Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,104

to it, keeping an eye as the woman passed through the gates to the Commons.

Berenice nodded at her from the carriage’s front window. The girl’s face was unpainted, but she was, rather frustratingly, still quite pretty. “That’s her,” Sancia said. “Let’s go.”

“We’re not taking this gate,” said Berenice. “We’ll go to the east gate and loop back around.”

“What! Why the hell would we do that? We don’t want to lose her!”

“The rig you put on her should give us a mile range to work with,” said Berenice. “But more to the point—we’re assuming that girl’s employer is the one who paid for all those flying assassins, yes? Well, if she’s as valuable as we think she is, they’ll likely pay to give her a few guardian angels—who will be quite interested in anyone who comes out the gates directly after her.”

said Clef.

She looked Berenice over.

“Hurry up and get in,” said Berenice. “Change clothes. And stop arguing.”

Sancia did as she asked, climbing into the back. There was a set of clothes more suitable to the Commons laid there. Sighing—she hated changing clothes—Sancia crouched down and started putting them on.

The carriage took off, speeding down the campo wall to the east gate. “Hold on,” said Berenice, spinning the wheel and sending it hurtling through the gates. Then she took a hard right and sped back toward the south gates.

“Could you scrumming slow down?” shouted Sancia, who’d tumbled over in the back, her head stuck in a light coat.

“No,” said Berenice. She held up the tailing wire, which, rather alarmingly, had gone slack. Then, abruptly, the button shot up and pointed off into the Commons. “There,” she said. “We’re in range.” She brought the carriage skidding to a halt, grabbed a pack from the floor, and jumped out. “Come on, grab the pack of clothes. We’ll go on foot. A carriage would stand out here.”

Sancia was tangled in a set of breeches. “Give me a damn second!” She struggled into the clothes, buttoned them up, and jumped out of the carriage.

The two of them started off into the Commons. “Keep your tailing wire in your breast pocket,” Berenice said quietly. “You can feel it tug in the right direction without having to look at it.” She eyed the streets and the windows. “I assume you can spot someone who means us ill?”

“Yeah, look for someone big and ugly with a knife,” said Sancia.

They closed in on their mark, and found the woman seated in a taverna at the edge of Old Ditch. She’d bought a mug of cane wine, but she wasn’t drinking from it.

Sancia peered at the streets around the taverna. “It’s a handoff. Someone else will take it the rest of the way.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, I’m not totally sure,” said Sancia. Then she spotted him: a man, standing on the corner dressed as a Commoner. He kept glancing at the woman with the bag with an anxious, wary stare. “But that guy looks like a likely candidate, yeah?”

The man looked around at the street for a while before he finally moved, stalking into the taverna and up to the bar. He ordered and, as he waited, the woman stood and left without a word—leaving the bag behind. When the man got his drink, he walked over to her table, sat, drank his wine in no fewer than five gulps—staring anxiously out at the street—picked up the bag, and left.

He turned east, walking quickly with the bag over his shoulder. Sancia felt the tailing wire twitching in her pocket as he moved. Yet as he walked, Sancia noticed that more people were walking with him, trickling after the man one by one from doorways and alleys. They were all large, and though they were dressed like Commoners, there was an undeniable heft and professionalism to them.

“We’ll keep our distance,” said Berenice quietly.

“Yeah,” said Sancia. “As much of it as we can.”

* * *

The group of men kept going east, through Old Ditch, then through Foundryside, until they came to the Michiel campo walls.

“The Michiels?” said Berenice, surprised. “Really? I didn’t think