"Dregaul Matrell," the elderly woman said, "this travesty of a business decision you've made has seen its last day."
Bartimus could see then that she was accompanied by another woman whom the wizard did not know, as well as two house guards.
"Mother, what are you doing here?" Dregaul demanded, turning in his chair, a concerned look on his face. "You should be resting."
"I have no intention of resting while my son is bringing my House down around all of our ears," the elderly woman said. "I would think, after all these years, that you would have figured out by now that I can tell when you're up to something. Did you really think I would approve of such shaky business tactics? Worse yet, did you really think I would allow you to mortgage our finances to their limit so that you could start a war?"
"Mother, the upside to this venture is going to make us ten times the size we are now. When we're finished, we'll be considered up there with the really big Houses. House Matrell will stand tall in Arrabar."
Bartimus looked to Grozier, waiting for some sort of signal that the man would like him to act. For the moment, though, Grozier seemed to be listening intently on the argument in front of him.
"No, Dregaul. I'm sorry. You are not going through with this. I am still the head of this household, and I still have final say on what business ventures House Matrell enters into. I truly am sorry." and she turned first to Anista, then to Grozier, "but the deal is off the table. House Matrell won't be a party to an invasion of another city for profit."
"I'm afraid it's a little too late for that," Grozier replied. "Armies are already hired, marching orders have already been given. Things are in motion now, and not so easily stopped."
Hetta Matrell drew herself up to her full height, then, straightening shoulders that had not always been stooped.
"Then you will just have to find the way to stop these 'things,' or else find other business partners to replace your lost revenue. But you cannot have ours."
"Mother! That's enough!" Dregaul seethed, rising from his chair to fully face Hetta. "You're past your prime, Mother, and I'm sorry to say it, but you no longer have the clarity of thought to see that this merger is important-important! — to our future as a player in Arrabar's most prestigious financial arenas. I think it's time you officially stepped down and handed the reins completely over to me, Mother."
Hetta actually began to laugh then, shaking her head. She had to put a hand out to the other woman for support at one point, until she could get her breath back. Her chuckles only served to anger Dregaul, though, who drew his lips tight and grimaced until her mirth had subsided.
"I should have yanked full control of House Matrell back from you a long time ago," the matriarch said at last. "I could see you had no good understanding of what your father and I had tried to build here, but I kept holding off, thinking perhaps you'd finally figure it out. Sadly, I was wrong."
"And what was that?" Dregaul asked hotly. "What were you and Father trying to build? A second-rate, copper-and-silver operation? Because that's what we got. Hesta, Obril, Xaphira, and I got to grow up being the laughingstock merchant clan. House Matrell was nothing. All the other Houses turned their noses up at us, led by the bastard of House Mestel. Our own kin wouldn't even give us the time of day!
"And now, when I have a chance to do something truly remarkable, to finally let House Matrell make a respected name for itself in all the right circles, you come along and try to ruin it. I don't understand you. Don't you want to leave your mark? Don't you want to go to your grave knowing House Matrell was bigger than when you started it?"
Hetta was shaking her head, obviously hurt and saddened by her son's words. But she stood firm.
"Clawing our way to the top of the heap was never what this family was about, and I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of teaching you that, my son. But the time for lessons is past. I hereby remove from you all responsibility regarding this family's business interests and resume full control of them myself." She half-turned to the pair of guards behind her. "If he will not get up from that table quietly, remove him by force and lock him in the cell in the basement. Then come see me.
"As for the rest of you, I'm sorry it has come to this. I must respectfully ask you to take the remainder of your meeting somewhere else."
With that, Hetta turned and began to exit.
The two guards didn't move.
"I'm sorry, Madam Matrell, but it isn't quite going to work out like that," one of them said. "Please, go back into the room."
"Well, I'm glad we finally got a chance to gather for this meeting," one of the thugs surrounding Kovrim said with a laugh. "I've been waiting for this for quite a while." He motioned toward Vambran and Xaphira. "Come on over. Join our little party."
Vambran approached cautiously, freeing his crossbow from the hook on his belt and cocking it in one smooth motion. Xaphira fanned out to the opposite side of the alley, staying even with Vambran but not too close, giving them both room to fight.
"Oh, now, that's not very sociable," the man said in response to Vambran loading his weapon. "You really might want to rethink that. Someone could get hurt."
Vambran could see then that his uncle was unarmed, standing in the midst of the men with his arms stretched out to his sides, as though he had already surrendered to them.
"Uncle Kovrim? You all right?"
Before the priest could answer, the man who'd been acting as spokesman for the rest of the group responded, "Of course he's all right. We haven't harmed a hair on his balding head. Yet." The thug turned and leveled his crossbow at Vambran. "But that might change very soon, if you don't see reason and lay down your weapon."
Vambran halted his advance and studied his opponent, considering. If he gave in to the demand, Kovrim would almost certainly die. The men had no doubt been ordered to hunt him down and prevent him from sharing the information he had with anyone else. But if the lieutenant and his aunt decided to fight it out with them, Kovrim would likely fall within the first moments of the battle anyway. Either choice seemed like a bad proposition for the mercenary's mentor. Vambran chose to stall.
"It's too late," he said, hoping to bluff the thug. "I already know the news. Even as we speak, the alliance of the three Houses is being dissolved. The fight is already over; you just don't know it yet."
The lead thug laughed and said, "That's a pretty good story, my friend, but sadly, I recognize a lie when I hear one. I would know if something was going wrong back at your estate. I'd have heard about such events as quickly as they occurred."
Vambran knew it was a possibility that the fellow was in some sort of magical communication with his employers, but he'd hoped for the outside chance that he wasn't. Still, Vambran refused to diminish any of his family's chances by acting hastily.
"Maybe your lord just can't think straight," said Vambran. "Maybe he got caught so unaware that he never had the chance to warn you."
"Sort of like how I caught you and your grandmother unaware earlier tonight?" the thug responded.
Vambran's eyes narrowed, and his jaw jutted out in anger.
"You," was all he said.
"Me," the thug replied. "It's so easy to assassinate someone when you have the house guards on your side. They just let me through, easy as you please."
Vambran raised his crossbow, sighting down it at the thug, who raised his eyebrows.
"Careful, boy, you might accidentally shoot someone important," the thug said, smiling knowingly. "Wouldn't want that to happen again, would we?"
Off to his right, the lieutenant heard Xaphira gasp softly, but then she said, "Vambran, don't be a fool."
The mercenary only stood there, looking past the fletching of the bolt at the thug who had shot his grandmother, wondering how the man before him might know his secret. He could barely restrain himself from firing.
"You think you can hit me somewhere that will keep me from shooting back?" The thug asked, aiming his own crossbow. "We just might kill each other, but th
en, where would that leave your uncle?"
"I will see your blood on the cobblestones tonight, one way or another," Vambran said menacingly, but he lowered the weapon.
Pulling the bolt free, he set the crossbow itself down on the street and shoved it away with his foot. Then he slipped his sword free and let it fall, too. Finally, with the bolt in his hand, he took a few steps closer to the thug, his arms out to his sides, showing that he was unarmed.
"You're smarter than I was led to believe," the thug said. "Maybe I'll let you live, give you a chance to work for me," he added, smiling. "But then, you already did. You just don't know it."
He recentered Vambran in his sights.
At that moment, a mist began to rise from the street, much to the surprise and dismay of the thugs gathered in a cluster near Kovrim. Their shouts distracted their leader enough to cause him to turn around to see what the fuss was about. At the same instant, Vambran brought his crossbow bolt up so that it rested freely atop his open palm, with him looking down its length at his opponent. He spoke a quick phrase, enchanting the bolt with arcane dweomers. The bolt flew from his hand, straight toward the leader, just as he was turning around again.
The thug must have had cat's blood running in his veins, for he somehow managed to shift his weight enough at the last possible moment, so that the bolt struck him in the arm rather than squarely in the chest. As the thug reeled from the blow, staggering wide-eyed back a step, he reflexively pulled the trigger on his own crossbow, letting the missile fly. Vambran had anticipated the possibility and slid off to the side, but he'd guessed wrong, turning into the wild shot rather than away from it. The bolt struck him in the shoulder, just below the edge of his armor, sinking into his flesh.
The mercenary cried out, dropping to one knee from the pain. He looked over at the leader and saw that the man had dropped as well, clutching at his own arm. Behind him, there were shouts of confusion and pain, but the other thugs were enveloped in a thick mist that engulfed them completely. Vambran could see nothing. He took a deep breath and rose to both feet again, reaching down with his good arm to retrieve his sword. He grasped it and walked with a purpose over to the wounded leader, who was warily watching him approach.
"I told you," Vambran said, raising high his blade, "that I would see your blood spilled tonight. Too bad you didn't listen." The mercenary officer loomed over his foe, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who told you about it?" he demanded.
The thug laughed and said, "No one, foolish boy. I watched it with my own eyes."
Vambran snarled in fury and swung his sword down, aiming for the thug's neck, but at that moment, the man uttered some arcane phrase and simply vanished before Vambran's eyes. The mercenary's blade sliced through thin air.
"Damnation!" the lieutenant screamed, spinning around, trying to see where his would-be opponent had fled.
There was no sign of the man.
At that point, another one of the thugs staggered out of the obscuring vapors and, seeing Vambran, the man hefted his own sword and came at the mercenary. Growling, Vambran turned to fight. As they danced on the cobblestones, the lieutenant tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his shoulder where the bolt still protruded. Several times, the thug lunged in toward that side, perhaps hoping to force Vambran to jerk back out of the way and cause himself pain. On the third such lunge, though, Vambran was ready for it and spun completely around so that he ended up behind the thug, slashing into the small of the man's back with his own blade. Vambran's foe cried out in pain and fell to the street.
Vambran was already turning to look for another opponent to vent his anger on, noticing then that the misty vapors had begun to dissipate, drifting away with the perpetual breezes that blew through Arrabar. The lieutenant could see more figures, many of them surrounding Kovrim, who had summoned a cloud of coins with which to fight. Kovrim kept the glowing, incorporeal weapons dancing before himself, using them exclusively defensively. Vambran also noticed that Xaphira had managed to slip inside the circle of thugs and was standing back to back with Kovrim, using only her hands and feet to keep the approaching thugs at bay. Several of the attackers were lying about the alley, some of them still, others moaning in pain. Six or seven still stood, though, and they seemed to have gotten the idea that if they timed their attacks to occur simultaneously they might get inside the pair's defenses.
Vambran was just squaring himself to jump in and attack one or more of the thugs from behind when he heard a shout from the opposite direction. Turning, he spotted a host of men at the mouth of the alley running toward him. He groaned, thinking at first that those were reinforcements for the thugs, sent to come in from behind him and keep him from escaping. But then, he got a better look at the soldiers' markings and saw that they were members of the Sapphire Crescent.
Most of the mercenaries rushed past him, crashing into the remaining thugs who, realizing they were outnumbered by a sizable margin then, turned and fled. Vambran doubted any of them would reach the far end of the alley.
Two of the mercenaries pulled up short, though, stopping to face Vambran and salute him.
"Looks like you needed a bit of help, sir," Adyan drawled, that scar on his chin glowing in the moonlight. "Glad we happened to hear your scuffle."
"We've been sent to bring you back to the temple," Horial added, a smirk on his face. "I couldn't think of a better reason to gather the platoon and come see if you needed some assistance."
Vambran looked back and forth between the two men and started to laugh.
"Well met," he said, offering his hand. "Well met!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Emriana continued to tug against the strips of cloth that Denrick had used to bind her into one of the high-backed chairs in her own room. He'd torn them from her dress, which lay in a discarded heap on the floor nearby. Wearing only her chemise, she glared at the young man, who was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her with a glare of his own and rubbing a spot on his forearm where she'd managed to bite him. That was before he'd wedged a thick knot of more cloth into her mouth and tied it in place with yet another strip. So she was confined to the chair, her legs and arms strapped down. Denrick had managed it with the guard's help, of course.
"That wasn't very nice," Denrick grumbled, examining his wound.
Emriana had barely broken the skin, but watching her captor fuss over the fresh wound gave her some small level of satisfaction. She glanced over to where Jaleene sat next to her, tied to another chair in a similar fashion. The handmaiden's eyes were wide with fear, and she'd said nothing since awakening. Emriana pitied the woman a bit, but not so much that she had forgotten to be afraid for her own well-being.
Despite her bravado, Emriana knew that she was helpless against whatever Denrick ultimately wanted to do to her, and his intentions seemed pretty clear as he studied her, that wolfish grin slowly returning. She desperately wished the dress were still on, no matter that it had been a rather uncomfortable thing to wear. She refused to let her fear show through, though, and kept her malevolent gaze right on his face the entire time.
Denrick stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the two women. He placed his hands behind his back as he did, as though deep in contemplative thought. He began to speak.
"If this marriage is going to work at all, we're going to have to establish some ground rules. You know, some guidelines by which you can keep from getting into trouble, which you most definitely are in right now."
Emriana simply snorted through her gag, showing what she thought of the older boy's guidelines.
"Deride them if you want, but at your own peril," Denrick said. "For I might begin to grow tired of you if this foolish resistance keeps up for much longer. I had hoped for a more amicable marriage, but I will take what I need from you less amicably, if necessary."
The girl lowered her eyes for the briefest of moments at Denrick's not-so-veiled threats, feeling her heart pound. He seemed perfectly capable of following through with sat
ing his despicable lust. She could see it in his eyes. The look had always been there, had always been a part of Denrick Pharaboldi's visage, for as long as she'd known him, and it was what was always so off-putting about the man. Emriana had just never realized what it truly signified until just then.
"So, whether you begin to recognize the value in making me happy, or I have to extract my enjoyment from you the hard way, I will get my satisfaction from you. It was promised to me from the start of this little venture, and I will have you."
Thinking of her uncle negotiating with such a man and using her body as part of the offer incensed Emriana. She began to thrash, jerking on the strips of cloth that pinned her to the chair, grunting in fury and desperation. Her rage washed over her, and she wanted nothing more right at that moment than to lunge at the glowering, smirking cretin and scratch out his eyes. She wanted to ram her knee up between his legs as hard as she could. She wanted to cry.
"Excuse me, Master Pharaboldi," came a voice at the door to Emriana's rooms.
Denrick spun around with a sigh of exasperation.
"What is it, Bartimus?" he asked, impatient.
The man standing there was slightly paunchy, with a round face and a flat nose on the end of which sat a pair of spectacles. The man's hair was sort of greasy and white. He seemed to be working very hard to be ingratiating to Denrick, for he wore a silly grin, but at the same time he appeared distracted, as though he was thinking of something completely separate from the discussion at hand.
"Master Talricci and Master Matrell have finished dealing with everyone else at the meeting. And the house is secure."
"Excellent," Denrick said, nodding. "And my mother?"
"She is waiting with the others. Master Talricci would like to know if you want to deal with her yourself."
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