Hanse tried not to let his preening show. Nor did he know how to apologize, or to fancy-talk beyond the level of the Maze. Besides, he thought this pout-lipped beauty with her heart-shaped face and nice woman"s belly was having some fun with him. She knew that pout was irresistible!
"Wear high-necked homespun," he said, and while she laughed, "and try not to look that way. This real man knows what you"re used to, and that you can"t be interested in Hanse the roach!"
Her expression became very serious. "You must not have access to a mirror, Hanse. Why don"t you try me?"
Hanse fought his astonishment and made swift recovery. With p.r.i.c.kly armpits and outward confidence, he said, "Would you like to take a walk, Lirain?"
"Is there a more private room at the end of it?"
Holding her gaze as she held his, he nodded.
"Yes," she said, that quickly. Concubine of Prince Kadakithis! "Could anything as good as this bandeau be bought in the bazaar?"
He was rising. "Who"d buy it? No," he said, puzzled at the question.
i" - "Then you must buy me the best we can find after a short search." She chuckled at the sight of his stricken face. The c.o.c.ky creature thought she was a wh.o.r.e, to charge him some trifle like any girl! "So that I can wear it back to the palace," she said, and watched understanding brighten that frightening yet sensuous pair of onyxes he wore for eyes, all hard and cold and wary. She slid her hand into his, and they departed the Golden Oasis.
"Of course I"m sure. Bourne!" Lirain twitched off the blue-arabesqued bandeau of green silk Hanse had bought her, and hurled it at the man on the divan. He grinned so that his big brown beard writhed. "He has such needs He is never relaxed, and wants and needs so badly, and so wants to be and to do. He is so impressed with who or rather what I am, and yet he would deny under torture that I was anything but another nice tumble. You and I both well know about low-borns who hunger for far more than food! He is completely taken in and he"ll be the perfect tool. Bourne. My agent a.s.sured me that he is a competent sneak-thief, and that he wants to rob and gain a leg on Prince Kittycat so badly he can taste it. I saw that, right enough. Look, it"s perfect!"
"A thief. And competent, you say." Bourne scratched his thigh under the tunic of his h.e.l.l Hound"s uniform. He glanced around the apartment she occupied on nights when the prince might come - hours from now. "And he has a valuable halter of you now, to sell. Perhaps to brag about and get you into trouble. That kind of trouble ends in death, Lirain."
"You find it hard to admit that I a woman - have accomplished this, love? Look here, that gourd-holster was stolen today in the market-place. Sliced through in back and s.n.a.t.c.hed off, in a single act. Some child of about thirteen, a dirty girl who ran off with it like a racing dromedary. I did not tell anyone because I so hated its loss and am so mortified."
"All right. Maybe. That"s not bad - forget the part about its being sliced in back, lest it turn up whole. Hmm - I guess it won"t. Likely perfectly good silk will be dumped while the pearls and gold thread are sold. And how competent was he at the couching, Lirain?"
Lirain looked to the heavens. "0 Sabellia, and we call Thee the Sharp-Tongued One! Men! Plague and drought. Bourne, can"t you be more than a man? He was ...
fair. That"s all. I was on business. We are on business, love. Our a.s.signment for those "certain interested n.o.bles" back in Ranke - my hind leg, it"s the Emperor himself, worried about his half-brother"s pretty golden-haired magnetism! - is to embarra.s.s His pretty golden-haired Highness K-adakithis! He"s been doing that well enough all by himself! Trying to implement civilized law in this roach-nest of a town! Continuing to insist that temples to Savankala and Sabellia have to be mightier than the one to the Ils these people worship, and that Vashanka"s must be equal to Ils"s. Priests hate him and merchants hate him and thieves hate him - and thieves make this town go!"
Bourne nodded - and demonstrated his strength by drawing a fifteen-inch dagger to clean his nails.
Lirain tossed her girdle of silver links on to a pile of cushions and idly fingered her navel. "Now we provide the finishing touch. There will never be a threat to the Emperor from this pretty boy"s supporters again! We help Hanse the roach into the palace."
"After which he is absolutely on his own," he said, pointing with the dagger.
"We"ve got to be uncompromised."
"Oh," she said flaunting, "I shall be a-couching with His Highness! The while, Hanse steals his Rod of Authority: the Savankh of Ranke, given him personally by the Emperor as symbol of full authority here! Hanse will wish to negotiate a private, quiet trade with Kittycat. Rod for a fat ransom, and his safety. We will be busily seeing that word gets around. A thief broke into the palace and stole the Savankh! And the Prince-Governor is the laughing stock of the capital! He"ll either rot here - or, worse still, be recalled in disgrace."
The big man lounging so familiarly on her divan nodded slowly. "I do have to point out that you may well rot here with him."
"Oh, no. You and I are promised reprieve from this midden-heap town. And ...
Bourne ... particularly if we heroically regain the Savankh for the honour of the Empire. After its theft is just terribly well known, of course."
"Now, that"s good!" Bourne"s brows tipped up and his lips pursed, a rather obscene spectacle between the bushiness of brown moustache and beard. "And how do we do that? You going to trade this Hanse another halter for it?"
She looked long at him. Coolly, brows arched above blue-lidded eyes. "What"s that in your hand. Guardian; h.e.l.l Hound so loyal to His Highness?"
Bourne regarded the dagger in his big hairy hand, looked at Lirain, and began to smile.
Though hardly beloved nor indeed particularly lovable, Hanse was a member of the community. Though a paid ally, the customs inspector was not. Hanse heard from three sources that Cusharlain had been asking after him, on behalf of someone else. After giving that thought, Hanse traded with a grimy little thief. First Hanse reminded him that he could easily take the five truly fine melons the boy had been so deft as to steal, all in an afternoon. The boy agreed to accept a longish, stiffish piece of braided gold thread, and Hanse gained four melons.
With his hilt and then thumb, Hanse made a nice depression in the top of each.
Into each he tucked a nice pearl; four of his thirty-four.
These he set before the hugely fat and grossly misnamed Moonflower, a S"danzo who liked food, melons, pearls, Hanse, and proving that she was more than a mere charlatan. Many others were. Few had the Gift. Even the cynical Hanse was convinced that Moonflower had.
She sat on a cushioned stool of extra width and st.u.r.dy legs. Her pile of red and yellow and green skirts overflowed it, while disguising the fact that so did her vast backside. Her back was against the east wall of the tired building wherein she and her man and seven of their brood of nine dwelt, and wherein her man sold ... things. Hanse sat cross-legged before her. Looking boyish without his arm sheaths and in a dusty tunic the colour of an old camel. He watched a pearl disappear under Moonflower"s shawl into what she called her treasure chest. He watched the melon disappear between her lavender-painted lips. Swiftly.
"You are such a good boy, Hanse." When she talked, Moonflower was a kitten.
"Only when I want something, pa.s.sionflower."
She laughed and beamed and tousled his hair for he knew that such talk pleased her. Then he told her the story. Handed her, disguised in carefully smudged russet, a strip of silken cloth: two straps and two cupped circles bearing many thread-holes.
"Ah! You"ve been visiting a lady in the Path of Money! Nice of you to let Moonflower have four of the pearls you"ve laboriously sliced off this little sheath!"
"She gave it me for services rendered." He waved a hand.
"Oh, of course. Hmm." She folded it, unfolded it, fondled it, drew it through her dimple-backed hands, sniffed and tasted it with a dainty tongue-tip. A gross kitten at her divining. She closed her eyes and was very still. As Hanse was, waiting.
"She is indeed a c- what you said," she told him, able to be discreet even though in something approaching a trance. "Oh, Shadowsp.a.w.n! You are involved in a plot beyond your dreaming. Odd - this must be the Emperor I see, watching from afar. And this big man with your - acquaintance. A big man with a big beard. In a uniform? I think so. Close to our ruler, both. Yet ... ahh ... they are his enemies. Yes. They plot. She is a serpent and he a lion of no little craft. They seek ... ah, I see. The Prince-Governor has become faceless. Yes. They seek to cost him face." Her eyes opened to stare wide at him, two big garnets set amid a heavy layer of kohl. "And you, Hanse my sweet, are their tool."
They stared at each other for a moment. "Best you vanish for a time, Shadowsp.a.w.n. You know what becomes of tools once they are no longer needed."
"Discarded," he snarled, not even bemoaning the loss of Lirain"s denuded bandeau, which Moonflower made vanish within a shawl-buried vaster one.
"Or," she said, keeping him fixed by her gaze, "hung up."
Lirain and her (uniformed?) confederate were tools then, Hanse reasoned, prowling the streets. Prince Kadakithis was nice to look at, and charismatic. So his imperial half-brother had sent him way out here, to Sanctuary. Now he wanted him sorely embarra.s.sed here. Hanse could see the wisdom of that, and knew that despite what any might say, the Emperor was no fool. So, then. They two plotted.
Lirain gained enough knowledge of Hanse to employ Cusharlain to investigate him.
She had found a way to effect their meeting. Yes; though it hurt his ego, he admitted to himself that she had made the approach and the decisions. So now he was their tool. A tool of tools!
Robbing Kadakithis, however, had been his goal before he met that cupidinous concubine. So long as she helped, he was quite willing to let her think he was her dupe. He wanted to be their tool, then - insofar as it aided him to gain easy entry to the palace. Forewarned and all that. There was definitely potential here for a clever man, and Hanse deemed himself twice as clever as he was, which was considerably. Finally, being made the tool of plotting tools was far too demeaning for the Hansean ego to accept.
Yes. He would gain the wand. Trade it to the Prince-Governor for gold - no, better make it the less intimidating silver - and freedom. From Suma or Mrsevada or some place, he"d send a message back, anonymously informing Kadakithis that Lirain was a traitor. Hanse smiled at that pleasant thought. Perhaps he"d just go up to Ranke and tell the Emperor what a pair of incompetent agents he had down in Sanctuary. Hanse saw himself richly rewarded, an intimate of the Emperor ...
And so he and Lirain met again, and made their agreement and plan.
A gate was indeed left open. A guard did indeed quit his post before a door of the palace. It did indeed prove to be unlatched. Hanse locked it after him. Thus a rather thick-waisted Shadow-sp.a.w.n gained entry to the palatial home of the governor of Sanctuary. Dark corridors led him to the appointed chamber. As the prince was not in it, it was not specifically guarded. The ivory rod, carved to resemble rough-barked wood, was indeed there. So, unexpectedly enjoying the royal couch in its owner"s absence, was Lirain"s sister concubine. She proved not to have been drugged. She woke and opened her mouth to yell. Hanse reduced that to a squeak by punching her in the belly, which was shockingly convex and soft, considering her youth. He held a pillow over her face, sustaining a couple of scratches and a bruised shin. She became still. He made sure that she was limp but quite alive, and bound her with a gaiter off her own sandal. The other he pulled around so as to hold in place the silken garment he stuffed into her mouth, and tied behind her head. He removed the pendant from one ear. All in darkness. He hurried to wrap the rod of authority in the drape off a low table.
Hitching up his tunic, he began drawing from around his waist the thirty feet of knotted rope he had deemed wise. Lirain had a.s.sured him that a sedative would be administered to the h.e.l.l Hounds" evening libation. Hanse had no way of knowing that to be the truth; that not only had one of those big burly five done the administering, he had drunk no less than the others. Bourne and company slept most soundly. The plan was that Hanse would leave the same way he had entered.
Because he knew he was a tool and was suspicious unto caution, Hanse had decided to effect a different exit.
One end of the rope he secured to the table whose drape he"d stolen. The other he tossed out the window. Crosswise, the table would hold the rope without following him through the window.
It proved true. Hanse went out, and down. Slipping out westwards to wend his way among the brothels, he was aware of a number of scorpions scuttling up and down his back, tails poised. Evidently the bound occupant of His Highness"s bed was not found. Dawn was still only a promise when Hanse reached his second-floor room in the Maze.
He was a long time wakeful. Admiring the symbol of Rankan authority, named for the G.o.d they claimed had given it them. Marvelling at its unimposing aspect. A twig-like wand not two feet long, of yellowing ivory. He had done it!
Shortly after noon next day, Hanse had a talk with babbly old Hakiem, who had lately done much babbling about what a fine fellow His handsome Highness was, and how he had even spoken with Hakiem, giving him two pieces of good silver as well! Today Hakiem listened to Hanse, and he swallowed often. What could he do save agree?
Carrying a pretty pendant off a woman"s earring, Hakiem hied him to the palace.
Gained the Presence by sending in one word to the Prince, with the pendant.
a.s.sured him he had nothing to do with the theft. Most privily Hakiem stated what he"d been told, and the thief"s terms. Ransom.
The Prince-Governor had to pay, and knew it. If he could get the d.a.m.ned Savankh back, he"d never have to let out that it had been stolen in the first place.
Taya, who had spent a night in his bed less comfortable than she had expected, had no notion what had been taken. Too, she seemed to believe his promise to stretch or excise various parts of her anatomy should she flap her mouth to anyone at all.
Meanwhile the concubine Lirain and h.e.l.l Hound Bourne were jubilant. Plotting.
Grinning. Planning the Revelation that would destroy their employer. Indeed, they lost no time in dispatching a message to their other employers, back in Ranke. That was premature, unwise, and downright stupid.
Next came the coincidence, though it wasn"t all that much one. Zaibar and Quag were sword-happy hotheads. Razkuli complained of fire in the gut and had the runs besides. That left only two h.e.l.l Hounds; whom else would the prince entrust with this mission? After a short testing conference, he chose Bourne to implement the transaction with the thief. Bourne"s instructions were detailed and unequivocal: all was to be effected precisely as the thief, through Hakiem, had specified. Bourne would, of course, receive a nice bonus. He was made to understand that it was also to serve as a gag. Bourne agreed, promised, saluted, louted, departed.
Once the villa had commanded a fine view of the sea and naturally terraced landscape flowing a league along the coast to Sanctuary. Once a merchant had lived here with his family, a couple of concubines who counted themselves lucky, servants, and a small army or defence force. The merchant was wealthy. He was not liked and did not care that many did not care for the way he had achieved wealth and waxed richer. One day a pirate attack began. Two days later the gorge that marked the beginning of rough country disgorged barbarians. They also attacked. The merchant"s small army proved too small. He and his armed force and servants and unlucky concubines and family were wiped out. The manse he had called Eaglenest was looted and burned. The pirates had not been pirates and the barbarians had not been barbarians -technically, at least: they were mercenaries. Thus, forty years ago, had some redistribution of wealth been achieved by that clandestine alliance of Sanctuarite n.o.bles and merchants.
Others had called Eaglenest "Eaglebeak" then and still did, though now the tumbled ruins were occupied only by spiders, snakes, lizards, scorpions, and snails. As Eaglebeak was said to be haunted, it was avoided.
It was a fine plan for a night meeting and transfer of goods, and to Eaglebeak came Bourne, alone, on a good big prancing horse that swished its tail for the sheer joy and pride of it. The horse bore Bourne and a set of soft saddlebags, weighty and jingling.
Near the scrubby acacia specified, he drew rein and glanced about at a drear pile and scatter of building stones and their broken or crumbled pieces. His long cloak he doffed before he dismounted. Sliding off his horse, he stood clear while he unbuckled his big weapons belt. The belt, with sheathed sword and dagger, he hung on his saddle-horn. He removed the laden bags. Made them jingle.
Laid them on the ground. Stepping clear of horse and ransom, he held his arms well out from his body while he turned, slowly.
He had shown the ransom and shown himself unarmed. Now a pebble flew from somewhere to whack a big chunk of granite and go skittering. At that signal.
Bourne squatted and, on clear ground in the moonlight, emptied both saddlebags in a clinking, chiming, shimmering, glinting pile of silver coinage amid which gleamed a few gold disks. Laboriously and without happiness, Bourne clinked them all back into the pouches of soft leather, each the size of a nice cushion. He paced forward to lay them, clinking, atop a huge square stone against which leaned another. All as specified.
"Very good." The voice, male and young, came out of the shadows somewhere; no valley floor was so jumbled with stones as this once-courtyard of Eaglebeak.
"Now get on your horse and ride back to Sanctuary."
"I will not. You have something for me."
"Walk over to the acacia tree, then, and look towards Sanctuary."
"I will walk over to the tree and watch the saddlebags, thanks, thief. If you show up without that rod ..."
Bourne did that, and the shadows seemed to cough up a man, young and lean and darkly dressed. The crescent moon was behind him so that Bourne could not see his face. The fellow pounced lithely atop a stone, and held high the stolen Savankh.
"I see it."
"Good. Walk back to your horse, then. I will put this down when I pick up the bags."
Bourne hesitated, shrugged, and began ambling towards his horse. Hanse, thinking that he was very clever indeed and wanting all that money in his hands, dropped from his granite dais and hurried to the bags. Sliding his right arm through the connecting strap, he laid down the rod he carried in his left. That was when Bourne turned around and charged. While he demonstrated how fast a big burly man in mail-coat could move, he also showed what a dishonest rascal he was. Down his back, inside his mail-shirt, on a thong attached to the camel-hair torque he wore, was a sheath. As he charged, he drew a dagger long as his forearm.
His quarry saw that the weight of the silver combined with Bourne"s momentum made trying to run not only stupid, but suicidal. Still, he was young, and a thief: supple, clever, and fast. Bourne showed teeth, thinking this boy was frozen with shock and fear. Until Hanse moved, fast as the lizards scuttling among these great stones. The saddlebags slam-jingled into Bourne"s right arm, and the knife flew away while he was knocked half around. Hanse managed to hang on to his own balance; he bashed the h.e.l.l Hound in the back with his ransom.
Bourne fell sprawling. Hanse ran - for Bourne"s horse. He knew Bourne could outrun him so long as he was laden with the bags, and he was not about to part with them. In a few bounds, he gained a great rock and from there pounced on to the horse"s back, just as he"d seen others do. It was Hanse"s first attempt to mount a horse. Inexperience and the weight of his ransom carried him right off the other side.
In odd silence, he rose, on the far side of the horse. Not cursing as anyone might expect. Here came Bourne, and his fist sprouted fifteen inches of sharp iron. Hanse drew Bourne"s other dagger from the sheath on the saddle and threw the small flat knife from his buckskin. Bourne went low and left, and the knife clattered among the stumbled stones of Eaglebeak. Bourne kept moving in, attacking under the horse. Hanse struck at him with his own dagger. To avoid losing his face. Bourne had to fall. Under the horse. Hanse failed to check his swipe, and his dagger nicked the inside of the horse"s left hind leg.
The animal squealed, bucked, kicked, tried to gallop. Ruins barred him, and he turned back just as Bourne rose. Hanse was moving away fast, hugging one saddlebag to him and half-dragging the other. Bourne and his horse ran into each other. One of them fell backwards and the other reared, neighed, pranced - and stood still, as if stricken with guilt. The other, downed painfully in mail for the second time in two minutes, cursed horse, Hanse, luck, G.o.ds, and himself.
And began getting up.
However badly it had been handled, Bourne had horse, sword, and a few paces away, the rod of Rankan authority. Hanse had more silver than would comprise Bourne"s retirement. Under its weight he could not hope to escape. He could drop it and run or be overtaken. Dragging sword from sheath. Bourne hoped the roach kept running. What fun to carve him for the next hour or so!
Hanse was working at a decision, too, but none of it fell out that way. Perhaps he should have done something about trying to buy off a G.o.d or two; perhaps he should have taken better note of the well, this afternoon, and not run that way tonight. He discovered it too late. He fell in.
He was far less aware of the fall than of utter disorientation - and of being banged in every part of his body, again and again, by the sides of the well, which were brick, and by the saddlebags. When his elbow struck the bricks, the bags were gone. Hanse didn"t notice their splash; he was busy crashing into something that wasn"t water. And he was hurting.
The well"s old wooden platform of a cover and sawhorse affair had fallen down inside, or been so hurled by vandals or ghosts. They weren"t afloat, those pieces of very old, damp wood; they were braced across the well, at a slant.
Hanse hit, hurt, scrabbled, clung. His feet were in water, and his shins. The wood creaked. The well"s former cover deflected the head-sized stone Bourne hurled down. The fist-sized one he next threw struck the well"s wall, bounced to roll down Hanse"s back, caught a moment at his belt, and dropped into the water.
The delay in his hearing the splash led Bourne to misconstrue the well"s depth.
Hanse clung and dangled. The water was cold.
In the circle of dim light above, Hanse saw Bourne"s helmeted head. Bourne, peering down into a well, saw nothing.
"If you happen to be alive, thief, keep the saddlebags! No one will ever find you or them - or the Savankh you stole! You treacherously tricked us all, you see, and fled with both ransom and Savankh. Doubtless I will be chastised severely by His pretty Highness - and once I"m in Ranke again, I"ll be rewarded!
You have been a fool and a tool, boy, because I"ve friends back home in Ranke who will be delighted by the way / have brought embarra.s.sment and shame on Prince Kittycat!"
Hanse, hurting and scared that the wood would yield, played dead. Strange how cold water could be, forty feet down in a brick-walled shaft!
Grinning, Bourne walked over and picked up the Savankh, which His stupid Highness would never see. He shoved it into his belt. Stuck his sword into the ground. And began wrestling a huge stone to drop, just in case, down the well.
His horse whickered. Bourne, who had left his sword several feet away, froze. He straightened and turned to watch the approach of two helmeted men. They bore naked swords. One was a soldier. The other was - the Prince-Governor?!
"We thank you for letting us hear your confession. Bourne, traitor."
Bourne moved. He gained his sword. No slouch and no fool, he slashed the more dangerous enemy. For an instant the soldier"s mail held Bourne"s blade. Then the man crumpled. The blade came free and Bourne spun, just in time to catch the prince"s slash in the side. Never burly, K-adakithis had learned that he had to put everything he had behind his practice strokes just so that his opponents would notice. He did that now, so wildly and viciously that his blade tore several links of Bourne"s mail-coat and relocated them in his flesh. Bourne made an awful noise. Horribly shocked and knowing he was hurt, he decided it were best to fly. He staggered as he ran, and the prince let him go.
Kadakithis picked up the fallen rod of authority and slapped it once against his leather-clad leg. His heart beat unconscionably rapidly as he knelt to help the trusted man he"d brought with him. That was not necessary. In falling, the poor wight had smashed his head open on a chunk of marble from a statue. Slain by a G.o.d. Kadakithis glanced after Bourne, who had vanished in darkness and the ruins.