The Wicked Day (26 page)

“Very good, my lord,” said Gor.

Doubtless, there is a different thought in his mind than what he says. I do not understand the currents here, but there is a hidden thing here and it runs dark and deep. Look at his hand.

Jute glanced down and saw that the regent’s hand, the one on his thigh and half hidden by the folds of the tablecloth, was clenched so hard that the knuckles were white with the force of his grip. A bead of sweat trickled down the line of the man’s jaw.

“My lord,” said Declan, “that won’t be necessary. While we’re grateful for your hospitality, we're unpolished folk and would be comfortable in the Guard barracks.”

“They’re welcome at the barracks,” said Owain.

“I insist.” And though the regent was still sprawled in his chair, wine slopping from his glass, his eyes were hard and cold.

They were shown to a suite of rooms, well-appointed and looking out into the night over the lights of the city. A footman and an indeterminate number of pages (they were always coming and going, thought Jute, like a flock of swallows) bowed them through the door. Several of the pages hurried over to the fireplace, and in no time at all, flames crackled from a pile of logs. Others, wielding glowing tapers, scurried from table to sideboard to mantel, lighting candle after candle.

“If you need anything, my lords,” said the footman, “you’ve only to ring.” And he indicated a silk rope hanging discreetly in one corner.

“Never mind ringing,” said Jute. “Could we have some dinner? Roast chicken, or something suitable?”

“Very good, my lord.” Several of the pages sprinted away. “Would there be anything else? No? Good night, my lords.” Preceded by the remainder of the army of pages, he bowed himself out through the door.

Owain Gawinn lingered for a moment in the hallway, scowling and looking embarrassed at the same time.

“Stubborn mule, that’s what he is,” he said. “Refusing to sign the writ. I suppose a few more hours won’t do much harm. Not that anyone’s going to ride out for the duchies in the dead of the night.” He stepped closer and his voice lowered. “Watch yourselves. It might be more comfortable in the castle than the barracks, but those who are wise are never certain about Nimman Botrell. I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

With a final scowl that was not directed at them but in grumpy vagueness at their surroundings, he turned and strode away.

Close the door and do not speak
, said the hawk inside Jute’s mind.
Bid Declan the same.

Silently, Jute did as he was told. Declan nodded wordlessly and sat down in one of the plush chairs by the fireplace. The hawk hopped down from Jute’s shoulder and prowled about the room.

“Finally, a place with some class,” said the ghost, appearing.

“Shush,” said Jute.

“Look at that vase. Probably worth a hundred pieces of gold.”

Tell that fool to shut his mouth.
The hawk glared back over his wing at the ghost.

“Hush.”

The ghost made a face at Jute and then drifted over to the window. Jute noticed with pleasure that the two open doorways on either side of the room revealed two bedrooms, each with its own bed. He was tired. A bed. He could not remember the last time he had slept in a bed. It seemed like he had been sleeping in a succession of dreadful places that never involved beds: the ground in various degrees of rockiness, beneath a wagon in the middle of the snow, a barn. The barn had been the most comfortable of all those spots. Hay, despite its knack of working its way under clothes and manifesting itself in scratching and itching, wasn’t all that bad.

Ah.
The hawk sounded grimly pleased.

What is it?

As I suspected. Do you see the painting over the fireplace mantel? It is not just a painting. It’s a ward. An interesting ward. As far as I can tell, it’s activated by sound.

But then it’s already active.

Jute had not noticed the painting before. It was a large oil set in a silver frame. A man stared from the painting, an old-fashioned ruff of black velvet knotted at his neck. There was something sly and nasty in his expression. His ears dangled from the sides of his head like those of a donkey, but his eyes were filmed over with the milky white patina that signified blindness.

Ears of a blind man
, said the hawk in Jute’s mind.
Such are much sharper than normal. The painting listens to us. Whisper to the ghost that he must mind himself. I hope that his outburst went unnoticed. The ghost could prove an invaluable asset, but only if unknown to others. At least, if he thinks that, it might keep him quiet and so save our nerves.

The ghost, looking startled, drifted over to the painting and stared hard at it. Jute yawned, trying not to look in the direction of the painting. Even though the man was sightless in it, he had the uneasy feeling that the blind eyes followed him. Someone knocked on the door.

“Dinner,” said Declan.

Two pages tiptoed in bearing platters larger than themselves. They eyed the hawk with a mixture of alarm and interest.

“Is it true, my lord,” said one page, “that the hawk speaks?”

“What’s true,” said Declan, “is that he’s fond of raw human flesh. Particularly liver. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

The pages fled and the room was once again left in silence. Jute hitched his chair closer to Declan and whispered through a mouthful of cold chicken.

“The painting above the fireplace is a ward. Hawk says it’s listening to us.” And then, in a normal voice. “Good chicken, isn’t it?”

Declan nodded. “Excellent chicken.”

With the candles out and the fire collapsing into subdued embers on the hearth, they retired to their rooms. Jute lay in the bed and stared up at the ceiling. The bed was extremely comfortable, the most comfortable bed he had ever had the good fortune to encounter. But he could not sleep. Things were too silent. Much too silent. He turned over on his side, punched the pillow into a more agreeable shape, and shut his eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A NARROW ESCAPE FOR SOME AND NOT FOR OTHERS

The last of the guests had departed, unsteady on their feet and escorted by solicitous pages who veered and zigzagged with them in sympathetic harmony. A door closed somewhere behind them, and there was silence. A breeze wafted out of the night and breathed across the balcony, batting at the candle flames burning on the table. The regent hunched his head down in the collar of his fur coat and poured himself a glass of wine. He took a swallow and shook his head.

“Shadows above and below,” he said. “Can you believe the luck of it? Our little thief shows up unannounced, out of the blue, along with the Knife. Who turns out to be Declan Farrow, of all people. Did you know that, Gor? I never did. I never bought his I-come-from-Aum line, of course, but I never imagined him a Farrow. Not just any old Farrow, but the legendary Declan Farrow himself. I daresay he could tell me a thing or two about horses.”

“And ogres,” said Gor, shivering a little.

“Right. And ogres. Regardless, we’ve been handed two juicy plums. At least, they were plums. When we still had a client.”

“It looks that way, my lord.”

“And claiming to be the guardian of the wind. Ridiculous. An absurd story, yet they somehow hoodwinked Gawinn with it. I wouldn’t have thought him susceptible to such nonsense. He must be getting foolish in his old age. Too many whacks to the head on the practice ground. At any rate, what’s important is that they’re here. In my castle. Ha! What do you advise, Gor?”

“I’ve been considering nothing else, soon as I clapped eyes on the boy.” Gor trailed off into silence and fidgeted with a piece of bread.

“So what’ve you been thinking? Out with it.”

“There’s something down there, my lord.”

“Down there?” But the regent knew what he referred to.

“Down in the Court of the Guild.” Gor’s voice sank to a whisper and he seemed to shrink in his chair as if there were eyes watching from the night around them and he sought to evade notice. “I went down there this evening to meet with some of the district enforcers to see what news there was of the robbery. There was something down there. Something watching. It felt like him, if you know what I mean, or something horribly similar to him. Even the others were aware something was wrong. They couldn’t wait to get out of there, and I ran back up the passage, expecting to feel a hand on my shoulder at any second.”

Botrell shuddered. “I don’t like where you’re going with this, Gor.”

“Neither do I, my lord, but a problem doesn’t go away by ignoring it.”

“No, it doesn’t. Need you be right?”

“I suggest we go down to Court of the Guild and—and tell the thing there. Tell it the boy’s here. That we have him.”

“You suggest we tell the thing? But the creature’s dead. Whatever it was. Levoreth Callas killed it right in the middle of my harvest ball, in front of every noble from every duchy of Tormay. And that wretched worm of a traitor Smede is gone too.”

“It doesn’t matter, my lord,” said Gor doggedly. “Something’s down there. Waiting. It might be him. We had best be safe.”

“All that lovely gold,” mourned the regent. “Maybe he’ll still want it back, even if we deliver the boy. Oh, hang it all. You’re right. You go down there and tell him. Report back here to me when you’re done.”

“I’m not going alone.”

“Get going. That’s an order.”

“No,” said Gor. “I won’t.”

“Coward!” The two men glared at each other for a moment.

“For the life of me,” said the regent, throwing his hands up in the air, “I can’t see why you aren’t willing to do your job. Don’t I pay you enough? Whatever happened to duty and diligence? Whatever happened to the creed of the Gors?”

“We’ve never had a creed.”

They tiptoed down the stairway, leaving the comforting light of the regent’s rooms behind them and exchanging it for the gloom of the passages leading to the court of the Silentman. There was something disturbing about the darkness. The warren of passageways beneath the castle and the city had never been a reassuring place, but it was worse now. The darkness had a waiting quality to it, a hushed expectancy. There was something oddly hungry about it. The regent shivered and drew his cloak around him. The familiar blue flames hung motionless on the walls, casting their meager light on stone and dust and shadow. He turned a ring around his finger—once, twice, and then back again—and felt the masking ward come to life around him, blurring his features and his voice. It did not make him feel safer.

“What did they say?” he said.

“Who?”

“The enforcers.”

“Nothing. No news. Whoever robbed us must be sitting tight on the gold. But the Guild has an eye on every inn, every chandler, every merchant, every trader passing through, anyone doing business in the city. Any suspicious spending will be noticed. We’ll catch whoever did it.”

“Good. Well thought, Gor.”

The massive double doors to the Court of the Guild stood before them. The passageway led off into darkness on their right. Complete darkness. Behind them, further back up the passage, the last torch in sight wavered and seemed to grow dim.

“The torches,” said the regent, his voice quiet. “Will you look at that? What’s going on? They’ve gone out here. That’s impossible. The first Silentman had them spelled into being after the wizards’ war, when the Guild first gained control of the labyrinth. The torches have burned ever since.”

“Not anymore,” said Gor nervously. “They were lit just fine when I was down here earlier.”

They stood for a moment in front of the door, neither wanting to go in. Dark enough as it was, it was growing even darker. And then, to make matters worse, the only torch still in sight (it was about a hundred feet away, back up the passage) guttered and went out. A faint luminance still clung to the walls. The regent’s teeth chattered and he clamped his mouth shut, hoping Gor had not heard. There was an odd, damp sort of feel to the air.

“Almost feels like fog,” said Botrell.

“What’s that?” said Gor.

“Nothing. Just open the blasted door.”

Thankfully, the torches within the court still burned, but the strange sensation of dampness was even more pronounced inside than it had been in the passageway.

“It wasn’t like this before,” said Gor. “Look at the walls.”

Moisture beaded and trickled down the walls. It gathered on the floor in dark patches. Somewhere nearby came the sound of water dripping. Something seemed to move in the darkness in the furthest corner of the room, something slow and stealthy.

“Hello?” called the regent, his voice loud in the quiet. “Hello? Is someone there?”

Nothing responded.

“Gor, be a good fellow and, er, check on the torches. I’d like to know if they’re in decent condition. Those out in the passage looked feeble—”

“Feeble? They were dead.”

Botrell chose to ignore this remark, as, in his opinion, it was an attempt by Gor to inject hysteria into the discussion. “—and I don’t want these in here to wind up in the same state. You needn’t look like a stuffed frog, Gor. Here, I’ll check the ones along this side, and you check the ones along the other.”