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From the shadows of the storeroom, William watched as Tynsdale ducked out of the servants’ stairwell. Most people—even people who lived in the palace—didn’t know about the interstitial floors. They were dark and musty and cramped, with low ceilings and bare brick walls and odd little corners hung with cobwebs. But once you found them, you could get into any room in the palace.
The minute Colonel Rath had announced that the princess could leave the palace while escorted and receive any visitors she liked, William had taken to watching the stairways up to her apartment. He was curious to see who might take the chance to visit her. Today there had been that Immani woman, and William thought of how he had seen her in Hamstowe. It certainly seemed suspicious. And then, even more ominous, Sir Robert Tynsdale had shown up.
William jogged up the stairs and peeked carefully into the princess’s rooms. Embers smoldered in the hearth still, and muddy footprints marked where Tynsdale had stood. The girl was gone. A message, then, and one that had spurred her to sudden action. Something that had brought Tynsdale here on sodden country roads.
William shut the door gently and went back down, heading the same direction Tynsdale had. A housemaid passing in the cramped little corridor said she’d seen a man in muddy clothes go down a different stairwell, so William went out that way, and caught sight of Tynsdale sneaking over to the stables through the rain.
From there it was a relatively simple matter to follow the man. People came and went from the castle all the time, and William only had to hang back far enough that Tynsdale wouldn’t notice him. The wind drove the rain harder now, but that gave William an excuse to keep the hood of his cloak pulled low to hide his face.
From the castle hill, Tynsdale turned up Hafoc Street, past the mansions of the high nobility, then down Amund Street into the cathedral square. Even in the rain, there were crowds of people at this time of day, and William had to pay close attention not to lose the man in all the carts and carriages. Tynsdale went left, heading into Fleshmanger Street past all the butchers and slaughterhouses, then right onto Goodrow. William smiled—his guess had been correct. Tynsdale was turning this way and that, but his general path was northward. Up to the Ealdmund Docks and the ferries to Abertref and the road to Hamstowe.
On Torrent Street, almost within sight of the docks, William spotted some of Rath’s men taking shelter in the portico of the Leoffamskerke, the oldest church in the city. They knew him, and though they weren’t terribly pleased about having to go back out in the rain, they didn’t dare disobey him. They went off to the west to close the trap, while William continued to follow Tynsdale.
At the corner of Burnell Street, where many of the fishermen had market stalls, Tynsdale met up with a stocky, round-cheeked boy. A servant, perhaps? Or maybe a squire? The boy had another horse—a fresh one, no doubt—and what looked like some sort of wineskin. Tynsdale dropped some silver in the boy’s hand, and then they headed down the docks together, toward where people were already lining up for the next ferry.
They were almost there, when the soldiers came piling out of an alley and lowered their weapons. Tynsdale grabbed the boy’s arm and shouted for him to mount his horse. But then he looked up the docks and saw William approaching, sword drawn.
“Oh, Finster’s balls,” said Tynsdale.
“I think you’d better come with me,” said William.
At this time of day, the alleys near the docks were crowded with fishermen from the river, looking to get drunk or find some female company, so William and the soldiers took Tynsdale and the squire back to the churchyard of the Leoffamskerke, all the way to a lonely spot by the wall, where ancient holly bushes screened a little portico full of memorials to people who had been drowned and lost in the river. One of the soldiers had found some rope—not exactly hard to do on the docks—and they bound the two prisoners. The squire tried to struggle, but a quick punch to his kidneys dropped him to the ground. William pulled out his favorite dagger and tapped the flat of it against his palm.
“To be clear,” he said, “you’re going to answer my questions. It’s only a matter of time.”
Two soldiers held Tynsdale up against the marble face of a memorial plaque. “Remember I let you go,” he said. “I could have had you captured, but I didn’t.”
“I know,” said William. “And that’s why you’re not in the river right now.”
“We’re not going to talk,” cried the squire. “You can torture us all you want, but we’re not telling you where we were going.”
William turned to him. “I already know where you were going, son. You were going to see the Earl of Hyrne.” An obvious guess, but judging by the look of horror on the young squire’s face, he had thought this was some sort of grand secret.
“Let us go, William,” said Tynsdale. “This is all going to be over soon.”
“Indeed it will be,” William said. He spun the dagger around in his hand, turned swiftly, and punched Tynsdale in the gut with the pommel. Not as hard as he could have, but hard enough that Tynsdale’s legs gave out, and for a few seconds afterward, the soldiers on either side bore all his weight.
“Now, you took a message to the princess,” William whispered, leaning close. “And you rode fast to get here. So I’m guessing the Earl of Hyrne is headed this way.”
William hit him in the balls next, and then on the side of the head with the flat of the blade. He was nearly there; he knew it. But he didn’t know how close he was. All it took was pulling up one of Tynsdale’s sleeves and running the tip of the blade lightly along his forearm. Not even very deep, but deep enough to make a long, thin red line and send droplets of blood onto the marble tiles.
“Do you see that?” he said, turning to the squire. “That’s royal blood, you know. The blood of the Sigors. Some people say it’s a sin to spill it, but I have my doubts.”
“Oh, Earstien, stop!” said the boy, tears welling up in his eyes.
Tynsdale shouted at him to be quiet, not to tell anything, but William had the soldiers gag Sir Robert while he went and sat with the boy on the edge of the memorial portico and heard what he had to say.
Apparently the Earl of Hyrne was indeed coming south with his new army, and they were going to attack the city from two directions. One column, under Colonel Sir Vernon Goss, was coming down the broad highway along the River Colwinn, straight from Hamstowe, while the other, under the earl himself, was taking the curving farm lanes through the hill country north of Abertref. With luck, they would take boats across the Colwinn and the Trahern, and then they could strike Formacaster from the south and east. But they weren’t going to be lucky. Not anymore.
William patted the squire on the shoulder. “You’re a good boy. Your master won’t be happy with you, but you’ve done the right thing.”
One of the soldiers holding Tynsdale said, “Should we kill them now, sir?”
William considered the question as the squire quivered at his side, too scared now even to run away. “No. But take them to one of the guardhouses and don’t let them out until tomorrow.”
He started off, but before he was halfway across the rainy churchyard, Tynsdale apparently got his gag loose, and he shouted, “We’re even now, William. Next time I see you, there won’t be any mercy.”
William bowed. “I look forward to the meeting, Robert.” Then he got his horse and rode hard for the castle.