“I see.” Clyntahn nodded slowly, his eyes slitted in thought. “I’m not certain I agree with you entirely,” he continued after a moment, “but your analysis seems basically sound.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. And I’ve also,” Rayno flashed another of those cold razors of a smile, “officially announced that the shop’s proprietress was also taken. I saw no reason to inform the terrorists she was dead at the time.” The smile grew even thinner and colder. “If they think we have two information sources, the pressure on them will be even greater. And for the same reason, I’ve instructed the interrogators to allow the prisoner we do have to believe her friend is also in our custody.”
“Very sound thinking,” Clyntahn approved.
The Inquisition had learned long ago how to use a prisoner’s concern for another against him or her, and the suggestion that someone else was already providing the information the Inquisition sought was often even more useful. Even the most obdurate enemy of God might break and yield answers to end the pain if he believed he was simply confirming something the Inquisition already knew. Why suffer the agony of the Question to protect information someone else had already divulged?
“Where have you sent her?” he asked after a moment.
“To St. Thyrmyn, Your Grace,” Rayno replied, and Clyntahn nodded in fresh approval.
St. Thyrmyn Prison wasn’t the closest facility to the Temple itself, but it belonged solely to the Inquisition. No one outside the Inquisition knew who’d disappeared into its cells … or what had happened to them after they did. It was also the site at which the Inquisition trained its most skilled interrogators, and the prison’s permanent staff had been assigned to St. Thyrmyn only after proving their reliability and zeal in other duties. Bishop Inquisitor Bahltahzyr Vekko, St. Thyrmyn’s senior prelate, had been an inquisitor for over half a century, and under his command, the prison’s inquisitors had an outstanding record for convincing even the most recalcitrant to repent, confess, and seek absolution.
“Very good,” Clyntahn said now, “but you’re absolutely right that we have to get the fullest information possible out of this murderess.” His expression hardened. “Thoroughness is far more important than speed in this instance, and I want every single thing she knows—all of it, Wyllym! Sift her to the bone, do you understand me?”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Rayno bowed more profoundly.
“And tell Bishop Bahltahzyr to see to it that whoever he assigns to her interrogation understands that it’s essential we get that information, including a public admission—in her own words in open court, mind you, Wyllym; not simply in writing!—that she and her accursed terrorists consort with demons. And it’s essential—essential—she undergo the full, public infliction of the Punishment in the Plaza of Martyrs itself. This one has to be made an example! And even if that weren’t true, her crimes and the crimes of her … associates merit the full, utter stringency of the Punishment.”
His eyes were ugly, and Rayno nodded once more.
“Emphasize that to Bahltahzyr, Wyllym. Make it very clear! If this prisoner dies under the Question, the repercussions for whoever was in charge of her interrogation will be severe.”
* * *
“They’re gorgeous babies, Irys,” Sharleyan Ahrmahk said over the com from her Tellesberg bedchamber. “And so much more willing to sleep through the night than Alahnah was at their age!”
“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” Irys said fondly, looking down in the early morning sunlight at the twin babies sleeping in the bassinet beside her bed in Manchyr Palace. “And they’d darned well better be,” she added with a smile, “considering how hard I had to work for them!”
“I agree it’s an unfair distribution of labor,” Cayleb put in, gently swirling the amber whiskey in his glass in his study in the Charisian Embassy. “Still, let’s not completely overlook the male contribution to your handiwork, Irys.”
“Oh, of course not, Father,” Irys said demurely, hazel eyes glinting wickedly, and Cayleb snorted. But he also smiled.
“I know you meant it as a joke,” he told her, “and there was a time I would have flatly denied it could be possible, but I can’t tell you how happy I am that you really are technically my daughter-in-law these days.
Irys’ expression softened.
“Believe me, Cayleb, you couldn’t possibly have found the idea more outlandish—or monstrous, really—than I would have. And I can’t pretend I would have willingly paid the price to get to this moment. But now that I’m here, I wouldn’t exchange it for anything.”
“That’s because you’re an extraordinarily wise young woman,” Phylyp Ahzgood told her gently. The Earl of Coris was alone in his office, working away steadily at the paperwork flowing across his desk even at so late an hour. “Really, you remind me more of your mother every day, and she was one of the wisest women I ever knew. I don’t know how your father would feel about it, of course—not for certain. I know he’d want you to be happy, though, and I think he might be more … flexible about that than either of us would have believed, given what happened to him” The earl’s mouth tightened. “After the way Clyntahn and those other pigs in Zion betrayed and murdered him and young Hektor, I strongly suspect that wherever he is, he’s cheering Charis on every step of the way! Of course, it might still have been a bit much to expect him to be enthusiastic over your marriage.” The tight lips relaxed into a small, think smile of memory. “He was a stubborn man. But I know Princess Raichynda would absolutely approve of young Hektor. And—” his taut mouth softened into a smile “—especially of her namesake and her brother!”
“I don’t know about that, either—about Father, I mean,” Irys said. “I know you’re right that he’d want me to be happy, whatever else, but calling him ‘stubborn’ is a bit like calling a Chisholmian winter ‘on the cool side.’”
It was her turn to smile in mingled memory and regret.
“But you’re right about Mother,” she continued more briskly after a moment. “I think she’d adore Hektor, and not just because of his name! I only wish she could actually see the babies!”
“I expect she knows all about them,” Maikel Staynair put in. “Of course,” the Archbishop of Charis acknowledged with an impish smile of his own, “my vocation rather requires me to be optimistic on that point, I suppose.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Aivah Pahrsahn acknowledged dryly. She sat on the small couch in Cayleb’s study, shoulder to shoulder with Merlin Athrawes, each of them holding a glass of Seijin Kohdy’s Premium Blend. “But let me get my own vote in for Most Beautiful Baby of the Year, Irys. While I fully agree that Raichynda’s an absolutely adorable little girl, I’ve always had a weakness for handsome men, so I have to give my vote to young Hektor.”
“You’re a courageous woman to stake out an uncompromising position like that,” Cayleb told her with a laugh. “As a ruling monarch, one who recognizes the necessity of handling important diplomatic questions with exquisite tact and delicacy, I’m far too wise to be so impetuous! That’s why I officially decree that both of them are so beautiful it’s impossible to pick between them and the award has to be shared equally.”