A Darkness at Sethanon (10 page)

Soon the ship
brokers were followed by the freight haulers; then the millers, when
fanners were kept out of the city; then others, each with a
reasonable request to have the quarantine of the city lifted for just
his special case. All were denied.

Kingdom law was
based upon the concept of the Great Freedom, the common law. Each man
freely accepted service to his master, except the occasional criminal
condemned to slavery or bondsman serving his indenture. Nobles
received the benefits of rank in exchange for protecting those under
their rule, and the network of vassalage rose from common farmer
paying rent to his squire or baron, who paid taxes to his earl. In
turn, the earl served his duke, who answered to the crown. But when
the rights of free men were abused, those free men were quick to
voice their displeasure. There were too many enemies within and
without the boundaries of the Kingdom for an abusive noble to keep
his position overly long. Raiding pirates from the Sunset Islands,
Quegan privateers, goblin bands, and, always, the Brotherhood of the
Dark Path - the dark elves -demanded some internal stability in the
Kingdom. Only once in its history had the populace borne oppression
without open protest, under the rule of mad King Rodric, Lyam’s
predecessor, for the ultimate recourse to grievance was the crown.
Under Rodric, lese majesty had been reinstated as a capital crime and
men could not express their grievances publicly. Lyam had again
struck that offence from the laws of the land; as long as treason was
not espoused, men were free to speak their minds. And the free men of
Krondor spoke their displeasure loudly.

Krondor became a
city in turmoil, her stability a thing of the past. For the first few
days of martial law, there had been grumbling, but as the seal on the
city entered its second week, shortages became commonplace. Prices
rose as demand exceeded supply. When the first alehouse near the
docks ran out of ale, a full scale riot ensued. Arutha ordered
curfew.

Armed squads of
the Royal Household Guard patrolled the streets alongside the normal
city watch. Agents of both the Chancellor and the Upright Man
eavesdropped on conversations, listening for hints to where the
assassins lay.

And free men
protested.

Jimmy hurried
down the hall toward the Prince’s private chambers. He had been
sent to carry messages to the commander of the city watch and was
returning with the commander at his side. Arutha had become a man
driven by his need to find the hidden assassins. He had put aside all
other matters. The daily business of the Principality had slowed,
then had finally come to a halt, while Arutha searched for the
Nighthawks.

Jimmy knocked
upon the door to the Prince’s chamber; he and the commander of
the watch were admitted. Jimmy went to stand next to Laurie and
Duchess Carline while the commander came to attention before the
Prince. Gardan, Captain Valdis, and Earl Volney were arrayed behind
the Prince’s chair. Arutha looked up at the commander.
“Commander Bayne? I sent you orders; I didn’t request
your presence.”

The commander, a
greying veteran who had begun service thirty years before, said,
“Highness, I read your orders. I came back with the squire to
confirm them.”

“They are
correct as written, Commander. Now, is there anything else?”

Commander Bayne
flushed, his anger apparent as he bit off each word. “Yes,
Highness. Have you lost your bloody mind?” Everyone in the room
was stunned by the outburst. Before Gardan or Volney could censure
the commander’s remarks, he continued, “This order as
written means I’ll be putting over a thousand more men in the
lockup. In the first place -”

“Commander!”
snapped Volney, recovering from his surprise.

Ignoring the
stout Earl, the commander plunged forward with his complaint. “In
the first place, this business of arresting anyone “not
commonly or well known to at least three citizens of good standing”
means every sailor in Krondor for the first time, traveller,
vagabond, minstrel, drunk, beggar, whore, gambler, and just plain
stranger are to be whisked away without hearing before a magistrate,
in violation of the common law. Second, I don’t have the men to
do the job properly. Third, I don’t have enough cells for those
who are to be picked up and questioned, not even enough for those who
will stay on due to unsatisfactory answers. Hell, I can barely find
room for the ones who are already behind bars. And last, the whole
thing stinks to high heaven. Man, are you daft? You’ll have
open rebellion in the city within two weeks. Even that bastard
Radburn never tried anything like this.”

“Commander,
that will be enough!” roared Gardan.

“You
forget yourself!” said Volney.

“It’s
His Highness who forgets himself, my lords. And unless lese majesty’s
been returned to the list of felonies of the Kingdom, I’ll
speak my mind.”

Arutha fixed the
commander with a steady gaze. “Is that all?”

“Not by
half,” snapped the commander. “Will you rescind this
order?”

Showing no
emotion, Arutha said, “No.”

The commander
reached for his badge of rank and pulled it from his tunic. “Then
find another to punish the city, Arutha conDoin. I’ll not do
it.”

“Fine.”
Arutha took the badge. He handed it to Captain Valdis and said,
“Locate the senior watchman and promote him.”

The now former
commander said, “He’ll not do it, Highness. The watch is
with me to a man.” He leaned forward, knuckles on Arutha’s
conference table, until his eyes were level with the Prince’s.
“You’d better send in your army. My lads will have none
of it. When this is over, it’ll be them who’ll be in the
streets after dark, in twos and threes, trying to bring sanity back
to a city gone mad and hateful. You brought this on; you deal with
it.”

Arutha spoke
evenly. “That will be all. You are dismissed.” He said to
Valdis, “Send detachments from the garrison and take command of
the watch posts. Any watchman who wishes to stay employed is
welcomed. Any who refuses this order is to be stripped of his
tabard.”

Biting back hot
words, the commander stiffly turned and left the room. Jimmy shook
his head and shot a worried glance at Laurie. The former minstrel
would understand as well as the former thief what sort of trouble was
brewing in the streets.

For another week
Krondor stagnated under martial law. Arutha turned a deaf ear to all
requests to end the quarantine. By the end of the third week every
man or woman who could not be properly identified was under arrest.
Jimmy had communicated with agents of the Upright Man who assured
Jimmy that the Mockers were conducting their own housecleaning. Six
bodies had been found floating in the bay so far.

Now Arutha and
his advisers were ready to conduct the business of interrogating the
captives. A large section of warehouses in the north end of the city
near the Merchants Gate had been converted to jails. Arutha,
surrounded by a company of grim-faced guards, looked over the first
five prisoners brought forward.

Jimmy stood off
to one side and could hear a soldier mumble to another, “At
this rate we’ll be here a year talking to all these lads.”

For a while
Jimmy watched as Arutha, Gardan, Volney, and Captain Valdis
questioned prisoners. Many were obviously simple fellows caught up in
some business they didn’t understand, or they were consummate
actors. All looked filthy, ill fed, and half-frightened,
half-defiant.

Jimmy became
restless and left the scene. At the edge of the crowd he discovered
that Laurie had taken a seat on a bench outside an ale house. Jimmy
joined the Duke of Salador, who said, “They’ve only some
homemade left, and it’s not cheap, but it’s cool.”
He looked on while Arutha continued the interrogations under the
summer sun.

Jimmy wiped his
forehead. “This is a sham. It accomplishes nothing.”

“It
lessens Arutha’s temper.”

“I’ve
never seen him like this. Not even when we were racing to Moraelin.
He’s . . .”

“He’s
angry, frightened, and feeling helpless.” Laurie shook his
head. “I’ve learned a lot from Carline about my
brothers-in-law. One thing about Arutha, if you don’t already
know: being helpless is something he can’t abide. He’s
walked into a blind alley and his temper won’t allow him to
admit he’s facing a stone wall. Besides, if he lifts the seal
on the city, the Nighthawks are free to come and go at will.”

“So what?
They’re in the city in any event, and no matter what Arutha
thinks, there’s no guarantee they’re locked up. Maybe
they’ve infiltrated the court staff the way they did the
Mockers last year. Who knows?” Jimmy sighed. “If Martin
was here or maybe the King, we might have this business at an end.”

Laurie drank,
and grimaced at the bitter taste. “Maybe. You’ve named
the only two men in the world he’s likely to listen to. Carline
and I’ve tried to talk to him, but he just listens patiently,
then says no. Even Gardan and Volney can’t budge him.”

Jimmy watched
the Prince’s interrogation for a little longer while three more
groups of prisoners were brought out. “Well, some good’s
come of this. Four men have been turned loose.”

“And if
they’re picked up by another patrol, they’ll be tossed
into another lockup and it might be days before anyone gets around to
checking out their claims to having been turned loose by the Prince.
And the other sixteen have been returned to the lockup. All we can
hope for is Arutha’s realizing soon that this will gain him
nothing. The Festival of Banapis is less than two weeks off, and if
the seal isn’t lifted by then, there’ll be a citywide
riot.” Laurie’s lips tightened in frustration. “Maybe
if there was some magic way to tell who is a Nighthawk or not . . .”

Jimmy sat up.
“What?”

“What
what?”

“What you
just said. Why not?”

Laurie turned
slowly to face the squire. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m
thinking it’s time to have a chat with Father Nathan. You
coming?”

Laurie put aside
his mug of bitter beer and rose. “I’ve a horse tied up
over there.”

“We’ve
ridden double before. Come along, Your Grace.”

For the first
time in days, Laurie chuckled.

Nathan listened
with his head tilted to one side while Jimmy finished his idea. The
priest of Sung the White rubbed his chin a moment, looking more a
former wrestler than a cleric, while he thought. “There are
magic means of impelling someone to tell the truth, but they are time
consuming and not always reliable. I doubt we’d find such means
any more useful than those presently being employed.” His tone
revealed he didn’t think much of the means presently being
employed.

“What of
the other temples?” inquired Laurie.

“They have
means differing little from our own, small things in the way spells
are constructed. The difficulties do not lessen.”

Jimmy looked
defeated. “I had hoped for some way to pluck the assassins from
the mass wholesale. I guess it isn’t possible.”

Nathan stood up
behind the table in Arutha’s conference room, appropriated
while the Prince was overseeing the questioning. “Only when a
man dies and is taken into Lims-Kragma’s domain are all
questions answered.”

Jimmy’s
expression clouded as a thought struck; then he brightened. “That
could be it.”

Laurie said,
“What could be it? You can’t kill them all.”

“No,”
said Jimmy, dismissing the absurdity of the remark. “Look, can
you get that priest of Lims-Kragma, Julian, to come here?”

Nathan remarked
dryly, “You mean High Priest Julian of the Temple of
Lims-Kragma? You forget he rose to supremacy when his predecessor was
rendered mad by the attack in this palace.” Nathan’s face
betrayed a flicker of emotion, for the priest of Sung himself had
defeated the undead servant of Murmandamus, at no little cost. Nathan
was still plagued by nightmares from that event.

“Oh,”
said Jimmy.

“If I
request, he may grant us an audience, but I doubt he’ll come
running here just because I ask. I may be the Prince’s
spiritual adviser, but in temple rank I am simply a priest of modest
achievements.”

“Well then
see if he will see us. I think if he’ll cooperate, we might
find an end to all this madness in Krondor. But I’ll want to
have the Temple of Lims-Kragma’s cooperation before I blab the
idea to the Prince. He might not listen otherwise.”

“I’ll
send a message. It would be unusual for the temples to become
involved in city business, but we’ve had closer relationships
with each other and the officers of the Principality since the
appearance of Murmandamus. Perhaps Julian will be kindly disposed to
cooperate. I assume there’s a plan in this?”

“Yes,”
said Laurie, “just what have you got up that voluminous sleeve
of yours?”

Jimmy cocked his
head and grinned. “You’ll appreciate the theatre of it,
Laurie. We’ll whip up some mummery and scare the truth out of
the Nighthawks.”

The Duke of
Salador sat back and thought on what the boy had said; after a moment
of consideration, his blond beard was slowly parted by a widening
grin. Nathan exchanged glances with the two as understanding came and
he, too, began to smile, then to chuckle. Seeming to think he forgot
himself, the cleric of the Goddess of the One Path composed himself,
but again broke into an ill-concealed fit of mirth.

Of the major
temples in Krondor, the one least visited by the populace was that
devoted to the Goddess of Death, Lims-Kragma - though it was commonly
held that the goddess sooner or later gathered all to her. It was
usual to give votive offerings and a prayer for the recently
departed, but only a few worshipped with regularity. In centuries
past, the followers of the Death Goddess had practised bloody rites,
including human sacrifice. Over the years these practices had
moderated and the faithful of Lims-Kragma had entered the mainstream
of society. Still, past fears died slowly. And even now enough bloody
work was done in the Death Goddess’s name by fanatics to keep
her temple tainted by a patina of horror for most common men. Now a
band of such common men, with perhaps a few uncommon ones hidden
among them, was being marched into that temple.