06 - Rule of Thieves (16 page)

I sensed all of this without really meaning to. The Praetor’s mood communicated itself easily to me tonight, although I did not seek out his emotions by magical means. Maybe the awareness we now shared of the blood link between us made him more readable to me. Or was he purposely feeding me his feelings, feigned or real, for some purpose I could not guess at?

The conversation around the table had shifted from inconsequential things, and my ears pricked up as I heard mention of Dimmingwood.

Delecarte was asking Tarius whether there had been any more Skeltai raids along the forest border in recent days.

Praetor Tarius turned the question over to me, asking what intelligence we had from our Dimmingwood connections.

I admitted no word had come from Dimmingwood yet and concluded the forest was quiet for now.

This reminded me of a subject I had been meaning to broach. In the presence of his counselors, I pressed the Praetor for further assurance of lifelong pardons for the Dimmingwood thieves now acting in his service.

“Pardons?” Counselor Summerdale’s perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together in a petulant frown. “Why should we excuse criminals for crimes against the province?”

“Because they now act
for
the province,” I pointed out. “They voluntarily risk their lives to safeguard the forest that is the gateway between enemy territory and ours. And because it was indicated over a year ago they would receive these pardons, yet they were never delivered.”

Praetor Tarius was silent. Perhaps significantly so. I wondered if I had gone too far in publically reminding him of his broken promise.

Unwilling to let the topic rest, I reminded the listeners that if Skeltai were to break through Dimmingwood, they had access to all of Ellesus. And Ellesus alone stood between our enemy and all our sister provinces.

I spoke as though to persuade the others, but I was keenly aware there was really only one opinion that mattered. The Praetor’s.

I was successful. Perhaps swayed by my support of the outlaws or perhaps only wishing to annoy his advisors, Tarius told me the outlaws’ pardons were safe. For as long as the Dimmingwood thieves gave up their criminal ways and committed themselves to the Praetor’s cause, they would be forgiven their past misdeeds.

I knew a public declaration before his advisors was the closest thing to a certainty I could extract from Tarius. I had done all I could for my thieving friends.

After the discussion, Tarius seemed weary and distracted. It didn’t show in his face, but I felt the ebbing of his strength. The dragon scale medallion rested unused beneath my tunic, and I realized again that I wasn’t drawing from my magic to read the Praetor’s state of mind. Rather, it was him pushing his emotions out at me. Why? Why should he reveal his vulnerability when he must know I would be tempted to use it against him?

I was relieved when the meal was over and everyone dispersed. I had delayed long enough. Tonight I had a mission to complete.

When I was scarcely older than Jarrod, I had wandered all over this city without coming to harm. That was what I reminded myself as I retrieved my bow from its hiding place and prepared to go out. Since our venture into the Skeltai’s Black Forest a year ago, the bow seemed to have become as unfortunately famous as its bearer. I was in no mood to attract attention, so I slung the bow across my back and donned a cloak, concealing the bow beneath its folds of wool.

On putting the castle behind me, I quickly realized I had gained an unwanted companion. It had taken him all day, but my Fist bodyguard had finally caught up to me again.

I waited for him at a bend in the road just before the way branched into a busy thoroughfare.

“Listen, you,” I said, jabbing a finger into his broad chest, which was armored in mail. “I’m going to let you do your job and trail me. But you’re going to hang back out of sight and not interfere with any of my business tonight.”

I had contacts in Selbius who had good reason to be shy of the Fists and the city guard. The last thing I needed was any of them seeing me with a Fist following conspicuously at my heels.

My bodyguard must have seen there was no use arguing, because he dropped back after that, trailing me from a discreet distance. Anyone expert at avoiding the law would still recognize his presence, but at least it was an improvement.

I looked for Jarrod in all the places I could imagine a youngling hiding. The most secluded gardens of the Beautiful district. The abandoned warehouses fronting the wharf at the far side of the city. I wandered the market square, where sellers were stowing away their wares for the night as dusk settled over Selbius.

I didn’t find Jarrod, and no one I questioned on the streets had seen any boy answering his description. Or if they had, they’d been too busy to take notice and remember him.

A light drizzle began to fall, slicking the cobbled streets and forming shallow puddles in my path. Curfew was approaching, the hour after which citizens roaming the streets risked arrest by the city guard. I realized I had no choice but to end my search and return to the castle.

But not before making one final stop. It wasn’t in search of Jarrod or to seek shelter from the rain that I turned onto a narrow lane lined with dilapidated buildings. I had found my way to the poorest part of town. Here the upper stories of the cheap lodging houses overhung the road on either side. There were one or two dingy storefronts, boarded up for the night, their interiors dark and silent.

Passing a chandler’s shop, I ducked suddenly down an alley between two buildings, trotting to the end of the way, then clambering over the sagging fence that rose up to block my path.

It occurred to me my bodyguard would never trust me again. But there was no help for it. What I did now I must do in secret or I risked endangering others.

Dropping down over the rickety fence, I found myself in a small yard at the back of one of the lodging houses. Even in the dark and the rain, I knew this one apart from the others by the scraggy tree growing behind it, the only tree on the street. In daylight, I would have known by the blue tiles of the roof, but there were no discerning colors at this hour.

I had never visited this site in person before, and I prayed the description I had been given by Dradac was a true one. If I burst into the wrong house…

Near a coop of softly cooing birds that looked in the darkness like pigeons, I discovered a scattering of wet moldy straw on the ground. I kicked this aside, revealing the cellar door concealed beneath. As expected, the entrance was unlocked. The door creaked slightly as it was lifted, and remembering the close proximity of my Fist shadow, I scrambled down quickly into the black interior and closed the door softly above me.

It was completely dark in the cellar. As I made my way blindly along the walls, I upset a stack of something, empty barrels, perhaps, that tumbled noisily across the floor, shattering the heavy stillness.

After that, I was more cautious and drew a thin stream of magic through my dragon scale to form a tiny orb of golden light. Scarcely bigger than a candle flame, it hovered above my upturned palm. It illuminated a filthy, crowded storage space that I made my way hastily through to reach a set of rickety stairs leading up into the house. The door at the head of the steps gave no resistance, and I let myself easily through.

But I got no further into the house before a dark shape lunged out of the shadows to confront me.

I had barely got my hands on the knives tucked up my sleeves and was just drawing them free when a quicker blade came to rest against my throat.

“Be you friend or intruder?” a menacing voice growled.

Mind racing as I faced the indistinct figure in the gloom before me, I thought of punching one of my knives into his gut. But I had a strong suspicion my throat would be slit before I could complete the action.

I decided to try a different tactic, asking, “Who but a friend would know to use the secret entrance?”

I felt him relax slightly. His knife eased away from my throat.

“You’re from Dimmingwood?” he asked

“I need to see Kiril,” I said by way of answer. “I think you’ll find he knows me.”

At mention of the outlaw runner, the stranger dropped the last of his caution and lowered his weapon.

My hands moved away from their knives too.

“Any friend of my cousin Kiril’s is welcome,” he said. “Sorry about greeting you at knifepoint and making you drop your candle. It gives a fellow a natural start to hear someone rattling around in his cellar after dark.”

I had extinguished my glowing orb—or candle, as it must have appeared to my host—in the instant of our confrontation. Now the big stranger provided a shuttered lantern, which shed enough light to illuminate the combined kitchen and living space around us.

I sat alone in the shadows before a cold fireplace while Kiril’s cousin disappeared to fetch him from the next room.

When Kiril was brought to me, it was clear he had been sleeping. But he quickly became alert as I relayed the message I needed him to carry to Dimmingwood. He must inform Dradac the outlaws’ arrangement with Praetor Tarius held good and the pardons were as safe as I could make them. And he must discover what word Dradac had of Skeltai movements along the border where the enemy’s Black Forest met our own Dimmingwood.

It was a brief meeting, ending with the outlaw messenger promising to set out for the forest at dawn and bring me back a swift response.

Leaving the house by the same means I had entered it, I felt a degree of relief in knowing I had made the best arrangements I could for my friends. I didn’t know what the future held now the old ways of life were forever closed, not only to the others but to me. I couldn’t even be sure if all the outlaws would stick to their end of the bargain or if they would return to their usual illegal methods of survival. But at least they now had a fresh chance if they wanted it.

Outside again, the drizzle had turned into a driving rain that beat down on my head and shoulders and made my loose hair cling wetly to my face and neck. My hooded cloak was thoroughly soaked. The only warmth I felt came from the bow riding snuggly across my back.

____________________

Jarrod reappeared the following day. I found him midmorning inside a dilapidated private garden lining the keep’s south wall. The boy had been perfectly safe and skulking around the castle since the previous day.

I was in the middle of unleashing my full anger on him for the worry he had caused when he cut me off to insist his disappearing had not been without purpose. He had lurked around the hidden parts of the castle, spying on its inhabitants and hunting for clues about my poisoner. His idea was to prove himself useful to me so I would allow him to stay.

Sitting the boy down in the shadow of the wall, I started to explain the need to send him away had nothing to do with usefulness and everything to do with his safety.

But he forestalled my planned lecture by asking, “Don’t you even want to see what I found?”

Before I could answer, he victoriously produced a blue glass vial and offered it to me as proudly as if he were delivering the head of my enemy. The glass jar was dusty except for a few layers of fresh finger marks around the rim. Inside was a tangle of roots soaking in murky liquid.

“And what exactly is this?” I asked, unimpressed.

Unfazed by my lack of enthusiasm, he uncorked the vial. “Take a sniff and see.”

He shoved the jar up to my nose, where I caught a familiar bitter odor wafting up from its depths. The smell of the stuff was as distinctive as the taste.

“Wormroot.”

“And lots of it,” Jarrod agreed. “My stepfather used to put it around in our loft to kill the rats. But it’ll kill people plenty good too if it lands in their food.”

“All right,” I acknowledged. “You’ve earned the right to look smug. Now tell me where you found it.”

“In the chambers of Counselor Delecarte.”

“Counselor Delecarte?” I repeated incredulously. “How did you gain access to his rooms?”

He shrugged his skinny shoulders. “I’m a good sneaker. There’s not many places I can’t get into if I’ve a mind to.”

I guessed growing up with a stepfather who was ill-tempered and quick with his fists would have taught the boy how to creep about and avoid notice. It was probably necessary for his daily survival.

“It wasn’t hard to find the jar,” Jarrod continued. “It was just tucked away in a chest full of clothes—one of the first places I looked.”

He wrinkled his nose. “These noblemen aren’t very smart, are they? If I’d poisoned somebody, I’d have got rid of the proof right quick, not kept it close to give me away.”

I was thinking the same thing. A man like Delecarte hadn’t gotten to be the Praetor’s advisor by being a fool or taking unnecessary risks. But someone wanting to turn me against Delecarte might plant the remaining poison where it could be easily found to deflect suspicion from themselves.

I took the blue vial from Jarrod and examined it. There was something familiar about the object. A clear image flashed through my mind. The small blue vial lined up with a row of similar bottles and jars on a cobwebbed shelf in the secret tower room at the top of the keep. The Praetor’s locked chamber or ‘mage’s lair’.

I had no sooner connected the poison with my memory of the tower room than I formed a powerful notion of who was behind the attempt on my life. I didn’t know the how and wasn’t even close to fathoming the why. Those were questions only my would-be killer could answer.

“Keep this discovery to yourself,” I told Jarrod, “until I’ve had the chance to confront someone.”

“Wait. Where are you going?” he asked as I walked away, leaving him standing.

“To find the Lady Morwena.”

____________________

Only three people had cause to know about the secret room at the top of the keep. One of them was me, and I certainly hadn’t poisoned myself. Another, if Lady Morwena was to be believed, was Praetor Tarius.

Killing me wouldn’t suit any plan of Tarius’s. Not because the man wasn’t ruthless enough but because his healing me afterward proved he wanted me alive. I was useful to his cause. That left only one person with knowledge of the tower room and its contents. Her motives were unclear, but I meant to find them out.