The Lyre Thief

by Jennifer Fallon

  Part Two

  Chapter

  15

  IT WAS UNFORTUNATE when a man died under torture, Naveen Raveve mused as he stepped into the cool darkness of the underground caverns beneath Talabar Prison. But sometimes, it was even more unfortunate if he lived.

  That might well prove the case here, he feared, although he knew nothing about the reason for this summons other than news that the prisoner had finally provided intelligence that was both important and extremely sensitive. So sensitive, the man responsible for torturing the information out of the former general, Meyrick Kabar, had refused to write it down.

  A figure hurried forward out of the gloom as Naveen reached the bottom step of the caverns. It was Hagland, the prison warden. He wore a sleeveless shirt that left his hairy, meaty, and—most offensively—sweaty arms exposed. Naveen was quite sure he would pass out if he got downwind of the man.

  The warden bowed to Naveen, even though he didn’t need to. Nobody actually needed to bow to a slave. Wise men did, however. Smelly he might be, but Bril Hagland was a wise man.

  “Lord Raveve.”

  “Master Hagland,” he said, returning the bow, ever so slightly. He didn’t bother to correct the man about his title. He rather enjoyed being referred to as my lord. “This had better be important.”

  “Mavos thinks so, my lord, if you’d like to come this way.”

  It was because Mavos thought so that he was here. He would not have come on the warden’s word alone. Naveen raised the perfumed kerchief he was holding to his nose and followed the warden into the gloom. The rough walls down here were so different from Talabar’s delightfully stuccoed pink walls outside. Here the dank, undressed stone on either side of the corridor wept with moisture and the whole place reeked of damp and mold.

  Quite an unhealthy place to be, he decided, and then smiled at the irony of such a notion.

  “The prisoner is in here, my lord.”

  Naveen followed Hagland into the unlocked cell, thinking security must be very slack if they didn’t bother to lock the door. When he stepped into the cell, however, he understood why there was no need for a lock.

  Meyrick Kabar was a broken shell.

  Naveen remembered the general as a tall, proud man with unusual blue eyes, rare in a Fardohnyan and attributed to some long-forgotten Karien ancestor. This pitiful creature before him was barely recognizable. He was black and blue, the fresh bruises manifesting on top of yellowed skin of other bruises healing underneath. The man hung in chains secured to the ceiling, which was the only thing keeping him upright. His head lolled to the side and he wore the vacant look of a man pushed beyond the limit of sanity.

  There was another man in the cell, standing beside Kabar. A slender, unassuming man, this was Mavos the Torturer. A slave like Naveen, he’d acquired the name years ago, when they were in training together. They had been suffering under a particularly brutal slave master at the time. Mavos, Naveen, Luka, Strayan, and a few others he still counted closer than brothers, even though most of them were dispersed across the continent now . . . they all owed their lives to Mavos, who had taken it upon himself to protect his brothers-in-suffering from any further pain. Mavos was an extremely imaginative man, as his victims—and that wretched slaver—could attest. Appointing Mavos to the position of official state torturer had been one of the first appointments Naveen made when he took over from Lecter Turon. It had felt very satisfying to repay—even in a small way—the debt he and his slave brothers all owed to this man.

  Naveen nodded to Mavos as if they were nothing more than casual acquaintances and then turned his attention to Meyrick Kabar.

  “Can he hear me?”

  “Yes, my lord.” Mavos smiled slightly as he spoke, a hint of irony in his tone. Only Naveen heard it and only Naveen could appreciate the reason for it.

  “General? General Kabar? The warden tells me you have information for the king that might be of national importance.”

  With a visible effort, Meyrick raised his head and fixed his swollen eyes on Naveen. “I’m . . . sorry.”

  “What?”

  He had barely any teeth left, making it hard for him to form words that made any sense at all. “Tell her . . . I said . . . I’m sorry . . .”

  Naveen turned to Mavos. “Why is he sorry? Who is he talking about?”

  “Tell Lord Raveve what you told me,” Mavos prompted in a conversational tone.

  Meyrick flinched at the sound of the torturer’s voice. Naveen marveled at the man’s ability to terrify a grown man with such a benign request.

  “So . . . phany . . .”

  Naveen had to lean in to hear him speak. “What?”

  “Sophany.”

  “Sophany? Princess Sophany?” Naveen glanced at Hagland and then Mavos. “Why Princess Sophany? You brought me all the way down here because he wants to apologize to a woman he probably hasn’t laid eyes on in twenty—Oh, dear . . .” Suddenly so many things became clear. Sophany’s urgency to get her daughter out of the harem. Rakaia’s unusual blue eyes. The timing was perfect, too.

  Naveen knew Meyrick Kabar had been the Captain of the Harem Guard back before Rakaia was born. That was one of the reasons Lecter had taken him on as his apprentice. He had a memory for those sorts of details. And the ability to put two and two together and come up with a way to make it add up to anything his king wanted it to add up to.

  Hagland nodded. “Now you understand why we called you here, my lord.”

  “Does anybody else know this information?”

  The warden shook his head. “As always, my lord, it goes no further than this room until you order it so.”

  “What have you told Alaric?” He was the one who had ordered Meyrick Kabar arrested. He would want to know something.

  “We’ve told the king’s heir that Meyrick Kabar will die before he breaks.”

  Well, that’s a lie, Naveen thought, glancing at the pitiful wretch hanging from the chains.

  “General Kabar was a good man, Lord Raveve. It didn’t seem right to destroy his reputation along with his body.”

  “I’m sure his reputation will be a great comfort to him as he rots down here with only me for company.” Mavos was a surprisingly compassionate man, given his occupation—and the obvious delight he took in it.

  Naveen turned to study the prisoner for a moment, puzzling over the dilemma of what to do with him. There was more at stake here than the confession of a man over a past infidelity, however delicate the affair may have been. Hagland was right when he claimed this news was of national importance. Hablet had just pledged a bastard to Frederak Branador for concessions to the Highcastle mountain pass, rather than the legitimate daughter he’d promised. There was a critical trade route to consider.

  Not to mention Naveen’s future retirement plans, which would be seriously threatened if Hablet decided to flay the Princess Sophany alive for cheating on him and then presenting him with another man’s bastard, calling it his.

  On the other hand, Naveen had no wish to torment the man longer than was necessary. That was just barbaric, and Alaric, perhaps, would benefit from a lesson in consequences when a good man and valuable general died as a direct result of one of his tantrums.

  “End this,” he ordered Mavos. “I’m sure all this torment must be putting an undue strain on Meyrick Kabar’s previously unsuspected weak heart.”

  The torturer nodded in understanding. He had been at this game a long time. He did not need Naveen to be more specific. “It will be done before you get back to the palace, my lord.”

  Naveen turned to Meyrick Kabar and offered a sympathetic smile. “It will be over soon, General. I will see that people remember you well.”

  Kabar muttered something Naveen didn’t quite catch. Mavos leaned in closer and asked the prisoner to repeat what he’d said and then turned to Naveen. “It’s hard to understand him with his mouth busted up like that, my lord, but I believe he was saying something along the lines of ‘eat shit.’”
/>
  Naveen sighed. “That’s gratitude for you.”

  He turned for the door, handkerchief to his nose, adding, “‘Send his head to Alaric when it’s done. I think our future king needs to see his handiwork up close and bloody, while we still have a few generals left.”

  Naveen headed back along the corridor, anxious to be out of this dreadful place, putting Meyrick Kabar’s fate out of his mind.

  He had bigger fish to fry this day, not the least of which was finding a way to break it to his king that the daughter he’d so recently sent to Hythria to marry a cousin of the Hythrun High Prince was the bastard get of an affair with the Captain of the Guard and if word ever got out about it, their economically vital trade route through the Highcastle pass would be lost to them forever.

  Chapter

  16

  THE KING OF Fardohnya’s eldest daughter had her own problems, and the imminent arrival of a younger sister she barely remembered was the least of them.

  Her most immediate problem had arrived this morning in the shape of a smartly dressed, well-spoken young defender by the name of Caden Fletcher, the personal aide-de-camp of the Lord Defender of Medalon. As she strode the wide, tiled halls of the palace in search of her husband, her skin glistening with perspiration in the humid Greenharbour air, Adrina could feel her ire rising.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like their visitor. Or the man who sent him. Tarja Tenragan was an ally. More importantly, Damin considered him a friend.

  And she knew, beyond doubt, that the Lord Defender of Medalon would not have sent his aide in person to deliver his message unless he considered it a matter of life or death. It followed, therefore, as sure as night followed day, that whatever Tarja Tenragan wanted of the High Prince of Hythria, Adrina probably wasn’t going to like it.

  “How bad is it?” she demanded as she slammed the door shut to her husband’s study behind her, blowing a number of loose documents off the table with the small gust of wind she’d whipped up with her anger.

  Damin was sitting at the long polished table that had served generations of Wolfblades as both desk, war council, and—on at least one occasion back when they were first married and still rather enchanted by the idea—a rather convenient place to make babies. The lurid, pornographic murals the last High Prince commissioned were long gone, replaced by much less distracting—not to mention tasteful—landscapes depicting scenes from each of the seven provinces that made up the nation of Hythria. Fortunately Damin was alone, no sign of his chamberlain, the envoy from Medalon, or, worse, his mother—the dread Princess Marla—anywhere in sight.

  Her husband looked up from whatever he was signing. “Why do you automatically assume something is wrong, my love?”

  “For one thing, Tarja wouldn’t have sent his pet minion all the way to Hythria for something trivial,” she said, leaning against the door. She liked to keep her distance from Damin when they argued. It was safer that way. “He could have asked the Harshini to send a message through the Seeing Stone.”

  “Tarja’s a pagan,” Damin reminded her with a shrug. “He doesn’t believe in the Harshini or their magic.”

  “He’s Lord Defender of a country ruled by a Harshini queen.”

  “A theological dilemma I’m sure he struggles with daily.” Damin signed another document with a flourish and moved it to the pile on his right. It was quite a pile. He must have been at this all morning. “Don’t read anything more into this than there is, my love. Tarja wants to invite me to the Citadel and sent Cade to deliver the invitation. That’s all there is to it.”

  Adrina didn’t believe that for a moment. Interesting, too, that Damin hadn’t actually told her what Tarja’s invitation was for, just that he’d sent one and chose his most trusted aide to deliver it in person. “Is this something to do with the missing lyre from the Temple of the Gods?”

  “He might have mentioned it.”

  “Ha! I knew it!”

  “Tarja thinks it’s a Harshini problem. In fact, that’s why he sent Cade here. He didn’t want to bother Shananara while she tries to find it.”

  “I don’t like it when Tarja tries to circumvent the Harshini.”

  “I’m sure he’ll try to do better to please you in the future, my love.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Damin.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “Then don’t try to placate me with platitudes. That’s the third time in as many sentences you have called me ‘my love.’ Your disturbing lack of imagination when it comes to endearments notwithstanding, you only ever call me my love when you have to tell me something you know I’m not going to like.”

  “Am I really that transparent?”

  “I can see right through you and admire the view on the other side, my love.”

  He put down the quill and leaned back in his chair. Even the fact that he was sitting in that chair, dutifully signing piles of decrees and requisitions like a good little monarch, made her suspicious. Damin hated paperwork, and while he was conscientious enough not to ignore it completely, he had been known to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid it. This morning’s sudden urge to be stuck inside on a glorious sunny Greenharbour morning reeked of a man getting his affairs in order.

  He smiled at her, which just made things worse. Damin never smiled like that when he was doing something he considered a chore. “You must be looking forward to your sister’s arrival.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “I wasn’t. I just thought that with Rakaia here, you won’t . . .” His voice trailed off warily, as if he were afraid to finish the sentence.

  Now we’re getting to the heart of it. “I won’t what?”

  “Miss me so much?” he said with a tentative smile.

  “I knew it!” she said pushing off the door. “Tarja crooks his little finger and you’re running off to Medalon, ignoring your responsibilities here in a time of crisis and leaving me alone with your mother.”

  “I could take my mother with me,” he offered.

  For a fleeting moment, Adrina wished he wasn’t joking. The thought of a whole summer without Marla looking over her shoulder, waiting for her to make a mistake, reading dire motives into every little thing she did, was something about which she could only fantasize. But he didn’t mean it. She knew that. Even if Damin took a blood oath to take Marla with him, she knew his mother would never countenance the rule of her beloved Hythria being left in the hands of her untrustworthy Fardohnyan daughter-in-law.

  “Why don’t you take me with you?”

  “Because that would mean leaving Marla in charge. It’s taken me a decade to convince my mother I can rule Hythria without her second-guessing every move I make. I wouldn’t give her the keys to the kingdom for a week, let alone the couple of months I’ll be away.”

  “So you are going away then?”

  “I’m considering it.”

  “Why?”

  “The treaty between Hythria, Medalon, and Karien is important.”

  “Is there going to be a problem with it?” she asked with a frown. “I thought we were all getting along swimmingly these days, and the renewal is just a formality.”

  “We are,” he agreed. “And it is. But the Sisters of the Blade are out of power, not out of business. Tarja’s afraid they’re planning to use the negotiations to stir up trouble. He thinks a show of solidarity is in order. With this stolen lyre problem, things are . . . unsettled.”

  “Is that really the problem?”

  “What do you mean?

  “Is Tarja really worried about the remnants of the Sisters of the Blade? Or is it the Harshini fear something might have happened to the God of Music?”

  “It’s just about the treaty.”

  “So the Lord Defender of Medalon is simply making the most of a chance to rub the Sisterhood’s collective noses in the fact that when he crooks his little finger, the rulers of Medalon’s northern and southern neighbors—both of whom are big enough to swallow Medalon w
hole and not notice the lump going down—dutifully come running.”

  “The latter, I suspect.”

  Adrina nodded thoughtfully. “I’d probably do the same if I were him.”

  “So you understand why I have to go.”

  Sadly, she did. It didn’t make her any happier about him being away for so long, though. Not now. “How long will you be gone?”

  “If I swing past Krakandar on the way to see how Starros is doing, it’ll probably be winter by the time I get to the Citadel and back.”

  She folded her arms and glared at him. “I suppose swinging past Krakandar to see how Starros is doing will involve a great deal of hunting and drinking and carousing with loose women?”

  Damin grinned. “That’s my reward for getting Marla out of your hair for the summer.”

  Adrina stared at him in surprise as she walked around the table to his side. “So you meant what you said about taking Marla with you?”

  He looked up at her and nodded. Her irritation faded quickly as she realized what that meant.

  “I thought maybe Jaz and Marlie could come with us, too. They’re old enough to visit Medalon without you, and it won’t hurt to broaden their horizons with a bit of travel. Besides, it’s always good politics to make the ordinary people fond of your heirs.”

  Although they’d been married for more than ten years, Adrina still forgot sometimes just how politically astute her husband was. He really had thought this through. It wasn’t just that he was traveling to Medalon to help a friend retain power, or even that he would take the opportunity to catch up with another friend so precious to him he’d once done a deal with the gods to save him from certain death. Damin was serious about taking Marla with him, which—other than the obvious benefit of getting her out of Adrina’s hair for a whole summer—meant he would have her advice during what might be some rather delicate treaty negotiations. There was simply no sharper political mind, or better negotiator, than Marla Wolfblade.

  Even Adrina was willing to concede that.