LITMIR.BIZ

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stop along the way. I’m in a hurry. And don’t start asking for the fare. You can send the bill to Lord Dunham and he can feel grateful that it’s all I’m costing him tonight.”

      She didn’t even know if there was a Lord Dunham, but the name felt right. She expected the carriage driver to argue, or at least dicker over the fare. Instead, he just bowed.

      “Yes, my lady.”

      The carriage ride through the city was more comfortable than Sophia could have imagined. More comfortable than jumping on the back of wagons, certainly, and far shorter. In a matter of minutes, she could see the gates approaching. Sophia felt her heart tighten, because the same servant was still working on them. Could she do this? Would he recognize her?

      The carriage slowed, and Sophia forced herself to lean out, hoping that she looked as she should.

      “Is the ball in full swing yet?” she demanded in her new accent. “Have I arrived at the right time to make an impact? More to the point, how do I look? My servants tell me that this is suitable for your court, but I feel I look like some docksides whore.”

      She couldn’t resist that small revenge. The servant on the gate bowed deeply.

      “My lady could not have timed her arrival better,” he assured her, with the kind of false sincerity that Sophia guessed nobles liked. “And she looks absolutely lovely, of course. Please, go straight through.”

      Sophia closed the curtain to the carriage as it drove on, but only so it would hide her stunned relief. This was working. It was actually working.

      She just hoped that things were working out as well for Kate.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Kate was enjoying the city more than she would have thought possible alone. She still ached with the loss of her sister, and she still wanted to get out into the open countryside, but for now, Ashton was her playground.

      She made her way through the city streets, and there was something particularly appealing about being lost in the crowds. Nobody looked her way, any more than they looked at the other urchins or apprentices, younger sons or would-be fighters of the town. In her boyish costume and with the short spikes of her hair, Kate could have passed for any of them.

      There was so much to see in the city, and not just the horses that Kate cast a covetous eye over every time she passed one. She paused opposite a vendor selling hunting weapons out of a wagon, the light crossbows and occasional muskets looking impossibly grand. If Kate could have snatched one, she would have, but the man kept a careful eye on everyone who came close.

      Not everyone was so careful, though. She managed to snatch a hunk of bread from a café table, a knife from where someone had used it to pin up a religious pamphlet. Her talent wasn’t perfect, but knowing where people’s thoughts and attention were was a big advantage when it came to the city.

      She kept on, looking for an opportunity to take more of what she would need for life out in the country. It was spring, but that just meant rain instead of snow most days. What would she need? Kate started to check things off on her fingers. A bag, twine to make traps for animals, a crossbow if she could get one, an oilskin to keep the rain off, a horse. Definitely a horse, despite all the risks that horse thievery brought with it.

      Not that any of it was truly safe. There were gibbets on some of the corners holding the bones of long dead criminals, preserved so that the lesson could last. Over one of the old gates, ruined in the last war, there were three skulls on spikes that were supposedly those of the traitor chancellor and his conspirators. Kate wondered how anybody knew anymore.

      She spared a glance for the palace in the distance, but that was only because she hoped that Sophia was all right. That kind of place was for the likes of the dowager queen and her sons, the nobles and their servants trying to shut out the troubles of the real world with their parties and their hunts, not real people.

      “Hey, boy, if you’ve got coin to spend, I’ll show you a good time,” a woman called from the doorway of a house whose purpose was obvious even if it had no sign. A man who could have wrestled bears stood on the door, while Kate could hear the sounds of people enjoying themselves too much even though it wasn’t dark yet.

      “I’m not a boy,” she snapped back.

      The woman shrugged. “I’m not picky. Or come in and make yourself some coin. The old lechers like the boyish ones.”

      Kate stalked on, not dignifying that with an answer. That wasn’t the life she had planned for herself. Nor was stealing to gain everything she wanted.

      There were other opportunities that seemed more interesting. Everywhere she looked, it seemed that there were recruiters for one or other of the free companies, declaring their high pay in relation to the others, or their better rations, or the glory to be won in the wars across the Knife-Water.

      Kate actually wandered up to one of them, a hearty-looking man in his fifties, wearing a uniform that seemed better suited to a player’s idea of war than the real thing.

      “Ho there, boy! Are you looking for adventure? For derring-do? For the possibility of death at the swords of your enemies? Well, you’ve come to the wrong place!”

      “The wrong place?” Kate said, not even caring that he too had thought she was a boy.

      “Our general is Massimo Caval, the most famously cautious of fighting men. Never does he engage unless he can win. Never does he waste his men in fruitless confrontations. Never does he – ”

      “So you’re saying he’s a coward?” Kate asked.

      “A coward is the best thing to be in a war, believe me,” the recruiter said. “Six months running ahead of enemy forces while they get bored, with only occasional looting to liven things up. Think of it, the life, the… wait, you’re not a boy, are you?”

      “No, but I can still fight,” Kate insisted.

      The recruiter shook his head. “Not for us, you can’t. Be off with you!”

      In spite of his defense of cowardice, the recruiter looked as though he might cuff her around the head if Kate stayed there, so she kept walking.

      So many things in the city made little sense. The House of the Unclaimed had been a cruel place, but at least it had possessed a kind of order. Half the time, in the city, it seemed that people did whatever they wanted, with little input from the city’s rulers. The city itself certainly seemed to have no plan to it. Kate crossed a bridge that had been built up with stalls and stages and even small houses until there was barely enough room to use it for its intended purpose. She found herself walking down streets that spiraled back on themselves, down alleys that somehow became the roofs of houses at a lower elevation, then gave way to ladders.

      As for the people on the streets, the whole city seemed insane. There seemed to be someone shouting on every corner, declaring the elements of their personal philosophy, demanding attention for the performance they were about to put on, or denouncing the kingdom’s involvement in the wars across the water.

      Kate ducked into doorways as she saw the masked figures of priests and nuns about the inscrutable business of the Masked Goddess, but after the third or fourth time she kept walking. She saw one flailing a chain of prisoners, and she found herself wondering what part of the goddess’s mercy that represented.

      There were horses everywhere in the city. They pulled carriages, they bore riders, and some of the larger ones pulled carts full of everything from stone to beer. Seeing them was one thing; stealing one was proving to be quite another.

      In the end, Kate picked a spot outside an ostler’s shop, moving closer and waiting for her moment. To steal something as big as a horse, she needed more than just a moment of inattention, but in principle it was no different from stealing a pie. She could feel the thoughts of the stable hands as they roved and wandered. One was bringing out a fine-looking mare, thinking about the noblewoman it was intended for.

      Damn it, she’ll need a side saddle, not this.

      The thought was all the invitation Kate needed. She moved forward as the ostler rushed

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