«Of course it can’t,» hissed a woman I recognized as Priscilla from the crowd. Her barely audible exclamation in the crowd of shadows was deafeningly loud. No one but the woman had dared to raise her voice to interrupt Charlo’s speech.
«What do you suggest we do?» Royce, always brash after her statement, immediately stepped forward.
«I told you,» Charlo straightened up. «No more delays, no more excuses. I think the hour is at hand. The chime is about to strike, but there are worse noises to rouse the most watchful of watchmen before the chime strikes. Let us do what we set out to do! It’s today or never!
Charlo pointed defiantly with his hand, clutching the shaft of the torch, toward the king’s palace. The triumphant cry, accompanied by that simple but eloquent gesture, resounded ominously through the night. But even if the sleeping townspeople heard something, it seemed to them to be no more than the long cry of a hoopoe or a cormorant, which on the coast foretold trouble to sailors, but who knows how it had come to be here in the town square.
«Go to the palace! You’ve gone quite mad,» Klovis, less impulsive but more judicious, folded his arms across his chest and rested his shoulder on the railing of the wooden staircase that led to the palace. A sneer flashed in his calm aquamarine eyes. Or rather, his eyes were different colors, one entirely aquamarine and the other three-quarters blue. I could see it even from this distance. Different colored eyes are a sure sign of someone who promises to be a capable sorcerer.
«That pretty girl was right to declare you insane,» Klovis grinned at the corners of his lips. Light and nimble, he could turn on anyone who contradicted him. «Our charming Shadow Infanta is not, as you told us, a pretty little thing, but… not only clever, but wise and perceptive. She was the first one to notice that you were mad, and we weren’t sure whether to believe her or not.»
«You’re just captivated by her doll face,» Charlo said impertinently, stepping back just in case there was enough distance between him and Klovis to make a run for it. «We don’t need a lover here. We should be thinking of our future, of prosperity, of success, not correcting grammatical errors in your love canzonets. Better get out of here while you’re still in one piece, there’s no room in our ranks for the cowardly and the cowardly. Cowards sooner or later become traitors. We don’t need such a nuisance. Go serenade the dragon’s mistress under her window. You could have been one of the lords of the world with us, but instead you prefer to be her servant. Get out of here! Go to your sweetheart and pray that her protector doesn’t scald your face with his fiery breath.»
«Shut up!» Klovis gritted through his teeth. The taunts had hit their mark. He was so angry that he tore the lapels of his cloak with his nails. The silk lapels on the sleeves were now nothing but scraps, but Klovis somehow decided it was better than leaving one tattered carcass from his recalcitrant counterpart.
«Eye for an eye,» Sharlo grinned evilly. «That pretty girl really hurt your feelings.»
I was going to get even with him for calling Rose a dragon’s minion, but I wasn’t sure what he would say. It was curious, to learn of the enemy’s secret plans from his own lips.
Without the mediation of spies, I could learn far more than they would have told me. Charlo persuaded the crowd with such zeal and such fervor. He had no idea that the dragon was watching him, not through a keyhole, but standing nearby, in plain sight and not even trying to hide around a corner. And still I was still a creature who had entered this world through a narrow tunnel not used by humans, connecting two worlds. I continued to feel like a spy, peeking at the gathering in the square and all of humanity in general from the tiny keyhole in the door that separates one world from the other.
«I won’t listen to an honest girl being insulted,» Klovis shook the invisible debris from his coat, turned on his heels and was about to leave, but Charlo’s menacing shout stopped him.
«Don’t you dare say anything to our illustrious Monseigneur Dragon, or the prince will rip out your tongue.»
Clovis turned and clenched his fists so that his knuckles whitened. He would have liked to challenge him to a duel or even a scuffle, but he knew that he could easily avoid the challenge by claiming that he was now a republican and had no intention of tolerating aristocratic habits, and that a fist fight would have been a distant prospect. Could anyone compare to him in running speed?
«What could you possibly have learned from a downtrodden noble family except prayers, swordsmanship, and philosophy?» Charlo grinned mockingly. «You prefer words to toil, slowness to lightning speed. You value long hours of leisure more than the swift path to glory and advantage. We cannot be lazy like you. Why did we come to the square under the cover of night, when everyone is asleep and there is no one to hinder us. This is the most direct path to the palace. We will come silently, swiftly and unexpectedly. No one will be able to resist us. Have you not sneaked up behind the dark ones we’ve robbed and disarmed them? You yourself acted like a thief in the night, and now you’re trying to play the moralist.»
«And you suggest that we storm the palace without even getting an order from the prince to do so. It’s better to wait for the lord’s command than to act on our own. At least that way we can count on his support. Where is he now? From which roof is he watching us and laughing at our foolishness? We will die, and he will find other, even more servile and subservient followers.»
«You’re talking nonsense,» Charlo protested firmly.
«I have every right to be, since I’ve already been banished, I’ve got to do something to establish my sullied reputation as a pariah so you won’t have any regrets about me.»
Klovis looked either questioningly or mockingly around the half circle of black figures, which had swung open to make way for him, and then turned again to Charlo.
«At least extinguish the torch so none of the sentries will notice the flame creeping up the path to the front door. We all prefer the ascetic way of life, dressed in black, like the monks, but they only wear cassocks and tonsils, and we hide from every passerby dressed in uniform. If you’re such an ardent ascetic, Charlo, you shouldn’t feel the lack of comfort because there’s no fire nearby. The moonlight is enough for shadow. You used to be the quickest to sneak off to the sewer grates if there was a cart rattling close by carrying convicts to their execution. Now you’ve suddenly grown bolder, offering to go to the King’s palace. Well, go!»
«That’s not all I suggest,» Sharlo said with a wry squint as if he were trying to establish some sort of rapport with himself. «Isn’t the second part of the plan appealing to you?»
«You try that, and even if they don’t drag you down to the palace door, you’ve signed your own death warrant.»
Klovis thought for a moment, as if he did not know how to express his fears accurately.
«You see,» he tried to explain. «It’s not just your life that’s at stake here. It’s a case of you and your instigator taking the lives of all your followers. It’s not enough to slit the throat of Viniena’s lord, you want willingly to become entangled with a man from whom others, the most dangerous and vicious, will flee at a moment’s notice. Believe me, you’re looking for an enemy who has killed people far greater than you for fun. You can’t beat him.
«I’m not asking you to fight him,» Charlo protested angrily. «To fight him would be a suicide. You’re not the only one with the foresight to see that. I’m trying to make it clear that if he comes to the old man’s rescue, we can steal from him, quietly, without being seen by him as missing any of the treasure. What would be garbage to him would be useful to us.»
«He may already know all about your plans,» Klovis assured him.
«How could he?» – Reluctantly, as if he were a mischievous sort of ruffian, Charlo snapped back. «Who could have warned him? Had His Majesty sent him the dispatch? He