The Paladin Part 38

Master Yi hesitated a moment to look at the men around him. Then he got up and his man did, and Shoka stepped aside from the door. Chun opened it and master Yi bowed his way out, rapidly, herding his man with him.

"We missed him," Shoka said after the door was closed. "We had to get out. But we found the Emperor."

Faces showed their shock.

"Here and in secret," Shoka said. "We met. He said, Help me. And by that time the guards were coming. I couldn't stay to ask him against what, or whom. My guess is, Ghita's worried about what he'll do, left in the capital-worried, maybe, that he might take power into his own hands. I don't know. Right now we've got to get moving."

"Yes, m'lord."

Shoka looked at Chun.

"Captain," Chun amended.

"Let's get out of here," Shoka said. "Are we set?"

"Two streets north, captain," Eidi said. "Place called theFelicity ."

A sharp lot, Reidi's men. A word pa.s.sed while they were changing clothes and putting master Yi under guard, and everything had s.h.i.+fted, money had pa.s.sed, Eidi had kited off quietly and arranged them another bolthole while they kept this one paid for as well. ThePeony's owner did no bed-check on his tenants; and in this neighborhood, it was not likely he would dare double-rent the place or bother the horses, not dealing with clients of their sort.

"By twos and threes," Shoka said. "Down the alley. Just what you have to have. Afraid we can't take the mats, just the blankets. We don't want to be that conspicuous."

Heat landed on Shoka's back: he clenched his teeth and tensed his arms, face down on the floor, while Taizu fished rags out of the pot and applied them with, he was sure, a certain satisfaction for what he was suffering.

Thank G.o.ds the escape had been downhill.

Another rag. Breath hissed between his teeth. "Hurt?" she asked.

"No."

"Sorry. That was the bottom of the pot."

They had the room with the small stove and the cooking-pot, theFelicity's one elegance. Chun and the lads had the other, a little crowded: not bad, captain, Chun had said.

If the landlord knew how the rooms split up, it needed no guesses what he thought.

"You've got a bad bruise back here," Taizu said.

"Lucky it's not worse than that." He knew the one she was talking about. "d.a.m.n bushes."

"What are we going to do?"

He started to draw a deep breath. It hurt too much. "Reconnoiter. Again. We moved. We'll need to know what Ghita's doing. I don't know what the Emperor's situation is, but you sure as h.e.l.l don't bring your Emperor to a battlefield. He'schanged. He's not well...."

"Youcan't feel sorry for him!"

Another breath. Nothing made sense. I tried to teach him. I don't know if I could have done better.

Maybe if I'd had more patience....

Innocent people died for him. More will die, because of him. d.a.m.n, why did I stop? Why in the G.o.ds' name did I stop?

He saw Beijun's face, white, swollen, terrified-but not of him. Not of him, despite the sword. As if he saw him as a rescuer.

Taizu touched his back, rested her hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to be rid of Beijun's face, looked straight ahead at the brown boards, the dingy yellow brick of the wall, the post that held the roof off their heads.

"Ghita!" Taizu hissed. "That's what you said!"

"d.a.m.n right." He propped his chin on his fist. "The question is how much to tell around town-about the Emperor being here. There's a chance they'll kill him tonight."

"And blame you."

"If Ghita knows it was me, he'd be d.a.m.n tempted. And once the word gets out I'm here-there's some danger. There are a few people in this town who've seen me up close. Ghita's surely not going to be surprised at anything I do, but I'll bet he's asking the Emperor some real close questions tonight. Real close."

"Like-the Emperor was in on it, with Reidi?"

"With Reidi and with me." A silence. Then, quietly: "d.a.m.n."

He twisted around to see her face, saw the frown. "d.a.m.n what?"

"d.a.m.n Ghita and Gitu and the Emperor and everybody with them! They kill people and burn their houses and they get away with it, and you can feel sorry for them!"

"I've had two students. One was you."

"The other was the Emperor?"

"He thought I came to help him." Like he'd been waiting all these d.a.m.n years. Like Meiya at the window, believing I'd come.

What did the young fool get himself into?

Did he run to Ghita?

Quiet morning. Very quiet-the way the conversation at the tables in theFelicity's common room fell away when mercenary soldiers came downstairs, the way soldiers gathered in knots on the street-talking together.

"What in h.e.l.l's going on?" Shoka asked, of the small group a few doors down from theFelicity. Alone.

Taizu was back in the room, a matter of no little argument, but things were getting close, he had reasoned, she had a fresh new bandage (a discreet, almost-healed kind of bloodstain he had contributed) and she was too brightly conspicuous for a morning when people were asking questions-like this one.

Which got raised eyebrows and an estimating look, before a Fittha said, in a low voice, "They broke in at headquarters last night."

"Rebels?"

The mercenary spat to the side, "Twenty dead. They're saying the Regent was asleep upstairs. Slept right through it."

The h.e.l.l.Shoka put on a bewildered face. "How'd they get in?"

"Service gate."

"Had to have help," another man said.

"s.h.i.+t," Shoka said, and walked off shaking his head.

To another group, outside thePeony , he said, gruffly, his best officer-voice: "Any of you heard anything about the Regent?"

"What?" an officer asked, regarding him cautiously.

Shoka nodded toward the side of the building, drew the officer that way. "One of my men picked up arumor the Regent's dead. They say they're hiding it. They're afraid there'll be a riot."

"Whosaid?"

Shoka scratched under his stubbled chin. "Oghin. Over on Flower Street.You ain't picked up on it?"

"No."

"h.e.l.l. Just checking it out. Men're askingme. They're saying the rebels got somebody on-staff. Maybe real high up. That the whole thing was inside."

"s.h.i.+t."

"Yeah. Whathave you heard?"

"Just it was up from the kitchens, got the gate open, got maybe twenty, thirty of 'em inside. But they're saying they ain't got that number of bodies. Ever' one of them was on staff."

"h.e.l.l. And how many of 'emst.i.tt on staff, walking around searching for the a.s.sa.s.sins?"

"Ain't us. My money's on the Guard."

"h.e.l.l. We got out of Taiyi, cut to pieces. I got half my company dead. Sent us up here, said the line was here. I ain't seen a line, and the HQ can't even hold its own wall, what kind of s.h.i.+t is that?"

The Fittha scratched and held onto one of his amulets. "They pay."

"Yeah," Shoka said. "So far. I'm hoping he's alive. What've we got, if he ain't?"

The Fittha's face shadowed.

"Why in h.e.l.l ain't they said?" Shoka asked. "That's what makes me nervous. You don't know what these d.a.m.n pig-lovers are going to do. They better put out some patrols. ..."

And collaring a yellow-robed monk in an alley near the bakers' street: "You! You know an old man, a scoundrel named Jojin?"

There was dismay on the monk's face. "No." It was outright shock for a moment, amid the natural panic at being held by the throat against a wall.

"Tell him, if you see him-in Celestial Light monastery, if he's where he was-that the boy who took the plums is sorry, and he's in town.Remember that!"

"I'll remember it." The monk was about fifty, old enough to be a religious monk, not the sort who got their divine enlightenment around soldier-age. And he was curious enough to stare Shoka in the eyes.

"Do that," Shoka said.

Not hard at all to find a whole caravan in the market-in a town no one could freely leave. A lot of people in the market, not much buying but a great deal of talking in small groups, with a quick and anxious glance and a silence when a soldier walked by, or when a soldier came and fingered expensivethings on a wagon's let-down counter.

Easy to get a merchant's attention then, in the little knot of men close by.

Easier yet when the merchant recognized him.

"This yours?"

The merchant came over fast.

"Where's Yi?"

The man did not want to answer that. Plainly.

"You'd better find him," Shoka said. "I don't care what he's told you. You'd better get him. Tell him his friend's here."

The man left in a hurry. Shoka browsed, picked up a trinket for Taizu. And walked back alongside the wagons, watching where the man went, up the steps into the centermost of that little cl.u.s.ter.

So he followed, up the steps, into the dim inside, where two frightened merchants stared at him, "h.e.l.lo," he said, folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall.

"Get out of here!" master Yi said. Not to him. To his a.s.sociate; and that man darted for the open door and outside.

Shoka walked over to the alcove at the front of the tiny wagon where Yi sat on his pillows, and carefully squatted down with elbows on knees-the sword at his back hindered further courtesies. So did the bruise on his backside.

"How are you doing this morning?"

Yi stared at him.

"I just thought I'd check," Shoka said. "Don't be anxious. I trust you got everything taken care of. How's your friend?"

"Scared!" master Yi said testily.

"Everything's fine, then," Shoka said, and picked a sweetmeat off the low table. "Mmmn. Don't worry.

But the real reason I came: I'd advise you just have a bolthole in mind. Just rent a place somewhere in town, get some of the nicer pieces out of the wagons...."

Yi looked anxious. Abruptly he cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together. "Considerate, m'lord."

"I told you. I return favors." He picked another sweetmeat from the bowl. "Mmmn. So you knew me when we met on the road. Idon't suppose the village talked about me."

"I knew when we'd gotten to Ygotai, when we talked about the bandits-all of them dead-" "Quite a night, that was. So you spread rumors about us all the way."

"No, m'lord! We weren't the only caravan. Rumors were everywhere."

Pigeons, Shoka thought. And said: "Just call me captain. -What rumors?"

"That you'd come back, m'lord. I knew-then-who we'd met. But by then we'd gone too far, we couldn't come south again-we were afraid what we'd meet going back, so we kept going. We hoped Lungan was safe."

"Wrong about that. And I don't suppose they'll let you go down to Anogi."