and daughters! What else could we expect?”
His face darkened steadily, and Rayno braced himself. But then, to the archbishop’s surprise, the Grand Inquisitor wrapped his hands tightly together on his desk, hunched his shoulders, and visibly fought his rage back under control. It didn’t come easily, and he didn’t manage it quickly, but he did manage it in the end.
“You say formal announcement of the verdicts is awaiting Sharleyan’s arrival?” he asked at last in a hard, tight voice.
“Yes, Your Grace. In fact, if she’s kept to the schedule which was reported to us, she’s already there. She may actually be ready to depart by now.”
“So what you’re saying is that they have been announced by now. And, presumably, carried out, as well.” Clyntahn bared his teeth. “The bitch isn’t going to leave without the satisfaction of seeing them all killed, now is she?”
“Presumably not, Your Grace.”
“Do we have any indication of how the population in general’s responding to all of this?”
“Not… really, Your Grace.” Rayno twitched his shoulders unhappily. “So far there haven’t been any indications of organized protest or outrage, but, again, all our reports are months out of date by the time they get here. It’s always possible people have been waiting for confirmation of the verdicts before they reacted.”
“And it’s always possible they’re just going to sit on their asses and let it happen, too,” Clyntahn said flatly.
“I’m afraid so,” Rayno admitted.
“Then it may be time to stiffen their spines.” Clyntahn’s expression was ugly. “What’s the situation with Coris?”
“Nothing seems to have changed in that regard, Your Grace. As you know, I’ve got one of our best men planted on him, and Bishop Mytchail has his own agent in King Zhames’ household, as well. Both of them agree Coris is doing what he was told to do.”
“And that he will do what we need him to do?”
“Almost certainly, Your Grace.”
“Only almost? ” Clyntahn’s eyes narrowed.
“I doubt he’d hesitate for a moment, Your Grace, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone knows he was Hektor’s spymaster-the man who managed Hektor’s assassins, among other things. He has a reputation for personal ambition, and it might occur to him that if anyone was going to be blamed as Cayleb’s tool in Daivyn’s assassination, it would be him. Under the circumstances, I think he’d probably prefer not to give any additional credence to that kind of charge. That assessment is based at least in part on reports from Master Seablanket, our agent in his household.”
“Hmmmmm.” Clyntahn frowned, stroking his chin meditatively, eyes half-closed, for several seconds. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “that might not be such a bad idea. Letting Coris carry the blame for it, I mean.” He smiled thinly. “He and Anvil Rock and Tartarian all worked together with Hektor, after all. Saddling him with responsibility-because he saw it as an opportunity to buy Cayleb’s favor the same way they have, no doubt-would smear the two of them by association, too, wouldn’t it?”
“It certainly might, Your Grace.”
“Do you think Seablanket could handle it?”
“I think he could, but I’d rather not use him, Your Grace.”
“Why not, especially if he’s already in position?”
“Because he’s too valuable, Your Grace. If I’m following your logic properly here, we need for the assassin-or for an assassin, at any rate-to be taken or killed after the boy is dead. Preferably killed, I should think, if we don’t want any inconvenient interrogations. I’d hesitate to use up someone as capable as Seablanket if we don’t absolutely have to.”
“So who would you use instead?”
“My thought at this moment is that we might use a team from the Rakurai candidates you approved but haven’t assigned, Your Grace. I’m sure we could select men who would be prepared to see to it that they weren’t taken alive. In fact, we have several more native-born Charisians available.”
Clyntahn cocked his head, then nodded slowly.
“That would be a nice touch, wouldn’t it?” He smiled unpleasantly. “Of course, it would tend to direct suspicion away from Coris.”
“Only in the sense that it wasn’t actually his hand on the dagger, Your Grace,” Rayno pointed out. “As you suggested, even if he didn’t strike the blow himself, he might have connived with Cayleb. In fact, we might be able to help that perception along a little bit. At the appropriate time, we could instruct him to… creatively weaken Daivyn’s security to let our assassins in. Seablanket’s in a perfect position to pass him the message when we need to, and it won’t hurt a thing at that point for Coris to realize we’ve been watching him more closely than he thought. And after the fact, if we decide to throw Coris to the slash lizard, the fact that he did let the assassins-the Charisian-born assassins-into Daivyn’s presence would be the crowning touch. And if we decided not to throw him to the slash lizard after all, we simply wouldn’t have to mention what he did.”
“I like it.” Clyntahn nodded. “All right, pick your team. We’ll see how public opinion in Corisande reacts to Sharleyan’s executions before we actually order them to proceed, but it won’t hurt to have the pieces in position when the time comes.” . II.
Twyngyth, Duchy of Malikai, Kingdom of Dohlar
Sir Gwylym Manthyr’s eyes opened as the hand shook his shoulder.
On the face of it, it was ridiculous that such a gentle summons could rouse him. Over the last five-day and a half, he’d learned to sleep despite the bone-jarring, jouncing, swaying, rumbling, grating progress of their mobile prison. Just the mind-numbing sound of steel-shod wooden wheels grinding over the hard surface of the royal high road should have been enough to make anything like sleep impossible, but Manthyr was a lifelong seaman. He’d learned to steal precious moments of sleep even in the teeth of a howling gale, and sheer exhaustion made it easier than it might have been otherwise. He’d never been so tired, so worn to the bone, in his entire life, and he knew it was even worse for many of his men.
He looked up into Naiklos Vahlain’s face and opened his mouth, but he had to stop and swallow twice before he could moisten his vocal cords enough to speak.
“What is it, Naiklos?”
“Begging your pardon, Sir, but we’re coming into a town. A big one. I think it’s Twyngyth.”
“I see.” Manthyr lay still for another moment, then reached up and grabbed one of the wagon’s iron bars and used it to haul himself to his feet. He balanced there, despite the shock waves which exploded up his legs and jolted painfully in his spine with the wagon’s motion.
It was odd, a corner of his mind thought. Charis’ highways were adequate to the kingdom’s needs, but nothing like most of the mainland realms boasted. The reason for that, of course, was Howell Bay. Charis didn’t need the sort of road network the mainlanders required, because water transport was always available and far more economical and speedy than even the best of road systems. Despite himself, Manthyr had been impressed by the sheer engineering ability and years of labor it must have taken to build the Dohlaran royal high roads, and their surfaces were hard and smooth, made of multiple layers of tamped gravel rolled out and then covered with slabs of cement.
And that was what was odd. One wouldn’t have thought a surface that smooth could still be uneven, yet judging from the prison wagon’s painful progress, it obviously could.
He rubbed his aching, gummy eyes and peered through the bars.
Naiklos was right; they were approaching a sizable town or city. Once upon a time, Manthyr had been accustomed to judging the size of the cities he encountered by comparison to Tellesberg, yet he’d discovered there were others which were larger still. Cherayth, in Chisholm, for example, or Gorath here in Dohlar. This town was much smaller than that-barely a third the size of Tellesberg-but it boasted fortified, bastioned walls at least twenty or thirty feet tall, and there was obviously artillery atop those walls, which argued for a certain importance. And if Manthyr’s memory of the maps of Dohlar were correct (which it might well not be, since he’d been primarily interested in Dohlar’s coasts), this almost certainly was Twyngyth.
And won’t that be fun, he thought grimly, knees flexing as his weary body anticipated the jolts. It wasn’t like being at sea, but there were some similarities. You had to go and help His Majesty kill that asshole Duke Malikai off
