K M Frontain, page 23
“How can you say that? How can poison be coincidental?”
“As you seemed to have noticed, it doesn’t make sense that Kortin would go out of his way to poison a child. I suspect that whomever he purchased the potion from mishandled a batch.”
Nicky looked down at Kehfrey worriedly. “I saw this,” she
whispered.
Marun looked at her then. His eyes grew dark with anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t see the sickness. Only you holding the child in your arms. I thought—” Her words faded off.
“You thought I intended to use the boy!” he accused.
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She stepped away from him. His eyes were hot with anger. She shivered. His eyes weren’t cold! Marun’s eyes weren’t cold!
“Get out!” he spat.
She darted from the room at once. She shut the door and stood shaking before it. That had been close. So close! He had come a knife’s edge away from punishing her. She knew it. Still shaking, she slipped away from the door. Marun’s punishments could be very cruel, extraordinarily cruel. She had reason to know. She looked back at the door as she crept down the stairs.
Marun was in love with that boy. She didn’t think her master knew it.
Not yet.
***
Baron Harte observed the young man fixedly. Wilf regarded him in turn, his expression impassive. He laid the fork he’d been holding down, exactly so, and picked up the glass of wine. It was old glass, hand cut and rimmed in gold. He sipped from it and set it down again. His motions were precise, his manners impeccable. Around the long table, every face was turned toward him, staring or gaping, some angry, some just curious.
Most of the attending family weren’t eating, some because they refused to partake of the meal while he sat at the table, others because they were too fascinated by the drama unfolding before their eyes. Wilf ignored them all, but for his grandfather. Him, he stared down without a sign of discomfort.
What was Baron Harte to him, after all? Worse had pinned him with a glare—cutthroats, murderous whores, the infamous Kortin, boss of the thieving ring. Baron Harte? He was nobody really. He only thought he was somebody because he’d been born with a title.
Another cut of the knife, another delicious mouthful, another swallow. His skin prickled, more from the chill draught blowing through the large hall of the old castle than the cold stares of the noble family who sat the table with him. Long banners hung from the upper walks and were so old as to have lost most of their colour, but they were pride and they were tradition, and would not be traded in for new rags to cover the ancient grey walls.
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Wilf was the new. He was the unwanted. Even so, he would have enjoyed taking another look about the immense vestibule that served as both entryway and place of court, but the narrow stares of the men kept him from gawping at history not permitted to a bastard-born son of the blood. He would not look twice, refused to give them any opportunity to mock him. He was not a lowbred boy who’d never been in a castle, who must gawk at the faded signs of tradition and family honour. Odd how clumsy the older castles were. It wasn’t any wonder the old man was ill.
“I see that she taught you some manners at least,” Harte said suddenly.
Wilf smiled, a bare hint of curve at the corners of his mouth.
“Manners can be useful,” he replied lightly.
He picked up the knife and sliced a bite-sized piece of meat from the breast of chicken on his plate. The plate was the finest of old china and bore the family coat of arms, a buck leaping over a silver river. The dish had a crack in it and bore tiny lines throughout the glaze. Wilf had supped on finer, but of course the dishes had been new. The widows of merchants made much better marks, for at least they were still rich.
“Manners! Yes! Manners! Useful for worming your way into the right circles,” the nobleman seated at the further end said.
Wilf regarded the man calmly. Unlike the older generation of Winfellan upper class, this fellow wore a powdered wig over his head and painted his face with whitening makeup. He would be a cousin of his mother’s, likely the one who stood to inherit from the austere Baron.
“Have you another use for manners?” Wilf retorted.
“Unlike you, I have manners because I was born into polite
company.”
He was a large fellow, boasting wide shoulders that he held very straight. He seemed roughly Canella’s age. Wilf thought he saw a vague resemblance to his mother. Perhaps the eyebrows. Yes. The brows had the same arch. The Baron had that arch, too.
“Well, I’m sure your uncle appreciates you for them,” Wilf replied.
The man stood with a menacing glower. “You will leave this place!”
“You did not invite me to sit,” Wilf pointed out frigidly. The nobleman put a hand on the ornamental dagger at his waist. Remaining outwardly calm, Wilf tensed for a fight.
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“Sit down, Rhendel!” Baron Harte snapped. Rhendel opened his mouth to protest. “Sit!” Harte roared.
He coughed afterward, the noise hoarse and coming from deep in his chest. The spasm shuddered through his body. Bloody mucous splattered his handkerchief when he pulled it away from his mouth.
“You have consumption, milord,” Wilf said flatly.
“Not so,” Harte wheezed. “The priests say it is a result of over imbibing the Amek weed. The smoke has blackened my lungs. A recent ailment has worsened the condition.”
“Can they not cure you?”
Wilf had heard that his maternal grandfather suffered an addiction to the Amek drug, but he was surprised Harte admitted to the vice so easily.
It was said that the Baron smoked to forget the deaths of his sons. Wilf chanced a look at Rhendel and wondered how much responsibility for those losses lay at the door of his powdered cousin. If Rhendel were to be judged by the murderous sentiment glowing in his eyes, Wilf would guess he held the weight of several dead men on his head. But what did this matter? Ghosts weighed next to nothing.
“They say I am called,” Harte answered Wilf’s polite inquiry.
“I see. Then you are fortunate.” Fortunate enough to have been left alive to name his brother’s son his heir, the sorry old goat.
“So they say,” Harte said, to all appearances unimpressed. “Does she take you to church?”
“No,” Wilf said flatly.
“Why not?”
Wilf turned. That question had come from a woman. She was
handsome and stately, and sat to Rhendel’s left. Wilf had earlier decided she must be the nobleman’s wife. “The church had little useful advice for my mother,” he answered truthfully.
“Of course not!” Rhendel said derisively. “A whore has no need to strengthen her virtue.”
“Her virtue, Lord Rhendel, belonged to her father,” Wilf uttered coldly. “And he failed to protect it.”
“You blame my uncle for it! She opened her legs on her own!”
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“On her own! How did she manage to get on her own? A woman’s virtue belongs to the man who owns her,” he re-stated, glaring at his self-righteous cousin.
“You only say that to avoid the truth, you bastard of a whore!”
Wilf laughed at him. “The truth? You wouldn’t know it if you tripped over it.” He turned and looked contemptuously at the young women lined up next to Rhendel’s wife. “Are you willing to follow your uncle’s example? Send for a midwife and check them all. Let’s see if you choose to throw them out after.”
The elder pair of the four blanched immediately. The younger two were just too immature to have known temptation. Wilf smiled mockingly at the eldest set.
Rhendel roared, knocked his chair over and went after the insolent upstart. Two of his sons leapt up as well. They were on Wilf’s side of the table, but he moved more quickly. He freed himself from his chair and backed away while they still lurched from their seats. The women screamed. The Baron shouted and then coughed uncontrollably. Rhendel ignored his uncle’s incoherent protests and charged, his blade raised high to knife his victim’s chest. It was a damned clumsy attack, and Wilf was somewhat surprised by it, for he’d have thought a nobleman would be better trained. All the same, he thanked the gods it was bad manners to come to the table wearing a sword, for he was certain Rhendel would have been educated in the proper use of a lord’s weapon.
Wilf sidestepped the inept rush and caught the man’s arm. With a practiced twist, he sent his cousin flying. Rhendel landed with a heavy thud on the stone floor. He groaned and rolled to his front. The last of his sons joined the first two, and the three moved in unison toward their unwanted guest. Wilf perforce pulled free his dagger. If he must leave, he preferred to do so intact and still breathing.
“Back off! I’m more proficient with this weapon than you! Not one of you pampered asses has ever had to fight in Demon Alley!”
The young men paused, for he had named the most disreputable street in all of Wistal, purportedly the place where any sort of cutthroat or professional criminal could be hired, also the second best location to look for a dumped body when the docks had already been ruled out.
“You’re bloody on my turf without a sword!” he sneered at Rhendel.
Still trying to get his feet underneath, the elder cousin cursed him. Wilf laughed. He’d thumped the perfumed buffoon a good one. “Interesting 195
luncheon, Grandfather!” he said sarcastically. “It seems my cousins are no less prone to blood sport than my usual company. My compliments to the cook. I think I shall be going now.”
“Wait!” the old man wheezed. He coughed again, but managed to restrain his inflammation enough for speech. “I will speak with you in my chamber.”
“What!” Rhendel protested. “You can’t do that!” He had lifted himself at last and was ready to continue the battle.
“Shut up, Rhendel!” Harte hissed.
He shook his fist at his nephew. A crumpled sheet of parchment flashed. Rhendel blanched at the reminder and backed off, which was just as well, for at that moment Harte choked on his own fluids again.
Harte’s manservant had come up beside the Baron. The servant pressed a fresh handkerchief over the old man’s mouth. Harte’s shoulders heaved helplessly before he was able to continue, but Wilf’s noble adversaries hesitated long enough for Harte to recover from the fit.
Presently the old man lifted his head and indicated to the manservant that he wished to rise. With the aid of his servant, Harte faced off with his bastard grandson, a determined, proud expression cast over his tired features.
“Go up to my chamber with me. I will speak with you alone.”
Wilf’s gaze flashed from him to his cousins and back again, distrust plain in his eyes. The old man lifted his hand and opened it. The crumpled letter of introduction lay upon his palm.
“I can’t very well ignore this, can I?” Harte said hoarsely.
Wilf inclined his head in a sardonic agreement. “No more than I could ignore the command to visit you.”
“You were commanded?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” he admitted.
Harte’s frown turned quizzical. “So you wouldn’t have come?”
“I never intended to.”
“You can’t believe that whoreson!” Rhendel interjected.
“Shut up!” Harte snapped at him. He turned away, assisted by his manservant. “Come,” he called to his grandson. “I need to speak with you, without the constant distractions.”
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Wilf perforce followed, marching warily between Rhendel’s sons, but the letter had been enough to make them think and they kept their weapons lowered. Even so, Wilf didn’t sheathe his dagger until he had followed Harte half way up the steps winding along the wall of the great hall, and he looked behind regularly, until they had walked into the Baron’s chamber at the head of the stairwell. The manservant assisted Harte into his ancient four-poster, covered him with a throw, and took up a station before the door. Wilf eyed the fel ow cagily.
“Ignore him. He’s loyal to me,” the old man said.
Wilf turned about and considered his grandfather. This was likely how he’d end up when he aged. All in all, it wasn’t too bad. Harte’s back was still relatively straight. He hadn’t grown fat. He was shrivelled, true, covered in age spots, but he looked dignified for all that.
Harte settled comfortably into his bed and regarded Wilf without speaking for a minute. He didn’t ask the youth to sit. “I looked somewhat like you once,” he eventually said, mimicking his grandson’s thoughts in a backward fashion.
“I was considering how I might end up,” Wilf admitted.
“Does it frighten you?”
“No. Not getting there does.”
Harte barely smiled. “You sound as if you’ve had cause to worry.”
“I have.”
“Chased by a jealous husband perhaps?”
“No, actually. Jealous husbands haven’t been much trouble.”
“Your step-father’s cohorts?” the old man pressed.
“Sometimes. Mostly it was just working for the Syndicate when I was younger. I got stuck in a chimney. Took me hours to free myself from the flue. I’ve had trouble with small places since.”
Harte found it interesting the boy didn’t think gang fights all that worrisome. “They send children down the chimneys?” he said, commenting not at all on Wilf’s obvious self-assurance concerning his fighting prowess. “So that’s how they do it.”
Wilf smiled darkly. “I was too clumsy, so they sent me off to do my own thing.”
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“Whoring.” The derision of Harte’s tone was nearly as solid as a gob of spit.
“Yes, whoring,” Wilf affirmed coolly. “I’m very good at it. I take after my natural father, you see. Just about any woman I want to bed gets into bed with me. I get money from the older marks. I just use the younger ones. They generally have nothing to give me but the virtue their fathers and husbands are so careless with.”
Harte stared at him. The boy’s expression was flat. He didn’t boast.
He wasn’t proud. He just stated fact. “Your mother taught you to blame me for what she did,” Harte rejoined.
“No, my stepfather did. Considering that he never lost her virtue in all the time he’s had her, I have to believe him.”
“You cannot tell me she didn’t whore for the Syndicate!”
“I can,” Wilf spat. “Kehfen never betrayed her! She’s only lost her purity once, and because you didn’t see after her properly. Don’t think I am blind, old man. My mother is no better than any other woman. A well-delivered line, a careful pose, power, money; any of these can turn a woman. Any woman! I just know what it takes to prevent it.”
The old man scowled and averted his face. His eyes blinked rapidly several times. Wilf stared in amazement. Did the unforgiving old creature weep?
The Baron astounded him with his next question. “How is she? Is she well?”
“She just gave birth to my first sister,” Wilf said, staring at a suddenly eager face. “Blond again.”
“Blond again? There are more?”
“I have three brothers. One blond, one red-haired like Kehfen, the other with sandy brown hair.”
“Like my brother Luce,” the old man whispered.
Wilf looked at him intently. “Is that what you want, old man? News of my mother? You should just have her visit.”
Harte scowled and waved the crumpled letter again. “What have you to do with him?”
Marun hadn’t sealed the letter of introduction, but this hadn’t mattered. Wilf couldn’t read. Despite this, he knew enough to realize the sorcerer had signed the paper with just an initial. Obviously an initial was 198
all Marun needed to get doors opened, that and the fear his initial engendered.
“What have you to do with him?” Wilf countered. “How do you know him? How is it that a letter of introduction from him got me in your door?”
“He came to me recently. With an offer.”
“In return for a favour, I suppose?”
The old man nodded.
“Did you refuse?”
“You don’t refuse a man like that,” Harte said tightly. “I told him I would think about it.”
“What did he offer you?”
“My life,” Harte admitted. He looked at the boy sternly. “Now you!
How do you know him?”
“He has my family under his wing at the moment,” Wilf said.
“Under his wing? Why? Of what interest is a family of thieves and whores to him?”
“I couldn’t begin to guess,” he said. The old man glowered at him and Wilf relented. “He does seem to think my little brother might have a use as an apprentice.”
“An apprentice! One of your brothers?”
“Yes. Is that so surprising?”
“That darkness doesn’t come from my side of the family,” Harte said, turning his eyes away.
Wilf took offence at the scathing dismissal of his brother’s worth.
“You don’t even deserve to know Kehfrey exists, old man!”
“Kehfrey, is it?” Harte whispered. He looked up at Wilf. “Did you know you were named after her eldest brother?”
“Yes.”
“My Wilf died when your mother was twelve. She adored him. What are your other siblings named?”
“Gamis and Vik. They haven’t named the girl yet.” He didn’t say why, but Kehfen had told him it was because they were afraid to do so.
They knew what Marun did with a name.
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“Common names,” Harte said flatly.
Wilf would not stand at attention and be further insulted. “I grow tired of this interview, Grandfather. If you are quite done, I shall leave.”
He turned and made for the door, set to move the servant physically if he must.
“Wait! I know why he sent you!”
“Do you? Why?” Wilf rounded on the Baron. Rather than answer, Harte looked him up and down slowly. His expression was almost hungry. “Answer me, old man!”
