Country living was good for something. She might not be able to navigate the city streets, but she easily kept her distance from the running footsteps. Within a few blocks she heard the guard’s breath start to wheeze, and the distance between them increased.
Darting left and right at random, praying she wouldn’t find herself in a dead end, Makenna noticed that only one set of footsteps ran after her. So even if she could circle back to the gate, it would do her no good. It appeared that not all the sunsguards were ninnies, and she cursed under her heaving breath and followed Daroo’s directions without hesitation—even when he hissed, “Left now!” and sent her into a slot between two shops that was so narrow, she had to turn sideways and couldn’t possibly run.
The guard’s footsteps grew louder and she froze, deep in the shadows, as he whisked past the gap. A moment later the footsteps slowed, followed by a muffled curse.
“Farther in.” Daroo’s voice was so soft Makenna barely heard it—and he didn’t have to warn her to be silent. Placing each foot with careful deliberation, Makenna crept to the back of the gap and emerged into a wider space between several buildings. She turned, still moving quietly, and pressed her back against the wall, listening to the erratic footfalls as the guard searched along his back trail, trying to determine where she’d gone.
She thought he paused at the gap between the buildings, but they’d passed several such gaps and this one was narrower than most. The footsteps moved on, and Makenna let the tension drain from her back and neck.
The moon was shining for the moment. At one time, the space in which she stood had probably been a yard behind one of the buildings that now formed its walls. A rotting shed that might once have held tools or gardening implements leaned precariously in one corner. But at some point in the city’s history the surrounding buildings had extended themselves into the old yard, which was now little more than a tall shaft. Judging by the mound of trash heaped in the center, these days people mostly used the yard for rubbish thrown down from their windows.
At least they hadn’t used it as a midden, for it smelled no worse than the rest of the city. But Makenna was accustomed to the country, where scrap lumber was either stacked in tidy piles for reuse or burned for heat, and even broken crockery might be smashed to gravel a path. She found the heap of abandoned objects distasteful.
“How long should we wait?” she whispered to Daroo and Cogswhallop.
“Depends how fast we can get you away safely,” Cogswhallop admitted.
“And that’ll be a while,” Daroo added. “If they don’t stop you at one of the gates, they plan to send out troops to scour the countryside. Jeriah said you’d be safer in the city.”
“Unless he decides it’d be better for the Realm to tell them where I’m hiding,” Makenna said.
“He wouldn’t!” Daroo protested. “Tell her, Fa.”
Cogswhallop shrugged. “Turned her over to ’em just now, didn’t he?”
“Aye, but with those chains off, he knew we’d get her free,” said Daroo. “And he sent me to warn you the moment he realized you might be caught. And we weren’t caught, so he was right!”
“I’m not so sure I want to leave this city,” Makenna told them. “I came here to talk to the Hierarch. I can’t do that if run.”
“You can’t do that if you stay, either,” Cogswhallop said. “Getting you out of the palace was one thing. Getting you past the Hierarch’s guard, into his presence, is something else entirely. In fact, suicide comes to mind.”
“You can hide here,” said Daroo. “Mam decided several weeks ago that we’d be safer in the city with our friends, so we’re already here. You could stay too, if they’ll let you.”
“Who are . . . ?”
Several pair of eyes gleamed amid the rubbish. Looking at it with goblins in mind, Makenna could see that it was really a goblin cottage disguised as a trash pile, though most humans would never have picked up the subtle signs.
Seeing that she’d spotted them, three goblins emerged to perch warily on the rubbish. They were thinner than most goblins she’d known and bore no obvious mark of whatever gift they possessed—but that was true of many whose gift was crafting some material.
“So you’d be this ‘mistress’ they’re all talking about.” The tallest goblin spoke up boldly. “Queen of the goblins, you are.”
His city accent was thicker than those of the humans she passed in the street.
“I’m queen of no one,” Makenna told him. “Nor mistress either, though I’ve traded for my services as a battle commander with a fair few.”
She waited as he thought this over. A female goblin—his wife?—was frowning, but the third goblin, a girl a bit older than Daroo, crept up a jagged beam till she could peer into Makenna’s face.
“She means it, Pa,” the girl said. “She rules no one, and she’s no mind to do so.”
“I’d be bad at it too,” Makenna said. She wished Brallorscourt could have heard that statement—not that he’d have believed it.
“Noggat and Simmi.” Daroo gestured to the older pair. “They call themselves Ferrets, though their gift seems very like Finding to me. They can locate things of value, things humans have lost or discarded, and they’re skilled menders too. Etta, she’s their daughter, she can tell if a person’s telling truth or not.”
This was a goblin magic Makenna had never heard of, and she studied the girl with interest. “Does your gift breed true?” If there were other Truth Detectors among the city goblins, she could certainly use their gift in her forces.
The girl grinned suddenly, her angular face becoming sharper. “No way to know, just yet. But I’m interested to meet you, Mistress Makenna.”
“Makenna will do.” She seated herself on the ground so she wouldn’t loom over them. “Would you be willing to hide me here for a while?” She still needed to talk to the Hierarch, but it would probably take some time to arrange it. “Cogswhallop, Daroo, and Etta here as well, they can tell you that I’d never betray you to the humans.”
Etta nodded, then cocked her head curiously. “You say humans as if you weren’t one of them.”
“I may have been born to them,” said Makenna. “But they haven’t been my people for a long time. There’s one I owe some loyalty, but that’s all.”
And where was Tobin, and why hadn’t Cogswhallop been able to find him?
Master Noggat looked her up and down. “You might fit into the shed. It may not look like much, but the roof don’t leak and we can clear out our storage. But what for?”
This stopped Makenna. These goblins owed her nothing. They’d want a fair trade, not the tokens she exchanged with her own troops.
“I’ve only the clothes on my back,” she admitted. “If there’s something heavy to be lifted, I might manage that.”
Simmi shook her head. “We can lift anything we wish, with a few pulleys and a bit of rope. You’ve no money? You’ll not last long in the human world without it. Feeding you is a different matter than hiding, and you can’t even pay for that!”
“Simmi’s a great builder,” Daroo put in. “What were you calling it? Engee . . .”
“Engineer, you lummox,” said Etta. But there was no heat in the goblin girl’s voice. “You got a messenger’s satchel,” she added, turning to Makenna. “Why not work as a messenger?”
“Because, sass box,” Daroo told her, “the whole point is to keep her out of human hands! They’re looking to arrest her. Or hadn’t you noticed that small problem?”
“Aye,” Cogswhallop said slowly. “But there might be a way around that. The hero’s proved a time or two that bold fakery can work right well. You said you could change your appearance, Gen’ral?”
“I think I can,” said Makenna—though without her mother’s spell books, she had some doubts. “But I can’t pass as a city messenger. I don’t even know what they do. In the country a messenger will carry documents for miles, or days. I don’t even have a horse.”
“Don’t need one here,” said Etta. “A city messenger does much the same, but over shorter distances. And it’s not only documents they deliver, but all manner of things. Finished goods from the seamstress and cobbler, hot bread to the back door of some house where the cooks are slacking off, papers of all sorts. Anything that’s not so heavy you need a cart to haul it, a messenger carries. A fair few of them have country accents too. But they’re mostly boys, and no one who gets a look at you by daylight . . .”
“Let me try something.” Makenna had tried this spell as a child, up to mischief, and it had usually failed. In the Otherworld, trying to make magic with no power at all, she’d realized that she’d become more adept at spell craft over the years. She reached down and picked up a handful of damp earth. On one cheek, she used it to draw the rune of illusion, bending the minds of those around her to see what she willed. She’d used that rune in a hundred ruses and raids, and the power flowed smoothly into it. On her forehead she drew the rune of familiarity, to help folks see what they expected to see. She’d often welded it to the rune of illusion, though it felt strange to draw it by touch on her own face.
Runes might be only symbols, as her mother had said, but symbols could matter.
Finally she gathered more of the gritty dirt and traced the rune of maleness on her other cheek. This was a rune she hadn’t used in years, but male and female were universal constants, among the first runes her mother had taught her. She was fairly certain she got it right.
Then Makenna rubbed all the runes into her face, not so much erasing them—though it did that too—as blending and spreading them. She raised her face from her hands, and Daroo gasped.
“You look like a boy!” Etta exclaimed.
“More to the point,” said Cogswhallop, “you don’t look like yourself. Shed that button vest, and no guard who’s been told to watch for a lass dressed like a boy will give you a second look. So why not get out of here right now, tonight?”
“I’m not ready to leave just yet,” Makenna told him. “But I’m not sure about this messenger business. How can I deliver anything if I don’t know the streets? If I have to stop and ask directions every ten paces, someone will get suspicious no matter what I look like.”
“That’s no problem.” Etta crept forward and touched Makenna’s face. “How long will it last?”
“Until I wash my face, or the magic fails,” Makenna told her. “I’d give it most of a day, though I can renew the spell again.”
“This is true magic,” the girl said. “Isn’t it?”
“No more than finding what you need by thinking on it,” Makenna told her. “And less magical than knowing truth from lie, in my opinion.”
Etta knew it for the truth. “I can help you find your way about the city,” she said. “I’ll do it for half of what you make as a messenger.”
Cogswhallop snorted. “Seems to me that half’s a bit much, considering the gen’ral will be doing all the carrying.”
“Seems to me that half’s not much at all,” said Noggat, “considering she couldn’t deliver a single load without Etta telling her where to go. And half of Mistress Makenna’s half isn’t so much to ask for lodging, when you note that we’ll be hiding her as well.”
“Three-quarters of her wage to your family, for a few directions and a leaky shed? That’s robbery!”
Makenna ignored them, her gaze on Etta’s face. “Do you speak the truth, as well as sense it?”
The goblin girl shrugged. “Most often. I’m not obliged to, though.”
“Then tell me true, won’t being among humans all day be dangerous for you?”
Etta’s sharp face softened amazingly when she laughed. “Not for me, mistress. Nor for you, not looking like that. No matter who’s after you.”
“That’s the first thing I’m going to fix,” Makenna told her. “If I’m about to start work as a messenger, I’m going to write Lord Brallorscourt a letter.”
Makenna spent most of the next morning composing her letter, on the cheap paper provided at a public message board near the goblins’ home. Its delivery would be her first job as a messenger, and Etta crouched in her satchel to guide her through the convoluted streets.
There were guards today at the gate that separated the low city from the area where the rich lived. They looked closely at all the girls near Makenna’s age who passed through—and didn’t give a ragged boy more than a glance.
Makenna was feeling confident as she approached the rambling stone-and-timber manor Etta said was the Brallorscourt town residence. But as she took in the jumbled wings and the reflection off hundreds of panes of expensive glass, her steps slowed.
“You should go to the servant’s entrance to deliver a letter,” Etta told her. “Around to the back of the house. What are you stopping here for?”
“Money is power,” Makenna told the goblin girl. “I hadn’t realized how much of it Brallorscourt has. But you’re right—that means nothing to a lad with a letter in hand.”
As she approached the back entrance, Makenna let all the interest and curiosity she felt show on her face. It was a natural reaction for a poor boy in such a grand setting, and her heart was beating faster than it should.
The manservant who answered her knock wore a blue-and-black tunic that looked like a house uniform to Makenna. Not as grand as the red and gold of the suns-guard, but close.
“I got a letter for Lord Brallorscourt,” she said, trying to mimic Etta’s accent. “Three copper bits owed.”
The manservant frowned. “Who’s it from?”
“I dunno. Some lady gave it to me, but she didn’t put a sender’s name on the outside. Just the receiver. And she only paid half up front.”
The servant sighed. “Wait here.” He came back in moments with three copper bits, for which Makenna exchanged the letter. Then he shut the door in her face.
Makenna walked back to the street, excitement singing in her blood as if battle had been joined instead of a simple message delivered.
“What did you say to him, anyway?” Etta asked from the satchel under Makenna’s arm.
“I told him the truth. That I’m not interested in anything he did in the past, and that Hispontic wasn’t working for me when he got that information and used it. I told him I wanted to speak to the Hierarch about goblin affairs that were nothing to do with him . . . as long as he gets out of my way.”
“You think he’ll believe it?” Etta sounded skeptical. “And how’s he supposed to answer you?”