Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) (40 page)

“What do you make of this?” Blaine asked.

Ifrem studied the arrow, then lifted it for a better look. “Looks like military issue to me. Where did you find it?”

“Someone shot it at me earlier this evening,” Blaine replied dryly. Ifrem listened as Blaine recounted his story, and sat down, frowning at the arrow in his hands.

“Light’s bad this time of year. And a lot of the weapons went
missing when Velant fell. Maybe someone mistook you for an elk.”

“Maybe,” Blaine replied, unconvinced. “Or maybe there’s more to it.” He leaned forward. “First, someone tried to kidnap Kestel from the homestead.”

Ifrem chuckled. “Someone who didn’t know Mistress Kestel’s reputation at court, I warrant. Where did you hide the body?”

Blaine shook his head. “Kestel said whoever it was, was a professional. He got away, although she slashed him good.” He gave Ifrem a meaningful look. “Then you were attacked, not long afterward.”

Ifrem held up his hands in protest. “What could that have to do with anything? Probably a drunk who thought I had a few coins on me.” He paused. “And I doubt anyone mistook Kestel for you.”

“No, but everyone knows she’s part of my ‘family,’ ” Blaine replied. “Someone might assume that she’d be easy to grab, figuring that I’d come after her. And as for your attack, you said it yourself—our cloaks are nearly identical. What if you weren’t meant to be the target?”

Ifrem frowned and leaned back, studying the arrow anew. “I’ll grant you that our cloaks are similar, and we’re nearly the same height. But this is all guessing. The three attacks could have nothing to do with one another. Kestel’s a pretty woman. Perhaps one of Prokief’s soldiers thought she’d make an easy target, and learned his lesson the hard way. What happened to me might have just been a botched robbery. And you could have run afoul of a hunter with bad eyesight.”

Blaine shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Besides, why would anyone be out to kill you, Mick?” Ifrem set the arrow back on the table. “Most of the colonists like you. And Prokief’s dead.”

Blaine met Ifrem’s gaze. “Prokief said something odd just before he died. He said I was a dead man and didn’t know it yet.”

Ifrem’s gaze widened. “That puts a different slant on things. What did he mean?”

Blaine gave another shrug. “Don’t know. I meant to have a look at Prokief’s papers, whatever survived the fire. But I don’t know what became of them.”

Ifrem brightened. “That I can help you with.” He rose and rummaged in a trunk at the back of the room. When he returned, he had a wooden box that was soot-scarred and smelled of smoke. He set it on the table. The box was carved with Prokief’s initials. It was plain that the lock had been smashed. Ifrem opened the lid.

“Mama Jean insisted we send someone back to Velant that first night, to see if we could find bills of lading or other documents to help determine whether Prokief was hiding any food or equipment. Any of those kinds of papers I gave to her for the inventories. These I kept, just in case they turned out to be important.” He pushed the chest toward Blaine. “Go ahead. Have a look. They didn’t mean anything to me.”

Blaine removed the papers from the box and spread them out on the table. He paged through a sheaf of papers filled with cramped handwriting in faded ink. After a few moments, he looked up. “These appear to be reports from Prokief’s spies. I’d say he had spies everywhere, but he kept a close eye on the warden-mages. Maybe that’s how he kept control.”

Ifrem nodded. “Makes sense. Anything else?”

At the bottom of the stack of papers was another parchment, this one with a broken wax seal. Blaine frowned and picked it up. The parchment was fine stock, and the wax seal bore an
ornate symbol with a “P.”
“P” for Prokief
? Blaine wondered. Another possibility crossed his mind.
Or “P” for Pollard?

He opened the parchment. “This is dated from four months ago. It must have come on one of the last ships from home.” He scanned down through the writing, noting that whoever had written it had a strong, flowing hand, completely unlike Prokief’s clumsy script. The farther he read, the greater his suspicions became.

“Something’s got your attention, Mick,” Ifrem said. “What’s so interesting?”

Blaine sat back in his chair. “I’d bet a day’s wage this letter is from Prokief’s patron back in Donderath.”

“Prokief had a patron? That’s news to me. How’d he get sent here?”

“Maybe his patron wanted someone positioned in Edgeland,” Blaine suggested. “There were always rumors that some prisoners who disappeared actually got sent home on the sly.”

Ifrem grunted. “I always thought those rumors were wishful thinking. More likely, they were buried out in the fields.”

Blaine set the letter on the table. “According to the letter, Prokief was to receive payment as agreed, plus various hard-to-find items like good wine and caviar, and a ‘special workman.’ ”

“A workman?” Ifrem echoed. “What in Raka does that mean?”

“This workman,” Blaine read, picking the letter back up, “was supposed to be turned loose against the target if there was a ‘significant change’ at home.”

“A change? Like the war going badly for Donderath?” Ifrem replied, leaning close for a look at the letter. “Gods, Mick. Someone sent Prokief an assassin?”

“What if Prokief had a patron with the money of a lord and
the morals of a cutpurse?” Blaine replied. “Someone who might have need of henchmen who were sent away to Velant, and could give them a job if they happened to find their way back home? Someone who could pay Prokief well to do his bidding?”

“You have someone in mind?”

Blaine nodded and held out the wax seal for Ifrem’s inspection. “Vedran Pollard.”

Ifrem nodded. “Pollard did have a reputation as a blackguard.”

“Second only to my father,” Blaine added, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice. “They hated each other.”

Ifrem fixed Blaine with a look. “Enough to send an assassin to kill you?”

Blaine shrugged. “Would Pollard flinch at having a man killed? Probably not. Why he’d care about killing me when I’m already at the end of the world, I can’t imagine.”

“If Pollard wanted you dead, why did Prokief wait so long? He could have killed you when you were in Velant.”

Blaine sighed. “No, he couldn’t,” he admitted, looking away. “Prokief told me that himself, one of the times he sent me to the Hole. Apparently, Merrill’s order of exile specifically forbade Prokief from killing me.” He grimaced. “Although Prokief certainly tried to make sure I had plenty of opportunity to die of ‘natural causes.’ ”

Ifrem let out a low whistle. “Never knew you were quite so special, Mick. But you said it yourself—why now?”

Blaine’s gaze returned to the arrow. “I don’t know, Ifrem. But if I want to stay alive, I think we’d better find out.”

B
RING IN THOSE NETS, YOU SLACKING BASTARDS!”
Captain Darden’s voice rang out over the windswept deck.

Connor bent his head to focus on the fish he was gibbing, but he stole another glance toward the rail, where teams of men put their backs into hauling bulging nets of fish onto the ship’s sea-soaked deck.

It was Connor’s second week aboard a herring buss and already he had the calluses to prove it. He glanced with grudging admiration toward where Blaine and Piran moved in rhythm with the dozens of other men who were on their shift at the net. Eight-hour shifts, by turn gibbing, sleeping, and hauling, all under a twilight sky where the sun would not rise for four more miserable months.

Connor had done little hard work and he knew it showed. As the third son of a minor noble, he’d had education but no inheritance prospects, and he had been appointed as Garnoc’s assistant as soon as he was old enough for fostering. Lord Garnoc, a longtime friend of his family, had taken him on. It was a job that required discretion, but could hardly be considered physically taxing.

Salt water sloshed around Connor’s feet and sea spray stung his eyes. Despite the oilcloth garments and heavy boots, he was wet to the skin and nearly frozen. His fingers were numb with cold and the repetitive motions of his job.
Grab a freezing cold, flopping fish. Chop the head, slit the gut, cut the tail, toss, repeat.
His hands were nicked in a dozen places where the sharp scales or the tip of his own blade had cut into the flesh, and the seawater burned with every touch.

He watched Blaine and Piran put their backs into the haul, jumping aside in the last minute as nearly a ton of fish slid and slithered across the deck. Blaine, or rather, “Mick,” had adapted quite well to his convict/colonist life.
How long did it take him to toughen up? When he first got here, was he soft and useless… like me?
Blaine had said little about his life before Velant, though Connor was acquainted with the scandal from the gossip at court, and Engraham had talked some on the voyage to Edgeland. Connor felt guilty at his curiosity, especially as McFadden obviously wanted to leave his past buried.

While Piran, Verran, Kestel, and Dawe had become Connor’s housemates, he couldn’t help considering Blaine as his patron, just as Lord Garnoc had been. Patronage brought protection, and obligation.
Mick’s given me his protection. He’s gone out of his way to keep me—and my map—close by. But why?

“Pick up the pace, or you’ll get us all in trouble.” The man next to Connor hissed a warning, and Connor dug his knife into the next fish, making quick work of it as his thoughts continued to churn.

So far, Mick’s asked nothing of me except to go along on that godsforsaken trip onto the far ice
, Connor thought. He shook his head, lost in thought as the fish flopped through his hands—chop, gut, cut, drop—and the gibbers’ knives kept a steady rhythm on the barrelheads.

Blaine hadn’t wanted Connor to go with the herring fleet. His own time on the water had come after a few years in Velant’s mines had hardened him. But Connor had refused to stay behind. As one of the last new mouths to feed, Connor had felt guilty. In the end, Blaine had relented, though Connor had overheard Piran and Dawe betting on how long it would take Connor to retch once the boats left the bay. Ruefully, Connor admitted that Piran’s bet of two candlemarks had won.

“Hope you like to eat fish better than you gib them,” the man on Connor’s right remarked. “If what the Council says is true, we’ll be eating naught but fish ’til the sun rises.”

Connor shrugged. “I’ll eat what I have to. I’ve been hungry before.” He didn’t add that hunger hadn’t been a part of his privileged upbringing. No, he’d learned those harsh lessons aboard the doomed ship that brought him to Edgeland. He’d discovered that when he was hungry enough, he could force himself to swallow maggoty bread and wash it down with brackish water. By comparison, salted herring was a lordly repast.

Uncomfortable as it was aboard the herring buss, Edgeland had one unquestioned benefit in Connor’s mind. Since the night of the Great Fire, there had been no more mysterious blackouts, no gaps in his memory. Still, his guilt lingered, and when he lay awake in the middle of the night, fears of what might have happened in those missing candlemarks haunted him.

“Wonder what they’re not telling us,” the man to Connor’s left said, never looking up from his work. Connor jumped, feeling a flash of guilt until he realized that the comment was not directed to him personally. The gibber’s hands flew, processing twice as many fish as Connor could, even though Connor’s speed had doubled since they’d left port. “Most of them that sit on the Council are merchants, ain’t they? Mebbe
with no ships comin’ from back home, they want to charge us more for what they’ve got.”

“Then why send us out to get more fish, if’n they want to charge us more for what we got already?” the first gibber argued. “You’ve got the brains of one of these herrings, Tad. They’d be tryin’ to keep us from fishing more, so as to drive up the cost.”

Tad shrugged ill-humoredly. “You mark my words; those Council folks got an angle. Everyone’s got an angle.”

Connor said nothing, wondering silently if Tad and the other gibbers realized that one of the Council members whom they suspected of profiteering was just a few feet away, cursing at a heavy net full of herring. A shrill whistle interrupted whatever Connor might have said.

“Unknown ship, off the port side!” the bowman shouted.

Gibbers stood, craning their necks, and haulers shifted for a better view. In the perpetual twilight, it was difficult to make out anything in detail. At first, there was just a darker shadow against an indigo sky, blocking the stars. As they drew closer, Connor could see the outline of a vessel that stood eerily silent in the water. It was a sailing vessel like the one that had brought him to Edgeland. Its sails hung in tatters, ragged streamers lashing the wind.

“Why innit moving?” Tad asked.

“What’s it doing out here?” another man wondered aloud.

“Maybe it’s got supplies from home!” A hopeful voice sounded from behind Connor.

“Or maybe it’s full of more refugees, mouths to feed,” a different, bitter voice replied.

“Hard to port!” Captain Darden’s voice cut across the wind. “The rest of you, back to work!”