Their final stop before the court was a small town at the river’s edge. It was divided into two distinct districts, one full of expensive-looking inns and shops, set well back from the water, and one built on and around a network of docks. They disembarked and made their way to an inn on the edge of the wealthy district, where Marguerite bespoke a private dining room.
Once inside, Shane was surprised and a trifle appalled when Marguerite began to strip.
“Uh,” he said.
“Turn your back,” said Marguerite, digging into one of her trunks. “We’re only staying here long enough to turn Wren into a noble and me into a luxury merchant.” She shared an exasperated glance with Wren. “He doesn’t have to change, the lucky sod.”
Shane turned his back and gazed at the wall, trying to ignore the sounds of sliding fabric behind him. He told himself that they might be coming from Wren, and since picturing Wren naked would be tantamount to incest, he managed to hold off any inconveniently erotic images.
“You can turn around,” said Wren, after a few minutes. “We’re decent.”
“Well, as decent as we’re likely to get,” Marguerite added.
He turned around. Wren was wearing something green that was probably fashionable. It had ruffles, anyway, and no one would wear ruffles if fashion wasn’t involved somehow. Marguerite was dressed much as she always was, except that the fabric was of far higher quality and the bodice was cut rather lower. A panel of lace across her cleavage was presumably supposed to provide modesty, but in Shane’s opinion, it was not doing a very good job.
Why did he not own a hairshirt?
“Right,” said Marguerite cheerfully. “And now a carriage, and into the lion’s den.”
The carriage ride took nearly an hour, and by the end of it, Shane’s teeth were beginning to ache from being rattled around in his skull. He rode with the Bishop often enough, to and from court appearances, and he was rather surprised at the difference between cobblestone streets and the road.
Marguerite laughed when he confessed this. “Possibly, but I’d bet money that the Bishop’s carriage has quite good springs, compared to this rattletrap.”
Shane tried not to bridle at the implication. “I cannot imagine that the Bishop would waste money on such a frivolous luxury.”
“Frivolous?” Marguerite’s eyes had a wicked gleam. “She takes that carriage to court, does she not? To meet with the Archon and visiting dignitaries, to make official appearances on behalf of the Rat, that sort of thing?”
Shane nodded. As the Bishop’s guard detail, he had been to more official appearances than he could count, and was always a trifle astonished that Beartongue had no difficulty remembering the name and rank of everyone she was introduced to.
“Tell me, what makes a better impression—stumbling out with your hair mussed and your bones rattled and your stomach roiling, or sweeping in without a hair out of place, looking entirely in control of the situation?”
“Huh.” Shane had to stop and think about that one. Obviously the Bishop had to look…well…bishop-like, whatever that meant. Possibly an investment in that was not frivolous after all.
“Her robes are very carefully tailored, too, even though they look like standard clerical wear for the Rat. She’s not actually as tall as she looks, it’s all done with strong lines. Her vestments are about a half-inch narrower than the norm. All of which adds to the impression she’s trying to convey. Like the carriage.”
He wondered how on earth Marguerite had learned all that. Perhaps spies simply notice these things. Or she went through the Bishop’s laundry. “I admit that had not occurred to me.”
“Of course it didn’t. You’re a paladin.” Marguerite patted his arm. “Physical privation is practically one of your hobbies.”
Wren laughed. “We’re not that bad. I mean, it’s not like we enjoy bad food and dumping ice cold water over our heads at dawn. It just works out that way sometimes.”
“I enjoy hot baths,” said Shane. “And…err…food…”
Both women looked at him. Wren shook her head sorrowfully. “Poor bastard wouldn’t know a spice if it drew steel on him,” she murmured to Marguerite.
“It’s probably not his fault. Raised wrong, I expect.”
“I use pepper,” muttered Shane, stung. “And salt.”
He looked up into identical expressions of pity and decided to stare out the window instead.
“Speaking of salt and jobs associated with it,” said Marguerite, following his gaze, “I believe we’re here.”
They disembarked from the carriage by the shores of a narrow lake. Mountains framed the water on three sides, casting extraordinary reflections that were only slightly marred by wind ruffling the water. Towering above them, battlements raking the sky, stood an immense fortress. It looked ancient and immovable and as if it had been hewn from the living rock itself.
It was also painted bright purple.
“Goodness,” said Wren, craning her neck. “That’s certainly…uh…vivid.”
Careful inspection revealed that the fortress was actually painted in shades of red and blue. One immense tower was ringed with alternating bands, but the colors were so intense that they seemed to vibrate against each other, turning into a violet blur.
“They re-paint it depending on who’s hosting,” said Marguerite.
“Hosting?”
“Footing the bill. This year I think it’s Lord Guillemot, so those are his colors. This isn’t bad. One year Lady Millhaven shared hosting with the Merchant’s Guild of the Dowager’s City, and the place was done up in orange checkerboard on one half and green stripes on the other.” Marguerite flagged down a man in livery standing nearby. “Three for the Court.” Coins exchanged hands and he began carting away their trunks. Marguerite picked up a single bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Right.” She dusted her hands. “We walk from here.”
There was a nicely paved footpath leading toward the fortress. Shane guessed that all the wagon traffic went elsewhere. This was borne out a moment later, when they passed a large dock jutting into the lake, which seemed to be for loading and unloading river traffic. A second dock extended out past it, with boats bobbing at anchor, but without the bustle of activity.
“So who rules this place?” he asked. “Is it whoever is hosting?”
“Mmm. Technically we are on the land of the princes of Alta, and no, there is no reason you should have heard of them.” Marguerite waved a hand generally cliffward as she explained that generations of princes had ruled the fortress, which controlled the side of the lake that the river drained from, which was, by orders of magnitude, the easiest route into the highlands. Surrounded by high crags and questionable mountain passes, without a great deal of arable land to feed themselves, the princes instead levied taxes on goods passing through.
In the distant past, various kingdoms had either objected to or envied these taxes, and attempted to take the fortress away, which meant that the Prince of Alta had to command a rather large standing army. Of course taxes went even higher whenever there was an attack—and the princes made sure that everyone knew the reason why. Rulers who challenged the fortress rapidly found themselves facing both the sheer cliff, the army, and a great many merchants who were very displeased about suddenly being taxed in excess of fifty percent to use the river.
Attacking Alta entered the vocabulary as slang for a self-defeating plan, and no one had attacked the fortress in over a century.
“The last few princes didn’t feel the need to keep up the full army,” Marguerite said. “Which left them with a fortress full of empty rooms. The grandfather of the current prince started inviting his friends over in the summer, and then a few more friends, and so forth. But it gets expensive to host that kind of party—nobles cost almost as much as armies—so the next Prince graciously allowed people to curry favor with him by footing the bill, and the Court of Smoke was born.”
“So we would be subject to the judgment of this prince in the event of an incident?” asked Shane.
“Define incident.”
“Somebody takes an axe to the face,” offered Wren.
“The guards would frown on that, yes,” said Marguerite. “Both the Prince and the hosting lords prefer that things run as smoothly and as…ah…incident-free as possible.” She glanced from one paladin to the other. “There aren’t going to be any lawyers or trials here. The nobility resolves things with sanctioned dueling. People like us are either thrown in a cell or evicted from the fortress.”
“So no axes?”
“Not unless you can do it without being caught.”
The footpath turned and the shadow of the mountain fell over them. The temperature instantly dropped. Shane tilted his head back to try to estimate the height of the violet fortress. and gave up somewhere at really quite tall.
“This is gonna be a lot of stairs,” muttered Wren.
“No, no. There’s a lift. They don’t make nobility climb like pilgrims.”
“Oh,” said Wren glumly, “joy.”
Shane winced internally. Wren was fearless about virtually everything, but she did not have a terribly good head for heights. It was probably too much to hope for that the lift was enclosed. He bumped her shoulder in wordless support.
“I’ll be fine,” she muttered. “It’s fine as long as I’m not actually looking down.”
Despite the brave words, she turned a bit green at the sight of the lift, which was a fragile-looking confection of wicker, though large enough to hold a dozen people. From the ropes and pulleys overhead, Shane guessed that it functioned the same way as any other lift. Somewhere inside, there was probably a donkey on a treadmill supplying the power.
The attendant waved them inside and closed the little half-door, latching it. “Don’t lean out of the windows,” he recited in a bored monotone. “Don’t try to climb anything. Don’t light any fires, not to cook, not to warm up, not at all.”
“Do people actually try to cook in this thing?” asked Shane, aghast.
“Sir,” said the attendant, “I have seen people do things that you cannot possibly imagine.” He grabbed a pull-rope and tugged, and a moment later, the lift swung aloft.
“Hooooooo boy,” said Wren, retreating to the side closest to the wall and closing her eyes.
Shane took her hand. She gave him a wan smile, not opening her eyes. Marguerite stood at the window opposite, looking across the view with interest, but didn’t say anything.
The trip up only took about five minutes, but Shane suspected that for Wren, it seemed like a lot longer. The ascent would run smoothly for a few moments, then there would be a series of short, jerky motions, then it would settle down again. At one point a gust of wind set the basket swaying and Wren turned fishbelly white.
“It’s fine,” said Shane, using the paladin’s voice. “All will be well. We’re nearly there and we don’t need to come back down again unless you decide to go horseback riding.”
“Not unless they bring the horse up to me.”
“I suspect that attendant has seen it happen before.”
Marguerite caught Shane’s eye and glanced at Wren, lifting one eyebrow. He shook his head at her. Wren would be fine once she was back on solid ground, he knew, and having Marguerite appear to notice would only deepen her future embarrassment.
At last the basket jerked to a halt. Another attendant opened the door and motioned them out. “We’re here,” Shane said, tugging on Wren’s hand.
“Right,” she said, taking a deep breath. She stepped out of the lift, eyes straight ahead. Marguerite followed, with Shane bringing up the rear.
They stepped through an archway into an unexpectedly broad courtyard, the fortress rising on all four sides around it. The courtyard was a hive of activity, porters moving trunks and servants in a dozen different shades of livery running on errands of their own. None of them seemed bothered by the fact that they were so far up, not even when the wind came whistling through the archway behind them, cutting through Shane’s surcoat like a knife and tugging Marguerite’s cloak loose from her shoulders.
“Ack!” Marguerite fumbled and nearly dropped her bag. Shane caught the cloak as it slid and tugged it back up her shoulders, re-fastening the pin. Marguerite looked up at him with a rueful smile. “I need an extra set of hands.”
“Don’t we all,” he said automatically, but what he truly noticed was that when his fingertips accidentally brushed the side of her throat, she shivered. Just a little. Hardly noticeable, unless it was your job to watch someone for the smallest sign.
If he had been the paladin that he was supposed to be, he would have thought nothing of it. It’s the cold, nothing more. But he was twice a failure, and so he smoothed the edge of the cloak down and let the back of his knuckles trace the barest line against her skin.
Almost imperceptibly, he felt her shiver again.
Marguerite’s eyes met his with a faint, puzzled smile. Something dark and hot flared inside him. Something hungry. He wanted to stroke his finger along the line of her jaw and see if his touch truly had the power to make her tremble.
And who are you to even think such things? Are you that eager to add her name to your long list of failures?
He was not the paladin that he was supposed to be, but neither was he completely lost. He stepped back, gave her a little bow, and turned away.
Probably it was just the cold anyway.