grudgingly placed the telescope in it. If and when we parted ways, it would definitely be coming with me.
'The leftmost is likely a retainer from one of the wealthy families,' I said, and described his uniform.
'Likely a house guard for the Orvetta family. The other?'
'Could be anyone. If I had to guess, though… he's big and he likes to keep his face hidden. They don't trust each other one little bit. I'd say he's muscle for one of the city gangs.'
Alvantes nodded.
'You don't look surprised,' I said.
'I'm not. It's what I expected. I only wish it wasn't.'
We hurriedly rejoined the others. 'There are sentries on the walls,' Alvantes told them. 'Our priority is to get past without being identified. We'll travel fast, but don't risk the horses. If you can't keep pace, whistle.'
He swung into the saddle and the rest of us followed his example. Hardly glancing to see whether anyone was following, he set off into the blackness ahead.
Under normal circumstances, it was quicker by far to cut through the city than to take this narrow, wind ing back road around its western side. As such, it was little more than a dirt track in places, pitted and overgrown. Negotiating it at speed in utter blackness was only a little shy of suicide.
Unfortunately, I had no say in the matter. Saltlick, capable of matching any horse with his huge strides, was crashing along close behind me. Watching Estrada, just ahead, gave me my only indication of the road's twists and turns. As every moment threatened to hurl me from the saddle, I struggled against rising panic. The damp wind stung my face; tears blinded me to even the few dim stars. Even if I could have pursed my lips, no one could possibly have heard me whistle. Worst was the feeling of falling. Plunging into blackness, my mind threw up the image of a gaping pit and held it.
All I could do was grip my mount's reins with all my strength and struggle to believe she knew what she was doing. She was a guard horse. Surely, she knew this road. Likely, she remembered every pit and rut.
She didn't let me down. After a while, I even began to relax a fraction — as much as was possible when hurtling through pitch-darkness on a road with no right to the name. I even dared to look up. There were the walls, close on our right. There was the gatehouse. Above, I could just see the sentries' torchlight. It bobbed and weaved, perhaps responding to our passage. Someone called out, the words whipped into nonsense by the wind. Then we were past.
The guards must have seen us. Or — they'd have seen riders. Perhaps only heard our horses. We could have been anyone. Unless, of course, they'd happened to pick out one particular silhouette, fully twice the size of any man.
Even once we were in the clear, it was a long time before Alvantes called, 'Rein in! Stop here.' Motioning towards a muddy side road, he summoned two of the guardsmen with a snapped, 'Panchez, Duero, follow me,' and to Gueverro, added, 'Be watchful, Sub-Captain.'
They weren't gone long. Their return was heralded by ear-racking sounds of squeaking and braying. When they came into view, Panchez was leading Duero's mount and Duero was guiding a mule, which in turn drew a small, ramshackle cart.
The look Estrada gave Alvantes was questioning to the point of accusation.
'Borrowed,' he said, not meeting her eye.
I smirked. Interesting how it had a different name when guard-captains did it.
To Saltlick, he added a curt, 'Get in, please.'
Saltlick eyed the vehicle uncertainly. Alvantes had used this trick to smuggle him out of Altapasaeda, but that had been in a large wagon full of straw, not a donkey-cart covered with a scrappy tarpaulin.
Nevertheless, with considerable effort and obvious discomfort, Saltlick managed to scrunch himself into the back. Once he was settled, Duero drew the tarpaulin over. To my trained eye, the end the result looked much like an extremely cramped giant covered with an extremely small sheet.
'That should fool anyone,' I said. 'So long as they're blind. Or stupid. Or a very great distance away.'
Alvantes glared at me. 'All the more reason to hurry.'
However, the cart, amongst its many failings, had been designed for neither speed nor the weight of giants. It was a long and miserable hour later before we turned east into the outskirts of the Altapasaedan Suburbs.
The Suburbs was so called because Altapasaedans didn't like to use the word 'slum'. The choice of nomenclature did nothing to change its nature. It was a dingy and ever-changing shanty town, sprung up long ago in the lee of the north wall and somehow never made permanent. In short, it was everything Altapasaeda wasn't: poor, filthy, tumbledown and given over to degrees of crime that the guard hardly bothered to interfere with.
Or so I'd always thought. We hadn't travelled far through the mazy streets before we came to a building more solidly constructed than those around it — built of sturdy timber, rather than wood that looked as if it had been dragged from the river, and with a door that would resist anything shy of a battering ram.
Alvantes dismounted and rapped three times, followed by two short taps, a pause, and one last knock. After a few moments, the door swung open, a slit at first and then fully. A swarthy, dark-eyed man stood in the gap. As he turned his head, I saw that the whole left side of his otherwise handsome face was puckered by white blotches of scarring. 'Guard-Captain,' he said. 'It's good to see you, sir. With the stories flying around, I wasn't sure I would again.'
'Not here, Navare.' Alvantes turned to the rest of us. 'Quickly… get the giant inside.'
To his credit, Navare barely looked shocked when Duero whipped the tarpaulin back and Saltlick began to unfold himself from the cart. He was certainly quick enough to move out of the way, though.
'Gueverro, Estrada, Damasco, go in. Duero, see that the cart's returned — discreetly, please. The rest of you, find stabling for the horses. Not all in the same place if you can avoid it.'
Navare greeted each of us with a tilt of his head as we went by, and to Gueverro said, 'Good to see you, too, sir.'
The interior consisted of a single room. If it was large for the Suburbs, it was small by any other standards, housing only a camp bed, a stove and a table. The low ceiling left Saltlick no option but to squat in the middle of the floor, and his presence left precious little space for the rest of us.
Closing the door, Alvantes said, 'I know you'll have questions, Navare, but they'll have to wait. These are my travelling companions. The giant is Saltlick. This is Marina Estrada, mayor of Muena Palaiya. Easie Damasco… well, no doubt you remember the name.' To the rest of us, he explained, 'Navare acts for the guard's interests in the Suburbs.'
Navare offered a lopsided grin. 'A suitably ambiguous description of a particularly ill-defined role.'
'The guard always had explicit orders from the Prince not to make its presence felt in the Suburbs. I followed those orders, of course — to the letter. Navare is a gatherer of information, and a discreet solver of certain kinds of problem.'
Navare's grin widened. 'Well put, sir.'
'I trust you've been keeping up your duties in our absence?'
Abruptly, all humour vanished from Navare's expression. 'Of course, Guard-Captain. But truth be told, I doubt I've found much you haven't already guessed. There are rumours aplenty, but facts are tough to come by.'
'Go on.'
'Well… four days ago, a contingent of Moaradrid's troops entered the city. Soon after, all the gates were barricaded from the inside. I've seen northern soldiers, family retainers and men I recognise from the gangs, all apparently working together. The place is sealed up tighter than a priestess's…' Remembering Estrada's presence, Navare caught himself and finished weakly, 'No one's been in or out, sir, except I heard they destroyed the barracks — and even that they did at night.'
'I didn't know about the troops. I'd hoped they'd flee back north,' said Alvantes darkly. 'That makes it even worse.'
'What about the families?' asked Estrada. 'Even with Panchetto gone, would they really be desperate enough to side with criminals?'
'They think of themselves as Ans Pasaedans, even after all these years,' replied Alvantes. 'To them, Altapasaeda is an island surrounded by enemies. The gangs are as Castovalian as anyone else, and more dangerous than most. On their own initiative, it's the last thing they'd do.'
I thought I followed his implication. 'So if it's not their own idea, it's someone else's,' I said.
'I've heard word there's one man pulling the strings,' agreed Navare. 'If it's true, he's doing a damn fine job
