The Clandestine Circle Page 9
But Linsha saw little of this.
The heavy brown jug, crafted from red clay and fired to a rigid density, sailed through the air and crashed with unexpected accuracy on Commander Durne’s head.
Stunned, the commander staggered back between two stacks of barrels, caught his heel on the edge of the pier, and toppled backward into the darkness.
Linsha shouted an oath. She put the cat and the ship’s log on a barrel, then stripped off her sword and boots while peering over the edge of the pier. Fortunately for Durne, the tide was full and enough water swirled around the pylons to have saved him from a crushing fall. Unfortunately she couldn’t see his body.
Before she had time to think about her folly, Linsha took a flying jump off the pier into the night-black waters of the harbor. Thank the gods, she had learned to swim well in both lake and river, and the water here was fairly smooth. There were no currents, undertows, or heavy waves, since the tide was about to turn. Nevertheless, it was very dark, and it stank of refuse.
She treaded water for a short time, looking frantically for the commander. She had landed close to the spot where he must have gone in, so she hoped to find him quickly. She didn’t relish diving underwater in what was little more than a treacherous, submerged trash dump. And who knew what might lurk under that great pier? Linsha hated swimming in water she couldn’t see through.
She pushed herself a little higher out of the water and scanned the dense shadows under the pier. Suddenly a yellowish gleam of light reflected on the water around her. Several guards leaned over the pier and held their torches at arm’s length for her. It was enough. At the edge of the faint illumination, beside one of the large pylons, she caught a hint of red. Four strong strokes brought her to a body nearly submerged, clothed in red, and floating faceup in the slight swell. Blood oozed from a deep gash at his hairline, and his eyes were closed and unresponsive. She checked him quickly and was relieved to see a faint rise and fall in his chest.
“He’s here!” she yelled. She cradled Durne’s head in her arms and kicked out away from the pylons, where the other guards could see her. Thank Paladine, he wasn’t wearing his armor. With fumbling fingers, she unfastened his belt and let his sword and dagger fall to the harbor bottom. She would apologize for that later.
“He’s injured,” she replied to anxious inquiries. “I can’t see a ladder close by. I’m going to need a skiff or a rowboat. And hurry!”
The noise above had abated considerably, and more guards joined those on the pier with torches. Linsha concentrated on treading water and holding Durne’s face above the surface. As worried as she was, she was grateful he was unconscious and not thrashing around in a drowning panic. All too soon, though, her arms and legs grew tired and her lungs ached from the struggle. She clasped him tighter and willed the men to hurry.
A loud splash nearby sent her heart racing, and she turned as best she could to see what was in the water with her. Torchlight shone on a wet head and a pair of arms pulling toward her, and with a sigh of relief, she recognized Lord Bight.
The water seemed to rejuvenate the lord governor, for his eyes gleamed with strength and pleasure, and he swam about her like a creature born to the waves. Wordlessly he took Commander Durne’s weight from her leaden arms and began to tow the soldier toward the dock. Linsha followed wearily behind.
Help came at last in a small rowboat someone finally found tied to a sloop nearby. Mica and Captain Dewald rowed out to Lord Bight, Linsha, and Durne and hauled them, dripping and smelly, into the boat.
Linsha crawled to the bow and collapsed on a small seat. “What took you so long?” she grumbled. “There’re things under that dock bigger than I am.”
Although she hadn’t said what those things could be, she hid a small smile when Captain Dewald threw a startled glance at the darkness under the pier and hurriedly bent his back to the oars.
Mica leaned over Durne, his short, thick fingers surprisingly deft in their exploration of the commander’s injury. “Lucky for him you got to him so quickly,” the dwarf said to Lord Bight. “Stupid thing to do, falling off a pier,” he added.
“I don’t think he did it intentionally,” said Linsha testily.
Mica ignored her. He placed the fingers of both hands on Durne’s temples and closed his eyes. He mumbled a spell in his native tongue to help focus his effort in coaxing the healing magic from his heart.
Linsha soon saw why he was the healer to the governor. He was quick and he was good. By the time Dewald brought the boat to a small floating dock not far away, Durne was already conscious and his wound was closed.
The commander stared around in surprise at Linsha, soaked and bedraggled, at his governor sitting in a dripping tunic, at Mica leaning wearily against the gunwale of the small boat, at the water so close by, and at the concerned guards gathered on the dock. He put his hand to his head. “What, what happened?” he wanted to know.
Lord Bight laughed heartily, as if jumping into the black waters of the harbor was something he did every night. “This young woman,” he said, pointing at Linsha, ‘seems to make a habit out of trying to save people. Tonight it was you.”
The confusion was over and the crowd had dispersed by the time Linsha and Durne were helped back to the pier. A few guards nursed bruises and cuts from the rain of missiles, but only Commander Durne had been seriously hurt.
Linsha walked back to the barrel where the ship’s cat still sat complacently on the logbook. She bent over to pick up her weapons, but she felt her legs begin to tremble, and before she could stop herself, she slid down with a thump and sagged back against the barrel. A reaction to what she had done settled into her bones and left her cold, shivering, and utterly spent. The cat jumped down into her lap and began to sniff her uniform tunic with great interest.
Meanwhile, five of youths had been caught, being too drunk to run far, and they knelt in a terrified row with their hands on their heads in front of a squad of angry City Guards. Their ringleader, the fisherman’s son, knelt with the rest and bore a darkening bruise on one eye and a look of frightened defiance. He sank back onto his heels in obvious relief when the commander walked unsteadily to the pier.
Lord Bight wasted no time. He strode to the fisherman’s son, grabbed his shirt, and hauled the youth bodily to his feet. The boy’s jaw went slack and his eyes bulged in fear; any hint of defiance fled his broad face.
“Boy,” the lord governor roared, “my guards tell me you are responsible for this fiasco. You will tell me in twenty words or less why you and your friends did something so stupid. And it had better be the truth, or you will spend a week in the stocks on top of your punishment for disturbing a public meeting, assaulting my guards, attempting to murder my commander, and inciting a panic.”
The boy made one feeble attempt to speak, then his eyes rolled up and he fainted, from fear or spirits no one knew.
The governor dropped him in disgust and stepped to the next young man, a scrawny, dark-haired boy of about seventeen in the rough-weave clothing of a farmer. He stood over the youth, his brow dark and his eyes like a furnace.
“It was supposed to be a joke,” the boy blurted before the governor said a word. “Just a joke! We didn’t intend to kill anyone.”
Lord Bight looked down at his prisoner like a lion about to pounce. “A joke?” he said in a voice as rough as a growl.
The boy blinked and plunged on. “Yes, my lord. We were laughing and roughhousing among ourselves when this man came up to see us. He had a bottle of dwarven spirits—smelled like mushrooms, you know. And he, uh, talked to us and gave us that jug.”
“He said the speechifying had gone on long enough. How about a laugh to break it up?” offered another boy of about eighteen.
“A laugh?” repeated the governor harshly. He planted his fists on his hips and glared at them. “I almost lost two of my guards.”
A younger boy started to snivel. He was so hunched over he looked like he wanted to melt into the planks of the pi
er. “We’re sorry, Your Excellency. Really we are. We didn’t think.”
“Well, you’d better start thinking now. Who suggested throwing things?”
“The man did,” said the third boy, eager to be helpful. “He said we should give the guards a scare.”
“What did this man look like? Did any of you know him?”
They all shook their heads. “Kinda tall,” offered the youngest.
The others pitched in, hoping to assuage the governor’s anger.
“And black hair.”
“No. Brown. And he had a beard.”
“You dolt. Those were just heavy sideburns.”
“Enough!” Lord Bight’s order cracked like a whip. His voice took on a relentless certainty no one could disobey. “You will give your statements to the City Guards, including the names of the rest of your accomplices. The magistrate will charge you for malicious conduct and inciting a riot, and the guards will hold you in the dungeons for one week, which should give you plenty of time to think.”
The five boys looked appalled, but not one said a word.
“If I ever catch you doing anything like this again, I will send you to the volcanic mines. Is that clear?”
There was a chorus of “Yes, sirs!” and the City Guards took the boys away.
Commander Durne grinned wearily at his governor. “I don’t know what scared them more, you or the thought of the dungeons.”
Lord Bight sighed and rubbed his jaw. “Both, I hope.” He took a deep breath and as quickly as it came, his anger disappeared, to be replaced with a sad resignation. “This has been a hard day for us all. Perhaps I was a little hard on them.”
Durne touched the newly healed gash on his aching head. “One week? I thought you were very fair.” He looked thoughtfully at the empty boardwalk, the dark side streets, and the wharves stretching away on both sides. “Who do you think this mystery man could be? Is he just a troublemaker, or did he have a darker purpose?”
“Good question to ask, if you can find him.”
“I will see what we can do.” His eye came to Linsha, sitting by the barrel with the cat in her lap. “Did she really jump off the pier to rescue me?” he asked, still amazed by the courage it must have taken to leap into the harbor at night to save a drowning man.
A faint, knowing smile played over Hogan Bight’s face and was gone before Durne noticed it. “Aren’t you glad I did not take your advice?” he said lightly.
Together they walked to Linsha’s barrel, and Lord Bight offered her his hand to help her to her feet. “Once again, you impress me, young Lynn. Not bad for your first day as my bodyguard.”
Linsha managed a bow without falling over. She was so tired she could barely stay on her feet. “Thank you for your help, Your Excellency.” She looked down at the cat in her arms. “What do I do with her?”
“Ah, yes. She seems to like you well enough. Take her to the palace stables, and if the captain of the Whydah survives, he can reclaim her.”
Linsha chuckled. “I fear the cat likes me because I smell of rotten fish.”
Lord Bight shot a glance at his own clothes and at Commander Durne’s wet and rather fragrant uniform, and his eyes twinkled. “What an excellent way to begin a friendship.” He wheeled around, calling for his horse, and strode off to prepare to leave.
Durne paused before joining him and said, “Thank you, Lynn.” He stopped there, not knowing what else to say. It wasn’t often he was obligated to another person for his life, especially to a lovely, bedraggled woman.
Linsha merely nodded, her eyes fastened on him. She noticed for the first time that beneath that wet uniform the commander had broad shoulders. Intrigued, she let her eyes roam lower and noted his wide chest, a trim waist … she suddenly coughed, and her cheeks grew hot. Good gods, what was she thinking about! To hide her unexpected embarrassment, she saluted and said, “You’re welcome, sir. And I am sorry about your sword.” Ducking her head, she picked up the logbook and hurried to find Windcatcher, leaving Durne looking perplexed.
The squads re-formed as before and rode off the pier into the quiet streets. As they clattered onto the paving stones of the road, a dark shape glided serenely overhead and slid into the darkness between two buildings.
“Did you see that?” one guard said to Linsha.
She smiled to herself and patted the cat sitting on Windcatcher’s withers. “It was just an owl.”
The day had turned into the furnace of midmorning when Linsha finally awoke. For a time she lay in the strange bed and stared at the strange ceiling and wondered where she was. Sleep still clung to her mind like a hangover, and her body felt too lethargic to move. She dozed a bit in the increasing heat, and the next time she opened her eyes, she remembered where she was and why.
The room she occupied was painted white and shone in the bright sun that gleamed through a narrow window across from her bed. The brightness helped to disguise the fact that the room was very small, hardly more than a cell. At least, she thought, rolling over and sitting up, she didn’t have to put up with roommates. In a barracks full of men, that was a blessing.
Someone knocked at her doorway and stuck a head past the thick curtain that served as a door. “Oh, good. You’re awake,” said a fair-haired woman. “My name is Shanron. I was sent to see if you wanted something to eat.”
Linsha put a hand to her empty belly. It had been a long time since her supper with Elenor. “Yes, that would be fine,” she said gratefully.
“Good. There are clean clothes for you over there. We, uh, took the liberty of burning your old uniform for you. You’ll get a new one this afternoon.”
The lady Knight laughed at the expression of disgust on Shanron’s face. “Thank you. I was going to bury it in the refuse pile.” She looked down at herself and saw she was wearing an old shirt that once belonged to Elenor’s husband. She vaguely remembered shedding the wet and reeking uniform and pulling this shirt on before she fell asleep, but nothing else. Her hand went to her hair.
Shanron interpreted her motions correctly. “No, you didn’t have a chance to clean up last night. We have a bathing room downstairs, if you’re interested.”
Linsha stood up. “Show me the way,” she said, the relief clear in her voice. Taking her clean clothes and an old linen towel, she stepped out of her room to follow Shanron.
Once in the corridor, she was able to see the whole woman, the only other woman who served with Lord Bight’s personal guards. Shanron’s mother had been a slave in a house of pleasure just before the Chaos War; her father was anybody’s guess, although from the gold of her hair and the pale skin that refused to tan, Shanron guessed he was a southern barbarian. Like the warriors from the south, her body was taut with long tendons and smooth muscles, and of a height that enabled her to look down on quite a few men. She had a pleasant smile that she used often, and she seemed pleased to have another woman in the barracks.
Shanron set off down the hallway in a long, swinging stride and talked as she went. “Commander Durne told me you are to have the day to settle in and learn the schedules for duty and training. Tomorrow you will be evaluated by the weapons master and the horse master so you can be added to the duty roster.” She ducked through a doorway and headed downstairs. “The main barracks are down here. Our rooms are on the top floor, under the roof really, with the rooms for the cooks and servants. It gets hot, but it’s more private.”
Linsha caught a quick glimpse of a long corridor with rows of partitioned cubicles before she had to hurry on after Shanron down another flight of stairs.
“In there,” Shanron went on, pointing to the wall to their right, “is the undercroft. Mostly storage, but it is my favorite place.” She stepped outside through an arched entry and gestured broadly toward a narrow gate in the high wall behind the barracks.
“A gate?” Linsha said in confusion.
“No. What’s beyond it.” Like a child with a secret, Shanron waved at her to follow and strode toward the gate.
“That’s just the horn to change the sentries on the upper battlements. They can’t stay up there too long in this heat. Come on before you burn your feet,” Shanron called.
Linsha realized the other woman was right. The parade ground was grassy, to cut down on the dust around the palace. But the paths around the big courtyard were stone, which held the heat like an oven. Already her bare soles felt the effect. Quickly she hopped after her guide across the path and through the gate. From hot stone, her feet stepped onto warm grass, and she slowed to a stop and looked around in wonderment.
They had entered a garden redolent in the morning heat and filled with the heavy scents of gardenias, jasmine, and roses. Thick vines covered the walls, and groves of acacias, golden raintrees, and birches offered scattered oases of shade. A reflecting pool sat in the center, cool and inviting, and rimmed with a wall of blue granite. White lotus flowers floated on its surface. To the right sat a small domed building, its entrance shaded by a loggia of carved wood.
“This is one of Governor Bight’s gardens,” Shanron told Linsha. “Being a bodyguard has its privileges, and this is one of them. That is the bathhouse,” she said, pointing to the stone building. “Enjoy. I shall be out here lounging by the pool and guarding the door until you are finished.”
The lady Knight walked under the loggia and stepped into the stone building. Beyond the door was a lattice of carved wood that matched the loggia, and behind it was a pillared room with a domed ceiling and a sunken pool perhaps ten feet around, three feet deep, and filled with gloriously clean water. The room was light and airy, hinting at windows somewhere, but Linsha couldn’t see them through the curtains of white gauze that hung between the pillars. A light breeze played through the building and danced with the gauzy hangings.
Linsha couldn’t believe her luck. She hadn’t had a real deep-water bath since her arrival in Sanction. She’d always had to make do with a basin of water or a quick, and expensive, rinse off in one of the public bathhouses offered by some of the inns.