For an instant he caught a glimpse of the beast, the warm brown of its coat flickering amid the grey trees like candle fire on a moonless night, then vanishing again. He couldn’t see its head, but the animal certainly appeared large enough to be a stag. He hurried on, bow half-drawn, expecting to come face-to-face with the creature at any moment. He spotted it briefly once more, farther ahead than it had been a moment earlier. It almost seemed to be drifting among the trees like a wraith. Running now, he tried to catch up with it, but all he saw was grey.
The duke stopped again, straining to hear over the whispering of another gust of wind. Nothing, at least not from the elk. Far behind him, his mount snorted and stomped. Chago felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. And then he heard it, too.
Singing. It was so soft at first, so ethereal, that the duke thought he must be imagining it. Who, in his right mind, would be singing in the wood on a day such as this?
Who, indeed?
The thought made him shudder, as if another chill wind had knifed through his cloak. His sword was still strapped to his saddle, and though he carried his bow, he preferred to face an assailant with his steel. Turning quickly, he started back toward his horse, fighting an impulse to run. For just an instant the duke lost his bearings and halted again, feeling panic rise within him like bile. Then his bay nickered and he strode toward the sound, cursing his lack of nerve. As he made his way among the trees, he scanned the wood for the singer, listening as the voice grew stronger.
It was a man, with a voice both strong and sweet, rich and high. As the man drew nearer still, the duke even recognized the song: “The Blossoms of Adlana,” a Caerissan folk song that Chago had learned as a child. It struck him as an odd choice for such a chill, dreary day. But it set his mind at ease somewhat and he slowed his gait. A moment later, he spotted his bay and could not keep a relieved smile from springing to his lips.
By the time the singer came into view, the duke had his sword in hand and was securing its sheath to his belt. Armed now, and within reach of his mount, the duke was able to laugh at the dread that had gripped him only moments before. This was no brigand, not with a voice like this, and seeing the singer’s face, Chago felt what remained of his fear recede like the tide after a storm. The man was lean and bearded, with long dark hair that fell to his broad shoulders and pale eyes the same color as the silver bark on the maples that grew all around them. He smiled kindly at the duke as he walked toward him and he nodded once, though he continued with his song. His glance fell briefly to Chago’s sword, but the smile remained on his face.
Chago thought him vaguely familiar and wondered briefly if he had ever sung at Bistari Castle, perhaps with the Festival. He almost stopped the singer to ask him. But though the man was clearly a musician, they were still alone in the wood, and the duke thought it wiser to let the stranger pass.
He offered a nod of his own as the singer stepped past him, but he kept his blade ready and turned to watch the man walk away. Only when the singer had disappeared among the trees, his song fading slowly, did Chago sheathe his sword and allow his mind to return once more to the elk.
He would have liked to track the animal; given time, he knew that he could find it again. But Peshkal would never find him if he left the path.
Where could his first minister be? It had to be well past midday. The Qirsi should have been there already.
“Damn him,” the duke murmured.
The bay whinnied softly, as if in response, and Chago froze. The wood was silent. Even the wind had died away. More to the point, though, the singing had stopped. Or had it? The man had been walking away. Had the song ended? Had he just covered enough distance to be beyond the duke’s hearing?
Chago stood, still as death, listening for the singer’s voice, much as he had listened for the elk a short time ago. He was being foolish, he knew. Surely the singer was too far away to be heard by now. Besides, Chago had his bow and his sword, and he knew how to use both. He had nothing to fear from a musician.
Yet he continued to stand motionless, waiting. This time he heard no song. Only a footfall, soft and sure, and closer than it should ever have been. It had to be the elk again. Still, the duke reached not for his bow, but for his blade.
Before he could pull the weapon from its sheath, before he could even turn to face the sound, he felt someone grab him from behind, a hand gripping his right arm at the elbow, and a muscular arm locking itself around his throat.
The duke struggled to free his sword, but the man holding him was remarkably strong. He opened his mouth to scream, but the singer-it had to be he-tightened his hold on Chago’s throat until the duke could barely draw breath.
“My apologies, my lord. But it seems someone wants you dead.”
He’s an assassin then
, Chago thought,
not a brigand
.
Not that it mattered. He was going to die here in the wood, not even a league from his castle.
Where in Bian’s name was Peshkal?
The realization came to him so suddenly, with such force, that his knees actually gave way, forcing the man to hold him up. He had been hearing the rumors for nearly a year now, long enough and from so many different sources that he no longer doubted their truth. But though he had little trouble believing in the existence of a Qirsi conspiracy, it had never occurred to him to question Peshkal’s loyalty.
The sorcerer had been with him for eight years now, the first several as an underminister, the last five as his first minister. Chago would never go so far as to call the Qirsi his friend, but he had paid the man handsomely, relied on his counsel without hesitation, and trusted him with the well-being of his dukedom, the safety of his family, and his own life. Until this day, Peshkal had given him no reason to do otherwise.
The hunt had been his idea. So had Silbron’s ride for that matter. He had contrived every circumstance so that the duke would be hunting alone. And then he had made certain that Chago would be at this very spot at precisely this time. He could hear the minister’s words once more-he could see the man’s smile. “I have business in the city, but I’ll meet you on the edge of the wood just after midday.” Indeed. The Qirsi had killed him, and Chago had made it far too easy for him.
All of this occurred to the duke in a single instant. The assassin still held him fast, and now he pried Chago’s fingers off the hilt of his sword and drew the weapon himself.
“A pretty blade, my lord,” he said, tossing it aside as if it were a trifle. “Where is your dagger?”
Chago said nothing, and the man began to crush his throat.
“Tell me.”
“My belt,” the duke rasped.
The man ran his hand along Chago’s belt until he found the blade. This, too, he threw to the side. Both of Chago’s hands were free, and he straightened, bearing his own weight again. If he moved fast enough…
Before he even formed the thought, the point of a dagger was resting against the corner of his eye.
“This can be done quickly or slowly, my lord. Painlessly or not. It’s your choice.”
“I’ll do whatever you say,” Chago whispered. “Please, not my eyes.”
The man said nothing, though he did remove the blade.
“You don’t have to do this,” the duke said, “fust tell me what you want.”
The man shook his head. “I’ve already told you, someone wants you dead. It’s not my choice.”
“No, it’s your profession.”
The singer offered no response, though it seemed to Chago that he pulled something from his pocket.
“Were you hired by the Qirsi? Can you tell me that much?”
The man stopped what he was doing. After a moment he turned the duke around and looked him in the eye. Chago and the assassin were almost the same height, and looking at him again, knowing now that he was more than a mere singer, the duke saw much that he had missed before. The man had a small scar high on his cheek, and there was something cold and uncompromising in those pale eyes. Without the smile he had worn as he sang, he had the look of a killer.
Their eyes remained locked for another moment, and then the assassin raised his hands. He held a garrote, the cord wound around his fists and pulled taut between them. For centuries, the garrote had been the weapon of choice for assassins sent by Solkaran kings.
“Is it Carden then?” the duke asked. “Is that who sent you?”
The assassin said nothing, and Chago backed away. He stumbled, fell backward to the ground, tears running down his face.
“Please,” he said again, as the man came toward him, pulling the garrote taut once more so that it thrummed like a hunter’s bow. “I have gold. I can pay you more than whoever it was that hired you.”
Incredibly, the man seemed to waver.
“Just tell me how much you want,” the duke went on, feeling bolder now. “My treasury is yours.”
Cadel had never considered such a thing before. People paid him to kill, and he killed. In his profession, failure meant death. If by some chance he had forgotten this over the years, the loss just a few turns before of Jedrek, his partner, had served as a bitter reminder. But what if he refused to kill? What if he chose to let this man live?
Would the Qirsi try to kill him? A part of him wished that they would try. He had been working for them for too long, and had grown far too dependent on their gold. He longed to strike back at them. It was far more likely, however, that they would try to destroy him while stopping short of killing him. Somehow they knew his true name. They knew of the circumstances that had driven him from the court of his father in southern Caerisse when he was little more than a boy. And, of course, they knew of every murder he had committed on their behalf. They could keep him from ever working again. With a mere word uttered to the right person, they could turn him into a fugitive.
All of which made the gold offered by this duke cowering before him that much more attractive. Before they died, many of his victims tried to buy his mercy-his employers were wealthy and powerful, and, not surprisingly, so were those they wanted dead. Always in the past he had refused. But something in the duke of Bistari’s plea stopped him, probably the fact that he knew who had paid for his death. It had come to that: he so hated working for the Qirsi that he saw in their newest enemy a possible ally, or at least a way to break free of the white-hairs and their gold.
In any case, the duke had Cadel’s attention.
“You don’t want to do this,” the man said, still sitting on the ground, his cheeks still damp with the tears he had shed.
Cadel opened his mouth, then closed it again. Some things were best left unspoken. “You offered me gold,” he said instead. “How much?”
“More than you can imagine. My dukedom is the wealthiest in Aneira. Only the king has more gold than I.”
“I wasn’t asking how much you have, I was asking how much you’d give me.”
“As much as you want. All of it, if that’s what it takes.” He faltered. “I’m not a brave man, and I fear dying more than anything else.”
Cadel closed his eyes for just an instant, cursing his own stupidity. Jedrek would never have allowed him even to begin this conversation. What had he been thinking? No duke would offer all of his gold, even out of fear. Bistari had no intention of actually paying him.
“And I suppose after you give me all this gold, you’ll send your soldiers to ride me down, cut out my heart, and retrieve your money.”
“No, I’ll let you go. You have my word.”
But Cadel felt his hope slipping away. Perhaps there was still a way for him to regain his freedom, but this was not it. Not with this man and his promise of gold. He should have realized it from the start. Jedrek was dead, killed by an enemy of the Qirsi men and women who had been paying him. That his friend’s killer was Qirsi as well struck Cadel as ironic, perhaps even funny in a way Jed himself would have appreciated, but it changed nothing. If Cadel wanted to find this man, he would need the help of the white-hairs. Even if the duke of Bistari’s offer had been sincere, he was in no position to accept it.
He smiled, extending a hand to the duke. The cord of the garrote was still wound around his fist, but the duke didn’t seem to care. Chago took Cadel’s hand and let the assassin help him to his feet, smiling broadly, as if they were old friends. He started to say something, but Cadel, still gripping his hand, spun him around and in one powerful, fluid motion wrapped the cord around the duke’s neck and pulled it tight. The man’s neck snapped like a dry twig, and Cadel felt the duke’s body go limp.
He laid the duke down on the forest floor, pulling the garrote free as he did. Then he reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small strap of leather that was frayed at one end and adorned at the other with golden trim and a carving of the Solkaran panther. It had been given to him, along with half of his payment, by an older man, a Qirsi merchant in Dantrielle. Cadel had not bothered to ask how the white-hairs had gotten it, though he wondered. There was little chance that the man knew, and less still that he would answer the question if he did.
He placed the strap in the duke’s hand, with the golden edging facing up so that it gleamed brightly, despite the grey shadows of the wood. Cadel even went so far as to break off one of the duke’s fingernails and bruise the man’s hand by squeezing his palm closed with the strap and its trim pressed awkwardly within.
They had said to make it look convincing, and given what they were paying him, he could hardly do less.
He stepped back, looking down on the body and the surrounding area to make certain that he hadn’t forgotten anything or left something foolish for one of the duke’s men to find. Satisfied that all appeared as it should, he started walking back toward the east, away from Bistari and the Scabbard Inlet. He had only walked a few strides, however, when he heard someone approaching. Concealing himself behind a broad tree, Cadel watched as a Qirsi rode into view on a small grey mount.