Mouth agape and lips moving in a way that suggested half-formed words were about to tumble out, the young man made a noise, then said, “S-sir, I’m not sure.”
Maren stood. He clasped his hands behind his back and paced to the picture of his father. “Horace Dewn may be your superior, but you do understand that withholding information from a member of the king’s Council is considered treason, yes?”
“Of course, sir.”
“And the punishment for treason is…”
The young man swallowed. “The guillotine, sir.”
Maren turned, slowly, nodding in affirmation. “It hasn’t been used for some time. I hear the blade is rusty, dull. I pity the poor soul who finds himself under it; it may take two, even three attempts to achieve a clean cut.”
“If—if I hear anything, sir, I’ll be sure to inform you.”
“I trust you will,” Maren said, still staring at the picture of his father. “Now, leave.”
Maren waited for the door to close, then turned and marched back to his desk. Two chalices filled with white wine stood beside a stack of unused parchment. He wrapped his hand around one, careful to not spill a drop as he picked it up. He regarded it for a moment, then, with an outstretched hand, tilted it till the wine spilled out onto the floor.
Maren watched with unblinking eyes as the last drops filtered out. His body was stiff, jaw locked. He had the same demeanor as an impetuous, violent husband whose wife had said the wrong thing at the wrong time—a still, idle expression born from silent fury that cannot and will not stay silent for long.
The bulge in Maren’s throat plunged as he swallowed. And then he lost his goddamned mind.
He chucked the chalice at the wall with a grunt, which he followed up with a seemingly endless at-the-top-of-his-lungs scream that featured one drawn-out word: “fuck.” Or rather, “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkk.”
The copper chalice clanked against the sea-pebble wall, ricocheting off and sliding across the floor till it clunked against the opposite wall.
Maren licked his lips and grasped the other chalice. He drank this one, in two massive gulps, and belched. He dropped the cup absentmindedly onto the table, where it fell with a thud and rolled off.
Had he taken the other chalice of wine to his face, he’d have found himself ill soon after. And then, after some projectile vomiting—from both ends—he would have collapsed to his knees, belly burning and intestines scalded.
Rougla poison is as nasty as they come. It’ll kill you whether you ingest it, spill it on your skin, or cook it up in a pot and take a few whiffs. It’s not easy to procure, but Maren had been tasked with purchasing a vial of the stuff several years ago—a request made by the late King Craigh Opsillian. In one of Craigh’s frequent bouts with paranoia that worsened with age, he had demanded the poison in case invaders broke through the walls and stormed the keep. He’d pop the cork and take a swig, or pour it on his face.
Maren knew Craigh had kept the vial locked in his dresser. So when he’d kicked the bucket a few weeks ago, Maren had invited himself in under the guise of an investigation into Craigh’s death. He hadn’t intended on using the stuff, at least not so soon—its retrieval was a matter of safety. Having a vial of Rougla poison go missing wasn’t ideal.
But then this mess with Horace Dewn had happened. The spymaster just couldn’t go along with Maren’s plan, could he? It was too bad. Maren liked Horace. Respected him. Trusted him, even—till his insistence that Maren stop pursuing the crown in the face of a baleful threat involving the return of dragons.
He couldn’t abide it. He wouldn’t abide it. Maybe it was better for the survival of man if he abandoned his quest for kingship. Maybe dragons were plotting an attack on Avestas, and the only feasible way to defend against them was to unite all the kingdoms as one.
But if he did not take the crown now, then when? There probably wouldn’t be another time, not until he was old and decrepit.
Life is a constant struggle between doing what’s right for the individual and what’s right for the greater good. Or succinctly put, selfishness versus selflessness.
Maren O’Keefe had never claimed to be a selfless man. He would take the crown and boldly face whatever consequences came for him. He’d told Horace what Horace wanted to hear—that he’d suspend his claim for the throne. A lie, of course, and that was where the problem began.
He didn’t know if Horace believed the lie. It’s not an easy thing, telling tales to a spymaster. If Horace suspected deceit, he’d have cause to go to the Council and inform them of Maren’s plan. And even if he did trust Maren, the master-at-arms’ true intentions would become blindingly clear when he executed his plot to blame Lavery’s disappearance on the Council.
So, yes, Horace Dewn needed to die. And it appeared either he’d sensed this and departed Valios in the middle of the night, or he’d coincidentally left for a lengthy vacation.
Spymasters aren’t known to take vacations, so that only left one option. What that option meant, however, wasn’t so obvious. Where had Horace gone? Into hiding seemed like a perfectly plausible choice, if you didn’t personally know him. He wasn’t one to flail a white flag around and give up, ever. No matter the circumstance.
Maren feared he had set a course toward the Roost, to inform Bastion Rook of the game Maren would soon run on him. But that did little to play into Horace’s strategy of maintaining a peace, however fragile it might have been, on Avestas.
To the Torbinen coast, then? Going to where his spies captured the two whelps seemed like a fair bet.
Fair bets, possibilities, good chances—the one common denominator is that all of them leave room for error. Not knowing where Horace had fled made Maren nervous.
Fortune favored Maren, however. Several days ago, before the discovery of the second whelp had forced Horace’s hand, the spymaster had delivered to Maren a piece of information he’d greatly needed: a letter addressed to Aumin Naest, cousin to Bastion Rook. Its author had appended no signature, but the handwriting was quite obviously Lady Aylee’s.
The Umbras had intercepted the letter weeks earlier during a routine search of outgoing letters. They’d kept hold of it after discovering a missing seal, the lack of a signature, and troubling details within.
So, Horace had been a boon to Maren’s plan. Still, with a secret spilled to the wrong person, the spymaster could just as easily wash away all the good he’d done.
Maren would have to revisit this problem later, though. He’d wasted daylight preparing for an ultimately fruitless rendezvous when he could have been a quarter of the way to Vivine Village. Time wasted is life wasted, as his grandmother used to say. She had also said Maren should have been born a girl so she wouldn’t have, in her words, “six goddamned grandsons,” so you really had to watch which Grandma O’Keefe aphorism you chose to follow.
With the turn of a key, he unlocked the lowermost desk drawer and removed a stack of neatly folded uniforms. There were four of them, black as a pupil, except for the gold stripes on the shoulders and those that streaked down the sides. A tabard lay tucked within each uniform, stitchwork on the chest that formed an indigo raven in flight—the sigil of the Rooks.
The uniforms were immaculate, which wouldn’t do. He’d have to toss them in the mud, stomp on them, rough ’em up a little. Make them look worn and old. Things he’d have plenty of time to do while making a three-day jaunt northward.
He stuffed the uniforms into a satchel, on top of some wrapped bread and lentils and dried deer strips. It was time to go. He’d managed to delay the Council vote on a temporary steward for another seven days, rallying Chamberlain Ladenmol and Lord Mauvery to his side in questioning the wisdom of such a hasty appointment.
If he didn’t return before then, the Council would confer without him and the throne would no longer be empty. That, quite simply, was not acceptable.
Maren O’Keefe departed the keep for the chill of a Valiosian autumn night. He would untie a steed from the stables, t
hen head due south for three miles, into the Graw Woods, where two horses awaited him. He’d taken them from the stables in the early-morning hours, when the city had been sleeping. Those two steeds would be responsible for hauling back his prisoners.
Maren took a sweeping look at Valios, listened to its low hum of bustling busybodies that droned from the mercantile district and the crackling fire pits that sprinkled the alleys and dregs. When he returned here in six days, nothing would be the same—not ever again.
There were some fourteen prisoners in all, most of them too ill and malnourished ever to pass as soldiers in the Rook army. Say what you will about Bastion, and Maren had plenty to say and little of it good, but he treated his people like they were extensions of himself. No one went hungry in that kingdom, no one suffered if he could help it. It was everyone else outside his borders that he didn’t care about.
Thankfully, Bemin—Vivine Village’s elder—had offered Maren his healthiest specimens. The exchange had happened hours ago, in the creeping daylight hours that had long passed. Now, Maren and his prized items sat in a shallow, damp cave.
He got a fire going, a small one that fed off brush and tinder. It wouldn’t last long; it didn’t need to. He’d be out of here within the hour.
“Come closer,” he told the prisoners.
They huddled amongst one another, shivering in soggy rags and wet moccasins. They looked at him distrustfully, as if he’d press their faces into the embers if they displayed weakness or showed a desire to warm their frigid toes and fingers.
“Listen to me,” Maren said, producing a small handful of jerky from his satchel. He stuck one piece in his mouth, snapped it in half and chewed it vigorously. “I’m not a good man, but I like to think of myself as an honorable one when I can be. And I’ve no reason to not be honorable right now. I didn’t purchase your lot to free you, but neither do I have the intention of indenturing you as slaves. You will die, understand this. But unlike your to-be death under Bemin, I will not make you suffer. It will be quick. Clean. So gather by the flames and warm your souls.”
One of the prisoners massaged his arm. Checked side to side. Then he got to his knees and crawled to the fire, put himself so close Maren thought he might dive right in and end life on his own terms.
He didn’t.
The other three followed his example. They cautiously stretched their fingertips out, pulled them back as a draft blew in and stirred the fire. The licking flames receded, and the men scooted closer.
Maren tossed them each a few strips of jerky. They stared at it, but did not touch it.
“Go on,” he said. “It’s deer. Killed, cut and skinned only a few days ago.”
How interesting, Maren thought, that every man, woman, and child could appear so uniquely different in the prime of life, but reduce them to the barest of necessities and they all began to look so similar. Their shoulders shrank, legs got all gangly and spindly. And the faces, ugh. Cheeks got all droopy, chins sagged, raw lips split open and bled. And the nose, it was always the most prominent feature of them all. Stuck way out—a bastion of cartilage in a moor of gaunt flesh and sinking bone, as if impervious to famine and neglect.
And these were the faces of prisoners who’d been fed well recently. Maren wagered the schmucks who got left behind were so pale and haggard looking that they resembled the dead shortly after all the blood gets sucked from their faces and puddles in their feet.
He hoped they’d pass for a capable foursome who had kidnapped Lavery Opsillian. He was beginning to have his doubts.
“I will ask one favor in exchange,” Maren said, tossing another couple jerky strips into the prisoners’ laps. He opened his satchel and lifted up the stack of folded black uniforms. “Pass these around, one for each of you. These are the uniforms of Bastion Rook’s Wings of the Raven. From now until your death, you will be known as soldiers of that exclusive battalion. And as soldiers of that battalion—under orders from Bastion Rook himself—you abducted Lavery Opsillian, king of Valios. Understand?”
The men ran their grungy fingers over the cotton fabric. It was probably softer than anything they’d ever worn.
“I want an acknowledgment,” Maren said coolly. The prisoners gave him one, if brief and unconvincing. “Say anything to the contrary, fail to uphold this promise, screw me over in any way… and I promise a slow, torturous death unlike any Bemin could deliver in his wildest, most perverted dreams.
“Play my game and I’ll sever your head with the sharpest blade you’ve ever seen. Won’t feel a thing. Fuck with me and I’ll put your bony necks under the Valiosian guillotine. It hasn’t been used in fifty years. It’s got a blade so dull and rusted I doubt it could take your finger off in less than five passes. Probably take forty or so to saw halfway through your neck; and you’ll feel each and every one.”
Maren received another set of acknowledgments, but these ones weren’t up-down shakes of the prisoners’ heads—rather, a recognition in their hopeless eyes that they had suffered enough. They wished to die.
He fed them some more, made them strip out of their rags and step into warm, soft uniforms. He stamped out the fire, prodded them along out of the cave and onto their horses, and then sat himself in his saddle.
Onward once more.
A perpetual morning fog rises from the craters and valleys that swim beneath and all around Valios, draping the kingdom in blankets of gloomy vapor. Sometimes the fog is so thick that if you stretch a hand outward, it appears you’re reaching into oblivion. As a child, Maren had imagined an unwieldy monster with a huge maw sitting in one of the valleys, spitting and vomiting fog as his way to communicate with the strange world above—a fog monster, if you will.
Every morning as a little boy, Maren would round up his band of troublemaking friends, and they’d play hide-and-seek and catch-the-crook in the murky nebula that surrounded them. Simpler times, those. More enjoyable times, too. As he grew older, Maren came to understand that the fog was no laughing matter. If you can’t see your hand bouncing around in front of your face, then how are you supposed to see an attacking army surging toward your walls? That nightmare visited him three times a week, at least. One day, he was convinced, it’d come true.
On this morning, the fog was weak and thin. More of a mist, really. The guards atop the Valiosian parapet were as still as iced-over flags. Probably they were attempting to dissect the sight before them, wondering why their commander was pulling along two horses behind his own and why there were a pair of men atop each horse, and why… were those Rook uniforms the men were wearing?
“Don’t gawk at me like I’m lookin’ at you with a glass eye,” Maren hollered. “Get your asses down here and give me a hand. I got the bastards!”
Maren kicked himself out of the stirrups and jumped off his horse. Half-frozen grass crunched beneath his boots as he went around to the prisoners.
He laid a hand on the thigh of one. “It might be rough for a minute,” he whispered, “but it’s all part of the show. I promise you I always keep my word.”
Maren winked. And then he slapped his fingers on the man’s arm, dug his nails deep into and through the cotton of his uniform, and wrenched him off the horse.
He looked into the eyes of the other men. “Get your sorry asses off those saddles, or I’ll stick my blade so far up your tight little hole, it’ll come out your throat.”
An unoiled portcullis hinge groaned, whining as the inside gate opened, then the outside. A small horde of Silver Swords announced themselves with a jangling of mail.
“Lord O’Keefe,” a guardswoman said, standing at attention.
Maren delivered a solid kick into the rump of a prisoner—a spot where fat cushions the blow. “Get up!” He looked at his guardsmen and wiped a hand across his mouth, slinging spit. “Boys, girls, meet the filthy fucks who abducted your king.”
Beneath the sharp rim of their iron kettle helms, the guards tried to hide their emotions. Maren had put emphasis on remaining stoic, calm a
nd expressionless no matter what blight or blessing was upon them.
But there were nonetheless a few widening eyes and twitching mouths. Had Lavery been found? Where was he? If not here, then…
“Get ’em inside,” Maren ordered. He pointed at a young man with yellow-stained teeth. “Tell the Council to wakey, wakey. I want them in the square, now.” Another finger darted toward a pale-faced woman. “Tell Captain Hravt to meet me at the fountain.” A third finger stuck out, aimed at a third guard. “You, get the Criers. Tell them Lavery Opsillian’s abductors have been caught.” He paused, thoughtfully. “No, tell them we’re going to war.”
Maren grasped a prisoner’s elbow. He lifted him to his feet, then shoved him forward. “Get walking, you Raven Winged fuck.” He shoved him again. “Elite guard of Bastion Rook, huh? Pathetic.”
Through the portcullis they marched, the prisoner wobbling and stumbling with each flat-palmed jab into his back. The others followed—or rather, were dragged—a guard attached to each of their arms.
Valios looked deserted. Its people hadn’t yet roused—and had little reason to in the late stages of autumn, when the cold lingered for longer and the nights bled into morning—but Maren O’Keefe intended to change that.
He’d come prepared, after all.
When you’ve got a ruse to put into action, it’s best to hit your audience with it hard. Move with intensity, strike with agility. Never give them a moment to question your motives. Keep their eyes moving, ears engaged, thoughts spinning about so quickly they’ve not got time to consult their suspicions.
Maren called the strategy the Impetus of Disguise. And he employed it handily.
He cut a roundabout path through the dregs of Valios, hollering that he had them, that he’d hang them. Then he coughed a big-bellied laugh and corrected himself: he’d make them bleed.
The ruckus brought out all the street dwellers, the beggars sleeping on stoops and curled up in alleyways stained with piss and excrement. The dregs were full of these types, and they were the perfect spectators for Maren’s little play. Misery, after all, loves company.
The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1) Page 16
