Yardem bowed his head and grunted. Marcus went on a half dozen steps before he realized that Yardem had stopped. The Tralgu’s face was perfectly empty. Impassive. Marcus walked back and stood before him.
“You’ve something to say?”
“Do I understand, sir, that your plan is to steal from the bank, hire a mercenary company, and march it into the middle of an imperial civil war?”
“My plan,” Marcus said, his voice conversational but with a buzz of anger, “is to get Cithrin back safe. Whatever I have to do in order to see that happen, I’m doing. If it meant sinking this city in the sea, I’d do it.”
“This is a mistake, sir.”
“Are you saying she isn’t worth it?”
“I’m saying that taking an outside force into a civil war is marching barrels of oil into a fire. Crossing the bank to do it means nothing to come back to, even if you did find her.”
“What else am I supposed to do? Sit by and wait?”
“The magistra’s smart. Capable. You could have faith in her.”
“She’s a girl in the middle of a war,” Marcus said, “and we both know what can happen to girls in the middle of wars. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to keep her safe. I’ve never asked you to come with me. If this isn’t something you can do, then it isn’t.”
Yardem’s scowl seemed to change the shape of his bones.
“I’m going to ask you to reconsider this,” he said, his voice low. “The strongbox—”
“Tell me it’s worth more than she is,” Marcus said. “Tell me the bank is worth more than Cithrin.”
They stood in the street. On the horizon, the clouds flicked with lightning, but they were too far away for thunder. Marcus took another bite of his food, and Yardem sighed.
“How do you plan getting to the strongbox, sir?”
“I set who’s on the watch,” Marcus said. “A hammer. A chisel. A cart with a decent team. We know the low roads between here and the Free Cities, or else we can charter a little coast-hugger. Hell, buy a fishing boat and just don’t come back. Could be in Elassae in twenty days. Maccia in considerably less.”
“Still an awfully long way to Camnipol.”
“That’s an argument for starting tonight,” Marcus said.
Buying a handcart took Marcus almost no time. A potter with a small yard near the counting house was willing to part with one, and Marcus was willing to overpay. Finding a hammer and chisel meant finding the smith in his home and explaining what he needed. Decades of hammer blows had made the man nearly deaf.
The plan’s simplicity was its strength.
The street was empty and dark, the righteous men and women of Porte Oliva asleep in their beds and the unrighteous tending to stay nearer the salt quarter. Fewer queensmen patrolled here in the night, and if they did, what could they object to? Marcus and Yardem were known to be part of the bank. If someone came across them on the way to the counting house, they were only on their way to a turn at the watch. And once they left, Marcus assumed they were gone forever. It wasn’t likely that Porte Oliva or anywhere that the Medean bank was a force would be open to him again.
Small price.
In the gloom, Yardem pulled the handcart into the house, locked and barred the door. Marcus went below to the sunken strongbox. The lock was stronger than it looked, and opening it took the best part of an hour. When the lid finally did swing back, silent on well-oiled hinges, Marcus brought his lantern close. Only the most sensitive and valued contracts were kept here. Papers were only paper, and the number of people who could use them was small. Gems, though. Sacks of gold coin, weights of silver. Jewelry and sealed tubes of rare spice. Those were things that anyone could use. Marcus squatted over the box, his free hand going through the wealth of the bank quickly but with consideration.
“Less than it was when we came,” Yardem said.
“That’s to be expected,” Marcus said. “Most of it’s tied up in loans and partnerships. There’s enough, though. Maybe not for a full company and full season, but a couple hundred sword-and-bows. We’ll move faster on the road that way too. Won’t have the long supply lines to slow us down.”
“I’m going to ask you for a favor, sir.”
Marcus looked up. The lantern cast the shadow of Yardem’s chin up over his face, hooding him with it. In that light, he could have been someone else entirely.
“What is it?” Marcus said.
“Once we put that in the cart and walk out the door, it’s done. This is the last chance to reconsider. I’d like you to take a moment and pray with me on this.”
Marcus laughed. “I’m serious, sir.”
“God’s not listening,” Marcus said. “It’s not what he does.”
“I think we might be the ones meant to listen, sir.”
“Get it over with,” Marcus said.
Yardem bowed his head, the black eyes closing. Marcus shifted from foot to foot, waiting. It was seven streets to a stable. More than that to the port. But with what he’d have in hand, buying a way out of the city would be easy. Between the gold and their two swords, the morning would find them elsewhere. Yardem opened his eyes.
“Change your mind, sir.”
“Nope, the spirit didn’t speak. Enough theology,” Marcus said, tossing a small leather sack of gems. Yardem caught them overhand. “Help me load this up.”
Yardem’s hand closed on his shoulder, and the world spun. The stone wall of the basement struck his back like a hammer, and he fell to his hands and knees.
“What in—”
Yardem stepped close, his wide hand on Marcus’s neck. Marcus rolled, pulling his sword free as he did it, but the Tralgu’s other hand clamped on his wrist and twisted. The hand around his throat lifted, and Marcus’s feet lost the floor. As the world began to go red and hazy, he brought a knee up hard into the soft spot just under Yardem’s ribs. He felt something give way and the grip on his throat eased enough that he could draw in a sip of air. There was desperation in the way Yardem pulled at Marcus’s sword arm, working it like a lever, but Marcus went with his momentum and broke the hold.
He swung around, blade at the defense half a heartbeat too late. The hammer he’d bought to break the lock came down gracefully on the bridge of his nose. Something cracked wetly and the world dissolved in pain. He felt his sword wrested from his grip as if it were happening to someone else. He bulled forward blind, his shoulder finding something soft and pushing Yardem back to the ground, but the Tralgu slipped to his left and got an arm around his throat. Marcus kicked, trying to twist his head down low enough to put his teeth on Yardem’s arm, but he couldn’t. His mouth tasted of blood and he couldn’t breathe through his nose. His fingers dug at the thick, strangling flesh. Something smelled like smoke. His leg kicked out from under him, and the world narrowed to a greyish point far away before him and then blinked out.
When Marcus came to, his legs and arms were bound behind him and a cloth was pushed into his mouth and tied there with a leather thong. A sack was pulled over his head, making the process of breathing even more difficult. He was in the handcart, and its wooden wheels were rumbling against the cobblestones. His nose throbbed, sending stabbing pain back into his skull, and he tried to twist into a position where he could rise to his knees or shout for the queensmen. Anything.
“That the package?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“Is,” Yardem said. “You know where to take it?”
“Do. But I’m not going to vouch for a damned thing if he gets loose along the way. I’m no soldier.”
“I am a soldier,” Yardem said. “He won’t get loose.”
Something lifted him around the middle and dropped him hard against boards. Chains rattled and a wide leather strap wrapped him like a girth. The sack slipped, and Marcus saw the bed of a cart, a wide iron ring set into the planks, and Yardem fixing the chain to it. Rage and willpower lifted him to his knees, and Yardem casually pressed him back down.