The Executioner's Rebellion (The Executioner's Song Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  There was no sign of Wella, but as Finn turned his attention back to the table, he saw her jars of medicines, powders, and creams all lined up, most of them labeled so Lena wouldn’t have any question as to what Wella had mixed. He noted that there were many antiseptics, designed to stave off infection, as well as a few pain relievers. Some were less obvious to him, and he held up one jar with dark powder in it, shaking it slightly.

  “That is borgan leaf and vilth,” Lena said, standing a few steps behind him.

  Lena pulled out a small ledger, flipping through notes that she had made. Finn smiled to himself. She used the same organization as Master Meyer. She probably even had a series of notations on supplies that had been used so that they knew what needed to be restocked. He wouldn’t be overly surprised to learn that she kept notes on how much everything cost, as well.

  “We use it to get the men to come around if we’ve over-sedated them.”

  Finn snorted. “You’ve thought of everything.”

  “You wanted me to help.”

  Finn ushered her to the side of the room. “Which of the men has recovered the most?”

  Lena’s eyes narrowed for a moment. “Why?”

  Finn looked at the row of beds. “Which one, Lena?”

  “So you can hurt him again?”

  He had dreaded this part of his profession. He knew how his sister felt, and it wasn’t even misguided. She had done all she could to help these men recover, and now he was going to come in here, question one or more of them, and likely cause more injury.

  It was a part of the job he’d preferred keeping from her.

  She could come to the gallows festival, and there was no way he could hide that aspect of his responsibility, but what he did there was quick—often brutal, but still quick. It didn’t take long to hang a man, and even less time for him to use the sword.

  “Whom can I question?” he asked Lena.

  She flicked her gaze over to the table, sweeping it across the various medicines, before looking over to Finn. “You could—”

  “Who is the least sedated?”

  “Why?”

  “If you don’t want me to need to question them to the fullest extent, then I need to know who’s been sedated the least. Anyone who has enough of that medicine in them is not going to tolerate my questioning as well as others.”

  He might as well be honest with his sister. At this point, he didn’t want to have to acknowledge what he was doing, but he also figured she deserved the truth.

  “Usually I can scare men into talking,” he added, though he doubted he would convince her. Lena often saw through him.

  “I see.”

  “I just need to get answers, Lena. The king asked that of Meyer and me.”

  She stiffened, looking at him with a new light in her eyes. “You spoke to the king?”

  Finn nodded. “We went to the palace yesterday.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Over one hundred people died during the last protest,” he said. “We can’t have the same thing happen again. We need to do everything in our power to prevent that from occurring. If that involves questioning one man, somebody who attempted to attack the Archers…”

  Lena licked her lips, then swallowed.

  He had to be careful here. He didn’t want to bring her too deep into this aspect of his job.

  “There’s one man. He had a wound on his side. He’s been recovering quite well,” she offered.

  “Have any of them said anything about their role in the attack?”

  “None of them talked, Finn.”

  “None?”

  “Well… some of them have muttered about what happened to them, and others have been in enough pain that they basically cry out until we sedate them, and still others just moan, whether sedated or not.”

  Finn frowned, looking over at the men gathered in the hospital beds. “What I need is somebody who might have had some influence on what happened.” He wasn’t sure how to find that person, but there would have to be something, wouldn’t there?

  “Like I was saying,” Lena went on. “There’s one man.”

  “You said he was the least injured.”

  “If you would have let me finish, I would’ve told you he’s been trying to silence the others.” Lena lowered her voice, stepping closer to Finn. “He scares me a little bit, Finn. I’ve had to keep him sedated just so I can make sure he doesn’t do anything to me, but…”

  Finn hadn’t even considered that, but he should have. With as many men as there were here, and all of them recovering, attacking Lena might be the only way they could escape. They were chained to the bed, but desperation still made men dangerous.

  “I think I’m going to have to talk with Master Meyer about having some Archers stand guard to keep an eye on things,” Finn said.

  “That’s not going to be necessary,” Lena said, waving her hand. “I told you I can sedate them, and it keeps them from trying anything. Between that and the chains he has on them…”

  “But how long will that last?” Finn asked.

  “Long enough.”

  “These men aren’t all going to recover at the same time,” Finn said. Besides, that wasn’t even the point. The point of having them here was to get them to recover enough so Finn could ask the questions needed in order to learn who was responsible for the protests. “Maybe it’s time we move them to a more traditional hospital.”

  “I thought they were here because they’re a threat to a more traditional hospital?”

  “They might be, but if we separated them, at least they wouldn’t be all together and possibly putting you or Wella in danger.”

  “I’m fine, Finn. Really, I am.”

  Finn let out a long sigh and glanced back at the table. “Show me this man.”

  She brought him over to a cot near the corner of the room, farthest from the door. Was that intentional?

  Now that he considered it, he realized that he and Master Meyer hadn’t thought everything through here nearly as well as they probably should have. By having all of the men gathered here, they created an opportunity for them to recover and attack.

  That was a mistake.

  “I can see the look in your eye,” Lena said.

  “What look is that?”

  “One that tells me your mind is working.”

  Finn chuckled. He stepped forward and found the man lying with a thin white sheet covering him, his hands clasped over his chest, his breathing slow, but not completely regular.

  “You can open your eyes,” Finn said.

  The man didn’t move.

  “He’s sleeping,” Lena said.

  “He only wants us to think he’s sleeping.”

  Finn pulled back the sheet. The man had his cuffed hands over his chest, and his elbow was pressing up against the side that was bandaged. The dressings circled the entirety of his abdomen, though they were dry, not bloody like some of the wounds Finn had seen.

  He was fairly muscular, with milky-white skin and a tattoo across his upper abdomen. The marking was unfamiliar to Finn, looking like a series of interconnected lines.

  “My name is Finn Jagger. I am the executioner to King Porman. I’m here to question you.”

  The man twitched.

  Finn didn’t move.

  “If you’d prefer, I could bring you someplace that would make it easier to question you.”

  “I’ll answer your damn questions,” the man said, his voice a low drawl. He didn’t open his eyes as he answered.

  “Good.” Finn made his way around the bed, positioning himself closest to the man’s injury. He glanced up at Lena for a moment, nodding to her. He didn’t want her to linger here while he did this.

  She watched him, shaking her head, but then Finn urged her forward, holding his gaze on her. Finally, Lena turned away. She headed to one of the nearby beds, not so far away that she couldn’t overhear what Finn was asking.

  “What’s your name?”

  “It
don’t matter. If you’re here to take me for sentencing, then go ahead.”

  “I’m here to ask you questions, not to take you anywhere for sentencing.”

  The man cocked one eye open, looking up at him. He had a trace of red around his iris, and in the dim, white lantern light glowing throughout the room, his skin looked almost colorless. “You’re the executioner, aren’t you?”

  “One of them.”

  Finn had put himself between him and the wall, which might’ve been a mistake, but keeping himself where he was gave him a different advantage.

  “What’s your name?” Finn asked again.

  The man closed his eyes, looking away. “It don’t matter.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me your name, then I have to assume you were instrumental in the attack. You should know the king has instructed the master executioner and me to find all of those who coordinated the attack on the city and bring them to justice.”

  “Justice,” the man snorted, shaking his head. “There ain’t no justice going to be had here, and certainly not for my kind.”

  “And what kind is that?”

  “Nothing but a poor bastard,” he said.

  The choice of words might be coincidence, but Finn didn’t think so. “If you don’t tell me what you know, then I can guarantee you will be a Poor Bastard,” Finn said, lowering his voice so his sister couldn’t hear. She moved on to a cot that was a bit farther away, but she still tilted her head off to the side.

  “What do you want to know?” the man asked.

  “I want to know what happened. I want to know who coordinated the protest.”

  “So you can silence us?”

  “So others don’t get hurt,” Finn said.

  “Others get hurt every day. What’s it matter if a few more fall, as long as this injustice stops?”

  “What injustice do you see?”

  The man shook his head. He hadn’t moved his hands from where he had them clasped over his chest. “You can’t understand what it’s like to live where we live. To see what we see. To be taken and taken and taken from, but never given anything. You could never understand.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Finn said.

  “Really?” The man opened both eyes finally. “Maybe we should see.”

  He lunged.

  Finn hadn’t expected him to move so quickly. With an injury like he’d sustained, he wouldn’t have expected him to be able to move at all. He unclasped his hands, and Finn realized that he had a slender piece of metal in between them.

  He darted at Finn, and Finn twisted, barely avoiding the slice. He chopped at the man’s arm with his own, trying to keep him from stabbing him.

  The chains on his wrists caught him, but Finn had gotten too close.

  The man brought his knee around, connecting it with Finn’s midsection.

  Finn grunted, but managed to stay upright. He grabbed for the man’s wrist and twisted as hard as he could.

  The only advantage he had was the fact that this man had been injured.

  Finn continued to twist, pushing the hand away.

  “Finn!”

  Finn ignored his sister’s call, focusing only on the man, who was now leaning on the bed, using it to push off of Finn.

  “Drop it,” Finn said, “or this is going to go much worse for you than necessary.”

  “This has already gone much worse than I wanted it to go,” the man said. “My whole life has gone much worse than I wanted it to go. That’s why we protest. Your kind don’t understand.”

  “My kind is your kind.”

  “My kind is nothing like your kind,” the man said. “You have money. You couldn’t understand what it’s like to…”

  The man looked over his shoulder, sagging to his knees.

  Lena stood behind him, a syringe in hand, pushing it down and injecting the man with some sort of sedative.

  She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she stared at Finn. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t expect him to attack.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” Finn said.

  Lena looked down at him. The man had crumpled to the floor, and the slender piece of metal was still clutched in his hand.

  Finn stepped on his hand, reaching down and prying the metal free. He held it up, staring at it for a moment. It was roughly cut, and looked like an incomplete knife. If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought it was one of the witchcraft wands, but the shape of it wasn’t quite right.

  “What is that?” Lena asked.

  “Something he must’ve carried with him,” Finn said.

  “Can I see it?”

  Finn slipped it into his pocket. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know he had it, and if I had—”

  “I know you would have taken it from him,” Finn said. “I’m not blaming you.”

  He scooped the man off the ground. He was heavy, and Finn grunted as he dropped him back onto the cot before pulling back the bandages to check just how wounded he’d been. He saw a slight wound that had already been stitched up by Lena.

  “I need to get him out of here,” Finn said.

  “Where are you going to take him?”

  “This is a prison, isn’t it?” Or, it had been. Even though it wasn’t used as a prison anymore, that didn’t mean it couldn’t still be used that way. Finn wasn’t going to be able to carry the man all the way to the prison cell, but he could make sure he wasn’t going to attack his sister too.

  Finn wrapped the chains around the cot so the man’s wrists were held down. He could move his hands, but that was it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t hurt you when he comes around.”

  “I can keep him sedated, Finn.”

  “I know you can. But I want to make sure he doesn’t have any way of hurting you when he does come around. In the meantime, I’m going to make arrangements for him to go to Declan.”

  It would be better anyway. Lena didn’t need to see how Finn questioned those under investigation.

  If he could protect her from anything, it would be that.

  But he had to be the Hunter.

  This was a lead he would follow.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As Finn made his way along the street, a sign caught his attention.

  Erichan Luthier.

  He had seen that shop owner's name somewhere before. It took a moment to realize where: Reginald's journal.

  He needed to finish his tasks, but seeing as how he still didn't have any idea what had happened with Reginald, or why he had killed himself, curiosity got the best of him.

  He headed inside the shop and paused.

  It wasn't a very large shop—probably only a dozen paces wide by twice that deep. The ceiling was low and the light was dingy, with little more than a few lanterns inside in addition to the dirty streetlight coming in through the window. Lutes lined the wall along with packaged strings, feather quills, and stacks of paper, which Finn suspected was for music. A man sat at the back of the shop on a stool, strumming a lute.

  “That sounds lovely,” Finn said when the man had stopped playing. His fingers were nimble, his strumming quick, and he would’ve fit into any tavern Finn had ever been to.

  “Do you play?” he asked Finn.

  “I don’t.” He fished into his pocket and pulled out the carving he had found in Reginald’s home. “My name is Finn Jagger. I’m investigating Reginald Smith. This shop was listed on one of his ledgers. Did he owe you money?”

  The shop owner rested his lute against the wall and got to his feet. He frowned for a moment, sweeping his gaze around the inside of the shop before turning his attention back to Finn. “Repair work,” he said. “I never got paid for it. That happens from time to time.”

  He seemed more dismissive than Finn would have expected. “How much did he owe you?”

  “I’d have to look in my books. A few s
ilver, most likely. It is expensive to do the work.” He hesitated. “Not uncommon for a man like that. Is there anything else?”

  Finn looked around the shop, appraising it with a renewed interest. Something suggested to him there was more here. The shop was nice enough from the outside, but inside there were signs of disrepair. Hooks that had fallen. Shelves that were bare. Dust that hung over everything. A luthier should keep a neater shop. Perhaps he wasn’t doing as well as he made it sound like, but if so, why downplay the few silvers Reginald owed him?

  There was more here. Finn was certain of it. The problem was that he didn’t have the time to dig into it.

  This was the kind of time-wasting that he had to stop doing. Lena needed his help, and he’d been intending to go straight to the hegen.

  “Thank you for your time. I just saw your shop and wanted to see how much he owed you.”

  The luthier nodded, took a seat at the stool, picked up his lute, and resumed strumming.

  Finn listened for a moment before tearing himself away and making his way toward the Teller Gate, glancing over to the stables. He had spent quite a bit of time in this part of the city lately, more than he would’ve expected, but mostly because he had been coming here to use the stables for his journeys around the city. Since the protests had begun, Finn had not had the same opportunity to explore outside of the city as he had before, something that disappointed him.

  He still didn’t know what was going on with the Alainsith structure, nor did he know why Esmerelda was so bothered by it, but he recognized her concern. She didn’t have to say what bothered her for him to know something did.

  “Mr. Jagger?”

  He turned carefully, though was pleasantly surprised by the person he saw. “Jamie.”

  “I saw you in the street, and I followed you…”

  As soon as she said it, he suspected why she was there. “I’m sorry. I haven’t found anything more for your father.”

  She shook her head. “My father doesn’t expect much,” she said. “He never anticipated that he’d get the money back.” She stepped close to him. She smelled vaguely of lilac. “I understand that Reginald killed himself.”