Chapter One

Part Three

Escape

This morning I'd been the happiest woman in the world.

Now, as evening clothed the Great Castle in darkness, I was being marched off in the direction of the dungeons by a pair of guards who looked as if they had some gorillas swinging from their family tree. Life can move fast, and right now mine was moving downwards both literally and figuratively as we descended through the castle.

Glancing around me, I performed a swift mental risk assessment: the guards were bigger than I was, presumably well-trained, and seemed to be made of concrete, plus, if I tried to make a break for it now, then I'd be doing so in the heart of a busy castle filled with other guards. On the other hand, once people entered those dungeons, they seldom emerged alive.

We approached the heavy oak door, strapped with thick bands of iron, that led to what many called the Final Staircase.

I wasn't going down there. And that meant it was now or never.

Not so long ago, I'd decided to quit my job—something other people do all the time in various professions but I'd been brought up and schooled to be one thing; an assassin. The Assassins' Guild in the town of Crammer was the only home I'd known for the first eighteen years of my life. I had no idea how I'd arrived there and had never really thought about leaving. I'd trained and learned and become an expert assassin, with one small gap in my education; I hadn't yet killed anyone. Master Nicolo of Woodfall Gath was to have been my first assignment, my first kill. Instead, he'd become my first crush, my first infatuation, and my first love. I fell in love with him and, against the odds, he'd fallen in love with me.

That was then, though, and this was now.

Of course, at the time he hadn't known I'd been sent here to end his life, and when he found out? Well, it was safe to say he hadn't taken it as well as I would have liked. In fact, it was Nicolo who'd ordered me to be thrown into the castle dungeons.

Relationships have gotten over worse.

It suited me to make jokes about the whole rotten situation because, on the inside, my heart was breaking and the only thing that was keeping me together was having something else to focus on. Specifically; not being slowly tortured to death in the dungeons of King Balduin.

Balduin was Nicolo's closest friend. Although it would be fair to call their friendship a ‘complicated' one as it was also Balduin who had hired the Assassins' Guild to kill Nicolo. He'd no doubt been pretty upset when he learned I'd failed to kill his ‘friend', yet he'd rolled with the punches and put the blame on me for the recent assassination of the Old Queen, whom Nicolo had loved like a mother. To my dismay, Nicolo had sided with the new king.

I suppose I couldn't really blame him; it's hard to trust the assassin sent to kill you. Even if she does love you. And that was the God's honest truth—I loved Nicolo.

Again, it really had been a whirlwind of a day, and up until an hour ago, I'd still been optimistically thinking that Nicolo and I might have a future together. That looked a lot more doubtful now.

But I still wanted it, I still loved him, and I longed for the chance to properly explain myself and to prove to him that his friend, the newly crowned king, was in fact his worst enemy.

All the while, I couldn't help but wonder: what would happen to Nicolo with me gone and him now at Balduin's mercy?

That was an important question, but perhaps at this exact moment, I should have been more concerned with what was about to happen to me.

The lock on the big door screamed as the guard turned his key in it.

"You should oil that," I suggested.

The guard grinned the grin of a sadist who has unexpectedly lucked into his perfect job. "Just wanted to give you a preview of the noises you'll be making before long."

Beyond the door was the Final Staircase, even more dark and ominous than the name might suggest, lit only by flickering torches. It looked like Hell's service entrance, and I again decided it wasn't for me.

"I think, on the whole, I'd just as soon not go down there."

The sadistic guard leered. He clearly liked it when people struggled against the inevitable. "What you like doesn't have any reflection on what's going to happen to you."

I rocked my head from side to side. "I'm a modern, independent woman, I prefer to take charge of my own destiny."

The guard snorted. "Modern woman? You hear that, Caldock?"

The guard behind me, who still had a hold of one of my arms, laughed snufflingly to himself.

"Modern women," the sadist continued. "They all want to be treated as equals until there's a door to be opened, then it's like they've got no hands. Modern women? They say ‘ treat me with respect ' but a good slap in the mouth and they're eating out of your hand. Or your lap if you're lucky. Eh? Eh?"

The snuffling laughter from behind again.

"Modern women?" It seemed as if the guard had some stuff to get off his chest and enough material to do a set in the local theatre. "My girl started on me about listening to her–I put her across my knee and gave her damn good hiding. I listened to her then, alright. So did the neighbors. Howled like a bitch, she did. That's how a real man treats a woman. Keep her in her place." Then he looked at me again, as if just reminded he was leading me to my doom. "But you'll get worse than that down there."

I shrugged. "I think the very least a ‘real man' could do is go ahead of me to make sure it's safe."

"What?"

I reached back over my head to grab the guard behind me and use him as a pivot to execute an arcing cartwheel kick that caught the wife-beating sadist nicely under the chin and sent him tottering backwards while I landed with balletic grace behind the other guard. For a moment, the sadist balanced perfectly on the edge of the top step, caught between two possible futures. I decided to make the decision for him by kicking his friend directly into him, sending both cascading down the hard, stone steps, ass over elbow, in a chaos of bumping, clanking, and cries of pain.

Frankly, I rather hoped the sadist wouldn't live all the way to the bottom, figuring I was doing his girl a favor.

Moving quickly, I closed the door and locked it, then dashed away down the corridor. As I'd already learned today, things moved fast in the Great Castle and it wouldn't be long before the alarm was raised. Nicolo wanted me dead because I'd broken his heart (and he thought I'd killed the queen and tried to kill him), Balduin wanted me dead because I was the only one who knew the truth—that he'd hired an assassin to kill Nicolo (plus he just didn't seem to like me—I suppose I am an acquired taste).

Nicolo and I had arrived earlier today from a month-long time away to find his long-lost mother—a mission that had been successful and given Nicolo a new family in the remote village of Simnel. It had also been there that Nicolo and I had finally succumbed to our feelings for each other and fallen in love. It had been an idyll, and it had been a serious shock to come back and find the vast Castle Complex of Woodfall Gath under the new management of King Balduin, and under a nightly curfew that Balduin had imposed. Right now though, I was glad of that curfew as it seemed to extend even to the Great Castle itself. It wasn't yet that late, but corridors that would usually be, if not bustling then at least busy with courtiers, nobles, and servants, were empty as I fled along them.

But, of course, guards are not subject to curfews because they're needed to enforce them. And when they see someone running, guards only ever have one reaction.

"Stop in the name of the King!"

I hadn't been going to stop anyway, but there was no way I was stopping in the name of Balduin. On the other hand, I was currently unarmed and could think of only one way to get hold of a weapon quickly.

I rounded a corner, skidded to a halt and once the guard was close enough, threw myself into a flying kick that landed the bottom of my foot right into the guard's face. He fell back, directly into his floored colleague. Knocking out the other guard by bouncing his head off the wooden floor, I helped myself to a sword just in time to defend myself as the first one scrambled back to his feet.

The guards in the Great Castle were well-trained, but their training didn't compare to the training I'd received and while they lumbered in their uniforms, I was as quick as a cat, ducking and weaving around my opponent's blade. With a deft flick of my blade, I disarmed the guard and saw the look of cold terror cross his face. A kick to the stomach doubled him over and I brought the sword hilt down on top of his head sharply, rendering him neatly unconscious. In the Guild, I'd been taught not to kill if I didn't have to (or if I wasn't getting paid for it) and out in the real world, I'd swiftly learned that killing unarmed men didn't sit well with me. Maybe I'd never been cut out to be an assassin.

The sadist earlier was different though—he'd deserved whatever was coming to him. He might also have survived the fall.

Though I no longer considered myself an assassin, I did feel a lot safer and more comfortable with a sword in my hand as I stole through the torch-lit corridors of the Castle's interior. For a few moments, I paused to take stock of my surroundings. Ideally, I wanted to find Nicolo and talk to him, to tell him the truth and convince him that I still loved him and would never have killed him, just as I'd had no hand in the Old Queen's death. But trying to insist on my innocence hadn't gone well the last time I'd tried it and perhaps Nicolo just needed a little time to cool off. If he called the guard on me again, then I doubted he'd take any chances this time.

No. Much as I wanted to speak to him, out was the only viable direction.

What now then?

Well, one thing at a time.

Finally, I reached one of the upper landings, lined with windows looking out over one of the castle courtyards. Now, if I could just get out without being noticed…

"This way! She went this way!"

Or not.

I could hear the pounding of footfalls up the stairs behind me and more from up ahead. It didn't take long for word of my escape to spread in the Great Castle and with Balduin instituting his own reign of terror, the guards were motivated as never before, fearing their lives might be forfeit if they failed to track me down.

I felt sorry for them, but I wasn't about to sacrifice myself for their benefit. Rushing to the window, I opened it and stepped out onto a ledge and into the cool night. The wall fell away below me, the courtyard what seemed like miles beneath. Before me, the rooftop landscape of the Gath stretched on endlessly, briefly reminding me what a vast and incomparably beautiful place Woodfall Gath could be if you looked at it right. But now wasn't really the time.

"We've got her cornered!"

With a light spring, I caught a crenelation of shaped stone and pulled myself up. I began to scale the wall, something I'd done a hundred times before, and yet it was always different when someone was trying to kill you. Not least because…

An arrow clattered onto the stonework next to me, fired by one of the guards on the skirting wall that encircled the Great Castle.

"That was close. Try again."

The important thing was not to panic. Panicking didn't help in situations like this. Nothing did. So, the only thing you could do was trust luck and keep climbing as fast as you could so the archers couldn't get a bead on you.

More arrows.

"A gold piece to the man who hits her."

Great, as if they needed more motivation.

With a final effort, I grabbed the gutter that ran around the roof and hauled myself up as more arrows fell around me.

"Damn it she's slippery!"

Now on top of the roof, I was free to move a bit more quickly, running as fast as I could, then launching myself into the air, feeling for a moment that wild joy of freedom in which you feel like a bird, right before gravity kicks in.

"By the great god!"

Part of the game was keeping the guards guessing, and apparently they hadn't expected me to jump.

Reaching into the lining of my jacket, as the air rushed past my face, I brought out a slim rope and lightweight grappling hook which I twirled as I fell. This was a high-risk strategy, true, but I couldn't rely on the archers missing me all night, even now when they thought I was falling to my death, arrows still whizzed past me.

The grappling hook snagged and I felt the line go suddenly taut in my hands as I swung, arcing upwards towards another roof, close to the perimeter wall.

"Where is she?"

"Damn it! I can't see her in this light. Bring torches!"

"What good's that? She's all the way over there!"

My swing through the night air reached its apex, and I let go of the line, dropping a dicey ten feet to land, rolling as I did so, onto the next roof.

"I heard something over there!"

I could hear the arrows landing, but they no longer seemed to be anywhere near me. I'd lost my attackers somewhere in that unexpected leap, swing, and drop into nothing. Keeping low, I ran along the roof, making as little sound as possible. I was close to the skirting wall now and beyond that was the convoluted mass of Woodfall Gath, one endless run of hiding places. Would they pursue me beyond the wall? I hoped not.

"There!"

A whoosh roared past my ear. Flaming arrows. Wonderful. Just wonderful. They were risking burning down the Great Castle just to capture me, which might have seemed like overkill, but when the combined wrath of Balduin and Nicolo was driving them on, it was hard to blame them for going to extremes.

"There she is!"

They'd located me again as I dashed for the wall. My grappling line was gone now so all that was left was my climbing ability, drummed into me over many hours in the Guild.

Another jump and I'd made the skirting wall, but I wasn't alone. A guard swung his pike at me and I ducked and rolled under the blow, coming up close to him and driving my elbow directly between his eyes. He went down, but he wasn't alone, two more of his friends were coming for me, yelling out to the rest of the guard.

During my climbing and swinging, I'd stowed my stolen sword across my back, but now I drew it and rushed to meet my attackers. Their pikes gave them greater reach, but I was quick and agile, ducking the longer weapons and getting in close where the pikes were suddenly more of an encumbrance.

A little hand-to-hand combat later and I was the only one left conscious on top of the stretch of wall. But I could hear more people coming and there was no time to waste.

The skirting wall of the Great Castle had lost its defensive purpose when the castle began its rapid expansion, swallowing up everything in its path. Any available space had been colonized by homes, shops, stables and the like, which now butted right up against the base of the wall which had once defied attackers to get anywhere near it. So, there was no shortage of other roofs by which I could theoretically make my getaway, but they were all a very long way down, and in the darkness of night, I couldn't see if any were potentially soft enough (thatched would be good) to break my fall without also breaking my neck.

Left with no other choice, I swung over the wall and began to climb down it. Sheer walls are the ultimate challenge for any climber and downwards at night wasn't making it any easier, but at least the Great Castle Wall had stood here exposed to the weather for long enough to develop some useful hand-holds. Wind, rain, frost, and time had scoured the gaps between the huge blocks of stone of which it was constructed, and I was able to move comparatively rapidly.

"Where'd she go?"

"Down? She'd have to be crazy."

"She's an assassin."

"It's too dark to see."

"Hang on."

The voices from above stopped and a moment later I almost swallowed my tongue in shock as a flaming torch dropped past me, missing me by bare inches on its way to the ground.

"Ah. There she is," said a voice from above, matter-of-factly. "Shame we haven't got time to boil any oil but fetch me a nice heavy rock."

Once again, it sounded as if circumstances had left me with little choice but to risk my life, but I was also due a bit of luck. The torch that had been dropped past me had landed on someone's roof, which had now caught fire. It was a demonstration of how quickly the guards had picked up the new tone of the court; they would never have been so cavalier about damaging people's homes when the Old Queen reigned, but monarchs set an example that trickles down to their subordinates. And now the lives of ‘the people' had ceased to matter.

But while this was all very interesting from a social/ political point of view, the burning roof also revealed something else: it was thatched.

Thatched roofs were not common in the center of the Gath and were usually confined to those living on the path of the river Pike, to whom river rushes were readily available. While a thatched roof wasn't exactly pillowy soft, they were soft enough to absorb the impact of a desperate woman clinging to a wall with no further options.

On the other hand, this one was on fire.

"Yeah, that'll do. Try to get it up on the wall and we'll push it on her."

I looked up, then seeing few alternatives, I jumped, pushing myself backwards off the wall and doing my best to avoid the fast spreading fire below.

"Where'd she go?"

That was the last thing I heard before I landed with a satisfying scrunch of dried reeds and a less satisfying jolt to my left shoulder as I tried to roll with the landing. For a moment, I caught my breath and tested my shoulder, which didn't seem to be badly hurt. Then, as the roar of the fire got closer, I sat up.

There was a creaking noise from beneath me.

"Oh, shit…" I managed to whisper before the burning roof gave way and I fell through a scratching, poking mass of thatch, bouncing off a rafter and bruising my ribs on my way to the room below. By a stroke of good fortune, I landed on a bed. Slightly less fortunate was the fact that it was occupied.

"What the hell?!" The bed's occupant sat up sharply, a man in his mid-fifties with an inappropriately bobbled night cap and an inappropriately young woman.

"Good evening," I tried. "Sorry to disturb you and your lovely… daughter."

"This is my wife!" It was strange how, despite the fact that I'd entered unannounced through the ceiling, the man was still defensive about the age gap between himself and the woman beside him who looked to be about my age. "Who the bloody hell are you?!"

"Castle fire service," I answered, springing off the bed and making for the door. "Here to let you know your roof is on fire and you should leave immediately."

"Is it?" the man looked non-plussed as he glanced upwards at the sizable hole I'd left in the roof and the flames that were even now starting to enter the room. "Thank you."

"Now to sound the alarm," I continued with a brief nod.

The guards would already be hammering down the stairs of the Great Castle, intent on pursuing me. A little chaos would be a useful thing.

"Fire!" I yelled as I exited the house. "Fire!"

Around me, windows began to open and candles were lit. Fires were hazardous in the Gath and they spread quickly; by helping your neighbors you were also helping yourself. Thus, people piled out of their homes carrying buckets, rushing to the Pike to fetch water.

In the midst of the scramble, I slipped off into the night. I had no idea what I was going to do next, but getting away from the Great Castle was the number one priority.

Sooner or later, I was going to have to figure out what the hell my next move was but almost as soon as I thought as much; the question was taken out of my hands.

"Mistress Charlotte?"

The voice from the shadows was one that I recognized, but couldn't place it until its owner stepped out of the shadows.

"Duke Wylder."

Wylder shrugged. "Former-Duke. Might we have a word?"