The Fade

5

Two turns later I meet the man who just tried to have me murdered and apologise to him. It doesn't rank among the easiest things I ever did.

The arrangements are made through the twins, and by their influence I manage to get an audience. They both seem relieved when I tell them my intentions, but Casta is cold and I get the impression that she's disappointed in me.

Ledo receives us in his chambers, dressed all in black, fingers and hair heavy with silver ornaments. Caydus is with him, maintaining a grim and brooding presence to one side of the room. Liss and Casta stand by their brother as I profess my sorrow at the way I behaved at our last meeting. Ledo listens stonily to my renewed promises of loyalty, my submission to his will in all things, my gratefulness for his mercy. I play the penitent well, chastened and brought to heel.

I wonder if he believes me. I wonder if he already knows that his assassins have failed, and he thinks I don't realise he sent them. Or maybe he thinks I do know. My coming back this way must seem very puzzling. He'll be wondering what my angle is.

That's good. Keep him guessing. In the end, it doesn't matter what he believes. The only reason I've apologised is to get inside his quarters.

'I am pleased that you have learned proper respect, Orna,' he says. 'But this does not change my decision regarding your son.'

'I do not ask you to change your decision, Magnate. It was just and fair.'

He regards me for a time. I have no idea what's going on behind those dark eyes.

'Very well, Orna. Your apology is accepted.'

I thank him humbly and he turns away, dismissing me without a word. I manage a weak smile at Liss, letting her glimpse the trembling vulnerability beneath my brave exterior. She swallows it, hurries to my side, arm round my shoulder. She leads me out, Casta trailing behind.

My fainting fit is pretty convincing, I like to think. We've barely left the room when I go boneless. Liss cries out for her sister, trying to hold me up.

'Oh! Oh! She's died!' Liss howls, as she struggles with my weight. Casta just watches, making no move to help.

'She's died? Are you sure she's not just sleeping?' She's mocking her sister, but Liss doesn't catch on.

'It must be that!' she declares desperately, patting my cheek. 'Wake up, Orna!'

My eyelids flutter and I find my feet again. I look around in mild confusion.

'You were asleep,' Casta says dryly.

'I don't feel well,' I tell them, and Liss's face sags in sympathy. 'I think I'm going to be sick.'

'Not here! Not here!' Liss panics, propelling me towards a door. We pass through several rooms before reaching Ledo's bathroom. I make lurching noises, threatening to vomit. Liss pushes me in but I hold out my hand when she tries to follow.

'Don't watch. I can't bear it.' And I close the door in her face.

Ledo's bathroom is all marble and gold and illuminated filaments of glow-glass, but I'm not interested in any of that. I'm interested in the window. It's made with a reinforced, ornamental frame that makes it practically impossible to get through from the outside. Not so hard if some careless person should leave it unlocked, however.

I do what I have to do, then I pretend to be sick. An hour later I'm crawling up the side of the Caracassa Mansions, several hundred spans from the ground. I had to go down three stories to find a window that I could climb through unobserved.

The Caracassa Mansions are built into the root system of an ancient mycora, which presents a certain security flaw that I've long known but never needed to use. It may be a powerful status symbol to have such an unusual home, but it's also very easy to climb. The metal claws fixed over my hands and the bladed boots on my feet bite easily into the tough rootwood exterior. If this was stone, my job wouldn't have been half so simple.

I'm wearing black, and high up in the dark I'm invisible. Cool breezes rise from the city far below, slapping my clothes against my skin, flipping strands of hair. The climb uses muscles that have weakened through lack of use, but it's not far, and the curving surface of the colossal root makes things straightforward. I clamber up, avoiding the windows, an insect against the flanks of the Mansions. All of Veya is spread out beneath me, a complex pattern of lights delineating thoroughfares and riversides, pinned by its five tall shinehouses. In other times, I might have felt a deep peace in this moment. Now there's only the demanding pull of a job that needs to be done. Only the mission matters.

The bathroom window is still unlocked when I get to it. The locks are checked by handmaidens before Ledo goes to bed, but that will be some while yet. I'd like to have done this when he was asleep, but the windows would be locked again by then. So instead, I'll be sneaking through the chambers while Ledo is still up, and that means the Caydus and the handmaidens will be about, too.

I'll just have to be careful.

I creep through the window, into the bathroom, up to the door. Calm, collected. The best thieves are those that don't suffer from nerves. Their judgement stays good, they don't hesitate. Move quickly and decisively.

I open the door a crack and peer out. Ledo's chambers are sprawling and opulent, decorated with sculpture, ornamental weapons, ancient armour from far-off places. The lantern-light casts the kind of shadows you don't get with shinestones. Typical of one of the aristocracy, to be rich enough to afford shinestones and then to reject them in favour of firelight. They just have to be awkward.

The bathroom opens onto one of many sitting-rooms that appear to have no purpose other than to impress guests. Empty. I listen, but I can't hear a thing. Not that I'd hear a handmaiden even if she was right in the next room. Silence is their watchword.

I move quickly. A doorway at the end takes me into a many-mirrored corridor. I can hear voices at the end: Ledo and Caydus. I'm just about to step out when a handmaiden glides across my path. I pull back instinctively, a fraction too late. She stops, turns her red-veiled face my way. I hold my breath.

She goes on her way. I breathe out. Smart move, I tell her mentally. I don't want to be seen, but if I am I won't let myself be caught. If I'm cornered, I'll kill.

When the coast has cleared, I move up the corridor, heading from cover to cover. I've never been to Ledo's study, but I have a pretty good idea where it is. That's where he'll keep his correspondence. That's where I'll find the letter.

The voices get louder as I approach the room where I argued with Ledo. I hear Caydus' gravelly rumble but I don't catch the words.

At least I know where they are. That only leaves the handmaidens within the chambers themselves. There are usually two, and I just saw one of them go into the bedroom. The other one… what would she be doing now? Fetching his evening meal, most likely. That means she would be coming from the kitchen. Probably up this corridor.

Better be fast.

I peer into the room where Caydus and Ledo are. Ledo is pacing between the spun-sap statues and the crystal columns. Caydus has his back to me, immobile. Caydus is an even better fighter than Rynn was, but his senses aren't too sharp. I'm about to dart across the doorway and head up the corridor when I hear my name.

'And what is your opinion of Orna, then? In your experience.'

I stop and listen, briefly glancing up the corridor. I'm hiding in the shelter of a plinth. Too exposed for my liking, and I shouldn't loiter, but this I have to hear.

Caydus replies quickly. 'I've fought alongside her sometimes. Knew her a little in the Academy, but she was younger and we didn't speak much. I knew Rynn better. But Orna… she's solid, Magnate. I'd trust her with my life.'

'Do you think she might be… troublesome? Given the right incentive?'

'I think she was very upset when she spoke to you before. It's natural that she wants to be with her child after what she's been through.'

I always liked Caydus.

'You did not answer me,' Ledo says.

'I don't know, Magnate. Who knows what any of the Cadre are capable of, if the incentive is strong enough? But I don't know of anything that would make Orna act against your interests. I believe her apology was genuine.'

Well, at least I fooled one of them.

Ledo is clearly unconvinced, even with Caydus' show of support. Maybe he's pondering what I meant by speaking of Belek Aspa. Maybe thinking it was an innocent question. Maybe considering calling off the assassins. Maybe not.

I decide I've heard enough. I can't risk staying in the corridor. When Ledo is turned away from the doorway I flit across it and move on.

I hit the study first time. Can't help a flush of self-congratulation at that.

It's a large room, with a bookcase and several tall cabinets against one wall. A broad desk at one end, neatly laid with writing equipment and stationery. Two lanterns on poles stand in opposite corners, their flames magnified by chthonomantically treated glass bulbs. Set into the long wall opposite the door is a window looking out over a park on the edge of the Tangles.

I'm high up here. The ambient glow from Veya's shinehouses bathes the tops of the lichen-trees in the park. Walking paths are lit with tracks of glowing dots.

I start with the desk, but the drawers are locked. I don't want to waste time, so I check the cabinets before I get into the fiddly stuff. Mostly bone scroll-cases, shipping manifestos and reports. I rummage through them, willing the evidence I need to reveal itself. Nothing does.

I scan the bookcase, then start on another cabinet. In here I find several leather-bound ledgers. I leaf through one, find it full of diagrams and sketches: military reports. Voids, I'd like to spend time reading this, find out what these bastards have planned for our Army. But none of this is what I need.

I draw out some tiny picks and get working at the lock of the uppermost desk drawer. Now I've got the right tools, taken from my chambers downstairs, it's somewhat easier than messing about with hairpins in Farakza. The thought of that place gives me a much-needed shot of confidence. I broke out of there, didn't I? This is easy by comparison.

The lock gives up and I slide the drawer open. Bundles of letters within. Some tied in little square stacks, some loose. I pick up the top one, skim-read it.

I can't believe my luck. First time, again. You couldn't buy fortune like that.

It's the letter from Jerima Vem, detailing the operation to be carried out. Name of the barge is the Maid Of The Dark. That's the name Silverfish needs. But it's not the evidence I want.

I'm putting the letter back when I see another one tucked among the others, and I stop. There's no way it would have caught my attention, but for one thing. That alphabet, comprised of arrangements of tiny triangles. It's written in Gurtan.

I pick it up. My breath is suddenly short, pulse pounding at my throat. Eyes wide as I start to read. My memory of written Gurtan has decayed faster than the speech, since I spent little time reading as a slave; but I start to decipher odd phrases.

Our meeting… success to our great enterprise… we two must… the appointed place… honoured Ledo…

A date. A location. And a name.

Belek Aspa.

Footsteps. I recognise the rhythm instinctively. Ledo.

My skin goes icy cold. I slide the letter back where it came from, check that everything is in place, shut the drawer. No time to lock it. Time becomes slippery, measured by the swift approach of boot heels.

Nowhere to hide. If he comes in here, I'm caught.

Kill him.

The thought surges up inside me, borne on a tide of rage like nothing I've ever felt before. My hatred of the Gurta is nothing to this: the hatred of the man I pledged my life to, the man who ordered me and my husband into a trap at Korok, who left us to die so he could turn a profit from prolonging a war.

Kill him. Rip his eyes out of his fucking skull.

No. No, I can't be sure.

You've seen the proof! He's conspiring with a Gurta Minister!

I know that, and yet I still can't do it. He's my master. His men saved me from slavery. He gave me a life and a living. I owe everything to him. My husband, my son. Twenty-nine years of utter and total loyalty can't be thrown away in an instant. It's ground in, rooted deep. I can't. I can't.

He's almost on me. No way out.

Then, inspiration. I hurry across the room, tilt the glass on one of the standing lanterns and blow it out. The study dims.

Ledo is outside the door now. A pause. Doing what? Admiring a sculpture? Stay there. Just another moment.

I flee back to the other corner of the room, raise the second lantern and blow on it. It gutters and holds. I blow again, and it dies.

Ledo pushes the door open just as the room falls into darkness. I freeze where I am, still holding the lantern glass. In the light that spills in from the park and the city I'm clearly visible. But the door stands between Ledo and me.

Go on, I think at him desperately. There's no one in here. Those lazy handmaidens have let the lanterns go out. Fuck off and fetch them. Give them a piece of your mind, you treacherous bastard.

He stays. For long, agonising moments he stays. I can feel the prickle of his suspicion. Then he steps back and the door closes, slowly. Perhaps he can't believe the handmaidens would let something like this happen. He knows how attentive they are. He knows something is amiss.

Then he's gone. I listen to his footsteps recede, and gently lower the lantern glass.

Too close. And the handmaidens will be here any second. I slip out of the study and head down the corridor, back towards the bathroom, where my escape route awaits. I've learned enough.

I've learned more than enough.