The Shadow Throne

CHAPTER NINE

WINTER

Jane had organizational matters to discuss with Min and her other lieutenants in the morning, which she none too subtly told Winter would probably only bore her. She detailed Abby to escort Winter to breakfast. Something passed between the two of them that Winter couldn’t quite catch, but Abby accepted the task without arguing, and led the way back downstairs toward the makeshift dining room.

“What you told me,” Winter said, “when we first met. About how you came here. Was that true?”

“What?” Abby looked over her shoulder and looked thoughtful. “Oh. Yes, I think so.”

“So you didn’t come here from Mrs. Wilmore’s?”

“Ah. She told you about that, did she?”

Abby stopped beside a half-open door, through which Winter could see a half dozen young teenagers getting out of bed. The place was organized much like Mrs. Wilmore’s had been, with girls divided up roughly by age group and again into “dorms,” though here there were only separate hallways. The ones she thought of as lieutenants were the oldest, closer to her and Jane’s age, and they served the role of proctors and organizers. Someone, somewhere was spending some effort to keep things ticking over in an orderly manner-there was a list of names and times tacked to the bedroom door, which looked like a rota or duty roster.

“She did,” Winter said. “I’m still having a hard time believing it.”

Abby laughed. “I said the same thing, when I first got here. To answer your question, no, I was never at the Prison, and I’ve heard enough about it to be glad of that. After Jane set up shop here in the city, she started to take in strays. You’d never know it to look at her, but she’s a sucker for a sob story. Runaways, orphans, ex-prostitutes, all sorts of people. Only girls, though, and mostly those too young to look out for themselves. I think we’re nearly half and half now, between them and the original group from Mrs. Wilmore’s.”

Abby started walking again, and Winter followed. They passed more doors, open and closed, and a couple of gangs of chattering young women brushed past them on the way to breakfast.

I have to ask, Winter thought. It wasn’t as if she was spying, since she hadn’t decided what she would report to Janus. If he ever even comes asking. She was just satisfying her own curiosity. Besides, it can’t be spying if Abby is practically giving me the tour.

“The thing I don’t understand,” Winter said, as they stood aside to get out of the path of a gang of charging twelve-year-olds, “is how you keep this up. Who pays for all of this?”

“The building was abandoned. We fixed it up ourselves, mostly-”

“Jane told me. But what about the food? The clothes? You must have four hundred people here.”

“Three hundred sixty-eight,” Abby said, and shrugged. “Keeping track of that sort of thing is my job. Jane doesn’t have much of a head for numbers.”

“Three hundred sixty-eight, then. Food for that many doesn’t come cheap, especially if you always eat the way we did last night.”

“It’s true. Jane always says some of the little ones need more meat on their bones.” Abby smiled, looking oddly sad, then quickly shook her head. “Most of the girls work in the area, once they’re old enough.”

“Work at. .” Winter trailed off.

“Odd jobs.” Abby shot her a look that showed she understood perfectly what Winter didn’t want to mention. “We send them out in groups, which keeps them safe, and the local tradesmen all know us.”

And they knew that laying a hand on one of them would earn a visit from “Mad Jane.” “I can’t believe you’re supporting a place like this on ‘odd jobs,’ though.”

“No, we’re not. The bulk of the money comes from our. . other activities.”

Before Winter could follow up on this, they reached the dining room. Abby was greeted by waves and calls from a dozen quarters, but she made her way toward a group of older girls at one end of the tables, and Winter trailed behind her. They sat beside a small cluster who were bent over the table, all trying to read a broadsheet at once.

“Hey, Abby,” said one, a short, plump girl with brown ringlets. “Have you seen this?”

“No,” Abby said. “Is it Danton again? What did he do this time?”

“He only brought down a bank,” said a younger blond girl with crooked teeth.

“A Borelgai bank,” said another.

“There was nearly a riot in the Exchange,” the first girl said. “All the nobles were trying to get their money out, and they didn’t get the jam of carriages cleared up until after midnight!”

Winter managed to maneuver a look at the paper. Large type blared SECOND PENNYSWORTH FAILS AFTER DANTON’S DENUNCIATION! Beside the broadsheet was a pamphlet, bearing a crude woodcut she assumed was supposed to be Danton and the title ONE EAGLE AND THE DEPUTIES-GENERAL! DOWN WITH THE SWORN CHURCH AND THE BOREL PARASITES!

“Let me introduce you,” Abby said. “This is Molly, Andy, Becks, and Nel. Girls, this is Winter.”

The four of them looked up from the paper and seemed to notice Winter for the first time. Winter, suddenly shy, managed a little wave.

“Winter, as in the Winter?” said Nel. She was the one with the teeth.

“Winter the Soldier?” said Andy, an older girl with pretty black ringlets and pale skin.

“I don’t know,” Abby said, smiling. “Why don’t you ask her? I’m going to get something to eat.”

She left Winter standing awkwardly in front of the four of them, who continued to gape at her as though she were some weird deep-sea fish someone had hauled up onto the dock.

“Well?” said Molly, who was the first one who’d spoken. “Are you?”

“Am I what?” Winter said.

“Are you Winter the Soldier?” said Andy. “From the story.”

That rang a very tiny bell with Winter. Bobby had talked about it, hadn’t she? The story that went around after I left. .

“Are you four from Mrs. Wilmore’s?” Winter said.

Three of them nodded. Becks, who was small with stringy, mouse brown hair, was taking the opportunity to study the papers.

“Everyone told stories about Winter,” Andy said. “How she ran away from the Prison and joined the army.”

Molly looked at her crossly. “Jane doesn’t like people telling that story.”

“Because she couldn’t find her when she went back,” Nel said. “After the fire.”

Fire? Winter opened her mouth to ask, but they’d moved on.

“But if she’s here,” Molly said, “then she has found her again, hasn’t she?”

“If it’s the same Winter,” Andy said. “There are a lot of Winters around.”

“I don’t really know the story,” Winter said. “But I’m pretty sure it’s completely wrong. I am the same Winter who was at Mrs. Wilmore’s with Jane, though.”

There was a collective indrawing of breath.

“Then you didn’t escape and join the army?” Andy said.

“I escaped,” Winter said. “But no, not the rest.” Best to start thinking up a cover story. .

“I always liked the one where she became a bandit queen,” Nel said. “Did you become a bandit queen?”

Winter laughed. “No, I didn’t do that, either.”

“Listen,” said Becks, looking up. She had spectacles on, with one wire arm broken off and replaced with a bit of wood and string. “It says Danton is going to give another speech today! In Farus’ Triumph, like before.”

Winter immediately lost her place as the most fascinating thing at the table, which was all right with her. Abby returned a few moments later with a pair of plates and glasses. The plates were loaded with potatoes, sliced and fried in pork dripping, with a pair of fat, greasy sausages guarding the flanks. It was the kind of serious food that Winter would have happily killed for while on the march in Khandar, and it temporarily absorbed her full attention. In the background, she was vaguely aware of the girls debating the merits of Danton’s platform, whether a mandated price for bread would work and if the Deputies-General could really accomplish anything.

“We ought to go,” Becks said, as Winter was scrubbing the last of the grease from her plate with a slice of potato. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Absolutely,” said Nel.

Molly looked uncertain. “You think it’ll be safe?”

“Oh, come on,” said Nel. “It’s the Island in the afternoon, not the Bottoms at midnight. And with this”-she tapped the paper-“there’ll be Armsmen all over the place.”

“There was nearly a riot in the Exchange,” Molly said. “This time people might get angrier.”

“That was only because they weren’t getting their money back from the bank,” Becks said. “We don’t have to go anywhere near the Exchange.”

Andy decided to appeal to a higher authority. “Abby, what do you think? Is it safe to go and see him?”

Abby, in the middle of cleaning off her own plate, took a thoughtful moment to chew and swallow. “Probably,” she said. “Let me talk to Jane. I may want to come along, too.”

As though the name had been an invocation, another girl appeared behind them, short of breath. “I’ve got,” she gulped, “a message. Jane wants to see you.”

“Me?” Abby said.

“You and Winter,” said the messenger. “Upstairs.” She hesitated. “She sounded mad.”

Mad Jane. Winter suppressed a chuckle. Even her own people were half in terror of her.

“Well.” Abby pushed her plate back. “It looks like Jane has decided to bring you into the fold. Come on. I’ll explain on the way.”

“And you’ll ask about seeing Danton?” Andy said.

“I’ll ask.”

“Do you know anything about the tax farmers?” Abby said, as they navigated through the tide of late arrivers to breakfast.

“No,” Winter said. Her cover story had mentioned one, but the colonel’s briefing hadn’t had any details. “Except that Danton seems to be against them.”

“Everyone’s against them. See, back before the war, everyone knew where they stood with taxes. Each district had a royal customs officer to collect duties, and if you didn’t want to pay you just had to bribe him or sneak your stuff through in the middle of the night. It worked for everybody.”

“Except, presumably, the Treasury,” Winter said dryly.

Abby shrugged, as if this was of no great importance. “After the war, the Crown needed money to pay off the debts to the Borels, and Orlanko put Grieg in charge. Instead of appointing some dullard count to do the job, he had the bright idea to sell the warrant to collect taxes in a particular district to the Borels in lieu of cash up front on the debt.”

“And the Borels don’t take bribes?”

“That’s not the half of it. The old royals didn’t get to keep what they taxed out of people. They just got a stipend from the Crown in exchange for turning over the lot. So they were never very enthusiastic about their jobs. But the tax farmers need to make enough money to cover what they spent on the warrant, plus profits to satisfy their investors.”

“Investors?”

“Oh yes,” Abby said bitterly. “I hear shares of tax farm companies are the hot thing on the Viadre markets. Some of them even trade on the Exchange. They don’t care if they leave people enough to eat, or how many heads they have to break to get what they want. People here tried to fight back, but the farmers just sent bullyboys with their collectors and made sure the Armsmen weren’t going to listen to any complaints.” She rubbed two fingers together suggestively.

“I think I get the picture. What does that have to do with you, though?”

“This was before I got here, but they say Jane was drinking in one of the river taverns, listening to the fishermen bitch and moan. They’re hit the worst, you know. They’re supposed to pay a tax on every load, see, and in a good day a boat might take five loads. So the tax farmer says, you owe for five loads. And if the fisherman says he only took three, the farmer says, well, then you must be trying to smuggle the other two, so you owe for five. So if you have a bad day, or you have to stay home because your kids have the flu, or anything-”

Abby caught Winter’s eye and took a deep breath.

“Sorry,” she said. “It just makes me angry. That’s how I ended up here in the first place. Anyway, the fishermen were complaining, and Jane asked them why they didn’t do something about it. To make a long story short, they had a few more drinks, and then the whole pub went down to the nearest tax farm office and torched the place.” Abby smiled. “That was when the tax farmers found out the Armsmen are happy to take bribes to stay out of the Docks, but it’s much more expensive to get them to come in.”

“So Jane started fighting the tax farmers?”

“Not all by herself,” Abby said. “She got people organized, like a general. After a while things settled down. We let them take enough to get by, they don’t get greedy, and nobody’s head gets broken. And the locals, uh, express their gratitude.” She waved back toward the dining room. “That’s where most of this comes from.”

“These are the Leatherbacks I heard so much about, then,” Winter said.

“Yeah. I don’t know how the name got started, but the fishermen wear those leather aprons, and eventually we started wearing them, too.”

“‘We’? You mean the girls here go out and fight?”

“Not all of them,” Abby said. She was grinning. “Just the older ones. And Jane never made anyone go. They just didn’t want to let her go off by herself.”

I suppose I’m hardly one to complain about girls fighting. Still, she hadn’t joined the army with the expectation of actual combat. Everyone said Khandar was supposed to be a nice, safe, boring post at the end of the earth. The rest of it just sort of. . happened.

“I’m just amazed you get away with it,” Winter said.

“Like I said, most of the tax farmers got the message after a while. They’ve got better things to do than bash their heads against a wall. And we don’t see much of the Armsmen around here.”

“What about Orlanko? I thought he was supposed to know everything.”

Abby’s steps slowed slightly. “That’s. . more complicated. The head man in the Concordat for this part of the Docks is named Phineas Kalb. He and Jane have an arrangement.” Abby looked at Winter and sighed. “He makes sure we don’t turn up in the reports, and every couple of weeks he comes by and some of the girls. . entertain him.”

That took a moment to sink in, like a bomb with a slow-burning fuse, but when she caught the meaning, Winter exploded. “What?”

She said it louder than she meant to, and the girls passing them in the corridor looked over curiously. Abby grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her into the nearest open doorway, which led to a storeroom half-full of sacks of potatoes. Winter rounded on her.

“You’re telling me Jane sends girls off to. . to pleasure some secret policeman?” Winter was practically vibrating with rage, though she couldn’t have said at whom. At Abby? At Jane? After what happened to her, I can’t believe it. “I don’t believe that.”

“Jane told me you wouldn’t understand,” Abby said. “The girls volunteer to do it.”

“Sure,” Winter said. “They volunteer if they want to keep getting fed. I’ve heard this story before.” No better than goddamned Mrs. Wilmore.

“No,” Abby said. “Winter, listen to me. Before we all found out about this, Jane was doing it herself. We practically had to hold her down to let someone else go in her place. She’s. . still angry about that.”

Winter paused in mid-rage, uncertain. Abby took the opportunity to kick the door to the storeroom closed, then rounded on Winter.

“Listen.” There was a catch in her voice, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I know you and Jane go back a long way. God, if I’ve heard her talk about you once, I’ve heard it a hundred times. But you haven’t been here for the past year, all right? You look at this now”-she thumped the wall, quite hard-“and it all looks so neat and tidy, and you don’t see what it took to make it this way. What we all had to do, but Jane more than anyone. So if she wants to move you in like a long-lost. . sister, that’s fine, that’s her choice. But don’t you fucking dare think you can sit in judgment of her.”

There was a long pause. Winter had faced down many things-Feor’s enormous fin-katar, a horde of screaming Redeemer cavalry, the leering face of Sergeant Davis that still featured in her nightmares-and by those standards this skinny teenager, hands balled into fists, eyes red and gleaming, was not much of a threat. But. .

She’s right. Winter closed her eyes. I wasn’t here. I didn’t come back for her. Jane did what she had to do, not just for herself but for all these people, while I ran away and hid in a hole until someone came and dragged me out. She let out a long, shaky breath.

“I’m sorry.” Winter opened her eyes to find Abby wiping her face on her sleeve, still trembling. “Abby. I’m really sorry. I. . wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s all right.” Abby blinked away a few stray tears and managed a smile. “I shouldn’t have blown up at you. I haven’t been myself lately.”

To Winter’s surprise, the scene in Jane’s room looked like a conference she might have found in Janus’ tent outside Ashe-Katarion, albeit only if all the officers had been in drag. Jane sat at her big table, which was half-covered by a hand-drawn map of the Docks, each crooked alley surrounded by carefully penciled notes and annotations. Becca and Winn sat on one side of the table, Min and Chris on the other. There were two conspicuously empty seats, one to either side of Jane.

“Took you long enough,” Jane grumbled.

“Sorry,” Abby said. No trace of her rancor remained, except for a slight reddening of the eyes. “We had to finish up at breakfast.”

She took a seat at Jane’s left hand, and Winter slid into the chair that was obviously meant for her, feeling uncomfortable all over again. Apart from Abby, she’d barely exchanged a word with any of Jane’s lieutenants. For the most part they kept their eyes on Jane, but Winter found herself the subject of the occasional sideways glance. Not hostile so much as curious, she decided. I can hardly blame them. I don’t have any right to be here, really.

“We have problems,” Jane announced, once everyone was seated. “More accurately, one problem, and his name is the Most Honorable Sir Cecil fucking Volstrod.”

“Bloody Cecil,” said Winn. She was a tall, skinny woman, her well-muscled arms crosshatched with thin white scars.

“A tax farmer,” Abby said to Winter. “One of the worst.”

“I take it you filled her in?” Jane said.

“More or less.” Abby and Winter exchanged a look.

“Bloody Cecil kept our peace for a while,” Jane said, “but he was never happy about it. We all remember what happened last time he tried to throw his weight around.”

Winter was about to say that she didn’t, but from the way everyone around the table looked down, she thought she probably didn’t want to know.

“Unfortunately,” Jane said, “Bloody fucking Cecil has apparently been playing the markets with company money, in the hopes of raking off a bit more for himself.” She tapped a folded note in front of her. “Or so we are led to believe, anyway. Thanks to Danton and his pack of idiots, Cecil is in something of a bad spot right now, and he doesn’t have long to get out of it. That means he’s coming to the Docks, tonight, for a bit of impromptu smash-and-grab, and he’s bringing every hired leg-breaker he can get his hands on.”

“You’re not kidding there,” said Min, reading another note. Her role seemed to be managing papers and organization. Winter found it hard to imagine her fighting. “Jenny in the Flesh Market says he’s got nearly a hundred men already.”

There was a low murmur around the table. Jane frowned.

“I don’t care if he has two hundred,” she said. “If we sit this one out, it means we can’t protect the people here when push really comes to shove. Fuckers like Cecil will be all over us. We have to stop him.”

“If we call in every favor we can manage, I doubt we could come up with more than sixty men willing to stand up to Cecil,” Abby said. “That’s not going to be enough.”

“We’ve got a few muskets,” Chris said, hesitantly. “If we set some of the girls up on the rooftops, we could-”

“No muskets,” Jane said. “A little brawling is one thing. If word gets out that tax farmers and dockmen are fucking shooting at each other, the Armsmen will be all over us.”

There was a long, depressed silence. Winter cleared her throat. “Do you know the route they’ll be taking?”

Jane cocked her head. “More or less. They’ll have wagons, so they won’t be able to get through the alleys.”

“And do you think Cecil himself will be coming with them?”

“Definitely. If he can’t come up with some quick coin, he’s fucked. He’ll be here.”

Winter wondered whether this was what Janus had had in mind when he’d sent her here. Somehow she suspected not. Though, with Janus, who knows?

“Then,” Winter said, “I have a suggestion. .”

The street was alive with flickering shadows, swinging to and fro with the motions of the torch-wielding men and the rocking of the lanterns on the wagons. It looked as though an army of dark spirits were walking to either side of the tax farmers’ thugs, projected against the fronts of the buildings, slipping in and out of view but always keeping in step.

Aside from Bloody Cecil’s men, the street was deserted. Jane had made sure that news of the incursion got around. Winter only hoped that their own preparations had not also become common knowledge. The convoy was three empty wagons drawn by four-horse teams, to carry the booty, followed by a single two-horse coach with dark-uniformed footmen on the running boards. Around the vehicles, the mercenaries maintained a loose guard, walking in small groups clustered around the torchbearers. Snatches of conversation drifted past her, and occasional coarse laughter.

She was forcibly reminded of a little fishing village beside the Tsel, and a column of brown-uniformed Khandarai marching in good order into a hellish cross fire. These hirelings had nothing like the discipline of the Auxiliaries, though, and were armed with truncheons and staves instead of Royal Army-issue muskets. On the other hand, Winter’s own allies were similarly poorly equipped. At the Tsel we didn’t have any girls in the company, though. Aside from me, of course. And Bobby, come to think of it.

Not all of the Dockside fighters were escapees from Mrs. Wilmore’s Prison, though. A crowd of rough-looking men in long, front-and-back leather aprons had turned up in response to Jane’s call. Walnut was among them, and to Winter’s surprise so was Crooked Sal, equipped with a pair of thick oak truncheons and apparently looking forward to having his nose broken one more time. Jane’s contingent included twenty or so of the girls from her building, among them Chris, Becca, and Winn. They looked tougher and more professional than Winter had expected.

“I don’t like it,” Jane muttered.

“Don’t like the plan?” Winter said. “It’s a little late to say so now.”

“Not the plan. Abby. She should have been back by now.”

Abby had gone off with Molly, Nel, Becks, Andy, and a small cohort of younger girls to see Danton’s speech in Farus’ Triumph. Jane had agreed to the expedition, with misgivings and a firm injunction that they be back before nightfall. The sun was now well down, and there had been no word from them.

“We’ll be fine,” Winter said. “All the barricade crew has to do is make a lot of noise, then keep their heads down.”

“That’s all right for us, but what about her?” Jane cursed and shook her head. “I shouldn’t have let them go.”

Winter put a hand on her shoulder. “She’ll be fine, too. Let’s stick to what’s in front of us, shall we?”

Jane forced a smile. “Right.” Her face softened with some genuine humor. “You and me, waiting to put one over on some officious prat. Just like the old days, eh?”

“Given how most of those adventures ended, I hope not.”

“We didn’t always get caught.”

“It just hurt like blazes when we did,” Winter said. “I think I still have marks on my arse.”

“I’ll have to check some time,” Jane said. Before Winter could do more than sputter, she peered around the corner. “Nearly there. Should be seeing us any minute now. .”

“Brass Balls of the Beast! What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” The swearing came from the front of the convoy. The light of lanterns had revealed that the street was blocked by a shoulder-high barricade of wooden junk-torn-up carts, tipped-over tables, planks from fishermen’s stalls, even an upside-down boat that for Winter brought back further memories of Khandar. Behind this barrier, a few dozen men waved their makeshift weapons at the tax farmers.

Winter and Jane were in an alley down the street from the roadblock, which put them behind the carriage that brought up the rear of the convoy. From that vantage, they could get only glimpses of what was happening through the press of shouting, angry mercenaries, but the sounds made it clear enough. A torch rose briefly, then fell in a descending arc, accompanied by a hoarse shout of pain. Winter guessed someone had tried to mount the barricade and gotten a bash on the head for his troubles. The general racket increased as both sides began shouting at each other.

One of the thugs ran to the carriage and rapped at the door. The footman opened it, just a crack, letting the orange light of another lamp fall on the man’s face.

“Boss, there’s some locals in the street. They don’t want to let us through.”

The voice from inside cracked like a whip with the weight of hereditary privilege, beneath a heavy, rasping Borelgai accent. “Of course they don’t want to let us through! Why do you think I brought so many of you lads along, for the company?”

“Yeah,” the mercenary said, dubiously. “But they don’t look like they’re going to move.”

“Then fucking move them! I want these wagons rolling again in ten minutes.”

“Right.”

The door closed. The mercenary drew his truncheon from his belt and slapped it against his palm a couple of times, testing the weight. Winter didn’t blame him for hesitating. Hundred men or no hundred men, climbing over a barricade against an enemy who knew you were coming was not going to be a pleasant experience, especially for whoever was first in line.

“Right!” he said, louder. “Boss wants this shit out of the way double quick! Form up. We’ll go over all at once!”

Very good, Winter thought. Stick to nice, obvious tactics. Just charge on ahead. Nothing up my sleeves. .

She felt, oddly, at home. Almost at peace. This was a battlefield, of sorts, and there was going to be a battle. Admittedly, a battle between a couple of hundred sweaty, shoving men armed with clubs, but still a battle, even if it went as she hoped and produced no serious casualties. She’d never thought she could miss such a thing, but being here now felt right, in a way that nothing had since she’d taken ship in Khandar.

I wish I had the Seventh here with me, though. She imagined Bobby, Graff, and Folsom shouting orders, and a hundred musket barrels swinging into line to bear on this rabble of leg-breakers for hire, bayonets gleaming in the lantern light. They’d piss their britches.

“Time?” said Jane.

When did I get to be in charge? She’d proposed the plan, but it was still Jane’s army. Winter peered at the milling thugs. “Almost. Wait until they make their first rush.”

A few seconds later, a wave of shouts indicated that the attack had begun. Splintery crashes, curses, and screams of pain quickly followed.

“Now,” Winter said.

Jane put two fingers in her mouth and produced a sharp, piercing whistle, which was answered by shouts from the deeply shadowed alleys all around them. Packs of men and girls burst out, weapons raised, all heading for the carriage at the rear of the column. No sooner had the sound died away than Jane joined the rush, and Winter scrambled after her. She glanced dubiously at the club they’d given her, which looked suspiciously like a table leg, and wished she’d brought her sword.

Most of the mercenaries were up at the front of the column, struggling to clear and dismantle the barricade. Only a half dozen men remained around the carriage, while a good twoscore of Jane’s people were closing in on them. Their calls for help were drowned under the shouting from the fight up the street.

On the side of the carriage Winter and Jane were approaching, there were three thugs, plus the liveried coachman on the running board. One of the mercenaries took to his heels as soon as they emerged from cover, and the other two instinctively put their backs against the carriage and raised their cudgels. Winn was the first to reach them, armed with a long staff. It was obvious she’d done this sort of thing before; she came in with a yell, poking at the thug’s face, but when he came forward to meet her with a clumsy overhand blow she faded sideways and whipped the reverse end of the staff around into his ankles. He toppled with a screech, his weapon bouncing into the dirt.

Jane was not far behind her, ignoring both mercenaries and going straight for the carriage door. The second thug started to aim a swing at her back, but before it connected Walnut was on top of him. The big man grabbed the cudgel at the top of its arc and yanked it out of the thug’s hands, then hammered the mercenary against the carriage with one weighty fist.

By the time Winter had made it to the carriage, Jane had the door open. Steel gleamed in her hand as she did the trick with the knife again and dove inside, and an outraged shout swiftly turned into a scream. Winter spared a moment to look at the footman, who was clinging to the rail with his eyes closed and didn’t seem inclined to start trouble. One of the Leatherbacks had dragged the driver down from his box and taken the reins, trying to calm the skittish horses. Up the street, the sounds of the melee continued, although there was more wooden crashing now than shouting. The barricade squad was supposed to have run for it once they heard Jane’s whistle.

A man appeared in the carriage door. He was tall and thin, in an elaborate black suit with tails and silver threading, covered over by a voluminous fur jacket. His hair was wild where his hat had been knocked away, and the silver line of a knife gleamed at his throat. Jane’s face came into view beside him, grinning savagely.

“After you, most honorable sir,” she said. “But slowly, if you please.”

A round of cheers went up from the Leatherbacks. Winter noticed some of the mercenaries from the front of the column drifting back to see what was going on. She ran back to Jane, who was prodding Bloody Cecil down to the street.

“Come on,” Winter said. “If we don’t get them to call this off soon, people are going to get killed.”

“You’ll all hang for this!” said Cecil, who was not entirely current on events. “I am a duly credentialed enforcer of the king’s taxes! This is rebellion against the crown!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jane said, jabbing him hard in the ribs with her free hand. Cecil wilted. “You have no idea how much I would like to slit your throat right here. Now come on and say only what I tell you to say, you understand?”

Winter followed Jane toward the front of the convoy. The Leatherbacks had formed up between two of the carts, and the mercenaries were drifting into a rough line opposite them. A good deal of shouting was being exchanged, but thus far no actual blows. The thugs had the numbers, but they weren’t being paid to fight pitched battles. It didn’t help that Walnut was in the front line, hefting a stick the size of a fence post.

Jane pushed Cecil through the line, flanked by Winn and Walnut, with Winter bringing up the rear. A murmur ran through the mercenaries when they saw their employer in such a state. Jane’s grin widened.

“Listen up!” she said. “I want you all off the street in the next fifteen minutes. This expedition is over. Cecil, tell them.”

“Don’t listen to her!” Cecil shouted. “I am a knight of Borel! These scum would never dare harm me. Take them!”

Jane glanced at Winter and rolled her eyes.

“Do you know who I am?” she said. There were a few answering shouts from the mercenaries, but mostly silence. “These are the Leatherbacks, and I’m Mad Jane. Do you really want to tell me what I wouldn’t dare to do?”

More muttering, on all sides, and a long silence from Cecil. Walnut passed the time by bending his enormous cudgel between his fists, so the wood creaked ominously.

“I think,” Cecil said, “we had better do as she says. After all, she is a known and dangerous criminal. I think-urk!”

“That’s about enough,” Jane said. “Quiet.”

The thugs were already taking Cecil’s advice. Beating up helpless families, or even brawling in the open with drunken dockworkers, that was one thing, but bringing a fight to an armed gang that meant business was quite another. And, as Winter heard one of them point out, they wouldn’t get paid anyway if their employer had his throat slit. Better to make the best of a bad business and get out without anything broken. In a few minutes, the street was empty, except for a few groaning casualties.

For a moment, the Leatherbacks looked at one another in stunned silence, not quite able to believe the ease of their triumph. Then someone raised a weak cheer. It was followed by a more energetic shout, then another, until the whole street was roaring with victory. Winter found herself surrounded by a crowd of smiling, yelling men, trying to shake her hand or clap her on the shoulder.

“Someone needs to help the injured,” she said. “And we should probably make sure all those thugs have really gone.”

Her voice was drowned under the tumult. Winter shrank back from the adulation, but behind her were only more excited Leatherbacks, who gripped her arms and screamed excitedly in her ear. Winter bit her lip, so hard that she drew blood, and twisted the hem of her shirt between clenched fingers.

Jane came to her rescue.

“I don’t know about you,” she shouted, cutting through the babble. “But I need a drink!”

A Leatherback named Motley, whose face was half-covered by a plum-colored birthmark, turned out to be the owner of a nearby watering hole. Casks of beer and barrels of wine were rolled out of the back room, an assortment of mugs and glasses were produced from somewhere, and the celebration commenced in earnest.

Winter was surprised to see the girls from Jane’s party joining in as heartily as any of the dockworkers. Some of the men looked a little awkward around these women-in-men’s-clothing, but the majority seemed to take their behavior in stride. Chris, pale face flushed red with drink, already had a small court of admirers attempting to match her drink for drink, and Winter had spied Winn dragging a blushing younger Leatherback up the stairs in the back to some private rendezvous. Becca was playing a knife-throwing game in the corner, and by the clink of coins and the groans of the spectators doing rather well.

In truth, Winter could have done with a drink herself. She had to think hard to remember the last time she’d been truly drunk-in Ashe-Katarion, with Bobby and Feor, the night before the city burned. She’d happily have split a bottle with Jane, but the presence of all these strangers made her too nervous to do more than sip from a mug of beer, which in all fairness was quite awful.

Jane herself barely indulged. She sat at a table near the door, fielding congratulations and enthusiastic, table-slapping declarations of eternal gratitude, but she kept glancing between the street outside and the door to the storeroom. The latter was where they’d stashed Bloody Cecil, bound and gagged. As for the former, she’d sent one of her girls running back to check with Min for news of Abby, and no messenger had yet returned. It was obviously preying on her mind.

Winter received quite a few congratulations, too. More than her fair share, as she saw it. Jane had put it about that the whole plan had been her idea, when in fact she’d only contributed the ruse with the barricade and the idea of grabbing Cecil himself to end matters quickly. And it’s not like that was a stroke of genius, either. Engaging an enemy in front while you turn his flank is about the oldest trick in the tactical book. If Janus had been here, no doubt he would have somehow argued Cecil’s men into laying down their weapons and turning out their pockets.

In spite of her protests, the good wishes continued, growing increasingly incoherent as the night wore on. It was a warm summer night, and the air soon grew hot and smoky with the fire, the candles, and the close-packed heat of so many excited people. The smell of spilled beer mingled with the odor of unwashed bodies, smoke, and piss to produce an almost visible miasma. Winter felt herself passing into a bit of a daze as the excitement washed out of her, leaving her drained and shaky. She mechanically shook hands or accepted shoulder-buffeting clouts of endearment, nodding and smiling and pretending not to hear the questions about where she’d come from or how she knew Jane.

Movement by the door caught her eye, and she shook herself back to wakefulness. The crowd had cleared out somewhat, some to weave their way to their homes, others to the upstairs rooms. A contingent of hard-core drinkers had pushed their tables together, and matters had degenerated into tavern songs. Winn and Chris were among them, belting out the lewd verses as loudly as anyone. In one corner Walnut sat with a young woman on his lap, lips locked and one of his broad hands exploring under the hem of her shirt. His size made her look like a doll by comparison.

And Jane had gotten up and gone to the storeroom. She emerged a moment later leading the gagged Cecil by his bound hands, and dragged him toward the front door. A few of the revelers noticed, and they shouted encouragement at her. Only Winter seemed to see Jane’s expression-not merry at all, but furious, and full of cold determination. As Jane headed out the front door, Winter struggled to her feet and went after her.

The air of the street outside was refreshing after the dense stink of the tavern. Jane had paused to change her grip to the back of Cecil’s coat, the better to prod him along, and she glanced over her shoulder when Winter emerged. Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. She forced the tax farmer into motion, and Winter followed behind.

They walked for several minutes in silence, except for the occasional whimper and groan from Cecil. Jane answered these with vicious jabs, and eventually he kept up a steady pace. Before long they reached the broad mud-churned stretch of the River Road, which they had to pick a careful path across to avoid the puddles and mounds of dung.

On the other side, the Vor stretched calm and dark into the distance. The western tip of the Island was directly in front of them, a blaze of lights stretching high into the air. It took Winter a moment to see a silhouette, and when she did, she shivered; that was the crumbling spire of the Vendre, aglow tonight for who knew what sinister purpose of the Last Duke’s.

Upstream of the big piers where the cargo barges unloaded was an accumulation of smaller quays, knocked together from whatever bits of wood were at hand. These were home to the water taxis, smaller fishing vessels, and other little boats, and Jane steered Cecil in their direction. They clumped down across the muddy flood zone and out onto one of the piers. The far end was surrounded by a trio of deep-keeled rowboats tied to a post. Here Jane finally stopped and with a bit of effort forced Cecil to his knees.

Winter had watched all of this in silence, but she took a step forward when Jane’s knife appeared in her hand.

“Jane-”

“Quiet,” Jane said. There was something in her voice Winter hadn’t heard before. It was nearly a snarl. She bent over and cut the gag off Cecil, though she left his hands bound. “Bloody Cecil. You’ve had a nice long time to think about what you’ve done, haven’t you?”

Cecil took a few ragged breaths, then shuffled around on his knees so he could look up at Jane. “What do you want from me? Is it money? I can pay you whatever you want. Just don’t-” The knife was suddenly at his throat, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “Don’t kill me.”

“Jane,” Winter said. “What are you doing?”

“Winter, please shut up and listen. Cecil, do you remember a night in February, when your men came looking for salt taxes? They went into Vale’s preserved-fish shop and started smashing up the place.”

His eyes, terrified, darted from Jane to Winter and back again. “I don’t-I don’t remember! We’ve raided hundreds of shops. How am I supposed to remember each one-” It occurred to him that this might not be the best tack to take, and he clamped his mouth shut.

“Some of my people decided to put a stop to it,” Jane went on. “I think it was Becca who took them down there. Vale’s married to her older sister, you know. There wasn’t time to gather up anybody from the neighborhood, so they went down there themselves, just a dozen girls. I’m not sure Becca realized it was your people they were dealing with. The other tax farmers would back off if you said you were from Mad Jane’s place, but not your men. Not this time.

“Well. There was a bit of an altercation.” Jane grinned, showing her teeth. “A bit of a fucking fracas, you might say. Becca got her arm broken. The others got scrapes and bruises. It didn’t help Vale one bit, but otherwise, you might say we got off lightly. Except one of the girls didn’t get away. Somebody must have grabbed her, and when our people scattered, nobody noticed she was gone.

“We found her when we went to clean up in the morning. Your men had taken turns with her, half the night, it looked like. Then, when they were finished, they cut her throat like a hog and left her on a pile of rotting fish.”

Winter felt her fists clench tight. Jane’s voice was deceptively calm, but there was something tight underneath, like a gut string wound round over and over until it hums on the point of snapping.

“I. .” Cecil hesitated. “You can’t mean. . That wasn’t my fault. I didn’t tell them to kill anybody!”

“Her name was Sarah,” Jane said, her tone flat and dangerous. “She was seventeen. She was one of mine. She had a copy of the Wisdoms that she read from every day, until it was practically falling apart. She liked to eat broccoli raw so it would still have some crunch. There was a boy she was sweet on, one of the fishermen’s sons, but I don’t think he knew she existed. She wanted to. .” Jane’s voice cracked. “She was one of mine. And you raped her, cut her throat, and tossed her into a pile of rotten fish.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Cecil said, his Borelgai accent getting harsher as he grew terrified. “I didn’t-bhosh midviki-you can’t blame me for what some ghalian Vordanai thugs did!” He drew in a deep breath. “You know the kind of people I have to work with. They’re the scum of the earth. I don’t have a choice!”

“They wouldn’t have been there if you hadn’t sent them,” Jane snapped. “If you’d been reasonable like all the other fucking tax farmers.”

“And your Sarah wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for you,” Cecil said. The blood was rising in his face. “Blani Mad Jane. You run around the Docks like you’re some sort of hero from a fairy tale, and these idiot girls just follow your example. Have you ever thought they might be better off if you’d left well enough alone?”

“I help them.”

“Like you helped Sarah? Instead of staying in her father’s house minding her own business like a young woman should be doing, she was out trying to fight grown men with a stick! And look what happened to her.” Cecil’s thin face twisted into a snarl. “Blani ga taerbon midviki. You’re going to kill me, I can see it. But I won’t let you pretend to be a saint while you do it.”

“You’re right about one thing,” Jane said. “I’m going to kill you-”

“Jane!” Winter said.

Jane paused, the knife half-raised, as though she’d forgotten Winter was there. Without looking round, she said, “I let you come because I thought you ought to know why I was doing this. But I shouldn’t have. Go back, Winter. You don’t have to live with this.”

Too late for that. “You can’t kill him.”

“Why not? Are you going to stop me?”

“If I have to.”

Jane turned around, finally, the knife still held in front of her. She’d unconsciously dropped into a fighter’s crouch. “You don’t mean that. Just go.”

“I won’t.” Winter spread her hands. “You know that killing him won’t help anyone.”

“It’ll help Sarah.”

“Sarah’s dead. Come on, Jane. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”

Jane stared at Winter, eyes as wide as a hunted animal’s, searching for a way out. “He deserves it.”

“You don’t.”

“You don’t understand. I. .” Jane shook her head savagely. “And who are you to tell me what to do? Did you never have to hurt anybody in-”

Winter cut her off hurriedly. “I did, in battles. I’ve killed. . I don’t know how many. But they were armed, and trying to kill me. He’s a prisoner.”

“Does that matter?”

“It has to!” Winter bit her lip. “Besides, he’s wrong. You know he’s wrong.”

“Of course he’s fucking wrong. What does that have to do-”

“Sarah volunteered. Abby told me that. Everyone who helps you, who does what you do, they all choose to do it. Do you think they didn’t know they might get hurt in the process?”

“I. .”

“You don’t need to kill him to prove your point. You don’t, Jane. Please.” Winter took a cautious step forward and grabbed Jane’s arm, easing around the quivering point of the knife.

Jane said something too low for Winter to hear. Then, before Winter could ask her to repeat it, she spun around, breaking Winter’s loose grip, and planted a kick solidly in Cecil’s midsection. The Borelgai coughed and toppled backward, sprawling on the end of the pier. A further kick from Jane encouraged him to roll over, and he dropped six inches with a thud to the bottom of one of the little boats. The momentum set the craft bobbing out into the river, restrained by a single taut line. Jane sawed at this with the knife for a few moments until it broke with a snap, then put her foot on the gunwale and shoved the boat out into the river.

“If I ever see you in the Docks again,” she said, “I will kill you. Slowly. You understand? Find yourself a ship and go back to fucking Borel, or jump off a bridge for all I care. But your work in Vordan is over.”

Cecil responded with a stream of Borelgai profanity as the boat drifted farther from shore, out into the sluggish current. “Blani fi’midviki! How am I supposed to go anywhere with my hands tied behind my fucking back?”

Jane wound up, paused to judge the distance, and sent the knife whirling end over end toward the boat that was rapidly vanishing into the river darkness. There was a thok as the blade bit into wood, and a screech from Cecil.

“And I’m sending you a bill for the fucking boat!” Jane called after him, as he disappeared.

She stood staring after him for a long moment, hands clenched and vibrating with tension. Winter stepped up behind her, uncertainly, and tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but Jane spun away from her touch and stalked back up the pier. She sat down on a post and crossed her arms, curling up as though she wanted to withdraw inside herself.

“I’m sorry,” Winter said.

Jane muttered something indistinct.

Winter paused. “Jane?”

“I said go fuck yourself.” Jane raised her head. “You should leave. Go home. Back to wherever you came from. Just leave me here with the rest of the scum and go.”

“No,” Winter said. Her heart hammered double time, and tears stung her eyes.

“Just go.”

“I won’t. Never again.”

“Fuck,” Jane said quietly, and curled up again. “Nobody fucking listens to me.”

Winter sat down beside her, on the soggy wood of the pier, and waited. Even back at Mrs. Wilmore’s, Jane had suffered from foul moods. Winter had learned that the only remedy was silence. She always resurfaced, eventually.

The city was quiet at this time of night. The ever-present sounds of distant crowds and thousands of plodding horses and rattling cartwheels were absent. Instead Winter could hear the quiet lapping of the river, and the slow creaks and groans from the tied-up fishing fleet. A distant whistle sounded, where an Armsman needed assistance. Somewhere, a dog barked.

“She was one of mine,” Jane said. “She followed me because she believed what I told her, that I could keep her safe. I told her that. And I brought her here, and she. . she died.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” Jane snapped. “You don’t understand what it’s like. I have a responsibility, and I. .”

Winter eased closer. When Jane didn’t flinch away, she slipped an arm, gently, around her shoulders.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “I do understand. I may be the only one here who does.”

Winter thought about the ambush by the river, the charge up the hill with Auxiliary cannonballs coming down all around them, the long march through the wasteland of the Great Desol. And, deep in her heart where she hardly dared acknowledge it was real, the last desperate square in the darkness under the temple, with green-eyed corpses clawing at them from every side. And the looks on the men’s faces when I turned up. The relief, as though now that I was there everything was somehow taken care of. Just the memory of it slammed her like a fist in the gut. She’d gotten them out, in the end, but. .

. . but not all of them.

Something else twitched, down in the depths of her mind. A flick of the tail, a tiny gleam of light on ivory fangs, something to remind her that the viper was still coiled comfortably in its hole. The other thing she’d acquired that night, aside from nightmares. Infernivore.

Jane had relaxed, letting her arms fall to her side and her head rest on Winter’s shoulder. They stayed like that a long time.

“We should get back,” Winter said, eventually. “The others will be wondering what happened to us.”

“And coming to all the wrong conclusions, no doubt,” Jane said. Her grin was back, mad and infectious. She bounced up from the post, grabbing Winter’s hand and pulling her to her feet through an elegant twirl. When the turn brought their faces close, Jane leaned in and planted a kiss, light and fast.

“Come on,” she said. “It must be nearly dawn.”

They expected to find Motley’s tavern nearly deserted, as the sun was indeed making its presence known on the eastern horizon by the time they made their way back. Instead it was packed, both with Leatherbacks and those of Jane’s girls who had not returned home. They looked as though they had assembled in haste; one of the girls had obviously been rousted out of bed and was wearing nothing but a bedsheet, coiled round her like a winding shroud.

All attention was focused on one younger girl at the center of the crowd. Winter recognized Nel, her spectacles askew, her clothes dirty with soot and torn in places. She looked close to tears, but her eyes lit up the moment Jane came in.

“Jane!”

The whole crowd turned to look at them, their collective stare freezing Winter and Jane in their tracks. Jane blinked.

“What? What in the hells is going on?”

“They took her,” Nel said, fighting back sobs. “They took all of them. I tried to help, but all I could do was hide. Then the Armsmen had closed the bridges, and I couldn’t find a way through. I tried. .”

She broke off, snuffling.

Jane stepped forward. “Calm down. Who took who?”

“They took Abby. And Molly and Becks and the others.”

Crooked Sal spoke up. “The Armsmen have arrested Danton, and the Concordat are rounding up everybody who might have had anything to do with him. I heard they took nearly a hundred people from the big speech, and now they’re all over the place taking people for who knows what. Everybody’s locking themselves in and barring the doors.”

“They took them to the Vendre,” Nel wailed. “Everyone said so.”

Jane stood stock-still, trying to process this. Winter stepped up beside her.

“They can’t just arrest people for listening to speeches,” she said, then looked around at a ring of worried faces. “Can they?”

“The Last goddamned Duke can do anything he wants,” said Chris, and spit on the floor. “With the king dying, who’s to stop him?”

“Everyone knows no one who goes into the Vendre comes out again,” Winn said.

“Except at night,” said Becca. “In pieces.”

“The king is ill,” said Walnut, “and the princess is a child, and sickly besides. The duke is in charge, if anyone is. And the duke works for the Borels and their Sworn Church. After what Danton did, I’m sure his masters have applied the whip. No wonder he reacts like this.”

Winter bit her lip. A thought had occurred to her, but she didn’t like it. If anyone can help Abby and the others, it’s Janus. He was Minister of Justice, after all, and an enemy of Orlanko’s. But he might not be able to. Or he might not want to. God alone knew what Janus would decide. And if he did help, that meant revealing to Jane and the others that she’d been sent here as a spy.

“Winter,” Jane said. “Come on.”

She turned on her heel, heading for the door. Winter, distracted, took a moment to catch up.

“Wait!” Sal called after her. “Where are you going?”

Jane turned, her eyes glowing dangerously in the firelight. “Where the fuck do you think I’m going?”

Walnut stood up, unfolding himself to his full, massive height like a collapsible easel setting up. “Then I am coming with you. It’s not only your girls who have been taken.”

Jane looked from him to Winter and back again, then gave a curt nod. This time, when she started for the door, everyone in the tavern scrambled to follow.

MARCUS

“Hello, Captain,” Ionkovo said. “That is you, I take it?”

Only a single candle burned in the cell under the Guardhouse, casting a weak pool of golden light and throwing the long, angular shadows of the bars across the far wall. Adam Ionkovo lay on his pallet in a pool of darkness, only his eyes marked by the faint, shivering reflection of the flame.

Marcus stood in the doorway, half wanting to slam the door and stalk away. Instead he slipped inside and shut it behind him.

It had been hours since Giforte left with a strong escort of Guardsmen, hours with no word as the sky slipped from blue into a deep, bruised purple. He’d spent as long as he could stand reading through the files, rubbing at his eyes as he read, cross-referenced, and investigated. Looking for something, some clue that he was increasingly convinced wasn’t there. Giforte was too careful; the reports were too vague. Maybe Janus would have been able to make something of the stack of oddities and exceptions, some brilliant leap of logical deduction, but it was beyond Marcus.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d locked the files in his cabinet and started wandering the halls. The big old building was nearly empty, the clerks and scribes on a skeleton crew for the night shift and most of the on-duty men out in the city. Marcus had circled the top floor without meeting anyone, peering out through blurry old glass windows. A brilliant sunset blazed in the west, but when he looked to the east the sky was blotted out by dark, heavy clouds, spreading like a stain as they approached.

In the end, he’d found himself here, in the one place he shouldn’t be, speaking to the man he’d been forbidden to talk to. The man who knew-maybe! — what he needed so badly to hear.

“It’s me,” Marcus said.

“I keep expecting a visit from your Colonel Vhalnich,” Ionkovo said. “So far he has disappointed me.”

“He’s a busy man these days,” Marcus said. “The king’s made him Minister of Justice. I’m afraid he hasn’t got time for you.”

“Or you?” Ionkovo said. He sat up, angular face coming into the half-light.

He’s just needling. There was no way the prisoner could know what was going on outside. “I came to ask if you’re willing to talk.”

“I’m happy to chat, Captain, but if you mean am I willing to tell you what you want to know. .” He shrugged. “My offer still stands.”

“I’m not going to take your bargain,” Marcus said.

“Why not? Whose interests are you really serving, Captain?”

“Vordan’s. The king’s.”

“I see. And has Colonel Vhalnich reported what happened to Jen Alhundt to the king, do you think?”

Marcus shifted, uncomfortably. “The king is ill.”

“To the Minister of War, then. Or the Minister of Information. Or anyone.” Ionkovo smiled, the shadows making his face a death’s-head. “We both know he hasn’t. He went to Khandar looking for the treasure of the Demon King. You think that was part of his official orders?”

Marcus said nothing. The candle was guttering, the room growing darker. Shadows seemed to flow, gathering around the man in the cell.

Ionkovo’s smile widened. “So, who are you really serving, when you keep his secrets? The Crown? Or Janus bet Vhalnich? What has he done, to deserve such loyalty?”

“He saved my life,” Marcus muttered. “Several times. He saved all our lives, out in the desert.”

“That makes him a good soldier. But you should know as well as anyone that good soldiers don’t always do the right thing.”

Adrecht. Marcus stared at the dim figure. He knows, of course. The mutiny and its aftermath would have been in the reports.

“Let me suggest something to you, Captain,” Ionkovo said. “You know who I am, who I work for. What they stand for. And, unlike everyone out there”-he waved a hand widely-“you know the truth. Demons are real, not fairy stories. Magic is real, and it can be deadly.

“Now consider my order. Because people no longer believe, we must operate in secret. Because our enemies are powerful and utterly without mercy, we must use whatever methods are available to us. But can you really say we are wrong, and Vhalnich is right? Why seek the Thousand Names if he does not intend to use them, as the Demon King once did?”

“He is my superior officer,” Marcus said. “Appointed by the Crown.”

“A Crown that knows nothing of his plans,” Ionkovo said. “If you discovered Vhalnich was planning to murder the king, it would be your duty to stop him, superior or not. How is this any different? He betrays not just his country, but humanity itself, to our great and common enemy.”

Sooner or later, Captain, we all must take something on faith.

Marcus opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and stopped.

Why did I come here? Was this already in my mind?

“I. .,” he began, and stopped again. “I don’t-”

Someone knocked on the outer door, fast and loud. Marcus had ordered that he was not to be disturbed, and the sound made his heart do a double somersault. He turned his back on Ionkovo and yanked the door open to find Staff Eisen in the doorway, panting.

“Sir,” he gasped. “We’ve had a runner from the city.”

“What’s happened?”

“Riots, sir. After the vice captain arrested Danton, people were gathering in the streets. The Concordat has been arresting the ringleaders, but it only makes them angrier.”

Of course it does! Marcus wondered what the hell Orlanko was thinking. “Is Giforte back yet?”

“He’s taken Danton to the Vendre-”

“To the Vendre? Why?”

“He judged it would be safer, sir. It’s a fortress. Between the men he took along and the garrison, it can hold off an army.”

Marcus stared at him, a sinking feeling in his guts. The Vendre. A fortress, to be sure, but a fortress on the tip of the Island, within easy reach of an angry mob. And run by Orlanko’s people. I don’t like this one bit.

“Can he bring Danton here?” The Guardhouse was less defensible, but at least it wasn’t in the heart of the city.

“No, sir. That’s why he sent a runner. There are enough people in the streets that he doesn’t want to risk it.”

“Balls of the Beast,” he swore. “All right. Gather up anyone you can find here who can hold a musket. We’re going down there.”

“Yes, sir!”

Marcus strode away, letting Eisen close and lock the cell door behind him. He was aware of a certain lightness in his step, in spite of the crisis. Or, perhaps, because of it-Eisen’s report had banished all thoughts of Ionkovo and Janus, reducing the world to simpler terms. His men were in danger, and for the moment Marcus d’Ivoire knew exactly where his duty lay.