“That is a rumour, nothing more. All my attempts to insert an agent close to Aurungzeb have failed. You may congratulate him on his security.”
“Thank you. The homunculus will return in two days, to monitor your progress. Until then, Count, fare well.” And the thing took off at last, and flapped its way out of the open window. Fournier watched it go, and when it had disappeared he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat out of his mustache.
When Corfe woke he thought that the nightmare which had plagued his unconsciousness was still about him, cackling in the darkness. He raised a hand to his face and felt agony shoot through his wrists as its chained fellow came with it. His hands were swollen to the point of uselessness. Another day in these manacles and he would lose them. His face, when he touched it gingerly, felt as though it did not belong to him. It was some misshapen caricature his fingers found strange to the touch. Despite himself, he groaned aloud.
“Corfe?” a voice said. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“What have they done? I’ve heard shooting.”
“They’re trying to take over the city, I should think.”
“They’ve been bringing in other prisoners all morning. Dozens of them. I hear the doors.”
Corfe found it hard to keep his thoughts together. His mind seemed wrapped in wool. “Fournier caught you,” he said muzzily.
“Yes, on the way in. I had two companions. Merduks. He killed them after the torture. They would not speak.” There was a sound like a sob. “I’m so sorry. I could not bear it.”
“The scroll. What was in it?”
“The entire Merduk campaign plan and order of battle.”
Corfe struggled to clear his mind, collect his thoughts. He fought against the urge to lay his head in the foul-smelling muck of the floor and go to sleep.
“The Merduk Queen-he said it was from her. Is that true?”
There was a silence. Finally Albrec said, “Yes.”
“Why? Why would she do such a thing?”
“She is-she is a Ramusian, from Aekir. She wanted revenge.”
“I honour her for it.”
“Yes, though nothing will come of it now. What is Fournier going to do?”
“I think he means to surrender the city to the Merduks. He has done some deal. I have been an arrogant fool, such a fool.”
Quiet descended upon the interior of the cell. Water was gurgling away somewhere, and they could hear the rush of the sewers below.
The sewers.
“Father,” Corfe said with sudden energy. “Go over the floor of this place. There must be a drain somewhere, a grating or something.”
“Corfe-”
“Do it!”
They began searching around in the fetid darkness with their hands, their fingers squelching into nameless things. Once, Corfe’s fastened upon the wriggling wetness of a rat. He listened for the sound of the water, finally found it and tore heaps of rotting straw from around the grating. His half-numb fingers searched out its dimensions: eighteen inches square, no more.
A yank on the metal of the bars, but it would not budge. It was firmly set in mortar. He searched his pockets with awkward, fevered haste, and found there a folded clasp knife. Willem had taken his poniard, but had been too busy pistol-whipping him to search his pockets.
“Bastards!” Corfe spat in triumph. He unfolded the knife with his clumsy hands and began scraping at the mortar which held the grating fast. It was already crumbling in places, loosened by the wetness of the floor. He levered up clods and splinters of the stuff, stabbing with the little knife. There was a crack, and the point broke off. He hardly paused, but worked on in the smothering darkness by touch. Every so often the coruscating lights in his head came back, and he had to pause and fight the dizzying sickness they brought. It took hours-or what seemed like hours-but at the end of that time he had picked out every trace of the mortar from around the grating. He put the broken knife carefully back in his pocket. Something warm and liquid was trickling down his temples. Sweat or blood, he knew not.
“Over here, Father. Help me.”
Albrec bumped into him. “I have only one good hand.”
No matter. Three are better than two. Get a hold here.” He positioned the monk’s fingers for him. “Now, after three, pull like a good ’un.”
They heaved until Corfe thought his head would burst. A slight shift, a tiny grating sound, no more. He collapsed on to his side on the floor.
Several minutes passed, and then they tried again. This time Corfe was sure one corner of the grating had shifted, and when he felt over it he found that it was raised above the level of the floor flags some half an inch.
A strange, unearthly time of blinding pain and intense physical struggle, all in pitch blackness. They tugged on one corner of the grating after another, their fingers slipping on slime. Finally Corfe was able to get the chain of his manacles under one corner and pull back, feeling as though his hands were about to be wrenched off at the wrists.
A squeal of scraped metal, and he fell over on his back, the heavy grating jerking free to smash into his kneecap with dazzling pain. He lay on his back, gasping for air. “We-we did it, Father.”
They rested and listened in the blackness. No jailer approached, no alarm was raised.
“Are we going to go down there?” Albrec asked at last.
“We’re on the waterfront. The sewers here lead straight into the river. It shouldn’t be far-not more than a hundred yards. Come, Father Albrec. I’ll have you breathing clean air inside fifteen minutes. I’ll go first.”
The sound of rushing water seemed very loud as Corfe squeezed himself into the drain. He retched once at the smell, but nothing came up. His stomach had long since rid itself of the last vestiges of Fournier’s dinner.
His legs were dangling in a current of icy liquid. He felt a moment of black panic at the idea of venturing down there. What if there was no room to breathe? What if-?
His grip on the lip of the drain slipped and he scraped down through the short shaft and splashed into the sewer below. The current took him and buffeted him against rough brick walls. His head was under water. He could not breathe, was not even sure which way was up. His lungs shrieked for air. The tunnel was less than a yard wide; he braced himself against it, shearing the skin from his knuckles and knees. A moment’s gasp of air, and then he had slipped and was being hurtled along again. His head smacked against the tunnel wall. He felt like screaming.
And then he was in midair, flying effortlessly before crashing into water again after a fall of several yards through nothingness. Clean, cold air. He was out. He was in the river, and it was night outside. The water was brackish here, this close to the estuary. He choked on it, struggled manically to keep his head up, his manacled hands flailing. The current was taking him downstream, out to sea. But there was a tree here, leaning low over the water. He grasped at a trailing limb, missed, was slashed in the face by another and caught hold of a third, his grip slicing down the leaves. He pulled himself up it as though on a rope, and found mud under his feet. He waded ashore, shuddering with cold, and took a second to collect himself. Then he remembered Albrec, and floundered about on the muddy bank until he had found a long stick, all the while watching the surface of the racing river. He waited then for a long time, but saw nothing. It was too cold to remain. Either Albrec had drowned, or he had remained in the cell. He could not wait any longer. The lights of Torunn were bright and yellow and the city wall towered like a monolith barely two hundred yards away. Corfe had been washed ashore on a little patch of wasteland just within the city perimetre, not far from the southern barbican. It was too exposed here. He had to move on.