Excerpt from 'Imperial Spy'

To put this piece into perspective, it is a piece taken from the middle of my new novel (to be published by Simon & Schuster UK 6 Feb 06) This was the draft - it did get edited slightly, and also proof-read, so this might not be word for word what appears in the book.
Femke has been accused of murdering a nobleman during a visit to the Royal Palace. She realised she had been set up, escaped, only to be captured by a less than savoury member of the nobility who seeks to use her to further his own power and influence within the Court. He has locked her in his basement. Enjoy.



Femke had already dealt with the most difficult part of opening the door. Dreban had made her take off her clothes, where the majority of her tools were hidden, but Femke had managed to secure one item in her mouth as she had lifted her dress over her head. She had always made a habit of tacking various oddments inside her clothes and this habit had paid off today. It had been easy to catch the little coil with her teeth as she removed her dress, biting it free and tucking it in her cheek with her tongue. Later, when Dreban divided his attention between watching her and lighting his torch, Femke palmed it from her mouth. It was then easy to manipulate the little piece of metal such that the coil of thin thread attached to it was free to unravel at will.

When Dreban had given his little speech at the doorway to the cellar, Femke had surreptitiously inserted the little piece of metal into the bolt socket with her thumb. Then, behind her back, she had partially unravelled the coil of thread and flicked the remaining coil inside the cellar to the left of the door. When she was ready to make her escape, all she had to do was to find the end of the cord and pull it gently. The cord would then pull on the attached piece of metal in the bolt socket, drawing the bolt out. It was a simple trick, but it did rely on the bolt not being stiff. The cord, whilst strong, was not unbreakable. She had no worries with this door, for the simple rectangular metal bolt had drawn easily at her touch. There was no reason to believe it would be stiffer when she came to draw it again.

The main problem was to find something with which to pick the door lock. With no light at all, Femke had to work solely by touch. It was difficult to keep track of time, but she estimated an hour had passed before she managed to extract a suitable nail from one of the shelves on the wall. At one point, a slight sound outside the door made her pause and feel her way silently across the room. The Count could be bringing the blanket he had promised, or food and drink, she thought. Femke stood by the door and listened for several long minutes. There were no further sounds. Eventually, with a mental shrug she returned to her work.

Once she had the nail it took less than two minutes for her to open the lock, but having done so, she relocked it again immediately. By her reckoning it was still late morning outside. The Royal Guards would still be out in force looking for her, so the last thing she wanted to do was to jump back into the fray. Instead she located the cord leading from the bolt socket and tucked it down by the base of the doorframe to make it as inconspicuous as possible. Then she settled down to wait for night to fall.

Getting comfortable was difficult, but she found something that felt like an old wall hanging or a thin rug and wrapped it around her body for warmth. Curling up in an old armchair she closed her eyes to rest, but despite the silent darkness, sleep did not come easily. The bruising across her body from her fall into the tree began to infiltrate her consciousness again. The pain crept over her like a vine. Growing. Squeezing. Invading. In comparison, the scrape on her leg where the dog had raked her with its teeth felt little more than a dull burning. Femke did not know where her scalp was cut, but the wounds there brought no pain so she left them alone for fear that poking at them would restart the bleeding. Eventually, she drifted into a restless slumber.

Disturbing dreams troubled her throughout the lightless day, though when she finally awoke with a start from a particularly disturbing nightmare, she could recall no specifics. One thing was certain - the Count had not come down to the cellar during the day. The spy felt sure that she had never done more than skimmed the surface of sleep and was positive she would have shed her fragile slumber at the slightest of sounds.

There was no way of being certain of the time of day, but she knew instinctively that night had fallen outside. It was time for her to make her move and get down into lower Mantor before the Count decided to hand her over to the King.

It took a few moments to establish her orientation in the pitch-blackness. Femke shivered as she shucked off her makeshift blanket. The stone floor felt freezing to her bare feet as she crept across to the door. For a moment she could not find the nail and cord. A surge of panic gripped her, but the dismay was fleeting as both came to hand seconds later. She sighed with relief and mentally berated herself for her momentary loss of discipline.

With practiced ease, She made no noise as she opened the lock. Adrenalin flowed as she took up the slack in the cord. There was always the danger that a sudden load might snap her link to freedom. With a silent prayer to any deity that chanced to be listening, she gritted her teeth and carefully increased the tension. Her reward was the gentle scraping sound of metal against metal. Slowly – ever so slowly, Femke pulled until she felt the cord give as the thin metal plug pulled free from the socket. She winced as it swung, knocking against the escutcheon plate with a tapping of metal against metal that sounded loud in the silence of her dark prison. In reality the noise was not sufficient to carry far.

The door was unlocked, but she knew that chance would now play a large part if she were to escape cleanly. Taking care not to open the door more than halfway, she slid silently out of the cellar. The stairwell proved as lightless as her prison, so she crept up the dark stairs on all fours, feeling ahead at every stair for anything that could make a noise. The door at the top of the stairs opened into the passageway between the kitchen area and what had appeared to be the main living area of the Count’s residence. When she reached it no light spilled around the edges of the door, so it was reasonable to assume that nobody would be in the unlit passageway.

Femke tried the handle and was pleased to find the door unlocked. The next few minutes would be crucial. Clothing was top of her priority list, but if she had to flee without it, she would. The last place she had seen her clothes was in the kitchen. Her knapsack was also last seen there, so the kitchen was the obvious place to look.

Faint light shone in through a small window in the passageway. It lit her way as well as any torch. Before moving out of the doorway, Femke paused to listen. The house was silent. Had Dreban dismissed his staff for the day to avoid one of them discovering her? It would not surprise her. It was also in character for him to renege on his promise of a blanket, and deny her food or drink.

‘The Count thought to parade me in front of the King’s Court as a desperate fugitive,’ she thought. ‘When I’ve found out who did kill Baron Anton, I’ll expose him for the slimy, underhand sleen he is.’

Again no light spilled around the edges of the kitchen door. She did not hesitate to open it. However, as she lightly turned the handle something pushed against the door, forcing it to open towards her. A dull thud echoed in the passageway as a large object impacted the floor by her feet.

Femke jumped back and jammed a hand into her mouth to stifle a scream, for as she looked down, a lifeless pair of eyes stared back. It was the Count. To her horror the greater ambient light filtering through the windows of the kitchen revealed that one of her knives was buried to the hilt in his throat.