The Assassins of Thasalon Read online

  “That traveled fast,” said Pen. “He was actually attacked fourteen days ago.”

  “So he was attacked!” said Tanar. “The others, let me see. That he had deserted Orbas for Adria or, in one version, Darthaca. That he’d gone to Trigonie for Jurgo to arrange a military alliance against Cedonia. Or that he deserted Jurgo to ally himself with the Roknari or the Rusylli, or both, to attack Cedonia by land and sea at once. That’s the most recent, reported this morning.”

  Bosha put in, “We think that one was deliberately circulated by Methani’s cabal, to discredit the general. Which, I pointed out to Tanar, was the surest clue that Methani, at least, thought he was still alive, and a threat to him.”

  Tanar nodded her thanks.

  “Oh, and my favorite,” said Bosha. “That Arisaydia’s head was exploded in the Vilnoc palace square by Jurgo’s powerful court sorcerer—that would be you, Learned—on orders of the duke for suspected betrayal of Orbas to Cedonia. Brains splattered all over the pavement.” Bosha concealed a smirk in a swallow of watered wine. Or else the old jagged scar marring the left side of his delicate mouth just made him look as if he was smirking.

  “That,” said Pen, disconcerted, “is surprisingly close to the truth. Though I have to assume completely by accident. If it’s come to Minister Methani’s ears, I imagine he’s none too pleased. That might have induced him to float the Roknari-Rusylli rumor, to counter it.”

  This won two nonplussed stares. “Penric, what really happened?” Tanar begged.

  Pen drank tepid tea-water and took a breath. “It’s complicated, as Thasalon politics always seem to be. What I’m going to say next… may involve you in business that some might see as treasonous.”

  Twin short nods told him to go on anyway.

  “If I am to take it in order… some six, no, seven, now, weeks ago a squad of Methani’s bravos or soldiers from Thasalon penetrated the fort at Tyno and attempted to murder Adelis. They did not succeed, fatally for them. Adelis thinks it was the minister’s first response to the unrest in the imperial army following the disaster to the Sixth Legion at Vytymi Valley, to eliminate a man who could lead them in revolt.”

  Tanar growled in suppressed rage.

  “Just over two weeks ago, General Gria of the Eighth arrived in secret at Tyno to convey a plea from Princess Laris and Lord Nao for Adelis to return to Cedonia and ally himself with them—the proposed trio thus covering the nobility, the bureaucracy, and the army.”

  “Laris plans to move against her young half-brother?” said Tanar, her hand going to her throat.

  “Unclear at this time. She certainly means to assert control over the regency council, and oust Methani. Anyway, Adelis very properly brought Gria and himself before Jurgo, and they had some considerable debate on the issues. Adelis had invited me along.

  “Coming out, on the Vilnoc palace steps, we encountered the second and much subtler assassination attempt. Methani, and a Temple sorcerer named Learned Tronio, had concocted between them a scheme to use an untrained hedge sorcerer, endowed with a new elemental, to make a silent and invisible magical attack upon a victim that would mimic a natural fatal stroke. Also destroying the elemental in the process, but they evidently decided that such god-gifts were theirs to dispose of. The hedge sorcerer would survive to be used so again. It later came out that they’d employed just this method to murder Prince Ragat. And got away with it, inclining them to repeat the ploy.”

  This news rocked even Bosha back in his chair, and he was no stranger to subtle ways of eliminating enemies—the blades he carried when he guarded Lady Tanar were poisoned, Pen knew. But she wasn’t a charge he dared fail by scorning any possible advantage. “How could one defend against such a strike?”

  “In Adelis’s case, with another sorcerer. Thanks to Desdemona’s quick reaction, the bolus of chaos was fended away, though not without leaving Adelis with a mild concussion. We took him to my house to be nursed by his sister and mother, and guarded by me.”

  “Oh, bless you, Learned Penric!” cried Tanar. Adding conscientiously, “And bless your Desdemona.”

  Nice manners, there, approved Des, who’d been following it all without, for a change, remarks or quips. The girl might yet do for Adelis.

  “Yes, it was more Des’s doing than mine. The upshot of it all was, Jurgo was so offended by this outrage on his own doorstep, he gave Adelis the use of one of his navy sloops to convey him and Gria in secret back to Cedonia. They were off the next night. If they catch fair winds, which they should this time of year, they might make land near Thasalon and join with Laris and Nao as early as the end of this week. And so Methani has triggered the very event he wished to prevent—Adelis told me that he’d been thinking of staying in Orbas, till the second attack changed his mind.” Pen considered. “Fifth, if he counts the three tries Methani had at him some years ago.”

  “Even the gods,” said Tanar through clenched teeth, “are not compelled to forgive the fifth affront. And neither am I.”

  “So,” said Bosha, his voice tinged with professional worry, “what happened to this hedge sorcerer-assassin? Is he still out there somewhere?”

  “That,” said Penric, “is another very complicated tale. I must beg you to keep your questions and your tempers until I can tell it in full.”

  Alixtra had stopped eating when Pen had started recounting the events on Jurgo’s steps. Now she froze altogether, giving Pen a beseeching look. “Learned, must we…?”

  “I think so,” he said gently. “We none of us can make good decisions without full information.”

  Bosha’s eyes darted in new wariness to her, his swift wits already beginning to fill in the gaps.

  “I’d best begin this part of the story at its other end,” Pen went on. “In order to create a human tool that they could control even when gifted with such a power, Methani and Tronio selected an individual that came already with her own hostage—a widowed palace maidservant with a five-year-old son. They first entrapped her with pilfering. Off-balance and afraid of the penalties for theft, she was easy to manipulate into agreeing to the demonic experiment, the more so that they were careful to keep her in the greatest possible ignorance of its full potential and implications. What was probably a lie eased her through her first victim, a prisoner, and then she was trapped in crime in truth. Lord regent Prince Ragat was their third target. Adelis was to have been the fourth.”

  Tanar had gone rigid, Bosha on edge, Alixtra strained. Iroki watched and listened without comment. Or expression, much. No one was still eating now.

  “Methani being Methani, of course he could not send her off to Orbas on trust. So he ensured her obedience at a distance with a threat to her son—that at his mother’s failure or desertion, the boy would be cut and sold as a slave.”

  Bosha… hissed, very quietly, through his set teeth. Tanar’s gaze skipped to him, and her face tensed in fresh thought. Her lips, which had parted to vent some furious reaction, closed again, and waited.

  “Her first attempt, on the palace steps, miscarried as described. But because of Methani’s threat, she lingered in Vilnoc to try again, against, I gather, the protestations of the bravo Methani had sent along as her courier and assistant. And snitch, I imagine.”

  A thinning of Alixtra’s mouth confirmed this speculation.

  “Adelis was known to be recovering in my house, which we pretended still was so even after he’d sailed. I set up a trap there, and Alixtra fell, rather literally, into it,” said Pen, abandoning the tattered pretext of anonymity. “We kept her imprisoned for three days in a bottle dungeon, while we awaited word from my Order in Dogrita about the saint who would be tasked with removing her demon before she could be handed over to the duke’s justice. Instead, we received the saint himself.”

  All eyes turned to Iroki, who offered a sheepish wave. “Ayup. Though it wasn’t the Order, exactly, that sent me along.”

  “And then things took a turn that no one present expected.” Pen paused, uncertain
how he was to convey the terrifying depth and certainty of the resonant moment the god had spoken.

  Iroki, thankfully, took over. “The Bastard wouldn’t take His demon back. Said she was to keep it. First time that’d happened to me. I mean—I didn’t just sense that was what He wanted. He said. Out loud. Knocked me right on my butt, there in the dark.” He added after a moment, “He was right wroth with Methani and Tronio, though. That came through clear. Alixtra, not so much. He seems to expect good things of her and her demon, going on.”

  “The god spoke to you?” choked Tanar. Not at all the words that had been hot on the tip of her tongue moments before, Pen fancied. “To all of you?”

  Three faces around the table grimaced helplessly.

  “There wasn’t any doubt,” said Pen. “I mean, there really wasn’t any doubt. For all the times I’ve prayed to my god for guidance, in all the years I’ve served Him, I’d never got back anything remotely like that.”

  “Wroth,” nodded Iroki.

  “I can take a hint,” said Penric. “Usually, I pretty much have to. We were all on our way to Thasalon by noon the next day, and here we are. To clean up this mess. Somehow. Two parts are clear. To rescue the boy Kittio out of Methani’s clutches and so free Alixtra, and to bring the saint before Tronio. Unfortunately, the god’s guidance lacked details.” He looked across in hope at Tanar and Bosha.

  “You’d expect,” said Bosha slowly, “the gods to answer prayers at Their altars, tidily in a temple. Not… over a dinner table.”

  “I don’t,” sighed Pen. “At least not my god. Untidy is what He does. …And I’m still not sure if it’s that He answers my prayers, or that I’m expected to answer His. Thus, practical theology. Which I think I warned you about, Alixtra, early on. You haven’t taken oath yet, but when you do, that’s what it will mean.”

  Tanar’s brows had drawn in tightly as she sifted through all this. Her first question was not one Pen anticipated, for she turned instead to Alixtra. “So who was the second man, before Ragat?”

  Alixtra swallowed. “Minister Fasso. Prefect of Imperial Shipbuilding.”

  A spurt of surprise crossed Bosha’s pale face. “We heard he’d died in his sleep.”

  “He did. Only his apoplexy didn’t happen on its own.” She looked away, her jaw set.

  Pen was relieved Tanar hadn’t broken into a storm of outrage, as he had for a moment feared. Her only fury seemed to be furious thought, as she studied her unexpected guest. “Is that so,” was all she said. It was Bosha who regarded his lady uneasily.

  After a longer moment, Tanar asked, “If you were brought before Methani, could you turn your demon on him? Serving him his own again? Could that even be the reason the god sent you back to Thasalon?”

  “No!” said Penric firmly.

  Alixtra opened her compressed lips to say, “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. But it’s an incredibly intimate kind of killing. I don’t… don’t ever want to experience it again.” Her hand twisted in air. “Give me a knife, though, and either Methani or Tronio in front of me, and I’d be tempted.”

  Bosha rubbed his brow. “Tanar, we must set all this before your lady mother before we can go on. Considering the dangers it could bring down upon our house.”

  Penric put in, “But it’s critical that the word of Adelis’s movements be kept as close as possible before he lands and makes contact with Laris and Nao. Of all the rumors you reported, that’s the only one that seems to be missing. If his enemies were alerted to watch for him by sea, instead of at the land borders, his affairs could go very badly.” There was no way to ask Can Lady Xarre be trusted? without delivering insult. He tried instead, “Does Lady Xarre’s health permit the strain?”

  Bosha grimaced. “She’s almost crippled now. But her mind is as keen as ever. She’ll be dealing with it all regardless, once things break. Better she be warned beforehand.”

  Pen could only concede this.

  * * *

  Bosha conducted them to the promised guest bedchambers, two doors down the gallery from his own, and went off, doubtless to give some preliminary report to Lady Xarre. Their baggage had been delivered, but not, Pen was relieved to see, opened.

  The problem of apportionment solved itself, not that they hadn’t all slept together in a barn loft once this journey. The chamber with the one bed, lying nearer to Tanar’s suite, had no balcony, though the chamber with two beds did. Pen was very conscious that they now lay within a determined walking distance to Alixtra’s singular goal, and her temptation to desert the company in the night to pursue the rescue of her son on her own must be throbbing in her brain. He had likely better warn her about the Xarre mastiffs let loose on the grounds after dark.

  A manservant and a maidservant arrived to guide them downstairs to the mansion’s baths, divided into men’s and women’s sides, which combined clever Cedonian engineering with elegant tilework in a motif of waves and sea creatures. Raised spigots over drains provided an inexhaustible cold shower which must save the servants much heavy labor hauling buckets and hip-baths up to the inhabitants. Iroki marveled, examining the mosaic fishes closely and trying to decide their species, and was cheerfully grateful for tips on the facility’s use.

  They were joined shortly by Bosha, intent on washing the dried sweat from his training session away before sitting down to dinner with his ladies. No new scars, Pen noted, seemed to have joined the faded ones on his pale arms and back. In the adjoining dressing room, clean light garments had been provided for the guests—someone must have noticed the meagerness of their luggage. Bosha dismissed the hovering manservant before he spoke to Penric.

  “I’m not best pleased, you know, that you brought an assassin to my lady’s table without warning me.”

  It was unclear if it was the assassin or just the lack of notice that he found objectionable. Pen chose to address the first part, saying dryly, “What, and here I thought you sat down with her every day.”

  A twist of Bosha’s scarred lip dismissed the quip, though not without a nod of concession at a hit well-scored.

  “And you have to admit, Alixtra took some explaining first. I was afraid Tanar was going to explode as it was.”

  “…True.”

  “But except for the parts about Adelis, she seemed more interested than horrified.”

  “Yes,” sighed Bosha. “And I don’t thank you for that, either.” Finishing fastening his garments for the evening, a long tunic with a light over-robe, he seated himself on the bench opposite Penric and Iroki and bent to don his sandals.

  “I know how Adelis has been occupied the past few years,” said Penric. “What of Tanar? When last we met, you were both worried about fending off unwanted suitors. Most notably Lord Bordane, as I recall. Who has come up in the world even further since then, in his patron uncle’s train.”

  “Yes,” said Bosha, straightening. “Fortunately, we were soon relieved of his pressure when he found himself another heiress. Unfortunately, she died late last year in childbirth. To his credit, he seems to have mourned her sincerely. Now that he’s a lord regent, he’s going to be much more dangerous, if he casts his eyes upon Tanar again.”

  “Has he done so?”

  “There have been recent hints.”

  “And Tanar? She struck me as a very energetic young woman.”

  “She still is. Lady Xarre has brought her more directly into the management of her businesses, bribing her with sea voyages if she would learn the work.”

  “Ah. I remember you feared she might harbor ambitions, if she found no other outlet for her vigor, to become a pirate queen.”

  “Very nearly not a joke. Tanar’s excursions so far have been limited to our Cedonian coastal trade, and one trip down to the ports of Grabyat, but I know she plots more distant ventures.”

  “And how did you enjoy them?”

  Bosha bared his teeth in a pained non-smile. “I do not love the sea in summer—too much sunlight. Or at any other time, really. The one though
t that reconciles me to the return of your brother-in-law might be that he’ll give her activities a landward direction.”

  “And your life as well? If all prospers in Adelis’s suit, would you follow Tanar, or stay with Lady Xarre?”

  Bosha waved one beautifully manicured hand—he had to be vain of them, to care for them so, though his rucked and ruffled sleeves hid the wiry strength of his wrists and arms. “Tanar, with Lady Xarre’s leave. My service here has lasted for seventeen years, which has been a gift greater than anything I could have earned. I’ve known this idyll was on borrowed time ever since Tanar decided Adelis was the only husband for her.”

  He did not phrase it, Pen noticed, as ever since Tanar fell in love with Adelis. Pen wasn’t sure whether that reticence guarded Tanar’s heart, or his own.

  * * *

  As was common in the Cedonian summer in noble and lesser homes alike, dinner was not served till late, after dusk, at a table set up in the courtyard. Penric greeted Lady Xarre, eased into her chair by two attendants, with all the proper courtesies inculcated in him by service in a princess-archdivine’s and two ducal courts.

  “We’ll talk more privately after we eat,” she told him in an under-voice, and he nodded.

  The lady’s household was used to feeding visiting merchants of all sorts, so easing their formality for the comfort of the Patos bookdealer and his two companions—promoted from servants to assistants before this audience—was no stretch for them. Only Tanar and her mother knew to be daunted by Iroki—as a saint, he in a sense outranked not only everyone at the table, but everyone in the imperial city. As Iroki continued to act exactly like a village fisherman on his first venture into such high company, if one displaying good manners and a genial humor, their secret awkwardness did gradually pass off. Alixtra’s didn’t, but hers had other sources than the disparity of rank.