The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  “There’s no sure, with fires. But I had a look, and I talked to the people who were around. I’d been at this twenty years, even then.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I did.” Hank’s wrinkled face was a mask. “Went to the Armsmen, said I thought it was passing strange. They bounced me around for a while, and finally somebody told me they didn’t want to hear it, and they didn’t want anybody else hearing it, either. I got the message.”

  “You’re telling me,” Marcus pointed out.

  “It never sat right with me,” Hank said. “And they were your people.” He smiled slyly. “Besides, him that told me to shut my mouth, you outrank him now. I reckon it’s your right to know, don’t you think?”

  “Outrank—” Marcus stopped, abruptly. “I see.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Marcus murmured, his mind a whirl. “You’ve been . . . very helpful.”

  —

  Giforte. It had to be Giforte. The vice captain had been effectively running the Armsmen since well before the time of the fire. Captains came and went, but Giforte stayed on, bending to the winds of politics and keeping the ship running.

  Hank told him the fire wasn’t an accident. Couldn’t have been an accident. Someone killed them. His mother. His father. Ellie. Ellie!

  Marcus realized he was holding his breath, hands clenched tight. He forced himself to relax.

  It wasn’t an accident. The thought ran around and around in his head. Not an accident. Murder. Three doors, three fires. Cold-blooded murder.

  Someone had murdered his little sister, barely four years old. He wanted to scream.

  Who?

  Giforte knew. Or at least he knew something. But he had no reason to tell Marcus anything. There was nothing like proof, just the ramblings of one old man. The vice captain’s position was secure; the Armsmen couldn’t run without him, and he knew it. No wonder he’s been so cagey around me. I thought it was just about the politics, but he must have been wondering if I’d found out.

  There was another option. Ionkovo’s “trade.” The Black Priests’ agent obviously knew enough to send Marcus here, and he might know the rest. But he would want something in exchange. Which is obviously why he sent me here in the first place. The very fact that he wanted to know so badly what had happened in Khandar implied that telling him was dangerous.

  I could ask Janus . . . There was a certain comfort in the thought of appealing to the colonel. But that would mean revealing that he’d talked to Ionkovo in the first place, and Marcus wasn’t sure how Janus would react to that.

  Hell. Anger squirreled around inside him, searching for a target, finding nothing. He tasted bile.

  “Sir?” Staff Eisen said.

  Marcus blinked and came back to himself. He was standing outside the Fiddler, facing the ivy-covered brick wall, one hand pressed flat against it. When he let it fall, bits of grimy mortar clung to his palm.

  “It’s all right,” Marcus said. “I’m all right.”

  “Did you find out what you wanted, sir?” Eisen said.

  Marcus squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. I have no idea.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RAESINIA

  Raesinia’s candle had burned down to a stub, floating in a saucer of molten wax. Her hand was splotchy with ink, and there was a spot on her index finger where the pen had rubbed it raw that would be a blister tomorrow.

  Or, at least, it would be if she were a normal, living person. She set down the pen and felt the binding twitch, and the itchy pain was replaced with a cool numbness. The red spot faded away as though it had never been, leaving plain, unblemished skin.

  She’d been working on the speech for nearly six hours straight. After they’d found Danton, Sothe had insisted she spend a day at Ohnlei, putting in appearances and playing the dutiful daughter. Raesinia hated it. Her grief was a palpable thing, a tight, hot ball in her throat, but parading it in front of everyone made her feel like a fraud. She’d visited her father’s bedside with Doctor-Professor Indergast, but the king hadn’t awoken. His breathing was terrifyingly weak under the duvet.

  I’m sorry, Father. She’d spent a long time by the bedside, gripping his hand. I’m sorry I have to lie to you. I’m sorry I can’t stay. Then, once darkness fell, it was time for another fast trip down from the top of the tower so Sothe could smuggle her into the city.

  Raesinia didn’t get tired anymore, in the normal sense of the word, but she was still subject to a kind of mental exhaustion. Too many hours of concentration left her feeling as if her eyeballs had been boiled in tar. She grabbed her elbows behind her head, arched her back, and stretched, feeling tiny pops in her shoulders and all up and down her spine.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ben raise his head, eyes surreptitiously locked on her breasts. Raesinia hurriedly unbent and crossed her arms over her chest with an inward sigh. Ben’s infatuation, which she had regarded at first as a curiosity, was getting more and more problematic. He tried to act like the soul of courtesy, even when it meant getting in her way, and he was more insistent that she not expose herself to anything that might be dangerous. Raesinia, who went out of her way to do anything that was dangerous on the ground that it was better for her to be in the middle of it than anyone else, was left in an awkward position.

  And what if he just comes out with it? She’d seen a look in his eye a couple of times that seemed to indicate he was on the verge of a confession of love, and only a hurried change of subject had distracted him. If he ever managed to spit it out—Then what? Break his heart, and risk him leaving the group? That didn’t sound like Ben, but Raesinia didn’t have much experience when it came to men and romance. Or else . . . play along? How? That possibility was just a blur in her mind, a vaguely unthinkable gap. I don’t think I could fake love well enough to fool him.

  It would have been easier for all concerned if she had actually fallen in love with him. She wasn’t certain she was still capable of that, though. Aside from Cora, he was probably her best friend among the conspirators. She could see, objectively, that he was kind, honest, idealistic, even handsome. But love? No.

  Maybe the binding sees love as an illness, like drunkenness, and purges it before it has a chance to settle in. She wouldn’t mind that, on the whole. As far as she could tell, love was mostly good for making people act like morons.

  Oh well. She looked down at the paper, where the ink had dried by now, and picked it up carefully to add to the stack. That should do it.

  “Finished?” Ben said.

  “I think so,” Raesinia said. “You two will have to look it over.”

  Maurisk, who had his own portable writing desk set up in a corner of the room, gave a derisive snort.

  “You already decided not to use my version,” he said. “So I don’t see what good my advice will do.”

  “We all agreed that your version was excellent,” Raesinia said, trying to be soothing. “It would have done credit to a University symposium. It’s just that the common people aren’t up to your level, that’s all.”

  Not to mention that your version was three hours long. Raesinia had no doubt that Danton could make an exhaustive history of the practice of banking in Vordan sound riveting, but she personally wouldn’t have been able to stand it.

  “We should be educating them, then, instead of lowering ourselves to the lowest common denominator.”

  “You’re still sore about the slogan,” Ben said.

  “‘One eagle and the Deputies-General,’” Maurisk said, and sniffed. “What does that even mean? Our grievances go far beyond the price of bread, in any case, and it’s no good calling for the deputies without saying what you want them to do.”

  “It’s caught the popular attention,” Raesinia said. “And you’ve been writing those broadsheets. That’s w
hat will educate people in the end.”

  “If you’d let me give a proper speech, instead of letting that lummox do everything, we might be farther along now,” Maurisk said. “He doesn’t read what I write properly.”

  Raesinia wanted to point out that Maurisk’s writing was as dry as week-old bread crusts, but she refrained. The door opened and Faro came in, the noise of the common room of the Blue Mask following him for a moment before he shut the door behind him. He’d covered his customary finery with a heavy black cloak, and carried a thick leather satchel under one arm.

  “God,” he said, “I never want to do that again. I felt like everyone on the street was watching me.”

  “You look ridiculous in that cloak,” Maurisk said. “You might as well carry a sign saying ‘I’m up to no good.’”

  “I’d be happy to,” Faro said. “Much safer than one saying ‘I’m carrying enough money to buy a small city.’ Besides, it’s essential. Cloak-and-dagger work, you know? Cloak”—he pushed the cloak back, revealing a steel gleam at his belt, opposite where he normally buckled his sword—“and dagger! I wouldn’t feel properly dressed otherwise.”

  “You didn’t have any problems?” Raesinia said.

  “Not unless you count the pounding of my heart.” Faro handed her the satchel. “I still don’t see why we couldn’t have all gone, in daylight.”

  “We would have been noticed.” Raesinia undid the tie and riffled through the contents. Everything seems to be in order.

  “I thought we wanted to be noticed,” Faro said.

  “Not until tomorrow morning,” Raesinia said, retying the satchel. “All right. I’ll take this on to Cora.”

  This, as expected, drew a protest from Ben. “I really wish—”

  She cut him off. “I know. But let’s face it: I’m a lot less threatening than you are. We don’t want to spook anyone. I’ll be perfectly safe.” She couldn’t tell them that, in addition to her own personal immortality, she’d have Sothe riding escort. “You concentrate on going over the speech and getting Danton ready for tomorrow.”

  “All right.” Ben got to his feet and met her by the door, catching her off guard. He wrapped his big arms around her in a tight hug, crushing her against his chest. “Be careful.”

  Raesinia forced herself to relax, waiting patiently until he let go. She fussed awkwardly with her hair for a moment, then turned to the others and nodded.

  “See you in the morning.” She paused. Something more seemed needed. “This is going to work. I can feel it.”

  —

  “He’s getting too forward,” Sothe said, from the darkness beside the Blue Moon’s entrance.

  “Who? Ben?” Raesinia didn’t bother to ask how Sothe had been watching. Sothe seemed to know everything. “He’s harmless.”

  “He’s besotted with you.” Sothe fell into step beside Raesinia. “That can be dangerous if you let him take liberties.”

  “Given everything we’re involved in,” Raesinia said, “I think Ben is more or less the least of my worries, don’t you?”

  Sothe frowned but didn’t answer. She led Raesinia around into an alley beside the tavern, where one of Vordan’s ubiquitous hired cabs was waiting. The driver tipped his hat respectfully, which Sothe ignored, vaulting into the carriage and turning to help Raesinia up after her. She rapped on the wall, and a snap of the driver’s reins coaxed the horses into motion.

  This wasn’t a new cab, so they clacked and jolted over the cobbles. Raesinia patted the satchel again, to make sure it was still there, feeling an echo of Faro’s anxiety. It was an awful lot of money. Certainly enough to kill for, or try to, if anyone knew what they were doing.

  “I’m worried about our security arrangements around Danton,” Sothe said after a while, apropos of nothing.

  “I don’t think he’s a target,” Raesinia said. That had been preying on her mind. Danton went along cheerfully enough, but he’d never asked to be a part of any of this. “He’s too public a figure now. If he were arrested, or someone took a shot at him, the backlash would be worse than anything Danton himself could accomplish. That was the whole point of bringing him out in the open.”

  “I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about us. It’ll be obvious that someone is pulling Danton’s strings, and Orlanko will be looking.”

  “I thought your trick with the couriers was supposed to cover that.” Once they’d ensured that a steady stream of uniformed couriers was coming and going from Danton’s hotel suite, it was easy to slip an extra one through, letting the cabal members come and go without being followed.

  Sothe waved a hand dismissively. “It won’t hold for long. It makes it too obvious we have something to hide. He’ll figure out a way through, depend on it.”

  “It doesn’t have to hold for long,” Raesinia said. “Just long enough. My father is not getting any stronger.”

  “Nevertheless—”

  A splashing sound from outside drowned her out for a moment. They’d been following the Old Road south from the Dregs, avoiding the bridged section of the river around the Island. Just south of the University, the road ran across the Old Ford, a wide stretch of river that was only ankle-deep in places, made more passable over the years by the addition of large, flat stones to form a sort of causeway. The barrier to river navigation this created required a time-consuming portage for most vessels, and according to legend this blockage had been the original seed that had sprouted into the city of Vordan itself.

  Beyond the ford lay Oldtown, a tangle of timber-and-plaster buildings and mazy cow paths. It was a hard place to find your way around during the day, much less in darkness. This cabby apparently knew his business, however, and once the carriage had splashed out of the ford it picked up a little speed and proceeded confidently into the curving streets.

  Raesinia glanced at Sothe. “All right. You’re worried. What do you want to do about it?”

  “I’d like to take a little more overt action against a few of Orlanko’s watchers.”

  Raesinia winced. With Sothe, “overt action” usually meant “body parts floating in the river.” “Won’t that just draw his attention?”

  “We’ve already got his attention. That goes double after tonight. I want to slap his hand, make him think a little harder before he sticks it out again.”

  “Well. Security is your bailiwick.” Raesinia had been amazed at how naive the rest of the cabal could be. Perhaps she was paranoid, or perhaps she just knew Orlanko. Ben and Maurisk appeared to think that they could get away with giving false names and speaking in low voices. Without Sothe running interference, she was sure they’d all have ended up in the Vendre long ago. “Do what you need to do, but be careful.”

  Sothe snorted. “I don’t need you telling me to be careful.”

  The carriage came to a halt, and a rap from the driver indicated that they’d arrived at their destination. Raesinia opened the door and hopped down, looking back at Sothe. “Where will you be?”

  “About.” Sothe waved vaguely. “I’ll be close if you need me.”

  “Just don’t do anything precipitous. We can’t afford for this to get out of hand.” Raesinia hesitated. “And if anything does go wrong, make sure to get Cora out of there first.”

  Sothe grimaced, but she could see the logic in this. After all, she can always fish me out of some drainage ditch if it comes to that. Cora could get hurt. Sothe nodded, and Raesinia turned to face the building she’d been driven to.

  It was a big one, by Oldtown standards, two stories high and as long as several ordinary houses. It had once had real glass windows, too, though these had long ago been covered over with boards and canvas tarpaulins. Its stone walls and the brass double-circle bolted over the doorway identified it as a church. A few crumbling statues that might have been saints before the local boys had made a game of throwing stones at them perched over the
gutters.

  The big double doors at the front were tightly closed, but a side door was invitingly open, shedding a warm orange glow into the shadowed street. Raesinia picked her way toward it, carefully; the streets of Oldtown were packed earth, liberally sprinkled with horse dung. She could make out sounds from inside as she got closer. A group of people were singing, not particularly well but with considerable spirit.

  The church—the Third Church of the Savior Karis’ Mercy, as the blackened metal letters on the door proclaimed—was the domain of a Mrs. Louise Felda. Her husband, Father Felda, had been the Free Priest to the Third’s congregation for well over forty years. Technically, he still was, though his declining energies in his old age had restricted his duties. As he became bedridden, his wife had taken over his duties, until she was more fully in charge than he had ever been.

  Mrs. Louise Felda was a large and vigorous woman who looked like a giantess beside the shriveled form of her husband. Nowadays, she split her time between making sure his needs were cared for and bringing her idea of Karis’ mercy to the people of Oldtown, as best her resources would allow. This meant beds for the sick and the desperate, helping hands for those who weren’t right in the head, and warm meals for as many as she could manage. Raesinia had often thought that the city could do with more priests along the lines of Mrs. Felda.

  Cora had grown up here, taken in as a soot-stained little girl and put to work helping the mistress wash bedding and change dressings. When she got older, she’d gone to work as an unofficial courier in the Exchange, delivering messages for pennies as the business of the nation clattered around her. That was where Raesinia had found her, back at the very beginning, when all she had was a vague notion and a burning need to do something . . .

  Raesinia shook her head and walked through the door. The interior of the old church was one enormous room, its wooden internal walls long ago torn away to expose the massive supporting beams that held up the roof. Here and there, small sections were partitioned off by hanging curtains to provide a bit of privacy. Bedrolls lined both walls and covered about half the available floor space at one end of the building, while the other end had a huge hearth and kettle and a table big enough to seat twenty, stacked high with dirty, mismatched crockery. A group standing in front of the fire was the source of the impromptu concert, which had segued from a hymn about Karis’ mercy to a bawdy song about a young man who couldn’t locate his belt buckle. The lyrics of the latter were mercifully obscure.