Текст книги "Blood Song"

Автор книги: Anthony Ryan

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They drew back from each other, circling, swords levelled, eyes locked together. The stocky man took a few moments to die, struggling on the rain sodden sand between them, spitting curses until his breath gave out and he sagged, lifeless in the rain.

Vaelin was suddenly struck by the same sense of wrongness that had assailed him before; in the forest, in the Fifth Order House when Sister Henna came to kill him, when he waited for Frentis to return from the Test of the Wild. There was something about his remaining opponent, something in the strength of his gaze and the set of his body, something in his being telling of a terrible, certain truth: This man is no criminal. This man is no murderer! How he knew he could not tell. But it was the strongest such feeling he had yet experienced and he had no doubt of its certainty.

He stopped, his sword point lowering as he straightened, the tensed, hard lines of his face softening. He could feel the rain for the first time, beating a chill into his skin. The tall man’s brows knitted in puzzlement as Vaelin lost his fighting stance to stand, his sword held at his side, rain washing the blood from the blade. He raised his left hand, fingers open in a sign of peace.

“Who are-”

The tall man attacked in a blur, his sword as straight as an arrow, aimed directly at Vaelin’s heart. It was a faster move than anything he had seen from Master Sollis and it should have killed him. But somehow he managed to turn in time for the sword point to pierce only his shirt, the edge of the blade marking his chest.

The tall man’s head was resting on Vaelin’s shoulder, the hard determination gone from his eyes, his lips parted in a small gasp, his skin rapidly draining of colour.

“Who are you?” Vaelin asked him in a whisper.

The tall man staggered back, Vaelin’s sword made a sickening, ripping sound as it was dragged from his chest. He sank to his knees slowly, propping himself up with his own sword, resting his chin on the pommel. Vaelin saw that his lips were moving and knelt beside him to hear the words.

“My… wife…” the tall man said. It sounded like an explanation. His eyes met Vaelin’s again and for moment there was something there, an apology? A regret?

Vaelin caught him as he fell, feeling the life go out of him in a shudder. He held the dead soldier as the rain beat down and the roar of the crowd crushed him with blood crazed adulation.

Vaelin had never been drunk before. He found it an unpleasant sensation, not unlike the dizzy feeling he got when taking a hefty blow on the head during practice, just more prolonged. The ale was bitter in his mouth, his first taste making him screw up his face in disgust.

“You’ll get used to it,” Barkus had assured him.

The tavern was near the western section of the city wall and frequented mainly by off-duty guardsmen and local traders. For the most part they seemed content to leave the five brothers alone, although there had been a few calls of congratulation to Vaelin.

“Best bet I ever made,” a cheery faced old man called, lifting his tankard in salute. “Made a packet on you today, brother. Got odds of ten to one when it looked like you’d get the chop…”

“Shut up!” Nortah told the old man flatly. His left arm was cradled in a sling, the forearm heavily bandaged, but his visage held sufficient menace to make the old man blanch and sit down without further comment.

They found a vacant table and Barkus bought the drinks. He was limping from a cut to the calf and spilled a fair amount of the ale on the way back from the bar.

“Clumsy sod,” Dentos grunted. “Let me get them next time.” He was the only one to have got through the test unscathed, although his gaze had a bright, frightened look and he blinked rarely, as if scared of what he would see when he closed his eyes.

Caenis sipped his ale, frowning in puzzlement. “From the way men lust after this so I’d expected it to taste better.” The line of his jaw was marked by a row of eight stitches. The brother from the Fifth Order who tended the cut had assured him he would carry the scar for the rest of his life.

“Well,” Nortah said, lifting his tankard. “We’re all here.”

“Yeh.” Dentos lifted his own mug, clacking it against Nortah’s. “Here’s to… being here I s’pose.”

They drank, Vaelin forcing the ale down, draining his tankard.

“Easy brother,” Barkus warned him.

He felt them exchanging uneasy glances across the table as he stared at the dregs at the bottom of the tankard. There had been an ugly scene with Master Sollis back at the Circle when Vaelin had demanded to know the identity of the tall man and received only a curt response: “A murderer.”

“He was no murderer,” Vaelin insisted, a mounting anger dispelling his normal deference. The tall man’s face as he slipped into death was fresh in his mind. “Master, who was that man? Why was it necessary for me to kill him?”

“Every year the City Guard provides us with a selection of condemned men,” Sollis replied, his patience nearing its end. “We choose the strongest and most skilled. Who they are is not our concern. Neither is it yours, Sorna.”

“It is today!” Vaelin took a step closer to Sollis, his fury mounting.

“Vaelin,” Caenis cautioned him, his hand on his arm.

“I killed an innocent man today,” Vaelin spat at Sollis, shaking off Caenis’s hand, advancing further. “For what? To show you I could kill? You knew that already. You chose him didn’t you? Knowing he was the most skilled. Knowing I’d be the one to face him.”

“A test is not a test if it’s easy, brother.”

“EASY?” A red mist was staining his vision, he found his hand had gone to his sword.

“Vaelin!” Dentos and Nortah stepped between them, Barkus pulling him back and Caenis keeping a firm grip on his sword hand.

“Get him out of here!” Sollis commanded as they hustled him towards the exit, near incoherent with rage. “Take the rest of the evening. Help your brother cool off.”

Vaelin wasn’t sure if ale was the best way to cool off. His anger hadn’t dimmed at all, if anything the way the room seemed to move around of its own volition was extremely aggravating.

“My Uncle Derv could drink more ale in a sitting than any man alive,” Dentos said after his fourth tankard, his head lolling. “They’d ’ave a contest every shummertide fair. Folk from miles around’d come t’challenge ‘im. Not one of ‘em could ever beat ‘im. Grand ale drinking champion five years running. Woulda’ been six iffen he ‘adn’t drunk hisself t’death in the winter.” He paused to issue an extravagant burp. “Silly old sod.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying this?” Caenis asked, both hands gripping the table as if scared he was about to tip over.

“I’m happy enough,” Barkus said, grinning merrily. His shirt was damp with ale and he seemed oblivious to the rivulets that coursed down his chin every time he took a drink.

“Two brothers…” Nortah was saying. He had been rambling about his test for over an hour. From what Vaelin could gather two of the men he had killed were brothers, both apparently condemned outlaws. “Twins… I think. Looked just the same, even made the same sound when they died…”

Vaelin’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch and he realised he was about to vomit. “Going outside,” he mumbled, rising and making for the door on legs that seemed to have lost the ability to walk in a straight line.

The air outside chilled his lungs and made his nausea recede a little, but he was still obliged to spend a few minutes heaving into the gutter. Afterwards he rested his back against the tavern wall and sank slowly onto the cobbles, his breath steaming in the frigid air. My wife, the tall man had said. Maybe he had been calling to her. Or summoning a final memory as he struggled to take the image of her face with him into the beyond.

“A man with so many enemies shouldn’t make himself so vulnerable.”

The man standing over him was of average height but well built, with a lean, deeply lined face and a piercing stare.

“Erlin,” Vaelin said, releasing the hilt of his knife. “You don’t look any different.” He gazed blearily around the empty street. “Did I pass out? Are you here?”

“I’m here.” Erlin reached down to offer him a hand. “And I think you’ve had enough for one night.”

Vaelin took the hand and levered himself to his feet with difficulty. To his surprise he found he was at least half a foot taller than Erlin. When last they met he had barely come up to his shoulder.

“Thought you’d be a tall one,” Erlin said.

“Sella?” Vaelin asked.

“Sella’s fine, last I saw her. I know she would want me to thank you for what you did for us.”

I’ll fight but I won’t murder. His boyhood resolve coming back to him, the promise he had made to himself after saving them in the wild. I’ll kill men who face me in battle but I won’t take the sword to innocents. It felt so hollow now, so naïve. He remembered his disgust at Brother Makril’s tales of murdered Deniers and wondered if there was truly any difference between them now.

“I’ve still got her scarf,” he said, trying to force his thoughts in a more comfortable direction. “Could you take it to her?” He fished clumsily inside his shirt for the scarf.

“I’m not sure I could find her if I chose to. Besides, I think she would want you to keep it.” He took Vaelin’s elbow and guided him away from the tavern. “Walk with me for a while. It should clear your head. And there is much I would like to tell you.”

They walked through the empty streets of the western quarter, tracing a route through the rows of workshops that characterised this as the craftsman’s district. By the time they reached the river Vaelin knew from the ache building at the back of his skull and the increased steadiness of his legs that he was starting to sober up. They paused on the towpath overlooking the river, gazing down at the moonlight playing on the currents churning the ink black water.

“When I first came here,” Erlin said. “The river stank so bad you couldn’t go near it. All the waste of this city would flow into it before they built the sewers. Now it’s so clean you can drink from it.”

“I saw you,” Vaelin said. “At the Summertide Fair, four years ago. You were watching a puppet show.”

“Yes. I had business there.” It was clear from his tone he wasn’t about to elaborate on what type of business.

“You risk much coming here. It’s likely Brother Makril is still out hunting you somewhere. He’s not a man to give up a hunt.”

“True enough, he caught me last winter.”

“Then how..?”

“It’s a very long tale. In short he cornered me on a mountainside in Renfael. We fought, I lost, he let me go.”

“He let you go?”

“Yes. I was fairly surprised myself.”

“Did he say why?”

“He didn’t say much of anything at all. Left me tied up through the night whilst he sat by the fire and drank himself unconscious. After a while I passed out from the beating he’d given me. When I woke in the morning my bonds were untied and he was gone.”

Vaelin remembered the tears shining in Makril’s eyes. Maybe he was a better man than I judged him to be.

“I saw you fight today,” Erlin told him.

Vaelin felt the ache at the base of his skull deepen. “You must be rich to have afforded a ticket.”

“Hardly. There’s a way into the Circle few know of, a passage under the walls that affords a good few of the arena.”

Silence stretched between them. Vaelin had no wish to discuss his test and was increasingly preoccupied with the suspicion that he was about to throw up again. “You said you had something to tell me,” he said, mainly in hope that further conversation would distract him from the burgeoning nausea in his gut.

“One of the men you killed, he had a wife.”

“I know. He told me.” He glanced at Erlin, noting the intense scrutiny in his eyes. “You knew him?”

“Not well. My acquaintance was with his wife. She has assisted me in the past. I count her as a friend.”

“She’s a Denier?”

“You would call her that. She calls herself Quester.”

“And her husband was also part of this… belief?”

“Oh no. His name was Urlian Jurahl. Once he had been called Brother Urlian. He was like you, a brother of the Sixth Order, but he gave it up to be with Illiah, his wife.”

Little wonder he fought so well. “I took him for a soldier.”

“He took the trade of a boat builder after leaving the Order, became highly regarded, ran his own yard building barges, the finest on the river some say.”

Vaelin shook his head in sorrow. I have served the Faith by killing an innocent builder of boats. “What was he doing in the arena? I know he wasn’t a murderer.”

“It happened during the riots. Some locals got wind of Illiah’s beliefs, quite how I don’t know, mayhap her son spoke of it when at play, children can be so trusting. They came for her, ten men with a rope. Urlian killed two and wounded three more, the rest ran off, but they came back with the City Guard. Urlian was overpowered and taken to the Blackhold, his wife too.”

“Their son?”

“He hid at his father’s bidding as the fight raged. He’s safe now. With friends of mine.”

“If Urlian was defending his wife then it wasn’t murder. The magistrate would have seen that surely.”

“Surely. But the magistrate had some wealthy friends with an eye for an opportunity. Did you know the odds that you would survive your Test were hardly worth a bet? The odds against were long indeed. With Urlian in the arena it would be worth risking some gold on the long chance. They offered him a proposition, confess his crime and be chosen for the Test, an easy thing to arrange as your Masters would be quick to spot his skill. Once he had killed you he and his wife would be free.”

Vaelin realised he had sobered completely, the nausea fled in the face of the cold, implacable compulsion. “His wife is still in the Blackhold?”

“She is. By now she will have heard of her husband’s fate. I fear what her grief will make her do.”

“This magistrate and his wealthy friends, you have their names?”

“What would you do if I gave them to you?”

Vaelin fixed him with a cold stare. “Kill them all. That is your intention isn’t it? To set me on this course for vengeance. Well, you’ll get it. Just give me the names.”

“You misunderstand me Vaelin. I have no wish for vengeance. In any case you couldn’t kill them all. Wealthy men from noble families have many protectors, many guards. You might kill one, but not all. And Illiah would still be waiting her fate in the Blackhold once you have been cut down.”

“Then why tell me this when I can do nothing to set it right?”

“You can speak for her. Your word will carry much weight. If you went to your Aspect and explained…”

“She’s a Denier. They won’t help her unless she renounces her heresy.”

“She won’t do that. Her soul is bound to her beliefs more closely than you could imagine. I doubt she could renounce them even if she wished to. I know your Aspect to be a compassionate man Vaelin, he will speak for her.”

“Even if he does the Blackhold is no longer guarded by the Sixth Order since the last conclave. It falls under the control of the Fourth. I have met Aspect Tendris and he will not help an unrepentant Denier.” Vaelin turned back to the river, frustration raging in his chest, Urlian’s pale face asking for his wife over and over again in his head.

“So there’s nothing you can do?” Erlin asked. He sounded resigned and Vaelin knew his visit and been a desperate act, undertaken at considerable risk.

“You put great trust in me coming here,” Vaelin said. “Thank you.”

“I’ve lived long enough to judge a man’s heart.” He stepped back from the river, offering Vaelin his hand. “I’m sorry to have burdened you with this. I’ll leave you in peace now.”

“As I grow older I’m learning that the truth is never a burden. It’s a gift.” Vaelin shook his hand. “Tell me the names.”

“I won’t set you on a path to your own death.”

“You won’t. Trust me. I’ve thought of something I can do.”

Chapter 10

He chose the gate on the eastern wall, assuming it would be the least busy. Even given the lateness of the hour the main palace gate would be too well guarded, too many mouths to speak of how Vaelin Al Sorna had appeared demanding an audience with the King.

“Piss off boy,” the sergeant at the gate told him, not bothering to emerge from the shelter of the guard house. “Go sleep it off.”

Vaelin realised he must smell like an ale house. “My name is Brother Vaelin Al Sorna of the Sixth Order,” he said, forcing authority into his voice as if he had every right to be here. “I request an audience with King Janus.”

“Faith!” the sergeant sighed in exasperation. He came out to fix Vaelin with a fierce glare. “You know a man could find himself flogged for giving a false name to an officer of the King’s Guard?”

A younger guardsman appeared behind the sergeant, staring at Vaelin with a disconcertingly awed expression. “Uh, Sarge…”

“But it’s late and I’m in a good mood.” The sergeant was advancing on Vaelin with balled fists, his grizzled face tensed with impending violence. “So it’ll just be a beating before I send you on your way.”

“Sarge!” the younger man said urgently, catching hold of his arm. “It’s him.”

The sergeant's gaze swung to the younger man then back to Vaelin, looking him up and down. “You sure?”

“Was on duty at the Circle this morning wasn’t I? It’s really him.”

The sergeant’s fists uncurled but he didn’t appear any happier. “What’s your business with the King?”

“For him alone. He’ll see me if he’s told I’m here. And I’m sure he’ll be displeased if he hears I have been turned away.” An accomplished lie, he congratulated himself. In truth he had no certainty the king would see him at all.

The sergeant thought it over. His scars told of a lifetime of hard service and Vaelin realised he must resent any intrusion into what was no doubt a comfortable billet in which to await his pension. “My compliments and apologies to the Captain,” the sergeant told the younger guardsman. “Wake him and tell him about our visitor.”

They stood regarding each other in wary silence after the guardsman had scampered off, hastily unlocking a small door set into the huge oak wood gate and disappearing inside.

“Heard you killed five Denier assassins the night of the Aspect massacre,” the sergeant grunted eventually.

“It was fifty.”

It seemed an age before the door reopened and the young guardsman emerged followed by a trim young man, impeccably dressed in the uniform of a Captain in the King’s Horse Guard. He gave Vaelin a brief look of appraisal before offering his hand. “Brother Vaelin,” he said in a slight Renfaelin accent. “Captain Nirka Smolen, at your service.”

“Apologies for waking you Captain,” Vaelin said, slightly distracted by the neatness of the young man’s attire. Everything from the shine of his boots to the precise trim of his moustache spoke of a remarkable attention to detail. He certainly didn’t appear to be a man just woken from his bed.

“Not at all.” Captain Smolen, gestured at the open door. “Shall we?”

Vaelin’s boyhood memories of gleaming opulence were not matched by the interior of the eastern wing of the palace. After crossing a small courtyard he was led into a warren of corridors crammed with a variety of dust covered chests and cloth wrapped paintings.

“This wing is used mostly for storage,” Captain Smolen explained seeing his bemused expression. “The King receives many gifts.”

He followed the captain through a series of corridors and chambers until they came to a large room with a chequered floor and several grand paintings on the wall. He found his attention immediately drawn to the paintings, each was at least seven feet across and depicted a battle. The setting changed with each painting but the same figure was at the centre of every one; a handsome, flame haired man astride a white charger, sword held high above his head. King Janus. Though Vaelin’s memory of the king was dim he didn’t remember his jaw being quite so square or his shoulders quite so broad.

“The six battles that united the Realm,” Captain Smolen said. “Painted by Master Benril Lenial. It took him over three years.”

Vaelin remembered Master Benril’s drawings in Aspect Elera’s rooms, the fine detail with which each was rendered, the way the exposed viscera seemed to come out of the parchment. He saw none of the same clarity now. The colours were bright but not vibrant, the battling warriors clearly depicted but stilted somehow, not as if they were fighting at all, simply standing in a pose.

“Not his best is it?” Captain Smolen commented. “He was commanded to it, you see. I suspect he had little love for his subject. Have you ever seen his fresco in the Great Library commemorating the victims of the Red Hand? It’s quite breath-taking.”

“I’ve never seen the Great Library,” Vaelin replied, thinking Captain Smolen would probably find much in common with Caenis.

“You should, it’s a credit to the Realm. I’ll need your weapons.”

Vaelin unclipped his cloak with the four throwing knives secured within its folds, unbuckled his sword, unhooked his hunting knife from his belt and removed the narrow bladed dagger from his left boot.

“Nice,” Captain Smolen admired the dagger. “Alpiran?”

“I don’t know, I took it from a dead man.”

“These will be waiting for you here.” Smolen laid his weapons out on a nearby table. “No-one will touch them.” With that he moved to a bare patch of wall and pushed, a section of the wall swinging inwards revealing a dark stairwell. “Follow the stairs to the top.”

“He’s in there?” Vaelin asked. He had expected to be led to a throne room or audience chamber.

“He is indeed. Best not keep him waiting.”

Vaelin nodded his thanks and entered the stairwell. Oil lamps set into the wall cast a dim light on the steps, the gloom deepening when Smolen closed the door behind him. As instructed he climbed the stairs, the fall of his boots on the stone steps loud in the confined space. The door at the top was slightly ajar, outlined in bright lamplight from the room beyond. It creaked loudly when Vaelin pushed it open but the man seated at the desk before him didn’t look up. He sat crouched over a roll of parchment, his quill scratching over it, leaving a spidery script in its wake. The man was old, in his sixties, but still broad in the shoulder, his long hair hung over his face, once red it was now grey but still had a faint tinge of copper. He wore a plain shirt of white linen, the sleeves stained with ink, his only adornment a gold signet ring on the third finger of his right hand, a signet ring bearing the symbol of a rearing horse.

“Highness-” Vaelin began, sinking to one knee.

The King raised his left hand, motioning for him to rise then pointing at a nearby chair. His quill didn’t stop on the parchment. Vaelin moved to the chair, finding it piled high with books and scrolls. He hesitated then carefully gathered them together and placed them on the floor before sitting down.

He waited.

The only sound in the room came from the scratch of the King’s quill. Vaelin wondered if he should speak again but something told him it was best to keep silent. Instead he surveyed the room. He had thought Aspect Elera’s room to have been the most book filled space he had ever seen but the King’s room put it to shame. They lined the walls in great stacks rising nearly to the ceiling. In between the stacks were boxes of scrolls, some flaked and withered with age. The only decoration in the room was a large map of the Realm above the fireplace, its surface partly covered with short notations in a spidery script. Oddly some of the notations were written in red ink and others black. Down one edge of the map was a list of some kind, each item had been written in black but crossed through in red. It was a long list.

“You have your father’s face but your mother’s way of looking at things.”

Vaelin’s gaze snapped back to the King. He had laid his quill aside and reclined in his chair. His green eyes were bright and shrewd in his craggy, weathered face. Vaelin found he couldn’t stop his eyes straying to the livid red scars on the King’s neck, the legacy of his childhood brush with the Red Hand.

“Highness?” he stammered.

“Your father was clever in the ways of war but in most other things I have to say he was as dumb as a rock. Your mother on the other hand was clever in almost everything. You had her look just now, when you were looking at my map.”

“I’m sure she would have been gratified to know you held such a high opinion of her, Highness.”

The King raised an eyebrow. “Don’t flatter me, boy. I have servants aplenty for that. Besides, you’re no good at it. In that, at least, you are like your father.”

Vaelin felt himself flush and bit back an apology. He’s right, I’m no courtier. “Forgive my intrusion, Highness. I have come to ask for your help.”

“Most people who come before me do. Although, usually with obscenely expensive gifts and several hours worth of grovelling. Will you grovel for me, young brother?” The King’s mouth had curved in a small, humourless smile.

“No.” Vaelin found his trepidation was quickly disappearing in the face of a cold anger. “No, Highness. I will not.”

“And yet you come here at this forsaken hour and demand favours.”

“I demand nothing.”

“But you do want something. What is it, I wonder? Money? I doubt it. It meant little to your parents, I daresay it means little to you. Help with a marriage proposal perhaps? Got your eye on some wench but her father doesn’t want a penniless Order boy for a son-in-law?” The King angled his head, studying Vaelin closely. “Oh no, hardly that. So what can it be?”

“Justice,” Vaelin said. “Justice for a murdered man, justice for his family.”

“Murdered eh? By whom?”

“By me, Highness. Today I killed a man in the Test of the Sword. He was innocent, a victim of a false conviction brought simply to make him face me in the test.”

The humour faded from the King’s face, replaced with something much more serious but otherwise unreadable. “Tell me.”

Vaelin told him all of it, Urlian’s arrest, his wife’s imprisonment in the Blackhold, the names of those responsible: Jentil Al Hilsa, the magistrate who had condemned Urlian, and Mandril Al Unsa and Haris Estian, the two wealthy men who had sought to profit from his death.

“And how do you come by this intelligence?” the King asked when he had finished.

“A man came to me tonight, a man I trust.” Vaelin paused, gathering his will for the risk he knew he had to take. “A man who knows much of the troubles besetting Deniers in the Realm.”

“Ah. For a member of an Order you choose unusual friends.”

“The Faith teaches us that a man’s mind should be open to truth, wherever he finds it.”

“It seems you have your mother’s way with words as well.” The King pulled a fresh piece of parchment from a stack on his desk, dipped his quill in a bottle of black ink and wrote a short passage. He then wiped the quill on his shirt sleeve, dipped it in a pot of red ink and wrote a list below the black text. He completed the document with an elaborate signature, then took a candle and a block of sealing wax, touching the flame to the wax to melt a droplet onto the bottom of the parchment. He blew softly on the wax for a moment then pressed his signet ring into it.

“Every time I sign my name to one of these,” he said putting his quill aside, “I have to amend my map.” Vaelin turned back to the chart on the wall, looking again at the list, black words crossed through with red. Names, he realised. Names of men he’s killed. Nortah’s father must be there somewhere.

“I’ll execute these men,” the King said. “On the strength of what you’ve told me. There will be no trial, the King’s Word is above all law. Their families will hate me for what I’ve done, but since I intend to confiscate their property and render them penniless it matters not.”

Vaelin met the King’s gaze, trying to decide if this was some kind of bluff, but saw no deception. “A family should not be punished for the crimes of but one of its members.”

“It is how it must be with nobles, leave the family its wealth and they’ll use it against me sooner or later. Besides, I know these men and their families. They’re a vile, greedy lot by and large. Life in the gutter will suit them well.”

“You put much stock in my word, highness. I could be lying…”

“You’re not. Thirty years a King teaches a man how to hear lies.”

A King’s justice is hard indeed, Vaelin decided. Could he stomach it? Seeing the certainty in the King’s expression he realised he had no choice. The course had already been set as soon as he opened his mouth. “And the man’s wife?”

“Well there we have a problem. She’s an unrepentant Denier. Aspect Tendris will no doubt seek to hang her from the walls in a cage. If she doesn’t die under questioning first, of course.”

“Highness, you are the King of this Realm and the Champion of the Faith. There must be some influence…”

“Must there?” The King's expression was a mix of anger and amusement. “I have done what I must this night.” He gestured to the death warrant he had written. “It is a King’s duty to dispense justice where he can. I will kill these men because they have broken the laws of this Realm and deserve their end. As for their victim’s wife, her crimes fall outside my jurisdiction. Therefore, it is not a question of what I must do, but what I may do, if it serves my purpose. So, Vaelin Al Sorna, tell me how saving this woman’s life will serve my purpose. You used your name to get in here, do you have nothing else to say?”

Mother, forgive me. “I know your Highness had plans for me, before my father sent me to the Order. If it pleases you, I will submit to your plans if you will secure the release of Urlian’s wife.”

The King’s reached for a crystal decanter on his desk and poured a measure of red wine into a glass. “Cumbraelin, ten years old. One of the benefits of Kingship is a well stocked cellar.” He offered the decanter to Vaelin. “Would you care for some?”

Vaelin’s head still ached from his binge in the ale house. “No thank you, Highness.”

“You father wouldn’t drink with me either.” The King sipped his wine slowly. “But then he never sought to bargain with me. I commanded and he followed.”