CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

 

Fear the man—or woman—willing to take coin to kill someone.

But more than that, fear the one who is willing to do it for free.

—Maeve the Marvelous

 

He stood at the small window of his room, looking out on the city of New Daltenia and its people. His people. He had stood so for half an hour or more after waking to find Maeve and the others gone. Stood staring out at the city, at the people, that he had failed.

He had hoped that perhaps Feledias might visit him before he left, for he doubted very much that he would ever return, and there were things he wished to say, things he needed to say. But there was no sign of his brother and when the door swung open without so much as a knock, he turned to see that it was not Feledias but Sergeant Selladross.

“Ah, you’re awake,” the man said with clear disappointment in his tone, as if he’d been looking forward to forcing him awake.

“Yes,” Cutter said, watching as several guardsmen filtered into the room one of whom, he saw, carried two sets of manacles.

He turned back to the sergeant, raising an eyebrow. “Am I to travel to the Black Woods in chains, then?”

“Oh, of course not,” the man replied, smiling. “Only, His Majesty thought it best if you remained so until we reach the edge of the city. Less chance, then, of any…” He paused, glancing pointedly at the axe sheathed on Cutter’s back. “Misunderstandings.”

“I see,” Cutter said, noting that the man remained in the doorway as he motioned the two guardsmen carrying the manacles forward.

Cutter glanced at them as they approached, saw them watching him warily, even starting as he turned, offering his wrists.

One hesitated then moved forward, licking his lips nervously as he clasped the manacles around Cutter’s arms. When that was done, the second knelt and clasped his own around Cutter’s ankles, the two manacles linked with a chain that was no more than a foot long.

“What else?” Cutter asked, looking at the sergeant. “Am I to ride in a cage?”

“Oh, of course not,” the man said, grinning, “that’s no way to treat royalty, is it?”

Cutter said nothing to that, following as the guards ushered him out the door and into the castle hallway. Castle servants hurried out of their way as he was marched down the corridor, and he noted, among them, the woman who Matt had struck. She stared at him with a look of pity on her face as they passed, and Cutter considered telling her that she should save that pity for one worthy of it.

In the end, though, he said nothing, knowing that acknowledging her would do her no favors with the guardsmen. In time, they reached the front doors of the castle, and Cutter followed his escort out into the morning light.

He was led down the path to the front gate then stood in shock, gazing beyond it into the street. He had thought himself incapable of being surprised any longer, but he was wrong. Both sides of the street, for as far as he could see in either direction, were packed with people. Hundreds, thousands of them, what seemed to be the entire population of New Daltenia, all gathered as if to witness a parade or some grand spectacle.

Which, he realized as the sergeant turned and glanced back at him with a smile, giving him a wink, they were. The spectacle of their prince—or, at least, the man who had once been their prince—being marched through the city street in chains. “Does the king know of this?” he asked.

The sergeant’s grin widened. “Know of it? Why, it was His Majesty’s idea. After all, what point in punishing a member of the royalty to demonstrate his fairness if no one witnesses the demonstration? Now, come, Prince,” he said, gesturing widely as the castle gate swung open, “your people await.”

 

***

 

“What in the name of the gods are they thinking?” Chall demanded.

Maeve glanced over at the mage, then at Priest. The older man didn’t speak, but then he didn’t need to—his troubled expression told her all that needed to be said. She looked back at the crowds gathered in the street and shook her head. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

The mage hissed angrily. “So much for getting the prince out of the city quietly.” He grunted as someone in the crowd bumped into him—not an uncommon occurrence when the streets were as packed as they were. “You ask me, every man, woman and child in the damned city is out here.”

“Or near enough as to make no difference,” Maeve agreed. She had been relieved, last night, to find Petran and the guardsman still undiscovered, still safe, just as she had been happy to know that Cutter had made it through the night without any attempt on his life. Now, though, staring at the teeming crowds, crowds that might have been mistaken for those that gathered to witness a parade if it hadn’t been for the angry scowls and mutterings all around her, whatever relief Maeve had felt vanished.

So many people, and none of them looked all that happy to her. What they looked like, in truth, was trouble waiting to happen. “Shit,” she said, her assassin’s instincts—dulled by the passage of years but recently resharpened—kicking in. Of course there hadn’t been an attempt on the prince’s life. After all, why bother sneaking into the castle, risking getting caught, when you could simply gather in the crowded streets where one might fire a crossbow and disappear into the throngs of people without a trace?

Ideas for what to do rushed through her mind one after the other, discarded one after the other. Then, finally, she hissed. “We need to split up.”

Chall frowned. “Split up?”

“That’s right,” Maeve said, then she leaned in close, speaking in a hushed whisper to the two men. “The prince is in danger. There’s no telling who in the crowd might be part of the conspiracy.”

The mage’s eyes widened at that. “You mean…”

“I mean that if there’s a better place to effect a man’s assassination then I don’t know it!” Maeve snapped. “Now, unless I miss my guess, the guards will march him down main street, out the northern gate of the city. Chall, you watch from the castle to the end of Merchant’s Row. I’ll take from Merchant’s to Crafter’s, Priest—”

“From Crafter’s to the gate,” Priest said grimly, “I’ve got it.”

“Got it?” Chall demanded. “Got what? What are we supposed to look for?”

Maeve hissed. “How about anyone waving a sword and screaming bloodthirsty murder?” she said. “Start there.”

“Now, we need to get going before it begins and—” She cut off at the distant sounds of shouting. Too late, she thought. “Go, now!” she snapped.

Priest nodded, disappearing without a word into the crowd.

“But…Maeve, what are we supposed to do?” Chall demanded.

“The best you can!” she said, and then she was off and running.

 

***

 

Maeve came to a panting halt at the end of Merchant’s Row, scanning the street around her for anything or anyone that seemed out of place. The problem, of course, was that despite her snappy remarks to Chall, assassins rarely advertised their presence. In fact, staying unnoticed sort of went with the job description. Still, she could think of nothing else to be done, so she continued to study the people around her as the distant shouts of the crowd grew closer, informing her that the prince and his escort were drawing near and that he had at least not been assassinated yet.

Not that she had expected him to be. Any assassin worth their salt would know better than to attack the moment the prince set foot outside the castle walls. Certainly she wouldn’t have done so. No, she would have waited, given it time. After all there was no hurry, for the man had to traverse this entire half of the city, a trip that would have taken well over an hour even had the streets not been packed near to bursting as they were.

No, a smart assassin would wait until the guards, and Cutter himself, began to let down his guard. Of course, the prince never did let down his guard, but then the assassin wouldn’t know that. He—or she—would wait until they were well on their way, too far from the castle to retreat to it or to call for guards. For that same reason, he would not want to wait too long, lest his quarry escape out of the city.

All of which meant that, likelier than not, if there was an assassin, he, or she, stood somewhere among the crowds all around her, might be any one of those men and women who were staring down the street, waiting for the prince and his escort of guardsmen to march past. “The fools,” she hissed again, angrily. It was almost as if they wanted the prince killed.

She blinked at that, cursing herself for a fool. Of course they wanted it. Why else would they parade him down the street? True, a trip to the Black Wood meant almost certain death, but why leave anything to chance when a crossbow bolt shot out of the crowd could guarantee it? It simply wasn’t credible to think that the guardsmen leading him hadn’t thought of that which meant only one thing—they had thought of it and had decided to lead him through the city anyway, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why they would do such a thing.

At least she remembered enough of the assassin’s art to anticipate the attack, but anticipating it did no good at all if she couldn’t stop it. And despite how she’d responded to Chall’s concerns, the simple fact was that the mage was right. There was too much ground to cover and too few of them to cover it. She did a quick scan of the street, looking for anything out of the ordinary—like someone holding a sign that said, “assassin on the job,” maybe.

She saw nothing untoward—no great comfort—so she began making her way farther down the street. Or, at least, she tried to. After ten minutes of forcing her way against the crowd, of hot, sweaty struggle as she fought her way through the packed streets, Maeve could glance back and see, quite clearly, the place where she’d started.

The noises of the crowd—boo’s, mostly—were growing louder by the minute and a quick look down the street showed the prince’s escort drawing closer. In another five minutes, maybe less, they would pass the spot where Maeve now stood. And if there were an assassin, the man would have an easy enough job of remaining hidden until he made his attempt. If, that was, he could navigate his way through the crowd, for the one small consolation available to Maeve was that the man would have to struggle with the busy streets as much as she did.

Unless he isn’t on the street at all.

The thought seemed to come out of nowhere, but as soon as she’d had it Maeve decided that it made sense. After all, the streets were so teeming with people that it was nearly impossible to move through them, a fact she could attest to personally considering she’d spent the last half hour trying, and largely failing, to do just that.

And as distracted as those people were by the approach of their sovereign prince, a prince for which, it was clear, they held little love, still she thought it likely that they would notice someone in their midst drawing a sword or crossbow. If, that was, the assassin in question even had enough room to pull the weapon in the first place.

So how, then, could the man count on getting the job done?

“Shit,” Maeve hissed, pulling her eyes away from the streets and up to the rooftops of the buildings flanking the avenue on either side. Growing more panicked by the moment, she turned in a circle, eyeing the rooftops, searching for any sign. She was just beginning to think that she’d been wrong after all when her eyes caught on a figure standing on the roof of a nearby tailor’s.

At first, she thought that she might have imagined it, for the rooftop on which she believed to have seen it was situated so that, anyone looking at it, was also forced to stare into the brightness of the early morning sun. Which, of course, is exactly the sort of place she would have stood, had she meant to commit murder and not be seen doing it. The figure, if indeed there was a figure and what she saw was anything more than a dark smudge in her sight caused by the brightness of the sun, seemed to be wearing a dark robe, the hood pulled down.

Her hand held up in a vain effort to keep the sun from her eyes, Maeve watched the smudge for several seconds, trying to decide if it were an actual person or not, knowing, as she did, that if she raced all the way to the rooftop only to find out that she was wrong, then there would be no more time to do anything else.

Just when she was about to decide that the smudge was no more than a smudge after all, it turned. An almost imperceptible movement—but not quite, and she noted that the figure was regarding the approaching group of guards, and one royal prince, coming down the lane.

The smudge disappeared for a moment, and when it came back it was holding a second, smaller smudge, one that, when she looked closely, bore a remarkable resemblance to a bow. “Shit,” Maeve hissed.

And then she was running. Or, at least, trying to. The state of the streets was such that her intended run turned into a sweaty, cursing shuffle as she shoved her way through the crowds of people, ignoring their shouts of outrage.

The tailor’s shop was situated on the other side of the street. On a normal day, it would have taken only moments for her to reach it, but for all the men and women in her way it might as well have stood a mile distant.

I won’t reach it in time, part of her mind despaired as she continued the process of shoving her way through the crowd.

I have to, she told that part as she slung an elbow into a fat man who, judging by his clothes, was some sort of merchant. She moved past him as he gasped, but her foot caught on something and then she was stumbling out of the crowd and into the street. A quick glance showed the front of the prince’s procession in the distance. Maeve shot a look up at the tailor’s rooftop, but the figure was out of her sight now, and she started across the street at a run.

It was hard work, pushing her way through the crowd to the tailor’s door, but she finally reached it, sweaty and out of breath. She tried the latch and was unsurprised to find it locked. Perhaps she might have knocked, but it was likely that the owner wasn’t inside but somewhere in the street, assuming he was still alive at all, and very unlikely that he would have heard her knock over the tumult even if he was inside. So instead, she chose the expedient of drawing one of her knives and ramming the blade into the crack of the door. She worked it around for a moment, cursing her old, stiff hands and fingers which had once been so nimble as she felt the seconds slipping away.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, there was a metallic click and the door swung open. Maeve rushed inside only to come up short at the sight of two men standing a short distance away, swords in their hands.

“Hi there,” one said.

“Shop’s closed,” the second said. “In case you couldn’t tell, you know, on account of the locked door.”

Maeve froze then, studying the two of them. There had been a time when two men, particularly two shabbily dressed men as these, who held their swords as if they’d never seen one before, wouldn’t have given her any pause. Not Maeve the Marvelous, legendary assassin and companion to the Crimson Prince. But she was not that woman anymore—far closer to Maeve the Ancient, even though it didn’t have quite the same ring. So she did pause.

She could leave, she knew. The men would let her go, she believed that. She could leave, could live, but if she did that then she would have to keep walking, out of the tailor’s shop, out of the city altogether, and she wouldn’t be able to walk far enough to get away from her shame. A person’s shame followed them, always—Cutter had taught her that. Besides, Cutter was her friend, and the gods knew she didn’t have enough that she could spare any to a couple of two-bit assassins like those now watching her.

“Well,” she said with a sigh as she drew a second blade, companion to the one she still held, “Best we be getting on with it—I’ve got places to be.”

“Yeah, like the cemetery,” one said, grinning as if he thought himself the height of wit as he motioned to his companion and the two slowly started encircling her.

Maeve sighed again. It seemed that her looks weren’t the only thing that had diminished with the passing of time—even the class of criminals she now faced had declined. As she watched the men move, awkwardly and with clearly no understanding of footwork, she grew confident that she could take them. The problem, of course, wasn’t that she just needed to take them—she needed to do so quickly. For every second that passed gave the assassin on the roof more time to finish his task, and it was too much to hope that he was as useless with the crossbow he carried as these two looked to be with their swords.

Maeve had been in countless fights over the years, but her talents did not lay, as Cutter’s did, in barreling headlong into her enemies, counting on superior strength to overcome her foes. Nor did she rely on her speed, like Priest, or her magical gifts like Chall. Hers had always been a danger of cunning, of outwitting her foes. Better, she had always thought, if her enemies didn’t know they were in a fight at all until they were dead.

Still, despite her best efforts, she had found herself in plenty of standup fights over the years, so she counted on that experience to keep her alive as, instead of waiting as she would have done, given the chance, she charged at the man on the right. He let out a startled yelp, swinging his sword in what might have been an attack, if one squeezed one’s eyes closed tightly enough.

Maeve didn’t close her eyes, though. Instead, she sidestepped the blow, letting the man’s awkward swing pass within inches of her. Her attacker grunted in surprise at this, supposing, she guessed, that she would stand there and let him cut her in half, something even he could have managed given enough time. He stumbled, off-balance, and so it was an easy enough thing for her to slip her dagger into his throat. Too easy, in truth.

The man let out a gurgling wheeze, bubbles of blood forming on his lips before she pulled the knife away and he collapsed to the ground.

Maeve turned, knowing that the second man would be coming at her, but while her blades might have been as sharp as they ever had been, she was slower, and by the time she’d spun he was already on her, barreling into her, shoulder first. The man was big, muscular, and the blow sent her flying backward until her back struck painfully against some wooden shelves, scattering folded linens across the floor. Not that Maeve noticed, for she was too busy dodging blows from the man. Not blows from a sword, for the man, like many amateur swordsmen—if even that title could be given him—had foregone his blade, counting, instead, on his large, muscular frame, his strength to finish her quickly.

But while the man might have been strong, he was slow, and even off balance as she was, Maeve managed to evade the heavy-handed blows he landed around her, blows meant to crack bones but which only managed to crack the wooden shelving instead.

Still off balance, she saw an opening after one such swing and lunged for it, meaning to put some distance between her and her attacker. She was nearly there when her foot caught on one of the linen piles now strewn about the floor, and she tripped. Not badly enough to fall, but it might have been better if she had, for instead she only stumbled, slowing down enough for the man to reach out and grab her, wrapping his thick arms around her as if he meant to squeeze the life out of her. Which, judging by his angry growl as he bared his teeth and, more importantly, by the pressure on her sides as his thick arms constricted, was exactly what he intended.

It hurt, badly, and Maeve felt as if her bones were being ground to dust. But then, she had been hurt before, more times than she cared to count, so she endured the pressure long enough to lunge forward and clamp her teeth around the man’s throat, sinking them in as deeply as she could. Blood filled her mouth, sour and coppery, and the man screamed. He didn’t release his hold on her, at least not completely, but loosed it enough for her to slip her hand into her tunic and retrieve another knife to replace the two she’d dropped when the man struck her.

The man was still bellowing in pain as Maeve drove the blade into his stomach. He did let her go then, and she slammed the knife in deeper, pulling it up, toward his heart.

Her attacker let out a tortured wail then lashed out blindly with his hand, this wild, panicked blow connecting where the others had not, striking Maeve hard in the face. The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back, blinking up at the ceiling of the tailor’s shop, the side of her face aching terribly.

The taste of blood filled her mouth, though whether it was the man’s or her own she had no way of knowing. She worked her tongue around in her mouth as she climbed to her feet, feeling for any loose teeth and, thankfully, finding none.

Still, the room seemed to swim, and she drunkenly turned to check on her attacker only to find that the man had fallen on his back nearby, her knife still protruding from his stomach. Maeve hurried toward the corpse. Keeping one arm on the ruined shelves for balance, she knelt and retrieved the knife.

She froze at the sound of shouting, spinning and expecting to find another of the men barreling down on her but the room was empty. At least, that was, save for her and the dead. A moment later she realized that the shouting wasn’t coming from inside the tailor’s at all but, instead, from somewhere out in the street. Which could only mean one thing—she was out of time.

Hissing a curse, she scanned the shop as quickly as she could, her eyes alighting on an open door behind the counter. She hurried toward it, using the wall for support, nearly slipping on the blood puddled on the floor as she did.

Stepping through the door, she came into a small room. There was a safe in one corner, and a table where the tailor likely took his lunch or went over the business’s numbers. She was just beginning to panic, to believe that she had chosen wrongly after all, when she caught sight of a ladder in the corner. She moved toward it and glanced up.

There was a hatch which no doubt led to the roof, but it was currently closed. She suspected so that the assassin could be warned if anyone should mean to interfere and could take measures to rectify it—likely in the form of an arrow to the face for the poor fool who meant to climb up it. A poor fool which, just then, was her.

There was no time to waste, no time to search for some other way onto the roof. Maeve gripped a knife in her teeth, thinking it best to have it ready in the unlikely event that the bowman allowed her to get close enough to use it, then started up the ladder as quietly as she could, a task made more difficult by the dizziness she felt and the ache in her jaw.

She reached the hatch and then lifted it as quickly and quietly as she could which just meant that the creaky wood sounded like the wail of a dozen banshees instead of twice that number. Suddenly, she heard screams and panicked shouting from the street below.

Too late, Maeve thought in a panic. Realizing that stealth was out of the question and that her only ally now was speed, she threw the hatch open the rest of the way and scurried up the ladder as fast as she could.

As she reached the top, she rolled to the side on the off chance that the archer was an amateur who had no idea of how to lead is target. The roll took her to her feet and she started forward at a sprint in the direction she’d seen the figure only to come up short, freezing and staring in awe.

The figure that she had seen from the street sat propped against the rooftop along with a second figure who wore similar clothing. The two might have been asleep, had the front of their brown robes not been coated with blood, their heads lolling at unnatural angles. Or, at least, unnatural for anyone living.

Still, she only paid them a brief moment of attention. What caught her eye—and held it—was a third figure. A woman who stood facing Maeve, a bloody knife gripped in each hand. “Oh, hello,” the woman said.

Maeve blinked in shock, her mind unable to believe what her eyes were telling it. “E…Emille?” she stammered.

Ned’s wife nodded. “Hello, Maeve,” she said, then winced, flushing as if embarrassed as she glanced back at the two corpses and the blood-stained rooftop. “Sorry…that is, about the mess. I would have cleaned up but—”

“Emille?” Maeve said again.

The woman cleared her throat. “Forgive me, Lady Maeve, but I would appreciate it if you weren’t quite so loud. Ned is in the street somewhere, waiting on me, and if he knew I was up here he’d…well, he’d have some questions, let’s say that.”

“But…but…what are you doing here?” Maeve asked in a croak.

The woman shrugged, kneeling beside one of the bodies and wiping her blades clean on the dead man’s brown robes before lifting the blue dress she wore—and which somehow didn’t appear to have a drop of blood on it—and sliding them into sheathes at her calves. That done, she rose, looking back to Maeve. “I admit that I don’t often play the hostess, but it seemed…well, rude to allow the prince to be killed so soon after he visited my home.”

“But…but…” Maeve began, unsure of how to finish. “You…that is, you killed those men.”

The woman raised an eyebrow as if to say that Maeve were one to talk—a fair point, of course—then shrugged. “Well. If it helps, they didn’t seem like particularly nice men.”

“But how did…how did you do it?”

The woman gave her a small shrug again. “The usual way, I suppose.” She motioned her head to the knife Maeve had taken out of her teeth and now held in her hand. “Similar, I suspect, to what you had in mind.”

“What I mean,” Maeve said, some of her wild thoughts finally settling, “is who are you?”

The woman blinked. “I’m Emille, lady. We’ve met before. Now, if you mean who am I to kill these men…well, in my experience killing doesn’t require any particular credentials.” She turned, regarding the corpses. “More’s the pity.”

“But…you’re a healer…aren’t you?”

“Of a sort,” the woman said. “Anyway, who do you suppose would know better how to take a life than those tasked with saving it? It’s the same job, really, you understand. Just…well, in reverse.”

“Forgive me,” Maeve managed, “but…you don’t seem all that shaken up. Like maybe you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“Well,” Emille said slowly, “I wasn’t always a carriage driver’s wife. Anyway…” She gave another shrug. “A woman has to have her hobbies, doesn’t she?”

Maeve shook her head in wonder. “And Ned? Does he—”

“No,” the woman said quickly, turning on her with an angry flash in her eyes, “Ned knows nothing of it, and he will not. Do you understand?”

Maeve stared, shocked by the sudden change. “Emille, I have no intention of telling your husband anything. In fact, I just want to say thank you—for saving the prince, I mean. He’s…well…that is…he’s…”

“A good man?” the woman asked, raising an eyebrow again.

Maeve considered that then shook her head slowly. “Maybe. I don’t know. But he’s trying.”

The woman gave a single nod. “The most that can be asked of any of us.”

“Well, thank you, Emille. Again.”

“Listen, Lady Maeve,” Emille said, moving closer. “These assassins, their job couldn’t have been made easier. Not with the town criers sent out to tell everyone about Prince Bernard’s punishment—being sent to the Black Wood.” She shrugged. “It seems to me almost as if someone wanted him killed.”

“Yes,” Maeve said, frowning, “I was thinking the same thing.” She moved to the edge of the building and looked down, trying to figure out the source of all the pandemonium since Emille seemed to have handled the two assassins. She saw Bernard walking past with his escort of guards and clenched her jaw in anger as she noted his manacled wrists and ankles, as if the man were some common criminal of the city, a city that wouldn’t even exist had he not defended it in the Fey Wars.

But while many of those in the crowd shouted after him, several throwing rotten fruit, there was a circle of people across the street from where she stood that seemed intent on something else, and it took her a moment to realize that a man who looked very much like the fat merchant she’d bumped into on her hurried way to the tailor’s shop was lying on the ground, an arrow sticking out of his thigh.

“I wasn’t fast enough,” Came Emille’s voice, and Maeve turned to see the woman standing beside her.

“Fast enough to foul the shot,” the woman went on, “but not fast enough to keep it from striking someone else. I need to go see to him.”

“You mean to help him?” Maeve asked.

The woman nodded. “If I can. It’s my fault he was shot, after all.”

“No,” Maeve said, glancing at the dead men on the roof top. “Not your fault.”

Emille shrugged. “I should have been faster. Will you come with me?”

Maeve nodded, following silently after the woman as she started back toward the ladder, thinking that one of the hardest lessons she’d had to learn in her life was that, when it came to stopping tragedy, no one was fast enough.

 

***

 

As they stepped out of the tailor’s shop, Maeve caught sight of Cutter and his escort disappearing around a corner farther down the street. She frowned after it, but Emille wasted no time, moving through the crowd with such ease that Maeve felt herself feeling impressed and more than a little jealous as she fumbled after her, forced to push and shove her way through in an effort to keep pace with the woman.

They reached the scene of the injured merchant in short order.

“Oh, gods, get a healer! I’m dying, here, can’t you see that? I’m dying!” the fat merchant was shouting as Maeve forced her way out of the crowd, panting and looking at Emille who stood, taking in the gathered people and the fat man on the ground with a business-like efficiency.

A crowd encircled the man, but none of them seemed inclined to help and that much Maeve understood. She knew much of hurting, had learned plenty during her years, but she knew very little of healing. Emille, though, didn’t seem daunted in the least, approaching the man and kneeling beside him.

“A-are you a healer?” the man gasped. “I need a healer!”

“Of a sort,” Emille said distractedly as she first laid a hand on the man’s head, then grabbed his wrist, cocking her head as if listening to something only she could hear.

“O-of a sort?” the man asked in a voice that was somehow scared and demanding all at once. “What does that mean?”

“I help animals,” the woman said, continuing her ministrations.

“Animals?” the man demanded. “Do you know who I am? I am Merchant Elfedius, one of the highest-ranking members of the guild! I am no, no pig to be experimented on!”

“Coulda fooled me,” someone from the crowd whispered, and several others snickered.

This did draw Emille’s attention and she turned, scowling at the man who’d spoken. She said nothing, but then she didn’t seem to need to as the man in question blushed and pointedly avoided her gaze.

Emille watched him for another moment then turned back to the merchant. “If you wish, you may wait for another healer,” she said, her voice not cruel or particularly kind, only as if she were speaking of the weather. “Though, there is no knowing how long one might take, and you have lost a fair amount of blood already. Still, if you are lucky and the wound does not become infected, perhaps you may live until they get here.”

The man groaned. “Y-you mean, what? That I might die?”

Emille shrugged, glancing at Maeve and meeting her eyes for a moment before turning back to the man. “I know little of such things but, as I understand it, that is largely the point of arrows.”

“B-but who would want to kill me?” the man said. “I am one of the highest ranking—”

“Better question is who wouldn’t,” someone from the crowd asked, and Emille had not even managed to turn halfway to stare at him before he spoke again, “S-sorry,” he stammered.

“So?” Emille asked, turning back to the merchant.

“S-s-so what?” the man stammered.

“Would you like to wait for a ‘real’ healer, or would you prefer I tend to the wound? It’s your choice, though I would recommend you make it quickly before you lose too much blood. Hesitate too long, and the choice will likely make itself.”

“H-help me then,” the man said, “p-please, oh gods I don’t want to die.”

She gave a business-like nod at that, reaching into her shirt and retrieving one of the knives Maeve had seen her holding when she’d climbed to the rooftop. In fact, Maeve saw that there was still a small bit of blood on it, but if anyone else noticed they gave no sign. Except the merchant, of course, who while he may not have noticed the blood, most certainly noticed the knife.

“H-hold on a minute,” he stammered, “wha-what do you mean to do with that?”

“I mean to cut out the arrow,” Emille said, “I mean to save your life. Now, would you prefer to continue talking or to leave me to my…what was it you called it? Oh yes, experiments?”

The man said nothing, only groaned, turning his head as if not seeing the knife would somehow make it hurt less. Maeve watched the woman work, stunned that someone who was so obviously skilled at killing could somehow be as skilled at healing, too. And she was skilled. Even Maeve who knew little of healing could see that much in the efficient, confident way she cut out the arrow from the writhing merchant before retrieving a small bottle from somewhere inside her shirt and beginning to apply it to the wound.

Maeve stood watching her like those others gathered, and as she did, she wondered if she could have been something else in her life besides a killer. Or, failing that, if she could have, like Emille, been both.

“What happened?” a voice asked from beside her, and Maeve jumped, startled. It was rare that someone managed to sneak up on her without her knowing, but she’d been so engrossed in the woman’s work that she turned and was surprised to find Ned, the carriage driver, standing beside her, a grim expression on his face.

“He was struck by an arrow,” she said.

“That’d explain the arrow in his leg, sure,” Ned said. “What I meant was, how did it happen?”

He asked the question off-handedly, as if it was of no great consequence, but there was something in the way he asked it that made Maeve think that it had been asked anyway but off-handedly. She considered telling the man the truth but quickly dismissed the idea. For one, there were too many people around, people who might overhear her but, more than that, she knew that answering the question with the truth would only lead to more questions. Questions that would, in time, revolve around how Emille had come to be with Maeve, and as a woman who had spent the last fifteen years of her life in hiding, married to a husband who hated her and whom she hated in turn, Maeve understood the importance of secrets. In the end, she just shook her head. “Came out of nowhere.”

“That so?” the man asked, turning away from his wife at her labors for a moment and meeting Maeve’s eyes. The carriage driver might act like a good-hearted fool, but in that gaze Maeve could see that he, like his wife, was more than he let on.

“Yes,” she said. “Just flew out of the sky.”

“Huh,” he said. “Might be we ought to get underneath somethin’ then,” he said, still watching her. “You know, in case it decides to rain anymore arrows.”

“I…I don’t think it will,” Maeve said.

The man gave a single nod. “Well. S’pose that’s good then.” Then he turned away, back to his wife, and Maeve was glad to be relieved of the weight of his knowing stare. “She’s something, isn’t she?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” Maeve agreed as she turned back to regard his wife at her work, “she’s something.”

“So gentle,” he said, the words so low she didn’t know if he was talking to her or to himself, doubted even he knew. “So soft.”

Just then, the merchant let out a scream of pain, reaching as if he meant to interfere with Emille’s work. The woman didn’t even so much as pause, swatting his hands roughly away.

Ned grunted. “But hard, too. Soft and hard all at once.”

You have no idea, Maeve thought. But then, for all she knew, perhaps the carriage driver did. After all, the man, despite his attempts at appearing a fool, was clever. He was similar to Challadius in that regard. The thought of the mage sent a trill of panic through Maeve. Cutter might have survived this assassination attempt—no thanks to Maeve but all to Emille—but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be another. Assassins, in her experience, were a damned stubborn lot.

“Listen, Ned,” she said, “I have to go.”

The carriage driver turned to her again, raising an eyebrow. “Marvelous things to be about, eh?”

Maeve winced. “Something like that.” She leaned in close. “The guards will be by sooner or later, to ask questions about the arrow and all. I think it might be best if you and Emille weren’t here when they arrived.”

Ned nodded. “Might be you’re right. I’ll wait ‘til Emille finishes up here then we’ll leave.”

She gave a nod of her own then turned to go, stopping when the carriage driver grabbed her arm. “I wonder, Lady Maeve, if you wouldn’t mind tellin’ the prince, when you talk to ‘em, that I said hi?”

“Of course,” Maeve said, meeting the man’s eyes, and there was that clever look again, as if the man, while appearing casual on the surface, was thinking far more than he let on.

Ned smiled. “And tell him, too, that I meant what I said. If he needs me, or my wife, he has only to ask.”

Maeve’s first, uncharitable thought, was that with all that was going on with the kingdom, they needed warriors far more than they needed carriage drivers, but after a moment’s reflection, she decided that was wrong. The world, after all, could do with more carriage drivers, assuming they were anything like the one standing before her and also assuming that their wives were even half the women that his was. “Thank you, Ned,” she said softly, “truly.”

The man shrugged, as if it were of no consequence. “Well. I best go see if Emille needs any help, though like as not she’ll curse me for gettin’ in the way. Still,” he went on, grinning, “what are husbands for if not for bein’ there when their wives need to get some good cursin’ done, eh?”

And with that, he turned and walked away, kneeling beside his wife.

Maeve watched the two of them for a moment then with a smile turned and stepped into the crowd.