No one paid any attention to Anrel as he ambled away.
It was entirely possible that these watchmen had been given a description of the treasonous Alvos, or even been told Anrel’s real name, and yet had entirely failed to recognize Anrel as their target because they were looking for someone running or skulking, not a well-dressed fellow out for a stroll. After all, he had done nothing to disguise himself except to behave as if he could not possibly be their quarry.
He rounded a corner, walked up to the next street, then turned left. He made his way up that street, turned left again, and a moment later was approaching the docks once more, but from a different direction.
He paused in a doorway, where he doffed his hat and coat; then he walked onward—or rather, staggered. He stumbled, and stopped when he came within sight of the docks—and of a watchman guarding them. One watchman; Anrel had positioned himself carefully. He leaned against the wall of a warehouse and made a noise, a sort of retching sound. The watchman glanced over and noticed him.
Anrel beckoned.
He could see the guard hesitate.
“Officer of the watch?” Anrel called—not too loudly, as he did not want an entire crowd of them, and keeping his voice ragged, as if he had been injured.
The watchman glanced back toward the docks, then turned his attention to Anrel. He drew his sword and came trotting up the street. “Is something wrong here?” he called. Anrel was pleased to see that the man was roughly the same size and build as Anrel himself.
“That man—he took my coat and my bag,” Anrel said, pointing back to the street he had just come from. He put a hand to the side of his head and winced. “He hit me with . . . with something.”
“Where?” the watchman asked. “Where did this happen, and when?”
“Just now, around the corner there. He caught me off guard, the little thief.”
“Show me,” the watchman said, turning a wary gaze up the street.
“Around the corner.” Anrel pointed again.
The guardsman trotted up to the corner and peered around the bricks as Anrel came up behind him.
“Where?” he said again.
Whereupon Anrel pulled the dagger from his boot and brought the pommel down hard on the back of the watchman’s head, striking as hard as he dared. He did not want to kill the man, only to stun him.
To his surprise, the guardsman did not drop his sword, but he did stagger, somewhat dazed. Apparently, rendering a man unconscious was not as easy as the stories made it sound. Anrel hit him again, harder this time, and he went down.
Even as he delivered the blow, Anrel found himself marveling at what he was doing. He was not a violent man, and he had never thought of himself as a criminal, yet here he was, assaulting an innocent man—and not just any man, but a watchman. He had never done anything like this before.
He wished he had no reason to do it now, but it was already too late to turn back. He quickly pulled the sword from the fallen watchman’s hand, then grabbed his arms and dragged him around the corner, into the mouth of a narrow alley.
The man was still conscious, though dazed, so Anrel held the dagger to his throat. “One sound out of you,” he said, “and I’ll slit your gullet.”
The watchman said nothing; he merely blinked.
“Take off your clothes. Now,” Anrel ordered.
“I don’t . . .” The man’s words were slurred, and he was unable to finish the sentence; Anrel hoped his blows had not done any permanent damage. He set both sword and dagger aside, and set to stripping off the watchman’s uniform himself. The watchman did not resist, but sat limply as Anrel tugged at his garments.
By the time Anrel was done and dressed in the blue and white coat and breeches, the man’s grogginess was passing; he was sitting up in his underclothes and looking frightened.
“Just stay quiet and I won’t hurt you,” Anrel said, snatching up his stolen sword and holding it at the watchman’s throat. “Call out, and I’ll kill you.”
The watchman nodded. He remained silently cooperative as Anrel used his own belt to tie his captive’s wrists behind him, and then his own fawn breeches to bind the man’s ankles. Finally, he stuffed a handkerchief in the watchman’s mouth.
He made sure the bindings were as secure as he could make them, and that the man was well out of sight of the main street; he did not want the watchman getting loose or being found too soon.
Then he stood and finished buttoning and belting himself into the watchman’s uniform. He slid the sword back into the sheath on his stolen belt, and tucked the dagger back into his boot—the finely made weapon wasn’t something a real watchman was likely to have, but he could not bring himself to leave it behind.
He had kept his own boots. The watchman’s would not have fit properly; he could see that at a glance. He thought his own were similar enough to pass a casual inspection.
Once again fully dressed he stopped at that doorway to retrieve his velvet coat and traveler’s hat, which he stuffed into the watchman’s almost-empty rucksack. That rucksack might prove very convenient at some point, Anrel thought.
Aware that his captive might work his way free very quickly, Anrel wasted no more time. He clapped the watchman’s hat on his head and marched down toward the docks, deliberately letting his sword rattle.
As he entered the square several pairs of eyes turned toward him, and he spoke before anyone else could.
“Orders from Lord Neriam,” he said, as he marched toward the docks. “I’m to ride the next barge down and make sure none of the conspirators have gotten at the locks. Can’t afford to have the canal out of service.”
“I think we’d have seen if anyone did anything,” one of the other watchmen replied.
Anrel shrugged. “I didn’t give the orders. Take it up with the magistrates.” He looked at the barges. “Which one’s leaving next?”
For a moment no one answered; then a bargeman pointed, and Anrel strode briskly to the indicated craft. “Where can I stand?” he demanded, as he set one foot on the gunwale.
The crew of the barge all stopped what they were doing to stare at him; Anrel suppressed the urge to either run away or demand to know what they were staring at.
“I’m to ride down the canal with you,” he said. “Where can I stand?”
“Over there,” the tillerman replied, bemused. He gestured toward a clear space near the bow.
Anrel resisted the temptation to say thank you; it seemed out of character for his role. Instead he stepped down into the barge without another word and made his way to the spot the tillerman had indicated, where he would be out of the way of the four men with barge poles.
None of them spoke to him; they watched silently as he passed, then returned to their labors.
Anrel took up his position and stood there, looking conspicuously useless, as the crew finished loading the barge.
To every outward appearance he was calm, even bored, but in his heart Anrel was almost mad with impatience and worry—at any moment the watchman he had robbed might work his way free and come denounce Anrel as an imposter. Anrel wanted to shout at the men to hurry up, to get the barge moving, to get him out of the city, but he could not do so without giving himself away, so he forced himself to stand idle, weight on one leg, hands on his hips.
At last, though, the barge seemed to be full, yet no one made a move to push off. “What are you people waiting for?” he demanded.
“The lock’s still filling,” the nearest bargeman said smugly.
Anrel turned. Sure enough, the big doors were still closed, and the water beyond was still a couple of feet below the level of the basin.
“Right,” Anrel said. “Carry on.”
“Yes indeed, sir.” The bargemen exchanged amused glances. Anrel resisted the temptation to make some ill-tempered comment; it would have been in character, but he did not want to be drawn into any conversations, as they might go in directions for which he was not prepared.
Eventually the water level on both sides of the gates equalized, and the lockkeepers heaved at the beams, forcing the valves open. The tillerman barked an order, and the bargemen lifted their poles and pushed off.
Anrel watched with feigned indifference as the barge slid through into the lock, and the doors closed behind it. Up until now, if a band of watchmen had come after him, he could have jumped overboard and made a run for it. Once the spillways were opened, though, and the barge began to descend, the jump from barge to wall grew rapidly and steadily more difficult; if his deception was detected before the barge passed under the city wall he could easily be trapped.
“What was it you wanted to see, sir?” one of the forward bargemen asked.
Anrel turned to look at him. “What concern is it of yours?”
“Well, sir, we know the canal better than you do. I thought I might be able to point things out to you.”
Anrel considered that, then nodded. “Lord Neriam’s secretary heard a rumor that someone was cutting a hole down into the tunnel,” he said.
The bargemen exchanged glances. “You mean the passage under the city wall?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see how that would be possible, sir.”
Anrel allowed himself a smile. “I don’t, either,” he said, “but looking for signs of it is an easier way for me to earn today’s pay than fighting rioters in Aulix Square.”
“Rioters? Is that what all that noise was?”
Startled, Anrel asked, “You hadn’t heard?”
“The lieutenant said there was trouble, but he didn’t say what kind.”
“Oh. Then perhaps I shouldn’t, either.”
“But we’re on our way out of the city, sir—look, they’re opening the doors to the next lock. Poles up, boys!”
For the next few minutes the bargemen were too busy maneuvering their craft safely into the next compartment to ask any more questions, or listen to any more answers. Once the doors had closed behind them, though, they turned their attention back to Anrel.
“Now, sir, what’s this about rioters?” the nearest man asked. “Was it something about the grain shipments?”
“Grain? No, nothing like that,” Anrel said. “Just some damned idiot making ridiculous speeches and getting everyone stirred up.”
The clang of the spillway doors opening echoed from the stone walls of the lock, and Anrel looked up at the lockkeepers, standing a dozen feet above him. The sky had shrunk down to a rectangle, and as the water drained out from beneath them and the barge sank downward it contracted still further.
“Speeches?”
“About the Grand Council, I heard,” Anrel said. “I don’t know the details.”
“You said there were conspirators?”
“Must have been,” Anrel said. “Someone spirited our orator out of Aulix Square before he could be arrested. They say that the crowd in the square seemed organized, too, as if they had planned their actions in advance.” He hoped desperately that this didn’t contradict anything these people had heard earlier.
It seemed to satisfy the bargemen; they did not question him further, but merely watched the walls sliding up around them.
At last the roar of water through the spillways trailed off to nothing, and a moment later the doors ahead of the barge swung open. Four barge poles thumped against the walls of the lock, and the craft slid forward, into the third and final lock.
Anrel looked up at the lockkeepers, far above. Not much longer, and he would be safe. If his deception held until he was in the tunnel, that was all he needed.
The doors thumped shut behind them, and the lockkeepers opened the final spillways, which drained not into the lower canal, but into underground holding tanks, whence it could be pumped back up to refill the locks. Again, the barge descended.
No one seemed to have anything to say this time, though.
Finally the last pair of doors swung open, and the poles thumped on the walls, and the barge slid forward into the tunnel that led out of Naith. Anrel looked up at the lockkeepers one last time.
Someone shouted, and the lockkeepers all turned to see what was happening. Anrel guessed that his captive had finally freed himself. He started to say something to the bargemen, to urge them to greater speed, but he caught himself in time—they were through the doors, and there was no way the lockkeepers could stop the barge now. Closing the doors would merely speed them forward a little.
“Wonder what that’s about?” one of the bargemen said, glancing up.
“Nothing to do with us,” another replied, before Anrel could respond.
And then the barge slipped into the gloom ahead. The sky overhead vanished, taking the lockkeepers and the city watch with it, and the barge, its cargo, and the six men aboard it were surrounded by the arched stone of the tunnel. A half circle of daylight, perhaps a hundred feet away, provided most of the illumination and beckoned them onward.