The Lascar's Dagger (19 page)

At the top of the chimney, he found his exit blocked by four chimney pots. Fortunately, the lime mortar was old and cracked, and when he scratched at it with his dagger, chunks of it fell away. Even so, no amount of pushing and heaving on his part budged the pots from their place. Swearing under his breath, he continued scraping and shoving until one final heave sent them crashing down on to the roof. They exploded on the copper surface like thunder, the pieces clattering down the pitch towards the guttering loud enough to wake every sleeping cleric in the building.

He levered himself out of the chimney, jumped on to the roof, hitched up his filthy robe and began to run. At least it was a bright moonlit night and his footing was sure. Somewhere below people shouted, wanting to know what was happening, but he took no notice. He couldn’t see anyone and guessed they were calling out from their windows after hearing the crash of the falling chimney pots. Somewhere ahead he’d find a way down to the ground; the Faith House roof connected to other buildings along the street.

Tarnation,
he thought.
How am I going to enter the palace when I must look like a chimney sweep?
He’d have to find a bathhouse that was open…

The night that Ardhi decided to reclaim his kris was a dark one, moonless and wet. Rain – birthed in storm clouds and borne on cold winds – gusted in drenching bursts. Any sensible person was inside, tucked up in a warm bed. Ardhi, however, was scaling the outer wall that circled the grounds of the King’s palace in the heart of Throssel.

At last it is within reach …
I can feel it, so close now.
His eyes misted over, with rain, or tears of relief and anticipation, he couldn’t tell.

It had taken him more than a year to arrive in Throssel. In Oakwood, he’d lost several months to illness, holed up in a Shenat hospice coughing his lungs inside out. Once he was on his feet again, the trail was cold and he’d taken the wrong road south. Forced to backtrack, he’d sold his hoard of spices little by little, marvelling at how high the price spiralled, until at last he found traces of the Chenderawasi
sakti
again. After he’d arrived in Throssel, his search had been no easier: there were traces of the kris everywhere. His problem had become to sort out which were the most recent. In that, he’d failed. He’d criss-crossed the city, but all he could determine for sure was that the power of his kris pooled thickest somewhere in the King’s palace, and the palace was the best guarded building in all Throssel. And so he’d bided his time, waiting for a night when the darkness was deep, and the weather a friend.

Now, finally, the time had come. As he clawed his way up the wall, the touch of the kris in the air overwhelmed even the bitter chill of the rain; it drowned the moan of the wind, subdued the smell of salt swept in on the spume from the sea. He shuddered under its spell.

The year had changed him in ways he’d not expected. He’d finally accepted the need to be inconspicuous, to wear Ardronese shoes and clothes, to trim his hair to a shorter length, to appear more like one of the Va-cherished. He’d worked hard at mastering the language, and understanding a way of life not his own. He’d watched and learned and remembered. But through it all, the loss of his kris haunted him.

Now the anticipation of holding it once more was as painful as a fist around his heart. Soon he would have protection once again; soon he’d be enveloped in the safety of a familiar magic. He would once again smell the beaches and forests of home.

His bare toes and fingertips gripped the rough stones of the wall, his body perfectly balanced, his strength effortless. At the top, he lay flat on the stones for a moment, careful not to offer a silhouette against the sky, even though he thought it unlikely he would be seen in this rain. Still, there’d be guards about. He’d already dodged those outside the walls on their endless trudge around the perimeter.

Inside the wall was a garden. It wasn’t a concept he truly understood; in the islands, if you wanted beauty and a place to walk, then you entered the forest, you didn’t plant a garden. Planting was for food. He looked beyond the long hedges and the patches of lawn to the building beyond, looming huge, large almost beyond his comprehension.

How many people must live here!
He couldn’t fathom why any raja or king would need so many people about him, but it didn’t matter, so he pushed the puzzling thought away.

Before dropping down into the garden, he pinpointed the section of the building that held the kris. The windows there were smaller and, he guessed, shuttered rather than glassed. He slipped down the wall and scuttled low through the hedges until he was crouched on the ground as close to the concentration of Chenderawasi power as he could get without another climb. There, he froze. Someone was coming.

He resisted the urge to run. Instead he lowered himself slowly, edging down until he was no more than a dark ball at the base of a bush. His view was restricted to what he could observe by peeking out under his armpit. He eased out the dagger thrust through his belt until it was in his hand.

Head down, a guard plodded his way between the hedges. A stream of muttered curses was testament to his hatred of the weather and his fobbing guard duties. He was holding something Ardhi guessed might have been a flintlock arquebus. He knew about those; on the Kesleer ship all the tars had been taught how to aim and fire them. He also knew damp weather could make them misfire. With his memory of Raja Wiramulia’s shattered chest, he loathed them with a bitter hatred.

Squinting against the driving rain, the man brushed by, oblivious to his presence. When he was gone, Ardhi slowly unwound himself, took a deep breath, and began to climb the wall of the palace.

Even in the dark, his fingertips and his bare toes were attuned to every roughness, to every tiny crack and crevice, to every unevenness. He used friction and balance with the instincts of an animal, without thinking. Walls were tougher than the rock or trees of his island home, but his natural skill and strength were enhanced.
Sakti.
It was with him yet. That, at least, had not left him.

He’d hoped the first-storey window was the one he wanted, but the touch of the kris drew him on, beckoning him still higher. It was the third window up that led into the room that housed the kris. The shutters, made of perpendicular wooden planks, were barred inside against the weather. In front of it, the window ledge – a wide stone block – was exposed to the elements.

He sat hunched over on the ledge and contemplated what to do next. He had no idea what was on the other side of the shutters; for all he knew, the room beyond could have been filled with guards.

Drawing his dagger, he began picking at the bottom crosspiece of the left-hand shutter, loosening the wooden nails. In the dark, it was mostly guesswork, aided by the fact that he’d examined similar windows. Since his failure at the Kesleer warehouse, he’d become obsessive about things like that. Right then, he was glad.

The rain stopped; the wind dropped and then blew with renewed vigour. In a brief appearance, moonlight broke through the cloud cover and then disappeared. He worked on, ignoring the guards who periodically crossed the gardens below, ignoring the distant sounds of drunken revelry somewhere in the palace. The shavings of wood whisked away on the wind as fast as he created them. It was three o’clock, as tolled by the bell on the palace tower. Such regimented timekeeping was foreign to the Chenderawasi, but right then he appreciated its usefulness. He had another two hours before the first stirrings of the city would make his escape hazardous.

A single vertical board from the inner edge of one shutter came loose in his grip. He lifted it free of the inside bar and pulled it through the opening to the outside. Peering into the room, he could see nothing, although the sound of steady breathing told him the room was occupied. His other senses told him the dagger was there, unharmed and unsecured. His exultation almost stopped his breath.

At last.

His loneliness was over. The long months when he’d been powerless, helpless, unable to pursue his quest to seize back the stolen regalia, because without the kris he had no idea where to look. He stayed where he was, secure in the knowledge that the kris would come to him, that he would find out now why it had left him in the first place.

Inside the room the sleeper stirred, made restless perhaps by the wind entering through the gap in the shutter. Ardhi held his breath, but the rustle of a body turning in the blankets settled down once more and the sound of regular deep breathing resumed.

Ardhi waited.

Nothing happened. Nothing stirred in the room. The kris did not move. The scent of its power remained exactly where it had been when he’d first arrived at the window. As the time passed, he decided the weapon must be constrained after all. Or maybe it was essential for the good of the Chenderawasi that the sleeping man die by his hand and the kris was waiting for him to enter and perform the deed.

He subdued his exasperation. Instead, he slipped his arm back into the room and edged the bar to the shutter upwards. He had to contort himself to pull it free without dropping it to the floor, but finally the shutters opened and he slipped inside the room. He closed them behind him to shut out the worst of the wind, but laid the bar down on the floor. He might need to disappear out of the window in a hurry.

Gradually his eyes adjusted to the increased darkness. A fire had been banked in a fireplace, so with delicate care he parted the coals, allowing them to flame. By their light, he examined the room, ignoring his desire to go straight to the kris. He needed to find out as much as possible about the man – and it was a man, he could see that much – who slept in the bed. The clothes hanging from the knob on the back of the door he recognised. He’d seen those on his journey through Shenat country. A witan’s garb.

Silently he knelt beside the bed, to stare at the man’s face. In the dim light he couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he thought it was the fellow from Kesleer’s warehouse. He wore the same medallion around his neck. Ardhi knew the meaning of it now: the oaken symbol of Va-Faith as worn by an Ardronese man of religion.

He bent to look under the bed. A chamber pot. A pair of boots, a pair of buckled shoes. Nearby, a chest. He prised it open: some neatly folded clothing. Books. He eased it closed. He stood to look at the things on the table in the corner. A jug, a washbasin, a towel. A flagon and a pewter mug. Some writing materials. A candle, tinderbox, steel and flint. A sword in a scabbard. An ordinary dagger – and the kris, separately sheathed. A cloak draped over the chair.

He reached out to the kris, fingers trembling, pulled it gently from its sheath. Closed his hand over the hilt and felt again the raw power of Raja Wiramulia’s bone beneath his fingers. Shards of memory splintered in his mind, stabbed him to the marrow with the tragedy his stupidity had initiated.

Raising the weapon, he touched the hilt to his forehead in obeisance and grief. His cheeks ran with tears.

“Come,” he whispered in the language of his island, and headed to the window once more.

The kris twisted savagely in his hand, forcing his fingers apart, wrenching his thumb backwards. He gasped as it fell free. It clattered noisily on the floorboards. Even then it refused to lie still. It skittered across the room, before sliding deep under the bed. He stood stock still, so utterly shocked at his rejection he almost didn’t react when the man on the bed erupted upwards.

At the last moment, Ardhi flung himself backwards, hitting the floor hard. And under his leg felt the bar for the shutters. His hand groped for it, and when the man came at him again, he lashed the bar sideways into his knee. His assailant fell backwards against the stone of the wall, and was eerily silent. And motionless.

Seri save him, I think I’ve killed him.

He stood up, still in shock. Gathering his scattered wits, he took the candle from the table and lit the wick by holding it against the glow of a coal. The fellow was lying on the floor, unmoving. He knelt beside him and lifted one of the man’s eyelids. There was no reaction, although he was still breathing.

Perhaps I
should
kill him. Perhaps the kris wants him dead.

No, that couldn’t be right.
The kris had
warned
the witan that he, Ardhi, was in his room.

The bitterness he felt at the betrayal was acid in his throat. Was it punishment for his failure? He doubted that. The
sakti
of a Chenderawasi kris was never petty. He might have deserved punishment, but the kris was only ever motivated by concern for the greater good of the Chenderawasi.

The message was clear. When the kris had flung itself across the warehouse, it had been a deliberate act of abandonment for him and a new bonding for it with the witan, for reasons he would never be able to fathom.

Desolated, shattered, he knew now he should have accepted that. Instead he had crossed these strange lands for nothing. He had wasted more than a year of his time. He covered his face with his hands and dragged in a shuddering breath.

Outside, the wind bore the sound of the four o’clock bell. He sat back on his heels, gutted. Why did the kris no longer want him? His task was still undone!

So what do I do now, Sri Kris?

Under the bed, the kris was silent and still.

He supplied the answer himself. He must return to Lowmeer, to Ustgrind. He must go back to work for the Kesleer Trading Company. He must find out what had happened to the stolen regalia and retrieve it without the aid of the kris.

He bit his lip, brushed away the tears, accepted his fate. As gently as he could, he hauled the unconscious witan back towards the bed, then heaved him up on to the mattress. The man did not wake, not even when Ardhi covered him warmly.

He blew out the candle and replaced the holder on the table. He left the kris under the bed; it did not need him to move. Pulling the shutters closed behind him, he put his arm through the gap and manoeuvred the bar back into its place. There was nothing he could do about the board he had removed, so he left it on the windowsill.