Crown Thief

CHAPTER THREE

Mounteban was imposing; I had to give him that.

He'd always been a bear of a man, and though I was sure some of that bulk must be fat these days, he wore it exactly like muscle. He was dressed plainly, in black cotton shirt and trousers that looked more impressive on him than any fine silks could have. His beard was tidier than I'd seen it, a neat wedge hiding his bullish neck. Even his eyepatch of polished leather was new, and spat back the firelight more arrestingly than any real eye.

All told, he dominated the stage — and given the men there with him, that was no mean feat. I recognised them from the time we'd once travelled together, fleeing Muena Palaiya with Moaradrid on our heels. They were something approaching a bodyguard, seasoned professionals at inflicting bodily harm, and each exuded an air of violence uniquely his own.

The one my gaze kept being drawn to, however, was the one making least effort to be noticed. If I hadn't expected him, I might easily have missed his presence. Uncommonly short, improbably thin, he was altogether too innocuous. He sank into the gloom as though it was where he belonged, found shadows where they had no right to exist in a brightly lit hall.

If I remembered rightly, Mounteban had called him Synza. When I'd known him, he'd been acting as a scout, but I'd known from the moment I saw him that his true proclivities lay elsewhere. Synza was a killer of a more subtle sort than his companions: the kind you turned to when you didn't want the bodies inconveniently floating up out of the river; the kind you called in when something more refined than horrible bludgeoning was called for.

Frankly, just being in the same room as him scared me silly.

An explosive throat-clearing drew my grateful eyes away from Synza. "Thank you for coming here," Mounteban said. "I see you all followed my suggestion and came without your usual retinues. I trust you each had a safe journey regardless. Because the streets of Altapasaeda have never been safer than they are tonight."

A tense round of applause pattered up and down the room.

"Why are you clapping?" asked Mounteban, his tone abruptly frigid.

The applause died instantly, replaced with a silence that would have turned a pin drop into a thunderclap.

"The credit is your own!" Mounteban cried — and the room heaved such a collective sigh of relief that every light wavered in its cresset. "In less than a week, you've won a peace for yourselves the likes of which Panchetto and the guard could never have delivered. How did you achieve this marvel, which decades of royal rule and guard brutality failed to achieve? By embracing new allies. By setting aside meaningless differences."

Mounteban paused to survey the gathering. Instinctively, I dipped my head, let the hood fall further over my face. One hand braced on the edge of my seat, I tensed to run.

I only had to reach the door. I was fast on my feet, and fear always made me faster. Only get out the door and I could outrun anyone. Get out, carry what I knew to Alvantes, take my money, and I could walk away from this damned mess.

I felt his eyes. A word, a hint he'd recognised me and I'd be moving. Just a breath out of place. The muscles in my calves were so tense I thought they'd explode.

Was he still looking at me? If he was, it was all over. I dared to roll my eyes up, twitched the hood a fraction back…

Mounteban's attention was fixed at a point two rows ahead and to my left. "Lord Purda," he said, "you inherited a fortune built by clothmaking and wineries. Black-Eyed Rico, you made your money in extortion and burglary. What difference does that make in the end? You're both men of wealth, of power."

Lord Purda looked particularly uncomfortable at this comparison, while the man named Black-Eyed Rico smirked and giggled.

"I mean no disrespect to the memory of Prince Panchetto. Still, his legacy is clear. By imposing a regime based on privilege and outmoded tradition, by insisting upon an obsolete social order, he held every one of you down. He held this city down. Why should Altapasaeda be ruled from a palace in the far-distant north? Why should it be ruled at all? Why, in fact, should it not govern the Castoval from end to end?"

There arose another ragged cheer, and this time Mounteban let it run its course.

So there it was. Mounteban's endgame. He wanted to run Altapasaeda, and he wanted Altapasaeda to run the Castoval. Say what you like about his sanity, but you couldn't fault his ambition.

"That time will come," he went on. "For all of us. Altapasaedan independence means Castovalian independence. Castovalian independence means prosperity and influence the likes of which you've only dreamed. The first phase of our plan is complete. The city is secure. The dangers within its borders have been contained."

At this, I noticed a number of the more finely dressed members of the audience wince. Mounteban must be referring to the Altapasaedan Palace Guard, who would have fought tooth and nail against his new order — likely with the tacit support of many of the families. I wondered what "contained" meant. It would have depended on how far Mounteban dared go. Based on the available evidence, my guess would be pretty damned far.

"Our next step is to begin the return to normality: to resume trade, to rejoin with the world outside. I realise the last few days have been trying and disruptive for many of you. I'll take it as said that you understand the necessity of what we've done. With that in mind, gentlemen… do any of you have questions?"

The offer was phrased in such a tone that only an idiot would take it literally. Of course there were no questions. Anyone with the least experience of tyrannical madmen knew better than that. Anyone with the slightest spark of wit would understand to keep their tongue still and their head down.

Mounteban's gaze honed in on movement. Forty stricken faces turned to follow.

Suddenly, everyone in the room was looking at me.

No. Not me. At Eldunzi. The simpering moron had actually raised his hand.

"Ah…"

I earnestly wanted to snap that hand off and shove it down his throat.

"Lord Eldunzi," said Mounteban. His courtesy was chilling.

"Well… the thing is…"

Before Eldunzi could say more, a new expression interrupted Mounteban's studied disdain. For one brief moment, his features registered purest astonishment. Then he stepped back, placed his mouth to the assassin Synza's ear.

I didn't need to guess what he'd whispered. The snake of ice uncoiling in my stomach told me all I needed to know. I was already on my feet and moving by the time he looked back.

"Stop that thief!"

Had Mounteban chosen his words more carefully, I'd never have left that room. If he'd taken into account just who he was addressing, I'd barely have made it out of my seat. To the wealthy patresfamilias, anyone who wasn't one of their own was a thief of some sort or another.

I was at the door by the time it occurred to anyone even to look my way.

That still left the three on the gate.

"Help! Mounteban's in trouble," I cried. "They've turned on him!"

The fear in my voice was genuine enough. It did the trick for the northerner soldier — he had most invested in Mounteban's continued survival. He rushed past me with an inarticulate roar.

The family retainer looked noncommittal. What was it to him if Mounteban was torn apart by his audience?

Last came the thug. He wasn't moving — and now he had a knife out. Maybe he hadn't liked me calling him a lowlife earlier. Maybe settling that slight was more important than anything happening inside. He was big. So was the knife. There was no way I was getting by him in one piece.

I zagged right, towards the retainer. Before he could get his arms up, I struck him with my shoulder and all my weight. It was enough to hurl him back against the thug, who barely had the presence of mind not to gut his companion. The three of us went down together in an eruption of gravel and thrashing limbs.

Cushioned by two bodies, I came off lightest. My momentum carried me free, and I rolled back to my feet. But those seconds of delay had cost me dearly. Now there were running steps pounding the carriageway behind me, and a dozen voices shouting over each other.

The shriek of a whistle cut the night air.

"To the stables!" someone bellowed.

Stables? I couldn't outrun horses! I was already halfwinded. I needed to get off the streets. But there was no way off these wide, open boulevards. To the south lay only the walls. In any other direction, I was two roads or more from anything even approaching an alley.

I ran on. There was nothing else to do. Out of the gate, I chose the direction I'd come from, where at least I'd know my way towards the Market District.

Luck was against me. I'd barely left the carriageway when a crowd came crashing from a wide side street ahead. One or more of the patrols had arrived in answer to the whistle's summons. To their credit, they grasped the situation quickly. In seconds, they were moving to cut me off.

From behind came the clatter of hooves on stone.

I glanced back, caught a dizzying glimpse of a single rider bursting from the arch I'd just left. More eager than his colleagues, he hadn't even waited to saddle his mount. I knew him as one of Mounteban's bodyguards, and before that as bouncer for his bar in Muena Palaiya. That and the fact the Red-Eyed Dog was the most dangerous dive in the Castoval told me all I needed to know.

If it hadn't, the cudgel he held, with nails hammered through its head, would have filled in any blanks.

Ahead, the line of bodies was spreading out, preempting my next thought. I might have dashed for one of the other mansions, but they were close enough now to see me wherever I went. That first mad sprint was already lashing my ribs with fire. Try as I might, I was losing pace.

What did it matter? I had nowhere to go. I faltered, the pain in my lungs struggling against hopelessness for my attention.

Mounteban was nothing like Moaradrid. He wouldn't try to take me alive. He didn't care about questioning me. If the darker rumours I'd heard in Muena Palaiya were true — and I was confident now that they were — then his method of dealing with problems like me was to make damn sure they never bothered him again.

That was the message the bouncer's cudgel sent, like a clarion into my brain. I couldn't tear my eyes from it. As he galloped nearer, each crack of hooves sent light glinting from those fiendishly spiked points. The thing was fully as long as my leg. Every time it tore the air, I could feel, with clarity beyond imagination, what it would do to flesh and bone.

I'd almost staggered to a halt. He could easily have trampled me where I stood. Instead, he reined in, steadying his mount for a blow. The horse whickered furiously as he forced it through a tight half circle, striving to cut in front of me. I dropped to one knee and flung an arm over my head — as though that would do anything to stop the club from shattering both arm and skull. He gave me an almost friendly grin, perhaps grateful I was making life easier by staying still. Tug ging the reins harder, digging with his heels, he controlled the panicked horse. Then he lifted the obscene cudgel, almost casually.

I pulled my new knife from its sheath and jabbed it into his thigh.

I did it more from spite than any hope of saving myself. It was hardly more than a prick; the blade was no longer than my middle finger. Insomuch as I'd thought the attack through, I'd hoped to pull it free for another try.

The bouncer ruined that plan by tumbling down his horse's other side and onto the cobbles, landing with a bone-crunching thud and muffled cry.

Damn it, why could I never hold onto a knife?

Still, a horse was some recompense.

Bolstered by my unexpected victory, I leapt up and clutched the reins. I thought the horse might fight the unexpected change of rider, but apparently he was as eager to be off as I was. He shot to a gallop with the barest encouragement, and didn't flinch when our course took us directly towards the men ahead. For a moment, their heads swung between the figure crumpled on the cobbles and the excited animal bearing down on them. Then the line broke. Two of them dashed one way, three the other, and we sailed between.

I tried to guide us towards the nearest turn-off. I'd had more than enough of this street. However, the horse didn't seem terribly interested in my opinions. Only at the last possible instant did he decide to acquiesce, and we clattered round the corner. I nearly sobbed with relief when no one appeared to block our way.

Then my brain caught up with the sounds behind me.

What I'd thought was one set of hooves, the one beneath me, was actually more like half a dozen. Now that I realised, I could make out their individual tattoos upon the cobblestones. It could only be the rest of Mounteban's bodyguard. They weren't on us yet, but they were close and gaining.

I was no kind of horseman. I'd never have made it this far if my mount didn't have an agenda of his own. Whatever slim advantage I'd gained was about to vanish. Maybe I'd changed the rules of the chase, but they were no less stacked against me.

Nearing the end of our current road and left to its own devices, my horse made a beeline for an alley that cut towards the Market District. I approved in theory — except that this particular alley was chiselled through two buildings, its ceiling so low that a man could barely pass without crouching…

"Not that wa-"

Just in time, I realised ducking would serve better than arguing. I bent double over the horse's neck, as timber beams scuffed my hair. The too-close walls shrieked by. We broke back into open air, and another wider passage. This one ended in a ninety-degree turn — which my horse chose to ignore. He ran straight towards the wall. Only when it seemed far too late did he skid to a halt, neighing manically, as though the obstruction was some completely unpredictable impediment that had appeared to vex him.

I yanked hard on the reins, trying to tilt his head towards the turn. Eventually, he understood. He set off again, barely slower than before.

The next turn deposited us somewhere familiar, the main thoroughfare of the Market District, which ran west from the docks towards the palace. From behind, I could hear the pursuing riders navigating the alleys. Our lead was rapidly diminishing. I couldn't carry on like this. My horse was no less determined to kill me than the men closing upon us.

I had to get off the streets.

But where could I go? The gates were barred. Even if I could make it to Franco's, he'd turn me in the first chance he got, and there was no way I was chancing the sewer again. Better death than that. Alvantes should still be waiting beneath the Sabre, but it would be guarded and barricaded, and if they had any sense they'd have upped the guards manning the dockside too. What did that leave?

On any other night, nothing.

Tonight, however, I had a brand-new length of rope.

Maybe the walls would be crawling with men. More likely, they'd have been drawn into the hunt. To anyone without a new rope, the ramparts were too high to offer an escape route, just as the city was too cramped for them to offer any useful vantage in my pursuit. Anyway, what choice did I have? I could rationalise all night — or for the seconds it would take someone to catch and murder me — but there were no other options. A slim chance was better than none.

My best hope lay in taking the fastest route, regardless of where it brought me out. I drew my horse round, spurring him with a sharp dig of my heels, and we shot off westward through the Lower Market District.

From behind came the clamour of our pursuers joining the main road. By then, we were passing beneath the arch that joined Lower and Upper Market districts, into the luxurious stretch of shops reserved for the Altapasaedan rich. Ahead, a patrol of four men burst from a narrow sideway. My horse, with his usual indifference to obstructions, made no effort to avoid them. In the fraction of a second they had to judge the situation, they made the right decision. We left them sprawling in the street. The subsequent cries told me they'd proved more of a hindrance to our pursuers than they had to us.

Another grand arch brought us out at the curved junction where Market and Temple districts met. I edged the horse right, to keep our westerly course. To either side, lights burned with bright chemical blues and greens, casting brief, wild shadows of our passage. In cages above, vividly plumed birds screamed their outrage. I was glad I held no belief in the northerner gods; riding at full pelt through their mundane home was sure to be all kinds of blasphemy.

On we went, into the great square around the palace. I had just time to notice how the ornate palace gates had been caved in before we were past. My single-minded horse was in his element in so open a space. I didn't think our followers had gained at all. Now the walls were in sight — and sure enough, no one was visible upon their crest.

However, nothing lay beyond the walls at this point but the ragged highway we'd travelled the night be fore. I'd barely be safer out there than I was in here. Fortunately, this road ran almost the entire inner circumference of Altapasaeda. I didn't want to push my luck much further, but I let the horse continue, until I thought we must be near the outskirts of the Suburbs. Only then did I guide him towards one of the intermittent sets of steps that led upward.

I wasn't sure he'd stop when I reined in. He did, though so suddenly I almost tumbled over his head. I swung giddily to the ground. "Good horse," I mumbled. "Fine, brave horse."

He bared his teeth and looked as though he'd like to chew my face off.

"Mad, vicious horse," I amended, and flung myself up the stairs.

At the summit, I glanced back — just as four riders swung into view below. Only four? Mounteban had six bodyguards. Discounting the one I'd left bleeding in the South Bank, that still made five.

Then I realised who was missing, and a shiver danced up my spine.

It was Synza. Synza the assassin.

With an effort, I pushed the thought from my mind. All I had time to worry about was getting off these walls. At the head of the stairs, the walkway was cut short by a squat tower. I tried the door, was a little surprised when it opened. Inside were a tiny desk, a stove and a ladder leading to a trapdoor in the ceiling. I hurried to slam and bolt the door, and darted to secure the opposite entrance as well.

I'd bought myself a little breathing space. But lock ing myself in a tower was a temporary fix at best. I started up the ladder, shoved through the hatch and dragged myself onto the platform there. I pulled out my rope and looped it round a merlon of the battlement, securing it with the grapnel hook.

I had my escape route. Now I just needed the nerve to use it.

It was pure instinct that drew my eyes left and down to the wall walk — the instinct of the rabbit that realises, too late, how the hawk is plummeting towards it. There stood Synza, his face a mask of perfect calm. One delicate hand was raised to his ear, as though he were straining to hear some subtle note.

Then I saw the glint of metal there. His hand flicked forward, unimaginably fast.

I threw myself sideways. Heat seared a line across the side of my head. I kept moving, flung myself at the battlements, half climbed, half tumbled over. My grasping fingers found the rope, just in time to save me from a helpless fall. I wrapped my free hand round the first, let myself slide.

Immediately, fire blossomed in my palm. Why hadn't I bought gloves? I knew dimly that without them, there was no quick way down a rope. But panic was driving me. At any moment, Synza might lean out to finish me.

The pain in my chafed fingers, suddenly, was more than I could bear.

I couldn't stop. I couldn't hold on.

I let go.