A new voice had added itself to the noise from below. As planned, a third man had joined Nijjan’s first two and begun egging the others on, upping the tension and the uncertainty. Things were getting louder now.
“Got him!” hissed Nijjan.
I looked over and smiled. Nearly directly across from us, a man’s head had emerged from the shadows of the urn and was now looking over the edge of the roof.
Like me, Nijjan wasn’t originally from Ildrecca. But where I’d come from the woods, she was a plains girl-raised to the horse and the herd and the bow. She’d first made a name for herself when she began poaching from the Imperial Game Reserve northwest of Ildrecca and hosting Kin-only feasts at a tavern just inside the city. She was long past that now, but still put on the occasional demonstration to remind people that, even from far away, you didn’t want to anger Nijjan.
I heard a faint sound beside me and turned in time to see Nijjan lift her bow from the shadows of the roof, lay one of the handful of arrows she’d brought across it, draw, and let fly, all in a seamless, flowing motion.
By the time I looked back across the gap, the head was gone. I didn’t insult her by asking if she’d gotten her man.
“Let’s go,” she said. “My men won’t be able to keep those coves busy forever without someone getting bloodied. I’d prefer we have our hands on Rambles when the time comes.”
I rose and padded along the roof, reaching behind me to adjust Degan’s sword as I went. I’d managed to find a baldric to replace the rope the boatman had given me, but hadn’t gotten around to finding a suitable scabbard yet. I’d wrapped the canvas into a rough covering, though, so while it might not have been stylish, Degan’s sword was at least riding more comfortably across my back.
For her part, when Nijjan had first seen the bundle she’d merely looked at it, looked at me, and shaken her head. Ungainly or not, I wasn’t about to risk losing it, even if it made it harder to run the roofs.
We followed the roofline around the piazza, hopping low walls, dancing leaded peaks, and jumping a narrow drainage alley, until we found ourselves on the Mort Ken’s roof.
There had been a garden up here once. Raised beds meant for flowers and herbs had been shoved off to one side of the roof, their wood faded and rotting. A few potted fruit trees still struggled on, their roots crowding out of the soil around the top, or escaping through cracks in the ceramic that held them. A handful of weathered columns were scattered about, standing guard over a herd of forlorn chairs and dining couches. I could almost see how, at night, with the right lighting and enough fortified wine, the place could take on an air of neglected elegance-just the kind of surroundings to help set the mood and persuade a Lighter to be that much lighter in his purse come morning. Assuming, of course, they first got rid of the man sprawled on the roof with Nijjan’s arrow sticking out of his head.
We could hear shouting from the street now-voices raised in challenge and argument. No hiss or ring of steel yet, which was good. We needed attention focused on the front door for as long as possible; a fight would be over too quickly, and not in our favor. So far, it sounded as if Nijjan’s people were doing just what we wanted.
The sunset was little more than a smudge below the horizon now, making the shadows on the roof even thicker. As I looked around, amber-gold began to settle itself more easily across my vision.
“How the hell do we get down?” growled Nijjan. “I can’t see the damn jigger for all the crap up here.”
I scanned the space around us, looking for the trapdoor that would have been used not only by customers, but possibly by the whores themselves when they decided to sleep or eat under the stars.
“There.” I led Nijjan over to a rectangle set in the roof behind a pair of pillars. I held back, letting her take the door, both because I was the Prince, and because I didn’t need any sudden light blinding my recently awakened sight. When it creaked open, a faint glow crept out. Even then, my eyes still burned.
“Looks like it opens into a room,” said Nijjan, her voice low. She set aside her bow and drew a long, curved knife. She stepped into the opening and went down into the building.
I blinked the last of the tears from my eyes and went over to the door. A set of steep, narrow stairs led down into the whorehouse. Nijjan was waiting at their base.
I half stepped, half climbed down into a sitting room. A single, weak tallow candle burned on the sideboard, illuminating a pair of worn chairs and a vase filled with the remains of dead flowers. Petals littered the sideboard and floor.
Nijjan moved over to the room’s only door and opened it a crack. The hinge, thank the Angels, barely groaned.
“Hallway,” she said. She turned to face me. “Now what?”
“Now we go down one floor.”
“And then?”
I shrugged. “We look and listen.”
Nijjan’s hand caught mine as I moved to go past her. “Wait. Are you telling me you don’t even know where Rambles is?”
“I know he’s on the third floor.”
“That’s it? We just go down a flight and listen at whores’ doors until we think we’ve found the right one?”
“More or less.” I’d operated on a hell of a lot less for years. “No one else is doing any trade right now, so it shouldn’t be that hard.”
Nijjan stared at me. “And these kinds of plans work for you?”
“You’d be surprised.”
The Upright Woman snorted as I opened the door the rest of the way. “I don’t know whether to be disappointed or impressed.”
I smiled. “Me either, some days.”
We padded our way past a few doors, then down the main stairway at the center of the building. More noises from the ground floor drifted up to us, along with more voices. I peeked over the railing and saw any number of heads and shoulders straining out into the stairwell trying to catch a glimpse of the action below. Fortunately for us, the ladies of the house had migrated down to the second floor and below for a better view, leaving the third-floor landing deserted.
This floor was better appointed, if a frayed wicker chair, wall mirror, and faded wool floor runner constituted “better.” Tapers burned in sconces along the wall, their light reflected back into the hallway by the polished brass plates mounted behind them.
Nijjan looked at me and quirked an eyebrow in question. I pointed left, mainly to seem decisive.
Just like the floor above, the doors here were close together. These were the narrows, where the whores made the majority of the Bawd’s money, moving men and women in and out with impressive speed. The bigger rooms, for well-lined guests and the occasional orgy, would be down below, closer to the street and the money.
However, Betriz’s information put Rambles’s preferred room on this floor, which didn’t make much sense until we came to a wide door at the end of the hall. Crimson damask had been tacked to the surface, turning the door into a flowery, bloodred rectangle. A single brass handle, shaped like an erection and polished to a high shine, shimmered in the candle light.
“A bit much, don’t you think?” muttered Nijjan.
“For a Mort Ken?”
“Good point.”
I leaned toward the door. There were voices on the other side. And laughter.
Nijjan fingered her knife. I drew my rapier. Surprise might be nice, but I’ve found that putting an extra three-plus feet of steel between you and the person you’re bursting in on never hurts.
I wrapped my left hand around the brass cock, twisted, and shoved.
I’ll admit, I’d been hoping to walk in and find Rambles ass-in-the-air over a doxy. Not only would it have been convenient from an ambush standpoint, but the humiliation would have been a nice touch as well. As it was, though, I wasn’t overly surprised to find them both dressed and sitting at the table, their supper before them, wineglasses to hand. You learn not to count on breaks like that when it comes to raiding an enemy’s ken.