Chapter 4
Her first few days afloat passed quickly for Eleanor – she was kept very busy learning the ropes, trying to map Mary's diagrams on to her new reality and keeping as far as she could out of the way of the more experienced sailors. Their voyage took them north past the harbour of Port Just – borrowing Triangle's telescope to look inland, Eleanor was just able to make out the roof of her old school where it rose above the trees – and round a thickly-wooded promontory into the open sea. Up to that point they'd been able to see a dark strip of land on the horizon to the west, even as they sailed within a mile of the coast to their east – now, heading eastwards, the expanse of flat, grey ocean stretched unbroken into the distance until it blended into the northern skies. They'd been lucky with the weather except for one brief thunderstorm, and though Eleanor had wanted to find out how they kept the boat under control in bad weather, she'd been so seasick that she spent the whole time vomiting over the side and managed to completely avoid learning anything.
On the twelfth morning of their voyage, John suddenly announced that they would be stopping at Dashfort – the next major port along the coast – to restock their supplies; from there, they'd head out across the sea and on to foreign shores.
Eleanor was thrilled by the news. Having quickly grown bored with the diet of fish, biscuits and dried fruit she was looking forwards to fresh food again, and the chance to explore a new town – much larger than Port Just or Arche – appealed to her natural curiosity. Dashfort had even been mentioned in Stories of the Assassins – a couple of horrifically dismembered bodies, generally thought to be those of would-be assassins who had dramatically failed to join the academy, had turned up in one of the squares.
With growing excitement Eleanor leant over the bow of the boat, watching the buildings grow from dots on the horizon to take on a clearer shape. The city was built into a steep hillside, sloping away from the sea, half of the houses looking like they might fall into the water at any moment. A light mist shrouded the top of the hill and hid the full extent of the city. Eleanor tried to count the buildings – ten, twenty, forty... she lost count before she reached a hundred, but she still hadn't counted a tenth of what was visible. A thousand houses! If she wasn't going to be able to get to Almont any time soon, this was certainly the next best thing. The rest of the crew were obviously equally enthusiastic, and even those who might reasonably have been sleeping were on deck to watch their approach into the city.
"You not seeing this city before?" Spice asked her. He had sharp features and his skin was black-brown, a darker shade even than Gisele's. Combined with his strange manner of speaking, she wondered if he was from beyond the Empire, but none of the men wore their name bangles aboard and she hadn't dared ask him outright.
"I haven't been to any cities," she said. "I only just left school."
They were steering into the harbour when John came up behind her, interrupting her thoughts. "You'll be needing to get below deck now," he said.
She turned in surprise. "What?"
"You'll be needing to get below deck. Don't want anyone recognising you, now do we?"
Eleanor felt all her excitement drain away. "Can't I see the city?" she asked, her throat suddenly dry.
"We'll not risk it," John said. "You're a fugitive, and you'll stay out of sight till we're beyond the Empire."
"In a place this size they've got more to worry about than stupid stories coming out of Port Just, haven't they? And you're all criminals!" Eleanor felt indignation rising in her chest at the injustice of it all. "What's so special about me?"
"Better to be safe," he said flatly. "You've a higher profile than any of my men."
"But that's not fair!" she cried. A couple of heads turned towards her but she didn't care. She'd been forced into joining this band of criminals, and now she was being treated like she was worse than any of them.
John grasped her arm and pulled her forwards. "You made your own fate when you pulled out that knife, girl."
Though she struggled against him, gripping the nearest rope and digging her heels into the deck, he was stronger. He dragged her across to the hatch, which Sandy opened as they approached, and pushed her feet-first into the cabin below. As she fell heavily onto her knees she heard the wood slam down above her, and listened to the scraping sounds of some heavy object being manoeuvred above her until – she was sure without testing it – the weight held the hatch against her possible escape.
Hardly able to believe what he'd done, she banged her fists against the overhead and called for someone to let her out, but there was no response. Giving up in frustration she moved slowly across to her hammock – taking care not to trip in the darkness – and lay down, waiting. A short while later she was jolted to her senses as the boat thudded against the quay, and she heard the men moving around – felt the boat move as one and then another of the crew jumped ashore, then more gentle bumps as the mooring lines were secured, tying the Rose firmly into her berth.
Eleanor lay still in the dark for what felt like forever, just waiting for the commotion to die down, waiting long enough in the silence that she was sure all the men had gone ashore. She didn't want to try to get out if they were still standing guard; she wasn't looking for a fight.
Once she was sure she was alone she made her way back to the hatch, took a couple of steps up the ladder and pushed upwards as hard as she could. The wood creaked under the weight above, but moved barely an inch above its frame. Eleanor, however, saw her chance in the sliver of light. She spotted an old broom resting in the corner of the cabin; hopping lightly down she grabbed it, then scrambled back up the ladder and prepared to push again. With a hard shove she lifted the hatch just enough to let her slide the broom-handle into the space; now the inch was a permanent gain.
She pulled gently downwards, wondering if the handle would be strong enough to use as a lever, but it creaked worryingly under the strain. Frustrated, she looked around the kitchen for inspiration. She picked up a couple of flat, heavy pans and began to work one of them into the gap. With grim determination she slowly managed to insert them both, one on each side of the hatch.
Taking a deep breath, she heaved on both pan-handles. She felt something shift above the hatch and the broom clattered to the deck as the opening widened; it was working!
By the time she felt the pans beginning to slide it was too late to stop herself from falling and she landed painfully on her back – but as well as the sounds of her own fall, she also heard heavy movement above her. Had she succeeded? She pushed gently at the hatch, and to her delight it moved freely now.
Satisfied, she darted back across the cabin, seized the cloak and cap she'd borrowed from John for their walk down to the harbour in Arche, and hastily remade her disguise before scrambling up the ladder onto the deck. She swung the hatch closed again, but hard as she tried she couldn't drag the barrel back into place, so of course they'd realise as soon as they returned that she'd gone out. She wondered how long the men would spend in town – at least until nightfall, she guessed. They were probably as glad of the change as she was. She'd have to be careful, though – she didn't want to risk being stranded here, unarmed and alone.
Pushing her worries from her mind, Eleanor stepped ashore – though her legs wobbled uncomfortably beneath her, she was glad to be back on dry land. Her first priority was to find something hot and tasty to eat, and the smell of sizzling bacon called her towards a stall in the shadow of the city gates. There was a small queue but she didn't mind waiting, and when she reached the front of the line the woman behind the stall handed her a huge cone of flatbread overflowing with strips of bacon, sliced sausage, dry-fried beans and melting cheese. Distracted, Eleanor almost forgot to pay; she hadn't been out of school long enough for the idea of paying for meals to really take hold. Once she'd handed over a couple of small coins she wandered through the gates and began to make her way up the steep cobbled street, taking greedy mouthfuls as she walked.
She wandered
at random between the houses, through narrow streets and covered alleyways. The city was built on too steep a slope for carts to be able to climb the hill, which had clearly shaped the growth of the town – she'd never seen anything so haphazard. While the harbour had been large and open, perfect for trading, the city within the gates was cramped and irregular. Eleanor had just swallowed her final mouthful when she emerged into a paved, hexagonal courtyard tucked between six large buildings. It was the first reasonably flat area she had come to, and she immediately realised where she was.
This was where the bodies had been found.
She shivered, and sternly told herself it was only because of the cold. More than ever, she wished John had given her knife back. She didn't know when she'd have another opportunity to investigate Dashfort's mysteries but she was reluctant to try anything risky when she was unarmed. Her eyes flickered from one corner to the next, looking for any kind of clues to what might be lurking here. It was quieter here than the rest of the town, but simple superstition would account for that – there had been deaths, that would be enough to keep away anyone who didn't need to come here. An occasional passer-by scuttled across one side or another of the hexagon but none stopped and none cast a second glance at Eleanor as she stood in the shadows.
The weather was becoming more autumnal, and a biting wind whistled through the streets as she huddled in a corner between two buildings, pulling the borrowed cloak more tightly round her shoulders as she took in the scene. She didn't want to think about how much trouble she would be in when she returned to the Rose but it was worth it just to be here, on her first step into the legends, her first tentative movement towards the life she hoped was to be her destiny. In this very place, someone had come close enough to success to find the most horrendous failure.
A single oak tree grew in the centre of the courtyard, its branches reaching up and spreading above the rooftops. Domestic and commercial buildings seemed to have been scattered at random through the rest of the town, but Eleanor noted that none of the buildings around her here were houses. Dashfort's Fiscal Office announced itself with bold letters carved into the stone, and neatly-painted signs marked the police station, a small prison, the Dashfort Region branch of the Assessors' College, and the Administrative Hall. The sixth building had no words, just the Imperial insignia carved by its door; Eleanor could only begin to guess at what purpose the Empress's personal embassy might serve here.
An old man shuffled past and let himself into the Fiscal Office, the door swinging closed behind him.
Eleanor pulled her cap firmly down over her ears, tucking the last few strands of hair out of sight as she did so, and began to walk around the now-deserted square. On her first circuit she studied the ground under her feet, inspecting the slabs around the perimeter one-by-one, occasionally stopping when her feet found a wobbly stone but finding nothing of interest. On the second circuit she turned her attention to the walls of the buildings as she passed, but again nothing seemed out of place. It was only when she stopped, and found herself standing next to the huge carving of the Imperial crest, that she noticed a small gap between two overlapping elements of the insignia.
She pulled two of the pins from her hair and poked one through the crack; having confirmed there was indeed a lock concealed there she began to work at it, pushing at the levers until the drum finally rotated and a section of the wall swung open towards her. Just as she was peering into the dark opening, she heard voices approaching from behind; panicked, she ducked through the door and pulled it closed behind her. The latch clicked back into place as the door locked itself again; Eleanor ran her hands over the wall she had just come through, but there was nothing on this side to indicate an opening.
She cursed under her breath: no access to the lock from this side.
She turned and looked around her; as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she could just make out a flight of narrow steps climbing away from her. She pushed half-heartedly against where she knew the door to be, not really expecting it to move. It didn't, so she began to make her way – very carefully – up the stairs. Instinctively she felt she was doing the right thing, but a small part of her worried that there was something not quite logical about trying to follow in the footsteps of some youths who'd suffered horrific deaths, particularly when she was without a weapon. She glowered into the shadows, annoyed at herself for having such thoughts – it wasn't as though there was much other evidence, in the assassin legends, apart from the bodies which turned up from time to time. And, she reminded herself, she was now trapped, so she had little choice apart from to get on with it, whatever 'it' was.
There were only a dozen steps before the space opened out into a small hexagonal chamber, about six feet across and lit by a shaft of light which fell from high above. Five of the walls were plain grey rock, but the sixth was made up of shiny black stone tiles.
Eleanor inspected the five plain walls first, tapping and prodding at every irregularity in the surface, but there was no movement – even judicious insertion of a hairpin between the stones found nothing this time. Her attention turned next to the floor; unlike outside, she had no concern about drawing attention to herself here, so she got down on her knees to examine the flagstones. She worked her way slowly around the room, spiralling inwards until she was sure she had checked every slab. Still nothing.
Almost disappointed by the lack of subtlety, she finally went over to the black mosaic.
The tiles were all different shapes, each about the size of Eleanor's palm; they fitted neatly together to form an apparently random pattern over a three-foot square. She started at the left-hand edge, gently trying to move each tile until one of them slid sideways by a fraction of an inch. Flushed by this apparent success, she tried the adjacent tiles, but none of them would budge. In her eagerness she pressed a little too hard; it was only by luck that she wasn't directly in the path of the blade which shot from the mosaic. The metal grazed her finger deeply as it passed, then clattered against the opposite wall.
Sucking her wound, she paced across the room and picked up the knife – a fine sliver of metal, far too flexible for hand-to-hand combat but strong enough to do a lot of damage if it came flying at an unsuspecting victim, particularly at the speed it had flown from the wall. And, she could tell from the acid pain searing through her hand, it was poisoned.
She sucked forcefully at her finger, hoping to draw out some of the poison. As she spat blood onto the floor, Eleanor realised the room would have to be reset every time someone came here – whether to remove a body or simply to put the mosaic back to its starting position. And the knives, of course, would have to be re-sprung. She shuddered as she recognised the scale of operation that was implied.
She tore a strip from the bottom of her tunic and wrapped it tightly around her finger, wincing with the pain but determined to stem the flow of blood – she couldn't afford to be distracted, she might not be so lucky if she sprung another trap. She returned to very gentle examination of the mosaic, her movements timid and slow now that she knew some of the dangers.
After a few moments' exploration she had worked out the game. The outer tiles would move, gradually, outwards – but only if she nudged them in the right order, which seemed to be random. The movement on each tile was almost imperceptible, but she soon found out that if she got one wrong then the pattern would lock until she went back and corrected it. Once she finished manoeuvring the outer ring, she hoped, she would be able to do something with the next layer of tiles.
Gradually she worked her way around the puzzle, sometimes finding that she had to move in towards the centre of the mosaic, sometimes outwards again, always with tiny movements so as to adjust the puzzle without causing it to lock up or fire blades at her. Despite her best efforts she occasionally applied too much pressure, and she'd been grazed by another four knives by the time that a small gap began to appear in the centre of the mosaic. She picked them all up, sure that even flimsy weapons were better than none.
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Once the central gap was wide enough she reached her hand cautiously in, extending one of the poison blades ahead of her fingers just in case there was another trap waiting for her. Beyond the edge of the two-inch thick mosaic tiles, she could feel nothing – there was an empty space. She managed to get her arm through the hole, all the way up to her shoulder, but still there was nothing within reach.
Frustrated, she resumed her work on the tiles, starting again at the outer edge. In her irritation she was careless and dislodged a couple more knives, one of which sank deep into her shoulder. She pulled the blade out and twisted her head to suck hard on the wound, only then wondering whether there was more to this poison than the acid burning sensation. She spat hard just in case.
After another few circuits of the mosaic, manoeuvring the pieces gradually further out, the gap in the middle finally looked big enough for a person to crawl into. Once Eleanor had established that all the tiles were now firmly locked in place, and nothing else seemed to be happening, she decided she'd have to go that way. She picked up the last of the knives from the floor, tucked most of them into her pockets, and climbed into the hole.
For a few feet the tunnel ran straight; Eleanor crawled into the darkness, fingers exploring ahead of her. After a short distance there was a sharp bend to the right, and then left again, cutting out the light from the room behind. She paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but there was very little to see.
She edged forwards again, following the tunnel through another three turns until at last a glimmer of light appeared at the end. After a few more yards of crawling she emerged into another, larger hexagonal chamber, blinking in the sudden brightness. She barely had time to look around before a clicking sound to her right drew her attention; she turned and flicked out one of the blades she was holding just in time to deflect the disc of metal which came flying towards her face.
She froze on the spot, wondering what she'd done to set off the trap – maybe it was just her weight on the floor, but she didn't want to risk any further movement until she had a plan. Her eyes wandered across the room; aside from going back the way she'd come, the only apparent way out of this room was a doorway set high into the opposite wall. The base of the opening was at least six feet above Eleanor's head – and she doubted it would be so easy as to just walk across and climb the wall, even if she could find adequate hand-holds between the smooth blocks of stone.
With a knife ready in each hand she took one cautious sidestep, listening for the giveaway click of a trap but nothing came. She relaxed a little, and bent down to pick up the metal disc from the floor, then cursed under her breath as the sharp edge sliced into her fingers and caused her to drop it again. Drying the blood on her tunic, she straightened carefully and looked around. At least these ones weren't edged with the acid which had burned on the earlier blades – she hoped no subtler poison was lurking.
She decided that only her weight on the flagstones could possibly have released the disc; with that in mind, she counted the shortest route to the far wall. If each stone would spring a trap then the number of stones she stepped on was more important than making her route a direct one; the best path curved to the left and seemed likely to set off six more.
Knives poised, she stretched out one foot and gradually shifted her weight onto the next slab. The click this time came from behind her; she spun around and narrowly dodged the flying disc which came at knee-height this time.
Wary in case there could be more than one trigger beneath a given stone, Eleanor edged onwards towards the next stone on her path. She wondered how she could have let herself get into a situation like this, unarmed apart from the flimsy knives she'd got from the mosaic, and only one false step away from being sliced in half. But there was no chance of leaving the way she'd come in so she had no choice but to go on, as stupid as it seemed. She gritted her teeth and prepared to step onto the next stone, moving as quietly as she could.
Three flagstones and three deflected discs later, she was beginning to feel a little more confident. True, the blades were sharp, but she'd only been harmed when she'd tried to pick one of them up. She stepped onto the next slab, listening for the now-familiar click – but this time two sounds disturbed her. She turned right and threw a knife to meet the spinning disc mid-air then twisted to her left with only moments to spare, managing to flatten herself to the ground as the second disc flew close over her head.
Heart racing, she got back to her feet, annoyed that she'd allowed herself to relax. There was only one more stone between her and the wall, now – but she couldn't let herself assume there wouldn't be any more surprises.
She slid herself gently forward onto the last flagstone, and again two clicks warned her of two blades slicing towards her. She deflected the first easily, but the second caught her elbow and she felt the warm flow of blood along her arm. She tore another strip from the bottom of her tunic and prepared a hasty tourniquet.
Reaching the wall at last, she tried to find suitable handholds for climbing, but the blocks of stone were neatly quarried and fitted together with barely perceptible cracks. Dismayed, she tried the only other thing she could think of, forcing one of the knives into the crack between two blocks. She tested it hopefully – maybe, just maybe it would hold her weight. She didn't want to risk snapping the metal before she was ready to climb, so she pushed a couple more knives into place higher up the wall. One more at around knee-height, and she felt she was ready to go.
A small voice at the back of her mind told her that she was being idiotic – that if she fell she'd almost undoubtedly set off a new trap, and would probably be too slow to fend off the resulting blades. But she had no alternative. Somehow, she had to manage this.
She swallowed back her fear, rested her left foot on the lowest knife-handle, then suddenly began to climb, as quickly as she could, up the metal ladder she had made for herself. She could feel the knives bending under her weight, threatening to break. She hooked her fingers over the edge of the opening, then tried to push herself upwards but the extra force snapped the blade she was standing on and she slipped down the wall, now clinging by her fingertips to the bottom of the doorway.
Her instincts took over and she scraped her toes against the stones, searching desperately for any irregularities which she could use to climb. Surely no mere wall could present a harder challenge than the overhangs and smooth cliff-faces she had practised on as a child. After what seemed like an eternity she managed to find one toe-hold. It was only just enough to take some of the pressure from her fingers, but she was relieved nonetheless. Encouraged, she lifted her other leg and began to search higher up the wall. It was a slow and awkward progress, but eventually she managed to find good enough footholds to haul her body up and into the opening.
After a brief rest she got to her feet again and pulled a couple more knives from her pocket – she didn't know what else she would be facing, but she wanted to be prepared. She looked around; she was in another small chamber, but this one had mosaic tiles on the floor, arranged to display the numerals 4 and 7. She wondered what that could possibly mean. Four and seven. Forty seven? It meant nothing to her. Bemused, she decided to concentrate on getting out. There was another doorway in the opposite wall, and she edged round the room towards it, avoiding stepping on any of the mosaic tiles.
She moved as quietly and carefully as she could, and for once nothing seemed to happen. By the time she reached the second doorway she wondered if something had broken – it was uncharacteristically easy. A flight of steps led down from here, and she began to make her way down, still afraid that there might be more traps. But nothing hindered her progress and she came to a door at the bottom of the stairs. She clicked open the latch, pushed the door and found herself in the same courtyard where she had begun. Of its own accord the door swung closed behind her, and she understood why she had not found this opening when she had been inspecting the walls – even now, knowing it was there, she couldn't find the outline of the door. br />
The sun was setting on the horizon, and Eleanor ran as fast as her feet could carry her down to the harbour and across to the Rose. She was relieved to find that she had got back before the others. Knowing she wouldn't be able to disguise the fact that she had been out, she settled herself in the bow to wait for the consequences; the sea air whipped across her face as she waited and made her wounds sting.
John, Mag and Anvil were the first to return, laden with rolls of brightly coloured silk and heavy woollen cloth. "These'll sell a treat in Taraska," John grinned as they loaded their purchases on to the boat. "You just can't beat a quality Charanthe cloth."
He stopped short as he caught sight of Eleanor; seeing his eyes upon her, she mumbled an apology and looked firmly at the floor. She knew how bad she must look, her wounds smarting and blistered, her hair tousled and her clothes torn. John glowered at her without speaking.
"Tol' you," Anvil said, breaking the silence. "Tol' you she'd get out, Cap'n. Can't trust 'em."
"No excuse to stop work," John said flatly, pulling open the hatch to the goods hold. "Come on, girl, you can at least help us load up."
Eleanor pulled herself painfully to her feet and clambered down into the hold, reaching up for the bundles which the men had brought and hoping her makeshift bandages were enough to stop blood from leaking onto the valuable cloths. As she stacked everything neatly into a corner, she wondered what John would have to say to her. She knew she'd let him down, and with hindsight she wasn't even sure it had been worth her while. What had she achieved, apart from a few injuries and some stupid, meaningless number? 47? It didn't feel like much.
Spice and Triangle had both returned from the town by the time she climbed back onto the deck, and as soon as he saw the state she was in Spice went to fetch a jar of ointment from his locker. Eleanor recognised it as the same kind of clear gel as Mary had given her back in Arche. He tore the bandages from the wounds she had patched, ripping away some of the scabs as he did so, and she tried not to flinch as he daubed her with liberal amounts of cold, sticky gel.
"What is that stuff?" Eleanor asked.
"Srakol – but the crew just calling it jelly. Keep it. We get more in Taraska, but you going to needing it before then." He looked disapprovingly at her wounds. "What you been doing, anyway?"
Eleanor saw John's attention pick up; she knew she had to watch her words. "I was exploring," she said.
"Explorin'?" Anvil snorted, voice full of disbelief. "Assassinin', more like."
"Think what you like," Eleanor said and forced herself to laugh, hoping that if she seemed sufficiently amused at the idea then the crew would eventually give up on it.
"I'm not going to ask you what you've been doing," John said at last. "I just hope you've been straight with me, girl. We can't afford to carry liabilities."