Which was probably exactly why Kiruk Tordannon had married her. Childless, she posed no threat to Aggar’s inheritance, but with several grandchildren, there was no risk of that inheritance going to someone outside the clan, should Aggar not produce an heir of his own.
Of course, there was always the possibility that Kiruk and Meridella had simply fallen in love, and her lack of direct heirs was mere happenstance, but marriage was rarely such a straightforward affair among the dwarves. Most of the time, it involved contracts whose long negotiations served the same function that the courtship period did for other races. Affection, or the lack thereof, was seldom a factor.
Though, to be fair, Kiruk had loved Aggar’s mother, and deeply. When she had died in childbirth, the dwarf patriarch had been devastated, and the entire crushing bulk of his devotion had then been transferred to the only thing Kiruk had left of her: her sickly, flame-haired son.
“But Orin’s the only one of them who’d pull a stunt like this. And the only one with the authority, since he was appointed envoy. Plus he’s been missing since shortly after his wedding to Gunnett Stoneblood, and I know he wouldn’t have left without a very good reason.” He didn’t look so angry now, but there was still a shadow behind his eyes. “So where is he?”
Sabira briefly recounted how Orin had stalked her to Stormreach, threatened her, then gotten skewered by one yrthak while saving her life from another on the way back to Khorvaire. She left out the part about feeding him the ironspice, though, since she still wasn’t sure just how sick that had actually made him. Aggar relaxed visibly when Sabira told him Orin was in the care of House Jorasco.
“And he told you he was a member of the Aurum?” Aggar asked when she was finished.
“Silver Concord,” Sabira affirmed, though in truth Orin had only displayed the rings; he’d never actually claimed to be a Concordian. One of the few things he hadn’t lied about, apparently.
“So that’s where my old rings went,” Aggar muttered to himself, and suddenly Orin’s reaction to hearing that Sabira had taken a job for Arach d’Kundarak—an actual Concordian—back in Stormreach made much more sense. To Sabira, he said, “And you believed him?”
“As much as I’d believe anyone who told me you were a member of the Aurum—a Gold Concordian, no less—and that you’d gotten yourself arrested for murdering, what, half of them?” Which was to say, yes. She’d swallowed it all whole, because believing Aggar had become a criminal made it that much easier to sustain her anger toward him and toward herself. After all, she thought bitterly, what better tool for self-flagellation could she have than knowing the dwarf she’d let Leoned die to save had gone on to commit more than a dozen murders?
“You believed I’d actually ask you to come back here, after … everything that happened? You honestly thought I would do that to you?” Neither his tone nor his face betrayed his hurt, but she knew her doubt had cut him to the quick.
But he wasn’t the only one to take a knife to the heart over this whole Hostforsaken situation, and she wasn’t inclined to feel sympathetic.
“Elix did. Why not you, as well?”
That silenced him. He knew how close she and Leoned and Elix had all been. If Elix—someone she’d cared for and admired—could deceive her so thoroughly with that damnable letter, was it really any wonder she’d doubt him, someone she’d left the Holds practically hating?
“So Orin left his new wife, masqueraded as a member of the Aurum, and lied to the Sentinel Marshals, all on your behalf? Seems like you’ve really learned how to inspire loyalty since I’ve been gone. That, or stupidity, since his actions are likely to earn him a cell next to yours.”
“Orin believes I’m innocent,” Aggar replied, unruffled by her gibes. He crossed over to the room’s lone piece of furniture—a long wooden bench—and bent to pick up a small folded towel from atop a stack of clothing, using it to mop the sweat from his brow and the back of his neck.
“Are you?”
The dwarf didn’t answer immediately. He pulled a white shirt on over his head, then a sleeveless tunic in several startling shades of green and emblazoned with the Tordannon crest over that. He finished the ensemble off with an orange cloak that he clasped at his neck with a gold hand clenched in a fist.
“Are you?” he countered sardonically, straightening his collar. “Is anyone?”
She opened her mouth to explain, in explicit detail, just what she thought of his attempt to play the philosopher, but he held up his hand to forestall her.
“If, on the other hand, you’re asking if I killed my fellow Concordians, the answer to that question is far simpler. No, I did not. And I have no idea who did.”
“Obviously someone who hates you,” Sabira rejoined tartly.
Aggar chuckled mirthlessly.
“Well, my dear old friend, then that would put you at the top of a very long list of suspects.”
“Undoubtedly. But seeing as this is the first time I’ve set foot in the Holds since …,” she trailed off, not quite able to bring herself to say it, here, in front of him. “Well, I think it’s safe to cross me off that list. But maybe if you tell me exactly who was murdered, and what relationship each of the victims had to you, we might be able to narrow it down to a few hundred other suspects, hmm?”
“Only a few hundred?” Aggar laughed, with real amusement this time. “Why, Saba, I do believe you’ve mellowed during your time away.”
Sabira’s answering smile was brittle.
“Don’t count on it. Just tell me what happened, and leave all the fancy embellishments and philosophical musings for someone they might actually impress. The trial does start today, after all. And I need as much information as possible, as quickly as possible, if I’m going to have any hope of defending you.”
Aggar sat on the bench and motioned for Sabira to do the same. “Well, you might as well sit, then. This is going to take a while.”
Honoring Sabira’s request, the dwarf kept his story succinct and factual. Most of the thirteen victims had been rival members of the Aurum, and they’d all been seen arguing with Aggar in the days and hours preceding their deaths. In fact, except for the first murder, Aggar seemed to have been the last person to see many of the victims alive. Aside from the real killer, of course.
The first victim, Haddrin Goldglove, had been a lowly Copper Concordian from Frostmantle, obsessed with the Fist of Onatar and the great cache of Siberys dragonshards that legend placed deep within the bowels of the volcano. He’d come to Aggar—a member of the Frostmantle Four, the city’s governing body—with concerns about a recent increase in hot spring activity in the caverns below the mountaintop city, fearing a dangerous magma chamber might be developing there. But considering that the Fist was almost two hundred miles away, Aggar had dismissed Goldglove as a doomsayer, and not entirely stable—rightfully so, in Sabira’s estimation—and sent him on his hand-wringing way. Goldglove had stopped to see his mother before descending to the lower levels of the city, where he hoped to find proof to convince Aggar that he wasn’t crazy. His body had been found beside one of the hot springs a week later, his logbook still clutched in one bloody hand.
As with all the subsequent victims, Goldglove had been conveniently beheaded, so questioning his corpse had not been an option. At the time, his death had been considered an isolated event, so there’d been no reason to have him resurrected to try and learn more about the manner of his passing—not that his mother could have afforded it, even if there had been reason. Instead, she’d had his body put to the flame, a practice common among worshippers of Onatar, the Sovereign God of Fire and Forge.