“Here, now!” it said sharply. “What’s all this, then?”
Bahzell shut his mouth and turned slowly. He wore no sword-the Riverside Guard frowned on them-but he was careful to keep his hand well away from his dagger hilt, as well.
It was, perhaps, as well he had, for ten of the Guard stood in the alley mouth with torches, peering at the carnage. The sergeant at their head removed his steel cap and tucked it under his left arm to scratch his head, and more steel rasped quietly behind him as someone loosened a sword in its sheath.
“Well?” the sergeant said after a moment, gazing up at Bahzell, and the hradani opened his mouth, but Zarantha stepped past him before he could speak.
“I,” she said, and Bahzell blinked at her suddenly regal tone, “am the Lady Zarantha Hûrâka, of Clan Hûrâka, sept to Shâloan of the South Weald.”
“Ah?” The sergeant rocked back on his heels with a smile, but the smile faded as Zarantha faced him. She should have looked ridiculous in her cheap, drab garments, torn and streaked with the alley’s filth, but she didn’t. Bahzell could see only her back, but there was a dangerous tilt to her head, and the sergeant cleared his throat.
“I, uh, I see . . . My Lady,” he said finally. “Ah, I don’t suppose you could, um, explain what’s happened here?”
“Certainly, Sergeant,” she replied with that same regality. “I was on my way to my lodging when I was set upon by these . . . persons.” A distasteful wave encompassed the bodies about Bahzell’s feet. “No doubt they intended to rob me-or worse-and would have, but for this gentleman.” A much more graceful wave indicated Bahzell, and the sergeant blinked again.
“He helped you?”
“He certainly did, and most efficiently, too.”
“I see.” The sergeant bent to roll one of the bodies onto its back, and his frown deepened. He waved a corporal forward to join him, and the corporal whistled through his teeth.
“That’s Shainhard, sure as Phrobus, Sarge,” he muttered, and the sergeant nodded and straightened.
“Well . . . My Lady,” he said slowly, “I’m glad he did, I suppose, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to take him in for disturbing the peace.”
“Disturbing the peace , is it?” One or two guardsmen flinched at the quiet anger in Bahzell’s deep voice. “And I suppose you’re thinking I should have just walked on past and let them do as they willed?”
“I didn’t say that,” the sergeant replied sharply, “but I’ve heard the reports, and this isn’t the first brawl for you or your friend. I don’t say they were your fault,” he added as Bahzell stiffened, “for I doubt they were, but we know there’s been trouble, and this looks like more, and worse, of the same. Best to get you safely in cells while we decide what happened.”
“And if I’m not minded to go?” Bahzell asked in a perilously quiet voice, but the sergeant faced up to him without flinching.
“I don’t think that would be very smart of you,” he said flatly. “You’re a stranger in town, and-no offense-you’re also a hradani with no means of support. When you add that to who this lot-” he gestured at the bodies “-work for, well, there’s going to be questions, like it or no.”
“Questions?” Bahzell began dangerously, but Zarantha raised a hand, and the gesture was so imperious it cut him off in midbreath.
“Excuse me, Sergeant, but you’re in error,” she said crisply.
“I’m what?” The guardsman blinked at her.
“I said you were in error,” she repeated, her voice even crisper. “You said this man has no means of support.”
“Well, no more does he!”
“Yes, he does. In fact, he’s been retained by Clan Hûrâka as my personal armsman, and he was acting in that capacity when I was attacked. Surely you don’t question the propriety of defending his employer?”
The sergeant sucked his teeth and peered up at Bahzell, and it was all the Horse Stealer could do to keep his own mouth closed. He knew how deep was the trouble in which he stood, but his eyes narrowed as he glared down at the top of Zarantha’s head, and he suddenly found himself wondering if a Riverside cell would be all that bad a place to spend the night, after all.
“Your . . . armsman,” the sergeant repeated at length. “I see. And just what might you and your, ah, armsman be doing in Riverside, My Lady?”
“I was forced to stop here when one of my servants fell ill,” Zarantha said coldly. “Now that he’s recovered, I intend to return to my home in the South Weald. May I ask what concern that is of yours, Sergeant?”
“Well, since you ask, My Lady, I’ll tell you,” the guardsman said with a certain air of satisfaction. “These aren’t just any street scum. This one-” he pointed at the man he and the corporal had examined “-is named Shainhard, and he’s a senior lieutenant to one Molos ni’Tarth. Now, it may be none of my concern, but ni’Tarth’s a nasty customer. We know he runs most of the southside drinking sties and sells protection down at the docks, and we think he’s had dealings with the dog brothers. But the point, Lady Zarantha,” he allowed himself to use the title with withering irony this time, “is that Shainhard is important to ni’Tarth’s operations, and he doesn’t look so very good right at the moment. In fact, I don’t believe he’s breathing anymore.”
Bahzell felt his stomach sinking steadily, and the smile the sergeant gave him was a strange mix of satisfaction and sympathy.
“Now the thing is, My Lady, that ni’Tarth won’t take kindly to this, not at all, at all. In fact, he’ll probably try to cut your new armsman’s throat-or ask his dog brother friends to do it for him. Come to that, he won’t be too pleased by your part in this, either.”
“I see.” Bahzell felt an unwilling admiration for Zarantha’s calm, despite what he saw coming. Her voice didn’t even quaver at the mention of dog brothers, and she shrugged. “I imagine it would be better not to tempt him to be foolish, then, wouldn’t it?”
“That it would, My Lady. That it certainly would.” The sergeant beckoned to his corporal again. “Go down to the Needle Street station and bring back a couple more men and a wagon to collect the trash, Rahlath,” he said.
“Aye!” The corporal trotted off, boots clattering on the uneven cobbles, and the sergeant looked back at Zarantha.
“Now, the way I see it, ‘My Lady,’ I really should take your armsman in-and maybe you, too, for all I know. But it’s a busy night, and I’ve got a lot on my mind already. If it should happen that the two of you were to, ah, wander off before Corporal Rahlath gets back here, why, I’d probably be too occupied to look for you. And if you keep right on wandering fast enough, ni’Tarth might not even realize where he ought to look for you . . . and your ‘armsman,’ of course, if you take my meaning?”
“I do, Sergeant.” Zarantha looked up over her shoulder at Bahzell. “I believe you said you were on your way to your friend?” she suggested.
“Aye, but-”
“In that case, I think we should be going,” she interrupted, and his mouth closed with a click. The ground seemed to be slipping away beneath his feet, and try as he might, he couldn’t make it hold still. “Yes, I definitely think we should be on our way,” she said firmly, and he nodded.
There was nothing else he could do.
Chapter Fifteen
Bahzell led his new employer through the deserted streets in glum silence. He’d done it again. Poked his nose into something that was none of his affair because he simply couldn’t leave well enough alone, and now look what he’d landed himself in! Of all the-!
Yet for all his self-disgust, he saw no escape. He owed Zarantha something for keeping him out of jail; no doubt this ni’Tarth would have found him easy to get to there. By the same token, ni’Tarth left him no choice but to get out of Riverside, jail or no jail. Of course, none of that would have been true if he hadn’t tried to help Zarantha, but he couldn’t really blame her for that. He’d known better and done it anyway, which only made him angrier with himself. The best he could hope for now was that her family truly would be able to pay a little something for getting her home . . . which didn’t seem likely. Whatever she claimed, even a hradani knew you didn’t find noblewomen dressed like peasants-and poor peasants, at that-creeping around the stews and alleys of a place like Riverside in the middle of the night!