Absent assassin 21

 sorry - woke with a migraine and went back to bed

Chapter 21

 

Being a nursery wing, with bars on the windows, the corridors were deserted as Nicos led them towards a plainer region of the house.

“Servant’s quarters, and he’s understaffed,” said Nicos, with assurance. “I was told to for goodness help myself if madam wanted food as there was nobody to get it for her.  So I did, and I stashed a bag full of sandwiches and bottled water for us to take, not knowing if we’d need food.”

“Sagacious lad!” said Quester.

“He said you’re wise,” said Kiliana.

“Do I need translating?” sighed Quester.

“When you’re on a pompous fit, yes,” said Kiliana. “I know you, you’re worrying about something.”

Quester sighed.

“I could get into trouble for not arresting Poltronis immediately now I know he’s here,” he said.

“Oh, is that all,” said Kiliana. “Your duty is to get intelligence out to the Hussars, you know.”

“But you can carry that,” said Quester. “Indeed, you saw more than I did.”

“I don’t necessarily understand it as well as you, though,” said Kiliana. “Look, if you want, we can put Elena and Nicos on the boat to go back to the Buckhare ship... whatever he calls it.”

“The ‘Righteous Indignation,’” supplied Quester.

“Right. Because I wager Nicos knows how to row.”

Nicos sighed.

“I do,” he said.

“So do I,” said Elena.

“Good; we give the signal and Nicos reports and we go back and grab Nasty Poltroon,” said Kiliana. “Someone can row back for us and our prisoner.”

“I... no, you should go back with Lady Arkada and the child,” said Quester.

“I think not,” said Kiliana. “An assistant will improve your chances of capture. If he wounds you, getting him out will not be easy and he might escape. Two on one reduces the chance of something going wrong.”

Quester sighed, conceding her point of view. He seemed to sigh a lot around Kiliana, he reflected.

Oh, well, she was right. And he could not dispute it; and if she were a lad, he would not be so protective, so it must irk her that he was.

He hoped that the girl did not think that he might be in any way romantically inclined towards her, to be so protective; that would be most improper.

Nicos recovered his bag, full of meaty sandwiches and pies, and led them to the window of what appeared to be a laundry room of some kind.

“It’s big enough for a good draught, but the drop is pretty sheer,” said Nicos. “Here, look after the food, I’ll be back.”

He scrambled on a table to reach the high window and was over the sill in a flash. Soon, scraping sounds heralded the arrival of a ladder.

“I’ll go down first and help to steady it,” said Kiliana, swinging over the sill, and running down the ladder, not displeased that it was too dark to look down at the ground. She held it as Elena climbed down, a lot slower.

“Kiliana, take them back to the boat; I’ll stay here,” said Quester, quietly, hoping his voice would not carry to other ears.

“Nonsense, we discussed that,” said Kiliana, equally quietly. “Nicos, can you get Elena back to the cove where the boat is?”

Nicos sniffed.

“What you take me for?” he demanded.

Kiliana bit off a curse.

“I’m sorry, you have been so capable....”

“O’ course I can get her back. Only if Lord Quester would throw down some food....”

“You heard him, Leo,” said Kiliana. “Take out some for them, and throw down the bag.”

Quester sighed, and climbed down, dividing the food. He did not want to throw it.

“You’re going to insist, I suppose?” he said to Kiliana.

“Leo, if I dress in Elena’s dress, and lie on the bed with the manacles lying just in place, he will be off guard,” she said.

“I... yes, I suppose so,” said Quester. “I’ve never effected a rescue before, I usually just go in to make arrests.”

“Always a first time,” said Kiliana, gaily.

“And I’m not feeble, so... Nicos, you called him?... won’t be held up by me,” said Elena. “Good luck.”

“I like to make my own luck, but thank you,” said Quester. He followed Kiliana back up the ladder, and they slid quietly back to Elena’s room. “I hope nobody heard our departure.”

“It’s the servants’ side of the house,” said Kiliana. “No pretty vistas and arbours of gardens, and no escape out of the window if not already good cat burglars, if held as indentured servants. Anyone still awake will curse voices disturbing their meagre slumber but will not bother to wake up enough to listen.”

“Good. Now, we need to keep the food cool....”

“The best place for food is inside us, and it feels a long time since we ate,” said Kiliana. Quester gave a quiet laugh.

“Ah, you are still growing,” he said. “Perhaps you had better put Elena’s gown on first; over your trousers and shirt.”

“Yes, I should,” agreed Kiliana. She pulled on the heavy damask gown in the peacock blue Elena favoured, adjusting it to fit her less robust figure. Rather than undo the binding on her breasts, she searched the clothes press and thrust several pairs of stockings in to superficially fill out the tailored and shaped gown. With the shackle loosely on her ankle, she sat on the bed, and proceeded to devour her share of the food.

Quester chuckled.

She was still a child in some ways.

 

Quester dozed. He could cat-nap and come alert in an instant, and they might as well take what rest they could. The lights he had turned down low, which would enhance the illusion that Elena had not left. Presumably Poltronis was preparing every fighting man he could, in case of attack on the base, as there were really an insufficiency of guards on Elena; but then, he despised women and doubtless counted her capabilities as very little, even though she had already made one bid for freedom.

“How would you escape if you were Elena?” he asked when he woke from slumber as Kiliana had used the bathroom.

Kiliana considered.

“Shackled to you as a guard? I’d brain you with a bottle. If I couldn’t pick the lock, or slip my foot out, I might see if I could cut your hand off with broken glass. Or break a link with fire irons. I’d try that first,” she said. “Then I’d open the door. If I had time, I’d open the door into the main part of the house, then I’d go back to this room and hide under the bed.”

“Really?” said Quester.

“Oh, void, yes,” said Kiliana.  “He’d come in, see me gone, and go looking. Not finding me in the house, he would assume I had managed to get out, and would rouse all the guard.  In the garden, and down to the port, and around. So, I’d braid my hair, as she has a lot of it, and go to the servants’ quarters as soon as it was late enough for them to get up. I’d steal a dress from the room of one of the kitchen girls, go to the kitchen part, pick up a basket, and walk out towards the market, head down, not hurrying.”

“It... could work,” said Quester. “People see what they expect to see, of course, and as a servant, not a running Patrician lady... your ingenuity makes me more sanguine about your safety.”

“Thank you, Leo,” said Kiliana, deciding not to tease him about that piece of pomposity.

 

Quester woke, hearing the door handle; but it was only a servant, with breakfast.

“Food for you and for milady,” said the girl.

“Thank you,” said Quester.

Kiliana sat up as she was going out.

“We might as well eat,” she said. “Open the curtains behind me, Leo; getting the shackle back on in a hurry is hard, and if I’m right, morning light should stream into the eyes of anyone coming in, which will silhouette me.”

Quester did so, and found that this was indeed the case; and moved to sit facing the door. He put on his dark glasses. It was bright enough to make out most things through them now the antidote had worked.

They ate breakfast, rather than waste good food. Kiliana ate with the steady concentration of a growing teen; and Quester with the neat determination of a man who intends on stocking up his calories, not knowing when he might next eat.

He was fairly certain that Poltronis would come to visit and taunt his captive after breakfast.

Kiliana echoed his thoughts.

“He’s going to want to come and sneer at his bird in a cage, isn’t he?” she said.

“Probably; it’s in his psyche,” said Quester.

“If I act sulky, he’ll come over to manhandle me, and then you can nab him”, said Kiliana. “You could put the food bag over his head and pull the drawstring, which will blind him, muffle any shouting, and half suffocate him as well.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to be the Justiciar and I’ll be your assistant?” joked Quester. “I had planned to throw the shackle round his throat, but the bag would be even better.”

 

 

Poltronis walked into the room without knocking. He squinted against the bright sunlight streaming in.

“Ah, Elena, my dear, still in bed?” he said.

Kiliana turned away.

Poltronis frowned.

“What, no greeting at all for me?” he demanded.

Kiliana hunched a shoulder, and wriggled to turn further away.

Predictably, Poltronis strode over, and grabbed her by the shoulder. Kiliana, who had hung on to the pepper from the condiments rack, threw the contents of the opened jar in his face. Poltronis started coughing and swearing.

It was the work of a moment for Quester to thrown the heavy bag over his head and pull it tight, and Kiliana snapped her ankle shackle onto the wrist of one of the hands clawing at his face. She passed the chain about his waist to Quester, who took her idea quickly and snapped the other shackle onto his other wrist.

Blinded, choking, and confined, the fight went out of the bullying Patrician very quickly.

“Nice move,” said Quester.

“It was your idea to throw the shackle around him, I took it a stage further,” said Kiliana. “Should we take the bag off in case he dies, and just gag him?”

“Not for a minute or two, I want him half unconscious,” said Quester. “Meanwhile, do you think you could get a maid’s dress?”

“No problem,” said Kiliana, sliding out like an eel.

She went no further than the laundry room, and sorted through clean laundry. Quester was already dressed like nine out of ten of the locals, and would not stand out.  Somehow they had to get Poltronis out, and Kiliana went looking for sheets as well.

She returned, and Quester bit off the query about what kept her.

“We can wrap him, tie him, and lower him down,” she said.

“There has to be an easier way,” said Quester.

“Well, if they took the laundry out as some folks do, we could have put him on a handcart under soiled linen, and wheeled him out,” said Kiliana. “But they don’t, so what we have, is what we have.”

Quester grunted, and took the bag off the head of a rather blue Poltronis.  Kiliana quickly gagged him, leaving his nose free to breathe. He glared as the air to his lungs revived him.

“You are under arrest, Anastas Theodrakis Poltronis, for high treason, piracy, barratry, smuggling, being a rogue Psion and a heretic,” said Quester, formally. “And as you’re going to try to use your pitiful psion skills, I’m going to blindfold you as well,” he added, feeling a rather feeble attempt to attack his mind.

He suited actions to words.

“Stay here,” he said to Kiliana.

They rolled Poltronis, tying his legs as well, under the bed, and Quester slipped out.

He found the gardens again readily enough, and stopped a gardener.

“Himself wants a load of flowers for some doxy in the town,” he said.

The gardener spat.

“Ain’t the Patrician wench enough for him?” he said.

“Oh, he wants to marry her, and keep his piece on the side as well,” said Quester. “Put me several bunches in a wheelbarrow, I have other gifts to mollify the wench as well.”

The gardener laughed.

 

The villa really was short of staff.

Quester purloined a second wheelbarrow and wheeled it in to the abandoned nursery wing without being questioned.

“Oh, Leo, that was clever,” said Kiliana.

They manhandled a muffled and furious Poltronis into the wheelbarrow and to the back door, covered with a sheet, and folded up by the expedient of running a makeshift rope between his legs to tie to the chain of the shackle at the back. And then they might transfer a load of bunches of flowers on top of him, and move out of the back gate, and towards the town as if they were flower vendors.

Poltronis tried wriggling and kicking, and Quester, without a moment’s compunction, gave him a quick burst of Psionic subsonic noise to make him subside.

Now all they had to do was actually to avoid the town, and get back to the beach. Easier said than done.

But not impossible.