He looked around the group. Konall, Grakk and Gerens were frowning as strongly as he was at the blazing light, but Sophaya merely squinted at it appraisingly. She looked around at the others.
‘What? You thought they would create some nice shadows and maybe a hedge or two to let intruders hide on their way to the tower?’
Gerens still wasn’t happy. ‘You are incessantly magnificent, it is true, but you still think you can get us into that tower? With the guards watching that whole area?’
‘Look at them, dear Gerens,’ the girl said with an impish smile. ‘Like any sentries, they look outwards, and only inwards if something should catch their attention.’
Konall’s look was cold with disdain. ‘We could hardly fail to catch their attention if we wander about in that light.’
But Brann looked at Sophaya and smiled. ‘People only see what they are looking at. So if they are looking at something else…’
‘So,’ Grakk murmured, ‘this would require their eyes to be diverted away to something else. Would you have a suggestion?’
‘Oh, that’s easy.’ They all turned at the sound of Eloise’s voice, which changed in the space of a breath to a tone of exaggerated despair, supported by extravagant and flailing gestures. ‘Oh, how seldom people see beyond the wafer-like crust of a surface to the depths beneath! Oh, how quick people are to disregard the years that went before the last day they have seen!’ She snapped back to herself, grinning. ‘I am an actress. If you can somehow help my brother in his situation, then I can be for those guards whatever we need me to be.’
She tousled her hair and smeared a little dirt from the gutter across her face as if the result of a fall. That fall quickly seemed liable to be repeated as her eyelids drooped and her body sagged and swayed, working to stay upright in the face of the excess of intoxication that she had never actually imbibed. She paused, seeming not quite satisfied with the effect, then pulled at the front of her blouse, ripping it open slightly and just enough to expose an expanse of what lay within. A button fell free and she bent to pick it up, staggering as her fingers closed on it and lurching into Brann.
He felt her lean into him to steady herself and looked at the face that turned to leer up at him. ‘Oh, you are a lovely one,’ she drawled at him. ‘I’ll save you for later.’ She pressed the button into his hand, and winked. ‘Remember me by this, my lover.’
Joceline laughed softly at her antics as Eloise pushed herself away from Brann. He slipped the button in beside the coins in his pouch as, in a low voice, she said to them all, ‘Remember, further along to our right and then, immediately around the next corner, ivy has grown unchecked on the wall. Not a great deal, but enough to let you gain the top of the wall.’
Sophaya was not impressed. ‘Sloppy. I’m surprised others haven’t tried to rob him.’
Eloise shrugged. ‘The walls of the town protect him from those without, but it is his reputation that protects him from those within. To catch the eye of the Duke does not usually end well, and no one in this place wishes to court the possibility. Why run towards the danger they fear and hide from?’
Grakk was curious. ‘What is it that is so terrible? I have seen rulers who rule by fear, but the impression you give is that it goes beyond the normal.’
Joceline spoke, her face as dark as her tone. ‘He has tastes. Desires that he satisfies. He calls it study, but…’ A strange look came into her eyes.
Grakk frowned. ‘He does what, precisely?’
Eloise started to speak, then hesitated, looking at Joceline, who herself shrugged. Eloise seemed to gather her resolve, a troubled look on her face. ‘I don’t know, nobody really does exactly. Sometimes noises come from the tower, sometimes fragments of stories emerge, but not one person who is taken there has been seen to return.’ She hesitated again. ‘People don’t like to make trouble about it, or even talk of it, because then they come to the notice of the Duke’s men. And… well… who would risk losing a child?’
Brann looked sharply at Grakk and then Gerens. He could see they had the same thoughts: they had all been present on a ship off the coast of Cardallon, the southern of the Green Islands, when a shore party had returned with news of the slaughter of a village; a massacre of a sort that had sounded chillingly similar to the love of torture and killing that they had witnessed among Loku’s recruits in the mountains of Konall’s homeland. And prominent amongst its victims, too, had been children. ‘I feel more than ever we need to have a word with this Duke.’
Eloise gathered her skirts as she continued. ‘No one knows the full truth, and that is exactly why I do not like Philippe being so close to that man. If we are to do this, I would that we do it without any more delay.’
Without waiting for a reply, she pointed at them and then at an alleyway running parallel to the road between them and the wall, then slipped into its equivalent heading in the opposite direction. Moments later, the rambling shouts of a drunkard were heard arguing with a rat, before they saw her stagger into the open near the compound gate and lurch in surprise at the sight of the guards. She weaved her way towards them, her words inaudible to Brann’s ears but her demeanour making it clear that the two men were targets of her desire. From the way they came alert, it appeared that the attraction was mutual.
Her less than quiet antics had, however, attracted further attention, and a shout from behind the wall saw one of the guards open the gate. A brief explanation from him and further instruction from inside saw her ushered within, much to the apparent irritation of the guards on the gate, although her swaying gait maintained their attention after she had disappeared from Brann’s view.
Joceline nodded back down the street they had come up. ‘At the next junction is the edge of an area where girls can be seen offering their services. I am not usually so public about my work, but I can look like I fit in there. I will wait there to guide you on your return.’ She cast another look back at the gate to the compound. ‘Now go, for the sake of both of them. Please ensure they come back from that place.’
Brann nodded, as did the others. The courage of Eloise had affected them all. They ran quietly along the alley and turned to meet the road at the first opportunity. They were only a bowshot from the corner, and they reached it in a few rapid heartbeats. Brann blew out his breath in relief as he saw the ivy, and before he could say anything, Sophaya was on top of the wall, lying along it on her stomach. She nodded and dropped silently from sight.
Brann tested the strength of the plant and then realised that it mattered not – he had no option but to try dragging himself up without any further delay. It held well as he grabbed large handfuls to try not to put too much pressure on individual roots, and with Konall using his height to advantage and pushing from below, he managed to haul himself to the top with his one good arm, the light dazzling from countless lamps on tall stands that were dotted across the expanse within. The wall was the length of his forearm in thickness, and he blinked his eyes shut and open rapidly as Konall started to follow. A glance down saw Sophaya moving tight to the wall, and Brann hurriedly dropped to the rough ground below to leave space for the Northern boy, looking for Eloise as he landed in a crouch. She had wandered towards a tall guard who seemed to hold some level of authority, from the way that the other two guards with him on the short flight of steps to the door of the tower moved back instantly at his wave. Two sentries between Brann and the unfolding scene were amusedly watching her, while another just inside the gate was equally engrossed.
The tall guard stepped forward and took Eloise by the arm, looking to usher her inside the building. Brann froze. He did not like the thought that she should be taken inside by those men at all, but it had been inevitable from the moment she had stepped through the gate, and should the watching men lose the object of their interest from view too soon, at least one of them would notice the four figures who would be running around the perimeter of the compound. Admiration filled him, though, as Eloise remained both in character and true to her