Snot ran down Aebur’s face as he spilled his guts, his eyes imploring Hoskin to provide him with some reaction. He nodded for him to continue.
“But there was only so much money that could disappear from the treasury without Hoxteth getting suspicious at the excuses, and so, they needed another way to get money. And that’s what led them to trade things they had acquired for slaves and gold. I had to act as the go-between for all of this activity. The king trusted me, and I thought I was doing the right thing by helping him. And they kept needing more slaves as they began to expire. And I admit it, I liked doing this with you not knowing it was happening. He knew you wouldn’t approve.”
Hoskin was incredulous he was unaware of this. He was the chancellor, supposedly responsible for running the country effectively, and he didn’t know this was happening under his nose.
The story made sense of some of the king’s behavior: the increasingly late hour when he would awaken, the bags under his eyes, and the royal guard making sure he wasn’t to be interrupted in the night. But still, Hoskin was shocked he hadn’t seen any of the warning signs. And if he had, would he have had the courage to act and punish his king for these heinous acts?
“Who was the other side of these deals, Aebur?” Hoskin asked calmly.
“A captain, originally from Pyrfew, but a smuggler now. It was the ambassador, Gawl Tegyr, who made the introduction.”
Hoskin looked incredulous at him admitting to dealing with the enemy, and Aebur saw it in his face.
“I was desperate one day when trying to keep the king happy! He was putting me under pressure, and then I saw Gawl after one of his visits with you or the king. We always talked. I think we liked to see if we could worm information out of the other. I asked if he knew how to obtain something, maybe a piece of furniture the king was looking for, and he introduced me to Captain Nothon.”
“You fool. Pyrfew! Any of this would have got back to Gawl. In fact, he was probably orchestrating the whole thing.” Hoskin paced around the small dark cell. “What were these things you traded for these slaves? What could have been valuable enough? Secrets?”
“No, not secrets. It was dwarves,” muttered Aebur.
“What?” asked Hoskin, unsure he had heard correctly.
“Dwarves. We’d trade one dwarf from Unedar Halt for each shipment of slaves. I-I had to arrange for them to be captured alive. Used different groups of mercenaries to catch them during the annual drake hunt.”
Hoskin’s face had turned red, and he was inches from Aebur. He could smell the stench of sweat, vomit, and shit. It reached all the way down to his stomach and made him feel unwell. “And you say this was all the king’s idea? You were just following orders?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Yes, my lord. I swear.”
“YOU LIE!” screamed Hoskin at the top of his voice. “King Roland was a half-wit! He couldn’t have planned his way out of a hedge maze. You did this, or someone else told you to. Who?”
“No…I swear. I was just doing as my king commanded,” pleaded Aebur.
“Bartholomew, it appears our guest is getting confused. You should lighten his load so he can remember the truth. Start with the fingernails, and then move on to the fingers and toes.”
Chapter 22
Coming Out
Mareth hadn’t drunk last night. Well, he maybe had one ale, but it didn’t qualify as drinking by his usual standards. But as the sun came through the window of his room that morning, he felt as if he had the king of hangovers, or better put, the lord protector of hangovers.
As he lay there, in those few moments of silence to begin the day, it seemed preposterous he should have thoughts of winning this demon-crazy election. Who would vote for him? What relevant experience did he have? Now, he knew he could sing a good song, and unlike some others, he was sure he could arrange a piss-up in a brewery if the occasion arose, but he had no idea what it took to run a country. Hell, his father wouldn’t even trust him running the estate!
It had been very late by the time Lady Grey went back to her estate after they had all stayed up talking and developing the basics of a plan for their crazy goal.
The list had seemed endless. They had to make contacts with the guilds, reach out to merchants, those who had previously made deals with the late Hoxteth and those who had not, and then they had to have a way to get the message out to the city at large that Mareth was now a candidate. All as quickly as possible. He had refused to use the town criers and had come up with another idea instead, though he was unsure whether it would work.
Lady Grey also thought they had to get in front of the nobles. They needed to recognize his candidacy to give it legitimacy. She said it was lucky there was to be a reception the next evening at Lord Eden’s mansion, which would be the perfect occasion.
Mareth wasn’t too sure about that.
He looked into the small mirror above the water bowl in his room, the bearded face staring back at him. More lines now than there used to be, a few strands of grey hair that hung down past his shoulders.
The other thing everyone (other than him) decided last night was he didn’t look the part, that he needed to have the appearance of a lord protector in waiting, whatever that might be. So while everyone else had important matters to be organized this morning, Mareth was to go shopping.
“Petra,” he called gently, waking her from where she slept. He moved the only chair in the room to be a foot from the bed, putting the clothes that had been discarded there the night before onto the floor so he had a place to sit.
“What is it? Is it morning already?” She yawned and rubbed at her eyes, sat up in the bed, the blanket not doing a good job of concealing her nakedness.
“I need to ask you a question,” he said seriously. These questions had been gnawing at his stomach for the last few hours since dawn. “Are you ready for how different I might look later? Will you still want to be with me if I look like a lordling?”
“How silly, Mareth. Is that really what you’re thinking about?” She placed her hand on his knee. “You’ll still be the same for me.”
“Are you sure? There’s going to be a lot of change over the next couple of weeks. They want me to move into the best guest room in the inn later today. I’m going to be dressed in finery. And they’re going to cut my hair, Petra. I just know it.” Secretly, it was the feared haircut causing the most agita. “And it might only last two weeks, and then back to normality, but I just wanted to know you’ll stick through the insanity, and then we can get back to this lovely little bed when it’s all done.”
“Firstly,” she said, holding up a beautiful slender finger in his face, “you have to believe you can win. We all believe in you, and we need this to happen. And secondly,” she said as she held up her thumb and forefinger, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Why are you with me, Petra? You’re so beautiful you could have your pick.”
“Mareth. Let me tell you something about me. My Ma and Da, they did their best to give me anything I asked for. I was their first child. They’d had a number of miscarriages, so I could tell I was their favorite, even after Alana was born. And I grew up pretty, and my parents protected me from what a lot of life in the Narrows is like.
“And then they died. And I didn’t know what to do.” Petra sniffed, her eyes glistening with barely mastered tears. “I’m the elder sister, but it was Alana who looked after us. She called in favors from neighbors, got good prices for the few things we had we could sell. She was the one who got a job at the palace.
“I’ve had a few boyfriends, but none of them got to know me, or they had nothing going on upstairs,” she said, tapping a finger against her temple. “They just cared about looking big to their friends or getting into my pants. And looking after me. People are always trying to protect me, not listen to me. Even Alana!
“But you listen to me, Mareth.” Petra took both of Mareth’s hands in hers. “When you came back from your late-night performances, you’d l
isten as I wittered on about nothing. And you listened to me when I said we could organize. Normally, people would laugh if I said something like that! It made you think. It made you want to partner with me to work this out. I’m still not used to it yet.
“These past two weeks have been a whirlwind, the most fun of my life. And maybe the next two weeks will come to naught, but we tried, and we’ll remember them for the rest of our lives together.”
Mareth nodded, unable to speak, the words caught in his throat. The tear rolling down his cheek conveyed more than any epic poem.
“So, whatever you look like at the end of the day today, I’ll still be here,” said Petra, her intense gaze softening as her lips curved into a smile, “but how about you come here so I can make sure I remember how you used to look?” She pinched his nose gently and pulled him back into bed.
“I’m the master of wardrobes for Lady Grey. You may call me Spinnet,” said the man introducing himself to Mareth in the common room of the Royal Oak. He gave the impression of a peahen, being straight and upright, elegantly dressed, with distinct quality, but he wasn’t supposed to be the center of attention. This was a man who was used to being next to the peacock.
Mareth had dressed in his usual clothes, his hair tied back in a ponytail, but in comparison to Spinnet, he looked like a dirty little pigeon—even though after getting pulled back into bed by Petra, he did try to wash off the smell of sex. Nonetheless, Mareth shook Spinnet warmly by the hand, thinking it best to get a potential tormentor on his side early in the proceedings.
“I’ve spoken with Lady Grey this morning,” continued Spinnet, “and she’s given me the necessary inspiration for today. We are to think hero! And we have to include some of the latest court fashions.” He waved his hands as he spoke more than the actors at the theater on Cheap Street. “I have the day planned out, so let’s get moving.” This time, he clapped his hands to signal that Dolph and Mareth should fall into line.
Mareth followed Spinnet out of the inn and into the waiting carriage with a sense of foreboding.
He had never been to a barber to have a haircut.
He had visited plenty in the past to deal with stitching a wound and, in a few cases, helping some old friends to have limbs removed when they’d gone gangrenous. All the barbers he knew were doctors or cutters after all, the tools they needed were basically the same.
However, the barber that Spinnet took him to didn’t look like those other barbers. This one had tight, curly black hair, made shiny with something, and a tightly trimmed beard, which seemed pointless to Mareth. What was the point in having a beard if you had to trim it every day? You might as well just shave, then.
Curly had him sit in a chair in front of a large mirror, something worth more than most people’s houses in this city. He and Spinnet conferred, jabbering so Mareth could hardly follow. Dolph stood off to the side, arms crossed with a smirk on his face, the kind a kid has when their mother is licking a handkerchief to deliver a public face-cleaning to their brother. The conversation bounced back and forth until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Hey, I’m here,” said Mareth, waving, “and you’re talking about me, you know. What are you discussing?”
Spinnet made eye contact with Mareth through the mirror. “We’ve decided that people don’t think beards are trustworthy, so we have to lose the beard. We wondered about keeping a mustache—”
“But smooth will suit you better, sir,” interrupted Curly the barber.
“You have a beard!” protested Mareth.
“Good observation, my lord. But do you trust me?” asked Curly.
“No, not really,” he grumbled.
“And then we must do something about your hair,” said Spinnet.
“Don’t you think the long hair is heroic?” Mareth asked hopefully.
“I’m afraid not, sir. We must take it short. I think it will enable your eyes to shine and your strong jaw to stand proud.”
“We’re going to have to cut off a lot of hair,” said Curly with a crazy sparkle in his eyes.
Dolph snorted with laughter and had to turn around. Mareth wondered if he could talk with Lady Grey about having a new guard.
The second stop of the day was one of the finest armories in the city, the kind that made stuff that was so expensive it was highly unlikely ever actually to come in the vicinity of the battlefield. It was a well-appointed store where a person rang a little bell to receive admittance, and Mareth got the impression if he wasn’t the right person, then attendants would have been mysteriously out to lunch. On the walls hung many beautiful swords, ornate breastplates, and helms of so many different shapes it was a veritable bestiary.
“Spinnet, I thought you were master of wardrobes, not master of arms,” asked Mareth, who was still rubbing at his bare face and exposed neck. “Why are we here?”
“Yes, sir, very droll. Your sword won’t do, I’m afraid. It looks so barbaric.”
Mareth looked down at the saber that hung from the worn scabbard at his waist. It was Andovian steel with a simple pommel and crossbar, hardly a beauty, but it had served him well for many years. There were a few nicks, though he had kept it reasonably sharp, even when there hadn’t been much call to use it in recent years. Mareth knew he owed it his life in the past, so it deserved some pampering in its retirement. “What’s wrong with my sword? And what do you mean barbaric?” he asked sensitively. “It’s for, you know, slashing and stabbing. It’s not needlepoint.”
“Yes, quite. But it’s fashionable for lords and men of the court to wield a rapier and parrying dagger. You need to do the same. You can keep this butcher’s cleaver, of course, as long as I don’t have to see it.”
“I don’t know how to fight with a rapier. Why would I want a weapon I don’t know how to use?”
“Master Mareth, you don’t need to fight. You have Dolph over there to fight for you, and more men should they be needed. You need to look… appropriate. We want the right first impression.” Mareth could tell Spinnet was trying to remain patient with him, and enthusiastic. His arms pumped into the air with each exclamation. “You are confident in who you are! You are a force to be reckoned with!”
Spinnet tapped his chin while he was thinking, appraising Mareth. “But now I think on it, you probably should be trained how to fight with these new weapons. I do believe this is the standard form for duels today, correct, Dolph?”
“Duels? You just said I wasn’t going to be fighting,” interrupted Mareth. “When these nobles were learning how to duel, I was fighting with a real sword against real monsters that wanted to really eat me. Where am I supposed to learn to fight with this toothpick?”
“I believe Dolph can help you, sir. He used to spar with his lordship.” Mareth turned to look at Dolph, smile now permanently etched on the guard’s face. The excitement evident at the thought of him getting to fight his ward under the pretense of it being for his own good. Mareth accepted he would need him after all.
When he’d been singing recently in the best taverns and bars in the city, Mareth had noticed what many of the lords had been wearing. And he’d inwardly laughed at the bright colors, the frills at cuffs and collars, the long socks and tight crotches that seemed to be in fashion now. All good fun, just another way for Mareth to enjoy his work.
And now it was proven that Arloth liked nothing more than a good chuckle at his expense. And so, it seemed, did Dolph.
By the third outfit Spinnet had him try on, something he described as a lovely little number that was lavender and decorated with expensive coral buttons, Dolph couldn’t hold it in anymore and guffawed. Spinnet looked upset and went back to talk to the tailor to obtain another outfit to be tried on. With effort, Dolph stopped laughing and waved Mareth over conspiratorially.
“Mareth,” began Dolph, “don’t let him dress you up like a twat.”
“What am I supposed to do? Isn’t this what I need to wear?”
“Think, man. Did you see Hoxteth dress like thi
s? No. Remember where your balls are. In fact, I can see them, with how tight those trousers are. You tell him what you want.”
Looking back, it seemed obvious, but the day had been long and a little distressing for Mareth. His face and neck still felt cold, even though it was summer, and Spinnet had managed to keep a mirror away from him all day—the master of wardrobes insisting it would be better to see the change all at once. Mareth thought he was a little melodramatic. So, wordlessly, he nodded agreement to Dolph and looked around the tailor’s store, seeing the pieces modeled on dress forms.
“Spinnet,” called Mareth, “what about this dark green coat with the brass buttons? I like it. And it has fewer frills than anything else.”
“But, sir, the embellishments are very popular.” Spinnet the puppy-dog tried to get him to play with another ball. “What about this white coat with this beautiful pink collar?”
“Would Hoxteth have worn it?”
“No, he had more, er…straightforward tastes.”
“Then let’s go with the green,” maintained Mareth. He squatted up and down, testing his pants. “And let’s get some trousers with some room to breathe. I may want children one day.”
It was afternoon by the time he and Dolph got back to the Royal Oak, leaving Spinnet in the carriage, refusing his requests to help him prepare for the evening event with Lady Grey tomorrow.
He wore the green long coat with brass buttons, black trousers and white blouse underneath. His hair had been cut back close to his skull, shorter still at the sides which showed patches of grey around the temples. Clean shaven, and shorn of his long hair, Mareth’s steely blue eyes drew attention. At his hip was a thin belt of black leather adorned with a silver buckle, gilded rapier handle on one side and carved bone dagger on the other. Mareth had been allowed to see his final look in the tailor’s mirror, and he had been surprised to find himself impressed with what he saw.
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