Konall’s disgust was undiminished. ‘A whole town should be built for defence.’
Brann grinned. ‘Not every populace is as well versed in siege architecture as yours, you know.’
‘Cretins.’
Smiling, Brann looked back at the wall, Sophaya had closed on the window with the lamp. She reached the lip and, after a brief look over the edge, slipped inside in a fluid movement. The lamp receded until the glow grew instead in the windows to the right, growing brighter beside one opening as it was, presumably, set close. Moments later, the rope uncoiled down the side of the building, and the three joined Gerens as he grasped the end, tying it in a large loop.
His dark eyes locked on Brann’s. ‘Remember, this goes around you and under your arms. Do not attempt to pull yourself up – you are in no fit state. Konall and I will pull you up once Grakk has reached the room.’
Konall held the end of the rope steady to let Gerens start to climb, walking his legs on the wall. The blond head turned to Brann. ‘Konall may not bother. Konall is wondering why we let you insist on coming along in the state you are in.’ His eyes turned to the bush still dripping at the edge of the garden. ‘Although I suppose you do have your uses.’
‘At least,’ Grakk said, ‘that incident did prove one thing.’ They both looked at him, and found his calm eyes looking back impassively. ‘They have no expectation that danger will visit them within these walls.’
Brann frowned. ‘Because one guard has no respect for his superiors and is not afraid to talk about it?’
Grakk smiled. ‘Because there is one part of a man’s anatomy that he will never risk taking out if he thinks there is the slightest chance of sharp-edged objects being swung about at any point in the near future. And that was it.’
Brann was about to laugh at a rare Grakk joke when he saw the look in the tribesman’s eyes. And, when he thought about it, Grakk was right. He looked up to see Sophaya help Gerens through the window and moved to let Konall grasp the rope to start his climb. That his ascent was slightly slower than that of Gerens owed more to physique than anything else – while Konall was lean and strong, Gerens’s rangy build lent him an agility beyond Konall’s assured but steady style, although when it came to Grakk, the man of the desert tribes scampered up the wall as if the rope were a bannister on a stairway and made Gerens look sluggish in comparison.
Brann looked around, suddenly very aware that he was alone. The area in sight was empty, which was good, but the bright light and the sense of danger made him want to shrink against the wall. Even though he knew the guards’ rounds were seldom carried out, still he couldn’t help looking back and forth, expecting at every moment to see armed figures appear. He felt at the loop of rope that Grakk had dropped over his head before he had left him, tucking it into place and patting him on the head with a wink. It was rough, the thickness of a finger, and seemed strong. He hoped it was. He nestled it more securely under his armpits and, just as he did so, he started as he felt the rope pull tight against him.
Grakk’s head popped out of the window to satisfy himself that Brann was ready and, at a nod from the bald head, he felt the rope tighten and lift him from the ground. He started to spin and, alarmed, grabbed the rope with both hands, scrabbling with his feet at the wall to try to keep him facing the surface. His ribs and the wound on his left arm stung, but he managed to get into a rhythm, half-walking and half-bouncing with his feet as he was pulled upwards in rapid lurches. He was concentrating so much on maintaining his balance that the thought of discovery from below was forgotten. One step, then the other, he was jerked upwards. He looked up, and was surprised to see the window only the height of a man above him. He could just make out the sound of soft whispers, and grinned at the thought that he would soon be among his friends.
The whispers stopped. The movement of the rope stopped. Everything seemed to stop. In the silence and stillness, Brann became aware of the soft wind blowing his hair across his eyes, a breeze that would have been welcome at ground level but served here only to remind him how exposed he was. How vulnerable. He was at the mercy of others from above even more than below. Who would think to look up, much less launch any sort of missile almost six storeys upwards with any accuracy? On the other hand, any loosening of the rope above…
He hung, totally dependent on the rope. It was bearing his weight without even the slightest give; it could only be that it was tied off. But why? His mind raced. The whispered voices had stopped abruptly, but there had been no further noise. They must have heard something and be either trying to remain unnoticed or preparing to defend themselves. If it was the latter, it went against his nature not to help them. And in either case, he hated not knowing.
He flinched at the sound of a door crashing open. Shouts burst briefly, then a quiet voice spoke. Brann could not make out the words, but they were shortly followed by the clatter and clang of metal hitting stone: dropped weapons. His stomach knotted. His breath came loud in his ears. He started to haul himself up, hand over hand, his left side searing with pain, the agony overpowered by his urge to reach his friends. The rope creaked as he moved, but softly; he could only hope it was soft enough to merge with the noises of the town beyond. In any case, the consequence of it being heard, grave as it would be, was still preferable to being discovered a short distance below the window and a long drop above the ground.
And in any case, the idea of doing nothing while his friends were in danger had started his muscles moving even before his mind had debated the issue.
He reached the window undiscovered. He forced his heaving breath to be still and eased the last few inches that let his vision clear the sill. And he froze.
His friends stood unarmed, each with a lightly armoured guard on each arm and a blade at their throat; Sophaya closest to the window and just to its right, the rest extending away in a curved line. To the left, regarding them calmly across the room, was a well-dressed man, diminutive in height and almost unhealthily slender, who pulled thoughtfully on a bottom lip that was as thin as his face was pinched and pale, features that merely emphasised the sunken depth of his eyes. He ran the hand through thin dark hair and sighed. ‘But you are all so ordinary! How could you possibly think you could succeed?’
A door beyond him stood open and Philippe, his face wild with fear and marked with a swelling on one cheekbone, was dragged through by a lean guard with hard eyes, unarmoured but wearing a tunic that was black like the tabards of the other guards – in his case with a red stripe down the centre.
The small man smiled. ‘Ah, you thought yourselves so clever, did you not? A man on the inside; a man with a potion.’ He took a goblet from the guard holding Philippe. ‘Thank you, captain.’ He sniffed the dregs curiously. ‘No odour. Instantly dissolved, I believe.’ The captain nodded. ‘Fast acting, too, I hear. Interesting. Most interesting. If any of you have more of this most effective powder on you, I will enjoy investigating it further in due course.’ He looked at them. ‘Yes, effective, though you see my captain standing here before you, most decidedly awake. You see, you thought you knew everything, I am sure, but you did not know me. You did not know that I have no interest in the minor issue of how my captain or anyone else sates their desires as long as they can still serve me as I require. My captain has no need to be secretive from me, and no fear of anything needing to be hidden from me. So when your pretty boy here did not hide well enough his inept attempt to slip powder into a drink, my good captain was able to subdue him and alert me that something must be afoot. The rest was simplicity, waiting to see if someone would come to me, as the boy is incapable of doing anything of any great importance himself. Waiting, moreover, to see who would come, how they would come, why they would come.’ He chuckled with the contentment of a man who is more clever than all around. ‘We have seen the if and the how – and soon we will hear the who and the why.’
Brann’s arms were beginning to shake, but he forced his fingers tight around the rope. Now was not the time to give himself away. Or to fall, for that matter. The rope groaned as his weight rolled slightly to one side. He caught his movement and his breath in the same instant.
But the small man was pacing nonchalantly as he looked