Weapon of Flesh (52 page)

“Aye, Sir!”

As the man set to work, Norwood turned to his sergeant.  “Tamir, our only hope on this is to get through the front gate before they can close it.  We can’t besiege the place; we’re not equipped, and the losses would be too high.  We’ve got to figure out a way to get inside fast, without giving them a chance to react.”

“And without gettin’ ourselves killed, I suppose.”

“Yes, and that.  Especially that.”

Chapter
XXIX

M
ya was prowling.  That was the only way you could describe it.

She had no quarry, she was not hunting, but she was restless.  She knew that what was to come would end with her either dead or free, and the anticipation of that moment had her nerves singing like violin strings.

There were so many things that could go wrong.  The timing had to be perfect: the wizard Vonlith had to remain ignorant of the plot up to the culminating moment; Lad could strike too soon, or too late; or he could have already betrayed her, as she had betrayed him more than once.  But she knew in her gut that he would not.  He would play this out, even at the risk of his own life.  That was where the two of them differed, not in some ephemeral judgment of what was good and what was evil, but in their priorities.  Mya’s priority was Mya, as it always had been, and as it always would be.  As it had to be for her to survive.

The story she’d concocted to bring the Grandfather to the interrogation chamber was paper thin, and would bear no scrutiny.  One question at the wrong time would mean her death.  But planning and preparing were her forte; she had laid out all possible contingencies in her mind, and planned responses should any of them occur.  Unfortunately, too many of these responses involved her defending herself against the Grandfather, which would be difficult, for she could not injure him by the bonds of the ring.  The best she could do in that instance was defend herself.

So she prowled, and thought, and planned.

And as if the Gods had decided to prove to her that one cannot prepare for every eventuality, she was utterly astounded when she heard a familiar voice ask the Grandfather’s valet for an audience.

“Jax!” she said, descending the main stair with all the bravado she could muster.  “What are you doing here?  You were ordered to watch the
Tap and Kettle
!”  Her mind raced ahead to all the reasons Jax would leave his post.  All of them were bad.

“Mistress Mya.  I didn’t think you would be awake at this hour.”  He bowed to her, having been informed of her new position, and having learned what happened to subordinates who did not show proper respect for their superiors.  The rumors of Targus’ death were many and had grown in the telling.

“Answer my question!” she snapped, dismissing the valet with a flick of her hand.  “Why are you here?”

“Something has happened at the
Tap and Kettle
that the Grandfather needs to know about,” he said.  She could have thanked him for being such an evasive bastard.  If he had spilled something important in front of the valet, her whole plan would have collapsed.

“Well, it better be important, or we’re both going to regret it!”  She turned her back and ascended the stairs.  “Come on, Jax.  Dragging your feet won’t make it easier.”

She heard him fall in behind her, and the middle of her back began to itch where she imagined he would put a dagger.  The two of them had never really gotten along, but her meteoric rise to power had thrown a log on the fire of his animosity.  He answered to her because he was required to, and that was all.

“So what has happened that you think the Grandfather needs so desperately to know that you planned on telling him without first coming to me?”  She looked over her shoulder at him as they topped the first flight of stairs and started down the hall toward the second.  The Grandfather’s chamber was on the third level, occupying the entire west wing.  She had to have a plan for dealing with this by the time they reached the top of the stairs.  “You do know you’re supposed to bring all matters to me, your direct superior, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mistress.  As I said, I thought you would be asleep.”  The muscles of his jaw bunched and relaxed, lending little credence to the lie.  “I sought only to ease your rest.”

“Very thoughtful of you.”  She rounded the corner and started up the stair, letting her steps slow slightly as they ascended.  “Now, answer the question.  What happened at the
Tap and Kettle
?” 

“The innkeeper’s daughter returned.  The Captain of the Royal Guard knows who has orchestrated the recent murders of the Duke’s kinsmen.”

She stopped in her tracks, two steps from the top of the stairs.  As she turned to face him, she let her face register all the pent-up fear she’d been harboring since her conversation with Lad.  She hoped it was convincing.

“The Captain of the guard knows who the Grandfather really is?”

“He suspects.  He is sending someone to investigate.”

“This could be disastrous!  You were right to come so quickly.  We’ve got to stop up that leak first, then get this place looking like a merchant’s estate instead of a military camp!”  She began ticking off her fingers as she gave him his orders.  “Go to Jingles and get two good blades.  The is still being watched by the guard, so you’ll have to be careful, but we need that girl and her fat father dead by morning.  You understand?”

“Yes, Mistress!”  He seemed a bit taken aback by her prompt and direct response.

“Good!  We shouldn’t have to deal with that blockhead Captain Norwood if we get this place squared away before his goons show up.  Now go!”

“Yes, Mistress!”  He turned to go.

There is a spot at the base of the skull where the spinal cord enters.  It is no larger than the tip of a man’s finger.  A tiny target, and so, not often used.  But it affords the advantage, when penetrated by a thin blade, of severing virtually every nerve in the body in a single stroke.  The victim does not cry out, as death is instantaneous.

Mya’s aim was perfect.

The thin stiletto snicked through Jax’s gray matter with a quick flip of her wrist.  His body crumpled, and she pulled him backward into her arms without a sound, lest he tumble down the stairs.  His body twitched spasmodically as she rolled him over, obsolete nerve impulses dying without reaching their appointed destinations.  She left the stiletto in place, for that was another disadvantage to this method; the heart, bereft of direction from the brain, would continue beating until it died for lack of oxygen.  If she removed her blade, blood would drench her, the stairs and everything else.  As it was, she only got a bit on her hand.  Now her only problem was to hide the body.

She felt for a pulse at his neck, and when it faded to nothing she made sure there was no bleeding around the blade, rolled him back onto his back and pulled him into a sitting position.  This was the dangerous part; she had to pull him up and over her shoulder in order to carry him to her chamber, but he weighed a good bit more than she.  Every apprentice assassin was trained in the technique, since carrying the fruits of their labors was a common task of the profession.  Jax wasn’t a particularly large or heavy man, but Mya was more than a hand shorter and several stones lighter.  She could lift the weight, she was sure, but the danger lay in the uneven footing.  If she fell on the stairs...

She locked his knees straight, braced his feet and pulled him up.  As he teetered forward, she ascended two steps, ducking under his lolling torso.  His weight came down on her shoulder perfectly, and she kept her balance.  Now all she had to do was to walk down the stairs and to her chambers without leaving a trail of blood or falling to her death.

“Easy,” she muttered, turning and taking the first step down.  It was harder than she thought it would be, and by the time she got to the landing, her knees were trembling and her heart was pounding.  It was just a hundred feet to her door, but it felt like a league.  The latch of her door worked easily and she entered, thankful that simple locks were superfluous in this place.  She used her burden to nudge the door closed behind her and took the four steps to her bed.  She let herself fall forward; he landed on the thick mattress with an audible thump, and she collapsed next to the corpse, heaving breath after breath to calm her hammering heart.

“Well, I never thought we’d end up in bed together, Jax,” she said between breaths, forcing herself to sit up.  She surveyed her handiwork.  Her stiletto was still in place, but there was a red stain marring her bedspread.  A quick check confirmed that there was no trail of blood on her floor.  Dropping him to the bed must have knocked something loose.

“Now look what you’ve done!  You’ve stained the coverlet!”  She grabbed one arm and flipped him onto his stomach.  She wrapped a kerchief around the knife where the blade met the crosspiece and withdrew it from its warm sheath, wiping it clean and stopping up the hole in the process.  “Leave it to a man to make a mess on a lady’s bed and then make her clean it up!”

She flipped the corpse onto the floor on the far side of the bed and pushed it underneath; then took the coverlet from the bed and flipped it over.  The red stain had not soaked through the thickly feathered spread, so the reverse side was still clean.  She wiped her hand clean on a towel from the nightstand and tossed that under the bed as well.  What did she care?  She would never be sleeping in this bed again, however the night played out.

She straightened her robe, finger combed her hair and repinned it, then exited her room just in time to see the wizard Vonlith vanishing down the stairs.  He was through resting, and was going back down to resume his labors.  It was just about midnight.  She would wait about a quarter hour then bring the Grandfather down.

She spent that time prowling, as before, checking to make sure there was no blood on the stairs, checking her weapons, checking their escape route, checking and rechecking her plan for flaws.

Then it was time.

She knocked on the Grandfather’s door firmly, forcing down her fear lest it betray her.  If he suspected for a moment, she would never feel the stroke that took her life.

She waited.  She was considering knocking again when the door opened.  The Grandfather stood in his black robes, glaring at her, the weariness of recent sleep still evident in his eyes.

“This better be good, Mya.”

“My apologies, Grandfather.”  She bowed shortly, exposing her neck for the perfect killing blow for the barest instant.  “The wizard instructed me to fetch you.  He has a question regarding the boy’s memories.  He says it’s time to begin destroying the memories that caused him to want to break the original magical bonds, but he doesn’t want to obliterate any of the boy’s training.  He needs exact times or days you want him to destroy.”

“Tell him to destroy everything after the day the boy arrived in the city.”  The door started to close.

“I thought to suggest that, but I wondered if he had any experiences on the road that might have caused him to distrust us.  Also, I didn’t know if you wanted the memories of any of the successful assassinations destroyed.  He also has a remarkable knowledge of the city.  It would cost a lot of time to wipe that out, then have to retrain him.”

“Right you are, dear Mya,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her with a wry smile.  “Always thinking ahead.  Very good.”  He whirled back into his chamber and recovered a few items from his desk that Mya did not see before they vanished into his robes. “Keep this up and I shall shortly find you indispensable!”

“You have discovered my ulterior motive, Grandfather,” she said.  She heard metal click on metal and the creak of leather. 
Weapons
, she supposed,
the suspicious bastard
.

“No one is indispensable, Mya,” he said, turning back to her with the same wry smile.  “But keep trying.  Come on then.”  He strode past her and she followed, the two descending the stairs in swirling cloaks of black and crimson.