inspection. He set the false stone down and retrieved a shuttered lantern from the stash. The hidey-hole held an extra set of picks, as well as a number of items unlikely to be welcome inside the palace proper: some caustic 49
R A Y M O N D E . F E I S T
agents, climbing equipment, and a few non-standard weapons.
Old habits died hard.
James lit the lantern. He had never considered keeping a lantern in the palace, for fear someone might observe him making the transition between the palace sewer and the one under the city. Guarding the secret of how the palace could be reached through the sewers was paramount. Every drawing on file in the palace, from the original keep through the latest expansion, showed the two systems as entirely separate, just as the city’s sewer was divided from the one outside the city walls.
But smugglers and thieves had quickly rendered royal plans inaccurate, by creating passages in and out of the city.
James trimmed the wick, lit it, and closed the shutters until only a tiny sliver of light shone, but it was enough for him to navigate his way safely through the sewer. He could do it with no light, he knew, but it would slow him down to a painful near-crawl to have to feel his way along the walls the entire way, and he had a good distance to travel this night.
James did a quick check to insure he had left nothing exposed for anyone to chance across. He considered the never-ending need for security which created this odd paradox: the Royal Engineers spent a lot of time and gold repairing the city’s sewers—and just as quickly the Mockers and others damaged them to have a furtive passage free of royal oversight. James often was the one responsible for identifying a new breach.
Occasionally he was guilty of hiding one, if it suited his purposes more than it compromised the palace’s security.
Thinking that there was a great deal more to being a responsible member of the Prince’s court than he had imagined when he had first been put in the company of squires, the former thief hurried on toward his first appointment.
50
K R O N D O R : T H E A S S A S S I N S
*
*
*
It was almost dawn when James started looking for his last contact. The squire was having trouble keeping his concerns in check. The first three informants he had sought were missing.
The docks were unnaturally silent, devoid of even the boisterous noise usually marking the area’s inns and taverns. The poor quarter was clearly a no man’s land, with many of the Mockers’
usual bolt-holes and accesses blocked off and sealed.
Of the Mockers, James had seen nothing. That alone was not completely unusual. He wasn’t the only one adroit at traveling through the sewers and streets unnoticed. But there was something different about this night. There were others who used the sewers. Beggars who weren’t Mockers had places where they could sleep unmolested. Smugglers moved cargo short distances from secret landings built into the larger outflows into the harbor to basements farther in the city. With such activities came noises: small, unnoticed unless one was trained to recognize them for what they were, but usually they were there.
Tonight everything was silent. Only the murmur of water, the scurrying of rats and the occasional rattle of distant machinery, waterwheels, pumps, and sluice gates echoed through the tunnels.
Anyone in the sewers was lying low, James knew. And that meant trouble. Historically, in times of trouble, the Mockers would seal off sections of the sewers, especially near the poor quarter, barring the passages to Mockers’ Rest, the place called
‘‘Mother’s’’ by members of the Guild of Thieves. Armed bashers would take up station and wait for the crisis to pass. Others not belonging to the guild would also hole up until the trouble passed. Outside those enclaves and safe areas, anyone in the tunnels was fair game. The last time James had remembered 51
R A Y M O N D E . F E I S T
such a
R A Y M O N D E . F E I S T
agents, climbing equipment, and a few non-standard weapons.
Old habits died hard.
James lit the lantern. He had never considered keeping a lantern in the palace, for fear someone might observe him making the transition between the palace sewer and the one under the city. Guarding the secret of how the palace could be reached through the sewers was paramount. Every drawing on file in the palace, from the original keep through the latest expansion, showed the two systems as entirely separate, just as the city’s sewer was divided from the one outside the city walls.
But smugglers and thieves had quickly rendered royal plans inaccurate, by creating passages in and out of the city.
James trimmed the wick, lit it, and closed the shutters until only a tiny sliver of light shone, but it was enough for him to navigate his way safely through the sewer. He could do it with no light, he knew, but it would slow him down to a painful near-crawl to have to feel his way along the walls the entire way, and he had a good distance to travel this night.
James did a quick check to insure he had left nothing exposed for anyone to chance across. He considered the never-ending need for security which created this odd paradox: the Royal Engineers spent a lot of time and gold repairing the city’s sewers—and just as quickly the Mockers and others damaged them to have a furtive passage free of royal oversight. James often was the one responsible for identifying a new breach.
Occasionally he was guilty of hiding one, if it suited his purposes more than it compromised the palace’s security.
Thinking that there was a great deal more to being a responsible member of the Prince’s court than he had imagined when he had first been put in the company of squires, the former thief hurried on toward his first appointment.
50
K R O N D O R : T H E A S S A S S I N S
*
*
*
It was almost dawn when James started looking for his last contact. The squire was having trouble keeping his concerns in check. The first three informants he had sought were missing.
The docks were unnaturally silent, devoid of even the boisterous noise usually marking the area’s inns and taverns. The poor quarter was clearly a no man’s land, with many of the Mockers’
usual bolt-holes and accesses blocked off and sealed.
Of the Mockers, James had seen nothing. That alone was not completely unusual. He wasn’t the only one adroit at traveling through the sewers and streets unnoticed. But there was something different about this night. There were others who used the sewers. Beggars who weren’t Mockers had places where they could sleep unmolested. Smugglers moved cargo short distances from secret landings built into the larger outflows into the harbor to basements farther in the city. With such activities came noises: small, unnoticed unless one was trained to recognize them for what they were, but usually they were there.
Tonight everything was silent. Only the murmur of water, the scurrying of rats and the occasional rattle of distant machinery, waterwheels, pumps, and sluice gates echoed through the tunnels.
Anyone in the sewers was lying low, James knew. And that meant trouble. Historically, in times of trouble, the Mockers would seal off sections of the sewers, especially near the poor quarter, barring the passages to Mockers’ Rest, the place called
‘‘Mother’s’’ by members of the Guild of Thieves. Armed bashers would take up station and wait for the crisis to pass. Others not belonging to the guild would also hole up until the trouble passed. Outside those enclaves and safe areas, anyone in the tunnels was fair game. The last time James had remembered 51
R A Y M O N D E . F E I S T
such a
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