Closer to the Chest Read online

  It was not surprising that his fellow Soldiers were not thinking at all about what they were doing—unless it was to relish the “revenge” they were getting on women who should have been treating them like kings. It was in their self-interest not to think too hard about all the laws they were already breaking and believe everything the Precepts told them.

  He did notice one thing, however. Every time he tried to go to the Fellowship Hall, where he might meet Teo, he was carefully, and subtly, steered away.

  He thought about trying anyway, but that would damage the impression of complete and unthinking obedience he was trying to give, the picture of someone who was completely taken in and ready to do anything that was asked of him. So after three days, he stopped trying.

  And as the days passed, he became more and more certain of his “double-minded” disguise. Either the Mindspeaker never spent much time on him, or he—it had to be a “he,” given the Sethorite bias—never bothered to look past that false upper layer.

  Mags wasn’t going to press his luck, though, by trying to contact Dallen or Nikolas while he was inside the Temple. And he hadn’t been allowed outside it to try. Before he did that, he needed to be away from the presence of someone who could potentially sense when another Mindspeaker was present.

  But tonight . . . tonight he got the feeling that something was afoot. Tonight’s dinner had not been a heavy stew, but venison steak—and the drink had not been wine, but something else, a tisane of some sort, sweet with honey and so pleasant none of the diners appeared to miss the wine. It left him feeling alert and very clear-minded. I need to find out what this stuff is and get the Healers to look it over. It seems like something we could use.

  And when the dishes were cleared away, and he returned to his cell, there was something new there. A lit candle on the bedside table next to his copy of the Book—he’d never been granted a light in here until now. A sheet of folded paper on top of the book. And lying on the bed, laid out for him, a new outfit. There was a close-fitting suit of all-black clothing, with a hood and gloves, a set of long knives, and a simple robe of the sort that the Novices wore.

  He unfolded the paper and began to read the closely written instructions.

  You will memorize these instructions, it began. You will put on the suit, leaving the suit hood down until you need it, and put the robe over all, leaving the robe hood up. Once you are clothed, you will go to the courtyard where you have been taking your exercise. You will join the Brothers who go up to the Palace twice a week to collect food from the feasts for the poor. You will be watched. Once there, you and three of your fellow Soldiers will slip away from the rest at the earliest opportunity. You will go to the dairy to wait. The dairy is just past the kitchen door where your cart will stop. It is a separate building, painted white, with a slabbed stone path leading to it. You will go in there and hide until full dark. When it is full dark, you will discard your robe, put the hood of the suit up and pull the front down over your eyes. When you have adjusted the hood to your liking, you will begin the mission.

  The directions continued, sending him to Healer’s Collegium, then in through the door of his very own rooms. There you will find the blasphemy that holds the title of “King’s Own,” and you will slay her, that a proper man may once again take the position that is rightfully his.

  For a moment, he sat there, trying not to shake with combined rage and anguish, chilled by how narrow an escape Amily had had. Then—well it was a good thing he was sitting, because if he’d been standing, he would have been weak-kneed with relief that it was he that was supposed to kill her, and not one of the other three. At least he knew for certain Amily would be safe tonight!

  He covered all this by staying bent over the page of instructions, as if he was memorizing it, bracing himself to keep from trembling. He was supposed to be stolid and unimaginative. He shouldn’t be at all moved by the orders he had been given. Controlling his emotions was almost as hard as holding the double mind. So close . . . so close.

  Buck up, he told himself sternly. She’s safe. No one’s gonna hurt her. An’ even then, they know what’s goin’ on, they gotta be prepared up there. She kin take care of herself, and ye kin count on that. Ye need t’get yerself up the Hill so’s ye kin make sure all t’other targets are safe, too.

  Well, the first thing he needed to do was get himself ready. Quickly he stripped to his breeks and began donning the black clothing. He found it oddly stretchy—how had they managed to do that?—and as a consequence, nearly form-fitting. Certainly ideal for sneaking about in the dark. He tried pulling the hood over his head as he’d been instructed, and discovered there was a slit right where his eyes should be. With some adjustment, he could see perfectly. He pulled it back down as directions had told him to do, discovered that the two flat knives fitted into sheathes on the soft boots, and donned the light robe, tying the flat fabric belt that came with it around his middle, snugly. He put the hood of his robe up, pulling it forward so it partly concealed his face and hid the black fabric at his neck. Then he went to the courtyard, where he found a milling group of what looked like about eight Novices in the same robes he was wearing. Since they all had their hoods up, he couldn’t tell which of them was wearing the same black sneak-suit he was.

  “Come, Brothers,” said a Precept, beckoning from a door into the courtyard that he had never used before, and had never seen used. He went along with the rest, in the middle of the pack, following them down a corridor lined with empty rooms that could probably be used for storage, until they came out into the open again, in a stable-yard. There was a plain box-wagon with a mule hitched to it in the middle of the yard, which all but two of them got into. The last two mounted the front of the wagon and perched on the seat, one took the reins, and they were off, plodding out onto a different street than the Temple faced. He had no doubt that the Farseer and Mindspeaker were watching him now; possibly watching the other three as well, but definitely watching him. He had brought his copy of the Book with him, and without making any great fuss about it, opened it and began reading. This, he had discovered, was the easiest way of feeding his upper mind. Just fill that with the words from the Book, and everything would look completely normal to the Mindspeaker.

  According to his instructions, he’d been reading from various assigned sections of the Book until now. Without any direction to follow, he started at the beginning, which was, of course, the creation story. In his limited experience every religion had a creation story, but most of the ones he’d had anything to do with gave at least a sideways acknowledgement that there were other gods that were just as important as the one their story talked about. Not this Book. Sethor started by dividing darkness and light, then created the heavens and the stars, then created the other gods, making them definite inferiors to himself. Then Sethor created earth, and one of the goddesses rebelled at her status of mere “helper” and he cast her to earth. Then he created everything else. When he got around to making people, he made man “out of the breath of life,” but he made woman “out of the mud of the river,” and designated her as man’s perpetual servant. Then the cast-down goddess, now designated a demon, infested woman with her rebellion. And in the eyes of the Sethorites, that’s when everything went to hell.

  Even as loosely woven as this clothing was, he was getting overly warm, but at least the sun was going down; as they wound their way through town, then up through the residences of the wealthy and privileged, most of the time they were in shade. He glanced up from time to time, and couldn’t help but notice they were taking the alleys and back ways, however. Let’s not trouble the highborn with the sight of our uncouth wagon.

  He went back to the Book. The writing was florid enough, and padded enough with praises to Sethor, that Mags had only just reached the part where “the demon spake sweetly to the woman, and she was weak and yielded to it,” when they got to the top of the Hill and joined a line of three other carts.
They were all coming in through the merchant’s gate on the “working” side of the Palace.

  He was going to put the book inside his robe, when he heard :Leave the book in the cart,: in his mind.

  Obediently he tucked it under the wagon seat. They definitely had been watching him, and his double-mind was still holding. They were taking no chances that he might leave behind this bit of evidence of the Sethorites’ guilt. Too bad. There could not be enough evidence, so far as he was concerned. Hopefully I impressed them with my piety, anyway.

  Their wagon was checked over by the Guards, who gave each of the brothers a cursory search—

  Too cursory. Unless that’s on purpose. He wished he knew what was going on up here!

  He reminded himself that he’d gotten warning through. He’d sent word out with Teo. He’d been able to Mindspeak a bit with Dallen. They had to have realized that something was being planned, and had planned a counter-move.

  The Guards waved them through. They pulled up with the other three wagons at the kitchen door. By this time it was dusk. Dinner was well over . . . and servants were bringing out food. But there was far, far more than he had expected; these were actual supplies, not leftovers, in barrels and boxes and big burlap bags.

  For a moment, Mags was taken aback, because he had no notion of what was going on here. Surely they weren’t stealing this food! But then he realized, as he helped load these things into the wagon, that the Palace was actually supplying more than leftovers for the poor. It was providing some supplies for Temples as well. Hence, the wagon, and the eight men to load it. He looked things over quickly, and realized that this bounty was what the Sethorites were probably using to feed the folks in the Fellowship Hall. And he recalled vaguely that the Crown distributed its supplies to feed the poor through all the religious orders. Well, I reckon th’ Crown hasta treat all Temples and whatnot alike . . . but I sure don’ like the fact that Sethor don’t feed nobody but men.

  By the time the wagon was half loaded, it was dark, and following his orders, Mags took the first opportunity to slip away from the rest. Of course, knowing the Hill as well as he did, it was ridiculously easy to get out of sight. But he did not go to the dairy as he’d been ordered.

  As soon as he could, he slipped in through the doorway to the kitchen wood-room, to hide himself for a moment from passing Guards or servants. No one was going to be coming after wood at this time of night.

  It was dark in there, with wood piled up close to the door. He backed into it, feeling the ends of the logs with one hand to make sure he didn’t get snagged on them. :Dallen!: he called urgently, with anxiety clutching at his throat, and once again, he felt a rush of relief, this time when his Companion answered calmly.

  :Take a breath, Chosen. I’ve been listening the entire time. I just stayed in the back of your inner mind; I knew if you had no idea I was there, no one else would either.:

  :You have? You did?: He sagged against the woodpile, holding himself up with one hand braced against the end of a log behind him. It was going to be all right. They had a plan.

  :Everyone has been warned. We don’t know where the other three got themselves to—we are fairly certain that they are the same men who’ve been coming up here to plant letters, so they probably know the Hill as well as you do by now—but we’ll find them. Lord Lional’s family is safe. We moved them, and of course the men that came for them don’t know that. Amily is waiting in their old quarters—:

  :Wait, what?: he shouted. Amily wasn’t safe? Amily was, in fact, in the one place that wasn’t safe?

  He tore off his robe, grabbed a stout stick from the pile and ran for the Courtier’s Wing, his heart hammering with fear. :Amily!: he screamed at her. :Amily!:

  • • •

  Amily had been sitting on the bare floor of the suite, staff across her lap, monitoring all the muff-dogs along the hallway in turn, when her concentration was jolted by Mags’ unexpected scream in her head. So she missed the exact moment when the door to the suite opened—but the light from the hallway caught her attention, and she didn’t miss the door closing, the soft shh-sh of a blade leaving a sheathe, or the momentary gleam of steel in some fugitive light from the window. And he wasn’t far from her. Fear hit her and coursed through her like a bolt of lightning—

  And then it was gone, replaced with a cool calculation. Her hands steadied, she clutched the staff, she took a silent breath, and counted soft steps coming from where she had last seen that fugitive gleam of metal. One . . . two . . .

  That was when she swung the staff she’d been holding where the invader’s legs should be.

  But the sound of the staff cutting the air must have alerted him; a darker shadow in the shadows leapt out of the way, then came at where she had been.

  Damn. She scrambled to her feet.

  He cut the air with his knife, stabbing where she had been a moment ago.

  She had already moved, sliding her feet on the wooden floor to avoid making any sound, shifting around to the side.

  There he is. She hit him from behind with a blow of the staff, aiming for a solid hit across both kidneys. The staff hit with a satisfying thud, and she heard him stagger toward the window. Now she could see him; there wasn’t much light outside, but there was enough that he stood out against it. She swung and connected with his head, and the only reason she didn’t knock him cold was that he managed to get his arm up in time to intercept the staff.

  He grunted with pain, but quicker than she would have thought him able to, he wrapped his arm around the staff and pulled. Instead of resisting, she yielded, and the two of them stumbled across the room together, with the staff keeping him from grabbing her. The furniture was mostly gone, but he ran into a table that had been too big to move, and grunted in pain. He let go of the staff involuntarily, and she snatched it away from him. Reversing it, she swung at him again, but she couldn’t see him now, and her staff met only air.

  I’m between him and the window! she realized, and dropped and rolled until she met the wall, crawled along it for a bit then stood up, slowly, listening. Her heart pounded in her ears, but she was still in that cool, calculating state, and somehow wasn’t at all afraid.

  But her mouth was dry. And her neck tingled. She couldn’t see him . . . but he couldn’t see her, either. Now no longer a visible target, she felt her way along the wall, moving silently, and still listening as hard as she could.

  She heard a soft shuffling of feet, but it stopped before she could figure out where it was coming from. Now she began to fear. Not much, just enough to galvanize her into action.

  All right. Time to end this right now! She fumbled for the whistle around her neck, stuck it in her mouth and blew.

  And with exquisitely bad timing, the whistle shrilled just as the door opened again, and two more dark figures entered. One of them shut the door, and she heard the bolt slamming home.

  Now she was locked in here with all three of them. Mags was certainly coming. So were the Guards.

  I just have to keep them off for a few more moments. . . . She slid along the wall, quickly, to at least get away from the spot she had stood when she had blown the whistle. Had any of them seen her?

  “It’s three against one,” whispered a voice. “You can’t win.”

  She kept her mouth shut. No point in giving her new position away. She kept the staff balanced horizontally in her hands, about waist high, and close to her body. She’d feel it if anyone approached her from either side; they’d run into the end of the staff.

  “You in there!” This voice came from the window. “There’s an entire squad of Guard out here, and more are coming down the hall. You can’t escape. Surrender now!”

  Just a few more moments. . . .

  “God will protect us, unbelievers!” one of them shouted back shrilly.

  “Shut up, you idiot!” hissed another. “We need a hostage! Find
him!”

  She couldn’t help but grin at that. Him, indeed. What would they think if they knew they were being bested by a woman?

  But at just that moment, the left-hand end of her staff moved—was bumped—and the man who’d bumped it was quick-witted enough to realize she was there and lunged for her.

  Unfortunately for him, as he lunged, she did, too. She slammed the butt of the staff into something soft, and from the sound he made, it was his stomach. But the satisfaction she felt was short-lived as someone seized her from behind, and the staff fell from her hands with a clatter.

  Someone was pounding on the door.

  Panic hit as arms closed around her, but trained reflexes were faster. She rammed her head backward, hoping to get him in the chin, and slammed her foot down where she thought his arch might be. She did better than hitting his chin; she felt teeth on her scalp as the back of her head crunched his nose. She missed the arch of his foot, but not by much, and she heard another crunch from the floor where her hard heel hit his toes in what felt like cloth boots.

  He howled with pain and let go, and once again, she dove and rolled across the floor, not stopping until she hit another wall.

  The door slammed open. Light poured in. And Mags charged through it.

  One of the Sethorites lunged for him; Mags pivoted, and smacked him in the side of the head with a log. She spotted another heading for him, and dove for his knees, intercepting him before he could reach Mags. She caught him completely off-guard; he lost his balance completely and went down, hitting his head on the floor with a crack that made her wince.