Chapter 6 – The Duke’s Tower
She could not take Fellfang or the masks with her into the Duke’s Tower, and it was probably not wise to keep them in the room that she had rented. If things went awry . . . but then, how could they really go awry with Sacudente do Mundo always there now, waiting to be released? That, too, was a concern, for even if Sonata manifested, there would still be the aftermath to treat with; she would become Sonata Diamante again, thief and swords master, and then what? Could she really fight her way out of the city with the entire Night Guard at her heels? She’d done it once before. But that was before.
She checked out of her room and went to Madam Carla’s. It was dark and abandoned, and so it was easy to snap off a board across the back door and wiggle through. She had to snap off another to get Fellfang through, and then decided to just leave the boards dangling. Fellfang would need a way out if things went horribly wrong.
She kissed his wet nose, rubbed his back, tried to assert bravery in her voice. “If I’m not back by morning, just go. Get out of the city. Go to Sagano and find Cavaco, you hear? Find Cavaco.”
She strapped her satchel to the bullmastiff’s back. Wherever he went, the masks would tag along. Was that the right move? Perhaps not, but they had a better chance of reaching capable, responsible hands on the dog’s back than being left in a ruined brothel to be found by thieves or reconstruction workers.
Sonata kissed him again and then left quietly.
How does one get into the most fortified building in Cragsport? She’d never done so herself, though she’d cased the place often in the event Uncle Galo, one day, asked her to. She knew all the entrances, all the windows on the first floor. Everything, including the doors, were barred. The doors were guarded by two men, one on each side. The windows, praise the Gods, were not, though she’d casually walked past them all and had given them a gentle tug to test their strength. They were strong, unbending, and the only tools she had on her person were Freira, Chefe, a small dagger, and a few Ynti Quetzal Snake bone picks underneath the belt at her waist. The picks might prove useful, for she assumed the doors were locked as well, and possibly bolted from the inside. Sonata shook her head. This will be a challenge.
Patience, Sonata decided, would be her friend. The best thing to do would be to watch the behavior of the guards and ascertain their weaknesses. And of course, these were members of the Night Guard, so of course they had some, even if they were the most elite serving in the protection of Duke Ernesto. Men were men, she knew, and they always made mistakes.
In the protection of the nearby buildings, Sonata moved from shadow to shadow. Around and around the tower she plodded, for a couple hours at least, observing every movement of the guards. They were good, very good, she had to admit. They spoke little, and moved less. They were stiff and stolid, professional and unyielding in their routine. Watching them for so long, Sonata just about gave up trying to find a weakness. She resolved to find a window to break through instead. Then, she caught a break.
There was a shift change at the rear entrance. Two new guards arrived, and one of them was a woman. It was a little hard to tell just by the uniform, but being one herself, Sonata could see the subtle differences in the way the guard moved, how she carried herself, how slender her hands and forearms were, and how little hair her arms possessed. The faint lamplight that illuminated the space around the door could be playing tricks on her, Sonata knew, but it was worth the risk. This first shift change occurred two hours after she had begun observing the guards. Hopefully the next would be in two hours as well. If so, Sonata would be waiting.
It was very late now. After midnight at least. Time was slipping away. Time that she could be spending inside, searching each floor, for her uncle. If he was in there at all, of course. So, while she waited for the next shift change, Sonata surveyed the top floors of the tower, moving again around and around its foundation, this time to make measurements in her mind about how long it might take to search each floor. She had no way of knowing the exact layout of each level, but if its construction matched typical Viscano interior design, she had a pretty good idea of where the rooms lay, how many rooms there were, and how the hallways were positioned. On the top floor was Duke Ernesto’s living quarters. Those would be designed in whatever manner suited the duke, so there was no reason to even try to divine their layout. Sonata hoped that she would not have to go to the top to find Uncle Galo. Unless, of course, Duke Ernesto was holding him in his quarters.
Pervert!
How marvelous, too, would it be to find Madam Carla in there as well? There were rumors of a series of gaols below the first floor. If time were convenient, Sonata wanted to confirm those rumors, but it was unlikely that an old madam would be taken directly to the Duke’s Tower. She wouldn’t be important enough to do so, despite the fact that it had been the skirmish at her brothel that had started the riots and unrest. There were plenty of other gaols around the city where a woman like her could be held. Madam Carla was likely in one of those, and after all this was over, Sonata vowed to find her.
Another shift change occurred, and like before, both guards at the rear door handed over control in a small, perfunctory ceremony. Sonata grew impatient at the ridiculous pomp on display, especially since no one was watching except her. The change occurred, and the woman guard walked away as if she were heading home.
Sonata followed.
The male guard that had stood beside her caught up, and they walked together for a couple blocks. Then they parted at a corner with a light kiss in the lamplight. Damn! Sonata cursed. They were in a relationship. My misfortune. She now hated what she was about to do.
Sonata shadowed the woman guard for another block. Then she stepped out in front of her, Freira and Chefe drawn. The woman reached for her sword and whistle.
“Draw either, and lose your throat,” Sonata said, waving her swords in front of the woman’s face. “I don’t wish to harm you, miss, but may I have your name?”
The woman paused, confused. Then, “Lara.”
Sonata nodded. “Nice to meet you, Lara. One more thing: I need your uniform. I need it now.”
Lara lowered her shaking hand from the whistle on the chain around her neck. She placed the other shaking hand on the hilt of her own sword, but did not draw it. She swallowed and kept her eyes fixed on Sonata’s. “You will have to kill me to get it.”
Sonata smiled. “I’d say the same thing if I were in your boots. Very good.”
Sonata turned as if she were walking away. Then she twisted quickly, raised her leg, and drove her foot into the woman’s chest.
Lara fell back, dazed. She tried to recover. Sonata was on her quickly.
She drove Chefe’s hilt into Lara’s head, above the right eye, a place where her helmet would not blunt the strike. Lara would have a welt for sure, and her face would almost certainly be bruised black, but it was better than death. Sonata grabbed Lara’s collar and pulled her into the alley.
“I apologize for this,” Sonata said to Lara’s quiet wounded face, as she worked to remove the uniform. “But I promise to take good care of it.”
It was not a promise that Sonata could keep, but it sounded good in the moment. Lara deserved at least a modicum of her respect. She had shown bravery and dedication to her service. An unworthy service, in Sonata’s eyes, but dedicated service nonetheless.
The uniform was a little tight over her own clothing, but Sonata wiggled into it as best she could. She took Lara’s whistle and chain and even her sword, though it was a little bulkier than she liked. She kept Freira and Chefe on her back with the hilts pushed down further so as not to stick up and attract the attention of the other guards at the door. She hated wearing them so low; it made drawing them awkward and less precise. But she didn’t need to wear them like that for long; just long enough to get past two goons and be on her way.
She lay Lara down in as comfortable a position as she could, covered her limp body with some discarded debris so as not to be seen from the street.
“Give your boyfriend a kiss for me,” she said with a kiss of her own to the woman’s swelling forehead.
She then left the alley and made her way back to the Duke’s Tower.
✽✽✽
“You are no Night Guard.”
The men standing at the back entrance to the Duke’s Tower looked upon Sonata with skepticism. The one who acted as if he were the senior officer, said, “What lieutenant do you serve?”
“Silvio Abreu,” she said, hoping she was right. Uncle Galo had had her learn every name of every lieutenant in the Night Guard. Such knowledge was vital to her line of work. She just hoped that Silvio was still alive, still serving. Otherwise, the deception would be over right quick.
“Hmm,” the man nodded, seemingly unimpressed. “I served him for a while, along the Southern Jaw. What are you doing so far uptown, girl?”
Sonata lay her hand on the hilt of the borrowed sword. “Call me ‘girl’ again and find out. Now, stop wasting my time, and step aside. I have business with the duke.”
“What is your name?” The other, much younger, guard asked.
Sonata sighed, rolled her eyes. “Maria Galo. And before you ask: I have been ordered here personally by Captain Vaasco to serve in the duke’s personal security cadre.”
The guards looked at each other. The senior then looked at her. “Arriving at such an early hour? You could not wait for sunrise?”
“I did not question Captain Vaasco’s request. If you have the balls to ask him yourself, I’ll happily attend. But then you’ll have to explain to him why you left a junior to guard the door all alone, and in such trying times as these. Now, please stop wasting all of our time and let me by.”
She stared daggers at the senior, unblinking. Eventually, he blinked first, sighed himself, turned, unlatched the door, then stepped aside. “Be gone. We have work to do here, girl.”
Sonata stepped past them, keeping her eyes fixed on the senior, and turning so that they did not have a good view of her back, where Mother and Father lay. He called me “girl” again. Don’t take the bait. . . . “I would complement you on your diligent questioning, if I thought it’d cure your arrogance.”
“Go!” The senior snapped. “Or I will . . .”
She did not wait for his full statement. She backed up through the door, turned, and slipped away.
There were guards inside the tower, at least one at each juncture of the web-like hallways that all converged on the central spiral staircase that wound its way up, up, and disappeared into the darkness of the upper floors. There were many guards, in fact. More than she had hoped for, but understandable. They guarded the most important person in Viscano.
They did not bother her, however, at least not in the way the two idiots at the door had. They nodded to her as she walked past them. They assumed that, because she wore the uniform and she was in their midst, that she belonged there. So, Sonata acted like she belonged there, though she was not quite sure what that meant. She had left Cragsport before she had fulfilled any of her obligation to serve in the Night Guard. She possessed a passing familiarity of the various Night Guard protocols, mannerisms, secret handshakes, what have you. But like many organizations, especially one as corrupt as the Night Guard, there were subtle, provincial differences between how the guards acted in the central quarters versus how they acted and greeted one another around the Southern Jaw. Sonata played it safe and parroted back all the greetings that she received from each guard as she walked past them. None of them seemed offended, confused, or angry with her responses.
She checked all the rooms, antechambers, closets, and alcoves that she came across, as if she were checking them for security reasons. They were all dark, quiet. It was, after all, the wee hours of the morning. There was no one of import awake, and the living quarters for the duke and his staff were all on upper floors.
Uncle Galo was not on the first floor.
She worked her way down a spoke of the hallway system until it dead-ended at the staircase winding up. Sonata peered into the darkness of the shaft, shook her head.
“It goes up all six stories?” She asked the guard that she stood beside.
He nodded. “Of course it does. Where else would it go?”
“And that’s the only way to the upper floors? Seems like a poor design.”
“How so?”
“Well, one way up, only one way down. If the tower is assaulted, the duke could get trapped.”
The guard huffed. “On the contrary. It’s the most defendable structure in Cragsport. One way up, one way down, yes. But a well-supplied cadre of thirty men on the upper floors can hold off a force ten times its size, for weeks.” The guard pulled a confused face. “But why am I telling you this? That’s standard knowledge for any guard in the tower. Wait . . . who are—”
Before he finished the question, Sonata drew Freira and ran it across the man’s exposed throat. She stepped aside to avoid the blood spray and let him fall to the floor. She caught him so that his chainmail would not strike the floor and echo up the shaft. Then she pulled him into the darkness behind the staircase, laid him down, and let him bleed to death as she removed her uniform. It was too hot, too tight, too cumbersome. She’d work better without it, though there would be no doubt now that a killer, a thief, was loose in the Duke’s Tower. If they caught her.
Sonata waited until the man breathed his last. Then she stepped out of the shadow, drew Chefe to make it an even pair, and placed her foot on the first step.
She breathed deep to steady herself and whispered, “Let’s find a wizard.”