Best Served Cold

Still, he went up quick and smooth. Just like climbing a tree, except no eggs at the end of it and less chance of bark-splinters in your fruits. Hard work, though. He was sweating through by the time he made it up the pillar and still had the hardest part to go. He worked one hand into the mess of stonework at the top, unhooked the rope with the other and dragged it over his shoulder. Then he pulled himself up, fingers and toes digging holds out among the carvings, breath hissing, arms burning. He slipped one leg over a sculpture of a woman’s frowning face and sat there, high above the lane, clinging to a pair of stone leaves and hoping they were stronger than the leafy kind.

He’d been in some better spots, but you had to look on the sunny side. It was the first time he’d had a woman’s face between his legs in a while. He heard a hiss from across the lane, picked out Day’s black shape on the roof. She pointed down. The next patrol were on their way.

“Shit.” He pressed himself tight to the stonework, trying to look like rock himself, hands tingling raw from gripping the hemp, hoping no one chose that moment to look up. They clattered by underneath and he let out a long hiss of air, heart pounding in his ears louder than ever. He waited for them to move off round the corner of the building, getting his breath back for the last stretch.

The spikes further along the walls were mounted on poles, could spin round and round. Impossible to get over. At the tops of the pillars, though, they were mortared to the stone. He took his gloves out-heavy smith’s gloves-and pulled them on, then he reached up and worked his hands tight around two spikes, took a deep breath. He let go with his legs and swung free, drew himself up, staring a touch cross-eyed at the iron points in front of his face. Just like pulling yourself into the branches, except for the chance of taking your eye out, of course. Be nice to come out of this with both his eyes.

He swung one way, then heaved himself back the other and got one boot up on top. He twisted himself round, felt the spikes scrape against his thick jerkin, digging at his chest as he dragged himself over.

And he was up.

– 

S eventy-eight… seventy-nine… eighty…” Friendly’s lips moved by themselves as he watched Shivers roll over the parapet and onto the roof of the bank.

“He made it,” whispered Day, voice squeaky with disbelief.

“And in good time too.” Morveer chuckled softly. “Who would have thought he would climb… like an ape.”

The Northman stood, a darker shape against the dark night sky. He pulled the big flatbow off his back and started to fiddle with it. “Let’s hope he doesn’t shoot like an ape,” whispered Day.

Shivers took aim. Friendly heard the soft click of the bowstring. A moment later he felt the bolt thud into his chest. He snatched hold of the shaft, frowning down. It hardly hurt at all.

“A happy circumstance that it has no point.” Morveer unhooked the wire from the flights. “We would do well to avoid any further mishaps, and your untimely death would seem to qualify.”

Friendly tossed the blunt bolt away and tied the rope off to the end of the wire.

“You sure that thing will take his weight?” muttered Day.

“Suljuk silk cord,” said Morveer smugly. “Light as down but strong as steel. It would take all three of us simultaneously, and no one looking up will see a thing.”

“You hope.”

“What do I never take, my dear?”

“Yes, yes.”

The black cord hissed through Friendly’s hands as Shivers started reeling the wire back in. He watched it creep out across the space between the roofs, counting the strides. Fifteen and Shivers had the other end. They pulled it tight between them, then Friendly looped it through the iron ring they’d bolted to the roof timbers and began to knot it, once, twice, three times.

“Are you entirely sure of that knot?” asked Morveer. “There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop.”

“Twenty-eight strides,” said Friendly.

“What?”

“The drop.”

A brief pause. “That is not helpful.”

A taut black line linked the two buildings. Friendly knew it was there, and still he could hardly see it in the darkness.

Day gestured towards it, curls stirred by the breeze. “After you.”

– 

M orveer fumbled his way over the balustrade, breathing hard. In truth, the trip across the cord had not been a pleasant excursion by any stretch of the imagination. A chilly wind had blown up halfway and set his heart to hammering. There had been a time, during his apprenticeship to the infamous Moumah-yin-Bek, when he had executed such acrobatic exertions with a feline grace, but he suspected it was dwindling rapidly into his past along with a full head of hair. He took a moment to compose himself, wiped chill sweat from his forehead, then realised Shivers was sitting there, grinning at him.

“Is there some manner of a joke?” demanded Morveer.

“Depends what makes you laugh, I reckon. How long will you be in there?”

“Precisely as long as I need to be.”