“Father, his lies insult my wife. I must be allowed my right of combat. I...”
“Sit down, Francis,” their father's words brooked no argument and Francis Brekovich was well trained. He put away his sword and walked back to his chair. Anders decided to push the situation; it had always been one of his favourite pass times to insult his little brother.
“Lies, Francis? Surely after marrying her you noticed her, um, lack of innocence? Hell I thought everyone knew. Father certainly did.”
Francis Brekovich looked at Lisha who in turn glared a furious hole through Anders and she wasn't the only one. Niles Brekovich hadn't taken his eyes off his eldest son and, as far as Anders could tell, still hadn't blinked.
The silence deepened and held for a long time. Niles Brekovich steepled his hands and looked on, his thoughts unknown behind his emotionless mask. After some time Francis could not contain his tongue any longer, Anders' younger brother had never been able to control his temper. His face went red, his teeth ground together and he slammed the table with two meaty fists.
“Father, I demand my right to kill him!” he shouted.
“Kill me? Any rights you have would be to combat. I presume you're still too afraid to fight me fairly, little brother? As are the rest of you?”
His challenge, though a completely baseless bluff, had the desired effect. In an instant the entire room burst into angry arguments, pointed threats and general shouting of insults. Niles Brekovich may be a man of deep thought and contemplation but his court had always been a simmering pot willing to boil over at the merest hint of an insult. The commotion wasn't even directed at Anders; the fools were arguing among themselves over who should have the right to murder him.
It gave Anders just the opportunity he had been waiting for. On the table closest to him, balanced rather precariously on the closest edge was a half full wine cup containing the glorious red liquid that Anders knew would make everything better. He took a step forward, then another, then another. He was almost within reach now. He could almost taste it; feel it flowing down his throat, spreading warmth and confidence and contentment throughout his body. All he had to do was take one more step and he could have it.
The man whose cup it was turned to look at Anders; his argument temporarily forgotten. Anders didn't recognise the warrior but then he'd never bothered looking too hard at the men in his father's court, the women were always far more interesting.
“Um, I wonder if I could just...” Anders pointed at the cup and smiled. “I mean just a little...”
With casual malice the soldier gave the cup a nudge and it dropped to the ground. Anders dropped to his knees just a second too late and the cup hit the reed strewn floor and bounced, spilling its contents, wasting the sweet nectar. The soldier watched on with a sneer as Anders grabbed up the cup, wiped two fingers around the inside and then sucked on them, salvaging what few drops he could. It wasn't enough, it wasn't anything. He was just considering picking up one of the wine soaked reeds and trying to suck the alcohol from it when two big hands took him underneath his left arm and hauled him back to his feet.
“What the fuck are ya doing?” the Black Thorn asked in a hoarse voice.
Anders looked around for another unattended cup. The only one he could see belonged to his father. “If I'm going to die I'd much rather do it with a belly full. Die like I lived. Has a poetic ring to it, don't you think?” The Black Thorn didn't look amused.
“Ya got a plan ta get out o' this right?” Thorn asked.
“Um...”
“He's ya da' ain't he? Can't ya jus' ask real nice or somethin'?”
“We um... don't really get on too well,” Anders confided though he thought that much was fairly obvious.
“Fuck!” Thorn was still holding onto Anders' arm, preventing him from trying for another cup. “Ya brother wants ta fight ya, trial by combat or somethin'. If you win that ya get ta go free, right?”
“If my father accepts the terms, yes.” Anders was finding it hard to think straight. His entire plan had stretched to causing a ruckus and stealing a drink with no thought of what to do afterwards.
“So can ya beat him? Ya brother.”
Anders snorted. “No.” He held up a shaking hand. “And I don't really think I'm in any sort of fit state to participate in any sort of altercation.”
“Right. What about a champion? You blooded folk are always lettin' others do the fightin' so ya don't get hurt. What if I fight fer ya?”
“Um.” It was possibly the last thing Anders had expected, the Black Thorn offering to fight on his behalf, offering to put his own life on the line. “I don't think my father would accept that. He's not like the other blooded. Believes a man should fight his own battles and such.”
“Right then.” When the Black Thorn let go of Anders' arm he stumbled and almost dropped back to his knees, he hadn't even been aware the boss was supporting him.
“Lord Brekovich,” Thorn began, pitching his voice to be heard over the general din of the hall. “Reckon we might have cost you some an' I reckon that means we owe ya. Now folk like you can always use folk like me, like us. So hows about we sort out some kind o' repayment? All ya gotta do is jus' name it.”
As the Black Thorn spoke Niles Brekovich nodded to the old soldier who had escorted them in. Anders saw it coming but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Torival stepped up behind the Black Thorn and bashed him at the base of the skull with the pommel of his dagger. Thorn went down face first, unconscious before he hit the ground. Anders heard Henry let out a low growl from behind and he shot her a warning glare. His father was in a merciful mood otherwise Thorn would have gotten the pointy-end. Henry trying to murder a few folk could change all that.
With exaggerated slowness Lord Niles Brekovich rose from his chair. “Enough,” his voice was quiet but it was all that was needed. Over sixty men and women were occupying the main hall and every single one of them fell silent. Some sets of eyes turned to the ageing Lord and others turned to his manacled, shaking, sweating son. Anders wanted to shrink away but he forced himself to endure the hostile stares.
“Anders, you will be executed.”
It was a shock and then some. Anders had truly believed that his father would let him off. A slap on the wrist and a
get out of my sight
maybe. A few nights in a cell to be certain but an execution?
“Really father?” he could hear a pathetic note of panic creeping into his voice. “You would really execute your eldest son?”
“Francis is my eldest son. You may remember I disinherited you, Anders.”
As it happens Anders did remember it and he remembered it well. He'd been standing in this very hall. He'd been surrounded by much the same group of peers; a few notable faces were now missing but that was to be expected. Francis had been grinning like the king of fools and as well he might; with Anders disinherited his bull-headed little brother stood to inherit everything upon their father's eventual death.
His mother had been there too, that day. Anders had never gotten on very well with her but she had always at least claimed to love him, when she was sober enough to remember his name that was. His other two brothers; Alfric and Noen had been absent; busy chasing down a group of bandits who had been preying on a local village. His sisters had been present; Jaquine had looked on him with their father's same hostile eyes while Nat had cried for the loss of a brother.
It had been raining. The main hall always had a peculiar smell about it when it rained and Anders remembered it had made his stomach queasy. Now he thought about it, it might have been the alcohol that had made his stomach queasy; he'd had a skin-full that day, enough that he could smell it on himself, enough that it had taken most of his concentration just to stop himself from throwing up. He'd have put himself on stage eleven of twelve that day.
It was his father he remembered best though, even through the drunken haze. The man had been angry and beyond angry. It was the only time Anders had ever seen the man show any sort of emotion and every bit of it was directed at his eldest son in a torrent of rage.
Lord Niles Brekovich had listed Anders' crimes, and it had been a long list indeed, punctuating each with the question
do you deny it?
as if denying any of them would have done a single ounce of good.
Anders had remained silent throughout the entire affair, devoid of his usual wit and good humour. Even he couldn't justify some of his crimes, most of them as it happened.
His father had concluded the trial by announcing that his eldest son was thereby disinherited and disowned. That Anders no longer had any claim to the Brekovich name and if he was ever seen in Crucible again it would mean his death.
“Take them to the black cells, Torival,” Lord Brekovich said and then fixed Anders with his unblinking eyes. “You can spend a few days in the dark while I decide how you will die.”
Anders was just opening his mouth to protest when something hard hit him in the back of the head and the floor rushed up to meet him. He tried to put his hands in front of him to break his fall but nothing seemed to work. As everything started to fade to darkness he could just about make out the sound of his little brother's braying laughter.
Pern watched the poor man with a heavy heart. There was nothing that could be done for him; not now. He was tied to a large sand-filled barrel with his hands lashed to the top. His chin was resting on the lip of the barrel giving him a perfect view of those hands. They were, for the moment, whole.
Swift paced. His dark gaze flicking to the bound man from time to time and then to the door to the cell. Pern waited; practising the patience he had been taught for years, meditating in grim silence over the torture that he was about to witness. He knew he could leave; Swift did not require his presence but Pern knew that he would have to witness all his client’s dark deeds sooner or later.
In just a few short months Swift had already shown Pern the depths of depravity and debauchery. He had seen his client committing acts of murder and rape, thieving and slavery, manipulation and coercion. All that in just a few months. Ten years was a very long time.
It was all part of the Haarin code. Pern was honour bound to his client, to protect his life, to keep his secrets. It was not for him to judge or to opine. He was Haarin and, barring his own death, the only way his service towards Swift could end before his contract expired was if the client should endanger the Haarin’s clan.
“Where the fuck is that bastard?” Swift asked of no one and expecting no answer. “It ain't fuckin' wise ta keep people waitin' 'Specially not folk like me.”
Pern had to agree. He had witnessed first-hand Swift's temper was growing shorter with each passing day. Drake Morrass' arrival and continued presence in the city was doing nothing to lengthen that temper.
“Ya won't get away wit' this,” the man tied to the barrel spat out a tooth along with his words. He had been silent for so long Pern had thought the man unconscious. “He'll come fer me.”
Swift snorted. “No. He won't.”
“He'll pay ya back in kind.”
“No. He won't.”
The bound man let out a pain-filled groan and his head lolled to the side; resting on his shoulder. His breathing was loud and laboured, one eye was swollen closed with a giant bruise the colour of storm clouds and a line of dried blood ran from his nose to his mouth and down his chin.
“Ya see, Belper Froth, ya got two problems right now. First is ya captain don't know I got ya. He's in a meetin' with the other two members o' the council right now an' that idiot he had followin' me got his unfortunate throat slit jus' an hour back.
“Ya second problem is that you're a small fish in a big fuckin' pond. Scheme o' things is; you jus' don't matter enough ta nobody. He finds you dead; he replaces ya. Simple.
“All in all this puts you in the position of well an' truly fucked. Where is this damned torturer? Tempted ta make a start on it myself. How hard can it be ta slap a man around a bit 'till he talks?”
The bound man did not look inclined towards talking. He did, in fact, look resolute in disclosing none of his captain's secrets. Pern grimly wondered how much pain it would take to dissolve that resolution.
There was a soft knock at the door and a moment later it opened. Standing on the other side of the threshold was a tall man with a wispy white horseshoe of hair around his head and a long hawkish nose. He wore black; all black including black gloves despite the heat of Chade. He carried a large black bag into the room and placed it on the floor in a delicate and fluid movement. His aura was a thin, tight line of dark blue. No emotion, only control.
“He is injured,” the new man said his voice soft and quiet.
Swift spat. “Only a little.”
The man in black did not look amused. “In the future I would prefer them to be untouched. It makes breaking them easier.”
Swift stood opposite the man and looked up at him. “Had ta get him here somehow didn't I. He weren't exactly what ya'd call a willin' participant.”
“You'll never break me,” said the man tied to the barrel.
Both Swift and the man in the black looked at the man tied to the barrel for a moment and then back at each other.
“My payment is one thousand gold bits irrespective of whether he has the information you require,” the man in black said in his quiet voice.
“No guarantee?” Swift asked.
“There can be no guarantees in my line of work. You provide the subject, I provide the service. I will get him to speak and I will be paid regardless of whether he knows what you hope he knows.”
“Seems steep fer no guarantee,” Swift said.
“If you wish to haggle I'm sure there are others who can do my job though there are none that can do it so well.”
Swift sniffed and nodded. “Fuck it. I’ll give ya two thousand jus’ get him ta sing.”
“My fee is one thousand, not two thousand. I do ask that you refrain from participating.”
“Aye, but I’m stayin’.”
“That is acceptable. I require only his name and the questions you want answered.”