The Duke scratched under his chin. ‘I’d like to take them all.’
‘We’d lose Bent and Cully,’ Long Paw said.
The Duke grinned. ‘Can’t have that. Well, Michael said he wanted a fight. If the men in harness go on foot to clear the tavern we can let the archers try and clear the roofs. Yes?’
Ser Alcaeus nodded. ‘We’ve got a handful of Scholae. They followed us.’
The Duke whirled his horse. ‘Watch them.’
‘Watch them?’ Ser Alcaeus asked. ‘I’m related to half of them.’
The Duke wasn’t to be swayed. He leaned in close. ‘Alcaeus, this is all an elaborate attempt to catch a spy. This place is riddled with traitors, and the palace-’
Long Paw was motioning. ‘The taverna’s afire,’ he called.
The Duke shrugged. ‘Too late for talk. Dismount – horse holders. Helmets on, armoured men on me, unarmoured go with Long Paw. I want as many prisoners as can be taken, commensurate with not losing one of you.’
Oak Pew laughed aloud. The Duke frowned at her, and Sauce swatted the top of her steel cap with a gauntlet. ‘Prisoners,’ Sauce said with a nod.
Then they were off into the dark. Alcaeus knew this part of town well enough from his Academy days, but not in the dark – or rather, the streets he knew in the dark were closer to the waterfront. He followed Ser Michael, who followed Ser Alison, who followed the Duke.
They didn’t have to go far. They crossed one intersection and jogged noisily down a very narrow alley full of rubbish, and then they emerged into a small square lit by a burning building.
Ser Alcaeus saw a man right where he expected to, making for the mouth of the next street, and he ran across the flagstones of the ancient square, missed his quarry but cut another man off and knocked him down with an armoured arm to the face. A sword struck his back, rang off his backplate, and then the fighting was over – Alcaeus whirled to find Ser Michael had cut his assailant’s arm off at the elbow. The bravos were armed with side swords, daggers, and clubs – they couldn’t stand even a moment against armoured men, and they ran or surrendered very quickly.
Ser Alison and the Duke went straight into the taverna. It wasn’t fully afire – the only bright flames were coming from the roof.
A fire company appeared – forty men with buckets. The buckets went down into the cisterns, and the water started to go onto nearby houses first, to prevent the spread.
Someone slammed into Alcaeus from behind, and he sprawled on the flagstones – a crossbow bolt slammed into the stone nearest his outstretched hand. He rolled – life at the Morean court encouraged quick responses to assassination – and saw the man who’d knocked him flat. He got a knee under him, got his dagger in his right fist-
The man raised his visor. ‘I’m on your side,’ he hissed. He offered a hand, but Alcaeus was not quick to trust in a fight – he backed away, and an arrow struck him.
The stranger waved him away. ‘Get under cover!’ he shouted, and turned.
Presenting his back to Alcaeus seemed a gesture of trust – Alcaeus took it and followed him, dimly recognising the black cloak of the stranger that the Nordikans had brought to him in the guardroom, what seemed like hours before.
The black-cloaked stranger found an external staircase and pounded up it, his heavy boots making the stairs shake, but Alcaeus followed him, and felt the second-storey balcony move. Behind him, he saw that the square had emptied as more and more bolts were shot at anyone moving in the light.
Suddenly, the rooftops were bathed in light – a light suspended above the centre of the square, dazzling in its brightness. Even in the confines of a helmet, Alcaeus could see that there were archers on some of the rooftops. Even as he looked, they realised that they were visible. Some ducked, others took arrows from the company archers in the streets.
The stranger leaped up, grabbed a lead gutter, and swung himself onto the sill of a thousand-year-old window. ‘On the roof!’ he called to Alcaeus.
Ser Alcaeus had a moment to imagine that this might be a very clever plot to kidnap him, and then he followed the stranger – up onto the roof, and then, panting inside his helmet, over a roof-edge wall and down onto the next roof – a tiled roof that hadn’t had its tiles changed in so long that they just peeped out from a layer of moss and lichen. He could hear old tiles breaking under his feet, but the foliage was good footing and he followed the stranger over the peak-
And into a trio of desperate men. All three wore dark clothing and facemasks. The furthest took one look at the two coming over the roofline and simply jumped over the roof edge to die on the cobbles below, or not.
The other two attacked the stranger. He absorbed a blow in his heavy black cloak, drew his sword and cut into the second man’s attack. Alcaeus was fully armoured and considerably less elegant – he fell into the nearest opponent, ignored two cuts that he didn’t see in the dark. The other man chose to wrestle, and Alcaeus broke his arm and then knocked him unconscious against his armoured knee.
The stranger had disarmed his man and was tying his hands with his belt.
Alcaeus opened his visor and breathed. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
The man’s smile shone in the bright white hermetical light that still hung over the square in front of the taverna. ‘I’m your new chaplain,’ he said.
The Duke went into the taverna and found Cully and Bent lying flat in the taproom with their prisoner wedged between them. He got them out the door, a bolt zanged off his helmet, and he ducked back into the doorway of the taverna.
Your men need better light, Harmodius said.
He cast that working himself, and he was surprised at the brilliance of his light. Then he added to it by putting subsidiary workings over the houses surrounding the little square – tall, stuccoed houses with a variety of rooflines perfect to hide assassins and archers.
The roar of the fire alerted him, and the fire company in the square wasn’t going to accomplish anything – one or two had already been hit by arrows, and the rest were taking cover, and the bucket chain was irretrievably wrecked.
But somewhere under his feet was a cistern with thousands of gallons of water. He worked a displacement-
He was in his place of power, locating the water with one very small working while manipulating its location. On the marble plinth, Harmodius nodded.
Well done, boy. So much simpler than creating the water. No – not over the roof – under the roof. You aren’t limited in your placement. Right on the fire-
The Duke cast. As he cast his working, Harmodius said, Aren’t we standing right under-
The wall of water extinguished the blaze instantly.
The new Duke of Thrake was not as elegant as he would have liked to be when he met his new chaplain a few minutes later – soaked to the skin in the chill autumn air, he was already shivering under his armour, despite the heavy cloak that Ser Michael produced and threw over him. Another cloak went over Bent, who’d been knocked flat by the water and was still having trouble breathing.
The Duke sneezed again.
‘So the man Cully took . . . ?’ he asked.
Bad Tom shook his head. ‘He knows some names and two locations. He’s paid a day-labourer in the Navy Yard, and he’s used to picking up a package from the palace every day.’
‘This wasn’t a complete waste of time, then,’ the Duke said, and sneezed again.
‘You might have told me,’ Ser Milus said.
The Duke nodded. ‘I probably should have,’ he admitted.
Ser Gavin came in and threw himself down on a stool. ‘Sellswords and thugs. The two that Alcaeus and the priest caught are merely more expensive thugs. They were hired to ambush anyone who came to the taverna.’