Rathe sat across from Loro with a sigh. While he had indeed made up his mind, he did not want to tangle Loro in his troubles. The problem was, Loro was the rare type of man who, after tying himself to another, would fight and die with him, even if doing so proved to be wrongheaded. Only the harshest betrayals would turn his loyalties, and Rathe was not the betraying sort. The other problem was that he would need Loro’s backing when the time came. For the sake of his conscience, he had to make Loro understand the consequences.
“We are outcasts already,” Rathe began. “If we misstep here, our lives are forfeit. Even if we escape, we will be hunted until we are found, then drawn and quartered. Our other choice is to settle in, make our place here, and serve like honorable soldiers.”
Loro snorted in disgust. “I have never settled for anything I did not want, and I will not make a habit of it at this godforsaken heap of stone. Better to live as a brigand, even a beggar, than chained.”
Rathe nodded grimly. “Then we are of the same mind.”
Loro jumped up, a roguish glint in his eyes. As he reached the door, Rathe asked, “Where are you going?”
“We will need supplies, weapons. And do we climb the wall, or bribe someone to open a postern? These things and more need tending. Sooner done, the better.”
“Plan as you will,” Rathe said slowly, “but I am not leaving until I settle my debt with Treon. I could almost forgive him the abuses, but not the lie that earned me those abuses.”
“So you saw them too?” Loro asked.
“If you mean our five brothers from Onareth, yes.”
Loro considered that. “Better to escape first, then plan your revenge. Doubtless Treon leads patrols on occasion. When he does, we will be waiting and watching, and can feather his skinny shanks before he can hiss a word.”
“Perhaps,” Rathe allowed, liking the idea of firing an arrow through the serpent’s conniving heart. But he had something else in mind altogether, something that would destroy the man’s spirit, as Treon had tried to do to him. Vengeance was not in his nature, but justice was.
Loro listened while Rathe spoke, enjoying the ends, but not the means. “It will be difficult, and is unlikely to work as you hope,” he advised.
Rathe shrugged. “That’s my plan. You can join me or not, but I intend to carry it out. If it doesn’t work … well, then I suppose we will just have to ‘feather his skinny shanks.’ “
Loro nodded. “Your scheme is devious and beautiful, and properly sinister, but were I standing in your hide, I’d not be able to do it. A man has his pride. To lose it, even as a farce, is no small thing.”
“No,” Rathe said grimly, wondering if he could do that which he had proposed, “it’s not.”
Chapter 15
At dawn of the sixth day in the Weeping Tower, pounding on the door woke Rathe. As Loro clumped in bearing two large buckets of water, Rathe sat up with straw in his hair.
“Lord Sanouk commands your presence,” Loro said in a grave tone. He hefted the water buckets. “These are for cleaning.”
“So you have seen him?” Rathe asked, as he set to washing away many days of dirt and old blood. The water was cold, the washcloth rough, but a bath had never felt so fine.
“Aye, me and the other outcasts met with him … together. Seems we are as much the wayward curs as you. Until told otherwise, we are to walk a thin line. Step left or right, and he will have off our cocks. Blunder again, we lose our heads.”
“Threats aside, what do you make of him?” Rathe asked, drying himself with his blanket.
“He’s an arrogant whoreson, like any highborn.”
After dressing, Rathe gulped a mouthful of the potion given him by the healer in Onareth. It had taken some doing, but the brew was about gone. Along with rest and food, it had done its work to heal his wounds.
He stalked out of the chamber ahead of Loro. The worn stairs spiraled down, and Rathe trailed his fingers on the graystone wall to keep his balance. He felt much better than the day he had arrived, but stiffness still troubled more of his flesh than not.
At the tower’s base, two guards bearing halberds cowered against an icy wind in the lee of a curving buttress. Rathe nodded in greeting. They responded with silence and squinty eyes, as if he were something foul smeared on the bottom of their boots.
Rathe strode out, stretching his legs. Clouds obscured the sun, casting the world in mourning garments of gray and black.
“Are you prepared?” Loro asked.
Rathe glanced a question at him, absently wondering how high summer could be so damnably cold.
“Your plan,” Loro elaborated, “calls for a fair measure of bootlicking. Are you ready for that, Scorpion?”
“As ready as I can be. Sanouk might not give me a chance to explain or bootlick. Far as I know, he might skip the part about walking fine lines and go straight to hacking off my manhood. After all, I did accuse his lackey of cowardice.”
“You also invited Treon to violate his bunghole with a flaming torch,” Loro chuckled. “Doubtless, battering the snake’s face will surely be frowned on.”
Rathe shrugged, feeling oddly optimistic about the whole affair. “I can only play the game as it unfolds.”
Outside the towering wall of the keep, they paused before two more guards, both as surly in countenance as the two at the Weeping Tower. Neither looked at Rathe or Loro, but one did deign to shove open the iron-banded wooden door. After they passed into the gloomy hall, the door slammed shut, blocking out the scant daylight.
The keep’s barrel-vaulted corridors of lifeless gray granite were only a touch warmer than outside. Of ornamentation, there was little. A tapestry here, dull armor and armament in a nook there, all lighted by guttering torches. For all the want of cheer and warmth, Rathe felt as though he were treading an ill-kept tomb. There were few servants going about menial tasks-cheerless old women and shy young girls, for the most. All wore the drab livery stitched with the ugly head of the Reaver.
“This way,” Loro advised, leading Rathe down a dank side corridor. “The keep, if you can call it that, was carved out of the mountain. Far as I saw, only Lord Sanouk’s chambers are exposed to the light of day.”
At the top of a broad stair ending at a door, Rathe and Loro halted before a third pair of impassive guards. After a tense moment, during which no one spoke or moved, Loro bristled. “Are you going to open the door for the legion commander of the king’s guard, or stand there like a couple of drooling fools?”
“Ain’t no legions here,” one drawled.
“Nor kings to guard,” the other sniggered. “Even if there was, all I see is Treon’s mangy dog.”
“Lord Sanouk is expecting him,” Loro said, fingering the hilt of his sword. “Open that door, or I will slice off your stones and stuff them up your bloody bunghole.”
“Who do you think you are?” the guard snarled, taking a step closer.
Loro laughed humorlessly. “I am the man your mother pleasured while your father was off buggering sheep and chickens.”
The guard lunged, dragging out his sword. “By all the gods-”
The door to Sanouk’s chambers flew open. “Enough!” Captain Treon bellowed.
The command froze the first guard, and the other pressed a fist to his heart in salute. Rathe and Loro followed suit, leaving the first guard fumbling to ram his blade into the scabbard.
Treon’s pallid stare fell on Rathe, and a thin smile touched his lips. “Enter … dog.”
Rathe steeled himself with a deep breath and strode into the stifling chamber. Loro stayed outside. After the door closed, Rathe half-expected some kind of commotion to ensue, but silence held as much beyond the door as within the chamber.