The empty bed.
Eleena turned on the light. The wispy, fraying strands of Tarl's bindings were still tied to the bedstead. He'd bitten through them or tugged them off.
'Golden Throne, he's gone!'
'Oh no…' Crezia murmured. 'I only loosened his bonds a little.'
'You did what?'
'I told you! I told you I was worried about the constriction. The lividity in his hands and his-'
'You didn't tell me you'd slackened them off!' I raged.
'I thought you'd understood what I meant!'
I ran downstairs. The unlit hall was pale with moonlight that slanted in through the half-open front doors.
'He can't have gone far! What does it matter any way?' Crezia called after me.
I stepped out into the street. There was no sign of any one or anything. The cool shadows of the night spread fluidly across the flagstones.
Tarl, I was sure, was long gone.
I went back inside and Crezia turned on the hall lights.
And screamed.
Phabes was bent over in the corner, like a man who has fallen asleep sitting up. But he was very dead. His throat had been slashed. A wide pool of blood was leaking outwards slowly from his hunched form.
'Do you see now, Crezia? Do you?' I yelled up at her.
Tarl was loose. He knew who I was and where I was. We had to leave.
Fast.
TWELVE
Into the night, into the mountains.
The Trans-Atenate Express.
A prompt from the dead.
'No,' said Crezia. 'No. No way. No/
This isn't up for debate, Crezia. It's not a suggestion, it's a… an instruction/
'How dare you order me around like one of your staff lackeys, Eisen-horn. I am not leaving!'
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. The brutal murder of her man Phabes was causing her great distress. Getting through to her would be hard.
I turned to Aemos and Eleena. 'Get dressed. Collect up everything and stow it in the flier. I want to be away from here in under half an hour/ They both hurried away.
It was difficult to know how long the janissary had been gone. Phabes, whose body Aemos had covered with a sheet, was still quite warm, so I reckoned Tarl only had an hour's head start, ninety minutes worst case. Given his Vessorine pragmatism, I figured he had headed straight for a vox-station to report our location to his brethren. That's what I'd have done in his position. He could have tried to kill me himself, but by then he knew not to underestimate my abilities. There was a decent chance I'd have taken him down, in which case the secret of my location would never have got out.
No, he'd gone to find means of sending the message. It was impossible to know how close elements of his party were, but if we were still here in sixty minutes' time, I didn't much rate our chances.