The Copper Promise
Read The Copper Promise Online
Authors: Jen Williams
Copyright © 2014 Jennifer Williams
Cover images © DEA/A. DAGLI ORTI/Getty Images (Cityscape);
© Algol/Shutterstock (dragon); © Sponner/Shutterstock (coins)
The right of Jennifer Williams to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by
Headline Publishing Group in 2014
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4722 1117 0
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
Table of Contents
Part One: Ghosts of the Citadel
Part Four: Upon the Ashen Blade
Jen Williams lives in London with her partner and her cat. She started writing about pirates and dragons as a young girl and has never stopped. Her short stories have featured in numerous anthologies.
The Copper Promise
is her first novel.
Praise for
The Copper Promise
:
‘A fast-paced and original new voice in heroic fantasy’ Adrian Tchaikovsky
‘A hell of a read’
I Will Read Books
‘I came out of it feeling exhilarated and eager for more’
Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel – about magic and mages and monsters and gods.
Wydrin of Crosshaven has heard them all, but she’s spent long enough trawling caverns and taverns with her companion Sir Sebastian to learn that there’s no money to be made in chasing rumours.
But then a crippled nobleman with a dead man’s name offers them a job: exploring the Citadel’s darkest depths. It sounds like just another quest with gold and adventure … if they’re lucky, they might even have a tale of their own to tell once it’s over.
These reckless adventurers will soon learn that sometimes there is truth in rumour. Sometimes a story can save your life.
For Sidney and Phyllis Fulker, with love.
Ghosts of the Citadel
1
All the other cells in the dungeon stank of fear, but not this one. Lord Frith’s last surviving son was simply too proud to be afraid. Even now, as Yellow-Eyed Rin laid out his instruments on the blood-stained bench, holding each wicked blade up to the torchlight, the young man kneeling on the stone floor had only anger in his eyes.
The blood of his father is on that bench. His brothers’ too
, thought Bethan.
And soon his as well, but he’ll defy us to the end. Stubborn bastard.
The dungeons of Blackwood Keep were small and thick with shadows, which meant that Bethan had to stand rather closer to Yellow-Eyed Rin than she would have liked. He was a greasy wart of a man; shiny bulges of flesh poked through his leather tunic, and lank strands of grey hair stuck to his bulbous scalp. The rheumy eyes that gave him his name watered constantly, but not out of any sympathy for his victims. Rin might be foul to look upon, but his ability to summon excruciating pain with a few carefully placed cuts was invaluable to Bethan.
Despite the rough treatment they’d shown him so far, young Aaron Frith was another matter. With the strong jaw and grey eyes of all the Friths, his brown skin and fashionably long dark hair, he was a comely young man. Bethan had an appreciation for beautiful things; she had commanded that the finest paintings in the castle be taken down from the walls and packed into crates for her personal perusal later. It pained her greatly to spoil that warm skin, those pretty eyes. In the initial scuffle Frith had taken a blow to the temple, and now the dried blood was making his hair stick up at strange angles on one side. And Yellow-Eyed Rin would only make things worse, of course.
Such a waste.
Still, they needed him to talk, and soon. If they went another day without answers, then Fane might come up to the Blackwood himself, and no one wanted that.
‘Anything more to add, Aaron, before this gets bloody? Or should I call you Lord Frith now? Your father died in here yesterday.’
Aaron Frith slumped a little where he knelt, glancing away from her. For a brief moment she felt sorry for him, but the sensation didn’t last. The black velvet and silks he’d been wearing when they took the castle were stained and ragged now, but this was a man who’d been born into a privileged life. A silver brooch in the shape of a tree was still pinned to his breast, with tiny chips of sapphire in the branches that could have been leaves or could have been stars. It was fine work; Bethan made a note to make sure that it ended up in her pocket at the close of this messy business.
He looked back up at her and his eyes were dry.
‘I have nothing to say to Istrian scum.’
Bethan sighed, and looked around the squalid cell. The torches only made the corners darker.
‘You want to end your days here, Lord Frith? For the sake of what? Some jewels, some gold? Coin you’ll probably never get around to spending?’
Frith said nothing. Bethan felt a stab of impatience.
‘We know the vault is hidden somewhere in the forest, Frith. Everyone knows that. We’ll find it eventually, but I’d much rather you told me. It’s a lot quicker that way.’
To her surprise, Frith grinned.
‘You think you’ll find the location scribbled on a piece of parchment, a footnote in my father’s will perhaps? I’m not sure you understand how secrets work.’
‘
You
tell me, then. You’re the last. I may even keep you alive. The Istrian people are fascinated by the aristocracy of their neighbours, and they’ll pay good coin to come and gawp at you.’ She tried to inject a reasonable tone into her voice. ‘Tell me now, Aaron Frith, and I swear this will go better for you. You’ve nothing to gain from adopting the stubbornness that killed the rest of your family.’
‘Tristan was nine years old. He was not stubborn, he was terrified.’
Bethan took a step towards the prisoner. She could feel her face growing flushed, much to her annoyance.
‘You would end your life here, in the dungeon of your own castle? Hundreds of years of the proud Frith family, and you’ll all end up in unmarked graves in your own damn forest.’
In answer, Aaron Frith spat on her boot.
‘Enough talk,’ said Rin through a throat full of phlegm. He picked up a vicious blade no longer than Bethan’s smallest finger. ‘Time to see the colour of the young lord’s blood. I heard it’s black, like their trees, but it’s all been red so far. Very disappointing, that.’
Bethan shook the spittle off her boot.
‘Get started.’
Bethan left Rin to his work – there was, in the end, only so much of it she could watch – and spent some time patrolling the castle, checking on her men and their search through old Lord Frith’s private documents. The servants had been rounded up in the Great Hall, and Carlson, her second-in-command, had made some attempts to beat the information out of them, but they clearly knew nothing of use.
The question of the vault was a vexing one. The Frith family were famous not only for their wealth, but also for their paranoia. Several generations back the Lord at the time, one Erasmus Frith, had ordered a great vault built out in the middle of the Blackwood. Each day, the men who worked on it were taken to the location blindfolded, with one member of the Frith family on hand at all times to supervise the plans. Hundreds of years later, and all anyone seemed certain of was that it was in the Blackwood somewhere, hidden in that huge and unknowable forest. The Frith family fortune, just waiting for someone to steal it.
A number of hours later Bethan returned to the dungeon. As she approached the cell she listened for the noises men made when they’d reached the end of their endurance, but the stone halls were quiet.
‘Please tell me you have some answers, Rin.’
The torturer wiped his hands on a bloody cloth, grimacing.
‘The boy is just as big an idiot as the rest of them.’