“Stay put,” Sothe snapped. “We don’t have a chance if they catch us in the open.”
“There isn’t time to explain.” Marcus grabbed Raesinia’s sleeve, but she yanked it away from him and set her jaw.
“I’m not leaving without her,” she said.
“But-”
Marcus was interrupted by the ring of steel on steel. At least a half dozen Grays had cleared the two bodies and rushed across the foyer, only to pile up again at the inner door. They’d left their muskets behind and drawn their straight-bladed swords, but these weapons were still long enough that the narrow confines of the doorway offered no room to swing. The first one charged with his sword lowered point-first, like a lance, but Sothe’s blade licked out and diverted the thrust so that it crashed into the decorative wainscoting and stuck there. Her off hand came up in an almost casual motion and drew a line across the guard’s throat, which opened in a spray of gore. He gave a bubbling shriek and stumbled backward, clutching the wound, until one of his companions shoved him roughly aside and came at Sothe with leveled blade.
“You can’t kill them all!” Marcus shouted, over the shouts of the attackers and the screech of blade against blade as Sothe blocked another thrust.
Yes, she can. Raesinia had never really had the opportunity to watch Sothe fight before. It was. . graceful was not the word, precisely, or elegant, though the latter was closer. Efficient, possibly. Sothe fought like a master butcher carving a pig, no unnecessary flourishes or brutality, just the minimum number of strokes necessary to reduce her opponents to piles of quivering meat. The second Gray fared no better than the first, going down with a long gash in his inner thigh that fountained a quite astonishing amount of blood. Two more tried to come at her together, but she simply retreated a step, letting them tangle each other up in the doorway. One of them managed a clumsy thrust, which she sidestepped neatly as she lopped off his hand at the wrist.
“We just need to hold until help arrives,” Sothe said, as this opponent fell back, screaming. She wasn’t even breathing hard. “Orlanko can’t have all the guards in the palace on his side-”
She checked an overhand swing from another Gray on one of her knives, falling back a step as he tried to force her down by main strength. Her other blade came up to gut him, but before it got there a pistol shot sounded from the foyer. Sothe’s opponent stiffened for a moment, then went limp, sword dropping from his slack fingers. He fell forward, collapsing on top of her, and she had to catch him under the armpits to avoid being bowled over. As she tossed him aside and looked up, a second shot sounded, and Sothe grunted and spun as if she’d been kicked in the shoulder by a mule. The deadweight of the guard bore them both to the floor in a heap.
Raesinia screamed and tried to dart forward, but Marcus grabbed her with his free hand and shoved her back against the wall. Four Grays surged through the doorway, spreading out with drawn swords. Standing in the foyer, smoking pistol still in hand, was a young man in a long dark coat. He tossed the weapon aside and strode forward, black leather fluttering around his ankles.
He spared only a cursory glance for Raesinia and Marcus. Instead he went to where the dead Gray lay atop Sothe and rolled the guard off with the toe of his boot. Sothe was on her back, completely still, and from where she stood Raesinia couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
“So,” the man said. “The Gray Rose, run to ground at last.” He glanced at the scattered corpses. “And with some teeth, after all. I commend you on a well-run chase.”
He drove his boot into her stomach with sudden violence, and Sothe gasped and rolled on her side, curling into a ball. Blood squelched on the floor under her shoulder.
“And still a bit of life in you,” he said. “Excellent. If you survive, His Grace will be very interested to hear what you have to say.”
As he spoke, the four Grays had spread out into a loose semicircle around Marcus. He kept his saber moving and backed away until he and Raesinia were pressed against the wall. The Concordat agent gave Sothe another kick, almost playfully, and was rewarded with another gasp of pain. Then, with the air of someone attending to an unpleasant but necessary matter, he came to stand behind the ring of guards.
“She was wrong, as it happens,” he said. “The Grays have been in the service of His Grace for some time, and the Grenadier Guards have orders not to interfere. Captain d’Ivoire’s handful of Armsmen have already been rounded up. Ohnlei is ours, Your Majesty.” He sketched a bow. “My name is Andreas. At your service.”
“Orlanko has finally gone mad,” Raesinia said. “This is treason.”
“He’ll hang for certain,” Marcus said. “But you don’t have to join him.”
“Treason is a slippery thing,” Andreas said. “It is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder, which means it depends on what people believe. And His Grace is an expert in that field.”
“The deputies are convening as we speak,” Raesinia said. “When I don’t turn up-”
“The Deputies-General, as they so quaintly style themselves, are also being taken in hand.” Andreas smiled. “Put down your sword, Captain, before you get hurt. I promise you, no harm will come to Her Majesty.”
There was a long pause. The tips of five swords hovered in the air, twitching with nervous tension.
If she asked him to, Raesinia was reasonably certain that Marcus would fight and, in all probability, die. Ben had done the same. Even Sothe-she couldn’t finish the thought. Why are they all so eager to sacrifice themselves for me? She wondered if she would do the same, if the circumstances were reversed, but of course the circumstances never could be reversed. Not for me.
I won’t let him die. There’s no point. She met Andreas’ eyes, opened her mouth to speak, and hesitated. Behind the Concordat agent, one of the Grays was grimly winding a cloth around the stump of his severed hand, while another was checking on his fallen comrades in the foyer. And Sothe-
One of Sothe’s hands was creeping across the floor, toward the hilt of one of her knives. It was only six inches away. Four. Her fingers twitched.
“I’ll go quietly,” Raesinia said, a little too loudly, “if you’ll let the captain go.”
Andreas shrugged. “We’ll have to take him into custody for the moment, but I see no reason he could not be released once matters are settled.”
“Your Majesty. .,” Marcus began. His voice was thick.
“Captain. Please.” She put her hand on his shoulder and went up on her toes, putting her lips as close to his ear as she dared. “Head left. The first door.”
Marcus, she had to admit, knew how to play a role. His shoulders slumped, as though acknowledging defeat, and he let his sword point fall. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Excellent,” Andreas said, though he sounded a little disappointed. “Take them.” He turned away from Raesinia, as if she didn’t matter, and back toward Sothe-
Who was no longer there. The knife was a quicksilver blur, flashing across the room and burying itself to the hilt in the skull of one of the Grays on Raesinia’s left, pinning his peaked cap to his head. Sothe herself was rolling toward the doorway and came up on her feet, graceful in spite of the spreading stain on her shoulder and the deathly pallor in her face. She’d already drawn another knife and flicked it at a second Gray, who had half turned at the uproar and took the blade in the meat of his cheek. He screamed and dropped his sword.
Raesinia ran. There were two doors leading deeper into her suite, but only one that made sense as an escape route. It led to the sitting room at the base of the tower, against the outer wall, with its wide leaded-glass windows. Sothe obviously had come to the same conclusion, since she’d taken care of the two guards in that direction. There was a ring of steel from behind her, and Raesinia risked a look over her shoulder to see Marcus parrying a halfhearted stroke from one of the two remaining Grays, backpedaling rapidly in her wake. Raesinia reached the doorway, grabbed the frame with one hand, and let momentum swing her into the room.