Casket of Souls (9 page)

The garden was laid out in a pattern of formal paths composed of crushed oyster shell. There was no sign of a dog. A balcony spanned the back of the house, and lamp- or candlelight showed at two of the five upstairs windows. Through one he could see a small group of fashionable ladies playing cards in an elegantly furnished parlor. Through the other window he could see what appeared to be a library. While he watched, a man walked past the window and the room brightened as he lit another candle.

Just then two servants, one of them with a lantern, came out a back door of the house and headed toward the gate.

“I know I heard something,” the man with the lantern, presumably the watchman, was saying to his companion. Alec heard the rattle of a heavy chain being undone.

There was no time to drop and run. Instead, he pulled his legs up as far as he could and hung there, praying silently
Don’t look up!
The corded muscles in his arms felt like they were on fire and the edge of the wall was cutting into his palms but he managed to hang on.

The watchman and his companion found the barrel lying in the gutter across the street.

“Probably a dog, or a drunkard,” the companion said.

The watchman held his lantern high, looking this way and that but thankfully not up. Sweat ran into Alec’s eyes and slicked his palms as he struggled to keep still. At last they went inside again and chained the gate shut.

Alec’s arms were shaking with the strain, but he managed to pull himself up and balance precariously on top of the wall.

There was still no sign of a dog in the garden, so he carefully lowered himself and dropped into a bed of fragrant flowers. From here, it was a simple matter to scale a wooden drainpipe to the balcony. The first lighted window was the room with the ladies. The casement stood ajar to catch the breeze, and he could hear them laughing and talking over the game. There were five of them, including Lady Mallia. She must have been on her way here. He didn’t recognize the others, but a stately woman with silver-white hair seemed to be presiding, and she sent a servant for more wine as Alec watched from the shadows outside.

“Really, it’s too hard,” said Mallia. “I haven’t had a new piece made this year.”

“Pearls are the only reliable jewel these days,” their hostess replied, touching the long heavy strand she wore.

“Only because no one’s discovered a way to make them into a weapon, Marquise!” another woman exclaimed.

“At least silk is still available,” said Mallia. “But what are we to do this winter, if the wool route is still blocked?”

“I haven’t had a new cloak in two years, have I, Mother?” said the youngest of the group, a dark-haired young woman, to the hostess. Evidently Kyrin had a daughter.

“It’s the shortage of eligible young men I’d be worried about, in your place,” the fifth woman pointed out. “Let’s hope the queen doesn’t get them all killed. There’s not much to choose from in the city these days, except for cripples, old men, and wastrels.”

Alec waited until no one was looking his way and stole past the window. The next two rooms were too dark to make out anything inside, but the library was still brightly lit. Reltheus sat with three other men, drinking wine and smoking long clay pipes. An older man—presumably the marquis—rose as Alec watched and put a scroll of some sort into a large painted cabinet, then locked it and pocketed the key.

“Remember, Kyrin, there is madness in the family,” Reltheus was saying.

“I hardly think the queen mad,” a middle-aged red-haired man replied, facing the window where Alec lurked.

“Poor judgment needs no explanation,” said the fourth, the small man with a shock of blond hair Alec had seen with Mallia. “It’s pride on the queen’s part, plain and simple. Nothing short of total victory will suffice for her.”

“Could that ever be?” wondered Reltheus. “These wars against Plenimar never quite end, do they? No matter who wins, within a decade or two they’re at it again.”

“I believe one of the sticking points of the truce offer was that Skala would finally take possession of sacred Kouros,” said the ruddy man. “The Plenimarans refused.”

The blond nobleman puffed at his pipe. “A tiny, useless island, Stenmir. She should let them have it. The Hierophants went from there to Plenimar, after all.”

“It’s the birthplace of all the Three Lands, Tolin,” Stenmir reminded him. “Skala, Mycena, and Plenimar all have a legitimate claim.”

“Small and useless,” Tolin grunted around his pipestem.

“There was a great deal more to the terms of the truce than that. But whatever the case, it’s bankrupting us.” Kyrin put aside his cup and stood to tap out his pipe on one of the dolphin-shaped fire irons. “This has to stop. It’s breeding dangerous unrest. There have already been grain riots.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard any more from Danos?” Stenmir asked Reltheus.

There was that name again.

The duke took a folded missive from his coat pocket and handed it to him. The others rose to read over his shoulder.

“Commander Klia has Sakor’s luck, doesn’t she?” Tolin remarked, frowning.

“So it’s always seemed,” Kyrin replied with a sigh. “It would be best if circumstance worked to our favor, but she seems to be especially blessed. Now, however, I think it’s time we went back to the ladies.”

The others knocked the dottles from their pipes and followed him out, leaving Alec with nothing but the laughter of the women and a vague sense of dread. It appeared this
Danos was indeed their spy and that Reltheus and the others weren’t on Klia’s side. Or the queen’s, either.

Alec was about to go back the way he’d come when he heard the marquise inviting her guests to come out onto the balcony to enjoy the night air. That room lay between him and the drainpipe, and the balcony was far too high to jump from without risking a broken ankle. Instead, he slipped in through the library window and pressed himself against the wall beside it. He could hear the women walking up and down the balcony, talking of the latest play at the Tirari. Mallia said something Alec didn’t quite catch.

“I’ll ask him,” the marquise’s daughter replied, and Alec heard her coming his way. There was nowhere to hide except behind one of the long tapestries. It was a terrible hiding place under any circumstances, but especially in a brightly lit room, where the girl might notice the slight bulge in the fabric, or his broken beggar’s shoes visible beneath the lower edge. He didn’t dare risk taking a look, but could hear her moving about the room.

“Father’s not here,” she called out at last. “I’ll go find him.”

Alec heard the inner door open and shut. He waited a few breaths, then cautiously peered out from his hiding place. The other women remained on the balcony, making it impossible to leave.

He leaned back against the wall again, resigning himself to a long wait. He wanted a look inside that locked cabinet.

It was hot behind the tapestry, and dusty. As Lady Mallia went on about some other play just outside the window, Alec’s nose began to itch. He squeezed it between two fingers, hoping to kill the urge to sneeze, but that only made it worse. Still holding his nose, he pressed his other hand to his mouth and choked back a short succession of sneezes, nearly at the expense of his eardrums.

And still the women talked on. His back began to ache from pressing himself as flat as he could against the wall behind him, and he could feel his overtaxed arm muscles beginning to stiffen up. Worse yet, he had to sneeze again.

As he stood there wishing them all to Bilairy’s gate, the door opened again and he heard someone moving around the
room. Little by little, the room went dark and he heaved a silent sigh of relief. It must be a servant. A moment later the door closed again. Better yet, the women finally went indoors.

As he sidled out from behind the tapestry, the shoulder of his shirt caught on something. He took out the lightstone and discovered a small door set into the wall at about eye level, with a tiny handle and a brass lock plate. The plate looked solid, but when Alec ran a sensitive fingertip around it, he discovered two tiny holes on either side of the keyhole, tamped with wax. This usually meant that a poisoned dart or spring lurked inside, waiting for the unwary burglar to tackle the workings of the lock. Standing to one side, he probed the lock at an angle with a small pick and heard the
snick
of the trap releasing. Two slender steel barbs shot out, five inches long—long enough to pierce the hand of an unwary thief. Their tips were coated in some dark poison, too. Working carefully around them, he soon had the small door open.

Inside was a metal box, similar to a military dispatch box. Holding the lightstone handle between his front teeth, he squatted down with the box and quickly got it open. Inside were three small scrolls. The first was a list of names, including Klia, Lady Kylith, Seregil, Duke Laneus, Duchess Nerian, their friend Malthus, and himself, Lord Alec of Ivywell. He felt his heart turn over at the last name—Prince Korathan’s—with a question mark after it. There was no heading to hint at what the list meant. The other two were ordinary shipping manifests, though some of the items included were gold and gems from Aurënen. At the moment all gold was going to the war effort, making any private hoard contraband. Alec wondered if Seregil’s Uncle Akaien was smuggling again.

There were no writing materials in the room, so Alec had no choice but to replace the documents in the box and lock it away. When the tumblers fell back into place the needles retracted, but the tiny wax plugs had been lost. Hot and dusty, Alec slipped out from behind the tapestry and pinched a dab of still-warm wax from one of the candles placed on stands around the room and used it to seal the needle holes again.
Once the lock plate was buffed clean with his shirtsleeve, there was no sign that it had been disturbed.

The cabinet across the room was fitted with the same sort of trap. In addition to the scroll, there were some leather cases containing various pieces of expensive jewelry and household documents of no interest. The scroll he’d seen Kyrin put away was nothing more than a love poem. He scanned it briefly, then put it back.

He returned the rest of the contents, locked the cabinet, and replaced the wax, as he had with the hidden cupboard, then went to the inner door and put his ear to it. There were still people talking and moving about somewhere close by. Going to the balcony door, he stepped out and quickly scanned the garden for watchmen or guests. For the moment it was empty.

The marquise’s salon was dark now, but the window next to it showed light. Moving silently, he glanced in around the casement and saw that it was a bedchamber, fortunately empty at the moment. He hurried past and crouched by the drainpipe just as the watchman came out with his lantern and took a turn around the garden, then went back inside.

Alec shinnied down the drainpipe and kept to the shadows until he was in reach of the large gate.

The lock on the chain that secured the gate was too large for any of the picks he’d brought with him, but the wooden crossbars were thick enough to give him a toehold. He quickly climbed over it and headed for the Stag and Otter.

He was halfway up the secret stair when the door opened and he saw Seregil standing there with a lamp.

“Bilairy’s Balls, Alec, where have you been?” he demanded as he stepped aside to let Alec into the box room. “I went to Reltheus’s house but there was no sign of you. I was beginning to think you’d been taken up.”

“Sorry.” Alec gave him a quick kiss, then took off his head cloth and pulled the night’s implements from his braid. “I had a bit of luck following him to Marquis Kyrin’s house.”

“Kyrin? He’s Korathan’s secretary—” Seregil paused and gave him a pained look. “You’ve been in the sewers.”

“I left my shoes outside. I didn’t think I’d been down there long enough to pick up the smell.”

Seregil followed him into the bedroom and sat on the bed while Alec washed himself from head to toe with tepid water in the basin and told him of the night’s events, making light of his near capture by the bluecoats. Seregil let it pass, but Alec had the distinct impression that his lover had been more worried than he let on.

“From the sound of things, they are ill-wishing both Klia and Phoria,” said Seregil, frowning.

He grew more serious when Alec got to the mention of the potential spy, Danos, and the contents of the box from behind the tapestry and the cabinet. Seregil had him write down all he could remember of the list of names.

Alec tapped his chin with the goose-feather quill, picturing the list in his mind, then began to write.

“Good,” said Seregil. “And the scroll?”

“The scroll was just a love poem.”

“Didn’t it strike you as strange that Kyrin would be showing his friends a love poem in the midst of that other conversation?”

“Uh—not at the time.”

Seregil sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “That may have been the most important thing there. If only you’d held it up to a lamp.”

Alec smacked his forehead. “Bilairy’s Balls! It didn’t even occur to me.” Some hidden messages were done in pinpricks over the letters of a seemingly innocent document. All one
had to do was hold it in front of the light and copy down the letters to reveal the message.

Seregil made a noncommittal noise as he turned his attention to the list. “Korathan. Our friend Duke Malthus, one of the queen’s exchequers. Marquis Areus, Duchess Nerian. Thero. Us. What do all of these have in common?”