Somewhere outside, a bell was chiming midnight.
23
At dawn the following morning a number of covered wagons converged from different directions on a hidden cove on Bhealfa’s south-eastern coast. Their journeys had been risky, both in terms of what the wagons carried and because they’d had to defy the curfew to arrive so early. But sound planning and good luck served them well, and they made their rendezvous without incident.
Resistance planners had been working for years on the logistics of moving thousands of people and all manner of cargo from diverse parts of Bhealfa to the new island state. Having six wagons reach the same patch of seashore at approximately the same time was child’s play by comparison. So it was that they all rode onto the beach within a space of less than a quarter of an hour.
A ship was anchored not far offshore. The sea was choppy and the vessel rolled slightly as it breasted the foam-flecked waves. In the grey sky, dark rain clouds were forming, and clumps of grass on the edges of the sandy beach were flattened by a brisk wind.
Caldason, Serrah and Kutch disembarked from various of the wagons, along with most of the three-score strong band
of Resistance fighters Reeth captained. They were met by the ship’s skipper and a handful of his crew, who’d ferried themselves across in a large rowboat.
The last wagon to arrive bore Quinn Disgleirio and the remainder of the band.
He hurried to the others. ‘Have you heard the news?’
‘What news?’ Serrah said.
‘We’ve been travelling all night without a stop,’ Caldason explained.
‘Well, we
had
to stop,’ Disgleirio told them. ‘Nearly lost a wheel about halfway here, not far from a village. They’d even heard about it there.’
‘Heard
what
?’ Serrah repeated.
‘Ivak Bastorran’s dead.’
‘Gods.’
‘Yes, and that’s not all. He was murdered, right in his own house in Valdarr. While some kind of party was going on, would you believe?’
‘Was it anything to do with us, the Resistance?’ Serrah asked.
‘They’re saying it was. Actually…prepare yourself for a shock, Reeth. The paladins say it was you.’
‘Me?’
‘The old man’s nephew, Devlor, not only swears you did it, he claims he was wounded fighting you off.’
‘That’s insane. What’s supposed to have happened?’
‘The story they’re putting out is that last night a lone assassin killed a guard and battered his way through two locked doors to get to Ivak. Then he, or you as they’d have it, stabbed him in the back a number of times.’
‘A knife in the back doesn’t sound like your style, Reeth,’ Serrah said.
‘No. I would have wanted to see his face while I did it.’
‘
Could
it have been the Resistance?’ Kutch wondered. ‘And maybe they mistook somebody else for Reeth?’
‘It had nothing to do with us,’ Disgleirio stated adamantly. ‘We would have known.’
‘And Devlor Bastorran’s unlikely to mistake someone else for me,’ Reeth said. ‘Not after our last meeting.’
‘Good luck to whoever it was, I say,’ Serrah decided. ‘And what if you are blamed for it, Reeth? You would have done it given the chance, wouldn’t you? Though not in the back like a sneak.’
‘That’s all very well,’ Disgleirio told them, ‘but there’s the repercussions to take into account. The top man in the paladins gets murdered and somebody known for his hatred of them gets the blame. They link you with the Resistance, Reeth, and it gives them just the excuse they need to crack down even harder. Not good news when we’re coming up to the move.’
