The Two of Swords: Part 11 Read Online Free Page A

staircase. There were two chairs and a brazier, but no guards. Bless the Household regiment for its self-confidence.
    It was a long staircase, but Axeo knew they hadn’t gone high enough to be there yet. At the top was another of those damned wide galleries, with tapestries on the walls and rush matting (thank you, someone) on the floor. Whoever used this part of the building believed in being snug. His throat was sore from reflux and his knees were still weak, but he’d felt worse. “My guess is there’s a priest’s cell of some kind, and the stairs to the chapel are in there. Our tough luck if someone’s sleeping in there.”
    There were nine rooms leading off the corridor, all unoccupied. At the back of the ninth was a door that had no rational explanation. It opened on to more stairs.
    “How did you know?” Musen asked.
    “Every Dualist monastery had a Dawn Chapel.” Axeo was breathless on the stairs, but he told himself it was just the after-effect of Musen’s punch. “The abbot went there every morning to greet the rising sun. They kept all their best stuff in there, so it had to be tight as a drum. Logical place for a temporary strongroom.”
    The staircase ended in a steel door. The only light came from a lantern Musen had thought to bring with him from the gallery. “Hold it still, for pity’s sake,” Axeo said, scrabbling around the lock plate with his lock pick. “I need to see what I’m doing.”
    “I thought it was all by feel.”
    “It helps if you can actually see the keyhole.”
    Five wards; four flipped easily, the fifth was stiff and nearly bent the pick. “That was so easy, you could’ve done it,” Axeo said, as the door moved under his hand. “Cover the lantern, you idiot. We’re not in the lighthouse business.”
    They blanked off the windows as best they could with Axeo’s coat and Musen’s cloak and hood. When Musen unmasked the lantern, they saw a stack of steel strongboxes, floor to ceiling, each one with at least one padlock. Axeo groaned. “How long does a man stay put out when you thump him?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, it varies.” Axeo fished in his other boot for his spare pick. “Now pay attention. I’m going to teach you how to pick locks.”
    To Axeo’s delight, Musen was a quick learner. It helped that the padlocks were deplorably old-fashioned and simple, but the fact remained, the boy had a natural aptitude, a gift. “Fine,” Axeo said. “Now, you take that stack and I’ll do this one. Don’t hang about and don’t steal anything.”
    Musen, of course, was the one who knew what they were looking for. Luckily, it was him who found it, in the sixth box he opened. Axeo only realised when he noticed how still and quiet the boy had suddenly become.
    “You’ve got it?” he whispered. “Is that it?”
    Musen didn’t answer. On the stone floor beside where he was kneeling lay a silver box, its lid hinged open. Musen was staring at something cupped protectively in his hands, the way you might hold an injured bird. “I said, is that it?”
    “Yes. I think so.”
    “Thank God for that. Here, let me see.”
    Musen hesitated, then opened his hands. Axeo saw a pile of thin silver wafers – longer and wider than any playing cards he’d ever seen, embossed with figures he couldn’t make out in the poor light. “You’re sure?” he said. “Come on, it’s important. Every human life in Rasch depends on this.”
    “I think so,” Musen said. “They’re like the ones back in the village. Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly confident, “it’s them.”
    “Give them here.”
    For a moment, Axeo was sure Musen would refuse, and that would have been extremely awkward. But then he looked away and held out his hand. Axeo snatched the cards, and scrabbled on the floor for the box. The cards wouldn’t go back in; he tried to straighten them up so they’d fit, and dropped two. Musen took the cards back from him, dropped them neatly in the box, added the