The Blackest Heart

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “Fetch me that satchel under the stool.” She nodded toward the hearth. “I’ve something that may help you with your fever and heartaches, and perhaps even help with the infection on that arm.”

  Lawri ceased her brushing, scooted across the room, and snatched up the leather bag. “It’s heavy.” She set the bag on Tala’s lap. It was heavy, and cinched closed with a thin leather thong. Tala’s fingers fumbled tentatively with the tie, loosening it, a luminescent green glow rising up from the bag as she slowly let the flap fall open.

  Lawri’s dark-pupiled eyes widened as she leaned in and examined the little glass marbles, translucent and bright. “What’s this?”

  “Take one.” A tremor ran through Tala, not even knowing if it was poison or medicine she was about to offer her cousin.

  Lawri reached into the bag and snatched up one of the clear glass balls. “It’s squishy,” she said, pinching it between two fingers.

  “It’s medicine,” Tala said, regaining her composure some. “For your infected arm. The same thing the Vallè sawbones is giving Jondralyn to help her heal fast. It also helps with fever and heart ailments.” The lies that I allow to spill from my mouth!

  “This is medicine?” Lawri’s brow scrunched with misgiving. “The stuff inside actually glows.”

  “It’s Vallè medicine,” Tala said. “Take one a day.”

  Lawri studied the green ball. “It’s squishy, but I doubt I could chew through it.”

  “Swallow it like a pill. I imagine it will dissolve in your stomach.”

  “I suppose if it’s good enough for Jondralyn”—Lawri popped the green ball into her mouth and swallowed—“it’s good enough for me.”

  Dread filled Tala’s heart. It’s the Bloodwood’s game. Making me deceitful and false. Even to the ones I love most.

  She thought of the map of Purgatory she had stolen from Jondralyn’s room, knowing what she must do next.

  †  †  †  †  †

  “Nobody is allowed to visit Hawkwood,” Leif Chaparral said as he limped down the stone steps. Tala’s heart dropped. They had toured many places in the dungeons of Purgatory so far, and this was the last—and still no Hawkwood. Still no chambers or corridors similar to those she had memorized from the map.

  “But you agreed we could see both Sør Sevier traitors,” Glade complained. He wore both of Hawkwood’s captured swords in leather sheaths strapped crosswise over his back. Their spiked hilt-guards jutted over his head like antlers. “I need to see both Gault Aulbrek and Hawkwood.”

  “I agreed to give you a tour of Purgatory, my brother.” Leif guided Glade, Tala, and Lindholf down the last few steps. “And that was all. Hawkwood is being held in a different part of the dungeon. He is off-limits to any visitor. Not even the blood kin of the future captain of the Dayknights is allowed to see him.”

  Leif stepped aside, beckoning his brother to enter the last chamber. “But you needn’t be too disappointed. You can speak to Gault Aulbrek to your heart’s content.”

  “Gault’s here?” Glade pushed his way around his brother and into the cavernous room.

  Tala followed, surprised by the size of the vaulted, torch-lit chamber.

  The map had described this room exactly. The starting point of the journey. Two heavy iron cages sat in the center of the room, just as the map had detailed.

  The Sør Sevier knight Gault Aulbrek sat smack in the center of the nearest cage, shackled at both wrist and ankle, a chain connecting him to an iron loop set in the solid rock floor. Seeing the newcomers, he slowly stood. The two armored Dayknights standing at attention in front of the cage lowered their spears in his direction. Tala noticed a large metal shield leaning against the chamber’s stone wall directly behind the two knights.

  Lindholf La Graven clomped up next to her, suspicious eyes roaming the darkness. “Something doesn’t feel right in here,” he muttered. Leif and ten other Dayknights filed into the room behind him.

  “It’s a dungeon, you clodpole,” Glade said. “Ain’t you been paying attention? The entire place is spooky.”

  Tala found that Gault was looking straight at her, his eyes hard and unyielding. The torchlight gleamed angrily off his bald pate. She approached him with trepidation. A wave of breathless anticipation filled the air. “What are you gonna do?” Leif stepped in front of her, blocking the way. “Slap him again?”

  Gault heaved at his restraints, eyes biting into the back of Leif. Tala could still see the marks she’d made on his face. This was nothing like the trip she had taken with Roguemoore and Jondralyn through the secret ways into the dungeons under the arena to visit Squireck Van Hester. The only similarity was the constant oppressive heaviness of the stone walls and stone ceiling above, that and the crushing darkness all around.

  “I need everyone to leave me alone with this man,” she announced.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Leif said with a wry quirk of his mouth.

  “The questions I need to ask him are private.”

  “Questions?” Leif looked at her, stunned. “What questions? What nonsense are you going on about?”

  “Glade asked you to give us this tour at my behest, Ser Leif.” Tala faced Glade’s older brother squarely. “But I had ulterior motives. I am actually here at the behest of my sister. And Jondralyn is desirous that nobody hear what we discuss.”

  Glade scowled, as did his brother. Leif said, “And you think you can just launch into some interview with a prisoner of Purgatory without so much as a by-your-leave?”

  She spoke in the most forceful tone she could muster. “We all know you’re to be the next captain of the Dayknights, Ser Leif. You’ve reminded us of that very actuality at every interval. In fact, the entire oxcart ride here you spoke of little else. Regardless. Do as I’ve ordered and pull your guards from this room and leave me be. Or do you wish to answer to Jondralyn?” Tala knew Leif could be calculating, but he wasn’t that bright. He looked to Jovan for all his direction. He would not confront Jondralyn. “Or what if I tell my brother you disobeyed my orders?”

  Leif laughed. “Your brother thinks your naught but a brat.”

  “He won’t take kindly to you disobeying my wishes. Nor will these Dayknights, who have just heard a princess of Amadon let her wishes be known. For they are charged with guarding my safety and doing my and Jondralyn’s bidding above and beyond yours. You are not their leader yet, Ser Leif. And until you are, they shall answer to me, and you’ve no say in this.”

  She could see his mind turning. Despite his frustration, he had a sublime confidence about himself. Still, she reckoned Leif would prove more malleable than Sterling Prentiss, easier to push around. He glared at her harshly, his dark-rimmed eyes naught but hollow pits in the gloom.

  She would not back down from him. A calm self-assurance came over her. “You must leave, Ser Leif. Take the guards with you. Glade and Lindholf can watch me from the chamber door if that will make you feel any better. But I’ve only done as Jondralyn bade me do.”

  Lindholf was gaping at her, while betrayal crawled slowly over Glade’s countenance. He was just now realizing she’d conned him yet again.

  Initially, to convince Glade to come on this journey with her into Purgatory, she’d had to swallow her pride and tell him a lie, that she agreed it best Sterling Prentiss had died and that his brother, Leif, would make a better Dayknight captain. She’d then discussed her fears that Sterling’s body would be found and his death traced back to them. She managed to convince Glade that Sterling’s plight atop the cross-shaped altar was all Hawkwood’s doing, that he was the Sør Sevier spy who had been poisoning Lawri. She convinced him that Hawkwood had set them up for murder. She convinced him that they needed to get the truth, that they needed to confront Hawkwood with the accusation whilst he was safely confined in the dungeons under the Hall of the Dayknights. And Glade had bought it. He had seen her plan as an opportunity to pin Sterling’s disappearance on someone besides himself, and also make himself a he
ro by solving the crime. Plus he was most desirous to show Hawkwood that his brother Leif had gifted him with Hawkwood’s captured swords, which he now wore strapped to his back.

  Gault Aulbrek stared at her curiously. Does he alone know what a fraud I am?

  She could feel the patches of sweat building under her arms. Though she was dressed in a manner Jovan would approve, she wore leather pants hidden under her dress, and a blue cotton shirt too, with Jondralyn’s map in her pocket.

  She let her eyes focus on Leif, stood her ground. “And once you leave, I am not to be disturbed.”

  Leif’s manner underwent a curious change, his expression morphing from anger to irritation to resignation. “Jovan was wrong,” he sighed. “You are exactly like Jondralyn.”

  Thrown off guard, Tala didn’t know what to make of his comment.

  Leif merely adjusted his cloak around his neck, refastening the heavy brooch. “Glade and Lindholf will stay with you then?”

  Tala nodded. “They shall stay within eyesight.”

  “What do I care if you talk to this Sør Sevier fool?” Leif said. “As long as I don’t have to hear any more of your bleating and squawking. How long will you need?”

  “Two hours.”

  “Two hours?” The look on his face was one of incredulity.

  “I’ve much to discuss.”

  “I’m going back to the castle, then,” he said, exasperated. “You are up to some mischief here, Tala, and I no longer wish to be part of it. Mind you, I do not like being manipulated, and I will not soon forget this.”

  That Leif was to be the new Dayknight captain was a fortuitous boon indeed. For Sterling Prentiss had been too rigid in the letter of the law, too wary. Leif, on the other hand, was just stupid and arrogant enough to take her down into Purgatory. What better way for him to show his power than to give his brother a tour of the dungeon, and grant his brother a personal meeting with the most dangerous man in Gul Kana? And that is why she had asked Glade to agree to the plan. And Glade was just arrogant enough to ask his brother such a favor. All deftly arranged by her through a series of betrayals and lies. The assassin would not win this time! Tala was growing better at the game. Confident.

  She sought her own kind of sanity in this competition with the Bloodwood, and she was learning from it. This game was her own form of bleeding a wound—a diversion from the pain, from the daily boredom of the life she lived in her brother’s castle, a diversion from that lack of familial love she’d sought ever since the death of her parents, a diversion from the pain of never feeling the comforting touch of another human being.

  The Bloodwood’s game was her escape from loneliness. And though she initially hadn’t wanted Glade on this journey with her at all, she was glad he was here. Lindholf too. She had asked him to come because she did not fully trust Glade and did not ever want to be alone with him again.

  But neither one of them knew the real reason why. Neither knew of the map she kept hidden in her pants pocket, or even of the pants that she wore under her dress.

  Leif turned to his younger brother. “Call for the guards if there is trouble. Four will be posted at the top of the stairs just out of eyesight; two of those will escort you from the dungeon when you are finished, and two will return to their posts in front of Gault’s cage when you are done. The rest will travel back to the castle with me. The brat is your responsibility now, Glade.”

  One by one the guards filed from the chamber after Leif, spear tips pointed to the ceiling as they marched. The heavy clomping of their retreat up the stairs grew soft in the distance, and eventually a smothering quiet fell over the chamber.

  Unashamedly pleased with herself, Tala looked from Glade to Lindholf and back. She could see the petulant look in Glade’s eyes.

  “You really want to ask him questions?” Lindholf’s voice was soft in the shrouded silence. His gaze was on Gault. The bald man stood unmoving in the center of his cage.

  “Let’s just go,” Lindholf continued. “I do not like this place, Tala. Something isn’t right down here. I do not feel comfortable without Leif or the guards.”

  “Are you afraid of the caged knight?” Glade scoffed. “If you don’t like it down here, go ahead and leave.”

  Lindholf’s fright-filled eyes were fixed on the Sør Sevier man. “Nothing good can come of spending two hours down here with this, this . . . this killer.”

  “We must stay.” Tala grabbed him by the arm. “All of us. Trust me.”

  “No.” Lindholf jerked his arm away.

  “Just let him leave,” Glade said. “He’s been a spoiled whiny nuisance this entire trip. Calling the Grand Vicar’s Palace a garish piss hole on our way here.”

  “It is a garish piss hole,” Lindholf reiterated.

  Yes, Lindholf was in a terrible mood and it wasn’t improving. He’d made the comment as they’d passed by the four-story edifice that was the vicar’s palace. Sheathed in shiny white marble, the palace rose up between the gray-brick, mortar-and-timber buildings of its surrounding Amadon neighborhood like a bright shard of heaven, serene and refined amidst the jarring tumult of the dirty city.

  “The grand vicar deserves to live in opulence if he wants,” Glade muttered. “He is, after all, our Lord Laijon’s holy prophet. His word is that of Laijon. You shouldn’t run his palace down like that. It’s blasphemy.”

  “Blasphemy or not, it’s still just a garish piss hole,” Lindholf rebutted. “Val-Draekin and Seita told me the palace was worth enough gold to feed every starving child in the Five Isles—”

  “The Vallè told you?” Glade scoffed. “What do the Vallè know of our Lord Laijon, the great One and Only?”

  “They’ve been teaching me a lot lately.”

  “You mean they take pity on you.” Glade pulled the ball-and-chain mace weapon Seita had gifted him from his cloak, whirling it around, making the air whistle. “You are naught but a puppy to them. They teach you to sneak about at the snap of their fingers.” He spun the mace faster. “Do they teach you to sit and fetch, too?”

  Lindholf went silent, the look in his eyes one of burning resentment. In some ways, Tala wished she hadn’t brought him along. Her heart went out to him. But she was exhausted, tired of defending him against Glade at every turn. She said nothing.

  Glade whirled the ball-and-chain mace about, then purposefully tossed it across the chamber into the darkness. “Fetch that.”

  “I’m not fetching anything for you,” Lindholf said.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Glade shrugged. “ ’Twas a useless bit of Vallè trickery anyway, that chain mace. Nothing more. Never woulda been good in a real fight. Glad to be rid of it. Like Jovan said, we needn’t learn boneheaded swordsmanship and Vallè tricks anyway. And I aim to obey my king.”

  He drew one of Hawkwood’s swords from behind his back. “Vallè tricks are for the weak-willed. Nothing like a real sword in your hand.” He held out the sword, admiring it. “Especially if it is the weapon of your enemy. You didn’t even bring a weapon, Lindholf. You’re practically useless to us down here.”

  “Glade is right.” Lindholf hung his head. “I am useless to you down here, Tala.” There was a gentleness within him, a tenderness that touched her heart. She hated seeing Glade abuse him. It was hard enough going through life with a scarred face and mangled ears, much less having your only friend bully you mercilessly for it.

  “You’re not useless,” she pleaded. “I need you.” But her words seemed to have the opposite effect as he slunk away toward the staircase. “Where will you go?” she called.

  “Up to where the guards are posted. Then I’ll just go with Leif back to the castle.”

  “Stay.” She took a quick step to follow, not wanting to venture on alone with Glade.

  “Let him go.” Glade seized her by the arm.

  Tala watched as her cousin disappeared from the chamber up the stairs. When he was gone from sight she jerked her arm from Glade’s grip.

  Glade glared at her and
stepped toward the cage, facing Gault. “So what information does Jondralyn want us to get out of this man?” The bald knight met Glade’s stare with a cold intent, the type of narrow-lidded gaze a murderer would give before slicing open a throat. Truth was, the Sør Sevier man terrified Tala like no man ever before. Glade stepped back from the cage. “You mean to interrogate him, Tala, or what?”

  Tala had once desired to be treated with fondness or even respect by Glade Chaparral, longed for him to be her protector. Now she usually felt only revulsion in his presence. But she needed him now that Lindholf had left. She faced him. “Listen, Glade, Gault Aulbrek is not why we are down here.” She grabbed the folds of her dress and pulled it up and over her body.

  Glade’s eyes went wide.

  She had on the leather pants under the dress, a blue cotton shirt, too. Glade’s shock at her sudden disrobing was short-lived. “Is that a water skin on your belt?” he asked. “And a dagger?”

  She reached into her pants pocket and pulled forth the map. “This is why we are here. A secret map that leads under the dungeon . . . to some great treasure.”

  Glade folded his arms, scrunched up his face in disgust. “This madness has to stop.”

  “We have to reach the Rooms of Sorrow.”

  “Rooms of Sorrow.” He snatched the parchment from her. “This whole charade into Purgatory was because of a map?” He glared at the paper, then at her. She felt the weight of his eyes, eyes that now regarded her with insolence. “There is nothing on this parchment, you fool. It’s blank.”

  “I know it’s blank.” She pulled Roguemoore’s tin of black powder from her pocket. “Give me the map.”

  He handed it back. She knelt down and placed the parchment on the smoothest cobble she could find. She opened the tin and rubbed the powder over the paper, bringing the intricately drawn map and instructions to life. Once the map was visible, she looked up at Glade triumphantly.

  “What is that you put on the paper?” Glade’s eyes held a measure of curiosity. Gault Aulbrek was watching her with some interest too.

  “A powder, one of Roguemoore’s concoctions. It lasts only a few hours before it fades again. That’s why we must hurry.”