Guard Against Dishonor Read online

  "I was wondering when you were going to turn up again."

  "You didn't think I was going to miss out on the climax, after all I've been through today, did you, darling?" Mistique smiled back at him, and then looked around sternly. "I'm going to let you go now. But anyone who misbehaves will regret it. Is that understood?"

  The Constables nodded, their anger already cooling rapidly. Some of them realized they'd been fighting Hawk and Fisher, and went pale as they considered how lucky they were to still be alive. Mistique gestured gracefully, and the mists fell away from everyone, dissipating quickly on the warm air. Hawk and Fisher pushed the Guards out of the way and knelt down beside Burns. There was a gaping wound in his side, and a lot of blood on the floor around him. Fisher pulled out a clean folded handkerchief and pressed it against the wound, but it was clearly too little too late. Burns turned his head slightly, and looked at Hawk. His face was very pale, but his mouth and chin were red with blood.

  "Almost had you," he said quietly.

  "Why, Burns?" said Hawk. "You were one of the best. Everyone said so. Why betray everything you ever believed in?"

  "For the money, of course. I spent years overseeing transactions of gold and silver and precious stones, protecting men who had more money than they knew what to do with, and eventually I just decided I wanted some of that wealth for myself. I wanted some of the luxuries and comforts I saw every day and couldn't touch. Honor and honesty are all very well, but they don't pay the bills. I was going to be rich, Hawk, richer than you've ever dreamed of. Almost made it. Would have, too, if it hadn't been for you and that bitch."

  "You were Morgan's contact inside the Guard, weren't you?" said Fisher impatiently.

  "Of course," said Burns. "I went to Morgan and suggested it. It was perfect. Who would ever have suspected me?"

  "People died because of you," said Hawk. "People who trusted you."

  Burns grinned widely. There was blood on his teeth. "They shouldn't have got in my way. I killed Doughty, you know. He was there when that little bastard at the drug factory recognized me. So I killed him, and persuaded the informant to implicate Fisher instead."

  "You killed your own partner?" said Fisher, shocked.

  "Why not?" said Burns. "I was going to be rich. I didn't need him anymore."

  "Why did you betray the Peace Talks?" said Hawk.

  Burns chuckled painfully, and fresh blood spilled down his chin. "I didn't. That wasn't me. See, you're not as smart as you thought you were, are you?"

  "Who was it, Burns?" said Hawk. "Who were you working for?"

  "Go to hell," said Burns. He reared up, tried to spit blood at Hawk, and then the light went out of his eyes and he fell back and died.

  "Great," said Hawk. "Bloody marvelous. Every time I think I've found someone who can explain what the hell's going on, they bloody up and die on me."

  He closed Burns's staring eyes with a surprisingly gentle hand, and got to his feet again. He made to offer ap Owen his axe, but ap Owen shook his head. Fisher stood up, looked down at Burns a moment, and then kicked the body viciously.

  "Don't," said Hawk. "He was a good man, once."

  "I'm damned if I know what's happening anymore," said ap Owen. "But Burns's dying confession seemed straightforward enough, so as far as I'm concerned, you're both cleared. But you'd better stick with me until we can get back to Headquarters and make it official. There's still a lot of people out on the streets looking for you, with swords in their hands and blood in their eyes. The Council has done everything but declare open season on you both."

  "We can't go back," said Hawk. "It's not over yet. You heard what Burns said; he didn't betray the Peace Talks. Someone else did that. Which means the delegates are still in danger. And the two people who should be in charge of protecting them are right here in this room with me. It's more than possible that Isobel was deliberately set up to draw attention away from the real traitor, so that security round the delegates would be relaxed."

  "We've got to get back there," said Fisher. "Those poor bastards think they're safe, now I'm not there! They're probably not even bothering with anything more than basic security."

  "Let's go," said ap Owen. "Anything could be happening while we're standing around being horrified." He turned to the silently watching Constables. "You stick with us. From now on, you do whatever Hawk and Fisher say. They're in charge. Anyone have any problems with that?" The Guards coughed and shrugged and looked at their boots. Ap Owen smiled slightly. "I thought not. All right, let's move it. Follow me, people."

  He led the way out of the inn at a quick, impatient pace, followed resignedly by the Guards. Hawk and Fisher brought up the rear, along with Mistique. Hawk cleared his throat.

  "Thanks for the help," he said brusquely. "Of course, we could have beaten the Guards by ourselves, if we'd had to."

  "Oh, of course you could, darling," said Mistique. "But you wouldn't have wanted to hurt all those innocent people, would you?"

  "Of course not," said Fisher, looking straight ahead. "That's why we were holding back. Otherwise, we could have beaten them easily."

  "Of course," said Mistique.

  The Peace Talks had ground to a halt yet again, and the four remaining delegates were taking another break in the study. None of them minded much; they all knew nothing important was going to be decided until the new delegates arrived to replace the two who'd died. And in particular, the Haven delegation wasn't going to agree to anything until they had a sorcerer on their side who could counteract any subtle magics the Lord Nightingale might or might not be using to influence things. No one admitted any of this out loud, of course, but everyone understood the situation. They still kept the Talks going. They were, after all, politicians, and there was always the chance someone might be manoeuvred into saying something they hadn't meant to. Careers could be built by pouncing on lapses like that.

  Lord Nightingale selected one of the cut-glass decanters and poured out generous measures for them all. The mood was generally more relaxed than it had been, now that the traitor Fisher had been exposed, and they shared little jokes and anecdotes as they emptied their glasses. Nothing like talking for ages and saying nothing to work up a really good thirst. Their murmured conversation wandered aimlessly. None of them were in any particular hurry to get back to the Talks. The chairs were comfortable, the room was pleasantly warm, and in a while it would be time to take a break for dinner anyway.

  Lord Nightingale looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, heaved himself out of his chair and left the room on a muttered errand. He shut the door, smiled broadly, and then froze as someone in the hall behind him cleared his throat politely. He looked round sharply, and found himself facing ap Owen and Fisher, someone who by his appearance had to be Hawk, and a woman in sorcerer's black. For a moment Nightingale just stood there, his face and mind utterly blank, and then he drew himself up, and nodded quickly to ap Owen.

  "Well done, Captain. You've apprehended the traitor Fisher. I'll see you receive a commendation for this."

  Ap Owen stared at him stonily. "I'm afraid that's not why we're here, my lord. It is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest."

  "If this is some kind of joke, Captain, it's in very bad taste. I shall inform your superiors about this."

  Ap Owen continued as if he'd never been interrupted. "We've been here some time, my lord, searching the house. Among your belongings we discovered—"

  "You searched my room? How dare you! I have diplomatic immunity from this sort of petty harassment!"

  "Among your belongings, hidden inside the handle of one of your trunks, we found a quantity of the super-chacal drug."

  "A lot of things made sense, once we found the drug," said Fisher. "We knew the drug tied into the Talks somehow, but we didn't have a connection, until we found you. And once we started looking at you closely, all kinds of things became clear. You gave away the location of the house, because you knew you'd be safe inside the pocket dimension. When that did
n't work as well as you'd hoped, you used your sorcery to open a door into the dimension, knowing your sorcery would protect you from the creatures you'd summoned. And of course you were able to close the door once it became clear the creatures were getting out of hand and might pose a threat to you. Finally, you've been subtly using your magic all along, influencing the delegates to make sure nothing would ever be agreed. You've gone very quiet, my lord. Nothing to say for yourself?"

  "I admit everything," said Lord Nightingale calmly. "I'll admit anything you like, here, in private. It doesn't matter anymore. You can't prove any of it, and even if you could, I have diplomatic immunity from arrest. And I'm afraid the whole matter is academic now, anyway. My fellow delegates have just drunk a glass of wine from a decanter I dosed rather heavily with the super-chacal drug. My sorcery protected me from suffering any effects, but we should begin to hear the results on them any time now. They'll tear each other to pieces in an animal frenzy, and that will be the end of the Peace Talks. Evidence is already being planted in the right places that this was the work of certain leading factions in Haven, to express their opposition to the thought of peace with Outremer."

  "Why?" said Hawk. "Why have you done all this? What sane man wants to start a war?"

  Lord Nightingale smiled condescendingly. "There's money to be made in a war, Captain. A great deal of money. Not to mention political capital, and military advancement. A man in the right place at the right time, if properly forewarned, can rise rapidly in wartime, no matter who wins. Whatever the outcome of the war, my associates and I will end up a great deal richer and more powerful than we could ever have hoped to be under normal conditions. The super-chacal was my idea. I helped fund its creation, and oversaw its introduction into Haven. You can think of this city as a testing ground for the new drug. If it does as well here as we expect, it should prove an excellent means of sabotaging the Low Kingdoms. We'll introduce the drug into selected foods and wines, poison some strategic wells and rivers, and then just sit back and watch as your country tears itself apart. All we'll have to do is come in afterwards and clean up the mess. It could be the start of a whole new form of warfare.

  "I hope you've all been listening carefully. It's so nice to be appreciated for one's work. And it's not as if you'll ever get a chance to tell anyone else. My fellow delegates should see to that."

  He reached to open the study door, and then hesitated, listening. Hawk smiled coldly.

  "That's right, my Lord. Quiet in there, isn't it? Like ap Owen said, we've been here for some time. Mistique's magic revealed that one of the decanters had been drugged, so we switched it for another one. The original should make good evidence at your trial. As for your citywide test of the drug, you can forget that, too. We got it all back before it could hit the streets, and it's currently being protected by some very trustworthy Guards. Morgan is dead. So is Burns. You're on your own now, Nightingale."

  "You can't arrest me," said Lord Nightingale. "I have diplomatic immunity."

  "I think your people can be persuaded to waive that," said Hawk. "You'll be surprised how fast they disown you, to avoid being implicated themselves. After all, no one loves a failure. They'll probably let us hang you right here in Haven, if we ask them nicely."

  Lord Nightingale suddenly raised his hands and spoke a Word of Power, and halfway down the hall the air split open. A howling wind came roaring out of the widening split, carrying a rush of thick snow and a bitter blast of cold. Within seconds, a blizzard raged in the narrow hallway, and the temperature plummeted. Ice formed thickly on the doors and walls, and made the floor treacherous underfoot. Hawk raised an arm to protect his face as the freezing wind cut at his exposed skin like a knife. The cold was so intense it burned, and even the shallowest breath was painful.

  Hawk glared about him into the swirling snow, trying to locate Lord Nightingale, but he and everyone else had become little more than shadows in the roaring white. From behind him, he could hear something howling in the world beyond the gateway that Nightingale had opened. It sounded huge and angry and utterly inhuman. More howls sounded over the roaring of the blizzard and the buffeting wind, growing louder all the time, and Hawk realised the creatures were slowly drawing nearer. He staggered forward, head bent against the wind, until his flailing arms found the nearest wall. Nightingale would be just as blind in this storm as everyone else, so he had to be following the wall to find his way out. All Hawk had to do was make his way down the wall after him—assuming he hadn't got so turned around in the blizzard that he'd ended up against the wrong wall… Hawk decided he wasn't going to think about that. He had to be right.

  And then his heart leapt in his chest as a door suddenly opened to his right, revealing the startled faces of the other delegates. The force of the storm quickly threw them back into the study, where they struggled to close the door again, but Hawk took little notice. He knew now that he'd found the right wall. The howling of the creatures came again, rising eerily over the sound of the storm. They sounded very close. Hawk ran down the corridor, slipping and sliding on the ice, his shoulder pressed against the wall. A shadow loomed up before him. Hawk threw himself forward, grabbed the figure by the shoulder, and slammed it back against the wall. He thrust his face close up against the other's, and smiled savagely as he recognized Nightingale's frightened face.

  "We've got to get out of here!" shouted Nightingale, his voice barely audible over the roar of the blizzard. "The creatures will be here soon!"

  "I've got a better idea," said Hawk, not caring if the Outremer lord heard him. He took a firm hold of Nightingale's collar and dragged him kicking and struggling back down the corridor towards the gateway he'd opened.

  Hawk had to fight the force of the storm with every step, as well as hang on to Nightingale with a hand so numb he could barely feel his grip anymore, and he thought for a while that he wasn't going to make it. But then suddenly he was close enough to make out the split in the air, stretching from floor to ceiling, and he lurched to a halt. The split was wider now. Huge dark shadows moved in the blizzard beyond the gateway. The creatures were almost there. Their howls were deafening. Hawk put his mouth against Nightingale's ear.

  "Close the gateway! Close it, or I swear I'll throw you through that opening and let those things have you!"

  Nightingale lifted his hands and chanted something, the words lost in the tumult of the blizzard and the creatures' incessant howling. For a long, heart-stopping moment nothing happened, and then the split in the air snapped together and was gone, and the blizzard collapsed. The sudden silence was shocking, and everyone just stood where they were, numbly watching the last of the snow drift lazily on the air before falling to the floor. The corridor seemed a little less cold, but their breath still steamed on the air before them. Nightingale lurched away from Hawk, and headed down the corridor at a shaky run. Hawk caught up with him before he'd gone a dozen paces, and clubbed him from behind with the butt of his axe. Nightingale fell limply into the thick snow on the floor, and lay still. Hawk leaned over him and hit him again, just to be sure. Then he dragged him back to the others. Ap Owen shook his head unhappily.

  "They won't let us put him on trial, you know. He'd be an embarrassment to both sides, and probably prevent any future Talks. And besides, diplomatic immunity's too important a concept in troubled times like these. They'll never allow it to be waived, no matter what the crime."

  "You mean he's going to get away with it?" said Fisher, scowling dangerously.

  Ap Owen shrugged. "Like I said; he's an embarrassment. His own people will probably take away his position and privileges and send him into internal exile, but that's about it."

  "Right," said Hawk. "Technically, for what he tried to do, he should be executed, but there's no way that will happen. Aristocrats don't believe in passing death sentences on their own kind if they can avoid it. It might give the peasants ideas." He looked down at Nightingale's unconscious body, his face set and cold. "So many people dead, because of hi
m. All the people who might have died. And I almost raised my axe against Isobel… If I killed him now, no one would say anything. They'd probably even thank me for getting rid of such an embarrassment."

  "You can't just kill him in cold blood!" protested ap Owen.

  "No," said Hawk finally. "I can't. Even after all these years in Haven, I still know what's right and what's wrong. I only kill when I have to. I know my duty."

  "Look on the bright side," said Mistique cheerfully. "You found the drug before it hit the streets, exposed the traitor in the Guard, and with Nightingale removed from the Talks, they might actually start agreeing on things. You've saved the city and possibly averted a war. What more do you want?"

  Hawk and Fisher looked at each other.

  "Overtime," said Hawk firmly.

  Chapter Ten

  Loose Ends

  As prisons went, it wasn't too bad. Certainly Lord Nightingale had spent longer periods under far worse conditions during his travels. He'd known some country inns that boasted accommodations so primitive even a leper would have turned up what was left of his nose at them. His present circumstances were surprisingly pleasant, and, all things considered, the Outremer Embassy in Haven had gone out of its way to treat him with every courtesy. He was confined in one of the Embassy's guest rooms, with every comfort the staff could provide, until such time as he could be escorted back to Outremer. And given the current appalling weather conditions, that could be quite some time.

  Nightingale didn't mind. The longer the better, as far as he was concerned. He was already filling his time writing carefully worded letters to certain people of standing and influence back in Outremer. There were quite a few who shared his feelings about the coming war, people who could be trusted to see that his cause was presented to the King in its most positive light. He'd have to spend some time in internal exile, of course; that was only to be expected. But once the war began, as it inevitably would, and his associates became men of power at Court, he would undoubtably be summoned again, and his present little setback would be nothing more than an unfortunate memory. In the meantime, his current captors were being very careful to treat him with the utmost respect, for fear of alienating the wrong people. You could always rely on diplomats to appreciate the political realities; particularly when their own careers might be at risk.