Everyone pays for their living quarters, Father, and not everyone gets the protection we do. Folk know his men are watching us, so they keep their distance, just as you wanted. The slate's far from clear, even with the work I'm doing for Shandek now.'
'Should we be so indebted to anyone?' the abbot asked, queru¬lously.
'I think Shandek's decided we're a safe investment, me being family and you being a high priest. Maybe he thinks that there's money in the monastery, so if he wants a reward he's going to have to get you back here safely.'
'But what use have we for money at the monastery?' asked the bewildered abbot. 'In any ease, the prior is still hunting us, and I do not know if I am strong enough to face him now, not if he has truly allied with a daemon.'
'But he won't be prepared against people he's never met.' Mayel hesitated, but then- Well, he was sure the abbot had guessed Shandek had some criminal connections. 'Shandek's put the word out about Jackdaw, so he won't be able to show his face here – there are more than enough people who'd be glad of the bounty the Temple of Death would pay for a daemon-worshipper.'
'Mayel,' the abbot said sharply, putting his spoon down with a clat¬ter, 'you speak as though you know Prior Corci to be in the city – do you? Is he?'
The novice froze, and then muttered, 'Well-'
'Mayel!' the abbot shrieked. 'Have you seen him? Merciful Vellern protect us, has he seen you? Was it today? Could he have followed you back here?'
'Father Abbot, relax,' Mayel interrupted hurriedly, trying to placate the old man, 'I haven't seen him.'
'Then what is it?' he said, still shaking. 'I can tell there is something you're not telling me.'
'I did think I saw Jackdaw, when I was at the theatre with Shandek,' he admitted. 'But I didn't actually see anything – there was a move¬ment in the shadows, that's all, and I got frightened.' He went on, looking shamefaced, 'Since then, I have felt like someone was watch¬ing me, but I swear, I've never actually seen him.'
'You could have led him back here,' the abbot insisted, fear reduc¬ing his voice to a whine.
'What choice did I have?' Mayel demanded as the abbot rose, knocking his bowl of stew to the floor in his haste.
'I must prepare,' Abbot Doren continued, more to himself than Mayel. 'There's so much to do before he finds me,' he said, pulling open the battered door that led to the cellar. He was gone before Mayel had moved. A muffled bang from downstairs indicated the abbot had slammed the door behind.
Mayel looked at the mess on the floor and sighed. He scraped up the remains of the stew and the shards of pottery and returned the uneaten portion in his own bowl to the big pot simmering above the fire. He couldn't stomach any more of it tonight.
'Balls to this, I'm going to find something better to do,' he growled, and pushed open the kitchen door to reveal the dark city, as caked in
sweat and dirt as he was. Scree had never been considered beautiful, and with the unnatural heat drying everything, the streets now stank like a bloated corpse. He kicked the door shut and went out into the night.
Doranei dropped from the wall and crouched in the shadows, hold-
ing his breath while he listened for sounds of pursuit, taking in the features of the ten-yard-square walled courtyard as he counted twenty heartbeats. No light filtered in from the house that made up two of the sides. The few terracotta pots with withered stems drooping from them and a half-full stone-edged pond with four stone trout rising from the surface suggested the house had been closed up for the sum¬mer months. There was no guard, so there was no one to give him away to the Scree city guards who had been chasing him.
He couldn't hear them any longer. 'Damn,' he muttered, brush¬ing dust from his hands. Normally escaping a city guard so easily was something to be pleased about, but not tonight. He checked the pack on his back, but everything was secure, including his pair of sheathed sworrds.
He was ready to start running again. He walked to the pond, dis¬lodged one of the pots on the low wall and watched it shatter on the flagstones. The King's Man didn't bother to listen any longer. He jumped to reach an iron bracket fixed to the house and hauled himself up, using toeholds in the rough-mortared stone wall to reach the roof three storeys up. There he paused, silhouetted against the hunter's moon to wait for his pursuers.
'Bloody wizards.' He looked around at the streets. '"You're a good runner, Doranei," he says. "You'll be a fine decoy," he says. Didn't boody tell me the guards were bloody blind.'
Finally he heard confused, urgent voices coming from the winding streets, and spotted torches bobbing here and there as the men of the city guard fanned out down the side streets. The night air was still, and strangely quiet. Doranei could hear the guards distinctly.
He looked about to fix his location. A domed building, the biggest landmark, that had to be the Temple of Death, half a mile to the south, surrounded by the five grand temples to Nartis, Belarannar, Vellern, Karkarn and Vasle. Around them in turn were shrines to every other God and Aspect the good folk of Scree had been able to think of.
In the dark he'd somehow blundered further than he'd intended, and now found himself well into the district north of Six Temples, where some of the oldest and most splendid houses in Scree were to be found. There were regular patrols, but old money too often had little to spare for expenses like maintaining a city staff when they left for the country, as most of Scree's noble families had done.
A shout came from behind him, taken up by other voices a lot closer than Doranei would have liked. 'There you go,' he said to the night air. 'Now keep up, you bastards – for a bit, anyway. I'll give you a much-needed workout.'
He'd scanned the streets for the best escape route, but he'd picked badly; there wasn't a lot to choose from here. A wide, empty avenue ran towards the hunter's moon, nicely illuminated – and useless for his purposes, for the torches would round the corner and be onto it before he'd managed to climb down and get away. He ran the length of the slate roof-top and hopped the gap onto the next building, and again, until he reached a tall building that protruded out into the avenue, creating a bottleneck with a smaller house on the other side of the street.
This suited Doranei's purposes nicely, for it was the quickest way to cross the avenue and get away from the guards. People rarely bothered to look up in a city, especially where most streets were narrow, with overhanging buildings.
He crouched in the lee of a chimney, assessing the jump, when a splintered crash came from the first house behind him. The city guards had broken in, assuming he was trapped. He couldn't see any movement in the street; this was probably his best chance.
'I think I might be making a terrible mistake,' Doranei muttered as he fumbled in a pocket. He took out two fat leather bands with an iron brace and hook attached to each, slipped the bands over his wrists and pulled the laces tight. He manoeuvred himself onto the dark side of the gently sloping roof as silently as he could.
The hooks nestled in his palms, rough and cold against his skin. They were made of cheap, soft iron, perfect for his need. With luck, he wouldn't have to use them, but this was a long jump and he'd seen what happened to men who were unprepared. It was hard enough to keep your grip when your body slammed into the side of a building, and almost impossible with cut palms from hitting the building's stone edge. There was a low parapet running around the roof edge, so all he needed to do was to get enough of his body over it, then simply fall into the gutter – out of sight, and safe.
He took a deep breath and set off, head low, legs pumping hard. The jump was far enough that he didn't want time to think about it. He kicked off, keeping his eyes fixed on the point he'd chosen, legs and arms wheeling forward. The air whistled past his face as the building lurched up to meet him and almost immediately he realised it was even further than he'd hoped. He wasn't going to make it over the wall.