The Light of Heaven (8 page)

Sarkos sheathed his blade. "True enough."

If it was possible for an albino to appear pale Eminence Ludwig Rhodon was getting there. His skin was almost as transparent as melting ice. Rodrigo Kesar stood by the window as he watched the Healers conferring in whispers.

"Well?" Kesar finally asked.

"Eminence," the one closest to him began nervously. "We have been discussing the Eminence's situation, and -"

"I was listening. Will Eminence Rhodon survive?"

"Yes, Eminence," the Healer managed. "That is to say... With help, he should survive."

"Should. Not 'will'?"

"That is the... the unpleasant truth, Eminence."

Kesar nodded. "So be it. Certainty has its virtues, Healer, but not at the expense of the truth. If Eminence Rhodon does not survive, it will be a great loss, but at least I won't have to have you executed for breaking a promise."

It had been a long day for Gabriella and Erak, retelling their stories to various Confessors, and to their superiors in the Swords. They still wore their full armour, and had had no opportunity to eat anything since returning to the castle.

The Swords and the city guard had made several more arrests, and the Confessors were being kept as busy as the Duke's Inquisitors, but it had become increasingly clear that there were no other suspects as likely to be the assassin as Gabriella's late prisoner. His body had been returned to the castle, and the head was being shown to both guards and arrested suspects in the hope that someone would recognise him.

As the sun drifted behind Kerberos, Gabriella and Erak finally returned to the barracks and found three men waiting in the refectory. One was Eminence Kesar, the second was the Duke, and the last was Preceptor DeBarres.

"I don't know what you do to the Brotherhood, or Ogur, or anybody else," DeBarres rasped gruffly, "but you certainly scare the crap out of me." He and the two knights laughed together. "Good work. People will remember this day for the right reasons more than the wrong ones. Quick and decisive action from the Swords. They'll remember that."

"And not an assassination," The Eminence added. He stretched out a hand for them to kiss his signet ring. "Since Eminence Rhodon survives."

"Thanks be to the Lord of All." Gabriella said in a hushed voice. Erak repeated it after her.

"Thanks be to the Lord of All," Kesar echoed, "and to Healers, and to the incompetence of assassins." He turned to the Duke. "These are the two who caught the assassin, your grace."

"And made him talk?" Freihurr vom Kalten asked.

Gabriella looked, almost imperceptibly, to DeBarres and Eminence Kesar. Kesar nodded and Gabriella answered. "A little, your grace. He mentioned the Brotherhood, before he died."

Freihurr cocked an eyebrow. "Died?"

"He was trying to kill Sister DeZantez at the time," Erak pointed out.

"Nevertheless," Freihurr went on, "dead men tell no tales, and -"

"And we would have preferred him to be a little more chatty, your Grace," Gabriella agreed. "But, knowing the Brotherhood was involved, we can start looking at their members in the area."

"Do we know who they are?"

"We have a list of their senior figures," Kesar said, "extracted from various sources during the hearing of Confessions. Unfortunately, knowing a few names, which in all probability are aliases, doesn't guarantee finding the person. Nevertheless, DeBarres' men already have a wish-list of people we should like to speak to in general, and this event merely makes the desire more... urgent."

As the sun moved behind Kerberos and the world turned dull and grey Goran Kell turned his mount on to the game trail, and began to thread his way through the foliage. Once the trade road had vanished into the murk, Kell and his followers dismounted, and led their horses deeper into the woods.

Kell knew there were men out here and was on alert, trying to judge how long it would be before they reached them. He was still shocked when a hand suddenly reached across him to grab one shoulder and the icy tip of a short sword pricked his throat.

"It's raining blood," a voice said.

Kell coughed, trying to lubricate his throat. He hoped he was only imagining the sensation of blood slipping down his collar. "But... But the sun will be dry and bright." He sounded more hopeful, and less confident, than he intended.

The blade and the grip vanished and a shadowy figure reached past him to take the horse's reins. "You're early, sir."

"It's an extra day's pay to you and your men, Chaga." He didn't mind that his faithful soldier had threatened him. It was his duty, after all, to be sure that Kell wasn't an impostor disguised by magical or other means.

"It certainly is. Where are we going, sir?"

"Turnitia first, I think. And I want no interruptions from the Swords of Dawn."

Chaga grinned, showing missing teeth. "That goes without saying, sir."

The bath-house was a stone-walled chamber attached to the castle's largest tower. The water was heated by fires in the next room, before flowing down and into the wooden tubs. Gabriella handed her armour for cleaning and put the rest of her clothes into a large basket for the castle's staff to take for laundry later.

The water was refreshing, and Gabriella ducked under the surface, shaking her head to get any trace of the day's exertions out of her hair. She still felt tense, and wished it was so easy to wash away what had happened to Eminence Rhodon. His wound wouldn't disappear with warm water and soap.

A surge of water brought her back to herself and back to the surface. Erak was just settling in opposite.

"It's been a long day," he said, enjoying the soothing effect of the hot water.

"For everybody. Half the Order will probably be joining us any minute."

"Not unless they bring a battering ram, Gabe." He grinned, passing her a large iron key. "I thought you wouldn't want to be disturbed."

"I've been disturbed enough for one day," she admitted. "That man I caught... He was a maniac. Possessed, maybe."

"Then there's a well-fed demon in the pits."

She nodded. "Erak, do you think that that man was the same one who shot Eminence Rhodon?"

Erak slid round to sit next to her and leaned his head on her shoulder.

"You've nothing to be guilty or ashamed about. Unlike the rest of us."

"What have you got to be ashamed about?"

"You must be joking, Gabe. A whole troop of the Swords couldn't protect our own Eminences?"

"A determined assassin who doesn't care for his own life will always get through."

"Next time try to sound like you believe that."

"Don't you?"

Erak was silent for a moment. "The Lord of All is on our side. He doesn't look the other way but he demands that we're worthy of him. And we weren't."

Gabriella shook her head. "Somehow I don't think the Eminences will agree, nor will the Anointed Lord."

Hasso, formerly of the Red Daggers, wasn't stupid. Goran Kell was a warrior, unlike Scarra, and wouldn't think twice about killing him. Again, Hasso was confident of his own fighting ability, but he knew that he would be outnumbered if he tried to take on Kell's bodyguards. He didn't particularly believe that Kell had ran off with half the money, and knew he would only get himself into a fight against impossible odds if he went after Kell.

No, Scarra was the one who had cheated them all, and Scarra was the one who needed punishing for it. With that in mind, Hasso had turned away from Kell's trail as soon as he was out of sight of Scarra and the others. He knew that they'd expect Kell to kill him, or perhaps they thought he'd join Kell's half of the company. Either way they wouldn't feel threatened.

If they knew he had gone off on his own, however, they might see a threat. They might worry about who he'd run into, or what he'd say. As he camped overnight in a tumbledown cottage, he thought about that. More accurately, he tried to think about that, but kept becoming sidetracked by the thought of how to punish Scarra and make up the shortfall in his fee.

By morning, he realized that he hadn't been as sidetracked as he had at first thought. He realized that the two things were actually the same. By the time he had fed his horse and rolled up his bedding, he knew just where to go, and what to do.

One of the Duke's troops came to fetch Gabriella and Erak as they finished breaking their fast in the castle's refectory.

"Enlightened Brother, Sister, the guards have brought in a man who's been causing a stir in the marketplace this morning."

"Stealing?" Erak asked. Neither of them were interested; that was the town guards' business, not theirs.

The guard shook his head. "Asking awkward questions and demanding to talk to either an Enlightened One or a member of the Swords." The guard shrugged. "You're here, and all the others are busy, so..."

"Define an awkward question," Gabriella suggested.

"He's been asking about the shooting of Eminence Rhodon. Asking if there's a reward for information." Gabriella and Erak exchanged rueful looks. This would be the fifth such inquiry she had heard this morning and the Lord alone knew how many more the other Swords or the Duke's guards might have handled. "Funny thing, though," the guard mused, "the man claims he only got into Kalten this morning."

That did interest Gabriella. It wasn't unusual for the people of a town to seek to profit from some event that had just occurred, but how would an outsider even know to ask yet? Gabriella decided that that would be the first question she asked him.

"I didn't," the man who called himself Hasso had said, answering Gabriella's question. She, Erak and Hasso were strolling within the courtyard of Castle Kalten, as the cells were already full, and Gabriella wanted to both keep an eye on the man, and make him think he was being dealt with as a contact rather than as a prisoner.

Hasso was eyeing his surroundings warily; he seemed wisely cautious, but not intimidated. Gabriella took him for a soldier at once and his mismatched equipment suggested a mercenary. She doubted that this was his first time dealing with the Order, or the Faith as a whole.

"I came to find the Preceptory to ask if there was a reward for information on the whereabouts of a Brotherhood man," he went on, "but when I got into Kalten I found the whole place still in this uproar. I asked a few people, and they said that an Eminence had been shot."

"And suddenly you decided to ask if there was a reward about that?" Erak asked dubiously. "Or did you just assume that mentioning it would get you an interested ear?"

Hasso narrowed his eyes and Gabriella was glad that the guards had disarmed him. He seemed a very angry man, for some reason.

"Let's just say I have good reason to think that the man I originally came in to talk about might have had something to do with it."

"Because he's Brotherhood?"

"Because he and another fella had a meeting a couple of leagues out of town, and they seemed pretty excited about something that had happened here. Being civic-minded I thought it might be of interest to you."

Gabriella kept her eyes on his. If she was any judge, he was being fairly truthful, though probably not about his motives in coming.

"All right, who was it you were going to talk about to start with?"

"Do you know a man called Scarra?" Gabriella and Erak looked blankly at each other. "He's a fat slimeball. Lives down in Pontaine, though he's Empire-born." That was unusual, but not unheard of. Gabriella herself had been born in the Pontaine city of Andon. "He has various holdings northwest of Andon. The one you'll want is a vineyard."

"And why will we want that one?"

"Because that's where he's heading now."

"And why are you telling us this? And please, no crap about civic-mindedness."

Hasso shrugged. "Scarra crossed me. He wanted to hire me and my mates in the Red Daggers as bodyguards, but stiffed us on the payment. Some of them went with him, I didn't."

Gabriella understood perfectly. "And a reward would make up the shortfall? Of course, you realise serving under someone you knew was Brotherhood is a sin."

Hasso nodded again. "But I'm not serving him. I'm here, turning him in."

"The other man he met; do you know his name?"

"Goran Kell."

"What do you know of their plans?"

"Sod all."

"You expect us to believe that?"

"Not really, but it's true anyway. I'm just a sword-hand escorting people through bandit-country. Scarra didn't tell me anything."

"But you may have overheard something?"

Hasso shook his head. "Scarra and Kell walked out together, away from us, for their chat. They wanted to keep it quiet. But when a Brotherhood organiser looks to hire a mercenary company, you have to think he's got a good reason. And when I got here and heard about the Eminence, that sounded like a good reason to me." He finished and looked at the two Knights. "Are you interested?"

Erak led Gabriella a few steps to one side. They didn't worry about Hasso as they knew that other guards around the courtyard would be watching, with bows at the ready. "What do you think?"

"I think he's telling the truth about this meeting between two Brotherhood types called Scarra and Kell. Probably also that he doesn't know what they were up to. They'd be idiots to take the hired muscle into their confidence."

"Let's see what Preceptor DeBarres thinks."

DeBarres and Kesar were in conference with Freihurr in his office in the central keep. It was Kesar's voice which called out "enter" when Gabriella knocked. When she briefly described Hasso's story, all three were immediately on alert.

"These two names this man mentioned?" Kesar said with a frown.

"Scarra and Kell," Gabriella said with a nod. "Both Brotherhood men."

"Karel Scarra and Goran Kell." Kesar echoed. "Ah, I think I understand."

Freihurr turned to a guard and snapped his fingers. "Fetch a scribe to copy a proclamation. The men named Karel Scarra and Goran Kell are hereby declared outlaws. Double the usual reward, if they're taken alive."