The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell), page 40
“Do you know this place?”
The squad leader shook his head. “No, there are all sorts of passageways and disused cellars beneath the palace from the time when the old palace stood here before it burnt down. It could be anywhere but by the smell I would say we are somewhere near where they park the night soil cart.”
Sharman nodded absently, something itching at the back of his mind which he couldn’t quite scratch. “See if you can find the weapon that killed him.”
They both stepped around the body searching for a weapon but all that Sharman could find was a bundle of old rags. He kicked them to one side and the smell almost choked him.
“Hey, sir, I think you should see this.”
The squad leader lowered his torch to the floor where a segment of dust had been swept to one side and piled into a neat, straight line. Clearly the door had recently been opened. It was then that everything fitted into place; the two foreigners and the guardroom steward in the seedy inn, the beggar with the bundle under his arm, the smell of piss and rot.
“Oh dear Goddess, the King!” Sharman turned and ran back the way he had come scattering guards and shouting orders to bring reinforcements. He prayed he wasn’t too late.
Malingar stood to attention and for a moment thought that Borman was going to strike him but instead he thrust a crumpled piece of parchment at his chest which he just managed to catch before it dropped to the floor.
“Explain that,” snarled Borman.
Malingar read it carefully trying to keep the shock off his face and at the same time desperately searching for an explanation which would sound reasonable but his head was full of wool and he couldn’t think straight. “It’s a lie, My Lord.”
Borman took a threatening step forward and held up the pendant. “And this? How do you explain this?”
Malingar recognised that. He’d seen the whore he had hired as a lady’s maid place it around Tarraquin’s neck. “They must have found it somewhere. It couldn’t come from the lady, she is dead.”
“No, Malingar, you lie.” Borman took another step forward, his face red with anger and hit Malingar so hard that it made the Guardcaptain stagger backwards.
It was the opening that the two envoys had been waiting for. In an instant they took up position either side of Malingar and whilst he was still stunned the taller of the two took his arm and wrenched it behind his back whilst the other kicked him in the bend of his knees making him drop to the ground. The man pulled Malingar’s head back and placed the knife he’d concealed in his boot against his exposed throat.
Borman stared in disbelief, the colour draining from his face. No one ever drew a knife in his presence, particularly not some foreign scum. If they had the audacity to come into his rooms and put a blade against his Guardcaptain’s throat then what would it take for them to turn the knife on him? He stepped back, away from the threat, and instantly stopped as a hand clamped over his mouth and the tip of a blade cut through his elaborately embroidered jerkin and drew blood. The calloused hand stank of filth and rot and Borman gagged at the stench.
A rough voice hissed in his ear and the hand dropped from his mouth to his throat. “What does it feel like, Your Majesty, to have a knife pressed against your flesh and know that at any moment that knife is going to cut into you and end your life?”
“Rastor?”
“You thought that you would never hear from me again, that I was dead, but you were wrong. I’ve lived for this moment, to see you beg for your life and then to see you bleed out on the floor with him watching. It’s a pity you won’t be here to see what happens to your lackey when he’s found guilty of your murder, stabbed by his knife in front of witnesses. His death will be slow, painful and public, as a warning to others. He will have been set up, of course, but then again, so was I.” Rastor pulled the blade upwards, slicing through the skin and muscle of Borman’s back and making him cry out. “Now beg, Borman. Beg for your life.”
Sharman didn’t bother to stop and explain the situation to the two door guards or to knock on the door and request permission to enter. If he barged in whilst the king was sharing a flagon of wine with his guests then he would look a fool and would probably spend the rest of his life cleaning out the waste pits or emptying the night soil cart. On the other hand if he politely announced his arrival and the king was in danger they would have ample time to slit his throat and he would end up spending the rest of his life in a dark, dank cell below the palace for his failure. In either case he was doomed unless, of course, his hunch was right.
He threw himself at the door, shoulder first before the two door guards had time to react and snapped the delicate lock and hinges so that the door crashed downwards into the room. His momentum and the sudden disappearance of the door’s resistance sent him rolling forward into a ball where he crashed into the back of the man holding the knife to Malingar’s throat. The man stumbled forward dropping his knife and with one swift movement Malingar swept it up and plunged it into the throat of the man who held his arm behind his back. Blood sprayed in an arc as the man gave a gurgling scream and clutched at the blade with both hands before collapsing in a spreading pool of his own blood.
Rastor hesitated for only a moment before plunging the knife into Borman’s back aiming to slice into his lungs and up into his heart but Borman reacted a fraction before him, thrusting his elbow into Rastor’s ribs so that the grip on his throat eased for a moment allowing him to throw himself sideways. The knife cut through his flesh and scraped along his ribs leaving a deep cut but missing its mark. Rastor cursed, turned and ran for the panel which remained open in the wall behind him but he made it only three steps before a hand span of steel burst through his chest slicing his heart in two. He only had time to look down at it in resignation before he died.
Guardsmen flooded into the room trapping the remaining envoy in one corner and holding him there at sword point whilst Sharman picked himself up off the floor, rubbing his bruised shoulder and went to see what could be done for the King. Malingar was already there, a trickle of blood running from his neck and the arm that had been twisted behind his back hanging limply at his side. Borman lay on his side where he’d fallen and Sharman gave a sigh of relief as the King cursed and gritted his teeth against the pain. The relief was short-lived though as Borman opened his eyes and glared at him.
“Next time knock, or I’ll have you shifting middin for the rest of your miserable life.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Last Refuge
Sharman wasn’t used to being a hero and being patted on the back and congratulated by every guardsman in the city. It made him feel uncomfortable and he was certain that some of the older, more cynical guards were actually taking the piss. There wasn’t much he could do about it though, except to nod appreciatively and hope that nobody wanted to hear, yet again, how he’d worked out that the king was in danger. Still, the congratulations were better than the sour looks that he’d received from the innkeepers and the populace of Dartis on the one occasion he’d dropped in for a pot of ale. Every one of them would have given a bag of gold gellstart to have seen Borman skewered.
The one person who should have been really grateful had, so far, done nothing but complain that it was his fault that Rastor had lived to draw a knife on his king. Once the physic had sewn up the long, deep gash in Borman’s back, there had been a very uncomfortable conversation about the Lady Tarraquin’s pendant. Fortunately he and his master had had the chance to get together and agree what they were going to say whilst Malingar’s dislocated arm was put back in place.
Despite their very credible story, Borman was still suspicious and had dispatched a rider to Tarmin to check if the pendant was still locked away and the one the envoy had produced was a fake. It was a pity the man would never make it to his destination and back. Of course Borman would eventually find out the truth, but they would cross that bridge when they came to it.
Sharman stood to attention when Borman entered the underground room with his six new guards around him carrying so much weaponry that they looked like prickle hogs. He winced as the pain in his side jagged into him and for a moment his vision darkened and he thought he was going to pass out. Charging the receiving room door and rolling around the floor had done him no good. Even the red poppy seed cake he chewed was failing to numb the persistent ache. He blinked his eyes to refocus his vision and hoped that Malingar, who stood at his side, had not noticed his moment of weakness. The last thing he needed was for his master to start worrying about him or being sympathetic.
Borman looked at the two men who had saved his life and wondered just how loyal they really were. They had both put themselves into harm’s way to protect him, but he still had a suspicion that they knew something which they were not telling him. That is why he wanted them with him now, just to remind them what happened to traitors. He nodded to them in acknowledgement of their bows, then led the way through the far door and down the stairs to the lower levels. It was not his usual practice to watch his questioners do their work; it was inevitably a noisy and smelly process, but this was different. It was personal.
Of course his questioner had already softened the prisoner up so the man would be ready to answer the questions which would be put to him and wouldn’t inconvenience him too much. However, it looked like the questioner had sent for him too soon as the damage appeared to be relatively minor; just some bruises on his face, a criss-cross of burns on his chest and two missing fingers. It was nothing compared to the envoy who had been captured in his room and had died without saying a word. His head, minus his eyes and some other facial parts, had been dispatched to Vorgret and his body quartered and thrown to the grunters along with the remains of Rastor and the envoy Malingar had killed.
This one was different from the two envoys though, a local by the look of him who had been recruited by the others to poison the Guardcaptain’s wine and steal his knife. It was unlikely that he knew much but he only needed one name. He walked around the battered body stretched between two posts and nodded at his questioner to continue. The questioner ran a sharp knife down the prisoner’s back in about the same position that Rastor’s knife had cut his own back, slicing through the skin and the flesh and muscle beneath. The man screamed, a high pitched, womanish sound and Borman nodded in satisfaction. At least he hadn’t made such a pathetic noise.
“If you answer my questions the pain will stop and you will die quickly. If you waste my time my questioner will take you to pieces bit by bit, finishing with your manhood. Now, who paid you to poison Lord Malingar?”
The man groaned. “The two envoys.”
Borman sighed in irritation, he already knew that. “What about Rastor?”
“I don’t know, Lord, I only saw him once. I didn’t know what was going on or that they planned to kill you. They said that all I had to do was just poison the Guardcaptain’s wine and take his knife.”
“You lie, scum.” Borman waited whilst his questioner placed his pincers around the man’s index finger and snipped it off. When the man stopped screaming he tried again. “Now, tell me the truth. Who paid you?”
“It was Rastor’s plan,” the man sobbed desperately. “He told us what to do but it was Vorgret who paid for your death.”
Borman looked across at Malingar and Sharman. “And the Lady Tarraquin?”
The prisoner hesitated for a moment and the questioner deftly snipped another finger from the man’s hand. This time he passed out and had to be revived with a bucket of cold water. Borman repeated the question and the man panted out a response. “Don’t know her. They never mentioned her name.”
Borman nodded, satisfied with the answer. “Questioner, finish him slowly. A silver gellstart to you if you can keep him alive for the final cut.” He turned to Malingar and Sharman. “You will wait here and see if the questioner earns his reward.”
With a look of satisfaction he walked away ignoring the man’s sobbing pleas for mercy and then his screams as the questioner returned to his work. It was a most satisfying conclusion to an unpleasant incident. Word would quickly get out to the populous about what happened to those who raised their hand against him, and Sharman and Malingar had been warned about crossing him. Best of all was that he now had a morally defensible reason to ride into Alewinder and kill Vorgret. He would have to wait until his back had healed enough for him to ride, but within a seven day he would leave for Vinmore and remove the last obstacle in the way of him becoming the one and only king of the six kingdoms.
*
Life in the small woodland cottage had been bliss; it was just as Jarrul had always dreamed of living his life. Up until the time Tarraquin had tried to kill Maladran, he’d always been a huntsman and had lived on the edge of the forest and worked within its peaceful expanses. Even when Tarraquin became a rebel leader he’d still lived in the forest, escaping from the noisy camp with its loud and demanding people into its shadowy quiet whenever he had wanted to.
There he’d been appreciated for his woodland skills and his ability to provide the stew pot with fresh meat each day when nobody else could find game. No one minded that he wasn’t a great conversationalist or that sometimes he could take a candle length or two to understand a joke that everyone else had laughed at instantly. His life had been simple and he’d looked forward to each new day.
Then it had suddenly all changed. Tarraquin made her bid to be queen of Leersland and he had been torn out of the life he knew to become a conspirator, a courtier and then a royal envoy. He’d hated it all; the formality of life in the palace, the need to make decisions on things he knew nothing about, and talking to people he didn’t know or like. When he escaped it all and returned to the solitude of the deserted rebel camp, it had been a relief, and when Birrit had turned up, he thought that his life was complete. Then Tarraquin had arrived and they were on the run again.
Jarrul sighed and put down the knife he’d been using to smooth some rough edges from the bowl that he’d carved the previous evening. When Tarraquin had left them in Tarbis’s woodlands to ride to the beast’s rescue, he and Birrit should have kept on riding as far away from her as they could get. Perhaps they should have gone to Shipside and across the great southern ocean where there were endless forests and a huntsman could live in peace, but they didn’t.
Instead they rode to Vinmore and eventually settled in the magician’s woodland cottage. It had been wonderful, just the two of them living as man and wife. Him hunting for food, chopping wood and seeing to the heavy work and Birrit cooking and cleaning and making their home comfortable. The nights had been the best though, making love and sleeping in each other’s arms. Then Tarraquin had arrived.
Why was it always Tarraquin who shattered his peaceful life, throwing everything up into the air so that it came down in a jumble of unrecognisable pieces? It wasn’t that he didn’t like her, on the contrary he loved her like a daughter and always had, but wherever she went she spread chaos. Almost six moon cycles ago, she and the two old magicians had ridden into the clearing around the woodland cottage in the back of an innkeeper’s cart, and his life hadn’t been the same since. The main problem was that the cottage had not been built to house so many people, especially people who seemed to argue all the time, and supplying them with food was becoming a nightmare.
Birrit had insisted that the Lady Tarraquin should have their sleeping chamber and, as her maid, she would sleep in the small adjoining box room. That had left the two old magicians sharing the other sleeping chamber and him sleeping on the floor by the hearth. He’d crept into Birrit’s room on one or two occasions but the bed was far too narrow for them to sleep together. Out of desperation he’d repaired the shelter in the yard, built a bed and a bench from bark wood trees and Birrit had joined him there for a short while.
Now, with Tarraquin’s child due within a moon cycle, she slept back in the box room in case her mistress needed her which left him sleeping in the converted stable all alone. He didn’t think things were going to get any better either when the baby was born. Tarraquin had never shown any maternal instincts; even as a child she hadn’t played with dolls as other girls had. He suspected that Birrit would end up caring for the baby whilst Tarraquin plotted and planned how she could disrupt their lives all over again.
Then there was the problem of feeding the thing. Perhaps when Barrin visited next he could ask about getting a milker, although he had no idea what you did with them. On top of all that the child would need cleaning all the time and would squawk continuously shattering what little peace there was to be found in the clearing. He gave another deep sigh, put his head in his hands and wished that he had a flagon of Vinmore red to help him forget his worries.
Jarrul was still there when Barrin rode into the clearing. At the sound of an approaching horse he grabbed for his bolt bow and had a bolt cradled and drawn before the rider had ridden half a dozen paces clear of the forest’s cover. In the half light of dusk he wasn’t sure who the rider was but when Barrin flipped back his hood he could see that it was their friend. Sighing in relief he lowered the bow and released the tension on the drawstring.
It had been nearly three moon cycles since he’d last seen Barrin and in that time he had changed. The old, ragged clothes that he had worn as a disguise had gone and he now wore huntsman’s leathers with a sword at his side and some sort of insignia on his shoulder. His hair had grown and was tied back with a leather thong and when he dismounted he walked forward with a confidence that Jarrul hadn’t seen before in the young man. Life may have been uncomfortable for him, but it looked like Barrin was enjoying himself.
Barrin held out his hand and clasped Jarrul’s proffered one firmly. He thought Jarrul looked tired and worn and less cheerful than he had before. Unfortunately the news he brought wouldn’t make him look any better either. Barrin looked up and smiled as Tarraquin came down the steps towards him with the two old magicians close behind. Despite living in a lonely cottage without the comforts of the city and the size of her pregnancy, she still looked beautiful. It was no wonder that kings fought over her. He bowed deeply as Tarraquin halted in front of him. She took both his hands in hers and kissed him affectionately on both cheeks.
