A jangle of notes cut through the noise. Kendall peered about, and oriented on a pair of boys being chased off from a stall hidden down a narrow corridor formed by the backs of two rows of tents. "Let’s try down there," she said, but Sukata was still too busy being angry, disappearing into the crowd ahead.
With an irritated shrug, Kendall let her go. Sukata might be carrying the purse Rennyn had given them, but Kendall had enough Kolan coin to make at least small purchases, and would have no problem finding her way back to the house. Some time alone to think would be a good thing.
You saw a lot more of what a person was like when they lost their temper. Sukata would assuredly get over her snit and go back to acting the way she usually did, but having seen her like this, Kendall had to seriously wonder how much of the way Sukata usually behaved was Sukata. Almost every Sentene mage Kendall had talked to had been obsessed with living up to their Kellian partners, and they’d all in some way or other said that Kellian were very proud, and that while they were extremely polite, they rarely had a high opinion of people. Sukata acted all quiet and obliging, but right now Kendall could easily believe that she thought people who weren’t Kellian were little more than bugs.
That was probably the wrong way to look at it. But it was worth thinking about some more. Kendall put it aside for later as she reached the stall, pleased to spot a set of pipes among a mix of scraps of silk and cheap jewellery. And there was a line of fine-cast bells. The stall-keeper, a lanky carrot-top, eyed her like he expected her to act like the kids he’d chased off, so she pointed at the second-smallest bell and said "How much?" in Kolan.
The gabble in response was stupidly fast, but Kendall managed to pick out the price, and countered with something more reasonable. Carrot-top shook his head, but smilingly produced a cowbell from beneath the display-top and clanked it as if it was worth listening to. Kendall firmly pointed back at her first choice, and offered a tiny bit more. She wasn’t—
A hand, reeking of perfume, clapped over her mouth. Pulled back against a man where there should only be tent wall, arms trapped, Kendall was lifted and turned so that her lashing boot missed the stall. She tried biting, working to find flesh, but Smelly had his hand cupped and already they were out of the sun, slipping through draping canvas.
Dim space. A second man, stubbled face beneath a tight-tied green scarf. People, girls, on the floor, lying unmoving. Chained to the centre pole.
Green Scarf lifted a chain ending in a cuff. Worked power itched at Kendall even before she spotted the sigils up and down the pole, and she wriggled frantically, then remembered that she was the student of someone who could kill people at a glance, and no-one to be messed with.
But her attempt to push her captors away with Thought was as successful as holding back a river with bare hands. This was bigger than bowls, and it felt as if all the energy she put against them melted away. Kendall tried again, straining to stop Green Scarf coming any nearer. He didn’t budge, but the chain could be worked on, springing from his hands to clatter back against the centre pole.
The hand over Kendall’s mouth lifted long enough for Smelly to clip her smartly across the ear. He was quick to replace his hand before she could yell, but even with her head reeling, Kendall managed to sink her teeth into flesh and dug in with vicious satisfaction as he grunted and stifled a yell. But the distraction had given Green Scarf time to retrieve his cuff and before she’d more than felt the grip on her foot he’d clapped it around her ankle.
Green Scarf had to hold the cuff closed, fumbling to thread through a bulky padlock, and Kendall kicked again, trying to jam his fingers. The etched Sigillic was active, and filled her legs with jelly while a sheep came to sit on her head. Green Scarf dug his fingers in, clicking the padlock home, then said something in a gabble that didn’t sound Kolan. Smelly let Kendall go, and she plonked down on her behind, struggling not to pass out because she really needed to yell, not just sit and let them win.
Smelly moved forward, a barrel of a man grimacing at a hand dripping blood but still looking far too pleased with himself. Kendall longed to wipe the self-satisfied expression off his face, and was astonished when her anger was immediately rewarded, as Smelly glanced at the back wall of the tent and froze, jaw sagging.
It was too much work for Kendall to look. She needed everything she had left to stay awake. It was only after Smelly and Green Scarf had dashed through a second tent flap that she had a glimpse of what they’d seen: a charcoal mask. But by that time Kendall’s whole world had tilted and she was preoccupied with the scratchy feel of matting against her cheek. A booted foot came down next to her nose, then went past, and that was it for Kendall until a tugging at her ankle revived her drive to escape and she kicked feebly.
"Not helping."
Kendall cracked her eyelids, and found she was now facing stretched canvas instead of matting. Same tent, same central pole with its chains, but one of the plates holding chain to wood had been pried free. Her feet were propped up on something that shifted beneath them, and fingers…
Opening her eyes properly, Kendall found Samarin sitting on the mat with his mask pushed back and her feet in his lap, wiggling a bit of metal in the padlock holding the cuff in place. It didn’t seem to suit, so he reached down to a strip of cloth laid out beside him and exchanged it for another.
"Why do you have all those…keys?" she asked, only just resisting the impulse to kick again. At least until he had the cuff off.
"My role is to go to the places the Emperor cannot, and meddle. I’ve met a lot of inconvenient locks over the years." He laughed. "This isn’t even the first attached to a girl."
So full of himself he was overflowing. And worse, he’d obviously rescued her, though she couldn’t quite work out how. The other three—no, two girls and a boy—also lying on the floor didn’t stir at all.
"Why did they run away? Did you have the Guard with you?"
He touched the mask covering his hair. "They may have thought I’d a small army right behind me, but even obviously alone, this is often more than enough. The attention of the Emperor. Justice that bribery or threats won’t turn aside. And trying to dispose of me would only bring a harsh demonstration of the might of the Kolan throne, since the mask will make the Emperor aware of my death."
His wide mouth twisted, as if he thought all that a bitter joke, then he tried another bit of metal.
"If people are getting snatched right in the middle of the capital’s markets, then the might of the Kolan throne isn’t all that much."
"Certainly not infallible: someone’s being lazy, or deliberately looking the other way. Though I know of no system that will change the nature of those who see a pretty child and covet her."
"I’m not a child."
"No? You look about twelve."
"Twelve! I’m sixteen!" she snapped. Then, after a reluctant beat, added: "Nearly."
He lifted his brows, then abruptly pulled on her leg, so that it was no longer her foot sitting in his lap, but most of Kendall. Bending over so that his nose was in danger of poking into hers, he gave her the most obnoxious smirk and said: "Still a child."
Straightening, he dumped her back on the tent’s floor and lifted her ankle again. Kendall longed to kick him, but she wanted the chain off more, so she swallowed hard and said instead:
"Better that than a creepy old man pretending he’s not even twenty." She hadn’t missed that over the years he’d tossed off earlier.