Chapter 7: View From The Tower

Fenric got the window open, and Corvin Greenslade rolled through it in one smooth movement.

"Three on the roof," the scout said. "Ropes and a bag. They meant to come down your chimney."

"What's in the bag?" Linnea asked, dragging a sheet around herself.

"Sleeping powder, and a sack long enough to carry a person."

Fenric swore, a creative string of curses, and grabbed his breeches.

The three men came down the chimney a moment later in a rain of soot.

They found a fox with a poker and a hawk with a knife.

It lasted about as long as a sneeze.

Fenric knocked the first man out with the poker.

Corvin simply took the second by the wrist, flipped him, and sat on his chest.

The third turned to run, and Linnea stuck out her foot.

He went down hard over the footstool.

"Ferry girl tripped me," he groaned.

"Ferry girl will have the Captain's boot in your ribs in a moment," said Linnea. "Who sent you?"

He said nothing.

His sleeve had ridden up on his forearm, though, and she saw a black swan inked there, the Chancellor's mark.

"Thank you," she said. "That's all I needed."

Kaelen arrived with six guards five minutes later, in his shirtsleeves, with his sword drawn.

Linnea let him be furious for a quarter of an hour.

Then she looked at the shattered chimney and the soot all over her quilt and said, "I can't sleep here."

"No," Corvin agreed. "This room has three ways in, and I count them in my sleep."

He wrapped his own cloak around her shoulders.

"Come with me, Majesty."

The stairs ended in a trapdoor, and the trapdoor opened onto the east tower roof.

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