I don’t know any Captain Carnolets, Adele thought. And of course she didn’t; but she knew Mistress Sand, who controlled the Republic’s foreign intelligence operations with the same unobtrusive efficiency as Admiral Anston displayed within the RCN.
If Adele had needed confirmation, the way the messenger reacted to Tovera provided it. He wasn’t afraid of her, exactly; but he was as careful as he’d have been to keep outside the reach of a chained watchdog—and he’d recognized instantly that the colorless “secretary” was a watchdog.
“Yes, all right,” Adele said. “But I’ll change clothes first.”
She turned and motioned the footmen on. Having servants was a constant irritation, complicating even a business as simple as walking down the street. On the other hand, the fact that she’d made the journey home in reasonable comfort instead of being squeezed into less space than steerage on an immigrant ship was an undeniable benefit. . . .
“My name’s Wilsing, by the way,” said the lieutenant as he fell into step with her. “There’s no need to change for the captain, mistress. He was most particular about his wish to see you as soon as possible.”
“Which will be as soon as I’ve changed into civilian clothes, Lieutenant Wilsing,” Adele said, letting her tone suggest the irritation that she felt. The only association her dress uniform had for her was the funeral of a man she’d respected and whom her friend Daniel had loved.
It wasn’t Mistress Sand’s fault that this funeral had reminded Adele that her own parents and sister had been buried without ceremony in a mass grave—all but their heads, of course, which had probably been thrown in the river after birds pecked them clean on the Speaker’s Rock. It was true nonetheless. Adele felt the meeting would go better if she got out of her Whites.
When Adele was within twenty feet of Chatsworth Minor’s recessed entrance, the doorman turned and said something to the men who’d followed him. They were burly fellows; though they were dressed as footmen, their livery didn’t fit well.
One pulled a blackjack from inside his jacket and clubbed the doorman over the head; the doorman staggered into the pilaster, then fell forward on his face. The thug’s companion drew a pistol and pointed it in the air.
Adele glanced behind her. Eight men, mostly holding lengths of pipe and similar bludgeons, had entered the court and were walking toward her purposefully. One of them had a pistol. They must’ve been in concealment in the pavement-level light wells of one of the houses across the boulevard. . . .
Lieutenant Wilsing pulled a flat phone out of his breast pocket. “Don’t!” Adele said under her breath.
The gunman at the front of Chatsworth Minor aimed his pistol at Wilsing. “Drop it, buddy!” he snarled. “I won’t warn you again!”
“Drop it!” Adele repeated. She edged behind one of the footmen so that her left hand could reach into the side-pocket of her tunic without the gunman seeing her.
Wilsing let his little phone clack to the ground. His face had no expression.
“Now the rest of you step away and you won’t be hurt!” the gunman said. “We’re just going to teach your mistress not to steal houses from her betters!”
“I have the ones behind,” Tovera murmured.
“You men!” Adele said to the terrified footmen. They were trying to look back at her and to watch the gunman also. “Get out of the way at once. This isn’t your affair.”
“But mistress—” said the senior man, a fellow who could—and probably did—pass as a gentleman when he was off-duty and looking for recreation among the female servants from other districts.
“Get out of the way or I’ll take a switch to you, my man!” Adele shouted. She sounded on the verge of panic; the part of her mind that dealt with ordinary things like servants had been disconnected from her higher faculties. Her intellect was focused on the developing situation.
The footmen scrambled off to the left. One started to go right, then sprinted to follow the others when he realized he was about to be left alone.
The eight thugs from the head of the court must be very close now. The gunman in front laughed and sauntered forward, accompanied by the man with the blackjack.