The Telastrian Song (21 page)

‘Of course. He’s not going to sit cooped up there for long. Duty or his libido will drive him out, sooner rather than later. As much as he might like to, he can’t run the Duchy—pardon me, the Empire—from his throne room. Even with his tame barons, the longer he’s out of sight the more ambitious they’ll become. He of all people knows that. Even if he doesn’t come out of his own accord, I may have found a way we can get to him. There’s still more I need to do before we can get going, but this one is looking good.’

‘
W
here in hells is he
? Does he think forcing me to wait makes him the big man?’ Amero said.

That was exactly what Amero had been doing to the mage ever since he arrived in the city. Emeric smirked but was careful to hide it from Amero; his master’s temper had been growing ever worse in recent days. The stress of rule didn’t seem to suit him. They were beyond the point where the mage was late though, it was clear to Emeric that he wasn’t coming. That was something of a relief, if he was being honest with himself. The mage made him extremely uncomfortable.

Byarsham terrified Emeric, and Emeric was unusually unresponsive to that particular emotion. It wasn’t that he was especially tough, it was simply that matters which frightened others had never bothered him. He got on with life; took them as they came. Everybody died, and he was no different. He saw no point in getting het up about the only thing you knew for sure was going to happen to you.

The mage was different though. Unnatural. He didn’t know how to describe it. Evil, maybe. Definitely wrong, what they were doing. Him not turning up was about the best thing Emeric could think of, short of finding out that he was dead.

‘Maybe he’s doing us a favour, not showing up. Maybe he’s cleared off.’ They were unguarded words, but after a lifetime of service to the dal Moreno family, he felt he had earned the right.

Amero turned in his chair and looked at Emeric. Emeric knew from the expression on his face that speaking had been a mistake. He had not factored in Amero’s changed mood. He wasn’t even visiting his mistresses, not since the attack on the Highgarden Road. Perhaps that went some way to explaining it. He’d never known Amero to be noticeably bothered by a little danger before. The privilege of rule. Not all it was cracked up to be.

‘If he hasn’t shown by the end of the week, send word to the Twelve that we’ll need another one or they can forget their money,’ Amero said.

Emeric grimaced. The way things were going, they’d have to forget about their money anyway. ‘Reckon we should just forget them,’ he said. The mage frightened him, Amero didn’t. It might be foolish, but he’d speak his mind.

‘You and I both will end up on the headsman’s block before the year is out without what the mage can give me,’ Amero said. ‘I’ve no money and no soldiers. I couldn’t raise an army large enough to turn down my bed right now. If the Auracian princes take back the marches and the border towns, the rabble will be baying for my blood, which means yours too.

‘As angry as they’ll be at Auracian aggression, the slack-bladdered old women don’t have the stomach to take the fight south, even if I had the money to do it. They expect me to magic a victory out of my arse. If I had public support I wouldn’t need half as much money. As it is, that victory’s just going to have to come from somewhere else.’

Emeric was glad that Amero’s anger was directed elsewhere. As little fear as he had of dying, he felt he had a few worthwhile years left yet.

‘Then there’s that bastard Austorga whining that he wants his money back,’ Amero continued. ‘He’ll be lucky if I don’t string him up by his balls and burn his poxy bloody bank to the ground. Fucking commoners. Give them a few pennies and they think they can start ordering their betters around. A few crowns and the fuckers think they’re ennobled. Nonetheless, I’m only going to be able to put him off for so long. I need more money out of him. One way or the other, Emeric, I need that mage and what he has to offer. If the stupid fucker has blown himself up, we need another one. When the Auracians come marching north, I’m planning on giving them a nasty surprise.’

Amero rocked back and forth in his chair, staring at nothing in particular. ‘The bullshit the city criers are shouting on Crossways isn’t winning back popular opinion fast enough. Without money or popular support for another war, needs must that surprise be magical.’

Emeric felt his stomach twist. The brief hope that their magical misadventure might be at an end was dashed, and Emeric’s misgivings returned with renewed vigour.

K
nowing
that something was going on was very different to knowing what that was. It was a part of the process that Giura loved. The anticipation of discovery, finally knowing what others would keep secret. At times it felt like an addiction. He hadn’t told Soren of the plan forming in his mind. He would keep it that way until he had something firm to go on. Firm usually meant violence, and that was where Soren came in, but Giura would handle the details himself.

With the mage problem dealt with, Giura had the time to move his plot against the Duke from observation to action. The messenger being used that day was a young lad, no more than twenty, if that. Thin, gangly, he wouldn’t be able to put up much resistance. Oftentimes these private messengers could be bannerets or prize fighters, tough men chosen for that quality, and that made things far more difficult, but this lad was just a runner and he had been doing a lot of that. It would make Giura’s job a little easier, which was a pleasant and welcome change.

Giura approached the messenger quickly from behind and shoved him hard, slamming him against the wall. Once the initial shock subsided he tried to make a break for it, but Giura had a firm hold on him, and turned him around.

‘The message you’re carrying,’ Giura said. ‘Hand it over.’

‘What message?’

It was the standard reply. Giura punched him in the stomach.

‘You’re carrying a message from the palace. I want it.’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Giura punched him again. ‘This will continue until you give it to me. I know you have it, and I can hit much, much harder.’ Giura pulled out his dagger and pressed it against the messenger’s freshly punched stomach. ‘Punching’s not all I can do.’

The messenger reached into his tunic with his fingertips pulled out a fold of cream paper sealed with red wax.

‘Now, that wasn’t so hard was it? When is the note expected?’

‘W… Within the hour.’

‘All right. There’s a tavern around the corner. Treat yourself to a glass of ale, and I’ll have the note back to you in plenty of time. And of course this will be our little secret, won’t it?’

The messenger nodded, his face a mask of fear.

‘Good. I’ll see you shortly then. Off you go.’

Giura watched him trot away, glancing nervously over his shoulder every few paces. He doubted the lad would enjoy his ale. By the look of his walk, the time might be better spent changing his britches.

Giura looked at the note. Usually the dispatches that passed under his gaze were sealed anonymously. This one bore the ducal arms—the arms of the House of Moreno—which Giura would have to be able to replace intact. Another minor complication, but Giura had something in his office that would provide a close enough approximation to pass the brief scrutiny these things were usually given before they were broken open and rendered indistinguishable. He hurried back to his office, concealing the note in his doublet as he went.

Alerting either party to his knowledge of what was going on would not do, so Giura had to make sure that he got the note back to the messenger well within time, and with no signs of having been tampered with. That wasn’t something he could do on a street corner. He skipped up the steps into the Grey Tower. It wouldn’t take long to read the note, but prying the seal off without damaging the paper and then replacing it with something that would pass inspection would take longer. He didn’t have any time to waste.

‘Giura, how are things?’

Giura groaned. He’d managed to avoid dal Lupard ever since his reappearance back in the city, and this was the last moment where he would have chosen to bump into him.

‘Dal Lupard. Hello. Fine. Busy.’ He nodded curtly, hoping that dal Lupard would take the hint. However, in Giura’s experience, dal Lupard rarely greeted someone unless he wanted something.

‘Terrible what’s going on in your department. Have any of the overdue agents called in?’

‘Not that I’ve heard. Just heading up now to check.’ Giura slowed, but didn’t stop moving. He didn’t have time to allow dal Lupard engage him in conversation.

‘Well, do let me know.’

Giura continued on his way. Dal Lupard was an irritating prick, and completely insincere. He didn’t give a damn about the missing men—men Giura now knew were dead if his own encounter with the mage was anything to go by—he just liked to know everyone else’s business and delighted in their misfortune.

Giura felt like a child waiting to open a gift as he went up the stairs to his office. This could be the break he had been looking for. The corridor was deathly quiet. Even the clerk had been moved on to other duties until replacements were found and the disappearances fully investigated. The higher-ups had obviously given up on the men ever being seen again. Giura still hadn’t decided what to put in the report about his encounter, and didn’t have the mental resources to put his jumble of thoughts in order—but it would confirm what they thought, when he eventually got around to it. The immediate threat had passed as best he could see, and what remained could be dealt with later. Any other students were now without a teacher, and unlikely to progress with any speed. If he was lucky, they’d all manage to blow themselves up before Giura got around to rooting them out.

He flopped into his seat with little care and took a small, worn wooden box from a drawer in his desk. It was full of metal tools. His hand hovered over them for a moment before he selected one. He used it to carefully pry the wax seal off the note without tearing the paper. The wax removed, he checked the paper, and was satisfied that he had done a good job. He paused for a moment before unfolding the paper. He had been filled with an overbearing sense of impatience ever since meeting the mage—something to do with mortality probably—and he needed that moment to still his hand and calm his thoughts.

As his eyes ran across the text, he smiled. It seemed his suspicions of problems between Austorgas’ and the Duke were correct. The note was terse:

N
ot referring
to himself as Emperor just yet then, Giura thought. It was not so much what the note said, as what it implied, and it implied the words ‘fuck off’ as clearly as if they had been printed in bold with bright red ink. Giura’s face broke into a broad grin when he read it. He wondered how the Ostenheim Austorga would react to that. Had the Austorgas ever gone to war against a ruler over unpaid debts? Would they? If ever he was going to find out, it would be in the next few days. Unless he could turn the situation to his benefit.

C
leaning
up Kastor’s mess and making sure none of it could come back to him took longer than dal Lupard had anticipated. Amero’s men had closed in on the trail quickly, and dal Lupard had to erase anything that linked him to Kastor. It was frustrating, but had to be dealt with properly.

Dal Lupard always thought it ironic just how messy cleaning up could be—something of an oxymoron really. Several of Kastor’s men, men privy to his moronic, ill-conceived assassination attempt, had seen Kastor and dal Lupard together. They needed to be disappeared, and carefully rather than quickly, something more difficult without the Grey Tower’s resources. The drunken old sot had been a curse on him, but he had at least confirmed that Soren was in the city, something that could have taken far longer than cleaning up the mess had. Then there was the money Kastor had mentioned. That didn’t really change anything, but it was a very nice bonus.