The Crown Tower trc-1

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “A smith’s son you are,” the tinker said. “I should have known by all the steel you carry. I sell a fine set of tongs and hammers. I even have one I bought from a dwarven smith-finest you’ll ever see.”

  “Why did the dwarf part with it?” the priest asked.

  “Desperate to feed his family, I think. Sad story.”

  Hadrian took the opportunity to move over and join Royce, who sat with his back to the hearth and his sight on the windows. “I’d say you’re being awfully quiet, but then I might as well follow with ‘Oh look, you’re breathing.’”

  Royce leaned forward and whispered, “Why don’t you just tell them we’re thieves while you’re at it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Hadrian matched his tone, feeling uncomfortable whispering like conspirators in front-or in this case behind the backs-of strangers. “I was just being friendly.”

  “You told them your name, your place of birth, what your father did for a living, suggested which direction you were traveling in, and the fact you’ve never been here before. You would have told them who I was, and exactly where we came from if I hadn’t stopped you.”

  “And exactly what would be so wrong with that?”

  “First, when you’re on a job, you don’t want people to notice you. You want to be nothing more than a vague shadow on a person’s memory. Leave nothing that anyone can use to track you. After we break into the tower, people will be looking for us and they’ll remember a talkative stranger wearing three swords who likely went back south.”

  “If you wanted to avoid being noticed, why’d we come in here in the first place?”

  “That’s the second thing. I’m expecting some guests.”

  “Guests?” Hadrian raised his mug to drink.

  “The five men who were on the road behind us.”

  Hadrian put the mug back down. “What are you talking about? I didn’t see anyone.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “What? You think they’re after us?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Wait … then they could be just other people traveling the same road?”

  “I think everyone is after me until proven otherwise.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “They were also wearing swords and chain and have been riding hard.”

  “So?”

  “So five is too many for a courier, too few for reinforcements, and no one else rides that hard unless they’re hunting someone. Five would be just about the right size to send after two men accused of stabbing the son of a baron who were last seen riding north out of Sheridan.”

  Hadrian turned to look out the window. All he saw was the stone wall, the road, and the lake beyond. The setting sun gleamed gold across the water’s surface.

  “There’s a door off the side here.” Royce tilted his head toward a hallway that extended past the bar. “It opens to the trench where they dump chamber pots. When our guests arrive, we’ll step out that door and wait. If they follow, we can be certain they didn’t just happen to get thirsty at the same time we did. Arcadius says you’re supposed to know how to fight. I hope so, because if they come out, we’re going to kill them. All of them. And then we’ll come back in here and kill these four.”

  “What? These four? Why?”

  “Because you decided to get all friendly and chatty. We can’t leave five bodies in the sewer and four witnesses to spread the word. The first one you take out is Lord Marbury-he’s the only real threat. I’ll kill the priest and the tinker. Then whoever gets done first can deal with Dougan. Try not to splatter too much blood around. After they’re dead, we’ll put all the bodies out back-with luck the sewage pit will be deep enough to cover them. If we don’t make a big mess with the blood, it might be hours before anyone notices. By then we’ll be lost in the streets of Ervanon.”

  “I’m not going to kill these people,” Hadrian said. “They’re nice people.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I talked to them.”

  “You talked to me too.”

  “You’re not nice people.”

  “I know, I know, I have those wolf eyes that good old Sebastian warned you about. Remember him? The nice man who, along with his nice lady friend, was planning to slit your throat?”

  “He was right about you at least.”

  “That’s my point. Pick anyone and the odds are pretty good that they’re not nice. Everyone looks nice. Everyone dresses up in fine clothes and wears wide smiles like Dougan behind the bar, but I guarantee if you scrub the surface of that coin you’ll find tin. People always pretend to be pleasant, kind, and friendly, especially cutthroats and thieves.”

  “You don’t.”

  “That’s because I’m surprisingly honest.”

  “I’m not killing them.”

  “Then why are you here? Arcadius said we were to be a team. I was to show you the business. He said you were this excellent fighter, a hardened soldier. Okay. I didn’t like it, but I can see the benefit of having a skilled sword along, for just such occasions as this. So what’s your problem?”

  “I don’t like killing.”

  “I’m not an idiot. I gathered that much. The question is why? Did Arcadius lie to me? Are you really some sword merchant and that’s why you carry all that steel? Did he send you with me to get your first taste of blood?”

  “I’ve drank more than my share-believe me.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I discovered it was wrong.”

  “Excuse me? Did you say wrong?”

  “Yeah, you know, wrong, the opposite of right.”

  “How young are you? Do you also believe in fairy godmothers, true love, and wishing on falling stars?”

  “You don’t believe in right and wrong? Good and bad?”

  “Sure, right is what’s good for me, and bad is what I don’t like, and those things are very, very wrong.”

  “You really were raised by wolves, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “So you boys are from Rhenydd, eh?” Lord Marbury came over, pulled up a chair, and sat down.

  Hadrian hoped the lord hadn’t overheard anything. Not that he was afraid of him. Even with his sword, the man wasn’t a threat. As with most high-ranked nobles, he had no idea how to fight. To them swords were like fur and the color purple-emblems of nobility and power-but Hadrian would be embarrassed if the lord had listened to their debate about committing murder. He liked the man, and Marbury seemed the honorable sort.

  “Any news from the south?” His Lordship asked. “Things are as boring here as a dead goat that can’t attract a single fly.” He let out a solid belch. “All I have to get me by is ale, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the church took that away next. So what’s the word from the palaces of kings?”

  Royce stared directly at Hadrian with an angry look.

  “Didn’t really visit any palaces. Wouldn’t let me in dressed like this,” Hadrian said.

  Marbury hit his fist on the table and chuckled. “Wouldn’t let me in either, I suspect. I’m like a mir-half human, half elf-only in my case I’m a cross between a noble and a peasant. A lord in a land where nobility is outlawed. Did you know my family fief goes back to Glenmorgan?”

  “How the blazes would you know that?” the priest asked from his seat at the bar.

  Marbury twisted around, nearly spilling his drink with his elbow. “Did I invite you to this discussion?”

  “No, but they didn’t invite you to theirs either.”

  “Harding, go bless yourself.”

  “Bless you too.”

  Lord Marbury turned back to Hadrian and Royce. “As I was saying, my family got our fief from Glenmorgan.”

  Hadrian nodded. “I just learned about him. He almost rebuilt the empire, except he never was able to conquer Calis. Too many fractured kingdoms, too many warlords, and of course the goblins.”

  “That’s him. Wouldn’t ca
ll him emperor. The church dubbed Glenmorgan the Steward of Novron because they refused to give up on their dream of finding the lost heir.” He leaned back in his chair and waved his hands about like he was trying to clear the air of smoke. “Glenmorgan ruled all this, everything. Rhenydd too. He built the Crown Tower where the Patriarch and the archbishop live. You must have seen it on your way in. That was only part of his castle. You’re right-he never took Calis, but his grandson Glenmorgan III, saved Avryn. My great-great-great-and so on-father fought beside him in the Battle of Vilan Hills, where we stopped the goblins from overrunning Avryn. That was Glen III’s downfall really. His nobles and the church, who’d gotten fat under the pitiful rule of Glen II, didn’t like that Glen III was as strong as his grandfather. All those comfortable gentlemen of fur and the bell-ringing bishops betrayed him. They locked Glenmorgan III in Blythin Castle, down there in Alburn. They charged him with heresy. And when the people rioted, the church, being the virtuous sort, blamed the nobles and then frocks took over everything.”

  “Frocks?” Hadrian asked.

  “People like me,” the priest spoke up again. “He means the church.”

  “I do indeed.”

  “You realize that’s both treason and heresy.”

  “I don’t give a pimple off Novron’s ass if it is. You gonna send for the seret to drag me off to some tribunal? Invite a sentinel to scourge Iberton?”

  Hadrian had no idea what a seret or a sentinel was, but the prospect didn’t sound pleasant.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Marbury lowered his voice, addressing the table again. “Some days I wish he would, but there’s no need. I’m a castrated bull. Good for nothing but wandering the fields and making barley ale.”

  “Never saw a bull make ale this good before,” Hadrian said.

  Marbury laughed. “I like you, kid.” He looked at Royce. “I like him too. A bit on the quiet side, but that makes him the smart one, right? Quiet ones always are. They know better than to babble like old, castrated, noble, ale-making bulls.”

  Hadrian looked across at Royce, who had dipped his head down, hiding his eyes. “He likes to think he is, but he doesn’t know everything.”

  “I never claimed to know everything,” Royce said. “Just what matters.”

  “To whom?” Hadrian asked.

  “To me.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. That’s a long way from everything.”

  “It’s enough to make intelligent decisions. You let emotions get in the way of sense.”

  “I have just the opposite problem,” Lord Marbury said. “I let sense get in the way of emotion. For example, I should have put my sword through the belly of Harding over three years ago, and would have if I had trusted my emotions.”

  “I can still hear you,” the priest declared.

  “I know that, you miserable frock.”

  “He seems like a nice enough man,” Hadrian said.

  “He is. He’s a damn fine fellow. I got the fever two years ago and he stayed with me when everyone else left for fear it was the plague again. Why, he even washed my backside for me. That’s not something you forget. Harding is a pillar of this community.”

  “I heard that too,” Harding said.

  “Shut up.” Marbury took a swallow from his mug. “The point is he’s still one of them-the snakes that slither and poison everything. The ones that crashed Glenmorgan’s empire and put families like mine out to pasture. The ones that turned me from a knight serving an emperor into a farmer serving ale, and if I was half the man my great-grandfather was, I’d have lopped his head off years ago.”

  “It’s not too late,” Royce said.

  Marbury laughed and slapped the table. “Hear that, Harding? The one in the hood here agrees with me.”

  Outside, the sun had slipped behind the hills, leaving the world in a ghostly light of diminishing sky. The children had disappeared, the dogs curled up on the side of the trail, and lights spoke of life in the settling darkness.

  Royce’s head tilted up abruptly. He leaned forward and said, “Prove me wrong.” Then Royce stood and moved for the rear door. A moment later Hadrian heard the sound of footfalls approaching.

  Hadrian watched as five men entered. Each wrapped themselves in dark cloaks, but the sound of chain mail was unmistakable and in Hadrian’s mind conjured the smell of blood, the squish of mud, and feet that were never dry. Their faces were flushed from the wind, hair tangled and thrown back. They scanned the room, eyes intent.

  “Welcome, lads, name’s Dougan.” He held out his hand but none moved to shake it. “What can I do you for?”

  One of the men threw his cloak back over one shoulder, revealing the red underside and a broken crown crest on his chest. He also uncovered a sword-a Tiliner rapier with a knuckle guard and sharpened pommel. Hadrian had seen hundreds. They were the blade of choice among professionals. Made in Tiliner Delgos, it was a solid working weapon, an effective and practical instrument of murder.

  “Looking for two men out of Sheridan who knifed a boy,” the man said.

  Dougan’s eyebrows rode up. “Are you now?”

  “We are.” The men spread out, scraping their heavy boots on the worn wood. They eyed the tinker and the priest; then three made a small circle around the table where Hadrian sat with Lord Marbury. “And who might you two be?”

  “That there is Lord Marbury,” Dougan said in gentle warning tone. “He owns most of the land south of the lake.”

  Harding turned around. “And he’s had a few to drink, so I wouldn’t say he’s in the best of moods today.”

  “I’m not,” Marbury growled at the priest, “and you’re not making it any better.”

  “We were told one of the pair carried three swords,” a different man said. Thick eyebrows, a trimmed beard interrupted by a half-moon scar across his chin, he stood hovering over Hadrian. “Some sort of soldier, a mercenary maybe.”

  “This here is a friend of mine up from Rhenydd,” Marbury declared. “And he’s a smith. Made those swords himself, am I right?”

  Hadrian nodded.

  “So you’re saying these are samples of your work, then?” The man hovered over him, his head cocked to the side, one finger pushing and pulling the pommel of the great sword.

  “They are,” Hadrian confirmed.

  “Let me have a look.” He held out his hand.

  Hadrian couldn’t see behind him now without appearing suspicious, but he was certain at least two of the three had moved up. Royce was outside near the sewer waiting in ambush to slit the throat of anyone who followed him out. He was likely listening to every word. Hadrian glanced toward the rear door. If he ran for it, at least two would grab him while the others drew steel. If that happened, he could yell and Royce would hear. It would be a bloody fight then, and afterward…

  Prove me wrong.

  He was testing him. Arcadius says you’re supposed to know how to fight. Maybe he wanted to know for certain before the job. Maybe he wanted to know he could stomach shoving a foot of steel through a man, and if he could kill innocent bystanders if it came to that.

  Prove me wrong.

  Hadrian looked across at Lord Marbury and decided he would do just that.

  Hadrian drew his short sword from its scabbard and, careful to take it by the blade, extended the pommel to the man hovering over him. He watched how he placed his fingers around the grip. He knew how to handle a sword, but he was shaking hands with the weapon, not planning on shoving it into his chest-not yet.

  “Why are seret involved in a petty knife fight?” Marbury asked.

  So this is a seret.

  “The boy who was stabbed is the son of Baron Lerwick.” He lifted the short sword, flicking it from side to side; then he spun it, rolling the hilt over the back of his hand, catching the grip again.

  “Lerwick, eh?” Marbury nodded. “How long ago this happen?”

  “Few days.”

  “Kid dead?”

  “No.”
The man turned the blade back and forth in his palm.

  “Close to it?”

  “No.”

  “Seems like a lot of trouble for nothing, then.”

  “The baron doesn’t agree and neither does the archbishop.”

  Marbury smirked at him. “Oh? My congratulations on owning such fine horses,” Marbury addressed the bar in a loud voice. “These men must have the fastest mounts in Avryn to be able to learn about this knifing, ride to Monreel, speak to the baron, then to Ervanon to speak to the archbishop and get back here, all in one day.”

  The man ignored him. “This sword is awfully worn.”

  “It gets a lot of use,” Hadrian said.

  “I thought you were a sword smith and this was only a sample.”

  “Of course it is,” the tinker spoke up. “That’s why it’s so worn. I should know. I’ve been a tinker longer than anyone in this room has been breathing. When you sell tools, you know that people do all kinds of stupid things with them. Hit rocks, chop wood, stab them in the ground … just while trying to decide. You can’t afford to have your stock ruined by such abuse. Instead, you pick one and use it as the sample that everyone beats on.”

  The man looked at the weapon again and licked his lips. “Not very pretty work.”

  “I’m not a very good smith.”

  “How long has this man been here?” The seret holding Hadrian’s sword looked to Dougan.

  The bartender shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “Three days,” Marbury said. “Been staying with me at my house on the north shore. I have him working on a new copper tub for boiling the wort for my ale.”

  “That right?” the man asked the bartender.

  Dougan shrugged. “How would I know what goes on at His Lordship’s house?”

  “What about you, Reverend? Can you confirm this man’s story?”

  Harding glanced at Marbury. “I would never dispute the word of His Lordship. He’s a fine upstanding member of this community.”

  “He is?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Anyone else stop by?”

  “My nephew’s here too,” Marbury explained. “He’s out back with a chamber pot. Got hold of a bad chicken this afternoon and is still paying for it. You want me to drag the lad in so you can harass him too?”