Hesp woke in the dingy, windowless room Delder and Jula kept spare for him. He often operated at night, which meant regular naps were necessary to keep his mind sharp.
Unease gnawed at him that Mistress Tay hadn’t been as forthcoming as she might have been with this discovery in the mines. Was it nothing more than his untrusting nature, or was he the next obstruction in the ruthless woman’s path? She had travelled north to investigate in person, and Hesp couldn’t decide if he was looking forward to her return.
He pulled on a fresh shirt, methodically checking the knives hidden about his person, a comforting habit he’d picked up when he was young. Content they were all present and accounted for, he slipped into a dimly lit hallway and down the stairs before pushing his way into a bustling kitchen. He took care to stay out of the way of the cook and the serving girls. He was fast, but the kitchen wasn’t his demesne and he’d been on the wrong end of a ladle before now. Judging by the level of activity in the kitchen, supper was being served. He muttered a request to a serving girl for a bowl of whatever was cooking, before edging into the common room.
Sure enough, Malko sat at his usual table guzzling down Delder’s finest ale. The only surprise was that the invariably genial, sociable Malko was alone, peering into his tankard.
Hesp pulled up a chair and flopped into it, motioning for a tankard. ‘By the look on your face, either the Curtain has come down, or Adenne has denied you her favour on this most esteemed of evenings.’
Malko arched an eyebrow, framing a sharp gaze. ‘Don’t be an ass. It’s happening.’
Hesp nodded. He didn’t need to ask what Malko was referring to. ‘Where’s Tay?’
‘I don’t know,’ Malko admitted, drumming his fingertips on the table. ‘I had word of a fight over in the Northern district, but none dared venture too close due to… sorcerous intervention.
Hesp grunted. ‘Sounds like Tay, all right.’
‘Quite,’ Malko allowed. ‘But that was two bells past and Malko has heard nothing since. It begs the question, does it not, as to the victor of said encounter. Our glorious leader may be naught but a once smouldering heap of ashes, now scattered to the corners of fair Caran upon the wind.’
Hesp relaxed and stretched out his legs as his colleague and friend regained some of his normal self. Mayhap he just needed someone to talk to. ‘Well, nothing to be done about it for now. What can we control right this instant?’
Malko narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. ‘A valid question, my methodical maestro. Malko also knows that Elania Gallyn is as a rabbit about to step into the snare. But the Champion of Caran has such sharp teeth, does she not? Not a rabbit then, but a wolf with a traitorous bite. All hangs in the balance, such a delicate balance that even the all-knowing Malko does not know which way Tumult will nudge events.’
Hesp blinked. ‘Where?’
Malko waved one hand, leaning forward. ‘The North Bank is aflame. Step outside my spectral sidekick, and observe for yourself the angry flames designed to smoke out the wily wolf. To where will the beast bolt?’
Hesp wished Malko didn’t look so pleased with himself. ‘The tunnels,’ he grimaced. An astutely laid trap, but if commonly held belief was true, if anyone could fight their way free of such a trap, it was Elania Gallyn, especially if she was aided by… ‘What of her acquaintances?’
Malko glanced left and right before replying. ‘To all intents and purposes, they are enjoying the festivities.’
Hesp rolled his eyes. ‘But wise Malko knows better, of course.’
A sly grin crept onto Malko’s pudgy, ruddy face. ‘Of course, of course! They skulk the alleys of our prestigious corner of this wondrous city. Alas, even the most careful connivers cannot truly evade the unseen eyes of the Rattle, yes?’
Hesp rolled his shoulders. ‘Well, it looks like you have everything in good order here, Malko. Apart from…’ he paused as the lad Sitock entered the inn and caught his eye. The lad moved towards the bar without looking over again, signalling with his fingers that Tay had appeared in the northern part of the Rattle. She would arrive in five hundred heartbeats, and she was being followed.
He frowned as the lad ordered a drink and finished his message. Identity of following party unknown. Orders?
He signalled back the order to wait and turned to face Malko. ‘She’ll be here soon, and for now, she has company.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Got a bad feeling about this.’
He realised he was hoping for reassurance from the man opposite him. From Malko, of all people! He really was on edge. He signalled back to Sitock. Lockdown. No-one in or out, but no killing.
At Malko’s inquisitive look, he leaned in. ‘I just ordered a lockdown. Something’s not right, and I’m willing to wager our esteemed guests have a hand in it. They won’t get out of the Rattle unless we say so.’
The greying man nodded, but Hesp noted the lack of conviction in the gesture. Malko, it seemed, knew more of these strangers than he was willing to admit. Furthermore, he was nervous of them. Malko was never nervous, not even with Mistress Tay for company, and Hesp suspected a layer of secrecy there which he wasn’t privy to. ‘Raleli’s blades!’ he cursed, suppressing the urge to stab something.
His head swam for a moment, and he peered into his ale through watery vision. The feeling subsided, and he carefully looked around to see if anyone was watching him. He jumped as Malko kicked him under the table. ‘Now is not an appropriate moment to become stricken with some foul illness. Nor is it the place, in such proximity to prodigious Malko!’
He coughed. ‘Sorry, must be from the bottom of the barrel, this ale. A fresh one is required, I think.’ He waved the serving girl over, watching Malko take the tankard in his stubby fingers, sniffing at the ale before guzzling its contents without remark.
Tay entered from the kitchen, her hood hiding her face. She moved stiffly, and Hesp thought he could discern what looked like scorch marks on her scarlet dress. So Malko hadn’t been lying; she’d been in a fight. He shivered as he observed it had been a close-run thing. The woman wasn’t scared of anything. In his experience, that meant she was crazy, or she could handle herself. For the most part, Hesp didn’t consider Tay to be crazy.
Malko rose from his table without a word, waddling towards the private room at the back of the inn they used when the common room wasn’t a suitable place to converse. Hesp went to Tay and put a hand on her elbow, scanning the common room for any newcomers. His eyes widened for a moment as he took far more of the woman’s weight than he expected. ‘Don’t lean on me. It’s twenty paces to the door.’
Tay grasped the message, her back straightening as she glided towards the back of the common room with something approaching her usual grace. She sagged against him once more the moment they were hidden from view. ‘Do I even want to know what you ran into?’ he grunted, aiding her into a room containing a pensive-looking Malko. Nabbey and Oter would bring up the rear.
Mistress Tay nodded her thanks as he eased her into a cushioned chair. ‘To answer your question, Hesp… you may recall my telling you that the gods themselves would sit up and take notice if our mining operation was successful.’
Hesp snorted his amusement, swallowing what he’d been about to say when he looked at Malko. The man merely sipped his wine and sucked his teeth, waiting for Tay to continue.
‘I met… not quite a god, not exactly. A messenger, of sorts. It wasn’t carrying the nice sort of message. I was lucky to escape.’
The raven-haired woman looked shaken, even if she was presenting a façade of control. She scowled as she recalled the incident. ‘Intervention. Whether godly or otherwise I do not know.’ It was obvious Tay hated to admit she’d had help, that she may have been bested if not for the intervention of others. ‘My accomplice wished to remain anonymous; it was the least I could do in the circumstances.’
Malko coughed, raising a fat finger. ‘Most magnanimous, Mistress. Malko is a merchant, they say, if they are being kind. As you know, his goods are often the intangible kind. I speak of knowledge, and there is surely a pretty puzzle to piece together here.’ His eyes glittered with relish at the prospect of doing so.
Tay had always been more patient with Malko than Hesp himself; he often wondered who had sought out whom in the first instance. It truly was a marriage of convenience, despite outward appearances.
The brothers pushed into the room and took up a position on either side of the door, exchanging a look with Hesp that said everything within the inn was normal. ‘Ask your questions, Malko,’ Tay said.
‘The identity of your assailant? Or perhaps its nature would be more pertinent.’
Tay narrowed her eyes on the rotund man. ‘You can take the scorch marks at face value, Malko. It was a Salamander I faced.’
‘Then it was indeed fortuitous for us all that you weren’t left to face this dire threat alone and unaided, Mistress.’ Malko pulled at the point of his beard. ‘A minion of Raefar confronts you, a mere sorceress.’ His eyes flashed towards Tay before he continued. ‘And it’s quite possible you would have met an untimely end had it not been for the intervention of…’
‘An assassin, by appearance. The typical kind,’ Tay added.
‘Quite so,’ Malko continued. ‘Tumult’s nudge, or help from elsewhere? The implications are vast. Questions abound regarding the stakes, and indeed the game and its players.’
One obvious question came to Hesp. What in Raleli’s name did Tay bring back from that mine, and where was it now? He looked closer at Malko and shuddered. He dares not ask. Or worse, he already knows, the ratty little bastard.
He moved to intervene. ‘Mistress, you had a tail when you entered the Rattle.’
She grimaced. She hadn’t known, but wasn’t surprised either.
‘We think we know who, and I for one would like some answers. What we don’t know isn’t worth knowing, yes?’ Hesp reminded them of the mantra which had seen this group of supposed merchants grasp control of the Rattle from a host of pretenders. He went on.
‘They have at least one mage. Military. Mistress, are you fit to lend your aid if it comes to it?’
She nodded after a moment’s hesitation, as though she saw no other option. He glanced around the room at the others. ‘Let’s tighten the net, then.’
Hesp strode into the common room and forced his face to stillness. The entire party they were interested in was sitting right there at a table in the corner, as if they were merrily enjoying an evening over a shared ale. He moved his wrist just so, feeling the reassuring shift of a knife dropping into his palm. The hubris of this lot…
He burst into motion, loosing the knife at the nearest of the party before rolling to one side. He heard the thump of the blade sinking into wood; his target had slid from the chair and brought it up as a shield. The common room erupted as an array of toughs and hired knives closed in on the group. Four of them had formed a square around the other two.
A glance over his shoulder revealed Tay gripping the doorframe, veins bulging in her neck and face as though she was trying to lift an impossible weight. Shit. The men and women closing on the infiltrators fell to the floor as one, shrieking and clawing at their own faces.
An amber-skinned man, surely a mage, emerged from the square, leaning forward as though he was walking into a gale. Tay grunted from behind Hesp; each step closer the man took seemed to pain her until with a baleful cry she ceased whatever it was she attempted.
‘How?’ she growled, chest heaving. ‘That should not have been possible.’
Her opponent strode closer, picking his way over incapacitated bodies, side-stepping spilled ale, wine and bodily fluids. Amusement flashed across his face as he locked gazes with Tay. ‘And yet it happened.’
‘Who are you?’ she spat.
‘I hope you understand the irony in that question. I’m just a mage who knows a few things. Like what it was you pulled out of the earth yesterday.’ He gauged Tay’s reaction, before disappointment clouded his features. ‘You have some idea, then. How foolish could you truly be? Did you think it would go unnoticed?’ Scorn poured from the man in waves, as if he were lecturing a child.
‘It didn’t go unnoticed, but the threat was nullified,’ Tay hissed in reply.
‘That only means you have a limited time to run and hide,’ the mage continued.
Tay balked. ‘What do you know of such things? I ask again, who are you?’
But the man was turning away. ‘I’m your damned saviour, if you follow my advice. Take your haul back to where you found it and bury it as deep as you can. Then run, and don’t stop running, ever.’
His gaze took in the rest of the group. ‘We don’t want the Rattle. Never did.’ He looked back to Tay and nodded. ‘Until the morning, Lady.’ She flinched as if he’d just slapped her full in the face.
The strangers backed out of the inn, gripping weapons with the practiced familiarity of soldiers. Hesp wrapped an arm around a sagging Mistress Tay just in time to save her from collapsing in an undignified and exhausted heap. He exchanged a look with Malko, who nodded. They had been publically humiliated at the heart of their own territory. A new challenge would rise from within the Rattle, hungry for the blood of the weak. That was the way of things here, the way they themselves had come to control this deleterious corner of the city. They had to reassert their authority, fast. With Tay in this condition though, they were vulnerable.
He pushed his way back into the common room after easing Tay down into a bed and pointedly ignoring a fretful Malko. The old fool was best left to himself at moments like this. He moved to lean on the bar and laughed despite himself. Malko would come to the same conclusion as he; it was fight or flight. ‘Delder!’ he growled over the subdued hubbub of the common room. ‘Get me a damned ale, would you?’ The long-faced proprietor ducked at the request but quickly went about his business. Draining the tankard, Hesp thought about who would need to be killed if they were to remain as the head of the snake. Or who they would have to fight their way past if they were to follow that mage’s advice and escape this sorry hole.
Fingering the knives hidden inside his coat, he stared at the back wall of the common room and let his mind tick over, oblivious to the hand-shaped scorch marks tainting the wooden bar top.