The Magehound - Elaine Cunningham [43]
"That I doubt," she said with certainty. Matteo had looked considerably scuffed up when they'd parted ways, and he probably was in much the same condition now. "If we're thinking about the same man, this one would walk to the hold and lock himself in if someone so much as suggested that he bent a law."
"If he's such a paladin as all that, why is he in the hold?" Gio asked, reasonably enough.
As to that, Tzigone had a fairly good idea. It seemed she would have a chance to erase the debt the same day it was incurred. She thought fast. "If I wanted to get into the hold, how would I do it?"
"Getting in is never a problem. It's the getting out that tasks me," the man pointed out. "What's this jordain to you, girl, that you'd waste your breath on such crazy words?"
"I owe him a debt," she said simply.
The gypsy nodded. Property was something that neither would ever understand, but they knew the worth of things that mattered. "Well, then, I've just the thing for you. You remember how to walk on stilts?"
She sniffed. "If you're out to insult me, just call me an ugly bastard and get it over with."
"Biggest weapon first," he said approvingly. "Not the usual strategy, but it should be. Might cut down on time wasted fighting."
"You were saying something about stilts?" she prompted.
Gio's eyes glittered with mischief. "Now, if you were the law and saw a pair of stilts lying inside the wall of the hold, what would you think? Someone's trying to breach, that's what. But a single pole? No one would think much of it."
"I don't think much of it myself," she retorted. She could vault a wall using Gio's pole, and said so.
"Ah, but not one like this," Gio said slyly. He shouldered off his pack and took from it a bundle of oddly shaped sticks. "They fit together into one long piece," he explained, demonstrating with several of them.
"What are those notches for?"
"Footholds. You can balance the pole and climb it at the same time. But mind you, stay well away from the walls. Lightning sheets cover the inside walls almost to the top. If you lose your balance and lean against the wall, you'll be sizzling like bacon."
"Stay away from the walls? So how do I get out?"
"Moss hangs from the cherrynut tree just outside the south wall. It is strong, and hard to see in the failing light You'll be in the tree before any of those lazy guards notice what you're about."
Tzigone studied the placement of the notches and decided that the balance might work. To limber up, she bent backward until her palms rested on the ground, just behind her feet. Slowly she shifted her weight onto her hands and brought her legs up straight, then slowly lowered them down into another tight arc. She rose, standing in nearly the same spot as she'd been before the exercise.
Gio nodded approvingly and handed her a length of pole. She braced it and hopped up, placing her feet on the lowest notches. She swayed for a moment until she found her balance. Then she found that she could indeed climb. She went up about six feet and then let the pole tip, keeping her grip on it as she lightly dropped to the ground. Even if someone noticed her performing this stunt, she would be up and in the tree before they realized what she'd had in mind.
"This will help," she said with gratitude.
"It's not an easy trick, but you make it look as if it were," the gypsy said admiringly. "Like climbing a rope, or so it looks. If you were still with the show, you'd have us dragged in for magical inquiry sure as sunrise."
A thought crossed her mind and brought a wry scowl to her face. "Now that you mention it, the climbing will be the easy part," she grumbled.
Gio looked mildly offended, as if she'd insulted his latest toy. "You know a better trick, girl?"
"Convincing a jordain to break out of the hold."
The gypsy considered this and then placed a hand on her shoulder