Retribution (Drakenfeld 2) (31 page)

On the other side of the room, Dek gave a significant enough utterance for my heart to skip a beat.

As Leana moved the candle closer, a small pang of relief hit me as I saw the warm yellow glow of paper. I reached down and pulled out the thin bundle, before resting it beside the loose board. No sooner had Leana lowered the board back down without making a sound, when we heard a stifled yelp from outside.

Wide-eyed, Leana whispered: ‘Nambu.’

I clutched the documents firmly and followed Leana as she sprinted towards the window. She leapt out of it with a level of athleticism that astounded me and, while I perched a buttock on the frame trying to angle my legs out of the narrow gap, I saw that Dek was waking – though obviously groggy – behind us.

‘What’s going on?’ he groaned, but I had already dropped down from the window and onto the ground by the time he would have been anywhere near approaching an alert state.

Neither Nambu nor Leana was anywhere to be seen.

Footsteps could be heard thumping at a rapid pace along the boards of the docks. I tucked the documents safely under my arm – still having no idea what they were, or if they were even useful to the case – and set off after them.

The feral sounds of the city were ever-present, but I could still hear the sounds of a pursuit. A moment later the noise of running footsteps vanished, only to be replaced by shouting. Darting along to where the boards changed direction, following the course of the river, I chased after the voices. It was not long before I caught up with them.

Leana had cornered a man against the edge of the docks.

He was tall and wore dark clothing, though his features were difficult to see in the darkness. Behind him was a deep point of the rancid river, while in front of him stood Leana, whose abilities he had presumably just witnessed.

He had no choice but to surrender himself.

Nambu was standing some distance behind Leana, and my first concern was her safety. We had been charged with her protection and we had not really followed our orders. I ran over to her, placed the stolen documents on the ground and put my arms around her. If there existed any etiquette that non-royals should not come into physical contact with royals, I ignored it. Right now the young princess clearly needed comfort. She pressed her face against me, shivering.

I eased her back and asked, ‘Are you hurt?’

She shook her head. No matter how tough she believed herself to be, the night’s events must have been quite a shock for her. I had the impression that the tall man had grabbed her and been chased by Leana to this point.

Her face showed no marks and she wasn’t showing any signs of injury. The man must have carried her to have got this far, but with such an extra weight he did not stand a chance against Leana’s speed.

Growing impatient with his indecision, Leana stepped towards him, her sword in one hand and a small dagger in the other. It appeared he had no weapon of his own so, while the stand-off continued, I looked around the walkway and found what must have been his sword, which lay some distance away.

‘What did you want with a young girl?’ Leana snarled again. ‘To have her in your bed or for slavery?’

The man did not answer. He was simply evaluating his options, his gaze shifting this way and that to look for a way out of the situation.

‘People like you,’ Leana snapped, ‘make me sick.’

As I stepped towards them, optimistic that I might get some answers, he turned to his left and jumped head first, arms out in front, into the water. During his dive, Leana whipped her dagger towards him – it clipped the back of his shoulder as he connected with the water, but the blade bounced off and sank without a trace.

Whoever this figure was he had now gone into the murky waters. We scoured the river for a break in the surface, and after a while I spotted him swimming towards the opposite riverbank.

‘You wish me to follow?’ Leana asked.

It would have been a waste of time. Though Leana was athletic on land, she wasn’t the fastest swimmer. Neither was I. This attacker, however, was making considerable pace. He had clearly made his escape.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s not worth it. The princess is unharmed.’

‘I have lost a good dagger,’ Leana muttered.

‘But we have gained another,’ I said, moving over to the man’s discarded weapon. ‘This weapon is not that of a common thug. Dockyard scum do not carry gold-studded blades.’

The figure was now clambering up the opposite bank, and soon lost himself among the wooden shacks and stone buildings. The moon glimmered on the calm surface of the river and somewhere in the distance a priest was calling out a prayer.

Leana grabbed the weapon and examined it closely. ‘It is still too dark to tell much, but you are right. Though not exactly ornate, it is not a cheap blade.’

‘Not the sort of thing you might find around a place like this.’

We both turned to Nambu and I knelt down in front of her. Her gaze was so distant and her young face full of worry. If she had not believed it before, the fact that her mother’s paranoia might well be rooted in reality must have troubled her now. ‘What happened, Nambu?’

‘I was looking towards the river from the window,’ she began in a whisper, ‘as you requested of me. I looked at you now and then to see how you were getting on, since there was no one about. But he came from the darkness, as if he had been part of the shadows all along. Waiting for me.’

‘Can you tell us much about him?’ I asked. ‘Did he say anything? What was his voice like? Was his accent local?’

‘Nothing. He placed a hand to my mouth and twisted me so suddenly I had no idea what was going on. Then I found myself being shaken as he ran with me over his shoulder. I barely got a look at him. I was too surprised to even scream.’

‘Leana, can you add anything?’

She shook her head. ‘You probably saw as much as I did. He did not say anything. He dropped Nambu when he realized how close I was. I should have killed him when I had the chance, but I heard your voice in my head again. Do not kill, you would have said, get answers. And look where that nonsense gets us.’

‘If he was dead he would still be unable to answer us,’ I replied.

‘The dead speak,’ Leana muttered. ‘As we have seen three times in Kuvash, the dead still tell us things.’

What could we tell from him so far? He was athletic and stealthy, which suggested that he could have been a skilled assassin. Yet he hadn’t
killed
Nambu.

It was possible that it was an attempt to take the princess hostage and hold her to ransom – as happened so often across Vispasia with the daughters of wealthy families – but something did not sit right with me. Perhaps it was the fact that the queen might have anticipated someone coming after Nambu, yet she must have thought her safe enough with us. Whoever it was who had been sent after the princess was certainly good at tracking her down, and with some degree of professionalism. That did not bode well. Was this what the queen had been afraid of all along? A quality blade was consistent with someone whose status was one of the Sorghatan Prefecture.

‘I think,’ I said, ‘that we have all earned our sleep tonight. Let’s return to the palace and take as much rest as we need – even if the sun is high. I believe Nambu here could do with it after a day like this.’

‘I will not disagree with you,’ the princess breathed in reply. ‘But I will be ready for whatever tasks you have tomorrow. I promise you.’

Her composure and sense of determination impressed me greatly.

And with that we set off back across the city, with the stolen documents under my arm. I knew for a fact that when I returned home Nambu would be the only one resting.

Nambu lay fast asleep on her bed, a vision of tranquillity.

I felt guilty for what happened tonight. I never wanted her to feel as if we had been lumbered with her – even though that was, in all reality, a true fact. But how would the princess have felt if we were to make such disapproval obvious? She would have been miserable company, a heavy stone around our necks. Seeking to avoid that situation, I had treated her with equanimity, allowing her to see what we would see, to follow our steps through the city and so get a view she would not otherwise have. In a distant region of my mind, one that wished to avoid influencing future queens, I hoped she might see more of reality so that she would understand how difficult life was for people not born into grandeur.

Our routines were not typical. Though we were up with the sun, there was no guarantee we would rest our heads after it had set. We might walk for miles in a day with little success and we would, more often than not, find ourselves in a scrape or two. Clearly such events had taken their toll on the princess.

At least she did not have to do this for her entire life. Leana and I would move from city to city upon receiving an order and very often there would be too little time to settle into comfortable routines, to build up friendships, let alone start a family or direct affairs from the sanctuary of a court. Of course, many Sun Chamber officers could find themselves stationed in a city for years – decades even. My father was one such example. He settled in Tryum, Detrata, in his early twenties. He died there.

I tried not to let such distance from normal human affairs harden me like it had some of my colleagues. One could find grim souls working in various parts of the continent, enforcing Vispasian law through gritted teeth; jaded old officers and agents who had exchanged raising a family and watching their own young children play, only to handle corpses or ensure affairs of state were handled smoothly down on the streets.

Reminding myself of this sometimes saddened me. Was it the life I wanted indefinitely? Leana was a good companion, however, and stopped my path from being too lonely. In some ways, Leana had become a sister to me, and I would grieve deeply if she ever left my service.

Nambu stirred in her sleep and I moved from the doorway, pulling the door closed behind me. I couldn’t blame the young princess if she was feeling scared and tired. It was justifiable, but she was made of tough stuff and would no doubt be eager to continue with Leana’s combat lessons tomorrow. She was more than the child her mother believed her to be. There was a determination there, and a desire to learn not found in adults.

At what age did someone stop being a child, anyway? I had nothing on which to base a single thought on the matter. For some reason I found myself enjoying the princess’s company: she had highlighted new qualities in both myself and Leana, which were difficult to realize at first. We had begun to care about someone else – no, to care
for
someone else.

Sighing, I poured myself a cup of water from an amphora and set to work.

Sitting at the desk under the light of several candles, I spread the stolen documents before me and, with a weary mind, proceeded to examine in detail just what Grendor of the Cape, or at least someone in Naval exports, had wanted to keep hidden.

There were approximately fifty sheets in all – the paper being of the cheap variety, it tended to fray around the edges, so it was not easy to make out what I was seeing. Furthermore, it was written in Kotonese, a language whose angular script I found difficult, though I could speak it more or less fluently.

However certain words began to repeat themselves. And one of them I had never heard before.

Evum
.

A shipment. Evum. Dates and times for the arrival. Evum.

Was that the strange stone? Were these documents describing how and when it had come into the city?

It looked to me as if there were numerous other companies written down, though it was not clear what they were, and I had not heard of them before. One thing that did strike me as odd though was the phrase:

More offers.

It cropped up a few times, seemingly without context. Was this food offerings for gods? Or was it offers of the kind that a business person might deal with?

Stifling a yawn, I investigated the pages more thoroughly, hoping that something else might present itself, or that I could spot more patterns. My thoughts were beginning to drift from tiredness.