The Assassins of Thasalon Read online

  “I expect so.”

  The Xarre mastiffs, Pen knew from experience, were better guards against intrusion than the human ones. But Lady Xarre’s defenses were set up to deal with robbers. Not imperial soldiers. This estate was no fortress.

  Pen hurried to the mansion’s door, whose night-porter, after also asking after the missing Bosha, conducted him at once to Lady Xarre’s sitting room.

  The chamber was bright and overwarm from candles in mirrored wall sconces and glassed oil lamps, with the circle of chairs set again for urgent conclave. Lady Xarre’s wrappings might be a dressing gown, but she had waited up for their return, her braided hair not yet undone. Iroki, Alixtra, and Tanar were seated around her, still in their finery, with two chairs empty. Kittio was not present, but since Alixtra was fairly composed, Pen guessed he was safe, possibly tucked up in her bed. As Pen closed the door firmly behind him, Tanar leaped up, gesturing anxiously.

  “Where is Sura? Didn’t you find him?”

  “He found me.” Pen took one of the empty chairs, grateful to sit. The night’s events had drained him. “Unfortunately, not before they found Methani’s body. He’d been assassinated in a back room while the reception was going on. Poisoned. They’ve arrested Bosha for it.”

  “What? No!” Tanar cried in horror. “Why?”

  “He was inspired to insult Bordane at just the wrong moment, and things went downhill from there. They found these little syringes in his belt pouch, poisoned larding needles, which were a match for the punctures in Methani’s body. None of his had been used, but that wasn’t much attended to in the heat of the moment.”

  “Five gods weep, he knew was supposed to have left with Alixtra!”

  “Was he?”

  “Yes! I’d ordered him to! He shouldn’t even have still been there by then!”

  “Did Iroki tell you about finding Methani’s ghost down by the cisterns? Or it finding us, rather.”

  “Yes,” said Tanar.

  Lady Xarre nodded. “It was a most bizarre tale. Somewhat… satisfying, but bizarre. It was Methani, then? The Blessed said you suspected it but weren’t sure.”

  “Confirmed right after he and Tanar left. There was another Thasalon Temple sorcerer present, a Sighted man. I’d met him earlier. The sundered ghost found him, and led him to the body.”

  Tanar sat back, astounded. “Who ever could have anticipated that!”

  “You saw this?” asked Lady Xarre.

  “Yes, they dragged me in as a second Sighted witness.” Pen gave a summary of the scene in the chamber. “Bosha had followed me in. He said he didn’t want to draw attention by absconding, but I think mainly he was curious.”

  “Idiot,” said Tanar fiercely.

  “They told me he’d be taken to the imperial prison.”

  “No! No! No!”

  “I don’t think anything too awful will happened to him tonight?” Pen suggested, out of no certainty, but distressed for her distress. “Everything is in too much disarray. There were important witnesses to his arrest, not all of them the minister’s creatures. And they know he’ll have lawyers coming.”

  Lady Xarre nodded firmly at this. “I’ll send messengers tonight.”

  Tanar scrubbed her fingers over her face, digging in. “But I’m terrified he’ll confess.”

  “Under torture?” Pen said. “I suppose any man might, and the fact that it’s considered treason as well as murder won’t help, but it seems too soon for them to get to that. And such testimony is always suspect. The Father’s Order doesn’t like it.”

  “No. If he figures it out. And he might, if he saw those punctures.”

  “But he didn’t kill Methani.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” said Tanar scornfully. She sucked in a ragged breath. “I did.”

  Chapter 14

  The stunned silence around the circle was broken first by Alixtra.

  “Oh, bless you!”

  “Oh,” said Lady Xarre faintly, “dear.”

  Iroki just looked interested.

  “It was the logical thing to do,” defended Tanar, “to give the most help to Adelis before he lands. And I was the logical person to do it. I don’t say Sura wouldn’t have tried if I’d asked him, but Methani would never have let him get within six feet, still less ever have gone into a room alone with him.”

  You surely can’t imagine lord regent Methani would—Bosha had begun to say. Pen thought he could now finish that sentence. And knew why Bosha hadn’t. If he’d guessed Tanar’s involvement, the last thing he’d have wanted was everyone there wondering just what sort of person Methani would have let within six feet of him, alone in a room.

  Alixtra, in a tone of wonder, asked, “How did you do it? How did you even know how to do it?”

  Tanar shrugged. “I’ve been preparing Sura’s paralytics and poisons for years. Learned Penric has seen my stillroom. I’d started by learning to make all the medicines and dyes for the household, as a pastime when I was younger, and Mother let me be tutored by a trained apothecary.”

  “It seemed prudent at the time,” Lady Xarre noted, and Pen wondered what it said that while she was taken aback by Tanar’s revelation, she didn’t seem to doubt it. “Given that we’d all be using them.”

  “Not that I was going to be allowed to make a living as one, but I found the subtleties of the art quite fascinating.”

  It was the most successful of the unexpected interests the sheltered young noblewoman had found to absorb her energies while waiting for her betrothed; better, Pen remembered, than her brief foray into horseshoeing. Ship navigation had been another, and he wondered if she’d actually had a chance to use that learning on her more recent outings.

  “I need to refresh and reload Sura’s larding needles about every four months or so, as the paralytic dries out and loses its potency. What he carries is only a paralytic—though it might kill someone who was already fragile. I don’t know if they will think to check that, or if he’ll even tell them to. When I prepared Methani’s doses yesterday, after I’d realized the excellence of this opportunity, I mixed the paralytic with enough poison to drop an ox. Because I figured I’d only get one brief chance, and it daren’t miscarry.”

  That certainly accounted for why Methani’s wounds matched Bosha’s needles. They were of the same supply.

  “How did you get Methani alone?” asked Alixtra.

  “It wasn’t that difficult, for me. I asked him if I could speak in private with him for a moment about Lord Bordane, implying that I was giving up on waiting any more for Adelis, and might be changing my mind about Bordane’s suit. Methani and Bordane have long hankered to add the Xarre fortune to their coffers. I hit him with the first needle the instant he turned to close the door upon us, as hard as I could. Because I didn’t think I could bear standing around chatting.

  “I inserted the second dose after he was down, to make very sure. The hardest part was dragging him under the writing table, where he couldn’t be seen by a casual glance into the room, but might look as if he’d fallen there. Because he was heavy. And not… not quite dead yet.” She was shuddering in memory, but her jaw was determined. “It was all so horrible. But such a relief.

  “It didn’t take ten minutes altogether, even with waiting to be certain. Sura should have been long away by then. We all should have been away before Methani was even found. I thought I’d thought of everything. Except that he’d become sundered and then seen. The Bastard takes up the most unlikely and unsavory souls. If all other gods failed him, there should have still been that.”

  “For your consolation, Lady Tanar,” put in Iroki, “Methani was surprised, too.”

  “He shouldn’t have been,” said Alixtra viciously. “Five gods spare us, he shouldn’t have been.”

  “I don’t think Bosha will make a false confession,” said Penric, thinking on it. “To do so would point back to you or Lady Xarre as having set him on, and the treason charge would spread out to the whole Xarre household.”
/>   “It might anyway,” said Lady Xarre uneasily. “Methani isn’t the only government man who’d be glad for a chance to seize my property, for the empire or for himself.”

  “At any other time, maybe,” conceded Tanar. “But Adelis’s arrival is going to wholly change that gameboard.”

  Giving Pen yet another reason to fervently pray his brother-in-law’s ship was not sunk at sea. Or even much delayed on its voyage.

  Alixtra said doubtfully, “Is General Arisaydia going to be all right with this?” Clearly wondering how unnerved the man would be to find himself betrothed to an assassin.

  Tanar tossed her head. “I’m hoping he’ll be pleased. Including that horrific blinding, Methani tried to have him killed five times. His unjust exile has delayed our marriage by years. Granted, neither Adelis nor anyone else was supposed to know it was me who disposed of his opponent.”

  “Adelis,” offered Pen, “is nearly as bloody-minded as my demon. I don’t know if he started out that way, or that twenty years of military service made him so. But he would have to be a far greater hypocrite than I think to object to this. Tanar would have to poison squads of enemies to match even the souls he’s dispatched in battle with his own hands, not to mention however you’d count the deaths he’s responsible for as a commander. I really think her hope is justified.”

  Tanar brightened, reassured. Alixtra’s brows drew in, thinking Pen knew-not-what. About mercy for assassins, perhaps?

  “But another problem with Bosha’s arrest occurs to me,” said Pen slowly. “You realize it’s delivered into unfriendly hands a man who knows every secret about Adelis’s arrival?”

  Tanar’s lips parted in dismay. “Sura wasn’t supposed to have still been there,” she repeated under her breath.

  Lady Xarre rubbed her aging face. Rapidly aging, Pen shouldn’t wonder. She said, “I realized two days ago that the other persons who needed told of General Arisaydia’s coming were Princess Laris and Lord Nao. But I didn’t see how to get a message directly to them that would both tell them what they need to know, and not be decipherable if seen by the wrong eyes. Codes must be set up in advance. Surakos is good at oblique wordings, but he says they depend on knowing enough private things about both the sender and the recipient.” And Surakos isn’t here didn’t need to be underlined. “I’ve only seen Laris a few times in the imperial palace back when I still attended court, and that when she was a child, and I’ve never met Nao.”

  “Where are they now?” asked Penric. “In Thasalon, or staying at another estate?” If they were off in some remote Cedonian province, they could be unreachable, but they had to be anxiously awaiting the return of, or at least some word from, their envoy General Gria.

  “Thasalon, I believe. I’ll have to confirm this. I’d originally thought to keep myself, Tanar, and my household well away from this dangerous conspiracy until things were settled, but we’re far beyond that possibility now.” She regarded her daughter with a put-upon maternal sigh. Tanar raised her chin, and did not squirm.

  “I might try… something?” said Pen. “Des and I.”

  Lady Xarre’s gray eyebrows climbed. “You have some magical way to communicate at a distance?”

  “No. Unfortunately. But I might be your messenger. Or, not me exactly. But the visiting Wealdean templeman was a close eyewitness to the events at Methani’s palace, whom they must be glad to question in person. If I were to present myself as that, I might be able to get in to them.”

  “Hm,” said Lady Xarre, and “Tonight?” said Tanar.

  “It can’t be tonight,” said Lady Xarre. “The hour is much too late, and Laris and Nao should have time to be given the news, which might not even happen till tomorrow morning.”

  “It would help to have a little more chance to work out the details,” agreed Pen. Gods. He’d come to Thasalon to find and confront Tronio, and he hadn’t even managed to meet the man yet. If the sorcerer had simply gone home to bed, what was his reaction going to be when he was greeted with this lurid story in the morning?

  “Sura,” whimpered Tanar under her breath, but did not argue with the logic of this. “But… what if they decide that the best way to keep a prisoner from speaking is not to rescue him, but to kill him? Or have his tongue cut out, or some other awful thing?”

  Her exhausted imagination was running away with her, Pen thought. He could only promise, “I’ll do my best to see such notions don’t occur to them.”

  He added to Alixtra, “I know you and Bosha got your boy away. You found him uninjured, I trust?”

  She nodded. “Five gods be thanked, we were in time for that. We were stopped once by another servant on the way in, but Master Bosha overbore him, very haughtily. I’d have panicked.” Her face softened. “Kittio was bewildered when we woke him up in his bed, but glad to see me. Bosha carried him out for me. He was asleep again before we made it back here.”

  “I shall be glad to make young Master Kittio’s acquaintance,” Pen told her, eliciting her rare smile.

  With Lady Xarre’s nod, the conference broke up for the remains of the night.

  At the door, Des seized Pen’s mouth to ask Tanar curiously, “Tell me. If Adelis and Bosha were both falling over a cliff into the sea in front of you, which one would you grab?”

  Her hesitation was long enough for any number of men to fall over a cliff. “…Can Adelis swim?”

  Pen’s lips twitched. “Well. Let’s hope so.”

  * * *

  It was almost noon of the next day before the Xarre wickerman delivered Penric to the steps of Laris and Nao’s Thasalon palace. Tanar had been anxious at the delays, evolving more and more gruesome fears for Bosha, and increasingly exotic rescue schemes hanging on which version she imagined. Penric, Lady Xarre, and finally even Desdemona all came down on the side of keeping things simple unless otherwise forced, so Pen was again presenting himself in the person and garb of the visiting Wealdman, and trusting his known witness of last night’s events would gate him through the well-guarded door.

  So it proved; he didn’t even have to sit for very long in the entry court before the majordomo came back for him, jumping him over several other waiting supplicants, who eyed him in jealousy as he was led into the inner reaches. In the Cedonian style, this building was smaller, simpler, and older than Methani’s. It had actually been Lord Nao’s before his unexpected high marriage, about which Lady Xarre had given Pen a precis.

  After several variously broken political betrothals, the princess had not been, as once anticipated, bartered off in some foreign marriage treaty, removing her from Cedonia and the succession. Instead, at the third empress’s instigation, she’d been given to a relatively minor nobleman, fifteen years older than herself, with no military connections that might someday be used against her younger brother. This scheme for sidelining her threat had foundered on two unforeseen elements: Nao’s keen intelligence, and the pair falling in love or at least very strong liking with each other. Nonetheless, if the emperor had lived long enough to see his son through to adulthood, the princess would likely have faded as planned to a mere social force in Thasalon.

  Laris and Nao were taking their morning callers in a small courtyard graced with flowers and orange trees in tubs; their cushioned chairs could be moved to follow the shrinking shade, or under an awning when that no longer sufficed. Guards stood at the two entry arches and, Pen noted, a pair armed with short bows patrolled the gallery serving the second floor, all discreetly out of earshot if voices were kept low. A lady-in-waiting and a male secretary with a writing board flanked their principals on two stools.

  As they came up, the majordomo announced Penric: “My lady. My lord. Learned Ingwyl of Rosehall to wait upon you.” Pen’s alias of last night, constructed from the names of his two best friends in the Weald.

  Laris was a young woman of about Tanar’s age, with tea-brown eyes but not otherwise dissimilar in coloration and build, wearing a light linen shift with a gauzy silk over-robe, her dark hair bou
nd up in smooth bands. Her features were regular, if not remarkably beautiful, mainly notable for their echo of her late father’s strong nose. Nao, nearing forty, was darker, sleek, his receding hair pulled back, of middle height, with a sedentary man’s soft body that another decade would likely render stout. He too was dressed for the Cedonian summer in loose trousers and a sleeveless tunic sewn of fine fabrics, and sandals. They both looked at Pen with identical narrow-eyed interest as he took his indicated seat across from them.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” said Pen. “I have a great deal to tell you, some of it in confidence.” He glanced at the attendants. “How strict must be for you to decide, but I may say that I bear a message from General Gria.”

  Laris’s head went back; Nao only blinked. Laris said to her woman and her majordomo, “Leave us,” and Nao said to his man, “Wait with the guards till I beckon you.” They all decamped as told, clearly stifling curiosity.

  “I’d best take things in order,” Pen began. “First, I must tell you that I’m actually Learned Penric of Vilnoc, Duke Jurgo’s court sorcerer.” He quickly overbore their alarmed jolt at this revelation with, “General Gria and his aide reached my brother-in-law General Arisaydia there with your message eighteen days ago. With Jurgo’s leave, they left Vilnoc two nights later on an Orban navy sloop, aiming to be landed somewhere outside Thasalon as soon as the winds allow. The earliest, maybe two more days. Later if the voyage has been slower.”

  Nao’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward. Laris looked faintly bewildered, if pleased: “But weren’t you the Wealdman at Methani’s reception last night?”

  “I was. In this Learned Ingwyl persona, since I couldn’t disguise my Temple demon from any Sighted I might encounter. Which I did. Which was how I came to be conscripted as a close witness when Methani’s sundered ghost suddenly turned up.”

  “He really was sundered, as we heard report of this morning?” asked Nao.

  “Yes. Very.”