Rise Of Empire (8 page)

“Yes, of course you—No, wait.” She cast a look at her bodyguard. “Tommy, you’re right. I’m hungry. Be a dear and fetch us both a plate of chicken or whatever you can find that’s good in the kitchen, will you? I’ll wait here.”

“Sure, but my name is—”

“Hurry before I change my mind.”

She waited until he was down the corridor, then turned back to the chamberlain. “Where did you say Royce was waiting?”

T
he Rose and Thorn Tavern was mostly empty. Many of its patrons had left Medford, fearful of the coming invasion. Those who remained were the indentured or those simply too poor, feeble, or stubborn to leave. Royce found Hadrian sitting alone in the Diamond Room—his feet up on a spare chair, a pint of ale before him. Two empty mugs sat on the table, one lying on its side while Hadrian stared at it with a melancholy expression.

“Why didn’t you come to the castle?” Royce asked.

“I knew you could handle it.” Hadrian continued to stare at the mug, tilting his head slightly as he did.

“Looks like our break will have to be postponed,” Royce told him while pulling over a chair and sitting down. “Alric has another job. He wants us to make contact with Gaunt and the Nationalists. They’re still working out the details. The princess is going to send a messenger here.”

“Her Highness is back?”

“Got in this morning.”

Royce reached into his vest, pulled out a bag, and set it in front of Hadrian. “Here’s your half. Have you ordered dinner yet?”

“I’m not going,” Hadrian said, rocking the fallen mug with his thumb.

“Not going?”

“I can’t keep doing this.”

Royce rolled his eyes. “Now don’t start that again. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a war going on. This is the best time to be in our business. Everyone needs information. Do you know how much money—”

“That’s just it, Royce. There’s a war on and what am I doing? I’m making a profit off it rather than fighting in it.” Hadrian took another swallow of ale and set the mug back on the table a little too heavily, rattling its brothers. “I’m tired of collecting money for being dishonorable. It’s not how I’m built.”

Royce glanced around. Three men eating a meal looked over briefly and then lost interest.

“They haven’t all been just for money,” Royce pointed out. “Thrace, for example.”

Hadrian displayed a bitter smile. “And look how that turned out. She hired us to save her father. Seen him lately, have you?”

“We were hired to obtain a sword to slay a beast. She got the sword. The beast was slain. We did our job.”

“The man is dead.”

“And Thrace, who was nothing but a poor farm girl, is now empress. If only all our jobs ended so well for our clients.”

“You think so, Royce? You really think Thrace is happy? See, I’m thinking she’d rather have her father than the imperial throne, but maybe that’s just me.” Hadrian took another swallow and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

They sat in silence for a moment. Royce watched his friend staring at a distant point beyond focus.

“So you want to fight in this war, is that it?”

“It would be better than sitting on the sidelines like scavengers feeding off the wounded.”

“Okay, so tell me, for which side will you be fighting?”

“Alric’s a good king.”

“Alric? Alric’s a boy still fighting with the ghost of his father. After his defeat at the Galewyr, his nobles look to Count Pickering instead of him. Pickering has his hands full dealing with Alric’s mistakes, like the riots here in Medford. How long before the count tires of Alric’s incompetence and decides Mauvin would be better suited to the throne?”

“Pickering would never turn on Alric,” Hadrian said.

“No? You’ve seen it happen plenty of times before.”

Hadrian remained silent.

“Oh hell, forget about Pickering and Alric. Melengar is already at war with the empire. Have you forgotten who the empress is? If you fought with Alric and he prevailed, how will you feel the day poor Thrace is hanged in the Royal Square in Aquesta? Would that satisfy your need for an honorable cause?”

Hadrian’s face had turned hard, his jaw clenched stiffly.

“There are no honorable causes. There is no good or evil. Evil is only what we call those who oppose us.”

Royce took out his dagger and drove it into the table, where it stood upright. “Look at the blade. Is it bright or dark?”

Hadrian narrowed his eyes suspiciously. The brilliant surface of Alverstone was dazzling as it reflected the candlelight. “Bright.”

Royce nodded.

“Now move your head over here and look from my perspective.”

Hadrian leaned over, putting his head on the opposite side of the blade, where the shadow made it black as chimney soot.

“It’s the same dagger,” Royce explained, “but from where you sat it was light while I saw it as dark. So who is right?”

“Neither of us,” Hadrian said.

“No,” Royce said. “That’s the mistake people always make, and they make it because they can’t grasp the truth.”

“Which is?”

“That we’re both right. One truth doesn’t refute another. Truth doesn’t lie in the object, but in how we see it.”

Hadrian looked at the dagger, then back at Royce.

“There are times when you are brilliant, Royce, and then there are times when I haven’t a clue as to what you’re babbling about.”

Royce’s expression turned to one of frustration as he pulled his dagger from the table and sat back down. “In the twelve years we’ve been together, I’ve never once asked you to do anything I wouldn’t do, or didn’t do with you. I’ve never lied or misled you. I’ve never abandoned or betrayed you. Name a single noble you even suspect you could say the same about twelve years from now.”

“Can I get another round here?” Hadrian shouted.

Royce sighed. “So you’re just going to sit here and drink?”

“That’s my plan at present. I’m making it up as I go.”

Royce stared at his friend a moment longer, then finally stood up. “I’m going to Gwen’s.”

“Listen.” Hadrian stopped him. “I’m sorry about this. I guess I can’t explain it. I don’t have any metaphors with daggers I can use to express how I feel. I just know I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing anymore. I’ve tried to find meaning in it. I’ve tried to pretend we achieved some greater good, but in the end, I have to be honest with myself. I’m not a thief, and I’m not a spy. So I know what I’m not. I just wish I knew what I am. That probably doesn’t make much sense to you, does it?”

“Do me a favor at least.” Royce purposely ignored the question, noticing how the little silver chain Hadrian wore peeked out from under his collar. “Since you’re going to be here anyway, keep an eye out for the messenger from the castle while I’m at Gwen’s. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Hadrian nodded.

“Give Gwen my love, will ya?”

“Sure,” Royce said, heading for the door and feeling that miserable sensation creeping in, the dull weight. He paused and looked back.

It won’t help to tell him. It will just make matters worse.

It had been only a day and a half but Royce found himself desperate to see Gwen. While Medford House was always open, it did not do much business until after dark. During the day, Gwen encouraged the girls to use their free time learning how to sew or spin, skills they could use to make a bit of coin in their old age.

All the girls at the brothel, better known as the House, knew and liked Royce. When he came in, they smiled or waved, but no one said a word. They knew he enjoyed surprising Gwen. That night they pointed toward the parlor, where she was concentrating on a pile of parchments, a quill pen in hand and her register open. She immediately abandoned it all when he walked through the door. She sprang from her chair and ran to him with a smile so broad her face could hardly contain it and an embrace so tight he could barely breathe.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, pulling back and looking into his eyes.

Royce marveled at Gwen’s ability to read him. He refused to answer, preferring instead to look at her, drinking her in.
She had a lovely face, her dark skin and emerald eyes so familiar, yet mysterious. Throughout his entire life and in all his travels he had never met anyone else like her.

Gwen provided use of a private room at The Rose and Thorn, where he and Hadrian conducted business, and she never blinked at the risks. They no longer used it. Royce was too concerned that Sentinel Luis Guy might track them there. Still, Gwen continued banking their money and watching out for them, just as she had done from the start.

They had met twelve years ago, the night soldiers had filled the streets and two strangers had staggered into the Lower Quarter covered in their own blood. Royce still remembered how Gwen had appeared as a hazy figure to his clouding eyes. “I’ve got you. You’ll be all right now,” she told him before he passed out. He never understood what had motivated her to take them in when everyone else had shown the good sense in closing their doors. When he had woken, she had been giving orders to her girls like a general marshaling troops. She sheltered Royce and Hadrian from the mystified authorities and nursed them back to health. She pulled strings and made deals to ensure no one talked. As soon as they were able, they left, but he always found himself returning.

He had been crushed the day she refused to see him. It did not take long for him to discover why. Clients often abused prostitutes, and the women of Medford House were not exempt. In Gwen’s case the attacker had been a powerful noble. He had beaten her so badly she did not want anyone to see. Regardless of whether the client was a gentleman or a thug, the town sheriff never wasted his time on complaints by whores.

Two days later the noble had been found dead. His body hung in the center of Gentry Square. City authorities had closed Medford House and arrested the prostitutes. They had
been told to identify the killer or face execution themselves. To everyone’s surprise, the women spent only one night in jail. The next day Medford House had reopened and the sheriff of Medford personally delivered a public apology for their arrest, adding that swift punishment would follow any future abuse of the women, regardless of rank. From then on, Medford House prospered under unprecedented protection. Royce had never spoken of the incident, and Gwen never asked, but he was certain she knew—just as she had known about his heritage before he had told her.

When he had returned from Avempartha the previous summer, he had decided to reveal his secret to her, to be completely open and honest. Royce had never told anyone about being an elf, not even Hadrian. He expected that she would hate him, either for being a miserable
mir
or for deceiving her. He had taken Gwen for a walk down the bank of the Galewyr, away from people to lessen the embarrassment of her outrage. He had braced himself, said the words, and waited for her to hit him. He had decided to let her. She could scratch his eyes out if she wanted. He owed her at least that much.

“Of course you’re elven,” she had said while touching his hand kindly. “Was that supposed to be a secret?”