When they reached the camp, they took it slow, tiptoeing between the many tents. The four Wardens took the lead, their stronger eyesight allowing them to spot obstructions that might give them away, such as a stray cooking pot or an empty jug of wine resting against one of the tent’s support ropes. The whole while the rain kept falling, the sound the drops made when they struck the canvas tents eerie in their fleshiness. Careful as they were, it took them nearly half an hour to weave through the obstacles and reach the largest tent. They drew to a halt before it, the awning providing a needed respite from the downpour, and listened for any noise from inside. There was none to be heard, not even snores. For a moment Ahaesarus feared he would enter the massive canvas enclosure and find it empty, but he shoved that thought away and signaled to Ephraim that it was time. The bearded man’s eyes were alive with nervous energy when he nodded in reply.
The party slowly and carefully drew their swords, and Ludwig pulled back the tent’s entrance flap. The humans entered first, as they were able to pass through the opening while standing fully upright, whereas the Wardens needed to stoop. Ahaesarus was the last to enter. He left Ludwig outside to keep watch, touching his lips with two fingers, telling his fellow Warden that if there were trouble, he should call out to them. The flap closed quietly behind him after he squatted through the opening.
The interior of the tent was like another world. Instead of hard stone and meager tufts of yellow grass, boards had been placed down to create an actual floor. Luckily, those boards were covered in many places by plush mats, which damped the sound of the water dripping from their hair and clothes. The place was furnished with a washbasin and chamber pot on one side, and two large cabinets on the other. In the center was a large table on which burned the candles that provided scant illumination.
But it was what rested opposite them that drew the six farther inside. A bed was raised off the ground on four thick legs. Beside it was yet another cabinet, and hanging from that was a suit of armor and a massive, curved sword. On the bed was a lump whose chest rose and fell lazily.
Ahaesarus handed Grendel his sword, and Ephraim gave his to Judah, and without a word spoken between them, they inched their way across the wooden slats, approaching the bed. As they steered around the table and chairs, they caught sight of a map that had been opened atop the table, the corners held down by the burning candles. Ephraim turned and pointed at it. Uulon and Enoch sheathed their blades and removed the candles, rolling up the map.
His heart hammering in his chest, Ahaesarus and Ephraim snuck even closer, until they stood on either side of the bed. Ahaesarus looked down. The sleeper was middle aged, perhaps in the midst of his fifth decade, with straight hair cut short, graying around the temples. The side of his face was marred by a scar that ran along the side of his chin, rounded his jaw, and stopped at the vacant hole where his left ear should have been. Ahaesarus glanced around the room once more. You certainly paid for your rank, he thought.
He withdrew a burlap sack and piece of cloth from the bag tied to his belt, while Ephraim uncoiled a length of rope. Ahaesarus then leaned over, holding his hand in front of the man’s face, feeling the sleeper’s breath on his fingertips.
Ready? mouthed Ephraim. Ahaesarus nodded. In an instant, Ephraim shoved the cloth across the man’s mouth as Ahaesarus wrapped his arms around the naked man’s neck. The man immediately began to thrash and tried to cry out, but Ephraim pressed all the harder. So too did Ahaesarus tighten his arms, choking the breath out of the man. Together they kept his cries muffled as he struggled, until at last his movements slowed, and his body went limp.
Their quarry down and out, Ephraim went about binding the man’s wrists and feet while Ahaesarus stuffed the rag deeper into his mouth and threw the burlap sack over his head. Uulon and Enoch tried to lift him, but the man was too heavy for them to hold up without great effort, so Ahaesarus and Judah took over the duties of carrying his unconscious body. They left the large tent, eliciting a surprised grunt from Ludwig, and then worked their way back through the camp. The rain had slowed, making their movements noticeable this time. The fear was ever present that they might stir the sleeping soldiers to wakefulness, especially given the difficulty he and Judah had in lugging the man’s dead weight between them. They even heard a few moans and groans from the smaller tents as they passed them. Ahaesarus felt as though he were holding his breath the whole time. Right then and there he decided that should the soldiers awaken, should they emerge to find the seven of them sneaking off with their leader, they would simply throw the man’s body down and flee, their mission be damned.
It proved unnecessary, for they reached the rocky hill from whence they’d come without incident. A few moments later, after slipping and sliding and almost careening into one another, they made it over the top. Their tracks were still visible, and they followed them back through the decaying wasteland. The thought occurred to Ahaesarus that the soldiers would wake eventually to find their leader gone, and would follow their tracks. It does not matter, he thought. If luck were with them, they would be back at Blood Tower with their prize before any were the wiser.
“You did it,” said Craxton when they rejoined him on the other side of the hill, before hustling over the stones and gullies of the Tinderlands. “I thought Turock was sending us to our deaths, but you did it.”
“We did,” Ahaesarus said, though as he looked at their prisoner’s naked body as it hung between Judah and him, he had a hard time taking any pride in that fact.
CHAPTER
33
Matthew was restless. Each night he was haunted by the wan faces of Raxler and Shimmea, eyes sewn shut in the Brennan tradition, lips purple and swollen. He could even smell the rot coming off their corpses. The glow of the fire that rose from the dinghy where their bodies had been placed remained a phantom vision, assaulting his eyes each time he blinked.
He sighed, poured a finger of rum into his cup, and downed it in a single gulp. Bren had done just as he’d asked, killing Gertrude’s assistants painlessly by poisoning their wine when they toasted the successful birth of Patrick Gemcroft the day after Rachida and Gertrude set sail for the Isles of Gold. Though silencing them had been a necessary evil, the guilt of it bore down on his soul. As underhanded as he could be in matters of business, he had never ordered someone’s death before. He felt dirty, as low as the brothers he constantly fought.
They did this to me, he thought. The fucking Conningtons made me a murderer.
Shaking his head, he swallowed another finger of rum. His head was beginning to go fuzzy, but it wasn’t banishing his shame. Lately he was discovering how impossible it was to drown his sorrows in liquor, for it seemed the liquor only deepened his sorrow.
The solarium was mostly dark, the shades drawn against the outside world. The chair that usually brought him comfort now dug into his back and elbows, and he shifted restlessly as he stared at the small flames dancing in his hearth. It was the middle of the night, and he knew he should be sleeping in preparation for the next day, but he also knew that sleep wouldn’t come. A letter had arrived from Veldaren demanding that supplies such as grain, casks of water, and men be sent to the capital city. The most strident demand, however, was for weapons, and a delegation was on its way to make sure such supplies were dispatched without delay. The correspondence had been signed by the cleric Joben Tustlewhite, the letter sealed with the sigil of Karak’s temple, rather than that of House Vaelor. Matthew groaned. Dealing with the king would have been far more preferable, for men of practicality were easily lied to, while the truly faithful required detailed explanations when their demands could not be met. How could he give away his sellswords when he had less than a hundred left? Would they wonder at his excessive amounts of wheat and cattle, payment from the Conningtons for the weapons? And worst of all, how could he get around explaining that those weapons, a matter of public record as they had been purchased in the king’s court with Vaelor mediating between Romeo Connington and him,
were now missing?
The questions caused a headache to spike behind his eyes, and he rubbed his temples. A muted whimper echoed throughout the solarium, and he sighed. Moira was at it again, moaning as she sometimes did. Ever since Rachida and baby Patrick had set sail for the Isles of Gold, she’d been in a terrible frame of mind. Yet another thing to improve his foul mood…
He snatched up his rum, took a long pull straight from the jug, wiped the excess with his sleeve, and then stood up. The thought of Moira tossing and turning on her bed…well, perhaps that was one thing he could resolve. His drunkenness lending him courage, he stormed down the stairwell, using the wall for support, and then stepped off at the next level down. He passed the door to his bedroom, and those of his daughters and son, until he reached the one at the end of the hall. He barged in clumsily and closed the door behind him, too far gone to care that the sound of it slamming would echo throughout the hall.
Candles burned on either side of the large featherbed. Matthew took a step forward and saw Moira balled up on the bed, a sheer nightgown all that shielded her cream-colored flesh from view. A scarf was wrapped around her hands, which she held to her face.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. Matthew approached her, his thoughts askew. Actually seeing Moira as a vulnerable waif threw him off. He sat down on the edge of the bed, letting his hand wander across it until it fell on her shoulder. He thought she might push him away, but instead she pulled closer to him until her head was resting in his lap.
Matthew stroked her hair, stiff like hay from the constant dyeing. The scar that ran behind her ear and onto her lower jaw was raised and red, as if it too were sad.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “I just wanted to…do what I could to make you happy.”
“If you desired that, you would have sent me to the Gold Isles with her.”
Matthew winced.
“You know my reasons, Moira.”
He looked down at her, at the way her body quivered, at the side of her dainty breast, visible through a gap in her nightclothes. Her head resting in his lap was the final straw. The way it nuzzled, the look of her slightly parted lips, brought fire to his loins. He gently moved her head and, moving his hands to her shoulders, pushed her flat. Pinching her nipple, which poked against the thin fabric of her nightclothes, with his left hand, he slipped his right between her legs.
A fist struck him in the jaw, bringing stars to his vision. He felt a moment of weightlessness, his insides tightening from the combination of liquor and excitement, and then his body hit the floor. Pain shot through him and he let out a whimper, grabbing for his hip, which had struck the ground first. Before he knew what had hit him, he was being dragged across the floor.
When he was slammed into the wall, he opened his eyes, but surprise and drink had rendered his surroundings a blur. A weight pressed into his abdomen, and something struck his right cheek, causing the back of his head to hit the wall. A hand grabbed his hair, pulling at it, forcing his chin up.
“You don’t touch me,” a cold voice said, and he was slapped again.
Gradually, Matthew’s vision returned to him. Moira’s face was all he could see, her eyes narrowed, her lips pulled back, her nose scrunched. She had him straddled and helpless, and she slammed his head against the wall once more. He shouted in pain this time, but her hand stifled the sound. He noticed she held a dagger and gawked at her, confusion and terror running through him. Moira grabbed him under the chin with one hand, and pressed her cold steel against his jugular, the cutting edge feeling much too sharp.
“I am not yours to have,” Moira told him, the order spoken as if he were a disobedient animal.
“I…I’m sorry,” Matthew managed to say, his voice sounding weak to his own ears.
The dagger pressed harder against his flesh. Her voice was devoid of feeling.
“I tell you this now, Matthew, and you’d best remember. Everything I do, I do for Rachida’s safety, and right now that involves staying here as your prisoner. But whatever good will I had for you died the moment I realized you had lied to me. You kept me from my beloved Rachida, even when she was right here in this house. And then you dare to come in here with the drunken hope of taking advantage of my pain? Fuck you. Fuck you. You will not touch me again. You will not offer a kind word. You will not so much as look at me in any way that suggests an impure thought.” She drew back the dagger, eliciting a relieved gasp from him, and waved it in front of his face. “Should you disobey, I will open your throat and let you bleed out on your own carpet. Do I make myself clear?”
Sniffling, Matthew nodded.
“Good. Now leave my room.”
She climbed off him then, jamming the tip of the dagger into the nightstand and flopping back onto the bed. She glared at him, not moving an inch, until he left her presence.
Matthew wandered down the hall, feeling close to tears. His brush with death seemed to have cured him of his drunkenness, and the clarity of mind that followed sunk him even lower than he’d been at the start of the evening. In desperate need of comfort, he slunk into the bedroom he shared with his wife. Catherine was awake, propped up in bed with countless pillows, her nose buried in a book. She offered him a solemn smile.
“Darling,” Catherine said. “You look a mess. Come here.”
He obeyed, stumbling with each step, until he was awkwardly perched on the edge of the bed. Catherine put down her book and inched toward him. She was naked, but he refused to look at her.
“You reek,” she said. “How much did you drink tonight?”
“Too much,” he replied.
Her fingers danced across his face, turning his head.
“Your cheek is swollen.” She lifted his chin. “And there is a cut on your neck.” She said these things plainly, as if they did not require an explanation. She helped him into a reclined position, and then took his handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed at the blood.
“You are a silly man,” she said, shaking her head. She looked sad.
He closed his eyes, rested a hand on her thigh.
“Could very well be,” he said.
“No, not could be. Are. In fact, one could say that you trying to bed Moira Crestwell goes beyond silliness and enters into the realm of complete stupidity.”
His eyelids shot open and he stared at his wife in disbelief.
“Come now, you have no right to be offended by that,” she said. “Any fool can see she has no desire for a man, any man.” She chuckled and unbuttoned his coat, spreading it wide and stroking the hairs on his chest. “You should know better, darling. It is like trying to fuck a grayhorn. No good could come from it.”
He pushed her hand away and sat bolt upright on the bed, staring at her.
“Catherine…you…”
She nodded in a sorrowful way. “Of course I know, Matthew. I know about all of it.”
He felt his chest tighten, and his mind leapt to the worst possible conclusion.
“All of it?” he asked.
“Yes. You think me deaf, dumb, and blind? Come now. Your secret room is not so secret. And besides, a woman knows the smell of other women, especially when that smell is stuck to her husband.”
Matthew was speechless. He shuffled away from her, glancing toward the nightstand in the sudden fear that she might have a weapon nearby.
Catherine shook her head.
“Matthew, I’m not going to hurt you. I have known of your affairs since the week after we were married. If I wanted to kill you for them, I would have done so long ago. Karak knows, I’ve had the opportunity.”
“I…I don’t understand,” he managed to say.
“You wouldn’t,” she said with a sigh. “You are a man, a powerful and important man. You have certain…needs and desires that require nourishment. It is ‘the price of marrying a merchant,’ you are fond of saying to me. Only you’ve never realized how much of that statement I truly understand.”
She pushed back the blankets and got off the bed, heading toward the hearth and the table beside it. She swung her hips in an exaggerated way as she walked, sweat from the muggy evening glistening on her skin. She poured herself a cup of wine and drank it, then sat down on the chair beside the fire, crossed her legs, and stared at him from across the room. Her arms folded beneath her slightly sagging breasts, propping them up.
“Why didn’t you tell me to stop?” he asked, feeling comforted by the distance between them.
“What would that have accomplished?” she asked.
“I might have stopped.”
She laughed. “See, even now you cannot bear the thought. Might have stopped? Might? No, you would not. I’ve known you since we were both children, Matthew. Perhaps you might have tried harder to hide it, feeling guiltier each time you strayed. At worst, you would have killed me like you did those two who helped deliver the Gemcroft woman’s child.”
“Wait,” he said. “How do you know about that?”
“I know about everything, Matthew. I have eyes and ears, and I pay attention. It is a wife’s duty to know what goes on in her husband’s life. My existence, and that of your children, depends on you.”
“Yes,” he said. “But how?”
“I have my ways.”
She stood up and strolled to the bed once again. Matthew swallowed hard, his mind awash with confusion. She stopped when she reached him, letting her arms fall to her sides, exposing all of herself to him.
“You are a good man, Matthew,” she said. “I may not like all that you do, but I understand it. You must know that being a woman, while wonderful, comes with its drawbacks. We are smaller than menfolk, weaker. Though our minds are just as sharp and we are the ones who nourish life once it is created, we are still considered secondary. The men are the ones who make the decisions; the men are the ones who decide the laws of this land.”
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