“Haton. Master Haton Dorish.”
“Yes, Your Grace, I have,” he said, and the sudden agony upon his face was the same that was creeping into my guts. I did not like where this was going. The greencoats began to shift in place. Horace squeezed the pummel of his sword.
“Detail this conversation,” Avin said.
It took the boy a moment to compose himself. “It was many days ago atop the ridge—sometime early last season. We talked about the work being done on the pier, and for a while, the crack in the rock face. He asked if it was a hazard. I told him it would not be unless someone really worked at widening it.” He said the last with a terrible sob.
Erom came up out of his seat again, and this time took several steps forward.
Avin gestured for him to restrain himself and addressed Anton. “Why are you so affected, lad?”
“I failed to report the conversation to my sergeant. I failed in my duty to protect the prince. I could have stopped him.”
“Stand down, son,” Avin said and waved the father forward. Erom ran to the spot as Anton was moved back by the jailors. As Erom turned, I got my first look at his face. It was tortured and wet with tears.
“You have something to add?” Avin asked.
“Your highness—your worshipness,” he started between haggard breaths. Avin waved him to calm himself. He took a long slow breath and said, “Haton visited my quarry during the winter, very close to when he must have visited my son. I gave him a tour of the quarry and explained how we use rods and block pulleys to split stone. He purchased a set and time enough from a half dozen of my men to carve a cold storage room into the stone behind one of the warehouses at the harbor.”
“Was it the kind of gear that could bring down the rock face above the harbor road?”
Erom was trembling. “Yes.”
It was Haton who had tried to kill Barok.
It was a terrible realization, but I could not understand why Avin was ignoring Anton’s attempt to kill my baby. “Wait a moment,” I said and stepped through the greencoats. “What about the rest of what he did?”
Horace and his men followed me across. The greencoats on the far side and by the entrance collapsed toward me.
Avin blinked at me and looked around for a moment as if to recall what it was I was talking about.
“He was arrested in the storeroom with a mangor root in his hands,” I said. “Have you forgotten?”
“Sit down, all of you,” Avin said, waved the greencoats toward the chairs, and stalked his way around the table. Captain Gern glared death at Sergeant Horace. I was startled when I noticed Avin was doing the same at me. “Sit down, Madam Yentif,” he hissed.
I found the nearest seat and did as I was told.
He turned on Erom. “Master Oklas, step aside. Master and Madam O’Nropeel, come forward.” They crossed toward the spot like prowling wolves. “Bear with me, please. Your children were murdered that day upon the road, but I must have all the facts. I understand that the two of you were arguing just before the rockslide. I need to know who was yelling and why.”
“And you think that poking into the affairs of my family will serve a purpose?” Sevat asked, his body rigid with anger. Clearly, Avin did, and he waited for one of them to answer.
Soma said, “It was Pix and another of our daughters, Amelia. Pix told us that Amelia was looking for mangor root.”
Avin asked, “Who was the father?”
“I beg your pardon?” Sevat shot back. “Your presumption is impertinent.”
“Was it Anton, Master O’Nropeel?”
Sevat crossed his arms, but Avin had him figured. Soma answered the question with a small nod.
The room looked to Anton who was sitting upon the floor of his cell, weeping into his arms. Amelia had been carrying his child, and he had gone to the storeroom to find out if she had taken the mangor root. He’d wanted to know.
Avin said, “Erom, get your boy out of there.”
The father went and hefted his son up off the floor. No one was sitting down when he brought him out, and Avin did not seem to mind that we crowded around him.
“Anton,” Avin said, while the group of us stood close. “I dismiss all charges against you. You are free to go with the compliments of this court for uncovering the guilty party.”
The words did little for the lad just then. Erom helped him out.
We turned back to Avin, the nature of the meeting now much different. Every person there was Chaukai.
“Where is Haton now?” Avin asked.
“With Leger, somewhere in the Oreol,” Gern said.
Soma added, “It has been ten days since we saw them near Osburth. Haton could be anywhere.”
“We’ll start the search there,” Gern replied. “Soma, can the ships be made ready any sooner?”
“We can sail in the morning,” Soma said. “We’ll need to clear those corsairs out of the way first, but once we set the score with them, we could have Haton’s head in two days.”
“No,” Avin said, “I charge you with Haton’s arrest and return. He could not have been working alone. We must uncover the rest.”
This brought everyone to a halt. Darmia had been close, but Haton was closer still. He knew all our secrets and all but the most recent of our plans.
“Why did he do it?” Avin asked, but did not seem to be addressing the question to anyone in particular. He continued talking to himself. “Why did Haton do it? Why try to kill Barok now, and in so complicated a way? He had access to Barok’s person. Why not stab him through the heart?”
“The Chaukai have made it nearly impossible,” I said. “No one can get close anymore.”
“That’s not it,” Gern said. “I was in a melee with Haton once, in Bessradi. He did a lot of yelling but wet himself and cried a little, too. It wasn’t until our attackers were dying on their backs that he was able to use his knife. He’s a coward. This was a coward’s way—mechanical and from a distance.”
Soma asked, “Why didn’t he try to kill Barok when he first arrived?”
“Perhaps he did,” I said, and one thing after another fell into place. “I always wondered how those first Hessier who came to kill Barok knew that he had ridden out alone. Someone had told them. Someone who would have been watching Barok day and night. And someone also gave Kuren the idea to sail up the coast instead of using the road. Haton has been trying to kill Barok since he arrived.”
“What else could he have been into?” Avin asked, and the question fell heavy.
Gern said to his men, “I want eyes on every man who worked closely with Haton. None of them are to be allowed near the keep, Barok, or Dia.” To Horace, he said, “And would you please get Madam Yentif back to safety?”
The meeting ended there, and Soma beat every man to the door.
I wanted to sail with her. I wanted to have hold of a spear when they found Haton, and I wanted to be the one who gagged his mouth and bound his hands.
But I could not.
I followed the sergeant out and daydreamed, instead, about what I would do to him when they returned.
42
Arilas Barok Yentif
“Sofia?” Lady Umera asked me while Dia’s new maid crossed to the bath and presented my cheery wife with two dress options for the day. “Kayli?”
I did my best to appear engrossed in Avin’s report of the previous day’s proceedings but wasn’t fooling anyone. I wasn’t going to escape the questioning until I’d finished the food Dia had set in front of me. I tried to content myself that I’d managed to get dressed before all the girls began to pile into our room. Dia’s change in mood had made our apartment a popular place. Lady Pemini and two of her cooks were standing in the doorway.
“It’s going to be a boy,” I replied, scooped down the last of the blueberries, and began cutting up the last hunk of ham steak.
“You never know,” Umera said. “And what if it is a girl and you don’t have a name picked, what then?”
; Dia and I were of a like mind on the subject of baby names, but her playfulness had increased with each of Avin’s visits. She smirked at me, and all six women came to a halt to hear my answer.
“Clea?” I said, and received six frowns. “What? It means wolf bite.”
“Ohh,” Pemini said. “Like that.”
“Good,” I said and deposited the last of the ham steak into my cheek for later chewing. “Must be going.”
I made good my escape, the door closed behind me, and they were all kind enough to wait until I was halfway down to the great hall before they began to laugh. I smiled the rest of the way.
The Map of the Pinnion I’d fallen asleep on the previous night was where I’d left it. I traced my finger down the coast. Leger was somewhere there between Osburth and Moorsmoth, Haton presumably by his side.
The morning’s humor fell away, and I stabbed my finger down upon Osburth. “Come on, Leger. Sniff Haton out and feed him to the pigs.”
Fana and a set of her junior scribes came down from the gallery. They were bleary-eyed and stank. Pemini and Dia had forced me to find sleep and a bath. My scribes appeared not to have managed the same.
“Did you finish it?” I asked and took the offered report. It listed everyone associated with Haton and detailed what they owned in Enhedu. Their combined holdings constituted the majority of my tax rolls.
Fana did not need to provide a summary. “Haton’s association controls most of Enhedu.”
“We don’t think it can be all of them,” one of the scribes said. “A thousand thralls makes little sense.”
“A thousand,” I said and scanned back through the list. Every productive man I knew was listed there. “But which? Do you have any idea how to uncover them?”
Another scribe shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Nothing in their dealings reveals a network. They are all working as hard as the rest to make Enhedu prosper.”
A third man was not doing well. He teetered a bit. Another of the scribes helped him into a chair, and I poured him some water. I asked them, “You weren’t up all night working on the report, were you?”
“Not just the report,” Fana said. I poured a cup for her as well. “Alsman Errati spent the night redrafting the pardons for himself and Swordmaster Fenol. Avin found errors in his first two attempts and refused to sign them. You’ll find your alsman just there, asleep under that bench. I finished an accounting of the auxiliaries Leger signed in Almidi. There is also an updated ledger balance from the bank around here somewhere. And we were also trying to get a new map finished for Soma before she left.”
“She left already? I was hoping to see them off.” Fana shrugged. I crossed to the mapmaker’s alcove. The half-finished map upon the table was a copy of the map I’d drooled on, but done from a mariner’s perspective. It detailed the coastline, the depth of the waters, and the currents. The interior landmasses were blank as if irrelevant. He’d come nowhere near finishing in time, but I was impressed nonetheless. I looked forward to seeing the finished product.
I gave them all a look. Selt had recruited these men—had been seeing to all of their work before he departed for Almidi to get my bank there off the ground.
A little warning bell went off in my head. Something Fana had said was troubling me, and I reviewed all the works she’d mentioned until I recalled my morning plans and the reason the girls had tried to cheer me up with a laugh. I decided Fana could use a bit of the same.
“A pardon for Swordmaster Fenol?” I asked. “He was supposed to have burned to death last night. Who decided to pardon him?”
She blanched and needed to sit down.
“Now now, calm yourself, I was just joking,” I said. “Dia convinced me to spare him last night. I’m interviewing him later this morning.”
Fana drank her water. “Remarkably funny, my lord.”
Not as funny as it sounded on the way out of my mouth, apparently. I was undeterred. I crossed to the bench Errati slept beneath. “Errati Saristrava,” I said and banged on the bench seat. “As you know well, it is the prescription of Lord Vall for each alsman to be attended each morning by a prince of the Zoviyan Empire and for that alsman to be tutored on whatever subject he likes least. Rise, sir, rise!”
Not a laugh to be found. Errati struggled up from under the bench. He’d banged his head, it seemed.
Selt would have laughed.
I abandoned my attempts at humor, called up food for them, and sat down to study the report of Haton’s grip upon my province.
It would have been nice if one of them had managed at least a small laugh.
I’d not finished a satisfactory study of their work when I was summoned away to interview the swordmaster. I managed a thank you without another failed joke and gathered myself for the much different confrontation I’d invited.
Eargram escorted me to Master Fenol’s cell and unlocked it while Errati, Geart, and I looked on. Horace and my bodyguards were close at hand.
Fenol looked my weary alsman up and down. “Heh, look at you. They’ll kill you next Errati.”
My alsman shrugged in response. Eargram went inside and cut the ropes that bound the swordmaster. Sergeant Horace tossed a wooden short sword onto the ground outside the cell.
Fenol eyed it. His tone was flat. “You want me to teach you my manual of sword.”
“As a start,” I replied. “I’d take you on as Enhedu’s master of sword as well, if you would accept the post.”
“I’d rather climb a wall of cocks with my face.”
Eargram and the rest laughed. I took the vivid language as a good sign. I stepped back into the open space between his cell and the two stone tables.
Fenol sat up and slowly considered each of my men. He unconsciously rolled his shoulders and flexed his wrists.
I said to him, “The last time we spoke I did not get to hear the arguments of your manual.”
“I’d come to kill you, not argue swordplay.”
“What did you determine to be the weakness of my art, if any?” I asked him.
“I will not teach it to you.”
“I recall that you hoped to earn a copy of my manual of sword.”
“I was mistaken. Yours is a juvenile practice.”
“A strange opinion considering how soundly I defeated you the last time we met in Bessradi.”
“Your victory had nothing to do with your art,” he said.
“You disappoint me, Swordmaster. Do you make the excuse that you were ill, or that I cheated, perhaps?”
“I make no excuses.”
“You have written a new one. How is it any different from the other inferior manuals of proper attack? Mine is the best ever written.”
“Attack is a false teaching. Mine is the art of defense. Your fight is imperfect.”
“That is a very old debate. What is the perfect fight if it is not one that ends in victory? And how is it a man may be victorious if his attack is not straighter, faster, and first?”
His face lost the pretense of indifference. He flicked a hunk of mud off his filthy trousers and glanced once at the short sword.
“In a perfect fight,” he said, “between two men of perfect skill, no hurt could be done.”
“So there would be no victor?”
“No. There would be two. The logic of attack is flawed.”
“There is no imperfection in the thrust that pierces your opponent’s heart,” I replied and waved my guards well back.
Fenol stood slowly and stepped out of his cell. “A master of your art can be killed by any mad rush. Does not every other drama of the stage include the tragedy of a great man who is killed by the rush of an untrained yeoman?”
“You bend the subjects away from its mark. My skill of attack was what defeated you in Bessradi.”
He picked up the sword and took a step toward me. “It was not your art of attack that availed you in Bessradi. It was my lack of defense. You know this to be true.”
I remembered it well, and yes, cur
se him, it was a weakness in his defense—a weakness taught by my manual of attack that caused his defeat.
He said to me, “Strike me if you can.”
“Your art is at question. You begin it.”
“No, Prince. This fight is yours. Kill me if you can.”
In the bat of a lash, I stabbed at him with the perfect thrust of sword. It went unannounced by any tell, low along his blade. But as he had done before the gates of Urnedi, the swordmaster retreated the pace required to get just beyond my range.
“Judge and keep your distance,” Fenol said to me.
I narrowed my eyes, thrust again, and followed with a great whipping slash. I followed on, raced in, and sent a long hard strike straight toward the man’s heart. Fenol’s short sword pushed it aside, and he danced away.
I continued after him with murder on my mind. It was the most maddening display of swordsmanship I’d managed in a lifetime filled with such moments. The tight, well-aimed flash of my sword guided him around toward one of the stone tables. Each of my attacks was parried, but I did not let him close enough to strike back with his shorter weapon. Fenol backed again and again, and I got myself ready for triumph as I pushed him toward the table.
I thrust again—as fast as a viper. He parried and leapt up onto the table.
Fenol walked across to the far side, jumped down, and said to me, “Through distance, take your time.”
I chased after him, but even as my attack began, I knew my tight form had tired. The liquid movement of my sword had thickened, and as I rushed forward, Fenol reversed his direction, set my blade aside, and slapped my face hard with the flat of his wooden sword.
“Through time, you win,” he said as greencoats converged. Horace’s magic was already hot upon his hands, and a dozen men seized the swordmaster.
I was stunned but not hurt. I had expected Fenol to beat me but not so resoundingly. There was, indeed, something new to this man’s art.
I waved off Horace and saluted the swordmaster. I said, “These lines you spoke, they are the laws of your art?”
“You can rot in the ice, you Yentif maggot,” he said as my men wrestled the sword away from him. “You got the argument out of me. Good for you. You’ll never understand it. Kill me and be done with it.”
Thrall's Wine Page 9
