favor, there weren’t a lot of places in Ness that were off-limits. Croy felt distinctly uneasy about what he was doing. This was very much counter to his moral code, and he was a man for whom ethics meant everything. Still, he was able to assuage his conscience a bit. He wasn’t hear to steal-he was no thief. He had only come here to recover that which belonged to him. That which he was pledged to honor and uphold, in fact: the sword he counted as his soul.
The counting house was built into the wall that surrounded the palace grounds, and had to be the most secure structure in the Free City, because it was where the Burgrave kept his gold when he wasn’t spending it. It was a vast trove, stuffed full of bags of coin, coffers overflowing with silver plate, great heaps of gems, and the jewelry of Ommen Tarness’s wife, the Burgravine.
None of which was what Croy had come for. His swords had been taken from him when he was arrested, and brought here, placed with the most important relics and treasures of the Free City of Ness. Just behind the locked door he faced. Hilde had claimed she could get the key for him only if he brought her inside with him so she could see the treasures for herself. Lacking a better plan, he had agreed.
“I seem to be having trouble finding the key,” she told him. “Perhaps you can help me look?”
He knelt with his lamp and looked around the floor at her feet.
“No, you foolish man,” she said. “It’s somewhere in my dress.”
He opened his mouth to speak, and then found he could not close it again. Hilde was unlacing her corset. “Well? You were so handsome yesterday in Market Square, Croy. So dashing. It made my knees tremble. And other parts of me as well. Of course, it might just be that I haven’t had a man all year. My mistress keeps me so busy. Maybe if the Burgrave could perform better his own husbandly duties, I could slip away more often. Oh, no, that’s exactly where I want you,” she said, as he began to rise to his feet. She giggled and put a finger on his shoulder, pressing him back down to a kneeling posture.
“Milady,” he said, jumping up, “I fear I misheard you.”
Hilde rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those men who doesn’t know what to do with a naked woman.” She twitched her shoulders and her kirtle fell to the floor. Underneath it she was wearing nothing but a chemise and knee-length hose.
Croy blushed and averted his eyes. “Milady, I would never spurn, ah, true affection from your quarter, but… my heart belongs to another.”
“You’re… serious.”
He bowed his head and tried to keep his thoughts pure. It was not easy with Hilde’s underthings rustling so close to his face.
“Here,” she said, and pressed a long iron key into his hand. “Do what you have to, while I put all this back on. I have no idea how I’m going to lace up this corset without a big, strong man to help, but-oh, never mind.”
“Thank you,” Croy said, and quickly opened the locked door. Beyond was a tiny room with a barred window. For a split second he thought he saw a shoe outside the bars, but that was quite impossible-outside that window would be a sheer drop to the river Skrait, more than a hundred feet down. He turned to look around the room, expecting to have to search high and low for his swords.
In fact, they were the only things present. Where were the religious relics the Burgrave was required to parade through the streets every Ladymas? Where the city’s charter, for that matter? Perhaps they’d gone to the same place as the city’s gold reserves. The swords lay perfectly alone on a shelf below the window, two long blades in shagreen scabbards. They were all he’d brought with him when he returned to the Free City. He hung them in their proper places on his baldric and stepped back out of the room.
Hilde waited for him near the door, tapping her foot with impatience. “Come along,” she said. “I’ll take you through the kitchens so no one sees you. Though it would probably do my reputation some good to be seen in connection with you.”
“I’m a wanted criminal,” he protested.
“You don’t understand this city at all, do you?” she asked. “Surely you-”
A high-pitched scream of terror and pain split the darkness outside the door. Croy leaned over Hilde’s shoulder to look out into the courtyard just in time to see a man of the city watch come staggering through the main palace gate. A dark stain spread across his cloak-of-eyes as he clutched at an arrow sticking in his side. Before he’d taken a dozen steps he collapsed face first onto the flagstones.
A second scream followed close, and a guard toppled from the battlements of the palace wall. An arrow had pierced him through the neck.
“Murder!” someone shouted. “Murder!” And then an alarm bell started to ring, high-pitched and wild.
Chapter Seventeen
Malden listened to the clamor beyond the wall for only a moment, then scurried up over the last twenty feet of bricks faster than a spider. He slipped over the crenellations at the top of the wall and found himself on a broad walkway. No guards were in sight. He crept to the far side of the wall and peered through an embrasure, down into the courtyard.
Castle Hill was the residence of the Burgrave and the seat of his administrative functions. It was also a fortress, a keep designed to forestall any invading horde. Within its walls stood the garrison where the Burgrave’s personal retinue of soldiers lived, and the central Watch Hall from which the bailiff’s civic guardians were dispatched. Both these structures were alive with light now as men in various states of uniform dress came pouring out of their gates to fill the broad courtyard and parade ground. There was a great deal of shouting and confusion, and knots of watchmen in their cloaks-of-eyes were gathered around two bodies that lay lifeless in the grass. A klaxon bell rang with a deafening strident tone. Meanwhile, a detachment of soldiers were storming up and around the walls and towers on the far side of the hill, over where it looked down on Market Square. They were thrusting torches into every shadow, stabbing their iron swords into troughs and haylofts, looking for whoever had shot the two men with arrows.
What, in the Bloodgod’s name, had Bikker done? He’d killed two men in cold blood-just to create a moment of chaos.
Of course, Malden had to admit it made a most excellent diversion. Not a single soldier or watch man remained in the northern half of the courtyard. The counting house, the Burgrave’s private chapel, and the kitchens were all deserted. So was the palace.
This last was a tall, el-shaped structure made of quarried stone elegantly carved and pierced on its lower level with many arches and broad windows of fine glass. It was airy and light and held up with slender flying buttresses, topped with gargoyles and peaked gables. Even the Ladychapel, the great church that stood across Market Square, was not so delicate in appearance nor more refined in ornament. The palace was a masterpiece of architectural skill. One determined barbarian with a sledgehammer could probably bring it crashing down. It was built around a much older and more sturdy structure that looked like a wart on the face of a princess.
Malden surmised that the tower at the end of the el shape probably supported most of the palace’s weight. It stood five stories high and he guessed that its walls were five feet thick, pierced only by a few narrow arrow-slits. This was the original holdfast of Castle Hill’s first inhabitants, where the first few settlers had fled whenever the elves came a-raiding. It had stood up against those bloodthirsty devils and the dwarves who came after them (back when the dwarves still had some fight in them), and even the human barbarians who scourged Skrae three hundred years ago, back before King Garwulf the Merciful had swept their tribes across the mountains far to the east. It stood as strong as it had ever been, and was still the highest structure in the Free City.
The tower was where he happened to be headed that night. He was going to break into it, when elves, dwarves, and barbarians had never been able to. Of course, back then the palace hadn’t been there. It looked like an anemic toddler could break into that airy confection.
The palace stood about thirty feet clear of the wall, separated from Malden’s perch by a wide patch of manicured garden. It was that gap he needed to cross.
He ran along the top of the wall to where he could stand directly opposite the palace roof. He took a moment to reverse his cloak so its darker side was outward, then took one of Slag’s tools from his belt. It was a grappling hook made in two parts joined by a central hinge. Folded, it could lie flat on his hip, but when he opened its arms
