“All right, he escaped twice, which would be very useful if we knew how.”
“We do. Or rather, I do. He came to Novatonas to learn, he said. I was already there, studying. Some fellow feeling between us, or so he thought. He had had to leave the guild – couldn’t pass his master’s – and it rankled no end. Still does, and one reason he pushed Eneko so, why he had him spied on after the revolt and brought in to answer for himself whenever he did anything at all out of the ordinary. When Bakar recognised me—”
“Why should he recognise you?”
“When he recognised me, he thought I’d feel the same. Being the only person ever expelled from the guild after he’d taken his master’s. Until you and Vocho, that is.”
Ridiculous. The only person before them to have been expelled after taking his masters had been… “Wait a minute. You’re Jokin?”
“Sadly, that is so. My name is actually Narcis Jokin Donat Chimo Ne Farina es Domenech. Bit of a mouthful, I think you’ll agree.”
Kacha ran a hand through her hair. It was a hell of a lot to take in. The guild hadn’t taught them much history bar the highlights, but Jokin, there had been whole lessons on him – how he’d been a brilliant student, formidable with a blade, how Eneko had taken him under his wing, made him guild master’s apprentice much as Kacha had been, how he’d then betrayed the guild, betrayed Eneko personally, by changing sides midway through a job, and how they must never do the same. Eneko had spent even longer on the subject with her, afraid she’d betray him as Jokin had.
“I hope you aren’t disappointed in me?” Dom said.
“What? No. Hells, how could I be? I got kicked out just the same as you did. Worse even, now I come to think about it. But how do you know how he escaped? And can we escape?”
“We’ll save the rest for another time, but Bakar thought I felt the same about the guild as he did, that we were fellow exiles. And he talked a lot when he was drunk, and he often was in those days. So he told me how he escaped. And can we? Not that way. You can though, if things haven’t changed too much. I hope perhaps you might then come back and rescue me.”
“I will if you ever get around to telling me how.”
His grin was really quite infectious. She told herself there was still a lot he hadn’t said, that she’d need to winkle out of him later. Like what was Jokin doing pretending to be a clocker’s idiot son, and why had he latched on to her and Vocho, and all manner of things. But for now she’d trust him. It didn’t look like she had much choice.
Dom winked at her, scrabbled about in the straw and found the drain. The grating was locked and it looked like rust had welded it to the stone of the floor. It also smelt worse than anything she could ever recall.
She looked at it and then at Dom. “You want me to go down there?”
“If you want to get out of here.”
“OK, fine. But it’s rusted to buggery and locked, which makes me think they’ve thought of people escaping that way.”
“Don’t they teach lock-picking at the guild any more?”
“Well, yes. But I was never very good at it. That was Vocho’s thing.”
“Mine as well. Especially seeing as Bakar told me exactly how the lock works and how it can be opened. He was a locksmith before he was prelate. Bet you didn’t know that.”
“In which case you’d have thought they’d have changed the locks.”
“The first time they didn’t know how he escaped. Like he’d disappeared from a sealed box. Total mystery. Besides, Shrive guards under the king weren’t noted for their forward planning, mainly because they got paid so little. Mostly they went with the ‘Keep ’em in large amounts of pain; they won’t think about escaping’ plan, which worked for most people.”
“But not Bakar?”
“He’s a very unusual man. Bakar is more perceptive than the old king, for all his faults. He pays by results. ”
All the while he’d been talking Dom had been searching across his tunic. “Ah! Here it is. These aren’t all for show, you know.” He unpinned a startlingly ugly brooch, revealing an extra-long pin with a weird twist at the end. “I knew this would come in handy. Bakar gave it