One of the other iron huts was visible through his chink, and above it flew a black pennon, indicating that it also contained a condemned criminal. Ruiz wondered who the other was, and why that unfortunate had been selected to share Ruiz’s punishment.
Useless to think about it. His immediate concern was escape, which must come soon, before the performance in which he would Expiate his sin against Lord Brinslevos. Already he could feel the uneasiness of the death net, tugging against its anchorages in the depth of his mind. He would live only until the situation was irretrievably hopeless; then he would die, and the uninformative circumstances of his death would be transmitted to the League. Ruiz shook his head. Bad enough to die painfully, worse still to die pointlessly. He knew nothing, except that a conspiracy of some sort flourished on the orbital platform, a datum that the League might logically have assumed without the event of his death.
He shifted his thoughts from the gloomy avenue they had begun to follow. The situation was far from hopeless; surely when Denklar heard of his predicament, the innkeeper would communicate with him, and then it would be a simple matter of the innkeeper fetching the packet of pangalac devices hidden in his room. Ruiz had only to exercise patience, and to survive his time in the iron hut. It would grow hot, no doubt, but surely the Lord’s executioner preferred lively victims to ones already half-cooked.
As if in answer to his surmise, a pair of stout women came into view, laboring under shoulder yokes and large buckets. They set the buckets down next to the other occupied cage with theatrical sighs of exertion, and presently began to pour water into the pan-shaped roof of the cage.
“Air-conditioning,” Ruiz muttered, and shortly he heard the trickle of water on his own roof.
“Hey,” he shouted. “What foolishness is this? I’ve done no wrong. Call the Lord, tell him I’m innocent.”
One of the women chuckled sardonically. “The Lord is feeling poorly; in fact, I hear your Expiation must wait a day, until he feels well enough to give his complete attention to the performance. Myself, I haven’t much sympathy for you — since you botched the job. So many fine poisons exist. What madness possessed you to dose the Lord just enough to make him ill? If you’d succeeded in murdering him, they’d have hung you from the battlements and that would have been that — a clean death and a quick one.”
“Ill-considered of me,” Ruiz said in an agreeable voice. “And the other prisoner?”
The woman laughed again, and this time it was a sound of pure pleasure. “That’s Rontleses, who didn’t see you make the switch that poisoned the Lord — as was his responsibility. What’s worse, his gimpleg trusty has reported to the Lord that several days ago you and the coercer talked together in low voices, at an unlikely spot out in the catapple plantations. So the Lord suspects a conspiracy between you and Rontleses, though none of his advisers can imagine why you should thus plot.”
She leaned close to the iron. “In Stegatum, opinions differ. Though you blundered away your opportunity to rid us of Brinslevos, at least you’ve taken Rontleses to his death, which pleases almost everyone but Rontleses.”
“Well,” said Ruiz. “Every blessing is mixed. For my part, I’d prefer not to accompany Rontleses.”
“No doubt,” said the woman, whose voice seemed to come more faintly, as if she was leaving. “They undertake Rontleses’ Expiation tonight, and yours tomorrow night, so you can look forward to at least one more day of life. Who knows, perhaps he’ll speak under the question, convince the Lord of your innocence. Probably not. Rontleses is a hard man. He’ll be pleased with your company in Hell, even if you are innocent.”
Ruiz heard no more. He sank down, clutching his aching head.
Vilam Denklar stood in the room formerly occupied by Wuhiya the oil man. He peered from the window that overlooked the Place of Artful Anguish, wringing his hands. He was being forced to an unpleasant decision, but he could see no way out. The agent in the iron cage was an Uberfactorial; no doubt he carried a death net. Were Denklar to ignore his plight, and allow the agent to die for his foolishness — as Denklar would certainly do were the idiot of less exalted rank — the news of his inaction would immediately reach the League. Soon thereafter, implacable persons would come calling. “Denklar,” they would say, “tell us why you did nothing to save the Uberfactorial.” And what would he answer? They would judge him incompetent at best; at worst, a traitor.
So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he failed to hear the light step of Anstevic behind him, until a hand fell on his shoulder. He spun, to see Anstevic, looking dusty and red-eyed, as though he had spent an uncomfortable night in the waste. He opened his mouth to curse at Anstevic for so startling him, but the assassin clutched Denklar’s throat with one hand, sealing off his wind. In Anstevic’s other hand was a long dagger, thin as a wire. This he slipped into Denklar’s open mouth, so that the point pricked his palate. Denklar tried to pull away, to no effect. He tried to shut his mouth, but the wireblade was as rigid as an iron bar, and forced his jaw down cruelly.
“You have questions,” Anstevic said softly. “They must wait, possibly forever. First I’ll ask mine, and I hope you can give the right answers.”
Denklar nodded, a tiny careful movement, and Anstevic smiled. “Good,” he said. He withdrew the dagger from Denklar’s mouth. “Quietly now, tell me what has happened.”
Anstevic’s grip loosened slightly and Denklar drew a deep shuddering breath. “This morning men came from Brinslevos Keep, with Rontleses and the snake oil man. Wuhiya, he calls himself.”
With horrifying speed, Anstevic picked Denklar up by his shirtfront and threw him against the stone wall, where he hit with a dull thud. Anstevic jerked the dazed innkeeper to his feet and spoke in a harsh voice. “Do not dissemble. Tell me who the oil man really is.”
“All right, all right. He’s a League agent, Uberfactorial. I meant no harm — he told me to tell no one — but remember, I mentioned him before, I’m a loyal friend, Anstevic.”
Anstevic smiled encouragingly. “Go on.”
“I don’t really know what happened. After they put the prisoners in their cages, they came into the inn and ordered breakfast. They said the oil man had tried to poison the Lord, which makes no sense. He’s an Uberfactorial, after all; if he’d tried, he’d have succeeded, surely. Rontleses will die, they said, because he was on duty last night, watching from concealment to see that no treachery occurred when the Lord and Wuhiya smoked together. I can’t understand it at all.”
Anstevic muttered something under his breath. “Bad luck,” he said ambiguously.
“Yes… bad luck.” Denklar began to see a positive aspect to Anstevic’s unexpected presence. “But I’m glad you’re here. You can get him out of the cage and away from Stegatum much more easily than I — it’s more your line of work, isn’t it? I’m an innkeeper, not a man of action.”
“Umm…” said Anstevic. “Have you contacted him? Has he managed to send any messages to you?”
“No, no… I was just considering how best to proceed.”
“Good, very good. A pity, in a way, that the Lord survived. Eh? Then they’d have dealt with him at the Keep, and we’d have been out of it. But the Lord believes in public displays, so I suppose we must act.” Anstevic chuckled, apparently in a good humor again.
Denklar began to relax. The matter was out of his hands and into more competent ones — a great relief.
The wireblade slipped through the soft flesh below his chin, through his palate and into his brain. Anstevic gave a dexterous twist.
Denklar knew an instant of cold stinging astonishment, and then he was dead.