pushed her chair back from the table.
“I’m sure you’re actually thinking about all sorts of other things right now, Father.” She shook one finger at him teasingly, her voice and manner almost- almost — normal. “I know you too well to think anything else could be possible! But with your permission, I think I’ll leave you to your plans and machinations while I go for a ride to think about what we’ve discussed this morning.”
“Of course, my dear,” he agreed. “Just be sure you take your armsmen along.”
“And here I was, planning on sneaking away without them.” She sighed and shook her head. “Very well. Since you insist.”
“Such a dutiful daughter,” he said, a deep, gentle note underlying the humor in his voice, and she bent to kiss him lightly on the cheek before she rustled out of the room in the whisper of her skirts.
He sat looking after her for a long, still while. Then he took another sip from his chocolate cup and made a face as he discovered how it had cooled.
He put the cup back down, rose, and crossed to one of the dining room’s windows, gazing out it with his hands clasped behind him while he considered his children, their places in the Kingdom, and the dangerous decision which had made itself as Talthar brought him the latest news from Sothofalas.
His gray eyes turned bleak and hard, and his jaw clenched. He’d tried so hard to avoid crossing that final line in his conflict with Tellian, yet now Tellian and Yurokhas had left him no choice. They’d convinced Markhos not simply to allow their accursed canal, but actually to grant it a Crown charter! That was intolerable. Even if Shairnayith’s marriage to Thorandas Daggeraxe were to bring the North Riding into alignment with the South Riding and the East Riding on the Great Council, the success of Tellian’s project would permanently tilt the balance of power towards Balthar. It could be no other way when the floods of wealth Shaftmaster was predicting at the Exchequer began to flood into the West Riding and the Kingdom. Tellian’s position as the gatekeeper of that wealth would inevitably establish him in an unchallengeable position as the Kingdom’s most powerful noble, and if that happened, Cassan’s power base would be destroyed. Worse, he told himself, it would mean Tellian’s obscene alliance with the bestial hradani would succeed, and that was unacceptable. He’d rather see the Wind Plain inundated by ghouls and trolls than see those horse-stealing bastards actually accepted as Sothoii allies-as equals — after everything they’d done to balk his own plans at every step of the way!
No. He shook his head, eyes like gray flint. No, it was the only way, and it wasn’t simply Tellian and Yurokhas who were to blame. The gods knew he would never have raised his hand against his King if his King hadn’t driven him to it! If he hadn’t proven how unworthy of his crown he was. But Markhos had-worse, he’d broken faith with countless generations of Sothoii who’d known the enemy when they saw it. All he’d had to do was to say no, to refuse to lend his approval to Tellian’s insanity, but he’d refused to do that. He’d taken his stand with the enemies of the Kingdom, not those who had it’s best interests at heart, and in doing that, he’d left Cassan no choice, no option.
If Crown Prince Norandhor should suddenly inherit his father’s crown, the Kingdom would be looking at a regency at least sixteen years long. And if the North Riding aligned itself with Cassan and Yeraghor on the Great Council and neither Markhos nor Yurokhas were there to oppose them, then they would name the Crown Prince’s regent…and that regent would not be someone named Tellian Bowmaster.
Talthar’s right, damn him, Cassan thought bitterly. I know he’s after more than just all the kormaks he’s had from me. The man has plans of his own, and I don’t trust him as far as I could throw a warhorse. But I also know he’s here, where I can keep an eye on him once the dust clears. If I can’t keep him under control with that starting advantage, then I’ll deserve whatever happens to me! And even if that weren’t true, he’s still right. I have to act, and act now, before Markhos officially promulgates his charter for Tellian at the fall Council session. And I have no choice but to make sure he and Yurokhas both die.
Something inside him flickered rebelliously at the thought, but he suppressed it sternly. The die was cast, now it was simply a matter of arranging things as carefully as possible. As he’d suggested to Shairnayith, there were outsiders who would do almost anything to see Tellian’s canal fail. The trick would be to make certain any suspicion within the Kingdom fell upon those outsiders, instead of Cassan.
And if Talthar’s right and Yurokhas means to continue ignoring his brother’s summons home and stays right where he is on the Ghoul Moor, his death can probably be made into an accident-and one Tellian will be blamed for, since it’s his expedition Yurokhas is accompanying. He smiled thinly at the thought. Having him “killed accidentally in battle” will decouple his death from Markhos’, too, now that I think about it. Just a dreadful, tragic coincidence… and one which would never have happened-just as those “outsiders” would never have had any motive to murder the King-if not for Tellian’s perverted alliance with the hradani and Dwarvenhame!
The smile grew broader and colder as he contemplated the possibilities. If he was going to be forced to do this thing, then he would do it as well and as effectively as it could be done.
And he knew just how to go about doing that.
He turned from the window, crossed to the table, and tugged on the embroidered silken bell rope. No more than two or three seconds passed before the door from the pantry into the dining room opened and one of the under butlers stepped through it with a bow.
“May we clear away now, Milord?” he inquired.
“You may,” Cassan replied brusquely. “But first, send word to Sergeant Warshoe. Tell him I want to see him in my office as soon as possible.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Excuse me, Sir Dahlnar, but you have a visitor.”
Sir Dahlnar Bronzehelm frowned as he looked up from yet another of the endless documents on his desk. But the frown disappeared as he recognized the well dressed man standing behind the smiling clerk in his office’s doorway.
“Master Talthar!” Bronzehelm stood, the last of his frown turning into a smile. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
“I didn’t expect to be here again so soon,” Talthar Sheafbearer replied. “Obviously, circumstances changed.”
“Probably because kormaks were involved somewhere,” Bronzehelm said shrewdly, and nodded dismissal to the clerk as he waved Sheafbearer into the office proper and pointed at the comfortable chair in front of his desk. His visitor seated himself, and Bronzehelm sank into his own swivel chair and tipped it back.
“There are kormaks involved, aren’t there?” he said.
“Well, I did just happen to find myself in possession of a particularly nice set of rubies I thought Baroness Myacha might like,” Sheafbearer acknowledged with a charmingly modest smile. “That’s what brought me back here so unexpectedly.”
“I see. Well, it pleases me immensely-speaking purely as Baron Borandas’ seneschal and the protector of his private purse, you understand-to inform you that you’ve missed her. She and the Baron won’t be back from Leehollow for at least another three days.”
“Oh.” Sheafbearer grimaced, but then he shrugged. “I suppose that’s what I get for not checking to see whether or not they’d be here.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t bankrupt a merchant of your deep pockets to spend a day or two in an inn here in Halthan while you wait for them. In fact, I think that would be a marvelous idea. At least someone here in the barony would recapture some of the disgusting amount of hard currency you’ve been sucking out of the Baron’s treasury ever since that first visit of yours.”
“I’m sure I don’t have the least idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, of course not!” Sheafbearer rolled his eyes. “And I suppose it’s pure happenstance that you keep turning up here with such spectacular pieces which just happen to be perfectly suited to the Baroness’ coloring?”
“Well, perhaps not pure happenstance,” Sheafbearer conceded, and Bronzehelm laughed.
A few of Dahlnar Bronzehelm’s clerks and assistants had been surprised by how quickly and thoroughly the seneschal had warmed to Master Talthar. It wasn’t that they didn’t understand how charming the gem merchant was, for he was unfailingly courteous even to the most lowly bureaucrat, and he radiated a gentle, charming
