seemed to be coming together in northern Greycoast. They had been seen by Verneytha border patrols but they had, curiously, not vanished, continuing to move slowly, quietly, and without making further attacks.
I was aghast.
“A hundred and sixty or more!” I exclaimed. “Hell’s teeth, that’s more than we ever thought there were! Still, no match for the six of us, eh?” I added. We had obviously made a real dent in their operations.
“Why are they suddenly being so obvious?” Renthrette mused aloud.
“Like you said, something’s happening.”
“And we are stuck here,” she said miserably.
“Good,” I said sulkily.
“Don’t you feel we should be there with the party? They will gather together, all of them. We should go.”
“And die as one big happy family. What a treat.”
“We’re achieving nothing here,” she said, getting up impatiently. I gave her a suggestive glance and said, rather stupidly, “That depends on what you’re trying to achieve.”
She shot me a pointed look as if what I had meant vaguely romantically had sounded merely lecherous.
“That didn’t come out right,” I said, too frustrated to put my heart into sounding apologetic. I poured myself a glass of wine and looked at the floor, instantly recognizing it as Square One.
“Is that wise?” she said frostily, regarding the wineglass as an elderly schoolteacher might.
“Very,” I said, drinking deeply. “I need to relax more. In fact,” I added, tipping the dregs of the bottle down in one gulp, “I’m going to get some more.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea—” she began.
“I’m not interested in your ideas,” I said quickly.
“You can’t—” she began.
“Watch and learn. This is called ‘The Hawthorne Guide to Staying Alive.’ Step one: When five of your friends suggest that you fight a hundred and sixty trained killers, go home immediately.”
I walked out of the room and down the corridor, passing the count’s rooms and the long, straight wall with the tapestry, Renthrette running at my heels.
“Step two . . . ,” I continued, descending the stairs and ignoring her spluttered attempts to interrupt, “spend the rest of your life sitting in a bar, drinking lots of beer, playing cards, and picking up women.”
On the ground floor she caught hold of me and thrust me against the wall in a move worthy of her brother.
“Now, you listen to me,” she began. “We saved your neck—”
I’d heard this all before and turned away with disinterest. The barrack doors were open and over her shoulder I could see in and across the bunks of resting cavalrymen to the windows on the other side.
Windows, I thought. On the other side. . . .
Suddenly something hit me like a falling buffalo. I said the word aloud to Renthrette.
“What?” she asked.
“Windows, look.”
“So?”
“Come upstairs.”
I half dragged her up, past the second story, where we had been drinking, and on to the next, where a heavy oak door took us out onto the battlements. Still running, I led her to the front of the building, blinking against a light rain and what was probably a breeze on ground level, but felt like a gale up here.
“What?” she demanded irritably as we reached the forward-facing parapet. I spun her to look back across the top of the keep. The wind picked up suddenly and I had to shout. “Look at the shape of the building,” I said. “The foundation is cross-shaped. Each level is the same size and shape. On the ground floor the crosspiece is the cavalry quarters, one room on the west side and one on the east. On the top floor the crosspiece is more battlements. But where’s the crosspiece on the middle floor, the floor where our rooms are, the floor where the count lives?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Why are there windows on the middle story at the front and the back but none on the sides?” I said. “The cavalry barracks on the ground floor house two hundred men. There must be rooms of the same size directly above them that we’ve never even seen! There are probably doors behind those tapestries. God, Renthrette,” I exclaimed with sudden and heart-stopping fear, “we’ve found the raiders. They were here all the time.”
SCENE L
Implications
No,” said Renthrette.
She had said that a lot in the last half hour.
“Yes,” I said. “It all makes sense.”
“It makes no sense at all,” she said. “Why would Arlest shelter the raiders here? It’s crazy, and we have no evidence except for some idea.”
I told her that investigation was too risky but, like her brother, she thought theories were for sissies. We walked along