Gerens turned from the window, empty-handed. ‘That’s easy. Anything else?’
The Duke’s wail was cut short by an audible thump, precipitating shouts of alarm.
Brann shrugged. ‘That should do it.’
‘A quicker end than he deserved,’ Konall reflected.
Brann kicked a stool, sending it careering across the room. ‘You don’t know the half of it. Let’s go.’ He looked at Sophaya. ‘Ready?’
She nodded and stood, the waiflike figure still huddled in her arms. Grakk ripped a curtain from its hanging at the opening to the stairs leading upwards, and they wiped the worst of the blood from their faces and hands. They retrieved what weapons were still protruding from the various bodies lying around the room and cleaned them also, sliding them back into their sheaths. Grakk pulled the object from the captain’s eye and wiped it on the curtain, turning it over curiously in his hand. It was a flat piece of metal, shaped into a star with barbed points, and the tribesman looked at Sophaya. ‘An interesting weapon,’ he observed. ‘I have heard of such among some guilds of assassins in the Empire.’
She stroked the child’s hair. ‘You mix with all sorts when you work in certain sections of society in a big city. It pays to develop contacts, especially when you can learn from each other.’
Grakk was still examining the star, weighing it on his hand and turning it on his fingertips.
‘Keep it.’
Grakk smiled. ‘Thank you. You are kind.’
She shrugged. ‘I have several.’
Brann sheathed his axe, eager to organise their exit. ‘For the first few floors, at least, we will try to pass unobtrusively. Or, at least, as unobtrusively as can be managed by a group that looks like us.’ He turned to Philippe. ‘We need someone to lead us down.’
Konall looked at him askance. ‘We just keep going down stairs, surely, until we reach ground level. How much leading does that need?’
‘No,’ Brann said, his eyes still on Philippe, ‘we need someone to look like they are leading us down, at least for as long as we can manage before someone realises that something is wrong. Every step we don’t have to fight for, hastens our departure.’ He put his hand on Philippe’s arm. ‘Can you act a part?’
The young man smiled weakly. ‘I may be useless at drugging someone, but I have spent so many years acting in one way or another that I’m not sure if I can do anything else. What do you want?’
Brann chewed his lip, gathering his thoughts. ‘People in here recognise you. If you are directing us, explaining loudly about things as if we were guests of the Duke and you have been asked to show us out, it would be good. The more you look to draw attention to yourself, the less people think you don’t want them to look closely. They just get irritated and hope you go away quickly. Or at least, I hope they do.’
Sophaya grunted. ‘Only one way to find out. Now can we go? There may not be much to this little one, but she’s not made of feathers.’
Gerens made to reach for the snuggling girl, but she just pressed harder against Sophaya, who shook her head briefly. He nodded in acceptance, but stepped close, loosening a large knife in its sheath. No one would harm either girl while he could still move.
Brann took a deep breath. ‘Yes, we should move, but one more thing, Philippe. Eloise is downstairs. In the guard room.’
His eyes widened. ‘You only thought to tell me this now? Why have we dallied here?’
He made for the door in a rush, but Brann restrained him.
‘I’m sorry, but we came for a purpose and could not leave without it. And to rush without thought would be to rush to death, and we cannot help her if we are lying bleeding on a stairwell.’ He gripped him tighter. ‘Can you do this?’
Philippe stared at him for a moment, before the actor returned to his eyes. He straightened. ‘I can. But we do it now.’
No more words were needed. They followed his abrupt exit. No more words on that matter, but Philippe had already slipped into the overbearing conversation of one who looks to show off their petty importance. ‘If you follow me, I’ll show you the guard room, as the Duke requested of his most trusted servant.’ He turned and said in a low voice. ‘If people think you are going somewhere else inside, they won’t think about you heading outside. Do you think that’s right?’
Brann wasn’t sure it was necessarily so, but nodded with a smile. It did no harm to encourage Philippe, and the main thing was that he kept talking. As Philippe continued his guided tour, each proclamation more strident and pompous than the last, Brann ran over in his mind the layout the young man had described to them. A single winding stairway ran from top to bottom, wide enough for three men abreast and with a landing at each level. Below the Duke’s chambers on the top two floors were the late captain’s rooms, and then the kitchens situated where they could serve those above and below equally as quickly. The next floor down housed storerooms: half for the cooking staff and half for the guards’ equipment, while the level below that held sleeping quarters for guards and servants. At ground level were more sleeping rooms and the main guard room, and below was a cellar with half-a-dozen cells around a central area where prisoners could be questioned in view of those awaiting the same fate.
They passed the captain’s level quickly, Philippe averting his eyes from the interior as they did so, and approached the kitchens. ‘I will show you the guard room as agreed,’ Philippe pronounced even more loudly than before, his words audible over the work of those servants preparing for the next day. ‘But if you care to look into the kitchens on the way past, the Duke said that you would be welcome to do so.’
At the sound of the reference to the Duke, Brann noticed the heads of the servants stare down, every one wishing to avoid being noticed. That was fine, it suited them.
The store level was passed quickly, but, as they approached the upper sleeping quarters, three drowsy guards stumbled into the stairwell, roused by the shouting outside.
‘Quick!’ Philippe yelled, his voice filled with panic and his hands grabbing the first soldier and propelling him down a few steps. ‘There has been a most terrible accident! The Duke! A fall! The garden! Oh my, we must all help, we really must! Please hurry!’
Clearly dreading the consequences of not being on hand to help the Duke in his time of need, the men almost fell in their haste to run down. Brann and the others followed fast – who would question anyone rushing in the company of guardsmen?
They reached the ground level and Philippe cut past the front entrance and flung open a door with clearly no consideration of his own safety. They piled into the guard room behind him with weapons drawn – and stopped.
Alone in the room, Eloise crouched in a corner. She had managed to retrieve a shift from the pile of her clothes on the floor, but had dressed no more, as if she only had the energy for the minimum to cover herself. Her hands were pressed to her lap, where the pale material was stained red, and she turned a face to them that was swollen and cut beyond recognition of the girl who had left them on the street outside. It was her eyes that struck Brann hardest, though. As a child, he had been at a friend’s house when old Rewan, who tended the ailments of villagers and animals alike, arrived to end the misery of a working dog that was too injured to recover. The animal had seemed to know Rewan’s purpose, and Brann now saw the same look in Eloise’s eyes: a cornered fear, a shrinking from the inescapable, a desperation for mercy.
Philippe cried out as he rushed to her. His arms wrapped her into him, and he rocked, singing a soft tune into her ear, a melody Brann could only guess had seen the pair through times both hard and lonely. He looked up at them, his own eyes stricken, his voice a whisper of horror. ‘How could you let her face this? How could you leave a girl to face them?’
Brann couldn’t answer. He was asking himself