He heard Aewult snort dismissively. He ignored it; now, and hopefully for years to come, it was Gryvan who made the decisions. The High Thane glanced at his son.
'Go and find Alem T'anarch,' he said sternly. 'Tell him that his audience will be somewhat delayed. And tell him that the delay in no way reflects any lack of respect for the exalted Dornach Kingship.'
'He won't believe that,' Aewult said.
'He's not supposed to, of course,' Gryvan snapped. 'Now go.'
The Bloodheir went, tossing his half-eaten apple back towards the bowl as he went. It missed, and bounced messily to the floor.
'Very well,' Gryvan said. 'Use whatever means it is you have for doing these things. Rid us of Gann, and I will trust to your judgement that the Goldsmiths will understand the message.'
'I will ensure they do,' Mordyn said with a shallow bow.
'And what of Lannis-Haig?' Gryvan asked. This was the second irritation that had driven the High Thane to his brief fury. It was, for Mordyn Jerain, a much greater source of puzzlement and concern than the petty intrigues of the Goldsmiths. He shook his head, a gesture finely calculated to convey both regret and mild uncertainty. It would not be wise to appear over-confident in this area, he knew.
'It is remarkable that Anduran has fallen so quickly, lord. If Lagair Haldyn is correct in his reports, of course. It seems unlikely that he could be wrong about something so . . . substantial.'
'Remarkable. You think it remarkable?' There was still a hint of danger in Gryvan's voice. That anger had not entirely dissipated. 'I think it rather more than remarkable. I would not have agreed to any correspondence with Ragnor oc Gyre all these months had I known he meant to overrun our lands.
However difficult Lannis-Haig might be, the Glas valley is still part of my domain. It will not pass to the Gyre Bloods.'
'No,' said Mordyn emphatically. However unclear the course of events in the north was, that much he could be certain of. 'In all truth, High Thane, I do not know if Ragnor has played us false, or if Horin-Gyre has merely been immensely fortunate. In any case, whatever messages have passed between Ragnor and us in the past, the time has surely come to act firmly. The Black Road must be thrown back beyond the Stone Vale before they can establish a firm grip on the Glas valley.'
'Of course. Our armies are gathered. I will send Aewult himself at their head.'
Mordyn bit back a flicker of unease. Sending the Bloodheir north at the head of an army would not have been his recommendation; none of the other Bloods were overly enamoured of Aewult nan Haig, but Kilkry and Lannis liked him least of all. Now was not the moment to challenge the High Thane's will, though. The Chancellor knew he had stretched Gryvan's patience by waiting so long to inform him of the Goldsmiths' machinations, and by failing to predict the fall of the Lannis-Haig Blood.
He took a step back, fixing his eyes on the tiled floor of the High Thane's chamber. He could remember these tiles being laid, a dozen years ago. Gryvan had brought the finest workmen from Taral-Haig, bought the most expensive tiles the potteries of Vaymouth had to offer. It would take a shepherd three lifetimes to earn the cost of this floor.
'I will see to the matter of Gann nan Dargannan-Haig this evening, if you have no further need of me,'
Mordyn murmured.
'Go,' agreed Gryvan. 'He is one fly we can swat with ease, at least.'
There were few people in Vaymouth for whom the Shadowhand would venture out on the streets of the city at night. In the normal course of events, there was no need for it: people came to him, in one palace or another. But in the case of Torquentine things were different. For him, the Chancellor of the Haig Bloods would don a scruffy, heavy-hooded cloak and sally forth himself. Nothing he might want to say to Torquentine should be trusted to an intermediary, and Torquentine could not come to him.
The Chancellor made his way down disreputable streets towards the heart of Ash Pit, perhaps the least savoury of all Vaymouth's districts. He maintained a wary eye and the shambling gait of one too old and ill to be worth the attention of the city's cutpurses. Almost out of sight, two trusted men - his own hirelings, not the guards that came with the post of Chancellor — followed him. They would intervene if trouble threatened, but even so there was some slight risk in walking these streets after dark. He had made the journey only a handful of times.
He came to a narrow junction and paused. He gave a hand signal and his escort sank into the shadows.
The Chancellor crossed the street. The building to which he made his shuffling way was completely anonymous: just one more poorly built house jammed into a long street of its fellows. Yet when he tapped upon the door, Mordyn could feel its strength and solidity beneath his knuckles. No ordinary shack would have a door of heavy oak, banded with iron across its back and barred with a thick beam.
Torquentine treasured his privacy.
Mordyn knew, as he waited patiently for a response from within, that he was being observed; that he had been beneath the gaze of hidden sentries from the moment he came within a hundred paces of this place. He doubted they would know him for who he was, but equally they would not believe him to be just another decrepit beggar. It mattered little if they mistrusted his disguise. Many people who came to see Torquentine must prefer to keep their faces hidden.
A haggard-looking woman opened the door. Her pallid, sickly face was disfigured by the tell-tale marks of the King's Rot. Part of her nose was eaten away, and purplish blotches marred her cheek. Mordyn had always thought it an elegant touch for Torquentine to employ such a doorkeeper. Superstition or pure distaste at the sight of her might be enough to repel some uninvited guests.
'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 threshold 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 dimwitted, or weak, or foolish. Such assumptions would be a grievous error on the part of anyone dealing with Torquentine. To the Chancellor's kno
wledge 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.'
'You seek to put me in your debt, Torquentine,' the Chancellor said levelly.
'Oh, come now, let us not speak of debt. We make a bargain, you and I. It is merely that your half of it remains, for the time being, a little . . . ill-defined.'
'Done,' Mordyn said as he rose to his feet. He heartily disliked the idea of making open-ended promises to the likes of Torquentine, but now hardly seemed the time to argue over trifles. He was the Shadowhand, after all, and promises were easy things to break. 'I should return. My wife will be expecting me.'
'Ah, the divine Tara. She of such famed perfection. You cannot imagine how it pains me that I should have to rely only upon rumours of her beauty and never set eyes upon it for myself.' Torquentine sighed and cast a glum eye over the walls of his chamber as he caressed his oceanic stomach. 'To think I have been incarcerated in this cellar for so long, and all for the sake of an ill-disciplined love of nourishment.'
To hear his beloved wife spoken of thus by such as Torquentine sent a mild shiver of repugnance down Mordyn's spine as he made to leave. A passing thought held him in the doorway.
'Have you any word out of Lannis-Haig?'
'Lannis-Haig, Lannis-Haig. Barbarians up there, you know. No appreciation for the finer things in life.
But what word is it you seek?'
'Whatever may have fallen into those huge ears of yours,' muttered Mordyn. He would not usually enquire about such matters in this place, and already half-regretted the question. Torquentine's expertise lay in the rumours of marketplaces and the doings of thieves and brigands. Mordyn had other means of following the course of grander events, though they were not serving him as well as he would wish. He was tired of being surprised by news from the Glas valley.
'Well, I've little to offer that will not already have reached your own capacious ears, I should imagine,' said Torquentine, 'and half of it's rantings, of course. The Black Road rules in the valley once again; only until our esteemed High Thane deigns to flex his muscles, as all right-thinking folk would tell you.
Lheanor's hiding away in his stick of a tower in Kolkyre, mourning his dead son. Croesan's dead too, some say, and captured others.'
'And the rest of Croesan's family? Dead?'
Torquentine shrugged. It was an eye-catching gesture, sending ripples through his jowls.
'Or as good as. Yet, what was it I heard? Kennet, the senile one in Kolglas: they found his body after the woodwights and the ravens were done with his castle, but never his children's. I forget their names.'
'Orisian and Anyara,'
Mordyn said absently.
'Indeed. No sign of them, although from what I hear half the bodies were well-roasted, so who could be sure?'
After the Chancellor had gone, Torquentine sat quite still and quiet for a few minutes, furrows denting his sweat-sheened brow. At length, he tugged at a silken cord that hung from the ceiling. A bell rang in the building above. It brought Magrayn down from her post. He beckoned her to approach, and when she was within reach he laid a hand upon her disease-ravaged face.
'Sweet Magrayn,' he smiled as he ran a fat finger perilously close to the wound that had eroded much of her nose. She returned the smile.
'Whisper in some ears for me, beloved,' said Torquentine. 'Cast out some bait. I want to know what has become of every member of the Lannis-Haig line. The Chancellor seems curious on the subject, and where a Chancellor's curiosity leads, there is often some profit to be found.'
As the Chancellor made his way back through the shadowy lanes and alleyways, his guardians dogging his footsteps, he was preoccupied. An instinct deep in his guts, born of long years of reading the signs, whispered to him of storms gathering. Events were taking on an unpleasantly chaotic, unpredictable character. Such times could be crucibles of opportunity, and thus welcome, but they were seldom gentle on a man's nerves. Lannis-Haig should not have crumbled so quickly. And those children of Kennet nan Lannis-Haig's: what had become of them, if they were not dead with their father in Kolglas? It might complicate matters if there was some orphaned runt of a boy running around trying to salvage something from the wreckage of the Lannis Blood. That was exactly the kind of situation Aewult would mishandle, preening himself at the head of his precious army.
Mordyn strove to set the thought aside. There was no knowing the truth of any of this for the moment.
All would become clear soon enough. But still, he could not shake a sense of foreboding. He had a powerful urge to be in Tara 's arms, to take comfort from her familiar, intoxicating charms. He lengthened his stride and hastened back towards his Palace of Red Stone .
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