.

This was like the open plan of our own hideaway house taken to an extreme.

It also made my scouting prospects very difficult indeed.

A series of structures laid out like this would not have convenient servants’ hallways running behind the main rooms, as so many houses in Copper Downs did. It was also quite unlikely that any system of underground passages connected them: even if Kalimpura’s limited sewers ran here—and I had no idea whether they did or did not—those tunnels would at most connect in one or two places.

I would have to do this the hard way. And hope everyone was very much asleep.

At least in sliding along the wall, I could keep to the shadows. I’d marked an elevated stone patio as my destination. It came closest to the boundary of anything in my line of sight, and seemed to be a jumble of furniture and potted palms, as if someone had hosted a banquet up there and not yet gotten around to sending everything back to the storerooms.

I could work with the broken sight lines and jumbled shadows up there. At least no one had left torches or lamps burning the garden. The hall and its satellite structures were quite dark.

Once I was done with Surali, she would never sleep without lights again.

*   *   *

The west wall of the great hall was composed of ornately carved panels. On close inspection, I declined to climb it. Getting around the deep eaves at the top would be an ugly business. After that, well, what would I have? A roof difficult to get back down from, and a slightly better view than I already enjoyed.

Instead, I scrambled up to the top of one of the covered walkways and began to trot lightly along their length. I was interested in the second- and third-storey windows of the smaller buildings. Seeing who slept where seemed a productive pursuit. If I were lucky, I would find thick shutters barred from the outside. Then I would know where my prisoners were.

A brief fantasy of a swift, quiet escape flitted through my head. I envisioned myself sneaking Corinthia Anastasia and Samma back into our hidden retreat, simply allowing them to be discovered in the kitchen come morning, sipping tea and ready to tell of their misadventures.

That was just silly, and I knew better, even then. Girls dream of heroism and high accomplishments. Women do the job before them.

My job was to keep looking.

A creaking door caused me to halt and bend low in place. A walkway three rods to my left glowed with the bobbing of a candle. I remained still, a lumpy shadow, and watched an old woman shuffle along with a taper held close in her hand.

She walked like someone sleepy and safe in her own home. A servant or a mistress, I could not tell. I watched her pass through another doorway into a squat, three-storey building with several dozen windows. A twenty-count later, the shutters of one of the upstairs windows glowed briefly.

Sitting up with the sick? Or a servant at the long end of her day?

I crept awhile among the scents of frangipani and bougainvillea. There were windows to peer into, doors to watch. Paths to make note of.

What there lacked was any sign of a block of cells, or a heavily guarded building, or a desperate note from one of my missing lodged in a window shutter. Even mugging a servant or a guard was unlikely to be helpful here, given the complexity of the place. Besides, where would I find one right at that moment?

All too sadly quiet, in other words. Both in the back of the property and around to the front.

The Rectifier and I had braced Surali’s rented mansion in Copper Downs more or less single-handedly, helped by the limited entrances and exits, and the relatively compact structure. This place was a warren. An entire army of Blades could become lost here, chasing themselves around.

How am I going to accomplish this?

With help, of course. With lots of help. Exactly as Mother Vajpai had been counseling me.

I’d needed to come look, regardless. At least now I knew.

Back to the rear gardens and over the wall, then. I wondered if I could conceal my little excursion completely from Mother Vajpai and Mother Argai. Probably not, unfortunately.

I sidled across the patio, moving irregularly among the shadows of furniture and potted palms. Once I was down among those bushy papaya trees, I would be on my way back, cover or no cover.

The first crossbow quarrel sliced the air by my ear with a noise like torn cloth. It spanged off a rock not far in front of me, implying a high angle from the bowman.

Stealth abandoned, I sprinted for the back wall. This was no place for a fight, especially not if they could identify me in the process. A pair of guards loomed up in front of me, spears forward.

I was in no mood to charge braced shafts. Instead, I swerved rightward and scrambled up the east wall. That would put me in the neighboring yard rather than out in the public street, but, well, I could always send a note of apology later.

Over the top and I was down into someone’s banana trees. They crashed loudly, broad leaves ripping. Several of the shallow-rooted trunks toppled with squelching noises.

By the Wheel, that was not good. This would raise the house guards here as well. I kept running, breathing a little hard now and wondering both how to look like a mere burglar and what to do next.

*   *   *

Crashing through the brush near the back wall of the neighboring property, I heard shouting behind me. No other crossbow quarrels had come close yet, but I did not doubt they were being loosed as well. Torches flared, too—that I could tell by the changing shadows around me.

I pushed through a stand of tall ornamental sedge and bounced off something large. Large and warm. Two glowing spots about a foot apart loomed in front of me. Hot, meaty breath blew and I heard a slow rumble amid the unmistakable rankness of a very large cat.

My legs warmed as I wet myself. This was a tiger. Loose in someone’s yard. Looking at me from less than an arm’s length away.

Cover already blown, I screamed and milled my arms. The tiger took a half step back, becoming shadow in deeper shadow, then rose. No, it was on its haunches. If they hunted like housecats, this one was about to leap. I glanced down at a pale paw as big around as my face, then leapt forward myself, shoulder first, to plow into the tiger and roll across its back.

It spun. The tail whipped at me, but I was already sprinting for the wall that loomed only a rod or two away. Behind me a roar echoed, followed immediately by the distant laughter of men.

They thought they had me, the bastards.

This wall was smooth stone, close-set without convenient mortared handholds. I slid to my right, running, hearing the tiger move behind me. I didn’t
want
to fight it, I didn’t know
how
to fight it, and if I spent more than few seconds doing so, those crossbowmen would find me in the dark just by the noise.

Unless Surali’s men have been warned not to shoot her neighbor’s tiger …

That thought caused me to juke to the right again. I turned hard on one heel and raced directly toward my human pursuers. Grass crackled behind me as the tiger paced.

He was a cat. He would play before he killed.
Fine,
I told myself,
play with me just few seconds longer.

I was out on the broader lawn now. Half a dozen men with torches approached, talking loudly. I knew this brag. It was how they nerved themselves to face something they were afraid of. Me, an armed shadow. The tiger, a quantity they possibly knew all too well.

Racing toward them out of the darkness, I shouted, “He’s got the poor bastard!” I glanced over my shoulder to see that yes, I was still being pursued.

Crossbows came up and swords were lifted. I’d faced both of those before. Head down, god-blooded short knife out, I bowled right into them. I heard at least two sets of strings twang, followed by the bellowing roar of the tiger and a strangled yelp from someone.

Then I was gone and they were screaming.