Dancing With Bears by Michael Swanwick

Author:Michael Swanwick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Adventure, Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9781597802352
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2011-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

As soon as Chortenko had scolded and lectured his thugs up the stairs and out of her presence, Zoësophia turned her attention to her cage’s lock. She almost felt insulted. The device was a pin tumbler with only six stacks and a straightforward keyway slot. Removing two hairpins from deep within her elaborate coiffure, she swiftly picked it open. It was as simple as, earlier, it had been to mislead Chortenko by behaving like an imbecile and regulating the flow of blood in her face.

A basic principle of espionage was that men possessed of special talents they thought nobody knew about were particularly easy to deceive.

The door at the top of the stairs opened and she swiftly moved to one side, where she could not readily be seen.

A guard came down into the room, saw the empty cage, and spun about in alarm. Calmly, Zoësophia stepped forward and snapped his neck. Soundlessly, she lowered his corpse to the floor.

“Well!” Zoësophia said aloud, amused. “This is not exactly how I had hoped to make my social debut in Moscow. But it will have to do.”

The guard’s death had excited the dogs and set them to howling and barking and launching themselves against the doors of their cages again. But of course nobody would pay any attention to that.

At the foot of the stairs, for just an instant, she hesitated. Her sympathies were all with the imprisoned and mistreated dogs. But her first duty was to escape. Anyway, she was not entirely sure she could fend off so many animals if they all attacked her at once. As they surely would if she freed them.

With just a twinge of regret, Zoësophia mentally subtracted the dog-noises and stood listening to the soft creakings of people moving about the mansion above. Avoiding them all and slipping out without being seen would be no more difficult than playing chess blindfolded—and blindfold chess was a game at which she excelled.

Less than ten minutes later, Zoësophia let herself out through the main entrance. She didn’t even consider leaving via the secret though frequently used passage in the basement.

A lady never left a house by the rear door.

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