In that, at least, no one was disagreed; we set out across the rough terrain, scrabbling our way through near-darkness to the water's edge, where our vessels lay concealed. Two skiffs in total, and our hard-won gondola. Dense ferns lay rotting in the water; to this day, the smell of decaying fo liage brings that morning back to me in all its nerve-strung anxiety. A thin mist hovered above the river. I took my place beneath the awning of the gondola, as there was no room in the smaller skiffs. With soft splashing and a few muffled curses, we were launched.
It was a tense journey, especially once we were off the sedge-choked river and into the canals proper, wending our path through the waterways of La Serenissima. Once a bissone full of drunken rowdies returning home from the mean tenements of the courtesan's quarter passed nearby to us, voices raised in a ragged, off-key tune, the lantern in their prow casting wavering light over the dark waters. We hid ourselves in the shadows alongside the canal, all of us crouching low and scarce daring to breathe. Once they had gone, the oarsmen set our vessels to gliding silently out once more.
The street on which the warehouse was located was a quiet one; the residences were slightly more modest than those that lined the Great Canal, interspersed with some of the more elegant trade establishments, jewelers and drapers and the like. Beyond the two-storied roofs, I could see the pointed domes of the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea looming in the predawn sky to obscure the paling stars,
"There," Sarae whispered, her voice carrying faintly over the water. She pointed to a marble building, long and low, with a single entrance at street level. In the first skiff, Ti- Philippe was already making for it. We came noiselessly alongside and disembarked. One oarsmen stayed in each of the smaller rowboats, and a pair of Illyrians in the gondola.
"Get as near to the harbor as you dare, and turn the boats loose," Joscelin murmured in Caerdicci. "Come back swiftly, but have a care for guards."
I repeated it in Illyrian, and Kazan nodded curt agreement. If we had any hope of going undetected, it would hardly do to have three strange vessels moored in the vicinity. The oarsmen pushed off and headed toward the harbor, quick and stealthy.
It left fifteen of us huddled on the dark street, a motley assortment bristling with arms, dreadfully suspicious and vulnerable to any passersby. I thought of the looming temple domes and shivered. One outcry was all it would take to bring the Serenissiman Guard down on us.
The door to the warehouse was of solid oaken construc tion, half again as tall as a man, with Asherat's crown of stars etched in silver. Joscelin and Kazan both felt at it, drawing daggers to pry at the hinges and the massive lock. It was well and truly bolted, secured from within, the hinges set deep and tight. The Illyrians muttered under their breath. I wrapped my cloak around me and shifted from foot to foot, tense and nervous. Kazan swore and struck the marble blocks of the building with the heel of his palm; one of the Habiru made a stifled sound in his throat.
I couldn't stand it any longer. "Name of Elua! Joscelin, get out of the way," I hissed, wrenching loose the silver falcon brooch that clasped my cloak. He stepped aside obligingly and Kazan raised his eyebrows as I stuck the pin between my teeth, bending the tip into a tiny hook. Crouching, I worked it into the lock, feeling my way for the tumbler that would drop the bar on the far side and silently blessing Hyacinthe for having taught me this dubious skill. 'Twas not a difficult lock, but it was a heavy one and I held my breath as I caught the tumbler, maneuvering it with delicacy lest it bend the slender silver pin.
In the midst of my operation came the sound of pelting footsteps, bare feet slapping softly on the wooden walkway; the oarsmen, returning. I didn't dare look up, but I heard a gasping voice. "A squadron of guardsmen coming on foot! Halfway to the corner!"
Illyrian steel scraped as Kazan's men reached for their hilts, and I heard an anxious, murmured prayer in Habiru. "Phèdre?" Joscelin's voice asked calmly.
I closed my eyes and bore down on the pin, levering the tumbler to the left. The pin bent, bent... and held. With a solid chunking sound, the bar dropped. Clutching my cloak closed with one hand, I set the other to the handle of the warehouse door and tried it.
It gave, opening onto a wedge of dark interior.
"Go, go!"
We piled inside in a mass, barefoot oarsmen with boots in hand, no order of procedure to our company, and someone closed the door behind us, softly and firmly. Inside, it was wholly dark. There were high windows along the outer wall to admit daylight, but nothing penetrated in these small hours before dawn. Whispering, shuffling bodies jostled me. Someone trod on the hem of my cloak, nearly jerking it from my shoulders. I took it off and wrapped it over one arm.
It would have looked humorous, I imagine, if anyone could have seen us in our tight, milling knot. No doubt it did when a door at the rear of the main chamber was thrown open and a sudden blaze of torchlight fell over us.
"What... ?" It was one of the Temple eunuchs, blinking and sleepy-eyed, a torch in one upraised hand and his cer emonial spear held loosely in the other, silver barbed head pointing at the floor. And no more than that did he say, for Sarae, acting on terrified reflex, brought up her crossbow and fired at him.
The barb took him in the throat; he blinked once more, slow and surprised, while his spear fell with a clatter. Still clutching his torch, he sank to his knees and slumped for ward, facedown and motionless, the torch now guttering on the floor beside his outstretched hand.
It was Kazan and his men who raced forward instantly, swords drawn and bucklers raised, hurdling the fallen figure to enter the chambers beyond. They were pirates, after all, scourges of the sea, trained to a swarming attack. Sick at heart, I followed, while Joscelin and Ti-Philippe set grimly about retrieving the torch and directing the Yeshuites to search the rest of the building.
There had been four attendants in all set to watch over the warehouse; there were sleeping quarters, a privy cham ber and a meager kitchen beyond the door from which the first had emerged. Two more were dead by the time I got there, slain half-naked in their beds, and Tormos had his sword raised for the killing stroke against the fourth.
"No!" I cried. He paused. "Eisheth's mercy, we don't need them dead, Kazan!" I pleaded. "Let him live, and he may show us the passage."
Kazan hesitated, then said shortly, "Do as she says."
They had been young, the attendants of the warehouse; the survivor was no exception. I guessed him no older than Joscelin's Yeshuites, though 'twas harder to tell since he was cut and beardless. He watched with wide, terrified eyes as the Illyrians cleaned their weapons and I drew near.
"What is your name?" I asked softly.
"Cer ... Cervianus." Shock and fear prompted his stut tering answer.
"Cervianus, aid us and you will live, I promise. There is a passage below the canals to the Temple of Asherat. I need you to show us."
His eyes darted this way and that and his throat moved as he swallowed audibly, but for all his terror, he was no coward. "I know of no such passage."
"Do you fear to betray the goddess?" I asked him, and his eyes fixed on my face, pupils dilating. "Cervianus, I swear to you, Asherat-of-the-Sea has already been betrayed, by one who stands high in her favor, and this night's doings are the fruit of that betrayal. Although I serve another, I have come to avenge her."
Some of Kazan's men grumbled; they had come to kill Serenissimans. I ignored them.
No coward and no fool, Cervianus. He licked his lips, trembling. "And if I do not aid you? What then?"
"You will die," I said. "And we will find it anyway."
He closed his eyes briefly. "It's in the underchamber. The door is hidden. Let me put on clothing, and I will show you."
The Illyrians stepped back, allowing him to rise. Trusting to Kazan to keep order, I returned to the warehouse space. Joscelin and the others were waiting; there had been no one else present, only rows of oil jars and stacks of dried goods, as Sarae had claimed. She was pale-faced and shaky, and Micah was attempting to soothe her. Joscelin met my eyes as I returned.
"She killed a man in cold blood," he said. "It takes one hard."
"I know," I said. "Where did you get crossbows, any way?"
"We took them from the guards at the watchtower at La Dolorosa." He glanced at her with pity. "I thought it would be safer for her to carry one. We're doomed anyway if we're caught, and she's not skilled with the daggers."
I unfolded my cloak and shook it out, settling it over my shoulders and shoving the bent brooch-pin through the woolen fabric and fastening it. "Her ill luck to be a good shot," I said wryly. "Mayhap 'tis better they know such things, before they choose to battle their way to the north- lands. Prophecies never name the blood-price they exact."
"No." Joscelin roused himself with a shake. "The others?"
"Dead, but for one," I said. "He's agreed to show us the passage. I promised him his life for it."
"Let's go, then."
Another torch and a few lamps had been found and kindled, and by their light, Cervianus led us to the rear of the warehouse. He had donned the deep-blue tunic of Asherat's attendants, the emblem of her starry crown worked in silver thread on the breast, rich and glimmering amid the Illyrians who surrounded him, but his eyes looked like dark holes in the mask of his face.
"It is there," he said faintly, pointing at a mammoth clay vessel, shoulder-high to Kazan. "Beneath the jar."
With a doubtful grunt, Kazan set his shoulder to the jar and shoved. It tilted beneath his force, being empty, and two others joined him in rolling it carefully to one side. Cervianus had spoken the truth. Beneath lay a trapdoor, set flush into the stones of the floor. Joscelin grasped the iron ring and hauled up on it; with a faint screech of hinges, the door opened to reveal a gaping square of darkness below, smelling of stale air and mildew. There were worn stone steps leading downward, the first few visible by torchlight.
"And this leads to the Oracle's balcony in the Temple proper, yes?" I asked Cervianus.
"Yes." He turned his hollow gaze on me. "Beneath the canal."
"And the Oracle does not preside from thence over the ceremony of investiture?"
"N... no." Cervianus hesitated, and shook his head. "Only twice a year, at the
Fatum Urbanus.
I think. I do not know, for certain. I am only a junior attendant, and a Doge has never been invested in my lifetime. But..."
"But they would have told you, were the tunnel to be opened for the Oracle's usage, would they not?" I asked gently. "That you might make ready to receive her, until she could return unseen."
"Yes." He stared at me with bitter hatred in his shadowed eyes. I did not blame him. "It is our duty, to keep the inventory and ward the passage. They would have told us."
"So." Joscelin knelt beside the open trap door, holding a lamp and peering into the darkness below. "Are there guards within the tunnel, or at the other end?"
"There are no other
guards!"
Cervianus spat out the words in fury. "It was our duty, our sacred duty! No one knows of this passage. A thousand and more years ago, the masons who built it were slain to keep it secret."
"Charming," Joscelin murmured. Sarae made an invol untary sound, choked at the realization of the extent to which her great-great-aunt Onit's death-bed tales had be trayed the trade-secrets of the order that had sheltered her for most of her life. I sat on my heels, thinking.
"Cervianus," I asked, "what is happening in the Temple now?"
He gave a sullen shrug, then winced when Kazan Atrabiades prodded his ribs with a dagger. "The Priestess of the Crown and her six Elect hold a vigil, praying that Asherat- of-the-Sea will accept the people's choice as Her Beloved and a true bond may be forged. So I am told. At dawn the preparations begin, and when the sun strikes the crown of Her image which overlooks the harbor, the procession will begin from the Doge's Palace to enter the Temple."
"Then," I said, "we had best make ready."
SEVENTY-THREE
1 he steps leading down into the tunnel were narrow and treacherous, overgrown with a slick coating of mold. I could well believe this passage was used but twice a year. We went in single file, with Joscelin in the lead. I followed close on his heels and Ti-Philippe behind me; Kazan and his Illyrians followed.
After the bloodshed in the warehouse, the Yeshuites were less loathe to be left behind to secure our retreat. Those who had fought on the mainland at La Dolorosa had done so against armed prison guards; 'twas another matter altogether, this slaying out of hand of innocent attendants, ceremonial spears or no. We found a stack of grain sacks bound with twine and cut the cord, using it to tie Cervianus securely, hand and foot, gagging him with a wad of bed-linen.
It pained me, but there was nothing else for it. I had promised him his life, and we could not risk leaving him free to give an alarm. The gag cut sharply into the corners of his mouth, and his sunken eyes continued to glare hatred at me. I spoke to him before we left.
"For what it is worth," I said to him, "I spoke the truth to you, Cervianus. I am sorry for the deaths of your com panions."
