Mistress of the Empire. Janny Wurts

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       • Chapter Four • Adversity

      Someone moved.

      Atop a stack of baled cloth, partially hidden by the cant of a crooked bale, Arakasi heard what might be the grate of a footstep on the gritty boards of the floor. He froze, uneasy at the discovery he was not alone in the murk of the warehouse. Silently he controlled his breathing; he forced his body to relax, to stave off any chance of a muscle cramp brought on by his awkward position. From a distance, his clothing would blend with the wares, making him seem like a rucked bit of fabric fallen loose from its ties. Up close, the deception would not bear inspection. His coarse-woven robe could never be mistaken for fine linens. Mindful that he might have trapped himself by taking refuge in this building to shake a suspected tail, he shut his eyes to enhance his other senses. The air was musty from spilled grain and leakage from barrels of exotic spices. The scented resins that waterproofed the roof shingles mingled with those of moldered leather from the door hinges. This particular warehouse lay near enough to the dockside that its floors submerged when the river crested in spring and overran the levee.

      Minutes passed. Noise from the dock quarter came muffled through the walls: a sailor’s raucous argument with a woman of the Reed Life, a barking cur, and the incessant rumble of wheels as needra drew the heavy drays of wares away from the riverside landings. The Acoma Spy Master strained to sort the distant hubbub; one by one, he tagged the sounds, while the day outside waned. A shouting band of street urchins raced down the street, and the bustle of commerce quieted. Nothing untoward met his ears beyond the calls of the lamplighters who tended the street at the end of the alley. Long past the point where another man might conclude he had imagined the earlier disturbance – that what seemed a footstep was surely the result of stress and imagination – Arakasi held rigidly still.

      The flesh still prickled warning at the base of his neck. He was not one to take chances. Patience was all, when it came to any contest of subterfuge.

      Restraint rewarded him, finally, when a faint scrape suggested the brush of a robe against wood, or the catch of a sleeve against a support beam. Doubt fled before ugly certainty: someone else was inside the warehouse.

      Arakasi prayed silently to Chochocan, the Good God, to let him live through this encounter. Whoever had entered this dark building had not done so for innocent reasons. This intruder was unlikely to be a servant who had stolen off for an illicit nap in the afternoon heat, then overslept through supper into night. Arakasi mistrusted coincidence, always; to presume wrongly could bring his death. Given the hour, and the extreme stealth exhibited by his stalker, he had to conclude he was hunted.

      Sweating in the still air, he reviewed each step that had brought him to this position. He had paid an afternoon call upon a fabric broker in the city of Ontoset, his purpose to contact a factor of a minor house who was one of his many active agents. Arakasi made a habit of irregular personal visits to ensure that such men remained loyal to their Acoma mistress, and to guard against enemy infiltrations. The intelligence network he had built upon since his days as a servant of the Tuscai had grown vast under Acoma patronage. Complacence on his part invited any of a thousand possible mishaps, the slightest of which could spell disaster for his Lady’s welfare.

      His visit today had not been carelessly made; his guise as an independent trader from Yankora had been backed up by paper work and references. The public announcement of the Assembly’s intervention between the Acoma and the Anasati had reached this southern city days later; news tended to travel slowly across provinces as the rivers fell and deepwater trade barges were replaced by landborne caravans. Aware that Lady Mara would require his updated reports by the fastest possible means to guard against possible countermoves by the Anasati or other foes made bold by the Assembly’s constraints, Arakasi had shortened his stay to a hurried exchange of messages. On leaving the premises, he had suspected he was being followed.

      Whoever had tailed him had been good. Three times he had tried to shed his pursuit in the teeming crush of the poor quarter; only a caution that approached the obsessive had shown him a half-glimpsed face, a tar-stained hand, and twice, a colored edge of sash that should not have been repeated in the random shuffle of late-day traffic.

      As well as the Spy Master could determine, there were four of them, a superbly trained team who were sure to be agents from another network. No mere sailors or servants in commoners’ clothing could work with such close coordination. Arakasi inwardly cursed. He had blundered into just the sort of trap he had set for informants himself.

      His backup plan could not be faulted. He had quickly crossed the busy central market, where purchase of a new robe and sudden movement through an inn packed with roisterers had seen the trader from Yankora vanish and a house messenger emerge. His skill in altering his carriage, his movements, the very set of his bones as he walked had confused many an opponent over the years.

      His back trail had seemed unencumbered as he jogged back to the factor’s quarters and let himself in through a hidden door. There he had changed into the brown of a common laborer, and taken refuge in the warehouse behind the trade shop. Crawling atop the cloth bales, his intent had been to sleep until morning.

      Now he cursed himself for a fool. When those following had lost sight of him, they must have dispatched one of their number to backtrack to this warehouse, on the off-chance he might return. It was a move that a less cocky man might have anticipated, and only the gods’ luck had seen the Acoma Spy Master inside and hidden before the enemy agent slipped in to wait and observe. Sweat trickled down Arakasi’s collar. The opponent he faced was dangerous; his entrance had almost gone undetected. Instinct more than sure knowledge had roused Arakasi to caution.

      The gloom was too deep to reveal his adversary’s location. Imperceptibly slowly, the Acoma Spy Master inched his hand down to grasp the small dagger in his belt. Ever clumsy with handling a sword, he had a rare touch for knives. If he had clear view of a target, this nerve-rasping wait might be ended. Yet if a wish was his for the granting, he would not ask the Gods of Tricks and Fortune for weapons, but to be far from here, on his way back to Mara. Arakasi had no delusions of being a warrior. He had killed before, but his preferred defense relied more on wits, surprise tactics giving him the first strike. This was the first time he had been truly cornered.

      A scuffle sounded at the far end of the warehouse. Arakasi stopped breathing as a loose board creaked, pulled aside to allow a second man to slip inside.

      The Spy Master expelled his pent air carefully. The hope of a stealthy kill was lost to him. Now he had two enemies to consider. Light flared as a hand-carried lantern was unshuttered. Arakasi squinted to preserve his night vision, his situation turned from tense to critical. While he was probably concealed from the first agent, the new arrival at the back of the warehouse could not help but discover him as he walked past holding a light.

      Out of alternatives, Arakasi probed for the gap that should exist between the stack of bales where he rested and the wall. Cloth needed space for air circulation, lest mildew cause spoilage in the dark. This merchant was not overly generous in his habits; the crack that met the Spy Master’s touch was very narrow. Prickling in awareness of his peril, he slid in one arm to the shoulder and wiggled until the bale shifted. The risk could not be avoided, that the stack might topple; if he did not act, he was going to be discovered anyway. Forcing himself flat against the wall, and nudging on the bale, Arakasi wedged himself into the widening gap. Splinters from the unvarnished boards gouged into his bare knees. He dared not pause, even to mouth a silent curse, for the light at ground level was moving.

      Footfalls advanced on his position, and shadows swung in arcs across the rafters. He was only halfway hidden, but his position was high enough that the angle of illumination swept above him; had he waited another heartbeat, his movement СКАЧАТЬ