‘They need to die. You make them dead. It’s not complicated.’
‘We don’t have to arrest them first?’
He snorted and spat into the cold fireplace.
‘What the fuck for? Once that paper’s signed they’re dead folk walking. You stop them walking, that’s all that matters now. Use who you like, that’s why you’ve got people. Just try not to make a big fucking fuss about it. Nice and quiet, that’s how the Old Man likes things done.’
I thought about Messia, and about the things we had done there during the sack. That had been a place for knives in the dark, and I couldn’t think this would be any different.
Knife work was Bloody Anne’s bread and beer.
In case you need people killed when we get there, she had said.
Exactly that, Anne.
Exactly that.
Chapter 8
Anne took it better than I had expected, and that was good.
‘I fucking knew it,’ was all she had said when I told her, and I’d never had any doubt about that.
We understood each other, Bloody Anne and me. We always had, and she knew how business was done. That night we both wore leather and mail, and we carried our weapons concealed under our cloaks. I had the Queen’s Warrant in my pouch.
‘Go careful, love,’ Rosie said, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss Anne on the scarred corner of her mouth. ‘I’ll be waiting up for you, like always. Meantime I’ll organise the cart like you wanted, Mr Piety, and some boys who can be quiet.’
Anne gave her a nod and the ghost of a smile, and she followed me out of the inn and into the darkness.
‘How do we get into the barracks?’ she asked me as we walked away down the street, leaving the comforting warmth of the Bountiful Harvest behind us.
I patted the pouch at my belt.
‘Easy enough,’ I said. ‘I’ve got the key to every fucking door in Dannsburg right here. It’s there to be used when needed, Ailsa told me, and this is official business. Our boys are all off duty and together, that’s already been seen to. Rosie had a word with the captain of the watch for me too, and she passed him some silver. They’ve got an extra brandy ration to keep them busy tonight. A very generous one.’
‘Oh, did she now?’ Anne said, and I could feel her eyes on me as we walked.
I still didn’t think Anne had truly grasped the part that Rosie played in my operation, just like she had when she worked for Ailsa before me. Rosie was subtle, when she wanted to be, and very adaptable. When she tied the bawd’s knot on her shoulder and put on her working smile and wiggled her hips in that way she had, she could go virtually anywhere unchallenged.
Licensed whores don’t grow on trees, after all, and few question their comings and goings. Especially not in the officers’ quarters of a guard barracks they don’t, not if they’re wise. It was the perfect false face for an agent, but I didn’t think Anne saw it for quite as false as it was.
I knew all too well how that felt.
‘Can I say something?’ I asked her after a moment.
‘What’s that?’
‘Rosie,’ I started, picking my words very carefully. ‘I know she’s your woman, Anne, and I respect that, but you need to remember that isn’t all she is.’
‘I know that,’ Anne growled. ‘Soldier I may be, but I’m not some shithead man who thinks he can own his woman. She’s her own person.’
‘She works for the family,’ I said, keeping my voice very low. Dannsburg was full of eyes and ears, and it wouldn’t be wise to name the Queen’s Men in public. ‘She did that for a long time before she met you, and if the dice ever fall bad I wouldn’t like to say which she’d put first.’
‘She isn’t Ailsa,’ Anne said. ‘I know she chose her work over you, Tomas, and for what it’s worth I think that’s made you bitter. Doesn’t mean my Rosie would do the same.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ I said. ‘But it doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t, either. You keep that in mind, Bloody Anne. That’s all I’m asking. I don’t want to see you hurt, you understand?’
Anne was silent for the length of the street, then she turned her head and spat into the gutter.
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I mark you, Tomas Piety.’
We were quiet for a while after that, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Bloody Anne had taken my words ill. I hoped not; I hadn’t meant them that way. I was only trying to watch out for my friend, but it’s a hard thing to bring up with someone as obviously in love as Anne was. Rosie was a good woman to Anne, I had no doubt about that, and she was a good agent to me too. I wished I knew which she valued the most.
I wondered which I did.
*
At last we reached the wide mall that led up to the palace gates, and there we turned off into a side street that served the barracks.
The palace itself was a ridiculous iced cake of a building, with too many windows and banners, and a proliferation of pointless ornamental balconies and colonnades that served no apparent purpose. Beside it, the barracks of the Palace Guard was the sort of solid, ugly slab of stone that made a soldier feel quite comfortably at home. No wonder it was hidden away on one side of the palace, out of sight from the formal approach. I knew which one I would have felt safer in, but that was beside the point.
The Queen’s Men were coming, and no one was safe that night.
Do what your father says or the Queen’s Men will come and take you away.
I remembered Ma saying that to frighten me into doing what I was told, when I was very little. A shiver worked its way down my back as I fingered the Queen’s Warrant through the leather
