Gold Throne in Shadow (6 page)

“What about Flayn? Can we subcontract it from him?” Maybe the extra business would placate the man.

Fae merely smiled enigmatically, which he understood was her look of total victory, at the mention of her old master. “You can, of course, ask.”

The feeling of being bested by a slip of a girl in a sensuous lace frock was enough to drive him to defiance. He resolved to do just that, despite knowing it would be totally futile. His tenacity was wasted, of course. Fae simply smirked as he rallied his forces, consisting of Torme and a few young soldiers, and marched across town. The soldiers were not his idea. Karl seemed to think he needed an escort everywhere these days.

“That is a remarkably attractive woman,” Torme said unnecessarily. The man was the perfect servant, almost invisibly discreet and polite to a fault, but Fae was a force of nature.

His boys had been cowed by her profession and intelligence. His men were made of sterner stuff. They did not speak out loud in the presence of their commander, but the leers on their faces were irrepressible.

“Don't even dream about it,” Christopher laughed at them. “I don't want to have to dig you out of whatever hole she buries you in.” But boys made into heroes lived and breathed dreams, and they didn't even have the decency to blush.

Outside the baroque glass door of Flayn's shop, Christopher steeled himself yet again. Flayn was as creepy and infuriating as Fae was provocative, and both of them were as wily as drunken snakes.

Entering the shop, he reflected that bringing the entire squad with him was perhaps not a politic move, especially since the young men's swagger turned protective and aggressive, responding to his own subconscious discomfort. Behind the counter Flayn had already managed to be rude with nothing more than a glance, and Christopher had to bite back a snide taunt about doing his own shopkeeping now. As he was fishing for some polite opening remark, he happened to notice Torme standing beside him. The man had gone still, like a mongoose ready to strike.

Flayn's gaze faltered before settling into to its customary sneer. “What thrice-cursed god sends you to darken my door?”

“Necessity,” Christopher answered, only slightly curious of Torme's reaction. It was what Christopher normally felt when dealing with Flayn, after all. “I require your services.”

Panic flickered through the wizard's eyes, a curiously inappropriate response to a job offer.

“They are not for sale to the likes of you,” Flayn said.

Entirely unexpectedly, Torme spoke up. “But perhaps freely offered to others?” His voice was hard now, thick, heavy iron, the peasant burr like flakes of rust. Christopher raised his hand to quiet his acolyte, uncertain why the hostility in the room was rising so quickly.

Flayn snapped out a proverb like it was threat. “Geese may quack, but the lord of the manor hears only his dinner.”

“Truth is only a spell away,” Torme retorted.

The two men were almost shouting at each other, a tennis match spiraling out of control. Christopher put up his other hand to quiet the wizard, a dubious proposition in the best of times, and at this juncture entirely unwise. Flayn reacted to the movement by throwing up his arms, and as Torme went for his sword, the wizard began chanting a spell.

Automatically, instinctively, Christopher began his own spell, but as short as it was, Flayn's was shorter, and all around him men fell helplessly into unnatural slumber.

But not Christopher: this enchantment no longer worked on him, a fact that Flayn could not have known yet. His own spell left his lips and his hand, the tael in his head yielding up the power it had stored, and Flayn froze like a statue, his hands in the middle of some complex and doubtless nefarious act.

In the silent shop, Christopher was at a loss, bewildered by the sudden violence in a place he had thought of as safe, and he had no idea what was supposed to happen next. He kicked Torme in the ribs while he reflexively drew his sword.

“What the Dark?” he barked, and Torme looked up, righteous anger burning the sleep out of his eyes.

“It is the wizard who slept your men at Black Bart's command!” Torme had been working for the other side, then. “I knew not his name or origin, but I cannot forget that sorry ferret face. His hatred of you was so great that Bart boasted he served for free.”

That same loathing poured out from Flayn's eyes now, the only part of his body still under his control. If looks could kill, the room would be full of burnt and blasted corpses.

And looks probably could, given a few words, a gesture, and tael. Christopher's spell was only good for seconds, and time was running out the door in sheer terror of a wizard's wrath.

“What do I do?” Christopher moaned, clueless, his anxiety stuttering in impotent hands.

“Slay him now, my lord,” Torme pleaded, “while you can. Who knows what devices or spells he may call upon?”

“Disarm him?” Christopher begged, still trying to avoid the obvious.

“How?” Torme said simply, and it was true. They didn't even know what to look for, a bracelet, a ring, perhaps a rock hidden in his shoe. Magic was like that.

Torme probably knew the laws better than Christopher did, even here in White lands. Flayn had attacked them, after all, and of course there was always the consolation that they could bring him back from the dead. Shooting first and asking questions later actually worked here.

Just another hard decision he had to make. Disgusted, he took it out in action, letting the cleanliness of the stroke wipe his mind. But as the wizard's head fell from its instantly limp body, emotion came rushing back, dropping him to his knees where he could not see the stump of the neck pumping out blood. He put his hand to the wall to steady himself and concentrated on not throwing up.

Torme stared at him in wonder. “He was your enemy.”

“He was a human being,” Christopher choked, gagging.

“Not so much,” Torme said. “The only thing standing between him and the Black was courage.” Torme might have atoned, but he still thought cowardice a worse vice than evil. Christopher might possibly be the only person on the planet who would disagree.

While Christopher tried to decide what to do next, Torme went into action. Awakening the soldiers, he took effective command, sending two to summon the Church officers, and two to guard the door against intrusion. Then he checked the body to make sure it was still unmoving.

“A good stroke, my lord,” Torme said with approval. Christopher couldn't accept the flattery, though. He'd practiced for years on bound reed mats, designed to simulate the high point of the samurai's art—cutting a standing neck in one stroke—and had managed to achieve it on several occasions. But this time tael had guided his hand, so the credit was not his. Not that he particularly wanted it.

Skittering away from the memory of the deed, Christopher's mind found something to analyze, pinning his attention to facts and figures in defense against feeling. Tael had not bound Flayn's neck with unnatural resilience: the man could not have been higher than first-rank.

That meant he could not have been a credible danger to Christopher.

Torme's advice had made the difference. Christopher knew that was no excuse. No one would believe a Curate acted on the will of an Acolyte. He watched the man dealing with the priestess who had arrived, sending her away with casual authority, his suspicion lurking under the memory of Faren's endorsement.

The Vicar Rana was not as angry as she could have been. She was angry, yes, like a kettle boiling the last of its water away in screaming agony, but not as angry as she was capable of. She didn't threaten to kill Christopher this time.

“You swear this,” she demanded of Torme again, which was gravely unnecessary since he was standing inside the zone of her truth-compelling spells. “Master Flayn aided Bartholomew in his attack last spring?”

“I swear it, my lady,” Torme said.

The lady glared at Christopher from the judge's bench, obviously misinterpreting his anxiety. “No need to summon your Cardinal to this perch,” she growled. “The law is clear. The violence of the ranked are beyond my jurisdiction. Your prize is safe.”

“Flayn attacked me!” Christopher protested.

“You did not have to kill him—” and at first he thought he had said it himself, his guilt was so overwhelming “—but if you had not, then you would have made us do it. Honestly, we should be grateful to you for doing our dirty work.” She was not grateful in the tiniest, littlest bit. “His tael is yours. As is his shop and all his worldly goods, forfeited by his stupidity and royal law.”

“Can't we revive him?” Christopher asked, looking for an escape from his culpability. “I can pay for it.”

“Why in the blazes would we do that?” the Vicar thundered. “In any case, I cannot believe he would come at our call. Would you go to the summons of a Dark priest?”

She shook her head in disappointment at his childishness. “Not every broken pot can be mended. If you do not like the consequences of your actions, then I suggest you act more carefully. In any case, now you must clean up the shards. Dispose of that body, at your own expense, and take possession of his demesne. I leave it to you to disarm the traps he doubtless left there, without causing harm to my town or my people.” The subtle emphasis left room for him to cause all the harm he wanted to himself. “Should his master come seeking vengeance, do not look to me for defense.”

Court adjourned, the small crowd spilled out into the street. Karl was deeply satisfied and did not hesitate to give due credit to Torme for the profitable outcome. “Once again they put a weapon in your hand and you strike unerringly,” he said to Christopher. Lowering his voice, he went on. “I almost suspect the Cardinal of suspecting . . . but no matter.”

“Master?” Christopher bleated. “Vengeance?”

“True enough,” Karl mused. “I don't suppose the wizards will approve.”

The Lord of Carrhill was a wizard. Christopher's program of diplomacy seemed poised to sink in the harbor.

“Burn it,” Torme suggested. “Just burn the accursed shop to the ground, body and all.” Nothing had been touched, yet. The crime scene investigation had consisted of the Vicar looking in the shop and shaking her head in disgust. After that, the door had been barred, and now the place was Christopher's problem.

“Perhaps it would be safer that way,” Karl said, “yet on the other hand, you must learn to deal with wizards and their craft. This may be the only time you can plunder a magic shop at your leisure.”

Hadn't he already hired someone to do his wizardry for him? “Fae. She was an apprentice—she was
his
apprentice. Shouldn't she be able to help?”

“Flayn's traps are probably less dangerous,” Karl said. “But as you wish.”

The arch of her pretty back broadcast her triumph. Subtly, of course, as was her nature, although the effect it had on her décolletage was not so subtle. Hat in hand, metaphorically speaking, Christopher petitioned his putative employee.

“Flayn shared few of his secrets with me,” Fae demurred, “and even if he had, I am of little use to you as an Apprentice. To separate the wheat from the chaff, and the harmful from the insignificant, would require a true wizard.”

Torme frowned. “No wizard is going to help the Curate sack another's shop,” he quite logically objected. Christopher sighed as the man played directly into her hands.

“If I make you a wizard,” Christopher said, giving up the argument entirely, “can you increase gunpowder production to the levels I require? And dispose of Flayn's shop? You won't have time to run it.” Killing a wizard was bad enough, Gods forbid he should bankroll their direct competition.

Fae wanted to savor her victory, but the lure was too great, the dream she had thought forfeit within unexpected arm's reach. The habits of a lifetime asserted themselves, and she dropped to one knee, spreading her arms in supplication. “I swear my service, my lord. I will bind my future to yours, for as long as you will have me.” The shining in her eyes made it hard for him to concentrate, and the abject surrender of her pose completely unbalanced him.