The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

“Not too clever are you?” I kept just out of range of the clutching fingers. There was an intelligence in those dark and gory sockets, that same awful one that had stared at me through the eyes of dead men back in the mountains with Snorri, but hunger dominated the thing’s actions, a hunger to kill me at any cost. For what felt like an eternity I stood there, knowing I couldn’t back down but without a clue what to do. Eventually I patted my pockets for inspiration. After all, Garyus’s orichalcum cone had sat there forgotten ever since my return to the palace, something else useful might be down at the bottom of another pocket . . . I glanced down and discovered that the useful thing was right at the top. I pulled free a length of the linen strip that had until recently had double florins sewn into it. I made a wide noose from it—no simple task while still clutching the orichalum. With the noose complete I advanced on Artos, after a few tentative tries, I slipped it over his right wrist. Throwing my weight behind it I pulled the arm sharply to the side. The elbow joint gave with a vomit-making cracking sound, and the arm bent at an impossible angle, allowing me to bind it to the bars out of reach of Artos’s left hand. I took another length of the linen and repeated the process with the other arm.

“There.” Artos now glared at us, pinned to the gate by two broken arms, his tongue protruding and scraping over shattered teeth as if it too were trying to reach me. I set Loki’s key in the lock. It fitted perfectly and turned without protest. Click. I took hold of the gate’s outer edge and pushed it open, lending my weight to overcome the resistance as Artos lunged at me. I held the gate open with one arm and beckoned the debtors with the hand clutching our light. At each of the seven other cells scores of faces pressed to the bars, watching on amazed.

The debtors, all terrified and confused, stayed where they were; some even shuffled further back, though giving Mr. Cough a wide berth.

I sighed, stepped back, thrust my hand into my pocket and pulled out all my smaller coins, two silver florins, three hexes, a dozen halves. A jerk of my hand scattered them into the room beyond the gate. As if scalded, half the cell’s population launched themselves forward, most of the other half jumping to their feet. A number of them got jammed in the gateway, fighting each other, desperate to be the first through, right under Artos’s nose, his hands twitching uselessly at them.

I moved quickly to Hennan’s side and handed him the orichalcum. “Hold that.”

In the resulting darkness I scooped up the pile of double florins from under my plate, some fifty in all, and tipped them into my shirt, folding it up over them.

“Give it back, now.” I had to raise my voice over the cacophony rising from the riot beyond the gate. After a moment or two of fumbling we made the exchange and the place lit up once more, my hand glowing, brilliance lancing out between my fingers. “Come on.” And I led the way out, Hennan at my heels, and others following, drawn by the departing light and fear of being left alone in the dark with dying men who might not die properly.

I would have given Hennan the key and let him open the other gates but it seemed cruel to let him touch it. I had to blink at that notion. A year ago the matter of my convenience would have outweighed any worry about cruelty to a child—in fact the cruelty might have been considered an added bonus . . .

I stepped over three men wrestling for ownership of a hex, and unlocked the first gate. A few of the more healthy and larger men hurried out to join the struggle for small change, most held back, almost as frightened of me with my glowing hand and black key as they had been of Artos and his half-eaten face.

By the time I reached the fifth cell people were slowly edging out of the already-open cells. I unlocked the gate and immediately a big fellow pushed through. He didn’t join the struggle for the last coin out in the centre: instead he turned on me. I had to look up to meet his gaze. Belligerent dark eyes narrowed at me beneath a shock of black hair. The man had starved with the rest of the last-stage debtors but he’d been a bruiser in his day and he seemed far less impressed with me than his fellows did.

“Been watching you eat while the rest of us go without. Been watching you throwing your money about, northerner.” His scowl deepened and he fell quiet as if he’d asked me a question.

“Northerner? Me?” That was a new one, though I guessed technically it was correct. I eyed him up, wondering if I could overpower him and definitely not wanting to have to try.

“Suppose you throw some of that money my way—in fact suppose you hand it over nicely, boy?”

The cells had fallen quiet behind me, the inmates in front of me all staring my way. All I had to defend myself was the key in my hand, clutched somewhat awkwardly because of the double florin hidden in my palm. My other hand held the orichalcum cone and I kept it tight to my stomach where it pinned up the fold of my shirt, pregnant with a modest fortune in gold.