‘Is your master at home, Magrayn?’ the Chancellor asked. It was more ritual than genuine enquiry: Magrayn’s master never left this place.
The woman stood to one side and gestured for him to enter. He knew the rules, and went no further than a step beyond the thresh-old as she closed the door behind him. There was another barred door to pass through yet, and only Magrayn could give him permission to progress.
‘Show your face,’ she said. Her voice was slovenly, uneven. The Rot had sunk into her throat.
The Chancellor slipped back his hood and looked her in the eye.
‘The visage matches the voice, I trust?’ he smiled.
Magrayn grunted and gave a swift triple knock upon the inner door.
‘Open up,’ she called, and Mordyn was given admittance to Torquentine’s lair. Hard-faced men searched him and took his knife from him, and he was led down into the cellars.
The man Mordyn had come to see would be thought a monstrosity by some, but to the Shadowhand such a view would be a meaningless distraction. Torquentine was, above and beyond all else, useful. There was more than one network of power in the Haig Bloods, and Torquentine stood at the heart of that which shunned the light of day and the scrutiny of curious eyes. A word whispered in a quayside drinking den in Kolkyre or murmured with lust-loosened tongue into a doxy’s ear in Dun Aygll could find its way to Torquentine. A sizeable fraction of the illicit gains of smugglers, thieves, moneylenders and assassins throughout the Haig lands seeped along surreptitious channels to his pocket. He was the spider at the centre of a vast, almost invisible web. But if he was a spider, he was one grown fat upon the flesh of his prey.
Alone, the Chancellor entered the chamber in which Torquentine reclined upon a vast heap of cushions. The man was gigantic. His voluminous clothes concealed a body that must weigh as much as three more commonly sized men. The skin of his face sagged and folded itself down. One eye was gone, a ragged scar running across its empty pit from temple to nose. The good eye that stared out at the Chancellor shone with intelligence. Mordyn often reflected that Torquentine’s size might serve a purpose in one way at least. It was too easy to judge a man by his girth, to assume that one so bloated could only be dim-witted, or weak, or foolish. Such assumptions would be a grievous error on the part of anyone dealing with Torquentine. To the Chancellor’s knowledge there were few people in Vaymouth who were quite as dangerous.
‘Chancellor,’ Torquentine said hoarsely. ‘An unexpected pleasure. It has been some time since the Shadowhand graced my chambers.’
‘More than a year,’ Mordyn agreed as he lowered himself on to an immaculately upholstered bench, the room’s only piece of furniture. Small bowls of aromatic herbs and petals rested beside him. Their scent mixed with the smoky aroma given off by the guttering oil lamps. Beneath it all, Mordyn could catch a hint of the malodorous air they were intended to mask. The Chancellor glanced quizzically at the material covering the bench.
‘You have new upholstery,’ he remarked.
‘Indeed,’ rasped his host. ‘I tired of the previous pattern. And it had been worn by the buttocks of a great many supplicants.’
‘Supplicants were a thing of the temples we dispensed with long ago,’ said Mordyn.
‘Petitioners, if you prefer,’ smiled Torquentine. ‘But men must find something to worship once their Gods abandon them. It is in our natures to make temples of the strangest places, even if it is not Gods that inhabit them.’
‘Mere mortal that you are, there is nevertheless a great deal of you for men to abase themselves before,’ Mordyn acknowledged. ‘I dare to hope I stand more highly in your affections than a mere petitioner at some altar, however.’
‘Ah, affection. It does not become a man to dispense his precious stocks of that commodity too freely. But what need could you have of my humble affection in any case, honoured Chancellor? You have the love of the great and the noble to warm your heart should it grow cold. In any case it was, as likely as not, your gold that paid for the new covering of my bench. You may treat it as roughly as you wish.’
‘I cannot tarry long,’ said Mordyn. ‘There is but a single item I wished to discuss.’
Torquentine raised a fat arm in exaggerated distress. ‘Such brevity, and I have not even had the chance to offer you any refreshments yet.’
Mordyn suppressed the urge to smile. Torquentine enjoyed the sound of his own voice, and gave a passable impression of a buffoon.
‘I have a small task for you, Torquentine. Nothing too testing, for a man of your capacities.’
‘I am rigid with curiosity,’ said Torquentine in a tone of studied disinterest.
‘Gann nan Dargannan-Haig. Cousin to Igryn. Do you know him?’
‘Of him, of him. An empty vessel, like most of his family. A mouse burdened with the ambition of a rat; overfond of drink and of whores, and pox-ridden to boot. Thinks he has the makings of a Thane. And lacks the sense to recognise himself as a tool of the Goldsmiths, of course. But then you will know all of that already, Chancellor.’
‘Indeed,’ Mordyn nodded. ‘You summarise the man. Well, worthless though his life has been, I am resolved that he should be given the chance to redeem himself, by dying a useful death. I would not suppose to tell you your business, but I thought perhaps a tavern brawl? Or expiry from overindulgence in the pleasures of some whorehouse?’
Torquentine’s eye narrowed a fraction. It was a tiny gesture, but Mordyn drew satisfaction from the fact that he had surprised his host. Only once before had he asked Torquentine for a death, and that had been a lowly brothelmaster who tried to blackmail one of Mordyn’s clerks. Gann nan Dargannan-Haig was a different kind of victim.
Striking at one who was both a member of a ruling family—albeit a dishonoured one—and a possession of one of the most powerful Crafts was a bold move, but the Chancellor was satisfied it was worth the risk. Even if they believed it to be no more than bad luck, his loss would be a setback for the Goldsmiths; a few words in the right places would ensure that they suspected, but could not prove, the hand of the Moon Palace behind the deed. If Lammain the Craftmaster had half the sense Mordyn credited him with, he would recognise it for the warning it was.
‘Nothing too testing, you say,’ mused Torquentine, ‘yet you ask a good deal, Chancellor.’
Mordyn said nothing. Torquentine would not refuse this commission. The benefits of the Chancellor’s patronage were great, and Torquentine’s reach was long and discreet enough to do the deed without any risk to himself.
‘Very well,’ said Torquentine. ‘I shall deal with the luckless Gann. The world will hardly suffer from his loss. Imagine: at this very moment he probably lies sated in the arms of some woman, his dreams all of pleasure and ease, and here we sit deciding to put an end to him.’
The man’s voice faded, and his one eye fluttered and half-closed. After a moment he sighed and returned to himself.
‘Such are the vagaries of fortune,’ he breathed. ‘A boon in return, though, dare I hope? This is no small request you make of me, so perhaps a little something in addition to the usual payment?’
The Chancellor raised his eyebrows quizzically. The rules he and Torquentine played by were well established. He would prefer to avoid any departure from them.
‘Gann is not some street urchin, after all,’ Torquentine smiled. ‘Snuffing out his candle will require care, planning. It will be a complicated effort.’
‘What is it you want, Torquentine?’ enquired Mordyn, lacing his voice with a hint of irritation.
The great man on the cushions raised his own eyebrows in turn. It made the scar across his face stretch alarmingly.
‘Well, in truth I could not say. Perhaps we could delay the resolution of that question until such time as the answer is more apparent. I imagine a solution will present itself before long. They usually do.’