Serpentine (The Beggar's Ride Book 1)

by Tim Stead

“I came here at her request,” Narak said. “But it is you that we are here to question, Nils Drammen. You plotted to kill the king.”

  Drammen drew himself up. “I do not deny it,” he said. “But I was not the father of the plot; that was another, one who I am proud to serve.”

  “Your confession invites the death penalty, Drammen,” Narak said. “And Kelcotel verifies your guilt.”

  “But I will walk free from here,” Drammen said.

  “He believes it,” Kelcotel said. “He truly does.”

  “So who is your paymaster? Who is it that you admire so much that you will give your life in his cause?”

  “I am not afraid to speak his name,” Drammen said. “But you will be afraid to hear it, Farheim.”

  “You skirt it like a virgin at a village dance, Drammen. The name. Give us the name.”

  “I serve Wolf Narak,” Drammen said.

  Narak stared at the man. “Wolf Narak?”

  “Aye, the Wolf himself, and I bear the ring to prove it.” He held up his hand, and sure enough there was a wolf ring on his finger. Narak glanced across at Kelcotel, and he could see that the dragon was amused. The man was telling the truth, or at least the truth as he knew it.

  “Please,” said the dragon. “I beg to be permitted to tell him.”

  Narak ignored him.

  “And you have met him?”

  “Of course. He gave me the ring himself.”

  “How did you know he was the Wolf?”

  “He told me. And he bore two blades strapped to his back. Nobody would be insane enough to impersonate the Wolf.”

  Kelcotel could barely contain himself. “It is just too amusing,” the dragon said. “The irony is superb.”

  Narak sighed. “Tell him then, Kelcotel.”

  The dragon raised itself up so that it towered above them. He was going to make the most of it.

  “Nils Drammen. You know that I, Kelcotel, judge and truth teller in residence at the city of Golt do not lie, cannot lie. I am the very enemy of falsehood. Hear this. The man who brought you here is none other than Narak Brash, one time Benetheon god of wolves, also called the Wolf, Lord of the Forest, Master of the Hunt, the victor of Afael, the Bloodstained God, Master of Wolfguard, Dragon Kin, consort of the god mage Eran Pascha, and Lord of Col Boran.”

  Drammen looked from the dragon to Narak and back again.

  “No,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Narak. “I am Wolf Narak, and I never gave you that ring.” It was frustrating. He had the name of the paymaster, but it was false, and so he was no closer to finding the heart of the plot against the king. He was only glad that the king had not heard this.

  “It seems,” the dragon said, sounding very pleased, “It seems that there is, after all, someone insane enough to impersonate the Wolf.”

  24 A Dishonest Man

  Mordo had been waiting for a chance like this. Another dead candidate and the Wolf nowhere to be seen. It was perfect. He had made sure that he was close to where he would be needed, and when dawn came and the woman died he lay in wait for Eran Pascha on the stair. When he heard her step below him he pretended to be descending and stepped quickly to one side and bowed his head.

  “It is a great burden that you bear, Eran,” he said as she passed. It was bold of him to speak before he was spoken to, but he judged it a time for boldness. She paused and looked at him. “It is the hardest thing,” he said. “To do what is right when it feels so wrong.”

  “Thank you, Mordo,” she said.

  “Is there anything I can fetch for you? A glass of wine, perhaps? Something to eat?”

  “I don’t want to drink,” she said.

  “Music, perhaps? It can sometimes lift the spirits.”

  She considered the offer. “Music. Yes, that would be fine. Is Sheyani here?”

  Mordo did not want to fetch Sheyani. The Durander mage was another confidant who would take Mordo’s place, but he could hardly refuse, and if he pretended that he could not find her it would be a failure against his name. That would never do.

  “I will fetch her at once, Eran,” he said.

  He berated himself for his miscalculation. He should have seen that she would call for the Halith, but he would not make that mistake again. He must never again suggest music. Even so, the encounter was not a complete loss. He had been at the right place at the right time and placed himself once more in her memory, and she had known his name.

  He made his way quickly across Col Boran to the mansion that Sheyani Esh Baradan shared with her husband. It was not as grand as some of the residences here, but it was substantial, and a hundred times what an Under-Steward could expect. He knocked vigorously on the door and it was opened by a servant.

  “The Eran has summoned the Halith,” he said. “See that she comes at once.” The servant scurried off to find her mistress and Mordo waited. Should he escort the Halith back to Eran Pascha, or should he assume his duty done? He decided against escorting her. He always felt somewhat exposed around the Halith because she had a gift for reading people, like the Wolf, and he did not want to be read.

  He set off back towards the god mage’s palace.

  Mordo was aware that he was different from most of the people in Col Boran. He was cleverer than most. He was certain of that, but this was not the major difference. He was not handicapped by debilitating emotion, and this, he felt, gave him an unassailable edge. While others moped about each wasted life that the Eran’s tests swallowed up he was able to use every opportunity for advancement.

  He was surrounded by ambition that at least matched his own. There were those among the Duranders who would stop at nothing to advance their personal cause, and others, the ambassadors from the kingdoms that came and went on a regular basis, harboured both personal and national ambitions that dwarfed his own. Mordo did not want to rule the world. He knew it was impossible. Only the talented could rule and he was not among them.

  As he walked up the path he saw a girl ahead of him. He recognised her as the Serpent’s ward, a parvenu at Col Boran. He resented her sudden appearance, her access to Eran Pascha’s ear and her totally unwarranted status, but Mordo was careful. He did not make unnecessary enemies. Who knew when he might have a use for her?

  He could see that she was distressed. There had been some connection between her and the dead woman, he knew, and as she approached he stopped by the side of the path.

  “Lady Callista,” he said, “we all share your grief. It is a tragedy.” The girl stopped and looked at him. She didn’t know who he was, but he would fix that. “Forgive me,” he added. “There is no reason you would know me. I am Mordo, Under-Steward to the Eran.”

  “Thank you for your kind thought, Mordo,” she said.

  “If there is anything you need, send for me and I will do what I can.” He executed a small bow – polite, but not obsequious. After all, she was nobody, really.

  “Thank you,” she said. She flashed him a brief, polite smile and carried on, hurrying towards the guest apartments. He noted that she had not returned his bow, so she was like the rest of them – arrogant, full of herself, thinking that she was better than Mordo simply because of the accident of her birth.

  Mordo carried on walking. He had duties to attend to, and he would perform them to the best of his ability, for Mordo knew his own worth. He did not doubt it for a minute.

  25 Misjudgement

  Duke Falini’s reaction to his little escapade had not quite been what Francis had anticipated. Clearly he had made a deep and lasting impression on the duke – he could hardly have done otherwise – but if he had expected the man to back off a little he had been wildly mistaken.

  The duke’s soldiers were everywhere. The level of brutality had increased beyond all reason, and the city was on the verge of civil war. It would not be a war between the duke and the populists, who, as the late Johan had pointed out, had no army, but between Falini and the king. The king had ordered the duke’s men off the streets, and the
duke had ignored him. Tension was building.

  Francis had taken the only practical measure. He had stopped all activity in Dock Ward. There were no meetings, no protests, nothing. He had told his people to go back to their trades and work as though the ward committee had never existed. He would get in touch with them when it was safe. Other wards had followed his lead, and so Falini’s soldiers were achieving very little.

  Francis had been a fool. He had shown his hand and invited a response when he would have been better advised to play a waiting game. He suspected that he had been manipulated by the General, prodded into precipitating this clash. If so, it had been a clever move on the old man’s part.

  It was only two weeks after his fateful visit to Falini’s estate that he heard the news. The king was dead. Falini’s assassins had waited for their moment and tried to make a clean sweep of it, killing the king and his entire family in one bloody assault, but they had failed. One had escaped.

  It was the worst possible outcome for Falini, because the survivor was Rubel Casraes, the heir apparent. The boy had somehow managed to elude the assassins that had killed his father, mother and two sisters, and nobody had any idea where he was. Falini’s men were everywhere again, but their new cause took the eye off Francis’s friends. Now they were hunting for the fugitive prince.

  Francis saw this as an opportunity. He called together the Dock Ward committee once more.

  “The whole thing has broken open,” he told them. “The city regiments have withdrawn to their barracks and it’s only a matter of time before Duke Derali makes his move – within the week at a guess.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Keron asked. The big man was leaning against the wall by the door, half an ear on the outside.

  “Find the prince,” Francis said. “If we make ourselves the prince’s protectors the city regiments might come over to us.”

  “Somebody has to be hiding him now, or he’d have been found.”

  “True enough. But we need to know. Touch anyone you can for information. Spread the word to the other wards. Put anything else aside and find him. He’s more valuable to us alive than dead, that’s for sure.”

  “The boy’s only ten,” Carillo said.

  “His age doesn’t matter,” Francis told him. “In fact the younger the better for whoever has him. He can be trained. It might even be Derali holding him.”

  “We’ll not find him if he’s been took out of the city,” Keron said.

  “But we might find trace or rumour of it. Find what you can, all of it, and we’ll sift the lies from the truth.”

  They did his bidding. Francis was surprised how easily they had accepted him as their leader. None of them wanted the burden, he supposed. They were followers, just as he had been. It was only his anger at old Johan’s death that had spurred him to take it. Was that how it was? No. He knew better than that. There were men like Falini, like the general who expected to rule and command, who thought it their right. He thought that this might make him a better man than them, but not necessarily a better leader, and they needed as good a leader as they could get for the carnage that he knew must come, and the general was the man for it.

  It was not just Dock Ward. Once the word went out it seemed that all of the city wards followed his word. He had reports from them every day and rumour piled upon suspicion, heaped above what must have surely been lies or at least wild imaginings. Francis went through it all. He listened to the garbled stories, read the poorly written scraps of paper and tried to make sense of it all.

  It took a week for the wards to find the boy.

  There was something about the story that rang true to Francis. He was supposed to be hidden somewhere in central ward, only a few streets from where his father and mother had died. It stood to reason that he would be close, but it was the prince’s supposed saviour that clinched it. The man was a tailor, and a former royal guard who might well have known the prince. He was just a year or two out of service at the palace.

  The evidence was slim. Friends reported that the man had become more secretive. He had stopped drinking in his customary tavern and it was said that he was buying more food than in previous weeks. Francis thought it worth a look.

  He went alone. He was getting used to doing things alone, and more importantly so were the others of Dock Ward. Even Keron had stopped asking him if he needed company, and sometimes the way they looked at him was quite different than before, not exactly afraid, but something in that direction.

  He trekked up to Central Ward after dark, taking his time. He stopped in a tavern and ate an evening meal with a fellow smith who had taken a journeyman’s job in this part of the city. They talked of inconsequential things, and after they parted Francis bent his steps towards the street where their suspect lived.

  He stepped into the shadows of an alley and called his gift.

  Francis walked up the street to the house. The man supposedly lived with his wife, having no children. His name was Calitanto. Francis listened at the door. The time was not yet so late that they would be asleep, but he heard nothing – no murmurs of conversation, no sound of activity. He would have sworn that the house was empty.

  He tried the latch and found that the door was bolted from the inside. Was there another door? He slipped down an alley a couple of houses down to reach the street that ran behind Calitanto’s place. There was more privacy here. The houses had fenced yards and there were gates in the fences. Francis tried the gate, but that, too was locked. The fence was not that formidable, and with a little effort and the help of an old fruit box he levered himself up so that his elbows were on top, and studied the house.

  The yard was empty and clean. He could see that the curtains were drawn but a tiny spark of light was visible in one corner. Not empty then.

  He swung his legs up and clambered over the fence, dropping into the yard. He approached the house carefully and once more listened at the door.

  Now he heard voices. They were faint, and he could not hear the words they spoke, but one was clearly a man’s and the other was higher pitched and could have been a woman or a boy, or both. It could have been three voices. It was hard to tell.

  Francis had already considered the best way to approach this. He had decided that honesty would serve him best. He was not very good at lying and would most probably be detected in any fabrication. Besides, he liked the idea of honesty.

  He banished his gift and knocked on the door.

  The voices inside were stilled at once and he heard movement.

  “Who is it?” a woman’s voice.

  “Someone who will keep your secret,” he replied. “My name is Francis Gayne.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To speak with the prince,” he said.

  “There’s no prince here,” the woman said, but Francis could hear the terror in her voice.

  “I know he is inside,” Francis insisted. “I’m not going away.”

  There was more noise from inside and the door was wrenched open. Francis found himself facing a stocky man of late middle years, grey haired but still powerful, with a sword in his hand. Francis raised his hands.

  “I am unarmed, except for a knife,” he said.

  The man looked past him into the yard and to either side of the door, seeming to satisfy himself that there was nobody else.

  “Give me the knife,” the man said.

  Francis meekly handed his blade over, but that didn’t seem to mollify the man with the sword. He grabbed Francis’s jacket and pulled him inside. “Bolt the door,” he said, and his wife, a small woman of a similar age, did as she was bid. Now Francis was at his mercy. Or so it seemed.

  “If we wanted to harm the prince we’d just have told Falini where to look,” he said.

  Calitanto pushed him up against a wall. “We? Who’s we?”

  “You’d call us populists,” Francis said. “No friends of the Dukes at any rate.”

  “Populists? You’re the ones who want to do away wit
h the king.”

  “We’re the ones who think folk should rule themselves,” he replied. “There’s a difference.”

  “Who told you he was here?”

  “Nobody, and if we can work it out you can bet Falini will be close behind. We want to keep the boy alive.” Francis noticed that the blade eased a little further away from his belly at this. “There’d be no point in killing me anyway,” he added. “The whole of Dock Ward knows I’m here, and if I don’t come back…” He shrugged.

  “Why would you want him alive?”

  “Look, I haven’t got time for a political discussion, but the simple truth is this – if we have Prince Rubel as a figurehead it’ll bring the city regiments over to us. He’ll have no power, but he’ll have his life and his title, and we’ll treat him well enough. If he stays here you’re all dead.”

  He could see he’d got through to the man, but he’d never doubted it. One man couldn’t hide a prince for ever. He needed friends, and that’s what Francis was offering him, albeit in the unlikeliest of places.

  “I have to think,” Calitanto said.

  “Take your time, but not too much of it. You’ve shown great courage, but courage and loyalty will only take you so far.” Now to sweeten the deal a little. “You can stay with him as bodyguard,” he said. “I can think of nobody better.”

  The old man turned away. He went and stood by a table and poured himself a cup of wine. They had been eating, Francis saw, when he had knocked on the door. The food was growing cold.

  “It’s no good,” Calitanto said. “I’ll have to ask him.”

  The old man and his wife exchanged looks.

  “I’ll fetch him up then,” the woman said. She left the room.

  “I go wherever he goes,” Calitanto said. “And I won’t give up my blade.”

  “Of course,” Francis said. He didn’t think it would be a problem. After all, he had told the truth, quite unvarnished, and if the old soldier decided at some point that the deal he’d struck was a poor one, well, he was only one man, and Prince Rubel would not be going anywhere.