“You know
exactly
why I’m here …” He took a threatening step closer, which prompted her guards to reach for their swords.
Marla waved them away. “There’s no need for weapons, gentlemen. I’m not in any danger. Master Miar isn’t here to kill me. Just to rant at me, I suspect. Cadella, have some wine brought in, would you? Fortified, I think. Our guest looks like he could use a drink.”
Marla stood back to let Galon enter the hall. He stormed past her as Marla nodded reassuringly to her housekeeper and then waved the guards to her. “Wait here,” she ordered in a low voice. “If I call you, he doesn’t leave the house alive, understand?”
The men saluted solemnly and took post on either side of the door. Marla closed it and turned to face her guest. He was pacing the rug near the cushions like a caged animal.
“Is there something I can do for you, Master Miar?” she asked, leaning against the doors.
“You can tell me why!” he demanded, turning on her furiously.
“I assume you’re referring to the commercial arrangement I entered into with your superior earlier this evening?” She pushed off the door and walked a little further into the room, feigning indifference to his anger, although she surreptitiously made sure she was in shouting distance of the guards.
This was the part of vengeance nobody warned you about
. Her lack of concern was simply an act. Inside, Marla was quietly terrified of what she may have unleashed.
Galon glared at her. “Don’t play with me! Just tell me why you insisted that I kill Tarkyn Lye, and why you made the Raven tell me who commissioned the kill.”
“You have access to Alija’s household.”
“So do a score of other people.”
“You’re the only assassin among them, I’m guessing.”
“Why do you want him dead?”
“Tarkyn Lye? That’s none of your business.”
“Neither is it any of my business who pays for the assassinations I perform.”
“I merely wanted you to know who you were dealing with, sir. Nobody is asking you to make the information public.”
“If I kill Tarkyn Lye for you, the High Arrion will know about it the first time she touches me, and when she learns the truth, she’ll have
me
killed because she’ll think I’m in league with you.”
“Now
why
would she think that?” Marla asked, feigning ignorance.
“Assassins are never told who orders a kill. Ignorance of that fact is often our only protection.”
“The Raven assures me you have other resources to call on, Master Miar. Aren’t you one of those rare few who can consciously block their thoughts?”
He stared at her, obviously surprised. “The
Raven
told you that?”
“He was trying to assure me you could be trusted. I wasn’t convinced then and I’m still not. If you kill Tarkyn Lye and Alija doesn’t learn it was you who wielded the blade, however, I will be satisfied.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? The ability to consciously block your mind isn’t a skill one can turn on and off like a stopcock. I’m no sorcerer. For us mortals it takes hours of meditation and days of preparation, none of which I have time for. If Alija reads my mind, she’ll assume I’m working on my own because if it was a legitimate kill, I wouldn’t have any idea who I was working for.”
Marla smiled. “Gracious! You do have a problem, don’t you?”
Galon wasn’t amused. “I think I have a right to know why you’re so anxious to have me die.”
“Your concern she’ll learn the truth if she touches you seems easy enough to deal with,” Marla suggested with a shrug. “Don’t let Alija touch you.”
“And you think that won’t make her just as suspicious?”
“How many people have you killed, Galon Miar?”
“What?”
“How many? A dozen? Two score or more?”
“I don’t keep count,” he replied, obviously puzzled by the question. “Why?”
“How many of your previous employers have you burst in on, in the middle of the night, demanding a reason for their actions?”
“You’re the first employer who wanted me to know who hired me. You asked for me specifically. Have I done something to offend you?”
“You’re the one who brags about how good he is, Galon Miar. Am I to be held accountable if I believe the stories you spread about yourself? If you’re afraid, refuse the job,” she suggested. “You have that option, don’t you? Oh, wait a minute … this is the Assassins’ Guild we’re talking about, isn’t it? Refusal means death, as I recall. Or is that just one of those nasty little rumours you people spread about yourselves to make you all sound rough, tough and manly?”
He let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Gods, I thought Alija was a manipulative bitch. She’s a real amateur compared to you.”
“Maybe you should have considered that before aligning yourself with the House of Eaglespike.”
He looked quite shocked. “Is that what this is all about?” he demanded. “You think
I’m
a Patriot?”
“Are you?”
“Of course not!”
“Do you know what a Patriot is, Master Miar?”
He was almost grinding his teeth in anger. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me, your highness.”
“A Patriot is nothing more than the dupe of traitors, a fool who can’t see the bigger picture because he’s too busy glorying in his own self-righteous delusions of grandeur.”
“Is that what you think of me?”
“Only when I’m feeling generous.”
He shook his head, denying her charge. “I’m no Patriot sympathiser.”
“I don’t care what you are, Master Miar. What I care about is that you—the gods forbid—may be the next Raven and by your actions you risk aligning the entire Assassins’ Guild with enemies of my brother’s throne. I will not tolerate such a thing happening. Now, or at any time in the future.”
Strangely, by the shocked and offended look on his face, Marla decided he was more insulted by the accusation he might oppose the crown, than any suggestion he might be endangering the neutrality of the Assassins’ Guild.
“I’m no traitor to Hythria, your highness,” he repeated. “Or her High Prince.”
“Then kill Tarkyn Lye for me and prove it.”
“What you’re asking of me is a death sentence, either way,” he pointed out. “I can’t refuse the commission and if I carry it out, Alija will kill me when she learns what I’ve done.”
“Only if you continue to count yourself a member of her household,” Marla replied. “Maybe you should find yourself a less perilous lover.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You have no right to dictate who I sleep with.”
Marla shrugged. “Sleep with whomever you please, sir. I am interested only in preserving my son’s throne against the day he is ready to take it.
Your
actions are threatening that, so I am taking the actions I deem necessary to correct the situation. If, in the process, I happen to rid the world of a slave who’s offended me … well, so be it.”
“And how do you intend to protect yourself from Alija’s wrath, your highness?”
“I’m better at that than anybody else in Hythria,” she assured the assassin. “Trust me, I’ve had more practice than you know.”
Galon visibly forced himself to calm down. He was no longer ranting as he had been when he first arrived, but somehow, it made him seem more terrifying. He took a step closer to her and she reacted instinctively by stepping back.
He noticed the movement and seemed genuinely amused. “You’re afraid of me.”
“I’m afraid of an egotistical fool who imagines he’s being so terribly clever because he has the High Arrion in his pocket. I’m afraid of a man who doesn’t realise he risks plunging us into chaos because he can’t see past his own list of conquests. I’ve spent the better part of my adult life trying to put an end to the Patriots, Galon Miar. I will not have them thinking they’ve gained a new lease on life because they believe you’ve delivered the Assassins’ Guild to them.”
He hesitated, looking at her in surprise, as if coming to a sudden realisation about something. “You genuinely believe that, don’t you?”
“You sound surprised. Did I look like I was kidding?”
“No … it’s just …”
“What?”
“It’s nothing, your highness,” he said, all trace of his fury apparently under control. He bowed politely. “I apologise for my rudeness. You’re right—I shouldn’t have come here so hastily, and so belligerently. I apologise if my actions have offended you. It’s late, and I’m obviously keeping you from your bed. If you will excuse me?”
Baffled by his sudden capitulation, Marla rose to her feet. “Goodnight, Master Miar.”
“Goodnight, your highness.”
He turned on his heel and left the hall, leaving Marla staring after him in confusion. Galon even bowed politely to Cadella on his way out, as she entered the room carrying a tray and a glass of fortified wine.
“He’s leaving?”
Marla didn’t bother to answer such an absurd observation.
“I have his wine …” Cadella looked a little put out that she’d gone to the trouble of pouring the assassin a drink and he didn’t even have the good manners to stay long enough for her to serve it.
“Bring it here, Cadella.”
The old woman did as Marla ordered. The princess took the wine from the tray and downed it in a gulp.
“Are you all right, my lady?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“He’s a dangerous piece of work, that one.”
“Thank you, Cadella. But I had noticed.”
“Would you like another wine, your highness?”
Marla shook her head. Wine wasn’t the answer to her problem. She wasn’t sure what the answer was, but she was fairly certain she wouldn’t find it at the bottom of a decanter. “No. Just tell Elezaar … I mean, just have my bed turned down, would you?”
“Of course, your highness.”
Cadella scurried away to do her bidding, leaving Marla to ponder two things of equal concern: if Cadella had noticed her moment of weakness when she asked for Elezaar to attend her.
And why the heat seemed to have gone out of the room with the departure of Galon Miar.
D
espite the fact he’d ordered his grandson to stop Damin on the border and challenge him, Charel Hawksword greeted Damin like a long-lost son when they finally reached Byamor some two weeks after the altercation at Zadenka. As Damin suspected, Charel had ordered the challenge for the sake of his grandson’s future rule of the province. He had no personal gripe against Damin; if anything, he was rather more complimentary than usual, particularly about the way Damin had handled the problem with Kendra Warhaft.
“She was such a pretty little thing when she first came to court,” Charel told Damin as he pushed the old Warlord’s chair along the corridor toward the great hall. “I remember thinking when I gave permission for her to marry him, that Warhaft was a brute, too.”
“So why did you agree to it?”
“Don’t be so naive, Damin. Why do you think I agreed?”
“Seems a high price to pay to keep a man like Warhaft on your side.”
Charel glanced over his shoulder at Damin. “Wait till you’re High Prince, lad, then you tell me what you’d do when you have to make a choice between strengthening an alliance with a fractious border baron against the potential unhappiness of sixteen-year-old girl.”
“Narvell says he told you how he felt about her.”
“He was a boy. He didn’t know what he was feeling.”
“He’s not a boy now, Charel. And he’s pretty damn sure about what he’s feeling.”
The old Warlord wasn’t impressed. “He’s still acting like a moonstruck boy from where I’m sitting, Damin, even if he doesn’t look it. Still, you handled the situation better than I could have hoped. I’d never have thought of putting the girl in the care of the Sorcerers’ Collective.”
“Actually, it was Rorin Mariner who thought of it.”
“Don’t do that!” the old man snapped.
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t ever refuse the credit for something people think is your doing. Damn it, boy, how do you think I got such a brilliant reputation?”
“I thought it was because you
were
brilliant, Charel,” Damin said, as he pushed the chair over the rough, unfinished flagstones of the long, chilly passage. “That’s what you’ve been telling me and Narvell since we were boys, anyway.”
“And you believed me!” Charel pointed out. “The fact is, I’m not responsible for half the things I’m credited with. But it suits me to let people think I am. My theory is this: if I’m smart enough to surround myself with clever people, why shouldn’t I take the credit for their successes?”
“What if one of these clever people you’ve surrounded yourself with does something really awful?”
“Then it’s even better,” Charel chuckled. “You get all the benefits of a reputation for being an evil bastard and none of the effort that goes into gaining it.”
“You’re a sneaky old rascal, Charel Hawksword,” Damin laughed as they reached the great hall.
As they approached the tall, carved doors, a slave pushed them open to allow them entrance. Since Charel had suffered a stroke three years ago, he’d been confined to the special wheeled chair he’d had built to help him get around. His right side was paralysed by the stroke and his speech was often slurred as he forced his words past his uncooperative lips, but only a fool mistook his painful enunciation as a sign of fading intelligence.
Tejay, Adham and Rorin were waiting for them, sitting at the end of a table just below the High Table where Charel conducted the formal business of his province. The massive beams of the ceiling that supported the vaulted roof were decked with the flags of every noble house in Elasapine. The effect was colourful, but did little to ease the oppressive solidity of the castle. Byamor was a fortress, older even than Krakandar. It lacked the grace and symmetry of Damin’s ancestral home. Neither had it ever benefited from the impeccable good taste of a mistress like Marla Wolfblade. The furniture was heavy and masculine and always reminded Damin of a well-appointed war-camp.
Adham and Rorin stood as they entered, bowing respectfully to the old Warlord as Damin parked the chair beside the bench where Tejay was sitting. Charel greeted the young men and then turned to Tejay with a crooked smile. “Lady Lionsclaw! I swear you grow lovelier with every passing year.”
“And your eyesight obviously gets worse,” she replied, leaning forward to kiss the old man’s cheek. “You’re looking very chipper, my lord.”
“And you claim
my
eyesight is failing?” he chuckled. “It’s good to see you again, Adham,” he remarked, turning his attention to his other guests. “How’s your father?”
“The plague in Greenharbour took him some time ago, my lord.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, lad. Ruxton Tirstone was a good man.” He turned his gaze on Rorin and examined him for a moment before nodding his approval. “Lord Wolfblade tells me good things about you, young Mariner.”
“I’m sure he exaggerates, my lord.”
“Then be grateful for it, lad. It’s not often one gets unasked-for praise and if he follows my advice, you won’t be getting it again.”
“Are you trying to corrupt our future High Prince, you old fox?” Tejay asked.
“I think if he was corruptible, Lernen would have managed it long before now, lass.” He glanced around the table and suddenly frowned. “Is this a dry argument? Bring wine!” he bellowed to nobody in particular. At the back of the hall a slave hurried to comply and moments later a tray with five goblets and a decanter of wine was sitting on the table in front of Tejay.
“You can pour,” he informed Tejay with another crooked smile.
Tejay did as he asked and placed the cup in his left hand. He was shaking as he raised it to his lips and a trickle of wine dribbled out of the paralysed right side of his mouth as he drank.
“Is Narvell not joining us?” Adham asked.
“I sent him out to keep an eye on the troops,” Charel said, wiping his mouth awkwardly on his sleeve. The army Damin had brought to Elasapine and the soldiers Narvell had with him on the border were camped some ten miles south of the city, both to protect the troops from plague in the city and the city from five thousand bored and lonely Raiders looking for entertainment. “The men needed somebody visibly in charge and with Warhaft on the warpath, I thought it might be prudent to keep my grandson and the lovely Kendra apart.”
“I’m going out to meet him later today,” Damin told them. “I’ll let him know what we’ve decided then.”
“What’s to decide?” the young trader asked. “Isn’t the point here to gather up every man in Hythria who can hold a sword and march him to the border to stop Hablet?”
“Put in its most simplistic terms, yes,” Charel agreed. “What we really need to consider, though, is how to deal with Hablet if he breaks through.”
“Do you think that’s possible, my lord?” Rorin asked.
“Anything’s possible.” The old man shrugged with his one good shoulder.
“It would help if we knew who was going to be leading his forces, too,” Damin said, thinking back to Zegarnald’s warning that the leader of the Fardohnyan forces was both intelligent and experienced. “Until we know that, there’s not much point in discussing tactics.”
“On the bright side,” the Warlord said, “you’ve got one thing going for
you.
”
“Youth and inexperience?” Damin joked.
“Exactly,” Charel agreed.
“How is that good?” Rorin asked.
“What Charel’s trying to say, Rory, is that if I do anything unusual, Hablet will probably assume it’s because I don’t know any better.”
“Which gives him more freedom of movement than any of you appreciate,” Charel told them.
“I don’t understand,” Rorin admitted, the least knowledgeable about warfare among them. “How does that help?”
“If I was leading this war, Rorin,” the Warlord explained, “Hablet and his generals would be studying every battle, every skirmish, every tavern brawl in which I’ve ever taken part, until they know my mind better than I do. There wouldn’t be a tactic I could try they wouldn’t anticipate. But they don’t know anything about Damin, other than he’s Lernen’s nephew. If our boy here is in command and he does anything out of the ordinary, Hablet is just as likely to assume his decisions are motivated by ignorance as anything else.”
“Which means we can lure the Fardohnyans into our trap,” Damin informed his companions smugly.
“If only we had one,” Adham added.
Tejay shook her head in disagreement. “There’s no need for a trap. We can keep the Fardohnyans bottled up in the passes indefinitely.”
“Maybe,” Charel conceded. “But even with Elasapine and Krakandar troops to aid you, Lady Lionsclaw, how long can Sunrise keep it up?”
“All of Hythria will come to Sunrise’s aid if Hablet attacks us,” Tejay declared confidently.
“They may not, my lady,” Rorin warned thoughtfully. “If they believe, as you do, that the Fardohnyans can be held off indefinitely in the mountain passes, they may be willing to play a ‘wait and see’ game.”
“The lad’s right, I fear,” Charel agreed. “The only way to guarantee all the Warlords come to Sunrise’s aid may be to actually suffer the invasion.”
“That’s a huge gamble,” Adham remarked.
Damin couldn’t help but agree, appalled at the very idea of allowing Hablet past their first and most effective line of defence just to get Hythria’s Warlords off their collective backsides. He nodded grimly. “Well, the plan has one advantage. Letting him past Winternest without a fight should go a long way to convincing Hablet I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Just remember,” Charel reminded them. “Superior weapons, superior numbers, even superior generals count for less and less the closer the troops get to each other.”
“Then we bring the fight to Hablet,” Damin said. “We make him take Hythria one step at a time. One man at a time.”
“But first we have to close the passes,” Adham sug- gested.
Damin shook his head. “No. First we need to know what we’re facing. That doesn’t require a battle. It requires intelligence.”
“A foray into the Widowmaker?” Adham asked with a hopeful grin.
“And the Highcastle Pass. Hablet won’t make the mistake of attacking on only one front. If he’s serious about this he’ll attack through both passes simultaneously.”
“Toss you for it,” Adham said, pulling a copper rivet from his pocket. “Heads I take Highcastle, tails, the Widowmaker.” The coin spun in midair before Adham caught it and held it out for the others to see. “Tails,” he told them. “Looks like I’m heading for Winternest.”
“And poor Damin gets to visit his dear old cousin Braun, the Lord of Highcastle,” Tejay said sympathetically.
Damin grimaced at the thought. Braun Branador was an idiot. “We’ll see you safely to Cabradell first, my lady. I want to speak to Terin, in any case. He should have some idea of what’s happening on the other side of his borders.”
“Don’t count on it,” Tejay muttered.
Damin looked at her with a frown. These off-handed comments about Terin were very unsettling. It wasn’t going to make it any easier to fight Hablet, if he had to waste time worrying about a man who should have been one of his closest allies.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said, changing his mind. “You take Highcastle, Adham. Your father has been trading through there for decades. You know Braun and he trusts your father, so he’s likely to be much more cooperative if you ask him for help.”
“He’s
your
cousin, Damin.”
“Second cousin,” Damin corrected. “And he despises me because I’m Marla’s son. Don’t ask me to explain it. It’s something to do with Marla and all her cousins at Highcastle, particularly Braun’s sister, Ninane. Apparently, they’ve hated each other since they were children. You, on the other hand, have helped him get rich. Trust me, you’ll get a lot more out of him than I will.”
“What about Winternest?”
“Rorin can take the Widowmaker.”
The sorcerer’s head jerked up in alarm. “When did I become a spy?”
“Right now. I need intelligence I can trust. And you’ve been through the Widowmaker before, haven’t you?”
“I was twelve at the time,” Rorin reminded him. “And unconscious.”
“You know Westbrook, though,” Damin said. “And you’re Fardohnyan. You’ve got a better chance than the rest of us of finding out what’s going on over the border.”
“The only part of Westbrook I’m closely acquainted with is its dungeons, Damin,” he replied. Then he shrugged. “But, what the hell … there’s already a price on my head in Fardohnya for murder and probably another one for escaping lawful custody. Adding spying for a foreign power to the list won’t make it any worse, I suppose.”
Tejay smiled. “They can only hang you once, Rorin.”
“Once is actually one time too many, my lady.”
“You’re a magician, aren’t you?” Charel asked.