Skeen's Return (7 page)

Skeen dabbed at her face with the back of her hand. “Sorry, I don't usually.…” She slid off the bed and dug out clean underthings from the pack hanging from a wall peg. “Enough said on both sides. I got the name locked.” She leaned against the wall, working up the energy to lift her leg. “We can stop marking time and start really working now.” She pulled her underpants on, cursing and wincing as she had to bend to straighten a twist: “Nochsyon Tod the slaver. If you agree, you can start the overflights tomorrow as soon as it's dark. If there aren't any strange Min about. Right? Right.” She held out the undershirt and blinked at it, felt about the neck to find the front, then jerked it down over her head. And clutched at her temples. “Dja bo! Never again. Never.…” She opened her eyes and pulled the corners of her mouth down into a painful, inverted grin when she saw Timka's disbelief. She pushed away from the wall, headed for the window and the rest of her clothes. “Considering the coin I got through last night, today better be a good one.” She unpinned the tunic from the curtain, turned to frown at Timka. “You look tired. Want to catch some sleep? The Boy and I can manage alone for once.” Again the inverted grin. “Though you're the one that loosens the purse strings.”

Timka got to her feet. “Let me get rid of this slop and wash up. I'll be down by the time you've eaten.”

“Food, yecch.”

“Don't compound your idiocy, Skeen.”

“You're saying I've got enough already without adding interest? You could be right.”

Shaking her head, Timka took up the pail and went out.

The House of Nochsyon Tod was a rambling walled compound near the South Cusp of the meniscus that was Lowport. It lay a jump and a half from the river and was the last structure of any note on the Sukkar's Skak, that broad and busy thoroughfare that arched through the town from north to south. Though it was mostly surrounded by warehouses and traders' dens deserted come sundown for the livelier center, there was one great advantage to its position. It lay across the Skak from the Armory Guardhouse where the Funor guards and the mercenaries had their barracks. Gathering like fleas about the Armory were taverns and brothels, cookshops and tailors, knife sharpeners, armorers and metalsmiths of assorted skills; indeed, there were dozens of small establishments there to cater to any need the Guards might dream of feeling. Along there the street was never dark or deserted, or even quiet.

The outer walls of Tod's compound were eight meters tall and proportionately broad, made from field-stone, clay and timbers with a rubble fill; a crumbly sandy plaster was pasted over the outside and whitewashed every month or so, more often in the rainy season. The whitewash flaked off at a touch and even under guttering torchlight, a sentry walking along street or alley could instantly spot the marks of any thief ignorant or stupid enough to go after a man who sent barrels of ale across the Skak every minor feast day and donated prime female slaves at the Spring Sarmot for the entertainment of the Guards.

The walls enclosed a space roughly a square and were, very roughly, a hundred meters to a side—they bulged and buckled like a green plank abandoned to rain and sun. A squat watch tower rose at each of the corners and there was a smaller one by the northside Gate where all but the most favored buyers came to inspect Tod's stock. Cressets burned all night, set in a ring about each of the towers and the guard on watch there had little to do but keep them burning. One sentry paced along each section of the wall, moving through the towers and along the ramparts from gate to gate. Three men sufficed for this since there were only three gates. By tacit agreement, they reduced their legwork to one circuit each watch, spending the rest of the time in the towers, taking turns sleeping on pallets they kept there or passing around jugs of homebrew. Having set up the system and considering it admirably efficient, Nochsyon Tod left it to run on its own and was at present quite unaware it had long since begun to run down. There was nothing to provide the tension it took to keep watchers alert when they knew full well their master was peacefully asleep.

Inside the walls.…

THIS COULD SWELL INTO A LONG, COMPLICATED AND NO DOUBT CONFUSING DESCRIPTION, SO LET'S DO SOME COMPRESSING. SEE SKEEN AND TIMKA TALKING LATE AT NIGHT, AN OIL LAMP CREATING EXOTIC SHADOWS THAT SHIFT WITH THE FLICKERING OF THE FLAME. SEE SKEEN AND TIMKA WORKING OVER A SHEET OF PAPER ADDING DETAILS TO A SKETCH MAP. SEE THE PLAN THAT FOLLOWS. IT SHOWS THE PHYSICAL DETAILS COLLECTED BY TIMKA DURING HER SEVERAL OVERFLIGHTS.

SKEEN AND TIMKA BEND OVER THE MAP.

“I can go in over the wall there.” Skeen touched the D tower. “Where there's that deep bay by the gate, it'll give me shelter going down.”

Timka frowned. “Why not here?” She put her finger on the place where the thinner lower garden wall merged with the outside wall. “You're closer to the house, trees for shelter, which you won't need anyway once the guards are asleep.”

“That's one thing you never count on, Ti, guards being asleep. There's always some snerk with insomnia or an overactive bladder. No, I want to keep as far away from the Skak as I can get. Besides there's the woffit pack.”

“I can freeze those. You don't need to worry about the woffits.”

“A dozen? And you told me they don't stay together, they go nosing off alone or in pairs. Besides, I don't like that garden, gives me an itch. I want to keep well away from it.” Skeen moved her shoulders, shivered.

1. THE MAIN HOUSE

la, lb, lc—watch towers

2. PARLOR with Vault Room (2a)

3. ELABORATE AND FUSSY SHOW GARDENS WITH ORNAMENTAL WATER

4. ARENA WHERE SLAVE AUCTIONS ARE HELD FOR THE EXALTED OR THOSE WHO CONSIDERED THEMSELVES EXALTED AND HAD THE POWER TO ENFORCE THIS VIEW ON OTHERS

5. KITCHEN GARDEN

5a—deep well for drinking and irrigating water

6. BARRACKS OF NOCHSYON TOD'S PRIVATE GUARDS

7. CELLS FOR RAMBUNCTIOUS SLAVES

8. SLAVE PENS

9. AUCTION PLATFORM

10. WHIPPING POSTS AND VIEWING BENCHES

Timka made a small impatient sound, but said nothing more.

“So. You're sure you can carry the darter when you're flying?”

“I have hauled heavier fish; yes.”

“Right. Once you dart the guards in D, I'll go over the wall where I said. You said no one moves about in the slave block section once the sun's down. Mmm.” She tapped a fingernail on the watch tower by the slave pen. “We'll need an exact schedule of guard changes here. This one's bound to be more alert; I suspect he'd be taking the place of any slave he allowed to escape. This wall will shield me from the rest of the guards until I go over here.” She tapped the place where the garden wall met the one shutting in the slave pen section. “Dark here, go over fast and low and not even tower C could spot me.” She frowned. “I want to let C alone if I can. Mmm. Worth taking a chance on one of the guards there being awake. I can keep close to the slave pen and the pen wall until I go over the garden wall.” She scratched at the watch towers rising from the house roof. “Bothers me, these. You sure no one is in them?”

“I've been flying four nights now, late and early, and I've never seen anyone there. I took a look in the highest tonight, scared out some pigeons. Old nests, dung all over the floor, cobwebs, dead leaves, some very old mouse bones. Lice crawling over everything.” Timka grinned. “I shifted to fish and took a swim soon as I got away from there. Don't know if I picked up company, but I sure didn't want to keep them if I did. Believe me, Skeen, even the worst sloven would at least sweep the place out before spending any time there.”

“I hear you, but you'd better take a look again the night I go in. Just to be sure nothing's changed. Where was I? Oh. I go over the wall here, fast and low, slice the latches or bars or whatever on the kitchen door here, then I'm in and prowling.”

Timka set her forefinger across her lips, looked thoughtfully at the sketch map. “You don't know anything about the inside of that house. How will you find where Tod keeps his gold?”

“Look for it. Believe me, Ti, it's easier than you think; no matter their kind, folk tend to hide things in the same places and there aren't that many of those places.”

“Still, it wouldn't hurt if I went in and worked out the way the rooms run so you wouldn't have to waste time finding out what's where. And who's where. Woffits in the garden running loose, there could be more in the house. Wouldn't you rather know that before you ran into them?”

Skeen frowned. “Thing is, if you aren't careful, you could run me into a wasp nest, with guards behind every curtain waiting for me to show.”

Timka nodded. “I see that. Listen. Let me sniff about a little and learn the woffit. Who's going to worry about seeing another woffit?”

Skeen ran her thumb along the table's edge. She found herself resenting Timka's persistence, her insistence on contributing to the plan. She found herself almost angry as she saw control slipping away from her, then was angrier at herself for her pettiness. She glanced at Timka who was beginning to fidget at Skeen's continued silence and was jarred by a sudden insight. Did I do that to you, Tibo? Oh, Tibo my heart's darling, did I treat you like a handsome little doll, did I take you out of your box when nothing was happening, did I pack you away when I was doing something I thought was important? Was it me that drove you into striking back? She stared past Timka at the wall and saw neither as she flipped through memory and found nearly every image accusing her now that she had eyes to see what she'd missed before. Aayii, Tibo, it's a wonder you stood me this long. In spite of what memory was telling her, she still could not believe that he had done what he must have done, she still could not understand why he had taken Picarefy and stranded her. Everything she thought she knew about him told her it couldn't happen. But it had. Did someone twist it out of him? She hadn't thought of that before and after a minute she knew why. She simply didn't believe it. He was tough and slippery and once he was onboard Picarefy, he'd have her help. It was him alone. He did it. Why, Tibo? What reason? You had to have a reason. I have to know. I have to know why.

“Skeen?”

Skeen blinked. She cleared her throat, rubbed one hand across the other. “Maggí Solitaire is due around the end of this sennight.”

“What? I know that. We all know that.”

“Yes, yes, but there is a point. What will the Funor Lords do the minute Tod screams he's been robbed?”

“Funor? I don't know. But if this was Dum Besar, the Casach would have all strangers gathered up and dumped in the cells … ah. I see.”

“Too many hostages. You could get out, and Chulji, maybe Lipitero. The Aggitj and the Boy, they'd fight, kill a lot and get killed themselves. Pegwai would get sucked in.…” She spread her hands, sighed. “I want them on Maggí's ship headed out of here before I touch a wall.”

Timka played with the sketch plan, pushing it about with her forefinger. “Aggitj aren't going to like going off without us.”

“I know. Djabo, do I know.” She rescued the plan; Timka was tearing bits off one corner. “Take all the time you need to learn the woffit, I don't want you going in until Pyaday …” she stopped herself, “don't you think?”

Timka chuckled, tapped the back of Skeen's hand. “Pyaday's fine. You want me to hunt up a boat we can use?”

“You know anything about boats?”

“About enough to tell a mast from an oar, enough to know we want one that floats.”

“Idiot.”

“Seriously, I'd take one of the Aggitj, Hal or Domi for choice. Domi told me once he was crawling around in boats before he could walk.”

Skeen slid back in the chair until her head was hooked over the top rung. She yawned, used both hands to scratch at her head, flutter her hair. “You'll have to stick pins in me to get me out of bed come the morning.”

Timka glanced at the window. “Which isn't that far off.
The Balance
is up. Which by the way and don't ask me why reminds me about Angelsin. She watches us.”

“She watches everyone.” Skeen pushed up out of the chair and began stripping. “Her Ant Pack are all over. One or another of them watches us every day we perform. I figure she's one of the local bosses and is keeping an eye on the take.”

“I think it's more than that.”

Skeen hung her tunic on a peg, looked over her shoulder. “Why?”

“Don't know. Like you and the garden.”

“Hm. I'll think about it. But if she's planning something, she won't have much time and she mightn't know that; I paid for another fortn't this morning.”

“I keep thinking about Lipitero.” Timka glanced at the still mound on the narrow cot pushed up against the far wall where the shadow was so deep the forms of cot and sleeper were only dimly visible.