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But in this it had nothing on the dagger, which was a serpentine blade of watered steel, astonishingly sharp on both edges. This style had become necessary when some Italian fighters, more sophisticated than Joha
The light now came predominantly from the orange western sky, not the direct rays of the sun. The bouquet had to be re-examined in this new light. Joha
Joha
Satisfied that no one was there, he drew back and closed the gate, carefully, so as not to make a clang. And there he stood, at attention, in the pose of a musketeer at port arms, save that he cradled a bouquet instead of a weapon. Presently a single great draught-horse boomed around the corner, constrained between a pair of long stout carriage-poles, which led back to a little coach. The driver had a terse exchange of noises with the horse. The horse slowed, passed the gate, stopped, and then (for he’d gone a bit too far, and the driver was remonstrating) backed up until the carriage’s side door was aligned with the iron gate. Quelled, the driver now set the brake, perhaps showing an excess of prudence. Joha
He swung it open to reveal a pair of mastiffs.
Their eyes were rolling and bulging. Their nostrils were seething, as each was being straddled by a strong man with both hands clasped around its muzzle to keep it from barking. Joha
Neither Scylla nor Charybdis appeared to touch the ground until they were twenty feet inside the gate. They bounded into the Teufelsbaum, bashing branches out of the way like runaway gun-carriages. Only after they had disappeared did they think to bark, and then as an afterthought. These were not hunters, bred to bay. They were workers.
On the path that ran along the back of the plot, hooves were cantering-then they changed over to a gallop. Joha
He need not have bothered. By the time he stumbled to the back fence, the matter had been concluded. One of the dogs-Joha
The other dog was being soothed and attended to by one of the footmen-this had suffered a diagonal gash across the muzzle, which was bleeding a lot, though it was not an especially serious wound.
The second footman was kneeling beside a man in a dark robe who lay sprawled on his stomach near the fence. This footman must have been a student of anatomy, for with both hands he was methodically driving a dagger with a foot-long blade into diverse carefully selected locations in the fallen man’s back.
The injured dog-which had reluctantly been squatting on its haunches-got up. But its legs were twitching and it could not remain standing. It fell onto its side and gagged convulsively.
Joha
“Don’t touch it,” said a familiar woman’s voice. “Some are absorbed through the skin.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“I CANNOT IMAGINE A STATE of affairs more awkward than this,” Eliza thought out loud. They were walking back toward the palace, she picking up her skirts and breaking into a run from time to time to keep up with his strides. Normally Joha
“Two dead assassins in the Electress’s-I mean, the Elector’s garden? Yes, I should say so.”
It was only a few moments since they had witnessed the terminal moments of some unpleasantness in the canal. They were walking along one of the garden’s transverse paths, glancing to the right at every intersection, looking for a straight route back to the palace. Now suddenly they saw it sprawling against a purple and orange sky at a distance of some five hundred Joha
“No, the hashishin are easily managed,” Eliza said. “One died in the woods, the other in the canal-we’ll say that the latter got drunk, fell in, and drowned. The former has already vanished.”
“Then what is so damned awkward about it? By your leave.”
Eliza let it be seen that she was exasperated. “Think, son. Spies are ubiquitous, obviously. But this spy works for the Jacobites, and he-or to be precise, his wife-is Caroline’s lady-in-waiting-”
“She can be replaced.”
“-and the declared mistress of George Augustus!”
“Again, Mother, almost the whole point of mistresses is that they may be hot-swapped.”