Giant thief

CHAPTER 7

Thud.

I opened my eyes, and looked out through a crimson web of pain.

Thud.

Darkness, split by flickering yellow; I tried to turn my head, regretted it.

Thud.

I was lying on some kind of litter. My feet were tied to the higher end where, if I strained, I could just make out a bulky silhouette supporting it. Perhaps they'd tied me carelessly and my head had been banging for a while, or maybe I'd slipped down as we travelled. Either way, I saw no point to suffering in silence. I groaned as loudly as I could manage. The noise came back at me alarmingly in a wave of muffled echoes. We jarred to a halt, and my head bounced off the ground once more.

"He's awake." The voice was muted, though curiously piercing. I presumed it belonged to the cloaked stranger.

"It seems so." That was Mounteban, sounding less than pleased.

"Can you knock him out again?"

"I could."

"You won't?"

"I will if you think I should. It's risky. You can only hit a man on the head so many times before parts start to rattle."

"Will he make trouble? We could blindfold him."

"No trouble," I gurgled.

I'd have liked to say more, but the throbbing between my ears, the angle I was at, and a cruel dryness in my throat all conspired against it.

My feet were lowered to the ground. Steps came towards me, echoing off some hard surface, stone flags or bare rock.

"We know everything," said Mounteban, from just outside my line of sight. "You don't want to make this more difficult than it needs to be."

I wondered what it would be like to know everything. It sounded a lot of work, and I didn't envy this mysterious "we". "I don't want things to be difficult," I agreed. "Only, my head hurts."

More steps, of a lighter tread. A face loomed over mine, but only a third of it was visible beneath the folds of the hood and that third was sunk in shadow.

"He's bleeding a little. His head's been knocking on the ground." I noticed again how sharply pitched his voice was. He seemed short and slight enough to be an unusually tall child, though it was hard to judge details from the loose-hanging cloak.

"It has," I agreed. "Repeatedly."

"We could turn him the right way up."

"You could."

"Shut up, Damasco!" Mounteban sounded more exasperated than angry. "Listen, you can't make things any worse."

I wasn't sure how to take that. On the surface, it seemed promising; I'd rarely come across a situation I couldn't aggravate. Yet an edge to his voice suggested I might do better not to try this time.

The cloaked stranger said, "Raise his legs."

A moment later my feet lurched into the air, and I found myself gazing up at Mounteban's florid, cyclopean face. He gave me one glance, of irritated disdain, then turned his good eye and patch resolutely towards the ceiling. His companion busied himself in passing a length of rope beneath and around my shoulders and knotting it tight, so that now I was bound securely at both ends.

"Let's get moving."

All this while, my head had been slowly clearing. While Mounteban laboured to lower one end of my litter and haul up the other, I pondered the fact that he seemed — despite his fearsome reputation, his standing in the criminal community, his enigmatic talk of "agents" — to be following orders. This was interesting, and might be useful. I'd never known Castilio Mounteban to follow anyone, for any reason. Was I in the presence of some fearsome criminal mastermind, some new lord of the Muena Palaiyan underworld?

My head and shoulders pitched upward, and were dragged through a half circle. Then we were moving again, and all I could see was a press of shadows merging into deeper darkness, with the only light the shuddering glow of our mysterious leader's lantern from behind me.

I thought I'd worked out where we were, at least. I had an idea, anyway, though if I were right it wouldn't do me much good. Back in the day, I'd occasionally had cause to visit the ant's nest of tunnels behind Muena Palaiya. Some were remnants of the old mines, some natural passages formed by waters that had once hurtled through the blackness. A few were claimed to be the handiwork of some ancient race who'd made burrows amidst the rock. None of that had really mattered, because for as long as anyone remembered the warrens had been the refuge of smugglers, fences and other unlawful sorts, who had adapted the excavations for their own ends. It had been another of Muena Palaiya's fine secrets for those of us in the trade. I'd only ever seen the edges of it; rumour had it that the full extent reached throughout the mountains, penetrating as far as the coast and in every direction.

So if I was right I was utterly lost, with no hope of doing anything about it, even if I could somehow work myself free and escape.

It seemed easiest to pass out again.

When I awoke, my head was still pounding. I was convinced at first that I was still on the litter, and still moving. I realised after a while that I'd just got used to the sensation. In fact, I was lying on a pallet in what appeared to be a small cave. It was just about high enough that I could have stood, had I wanted to. Ten steps would have taken me along its length, and half that would have sufficed for its width. The abrupt angles of the stone suggested it had been cut out, though it was possible the work of men had just modified an existing space. It certainly didn't seem to have been designed with any useful function in mind. The proportions were generous for a cell, stingy for anything else.

Light came from a single candle perched in a nook to my left. A door opposite, constructed of tightly sealed planks, blocked the exit. If there'd been anyone around, I'd have pointed out what an unnecessary precaution it was. I'd have been far too scared of getting lost to try and escape, and in any case, I was glad of the rest. The pallet was dirty and probably riddled with lice, but it was comfortable. Someone had even bandaged my shoulder with fresh linen and an unexpected degree of care. I was even more surprised, when I eased myself onto my elbows, to discover some bread and a jug of water.

I sat up properly, gulped down half the water, tore a lump of bread, and chewed thoughtfully. It was hard, but not stale. On an impulse, I began to search through my pockets. Of my limited possessions, my knife was gone. My purse, astonishingly, was where I'd left it. The strange stone I'd taken from Moaradrid was missing; however, my handful of coins remained. Most bizarrely, my picks were untouched. The door had no keyhole and would undoubtedly be barred on the other side. Still, it showed an unusual degree of honesty in my captors. That was the last thing I'd have expected from Mounteban, who even after he'd gone straight had been more basically dishonest than many hardened criminals I'd known.

Captivity didn't seem so bad, all things considered. After the last couple of days — being forced into battle, spending excruciating hours upon a hygiene-impaired giant while barbarians tried to skewer me, and falling off a cliff — it was quite pleasant. I didn't have to worry about Moaradrid while I was in there, or anything much else.

I determined not only to make the best of it, but to prolong it if I could. Sat there chewing, watching the flickering patterns of amber and black shadow, I decided that all I really wanted for the foreseeable future was a little oil for my bread, some good cheese, and wine instead of water. Maybe such luxuries could be negotiated for, though it was hard to think what I could offer someone who'd already claimed to know everything.

Time passed. I had no way to judge how long. I drifted in and out of sleep, sometimes sat with my back against the wall, sometimes lying on the pallet, which smelled pleasantly of straw. I finished the bread, though I tried to ration my water. It occurred to me abruptly that they'd left me there to die, and the thought was so appalling that I nearly panicked. But that made no sense. Why drag me an interminable distance beneath the earth, only to leave my body rotting in a cave without so much as a word of explanation?

Still, after that I began to find the experience less pleasurable. Other troublesome theories limped around my aching brain. Perhaps I was being ransomed to Moaradrid, or held on behalf of one of the many enemies I'd accumulated during my time in Muena Palaiya. If neither explanation really accounted for my circumstances, that didn't stop me worrying.

I was actually relieved to hear the echoing approach of feet outside. I listened eagerly. There were two people, one tread heavier than the other — presumably Mounteban and his mysterious accomplice. I was a little surprised when the louder step halted some way before the door, while the other continued on to stop directly outside. A high, muffled voice said something I couldn't make out.

Mounteban replied, "All the same. You should be careful."

The response was similarly inaudible.

"Perhaps. But he's a petty thief, at best."

A clatter, of first one wooden beam and then another being lifted out of the way, obscured the next exchange. All I heard was Mounteban conclude with, "…wait here then."

The door creaked inward. The hole was so low that even the cloaked stranger had to hunch to pass through. He was still carrying a lantern in one hand. Its ruddy glow did little except lengthen and soften the shadows.

"I don't like the phrase 'petty thief'," I said. "It makes me sound short."

"At least you acknowledge you're a thief."

"From time to time I've done things that might, to a cynical observer, be considered thieving."

"And what would you call them?"

"My livelihood."

The cloaked figure laughed, a strangely pleasant sound amid such dreary surroundings. "Well perhaps you're something more than a petty thief, then. We'll see."

He reached up to draw back his hood. I saw narrow features cast into sharp relief by the lamplight, a soft mouth, large, dark eyes, and a mane of even darker hair flowing past shoulder length.

I stared, not quite able to close my mouth. Finally I said, perhaps unnecessarily, "You're a woman."

"See? You're already showing insightfulness beyond your calling."

"And I recognise you. You were in the battle, yesterday morning," I said, momentarily forgetting how I'd planned to keep my own presence there a secret. The image came back to me with sudden clarity: the rider at the vanguard of the escaping Castovalian force, black hair streaming past their shoulders. I realised, with astonishment, that the man beside her then had been Castilio Mounteban. "Now that I think, I've seen you before that too."

"Marina Estrada," she said with a small bow.

It all clicked into place.

"You're the mayor. The mayor of Muena Palaiya."

"And you are Easie Damasco, one-time resident of my noble town, who since then has made a nuisance of himself throughout most of the Castoval at one time or another. You managed most recently to fall in with the invader Moaradrid, and to fight against your own kinsmen."

My mouth felt suddenly dry. I'd given nothing away that she hadn't already known. Mounteban's claim of omniscience began to seem a lot more plausible. "I was coerced."

"That seems likely. You certainly left in a hurry, and with more than one thing that wasn't yours. Since then Moaradrid has shown an eager interest in your whereabouts."

She took a step closer. When she spoke again, her voice was so hard and sharp that I could understand how I'd mistaken it for a man's. "For all that, you're only a small part of a very big picture."

"Mounteban said the same. To me I'm a large part of a picture only slightly bigger than I am."

She laughed again. This time it was a harsh, humourless sound. She set the lantern in the centre of the floor and sat opposite me, just beside the door. "There's more at stake than you realise, and there has been from the start. Who knows what your blundering has cost the Castoval?"

"Whatever it is, I'll pay." Not wanting to be overly hasty, I added, "It may take a little while."

"The question we have to ask, though, is 'Was it blundering? Or was it cleverness?' You can see how we'd wonder. 'Here's a man who's met Moaradrid himself, who's spent time in his camp and carries his coin, and now, conveniently, comes running into our very arms.' Don't you think we'd be suspicious?"

I didn't like where this was heading. "I don't know about any 'we'. I couldn't run any further, so I came to Muena Palaiya. I asked Mounteban for help because I couldn't think of anyone else."

"That may be true."

She looked away, and paused to run long fingers through her hair. I noticed how tangled and unkempt it was, and then how it matched her whole appearance. The cloak was made for travel, and dirty and torn; smears of dirt ran down one side of her face, beneath a livid bruise only partly hidden by her fringe. There were grey bags beneath her eyes, and lines creasing their corners.

The interrogation seemed to have ceased for the moment. Marina Estrada sat staring at nothing, struggling with a particularly stubborn knot. I took the opportunity to wonder what was going on, what it was they imagined I'd done. It was absurd to think I could be in league with Moaradrid, or that he would have gone to so much trouble for an ex-criminal bar owner and a provincial mayor. What were the two of them doing together anyway? The partnership seemed more than unlikely. Perhaps Estrada's enthusiastic stance against crime had been nothing more than a screen for her own corrupt dealings. Maybe she and Mounteban were lovers, united by their paranoid distrust and enthusiasm for kidnapping.

"Amongst other things, you absconded with a giant." Her voice had resumed its normal, faintly tuneful tone. "Then you abandoned him."

The question took me by surprise. "In a way, he abandoned me."

"That's not true, is it?"

"Well… 'abandoned' is a strong word. It was an amicable parting of the ways, with the hope that we might meet again one day. There were other factors, you understand. I never think clearly under the threat of imminent death."

"You abandoned the giant and stole a horse. You soon managed to discard that too. After that, we lost track of you for a while. You were next seen making a clumsy break-in from the mountainside; lucky for you the guard had orders to leave you alone. You made your way to see Castilio, as we'd hoped you might. Now here we are."

"And here is where again?"

"You don't need to know that. In fact, until we're sure we can trust you, you don't need to know anything. We've given you the benefit of the doubt so far, for one reason only: you can be useful to us. Even then, there are those who think we should just hang you on the off chance."

"Mayor Estrada, you're right. I could be useful. Under the right conditions, I could be extremely useful. With that in mind, what do you think the chances are of some more bread, this time with a little oil, and perhaps a cup of wine?"

Estrada stood and picked up her lantern. "Come on, Damasco," she said, "I've something to show you."

I sighed and hauled myself to my feet, only to nearly topple over again when I realised how numb my legs had become. Estrada offered me an arm to steady myself. I accepted it, and leaned against her until I was sure I had my balance. Her behaviour seemed overly generous toward a suspected enemy, a potential assassin even. I wondered how genuine her suspicions were, and how much was just a precaution born of circumstance.

Whatever the case, she was quick enough to pull away once I'd found my feet. She led the way and I staggered after, with a fond glance back at my cosy cell. A sinking sensation in my bowels told me it would be a long time before I knew such peace and comfort again.

Mounteban was waiting outside, and glowered at me. "Didn't I tell you he'd deny it?"

"Perhaps because he's innocent."

"Perhaps."

We were in a low passage propped and beamed with blackened timbers, likely an old mineshaft. Estrada led off to the left, holding her lamp in front, and I followed, conscious of how Mounteban moved in close behind me. We soon came to a crossroads, and turned left again into a lower, narrower tunnel, which proceeded to wind back and forth for a considerable distance. We came eventually to what at first glance seemed a dead end, until Estrada stepped onto a ladder that disappeared into a hole above. When I hesitated, Mounteban growled, "Hurry up, Damasco."

The ladder was sturdier than it looked. That wasn't saying much. With all three of us on it, it bucked and swayed with every slight motion. The climb took an unreasonably long time, and Estrada's silhouetted figure blocked the light from her lamp, leaving me in thick darkness. By the time I clambered out, my nerves ached to match my body.

We'd arrived in yet another tunnel, this one apparently natural and faintly lit by patches of phosphorescent blue mould at intervals along the ceiling. Estrada closed and padlocked a hatch over the drop, and then led on, until the tunnel opened out again. We'd come to another junction, this one large enough to be considered a cavern. I was alarmed when a shape glided out of the shadows, until our lamplight revealed it as an elderly man in patched leather armour. He saluted Estrada and asked, "How goes it, Captain?"

"As well as can be expected," she replied. "Any word?"

"Nothing new."

She nodded, and the man slipped back into the gloom.

Captain? I remembered hearing something once about a mayor being expected to lead their townsfolk in a time of war. Surely that wouldn't apply to a woman, though? I'd always assumed Estrada's appointment had been meant as a joke, and it had never occurred to me that others might see it differently. Yet I could think of no other explanation for her presence on the battlefield.

Estrada had moved to the cavern's far wall, where a low opening led onward. She turned back and said to Mounteban, "You can wait here." When he looked as though he'd debate the point she added, "No arguments. You can eavesdrop again if you like."

She crouched to hands and knees and disappeared into the entrance. Mounteban waved me on when I didn't follow, and I could feel the elderly guard's eyes on the back of my neck. I dropped to all fours and crawled after Estrada.

That short journey was worse than climbing the ladder had been. I couldn't lift my head without scraping it on bare rock, and the surface beneath my hands was just as uneven. Both were cold and moist, and once again I was travelling in near blackness. I was immensely relieved to see Estrada's shape ahead fringed with grey. The grey grew paler and paler, until suddenly she moved aside and dazzling moonlight filled my view. I clambered gratefully out into it, and if it hadn't been for Estrada's grasp on my elbow, would have stepped right off the cliff.

For that was where we'd come out: dizzyingly high upon the cliffside, perched on a slender outcrop, looking down over the eastern Castoval. I could make out the contours of Muena Palaiya directly below, illuminated by occasional glimmers of lamp or torchlight. Grander fires burned in the triangle of ground before the north gate, seething puddles of yellow spread between the silhouettes of tents.

Estrada, following my gaze, pointed down towards the encampment. "That's where Moaradrid's holding your friend."

"My friend?"

"The giant you travelled with."

"Oh. I wouldn't have chosen that particular word."

Her glance was disapproving. "No?"

"Anyway, I'm sure he'll be all right. He'll explain, in his monosyllabic way, that it was entirely my fault, and they'll likely take him back to his real friends."

"Even if that were to happen," she said, "It wouldn't fit with our plans."

"These mysterious plans again. Tell me, why exactly have we come all this way, when I could be asleep in that nice, warm cave?"

Estrada looked at me as if I was deliberately missing the obvious. "You can't very well rescue the giant from inside a prison cell, can you?"