Cat winked back. “Being with her brother kills the romance too. Do you know what he threatened to do to anyone who paid any attention to his sister?”
Emily let out a silly little giggle, silently grateful–for once–that she wasn’t expected to make eye contact with anyone. The giggle was so childish that she would have instantly hated anyone who giggled like it if she’d met them at Whitehall. A little girl had no business giggling like that, let alone a grown woman. The contempt she saw in their eyes stung, even though it was an act. She had to remind herself, sharply, that she needed them to underestimate her.
“Yeah, yeah,” the leader said. “Have fun.”
The guards turned and strolled off. Emily stared after them, surprised. She’d expected worse, much worse. Perhaps Cat’s gormless act and her giggle had been more effective than she’d expected. Or, perhaps, the guards were too professional to amuse themselves with the locals. She wasn’t sure which option she preferred.
Cat took her hand again. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They didn’t speak again until they’d walked quite some distance up the riverbank and entered North Alexis. There were more guards on the streets here, patrolling houses and makeshift redbrick flats that were clearly only a few years old. Emily shuddered, remembering just how many of those tenement blocks had fallen down a year or two after they’d been built. It would be a long time before Cockatrice, let alone the rest of the country, developed the concept of planning permission to make sure that the buildings were structurally sound before construction actually started. No one was even sure where to begin.
Cat chuckled. “Idiots.”
Emily squeezed his hand. “They could have had us,” she said. “They were just too professional.”
“Yeah,” Cat agreed. “I was afraid they’d want to…have fun with you.”
“I know,” Emily said. Randor might have ordered his troops not to play games with the city’s womenfolk, but the men might not follow orders. “They didn’t, though.”
“No.” Cat shook his head. “What did you make of the fortress?”
Emily took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Impregnable, at least on the surface,” she said, slowly. “It would take a small army, with combat sorcerers, to take the fortress. And it would be bloody.”
“Very bloody,” Cat agreed. “We might be able to sneak through the water entrance, but I’d bet half the family fortune that they have that side sealed off tighter than a…tighter than a very tight thing.”
“Indeed,” Emily said, deadpan. She’d heard worse from her stepfather. “And we don’t happen to have an army.”
Cat let out a long breath. “And we don’t even know the layout inside. Did you not visit when you were a noblewoman?”
Emily shook her head. “Never,” she said. “The king never offered me a tour.”
“Their wards are brute-force affairs,” Cat said, after a moment. “Very crude, but very hard to break from the outside. I’d bet the rest of my family fortune that they have all the weak spots under heavy guard and some of the guards will be sorcerers. I don’t see how we can get inside.”
“Me neither,” Emily admitted. They could blast down the wards, if they could muster enough power, but it would require a dozen sorcerers working in unison and a carefully-prepared circle within bare meters of the target. Somehow, she doubted the guards would sit still and let them set up the ritual without intervening. “There has to be something.”
Cat shrugged. “We could let ourselves be taken prisoner…”
“The king would have us all killed within seconds,” Emily said, quickly. She could see the logic, but it was the sort of plan that worked better in stories than real life. “The ink wouldn’t get a chance to dry on the execution warrants before we were dead.”
“He’d have to be insane to kill you,” Cat said. “You’re popular. And your father would seek revenge.”
Emily scowled. Cat didn’t know Void wasn’t her father, but Randor did. He knew he had no reason to fear a Lone Power seeking revenge. And she doubted she was popular enough for the entire country to rise in her name. Cockatrice, perhaps. But one barony couldn’t take on the rest of the country and win.
“We’d be trapped, locked behind wards, chained to the walls and probably drugged,” she said, instead. There were plenty of ways to keep a sorcerer in a prison cell, with a little preparation. She had no doubt that Alassa was being drugged to keep her under control, even though there was a risk the potions would harm the baby. “I don’t think we’d have a hope of getting free.”
Cat looked disappointed. “So, what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “We’ll have to think about it.”
She tossed ideas around and around in her mind as they slowly started to circumvent the castle and make their way back to the inn. Brute force wasn’t going to work, unless they had an army…and they didn’t have an army. Jade and Cat could try to pose as a couple of guards, perhaps, but she had a feeling that everyone in the guard force knew everyone else. It was how she would have arranged it. And while they could use glamours or transfiguration spells to change their faces, there would probably be plenty of signs and countersigns to make sure that the newcomers were legitimate. Randor was a paranoid man with plenty of reason to be paranoid.
And he knows a great deal about what magic can do, she thought. Randor wasn’t a strong magician–Alassa was a great deal stronger–but he was cunning. And he knew enough to be extremely dangerous. He won’t have too many problems sealing all the holes.
Cat sucked in his breath. “More guards,” he said. “They’re blocking the road.”
Emily looked up, sharply. They were close to the far end of the Royal Mile…too close. The guards had set up a barricade, directing traffic away from the Royal Mile. They didn’t seem to be looking for anyone in particular, but…Emily cursed under her breath as she looked past the guards and saw the darkened building. The Assembly Hall looked as though it had been completely abandoned. It cost her a pang to see it, even though she hadn’t expected anything else. Randor had never liked the idea of being accountable to commoners–or anyone, really–and he’d taken advantage of the chaos to shut the Assembly down once and for all.
“We’ll take the long way around,” she said, as traffic flowed away from the Royal Mile. “I don’t want to risk getting any closer than we have to.”
“Understood,” Cat muttered. He spat on the ground. “What are we going to tell Jade?”
Emily winced. “The truth,” she said. There was no point in trying to lie to him. “He might have an idea.”
Cat tensed. “There’ll be someone in charge of the Tower,” he said. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. She hadn’t taken any interest in the Tower when she’d visited Zangaria for Alassa’s Confirmation. “But Cat, whoever it is will be very loyal.”
“We might be able to find a way to bribe them,” Cat said. His voice hardened. “Or even threaten them.”
“Maybe,” Emily said. Bribery was one thing, although she doubted they could scrape up enough money to induce a high-ranking nobleman to commit treason. Randor wasn’t fool enough to underpay his loyalists. But threatening their lives? Or their family’s lives? The thought was sickening. “We’ll have to work out who we’d have to influence first.”
“It’ll be someone close to the king,” Cat said. “What about his wife?”
Emily shook her head. “The Queen was unwell, the last I heard,” she said. In hindsight, it was clear that the Queen taking to her bed coincided with Randor’s affair with Alicia. “And I don’t think he let her have any real power.”
“We could kidnap the Queen,” Cat said. “Or the king’s brother. And then offer to trade.”
“I don’t think Randor would care,” Emily said. It was cold, very cold, but she suspected it was true. “He would see it more as a chance to remove a nuisance without getting the blame.”
“So?” Cat glanced at her. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. “I just don’t know.”
Chapter Fourteen