City of Diamond, стр. 2

“Baret Two,” said Saul hoarsely, as Lucius closed the green baize doors behind himself. “Baret Two.” He stared blindly toward Adrian’s gift on the wall and the young version of himself who stood there in immortality. ‘Tell him, Baret Two. But tell him … not to be obvious about it.”

Adrian Mercati jumped as the streetlamp beside him exploded. He rolled behind a transport cart and came up with his weapon in hand, peering carefully through the openings in the top of the cart. The two knights with him, Roger Breem and Streph Wolansky, had ducked as quickly as he had. Given everyone’s state of nerves, it wasn’t surprising. Roger was standing in the front doorway of a clothing store and Streph was behind a garbage cart. The third knight was nowhere to be seen.

The third knight, Gil Veritie, the final member of Adrian’s protective squad, was the person who’d shot the streetlamp.

“Gil, you missed!” called Adrian, in the exact tone of sympathy he’d have used at a tournament.

Gil had been stupid enough to fire just as Adrian had moved, but he wasn’t stupid enough to answer him now. Pity.

Fortunately there had been enough rumors of trouble coming somewhere that Mercati Boulevard was almost deserted tonight. The dimmed lamps of the City Diamond lined rows of dark shops: tailors, jewelers, carpet merchants, linkhouses. The dozen levels of walkways high above them couldn’t have held more than a hundred people—nothing at all for the Boulevard on a Friday night. At least innocent pedestrians were unlikely to get shot, Adrian thought, then dismissed said innocent pedestrians from his mind.

There was no further fire from Gil Veritie, who was apparently reviewing his options. “Care to throw yourself on our mercy?” suggested Adrian. He saw Streph give him a pained look from behind the garbage cart and smiled. It was a reasonable question. If Gil’s group—now that they knew which group he belonged to—won tonight, he’d be safe enough. If not, it was no time to be above a little groveling. After all, Gil may have taken a potshot at Saul’s lawful successor, but he’d had no opportunity to call his fellow rebels and tell them where Adrian was, which was more to the point.

In about fifteen minutes, the rebels were due to storm court level. It was important they believe Adrian to be there, rather than huddling behind a transport cart on the Boulevard with a small and inconspicuous escort of friends. Brandon Fischer, Saul’s First Adviser, had made this very clear to Adrian before he sent him off to hide.

“Is hiding the way to begin my duties as Protector?” Adrian had said. But he trusted Fischer, and made his complaints while packing.

“A few days only.” Fischer stroked his beard, still red-gold despite his age, and frowned thoughtfully. Then he picked up a shirt Adrian had rolled into a ball, and shook it out before handing it back, for all the world like somebody’s distracted mother. Adrian smiled with real affection, then tried to hide the smile. “We’ll move you around a bit so they can’t find out where you are. Then we’ll plant a few rumors that you’ll be addressing the City from the Cavern of Audience. If I know Saul’s cousins, they’ll be out in force—swords, pistols, and protest signs.”

“And around the Cavern—”

“Five companies of the City Guard.”

“Five?” Adrian paused in his chore. “Isn’t that overkill?”

“The operative word,” said Fischer grimly, “is kill.”

Adrian stared into the distance, a pair of blue silk pants dangling from one hand. “I see,” he said finally.

“You want to live,” said Fischer.

“I know.”

“Saul made me responsible for you—”

“I said I know.”

He finished packing. Five minutes later he met his three escorts, all young men of good class and background, who could easily be walking together on any street in the City without causing comment. None of them had ever been part of the anti-Adrian clique. One of them, though a Veritie by birth, had been a friend of Adrian’s since they were thirteen.

Good old Gil, thought Adrian. They’d gotten drunk together a good dozen times. They’d visited the girls on Requiem Row more than a dozen times—in fact, it was Gil who’d introduced him to the Row, he remembered. Good old backstabber Gil.

Fischer had warned him about court friendships, but Adrian had believed himself capable of telling a false heart, certainly over the course of eight long years. And Gil was an outcast among the Verities; he’d proven his loyalty a thousand times—

The broken glass of the streetlamp crunched under Adrian’s boots as he changed position. He looked down, and in a slow, dreamlike movement he picked up a small piece of the glass. He wrapped it in a white handkerchief and put it in his pocket.

“Gil, give up!” Adrian called. “Your friends will be out of the picture in half an hour. I know you didn’t warn them, you didn’t have a chance.” He paused. “Surrender now, and I promise you won’t be executed. I’ll have you exiled from the City at our next port of call. You can bring what you want with you. Gil!”

Damn. He was due to be in his next hiding place, an office on the admin levels, in fifteen minutes. Fischer would be calling him there.

Assuming Fischer was still alive. There’d been no message from him in a day, and the communication links had gone down four hours ago, city-wide. Adrian’s fist hit the back of the cart in frustration.

And in a matching burst of frustration, the outer edge of the cart began to sizzle, hit by a pistol burst coming from … that butcher shop next door? A sign proclaimed the Well-Fed Pig, a gourmet food and fresh meat store, whose deep doorway would be an excellent place for an assassin to hide.

He met Streph’s eyes and looked toward the shop. Streph nodded. Roger, at the clothing store, was just out of his line of sight. Adrian’s inner motor started to turn over, as it always did