The Empire's Ghost

by Isabelle Steiger

  Kel could not well remember how Prince Landon had looked, but he remembered his soft voice, the mildness in his eyes. His shoulders had hunched slightly whenever Kel’s father complimented him, but he was not a shy man, and if his smiles were melancholy, they were also frequent. He and Lessa might have liked each other, Kel thought. But there was no way to know now.

  “If Prince Landon won’t come back … that means you agree with me, then,” he said to Eirnwin. “You agree Lessa can’t marry Hephestion, so she shouldn’t go to Issamira.”

  Eirnwin shook his head. “I informed your father of my concerns, but he made his decision regardless. It is up to both of us to abide by it.”

  “But Hephestion is—”

  “My lord, all you know of Hephestion you know from rumors; your father was correct in that, at least.”

  Kel scowled. “Why would everyone say those things about him if they weren’t true?”

  Eirnwin touched his lips, and his fingers obscured his expression, leaving only his earnest eyes. “Do you know what the rumors say about you, my lord?”

  That he was half one thing and half the other, waist up a normal boy, but with the twisted legs of a demon. That he was the result of a sinful mother and a weak father, and a judgment on them both. “I’ve heard them,” he told Eirnwin. “I know.”

  Eirnwin sighed. “People often say things, my lord, simply for the pleasure of saying them. The most delightful secrets are the ones everybody knows and no one can substantiate. In truth, we cannot know what kind of man Prince Hephestion is—he has never ventured here, and I know no one who has ever seen him.”

  Kel shook his head. “I don’t understand Father at all. In one breath he praises me, and in the next he dismisses anything I might say, just because I’m not king yet. But I don’t need to be king to know that it isn’t fair to risk Lessa on a prince none of us have met—to give up a member of our own family just because the rest of us are desperate.” He folded his arms. “And I’d still feel that way, even if I were king.”

  Eirnwin looked at him carefully, and the smile he wore was sad, like one of Prince Landon’s from long ago. “You are not king, my lord,” he said. “Your father is merely trying to ensure that one day you will be.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The day dawned dark and overcast, and Roger wasn’t halfway to the Dragon’s Head when he told himself it was going to be a bad morning. He wasn’t as surprised as he should’ve been, then, when Morgan seized him by the arm the moment he arrived, her face a mess of anger and worry. “That good-for-nothing bandit,” she hissed, squeezing tight enough to leave marks. “Roger, you find him, and you tell him not to run off with my kitchen boy before sunup and leave me without any help to speak of.”

  “Deinol’s gone somewhere with Seth?” Roger asked.

  “The gods know the truth of it,” Morgan said. “All I know is he’s not here, and whom would he go off with but Deinol? Who else would even take the trouble to lure him away?”

  Seth was as earnest and dutiful a boy as Roger had ever known, but he also had the misfortune to feel a sense of loyalty to Deinol, who was neither of those things. Roger couldn’t exactly blame the boy—Deinol was the one who had gotten him both a home and a job with Morgan, out of nothing more than whatever drops of goodness he’d been able to wring out of his bandit’s heart—but he felt sorry for Seth all the same. “The crime sure fits our Deinol,” he agreed. “Well, Morgan, you do something about that sour expression, and I’ll see what I can do to get your boy back.”

  It didn’t take but three people asked to find Deinol, lazing about behind Halvard’s shop eating his breakfast. “Well, now,” Roger said, looking down at him sprawled out on the cobbles, “you’re one to have at trouble with both hands if ever I saw the like.”

  Deinol tipped his head back so he could look up at him. “Why, what’s the story now?”

  “The story, my friend, is you tell me what mischief you sent Seth on, we retrieve said lad, and I intercede before Morgan can break your neck.”

  Deinol frowned. “Seth? I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

  Roger laughed. “Come off it, will you? Morgan says the boy’s gone from his bed, and we all know you’re the only one who could tempt him to shirk his duties. So just tell me where you’ve stashed him, all right? I’ve got a day’s work to see to same as anyone.”

  But Deinol just looked more confused. “Roger, I mean it. I haven’t seen Seth at all today. I haven’t been up for hardly an hour, and I thought he was working.”

  Neither one of them wanted to say it, but Roger was sure the growing worry on Deinol’s face was mirrored on his own. “We’ve got to tell Morgan,” he said at last. “It might be nothing, but I’d rather we knew where he was.”

  “I’m with you,” Deinol said, springing to his feet more quickly than Roger would’ve believed possible. “Just give me a moment.”

  Leaving Roger to follow after him, he ducked around the corner and poked his head back into Halvard’s shop. “Sorry about this, Hal, but could you send a runner down to Iron’s Den to fetch Lucius? I’ve got to head back to Sheath straightaway—tell him Morgan’s boy’s gone missing.” Well, that wasn’t as bad as it could have been—Iron’s Den, where most of the smiths set up shop, wasn’t too far a run from Sheath. If Lucius had been in the richer districts sniffing out a new target, they’d have had to chase him to the other side of the city.

  Halvard looked up, one hand still plunged elbow-deep in a barrel of salt pork. “What, the little one? You go on—the boys aren’t up to much right now anyway.” He looked over his shoulder at the girl who kept his books, who was scribbling something in a ledger. “Cerise, fetch one of the boys in here, would you? Whichever’s looking lazier.”

  Once they were confident the message would find its way to Lucius, Roger and Deinol nearly ran back to the Dragon’s Head. When they got there, they found Braddock with Morgan, who was pacing the length of the room, jaw tight and fingers clenched. Braddock was sitting in his usual corner, and Roger assumed that scowl meant he was thinking. “Well?” she asked when she saw Deinol, but her face fell at seeing him alone, and Roger thought she’d already guessed. “What have you done with him?”

  “Nothing at all,” Deinol said, “but I’ll help you find him. It’s not like him to do this; he’s an honest boy.”

  “The most honest I’ve met,” Morgan agreed. “But if you haven’t taken him, where is he?”

  “Did you search his room?” Deinol asked. “Was there … I don’t know, anything strange?”

  Morgan shook her head. “It’s all in order. It’s just as it looks every day.”

  The door opened, and Deinol turned to it eagerly. “Luciu—” he started, but it wasn’t. Instead, Tom’s monkey blinked at him, then turned her gaze to Morgan.

  “Morgan,” she said, “Tom told me to— What?” She looked around at the rest of them. “What is it?”

  Morgan tapped her on the shoulder. “Tavern’s closed right now, monkey. I can’t help you till I’ve gotten my boy back.”

  She frowned. “What, Seth? You can’t find him?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Did you ask at the Night Market?”

  Morgan stared at her. “The—the Night Market? In Draven’s Square?”

  “Aye, I saw him there a time or so. I thought he was there on errands for you.”

  “I’ve never sent him there,” Morgan said. She leaned on the edge of the bar. “But it’s past sunup—the Night Market’s closed.”

  Marceline shrugged. “Might be he got delayed on his way back. I can go ask if you like.”

  Morgan pressed a hand to her forehead. “Hold a moment, monkey. I need to … think on this. Why would he have gone to the Night Market?”

  “I told you, I’ve seen him there before. I couldn’t say why, though—he never bought a thing, just hung about and looked. I think he just liked to be there, but I’ll not claim to know him.”

  “I liked the
Night Market well enough when I was a boy,” Roger said. “It needn’t be something sinister, Morgan. Besides, if he’s gone there before, he’s also gotten back all right before, and none of us the wiser. It’s where he went after that concerns me.”

  “After?” Morgan asked.

  Roger nodded at Marceline. “The monkey thinks he’s been delayed, but I can think of only a handful of things that could detain him for this long, and none of them are good.”

  “He might not even have been there—”

  “Aye,” Marceline said, with another shrug. “It was an idle guess, that’s all. I’ll run and ask, though, if you like; Tom told me not to come back until I’d gotten your scraps, and as the tavern’s closed…”

  Roger laughed. “That old skinflint would buy three-day-old rat off you, Morgan, so long as he could get it cheap.”

  Morgan bit her lip. “I am sorry for the trouble, monkey, but would you go? If he was there, we can start to trace his path, perhaps. I’ll give you something for Tom when you get back—I won’t even balk at the pittance he must’ve given you to pay me. You have my word.”

  But Marceline had no sooner opened the door than she started back from it, nearly knocking Deinol onto the floor. Lucius slipped through easily, as if the disturbance had nothing to do with him, and shut the door firmly before he spoke. “I’ve gone a bit ahead of you, it seems,” he said, though Roger wasn’t quite sure whom he meant. “Halvard’s boy caught up with me in Draven’s Square—you sent him, I think? But I was already looking by then. I heard a rumor in Iron’s Den that gave me a bad feeling, so I started asking questions.”

  Morgan curled her fingers into a fist. “Well?”

  Lucius set his jaw, swallowed hard, and began again. “The last time anyone saw him was at the Night Market—”

  “See?” Marceline said.

  “Quiet, monkey, please.” Morgan turned back to Lucius. “What was he doing there?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. But the story is…” He swallowed again. “When I asked at Draven’s Square, they said there was a woman there—a guard. She seemed to know him, and, well … she took him in. She … arrested him, they said.”

  There was a silence.

  Roger spoke first, because someone had to. “What the hell do we know about this woman? What could she want with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Lucius said. “And I couldn’t find out. I tried, but…”

  “You’re sure she arrested him?” Morgan asked.

  “Well, I wasn’t there.… That’s what the ones I talked to seemed to think, though.”

  Marceline had been biting her lip very assiduously, but finally she spoke up. “This guardswoman—did she have a scar on her face?”

  “I don’t know,” Lucius said again. “I didn’t ask.”

  Morgan turned to her. “What’s the significance of the scar, monkey?”

  “Maybe nothing, it’s just … a woman like that dropped in on me and Tom in the middle of the night—not a very friendly one, but none of that lot are. She was asking about deserters, but we try not to get involved in things like that, so we put her off.”

  Morgan clutched one hand in the other, and pressed both to her heart. When she stayed silent, Deinol spoke up instead. “Well, look, he can’t be a deserter, can he? He’s just a boy. He’s been here for more than three years, and before that … before that he was so young, he—” He gritted his teeth and broke off, shaking his head.

  Lucius took his time replying, his face grim. “If we’re all perfectly honest, we’ve got to admit we don’t know a thing about Seth’s life before he came here.”

  “And yours neither,” Braddock said. “And same for countless folk who drink here every day. That’s the way of things in Sheath.”

  “And I’ll defend it as fiercely as you,” Lucius said. “But that doesn’t mean Elgar’s men haven’t a score of reasons for wanting our boy.”

  Deinol slammed his hand down on the bar. “Who cares why they want him? They can’t have him.” He glared at them all, as if practicing his defiance for the soldiers. “Can they?”

  Morgan was slightly hunched over, one hand pressed to her forehead. “What can we do, Deinol? If I knew where he was…” She covered her eyes, slumping over the bar.

  “Well, we’ve got to do something—” Deinol started, but Lucius put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Morgan’s right,” he said. “The first thing to do is find out where he is. I think we’re all pretty sure we know, but in a situation like this we’ve got to know for certain. We can’t take any action until we do.” He turned to Roger. “I’ve tried to avoid Elgar’s men as much as possible, but in Kaiferi there was always a jailer or—what do you call them?—warden you could bribe if you wanted to know the contents of the castle dungeons. I expect things aren’t so very different here?”

  Lucius almost never talked about his life in Aurnis, and he almost never stumbled over his words, so to hear him do both at once was enough to leave Roger speechless for a moment. “Aye,” he said at last. “I imagine they’re twice as crooked here as they were in Aurnis.” He found himself grinning. “So you were up to the same tricks even back home, eh?”

  Lucius laughed. “I was on the other side, actually—I was supposed to help put a stop to all that.”

  “What, Lucius, you can’t tell me you were a guardsman? I’ll never believe it.”

  If it had been any other man, his smile would’ve grown tight, but Lucius’s mouth stayed just the same. It was only the slightest disengagement, a faraway look about the eyes, that showed he had no wish to continue the conversation. “Not quite,” he said, and brushed a hand absently against his sword. “Either way, if there are such men as I’ve said, I’m sure you know them.”

  “And so I do,” Roger said.

  “Then let’s go and ask them. I have enough coin—”

  “I’ll go and ask them,” Roger said. “They won’t take kindly to the sight of you, whether you were ever a guardsman or not. And gods know I’ve got coin enough to spend on my own endeavors.”

  Morgan raised her head. “Roger…”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Roger said. “This is a job for me, and I like the boy as much as any of you. I’ll accept your thanks later, but only if they come in the form of a lot of ale.”

  He hadn’t taken ten steps outside before he realized he had a shadow. “Go back inside, monkey,” he said. “Didn’t you have to fetch something for Tom?”

  “I haven’t the heart to ask it of Morgan. Not now. He can bargain for scraps somewhere else.” She scuffed her feet against the cobbles, but she was looking off and away, over his shoulder. “Roger,” she said, “what’s going to happen now?”

  Roger followed her gaze and stared at the dark mass of the Citadel looming in the distance. “I think I know, monkey. But I wish I didn’t.”

  * * *

  “Third floor.” Every word Roger spoke was another weight hanging on him. “Third floor, since this morning.”

  He was almost afraid to look at their faces, but he already knew what he’d see there. Deinol had that fierce look again—he’d scarce taken it off all day. Lucius’s face was settled, but his fingers drifted to his sword. Morgan nodded slowly, though no one was speaking. And Braddock was scowling, but that just meant he had a pulse.

  “Now listen here—” Roger started, but Deinol cut him off.

  “You all said we should find out where he was,” he said, jerking his chin at nothing in particular. “Well, we know. Now what are we going to do about it?”

  “I know what you want to do about it,” Morgan said.

  “And?”

  She sighed, cracking her knuckles absently. “And I’m with you, mad though it may be. As far as I’m concerned, those dogs stole my kitchen boy, and I’ll take that theft about as well as I’d take any other.”

  “You ought to consider—”

  “Save your breath, Roger,” Deinol said. “I’ve defied Elgar’s men before, for thi
ngs that were worth a lot less. You’ll not turn me from this.”

  “It’s not as if it’s never been done before,” Morgan added more kindly. “And these louts are sharper than they look.”

  “That’s all very well,” Roger said, “or rather I’m forced to say that, since you won’t listen to reason—and I almost don’t want you to, for the boy’s sake. You know, of course, that I … that I’ll help in such ways as are … suited to my talents, let’s say. But you see, ah, it’s gold that’s my metal, not steel.” He grinned sheepishly. “I’ll gladly take silver or copper as well. Just … not steel. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Didn’t expect anything more from you,” Braddock said, shifting only slightly from his ponderous slouch.

  “It’s more than you’re offering,” Roger retorted.

  “And who says so, swindler?” Braddock finally stood up, stretching to his considerable height. “I don’t normally go in for fools’ errands, but as I can’t talk you lot out of it”—his eyes flicked to Morgan—“I suppose I might do my part to make sure I can keep drinking here. And, well … I like the boy. Never gave offense, that one didn’t, and that’s more than I can say for most men.” He nodded vaguely, as if that settled it. Morgan met his gaze, but she said nothing.

  Deinol looked to Lucius. “And you, Lucius?”

  Lucius looked almost surprised. “You have to ask? I’m with you all, no question.” He smiled. “What on earth would you do without me?”

  It would have been like Deinol just to grin, but instead he stayed solemn. “It’ll be dangerous, you know.”

  Lucius shook his head. “Danger’s none of my concern.”

  “If only we could all say that,” Roger muttered.

  Morgan leaned against the bar. “You will help us, though, Roger, won’t you? You’ll help us get in.”