members of my army.”
“She understood well that you foreigners and your loose women badly needed a lesson in manners and their place,” the Baron said between clenched teeth. “My wife knew her place.”
“I’m sure you showed her that place often, and with considerable urging from the back of your hand,” Cyrus said. “I’m going to have my guards move you to the dungeon so my people can have a nice evening of sleep without the benefit of your slow, miserable death to waken them. I trust we won’t be able to hear your screams from up here?”
“You are such a bastard,” Hoygraf said to him. “If ever I get a chance to repay you for this-”
“You won’t,” Cyrus said. “Here, let me help you up.” He pulled the Baron to his feet and dragged him to the door, opening it to find four guards outside. He blinked at them in surprise, three humans whom he recognized but didn’t know by name, all armored and clad as warriors, and Martaina. “Can you have this-” he gestured at Hoygraf, who he was dragging, “taken down to the dungeon?”
“Certainly,” Martaina said, and nodded at two of the guards, who each took an arm and began to drag the Baron away.
“Sweet dreams, Baron,” Cyrus said. “Have a lovely night thinking about your life and all the things you’ve done to bring yourself to this point.”
“All I’ll be thinking of,” Hoygraf said as the guards turned him to speak, “is cutting your head off and showing your body to you before you die.”
“Did I do that to you?” Cyrus asked, holding his hand to his chest, feigning a wounded expression. “No, I simply exposed your innards to the light of day so that you could have a chance to expunge some of the darkness within.” Cyrus let his expression turn cold. “And there’s so much darkness within, Baron.” Cyrus waved in his direction and the guards carried him away, the Baron grunting as they turned the corner.
Cyrus turned to Martaina, grim thoughts now covering his countenance. “Make sure that our women who were captured are provided ventra’maq.” He thought about it for a beat. “Do we have any with us?”
“I have some,” she said smoothly, without emotion. “I’ll make sure they get a dose each.”
Cyrus frowned. “Your husband is back at Sanctuary.” When Martaina did not react, Cyrus suddenly wished for the ability to pull his words back from the air and banish them somewhere dark and far away, where they would never have been spoken. “Oh. Carry on, then.” He turned and started back into the Baron’s quarters, too sheepish to look at Martaina when she stopped him.
“There’s a woman who asked to stay behind when we took the others out. She says she’s the Baroness,” Martaina said, seemingly undisturbed by Cyrus’s comment. “She’s asking to speak to the conqueror of the castle.”
Cyrus thought about it for a long moment. “Have her escorted up. I seem to have put her husband on a slow path to the grave; the least I can do is hear her out and explain why he’s fated to die.”
Martaina grimaced. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I did that?”
Cyrus cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you really want to?”
The elf’s grimace smoothed out, returning her ageless features to an expressionless mien. There were no wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Cyrus could not tell how old Martaina was and had never asked. “A woman married to a man like that likely knows the danger of the day that the wrath he has wielded is loosed upon him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she expects to be told he’s dead already. She’s most likely here to collect his body for burial and to plead for some of her possessions that were left behind.”
“I expect I owe her the courtesy of an audience and an explanation,” Cyrus mused, still thinking it over. “I appreciate the offer, though. Have them bring her up.”
“Very well,” Martaina said. “I’ll see to it.” She turned and crisply walked down the hall. Cyrus watched her receding back, her green cloak gone, revealing instead her green cloth shirt and pants, something designed to blend into the forests and thickets she seemed born to hide within.
Cyrus walked back into the Baron’s quarters and waited. His eyes were drawn to the place where the Baron had lain, where a red puddle had already begun to dry into the rug. He almost flinched at it, thought about covering it up with something, anything, but decided against it.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Enter,” Cyrus said, and it swung wide to admit a woman in a green dress with a flowing skirt and a hem that dragged on the ground. Both her hands clutched at the top of the skirt around her waist, lifting it off the floor only slightly, reducing the drag against the carpeting. “Come in,” he said, taking note of her flowing brown hair and emerald eyes. She was young, younger than he, and her bosom was neatly displayed by her neckline. Had it not been for a few slight tears in the fabric, he would have assumed she put it on to impress him rather than believe she had been in it all day without anything to change into.
Cyrus rose from the chair and heard his armor squeak in protest. The chair protested more loudly at his weight, but he kept his gaze on the Baroness, met her green eyes without flinching away, tried to infuse his own expression with as much warmth as he could manage. He felt a pang of sorrow for what he was about to have to tell her, but there was nothing for it. “My name is Cyrus Davidon of the guild Sanctuary.”
“I am Cattrine, the Baroness Hoygraf.” She performed a curtsy, dipping her head and shoulders. Her hair was piled upon her head in an elaborate hairstyle. He watched as her gaze was drawn to the bloodstain on the rug behind him and coughed to turn her attention back to him. She gave no reaction beyond a subtle flicker of her eyes.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Baroness,” Cyrus said, inclining his head in greeting. “I assume that it is quite the opposite in your case, which is understandable.” He swept his hand around, offering her the chair he had been sitting in.
“No, thank you,” she said, her eyes filled with a quiet intensity. Try as he might, Cyrus could not see any deceit or anger burning within them.
“I had assumed you wanted your husband’s body returned.” Cyrus took two steps to his lef to a cabinet that held a silver tray on the top of it. Bottles of exotic glass, shaped in ways that Cyrus had not seen from glass blowers in Arkaria rested across the top of the bar. “Would you care for some refreshment?”
“Certainly, you may offer me some of my husband’s own liquors,” she said without a trace of acrimony. “I recommend the spiced rum from the Isle of Remlorant.”
Cyrus looked across the bottles again at the unfamiliar writing upon them. “I apologize … although we speak the same language, your land’s methods of writing differ considerably from my own.”
He heard her cross the room to him, felt her brush against him, and a pale forearm reached in front of him, plucking an ornate glass bottle from the bar. It was tall, and the glass was multifaceted, reminding him of an exceptionally large gemstone. “That was quite the novelty,” the Baroness said, reaching for two glasses from the cabinet next to her, “I almost thought I was about to be served a drink by a man.” She poured a small quantity of the liquor into one of the glasses, and Cyrus caught a strong hint of alcohol in the air as she did so. “By the man who killed my husband, no less.” There was no bitterness in her tone, Cyrus realized, just an aura of tiredness, of weariness, and the smallest hint of emotion. “Do you trust me to pour your cup, sir?”
“I trust that if you poison me, my healer will revive me from death,” he said as she poured a second cup full of clear liquid. “A feat I daresay he wouldn’t repeat for my poisoner.”
“I have no interest in poisoning you,” she said, her hands clenching the glass. “It profits me naught to have you dead, as I have no interest in pointless vengeance.”
“Your husband is not yet dead, Baroness,” Cyrus said, and watched her entire body stiffen. He was at her shoulder, but she turned her face so that he could not see. “Do not take too much hope from that, though, as he is mortally wounded and will pass before much longer.”
She was shorter than him by a head and a half at least, Cyrus realized, though she was still tall for a woman. She had angled herself so that he could not see her expression, but he saw the lines of her body, saw her left hand clutching the glass she had poured and saw it shake subtly, the liquid within rippling from the motion. “I see.” Her tone was dull, duller even than when she had spoken a moment before. She turned to Cyrus and he saw no trace of tears on her pretty face, nor any other emotion either, but the dark circles under her eyes hinted at more than she freely gave away. “Where is he now?”
