The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands) (20 page)

“And I would guffaw. One of the prince’s stalwarts, yet you intend passing by to Twite?”

“Are you accusing me of lying, captain?” He smiled in a friendly fashion.

“Va forbid! But mayhap… trying to flimflam me.”

“Perhaps. I don’t know whether you are aware, but I have been to the Spicerie in the Summer Seas and have only just returned with
my
Petrel
and two Lowmian prize ships. All with their holds stuffed to the seams with nutmeg and mace, cinnamon, cloves, pepper and cardamom. A veritable treasure, in fact, considering the price of spices at the moment. Most of it is already sold, but I kept back a selection for my… friends.”

“How exceptional for you. And your friends, of course.”

“Let us return to the question of this siege. I must say, captain, I do admire your extraordinary bravery.”

“You mock me, my lord? Unworthy of you. I follow the orders of my liege, and it is not meet that you should deride me for it.”

“Indeed, sir, that was not my intention. It is merely that when you obey the dictates of a sick old man who may die any moment, thereby annoying intensely his appointed heir, well, I cannot help but admire your courage.”

“The king’s acknowledged heir is his grandson Prince Garred.”

“Come now, captain! Surely you have been told how ill King Edwayn is! Why, I saw him but two sennights ago, in Throssel. He was frail in body and, alas, frail in mind. It grieved me to see him thus.” He heaved a theatrical sigh. “If Edwayn passes into the keeping of Va’s afterlife soon, Prince Garred will not even have reached his third birthday. I find it hard to contemplate that men of power – the nobility, the clergy, the merchants – will countenance a boy less than three years old on the throne, when he has a hale and princely father. Such a situation would be fraught with opportunity for the unscrupulous.”

Orrin looked worried, but said nothing.

“For that reason,” Juster continued, “when King Edwayn dies, thinking men and women will support Prince Ryce’s claim because they want stable governance. Prince Ryce will be king. Where would that leave you? I do not think your position will be enviable then, Orrin. Your loyalty to Edwayn is to be commended, but I tend to think it is unwise.”

Orrin Parkett sat very still, his brandy untouched. “What choice do I have? I am one of His Majesty’s naval commanders, and I do his bidding. I cannot promote treason.”

“I rather think that, when he comes to the throne, Prince Ryce will consider your actions here now as treasonous to him. Prince
Ryce is young and his reign will be long. Your career will soon be over and the new king could cancel your pension.”

There was a long silence.

Finally, Parkett asked, “What would you do if you walked this deck?”

“There is one way I can see for you to wriggle out of this,” he replied, swirling the atrocious brandy in his mug. “Resign your commission now and make your last order to your crew to sail to Twite to put you ashore. Disappear for a while until Prince Ryce gains his throne and you can claim your pension.”

“And what would I live on in the meanwhile?”

He tilted his head thoughtfully. “I might have an answer to your problem.” He dug the fingers of his right hand into his waistcoat fob pocket and withdrew a little packet of spices. “Smell those, Orrin.” He dropped it into Parkett’s palm.

Orrin raised it to his nostrils and inhaled.

When he went to hand it back, Juster waved it away. “No, no, it’s yours! Keep it. I could deliver enough spices to you today that would keep your crew and yourself living in comfort for several years.”

There was another long silence.

“And what would I have to do to earn such bounty?” Orrin asked finally, and Juster knew the man was hooked.

“For a start you would have to be wise. Wise enough to accept my offer and to sail up to Twite. Because otherwise
Golden Petrel
blasts you out of the water, and of course you might well drown. Or end up looking like a skinned and headless carcass in a butcher’s shop.”

“Right now, may I remind you, you are on my ship and in my power, Lord Juster.”

“True, but my ship is out of range of your cannon, whereas your ship is well within the range of mine – and I have this.” He flicked back his coat and pulled out the pistol that had been thrust into his belt. “Have you seen one of these new-fangled wheel-locks before? I bought this one in Javenka. Truly, Pashali gunsmiths are remarkable artisans. Isn’t it beautiful, and so small! I loaded and primed it before I left my ship. All I have to do is to rotate the cock like this –” he demonstrated what he meant “– and that releases the safety catch. If I were to pull the trigger…”

He looked over the top of the pistol he was now pointing at Parkett and smiled. “Very effective.”

“You are threatening me, Lord Juster? Do you think you’d get off this ship alive, if you were to harm me?”

“Probably not. But my objective right now is more to stop the siege.” He shrugged. “If I die doing it, I’ll look on that as a worthwhile demise. If I don’t leave
Dragonfly
safely in the pinnace in the next few minutes, my crew have their orders to blow you out of the water. We could have done that anyway, but, well, given that I once served under you…”

Parkett said nothing.

“I think I will leave the ship now and I suspect you will let me. You could blast my pinnace to pieces as I sailed back to my ship, or you can send your own boat across after me to pick up the spices I promised, and then you could sail away. We will be watching. When Prince Ryce is king, I will personally see to it that your pension is paid as well. Now doesn’t that sound like a pleasant retirement?”

“
I
know something that might help,” said the nameless bearded man. He was sitting next to Perie, at the table in the kitchen of Proctor House, but it was Gerelda he addressed.

She cocked her head, ready to listen. They had been discussing plans and suggesting ways to disguise themselves for over an hour, as often as not discarding an idea as impractical or too dangerous. She was inclined to trust the fellow, although apparently even he could not be certain of his own loyalties.

Fiddle-me-witless, I’m not usually this accepting after a mere day’s acquaintance.
It was muckle-headed, but she
liked
the man.

“Sailors firing off the cannons say the noise on a gundeck blisters their eardrums,” he said, “so they make themselves a pair o’ plugs. Softened candle wax, bunged in the earhole. If a man can’t hear, then he can’t be coerced. Right?”

She brightened. “Wax, that’s an idea. Sometimes you remember the darnedest things, Sir Nameless. I doubt wax would stop Valerian, but his sons? Worth a try.”

“Be plenty of candles here, Mister,” Perie said. He pulled a face. “I can’t call you Mister all the time! Not if we’re comrades.”

“He’s right. We have to think of a name for you,” she said.

Perie grinned. “We get to choose?” From the mischievous look on his face, he was about to suggest something inappropriate, and a pang of guilt racked her. He was still so young, and he so seldom had fun, or even smiled.
Sweet Va, what have we done to this lad?

“
You
don’t get to choose,” she said, tapping him on the wrist. “Sir Nameless chooses.”

The man thought for a moment and then said, “Gadfly.”

“Why that?” Perie asked.

“Because gadflies are obnoxious biting bastards that annoy every man and his horse into apoplexy. And I feel like being a gadfly to them Grey Lancers. Fact is, I’m fobbing angry with something. Or someone. Or maybe the whole world, if only I knew why.”

“I hope you’re not going to bite us,” Perie said.

“I’ll settle for tormenting sorcerers instead. This fellow you’ve been after, he can be the first.”

“You carry the black smudge on you,” Perie warned. “The one that tells sorcerers to know you for an enemy.”

Blistering grubbery
, she thought.
How are we ever going to get out of this city alive, let alone rescue a woman and child who might possibly be the future of this land?
Her next stray thought was that Ardrone might be better off without a king.

Oh, fiddle. I’m becoming a revolutionary like the Primordials.
She tried to imagine lawyers doing a better job of governing, and failed. She laughed inwardly, sure that writ-wrights would be a barrow-load more unpopular than even nobles, and went to find a quiet spot to decipher the Pontifect’s letter. She had already perused it, but reading a page of crossed lines was never easy, and this one was written in code as well, so she needed to ensure she’d understood it properly. In the end, Peregrine came looking for her, and found her sitting on the servants’ stairs in the dark.

“I’m pondering,” she explained. “The letter was from the Pontifect.”

“Reckon you don’t like what was in it, then.”

“She asks us to kill any Vavala sorcerer sons here, and then stay on. She needs us to find out as much as we can about Princess Bealina and her son.”

“So that really be the princess who Gadfly saw?”

“Probably. Fritillary was here a day or two back. We just missed her. She wants us to wait for her return.” She crumpled up the letter and began to walk downstairs to the common room so she could throw it in the fire. She wasn’t about to leave it lying around, code or no code.

“Delivery from the Pontifect,” Perie said to the maid who answered the door to the servants’ quarters. He offered her the small sack he held, raising it in front of his face so she couldn’t see him properly.
The sack contained nothing more than unshelled and mouldy walnuts bought cheaply in the local street market, but she wasn’t to know that.

“For a, um, Master Endor Fox,” he added. They’d asked around until they discovered the name of the man they had been following.

As a delivery boy, he’d used the area steps down to the servants’ quarters of the sorcerer’s house, and he was hopeful that no one in the street above would notice him – or see Gadfly and Gerelda where they waited pressed to the house wall out of the maid’s line of sight. They had their hair tucked up under knitted caps and their faces muffled in unseasonably warm scarves. Both of them had wax stuffed into their ears.

He took a pace forward towards the maid, stepping up on to the doorstep. Surprised, she backed away, and when he thrust the sack towards her, she took it in self-defence, clutching it to her chest. All he noticed about her was that she was scrawny, no older than he was, with rough, red hands and grease-spattered clothing.

He leaned against the inward-opening door so she could not close it.

She glared at him around the side of the sack. “Very well. I shall see he gets it.” Pointedly she grabbed the door edge with one hand and jerked it to dislodge him.

He didn’t move, but Gadfly and Gerelda did. They barged into the house, brushing past him and the maid, to plunge down the passage towards the kitchen. The maid squealed and tried to stop them, but what with juggling the sack and trying to close the door on Perie, she failed even to slow them down.

They left her yelling after them. “Wait! You can’t go in there! Git outta it. Master Corncrake! Help!”

Perie closed the door, and tapped her on the arm. “Do be quiet. Naught will hurt you, if you do what we tell you.”

Her mouth dropped open.

Loathing himself for being the cause of the fear in her eyes, he tried to smile at her, but that only made things worse. She scudded away from him, running after Gadfly and Gerelda, squealing. He pulled his own muffler up over his face.

By that time, Gerelda and Gadfly had barged through into the
main kitchen. Perie burst into the room hard on the heels of the maid, who was crying out as she ran, “Master Corncrake! Master Corncrake!”

At the kitchen range, on the far side of the room, the cook, a tall, thin man with the curliest sideburns Perie had ever seen, turned to look. His soup ladle dripped sauce on to the brick hearth, unheeded.

To his right, the kitchen skivvy dropped a pile of clean dishes on to the flagstones in fright. She flailed her hands like a frightened chicken trying to fly, torn between the horror of broken crockery and the entry of muffled strangers.

The only other person in the room was a man, smartly garbed in a footman’s uniform. He had more gumption than the others and spun around wildly looking for a weapon, finally grabbing an iron roasting spit.

“Ah now, my man,” Gadfly said, “don’t be like that, else I’ll be forced to run you through the belly.” He waved his sword point to reinforce the threat.

The man blanched, but didn’t drop his weapon. He poked it at Gadfly, then realising how futile that move would be, raised it over his head as if to use it as a bludgeon. Gadfly laughed and pinked the man’s hand before tweaking the spit from his hold.

Perie ran across the room, flinging open all the doors – except the baize one, which Gerelda had warned him would lead into the main living area of the house. He was looking for the room she’d said every kitchen had, a walk-in pantry.

“Here!” he yelled when he found it, then remembered that neither Gadfly nor Gerelda could hear him. He pointed instead.

Gadfly gestured with his sword. “All of you, in there,” he said, his voice a menacing growl. “Right now. Do as you’re told and nothing bad will happen to you.”

The servants exchanged frightened glances. The maid stopped squealing, but when Gadfly’s blade swung in her direction, panic started her breath rattling in her throat.

“Go on!” Gadfly growled.

She picked up her skirts and fled into the pantry.

The cook took no notice. He looked at Gadfly, incredulous, and
asked, “Have your brains run out through your ears? Don’t you know whose house this is?”

As neither Gerelda nor Gadfly could hear, it was up to Perie to reply. “Yes, we know. Where is he?” he asked.

“As far as I know he’s upstairs,” the cook replied. His tone was contemptuous, but Perie noted his hands trembled. “I’m blistering sure you coves are about to breathe your last, all of you, unless you git out of here.”

“Into the larder. Now.” He tried to sound authoritative, but wasn’t sure he succeeded. “Otherwise one of these people is going to damage you with their swords. We have no argument with you – if you do as we say.”

The cook shrugged and jerked his head at the young footman and the skivvy. When the skivvy didn’t move, he grabbed her by her upper arm and yanked her into the pantry with him. Gadfly closed the door after them. There was no bar, so they pushed the heavy kitchen table against it.

“Let’s get going,” Gerelda said and made for the padded baize door, Gadfly close behind. Perie followed. They found themselves inside the main hall, where stairs led up to the bedrooms. On the lower floor, closed doors led to other rooms.

Gerelda looked at him. “Which way?”

Concentrating, he took a deep breath. He could feel the horror of the man trickling down from the floor above. He pointed.

Bounding up the steps two at a time, he led the way. At the top, he halted briefly to reassess. Powerful waves of wrongness almost made him gag, but he continued on, turning to his right. He ignored the first three doors opening off the corridor and stopped in front of the fourth, jerking his head to indicate that it was the room.

They had rehearsed several different scenarios, so there was no reason to wait. Gerelda and Gadfly stood on either side of the door. Once they were in place, Perie flung it open with his left hand. In his right hand, he held his spiker out of sight behind his back. He cleared his mind of everything except a driving need to kill something that had no right to live, and stepped into the room. Behind him, Gerelda and Gadfly entered side by side, Gadfly breaking to the left, Gerelda to the right.

Perie gaped, taken aback by the size of the chamber they’d entered. The cottage he’d lived in as a child would have fitted in this bedroom. The bed it contained was large enough to have slept a family of six. He jerked himself back to his danger.

In front of the large marble fireplace, a manservant was holding a coat, about to help his master – the sorcerer – into it. Both men whirled to see who had entered without knocking.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” Gadfly said politely. “We have an important message from the Pontifect. If you would be so good as to listen—”

“Stop right where you are,” the sorcerer, Endor Fox, said calmly.

In that brief moment when both men had their attention focused on Gadfly, Gerelda slammed into the servant, sending him flying into Endor Fox, who sprawled, off-balance, against the bed.

With a single sweeping move, she pulled the cover from the bed and flung it over the shocked servant.

Endor yelled, ordering them all to be still. Perie felt the coercion like a splash of icy water, shocking, but without power. His heart sank nonetheless. With yelling like that, wax in the ears was not going to be enough to stop them hearing the duress.

Gerelda halted in mid-step. Gadfly, who had leaped up on to the bed to approach the man from the other side, was suddenly unbalanced and uncertain.

Stumbling as if by accident, Perie took another step forward, his hand still behind his back.

“Stop right where you are!” Fox cried. There was more annoyance in his voice than fear. “Who are you? Answer me!”

As neither Gerelda nor Gadfly heard him, neither replied. Perie used the time to take a step closer.

Endor smiled. “Wax in the ears, I suppose.” He gave a derisive snort and yelled once more. “Take the wax out of your ears! Now!”

Gerelda and Gadfly, still halted by his earlier shout, heard and obliged, and Perie hurriedly pretended to do likewise.

“Who are you?” Endor asked, the oily coercion of his tone painful, even to Perie.

They all started speaking at once, telling him their names.

Although he felt no compulsion, Perie said, “Peregrine Clary, sir.”
He felt serene, as he often did at moments like this. The killer of sorcerers, coming into his own. He smiled, remembering the words of the unseen guardian.
No pain in your heart, only hard oak.

Seeing an unarmed lad, the sorcerer turned his attention to Gadfly and Gerelda. “Drop your weapons!”

The two blades fell from their hands, followed by daggers drawn from their belts. And Perie acted.

He took that last step forward, and swept the spiker from behind his back in one swift upward movement. It plunged into Endor Fox’s stomach, the soft organs parting easily before the sharpness of its tip. Not his normal killing stroke, but it didn’t matter.

Fox gasped and both his hands went to push him away.

Perie stepped back, leaving the blade buried to its cross-guard.

The man, trying to remain upright, clutched the hilt, attempting to pull it out. His face was a picture of disbelief. “How—?” he asked.

“An unseen guardian sent me. I am your fate,” he answered as Endor fell, first to his knees and then on to his side. Scooping up Gerelda’s sword from where it lay, Perie stabbed the man in the chest, hard. “If not me, then your sorcery, or your father, would have sucked you dry. Perhaps this is more merciful.”

“I don’t think he heard that last bit,” Gerelda remarked, stepping forward to retrieve her blade. “Thanks, Perie. I owe you. If there is one thing I hate above all else, it’s being coerced.” She poked at the sorcerer to make sure he was dead, then glanced to where the servant had managed to wriggle out from under the bedcovers. He sat on the floor, shaking.

“Stay here until we leave,” she told him. “After that, I’d leave Vavala today if I were you.”

Gadfly, rather sheepishly, jumped off the bed. “Pickles ’n’ pox, that was horrible. How can someone take away your will so easily?”