The Red wolf conspiracy tcv-1

by Robert V. S. Redick

  For of course nothing mattered beside the grand catastrophe hanging over him. The Isiq daughter, gone. Six hundred vessels descending on Simja for a wedding that could not occur. Day by day they were drifting toward an embarrassment that would sting for centuries. And he would be at its epicenter: the fool in Ormael who lost the Treaty Bride.

  "This wine is splendid, Governor," said Syrarys.

  Bless her, thought the governor. She does try to help.

  "Jasbrea Vineyards," mumbled Captain Rose, frowning at his fish. "On Fulne."

  "Right you are, Captain!" said the governor. "You're a connoisseur."

  "I'm a drinker."

  First Mate Uskins laughed: a sound like a sheep poked with a dagger. The governor's wife tut-tutted and made the sign of the Tree.

  "'Drink is bottled woe, I shall abandon it,'" she said. "The twenty-first Rule of Rin. Don't you find, Captain, that…"

  Across the table, Lady Oggosk raised her milky eyes and studied the governor's wife coldly. The woman let her voice trail away.

  A servant entered. By his look of nausea it was clear he bore bad news. Keep it to yourself, the governor thought. But he let the man whisper in his ear.

  In fact the news was anything but bad. The governor jumped to his feet.

  "She is found!"

  "Found?" cried Eberzam Isiq. "Thasha, found? Where is she?"

  "I'm right here, Prahba."

  And there she was at the door! Unharmed, even tranquil. She did not run to her father but merely walked, slowly and calmly, and put a hand on his.

  "My child!" he said, choking on emotion or swordfish. "Where did you-"

  "Wicked girl!" shrieked Syrarys, embracing her. "I've worried myself sick! I haven't slept, do you know that?"

  "I expect you pace the castle all night," said a voice at the main door.

  Everyone but Thasha gasped. Dr. Ignus Chadfallow stepped into the room, followed by a bruised-looking boy.

  The ambassador stood up, too. "Ignus! Pathkendle! What on earth has brought you here?"

  "A Volpek ship, Your Excellency, but that is a long story. At the moment what I most recall is the horrors of their galley. Is there no hope of dinner, Governor?"

  "Hello, Mr. Uskins," said Pazel quietly, looking straight at the first mate. Then he turned and smiled with great affection at Fiffengurt.

  "You rascal!" said Fiffengurt, beaming.

  Stuttering, the governor called for two additional plates.

  "Make it four," said Chadfallow.

  "You three and who else, sir?" asked Uskins.

  "Hard to say, isn't it?"

  The new arrivals took their seats. Thasha sat beside Syrarys, facing her father.

  "Where did you go, my star?" asked Isiq bluntly.

  "North," she said, "to the Haunted Coast." Then she looked at Syrarys. "I'm parched. May I taste your wine?"

  Syrarys pushed it at her. "You've scared us out of our minds! We thought you were dead!"

  "And that, of course, would not do at all," said Chadfallow.

  "Doctor!" said Isiq furiously. "You and I are the oldest of friends, but I cannot excuse this tone! You're addressing my lady and consort!"

  "It is my sad duty to inform you," said Chadfallow, "that I was addressing your poisoner."

  Screams and bellows. One of the servants seemed to think Chad-fallow was referring to the fish and began to cry. Syrarys wept loudly. Isiq threw down his napkin and looked ready to challenge the physician to a duel. Lady Oggosk nibbled bread.

  "You're jealous!" cried Syrarys. "You never wanted Eberzam to love me!"

  "On the contrary," said Chadfallow. "I wanted it a great deal. So much so that I ignored the signs of treachery until they stared me in the face."

  "What the devil are you talking about, man?" shouted Isiq.

  "You would know, sir, if my letters had reached you. Ah! Here's another guest for dinner."

  Outside the doorway, still as death, stood Sandor Ott.

  Isiq gestured sharply. "Come in, Nagan! Why do you wait?"

  Ott did indeed seem reluctant to enter the room. Syrarys looked at him fixedly At last he seemed to make up his mind, crossed the room and knelt at Thasha's side.

  "Lady Thasha!" he said. "Thank all the Gods! I have hunted day and night-"

  "I'll bet you have," said Pazel.

  "Chadfallow," said Isiq, "are you mad? You seat this insolent boy beside my daughter, you accuse my lady of wishing me dead-"

  "Oh!" cried Syrarys.

  "She looks faint!" said Uskins. "Give her some wine!"

  "Give her silence!" roared Isiq, and everyone obeyed.

  Syrarys clung to his arm, sobbing. Then she groped for her wine and drank deeply.

  "Syrarys, darling," said Thasha, "the doctor's upset you."

  "He lies! He hates me!"

  "You look ill," said Thasha.

  "Send her away from me! Oh, Eberzam, I wish I were dead!"

  Thasha reached for her hand. "You need something to calm yourself. What about a few of Prahba's special drops?"

  Syrarys froze. Her wet eyes turned slowly in Thasha's direction. "If only I had them," she said. "They're in my cabin."

  "No, they're not." From under the table Thasha produced a small blue vial. "I had to stop at the Chathrand before dinner," she said. "Really, I looked a fright. And something told me this might come in handy. A harmless tonic to soothe the nerves-isn't that what you called it? So I put a few drops in your wine."

  Syrarys looked pale.

  "There's nothing to fear," said Thasha. "Remember how you put it? Tasteless and harmless. You could drink it by the glass."

  "A few drops?" whispered Syrarys.

  "Well, nineteen."

  Syrarys' tears were gone. She sat perfectly still. Dr. Chadfallow opened his bag and withdrew a bottle of his own.

  "May I acquaint you with oil of grubroot, Lady Syrarys? For your predicament there is really nothing like it."

  Syrarys tensed all over. Then her face twisted into the look of rage Thasha had always known she was hiding.

  "You damn doddering fool!" she screamed at Isiq. "Two more days with you and your Pit-spawn daughter! That's all we needed! Two days!" She snatched Chadfallow's bottle and ran for the kitchen.

  "Do not let her escape, Governor," said Chadfallow quietly.

  Isiq looked as if he had been struck in the face. He gave Thasha a beseeching look. His lips trembled, as if he were about to speak, but no sound came. Thasha put her arms around his neck, and propped her chin on his hairless forehead.

  "You aren't ill, Prahba. You never were."

  Then Fiffengurt spoke softly: "All… we needed?"

  "Quartermaster," said Captain Rose, "you will return to the ship."

  Fiffengurt looked at him sharply. "Oppo, Captain. As you will."

  He rose and bowed to the governor's wife, who was making the sign of the Tree over anything that moved.

  "But… but… but," said the governor, looking from face to face. "It's a fair q-question, isn't it? What did she mean by we?"

  "She meant herself," said Chadfallow. "And her lover, Sandor Ott." He pointed at the spymaster.

  Isiq turned in his chair and cried, "No!"

  Rose laughed sharply. "That old tinshirt, Sandor Ott? His Supremacy's chief assassin? Why, I wouldn't trust him to assassinate a dog."

  "An excess of trust will never be your burden, sir," said the doctor coldly. "But you know who this is."

  "'Course I do. He's an honor guardsman. He's a butler with a sword."

  "A butler deadly enough to kill everyone in this room and walk out unscathed," said Hercуl from the doorway. "Hello, old master."

  Ott leaped so fast no one saw him move. Back to the wall, he drew his sword.

  "Have you lost your minds, all of you?" he said. "My name is Commander Shtel Nagan. Sandor Ott is the Emperor's spy, and no one knows what he looks like!"

  "That was true once," said Chadfallow. "But your ambition has proved stronger than yo
ur wisdom in recent years. I know your face, Ott, from my time as Special Envoy in this city. You came here disguised as a merchant, but you were secretly gathering information for the Rescue of Chereste."

  "Invasion, you mean," said Eberzam Isiq.

  Pazel looked at him with amazement.

  "I recognized you," Chadfallow went on, "when I returned to Etherhorde. You were always there in the shadows. At last the Emperor introduced us properly-and swore me to secrecy. But I swore another oath long before-to defend Arqual against all enemies."

  "I swore the same oath," said Ott. "I have lived by it all my life."

  "Not all," said Hercуl, drawing closer. "Not, for instance, when you sent one of your men to knife me in the dark and cast my body to the waves. Nor when you killed him, after he failed, so that no one would see his broken wrist. Yet thanks to Pazel Pathkendle and my brethren from Tholjassa, I saw the poor lad. In the Uturphe morgue. And of course I know your face. How sad to meet this way! I once revered you so."

  "Stop meddling, both of you," said Rose in a warning voice. "This man is a guest on the Great Ship."

  Chadfallow smiled at him. "That, sir, is one of many reasons I am glad I did not sail with you. On the Chathrand you outrank us all. On dry land you outrank Fiffengurt and Uskins."

  "Ambassador," said Ott, turning to Isiq, "I have watched over your family for years. Your dear first wife, your daughter, yourself."

  "You have," said Isiq uncertainly. "But so has Chadfallow. And Hercуl has long been my daughter's tutor."

  "The doctor did not serve you on this voyage," said Rose. "He abandoned your family out of fear. He disobeyed the Emperor himself. And now he claims that Syrarys is this man's lover. How do you know, Doctor? Have you seen them together? Has anyone?"

  No one spoke for a moment.

  "Diadrelu-" began Thasha. But she caught Pazel's look of alarm and fell silent.

  Slowly, Rose sat up in his chair. "What sort of name is that?"

  "Never mind!" said Pazel. His voice rang in the sudden silence.

  Rose turned to him, unblinking. "It sounds like a crawly name."

  "How dare you!" squeaked the governor's wife. "This is the ambassador's daughter! And you imply that she talks to… ship maggots! For shame, for shame, Captain Rose!"

  Before Rose could reply, Lady Oggosk made a sound of disgust. Leaning forward on her elbows, she gestured at Ott with a butter knife.

  "I saw them together-that man and Syrarys. Of course they're lovers. I caught her with him months ago, at Castle Maag. She confessed. He was tired of being a servant, she was tired of the ambassador. Once Thasha married the Sizzy prince, and peace reigned, these two would grow rich in the new world of trade between the empires. Bribes, usury, imaginary taxes. They'd be fat as sultans. The ambassador was too sick to decide much himself, she told me. Of course, I didn't know she was poisoning him."

  "You treacherous cur!" said Isiq to Ott. "You'll hang!"

  The governor stood up, trembling all over. "Mr. N-Nagan," he pleaded, "or whatever your name is-will you kindly lay down your sword?"

  Ott stepped forward. Hercуl's eyes narrowed and his hand went to his own sword-hilt. But the spymaster merely bowed and laid his sword upon the table. A knife followed, long and white and well worn.

  The governor heaved a great sigh of relief and sat down. And Ott lifted his knife again and hurled it straight at Lady Oggosk.

  The next three seconds were astounding. Hercуl lunged and caught the knife in midair. Oggosk screamed. Sandor Ott leaped onto the table and ran its length. Thasha plunged her dinner fork into his leg, but Ott, never slowing, dealt her a savage blow to the face. Then, reaching the table's end, he planted a foot on the governor's head, driving it facedown into his dinner, and leaped straight at the round window behind him.

  But something else flew at Ott's head in that instant: a hissing red blur. Sniraga.

  A horrid noise, and a downpour of colored glass. A moment later, Hercуl reached the window.

  "He's in the courtyard!" he shouted. "Drop the portcullis! You there! Drop that gate!"

  Silence. Then a resounding clang. Hercуl's shoulders slumped.

  Turning back to the room, he said, "The cat is safe in the gardenias, Duchess, and her claws have marked the spymaster for life. Governor, your men have sealed the palace-"

  "Victory!" cried his wife.

  "— one second after Ott departed it." Hercуl sighed. "You may call out your constables, your bloodhounds, the port marines. You may tear what's left of this city apart. But you won't find him."

  "Do you mean to say that they had been planning this for years?" said the governor, as one servant picked swordfish from his beard and another lit his pipe.

  "I'm certain of it," said Isiq, despondent. "Syrarys was always the one most eager to move to Simja. Now I know why."

  "They subjected you to deathsmoke in Tressek Tarn," said Chad-fallow quietly.

  "Deathsmoke!" cried Thasha, aghast. "The monsters! Thank heaven we were only there a night."

  "I will have to perform some tests," Chadfallow went on, "but I am very much afraid that the droplets you've been taking were also a deathsmoke concoction."

  "But you can cure him, can't you?" demanded Thasha.

  The doctor lowered his eyes.

  "No," said Isiq. "He cannot. There is no permanent cure. One grows stronger with the passage of years, but a deathsmoke addict craves the drug until he dies. I have seen men die for it, too, in the navy."

  "You will not die," said Chadfallow. "That much I can promise you. But you may have to fight, Excellency-like a tiger, to master yourself."

  "Speaking of tigers…," said Pazel.

  There was a scrabble of claws, and Sniraga pulled herself in through the window. She walked primly to Lady Oggosk. Furtively, Thasha watched the old woman lift her pet. Why did you help us?

  Oggosk seemed to feel her gaze. Her cloudy blue eyes rose to Thasha's own.

  "Where thou goest, I follow fast," she whispered.

  Those words. Where had Thasha heard them before? At first the memory refused to surface. Then she had it: the Mother Prohibitor's emerald ring. The words were inscribed about the emerald. Could Oggosk be a Lorg Sister? Did she have her own cherry tree in the Orchard? Had she prayed before dawn, kneeling on icy stones? Had she sat on Thasha's bench?

  Dimly she recalled the Mother Prohibitor's words: On the path you are doomed to tread one of us at least will be near you. In dire need you may call upon her; she cannot refuse.

  "If you're a friend," she whispered to Oggosk, "why did you send your cat to steal my necklace?"

  Oggosk looked at the silver chain on Thasha's neck, and gave a violent sort of squirm. "Too late for all that, too late," she muttered.

  "What do you mean, too late?"

  But Oggosk would no longer meet her eye.

  "Such lengths the villains went to!" the governor was saying. "To play with the life of His Supremacy's ambassador, to arrange a marriage across both empires-"

  "Without Thasha's wedding there would be no ambassadorship," said Chadfallow, "and thus no way for Ott and Syrarys to leave Arqual. And that was the only chance they had of a life together. His Supremacy would never let Ott retire. He was too useful to be allowed to fall in love."

  "Whereas I," said Isiq, "was useful only because I fell in love."

  "Then you bring us no peace!" cried the governor's wife. "This marriage was a trick, and we must go on living with Sizzy threats and raids, and fearing a third sea war!"

  "Wrong, madame," said Chadfallow.

  Pazel and Thasha looked up at him, startled.

  "Sandor Ott twisted events for his own purposes," Chadfallow continued, "but the wedding of Thasha and Prince Falmurqat is no trick. The Mzithrini want peace, and so does the Emperor."

  "What?" cried Thasha and Pazel together.

  "Hush, children-"

  "The Emperor doesn't want peace!" Pazel blurted. "He wants the Sizzies fighting themselves! He wan
ts a civil war!"

  Chadfallow looked at him calmly. "Don't speak of what you don't understand, Pazel."

  "Well then, how do you explain what happened on the Haunted Coast?"

  "The two events are unconnected," said Chadfallow. "Arunis hired the Volpeks to help him raid a treasure-wreck. Had he not kidnapped Tholjassan sons and daughters-and had Thasha not found Hercуl and the smugglers in good time-he might have succeeded. But one greedy conjurer hardly matters, weighed against the chance for an era of peace."

  "One greedy conjurer?" said Thasha. "That's what you call Arunis?"

  "Oh, Thasha," said the doctor. "You cannot think that we are speaking of the Arunis? That man was hanged forty years ago! This is an upstart who took the sorcerer's name, the better to frighten us with."

  "Like pirates, eh?" said the governor. "There were six Billy Blacktongues."

  "Just so," said the doctor. "And you see how well the tactic works? Even Thasha believed in him."

  Now the young people were too afraid to shout.

  "Hercуl?" said Thasha quietly.

  The Tholjassan was looking very hard at Chadfallow. "I am not a statesman," he said.

  "But I am," said Chadfallow. "And I hope that you will trust my judgment as ever, Hercуl. This so-called Arunis was a passenger on Chathrand, but he had nothing to do with the other criminals aboard."

  "Unless you two have a… special source of information?" said Rose.

  Pazel and Thasha looked at each other. They were trapped. To mention the ixchel would be to condemn Diadrelu and her kin to death.

  "But they were working together," Thasha pleaded. "This is one big conspiracy!"

  Chadfallow shook his head. "Two small ones, merely," he said. "And we have just dealt with both."

  "You're mad!" shouted Pazel. "The Shaggat Ness is aboard the Chathrand!"

  The adults-all of them except Hercуl-laughed. Even Eberzam Isiq managed to chuckle sadly.

  Thasha jumped to Pazel's defense. "It's true, Prahba! You're being fooled all over again!"