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“Sold? They would sell you?” said Gord when her downcast eyes told him that her tale was told.
“As surely as my father fails to pay my ransom.”
“No one can sell you, Evaleigh. You’re a baroness-and the most beautiful girl in the world!”
“Don’t raise your voice so,” she cautioned softly. “And thank you, Gord.”
“Don’t thank me yet, dear lady. Wait until Stoink is behind us, and then you may say thus.”
Evaleigh looked up at him for a moment, the moonlight making her eyes gleam marvelously. Gord was unused to looking down upon a woman, for his height was such that most girls were nearer to par with him. But this gorgeous creature stood only an inch over five feet, and Gord felt like a hero already as she silently beseeched him to make good his intimation of rescue.
“We must return to the palace now, or they will become suspicious,” Evaleigh said, moving away from him toward the pathway leading to the hall. She still held his hand, lightly, and Gord moved to retain the contact.
“When shall I see you again?” he asked.
“Never, unless you make the opportunity,” she whispered. “Do you think that pig in there allows anyone as young and handsome as you to be near me?”
Handsome… she had called him that! Gord felt as though he were floating above the ground, as tall as a titan. “I shall soon devise a way then!” he responded with great vigor.
“I’ll pray it is so,” Evaleigh said, and gave him a soft little kiss on the cheek, so swiftly and briefly that the guards did not see, and even Gord was uncertain for an instant that it had, in fact, happened. “We approach the sty, so I can no longer be civil, but you are my champion!”
Stiff and straight, Evaleigh entered the palace ahead of Gord. Without another word, she was gone, leaving Gord to return to the celebration. The great hall was only slightly less crowded. Trestles removed, the revelers were now engaged in serious drinking, while a motley assortment of entertainers performed in various parts of the long chamber. As he approached the place of honor, Gellor sidled up to him.
“Your face is as long as a troll’s snout, Gord,” his companion said. “Better put another expression on it, or the boss might be offended.”
“Screw him!” Gord spat.
“Oh, ho! So Lady Evaleigh has scored a conquest, has she?”
“Leave her out of this, Gellor!”
Without showing any umbrage, the one-eyed thief took Gord firmly by the arm and halted his progress toward Lord Dhaelhy’s dais. “For your continued health, listen!” he said. “That woman is a treasure of great value, and guarded thus. If a man sees one who is desirous of stealing his wealth, he acts-get my meaning? Now smile, relax, and we’ll hoist a few tankards! We’re honored guests, you know, and likely to get some companionship from the ambitious ladies here.”
Gord still looked sour, but he slowly nodded acceptance of the advice. “Thanks, Gellor. You’re right,” he said, regaining his composure as he did so.
“Good. I hear that Evaleigh is bound for Rookroost in a few days anyway.”
Chapter 18
A patch of shadow detached itself from the dark space between two of the buildings. For a brief moment only it seemed manlike in shape as it moved swiftly and noiselessly across the starlit courtyard. Then it was gone, enveloped in the umbra of the other structure toward which it had drifted. Only a bat had seen the shadow-figure, and it cared nothing about it. Sharp-eyed sentries hired for their ability to see well in darkness had noticed nothing, and the squad of soldiers that passed the area a few seconds later noticed the bat flutter overhead, but saw no more.
Gord was clad in black, head covered by a soft felt cap of inky hue, face smeared with lamp soot, hands gloved in ebon leather. Long training and practice enabled him to move without noise, and this silent progress was but a part of his skill. Clad as he was, Gord could become virtually invisible, using small projections, indentations, and shadow to conceal his presence.
It had been an easy matter for him to scale the wall around the complex, ease down the other side, and then disappear among the buildings of the fortresslike compound within which the lord of Stoink dwelled and the city’s government was administered. However, crossing the broad expanse of Hall Street a few moments earlier had not been quite so simple, for there were late-night passersby out strolling, and sentries on the outer wall before him to be contended with. Gord had utilized a passing night-soil cart, smelly as it was, to mask his approach, and then he had been forced to remain frozen, prone against the base of the wall, until a group of off-duty guards quit conversing with their fellows atop the wall and went on their way up Safe Avenue.
The outer wall of the building he was adjacent to had many projecting stones and cracks. Gord’s ascent was much the same as that of a normal person climbing a ladder-although a normal person attempting such a climb as the young thief made would find it next to impossible. Once atop the structure, he continued his oblique progress toward the palace, moving up and down as easily as normal folk went back and forth along the ground. He utilized the concealment of another nearby building, then the south i
Now he must be doubly careful, for this area was teeming with guards. The i
Understanding that he may well encounter magical as well as flesh-and-blood protections, Gord had opted for a bold plan. He ran along the base of the palace wall, for the bailey was deserted, and the darkness hid his motion. Where the angle of the wall met the great tower at the southwestern end of the palace proper, he sprang upward and stood upon the tiny ledge provided by the arch of the locked portal beneath.
Unmoving, hardly breathing as he plastered his body against the stone, Gord watched the bronzewood gate open and light spill out into the compound. A half-dozen guards came out, the door was banged shut, and the group walked away toward their barracks tower, chatting. Their torches might have revealed Gord’s presence, if any of the soldiers had bothered to look behind and up. In another minute, Gord was halfway up the tower, moving with speed verging on recklessness. However, he made the ascent without a slip, and about sixty feet up he moved off onto the steeply pitched roof of the great hall. Another guardsman on the tower’s top, thirty feet above, was dozing and witnessed nothing.
Pausing near a small turret at the northeastern end of the roof, Gord silently unstrapped his ebon-hued backpack. He pulled a dark cloth out of it and carefully removed all traces of black from his visage. Next he divested himself of his black outer garments, then got out and put on a surcoat identifying him as a junior officer of the Constabulary Guard, the body of men-at-arms whose duty it was to protect this very place. He pulled out and strapped on his shortsword, then stuffed the black garb into the pack, which he left tucked into a niche where none but the birds and bats would see it.