The Hidden City

appraisingly at Sparhawk. ‘I’d heard you were back,’ he said. ‘We’ve managed to pick up a little information for you.’
    ‘I appreciate that, Caalador,’ Sparhawk replied quietly.
    The big Pandion’s almost inhuman calm had them all more than a little on edge. ‘Stragen was a bit distracted after what happened to the Baroness here,’ Caalador reported, ‘so I was left more or less to my own devices. I took some fairly direct steps. The ideas were all mine, so don’t blame him for them.’
    ‘You don’t have to do that, Caalador,’ Stragen said, carefully tucking a blanket round Melidere’s shoulders. ‘You didn’t do anything I didn’t approve of.’
    ‘I take it that there were a few atrocities,’ Ulath surmised.
    ‘Let me start at the beginning,’ Caalador said, brushing his hands through his hair, trying to dislodge the cobwebs. ‘One of the men we’d been planning to kill during the Harvest Festival managed to evade my cut-throats, and he sent me a message offering to exchange information for his life. I agreed to that, and he told me something I didn’t know about. We knew that there were tunnels under the lawns here in the imperial compound, but what we didn’t know is that the ground under the whole city’s honeycombed with more tunnels. That’s how Krager and his friends got into the imperial grounds, and that’s how they took the Queen and her maid out.’
    ‘Prithee, good Master Caalador, stay a moment,’ Xanetia said. ‘I have seen into the memories of the Minister of the Interior, and he had no knowledge of such tunnels.’
    ‘That wouldn’t be hard to explain, Anarae,’ Patriarch Emban told her. ‘Ambitious underlings quite often conceal things from their superiors. Teovin, Director of the Secret Police, probably had his eye on Kolata’s position.’
    ‘That’s most likely it, your Grace,’ Caalador agreed. ‘Anyway, my informant knew the location of some of the tunnels, and I put men down there to look around for more while I questioned various members of the Secret Police who were in custody. My methods were fairly direct, and the ones who survived the questioning were more than happy to co-operate.
    ‘The tunnels were very busy on the night the Queen was abducted. The diplomats who were forted up in the Cynesgan Embassy knew about the scheme, and they realized that we’d kick down their walls as soon as we found out that the Queen was gone. They tried to escape through the tunnels, but I already had men down in those rat-holes. There were a number of noisy encounters, and we either rounded up or killed just about the entire embassy staff. The Ambassador himself survived, and I let him watch while I interrogated several under-secretaries. I’m very fond of Queen Ehlana, so I was quite firm with them.’ He looked at Sephrenia. ‘I don’t think I need to go into too much detail,’ he added.
    ‘Thank you,’ Sephrenia murmured.
    ‘The Ambassador didn’t really know all that much,’ Caalador continued apologetically, ‘but he did tell me that Scarpa and his friends were going south from here—which may or may not have been a ruse. His Majesty ordered the ports of Micae and Saranth sealed, and he put Atan patrols on the road from Toea to the coast, just to be on the safe side. Nothing’s turned up yet, so Scarpa either got away ahead of us, or he’s gone down a hole someplace nearby.’
    The door opened, and Kring rejoined them, his face gloomy.
    ‘Did you unchain her?’ Tynian asked him.
    ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea right now, friend Tynian. She feels personally responsible for the Queen’s abduction. She wants to kill herself. I took everything with any kind of sharp edge out of the room, but I don’t think it’s really safe to unshackle her just yet.’
    ‘Did you get that spoon of hers away from her?’ Talen asked.
    Kring’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, God!’ he exclaimed, bolting for the door.
    ‘If he’d only yell at us or bang his fist against the wall or something,’ Berit murmured to Khalad the next morning when they gathered once again in the blue-draped sitting-room. ‘All he does is sit there.’
    ‘Sparhawk keeps his feelings to himself,’ Khalad replied.
    ‘It’s his wife we’re talking about, Khalad. He sits there like a lump. Doesn’t he have any feelings at all?’
    ‘Of course he does, but he’s not going to take them out and wave them around for us to look at. Right now it’s more important for him to