*
‘Falcio?’
I opened my eyes. ‘Shit. How long was I asleep?’
‘Just a couple of minutes,’ Aline said. ‘I wanted to let you rest but I think I heard something.’
I got to my feet and listened. Nothing. Not for the first time, I wished my hearing was more acute.
‘It’s there,’ she said, and then I heard it: soft shoes on stone, climbing to the roof.
‘Damn,’ I said. I pulled out the bracer of knives and handed it to Aline. ‘Same thing as before,’ I said. ‘Stay four paces behind me.’
I pulled both my rapiers out. The roof was a wide-open space, and I could use that to advantage.
They came, eight of them, dark as shadows across the roof. Hells, I never should have let myself fall asleep. We should have kept on the move.
‘Put your swords down or we’ll gut you,’ came a voice from the north edge of the building. It was strangely pitched: was it a woman?
‘I’m fairly sure you’ll gut me whether I put my swords down or not,’ I shouted back. ‘So I might as well bleed you and your friends first.’
‘Not if you put those nice blades down, along with any money you’ve got, and leave our territory,’ the voice replied.
Territory? Then they weren’t Shiballe’s men?
‘I’m afraid we don’t have much in the way of money, and I’m rather in need of these swords of late. How about if we just leave and you can keep your territory?’
I heard Aline gasp, and then made out the sound of someone climbing up the wall right behind us.
‘Tell your man he’s about to learn secrets only the dead know,’ I said, keeping my left point up and taking two steps back to the ledge with my right-hand blade ready to sweep. Something whizzed by my right leg and skipped off the ledge. It wasn’t an arrow, nor a bolt. Could it have been a sling-stone? I heard a stunned cry from behind me.
‘Boxer, y’fool! I told’ja not to try that again. Get the hells back down and keep watch!’ the leader shouted past me.
‘Can’t! My foothold broke! Somebody help me up!’ said the scared voice. This one was high-pitched too.
‘Look, no point anyone dying who doesn’t have to,’ I called out. ‘How about you don’t shoot at me and I give your little friend a hand up?’
‘Call me “little”, you son-of-a—’
‘Shut it, Boxer!’ The leader came a few feet forward, and the others joined him: kids. They were all bloody kids no older than Aline. There was a dog with them too, a Sharpney, by the look of him, a big, fast breed that made excellent hunting dogs. I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill him.
‘You try anything funny and the girl dies first,’ the leader said. He was about thirteen, and I could make out a shock of straight hair above a dirty face. ‘And if you get advantage on one of us, Mixer here will tear your throat out.’ He motioned to the dog.
‘Typical,’ said one of the others, this one clearly a girl. ‘You always try to hit girls first, Venger.’
‘Shut it,’ he said. ‘No foolin’; you let Boxer up and then y’put down your sword or there’s gonna be trouble.’ The dog let out a low rumble in agreement. ‘Mixer, stay,’ he said firmly.
I smiled, put down my left-hand sword and stepped back. I held my hand over the edge and felt something grab it and tentatively try to pull me over, but I was well-grounded and ready for it.
‘Try that again and I’ll drop you, you little shit-eater,’ I said in as pleasant a tone as I could muster.
‘Boxer! Don’t mess around,’ Venger said angrily.
‘A’right,’ Boxer said.
I hauled him up one-handed – not as hard a task as it might have been if he’d weighed more than air. What I saw when I pulled him in front of me was another scrawny, dirty-faced boy, probably ten years old.
‘Y’gonna try and hold me hostage now, bastard?’ Boxer said, clearly readying an elbow for my groin.
I pushed him forward and off-balance and he fell to his knees a few feet between me and the kids.
‘What now?’ I asked.
Venger looked me up and down. ‘You can go, I s’pose, what with Boxer bein’ such a fool turd. But you leave the money. And if you value any part of your life you take that coat off and leave it too,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘That won’t do, I’m afraid; I need them all. What would you do with a Greatcoat, anyway? It’s bigger than you are.’
Venger sneered. ‘Burn it,’ he said.
It’s nice to be so widely loved. ‘Don’t like Greatcoats?’
‘Don’t like fools that dress up as ’em,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows there ain’t no Greatcoats no more.’
‘He is, too,’ Aline said, stepping out from behind me and leaping to my defence.
‘Shut up, girl,’ Venger said, ‘you don’t know nothin’ ’bout it.’
That got Venger a slap in the back of the head from one of the girls in his group. ‘Stop pickin’ on girls all the time, Venger,’ she warned.
‘Ow! I’m not. She’d be wrong if she was a boy, too.’
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘my name is Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the King’s Magisters. I’m trying very hard right now to keep this girl alive, and there are a lot of people after me. So you can either take my word that I’m a Greatcoat and get the hells out of our way, or I can take you over my knee and spank you ’til you can’t see straight. Now take your pick.’
That got a few snickers from his friends, but to his credit, he ignored the jibe and kept to business. ‘If you’re a Greatcoat, then answer me this: how come you let the armies kill the King if you’re all supposed to be such tough fighters? How come every one of you betrayed their old Paelis?’
‘Because the Greatcoats were ordered to stand down and accept the Covenant. It was an order.’
‘Yeah? An’ who gave ’em the order?’
‘I did,’ I said.