The Two of Swords: Part 9 (2 page)

Well; she was officially dead and nobody was actively looking for her, but it still wasn’t wonderful. Fortunately, she had a resource that most escaping prisoners are denied: she was female and women carrying baskets of washing don’t attract attention in the inhabited parts of castles, particularly if they’re supposed to be dead. She searched until she found the cupboard where the dirty linen lived, grabbed a big armful that covered most of her face and staggered along the gallery looking for the backstairs. Three guards took no notice of her whatsoever, and then she was trotting down a proper square-section stairway, bare-walled and imperfectly whitewashed, which could only lead to the kitchens, laundry and other tactically negligible facilities where fighting men rarely go.

She came out eventually into a lantern-lit courtyard. A quick glance upwards told her that she was now in the very centre of the castle, surrounded on all four sides by impenetrably thick stone walls, at the junction of all routes of communication and access used by the garrison and the castle servants. Best-quality Mezentine armour wouldn’t have saved her, but the armful of washing made her invisible. The difficulty was that a laundry maid had no lawful excuse for leaving the castle, even by daylight; in the middle of the night, forget it. Nor could she spend the rest of her life wandering around with an armful of dirty sheets.

A castle is a fair-sized community, larger than many villages, almost the size of a small town. Even in a small town, of course, everybody knows everybody else, unless their faces are obscured by washing. But she was exhausted, bone-weary and finding it increasingly difficult to think about anything except finding somewhere to sit down and rest. It was only later, in hindsight, that she realised that the exhaustion and the indifference almost certainly saved her life – it made her impersonation of a laundry maid in the last quarter of the night shift far more convincing than mere acting could ever have done. If she’d had to walk past the sentry on the gate between the middle and outer courtyards, almost inevitably she’d have given herself away, if she’d been acting natural. Instead, she caught her foot on the lintel out of sheer weariness, stumbled into the guard, scraped the back of her hand on the stonework, squealed at the pain, mumbled an apology and trudged away, unchallenged, sworn at for clumsiness and completely accepted as genuine.

The outer courtyard was another world entirely, and as soon as she emerged into it she realised she’d made a mistake. A laundry maid could believably carry dirty washing from the outer yard to the middle, but not the other way round. She calculated that she had five, maybe ten seconds to deal with the error before someone noticed. She made her mind up in three.

There were two sentries posted outside the doors to the Great Hall. She headed straight for them, well aware that they’d noticed her. “Excuse me,” she said, “but I’m new here and I’m lost. Which way to the laundry, please?” They laughed and told her. That posed another problem. The route she’d been given to the laundry meant going back the way she’d just come, past the guard she’d bumped into. Here the bone-weariness was unquestionably her salvation. She left the guard thinking she was mad or drunk or probably both, but that was fine. Even with her back to him as she walked away, she could tell he wasn’t looking at her.

Well, she thought; and what would a worn-out laundry maid do next, if she was as tired as me? The answer was perfectly obvious; she’d caught her own maid doing it once, about a thousand years ago in another life, and given her a tongue-lashing for being lazy. She found a dark corner under some stairs, crawled into it, pulled the shirts and sheets up round her until she looked from a distance like a pile of discarded laundry and closed her eyes. Just for two minutes, that’s all.

When she woke up, bright light was streaming in from a window high up on the stairs. She made herself stay perfectly still, and listened, and tried to think. At this time of day, in a well-run castle, where would everybody be? The chambermaids would be in the bedchambers, the kitchen staff would be fixing the midday meal, the laundry maids would be doing yesterday’s washing before the chambermaids brought down today’s. None of them would be using the backstairs. If anyone came and saw her, they’d know at once that she was an anomaly. But why would anyone come? They all had work to do somewhere else.

If there was an alternative, she couldn’t think of it. From the pile of washing she pulled out a plain off-white linen smock, property of some ladies’ maid from the third or fourth floor – now there was a group she hadn’t taken account of; too late now, she was naked on the stairs, one foot in the smock. She hauled it up round her and knotted the belt, then clawed at her hair in the vain hope of getting it into some sort of order; realised that she’d just made another serious mistake; caught sight of a white mob cap in the pile of discarded washing, thanked God for saving her from her own stupidity, pulled the cap on, settled it firmly and tucked stray hair under the headband. The rest of the laundry she kicked into the shadows under the stairs; didn’t matter if it was found and commented on; the laundry maid who’d left it there no longer existed. She noticed her filthy, grimy hands and skinned knuckles, tucked them into her sleeves. The hem of her smock covered her feet. Saved again.

The wonderful thing about ladies’ maids is that they can be strangers, in service to guests. They can also go almost anywhere, because their mistresses can order them to do all manner of improbable things at inappropriate times – get me a drink of water, an apple, six yards of fine green silk, scissors (no, you stupid girl,
sharp
scissors, the
other
scissors), sixteen cheese scones, a half-bottle of the ’06 Pirigouna, something to help me sleep, I want to see the doctor, my coachman, my dressmaker, the castellan, go and find where my useless lump of a husband’s got to, quickly,
now
. More freedom than any other category of servant; more freedom than the fine lady herself, come to that. Being a ladies’ maid is next best thing to being a man.

But not enough freedom to get her across the yard, through the gate and out the other side. For that she was going to have to spill blood, or be very clever, or athletic, or all three. She chose a doorway at random, climbed the stairs to the very top and barged open a long-closed door out on to the roof.

Having caught her breath, and making sure she kept her head down below the level of the parapet, she turned her mind to contemplation of the principles of military architecture. The aim of castle building is primarily to keep people out; but the same principles and functions do a very good job of keeping people in, which is why castles make such good prisons. Theoretically, she could spend the rest of the day getting hold of a rope and then, once night had fallen, lower herself down off the tower, swim the moat and run for it, if she still had the energy.

Alternatively— her mind went back to lectures at the Tactical Institute at Beal; fat, one-eyed General Tirza. The weakest part of any defensive structure is the man standing in front of it. There were two guards on the main gate, she could just see the tops of their helmets. The first one would be easy – walk up to him, say “Excuse me” in a little-girl voice, then stab him in the eye as he bent forward to listen to her. But the second one was stationed on the other side of the gateway (fifteen feet? There or thereabouts). Lesson one: space is time. Even if she was wonderfully quick about killing the first guard, she had no guarantee of getting to his colleague before he had time to realise what had just happened, lift his shield and level his spear. True, she didn’t actually want to fight him, she wanted to get past him and away, but— She did the mental geometry, and three times out of seven the numbers came out badly. And besides, stab the guard in the eye with what? She’d grown so used to having a knife up her sleeve that she’d forgotten it wasn’t there any more. No, too many conditions precedent. Think of something else.

Then, in the distance (no, be precise; in the Great Hall, on the other side of the yard) someone started to play the violin. Her eyes opened wide, and then she laughed.

She woke him up with the gentlest of pricks, from the tip of his own dagger, in the hollow under his left ear. He grunted and his eyes opened; otherwise he stayed perfectly still.

“Hello, Oida,” she said.

He moved his hand out from under the sheet, pinched the tip of the knife between forefinger and thumb and moved it away an inch or so. “You’re dead,” he said.

“Something of a grey area,” she replied. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes seemed much smaller than usual; and then the thunderbolt hit her. How long had she known him? And never noticed. “You wear eyeshadow.”

“What?”

“Admit it,” she said. “Go on.”

“That’s the most ridiculous—”

“Admit it.”

He sighed. “Yes, all right. Just a suggestion, to make my eyes look bigger. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You wear
make-up
. Like a girl.”

“For crying out loud,” he said, and raised himself on one elbow. “Honestly,” he said. “They told me you were dead. I was
upset
.”

“You were playing the violin.”

“Well, I had to put on a show, obviously.”

A terrible thought struck her; she tried to shrug it off, but it clung like the mud of a newly ploughed field, and she had to ask. “Are you here to rescue me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you would say that.”

He looked convincingly hurt. “It’s true.”

“You made a pig’s ear of it, then. I’m dead. You said so.”

“Only because you insisted on trying to escape and fell down a toilet. If you’d stayed put and waited, like a rational human being—”

“Make-up, for God’s sake.” She realised she was still holding the knife. She put it down on the bedside table; it rolled off and landed on her bare foot, fortunately pommel first. “That’s just so—”

“It’s an ancient tradition among performing artists,” he said irritably. “Goes right back to Perditus. Entirely legitimate.” He paused. “You won’t tell anyone.”

“Oida—” She got a grip and breathed out through her nose. “Tell me the truth. Did you come here to rescue me?”

“Yes. That and other things. But let the record show, I was here in plenty of time, and if you hadn’t screwed everything up—” He stopped and frowned. “How did you get in here?”

She nodded quickly over her shoulder. “Window. You needn’t have bothered,” she added sweetly. “I had the whole situation under control.”

He scowled at her. “Fine,” he said. “In that case, you carry on. See you in Rasch, you can buy me a drink.”

“Keep your voice down,” she hissed, though she knew there was no real need; the walls were stone, two feet thick, and the door was four-ply oak. “I’m sorry, I’m being ungracious. Of course you can rescue me, if you want.”

He swung his legs out of the bed, pushing her aside. “Easier said than done,” he snapped. “My idea was to intercede on your behalf, get you pardoned, and ride out of here in a coach in a civilised manner. Now, thanks to you killing a guard and then dying, that’s going to be rather difficult. Why do you always feel this morbid urge to take charge all the time?”

She looked straight at him. “You really did, didn’t you? Come here to rescue me.”

“Yes.”

“You clown.”

He flushed with anger, forced a grin. “Well, why not?” he said. “You’re a competent operative who happens to be female. And now, one of these days, you’ll feel obligated to do the same for me.”

Which was true. “In your dreams,” she said, but she decided she didn’t have the energy for much more sparring. “How are we going to get out of here?” she said.

“We,” he repeated. “Well, I’m going to ride out through the front gate in a coach.” He frowned; he’d thought of something, but decided against it. Now all she had to do was figure out what it was.

“Did you bring the spinet?”

“What?”

“Your stupid show-off portable spinet. Tell me you brought it. You never go anywhere—”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Yes, all right, I brought it. It’s in its box, in the coach. But I’m damned if I’m going to—”

She gave him a beautiful smile. “That’s all right, then. We’ll have to drill air holes in the roof of the box, but you should be able to manage that. Perfect.”

“The hell with that,” he said angrily, “have you any idea how much that thing cost?”

“Two thousand angels,” she replied promptly, “you told me yourself. Several times. But that’s all right. You can buy another one. You’ve got plenty of money.”

He was floundering for an objection. “Fine,” he said. “So we smuggle you out in my box and leave the spinet behind. And, of course, nobody notices a unique, world-famous musical instrument lying about the place—”

“Oh, that’s not a problem. We can break it into small bits and toss it down the garderobe.”

Just for a moment she thought he might actually refuse. But then he said, “Oh, right. And how exactly do we get it up here?” and she knew she’d won.

“Oh, that’s easy. Tell them you want to practise, or tune it or something. They’ll bring it up here for you. In the box. And then they’ll carry it back down again, still in the box, and strap it on to the coach roof. And off we’ll go, and nobody need ever know anything.”

“Two
thousand
angels, Tel. Do you honestly believe you’re worth that much to anyone?”

She frowned at him. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“I was thinking, I could lower you from a window on a rope.”

She didn’t hit him, though she was tempted. “Get dressed,” she said.

“Why? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Because you’re going to send down to the kitchens for some food. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in days.”

“There you go again,” he sighed, “giving people orders. It’s not an attractive attribute, you know.”

“Who is there in this room I might possibly want to attract?”

A steward brought wheat bread, cheese, smoked pork sausage and a small slab of partridge terrine. “No apple,” she said, with her mouth full.