CHAPTER 25

As evening fell over Byora a gusty wind brought stinging sheets of rain. Two men crouched in the lee of a chimney stack, their waxed-cloth coats held protectively over their heads, and peered over the edge of the rooftop at the street below.

'What do you think?' Sebe said, his voice almost drowned out by the falling rain. He nudged Doranei forward, making room for him next to the warm side of the chimney, but Doranei ignored him. His focus was solely on the man he was watching through the ground-floor window of the house opposite. Despite the rain the shutter was open enough for anyone to have a good view of the street.

'He ain't there for his health,' Doranei said eventually. 'They're taking shifts at that window, not so obvious about it that you'd notice if you weren't really looking.'

'But there's no doubt, is there? Shit. So what do we do about it?'

'Our job.' Doranei looked his fellow King's Man in the face and Sebe nodded reluctantly. 'They're not innocents sent to watch a door. They're the enemy. Those boys might not be great at surveillance, but they're not complete amateurs either.'

Sebe led the way back, crouching until they reached the rear of the building. They dropped down into the small back yard and were heading for the alley that ran behind it when they were startled by a cough.

Doranei turned to see a man standing under an awning outside the next-door house, a filleting knife in one hand, a half-skinned rabbit in the other. The man was grey-haired but far from decrepit and he showed no fear as the two men turned towards him. He raised his knife as he reached for a second, but Doranei shook his head at the movement.

'Just passing through,' he said firmly, opening his coat enough to show the man his weapons – a pair of slim long-knives, as well as his sword and axe. They were not the weapons of a thief.

'There'll be trouble?' the man asked in a thick accent, setting his knife down to acknowledge it wasn't a fight he wanted any part of.

'No,' said Doranei, 'we're gone.'

The man looked relieved as Doranei headed out of the yard. The rain was keeping most people off the streets and they were clear to find a safe route to the back of the watchers' house. It took them a while before they were satisfied they would be able to get in without any fuss, but Doranei was feeling increasingly apprehensive. The house being watched was the base for the Narkang agent in Byora, a contact used only by a very select group. King Emin's intelligence network was small, and everyone knew not to take any risks unless directly ordered to; that anyone knew about this safe house was a worrying development.

The house backed onto another, and a path ran down the side of each to the gardens. The gate to the first didn't budge but the second opened without a problem. With rain and the dark keeping folk inside, they thought it a reasonable risk to walk in, hop one fence and then the next. Once in the watchers' yard Doranei and Sebe didn't need to break stride; the rear door was unlocked and Doranei, a long-knife in one hand, pushed it open to find a blond man leaning over a stove. Before he'd finished turning at the sound of the door opening, Doranei had lunged at the man and sliced his throat open. The man flailed about, knocking a pan off the stove which crashed to the tiled floor before Doranei could stop it. Doranei caught the man and lowered him to the floor, wiped his knife and followed Sebe, who had nipped past him.

'What'd ya drop now?' called a voice from the front room as Sebe reached the doorway. Sebe exploded forward, and Doranei, waiting at the door, heard the loud rap of steel on skull, followed swiftly by some rapid thumps and the sound of a man falling.

He peered in and saw Sebe astride a prone man, his blade positioned under the man's throat, and moved on to check the other rooms on that floor. As expected, they were empty, as were the upstairs rooms when he checked them. In seconds he was back down the stairs.

In the front room he found Sebe had arranged the man's hands behind his back so he could kneel on them, pinning him face down. Sebe wasn't a heavy man but it was an awkward position, and the prisoner would have no hope of stopping Sebe from cutting his throat. Doranei stabbed his own long-knife into the wooden floor right by the prisoner's head and squatted down next to him.

'Your friend's dead,' he said in a matter-of-fact way, 'so you want to avoid going the same way, you answer quick and true and you don't bullshit me, right?'

There was a slight grunt from the man, who was more concerned about keeping his head up.

'The knife stays there,' Doranei said, 'and the longer you take over your answers the harder you're going to find it to stay in that position.'

A second grunt: Doranei took that as understanding and continued, 'Good boy. Who do you work for?'

'Duchess,' the man wheezed. There was a cut on his temple where Sebe had hit him, not hard enough to crack his skull but enough to put a man off-balance. A steady trickle of blood was coming from the cut but Doranei guessed he couldn't even feel the sting yet. His blue eyes were wide with fear and Doranei saw he wasn't anyone special, certainly not part of Doranei's own violent world. That was good news; he might think he had a chance at survival if Doranei looked happy enough with his answers.

'You're watching Forty-Two, door with the eagle's head knocker?'

Another grunt.

'Why?'

'Don't know,' was the hoarse reply. The man's face was white now; Doranei could see his jaw trembling with the effort of keeping it up. 'Not told.'

'Free his left hand,' he said to Sebe, and their prisoner gave a gasp of relief as he wedged an elbow under his body. 'If any like us entered you were to send a message? You Ruby Tower Guards?'

'Byoran Guard, special corps. Anyone goes in, we send a message to the tower.'

'Who gave you the orders?'

'My captain, but message was to go to the new sergeant at the tower.'

'Name?'

'Kayel, big foreign bastard, they say, never met him.'

'Big bastard?' Doranei wondered, sharing a look with Sebe, who was clearly thinking the same thing. There were few people who'd know who the Narkang agent was in any given city, and how to put a watch on him, but the traitorous golden boy of the unit was certainly one.

'This sergeant, what's his full name? What's he look like?'

'Hener Kayel, I think. Never met him but I heard he boasts a lion mauled him – took half his ear as he killed it. They're all scared of him, kill you soon as look at you they says.'

Doranei didn't speak for a moment, casting back in his mind to the day Coran, King Emin's white'eye bodyguard, had staggered back to the palace, his knee ruined and Ilumene's dagger still lodged in his ribs. Coran had managed only a glancing blow; Ilumene had done more damage himself when he'd sliced off the bit of his ear that was tattooed with the Brotherhood's mark. He sent it to the palace two days later so King Emin would be certain that he still lived.

'There's no doubt then,' Doranei said at last, sheathing his dagger as he rose. 'Time to call for help.'

Without looking down he stepped over the man's legs and headed back the way they'd come. After one quick jerk, Sebe followed him.

Legana woke with a start as her narrow bed shuddered. She looked around for a moment, the memory of a sound lingering in her ears, until she realised it had been made by the heavy front door below her room slamming shut. It was dark, and no light crept around the curtain, so she must have slept past nightfall. Legana felt for the chair beside her bed and found her clothes. She dressed as quickly as she could, and finished off by wrapping herself in a long shawl of coppery silk that the wine merchant's wife had gifted her with. Legana couldn't appreciate its colour now, but everyone in the room had gone silent when she put it on, and that told her enough.