“Of course,” Gar said, “somebody might have let him out of that torture chamber by now—but I don’t think he was in any shape to make sense.”
“You mean we’re still secret?”
“I’m pretty sure about it, yes.”
“I,” said Gar, “am completely sure.”
“You would be,” Dirk growled.
Miles could scarcely believe it. Suddenly a huge weight seemed to roll off his shoulders, and the rock that had seemed to be rolling around in his belly disappeared. He took a deep breath and realized how wonderful it was here in the warehouse. Sunlight filtered through louvered turrets on the roof, casting a magical half-light over the heaped and stacked bales and crates. Scores of different spices perfumed the air. He felt a sudden, irrational surge of affection for the place, and heartily wished Ciletha had been there to share it.
“But the longer we wait, the greater the chance that word will come in from the provinces of an amazingly large number of magistrates deciding to take a vacation.” Gar lifted himself off the bale of velvet he’d been using for a seat. “Your couriers tell us we have three thousand men around the city, and our spies in the Protector’s Army tell us he only has twenty-five hundred soldiers, plus a hundred town watchmen. I think it’s time to strike.”
Miles stared at him, the wonderful feeling draining out of him as though he were a wineskin without a stopper.
“Seven thousand more men on the road,” Dirk reminded Gar. “If we wait even one more day, we’ll outnumber the Protector’s forces by a safe margin.”
“His castle has high walls, and his guards have halberds, pikes, and crossbows,” Gar reminded. “Surprise will give us more strength than numbers—and a better chance of less bloodshed.”
The last phrase decided Miles. “Fewer dead is worth the risk.” He felt decision crystallize within him. “Yes, Gar, let’s strike.”
Gar’s eye gleamed with pride as he watched his chief rebel. “Well enough, then. Tell your couriers to have your magistrates ready to march into the city at midnight.”
Miles frowned. “But the Watch will find them!”
“Will they?” Gar asked. “Or will they find the Watch?”
The first twenty magistrates came in during the day, dressed as peasants. As dusk gathered, they hid in alleys, and when night fell, they came out to hunt.
A squadron of watchmen passed the mouth of an alley, talking in bored tones. “ ‘Extra vigilance,’ the bailiff says! And why? Just because there are thousands of men marching up from the south!”
In the shadows at the alley mouth, two “magistrates” exchanged surprised glances.
“As though a mob a hundred miles away could have anything to do with us here!” another man scoffed.
“Mob?” a third man said with a laugh, “Magistrates! How can puffed-up magistrates be a mob? Especially when they say they’re only coming to talk with the Protector because they’re so disturbed about marriage!”
“Why would magistrates be upset about weddings?” the first man scoffed. “They have more of them than any other kind of man!”
“Something about there not being enough good marriages,” a fifth man said. “Even so, he’s sending a thousand soldiers south.”
“Yes,” said the sixth. “He says it’s to escort…”
The watchers heard no more, mostly because they stepped out of the alley and stepped up behind the watchmen, hands chopping down, stiffened into blades, making muted smacking sounds. Four watchmen dropped. The other two turned, mouths opening in alarm, but the “magistrates” leaped forward, stiffened fingers driving into bellies. The two watchmen doubled over, unable to talk, and blade-hands chopped again. Then, still silently, the “magistrates” pulled them back into the alley and began tying them up.
“So the spies finally went out at night and found the rest of us,” one of the “magistrates” muttered.
“Yes, but it sounds as though they gave a good enough excuse to confuse the issue.”
“And the Protector,” said a third. “He doesn’t want to chop down his civil service if they’re not really going to make trouble.”
“They don’t seem to know our full strength, at least,” the first man said, “or he wouldn’t think a thousand men would be enough.”
“A thousand?” asked the fourth man. “That would be enough, all right—if the men they were going to meet ere real magistrates. They’d only be armed with batons, after all, and they can’t know as much about fighting as real troopers. Then the thousand soldiers could claim to be an honor guard, but the mob would still realize they had to watch their step.”
“Well, that’s a thousand troops fewer for us to worry about tomorrow,” said the first man. “Let’s get going to the turnpike. We’ve taken out our squadron.”
All over the city, the scene was repeated. Sometimes the Watch managed to call for help, and the commando-magistrates had to fade back into the shadows, leaving the unconscious bodies as bait for the next squadron that came on the run. Sometimes the watchmen were too quick, injuring a commando before they were struck down. There were even two squadrons who knocked out the commandos and ran back toward the palace, shouting the alarm—but half a dozen groups of commandos converged on them and stopped their shouting. When it was over, two commandos were dead and half a dozen wounded—but none of the watchmen had been killed, though several would take a few weeks to heal.
Meanwhile, commandos crept up on the bored sentries who guarded the turnpikes on the major roads in and out of the town. There were no city walls, and any number of men could have slipped in between the houses and warehouses that bordered it but the Protector wasn’t worried about a few footpads, since the Watch patrolled the streets so well. No, the turnpikes were there to make sure all incoming merchants paid their import taxes, and that all legitimate travelers showed their travel permits. The turnpikes barred the roads at sunset. Anyone who arrived too late had to seek lodging in one of the many inns outside the town, and wait for the officials to come on duty again in the morning.
Sentries guarded those turnpikes, of course, and though three thousand people could have come in between buildings and down alleyways, it was far quicker to march openly down the main roads—so commandos crept up behind the sentries and knocked them out. One or two turned at the wrong moment and swung their halberds at their attackers, so there were another couple of commandos wounded and a few more shouts at the edge of the city—but the waiting rebels swarmed through the turnpikes and knocked out the sentries themselves.
When the sun rose, all the watchmen lay tied up and moaning in cellars and warehouses, with a man and a woman rebel each to tend their wounds, give them a little water, and assure them that, though they would have a hungry day, they’d be released the next morning—if all went well. If it didn’t, they might have to wait a bit longer.
That same sunrise woke the Protector, for he earned his pay twice over. He was haughty, but he had some right to be—for, though he was the son of one Protector and the grandson of another, he took pride in forty years of long days and hard effort working his way up through the ranks of the civil service from small-town magistrate to Protector in his own turn. His brothers had failed to rise so high, and lived now in this very town, where they could at least have permanent families—and live where he could keep an eye on them. But he had worked hard to achieve what he had, and worked hard still, rising with the sun and laboring at his desk and in his audience chamber until midnight, keeping track of everything that happened in his realm, and issuing a constant stream of decisions about any problems that arose.