“We’ll think of something else,” Miz said, rocking back in his chair.

“It’ll be all right in the end,” Dloan agreed, nodding.

Cenuij fixed Zefla, Miz and Dloan in turn with a bleary look. “Sorry, could you all be a bit more vague? I hate being bombarded with details.”

Miz grinned and shook his head. Dloan was expressionless.

“Oh, Cenuij…” Zefla said, putting her arm round him.

“ ‘Oh, Cenuij,’” he muttered, trying to imitate her. He shrugged her arm off and stood up. “Call of nature,” he said, heading wavily for the door.

As he opened the door, the noise of the inn’s main bar-where people were dutifully celebrating the fact the King was still alive-swelled to a roar, then sank back to a murmur again as the door swung to.

Miz shrugged. He reached into his jerkin and took out an inhalant tube. “Well, I was saving this until we’d got the damn book, but-”

“Yeah,” Zefla said, face brightening dramatically. “But what the hell, eh?”

Miz cracked the inhalant. They each took a few breaths.

“Anyway,” Sharrow said, after she’d let her breath out. “Maybe this vault isn’t as impregnable as Cenuij thinks.”

“Yeah,” Miz said, coughing. “Fucking hell; we took out the one they kept the C.A. in; compared to that anything else should be easy.”

“Just getting the equipment might be a problem,” Dloan said.

“Think team,” Zefla said, grinning broadly. She handed the tube back to Miz, who was looking at the door of the room and frowning deeply. “What’s the matter?” she asked him.

He nodded towards the door as his hand went to his pocket. “Gone very quiet down there all of a sudden,” he said.

The others listened. The background buzz of noise from the bar below had disappeared.

Miz rocked forward in his seat and took out his gun. “Personal experience,” he said, getting up and padding to the door, “has taught me it’s a very bad sign when Pharpechian bars go this quiet.” He looked at Dloan and nodded sideways to the door. “You go and check it out, Dlo.”

Dloan got up silently.

Miz grinned. “Hey, I was only kidding…”

Dloan held up one hand. “No; I’ll go,” he said.

Miz looked up at the expression on the big man’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “You go.”

As Dloan opened the door, there was a scream from downstairs, then a terrible wailing and crying. Sharrow looked round the others. Dloan went out. Miz watched him walk along to the stairs leading down to the bar. The wailing got louder. He closed the door.

“What the hell’s that?” Zefla breathed.

“Cenuij just told a joke?” Sharrow suggested. She reached into her jacket pocket and took out the HandCannon.

The wailing kept going. Dloan came back unharmed after a couple of minutes, closing the door behind him and sitting in his seat.

“Well?” Sharrow said.

Dloan looked at her. “The King is dead,” he told her.

“What?” Miz said, coming over to the table.

Dloan explained it as he’d heard it.

The King had been demonstrating to the banquet guests how he’d escaped from the stom that evening. He’d climbed all the way up a large tapestry hanging against one wall of the banqueting hall and stood on the rafters, waving his wine goblet around as he described his strength, dexterity, bravery, and sureness of foot. He had slipped and fallen, hit the heavy banqueting table with his head and spattered a surprisingly large amount of brains over the tenth course, a sweet.

“Yeah!” Zefla said, not too loudly, and then immediately covered her hand with her mouth. She looked round guiltily.

Miz took a last suck on the inhalant. “The King is dead,” he said, passing the tube to Zefla.

“At least this might cheer Cenuij up,” Sharrow said.

Miz looked at the door. “Yeah, where’s he got-?”

Cenuij opened the door and came in. He locked the door and crossed to and opened the window, then kicked a nearby stool underneath it; he climbed up on the stool and looked out. He turned back and smiled unconvincingly at them.

They were all staring at him.

“Cenuij?” Zefla said. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he said, voice hoarse. There was a sheen of sweat on his face. He nodded at the window. “Let’s go.”

“What?” Miz said, putting his gun away in his jerkin.

“Don’t put that away, we might need it,” Cenuij said. “Come on, let’s go. Just leave the money on the table.”

“Cenuij,” Sharrow said. “Have you heard? The King is dead.”

He nodded quickly, looking exasperated. “Yes, yes, I know,” he said. He nodded at the door he’d locked. “But a load of monks just turned up and asked for lodgings here.”

“So?” Sharrow said.

Cenuij swallowed. “They’re Huhsz.”

15 Escape Clause

Miz dumped a load of coins on the table and went out along the landing to check Cenuij was right. Zefla lifted the two remaining bottles of trax spirit. Sharrow shoved the inhalant tube into a pocket; she was surprised to find that her hands were shaking. Cenuij was persuaded that the drop from the window was a little too great; Dloan checked along the corridor outside and found some back stairs.

Miz came back from looking down into the hall of the inn.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s the Huhsz.”

A minute later they were gone, quitting the inn’s rear court-yard and heading out onto a small track that looped round through a field to the road for the town.

They had hired torch-carriers to escort them from the town to the inn, but didn’t want to wait for the youths to rouse themselves from the inn’s kitchens, or attract the Huhsz’s attention with lights. They’d all brought night-glasses with them except for Zefla, who held onto Dloan’s hand as they walked quickly up the road. They looked back to see a tall carriage surrounded by dark figures being manoeuvred through the archway into the inn’s main courtyard.

“Sons of bitches,” Miz breathed. “I saw ten; how about you?” he asked Cenuij.

“Twenty; maybe more,” Cenuij said.

“Shit,” Miz said. He looked at Sharrow, a pale ghost striding alongside, unknowingly disguising her limp as she did so. “Now what?”

“Forget the book,” she said. “We run.”

“I have a better idea,” Cenuij said. He smiled at Sharrow as she looked back at him. “We hobble the Huhsz first, then we run.”

“How?” she asked.

“A word in the right ears in the castle ought to do it,” Cenuij said. “I’ll tell the arch-impietist I’ve heard the Huhsz are here and that they’re God-worshipping republicans. That should put the fear of God into the Pharpechian religious authorities. Especially at the moment.”

“Well, don’t take too long,” Sharrow said. “We’re going to get the fastest mounts we can find and set off for the railway.”

“It might be best if we didn’t split up,” Zefla said. “What if Cenuij is expected to stay in the castle, to join in the mourning or something?”

“Yes,” Sharrow said, looking at Cenuij. “What if?”

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “You arrange the transport; I’ll delay the Huhsz and get out in time.”

“Fate, feels like free-fall.”

Geis smiled. “Watch,” he said. He took a pen from the pocket of his Navy dress jacket, held it in front of him, then let it go. The pen fell slowly towards the floor of the elevator. Geis retrieved the pen when it was about level with his polished knee-boots and put it back in his pocket.

Sharrow jumped lightly and floated towards the ceiling, then pressed herself back down with her fingers, laughing.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” Geis said, grinning as he watched her pull her dress down from where it had ridden up her legs.

“I see why you said we had to finish our drinks,” Sharrow said, steadying herself against the wall by the grab-handles. Geis still held both their glasses from the party, but he’d insisted they drink up before they took the elevator to inspect the gallery.