City of Lies - Lian Tanner [55]
The Dirty Gate lay deep inside the museum, in a long, narrow room with a stone floor and stone walls. There were no exhibits here, no display cases, just cold-hearted stone and, at the far end, the Gate itself, its massive iron strips twisted together like honeycomb.
The slommerkin paused halfway down the room, snuffing the air. Sinew peered past it and saw that the Dirty Gate was open, and that Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga stood to one side of it, with a small fire burning at their feet.
He added a note of urgency to the song he played. “Don’t stop! Don’t tarry! Liver-and-hearts! Marrow-bones!”
The slommerkin surged down the room. But just as it was about to step through the Gate, Sinew’s bleeding fingers slipped. A discord rang out.
The slommerkin hesitated. Its head swung from side to side. It turned around, its little eyes fixed on Herro Dan. It licked its pendulous lips.…
“No!” cried Olga Ciavolga, and she snatched a burning stick from the fire and threw it, as straight as a spear. The slommerkin squealed with pain. It shuffled backward through the Dirty Gate, pawing at its nose. Quickly, the keepers threw themselves at the Gate and pushed it shut. Herro Dan shot the bolt; then he took a large key from his pocket and turned it in the lock.
With a groan of exhaustion, Sinew slid down the wall and laid his harp on the floor. Broo flopped beside him.
“Never met anyone who could throw like you can, lass,” said Herro Dan with a shaky laugh.
“Pfft, it was easy.” The old woman smiled, but her face was white. “Give me something hard to do next time.”
Broo raised his head from his paws. An enormous sigh escaped him. “Is there anything to eat? I am very hungry.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Olga Ciavolga, bending over him. “Of course you are hungry. And look at your poor shoulder! Come with me. I will sew you up and feed you. Sinew, you too. We must do something about your hands.”
Sinew nodded but did not move. “You and Broo go on ahead. I’ll follow when I’ve caught my breath.”
As Olga Ciavolga hurried away with the brizzlehound limping beside her, Herro Dan eased his old bones down to the floor. “That was well done, lad,” he said, patting Sinew on the arm.
Sinew yawned. “I have never in my life played so long and hard. I hope I never have to do such a thing again, but—”
“So do I, lad.”
“But when I was in the middle of it, I sort of felt the children.”
“What? Where?”
“I don’t know. But I think—I think something has happened to them. Something strange.” Sinew drew his torn fingers through the air above his harp, and a single bright note rang out. “Something very strange.”
Frisia, Crown Princess of Merne, slid the bent wire into the lock of her bedchamber door. This wasn’t the first time her bodyguards had locked her in at night. They said it was necessary to keep her safe from assassins. But Frisia had her own ways of getting out.…
One by one the pins inside the lock slid up and out of the way. The door cracked open. She listened for the sound of breathing and heard nothing—her bodyguards hadn’t yet arrived for duty. Good.
She strapped her sword over the boy’s tunic she habitually wore, pulled on a fur robe and crept out into the silent corridor, closing the door behind her. The flagstones were cold, even through her shoes, and a wisp of winter fog had seeped through the walls.
Her hands were cold too. In fact, her whole body was freezing, as if she had just climbed out of an ice-bound river rather than a warm bed. She shivered and drew her robe closer. All around her, the upper floors of the castle slept.
Frisia hurried past Physician Hoff’s apartments, and past the family chapel, where two stone wolves stood guard. She kissed their noses for luck, as she had done ever since she was tall enough to reach them; then she turned the corner and let herself into the apartments that were reserved for the Margrave of Spit and his children.
She could hear movement in one of the bedchambers. She tapped on the door, feeling for the scrap of paper in her coin pocket. Despite