The Poisoned Quarrel: The Arbalester Trilogy 3 (Complete Edition)

by Duncan Lay

  “Who will you name as the new Crown Prince, Father?” Durzu asked, his voice almost hiding the desperate longing.

  The Emperor sighed. “I must consider that. Kemal has shown himself unworthy and has created a host of problems for me to solve. But although I can detect no magic here I can see your hand in this, Durzu. You have made it a personal quest to remove your older brother and assume his position. I fear that the lure of the power it presents may be beyond you. I shall not make the same mistake in appointing the wrong son twice. The next son I appoint as Crown Prince will be the final one. I must consider whether you are the right man, or whether I should choose one of my other sons. You shall know my decision in the next few days.”

  Feray felt a small flicker of triumph—a feather against the lead weight of despair—that Durzu at least would miss out on the reward he so transparently wanted. She would have loved to see his face at that moment.

  “Meanwhile, I want every ship we have ready to sail as soon as the weather improves. Fill them with the finest soldiers the Empire has!”

  CHAPTER 40

  Munro slipped down the staircase to the castle’s lower levels, his soft boots making no sound on the stone. Since the soldiers had been sent out in all directions, there had been fewer guards in the castle. It was time to risk passing Dina’s message to Keverne and his men. His trusted lieutenant Jen had bribed a couple of the castle servants and reported that the Ruling Council seemed to be falling into chaos, with fighting between the members. If Munro could kill Fallon or Bridgit, the Ruling Council would fall apart. And, if not, they could also be incited to some rash actions by a failed attack. Either way he would win. Of course he would have to stop coming to the castle, but Jen’s servants could still provide him with gossip, at least.

  Meanwhile, he was expected upstairs to adjust the fitting for a pair of Bridgit’s new dresses and was conscious he did not have much time to deliver his message. The castle cells were almost empty; there were a handful of rich fools who had fallen foul of Fallon, as well as the cell with Keverne and his crew of traitorous guardsmen. Gold had lured them into killing their liege lord and Munro instinctively liked them for that.

  A quick glance down the corridor showed him there was no way of getting in and out of the cells without being seen. A pair of young soldiers sat at the far end of the cells, chatting quietly, and they could not fail to miss him. If he tried to sneak in, it would seem suspicious but he had a far better idea.

  Walking briskly, he strode down the corridor, palmed the message and waved his arms.

  “Excuse me, I seem to be lost!” Munro called, waving his arms even wider and using that to disguise flipping the message and the lockpicks into Keverne’s cell. “I am Bridgit’s dressmaker and must have taken a wrong turn down a set of stairs. Can you show me where to go?”

  The two soldiers stood and hurried towards him as he held his hands together and adopted his meekest pose.

  “Can you help me, please?” he asked again. They showed little suspicion and he breathed a sigh of relief when they agreed. With a little luck they would both be killed when Keverne broke out, and with a little more, Fallon would be dead by morning and his reward from Swane assured.

  *

  Keverne had almost given up hope when the parchment landed in his cell. He hated it when his former comrades from Lunster were on duty, for they never missed an opportunity to spit in his food and threaten all sorts of punishment for him for killing Duke Kinnard of Lunster. Still, at least when they were on duty he was able to find out a little of what was going on, because they never missed an opportunity to tell him that the Duchess had abandoned him. He knew that was a lie—their love was true.

  Keverne waited until the soldiers and the strange man who had tossed the scroll into his cell had walked past and then he ripped open the familiar seal and read the words with rising excitement. She loved him still! She kept herself pure for him and waited for the chance to embrace him once again. He felt his eyes mist up as he read how she had been forced to flee because of the monster Fallon and how she had been trying to return to his side. She needed him to be a man and prove he loved her as much as she loved him. All he had to do was break out and cut Fallon’s throat and she could return to his side and they could rule the country together. Keverne felt his loins swell as he read how she had never known a man like him and could not wait to embrace him again. Once Fallon was dead, the same man who had brought this message would get him and his men out of the city and reunite them with her. He folded up the parchment and slipped it inside his filthy tunic, next to his heart. It would be safe there, until he saw her next.

  “Listen,” he told his guardsmen. They had all seen the parchment arrive—the most interesting thing that had happened to them since they were thrown in here—and they were looking more alert than they had been since that day aboard the Duke’s ship. “We can get out of here.”

  *

  The lock was stiff but they greased it with bacon fat from their meager dinner. One of Keverne’s guardsmen, who boasted he had once been a thief before joining the guard, worked on it until, with a soft click, he turned to them and gave a nod of triumph.

  The two young soldiers were gone, replaced by a pair of Lunstermen, two of a handful of Gannon’s men who made it their business to torment Keverne. Well, no longer.

  Keverne led his men in a silent rush down the corridor and by the time the Lunstermen had realized some of their prisoners were out of their cells, those men had beaten the guards senseless and then cut their throats with their own swords.

  Keverne took one of the swords, giving the other to his biggest man, a hulking killer called Driscoll. The others had to make do with breaking the legs off the chairs for weapons.

  “Do we let the rest of them out?” Driscoll asked, jerking his thumb at the other prisoners, who were now pressed up against the bars of their own cells.

  Keverne hesitated, then shook his head. “They might give us away. Besides, the Duchess’ agent may not be able to get them out of here. We don’t want to risk our own escape for the likes of them. Come on.”

  He led them in another rush towards the stairs. As well as Dina’s loving words, her man had also slipped him a rough sketch of the castle and the way to Fallon’s room. He had been in the castle a few times with the old Duke but although he remembered it roughly, most of his attention then had been on Dina, not on the layout. Still, once he came across the King’s old rooms again, he was sure he would find the way from there. And then he would win back the Duchess’ hand and, more importantly, the rest of her body.

  *

  Kerrin could not sleep. He missed his friends Asil and Orhan, although not as much as he missed training with the rest of the recruits. Now that they had been sent off all around Gaelland, it was not the same. He found himself restless and his room was too warm. He had asked his mam time and again not to make the fire so big but she would not lose the habit of a lifetime and he had to go and walk the frigid corridors because he couldn’t get comfortable in bed. Out in the corridors, with the wind rattling the horn frames in the windows and sneaking freezing fingers inside, he found himself relaxing. Mam and Dad kept getting themselves into trouble and if he was not around to save them, then what would happen?

  Kerrin felt calmer when he was walking amid the castle’s eerie noises, the creaking of wooden frames and rattling wind, rather than sitting in his room wondering if there were raiders coming in the night again. Lying in his soft bed, every strange noise seemed to be another midnight attack. But seeing the horn panel shaking in its frame or feeling the floor bounce under his quiet feet showed him it was nothing.

  Then he heard something different again: boots on the floor. At first he thought it might be someone returning from guard duty but there were too many footfalls and his sense of calm disappeared, replaced by a pounding heart. Yet he did not run, because it could be nothing and he was a soldier now, not a frightened boy. He told himself that, time and again, althou
gh it was hard to believe it. He pressed himself against a wall, beside a tattered tapestry, and listened hard. There was little light in the corridor—some moonlight filtering in through the thick horn panels and that was it. But he could smell the men now and he knew instantly something was wrong, because they stank of the cells. Everyone smelled in winter but these men reeked.

  He stayed frozen by the wall. Should he just hide there, let them go by? Then he took a deep breath. This was what he had trained for. Mam and Dad were depending on him. He stepped out into the middle of the corridor.

  “Halt! Who goes there?” he demanded in a loud voice.

  The men stopped instantly, then one of them cursed. “It’s just a boy. Get him!”

  They charged forwards and Kerrin brought up his small crossbow. Holding it steady, he loosed at the leading dark shape. A man shouted in pain and collapsed, bringing several others down behind him, and Kerrin turned and ran, fear and adrenalin and excitement driving him faster than he had ever run before.

  “Stop him!” someone shouted, while another man was howling in pain.

  Footsteps thundered behind him but his mam and dad’s door was close by and he flung himself at it, hauling at the handle.

  “Awake! Attack!” he roared, as he prepared to vanish into the safety of their room, hearing answering calls and shouts echoing up and down the corridor.

  But the handle refused to budge under his hand. His relief and triumph disappeared in a heartbeat. He hauled at it and shook it but nothing happened.

  “Got you, you little bastard!” someone snarled and he spun to see a hulking giant, a man nearly as big as Brendan, loom over him. Kerrin brought up his crossbow, preparing to at least ram the tip into the man’s eye, but then a hand grabbed his shoulder.

  *

  Fallon had been enjoying a beautiful dream about Bridgit, but that vanished like the morning mist when he heard Kerrin’s shout and then the door began to shake. He remembered, with horror, that he had locked it the night before so they did not get any night-time visitors. He raced across the cold stone floor to flip up the locking bar and haul it open.

  The fire in their room had died down to embers but it threw enough light into the corridor to show Kerrin standing his ground as a large man in stinking clothes reached for him. Fallon grabbed Kerrin’s tunic at the shoulder and hauled him backwards, tumbling him into the room.

  The prisoner snarled and slashed a sword at his head. Fallon ducked and the blade crashed into the door, making it shudder.

  “Fallon!” he heard Bridgit shout and he risked a glance over his shoulder to see his shillelagh flying towards him. He took a step back and half-turned to catch it, just as more men filled the doorway. The giant with the sword freed his blade from the door with a screech of tortured wood and drew it back for a thrust. But Fallon was faster, turning back to ram the end of his shillelagh into the man’s throat. The man dropped his sword and staggered backwards and Fallon changed his grip and punched out the ends, breaking a nose and then a set of reaching fingers. Then a familiar face pushed his way through, a sword in hand.

  “You will die for your treachery, Fallon!” Keverne hissed.

  Fallon did not waste time with insults. While Keverne was still sneering at him, he slammed the end of his shillelagh onto the man’s foot.

  Keverne screeched as his toe broke and his balance went as he staggered sideways. Fallon whipped the other end up, an uppercut blow that smashed into Keverne’s jaw and sent the traitor flying to his left, while his teeth went to the right.

  The other men hesitated as Fallon hefted his shillelagh and beckoned at them, then a bellow of pure rage announced that Brendan had arrived.

  The giant smith waded into them like a sheepdog scattering a pack of lambs. His hammer rose and fell with pitiless ferocity, breaking men apart and crushing ribs and skulls. The last of them tried to run but Fallon rammed his shillelagh into a stomach and then crunched the other end into an ear and they were all down.

  “What in the name of Aroaril is going on?” Brendan demanded, his chest heaving and his hammer dripping.

  “Exactly what I was going to ask. This is Keverne and his little gang of traitors. They were supposed to be in a nice, cold cell,” Fallon said. “We need to find out how the begorrah they ended up here.”

  “Maybe you should put some clothes on first,” Bridgit suggested, wrapping a cloak around herself and tossing him one.

  Fallon felt a chill breeze remind him he was not wearing anything and put his shillelagh down to put on the cloak.

  “Who raised the alarm?” Brendan asked.

  “Kerrin,” Bridgit said, her voice betraying a mixture of pride and concern. “I don’t know why he was out walking the corridors—”

  “But thank Aroaril he was,” Fallon interrupted.

  “He should not have been. They nearly got him. If anything had happened …” she said, her voice trailing off, betraying the fear hiding behind the words. “That was not his job. He can’t protect us—we need to protect him!”

  Fallon stepped across a body to embrace her, only for one of the prisoners to rear up, a chair leg held like a spear. Brendan bellowed but was too far away, while Fallon jumped across to shield Bridgit. He braced himself for the impact of the blow but then a crossbow bolt flickered past and vanished into the man’s eye. He stopped dead, the shaft protruding where his left eye should be, then fell face-first onto the floor.

  Fallon and Bridgit turned to see Kerrin standing there, two hands holding his little crossbow.

  “You were saying?” Brendan muttered.

  Fallon saw the shock on Kerrin’s face and instantly recognized that the boy was horrified at what he had done. Hitting targets was one thing but to see a man die at your hand was another. He raced to Kerrin’s side but Bridgit was even faster and the three of them held each other.

  “It’s all right. You are safe. You saved us. You did everything right,” Fallon told his son softly, urgently.

  “How did they get in here? He should not have needed to do this,” Bridgit whispered.

  Fallon nodded his agreement and kissed them both, hard.

  “I’ll get some of the lads and sweep through the castle, make sure all is safe,” Brendan said awkwardly, reminding Fallon that he hadn’t put that cloak on yet.

  But such concerns were nothing compared to his trembling son and crying wife. A huge anger was filling him.

  “Do that. Some bastard is going to pay for this!”

  CHAPTER 41

  “Well, you have what you want but it looks as if I will be robbed of my reward,” Durzu snarled.

  Dina fixed a smile on her face and prepared to go to work. This was the final step to their plan and the most important one. The Emperor might have thought he was being a careful ruler by not naming Durzu as his heir but it was driving the Prince into their arms. He had seethed all the way back to their quarters, only the presence of other people stopping him from blurting out his anger.

  “We can make sure you get everything you deserve,” she said sweetly.

  “How? Do you think you can play with my father’s mind the way you twisted my brother’s?” he demanded.

  “That was fine work, was it not?” Dina agreed. “Finbar showed his mastery of magic there. Kemal thought he was secretly confiding to his wife but instead he was telling his deepest secrets to everyone. He is finished as Crown Prince and his life will be finished when we return to Gaelland.”

  Durzu jabbed a finger at her face. “And where does that leave me? If my father names one of my brothers, then I am worse off than before, for all will know I was passed over for Crown Prince!”

  “Or we could show you how all your dreams come true. You become not just Crown Prince but Emperor, with more power than you dared think possible and nothing and nobody to challenge you,” she said seductively. She was looking closely at him and saw the flicker of interest in his eyes. “You saw what we did with Kemal. We can give you all you want,” she promised.
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  The struggle was obvious on his face but the battle was swiftly won. Greed and interest won out.

  “How is that possible?” he asked suspiciously.

  Dina took a deep breath. This was the final risk. The bait had been taken but she had to be sure the hook was set deep and he would never wriggle free. She was aware of both Swane and Finbar close by. Durzu might have a score of armed guards within touching distance but there was no way they could save their Prince if he said the wrong thing.

  “There is a reason we were able to escape Fallon’s men and live through a snowstorm that killed many others, a reason why we could cross the seas in the middle of winter, when vicious storms would destroy all other ships and a reason why we could walk into your church and handle your holiest relics with a smile,” she said, putting excitement into her voice. “It is the secret we shall use to not just see you named Crown Prince but also Emperor. And then will begin the greatest era the Empire has ever seen. The whole world will fall beneath us and your name will echo down through history as the greatest man alive.”

  “And what is that?” Durzu asked hoarsely, longing dripping from every word.

  “Feray was right,” she said casually. “Our power does indeed come from worshipping Zorva.”

  She saw the dreadful fear in his eyes and was about to raise her hand in the signal that would see Finbar strike—but then the fear drained away, to be replaced by a look she had seen so many times it was as familiar as an old friend. Well, if she had any old friends. Lust shone out of his eyes at the vision she had conjured for him. Then he focused again. “If this is so powerful, why are you here like beggars, pleading for our help?” he accused.