Assassin's Price

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The second petition requested a reduction in tariffs because lands formerly used for crops and pasture had been flooded by the runoff from an abandoned copper mine and the ground rendered permanently fallow.

  Much as Charyn tried to concentrate on the first petition, his thoughts kept going back to Ryel. So he was almost relieved when, just after ninth glass, Moencriff announced, “Army courier with a dispatch from Marshal Vaelln.”

  Charyn nodded. It was about time the marshal replied to his instructions for dealing with Voralch. “Have him come in.”

  The study door opened, and the courier stepped inside, then stopped for a long moment, seeming to adjust the courier pouch as Howal moved toward the ranker in the heavy gray-green winter riding jacket to accept it.

  “Howal! He’s no courier!” Charyn bolted to his feet, shoving the chair back and drawing his pistol, too slowly, as he saw the green-clad false courier hurl the dispatch pouch toward him, then jerk the door open and begin to bolt.

  WHUUMPP!!

  Charyn found himself flung back into the bookcase, his ears ringing and gasping for breath. He looked to where the courier had been, gaping at what he saw—a crumpled and blackened pile of cloth, flesh, and other unrecognizable items, topped with a scattering of small iron shards. He didn’t glimpse much blood. He turned just in time to see Howal stagger and begin to crumple.

  Pistol still in hand, Charyn jumped toward the imager, catching him one-armed, and almost falling himself before managing to ease the unconscious figure to the carpet, not quite so gently as he would have liked.

  “Sir! Sir!” Moencriff’s voice seemed to come from a great distance, yet with a ringing echo behind it, as happened when Charyn had been firing his pistol in the covered outside courtyard.

  “Send for Maitre Kaylet! Now!” Charyn slipped the pistol back into his jacket, then turned Howal over. He could see that the imager was still breathing, and nothing looked obviously broken. Nor was he bleeding from anywhere that Charyn could see.

  Still dazed from what had happened so quickly, he remained kneeling beside the injured imager. He also realized that his shoulders and lower back hurt.

  Moencriff reappeared in the door. “They’re on their way, sir.” Then another guard appeared beside Moencriff in the door, and Charyn realized, belatedly, that it was Maertyl.

  Moencriff looked down, then looked away, as he seemed to be trying not to gag or retch at what lay just inside the study door, a door which appeared to be cracked in a number of places, as well as smeared with various substances.

  “Oh…”

  At the sound from Howal, Charyn looked down again and saw that the imager’s eyelids were moving.

  “Don’t move yet,” he said. “You need to lie there for a few moments.”

  Howal slowly opened his eyes. “You … all right?”

  “I seem to be. How do you feel?”

  “Sore … all over. What about…”

  “Your shields kept the explosion around him. There’s not much recognizable.”

  At that moment, Kaylet burst past Maertyl and into the study, stopping only when he stood over Howal and Charyn.

  “He’s going to be all right … I think,” Charyn said. “I told him not to try to sit up until he felt better.”

  “I feel … like I could sit up. It’s cold down here.”

  Both Charyn and Kaylet slowly helped Howal into a sitting position. Then Charyn gingerly stood, abruptly realizing that his legs were shaking. He took two wobbly steps to where he could put his right hand on the conference table to steady himself.

  “Are you all right, sir?” asked Maertyl.

  “I think Howal and I both need hot cider or something like it.” Charyn eased himself around the table and into the chair at the end.

  “Yes, sir.” Moencriff ducked back from the doorway.

  Kaylet helped Howal into the adjacent chair, then said, “You don’t seem to have any bumps or bruises.”

  “His shields held long enough, I think,” replied Charyn. “I managed to get there in time to break his fall.” He motioned for Maertyl to come over.

  “What happened?” asked Kaylet in a voice just short of a command.

  “Moencriff announced a courier from Marshal Vaelln,” said Charyn. “The courier came inside and stopped and did something with the dispatch pouch. I realized he wasn’t a real courier and called out a warning to Howal…” Charyn finished with a quick description of what had happened after that.

  “Your Grace, might I ask how you knew the man wasn’t a courier?” asked Maertyl.

  “I can’t tell you. There was just something not right about his uniform, and about the way he looked at me. I might have been wrong, but that’s why I yelled to Howal.”

  “I’m very glad you did,” said Howal slowly. “We both would have been killed if I hadn’t thrown shields around him. They weren’t very good shields.”

  “They were good enough,” Charyn pointed out. “I still don’t understand how he set off the explosives in the pouch.”

  “He must have used a pressure striker,” replied Kaylet. “You squeeze it and it sends sparks down a tube to a special powder. They’re used on ships sometimes when it’s really wet.”

  Pressure striker? Charyn was still thinking about that when Moencriff reappeared. “There’s some hot mulled wine coming. It’s ready. The cider is cold.”

  “Thank you. That will do.” Charyn turned back to Howal. “Are you feeling better?”

  “I’m supposed to be the one asking you,” replied the imager ruefully.

  Charyn stiffened. “Maertyl, there will likely be a message coming. Someone, somewhere will deliver a message. Most likely it will be a public messenger, or someone innocent, but let all the guards know immediately. Hold anyone who delivers a message. Anyone! It might be that they can tell us something about who hired them. Don’t open the message!”

  “Yes, sir.” Maertyl left the study not quite at a run.

  Before long, the hot mulled wine arrived, along with Chelia, who took one long and searching look to see that Charyn was fine, and then vanished. As a result, Charyn suspected, shortly after that, two junior ostlers arrived and carted off the remains of the unfortunately false courier, and after that, two scullery maids arrived, and they scrubbed away the last remnants of the near-disaster.

  While the maids were finishing, Maertyl returned. “Sir, all the guards have been told what to do if they’re approached.”

  “Good.”

  “You should also know that we’ve stabled and unsaddled the dead man’s horse. It’s marked with an army brand and all the tack looks to be army.”

  “Keep the mount for now. I’ll send a message to Marshal Vaelln about someone stealing an army mount and using it to impersonate a courier.” Charyn wanted to see the marshal’s response. He also wondered if someone had ambushed or otherwise replaced a real courier who might have been bringing Vaelln’s reply to Charyn’s orders dealing with Voralch.

  After Maertyl departed, Charyn quickly wrote the message to Vaelln and had Howal arrange to have it sent.

  By first glass, only the cracks and scars in the door gave any hint of what had occurred, and Charyn was back sitting behind his desk, still sipping the vaguely warm mulled wine. Howal was doing the same where he sat at the conference table.

  As Charyn thought over the morning’s attack, he realized something else, something obvious in hindsight. Whoever planned it knew that couriers from Vaelln were allowed into the study, and that was not known to someone unfamiliar to the chateau.

  Then, just before second glass, Faelln appeared with a street urchin, wrapped in rags. A second chateau guard carried an envelope.

  “Just put the envelope on the corner of the desk,” Charyn said, reaching for his letter knife. “I’ll read it, and then we’ll see what to do with you, young fellow.”

  The ragged youth glared at Faelln. “I didn’t do nothing wrong. I didn’t.”

  “No, you didn’t,” said Ch
aryn, his voice far more calm than he felt. “But the man who hired you to deliver the message did. We’ll get to that shortly.” He picked up the letter, with “Rex Charyn” written in standard merchant hand on the outside, and a blank seal impressed on the black wax. He studied it. The seal had the same indentation at the edge. He was careful to slit the envelope so as not to disturb the seal.

  The message didn’t surprise him:

  You have continually failed to address the problems of the factors.

  If you do not, the attacks will continue until you do or you perish.

  Charyn nodded. If the attack had been successful, there would have been a different message, one addressed to Bhayrn. Most likely both had been written, and then Ryel or his agent had watched the chateau, knowing there would have been a great uproar if Charyn had been killed or severely wounded. He replaced the message in the envelope, most carefully, and turned to the youth.

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “Not a copper … not a copper.”

  Faelln glared at the youth in the ragged clothes. “Just hand it over, all if it. Before we shake it out of you.”

  The boy seemed to wilt. Slowly he rummaged in his ragged garments before coming up with a silver.

  “What about the rest?” asked Charyn coldly.

  After a moment, a second silver appeared beside the first.

  Charyn took the silvers and studied them. Each had a mint mark, one a curled “N” and the other a blocky “T,” neither the stylized “L” that graced the golds minted by Lythoryn. But Lythoryn does mint silvers. Charyn smiled sardonically.

  “I earned them, I did,” the youth protested.

  “You did indeed.” Charyn turned to Howal. “Would you please go down to Norstan and tell him I need some silvers.” As the boy turned his head, Charyn mouthed “four” to Howal before saying, “Two silvers. I’m keeping these for proof, but our young friend deserves his pay. That is, if he’s willing to tell us about the fellow who told him to deliver the envelope.”

  Howal nodded and slipped out of the study.

  “You’d better tell all of it,” added Faelln.

  The youth looked from Faelln to Charyn and back again. Then he swallowed. “He was tall, taller’n me, by a good two heads. Not so tall as you,” he said to Faelln.

  “What was he wearing?”

  “A big brown coat, and boots, and a gray scarf wrapped all around his face. Only could see his eyes.”

  “Did he have a beard?” pressed Faelln.

  “I couldn’t tell. He had the scarf wrapped over everything, excepting his head. He wore a black cap … came down over the scarf.”

  “What about his hands?” asked Charyn.

  “He had on gloves. Black gloves, leather, the kind the swells wear…”

  “Were his hands large or small?”

  The youth looked at Charyn helplessly.

  Charyn kept looking at him. Hard.

  “I couldn’t say, sir … bigger’n mine, not real big like a docker’s.”

  “Boots—what about them? What color?”

  “Black. They were black. Saw them good. With heels. Not low, not real high.”

  “What about his voice?”

  “He was sorta hoarse. Gave me the shakes. The kind that you don’t want talking to you.”

  “Was it a big low voice?” asked Charyn.

  “He didn’t talk rumbly or squeaky. He didn’t talk all that much. Just told me he’d be watching, and he’d cut the silvers outa me if I didn’t deliver the paper.”

  Although Charyn and Faelln questioned the youth about everything they could think of for another quint, a good half quint after Howal had returned and surreptitiously handed four silvers to Charyn, in the end they learned nothing else about the man who had paid the boy to deliver the message.

  Finally, Charyn stood and addressed Faelln. “Keep him until it’s dark. Then take him out the rear entrance and through the barns and let him go there.”

  “What about my silvers?”

  Even though the boy’s voice quavered, Charyn admired his pluck. He took the four silvers from his pocket and handed them to the youth. “There’s a bit extra there for your time, and your answers.”

  “I’ll make sure it’s well after dark, sir,” Faelln said.

  “Good.”

  Once the two had left, Howal looked to Charyn. “You think someone might try to grab him and find out what he saw?”

  “That’s possible. It’s also possible that some of the other urchins might decide he should share. I’m thinking he’s scared enough that he’ll hide for a while. I don’t think whoever paid him knew him in the slightest. That would be too dangerous. They also paid him in advance, and that meant they didn’t want to be around when he was caught.”

  “You think they planned that he’d be caught?”

  “That’s why he got two silvers. No one else would pay more than a few coppers for a boy to run a message. They expected the guards would hold him, especially if the explosion had done what it was intended to do. It’s another form of message.”

  “That they’ll spend whatever is necessary to destroy you?”

  “Doesn’t it seem that way to you?”

  “I’d have to admit that it does, but this seems to go beyond just being angry at you, sir. It’s almost like it’s personal.”

  Charyn laughed. “When someone is trying to kill you, it gets to feeling very personal. But I understand what you mean.” That was just another aspect of the attacks that reinforced his more-than-suspicions about Ryel, as did the two silvers.

  Thinking of the silvers reminded him of something else he’d forgotten to do. “Moencriff!”

  The guard opened the study door. “Yes, sir?”

  “Would you have someone send for Minister Alucar?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When Alucar arrived in the study, Charyn had gone back to reading the second petition and thinking about it. He didn’t bother with gesturing the minister toward the chairs. “Alucar, I have a strange request. I need two newly minted silvers with a mint mark by Lythoryn.”

  The Finance Minister frowned.

  “It’s necessary,” said Charyn, knowing he was explaining nothing. “Sometime in the next day or so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s all.” Charyn smiled pleasantly, ignoring the puzzled expression on Alucar’s face and returning to the petition, one he knew he could at least grant. While he might not be able to change the law dealing with foul substances in the water, he could certainly reduce the tariffs on a small holder who suffered because of them.

  Late in the afternoon, just before fifth glass, Subcommander Luerryn arrived at the chateau and was promptly shown in to meet with Charyn.

  As soon as he was seated in the middle chair across from Charyn, Luerryn began. “Marshal Vaelln sent me, Your Grace, as soon as he got your message about events here at the chateau earlier today. That is, as soon as he made inquiries and had more information.”

  “And?”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, I did take the liberty of inspecting the mount that the impostor used before I came up to report to you. The horse was stolen from a courier two weeks ago, along the Great Highway near Tuuryl, along with his spare uniform and boots.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “We don’t know. The courier was found dead in an adjoining stream a week ago. He was still in uniform. He’d been dead for some time. Couriers aren’t supposed to stop for anything. Some don’t understand why. Then something like that happens, and they understand, for a time. The marshal greatly regrets that any lapse on the part of the dead courier caused you such inconvenience.” Luerryn waited, then said, “Could you determine anything about the impostor that I could tell the marshal?”

  “Very little. He was caught too close to the bomb he wanted to throw at me when it went off.”

  “It appears as though you were fortunate, Your Grace.”

  “Fortunate enough consi
dering.” After the slightest hesitation, Charyn went on, “I haven’t had a response to my previous message to the marshal.”

  Luerryn extended an envelope. “My apologies, Your Grace. The courier was about to depart when your latest message arrived, and the marshal thought you might be wary of another army courier So he sent me to tell you about the missing horse, and to see if you had found the mount of the impostor. And to deliver the message.”

  Charyn took the sealed envelope. “Thank you. I do appreciate your coming to inform me personally.”

  Luerryn inclined his head. “It was my pleasure, Your Grace.”

  “Scarcely that, in this weather. But I do appreciate the information.” Charyn stood.

  “The marshal wanted you to know,” said Luerryn as he immediately rose, then inclined his head, before turning and leaving the study.

  Charyn opened the envelope. The message from Vaelln was brief … and abrupt.

  Your Grace—

  In accord with your request, I have sent orders to Sea Marshal Tynan to arrange a secure escort for Regional Governor Voralch back to L’Excelsis. I have ordered that the Governor be delivered directly to you as soon as possible.

  Charyn nodded. Vaelln wasn’t pleased with the order, but he and his officers and men would comply. He thought about sending another message asking how the inventory of materials recovered from the ruined palace had gone, then shook his head. That could wait … for a time.

  60

  Just before dinner, Charyn walked into the family parlor. Although he wasn’t surprised to arrive before Bhayrn, he was there before his mother, for once, and that was unusual. Even more unusual was the fact that his brother and mother arrived together.

  “Good evening,” he offered.

  “Good evening,” replied Bhayrn cheerfully. “I’m glad to see that you aren’t noticeably battered and bruised.”

  “No. A few sore places on my back where I hit the bookcase. Howal’s the one sore all over, I think.”