Lynan looked at all of the faces staring up at him. 'Together with a small host, I see.'
She threw a glance at Ager again, looking for guidance, but there was nothing he could do to help. They were all at sea together here, and only Lynan knew in which direction they were sailing.
'You wanted to see me, your Majesty?' Farben said, and went to stand by Korigan. Ager could not help but admire the little man's bravery.
Lynan rolled his eyes. 'I did? What could that have been about, I wonder?'
Farben said nothing. By now he could smell the thing in the saddlebag and his nose crinkled.
'Is something wrong?' Lynan asked solicitously.
'My lord?'
'Is something bothering you, Farben? You are doing something with your face.'
'No, there is nothing wrong.'
Lynan eased himself off the throne and went to
Farben, put his free arm around the small man's shoulders and started walking him around the room, people edging out of their way. Farben seemed to shrink in that embrace, and Lynan held him even closer. 'Good, because it would be terrible for the city of Daavis, and for your liege lady, if anything was to happen to you.'
'I thank my lord for his concern.'
'My concern is for the welfare of all my subjects,' Lynan said breezily. He stopped, his brow creased in sudden thought. 'Speaking of which, that is why I called for you.'
Lynan stepped away from Farben and opened the saddlebag so that only the secretary could see inside it. The room filled quickly with the clinging, choking smell of decay.
'My lord, what is it you have?' Farben managed to force through his constricting throat.
Ob God, Ager thought to himself. Don't bring it out…
But Lynan did. He put one hand in the bag and dragged out the head, holding it up so Farben could see the face.
Farben's reaction was immediate. He gasped, brought his hands over his mouth and stepped away. There were cries of dismay from the servants. Everyone else seemed caught in a terrible spell, unable to react at all.
'One of our subjects,' Lynan said sadly. 'One of our loyal subjects. Do you recognise him?'
Farben tried to speak but could only gag.
Lynan raised his eyebrows. 'No?' Lynan considered the head. 'Ah, I see what's wrong. He was taller in life.' He held the head up higher. 'How's that?'
'Coud… Coud…' Farben sputtered.
'Could I…?' Lynan teased.
'Coudroun!'
'Coudroun?' Lynan twisted his hand so he could look on the dead man's face. Red hair stuck up between his fingers. 'Hello, Coudroun.'
Farben wiped his mouth and looked away from the dangling head. 'He was one of my secretaries.'
'A secretary with secretaries,' Lynan mused. 'Next you will be telling me you are a secretary with secrets.'
'My lord, how… how did this happen? Where did you find poor Coudroun?'
'Where?' Lynan asked, his voice hardening like steel. It cut through the throne room. 'Can you not tell me?'
'The last I saw of him, your Majesty, he was on his way to the region of Esquidion to order supplies of food and lumber and stone for the city. He was a good and faithful secretary. He was a good man with much promise…'
'On his way to Esquidion on whose orders?'
'Why, mine,' Farben said quickly. 'He would not have left without my explicit instruction. He would never do anything without consulting me.' His voice was rising with distress. 'My lord, I know his sister who lives in Daavis. She will be alone in the world now. Please tell me how you come to find him slain so brutally?'
'I didn't find him slain so brutally, Farben.'
Farben looked up sharply, his face turning as white as Lynan's. 'Your Majesty cannot mean…' His voice trailed off as he realised that was exactly what his Majesty had meant.
Ager stepped forward. 'Lynan—' Lynan whipped around to stare at Ager. The crookback felt his heart skip a beat. He swallowed and said, slowly and deliberately, 'Your Majesty,' and bowed.
'Yes?'
'It seems clear that Farben had no idea of this Coudroun's part in Charion's rebellion.'
'Rebellion!' Farben cried, the word torn out of him.
Lynan wagged his head from side to side as if considering what Ager had said. 'Well, that's one way to look at it,' he conceded. Then his head straightened with a snap and he was again glaring at Farben. 'But I cannot help wondering if one secretary can betray a master, then another might as easily.'
'Your Majesty!' Farben squealed. 'I have done nothing against you! I have taken your instructions to heart and worked only for the good of the city and its people in the expectation—' He stopped himself short.
'In the expectation of Charion's eventual return,' Lynan finished for him.
'These were your conditions, my lord, set down by you,' Farben pleaded. 'You told me that when you won the throne of Grenda Lear you would allow Charion to rule again in Hume.'
'I also told you that I would not tolerate anyone working directly against my interests.'
'I have not done so, I swear!'
'We have no reason to suspect Farben has played you foul, your Majesty,' Korigan said, stepping forward next to Ager. 'The walls are repaired, the streets cleared of all rubble, businesses are back to normal—'
'And traitors butcher my troops!' Lynan roared, swinging around to face her. Coudroun's head bumped into Farben's arm and the secretary involuntarily jumped out of the way. Lynan saw the motion and reacted immediately. His free hand shot out and grabbed Farben around the throat, lifting him off his feet and squeezing the air out of him.
'Your Majesty!' Ager and Korigan cried together. Other servants started to cry out and back out of the throne room.
'No one leaves!' Lynan ordered, and Red Hands moved to bar the door. 'I trusted this man, my enemy! I gave him a chance to prove himself, to work for the common good of the people of Hume, but instead what I find is his own secretary raises a sword against my soldiers!'
As he shouted Lynan turned slowly to face each group in the throne room, Farben swinging in the air, wheezing, kicking, trying to suck in a breath.
'Lynan!' Jenrosa yelled and stepped right before him, 'You are killing him!'
Lynan looked at her as if she was stupid. 'Well, of course I'm killing him!' he hissed at her. His forearm flexed, his fingers came together, and there was a sickening crack. Farben's body went instantly limp, and the smell of hot piss filled the room.
'Oh God,' Jenrosa said hoarsely.
Lynan moved around Jenrosa and started circling the throne room, his arms by his side, Farben's heels dragging on the floor, Coudroun's gory head swinging by its red hair. All but Ager, Gudon, Korigan and Jenrosa huddled against the walls, terrified. His companions gathered together in the centre of the room, turning to keep him in view, not knowing what to do, not even knowing who Lynan was any more.
'Some changes,' Lynan was saying, more to himself than anyone else. 'That's what we need here. No more talk of Charion. No more talk of giving enemies a second chance. Daavis is an occupied enemy city. No more chances. I will hunt down all my enemies. I will have them. No more chances.'
Ager wanted to close his eyes, to pretend none of this was happening, that the thing stalking around them was still, somehow, Prince Lynan Rosetheme, son of Elynd Chisal, his friend and liege lord. But he could not force his eyes shut and he could not keep out the rambling sentences, half-mad, half-incoherent, that spilled from Lynan's mouth. Korigan and Gudon were resolutely staring at the floor, grey-faced. Jenrosa, like Ager, stared at Lynan, her own eyes wide with something more than fear. Certainty, he thought. She was looking at Lynan with certainty.
'I will fill the streets with the heads of my enemies,' Lynan was saying.
It was enough, Ager thought. It was all enough. He left his companions and barred Lynan's way.
'Ager. What are you still doing here?'
Ager put a hand on each of Lynan's. 'Let them go,' he said gently.