The Lost Heiress

19

The stupid must be cast aside. Those of medium intellect are of most use. Beware the ones who are too clever. They may be taught to hate us yet.

Rule of the Watch

CLOSE UP, THE WATCHHOUSE was immense, a squat, ugly building of black brick, dumped in the forest. All around stood its defenses; a fence of spiked logs, a ditch, and one drawbridge, lowered now, for the children to straggle across.

From his hiding place under the thorns, Raffi watched them forming up in lines, many staggering under the weight of logs and kindling; even the smallest children had their arms crammed full. There were three guards; two laughing and joking together, the last calling up to someone at a window. None of them were watching the trees.

Carys nudged him sharply, and was gone.

He hoisted the wood bundle up against his face and stumbled out behind her, his heart thudding like a hammerbird’s knock. The sense-lines snagged under his eyelid; he knew Alberic’s hunters were only yards behind.

And still he couldn’t believe what he was doing.

“Line up!” Someone shoved him; he kept his head down, praying numbly. Children closed in behind. Quickly they began to walk.

The branches were heavy, but they kept him hidden, and the boy next to him didn’t even glance across. There was no talking, no pushing. In the silence he could even hear the leaves falling, and the whistle of an oat-piper far off in the wood. Then wooden planks were under his feet; the children’s boots rang in hollow echoes. They were crossing the drawbridge.

Glancing up, he saw the archway gaping over him, a great mouth, one lantern hanging from it like a single tooth. This was it. He didn’t know any passwords, any rules. Carys would get in, but they were bound to find him, drag him out, beat him. He closed his eyes.

She jolted against him. “Stay close.”

The arch swallowed them. He sensed it over him, felt suddenly small, as if his personality had shrunk, become crushed. Defiantly, miserably, he mumbled the Litany.

The smell of the place was overpowering. Old musty rooms, stale fat, a smell of fear, long-enclosed, as if the windows were never opened. And it was bitterly cold.

As the line shuffled on, he glanced at Carys; to his surprise he saw something like hatred on her face. She moved up to him, but before she could speak the line halted.

Ahead the children were chanting numbers to a boredlooking woman on a stool; then one by one they disappeared through a doorway. Nervously Raffi waited his turn.

“Next,” the woman said, not looking up.

He had decided what to say.

“N-nine one four,” he stammered, then walked on fast, in case she raised her eyes from the page and looked at him. In seconds Carys was behind him; there was no outcry. It seemed to have worked. In relief he breathed his thanks to Flain.

They found themselves going down a dim stairway; at the bottom was an evil-smelling cellar where the children were stacking the wood. Their silence scared Raffi. They didn’t laugh, or joke, or even smile. And he saw how they all watched one another, slyly, as if none of them were friends, or to be trusted.

Carys pulled him gently by the sleeve, then turned and marched out of a different door. Trying to look calm, he followed. She looked as if she knew where she was going. Through a warren of crypts and cellars, up some stairs, then into a corridor where the roof leaked. Opening the first door on the left she peered in, drew her head out, and nodded.

They slid inside, and closed the door tight.

It was a storeroom. Barrels were stacked against a cracked wall. The hearth was a drift of wind-blown ashes.

Raffi breathed out slowly. Then he said, “I can’t believe we’re in.”

She went over and knelt on top of the barrels, rubbing dust from one pane of a tiny window. “Keep your voice down.”

“Will they come in here?”

“It’s unlikely.”

He looked at her back. “How did you know about it? How did you know your way?”

Cold suspicions moved in on him like eelworms, but she turned and stared at him contemptuously. “Don’t be stupid, Raffi. These places are all the same—if you know one, you know them all. The Watch pride themselves on that. Wherever you go, always the same. One big family.”

She turned back to the window, but he still watched her. Quietly he said, “So you knew this room somewhere else?”

For a while he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she said, “It was the one I spent hours in at Marn Mountain. I had it all worked out. The rotas were easy to alter—everyone thought I was in some other class. I kept food here, books, all the things you weren’t allowed. I did it for years, till they found out.”

“What did they do to you?”

“They promoted me, of course.” She turned and grinned at him. “In the Watch, the slyer you are, the better. You look shocked.”

“I just . . .” He shook his head. “I always assumed you liked it.”

“Liked it!” She spat viciously into the ashes. “These places are hell, Raffi! You’ve got no idea. Come up here.”

He climbed up beside her. She rubbed the spot on the window wider, and looking through it he saw a grim courtyard, with a high spiked wall. Children huddled around. Some sat in groups, others ran to keep warm, but there was still little noise, except from one end of the yard where a group silently watched three boys beat a smaller one, punching him in the face and stomach while he sobbed. Raffi stared in horror. “Why doesn’t someone stop them?”

Carys smiled grimly. “It’s probably a punishment. Look.”

Two Watchmen were standing behind the crowd, their arms folded, laughing. One shouted encouragement.

Raffi turned away. He was white with anger. “No wonder Galen hates the Watch. How can they make the children punish each other?”

“They don’t make them. They volunteer.” She climbed down and sat beside him.

“Volunteer!”

“You get better food. And credits on your workcard. The more of those, the better you do. I’ll bet Braylwin collected plenty.”

“What about you?” He stared at her. “Did you ‘volunteer’?”

“Sometimes.” She said it softly, looking away from him. “They teach you how to use people here, Raffi. I never realized that until after. To hunt and lie and lay traps but never to care. And you have to survive, you have to get through it somehow. Have you ever thought of what happens to those who don’t?”

Numb, he shook his head.

“Well, they vanish. It’s said they’re thrown down the Pits. The Watch has no failures.”

In silence they heard a bell ring, far off in the building. The scuffles stopped outside. Then Raffi said, “Where do we look for her?”

“We don’t, yet. At five bells they all parade in that yard for name-check. Then you’ll have to see if she’s there. You haven’t told me how you know what she’s like.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Then what?”

“From where she stands in line I’ll know where she sleeps. But listen. If I get caught, you don’t know me. Understand? You just walk by. One of us has to get her out.”

“I can’t,” he muttered.

“You can. You’d better. Because if you’re caught, that’s what I’ll be doing.”

He didn’t know whether to believe her or not.

All afternoon they stayed hidden in the cramped storeroom, except that every hour Carys led him out through a maze of corridors, walking quickly, looking at no one, coming back to the room when the patrol would have looked in and passed on.

“The sweep, we call it. Two men check every room in the whole house constantly. It took about an hour at Marn. You have to time it just right.”

Bewildered, Raffi sat on the floor. The place upset him. He dared not send out sense-lines; they touched things that made him feel sick. Odd noises and cries echoed in the building; he had glimpses of desolate classrooms, like the one in his vision. He felt trapped, totally cut off. “And if we find her,” he said, “how do we get her out? Or help Galen?”

Carys licked thirsty lips. “Galen can take care of himself. But you’re right about one thing. Getting in was easy. I haven’t a clue how we’re going to get out.”

They didn’t notice the darkness come. But after a while the room was too dim for them to see each other clearly, and the faintest edge of Agramon was glimmering from somewhere high over the roofs.

A bell rang. Raffi was already sick of them, but Carys stiffened. “Name-check.” She jumped up to the barrels. “Right. Get ready.”

The courtyard was dark now and lit with flares; garish red flames that crackled and guttered in the cold wind, sending shadows leaping. The Watchchildren were lined up, silent and sullen, in identical rows rigidly spaced, feet apart, arms behind their backs, eyes fixed on the ground. They wore thin clothes; most were shivering. Raffi ran his eyes anxiously along the lines, past thin boys, tall lanky girls, a sobbing infant everyone ignored.

“Well?”

“I can’t . . . yes! That’s her! Third from the end, in the back row! That’s her!”

Carys pushed him aside and put her eyes to the pane. She saw a small stubborn-looking seven-year-old, her hair hacked off, her face freckled, already thin. “Are you sure?”

“Certain. I’d never forget her.”

She spent a long time looking, then turned and leaned back thoughtfully against the wall. She was oddly silent, Raffi thought. A tinge of sadness came out of her and touched his sense-field.

“Right.” She lifted her head firmly. “We need to plan this. Get her on her own. Diversionary tactics. Something to deal with any pursuit.” She grinned slyly. “Just like they taught us.”

He looked baffled.

Carys laughed. “Don’t worry, Raffi. I was always top of the class. Look, that thing you did in Tasceron, the bangs and flashes, the inner eye thing, can you do it here?”

He shrugged, uneasy. He was cold and hungry, and he loathed this place; the very air was miserable. “There’s no awen here.”

“Awen?”

“Energy, power. Life.”

He shivered, and she felt anxious. “But you’ll do your best?”

“Of course I will. But, Carys, it’ll take an army to get us out.”

Angry, she shook her head. “One step at a time.” Unstrapping her crossbow, she loaded it, then pulled a small pouch from under her coat. Opening it, she took out some fine rope, candles, a tinderbox, some tiny boxes, and a package wrapped in black cloth.

He touched the package and she saw his eyes widen. “This is a relic!”

“Yes.” She shoved it back. “I got it in the Tower of Song. It’s for Galen. Now come on, Raffi. We’ve got to be ready in an hour. Before the patrol comes around.”

It was exactly an hour and a half later that Carys walked cautiously down the middle of dormitory twenty-seven, glancing at the bed numbers, the sleeping huddles under gray blankets. The bed she wanted was third from the end, near where the night candle spluttered in its lantern. She leaned down and took a deep breath. Then, quickly, she twitched the girl over, clamped a cold hand tight on her mouth, and hissed, “Don’t scream. Don’t speak. Just listen.”

Wide brown eyes stared up at her.

“My name is Carys Arrin. I’m a Watchspy, silver rank.” She dangled the insignia carelessly in the child’s face. “You’ve been selected for a special mission. It’s highly secret; none of the other children must know. Do you understand?”

The girl nodded. Her body was tense in the bed.

“You must come with me now. Get dressed, and hurry.”

She took her hand away and stood back. This was the test; if the girl screamed . . . Carys folded her arms and looked away up the room, as if she was impatient. But the child dressed silently, hastily. She was used to obeying orders, as they’d expected, though once or twice she peeped up, curious, into Carys’s face.

“Come on!” Carys growled.

“I am!” the girl said impudently. She pulled on her shoes and went back to the bed. Plunging her hand into the straw, she pulled something out and turned, but Carys had seen. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.” Carys came and snatched it; the girl glared, furious. “He’s mine! And I’m bringing him!” The hiss was loud, but Carys barely heard it. In her hand was a small stuffed toy, a night-cub, so battered one ear was gone, and the dark fur almost rubbed away.

The girl snatched it back and pushed it into her dress. “I’m not going without him.”

Carys was amazed. There were no toys allowed in Watchhouses—for the girl to have kept it this long meant she was cunning. Incredibly cunning.

“All right. Follow me.”

She turned and marched down the dormitory, the little girl pattering beside her. In the silence their footsteps sounded loud; Carys felt sweat chill her back. But no one woke.

Once again she hurried, up the steps, then up again to the dim landing. Lamps burned down long corridors. Far below, the endless patrol closed and opened doors.

“Where are we going?” the girl demanded suddenly.

“Wait and see.” Carys stopped. “Raffi?”

He stepped out behind them, and the girl stared at him, her brown eyes solemn. “Who’s he?”

“He works with me.”

“I’ve seen him before. I saw him in a dream.”

Aghast, Carys looked at him. “What?”

Raffi bit his lip. “It’s—it’s all right,” he stammered.

“No it’s not. You’re from the Evil Order.”

“No . . . Listen.”

But the girl’s voice was louder. “I don’t believe you. Where are you taking me?”

Carys clamped her hand tight over the girl’s mouth, crouching. “Keep quiet! I told you, this is a secret!”

The child’s eyes blazed; she squirmed with anger, then clenched her teeth on Carys’s fingers and bit down savagely. With a gasp, Carys snatched her hand back.

The little girl looked at Raffi, a cold look.

Then she opened her mouth and screamed.