Endurance (39 page)

I climbed past the first-floor trapdoor into the chute. The room beyond smelled of oils and soaps. I heard two more girls chattering about some boy as they worked.
Do
not
open the laundry chute,
I thought. I didn't want to threaten more children. Thankfully, they were at some other task. I reached the second floor undiscovered. The chute went another flight above me to where I thought Corinthia Anastasia was being held, but I stopped at this trapdoor and listened.

Silence beyond.

Carefully freeing one hand, I checked both my short knives and my long knife. What was I doing burning away my morning skulking about inside the walls here? The city was stirring toward more fighting, if everything I'd schemed for came true. I didn't need to be creeping like a mouse.

Except for Corinthia Anastasia. The Blades were my path toward her. She was my true goal. I was the only one who would make her rescue a priority.

Resolve steeled and weapons checked, I pushed open the trapdoor and slid into the second-floor maid's closet.

*   *   *

No shrieking girls greeted me there. The room was small, painted stark white gone a bit grubby with age. Except for the laundry chute and the door into the hallway beyond—I assumed it led to a hallway—everything was shelving and equipment. A person couldn't even sit in here to ease her aching feet. I looked around at the stacked linens, the mops, the buckets, and briefly considered grabbing an armload for disguise. But in a house with pale-skinned servants and Selistani masters, I would fool no one. Likely I'd slow myself down in the bargain.

Now was the time to stand straight and walk knife in hand into the throat of whatever awaited me. Still, I wondered where everyone
was
. The place was strangely quiet. The presence of servants about their business made me less fearful that Surali had stolen a march on me and simply decamped overnight. I worried nonetheless.

Worrying, I darted into the hall.

Thick carpets, probably from Selistan, I noted with some irony. The walls paneled with insets in a blond tropical hardwood. Honeytree, from the look of it. Smagadine art sat on small plinths every six feet or so—broken heads and hands, fragments of larger statuary. Someone had been making a political point when they'd decorated this hallway. At least two centuries past, I estimated, based on the details in the woodwork and the framing of the scattered paintings depicting traders and markets. The oils were all mediocre imitations of the style of Fechin during his Commensalist period. The ceiling was relieved in a line of low vaults, with a kerosene lamp flickering within each vault. Otherwise there'd be no light at all. This was an interior hall, connecting sitting rooms or suites.

South was to my right. Long knife bare in hand, my remaining short knife loose in its wrist scabbard, I walked that way, counting doors so as not to lose my place. Of course the owners of this house had not been so kind as to
label
the rooms. I could not readily tell which was the Azure Room. Double doors at the end of the hall would open into a larger space, perhaps a ballroom. I put my ear to them and listened.

More voices. Several men. Street Guild guards? Was the Azure Room behind this door? Or more likely their bivouac?

I thought a moment about the typical architecture of the great houses of Copper Downs. That could not be a conservatory—we were not on the uppermost floor—but it would be a ballroom or a gallery. Surali couldn't keep prisoners in such a place. Too much space. She'd confine them instead.
That
was much more her style.

Stepping back, I tried the first door on my right. It opened to a dusty sitting room, drapes closed over the windows along the far wall. Furniture bulked awkwardly under white sheets. Even the paintings were covered over.

Not here. Unless they'd been stored as corpses. With that thought, I glanced at the floor. No sign of anyone being dragged through the dust, or walking in here.

Across the hall, I tried the other door. A bedroom that had been in recent use. The bed was stripped—I knew where these linens had gone—and the fireplace smoked slightly. The occupant had forgotten to open the damper.

“Idiot,” I whispered.

Back out in the hall, I was reaching for the next doorway when someone opened it from the other side. A Selistani clerk stepped out, clad in a well-tailored green silk kurta of a very traditional cut. He looked up at me in surprise as I thumped him hard in the side of the head with the butt of my long knife.

A man in the room behind him called out. I jumped over the body and charged, blade already swinging forward, only to meet another clerk.

This one yelped and tried to dance away.

I caught him a long, shallow slash to the arm that sent blood spilling widely. He drew a breath to shout, so I slapped him hard across the face. “If you want to live,
be quiet
,” I barked.

My words had been in Petraean, I realized, as he screamed, “Help, housebreaker,” in Seliu.

My next blow took him on the neck, right across his vocal cords. The clerk collapsed in choking surprise. I swept a dish of water—for soaking nibs and brushes—off the desk and dumped it on the one I'd laid out. “Help your friend breathe,” I barked into his unfocused face as his eyes flicked open.

Out in the hall I threw open the next door. Surprise was lost. My time advantage would be gone in seconds. Corinthia Anastasia was already beyond my reach. I'd need to find my Blade sisters quickly, or the entire run would be a total loss. The latest door yielded two men already moving to investigate. One clutched a fireplace poker, the other had his hands spread wide.

Not Street Guild then.

“Stay back,” I shouted. “Invaders, you won't be safe.” I slammed their door and spun around.

The door across the hall opened. This time it
was
Street Guild, two of them with swords out. I hoped like the hells that my sister Blades were somewhere behind them, because I was about to be outnumbered.

Yelling wordlessly, and spun a kick that took the lead man in the side of the knee. I'd used a similar move on Mother Vajpai once, the first time I'd ever counted a touch on her—and the last, for quite a while after that memorable day. He collapsed with a howl. His fellow came right over him, leading with the point.

Long knife at the ready, I stepped back and right into the poker swung by the idiot from the other room. He connected hard enough across my shoulder that something cracked audibly. I felt the pain like a stabbing.

So much for the healing that Desire had bestowed upon me.

Spinning half to my left, I backswung my short knife into the fireplace enthusiast's side. I caught him just below the entangling ribs. As expected, he had no parry, and fell away sobbing.

I completed my spin in time to sidestep a sweep of the long knife from the more capable fighter. “I'm one of you,” I shouted in Seliu, in hopes of confusing him.

He was not fooled.

Another of his brethren came out the same door. If that wasn't the Azure Room, I was deep in the cesspit. I gave back two more steps and palmed my long knife to grab and hurl a nearby marble head at the swordsman. He dodged that as it cracked into the wall, but my short knife came right after and caught him in the cheek.

The man howled, then swallowed the point of my long knife. He vomited blood around my blade before collapsing with a puzzled expression on his face.

The next one was more wary, which was fine with me. Unfortunately the door at the end of the hall flew open as half a dozen more Street Guild raced pell-mell toward us.

I knew my exit when I saw it. Cursing, with no more knowledge of Corinthia Anastasia or my Lily Blade sisters than I'd had before, I snatched up my weapons and shoved through the door to my right before the mob could reach me.

*   *   *

This was another bedroom, double length for a suite. Four tall windows overlooked the patio and back lawn. Slamming the door behind me, I sprinted through the shadows for the glass. I intended to dive and roll, taking the fall into the arbors with whatever momentum I had and to the Smagadine hells with the splinters.

“Green!” snapped a voice in Seliu. The familiar tone caught at me. I swerved, bounced off the wall, and turned around with both blades bristling. Already they were arguing in the corridor about who would follow me through first.

Mother Vajpai sat up on the bed. Mother Argai was springing from the chair beyond her, on the other side of the bed from which I'd passed. Samma was not in sight.

I could have blessed a thousand goddesses in that moment. “I came for you.”

“Fool,” Mother Vajpai replied. Mother Argai just shook her head sadly.

“They'll be on me in seconds. If you want to be shut of Surali, come with me now.” My sense of my own failure about Corinthia Anastasia gnawed at me, but I had no time to dwell on it.

The Blade Mothers exchanged a fast look in a familiar, unspoken negotiation. I turned my back on them and kicked open the window.

I was above the terrace. No pursuit was yet visible outside. Looking over my shoulder, I asked, “Are they more afraid of me or of you?”

“It does not matter,” Mother Vajpai replied. I realized she was still in the bed.

“I am coming,” added Mother Argai. They glared at one another—more silent argument—then Mother Argai dove out the window, tucking to land running eighteen feet below.

“Samma?” I asked.

Mother Vajpai shook her head.

The door burst open.

I flipped over the smashed windowsill backwards, knowing I had enough fall length to right myself. On the way down I remembered what pregnancy had done to my balance.

Thank the Lily Goddess Mother Argai spotted my landing, taking much of my weight and keeping me from pancaking into the tiles of the terrace.

“That way.” I pointed toward the back wall.

Stealth abandoned, we raced through the snow-choked garden, trying to outdistance the crossbow quarrels I was certain would be fired at any moment.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later I stopped to breathe. Mother Argai and I had taken to the rooftops as soon as we cleared the Velviere District. Even that had been a project. Two women in dark, bloodied clothing were conspicuous, so we'd been compelled to stick to walls and alleys until I'd stolen a tarp off a wagon. After that we'd just appeared to be derelicts, homeless and wageless. Now we crouched in the lee of a water tank. The tiles sloped gently away from us, treacherous in the slick drip of the morning snowmelt. I watched smoke rise somewhere over near Lyme Street.

“What was that all about?” I finally asked Mother Argai.

She answered my question with a question. “How many did you kill?”

“One for certain, another if he is unlucky. I tried not to.” And three of my own left behind. Failure by any measure.

“Hmm.”

It wasn't clear to me what that grunt meant, whether she signified approval or disapproval. Mother Argai had run with me, trained with me, bedded with me. Though I'd learned much from her, she'd never been one of my training Mothers. I'd not learned to read her so well as some of the others.

All I could do was ask. “Tell me, what was that all about? Why were you staying in a room unguarded? Why did Mother Vajpai not rise from that bed?”

“Don't you mean to ask where Samma is?” Mother Argai's voice was soft.

Embarrassed at being caught out, I mumbled weakly, “That would have been my next question.”

“No, Green, it was not. We all are knowing how you are.” Mother Argai appeared sad. “But this is being your city, not ours. Mother Vajpai and I both realize how little of it we know. Not just a matter of buildings and streets. A matter of people and their discontents.”

“Copper Downs is not kind to strangers,” I agreed, “but neither is it so overwhelming and dangerous as Kalimpura. You do not know your way.”

“No. And you do. So to you we will heed, even against our judgment.”

“Then heed my questions. What took place back there?”

She glanced away a moment, embarrassed. “Samma is hostage. Mother Vajpai is wounded.”

“Wounded how?”

Mother Argai's voice was flat with pain and anger. “Surali has cut off her toes. Mother Vajpai cannot yet walk.”

I was shocked out of my impending funk over losing the girl again. “Who could cut off her toes? Who could hold her down?”

“You do not know the powers at stake in this, Green.”

“No, I don't. Not from Kalimpura.” I leaned close, growling. “But I know the powers at stake here in Copper Downs. Some of them have arms long enough to reach across the sea.”

“Surali did this to Mother Vajpai to punish us for your conduct. Samma is now held against the good behavior of the rest of us.”

Fighting down an urge to be sick, I glanced around our rooftop. “Which you have broken beyond question.”

“Mother Vajpai will say you forced me from the room. Samma's life may be forfeit in any case, but I doubt quite yet.”

I made a leap of logic. “She is with Corinthia Anastasia.”

“The northern girl who is also hostage, yes.”

With those words, Mother Argai lapsed into her usual silence. I stared across the city awhile, trying to parse what this all meant, where my deeds and intentions would come into play. How much I might have betrayed those who loved me through unwise action.

None of what she had just told me changed my plan of action. At most, Mother Argai had deepened my sorrows. Those I had plenty of already.

I bent to clean my weapons. “I regret that man's life,” I told her.

“Never regret a death that keeps you alive.”

“Perhaps.” I restored my weapons to their proper places. Long knife on the thigh for the running and the fighting. Short knife on the right wrist for close work, short knife on the left wrist for stealth. That was drilled into Lily Blades from the earliest years of their candidacy.