‘Fit’s that thaur?’
Pegy’s northern Braid, faint and muffled through the thick timber of the door, permitted Hal to breathe again. He told Pegy who he was and heard the excited rush of murmurs from the others, but found that the door was thick, stout and locked. According to Pegy, Do?a Beatriz had the key. Fretting and sweating, he promised them he would return and slid back into the shadows.
No guards; no sign of life. Perhaps, Hal thought, Piculph has done his work after all – there was a whirring sound and he ducked instinctively, throwing himself flat on the tiles. After a moment, when nothing else happened, he climbed back to a low crouch, heard a soft fluting call and perched, bewildered.
Light flared like a blast of icy breath and bobbed through the open door, a torch held in Sim’s big hand, so that Hal, blinking blindly into it, knew he was caught in a half-crouch, sword ready.
‘Whit why are ye hunkered there?’ Sim boomed and Hal sprang up.
‘Whisht, you – I heard something.’
Sim peered round, raising the sconce torch higher.
‘There is nobody …’ he began, then the whirr and the soft call came again, making Hal cry out.
‘Cooshie doos,’ Sim exclaimed with a bark of laughter. ‘Ye are hiding from the attentions o’ some cooshie doos.’
Hal realized Sim was right and that the high-roofed place had doves in it, though the next thought that struck him was where had they come from? He was too embarrassed to mention that as he straightened up and gave Sim a vicious glance.
‘Yer arse back in order?’ he demanded and Sim scowled, angry and ashamed.
‘For the minute,’ he admitted, ‘though I am black-affronted.’
‘Black-behinded as well, I am sure.’
Sim’s reply was interrupted by a dove which fluttered down, tame as a lap dog, and strutted into the torchlight in a hopeful search for food.
‘Cooshie doo,’ he declared with a triumphant grin. Hal scowled back. Doves did not fly in the dark normally, which he mentioned. Nor did they spontaneously bleed, which brought Sim’s head round to study the bird more carefully; it hopped and flapped up but there was time enough to see the pink staining on one wingtip.
Then, in the lip of light expanded by Sim holding up the torch at arm’s length, they both saw the limp white hand beyond.
Do?a Beatriz had died quickly, struck from behind by a single blow from a blade that had sliced upwards off her shoulderblades and cracked open her skull; her hair lay like dead wet snakes in the spreading darkness of blood.
‘Backhand stroke wi’ a broadsword,’ Sim growled, waving away the flies greedy for gleet. ‘She was running, which spoiled the aim – planned to swipe her head off her neck but missed.’
‘Piculph?’ Hal suggested, bemused, but Sim had run out of knowledge and merely shrugged, winced and massaged his belly, trying not to look as Hal, swallowing his own spit hard, fumbled in the stiff, bloody ruin of the woman’s body.
‘No key,’ he declared finally, smearing the back of his clean hand across his sweat-moist lips.
They moved towards the faint pale glow, unnerved enough now for Sim to stub out the torch on the tiles, pressing his boots on the embers, swift and silent, as a prudent man would who had known only rush floors and wood surrounds; the acrid stink of the smoke trailed them towards the light.
There was a door, open just enough to let out the faintest of glows, an alarmed dove which flew off in a rattle of wings – and a faint, regular heartbeat of sound which paused them both and brought their heads together.
‘A wee fountain,’ Sim hissed, his breath foul in Hal’s face.
‘A horologe,’ Hal replied, having seen the ticking wonder of gears and cogs that had been mounted in Canterbury. Sim, who had only heard of such a thing, looked sceptical as they slid, fast and quiet, into the room.
The light came from the moon, which was almost straight above and shining through a roof tight-slatted with wooden beams, but otherwise open – Hal realized they were inside the tower he had seen from the outside and that this view of it was as strange.
The floor was earth and blue-tiled meandering paths, spattered with white splashes where it was not thick with exotic plants. A pool dominated the centre and the walls, all around, top to bottom, were pocked with regular square niches, as tall and wide as two fists one on top of the other; even as he stood and gaped, Hal heard the flute-note call that was now familiar.
It was the sprung stones, girdling the entire thing at waist height like a belt, that finally clicked it into place for the pair of them.
‘A doocot,’ Sim marvelled. It was exactly that: the sprung stones to keep the rats from climbing up to the eggs and squabs; the slatted roof to keep the hawks from the same, while allowing the doves in and out. Yet something had killed a couple of birds, their bodies splayed like orchids veined with blood. The ticking was louder.