Legends of the Riftwar (75 page)

‘You are the noxious toad who took a bribe to break the blockade,' del Garza said. ‘During wartime such an act can be nothing less than treason.'

‘I did no such thing!' the captain insisted.

The Baron smiled. ‘Do you know how many fools have tried to lie to the Duke's agents?' he asked. He waved his hand casually
at the two burly guards and at several other men whom he knew waited outside. ‘Usually their next remark is something on the order of:
Stop! Gods, please stop!'

‘I admit that my ship floated off-station,' Leighton blustered. ‘Such things happen occasionally, there's nothing deliberate in it. An anchor bolt rusted through and the tide caught our bow. It was merely misfortune that it happened at that particular moment. When I heard the commotion I rose from my bed, came topside and corrected the situation at once. At the very worst it was dereliction of duty, though even that would be coming it a bit high under the circumstances.'

Del Garza raised his brows and leant back in the commander's chair with his hands clasped over his lean stomach. ‘Indeed?' he said.

‘Of course,' Leighton said, allowing a touch of his former haughtiness to creep into his tone. ‘I tell you these things happen, 'tis no one's fault, my good man. No one could have predicted that a ship would choose that particular moment to…'

‘We know the Upright Man bribed you.' The acting governor waited for the explosion, but none came; the Captain merely stared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a gaffed fish. Not only guilty then, but the man had no spine. ‘What was it, the gold? Or some misplaced sense of loyalty to Prince Erland's family?'

‘We have known them a long time…' Leighton began.

Del Garza cut him off. ‘You may as well admit it, you know. We have proof.'

The Captain shook his head silently.

‘Oh, but we do,' del Garza insisted. ‘We have our own sources inside the Mockers, you know.'

They didn't, of course, have either–proof, or sources. But it was obvious to the secret policeman that the Mockers had an interest in freeing the Princess Anita. It was certainly Mockers he
and his men had been fighting this morning. Besides, every instinct he had told him that it was beyond unlikely that a ship would just ‘happen' to drift off-station at precisely the wrong moment.

The lie came easily though, because if del Garza was going to have to answer for Anita's escape–and he was–then others would answer first and far more painfully.

Leighton licked his lips. ‘You could hardly call it treason,' he said.

Del Garza leaned forward blinking rapidly, his brows raised incredulously. ‘Oh, yes,' he said. ‘Taking a bribe deliberately to disobey orders during wartime could never be anything else.'

‘We are hardly at war with the Mockers,' the Captain argued.

‘We are always at war with the Mockers,' del Garza corrected, his voice flat. ‘That it has never been formally declared makes it no less a war. For if we were not at war with them, I assure you these thieves and murderers-for-hire are and have always been at war with the decent citizens of Krondor.'

‘They are hardly worthy…' Leighton began.

‘Opponents?' Del Garza sneered. ‘If their money is good enough for you then why shouldn't they be considered…worthy?'

The Captain pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, then he straightened. ‘I should like to see this “proof” you claim to have.'

Del Garza chuckled, an impulse he couldn't control. ‘Are you now going to claim innocence, after all but admitting your guilt?'

‘I have not admitted any guilt,' the Captain said. ‘Come, come, you shall have to produce the proof at my trial.'

With a sad shake of his head the Baron asked: ‘Would you really put your family through the shame of a trial when the conclusion is inevitable? Must we prove to them and all the world your villainy?'

The colour drained from Leighton's face. ‘What are you suggesting?' he demanded, clearly shaken.

‘You need do nothing radical,' del Garza said, suddenly all generosity. ‘Naturally you cannot keep your commission.' He drew a document from a small pile and pushed it toward the captain along with a quill pen already resting in an ink stand. ‘Herein you resign your commission; just sign at the bottom of the page, and the next page as well and then we'll send you home.' He lifted the pen from the inkwell and proffered it to Leighton with a slight smile. ‘Your older brother wouldn't be the first nobleman who had to find a second career for a younger brother; much less a problem than shaming the family name.'

‘That is all?' the Captain asked, taking the pen hesitantly.

Del Garza nodded. ‘We will take care of everything else. All the arrangements,' he clarified. He pointed to the bottom of the page. ‘If you would,' he invited.

As one hypnotized, Leighton signed. Del Garza lifted the corner of the page to expose the one beneath.

‘Sign here as well, if you would be so kind.'

With a shaky hand the Captain signed the bottom page as well and the acting governor drew them back, sanded the signatures and shook them dry.

‘Very good,' he said. ‘But for one minor detail that concludes our business.'

Leighton mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘What is that?' he asked.

At del Garza's nod the three guards stepped forward; two caught hold of the captain's arms while the third whipped a garrotte around his neck. The stool went over with a crash, and Leighton's legs became caught up in it so that he couldn't get his feet under him. Del Garza cocked his head, watching the consciousness of imminent death and agony flood into the man's eyes. Soon his heels beat a brief tattoo on the floor and after a very few moments he was dead.

The Baron neatly folded and sealed the two sheets of paper.
‘Poor fellow,' del Garza said to the guards. ‘Carry him to his quarters and arrange things there. Make sure the bracket he hangs himself from is stout; he was a fleshy sort.' He handed the papers to the chief guard. ‘Don't forget to leave his resignation and most important, his confession, where they'll be easily found.'

The guard smiled as he took the papers. ‘That was neatly done, sir,' he said. ‘Makes me feel like we're getting a bit of our own back.'

Del Garza looked at him for long enough that the man knew the Baron wasn't amenable to flattery, then dismissed him.

Alone, del Garza considered his choices. Leighton had to die; there was no other option. Had he remained alive, word of the Duke's vulnerability would eventually spread. Loyalty to the Prince or avarice for Mockers' gold, the reason for Leighton's treason didn't matter. What mattered was who would be looked at when Duke Guy returned from dealing with the Keshians in the Vale of Dreams.

Del Garza could put a fair amount of responsibility on Radburn's shoulders, with justification. His iron grip on the city had bred discontent, and the way in which he ran roughshod over the Prince's own guards and the city's constables would be certain to drive some firmly into the Prince's camp.

The handwriting was on the wall, as they say; Erland was dying, no matter what the healing priests and chirurgeons did to hold death at bay. With no son to inherit, Anita would be a prize for any ambitious man. And with the King having no heirs, her husband was but one step from the throne in Rillanon. So, Guy would marry Anita, and some day, sooner rather than later, del Garza judged, Guy du Bas-Tyra would become King Guy the First.

Del Garza tapped his chin with a forefinger as he wondered where he might come out in all this. He was not by nature an ambitious man, but circumstances seemed to dictate that his
choice was to rise or fall; there was no standing still. Hence, he would choose to rise. Who knew? An earldom in the east, perhaps near Rodez?

But to rise, he had to avoid falling, and to do that, he had to survive Guy's wrath when he returned and found the girl missing. He hoped Radburn would return soon with the girl in tow, or not return at all. If Jocko had the good grace to get himself killed in the attempt, everything would be his fault by the time del Garza got finished explaining things to the Duke. And that meant having lots of other guilty parties to parade before him.

‘Cray!' he shouted, summoning the captain of the guard's secretary. When the man appeared he said, ‘I want every commander of every unit involved with this morning's mission, from the sergeants up, in this office in one hour.'

‘Yes, sir,' Cray said and sped off.

Del Garza sat back in the commander's chair, enjoying the way Cray had leapt to obey, enjoying the privilege of taking over the commander's office, enjoying the memory of the look on Leighton's face when he had realized del Garza held the power in Krondor for the moment.

He turned his mind away from feeling any pleasure at the prospect of authority. How could he enjoy anything when his lord had been humiliated this morning? How could that wicked girl abandon her father so? And why? So that she would not have to partake of the honour of wedding the Duke du Bas-Tyra; one of the greatest, one of the noblest men in the Kingdom! How dare the little baggage treat his lord so?

Poor Prince Erland, to have such an uncaring child. Not that he was much better, for he, too, had defied his lord's will. Well, he'd just have to suffer the fate to which his
own daughter
had condemned him. Del Garza considered: perhaps if the Prince was relocated to one of his draughtier dungeons, and word was leaked that he would remain there until his daughter
returned…? He considered that a move to be made if Radburn didn't return with the girl soon. If the girl had been coerced into leaving the city, it might convince her to return of her own volition, and if the Prince didn't survive the ordeal, that was another problem that could be laid at Jocko's feet when the Duke again graced the city.

Del Garza sighed. So much to be done, and he so much preferred routine to the unexpected. But, at least he knew the task at hand.

These…
thieves
, these
nothings
must be brought to heel, whipped into place like the dogs they were. That they should dare to steal Guy du Bas-Tyra's rightful bride, interfering in matters they knew nothing about, and indeed
should
know nothing about…

With an effort del Garza calmed himself. He took deep breaths until his heart rate returned to normal. He shouldn't waste this anger; he should harbour his fury until the men came, and then release it. Things were going to change around here; soon and forever. By the time Guy du Bas-Tyra returned from the south, Krondor would be a city in order and under firm control.
Yes
, he thought,
in control
.

He called for a parchment and pen and set his mind to the list of things that would have to be done, and first on that list was to round up as many of the Mockers as could be ferreted out of whatever dark warren hid them.

The crossroads was crowded.

Hotfingers Flora was chatting and laughing with her friends while tossing saucy, flirtatious glances at every passing male when the wagon pulled up beside them. At first she didn't give it much of a glance; the streets were busy with men on foot, porters with heavy loads, handcarts full of golden loaves of bread, cloth, boxes and bales, a sedan-chair–she cast an envious glance at the courtesan lolling within it–and any number of farmers' wagons hauling in the city's food.

When it stopped in front of her, she realized that this one wagon was different. It was a curious sight, with high sides and hoops over the top as though it was meant to be covered by a canvas tilt. But there were crossbars tied onto the hoops with rawhide thongs, making it look like a cage. It was driven by a pair of Bas-Tyran guards and followed by four more on foot, their hobnails a counterpoint to the clangour of iron-rimmed wheels on stone and their halberds swaying as they marched in step.

Some of her friends moved away cautiously–anything out
of the ordinary was dangerous. But the majority of the girls watched with arms folded across their breasts and their eyes flicking toward the surrounding alleys, holding their ground despite their suspicion. After all, a lot of their business came from soldiers.

A sergeant descended from the wagon and approached the girls with the rolling swagger of a man who'd spent as much of his life on horseback as on foot. His corporal went to work lowering the tailgate and opening the cage door; the rest of the squad braced their polearms, the sharp hooks on the backs inter-linked, a bare upright tent.

The sergeant chucked Flora under the chin and turned to grin at his men who also moved in, smiling. He smelled of sweat, leather and sour wine; she was used to that, but this man was ranker than most, and she wrinkled her nose a little. Flora tossed her head and with a slightly nervous smile asked, ‘Anything I can do for you, soldier?'

‘Yes,' the sergeant said, leaning in close, ‘you can come with me, my little canker-blossom, you and all your friends. We're having a party for you back at the keep.' He took hold of her arm with a hard grip and a cruel, crook-toothed smile.

‘Well, there's no need to be rough about it,' Flora snapped, trying to pull away.

‘I suppose there isn't,' he agreed amiably. ‘But, ye see, I want to be.'

With that, he picked her up by her hair and the waist of her skirt and tossed her into the cage in a squawking cartwheel of limbs and cloth. Her knee hit something hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. Before she could get to her feet, her friends were thrown in on top of her, driving the breath out of her lungs with a force that left her struggling for air. One of her teeth cut the inside of her lip with a little stab of pain, and the iron-salt-copper taste of blood filled her mouth.

‘Wait!' she cried after an instant, sucking back her breath as she went scrambling backward out of the writhing heap. ‘We haven't done nothing! What are you doing?'

The cries of the others were shrill around her: protests, sobs, curses and wordless shrieks of rage. She hauled herself up by the bars of the wagon in time to see two of her friends scurry down an alley with their skirts gathered up, and took heart from the sight. Word would get back to the Upright Man and something would be done about it. Flora rattled the wooden bars of the cage as hard as she could, glaring.

‘You can't just throw us in jail for nothing!' she shouted.

The sergeant came up to her and smacked her fingers with a mailed fist; not hard enough to break anything, but more than hard enough to hurt. ‘Oh, yes we can,' he said, with what might have been mistaken for good humour, if you weren't watching his eyes.

Those eyes had something in them that made her shiver and remember what Jimmy had said about the risks of freelancing.

The sergeant slapped his gloved hands together; the metal rings on their backs clinked dully. ‘So says the acting governor. We can do anything we want to trash like you, and serves you right. Now shut up and settle down like a good, sensible girl or I'll knock your teeth out.'

Flora sucked her wounded knuckles and did as she was told. The pain was distant, less real than the way her heart pounded with fear, and her throat tried to squeeze itself shut beneath a mouth gone parchment-dry.

 

By the time they arrived at the keep, the cage was full to bursting and Flora was pressed tightly against the bars–which was still better than being in the middle, since at least there was open air on one side. The wagon was filled with whores and beggars and a very few of the younger pickpockets who had been doing
absolutely nothing illegal when they were taken. The soldiers had even rounded up a few people who were simply poor, or who'd happened to be standing next to the wrong whore. But she'd noticed that most of those in the cage with her were Mockers. And that frightened her. Clearly Jocko Radburn was not taking the Mockers' adventure with the Princess Anita lightly.

The gates clashed shut behind them. More Bas-Tyra guardsmen hauled them out of the wagons to join a growing file of prisoners being herded to stairways that led downward. Boots and fists and the steel-shod butts of halberds and pikes thudded on flesh; almost all the cursing came from the guards, though.

Their prisoners were mostly silent, except for the occasional cry of pain.

 

Jimmy had slept for a whole day and night, waking at mid-morning on the second day after the
Sea Swift
's departure. He stretched luxuriously, rose and put on clean clothes–or rather, the well-aired rags he'd left in this room the last time he'd slept here–and descended the stairs. Instinct made him walk close to the wall, where the boards were less likely to creak. On the whole he liked growing up, but there was no denying it made you heavier, and he was conscientious about learning to make skill compensate for the additional poundage.

‘If ye're lookin' for breakfast ye can look elsewhere,' said his landlady. She was a toothless beldame who glared at him with rheumy eyes. ‘Ye know I've nothing for ye at this hour.'

‘I wouldn't think of asking you to trouble yourself,' Jimmy said gallantly. He smiled. ‘I needed the sleep more than the breakfast anyway.'

‘At your age?' the old woman sneered.

‘It was a long trip this time,' Jimmy said.

And indeed it was, into a whole other world in its way. But now it was time to get back to business. First he would stop at
Mocker's Rest and see what was happening. Then he could start the planning stages of something bigger than picking pockets.

He'd been apprenticed to Long Charlie for the last few months, though that apprenticeship had been suspended the night Jimmy had caught sight of Prince Arutha attempting to flee Jocko Radburn himself.

The Prince, his Huntmaster–Martin Longbow–and Amos Trask–the legendary Trenchard the Pirate–had come secretly into the city a few days earlier before Jimmy's encounter with the Prince. They had tried to hide their presence but from Jimmy's point of view they stood out like red bulls in a sheep fold. By the time Jimmy had chanced across Radburn pursuing Arutha, the Upright Man had put the word out to pick up these three newcomers.

Jimmy had known something was up between the smugglers and Mockers, something beyond their usual uneasy truce, for Trevor Hull's men had come and gone in areas of the sewer that were clearly Mockers' territory, but as he was only a boy, albeit a very talented one, he was not privy to the secret of the Princess's escape from the keep.

Finding Arutha had changed that, and had plunged Jimmy into the heart of a conspiracy that had ended the night before with Anita, Arutha, and his companions successfully making their escape. He had not only become a conspirator but had become a companion to both Prince Arutha and Princess Anita while they awaited their opportunity for escape. He had played his part, earned royal thanks, and found within himself a sense of something larger than himself for the first time in his young life.

Such triumphs left Jimmy in no mood to return to apprenticeship, opening practice-locks while Long Charlie looked over his shoulder. Besides, he'd long since caught the knack of lock-picking and the samples he'd seen didn't look as if they'd offer
any challenge. Frankly, the training he was getting was boring and Jimmy knew in his heart that he was meant for more exciting things. Sometimes it seemed that Charlie was just giving him tedious work to keep Jimmy out of his hair. Even before the adventure with Arutha and Anita, Jimmy had made up his mind to request a new mentor.
Life is too short to wait for what I'm entitled to
, he thought.

One thing he should do today was steal some more respectable-looking clothes. The ones he was wearing smelled bad, even to himself.

Or I could buy some
,
just for a change
, he thought. But first, a money-changer.

The changer worked out of a narrow shop in an alley, denoted by a pair of scales on a sign above the door; the paint was so faded that only a hint of gold peeped through the grime. Jimmy hopped over the trickle of filth down the centre of the alley, nodded to the basher who stood just outside, polishing the brickwork with his shoulder, and pushed through the door. The basher would find a reason to delay any citizen from entering the shop whenever a Mocker was inside.

Ference, the money-changer, looked up and said, ‘Ah, Jimmy! What can I do for you?'

Jimmy reached inside his tunic and pulled out his coin pouch, and with a quick flip of his wrist, rolled half a dozen coins on the counter. The others were safely hidden on top of a ceiling beam in his room.

‘Gold?' Ference said, looking at the thumbnail-sized coins Jimmy shoved across the smooth wood of the table.

The money-changer was a middle-aged man with a thin, lined face and the sort of squint you got from fretting about your strongbox when you should be sleeping. He dressed with the sort of sombre respectability a prosperous storekeeper might affect.

‘Getting ambitious, are you, Jimmy lad?'

‘Honestly earned,' Jimmy said, ‘for a change.' And it was even true, for once.

He kept a close eye on the scales as Prince Arutha's coins turned into a jingling heap of worn and much less conspicuous silver and copper. The Upright Man's regulations kept men like Ference moderately honest–broken arms were the usual first-time penalty for changers or fences shorting Mockers, and then it got really nasty–but it never hurt to be self-reliant.

‘There,' the changer said at last. ‘That'll attract a lot less attention.'

‘Just what I thought,' Jimmy said, smiling a little to himself.

He bought a money-belt to hold it–too big a jingling purse was conspicuous too–and wandered out into the street.

‘Pork pies! Pork pies!' he heard, and the words brought a flood of saliva into his mouth; he had missed breakfast. ‘Two of your best, Mistress Pease,' he said grandly.

The pie-seller put down the handles of her pushcart and brought out two; they were still warm, and the smell made his nose twitch. What was more, Mistress Pease's pork pies were actually made from pork, not of rabbit, cat, or the even less savoury concoctions you got from some vendors. He bit into one.

‘Feeling prosperous, I see,' she said, as he handed over four coppers.

‘Hard work and clean living, Mistress,' he replied; she shook all over as she laughed.

Well, a thin cook wouldn't be much of an advertisement, would she?
he thought.

He washed the pies down with a flagon of cider bought from a nearby vendor, and sat in the sun belching contentedly, his back against the stone-coping of a well.

He was just licking his fingers when a pebble hit the top of his head.

Ouch
, he thought, and looked up.

Long Charlie's cadaverous face peered around a gable. His hands moved:
Report to Mocker's Rest
, he said in the signing cant.
Right now. No delay, no excuses
.

Jimmy swigged back the rest of the cider and hastily returned his flagon to the vendor with polite thanks. Then he headed for the nearest alley.

Once in the sewers he moved at a confident jog–even through the pitch-black places, of which there were many–and passed the guards the Mockers had stationed at various locations, who seemed unusually alert today. Not that they were ever less than wide-awake; sleeping or getting drunk on guard duty could get you badly hurt or seriously dead.

The smell was homelike, though ripe; Jimmy flicked his toe aside and sent a rat more belligerent than most flying through the air. Its squeal ended with a sodden thud–you had to be careful about the ones that didn't run away, chances were they were sick with something. Jimmy had seen a man foaming at the mouth from a rat bite and it wasn't a sight he would quickly forget.

The Rest was like a kicked anthill, all swarming movement–although ants didn't produce that sort of din, or wave their arms so that you nearly got clouted in the face walking through. Agitated people moved quickly from group to group; everyone seemed to be talking at once. He spied a boy he knew standing apart and went over to him. ‘What's happening?' he asked.

The boy, dubbed Larry the Ear because his were enormous, stood tense as a bowstring watching the frantic activity. He spoke to Jimmy without taking his eyes from the scene before them. ‘Bas-Tyra's men are arresting the girls and the beggars and anyone else they can get their damned paws on,' Larry growled. ‘They took Gerald.'

Jimmy blinked. Gerald was Larry's younger brother, not much older than seven, if that. Jimmy had known Radburn was a vindictive swine, but arresting babies was beyond contempt.

He started to ask, ‘Was he pick…?'

‘No!' Larry snapped, turning to glare at Jimmy. ‘He wasn't doing nothing. He was just playin', just bein' a kid!'

‘Damn Radburn's bones,' Jimmy said quietly.