Relam had hardly hidden himself before a tall, shadowy figure emerged from the alley, slender sword dripping on the road. The hissing man took a long look around, his face hidden in the shadow of his cowl, then turned abruptly and headed for the Citadel. Relam watched in amazement as the man went right up to the guards there, spoke with them briefly, then entered the ancient stronghold, the gates booming shut behind him.
Relam gaped at the now sealed doorway. How could this be? The master of the assassins was connected to the Citadel? How could they all have been so blind?
The young prince lingered a moment longer, then turned and ran quickly to Oreius’ house. He slipped around the side to the back, into the winter-blasted gardens. The fountain was fully frozen now, and the water no longer danced and splashed merrily. Everything was eerily quiet.
Relam ghosted up to the back door and knocked tentatively. In the midst of the silent night, the small sound was deafening. He waited, hoping that the slight noise would have been enough to draw Oreius or Narin to the door, but nothing happened. Relam tried again, knocking louder this time. Still, there was no answering sound.
Frustrated, Relam beat on the door forcefully, shaking the portal in its wooden frame. This time, he heard rapid, impatient footsteps, moving quickly in his direction. A moment later, the door was flung open, and Oreius glared out at him.
“Do you realize what time of night it is, boy?” he demanded curtly. Then, he frowned, noticing Relam’s charred cloak and the distinct stench of smoke. “Have you been burning something recently?”
“You could say that,” Relam muttered. “I’ll tell you everything, I swear, but I need you to let me in. Even now they may be hunting me.”
“Fabulous,” the old warrior grunted. “Now I’m sheltering two refugees.” But he stepped aside and let Relam enter. The old warrior peered about outside a moment longer, then slammed the door shut and shot the bolt home.
“Follow me,” he growled, stumping along the central hallway to the front room. Relam, shivering slightly, followed him through the dark house.
They crossed the perpendicular hallway that ran parallel to the road, then abruptly turned into the sitting room at the front of the house. Squashy armchairs surrounded a tremendous fireplace. A heap of hot coals and embers stood in its center, a wood basket to one side. Oreius bent over in front of the fireplace and carefully laid small branches on the embers. In moments, bright yellow flames appeared and began hungrily devouring the wood. The old warrior continued to add fuel, nurturing the tiny flames until they grew into a suitably large fire, warming the small, comfortable room.
“Now,” Oreius grunted. “Suppose you tell me what this is all about.”
“Another assassin,” Relam said quickly. “Climbed the outside of the palace to my room, broke a window and attacked me. I only just managed to drive him off by smashing a lantern and starting a fire.
“After all I taught you, you only just got away?” Oreius demanded.
“You didn’t teach me knife fighting.”
“Ah,” Oreius said, nodding. “I thought about it at one point. But it’s difficult to master and very time consuming. I’ll amend the training in the future though.”
“Thanks,” Relam muttered, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I escaped using the servants’ passages. The palace guards likely think me dead or kidnapped.”
“Even better,” Oreius grunted. “I’m housing two people who are supposed to be dead.”
“There’s more,” Relam warned him. “As I was coming here, I overheard a conversation near the Citadel. It was one of the men Aven and I overheard the night my mother died, I am sure of it, talking to the assassin that had just tried to kill me.”
Oreius leaned forward, eyes glinting. “Did you get a name?” he whispered.
“No, I-”
CRASH!
Relam jumped out of his chair startled, groping for his sword. Oreius did not react at all, merely sat in his chair, shaking his head in annoyance. “That’s just Narin,” he told Relam. “He’s not used to getting around this house in the dark yet. Keeps tripping over things. I’ll wager that was a bedside table.”
“You’re sure?” Relam asked, listening, sword half drawn.
“Positive, now put the blade up,” Oreius snapped. “You might as well wait for the commander to get here. Save you repeating everything.”
Relam sat and waited, eyes darting around the small room. Soon, footsteps reached his ears, quick, nervous footsteps. A slight glow came to life in the hallway outside. Narin rounded the corner, sword in one hand, a shuttered lantern in the other. The former commander relaxed when he recognized Oreius, then frowned at Relam, puzzled.
“This is an unexpected honor, your majesty,” he said, sheathing his sword.
“I had nowhere else to go,” Relam replied. “Another assassin came for me, Narin.”
Narin swore angrily. “Does that new guard commander know anything? How many attempts on the royal family is this since I was killed?”
“He climbed the outside wall,” Relam replied. “There are no guards out there.”
“Eckle did?”
“No, the assassin,” Oreius corrected, frowning. “Focus, Narin.”
“I only just got up,” the former commander complained bitterly.
“We heard,” Oreius muttered darkly. “Do I need to buy a new table tomorrow?”
“I should be able to reattach both legs. The basin on the other hand, well, that will need to be replaced.”
“Great,” Oreius muttered, shaking his head.
“Wait,” Relam interjected, looking between the two older men. “Eckle.”
“What about him?” Narin asked.
“You said he had Citadel training, Citadel connections.”
“He does,” Narin confirmed.
“And the assassin,” Relam said, eyes widening. “He was hired by someone who has access to the Citadel.”
“The hissing man?” Oreius asked.
“Yes,” Relam muttered. “So who is he?”
“The man hiring the assassins is associated with the Citadel?” Narin asked, surprised.
“The guards let him right in,” Relam said, shrugging.
“I’ll be right back,” Narin muttered, running out of the room.
Relam looked at Oreius. “What is he-?”
“Just wait.”
Relam shut his mouth with an audible clop and settled down to wait.
Not a minute later, Narin was back, arms full of parchment sheets and rolls. “I’ve been compiling a list of nobles who fit our meager evidence, looking for a pattern,” he explained breathlessly. He pulled a scroll off the top of the stack and unrolled it, scanning its contents briefly. “This is a list of all the nobles who were at the banquet where you overheard the conspirators,” he murmured, reaching for a second scroll. “And here . . . a list of nobles from the area who traveled to Mizzran about the time the first assassins were hired. Those two bits of information narrowed the list to about thirty names.”
“Thirty?” Relam asked, surprised.
“Not many people here go to Mizzran,” Narin said, shrugging. “It’s basically a mound of precious rocks. Not a popular vacation spot, despite the vast accumulation of wealth there. Ardia and Narne on the other hand are far more-”
“Focus,” Oreius snapped.
“Of course,” Narin said smoothly. “A few names jumped out here. Clemon was on the list, but we discounted him. The man doesn’t have the creativity to pull off something like this. Several minor lords, but none of them have ‘a great many soldiers’ like the, ah, ‘hissing man’.”
“Then who on the list does?” Relam asked. “Not Clemon, certainly.”
“No, not Clemon,” Narin agreed. “But, there is someone who is on both lists, has easy access to you, and has a fair number of soldiers on hand.”
“Eckle?” Relam guessed.
“He wasn’t in Mizzran, but he could be a part of this,” Narin conceded. “No, the
one name that fits everything perfectly is Master Bene D’Arnlo. Ruler of the Citadel.”
Chapter 39
Relam slowly sat back in his chair. “D’Arnlo?” he asked, just to be sure he had heard correctly. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be given the information we have,” Narin said, nodding.
“Let’s not be hasty,” Oreius said. “We may be missing information. Or even some suspects. We still don’t have a clue as to the identity of the other man Relam and Aven overheard, and we don’t have any hard proof that D’Arnlo is the culprit.”
“No hard proof?” Narin demanded, shaking the mass of paper at Oreius. “What do you mean, no hard proof? Look at this! He is the only one who fits everything we know!”
“Everything we know,” Oreius agreed, stressing the last word. “But we don’t know everything. There is a difference, and a significant one, my friend.”
“I can’t believe this,” Narin growled. “You are defending the man?”
“Absolutely not,” Oreius snorted. “I think he is scum, just like you do. In fact, I’d be happy to arrest him or execute him given the opportunity. But we need to make sure that we’re right before any action can be taken.”
“Before any action can be taken?” Relam asked quietly. “What sort of action?”
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Oreius asked, leaning back and putting his feet up on a low table. “As he pointed out during his discussion with this other man, D’Arnlo has a great many soldiers. Not to mention the greatest fortress of all time, the Citadel.”
“And there are three of us,” Relam muttered. “Not exactly great odds.”
“Three can accomplish by stealth what an army cannot by force,” Narin put in.
“True,” Oreius agreed. “But there is only one entrance to the Citadel. And you can be sure that if D’Arnlo is behind all of this, he will have the place on lockdown.”
“There’s something else,” Relam added. “We have no idea what is going on out there right now.”
“What do you mean?” Narin asked curiously.
“I just disappeared from a burning room in the middle of the night,” Relam pointed out, clasping his hands between his knees and leaning forward. “I think it is a safe bet that the alarm has been raised and most of the military players in this city are aware. The city will have been put on lockdown. Now, consider this: In the event that the king and the heir both are killed or disappear, who is most likely to take control? In the interim, of course.”
“The military,” Oreius answered immediately. “Seeing as they would be running the search for a missing heir to the throne. Makes sense for them to be in charge.”
“Precisely,” Relam agreed. “Commander Eckle has Citadel connections. Likely, without an authority around to tell him what to do, he immediately sent runners to the Citadel. If I were D’Arnlo, I would use my influence to organize the search and order a lockdown of the city, placing himself above Commander Hadere of the City Guard in the chain of command. Now, I know Hadere and he could be convinced to join us-”
“But word would reach the Citadel and it’s likely locked down already,” Oreius finished. “So there’s no point in getting a small army to help, unless we plan to attack by force and get slaughtered for our trouble.”
“Which we don’t,” Narin said quickly. “Right?”
“Right,” Relam agreed. “So, what do we do?”
He looked at Oreius hopefully, urging the old warrior to come up with a spectacular, foolproof plan on the spot. But Oreius simply shook his head and shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “There are too many unknowns. D’Arnlo has support from at least one other lord. Depending on how influential that lord is, he may have the support of many more. There is nothing to say that even if we exposed D’Arnlo, that Relam would be reinstated as heir to the throne.”
Relam had not considered that possibility. “Do you really think that could happen?” he asked quietly.
Oreius nodded gravely. “It depends how deep this thing has run. Remember, the Assembly of Nobles was extremely dissatisfied with your father’s rule at times.”
“Yes,” Relam admitted, thinking back to the meeting he had sat in on more than a year earlier.
“Well, we have to do something,” Narin blustered.
“We have to do the right something,” Oreius said quietly, gazing out of the room’s one, circular window. “And until we know what the right something is, we need to keep thinking and planning. There is too much at stake for us to rush into the situation and fail spectacularly.”
“Yes,” Relam agreed. “If D’Arnlo wins, he becomes king in all likelihood. And that would usher in a dark age the like of which the Sthan Kingdom has never seen. An age of enslavement of the masses, and power and wealth for a few.”
Narin nodded somberly. “Then we’d better put together a plan,” he observed, frowning.
Oreius nodded absently, his mind already thousands of miles away. Relam closed his eyes and lay back, thinking. The room was silent, save for the crackling fire in the fireplace. The flames were cheerful and vibrant, a spark of hope amidst the three despondent occupants of the room. As the morning wore on though, and the fire lay unattended, the flames began to die and the room grew dark and cold.
Dawn came, gray light filtering through the round window. Relam, Oreius, and Narin still sat in the same places they had been hours earlier. Still thinking. Still hoping. The fire was nearly out now, but the room was growing brighter every minute with the rising sun.
An hour after dawn, the silence was finally broken by someone hammering purposefully on the front door, shaking it violently. For a moment, Relam and his companions did not even stir. Then the knocking began again and they all started and looked at each other guiltily.
“Expecting guests?” Relam asked Oreius quietly.
The old warrior shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “I think that perhaps you and Narin should hide for a little while. This may be a search party.”
Narin’s eyes widened. “Already? But we have no plan!”
“I know,” Oreius muttered. “And if they intend to search the house, you and Relam need to get off the premises. My neighbor has a skiff tied up behind their house, on the river. You could use it to cross the river, or even row out into harbor. From there you could beach the boat and escape into the Midwood.”
“And what about you?” Relam asked.
“I’ll stay of course. Gather information, try and find a way for us to fix this,” Oreius replied.
The knocking started up again, louder, more insistent.
“If I leave, D’Arnlo’s hold on the city will only increase with time,” Relam protested.
“Aye, but we need time right now, and if you are found and arrested or killed, all hope is lost.” Oreius shivered and tossed more wood on the fire. “Now, go, quickly.”
Relam’s eyes watered. Impulsively, he stood and embraced Oreius. “I’ll miss you,” he murmured.
“And I you, boy,” Oreius growled. “Now, get going. Narin,” he added, stopping the two in their tracks.
“Yes?” the former commander asked, looking back.
“Keep him safe,” Oreius said.
Narin nodded gravely. “I will. I’ll protect him with my life, Oreius.”
“Good man,” the old warrior muttered. “Now, go!”
Relam and Narin hurried out of the sitting room as a fresh bout of knocking began. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” Oreius called bad-temperedly. The two refugees fled towards the back door, slipping through the opening. As they were pulling the back door shut, they heard Oreius open the front door.
“What do you want?” the old man demanded. “It’s early yet, come back later.”
“Sorry, Master Oreius,” a young voice said breathlessly. “But I need to talk to Relam.”
Cevet! Relam had no trouble recognizing his friend’s voice. Then, he frowned. This certainly didn’t sound lik
e a search party. He hesitated on the back porch, one hand still on the back door, which was still slightly open. Narin tugged at Relam’s sleeve impatiently, but the young heir to the throne held up a hand, gesturing for him to wait a moment.
“He’s not here,” Oreius growled. “Anyway, why would he be here?”
“You haven’t heard?” Cevet asked. “He disappeared from the palace, his room in flames, one of the windows shattered. Rumor is he’s fled or kidnapped.”
“And why would you come here if he’s been kidnapped?” Oreius asked. “Planning on arresting me, boy?”
“No, sir,” Cevet said quickly. “I was hoping he might have fled here. I have urgent news, I ran all the way here, I swear it’s important!”
Narin was gesturing frantically now, indicating it was time to go. But Relam shook him off impatiently, trying to focus on what Cevet and Oreius were discussing.
“Nobody followed you?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Does anybody know you’re here?”
“No.”
There was a long pause. Relam could picture Oreius frowning thoughtfully at the lordling.
“Where did you come running from anyway?” Oreius asked finally.
“The Citadel,” Cevet gasped. “Please, sir, let me in!”
Relam’s eyes widened and he exchanged a glance with Narin. The former commander was frowning thoughtfully, debating whether it was safe or not.
“Well,” Oreius said finally. “In that case, you had better come in.”
“Thank you, sir,” Cevet said breathlessly. Relam heard quick, light footsteps, then the sound of Oreius shutting and locking the front door. Only after the front of the house had been secured did Relam push open the back door and reenter the house.
As he did, two figures in the front hall spun to face him. Oreius, angry and surprised, his bushy eyebrows drawn together under his long, tangled hair. Cevet on the other hand moaned with relief and ran towards Relam, embracing him.
The Prince (Heirs of Legacy Book 1) Page 47
