Time's Assassin, page 38
part #3 of The Islevale Cycle Series
This killing was different.
It was also necessary. Corinne had said so. Tobias would agree.
“Mara.”
She looked up from the body, took a sharp, startled breath.
Corinne watched her, concern creasing her forehead.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, and meant it.
“You have to go. The soldiers will return here before long, as soon as they realize we’re not behind them. You should go to the healer.”
“Yes. That’s where...where Nava is.”
“Good. Go there now. Have a care in the corridors. There may be more Sheraighs about.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Summon my soldiers,” Corinne said, impatience in the words.
Right . She had said that earlier.
“Are you sure you’re well?”
“Yes. I meant, what do you plan to do with them? Will you have them fight the sovereign’s guards?”
“We have no choice. We have to kill all of them. If any make it to Hayncalde, the men who are after you will know you’re here.
They’ll know we killed their minister.”
“They’re going to know all eventually.”
“Yes. Eventually. Not now, though. Not yet.”
“All right. I can fight with you. You know I’m Windhome-trained.”
She glanced down at the minister. “Obviously I’m willing to kill.”
“We outnumber them by a factor of ten, Mara. My soldiers don’t need you. Nava does.”
How could she argue with that?
She left the duchess there, navigated the corridors back to Tarrod’s chamber. Along the way, she started to sheath her weapon, but thought better of it.
Reaching his door, she knocked. At first, she heard no response.
Fear rose in her throat. She reached for the door handle. As her fingers brushed the metal, the door swung open revealing the young healer with a dagger in his hand.
Seeing her, he exhaled and let his blade hand drop.
“Mara,” he said. “Come in.”
Had she been a Sheraigh, the weapon he held would have heightened her suspicions. It also would have been next to useless against guards armed with swords or muskets. She didn’t say any of this, of course. He was trying to protect Sofya, and she was grateful.
He closed and locked the door. “It’s all right, Nava.”
The princess emerged from the healer’s wardrobe. She squealed happily and rushed to Mara. Mara hugged her with one arm, sheathed her blade with the other. She would clean the steel later.
“Is someone wounded?” Tarrod asked.
She met his gaze. “It’s nothing urgent,” she said with meaning.
His cheeks blanched.
“There are bound to be more injured before this night is through.
Save your magicks for them.”
“Awe the men stiww aftew us, Mama?”
“Yes, love. For a little while longer. We’ll remain here, if Tarrod will let us.”
“Of course.” His voice had tightened.
Mara crossed to a chair beside the hearth and sat. Sofya crawled into her lap and curled against her. Mara started to tell her a story, but noises from outside the shuttered window and the locked door soon distracted them both. All three of them really.
Tarrod stood by the fire, tense, listening. Sofya watched Mara, appearing to gauge her reactions to the shouts and screams, the clang of steel and the flat crack of flintlocks and muskets. Mara did her best to school her features, but she was afraid.
Duvyn had numbers. Sheraigh’s soldiers, however, were likely some of the best-trained in all of Daerjen. Despite Corinne’s confidence, the outcome of this battle was far from certain.
The blaring report of a firearm in a nearby corridor made Sofya flinch and bury her face against Mara’s chest.
Tarrod eyed the door. Mara eased her loaded flintlock from her belt. She shifted the chair so that she had a clear shot at the door, cocked the weapon, and rested her forearm on the arm of the chair. She glanced down at Sofya, only to find that the princess was staring back at her. She turned to eye Mara’s weapon, then settled against her again.
More weapons discharged in the hallways, but the sounds of fighting came no closer. Outside, the battle seemed to be ending.
In time, the noises in the corridors receded as well. They all remained where they were. Sofya fell asleep. Tarrod still held his knife, Mara her pistol.
After another quarter bell of quiet, someone knocked at the healer’s door. Tarrod and Mara shared a glance. Tarrod stepped to the door, unlocked it, looked back at Mara again. She motioned him to the side with the pistol so she would have a clear shot.
He shifted and opened the door.
Corinne stood in the doorway, a number of soldiers behind her.
“It’s over,” she said. “Healer, we have a number of wounded. They require your attention.”
“Of course, my lady,” Tarrod said, stepping to a cabinet that Mara assumed held tonics, herbs, bandages, and other implements of his trade. “Please have them moved to the hall.”
“We’re doing that already,” the duchess said.
“Very good, my lady. What of the sovereign’s men?”
Corinne’s gaze flicked to Mara. “There are no survivors among the sovereign’s guards.”
Tarrod turned at that. “None?”
“None.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand. How is that—”
“Healer,” Corinne said, perhaps more sharply than she intended.
“Tarrod,” she went on in a softer tone, “our guards are dispatching the last of their survivors now. There can be no outside witnesses to tonight’s events. Do you understand?”
Again, he had gone white. Mara felt badly for him. He was young, healer to a minor house. He had probably thought he was comfortably far from warfare and the questionable ethics that came with it. Then Mara, Tobias, and Sofya had come and thrown his safe world into turmoil.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, my lady. I understand perfectly.”
“Good. Come when you’re ready.” She spoke Mara’s name, gestured for her to follow.
Mara stood, slipped the pistol onto her belt, and shifted Sofya in her arms.
“Thank you for keeping her safe, Tarrod,” she said. “And for giving us refuge.”
“Of course.” Was it disapproval that tightened his voice?
Mara left with the duchess, walked beside her in silence until they reached Corinne’s chamber. The duchess issued orders to her soldiers and admitted Mara to the room.
“Wine?”
“Please.”
Corinne poured, handed her a cup. Mara still carried the princess. She could have set her down and Sofya would have remained asleep. But Mara didn’t want to let go of her. This night had been too fraught, too close to a bitter ending.
“What now?” the duchess asked. “It won’t be long before Hayncalde wonders why they haven’t heard from the minister. They’ll send more soldiers, a larger company. You’re welcome here—you know that—but I fear you can’t stay.”
“I know. As soon as Tobias and Risch return, we’ll go. I’m hoping that by then we’ll have heard something from Seris.”
“It wasn’t so long ago you left her ship. Now you would go back to it?”
“What choice do we have? Since we arrived here, you’ve been beset by Belvora and by Sheraigh soldiers. Obviously we’re not safe here—and you’re not safe as long as we remain. And there’s no one else in Daerjen whom we trust.”
They had little to say after that. Mara was scared, angry, weary beyond words, though she couldn’t have slept even if she wanted to. She was desperate for word from Captain Larr. Mostly, she wanted Tobias here.
Corinne walked to her shuttered window and opened it. A faint shimmer of silver gray had seeped into the eastern sky. An end to an endless night. And yet...
Someone knocked at the door. Corinne called for whomever had come to enter.
The door opened, revealing a soldier. “My lady.”
“What is it?”
“You’d best come and see. We’re not certain, but we fear we might not have...have taken care of all the Sheraighs.”
Corinne and Mara eyed each other.
“Blood and bone,” the duchess said, speaking for both of them.
They followed the soldier through the corridors and into the castle courtyard, where a dozen more guards surrounded them in a tight, protective formation. They hurried out through the main gate, Sofya asleep and warm in Mara’s arms, mercifully unaware.
The sky had brightened enough that they didn’t need torches. They walked the main road away from the castle, past the now-empty camp the Sheraighs had established upon their arrival. Some forty mounts grazed on grasses near a small rill. Soon they entered a strip of woodland. The soldiers steered them onto a path that curved away from the road to the west. They wound among the trees for a short distance until they reached a small clearing.
The ground here was well-trodden, the brush flattened, branches broken. Charred and grayed logs still smoked in a fire pit.
Discarded food littered the ground. Half-eaten bones from some fowl. A meal interrupted.
Corinne surveyed the clearing, her mouth a dark gash in an otherwise ashen face. “How many do you suppose?”
“Two or three,” said the man who had fetched them from her chamber.
“How long ago did they leave?”
“We can only guess, my lady, but—”
“When the fighting began, yes? Bells ago?”
The man nodded. “Yes, my lady. We’ve sent riders after them, with orders to kill them on sight. But I fear they have too much of a head start on our guards.”
“How many days to Hayncalde?” Mara asked.
“At speed?” Corinne said. “At most, three or four days. And then they have to ride back. We still have some time.”
“No, we don’t,” Mara said. “Orzili doesn’t have to ride back. He has tri-sextants. Or he will soon. For all we know, he can Span here within a bell or two of learning what’s happened. And he can bring men and weapons.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
21st Day of Sipar’s Ascent, Year 634
Before Orzili left Fanquir to Span back to Hayncalde, the Lenna there told him that she would join him in Hayncalde. Their marriage was no more than a shell, a veneer intended to fool the rest of the world. Their love—or at least her love for him—was dead.
Yet they remained partners in this endeavor, their lives forfeit if they failed Pemin. And so she said she would come and help him as he circled in for the final kill.
He was still waiting for her.
The arrival of soldiers at his door late in the evening raised his hopes.
At first, when the men in the corridor told him that, no, Lady Stenci had not yet arrived, Orzili nearly flew into a rage. Why then, had they disturbed him so close to the midnight bell? What was so important that it couldn’t wait for morning?
What indeed.
Two of his guards—not Sheraigh soldiers, but his own assassins—
led the other two men into his chamber.
Sheraighs, both young, one with dark eyes, the other’s pale. They shared the same haunted expression. They were dusty, their faces coated and streaked with grime. Their uniforms were stained, they stank of sweat and horse. Both could barely stand for their weariness. They bowed to him—one stumbled as he straightened.
Orzili’s anger sluiced away. What was this?
“Bring them chairs—wooden ones,” he added as one of the others took a step toward the fine plush chairs near his hearth. He wished to offer the men some comfort, but he didn’t want his chamber smelling of...of them.
After the two soldiers were seated and had been given water, they began their tale.
It was extraordinary.
They had been part of the company sent with Gillian Ainfor on her tour of Daerjen’s duchies. Their first stop was Duvyn, where these two were selected to remain apart from the rest, on the off chance that some calamity befell the rest of the soldiers. A precaution often taken among armies of Daerjen, but almost never needed.
In this case, it had been.
“We heard fighting,” said the one with light eyes. He met Orzili’s gaze. The other man wouldn’t. “We wanted to...it might have made some difference to have two more, but...” He broke off, his mouth twisting. “We listened for what we could, then...then crept forward to see the camp, to see if any were still there.
“There were none. Only the horses. By now we didn’t hear anything more. No more fighting. I thought maybe they were in the corridors instead of the courtyard, but that didn’t make much sense. What made sense was, they were all dead. That’s what both
of us figured. And when we saw the Duvyn guards come out their gate and start searching the camp, we knew. So we left.”
“What of the minister?”
The soldier cast a quick look at his comrade. “I don’t know, my lord. I assume she was taken prisoner or killed.”
Orzili had assumed as much. “Were you followed here?”
“We don’t know. We rode as if we were.”
“That was wise.”
He considered them. After a fivecount, he stepped closer to his fire. He had expected to have word from the Belvora, Glimik, by now. He’d heard nothing. He would have expected a missive from Gillian Ainfor after her audience in Duvyn. He would hear nothing from her, either.
This couldn’t be coincidence.
And then there were the tidings from the north. It seemed that Duvyn’s duke wasn’t even in his castle. According to messages he had received from more than one of his many spies, Risch had sailed to Trohsden, though whether for trade or to foment dissent, Orzili didn’t know.
Any one of these developments would have made him curious. But all three together?
Was Tobias truly this bold? Would he take shelter in a duchy less than fifty leagues from Hayncalde? Could he convince his hosts to declare themselves in open rebellion against the new supremacy, even to pit themselves against the Sheraighs militarily? And might he be clever enough, and influential enough, to bring other dukes into his fold?
The soldier’s report, and the apparent failure of the Belvora, suggested that the Walker was all of these things and more. The last point confirmed that he had more than mere influence. He had the princess. No duke in his right mind would follow a court Walker who had no court. An exiled princess, on the other hand—
the orphaned daughter of a beloved, lost sovereign—would be enough to win the loyalty of dukes from every corner of the isle.
The question was, had Tobias taken the princess to Trohsden, or had he left her in Duvyn?
Events in the southern duchy suggested the latter.
“Did you have any warning?” Orzili asked the men.
“Warning, my lord?”
“Was there fighting from the start, as soon as you arrived? Were there skirmishes before you heard that last battle?”
“No, my lord. All seemed to be going as it should.”
“Not quite,” said the other man. His first words since they entered the chamber.
Orzili approached him. “Explain.”
The young soldier’s gaze flicked between Orzili and his companion. “Well, they were all in the castle, weren’t they? And late into the night. There was no one in the camp at all. So somethin’ must have happened. That’s my thinkin’ anyway.”
“But you have no idea what it might have been.”
“No, my lord.”
Orzili nodded, faced his guards. “Get them food, put them in a chamber here in the castle for the night. They’ve earned a sound night’s sleep.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said the first soldier.
He answered with a tight smile, indicated to his men that they should leave. Within a spirecount, he was alone.
He wanted to Span to Duvyn this very night, but he wouldn’t go alone, and he didn’t yet have his tri-sextants from the Binder.
The Binder, who might soon need to be told that his wife was dead.
He also didn’t yet know enough to Span; even if he’d had the devices, he wouldn’t risk the journey. Impatience had long been his enemy. His rashness, his lack of attention to every possible detail, had allowed Tobias to escape him twice. At a minimum. He would not allow this to happen a third time. He needed Lenna.
More than her, he needed information, word from the Belvora. Any Belvora. Where did they sense magick—Trohsden or Duvyn? Or both?
That made the most sense. Tobias wouldn’t risk taking the princess on a voyage north. What if Myles refused to help him?
More, what if he chose to take the princess captive and present her to Noak? There would no better way for him to win the trust of his new sovereign. No, Tobias had left the babe in Duvyn. With the other Walker, no doubt. And Gillian Ainfor discovered the princess there. That explained all.
Impatience ate at him.
Qiyed had sent word through the Belvora—he was not to be summoned. He was under Distraint, whatever that meant. The Belvora had offered herself as a replacement.
Orzili stepped to his window and opened it. It was a cold night, raw. A fine mist fell over Hayncalde.
“Glimik,” he said, the name swallowed by the damp and dark. “I would speak with you.” He waited, scanning the sky, wondering if Belvora could hear a distant summons as could an Arrokad. After several moments, he repeated his summons. He called for the winged one a third time several spirecounts later, but by then, he had abandoned hope. She couldn’t hear him, or she had no intention of heeding his call, or she was dead.
He shivered, wishing to close his window and return to his fire.
He did lock the shutters again, but then he donned a heavy fur robe and left the castle for the shore.
Qiyed had warned him that he could only be summoned from within a league of water. The castle was closer to the gulf than that, but Orzili didn’t think the Arrokad would enter the city or the fortress. Best he go to the strand and call to the Arrokad from there.
