Imperial Spy by Mark Robson

leafless tree for long, someone would spot her. Femke had to
get over the outer Palace wall and into the city if she were to stay free long enough to prove her innocence.
    The muscles in Femke’s bruised stomach protested as she climbed limb by limb down the tree, but there was to be no respite. As she dropped from the lowest branch a shout sounded out from
the first-floor window of her suite. The chase was on. She launched into a run towards the outer wall, vaguely aware of answering shouts coming from the grounds somewhere to her right.
    The wall towered above her as she reached its base. At first glance the entire face of it looked smooth, but from a previous walk in the grounds of the Palace, Femke knew that this was not
universally the case. There were many places along the wall with enough cracks in the stone-work to allow an agile climber sufficient holds to scale it with ease. She simply had to find one of
those points, and quickly.
    A new sound brought another lurch of fear that gripped her insides and twisted them mercilessly. Femke turned and for an instant she froze. Royal Guards were running towards her, still some
distance away, but closing fast. The sound that chilled her did not come from the guards, though, but from the huge, brutish-looking dogs that loped alongside them.
    ‘Stay where you are,’ she heard one of the guards call. ‘Stop, or we release the dogs.’
    Femke did not hesitate. She exploded back into action, running away from the approaching guards at a full sprint. It was impossible to ignore them, but she concentrated her focus on finding a
section of the wall that she could climb. Her first instinct was that the guards were bluffing. They were unlikely to release the dogs on an Ambassador. Surely her diplomatic status would make them
think twice? Unfortunately, considerations of diplomatic immunity did not seem to be a part of the guards’ thought processes.
    The pain from her fall into the tree was forgotten and Femke raced alongside the wall, mentally blessing the architect and gardeners for doing such a good job of levelling the lawns. Femke found
just the spot she was looking for. She leaped up, jammed her fingers into the first crack and then pulled herself as far above the ground as she could.
    Femke had just found her first good toehold and was pushing higher up the wall when two things happened simultaneously to distract her. First there was a snarling snap as a dog raked her leg
with its teeth. A tight fiery pain erupted above her ankle, but the momentum of the dog had denied it a firm hold and carried its body on past her. It took a moment for the animal to land and turn
for another attack, during which time a newfound desperation drove Femke to pull her body even higher from the ground. At the same time as the dog made its attack, a crossbow quarrel smashed into
the wall to her right, showering her with splinters of wood and stone.
    ‘Don’t shoot her, you idiot!’ someone shouted. ‘The King wants to question her. It’s hard to do that if she’s dead! Quick. Catch her before she gets over the
wall.’
    Femke would have grinned if she had not been gritting her teeth against the strain of the climb. Her ankle and stomach were painful. Her right eye was in spasm and watering profusely from a
flying stone chip that had struck it when the crossbow bolt shattered against the wall. However, nobody was going to catch her this side of the wall now and a fierce exultation gripped her as she
neared temporary safety.
    With a last heave, Femke mounted the top of the wall and glanced back down at the guards who were now at the base of the wall.
    ‘Come down, Ambassador. If you leave the grounds of the Palace, I won’t be able to protect you any longer,’ shouted up the guard whom Femke identified as having ordered the
others to stop shooting. Femke reasoned he must be the senior man present.
    ‘Protect me? You call a dog attack and being shot at protecting me?’