The Death Dealer - The Complete Series Page 33

  Harris didn’t make for the alley, but turned upwards to the street instead. Did he know Jack was watching the Emerald’s door? He must have had an idea, because the alley should have been the logical choice, unless he knew that way was blocked. He’d been staying in the room for some time, and he probably knew that at this time of night it’d be safer to take his chances on the open street than with a rusher of such notoriety. The open street was not where Grace wanted the chase to head, but there was nothing to be done for it now.

  She followed his movements and saw they were on the boundaries of Rogue’s Lane and Seafarer’s Way. On any given night, a vast number of unsavory persons typically lurked around it. The only choice was to stay close to Harris. He had to be weak or drunk, as his gait was unsteady and slowing after barely a block. Grace was fast closing the distance he had put between them with his head start and knew she’d be on him in moments. She forced her legs to move faster for one final push.

  Grace heard the trill of a whistle just in time to turn aside. The guard swung out in front of Harris, taking aim with a crossbow. Harris ducked out of the way and Grace dropped to the dirt. She flattened onto her stomach as the bolt flew over, and her sword positioned uncomfortably under her hipbones. She landed hard, and she knew there would be a fine hilt-shaped bruise tomorrow. At least she had managed not to impale herself. The guard blew on his whistle again.

  In the dark, as it caught light from a torch, Grace saw the glint of steel as Harris threw a knife. It wasn’t a kill shot but it definitely hit something, although Grace wasn’t sure what or whom. The knife fell to the ground with a clatter and the guard screamed in pain and fell. Harris took this new opportunity and ran off into the alley. He was gone in an instant, while the guard kept trying to blow his whistle.

  There was only a moment to decide what to do. It would be easy to recover the chase, but Harris ran down an alley. He could effortlessly lose himself in that maze. The guard needed help now, though, as the poor man was bellowing like a dying cow. Grace pushed herself up out of the dirt, sheathing her sword as she walked over to him.

  The knife was bloodied and collecting dirt in the road. The man held tightly to his upper arm and blood dripped through his fingers.

  “Up with you and to the healer’s,” Grace mumbled, keeping her voice low. She reached her hand down to help him up.

  But it was a mistake to think anyone in Glenbard would want to show the Death Dealer any amount of kindness. The knife appeared in his good hand and ran a quick line down her forearm. Grace gasped and pulled back her arm.

  “What’s the Death Dealer done to Francis?” a voice sounded nearby.

  The man’s fellows were finally responding to the whistle and it was best not to stay and find out how many would answer. Grace kicked some dirt into Francis’s face and ran in the direction she had come, away from the new voices. Her body would eventually tire as the blood flowed freely from her new wound, but for now she ran solely on adrenaline. She heard the shouts of the guards and if she didn’t move faster, they’d be on her. Grace ducked into an alley. She’d lose herself in the maze, same as Harris.

  Thirteen

  Grace dodged the sounds of guards for an hour, circling Rogue’s Lane and Seafarer’s Way via the alleys. Finally, she returned to Jack’s and changed into a skirt and linen shirt, which she tucked into the skirt. Jack hadn’t come back from the Emerald yet, though it would have been a comfort to have him with her. She wrapped her breast band around the wound. The first rosy hues of dawn were in the sky when she started for the temple district. Healers in Kamaria’s Temple took vows of silence, and they’d seen to her Death Dealer wounds before. Grace didn’t feel safe going anywhere else.

  Her heart beat faster and her body felt like it was weighed down with stones when she finally reached the temple. The blood on the breast band hadn’t soaked entirely through, but there was a great red spot where it covered the wound when she peeked underneath. Dirt and grime from the streets mixed with the blood, making it an odd, red-brown color. She’d had worse, but she was unconscious at the time. Being awake made the pain infinitely worse.

  Around the back of the temple was an entrance to the healers’ hut. Grace banged on the door and a lithe woman with gray hair opened it for her; dressed in the white and purple robes of a healer. Arm trembling with the effort, Grace held it up to the healer for inspection. The healer gently unwrapped the breast band to look over the damage. With no words, as her vows dictated, the woman put an arm around Grace and brought her inside.

  The woman sat Grace at a table and had her extend her arm on it. She carefully removed the breast band from Grace’s arm and Grace winced as it stuck a little to the sticky mess of skin and blood underneath. The healer grabbed a bottle of clear liquid from one of the many shelves around the room. She forced Grace to lock eyes with her, and then she nodded. Grace returned the nod, intuiting that the woman planned to clean her wound with the liquid. She was a healer…how bad could a cleaning be, compared to a stabbing?

  Fire seared through Grace’s arm when the first drop of liquid hit her wound. It bubbled and fizzed while Grace struck out and yelped in pain. The priestess tried to pour on more, but Grace cradled her arm against her chest, shaking her head and trying to re-bandage it with the soiled breast band.

  It took another priestess to hold Grace down after that. The liquid burned Grace’s wound to a point where the pain was unbearable. Her screaming brought five other women into the room, checking to make sure more help wasn’t required. Each one smirked and moved on when they saw it was only a cut being cleaned.

  The second priestess brought in was a trainee. She was probably permitted to stay because she could talk to Grace and attempt to ease her distress. “Priestess Silver is only trying to make sure infection stays away.”

  Trainee Matilda was a big girl with enough weight to flatten Grace. Her voice was soft and sweet, although Grace might have been more comforted if the trainee wasn’t currently pinning her body into her chair.

  Silver washed the wound, and with all the blood gone, Grace could see it wasn’t as bad as she believed. It was about four inches long but wasn’t too deep. It still tried to bleed, but the blood was slowing. Silver sterilized a needle and set to work stitching. Grace whimpered and bit her lip, but the needlework ended eventually.

  Matilda released Grace and said, “You should stay here for a while. I’ll make you a tea to give you strength and get you some food.”

  “Do you have anyone here who can run a message?”

  “I’ll get someone. Follow me. You should lie down after that ordeal.” Trainee Matilda tried to hide a grin behind her hand.

  Grace was raised to respect anyone who served the Divine Twins, so she waited to stick out her tongue until Matilda’s back was to her.

  ~*~*~

  Grace brightened to see Ridley a few hours after her unpleasant experience. The trainee had put Grace into a little room with two cots, and a wash pan and pitcher of water were set on a stand between the cots. A wooden engraving of Kamaria’s crescent moon hung on the wall over the doorframe, but other than that there was nothing to distinguish the little room. It was private, since no one occupied the second cot, but it was dreary. Even scowling as she was, Ridley was better company than brown walls and a single ray of light through the tiny window.

  “Are you hurt badly?” Ridley asked as she sat down on the free cot.

  Grace forced herself to sit up. Matilda was right; the tea did give her strength. “I’ve been hurt worse.” Grace rolled up the tunic to reveal a white scar on her stomach. “Mac’s work from last summer.”

  Ridley’s face clouded at the name. “You saved me from him.”

  The tunic fell back into place. “I didn’t mean to show you to upset you or make you think you owed me.”

  “I know.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Seven feet tall, they say…fought a hundred men, crippled a hundred more.” Ridley’s eyes took in Grace. “A dashing man.” Her
words hit the last bit hard.

  “I only scared off about seven men in the north. I cut a few and bruised some more, but only to teach them a lesson. Nothing special. It became eighty before I left last summer. Stories are one thing, but I am another. Small, unassuming, plain,” she said, and motioned down her body. “But things are different under the hood.” She checked herself. Healers weren’t allowed to speak, but nothing bound trainees. She hadn’t heard any footsteps since Ridley’s arrival, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t looking for gossip.

  “Why? You had a life in Arganis. A good life.”

  “My father died and my mother became a weak shade of her former self because of it. For a long while I did, too. It seemed wrong of me to continue down that path, though. I trained, and one day took to the roads.” She wanted to tell Ridley she had never imagined the stories that would be told of her fighting giants and rabid beasts, but there would be a safer place for that later. “Are you still mad?”

  “Yes,” Ridley replied, and looked away from Grace’s steely gray eyes. “Though I suppose I shouldn’t be.”

  “I’m sorry, Ridley.”

  “I am a braggart, though. You’re right. I go from one end of Glenbard to the other flaunting the newest gossip. Like, did you hear the Death Dealer stole coin from the Guild?” Ridley’s eyes locked again with Grace’s. They weren’t sad or angry, but mischievous. “Thom caught ‘im, but the slippery demon gave ‘im the slip. People’ll be talkin’ and lookin’ for that stolen gold for at least a year!”

  “No! There was an alliance in place!” Grace retorted playfully. “The Death Dealer must be trying to take Marcus’s crown!” This brought a laugh from Ridley. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Aye, though I think we had better not speak for a while. I’m still mad, and so is Marcus. He heard about the Dealer hunting Harris last night. Thom witnessed it but couldn’t keep up. Like I said, the slippery demon gave him the slip.” Ridley shook her head and shrugged. “Then there’s the talk of what Glenbard’s noblewoman said in the Angel.”

  Grace’s heart fell again. “I never meant what I said.”

  “Of course you did. You’re a right proper lady, used to fine folk, dances, and jewels. I’ve muttered a few cruel things about your kind before, but you have made a number of folk sore. Myself among them. I know you don’t mean any harm, though. But this whole Harris situation is setting everyone on edge. It’s best if Guild sticks with Guild and everyone else minds their own.”

  “Did the bribe buy Jim’s freedom?”

  “No!” Ridley snorted. She folded her arms but was too anxious and flapped them like a great bird instead. “There’s never been a time in living memory that a bribe so sizable hasn’t been taken!”

  “Maybe you need a bigger boon.”

  “Like what? We’ll beggar the whole of the Lane if we collect more. Or do you suppose we swap Jim with an unsuspecting fool?”

  “I could offer up myself to take his place.” Grace was young and more adaptable than Jim Little, and he’d done so much to help her over the past year. He couldn’t linger in a cell. Harris was a lost cause now anyway. At the very least she could help Jim.

  “No one is going to put up as much of a fight for you as they did for Jim. Or has the blood loss ruined your mind?”

  “Jim will fight for me. He may even close the doors to the Angel to get the Guild to comply.” The blank stare she received in turn answered that question. “Right?” The Princess of Thieves looked at her like she was speaking in a foreign tongue.

  “You’re in a bad place with everyone right now, and there’s a chance Marcus won’t turn over Harris, even to get Jim out of jail. He’d just as soon let you rot, at this point. You’re right, though, someone should take Jim’s place. He’s not a bad sort, even if he thinks I’m a saucy wench with bad manners. However, if anyone takes his place it’ll have to be someone the Guild will want free.”

  “I don’t think Thom or Marcus are going to volunteer.”

  “Of course they won’t, but I will.”

  Grace let her mouth hang open. “You?” Certainly Ridley was a nice person, but her existence relied on thieving, lying, and downright trickery. Selfless sacrifice was not one of her stronger attributes. It was a foolish idea. Now that Ridley put herself forward, Grace saw how clearly it would fail.

  “What?” Ridley must have some half-formed plan in her mind. She’d never willingly put herself in the lockup otherwise. Not even if Marcus himself could be freed by it.

  “Are you sure?”

  Ridley nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.” A glimmer of something was in her eye. “You said yourself…someone the Guild would fight over needs to take his place.”

  “Whatever else you have planned, spare me the details,” Grace said.

  “I didn’t intend to let you in, anyway. After all, we’ve only just hatched this plan.” She was lying and Grace knew it. Some plan was already in place, or some idea had been pitched around the Guild. Ridley just played that she’d only just conceived it. “When will you be well enough to walk me to the guard house?”

  ~*~*~

  After the noon meal, the healers released Grace from their house. Her arm was wrapped in a fresh linen bandage with several spare ones and some ointment given as well. Priestess Silver gave her a set of written instructions to change it at least once a day, keep it clean, and put a little ointment on before bed and upon rising. The priestess refused to let Grace leave until she was able to recite the instructions. Satisfied her patient would take care of herself, she blessed Grace and saw her on her way.

  The bandage made Grace’s arm unbearably hot, but she couldn’t very well rip away the linen. There was a dull pain and itch around the stitches, but she tried to ignore it. She pulled her sleeve over the bandage as best she could, since people would have heard about the Dealer’s injury. Her name had come up once or twice as a possibility in the past and it did no good to further those rumors.

  Ridley looped her arm through Grace’s good arm and led her onwards. Grace suspected her friend took the free arm to keep her from scratching the wound open. Thinking back a year, there was no memory of the itch or pain caused by such a wound. It probably helped that she was unconscious through the worst of it.

  Jim was being held in the Serenity Place guardhouse. He belonged in the Rogue’s Lane one, but for some reason the magistrate saw fit to house him elsewhere. No doubt it was to keep him far away from the Guild. Nathaniel said he was given better accommodations on Serenity Place as well, which was a small comfort.

  Ridley and Grace wound through the streets toward Serenity Place, and Grace attempted to engage Ridley in talking about the Guild's plans. She wasn't dense enough to believe her friend when she said she was just doing a good deed for Jim.

  “Come now, what is your aim? I don’t believe for a minute that Marcus is fine with you doing this.” Overhead the sun beat down, heating Grace and making her temper flare.

  “Did you know Jim Little was married once? To Jeremiah's sister,” Ridley said, dodging Grace's question.

  Grace's jaw tightened and internally she counted to ten before speaking again. “Ridley, why are we really walking to Serenity Place's guardhouse?”

  “Jim, a husband! Can you imagine?” Ridley laughed. “It's a shame the pox took her when they were still newly married. I would like to see what Jim would have been like as a father.”

  “Ridley...” Grace held back, trying to stop her friend. The market was straight ahead, and once they walked through the time for questions would be over.

  “Are you hungry? We can grab some roasted meat or fresh pastries on our way.” Ridley didn't stop when Grace did. Instead she just pulled Grace forward by her good arm, ignoring her silent protest.

  The young women entered the market area, stepping around the merchants hawking their wares. Grace trudged along beside Ridley while inside, she was boiling. The first time Ridley kept from wagging her tongue and bragging, and it was when
Grace needed her to talk most. As they moved through the press of people at the market, Grace refused to allow Ridley to stop. Each time her friend tried to dally and buy food, Grace continued her gait, dragging Ridley behind her. The sooner she got her to the guardhouse, the better.

  All guardhouses were two stories; with bunks for the men to live in, a room for the captain, cells in the basements, and one cell near the captain's room for more well-to-do prisoners. The cells weren’t meant for long internments; they were generally for drunks to sleep off their rage or for holding cells before prisoners were transported to the Redbank prison outside the city walls.

  The Serenity Place guardhouse was in better shape than the Rogue's Lane one. It had new paint on the walls and lacked the graffiti the Lane's had. Like the other districts, Serenity Place's symbol hung on a sign over the door. The Lane had crossed swords, Seafarer’s Way had waves, the temple district had an entwined sun and moon with a star in the center, the merchant’s had a scale, and Serenity Place’s had a hare. The white hare was a stark contrast to the crossed swords of Rogue's Lane. It had never made sense to Grace, yet there it was. A group of five guards were outside playing cards, Nathaniel among them.

  Grace pulled back, pulling Ridley with her. “You’re sure?”

  “I am. I owe this to Jim.”

  Not even for a moment did Grace believe that was what was happening, and she still wasn’t sure Ridley didn’t already have it planned out before she even arrived at the temple. Grace stood rooted where she had stopped. The guards already spotted them, but she didn’t dare go any further. When Ridley turned to question her, Grace held up her newly bandaged arm. She’d been stuck the night before, and all the men playing cards would know their fellow had taken a shot at the Death Dealer. Grace had been too careless lately and there was no need to make it worse.