by Sharon Green
“Kambil, I’ve already tried that,” Selendi interrupted, now looking and feeling annoyed. “I knew you didn’t want her free so I sent a contingent of guardsmen to arrest her, but she’d already left the inn. That was after the management told her her husband was dead, and she did go back to the house. But she stayed only long enough to have some of her clothing and belongings packed, and then she left again. Where she is now, no one seems to know.”
“I’ll give you odds that wherever it is, she stopped at the bank again on the way,” Kambil growled, beginning to be really furious. “If Grall never bothered to cut her off from his funds, it’s certain that he also never went through the process of disinheriting her. Since they never had any children, she’s now his sole heir and entitled to do as she pleases with his gold and property. What she most likely pleased was to carry away as much gold as she could conveniently handle.”
“You have to admit it took nerve if she did that,” Homin said, his chuckle showing how impressed he was with that sort of behavior. “She must have known she was in danger of being arrested again otherwise she never would have disappeared, and yet she stopped on the way to complete freedom to collect her belongings and pick up spending money. We could make good use of audacity like that, especially if we make it clear that serving us loyally will let her keep Grall’s estate.”
“But I don’t want her to keep Grall’s estate,” Kambil said slowly and clearly, so that Homin would have no doubts about how he felt. “Grall and his multitude of connections would have been of much more use to us, and I seriously doubt if that Eltrina piece could ever be trusted. She won’t inherit his business ability and his lines into all those closed groups even we don’t have access to, so what good would she be to us? Brazen, mindless nerve can be found anywhere, so I want the guard to be on the alert for her. And when she’s found, I want her brought here, to the palace, not put in another place she’ll have no trouble getting out of.”
Selendi nodded to show that she’d take care of it, both she and Bron ignoring the way Homin now tried to pretend that he’d never said anything to anger Kambil. If Homin had known women a bit better, he’d never have suggested anything that ludicrous to begin with…
“And, finally, we come to Embisson Ruhl,” Selendi said as though there hadn’t been any interruptions. “The man is slowly mending, or at least his body is. I’m told that his mind is rather shaky now that he’s no longer even an ordinary lord, not to mention a High Lord. He’s suffering just the way you want him to, and his son has been visiting him more and more often, in an attempt to get him to pull out of his funk. Dom Ruhl, however, has been resisting all attempts, and it’s been suggested that he may eventually even turn to suicide.”
“Good,” Kambil pronounced, leaning back in his chair. “If he does kill himself, make sure I hear about it right away. I’m thinking about having his body hung up in front of the palace, to show people what happens to those who work against our best interests. It’s time we—Yes, what is it?”
That last was for the servant who had knocked quietly and then entered the room, one of Kambil’s trusted servants. The man was completely under control, of course, which was why he was so trusted. And he also knew better than to interrupt a meeting of the Five without good reason…
“Excellence, please excuse the interruption, but a note sent by your father has been delivered,” the man said with a bow, holding up an envelope. “The servant delivering it said it was most urgent.”
“All right, bring it here,” Kambil directed, wondering what his father could want. Nothing of importance was going on which would involve him, so what could be so urgent? The envelope was brought over to Kambil and he opened it at once, and then he nearly fell unconscious after reading those terrible words. The room swirled around and around and voices sounded from very far off, and then it was Bron, Selendi, and Homin who were clustered around his chair and speaking all at once.
“Kambil, what’s wrong?” Bron’s voice broke through the others, worry making it sharp. “You almost went off the chair and onto the floor! What does the letter say?”
“It … it says that … that Grammi is … is dead,” Kambil forced out, not believing the words even as he spoke them, the room still turning a bit. “It can’t be … it isn’t true … I know it isn’t … I have to go home…”
“Of course you do,” Homin said, his tone and mind filled with sympathetic understanding. “We’ll send for your private guard, and they’ll take you home. Do you want the rest of us to go with you?”
“No … no…” Kambil said, pushing them out of his way so that he could get to his feet. He swayed unsteadily for a moment, and then his servant had taken his arm to support him, which let him stumble toward the door. He wanted nothing of the presence of his groupmates, they who were such … blatant tributes to Grammi’s work. Just in case it was true … which it couldn’t be, please, don’t let it be…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
High Lord Embisson Ruhl—still a High Lord despite the attempted actions of rude young interlopers—sat in his study all alone. He wore the shabbiest clothing he had, and spoke little or not at all to his household staff. Everyone professed to be deeply concerned about his “depression,” a part of the plan which was his own contribution. He knew well enough that he was being watched, and common sense dictated that he give the watchers something other than planning and machinations to observe. A cup of cooling tea sat on a table near his elbow, but his slumped posture changed not at all until Edmin was shown in and the door closed behind him.
“Please, Father, you really must pull out of this,” Edmin said in a fairly loud voice, to satisfy the ear which was certainly at the door. “If you don’t, you’ll surely make yourself ill.”
Embisson said nothing to that, as should have been expected, and a moment later Edmin turned his attention from the door and nodded.
“He’s gone now,” Edmin said in his usual, sober way. “Off to tell whomever he tells that nothing seems to have changed. How are you really feeling, Father?”
“Quite well, actually,” Embisson replied as he stood and took the opportunity to stretch. “The main drawback of this charade is the way I must slouch around, ruining my back. Let me get you a cup of tea while you tell me what brings you here at this unscheduled time.”
“I came to tell you that our plans for tonight have to be delayed,” Edmin replied, causing Embisson to stop short on the way to the tea service. “That celebration dinner the Five had planned for tonight has been canceled.”
“They became suspicious?” Embisson asked sharply, the first reason for such a disappointment to come to him. “How could that possibly have happened?”
“It wasn’t suspicion,” Edmin hastily soothed him, one hand held up. “It seems that Arstin received word of his grandmother’s passing, and he hurried to his father’s house to join the man in grieving. Quite a few people are grieving, as the woman was a renowned poet.”
“The woman was too … smooth for my tastes,” Embisson said, no longer alarmed as he returned his attention to the tea service. “And her poetry seemed to mock people and life rather than describe them. So now we must wait, but hopefully not too long. Do you think the man will grieve more than the single day?”
“Arstin was apparently quite attached to the old lady, so there’s no telling,” Edmin replied, coming forward to take the cup of tea Embisson had poured. “A forced wait such as this frustrates, I know, but our plans are merely delayed, not destroyed. As soon as Arstin returns to his place among the rest of the Five, those plans will go forward again. In the interim, I have the latest on Lady Hallina.”
“Ah, yes, I did mean to ask,” Embisson said at once, if not distracted then at least diverted. “How is the dear, sweet lady?”
“Not too well, I’m afraid,” Edmin said with the faint smile which indicated his strong amusement. “I’m told she continues to remain abed, wailing loudly in pain, ceasing only when demanding that the guard find th
e blackguards and hang them. She seems to have no idea of what they’ll be able to tell the guard if they’recaught, something she should be extremely aware of.”
“She would need to have a mind to be aware of that, and she most certainly does not,” Embisson reminded him, gesturing Edmin to a seat while he returned to his own. “Acting without thought of the consequences is something she has always done, which is why she finds herself in this fix to begin with. Has she any idea that it wasn’t the actions of those three alone which brought her to this pass? Is she at all close to learning the truth?”
“She believes she has already found the truth,” Edmin said after settling himself and sipping at his tea. “That agent of hers, the one she believed set up the interview and the one we had begun to use for our own purposes, had a terrible accident a short while ago. The guard initially believed that it was an accident which took his life, but one of my people disabused them of that notion—anonymously, of course. They now seek the man who was named to them, and once they find the cutthroat they will also find who paid him to do the deed. The lady may soon learn that ignoring consequences is the pastime of a fool.”
“No, she’ll never learn that,” Embisson said with all the satisfaction he felt. “Her whims have been indulged her entire life, and she’ll go to her own execution still outraged that someone would dare to cross her. And they’ll have to execute her, if only as an example to teach others to be more circumspect if they decide to indulge in premeditated murder. Once she’s been condemned then I mean to step forward, letting her know the truth for the short time remaining to her. She’ll have no opportunity to do anything about it, and the knowledge will be excruciatingly painful.”
“I wager she’ll be no more than outraged, and will probably appeal to the court,” Edmin said with the same quiet smile. “Her stance will be that she had the wrong man killed, and therefore she should not be punished for it. I really do hope to be there to see that.”
“Hopefully we’ll both be there,” Embisson said, his mood darkening again. “If our plans go the way we hope they will, we should also be in a much better position politically. Those five upstarts must also be taught a lesson, which is that it was others who placed them on the Fivefold Throne. Most of those others are now dead, and not a single man I know doubts that the upstarts are responsible for every death. Some of the fools are going out of their way to placate the interlopers, hoping to be ignored the next time a bloodletting is in the offing. The rest are meeting quietly in shadowy places, desperate for a plan to remove the uncontrolled danger. Have you looked about as I suggested?”
“Yes, certainly, and you’requite correct,” Edmin confirmed. “Once we have the place our plans will achieve for us, we will only need to step forward and claim the leadership of those groups. They will be more than happy to follow our lead, and by the way, it’s possible you may be able to add one more name to the list of those the Five have done away with. Lord Grall Razas, who established the most powerful of those groups, was suddenly found dead. It’s being said that the tightrope he walked, pretending to serve the Five while working for their downfall, finally plunged him to his death.”
“That’s really too bad,” Embisson said with a frown. “I knew Grall well, and he was most effective at making people believe he supported whatever stance they supported. But the upstarts aren’t ordinary people, and he must have misjudged—”
Embisson fell silent at once at Edmin’s sudden, sharp gesture, knowing immediately what it meant. Someone was approaching the room they sat in, and it would certainly not do for him to be speaking and acting normally. For that reason he slumped again in his chair, staring down at the carpeting, and Edmin began to speak coaxingly, as though he’d been doing the same all along. A brief moment later there was a knock on the door, and Edmin was the one who called out permission to enter.
“Please pardon the interruption, my lord,” the servant said from the doorway. “There is a lady here who demands to see High Lord Embisson, but one who refuses to give her name. Shall I send her away, or—”
“No, I’ll see her,” Edmin said, decision clear in his voice. “If she needs to be sent away, I’ll see to the matter myself.”
“As you wish, my lord,” the servant said with a bow, and then the man stepped aside to allow a cloaked figure into the room. The figure was clearly a woman’s, and Embisson saw, out of the corner of his eye, that her hood was drawn down to shadow her face. He was intensely curious about who she was, but not to the point of being willing to abandon his pose.
“And now, Dama, you will kindly remove that hood,” Edmin said to her once the door was closed again. “And then you may have five minutes to speak of your reason for being here. If the reason lacks importance, you will then be ejected.”
“My reason for being here lacks importance for neither of us, Lord Edmin,” the woman replied, reaching to the hood. “We have mutual enemies, your father and I, and I don’t mind speaking of the matter in your presence. I’ve heard that your father is succumbing to depression over the way he’s been treated and I can’t blame him, but I’ve come to tell him not to despair. There has to be a way to overcome those vermin, and together he and I shall find it.”
“Lady Eltrina, you surprise me,” Edmin said when the woman’s face was revealed, and he did indeed sound surprised to Embisson. “I’d heard that there were some … difficulties between you and Lord Grall, brought about by some matter having to do with the Five. Have the difficulties ended because of your husband’s death?”
“Hardly,” Eltrina returned with a sniff, moving toward the chair Edmin indicated she could take. “Because of those five vermin I found it necessary to escape from my own house as though I ran from a prison. I was rather ill during the following night, and when I awoke I was told that Grall was dead. So I returned to my house to collect some of my things, visited the bank, and then found a place of refuge. The vermin are hardly likely to stand by and simply watch me inherit Grall’s estate, not when my … difficulty was at their instigation to begin with. You see that I speak frankly to you, and have also placed my freedom in your hands. If you were to hold me here and call the guard, there would undoubtedly be a reward from the vermin themselves.”
“Undoubtedly,” Edmin agreed with a sober nod as he studied her. “However, I feel I must point out that if you were promised your inheritance in return for … enticing innocent people into a plot against the Seated heads of our empire, you would say the same words and behave in precisely the same way. For that reason, as well as the fact that those of us in this household are loyal and without treasonous notions, I really must ask you to leave. In deference to your being a woman and an acquaintance of long standing, I’ll delay informing the guard until you’ve had a chance to leave the area.”
“You can’t turn me away!” Eltrina protested, disturbance now visible even to Embisson in the depth of her eyes. “I’m not here working for them, I would never work for them! Don’t you know what Grall did to me because they were so terrified? It was considerably worse than what was done to your father, even though it was for the same reason.”
“Really, Lady Eltrina, I would love to continue this discussion but find it discomforting in the extreme,” Edmin said, his expression unchanged. “I have no idea what you’rereferring to, and what’s more don’t want to know. You—”
“Oh, but you do know, unless your father keeps secrets from you, which I don’t think he does,” Eltrina interrupted intensely. “I was there at the final competition, just as he was, and I know—just as he does—that our vaunted leaders were about to lose the competition to the peasants. Their Blending was stronger than our wonderful Seated Five’s, and if not for the help the vermin were given they would now be sitting in their various homes, nursing their wounds. I’m a witness to the way the peasants were betrayed, and unless I can find another way to get even with those vermin, I’m ready to spread that story far and wide. You were at least entitled to a warning, and now that y
ou have it I’ll be glad to go.”
“Wait,” Edmin said as she rose to her feet, her hands already reaching to her hood. “If that story gets around, none of us will be safe from the rioting it will cause. Nobles will be attacked simply because they’renobles, and you yourself will not be exempted. I’m able to tell that you’resincere in what you say, and for that reason I advise you—”
“Sincere!” she echoed, staring down at him with chest heaving and eyes blazing. “I’m not sincere, I’m rabid! Do you have any idea what I was put through because of those sickening little freaks? I want to see them utterly destroyed, and if I must be destroyed along with them, then so be it. If they get their hands on me again my life is over anyway, so what’s the difference? This way it’s more likely to be a quick end rather than the slow one they would provide. You and your father were my last hope for finding a different way to exact my revenge, but now I realize that there’s no way for me to convince you of my … sincerity. Good day, Lord Edmin, and good luck…”
“Lady Eltrina,” Embisson said as the woman reached to her hood again, once more straightening in his chair. “You have convinced me of your sincerity, therefore I will admit you to the knowledge of my little charade. Deception rather than depression is what obsesses me these days, and I ask you not to put your own plan into effect until all hope of formulating a more efficient plan is gone. Will you agree to that?”
“Gladly,” the woman said at once, her eyes lighting with formerly lost hope. “And I’m delighted to see that you’reyour old self again, Lord Embisson. It was shattering to believe that those vermin had beaten you down so low.”
“When your enemy considers you helpless, they may even go so far as to turn their back on you,” Embisson pointed out, paraphrasing an old saying. “When it comes to my enemies, I have no compunction against using a back as my target. Would you care for a cup of tea, Lady Eltrina?”
“Thank you, no,” she replied, also not resuming her seat. “I must be on my way very shortly, else whatever spies the vermin have in your household will certainly take note. Tell me quickly what you mean to do, and how I can be of help.”