Free Kings of the North by Elizabeth Moon Page A

up. “And these are Pedar and Gath. It’s their first.”
    The young men indeed looked like soldiers who had just seen violent death for the first time.
    “Your people were upset,” Sef said quietly. “I suggested they go back to work, but the boy—”
    “I’ll speak to him,” Dorrin said. “Thank you.” She walked over to the gate. “Efla, we think it’s safe for you to return to the kitchen—can you do that?”
    “Yes, m’lord. Jaim—”
    “I’m not going in there,” Jaim said. His voice shook. “There’s a dead man in there! I heard him scream!”
    “Jaim!” Efla said, scowling. “Be a man!”
    “Go on, Efla. I’ll deal with this.” Efla moved away, turning her back on Jaim. Dorrin turned to him. “Now, Jaim. Sitting here scared won’t help you,” she said in the voice that had unfrozen many a recruit. “If you can’t go inside, you must help with the horses.”
    With her eye on him, Jaim got up and slouched over to Perin, who handed him the brush and grinned across the yard at Dorrin. She watched a minute or two as Perin led out another horse and went to work on its hooves. When Gani came out of the stable with a cart of dirty straw and manure, she spoke to him.
    “You and Perin make sure Jaim keeps his mind on his work. We’ll bury Jori in the morning; I expect everyone to attend.”
    “Yes, m’lord. Come time, will we all go back inside tonight?”
    “I’m not sure,” Dorrin said. “The Marshals are at work below; I hope—I expect—the house will be safer tonight than it’s been since we arrived. If you want to sleep in the stable instead, you can, but turn out clean, in uniform, for Jori’s burial.”
    “Only, if those chickens are ruined, the Leaf Street Market closes in a glass or two.”
    Efla, who had loitered nearby, added, “And if we’re feeding all them as is in the cellar, my lord, I’ll need more.”
    Was nothing ever simple? Dorrin shook her head; she knew better than that. “Whose turn is it to go to market?”
    “Inder’s, m’lord.”
    “Well, then—Gani, you take Inder’s place out front and send him to market.” Dorrin fished coins from her belt-purse and handed them over.
    “Stuffed rolls,” Efla said. “And a handbasket of redroots, and some greens, any kind, but they must be crisp.” She followed Gani into the house; Dorrin paused to speak to Perin about Jaim.
    When Dorrin went back into the cellar, she found the Marshals clustered in one corner of the largest room.
    “Do you sense anything?” Oktar asked.
    Dorrin extended her hand. “It’s another Verrakai lock,” she said. She spoke the command words, and the invisible lock released. Slowly, the apparent stone faded into a stout wooden door heavily barred in iron. She pulled on the chain attached to a ring bolt, and the door tipped up. Under it, a ladder led into an underground passage.
    “That’s one,” Oktar said. “We’ll find at least one more.”
    By the time Inder came back from the market, they had found two more exits, one into the same underground passage but the other into a separate passage that appeared to lead westward.
    “Do you think it goes under the street?” Dorrin said.
    Oktar looked grim. “I think it leads under the palace grounds,” he said. “That’s how the assassins got in, I’ll wager. We followed every underground passage we knew of but never found one that ended within the palace walls.”
    “We’ll take this one,” the palace guard sergeant said.
    Dorrin and the Marshals went into the other one and edged forward carefully. After some time they came to five steps up and a door. They all felt something evil nearby, and the lamplight showed a pile of clothes: the red robe, gloves, and mask of a Liartian priest with the iron chain and the symbol lying on them.
    The door itself, however, was untrapped, and they came out into an alley opening onto a street of shops in the cloth merchants’ district. The building was a warehouse belonging to the