Edelmark allowed himself a small smile. “Indeed,” he said. “Two days ago, someone shot half-a-dozen crossbow bolts at a Council Guard patrol on the Vale Road. One man was badly wounded, and two more injured. It was a carefully planned ambush by someone who knew the woods in that area quite well. Do you know anything about that?”
“No,” she answered, doing her best to lie with a straight face. She’d put Brun and Senna up to it a tenday earlier; they’d spent days choosing the right spot. It had been a risky attack, but she wanted the Council Guards to think twice about where they went and in what numbers.
“An attack on the harmach’s soldiers is a capital offense. The only way you’d avoid execution for involvement in something like that is by admitting your guilt and showing you sincerely regretted your actions by helping us to locate everyone involved.”
Mirya said nothing. Edelmark waited, simply watching her. Then he sighed and continued. “Two Iron Ring armsmen were murdered in an alleyway behind the Siren Song festhall three nights ago. They were seen to leave the place in the company of a dark-haired woman who’d apparently promised them her favors.”
“It certainly wasn’t me!” Mirya snapped, and she meant it. “I wouldn’t set foot in such a place.”
“Of course not,” Edelmark replied, but his eyes remained as cold as a drawn blade. He leaned back, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “A little more than three tendays ago-on the 8th of Hammer, to be precise-a House Veruna supply caravan bound for the Galena camps was attacked by ten masked bandits. They killed five Veruna armsmen and pillaged the wagons, but they spared the drivers. Do you know who might have been involved in that?”
Keep calm, Mirya! she admonished herself. She allowed herself a frown of disapproval. “So far you’ve suggested I might be involved in prostitution, murder, and now brigandage,” Mirya answered. “Have there been any kidnappings or rapes lately? We might as well go through those as well.”
“Mind your manners, Mistress Erstenwold,” Edelmark replied. He nodded at the soldiers standing behind Mirya. She heard two quick footsteps and a rattle of chain before her arms-still bound behind her-were jerked upward sharply by the manacles between her wrists. Twin stabs of pain in her shoulders brought a cry from her throat, and her face was forced down toward her knees. Then the pressure was gone, and her arms fell back into their natural place. “Would you like to rephrase your answer?”
Mirya winced. “Captain Edelmark, I’ve no idea who’s behind the attacks.”
The captain studied her for a long time. She expected him to nod at the soldiers behind her again, and found herself tensing for the sudden jerk and sharp pain again, but instead he frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Have you seen Geran Hulmaster since his exile?”
Everybody knows that Geran attacked the Temple of the Wronged Prince, she thought swiftly. He must know that Geran’s looked out for me before. And it might make other things I’ve said ring more true if I show a little honesty now. Carefully, she nodded. “Yes. I saw him the day before the temple burned down.”
Edelmark raised an eyebrow. “So you consorted with an avowed enemy of the harmach?”
“It was no idea of mine,” Mirya replied. “He simply appeared at my storehouse-how, I couldn’t say-and he didn’t stay long. He was gone again within half an hour.”
“And you made no report of this to the Council Guard?”
Mirya scowled. “Geran saved my daughter and me from slavery at the hands of the Black Moon pirates. All of Hulburg knows the tale by now. No, I didn’t see fit to tell the Council Guard that I’d seen him.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He stopped by to see how I was getting along.”
“Did he say anything about his intentions?”
“He blamed Valdarsel for Harmach Grigor’s murder in Thentia. I guessed that he meant to do something about it. But I’d no idea that he’d attack the Cyricists as he did.”
“Do you know where he is, or what he might be planning next?”
Mirya shook her head. “Away from Hulburg by now, I would guess. As for what he intends to do now, I couldn’t say.”
Edelmark paused. He stood slowly, folding his hands behind his back, and paced away, evidently thinking over what she’d said. Mirya watched him, wondering if he was merely making a show of careful consideration or truly digesting the very little she’d actually told him. Absently he motioned to the guards behind her, and she squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of the pain to come-but this time the guards unlocked her manacles, and freed her wrists. She frowned and rubbed at her bruises.
“I suspect that you haven’t been completely honest with me, Mistress Erstenwold,” the captain said. “However, I can’t easily prove it-at the moment. You may go, but I’ll send you with a warning. If you see or hear from Geran Hulmaster again, you will tell us immediately, or I will charge you with conspiring against the harmach, and that will lead to a short drop and a sudden stop very soon thereafter. Do you understand me?”
“Aye, I understand you,” she answered.
Edelmark looked to the soldiers behind her. “Show her out.” He picked up his helm from the table and left; the clerk followed after him, gathering his parchment. The soldiers behind Mirya came forward and helped her to her feet-somewhat less roughly this time-and quickly ushered her out of the council dungeons. Before she knew it, she was standing on the front steps of the Council Hall, still dressed in her nightclothes, blinking at the sunlight. The guards returned inside without a word, leaving her there.
“Now what was that all about?” she muttered aloud. If Marstel’s men suspected her enough to bring her in, they certainly had reason enough to jail her or hang her. But perhaps Edelmark’s suspicions were as thinly founded as he claimed, and he didn’t want to risk making a martyr of her for the rest of the loyalists to rally around. She shivered in the cold air, drew her robe around her, and hurried toward Erstenwold’s. The first thing she meant to do was to get properly dressed; fortunately she had several changes of clothes at the store and wouldn’t have to walk all the way back home in her stocking feet.
When she reached the store, she found that her clerks had opened without her, but it was a quiet day and nothing had needed her immediate attention. She stayed only long enough to send word to the Therndons that she needed a woodworker to have a look at her door, and then made her way back home.
As she’d thought, the front door was well and truly ruined; the harmach’s men had simply stood it up in the doorway, but it was no longer attached. She sighed and worked her way inside, pausing to take in the damage to her cottage. As she’d expected, it had been searched violently and thoroughly. Many of her best plates were broken on the kitchen floor, the cupboards were bare, the sheets and blankets were dumped on the floor … “What a mess,” she muttered. If she weren’t so angry about the senselessness of it, she would’ve thrown herself down in one of the chairs and cried.
She looked around, trying to determine the best place to start, but an envelope on top of her mantle caught her eye. Frowning, she went and took it down. It was addressed simply “Mirya” in a graceful, feminine hand. Somehow she doubted that the soldiers would have bothered to leave her a letter; they’d delivered their message by ransacking the house. Curious, she broke the plain wax seal and drew out a short note:
Dearest Mirya,
It is imperative that we speak at once.
— S.
“Sennifyr,” Mirya breathed. She frowned at the note, wondering what to do. Once upon a time she would have answered such a summons without a moment’s hesitation; junior initiates in the Sisterhood of the Black Veil were expected to obey. But she’d parted ways with the Sisterhood years earlier, until the troubles plaguing Hulburg in the last few months had led her to seek Mistress Sennifyr’s counsel again. The First Sister was very well informed about events in Hulburg. Every devotee of Shar in the town-many of them women who were well-placed to see and hear many of the town’s secrets-owed Sennifyr fealty, and reported to her a myriad of rumors, gossip, and observations. Mirya no longer devoted herself to the goddess of secrets and sorrow, but that didn’t mean Sennifyr wouldn’t help her if it suited her purposes to do so. Of course, Sennifyr meant to draw her back into the Sisterhood’s orbit, so Mirya would have to be on her guard.