“Don't treat me like a fool, Dirk.”
“Then stop acting like one, Kirsh.”
“You knew,” he accused, in a slightly more reasonable tone, his anger spent for the moment. “You must have known.”
“How must I have known? I didn't even know Misha was here in Tolace until I got to Avacas. Neither did you. Tia escaped days before then.”
“You probably put her up to it,” Kirsh insisted, determined to pin the blame for this on someone.
“I had no idea what Tia Veran was going to do when she escaped,” Dirk repeated patiently. “And if I had known what she was planning, I would have told her not to do it.”
“Really?” Kirsh scoffed. “Why?”
“To avoid exactly what's happening here now, Kirsh. I hear you're having a high old time executing innocent bystanders.”
The accusation shocked Kirsh. It wasn't like that at all. He was doing this to protect Misha. But how could he explain without revealing the truth? And who was Dirk to censure him, anyway? Despite his protestations of innocence, Kirsh would go to his grave thinking that somehow Dirk was involved in Misha's abduction. There was just no way to prove it.
“Don't you dare stand there and accuse me of being dishonorable, Dirk Provin.”
“I wasn't accusing you of anything,” Dirk said. “I was just curious about the executions, that's all. You had a Shadowdancer put to death. I am the right hand of the High Priestess. She deserves an explanation.”
“Sonja was lax in her duties.”
“So you killed her?” Dirk asked with a raised brow. “That's a little harsh, don't you think?”
“If she had been more vigilant, Misha wouldn't have been abducted.”
“You're sure of that, are you?”
Kirsh sat down and made a show of picking up his quill to continue his work. “I don't have to explain myself to you. Aren't you supposed to be under house arrest?”
“I've been seconded to the navy.” Dirk shrugged. “Not that it actually required much effort on my part. Your father's sea captains are more than competent. I just had to stand on the foredeck looking aristocratic and nod in agreement when somebody asked me to confirm an order they were going to carry out anyway, whether I agreed with it or not.”
“What did you do to get the job, Dirk? Who did you sell out this time?”
Dirk shook his head ruefully. “You wouldn't believe the lengths I went to in order to get out of this, Kirsh. I have no desire to be here, and if you want to send me back to Avacas, then do it. I'll gladly leave right now.”
Kirsh frowned. “I don't think so. If my father sent you here, then he had good reason to send you away from the city.”
“It might have something to do with the Brotherhood assassin who took a chunk out of my ear.”
“There's a Brotherhood contract out on you?”
“Apparently. You didn't hire them, did you?”
“No,” Kirsh snapped. “But only because it never occurred to me.”
“We'll know soon enough who's paying them,” Dirk said. “Barin Welacin and Ella Geon were having a high old time, too, last I saw of them, figuring out ever more imaginative ways to torture the information out of the assassin they caught.”
“I hope they have more luck getting the truth out of him than I'm having here,” he muttered unhappily.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Kirsh looked up, surprised by the offer. “Like what?”
“Maybe I could talk to the prisoners,” Dirk suggested. “See if I can learn anything.”
“What makes you think you could get anything more out of them than I could?”
“You're still pretty new at this, Kirsh,” Dirk reminded him. “I, on the other hand, am the Lord of the Shadows, the right hand of the High Priestess. And the Butcher of Elcast. Perhaps having their immortal souls threatened will work where mere physical pain has failed.”
Kirsh wasn't sure he trusted Dirk's offer of assistance, but he could see no harm in it. At the very least, it would get him out of Kirsh's sight for a while. He was in no mood for Dirk and his glib answers for everything. “Very well, you can start with these two,” he told him, handing him the list he had been going over earlier.
“Gilda and Boris Farlo,” Dirk read. He looked at Kirsh. “Who are they?”
“The local basket maker and his wife. She claims she was simply hired by an anonymous man she conveniently can't identify to bring Lady Natasha to the Hospice, and the night Misha disappeared, her husband made a late night visit to the Hospice in a cart on the pretext of looking for a basket that had been delivered by mistake.”
“Coincidental, but hardly enough to condemn them,” Dirk said.
“There's a rumor around town they're both well placed in the Brotherhood, too,” Kirsh added.
Dirk nodded thoughtfully. “I'll talk to them. We don't want to waste too much time on them, though.”
“Why not?”
“Don't you want to invade Mil?”
“We have to find out how to get through the delta first.”
Dirk looked at him in surprise. “Your father didn't send you a message?”
“A message about what?”
“We know the way, Kirsh. The night Belagren died, the Goddess chose a new voice and gave the instructions to her.”
“You have the route?” he gasped in surprise. Suddenly his anger at Dirk was forgotten. This changed everything. Now he could do something really useful. Now he could actually do something to get Misha back.
“Every little tack and turn,” Dirk confirmed. “I don't know about you, but I'd rather be on my way to Mil than stay here tormenting the local basket maker.”
“So would I. We'll leave at second sunrise tomorrow,” Kirsh agreed, glad to be given an escape from his current, thankless task.
Dirk nodded and smiled thinly. “I thought you might see it that way. I'll have a little chat with your basket maker anyway, just to see if I can learn anything useful, but I suspect it'll be a moot point once we reach Mil.”
He turned to leave, but something occurred to Kirsh that he had not thought to ask earlier. “The new High Priestess, Dirk? You didn't say who it was.”
Dirk hesitated his hand on the doorknob before he turned back to look at Kirsh. “You haven't heard?”
“Would I be asking if I had?”
“I'm sorry …”
“You've no need to apologize, Dirk, just tell me who I'll have to suffer across the dinner table for the next decade or so. I hope it isn't Madalan Tirov. She's a sour old hag.” He smiled. “My father might find himself suddenly otherwise engaged on Landfall if he has to take her to his bed.”
“It wasn't Madalan, Kirsh.”
“Then who was it, Dirk?”
Dirk remained silent. His reluctance seemed rather odd. “For the Goddess's sake! I'm beginning to think you don't want me to know.”
“You'll find out soon enough, I suppose, when they make the announcement.”
Dirk's unwillingness to divulge the identity of the new High Priestess was making Kirsh suspicious. Maybe it was because a new High Priestess had not been appointed, but a High Priest.
“It's you, isn't it? Is that why you're here? Because you know the way through the delta? Because the Goddess supposedly gave you the information?” Kirsh shook his head in disgust. “Did you murder Belagren, too, just to make it look good?”
“It's not me, Kirsh.” He was a long time adding: “It's Marqel.”
Kirsh stared at Dirk uncomprehendingly.
“Marqel is the Voice of the Goddess. The High Priestess of the Shadowdancers.”
“It can't be!”
“It's true, and believe me, I'm no happier about it than you are. The Lord of the Suns has confirmed it. I'm sorry, Kirsh…”
“Get out!”
Dirk did as Kirsh ordered and the prince sagged back in his chair, closed his eyes and let the fantasy world he had been living in come crashing down around him.
he Hospice was not equipped with prison cells, so they had had to make do with the isolation rooms where the mentally disturbed patients were confined during psychotic episodes. With the growing prevalence of poppy-dust addiction, the rooms were in demand more often than the Shadowdancers liked to admit.
Boris Farlo proved to be a rotund, jolly little man, who jumped to his feet and immediately began protesting his innocence as soon as Dirk stepped into the padded room. Dirk dismissed the guard, heard the cell door lock behind him and then turned to the basket maker. He had been roughed up a bit and sported a rather spectacular black eye, but other than that, he seemed none the worse for his incarceration.
“Shut up,” he ordered impatiently.
“But, my lord…”
“I'm not interested in listening to your lies,” Dirk told him. “In fact, I'm quite disgusted by them. Surely, you could have come up with something more convincing than a misplaced basket? I always thought the Brotherhood was smarter than that.”
Boris met his eye with an innocent shrug. “I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, my lord.”
“I'm sure you do.”
The basket maker studied him curiously. “I've not seen you around Tolace before. Who are you?”
“My name is Dirk Provin.”
Boris hesitated, and then dropped all pretense of innocence. “What do you want with me?”
“I want a deal. With the Brotherhood.”
“Then perhaps you should speak to someone from the Brotherhood, my lord,” Boris suggested with a sly little smile.
“I'll take my chances with you.”
The fat man shrugged, as if it made little difference to him. “You can tell me of the deal you wish to make, my lord, but I can't guarantee it will reach the ears of those who might want to hear it.”
“I'm sure if I arranged for you and your wife to be released, they'd get word of it somehow.”
Boris looked at him with new respect. “You can do that?”
“I'm the Lord of the Shadows, Master Farlo,” Dirk told him. “I can do pretty much anything I want.”
Boris considered his offer silently, and then nodded. “What's the deal?”
“I want them to call off the assassins they've set onto me.”
“Once a contract is accepted, the Brotherhood does not renege on its promises, my lord,” Boris warned, and then he added with a smile, “At least, that's what I've heard.”
“I can make it worth their while.”
“Money is not the issue, Lord Provin. It's the principle of the thing. How would it look if we… they … were bought off so easily? I mean, what would be the point of employing an assassin at all, if all your target had to do to get rid of the threat was to offer more money?”
“Your moral dilemma truly breaks my heart,” Dirk said. “But I wasn't planning to offer money.”
“Then what were you planning to offer?”
“Information.”
Boris frowned. “What sort of information?”
“When I returned to Avacas, Antonov asked me for the names of every man and woman connected with the Brotherhood I could identify. After two years in the Baenlands, it was quite a list. Even I was surprised by the length of it.”
“And you gave it to him?”
“Of course I gave it to him.”
“Then the damage is done.” Boris shrugged. “What can you possibly offer the Brotherhood that would make them withdraw the contract on a man who has so comprehensively betrayed them?”
“I can give them the names on that list.”
“To what purpose? If Antonov already has them, then it's too late to save anyone.”
“The High Priestess has just died,” Dirk reminded him. “His eldest son has been kidnapped and the Lord of the Suns lies in Antonov's palace on the brink of death, thanks to your bumbling assassin. He has other things to occupy him right now, and there is a limit even to the Lion of Senet's resources. Your people are probably safe until we get back from Mil.”
“And if the Brotherhood refuses to consider your offer?”
“Then I'll let Kirshov kill you and your wife, Barin Welacin can have a free hand with the names on that list, and I'll just have to take my chances with your assassins.”
“You drive a hard bargain, my lord. Perhaps, if you ever tire of a career with the Shadowdancers, you should consider becoming a merchant.”
“I'll keep it in mind,” Dirk promised, with a thin smile. “Do we have a deal?”
Before Boris could agree, there was a knock at the door. Dirk called permission to enter and heard the door unlocking. It swung open to reveal a short, dumpy and very irate looking woman and a buxom blond girl of about eighteen. The women rushed into the cell and threw themselves at the basket maker, the three of them gushing over each other, checking to ensure each was unharmed.
Dirk smiled at the warmth of the reunion and then turned to the guard. “They'll be all right with me, for the time being. I'll call you when we're done.”
Boris looked up as the door closed and glared at Dirk suspiciously. “Why have you brought them here?”
He did not answer the basket maker, but turned to the older woman. “You must be Gilda, Master Farlo's wife. And this is one of your daughters?”
“Her name is Caterina,” Gilda told him. “And she has nothing to do with any of this.”
“ ‘I'm sure she doesn't,” Dirk agreed. “As for the reason you're here …I brought you here to release you, Mistress Farlo.”
“Why?” Gilda asked skeptically.
“Because Master Farlo and I have struck a deal.”
Gilda turned to her husband questioningly. “What have you done, Papa?”
“Nothing!” he protested. Dirk thought he was more frightened of his wife than anything else he had been threatened with recently. “Lord Provin simply wants me to take a message to someone.”
Gilda turned to Dirk with a scowl. “Lord Provin? You are Dirk Provin?”
“Yes.”
She spat on the ground at his feet. “That's what I think of you and your offers, boy. We'll have no part of them.”
Dirk wasn't really surprised by her attitude. In her place, he would probably feel the same. “I'm sorry you feel that way, mistress. I was going to accept your husband's word on this, but I see now it would be foolish in the extreme to trust him to carry out my instructions if you plan to undermine them. You force me to take more drastic action.”
“What drastic action?” Gilda sneered.
In reply, Dirk knocked on the door and waited for the guard outside to unlock it. Three heavily armed Senetian Palace Guards stepped into the small cell, filling it with their looming presence.
“Take the girl,” Dirk ordered.
Boris and Gilda tried to protect her, but they had no chance of fending off the soldiers. Caterina screamed as she was torn from her parents and dragged from the cell by two of the guards. The third remained to await further orders.
“Have her taken down to the longboat,” Dirk told him. “She'll be going back to the Tsarina with me.”
“No!” Gilda cried in protest, lunging at him. The guard beat her back effortlessly, knocking her to the floor. Boris bent down to help his wife up, glaring at Dirk.
“The tales about your cruelty hardly do you justice, Dirk Provin.”
Boris managed to make his name sound like an insult. Dirk dismissed the guard and then turned back to the basket weaver and his wife.
“Do as I ask and your daughter will be returned to you, whole and unharmed,” he said. “Cross me, or try to have me killed, and I will leave instructions that she is to be handed over to the crew for their amusement before she is killed. Is that clear?”
The rotund little man wasn't looking nearly as jolly as he had been when Dirk first entered the cell. “How do we know you'll keep your end of the bargain?”
Dirk noticed that Boris said “we.” The basket maker had given up pretending he was not a member of the Bro
therhood, which relieved Dirk a great deal. It was bad enough having to threaten these people. It would have been even worse if it had all been for nothing.
“You'll get the list before I sail,” Dirk promised.
“But Caterina …” Gilda began desperately.
“Will be safe as long as I am,” Dirk assured her.
The woman glared at him. “If you harm one hair on my daughter's head you'll be begging for death before I'm finished with you, Dirk Provin.”
“If any harm comes to your daughter, I'll already be dead, Mistress Farlo,” he replied, sounding much more careless of her threat than he actually felt. Without giving her a chance to answer, Dirk turned and knocked on the door again. The guard opened it and stepped inside, waiting for his orders.
“Master Farlo and his wife are free to go.”
The guard looked at him doubtfully. “My lord?”
“You can release them, Sergeant.”
“But his highness said …”
“His highness asked me to come here and determine the innocence or guilt of these people. While I've no doubt they're guilty of something, they are innocent of anything connected with Prince Misha's abduction. Now do as I order, or would you prefer I had Prince Kirshov called down here to give you the order himself?”
After a moment's hesitation, the man nodded and stepped back. “As you command, my lord.”
Dirk turned back to the basket maker and his wife. “Go,” he said sternly. “And don't let me hear anything unsavory about either of you ever again, or you will taste Prince Kirshov's justice.”
Although Gilda obviously wanted to stay and argue, Boris grabbed his wife's hand and dragged her from the cell.
Dirk watched them leave, thinking all the people who thought he was a mathematical genius were wrong. His genius was not figures; his genius was getting himself embroiled in plots so complex not even he could be sure how they would end.
And to top it all off, he was now lumbered with the unwelcome and unwilling company of Caterina Farlo.
It was days like this Dirk was sorry that when Tia tried to kill him, she missed.
arqel had given very little thought to what was involved in being High Priestess beyond the prestige and power she imagined she would wield. The reality of her position proved to be rather less glamorous than she expected.
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