“We have not had to close off a new street for weeks now. The quarantine seems to be doing the trick.”
“It is lucky you acted so fast,” said Sigrid steadily.
Roper’s mouth twisted and he was close to saying that had he not been such a fool in the first place, none of this would have been necessary. But the moment passed and he smiled instead. “I am grateful for everyone’s discipline in this matter.” Her expression showed she had seen and understood the momentary warping of his mouth. “Your efforts were well beyond the call of duty. I am amazed that you did not contract it yourself.”
That half-smile. “Something has been taking care of me. And of this one,” she added, putting an arm around Keturah who had finished saying hello to Gray and had come to join them. “Your hair is regrowing fast.”
“Not before time,” said Keturah tartly. “This is not a winter to be walking around with a bald head.”
“Is there ever a time to be walking around with a bald head?” asked Roper. “You look like an earthworm.”
Keturah laughed, giving an accidental snort as she inhaled.
Sigrid looked flatly at the pair of them. “An easy audience,” she observed. “You’ve married the right woman, lord.”
“Sigrid here is just jealous, Husband,” said Keturah. “Unfortunately, she has no sense of humour.”
“I hear Pryce has also lost his sense of humour,” said Sigrid, as Gray came to join them.
“He is in a fearsome temper,” confirmed Keturah. “I’ve just been to see him.”
“Poor Pryce,” said Sigrid. “He is a lictor to his marrow.”
“I am surprised he didn’t break Uvoren’s jaw for demoting him,” said Roper.
Gray laughed sourly. “He knows Uvoren was looking for an excuse to get rid of him entirely. But he won’t forget. He will have his revenge, one way or another.”
Roper had his revenge first.
Legionaries called on the house of Vinjar Kristvinson, the Councillor for Agriculture, the next morning. He had not been seen in public since Baldwin had been eviscerated by sticky-fire and answered the door pale but straight-backed.
“Councillor Vinjar Kristvinson?”
“I am Vinjar.”
“You’re under arrest for adultery. You will come with us now to the dungeons beneath the Central Keep to await trial.”
Vinjar threw a helpless look behind him to where his wife Sigurasta stood, white-faced and with her hand covering her mouth, as his wrists were bound in leather. The evidence was compelling and the trial, three days later, did not take long. Uvoren had stopped coming to defend his accused allies and Roper, the words of the Ephor ringing in his ears, did not want him or any of his men associated with the trial. It was just Vinjar’s family and that of his wife who watched on.
Guilty. Three left at the table.
20The Kryptea Do Not Knock
“What happened to Vinjar?” asked Keturah. They sat in Roper’s quarters together, the door held shut by bolts of iron in an effort to keep out the sense of unease that pervaded the rest of the fortress. It was late, snowing again, and charcoal burned white-hot in the ventilated hearth.
“Nothing too serious,” said Roper. “He’s avoided the prison-ships at any rate, but he’s lost his status as a subject. He’s a nemandi again.”
“I know his wife,” said Keturah.
“Sigurasta?”
“She’s devastated. Did he do it?”
“No idea,” snapped Roper. The bolts were evidently not working.
“Very early in our marriage to be getting tetchy, Husband,” she reproved him.
“Don’t make me think about it. The Ephors released Tore and Randolph without charge today.”
“Why?”
“They voted unanimously to suspend the courts. They’re certain I’m behind the purge but they can’t work out how much of the evidence is fabricated. No doubt they’re looking for something to pin on me. If they find it … sticky-fire.” He remembered Baldwin’s begging in the honeypot. He remembered his eyes, almost comically wide. He remembered his supplicatory hands quivering as he held them up to the Ephor.
And then that stump.
That was all that had been left, after the waves had swamped him. It was still moving, but surely it could not possibly have been alive. When his time came, maybe Roper would beg as well.
Only one man knew the truth of whether or not these men were guilty: Vigtyr. Roper feared very much that he was about to disappoint him. If he had brought down the others, it would be no harder to get to Roper. Not when the Ephors were looking for any excuse.
“Don’t worry, Husband,” said Keturah with surprising tenderness. She put an arm behind his neck and a hand on his knee. “This storm will pass. And whether or not the courts have been suspended, most of Uvoren’s supporters are now too scared to show their faces in public.”
“I wish Vigtyr had gone for Tore and Randolph first,” said Roper. “The legions are loyal to their legates, and while Uvoren still has legionaries, he has power.”
“His influence is a shadow of what it was.”
“I worry …” Roper stopped himself. Self-doubt was not Anakim.
“You worry about what?”
He shook his head and Keturah tutted.
“You worry that you are not the man
