06 - Rule of Thieves (8 page)

Lorea explained he was Counselor Torg Branek, the Praetor’s most trusted adviser. Lowering her voice, she added that he had the reputation of a man not to be trusted. People said he hungered for power and coveted the governorship of the province if anything should ever befall the Praetor.

I eyed the advisor and wondered just how important influence was to him. Enough to remove anyone else who might divide the Praetor’s attention? Martyn had said it was someone close to the Praetor who wanted me out of the way. This Torg Branek looked capable of such a plot, and from Lorea’s description of him, it might not be out of his character.

“Tell me about the new Fist captain,” I suggested.

I didn’t know what made me ask about Terrac. I already knew him better than anyone here possibly could.

Lorea said, “Aye, well, he’s been promoted since the retirement of the former captain, Delecarte. He gets the job done, defending us against those pale-skinned savages, and that’s all we want.”

I watched Terrac across the room, seeing him fumble with a tray a servant handed him, then knock over the tankard of the person seated beside him. It was obvious he was still struggling to adapt to his one-handed state. Knowing how he must hate for the Praetor and those other people to see him as weak or clumsy, my cheeks burned for him. Then I reminded myself it was quite likely he knew more about my recent arrest than he admitted to, and I stopped being sorry for him. I no longer believed him guilty of working against me, but he hadn’t been very forthcoming either. It would not greatly surprise me to learn he was protecting someone.

There was one other person at the Praetor’s table who interested me, a handsome young man whom the others seemed to ignore. All but Lady Morwena, whose longing looks aimed in his direction left no doubt of her admiration. From what I could see, he returned both the glances and the feeling.

Lorea recovered her chattiness to introduce him as Asmund Summerdale, another counselor to the Praetor, but one no one took seriously. Except the young women, she added with a wink. She took him very seriously indeed. Unfortunately for Counselor Summerdale, his fellow counselors and the Praetor were less enthralled with him, and it was only his family connections that assured his position.

Briefly, Lorea summed up all the others at the head table, various advisers, minor nobles, and a retired soldier. The graying soldier was the former Fist captain, Delecarte, whose position Terrac had so recently assumed. I vaguely remembered having seen Delecarte a few times in the past, but I hadn’t taken much note of him then. And there was no time to ask for further information on him now. Most everyone had finished their meals, and the great hall was emptying except for a handful of servants who stayed behind to clean up.

I headed back to my room, trying to remember all the turns that had brought me here. I followed the direction I thought was right only to find myself soon lost in a series of corridors that looked remarkably alike. This was a quiet part of the keep. I had passed no one in the halls for some time.

As I wandered, lost, I gradually became aware of an uncomfortable feeling shivering its way down my spine. The sense of being watched by unseen eyes. Surreptitiously, I glanced around the dimly lit corridor. Orange light from the intermittent wall sconces cast eerie shadows dancing up the walls, making the tapestries appear almost to move as if a living thing writhed beneath them. Anyone could be hiding behind those long tapestries, watching me. I had an unknown enemy in the keep, after all, one who had not hesitated to send an assassin after me once before. Who was to say they would not make an attempt on my life right here? I surely presented a tempting opportunity walking the lonely halls at night.

Flexing my fingers, I resisted the temptation to reach for the pair of sharp knives concealed up my sleeves. If someone was spying on me, waiting for their chance, I didn’t want to chase them away too soon. I must draw them out.

Shoulders tense with the thought of a sudden blade being planted between them, ears straining for the approach of stealthy footsteps, I kept walking.

Then I heard it. A soft footfall.

My twin knives were in my hands before I even had the conscious thought to draw them, and I whirled on my attacker.

But there was no attacker. It was only the raven-haired young woman I had seen at the Praetor’s dinner table earlier. She had come upon me unexpectedly, but she held no weapon, only a glowing candlestick in her hand. There was nothing threatening about her. Very much the opposite.

At my sudden action, she started and gave a little cry of dismay, nearly dropping her candle.

I said awkwardly, “My apologies, lady. You caught me by surprise. I had thought myself alone.”

With wide blue eyes, she watched me resheath my knives.

“I… I saw you wandering as if you were lost and thought you might welcome direction,” she offered.

“That’s good of you.” I tried to remember her name. “You’re Lady Morwena, aren’t you? Cousin and ward to the Praetor?”

Mention of her status seemed to drive away her uncertainty, and her voice grew confident. “The Praetor and I are distant cousins only. The relation is not a close one.”

I tried to introduce myself but she cut me off.

“I know who you are. You’re the outlaw of Dimmingwood.”

“There are a number of those,” I said.

“Yes, but you are the only famous one. Except for that horrid Red Hand, who is now dead. You are Ilan, who defeated the Skeltai with her magical bow.”

Her eyes darted over my shoulder. “You do not have it with you?”

I was uneasy to think word of the bow’s unusual qualities had become so widely known.

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” I said. “But it hardly seemed necessary to carry all my weapons here within the safety of these walls.”

She grimaced. “You think these walls are safe? Others have thought so to their misfortune. I could tell stories…”

The sentence hung temptingly, but I did not take up her offer.

With a little pout of annoyance, she volunteered more. “Every castle has its secrets, and this one conceals more than most.”

I said, “I am sure.”

“There are people within these ‘safe walls’ who are not what they present themselves to be. People who would kill to keep the things I know hidden.” A look of dark fascination crossed her face.

“Then it must be frightening to be you,” I said dryly.

If Lady Morwena had appeared tentative at first, she did not seem so now. I was reminded of the remark Lorea the laundress had made at dinner. She had been right about the girl’s changing moods.

“You’re making fun of me,” Lady Morwena said now. “But I can show you the dangers of which I speak.”

“I’ll have to decline that offer,” I said “I’ve had my fill of danger for a while.”

“On your journey through the provinces?” she asked knowingly. “Rumor says you went off with a priest of the blade and the Fist captain to carry out secret business for my cousin. Is that true?”

I smiled, despite myself. “Only if you consider traveling for pleasure in the company of friends official business for the Praetor.”

She looked sorry to hear it. “You must at least have had some perilous encounters? Met formidable foes and lived to tell of it?”

I said, “I suppose I almost died a few times, but that wasn’t as enjoyable as you seem to think.”

I wondered if she was really asking these things out of innocent interest or whether there was specific information she hoped to get out of me.

She said, “You will find it dull here, after the adventures you have had.”

“I doubt that, now that hostilities are resuming with the Skeltai.”

She shrugged a slender shoulder. “Oh, they cannot touch us here. I am less afraid of the Skeltai than of the civilized folk living among us.”

“Who especially?” I asked. I might not like Morwena, but it occurred to me I would be a fool to pass up opportunities for information.

She was willing enough to divulge it. “Counselor Torg Branek is the Praetor’s most influential advisor, but he has achieved that position by destroying all who oppose him. Then there’s the new Fist captain, Terrac. It is believed in some quarters that he is unqualified for his place, especially now he is crippled in his arm. There is speculation he received his advancement because of private connections.”

I said, “Really? I’ve heard he is capable in his new command.”

“There are those who believe him too young, too inexperienced, and weakened by the injury to his arm. For myself, I almost pity him, considering.”

I bit back the response that Terrac would not need or want anyone’s pity and allowed her to continue.

“Of course, the biggest mystery of all is my cousin.”

“The Praetor? Why? What has he to hide?”

She wavered visibly, as if suddenly doubting the wisdom of revealing too much. But it was obvious she could not help herself. In the torchlight, her eyes glittered with excitement at the thought of whatever it was she knew.

“I will not speak the secret,” she decided. “But I will show it to you and leave you to judge for yourself. Come with me.”

It was my turn to hesitate before giving in to curiosity and following her. She led me down lonely passages and through parts of the keep I had not guessed existed until, finally, we reached the foot of a narrow twisting set of steps leading up into a tower.

As we ascended, I remarked, “You know your way around surprisingly well considering I heard you were new to the castle.”

“I’ve had little enough to do but explore since I arrived,” she said. “I grew up in Celestianos, the greatest and most beautiful city in Camdon. After the deaths of my parents last year, I was made the ward of my cousin. Then I was brought here to Ellesus, the most ugly and rustic of all the provinces, and dumped into a horrid crumbling castle in a city too small to deserve the name.”

Leading the way, she glanced back at me. “I envy you managing to escape this backwoods province, if only for a while.”

“It wasn’t much of an escape,” I said. “I spent a lot of the time traversing deserts and dueling dragons. There was also an assassin who trailed me from home and made more than one attempt on my life.”

I watched her closely for some reaction. But if she had heard rumors of the assassin, she gave nothing away.

I tried again. “The assassin’s name was Martyn. Before his death, he told me he was sent to dispose of me by someone here in Selbius, someone close to the Praetor. But he died before he could give the name.”

Before she could respond, we arrived at the top of the stairs to find a door blocking our way. Undeterred by the obstacle, Lady Morwena swept her fingers along the top of the doorframe, expertly retrieving a key from its hiding place. Clearly, this wasn’t her first time to use it.

Inserting the key in the lock, she twisted and shoved. The door swung open with a deep groan, affording a view of the dark interior of a small chamber. Morwena stepped confidently into the room, holding her candle aloft to pierce the gloom. With less enthusiasm, I followed her inside and took in the contents of the room.

An oak table stood in the center of the space. Rough floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, crowded with ancient-looking books and scrolls, pots of dying herbs, and jars of mushrooms and other things. I thought I recognized the deadly wormroot, as well as the healing earthleaf herb among those jars.

The fireplace was cold and dark, an empty kettle suspended over the charred remains of the last fire. A red curtain partially concealed a corner alcove where clay pots and, more startlingly, a human skull filled niches in the walls. A circular pattern was painted across the floor of the chamber, and at the heart of it was a vaguely familiar design. A star chart?

Something about this room felt wrong. Bad.

I shivered at the cold draft filtering through a loosely shuttered window. “What is this place?”

Morwena stepped nearer and whispered dramatically, “We stand in a mage’s lair.”

She watched me closely and appeared to relish my look of amazement. But she wasn’t finished yet. “This is where my cousin comes to practice the dark arts he cannot use openly. Hidden away here, he mixes his potions and concocts his spells and believes no one guesses what he does. But
I
know.”

My surprise was not at the Praetor’s magery but that this woman had discovered it. To conceal my thoughts, I walked to the table and examined the objects cluttering it. An hourglass, a collection of crystal shards spread across a strip of velvet, and an opaque sphere about the size of my hand, resting in an open box.

“How do you know the purpose of this chamber?” I asked Morwena. “It might be used for anything.”

I picked up the glass sphere from the box and handled it gingerly, staring into its cloudy depths.

“I think that is a seers’ showing stone in your hand,” Morwena said. “I once spied on my cousin and saw him gazing into it.”

I put the ball down quickly, as though it had grown suddenly hot.

Morwena continued, “I have flipped through the books on the shelves and found them filled with nonsensical words. What else could they be but magical spells?”

I shrugged uncomfortably. “They might be ordinary books, written in another language. Old Writ, maybe.”

She did not seem to hear me. Her face shone with excitement. “Just think. For all these years, my cousin has outlawed magickery and destroyed its practicers, while secretly possessing it himself.”

I could have educated her on the fact that natural magickery and magery were two very different talents. A person was born with the former and could not deny it even if they wished. But the art of magery was chosen, pursued by those who craved the power that came with it. Natural magic came easily, while magery was a forcing of magic through incantation and other learned skills. Or so Hadrian had taught me.

But I kept silent, unwilling to betray that I knew more on the subject than the average person.

Morwena asked in a cunning tone, “Why do you suppose the Praetor would outlaw a practice he himself followed? Perhaps he wanted to be the only one?”