“You. But you aren’t the one holding Arthur. Alyssa is. You think she’ll make him foreswear his lands before she strings him up?”
“I have no doubt she could,” John said. “But she’ll only do that if she discovers what happened. Now do you understand? I hold all the control here. Arthur won’t dare challenge me about your deaths, for the truth gets him killed. He can only keep his mouth shut and pray for the best. I, however…”
Oric tried to flex his back, but he was held too closely to the wall. He rolled his neck back and forth, and it popped loudly. Minutes. It’d only been minutes, but he already wanted out. Far better to shiver freely on the floor than sit unable to move half his body. He didn’t want to think about hours. Or days. Or gods forbid, years.
“I hold Arthur’s life in my hands, and yours as well. I might have used Uri for this, but he didn’t take well to my low servants’ questionings. We had to ensure he spoke the truth, of course. So it is down to you. Where do your loyalties lie, Oric? You deserve death, we both know this. What might you do to be spared that fate? Help me, or otherwise…you said it yourself: rope or ax.”
Oric couldn’t believe his luck. He thought that he’d have nothing of value to offer, but if he could roll on his former master and somehow escape with his head…
“What is it you want from me?” he asked.
“I need you to kill Arthur before he can discover things have gone awry, and before Alyssa might realize his involvement. Before you do, I want you to sign a statement I might use in the king’s court detailing every bit of yours, and Arthur’s, involvement.”
“What do I do once I kill Arthur?” Oric asked. “What happens then?”
This time lord Gandrem did smile.
“A man of your talents? Surely you could disappear into a crowd afterward, and then, well…Ker’s a long way away, and Mordan even farther. I also hear the sailors in Angelport often need a good sellsword aboard their ships.”
“What about the farmer?”
“He’s injured, and my healers say it will take several days for him to recover. We should have this concluded before he can be of any concern. Besides, these matters are far above his station, and his word in any court would be suspect at best, being just a low-birth simpleton.”
It couldn’t get any better. Oric was hardly afraid of a little travel, and killing Arthur would be no skin off his nose. Given the nature of his mission, it’d only be natural they go somewhere quiet to talk, and after a bit of knife work, he’d have his freedom.
“I’ll do it,” Oric said.
“Excellent. We’ll claim you escaped the dungeon after we extracted your confession. When you went to Arthur, he tried to cut ties and claim everything was your plan. You killed him and fled, and to where, I don’t want to know. Is this understood?”
“It is.”
“I’ll have a servant down here with candles and parchment. Tell him everything you know, every possible detail. Farewell, Oric.”
He stood and left, and to Oric’s great relief, he had his guards remove the clamps at his wrists before he went. Sure to his word, an elderly man with crooked nose arrived.
“The beginning, please” he said, dipping his feathered quill into an inkwell.
So Oric did, starting with Arthur’s theft from the Gemcroft mines and smuggling it to the Serpent Guild for laundering.
*
“W ill you truly let him go?” asked one of the soldiers walking alongside Lord Gandrem, a veteran and trusted knight named Cecil.
“Of course not,” the lord snapped. “The Gemcrofts have had those mines tied up in legal protection for over a century. I could wipe out half their family, their extended family, Arthur included, and they’d still find someone besides myself to be legal heir.”
“Then why the ruse?”
“I need his confession, quick, truthful, and most importantly, damning to Arthur. I’ll be sending you to Veldaren with that confession in your hands, along with a letter of my own.”
Cecil bowed to show he was honored.
“Will we not be bringing Nathaniel back to his mother?” he asked as they exited the dungeon, doused their torch, and headed toward the mess hall.
“Nathaniel was already abducted once on the road, and when he should have been in my care, no less. My own damn foolishness for trusting that snake, Arthur. I will keep him here, and in safety, until Alyssa comes for him. But you…you can let Alyssa know of his survival. She’s a bright lady, but Arthur has a way with words, and who knows what lies he has spun about her to protect himself? That confession should burn them all away, and if she is who I think she is, she’ll deal with him accordingly. Let me get some food into these old bones, and then I’ll pen my letter. When you have mine and Oric’s, ride hard to Veldaren. If Arthur suspects something’s amiss, I fear he will make a move against her.”
“Of course, milord. What of Oric?”
John grinned, but something dangerous sparkled in his eyes that made it seem sinister.
“He said he preferred the ax, so prepare the gallows. He deserves nothing, not even the choice of his own death. Let him hang from my walls, the honorless bastard.”
23
F or a second night, Alyssa watched the city burn from her window. There were more fires now, at least seven she could see. She wondered what it meant. Were her mercenaries finding more rat-holes for the thieves? She held an empty glass in her hand, and she toasted the stars, which were hidden behind a blanket of smoke.
“You deserve better, Nathaniel,” she whispered.
“I too can think of better homages for your son,” Zusa said, having slipped inside without making a noise. Alyssa had trained herself not to jump at Zusa’s voice, but still she quivered, her nerves frayed.
“Perhaps,” she said as the woman joined her side. “But this is the best I can do.”
“You lie to yourself. This is for you, your hurt. Do what you must, but do it in truth, and bear the burden proudly.”
“Enough,” Alyssa said, hurling her glass against the window. It shattered, small flecks of red wine dripping down to the floor. “I don’t need speeches. I don’t need your wisdom. I need my son back, my little boy…”
She pressed her head against the glass and refused to break. As the tears ran down her face, she stared at the distant fires and tried to revel in the bloodshed they represented. But she only felt hollow.
“As you wish,” she heard Zusa say.
“Stay,” she whispered, knowing the faceless woman would leave her.
“As you wish.”
“Tell me, how goes it out there?”
Zusa gestured to the city. “The thieves are ready, more than they were last night. They started those fires, and they’ve killed many innocents. I think they’re hoping to turn the people against the king, and it might work. If Veldaren is an altar, you’ve covered it in blood as a sacrifice to your son. I don’t know which god will honor it, though. Perhaps they’ve both washed their hands of this miserable city.”
Alyssa nodded. It sounded right. She had opened up her coffers and replaced their stores of gold with bodies of the dead. Was it a fair trade? Could it ever be?
“What about the one who killed my son?” she asked.
Zusa thought of her fight with him, and how she’d been stopped at the last minute by someone with a feminine voice who knew her name. It could only be Veliana, but what might she want with the man? When she checked their usual practice spot, she’d found the area vacant. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t located where it was she now hid. It seemed both Veliana and the Watcher had eluded her.
“I fought him,” she admitted. “But he escaped before I reached victory. Where he is now, I do not know.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“Yes. I drew blood.”
“Good. At least that’s a start. Will you go out again before the night is over?”
Zusa put a wrapped hand upon the glass and stared out. Slowly, she shook her head.