“That
is
tempting. Ravido needn’t know whether he died here or at the end of our trip downriver. The boy’s not very bright, so I doubt if we’d have to worry about him masterminding any escapes.” The woman cackled.
Yes, it was definitely a cackle, a high-pitched one that ended with a snort. Maldynado remembered it well. Mari. The other voice didn’t nudge his memory with a sense of familiarity.
“We can keep him tied up to make sure,” the second woman said. “Though I’ve heard he’s skilled in the bedroom, so it’d be a shame not to give him free use of his hands.”
Yes, it would, Maldynado thought. He remained still while the women spoke, since they seemed to be working themselves up to the idea of taking him with them on the
Glacial Empress.
He’d be happy to play along as lover-slave until an opportunity to escape arose. Yes,
escape
. He dearly wanted to tell them to slag off and that he was bright enough to plan such a thing, though it was hard to boast of one’s intelligence when one was trussed up like a hog on a spit.
Mari’s high-pitched laugh sounded again. “I’ll let you try the hands-free option, Brynia. You’re young and sexy, so you’ll have no trouble seducing him. He’s alas not been quick to acquiesce to my advances in the past.”
“You wish him stowed in your cabin, my lady?” a man asked. It sounded like that butler. He was tending to Maldynado’s accommodations after all. How thoughtful.
“Yes, but I want to question him first,” Mari said.
“Do you need
assistance
?” another man, this one with a deep, rumbly voice, asked.
“I doubt it. The boy has never been one to put a clamp on his lips.”
“Yes, my lady. What do you want us to do with the other two?”
“They’re nothing to me. Feed them to the alligators, so there’s no evidence that they were here.”
At that statement, Maldynado made a more vigorous attempt to turn over. The lover-slave ruse would only be acceptable if Yara and Basilard were safe, or at least not
dead
.
“Ah, he’s awake,” the second lady, Brynia, said. “Roll him over, will you, Dorff?”
At first, that sounded like a good idea—Maldynado wanted to see more than the bench—but as soon as meaty hands flipped him onto his side, he regretted it. With his arms and legs locked behind him, the new position threatened to rip the bottom shoulder out of its socket.
A woman’s face lowered to regard him, and Maldynado stopped squirming. He’d expected Mari, but this was a stranger, a sexy stranger. Clear blue eyes framed by long dark lashes gazed down at him. Shoulder-length blonde hair fell in a curtain about a striking face with a small mole placed artfully on the chin.
“Hello, darling,” she said. “Care to answer a few questions?”
The only thing that came to mind was, “Uhm.” The gag muffled it, but Maldynado feared they got the gist.
“I told you he’s not the swiftest,” Mari said.
She had changed little since Maldynado had last seen her. She sat on a nearby bench, legs crossed, hands braced behind her in a way that thrust her chest outward. A pair of onyx clips kept her brown hair pulled away from her face, but couldn’t hide its unruly frizziness. Her face itself wasn’t entirely unpleasant to look upon, but her dark eyes never failed to have a calculating, predatory gleam that would make any sane man uneasy. Maldynado had been a boy when she and Ravido had married, but he’d always suspected that family connections, and perhaps some manipulation on her part, had been behind the pairing.
“That’s all right.” Brynia offered Maldynado a sympathetic smile, though he knew it couldn’t be sincere. “Not everybody’s ancestors favor them in all matters.”
Maldynado craned his neck until he located Yara and Basilard. They were also tied and lay where they’d fallen, Yara by a fountain in the middle of the room, and Basilard by the wall on the other side of the bench. Neither had their eyes open, and Maldynado worried that they’d already been killed. No, they wouldn’t be tied if they were dead. He just had to figure out a way to keep them from a trip to the moat. As skilled a fighter as Basilard was, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself with his arms and legs bound behind his back.
Several burly men loomed about the room, sabers and pistols hanging at their waists. The firearms had revolving chambers to hold multiple bullets. Some carried rifles as well.
Brynia knelt beside Maldynado and untied his gag, her crimson fingernails flashing. As she removed it, she stroked those fingernails along his jaw.
“Where is the assassin, Maldynado?” Mari asked.
“The who?” Maldynado asked.
“Sicarius. My comrades very much want his life to end. The family knows you’ve been working with him. For the longest time, your father hoped he’d grow weary of your wit and kill you so that your criminal exploits—and the embarrassment to the family—would end, but my business colleagues say that the woman leads the group. We know she’s no longer an issue—”
Maldynado’s heart almost stopped. Amaranthe was
no longer an issue
?
“—but he’s still on the loose,” Mari said. “We thought a trap set for you might ensnare him at the same time.” She waved around the room. “We wouldn’t have gone to such elaborate lengths if we’d known it’d just be you, a thug, and a girl.”
Worried about Amaranthe, Maldynado barely heard the part about a trap.
“Who is she, anyway?” Mari sniffed in Yara’s direction. “A woman with muscles and knives isn’t quite to your tastes. You prefer those vapid, buxom girls who haven’t a thought in their heads beyond rubbing against you and rousing your interest.”
“Now, now, Mari,” Maldynado said, having a notion that he should stand up for himself so they wouldn’t know how deflated his foolish choices had left him, “there’s no need to be bitter just because I’ve rejected you. Often.”
Mari clenched her jaw.
“Ah, the pretty man has teeth.” Brynia, still kneeling beside Maldynado, patted him on the arm and smiled. “Good.”
“But,” Maldynado said, keeping his eyes toward Mari, “the past needn’t set the pattern of the future. If you let my friends walk away from here, I’ll go along with you on your trip and perform for you in whatever capacity you desire.”
“You’ll do that anyway,” Mari said. “If you
perform
well, your death at the end can be painless. If not… ” Her gaze shifted toward the burly thugs.
Please. After what Maldynado had been through in the last year, threats of pummeling weren’t that terrifying. And she was probably bluffing about the death part anyway. Or maybe not. They’d been discussing that before they knew he was conscious, hadn’t they? When they’d had no idea he was listening? Or maybe they’d known he was listening and had been playing a part.
“You’re not going to kill me,” Maldynado said. “You’re not a murderer, Mari. You’re a warrior-caste woman, bound by law and honor.”
“Don’t be naive. Even if I had a reason to feel honor-bound to you—which I don’t, because you’re a criminal as far as the empire is concerned—your father wants you dead, and I wouldn’t be foolish enough to defy him.”
“My father wants… ?” Maldynado bit his lip. He shouldn’t show them that he believed her.
“He was satisfied with disowning you at first, but then you horrified him by turning from dandy to whore, pleasuring old women for coin. And then this outlaw thing. Running around with an assassin who kills honest businesswomen on a whim. Your whole life is an embarrassment to the family.”
“Father can’t possibly care about Forge.” It was the only thing Maldynado could latch onto, because the rest was true. And, with the truth pointed out, he didn’t have much trouble imagining his father’s displeasure. “He’s old-blood warrior caste, through and through.”
Mara laughed, the shrill cackle grating on Maldynado almost as much as the discomfort of his position. “You
are
naive. While other warrior-caste families have grown weak over the last century, seeing their lands usurped by the changing times, the Marblecrests have thrived. Your family has done what’s needed to maintain its power, and it will continue to do so.”
“Mother can’t want me dead,” Maldynado said, worried that it sounded like a last attempt at defense.
“Your mother never forgave you for Tia’s death. Her youngest, her only daughter, gone because of your neglect. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard her say it should have been you instead. From what I’ve gathered, your siblings will also be satisfied to learn of your demise. A death for a death. There’s a universal fairness to it, don’t you think?”
Maldynado closed his eyes.
It should have been you.
Yes, he’d heard his mother say that often enough to know Mari’s words were a direct quote. He couldn’t summon the will to argue further on the topic. It didn’t matter anymore anyway. What mattered was making sure Yara and Basilard didn’t end up in the moat. But how, by his dead grandmother’s biggest, ugliest wart, was he going to do that?
A knock came at the door nearest to the foyer. Mari and Brynia walked over to open it.
While the women were distracted, Maldynado opened his eyes for another scan of the room. Basilard and Yara hadn’t moved, though Basilard’s eyes were open. When he saw Maldynado looking his way, he widened them with significance. He flexed his arm slightly, and Maldynado tried to guess what message the movement was meant to relay. Basilard seemed to have shifted a few inches when nobody was paying attention, so he lay on his side with his back to a corner of the granite bench. Maybe he was using the sharp edge to saw at his bonds? As if he could guess Maldynado’s thoughts, Basilard nodded slightly.
Maldynado wished he’d been working at his own bonds while the women were talking to him. If Basilard freed himself, he’d have to handle six men with repeating firearms, along with whoever had come to the door.
A potted tree blocked Maldynado’s view of the entrance. He squirmed to the side, trying to see the door. A guard standing a few feet away patted the stock of his rifle. Maldynado gave him an I’m-harmless-and-not-doing-anything-besides-being-curious look. The man snorted. Maldynado decided not to push things with further movement. Besides, he could see enough.
Mari had opened the door, and a tattooed man wearing buckskins had come in. Brynia watched from a few steps back as Mari questioned the newcomer—a shaman, Maldynado assumed. He tried to eavesdrop, though the gurgling fountains made it difficult.
“… get him?” Mari asked.
A pang of unease struck Maldynado’s gut.
Him
? Him, who?
Maldynado didn’t hear the shaman’s response, but a nod accompanied it.
“You’re certain?” Mari asked. “For a bookish boy who mastered the art of escaping weapons practice as a child, he’s proven surprisingly adept at eluding us in the field.”
The unease in Maldynado’s gut turned to dread. The emperor.
The shaman’s chin came up. “Thanks to my abilities—” he lifted his hand and flexed his fingers, “—their boat was incontrovertibly destroyed. Three bodies floated away from the wreckage, and the men you sent with me shot them full of holes. Your emperor is fish food on the bottom of the river now.”
No. Books was too smart to let some brute blow him up. And Akstyr would have sensed a shaman coming. It had to be a ruse. Because if it wasn’t… their deaths would be Maldynado’s fault.
Everything
that had happened tonight was his fault. He closed his eyes and wished he could melt into the floor, never to be seen again. But that wasn’t going to happen. And he wasn’t going to give up on Books and the others until he’d seen the dead bodies himself. He gritted his teeth and, while most people were focused on the conversation at the door, wriggled back to the bench. If Basilard could scrape his ropes off, maybe Maldynado could too.
“The captain says the steamboat is ready for departure if you wish to leave tonight,” the shaman said. “He is concerned tonight’s activities will draw enforcer interest to the island.”
“This is a private island,” Mari said. “Enforcers have little power here. We’re not leaving until I know who’s dead at the bottom of the river. Did you retrieve the bodies and verify their identities?”
Maldynado didn’t hear the answer, but he sure hoped it was no.
“Brynia,” Mari said, “can you tell where the knife is?”
Maldynado had been rubbing his ropes against the bench edge, but the question made him pause. The knife? Sicarius’s knife? It was the only one he could imagine being referred to as
the
knife. Maldynado assumed Sespian still had it. Rust-for-luck, had Forge figured some way to track the weird metal?
“Give me a moment.” Brynia withdrew a black oval from her pocket.
Maldynado couldn’t make out the details, but it appeared to be made from the foreign material he’d been seeing far too much of lately.
He rubbed his ropes harder. If he managed to free himself, he’d want a weapon. His were missing, so he’d have to borrow one. He eyed the guards, seeking one with the attentiveness of a sock. Nobody quite that likely presented himself, but one thick fellow with more fat than muscle might make a good shield while Maldynado wrestled his rifle and sword away.
After a long moment spent staring at the black egg, Brynia lifted her head. “It hasn’t moved much. It’s still near the docks.”
She
was
tracking the knife. How long had she been in town? Since the attack in the park? That would explain how those thugs had known where to find the emperor. Maybe she’d been the one to send Cousin Lita to that antique shop. Brynia was probably roaming around the satrapy, collecting all sorts of handy heirlooms with secret powers. Ah, maybe that was how they’d found themselves the monstrous aircraft as well. Though, where, he wondered, had they found the tracking artifact to start with?
“Near the docks?” Mari asked. “Is it in a boat or at the bottom of the river?”
“I can’t determine location with that kind of accuracy,” Brynia said. “Retta was busy learning how to fly the
Ortarh Ortak
and couldn’t spare much time to explain how to use this.”
Mari pointed to the shaman. “Take some men and dredge the river. I want to know for certain that Sespian is gone.”