Cross Purposes (Chronicles of Ylandre, Book 5) (34 page)

Cursing, Mirdan dropped his things and pulled a thin knife from a concealed sheath inside his boot. He quickly straightened and grabbed Tristen, yanking him into a stranglehold, his left arm around Tristen’s neck and shoulders. Tristen caught his breath when the Deir he’d considered a trusted friend held the knife to his throat. He stared at Keosqe in fear and panic, wondering if his life would end on the edge of a traitor’s blade.

“Stay back,” Mirdan growled. “Else I’ll slice up your pet, my lord, and that’s no idle threat.”

Keosqe did not speak or advance but kept a steady glare on Mirdan. Tristen grunted when he was hauled backward roughly, barely able to breathe as Mirdan’s arm contracted around his neck with each movement. Saints! They were headed for the window.

“It’s useless, Mir!” Tristen managed to choke out. “There are agents waiting in the alley below.”

“Thank you for warning me, my dear Tris,” Mirdan said. “We’ll go up to the roof then. I hope you know how to climb.”

They reached the window. In the few heartbeats it took for Mirdan to half-twist around and peer out, Keosqe and his agents started to move toward them. Mirdan tried to swing his leg over the windowsill, dragging Tristen with him.

Realizing his life would be worth nothing if Mirdan eluded Keosqe and his people, Tristen stomped down with all his might on his captor’s right foot.

Mirdan yowled and loosened his hold around Tristen’s neck. Tristen broke away and dove a safe distance to one side. Rolling over on his arse, he saw Keosqe dart forward and grab Mirdan’s arm as the Deir tried to scramble out the window. Mirdan lashed out at him with the knife.

Keosqe evaded the blade and repaid him with a vicious punch to the jaw. Mirdan swayed and then toppled back into the room.

Tristen stood up and breathlessly watched as the agents dragged Mirdan to his feet. Keosqe leaned out of the window and signaled to his people in the alley below to come up. Meanwhile, the agent who’d kept the boarding house owner occupied also joined them, the pop-eyed owner tagging along and loudly professing his innocence of any dastardly act Mirdan had committed.

“Veres save me, he claimed he was a merchant, that’s what he said he was,” the Deir told Keosqe. “I didn’t know he was doing anything criminal. Ah, what is this world coming to?” he lamented as he was ushered out of the room by one of the agents.

Keosqe looked Mirdan over. “Student, merchant, rebel, spy. A Deir of many talents. Who is your master?”

When Mirdan refused to answer, one of the agents plucked the bundled up cloak from the floor. As its folds came undone, something slipped out and fell at his feet. It was a small thick packet bound with twine. The Deir picked it up and handed it to Keosqe.

Keosqe tore open the packet. Inside were a few letters as well as several sheets of paper that appeared to be pages torn from books. Or rather journals, Tristen thought, when he saw a few were written with a bold hand, others in a less distinct style and a couple in a rather spidery scrawl.

“I wonder from whose bedchambers you purloined these,” Keosqe said, reading a few of the pages. “Hmm, I think Gilmael will be interested in this one. And it seems I’ll need to talk with some of my own people.” He studied the seal on a letter. A bitter smile curved his mouth. “The hubris of Jubal Ferrenda is astounding,” he remarked. “Only he would insist on affixing his seal to something so damning as these letters. Unless he expected you to destroy them upon receipt?”

Mirdan glared at him defiantly. “I think you know why I kept them,” he said with just a touch of smugness.

“As surety that they would pay you for your services,” Keosqe replied. “You don’t trust the Ferrendas for all that you work for them. You’re no separatist zealot but a mercenary.” He stuffed the letters and pages back into the packet. “This only confirms what we’ve suspected for a long time. The Ferrendas may have stoked dissent in Tenerith but they haven’t managed to rally as many of the province’s leaders as they would like. Hence the need to hire Deira of intelligence and resourcefulness to carry out such missions. Not to mention the willingness to whore themselves out for information.”

Mirdan chuckled. “Thank you for acknowledging my intelligence. And indeed you are correct about the level of wit amongst the current crop of truehearted separatists outside of the Ferrendas’ inner circle.” He smiled coyly at Keosqe. “Well, you had a taste of one of my abilities, Lord Keosqe. A pity you didn’t try the other. I think you would have had no complaints.”

“Save for having my secrets ferreted out while I slept,” Keosqe dryly retorted.

“True. But considering how contented I would have left you, you might have decided it well worth the price,” Mirdan said with a lascivious grin. “Certainly more than what you’re presently getting.” He turned a mocking smile on Tristen.

Tristen flushed but said nothing. He folded his arms and looked away, unwilling to let Mirdan bait him into uttering or doing something he might regret. Or, worse, trap him in further humiliation.

“A pity you chose to sell your talents elsewhere,” Keosqe commented. “You would have risen quite high in either my ministry or Lord Gilmael’s.”

Mirdan shrugged. “I would have risen high, but the wages could never match what the Ferrendas offered.”

“You may be right, but you’d have been guaranteed those wages,” Keosqe pointed out. “Now you’ll never receive what you worked so hard for. And you may well rot your life away in prison if Rohyr chooses to spare you.”

Tristen knew a pang of pity when Mirdan’s jaunty manner faltered and his face clouded over for an instant. But then Mirdan shrugged and smiled wanly at Keosqe before bowing his head and falling silent. Keosqe signed to his people to bind him and take him away. They headed down the stairs to the ground floor.

They encountered the agitated proprietor at the entrance of the house. The Deir wrung his hands anxiously as he pleaded for clemency on account of his unwitting concealment of a criminal.

“Rest assured we don’t think you an accomplice of yon knave,” Keosqe said. “Indeed, you have our thanks for permitting us to do our duty.”

“B-but of c-course,
Dyhar
!” the Deir stammered. “Any-anything f-for the C-crown. To think-to think I harbored a-a criminal! Me! I’ve-I’ve always f-followed the l-law. S-saints above! I think I-I need to l-lie down. If-if you p-please, my lord.”

Taking pity, Keosqe sent him on his way. He laid a hand on Tristen’s shoulder and they followed the agents and their captive out of the building.

Chapter 23

Truths

“Why did you suspect he’d concealed something in his cloak?” Tristen asked in the study that night after dinner.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Seated at the card table, he curiously regarded Keosqe across the top of the divider shelf. The noble was writing a full report on the incident, which he would send to the Citadel first thing in the morning.

Keosqe stopped writing and laid down the quill. He leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips. “He folded it so carefully and then held it like a package,” he explained. “The normal thing to do would have been to pull it on or simply drape it over his arm.”

Tristen softly whistled. “That did look odd but I never thought he might have been hiding something inside.” He shook his head. “I’d never make a good agent. There are so many things I’d miss or take for granted.”

“It isn’t your calling.”

“That’s painfully obvious judging from my performance earlier.” Tristen frowned. “You said he was a mercenary. But what was he paid to do? Garner information? I mean, what could he have possibly gained from pretending to be a student?”

“Access to me through you.”

“What?”

“Rohyr periodically ‘cleans house’ in Tenerith,” Keosqe said. “That is, he leads the army into the province every few years to nip any imminent insurgencies in the bud and eliminate as many of the rebel leaders as possible. And just as we have agents in Tenerith to try and keep track of the separatists’ movements and perhaps anticipate their activities, so do they send spies to Rikara to discover what the government is about. Hence the presence of Mirdan and others like him. In any case, late last year, the separatists launched a number of unexpected raids.”

Keosqe stood up and came around his desk to half perch on the edge, facing Tristen. “Mirdan told the truth when he claimed they’d managed to take over three important border towns. Currently, they are laying siege to a city known thus far to be loyal to Rohyr. Their successes have depended on the lack of enough Crown forces in the province to repel them. But to sustain their advantage, they need to know when the royal army will arrive in Tenerith in order to plan how to defend their gains. They also haven’t yet managed to consolidate all their forces and don’t know if they still have time to do so. And they obviously want to confirm the veracity of the information they have about our timetable.”

He half turned and tapped the parchment on which he’d been writing his report. “Mirdan was the only spy we hadn’t discovered until today. There were three of them in Rikara, all working to gain information about our plans for Tenerith and lately for specifics of the Crown’s campaign against the rebels.”

Tristen stared at him. “That’s why you were having those meetings with the Ardan,” he blurted. When Keosqe nodded, Tristen looked down at his hands. “That’s what you meant. You were discussing Tenerith and trying to capture the Ferrenda spies in Rikara.”

“We captured the other two, but Mirdan managed to elude us,” Keosqe continued. “He’s a very good actor and quick to spot opportunities. I wager he followed you around once he got wind of our relationship and, when the chance presented itself, befriended you.”

“He never worked in tea-room, did he?”

“I highly doubt it. More likely he preferred to dispense with your company once we’d parted. But even then, he still kept track of what you were doing just in case we kept in contact. So he would have seen the messenger give you my letter and deduced from the seal that it was from me. He probably feared we would reconcile and sought to prevent it by keeping you occupied elsewhere.”

Tristen’s eyes widened in recollection. “He claimed I gave him my schedule, but I don’t recall ever doing so. Do you mean to say he was actually at the hospital when I drew it up with Master Sarvan?”

“Most likely. He used that knowledge to try and keep us apart a while longer.”

“And I thought he was being kind to do me a favor. The scoundrel!” A moment later, Tristen recalled his erstwhile friend’s appearance as he was led away and his compassion resurfaced. “A pity he dabbled in treason. What a waste of intelligence and resourcefulness.”

“Not to mention talent in seduction. Those journal pages were taken from one of Gilmael’s people and two of mine. All pertained to their writers’ possible inclusion in the campaign in Tenerith.”

“So there were details of your plans in those pages?”

“Enough to give the separatists an idea of when and where we would strike first.”

“
Heyas
! That would have cost you a good many lives.”

“Not to mention the element of surprise. Fortunately, Jubal was careless enough to mention a few names in those letters. We hadn’t suspected these Deira of harboring seditious ideas.” Keosqe scowled. “The separatists’ regionalist tendencies make them easy to take advantage of. I will give that to the Ferrendas. They stoke these people’s ill-founded prejudices very well with tall tales of past glory and promises that a Varadani restoration will likewise restore them to greatness and prosperity.”

“Do they truly believe those falsehoods?” Tristen wondered. “I’ve read several accounts about the despotic rule of the Ferrendas and how miserable their subjects were. And a good number of these were written by Varadani historians. That alone should prove the Ferrendas’ claims fraudulent, shouldn’t it?”

Keosqe snorted. “Such folk ignore or refuse anything that gainsays their beliefs. Indeed, they will readily accept a lie for truth if it bolsters their stance, and dismiss a fact as fallacy should it inconveniently render their position indefensible. There’s no arguing with an ignorant bigot and even less chance of enlightening a close-minded one. In any case, Crown agents in Tenerith are presently taking these traitors into custody. Or dispatching them if they resist arrest.”

Tristen shuddered as he imagined the implied extrajudicial executions of said traitors. He folded his arms to steady himself.

He recalled Keosqe had summoned Gilmael Calanthe and Yovan Seydon to his home and the three had closeted themselves in the study for almost a half hour. When they came out, they looked a little tired but there was an air of satisfaction about them. Keosqe must have been engaged in mind-speech with his people in Tenerith, relaying information and orders. His cousin and uncle would have lent him strength to boost his reach and help him stay in contact with those people for a goodly while.

“But if he already had enough information, why did he still try to gain access to you?” Tristen asked after a moment.

Keosqe smiled grimly. “He was likely promised a bigger bounty if he could bring back more detailed information. That meant targeting me. When he discovered the nature of our affair, he decided to try and separate us. He meant to insinuate himself into my bed after breaking us apart. That entailed getting you to confide in him about us—he counted on your resentments toward me to make you open up. And I played into his hands by letting him see how insecure I was about you.”

Tristen cringed. There was no need to explain what had caused his lover’s lack of confidence. He felt even more miserable when Keosqe softly added, “That he accomplished his goal proved how unstable our relationship was.”

“Yet he took his time approaching you after we parted,” Tristen muttered.

“Of course he did.” Keosqe laughed harshly. “I’d truly come to believe it was you he wanted. For him to suddenly turn around and deny that would have aroused my suspicious. Nay, he gave me enough time to stew in my misery so that I’d be credulous and unhappy and lonely enough to believe his story that he’d come between us because he desired me. He thought it would be easy to get me to accept him in your stead. Ripe for the picking so to speak.”