Now it was his turn, and there was no time to waste. He unsheathed the ceremonial sword he wore, and which he’d had sharpened to a razor keenness the day before. Steeling himself, he ran it swiftly across the outside of his left thigh, cutting through uniform fabric and skin. Blood began to flow. Changing hands, he did the same with his right arm. Then he gulped a breath, raised the blade to his cheek and slashed it. Not deep enough to leave a scar, but sufficient to draw blood copiously. He was proud of not crying out when he did it.
After a quick look around to make sure everything seemed right, he ran to the door.
‘Murder!’
he yelled from the landing.
‘Help! Murder! Call out the guard!’
Within seconds there was a thunderous sound on the stairs as a mob ascended.
He slumped against the doorframe, sword dangling from his fingers, blood dripping from his wounds and streaming down his face.
Meakin appeared, with Laffon close behind. Following them came a mix of guests and paladins, weapons drawn.
‘Sir!’
his aide exclaimed. ‘What happened?’
‘Murder,’ Devlor croaked, letting the sword fall from his grasp. ‘In there. Murder.’
Laffon plunged into the study, three paladins at his heels.
Meakin stayed with his master. ‘You’re hurt, sir. Let me see.’
‘I don’t…think it’s…too…bad.’
‘Let’s get you sat down, sir.’ He steered Devlor to a high-backed chair standing against the landing wall, and carefully began tearing the cloth away to expose the wounds.
Laffon reappeared. ‘What happened?’
‘When I…got up here, the door was…locked. No…reply. Fortunately I had a key. Found…Uncle Ivak.’
‘Take it easy, sir,’ Meakin said.
‘No. Must…catch him.’
‘Who?’ Laffon asked. A number of shocked, white faces were staring down at Devlor now.
‘We fought. I got in…a couple of…blows, I think. But he…took me…unawares. Must go…after him.’
‘Three men have just gone down those back stairs in pursuit,’ Laffon told him. ‘And it looks like there’s another dead man at the bottom of them.’
‘The…guard. Poor devil.’
‘But who
was
it, Bastorran? Who did this?’
‘Caldason. The outlaw…Reeth Caldason.’
‘He did this?’
‘Yes, and nearly did for…me, too.’
‘I don’t think these wounds are too serious, sir,’ Meakin reported, dabbing with a cloth. ‘Lots of blood, but not too deep, thank the gods.’
‘I’ll be…all right. Just a…shock.’
‘Was he alone?’ Laffon said.
‘Far as I could…tell, yes.’ Bastorran’s breathing was more regular, and a little colour was coming back to his cheeks.
‘Funny thing, someone battering their way in like that. You’d think your uncle would have been alerted and put up a fight, or raised the alarm.’
‘Perhaps Caldason did have somebody…with him. But I only…saw him.’
‘Well, it’s a damn audacious thing to do.’
‘That’s what these people…are, Commissioner. Brazen. Reckless. And they’ve taken my…uncle, the bastards.’
‘If this just happened, hopefully they haven’t got far. We could catch them yet.’
‘You know what this…is about, don’t you, Laffon? Rukanis. It’s revenge for that damn
traitor
.’
‘The timing certainly seems indicative.’ He stared at him. ‘You sure you’re going to be all right?’
‘I’ll be fine. I’ve taken worse knocks than this.’ He was calming. ‘But suppose this is part of a…general uprising? The first blow of many?’
‘I suppose we should be alive to that possibility. You’re the Clan High Chief now, Bastorran. What do you want to do?’
‘Come down hard on them.
Really
hard. Make them pay. Do I have your backing?’
Laffon glanced at the open study door. ‘You do.’
Somewhere outside, a bell was chiming midnight.
23
At dawn the following morning a number of covered wagons converged from different directions on a hidden cove on Bhealfa’s south-eastern coast. Their journeys had been risky, both in terms of what the wagons carried and because they’d had to defy the curfew to arrive so early. But sound planning and good luck served them well, and they made their rendezvous without incident.
Resistance planners had been working for years on the logistics of moving thousands of people and all manner of cargo from diverse parts of Bhealfa to the new island state. Having six wagons reach the same patch of seashore at approximately the same time was child’s play by comparison. So it was that they all rode onto the beach within a space of less than a quarter of an hour.
A ship was anchored not far offshore. The sea was choppy and the vessel rolled slightly as it breasted the foam-flecked waves. In the grey sky, dark rain clouds were forming, and clumps of grass on the edges of the sandy beach were flattened by a brisk wind.
Caldason, Serrah and Kutch disembarked from various of the wagons, along with most of the three-score strong band
of Resistance fighters Reeth captained. They were met by the ship’s skipper and a handful of his crew, who’d ferried themselves across in a large rowboat.
The last wagon to arrive bore Quinn Disgleirio and the remainder of the band.
He hurried to the others. ‘Have you heard the news?’
‘What news?’ Serrah said.
‘We’ve been travelling all night without a stop,’ Caldason explained.
‘Well, we
had
to stop,’ Disgleirio told them. ‘Nearly lost a wheel about halfway here, not far from a village. They’d even heard about it there.’
‘Heard
what
?’ Serrah repeated.
‘Ivak Bastorran’s dead.’
‘Gods.’
‘Yes, and that’s not all. He was murdered, right in his own house in Valdarr. While some kind of party was going on, would you believe?’
‘Was it anything to do with us, the Resistance?’ Serrah asked.
‘They’re saying it was. Actually…prepare yourself for a shock, Reeth. The paladins say it was you.’
‘Me?’
‘The old man’s nephew, Devlor, not only swears you did it, he claims he was wounded fighting you off.’
‘That’s insane. What’s supposed to have happened?’
‘The story they’re putting out is that last night a lone assassin killed a guard and battered his way through two locked doors to get to Ivak. Then he, or you as they’d have it, stabbed him in the back a number of times.’
‘A knife in the back doesn’t sound like your style, Reeth,’ Serrah said.
‘No. I would have wanted to see his face while I did it.’
‘
Could
it have been the Resistance?’ Kutch wondered. ‘And maybe they mistook somebody else for Reeth?’
‘It had nothing to do with us,’ Disgleirio stated adamantly. ‘We would have known.’
‘And Devlor Bastorran’s unlikely to mistake someone else for me,’ Reeth said. ‘Not after our last meeting.’
‘Good luck to whoever it was, I say,’ Serrah decided. ‘And what if you are blamed for it, Reeth? You would have done it given the chance, wouldn’t you? Though not in the back like a sneak.’
‘That’s all very well,’ Disgleirio told them, ‘but there’s the repercussions to take into account. The top man in the paladins gets murdered and somebody known for his hatred of them gets the blame. They link you with the Resistance, Reeth, and it gives them just the excuse they need to crack down even harder. Not good news when we’re coming up to the move.’