“I can see why Tom said that you’d be the one to see.”
“What’s this about, Jennsen?”
She took a deep, casual breath, preparing herself. She had thought it out a hundred different ways, forward and backward. She was ready to come at it from any angle.
“You know that those of us who serve Lord Rahl in this capacity can’t always allow everyone to know what we’re doing, or who we are.”
Captain Lerner was nodding. “Of course.”
Jennsen folded her arms, trying to look relaxed, despite how her heart pounded. She had made it past the riskiest assumption; she had guessed correctly.
“Well, I had a man working with me,” Jennsen went on. “I heard he was taken prisoner. It wouldn’t surprise me. The fellow sticks out in a crowd—but for what we were doing, that was what we needed. Unfortunately, the guards must have noticed him, too. Because of the mission and the people we were dealing with, he was well armed, so that would have put the men who stopped him on edge.
“He hasn’t been here before, so he wouldn’t know who to trust, and besides, it’s traitors we’re hunting.”
The captain was frowning in thought as he rubbed his jaw. “Traitors? In the palace?”
“We don’t know for certain. We suspect infiltrators are about—that’s who we’re hunting—so he wouldn’t dare to trust anyone here. If the wrong ears heard who he really was, it would imperil the rest of us. I doubt he would even give you his real name, though he might have—Sebastian. With the danger we’re in, he would know that the less he says, then the less risk there is to the others on our team.”
He stared off, seeming to be caught up in her story.
“No…no prisoner has admitted to that name.” His brow bunched in earnest reflection. “What’s he look like?”
“A few years older than me. Blue eyes. Short white hair.”
The captain instantly recognized the description. “That one.”
“My information was correct, then? You have him.”
She wanted to grab the man by his leather and shake him. She wanted to ask if they’d hurt Sebastian. She wanted to scream at him to let Sebastian out.
“Yes, we have him. If it’s the same man you’re talking about, that is. Matches your description, anyway.”
“Good. I need him back. I have urgent business for him. I can’t afford to delay. We need to leave at once before the trail gets any colder. It would be best if we not make a big show of him being released. We need to slip out with as little notice as possible, as little contact with soldiers as possible. The ring of infiltrators might have managed to place themselves in the army.”
Captain Lerner folded his arms and sighed as he leaned down toward her a little, looking at her as a big brother might look at a little sister. “Jennsen, are you sure he’s one of your men?”
Jennsen feared to overplay the bluff. “He was chosen for this assignment specifically because soldiers would not suspect he was one of us. Looking at him, you’d never guess. Sebastian has a proven knack for being able to get close to the infiltrators without them getting wind that he’s one of our men.”
“But are you sure of this man’s heart? Are you really sure he’d not bring Lord Rahl into harm’s view?”
“Sebastian is one of mine—that much I know—but I’m not sure the man you have is my Sebastian. I guess I’d have to see him to be sure. Why?”
The captain stared off as he shook his head. “I don’t know. I spent a lot of years carrying the knife, like you’re starting out doing, and going places where you can’t carry the knife, so you won’t be known for who you really are. I don’t have to tell you how being in such danger all the time sometimes gives you a sense about people. Something about that fellow with the white hair makes mine stand on end.”
Jennsen didn’t know what to say. The captain was twice the size of Sebastian, so it wasn’t Sebastian’s physical presence that would worry the man. Of course, size was no valid indicator of potential threat. Jennsen very well might be able to beat the captain in a knife fight. Maybe Captain Lerner sensed how deadly Sebastian was with weapons. The captain’s eyes had been heedful of the way her fingers handled the knife.
Perhaps the captain was able to tell by various small things that Sebastian was not D’Haran. That could be troublesome, but Jennsen had thought out a plan to explain that, too, just in case.
“Tom still up to his trouble?” the man asked.
“Oh, you know Tom. He’s selling wine, along with the help of Joe and Clayton.”
The captain stared incredulously. “Tom—and his brothers? Selling wine?” He shook his head as a grin spread wide. “I’d like to know what he’s really up to.”
Jennsen shrugged. “Well, that’s just what he’s selling at the moment, of course. The three of them travel around, buying goods, bringing them back to sell.”
He laughed at that, and slapped her shoulder. “That sounds like he’d want it told. Small wonder he trusts you.”
Jennsen was completely confused and desperately didn’t want to be dragged any further into a dangerous discussion about Tom, or she could soon be found out. She didn’t really know much about Tom; this man apparently did.
“I guess I’d better see this fellow you have. If it is Sebastian, I need to kick his tail and get him on his way.”
“Right,” Captain Lerner said with a firm nod. “If he is your man, at least I’ll finally know his name.” He turned to the ironbound door as he rooted around in his pocket for a key. “If it is him, he’s lucky you came for him before one of them women in red showed up to ask him questions. He’d be spouting more than his name, then. He’d have saved himself and you a lot of trouble if he’d have told us what he was about in the first place.”
Jennsen felt giddy relief to hear that a Mord-Sith hadn’t tortured Sebastian. “When you’re doing Lord Rahl’s business, you keep your mouth shut,” she said. “Sebastian knows the price of our work.”
The captain grunted his agreement as he turned the key. The latch unlocked with a cavernous clang. “For this Lord Rahl, I’d keep my mouth shut—even if it was a Mord-Sith asking the questions. But you’d have to know the new Lord Rahl better than I, so I guess I don’t need to tell you.”
Jennsen didn’t understand, but didn’t ask anything, either. As the captain tugged on the door, it slowly swung open, revealing a long hallway lit by a few candles along the length of the corridor. To each side were doors with small, barred openings. As they passed some of those openings, as many as half a dozen arms stretched out, imploring, reaching, grabbing. From the darkness through others came the clamor of voices calling out vile curses and oaths. From the reaching hands and the collection of voices, she knew that each room beyond held groups of men.
Jennsen followed behind the captain, deeper into the fortress prison. When eyes peered out and saw it was a woman, the men called out obscenely to her. She was shocked by the lewd and vulgar things yelled at her, the jeering laughter. She hid her feelings, her fears, and wore a calm mask.
Captain Lerner kept to the center of the passageway, occasionally batting aside a reaching hand. “Watch yourself,” he cautioned.
Jennsen was about to ask why when someone threw something sloppy at her. It missed, splattering on the opposite wall. She was appalled to see that it was feces. Several more men joined in. Jennsen had to duck and dodge to miss it. The captain suddenly kicked a door of a man about to throw more. The bang of the kick echoed up and down the corridor, serving as warning enough to cause men to retreat back into the depths of their cells. Only when the glaring captain was sure his threat was understood did he start out once again.
Jennsen couldn’t help but to ask in a whisper, “What are all of these men accused of?”
The captain glanced back over his shoulder. “Various things. Murder, rape—things like that. A few are spies—the kind of men you’re hunting.”
The stench of the place gagged her. The raw hatred of the prisoners was
understandable, she supposed, but no matter how much she sympathized with captives of Lord Rahl’s soldiers, men fighting against his brutal rule, their behavior only served to support any accusations of perversity. Jennsen stayed close to Captain Lerner’s heels as he turned down a side passageway.
From a shelf built into the stone, he collected a lamp, then lit it from a nearby candle. The light from the lamp only served to throw a little more light into a nightmare and make it all the more frightening. She had terrifying visions of being found out and ending up in this place. She couldn’t keep from imagining being locked in a room with men like these. She knew what they would do to her. Jennsen had to remind herself to slow her breathing.
Another door had to be unlocked, taking them beyond to a low passageway with doors spaced much closer. She guessed that they were cells holding a single man. A grasping hand, grimy and covered with open sores, shot out of an opening to catch her cloak. She shrugged the hand off her and kept moving.
Captain Lerner unlocked another door at the end and they entered a space smaller yet, hardly wider than his shoulders. The twisting, cramped opening, like a fissure in the rock, made Jennsen’s skin crawl. No hands reached out of the door openings in this place. The captain stopped and held up the lamp to look through the small hole in the door to the right. Satisfied with what he saw, he handed her the lamp and then unlocked the door.
“We put special prisoners in this section,” he explained.
He had to use both hands and all his weight to pull on the door. It moved with grating protest. Inside, Jennsen was surprised to see it was only a tiny, empty room with a second door. That was why there were no hands reaching in this hall. The cells had double doors, to make escape even more improbable. After unlocking the second door, he took back the lamp.
The captain ducked through the short doorway, pushing the light in before him, his bulk in the door momentarily throwing her into the darkness. Once through, he extended a hand out to help her so she wouldn’t trip over the high sill. Jennsen held the man’s big hand and stepped into the cell. It was larger than she expected, looking to be carved out of the solid stone of the plateau. Tooled gouges in the rock walls testified to how difficult the work had been. No prisoner was going to dig his way out of such a secure place.
On a bench carved in the opposite wall sat Sebastian. His blue eyes were on her from the instant she entered. In those eyes she thought she could see how much he wanted out. Nevertheless, he showed no emotion and said nothing. From outward appearances, no one would even know that he knew her.
He had neatly folded his cloak and used it as a cushion on the cold stone. Nearby sat a water cup. His clothes were orderly, showing no evidence that they abused him.
It was so good to see his face, his eyes, his spikes of white hair again. He licked his lips, his beautiful lips that so often had smiled at her. Now, though, he dared not smile. Jennsen had been right. She did want to fall on him, to throw her arms around him, to wail with her relief at seeing him alive and unhurt.
The captain gestured with his lamp. “This him?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Sebastian’s eyes were fixed on her as she stepped forward. She had to pause to be sure she had her voice under control. “It’s all right, Sebastian. Captain Lerner, here, knows you’re one of my team.” She patted the handle of her knife. “You can trust him to keep your identity confidential.”
Captain Lerner extended a hand. “Glad to meet you, Sebastian. Sorry about the mix-up. We didn’t know who you were. Jennsen explained your mission. I used to serve, so I understand the need for secrecy.”
Sebastian rose to his feet and clasped hands with the man. “No harm done, Captain. I can’t fault our men for doing their job.”
Sebastian didn’t know her plan. He appeared to be waiting for her lead. She gestured impatiently and asked a question she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer and, in that way, let him know what it was she intended him to say.
“Did you make contact with any of the infiltrators before you were stopped by the guards? Did you find out who any of them are and gain their confidence? Did you at least get any names?”
Sebastian took her lead and sighed convincingly. “I’m sorry, no. I’d only just arrived and didn’t have a chance before the guards…” His gaze drifted to the floor. “Sorry.”
Captain Lerner’s eyes shifted between the two of them.
Jennsen assumed a tone of forbearance. “Well, I can’t blame guards for not taking chances in the palace. We need to be on our way, though. I made some headway in our search and uncovered some important new contacts. It can’t wait. These men are wary and I need you to approach them. They aren’t likely to let a woman buy them drinks—they’d get the wrong idea—so I’m going to leave it to you. I’ve got other snares to set.”
Sebastian was nodding as if he were entirely familiar with the imaginary work. “All right.”
The captain held an arm out. “Let’s get you both on your way, then.”
Sebastian, following Jennsen out, glanced back. “I’ll need my weapons, Captain. And all the coins that were in the purse. That’s Lord Rahl’s money, and I need it to do his bidding.”
“I have it all. Nothing is missing—my word on that.”
Outside, in the confining passageway, Captain Lerner pulled the cell door shut. He had the light, so Jennsen and Sebastian waited on him. As she started out, the captain gently reached past Sebastian to grasp her arm, stopping her.
Jennsen froze, fearing to breathe. She felt Sebastian’s hand slip around her waist to the handle of her knife.
“Is it true what people say?” the captain asked.
Jennsen looked back into his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, about Lord Rahl. About how he’s…I don’t know, different. I’ve heard men talk—men who have met him, fought with him. They talk about how he handles that sword of his, how he fights and all, but more than that, they talk about him as a man. Is it true what they say?”
Jennsen didn’t know what he meant. She feared to move, to say anything, not knowing how to answer such a question. She didn’t know what people, especially D’Haran soldiers, said about the new Lord Rahl.
She knew that she and Sebastian could kill this man, here, now. They would have the element of surprise. Sebastian, with his hand on her knife, was surely thinking that very thing.
But they would still have to make it out of the palace. If they killed him, it was likely that the body would soon be discovered. The D’Haran soldiers were anything but lax. Even if they hid the dead captain of the prison guards, a check of the prisoners would soon reveal that Sebastian was missing. Their chances of escaping, then, became remote.
Worse, though, she didn’t think she could kill this man. Despite the fact that he was a D’Haran officer, she held no ill feeling for him. He seemed a decent sort, not a monster. Tom liked him, and the captain respected Tom. Stabbing a man who was trying to kill them was one thing. This would be entirely different. She couldn’t do this.
“We would lay down our lives for the man,” Sebastian said in an earnest voice. “I’d have let you torture and kill me before I would have said a word, for fear it would endanger Lord Rahl.”
“I, too,” Jennsen added in a soft voice, “think of little else but Lord Rahl. I even dream about him.”
She had spoken the truth, but a truth calculated to deceive. The captain smiled, staring off with an inner satisfaction as his fingers released her arm.
Jennsen felt Sebastian’s hand slip away from her knife.
“I guess that tells it plain,” the captain said in the near darkness. “I’ve served a long time. I had lost hope of daring to dream such a thing.” He hesitated, then spoke again. “And his wife? Is she really a Confessor, like they say? I’ve heard tales about the Confessors, from back before the boundaries, but I never knew if it was really true.”
Wife? Jennsen didn’t know anything about Lord Rahl having a wife. Jennsen coul
dn’t picture him with a wife, or imagine what such a woman would be like. Jennsen couldn’t even conceive of why the Lord Rahl, a man who could possess any woman he wanted and then discard her at will, would bother to take a wife.
And what a “Confessor” could be was a complete mystery to Jennsen, but the very title “Confessor” certainly sounded ominous.
“Sorry,” Jennsen said. “I’ve not met her.”
“Nor I,” Sebastian said. “But I’ve heard much the same about her as you have.”
The captain smiled distantly. “I’m glad I’ve lived to see a Lord Rahl like this finally come to command D’Hara as it should be commanded.”
Jennsen started out again, troubled by the man’s words, troubled that he was pleased this new Lord Rahl was going to conquer and rule the whole world in the name of D’Hara.
Jennsen was eager to get out of the prison and out of the palace. The three of them moved quickly back through the narrow passageways, back through iron doors and past the reaching prisoners. The captain’s growled warning silenced them, this time.
When they rushed through the last ironbound door before the stairs, they all came to an abrupt halt. A tall, attractive woman, with a single long blond braid, stood waiting for them, blocking their escape route. The look on her face was lightning waiting to strike.
She was wearing red leather.
It could be nothing other than a Mord-Sith.
Chapter 27
The woman’s hands were clasped casually behind her back. Her expression was anything but casual. Boot strikes echoed off the stone walls as she stepped forward, a dark thundercloud approaching, a thundercloud that didn’t know fear.
A wave of gooseflesh tingled up Jennsen’s body from her knees to the nape of her neck where downy hair stiffened.
In a steady, measured pace, the woman strode one full turn around them, looking them up and down, a hawk circling, inspecting mice. Jennsen saw an Agiel, the weapon of a Mord-Sith, hanging from a fine chain at the woman’s right wrist. Lethal as Jennsen knew such a weapon could be, it looked like nothing more than a thin leather rod not a foot in length.
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