King of Foxes

by Raymond E. Feist

  She looked at him and grinned. “Well said. Now, before you flee, tell me, did you sleep with Princess Svetlana before you killed her?”

  Suddenly Tal knew that here was the other side of Natalia, the cold, calculating, vicious side. “M’lady?”

  Natalia laughed. “Not to worry, Tal. Kaspar has told me little, but I know enough to see clues and draw conclusions. You may leave me now.”

  Tal bowed and hurried out. The morning staff was busy in the citadel, hurrying about their business, less _______________

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  than an hour before the Duke’s retinue would be up and asking for their morning meals.

  He slipped into his own quarters and found Amafi already awake, with a change of clothing waiting should Tal require it. Tal motioned toward the tub. It was steaming, so Tal knew it had just been refilled. He smelled of Natalia and her perfume, and knew that would bring raised eyebrows should he get too close to the other members of the court today.

  As he slipped into the water, he said to Amafi, “Should I ever forget, please feel free to remind me that Natalia is every bit as dangerous in her own way as her brother.”

  Amafi motioned for Tal to lean forward so he could scrub his master’s back. “No, Magnificence, she is more dangerous.”

  Tal couldn’t think of any reason to argue.

  __

  Tal looked up as Amafi came into the room. He was covered in what appeared to be blood. “Gods, what happened?”

  “Something extraordinary, Magnificence. Put on simple clothing, quickly.”

  It was almost midnight, and Tal had just returned from a late supper with Kaspar and some other members of the court. The meal had turned into an after-dinner bout of drinking and storytelling with no one but Natalia leaving the table for hours. She had excused herself, claiming fatigue, and with one quick glance had communicated her frustration to Tal. With an equally quick shrug and tilt of his head, he had responded that there was nothing that could be done, and he would have to visit her some other time.

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  Tal changed into a tunic and leggings he wore for exercising in the marshaling yard.

  “The boots will not do,” said Amafi.

  “I have nothing plainer.”

  “Then come barefoot.”

  As Tal stood, Amafi came over with a handful of ashes from the fireplace. These he rubbed across Tal’s face and into his hair. “Magnificence, try to look like a lowly peasant, and perhaps we will both live through this night.” Then he rubbed some blood off his tunic and onto Tal’s tunic and face.

  Tal followed and the former assassin led him straight to the wing of the citadel used by Leso Varen. As he neared the wizard’s quarters, what he saw would have caused him to falter, had he not had a strong stomach.

  Servants, all of them ashen-faced and many trying not to be sick, were carrying bodies out of the wizard’s apartment. Mixed among the servants were faces Tal did not recognize, perhaps workers from the city. Someone shouted, “You two!” pointing at them. “Fetch that tub in here and be quick about it.”

  Tal and Amafi grabbed up a large wooden tub filled with water mixed with something caustic. Even breathing the fumes made Tal’s eyes water. Turning his head to one side, he helped his manservant haul the tub into the wizard’s apartment.

  Leso Varen stood off to one side, studying a pile of parchments on a table before him. He would glance up every so often to watch the work, but his attention was focused on the writings.

  The room they first entered was the very room in which Tal had been sworn to oath, and it was flanked by large doorways on either side. The doors on the left were open, and Tal and Amafi were directed to lug their bur-den into the adjoining room.

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  Tal set the tub down. For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes. He did not have the words to describe what he saw before him. The room was stone, without a tapes-try or any other item of comfort to be seen. Shelves lined one wall, filled with books and scrolls. The wall opposite the door was adorned with a series of shackles hanging from chains, and from the abundance of blood splattered there and on the floor below them, it must be whence the bodies had come, Tal decided. The third wall revealed a solitary window. In front of that sat a small desk upon which a solitary inkwell and quill rested. To the immediate right of the door stood a large table covered with vials, jars, and boxes. The floor had a large drain in the middle, and blood was trickling toward it.

  Tal didn’t need to feel the hair on his arms and neck stand up to tell him that foul magic permeated this room.

  He remembered enough of his training from Sorcerer’s Isle to have some idea of what was going on here. Dark spells of binding and powerful incantations designed to confound enemies, as well as many other arcane practices, all were made more puissant by human death and blood.

  This Leso Varen was a necromancer, a master of the magic of death, and he had undertaken some great spell recently. From the distracted expression he wore as he consulted his notes, Tal deduced things hadn’t gone well for him.

  Tal took up a brush and began scrubbing the floor, while Amafi worked on the walls. Tal used his task to memorize every detail he could about the place. He worked his way over toward the bookshelves, attempting to read titles if possible. Many of the volumes bore no let-tering on the spines, while others revealed glyphs and markings he could not understand. But a dozen or more were readable, in the language of Kesh, Roldemish, the _______________

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  Isles, and a few other tongues he knew. He memorized them all, determined to make a copy of those titles against the day he reported back to the Conclave.

  So intent was Tal on this that he almost didn’t sense someone coming up behind him. As he lowered his head, he felt a hand upon his shoulder. He turned, keeping his eyes low in case it was someone who might recognize him and saw a pair of bare feet below a long dress with a filthy hem. He glanced up and saw a young woman holding a fresh bucket of water. In heavily accented Roldemish, she said, “To clean.”

  He nodded, stepped away, and put his hand on the wall as his head swam. She didn’t pay him a second glance as she threw the water on the floor, washing away the bloody mess and leaving a clean area behind.

  He stood motionless as the girl walked away, taking the bucket to a larger tub of clean water. Amafi saw Tal standing and yanked hard on his sleeve. Whispering, he said, “You’re staring, Magnificence. Keep your head down!”

  Tal returned to scrubbing, all thoughts of recording titles of books driven from his mind. The work went on for another hour, and then he was ordered to carry the tub out of the room. Outside, he found a stairway leading down, and he and Amafi ducked down it. Halfway down a long corridor, he opened a hidden entrance to the servants’ passages and led Amafi back to their quarters. The tub from that day was still full, and Tal said, “We’ll both have to use it, then you will have to empty it by the bucket. We can’t have anyone seeing all this blood.”

  Amafi said, “Magnificence, what happened back there? You looked as if you had seen a ghost.”

  Tal looked up. “Almost, Amafi. Almost.” He pulled off his blood-soaked tunic and tossed it to his servant. “Burn _______________

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  these,” he instructed, taking off his filthy trousers. He sat in the tub and closed his eyes. But the face of the young woman hung in his mind’s eye like a portrait burned into his memory. Every hair on her head, the smudges on her cheek, and the marks on her face—bruises, some old, some new.

  But he remembered her in a time when her face was dusted with freckles by the sun, and her honey-colored eyes narrowed as she regarded him in a way that made him want to die. He ducked his head under the water and washed his hair. As he came up spluttering, he covered his face wit
h his hands, for he had seen a ghost. He knew that tall, slender body. He had seen her run with the other girls at Village Kulaam, back when Talwin Hawkins had been named Kielianapuna—Little Red Squirrel—and she had been called Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal.

  Amafi came and said, “What is it, Magnificence?”

  Tal felt the urge to shout, I am not the last of my kind, but knew to do so would mean telling Amafi more than he wished to share with the former assassin. Finally he said,

  “That girl in Leso Varen’s room, with the blond hair.”

  “Yes, Magnificence?”

  “She . . . put me in mind of someone I have not seen for years.”

  “Ah,” said Amafi as he began peeling off his blood-stained clothing. “A startling resemblance.”

  “Very startling.”

  They exchanged places, and Tal dried off with a towel.

  As he got ready for bed—knowing that sleep would probably not come—he said, “Tomorrow, while the Duke gives me my final instructions before we leave for Salador, I want you to find out what you can about who those people were who come to clear away the bodies. It must be someone the housecarl trusts to keep silent. Find out what you can.”

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  “About the girl?”

  Tal considered. “Not yet. For the time being, just find out where she is and who her master is.”

  “Yes, Magnificence.”

  Tal sat in front of the fireplace, trying to get warm, and discovered it took far longer than it should have.

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  ELEVEN

  SALADOR

  The carriage rolled down the street.

  Tal and Amafi were heading to a house that had been rented through one of Kaspar’s agents in Salador.

  He was not acting in any official capacity for the Duke on this journey. There were no envoys, no diplomatic tasks, no representing Olasko in the palace of the Duke of Salador. No one was to know he was Kaspar’s agent, or of his installation as a court baron of Olasko. To everyone in Salador, he would continue to be Squire Tal Hawkins, returning to a city he had resided in years ago.

  He had a plan, and he knew what was expected of him, and what his fate would be if he was caught or if he failed.

  Still, he forced himself to reexamine the plan again, for he always felt as if somehow he was missing something. For the first time since taking Kaspar’s service, he felt uncer-

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  tainty. Tal knew every detail of his plan, yet he was constantly distracted.

  And he had been since the night he had seen Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal in the citadel.

  Amafi had discovered only a little, that a trader named Bowart was the man called upon to occasionally haul away the dead from the citadel. He disposed of the bodies, and no one knew where. Amafi also discovered that he ran a gang of knackers, men who carried away dead animals, horses and cattle for the most part, that had died in traces or in the field. It was rumored he also had connections to the slave trade down in Kesh, and smugglers down in the Southern Islands.

  If Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal had been sold to him by the raiders in Raven’s party, then there might be others who had also survived. Tal understood why Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal might have been spared; she was a striking girl of rare beauty. He also understood why she might be reduced to the most menial service, for while she might survive rape, she would fight with every bit of strength she possessed, as would any woman of the Orosini, and she would never submit to working in a brothel. A slaver who had purchased her from Raven’s gang for that reason would be sadly disappointed.

  The frustration of knowing that she, and possibly others, had survived turned Tal’s world on its ear. Since the day of the raid he had assumed he was the last of his people, for no word of any other Orosini had reached Kendrick’s or any other place he had visited in the region.

  That would make sense if whoever survived had been immediately marched back to Olasko after the raids. But Tal had no way of knowing that, and he had based his entire existence since then on the notion that no one else among _______________

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  his people had lived past that day. No one to care about.

  No one to live for.

  His course was clear, but for the first time since taking the road of vengeance he now had a reason to live. Until the moment he saw Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal, he didn’t care if he survived as long as he avenged his people.

  Now he must survive. He must destroy Captain Havrevulen and Duke Kaspar, and survive so he could find Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal and any others who might have survived, and perhaps someday return to the mountains of home and rekindle the spark of the Orosini, no matter how faintly.

  Amafi sensed a change in Tal, and on several occasions had asked his master if something was amiss. Tal had deflected the questions with vague answers that he was concerned with Kaspar’s orders.

  Tal constantly reminded himself that no matter what had changed, one thing remained constant; to survive, he must do Kaspar’s bidding until such time as Kaspar could be destroyed, and until then, Tal must be his loyal servant.

  The carriage reached the house Tal was renting, and a footman opened its door. Tal exited with Amafi behind him, and Tal walked up to the house and knocked on the door.

  A girl opened it, and said, “Yes, sir?”

  “I am Squire Hawkins.”

  She stepped aside. “Welcome to your home, Squire. I am Magary.”

  As he entered, Tal said, “My manservant is Amafi. He will be majordomo. Who else is here?”

  “The cook, sir. Well, he’s not here, but he’s on the staff. He is at the market; we just got word of your arrival yesterday from the owners of the house. I can make tea, if you care for some.”

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  “That will be fine. Anyone else?”

  “No one else, sir. When the house is not occupied, I keep it clean, and Lucien cooks for the two of us. We never know quite what is needed until the tenant arrives.”

  Tal could see a drawing room in front and a hall that no doubt led to the kitchen. Another room’s door could be seen on the right side of the hall, behind the drawing room. Tal asked, “What’s in there?”

  “The pantry, sir.”

  “No dining room?”

  “Upstairs, sir. It’s a bit of an odd house, but it’s a nice enough place, once you’re used to it.”

  Tal nodded. “I’ll be upstairs. Have Amafi bring up our luggage, then bring the tea.”

  Tal went exploring. Within the space of a few minutes he found the girl’s description apt. The small house had a lovely view of the central square of the city, directly across from the road that led up to the Duke of Salador’s castle.

  At the front of the upper floor, his dining room had two floor-to-ceiling windows, which commanded that view.

  There were two bedrooms on the floor above, one slightly larger than the other. As he examined what would be his room, Tal realized why this house had been picked by Kaspar’s agent in Salador. It had one unique quality: a small, inconspicuous door that led out to a tiny sitting area on the roof, a little deck surrounded by a low iron fence. It overlooked the city in the opposite direction from the Duke’s castle, affording a clear view of the city rolling down to the harbor. There was a single tiny table and a pair of chairs. While in the shadow in late afternoon, during the summer it would be a lovely place to take a glass of wine at sunset.

  It also would be a lovely way to slip in and out of the house without being seen. Tal went to the edge of the tiny _______________

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  deck and looked down. The wrought-iron fence was primarily there to keep someone from inadvertently stepping off. On the bottom of the fence, a series of very sharp spikes pointed
downward, probably to keep curious thieves from climbing up and entering through the door.

  Tal had no doubt that a determined thief could easily circumnavigate the hazard, but he would be more likely to find an easier target than bother, especially if the local thieves knew the house was rented, which meant it contained nothing worth stealing most of the time.

  But what intrigued Tal was how easy it would be to get across the narrow alley below to the house opposite, one that appeared conveniently abandoned, if the broken windows were any indication. A stout board of sufficient length and no fear of heights were all that was needed.

  Tal would have Amafi look around for such a board, or secure one from a supplier of lumber.

  He went back inside to find Amafi unpacking. “Is the house sufficient to your needs, Magnificence?”

  “Yes.”

  “It has no tub, and the jakes are downstairs to the rear.

  But they’ve left a very nice pot for night soils.”

  Tal shrugged. He had got used to having a copious bathing tub in the room at Kaspar’s citadel, but his home in Roldem had had only a tiny tub. That one was so small he had to sit with knees up to his chin in order to bathe, and it didn’t hold enough water to stay hot for more than a few minutes.

  “Find out where the nearest acceptable bathhouse is. I know a few closer to the harbor, from when I lived here before.” For a moment he remembered his time in Salador, with Caleb and Pasko, perhaps the happiest time in his life after the destruction of his village. Perhaps some time in the next week he might revisit a few of their old haunts.

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  There was one gambling house he particularly liked, down by the fish market, which was a little rough compared to the others, but a friendly, honestly run place where he and Caleb had spent quite a few nights.

  He wondered what Caleb was doing. And the others, Robert de Lyis, Pasko, Magnus, Pug, and Miranda . . .