Jaymes asked Sir Donald to take his horse back to the palace, announcing that he intended to walk. Before the knight rode off on the silver-saddled steed, the emperor lashed his cloak and helmet to the saddlebags. Instead he made do with a plain black cape. Pulling the hood up over his head, he walked down from Nobles’ Hill with his head low, though his eyes and ears stayed alert. His mood was black; his anger felt like a burning coal in his chest. Two women had thwarted him, and he could strike at neither of them directly. Sooner or later they would regret their actions.
But that afternoon he would find an easier target.
Unrecognized, he passed through the gate into the Old City. No strong urge propelled him home-he had no stomach to deal with his wife right then-so he took a roundabout path, determined to see for himself what the mood in Palanthas was like. His footsteps soon carried him near the bustling waterfront, where a number of wide plazas served as day markets, with vendors offering everything from fish to sharp steel knives for sale. About the only commercial item prohibited from sale was slaves-that foul trade had been banned since the restoration of Solamnic rule under Lord Regent du Chagne-but Jaymes suspected that if he looked closely at some of the brothels or mercenary companies in the city even humans could be purchased.
However, he was not concerned with such matters of morality. Instead, his mind was on practical problems, and Coryn’s words had warned him that there might exist dangers in the very city about which the emperor suspected little. Was the population rebellious? Was Vingaard Keep just the tip of a dangerous iceberg?
If so, Jaymes Markham would not remain in the dark for long.
The first place he stopped was a fish market right at the docks. He ignored the busy scenes of commerce, the nets full of glistening salmon being hoisted from holds, the icemen hauling their wagons of frozen water to the stalls, the merchants trying to sell their goods to the teeming throngs. Instead, Jaymes listened to the people who were not there to sell or buy, but merely to gab.
He heard one of the official heralds, proclaiming the relatively old news of Vingaard’s capitulation. Jaymes had written the announcement himself, and-hearing it-regretted his choice of words.
“The recalcitrant Kerrigan clan has rejoined the law-abiding ranks of the Solamnic peoples!” cried the herald. “The daughter of the lord, Lady Kerrigan, has been appointed mistress of the keep. Her brother is declared an outlaw, and a reward of a thousand steel pieces is offered for his capture, alive. Alternately, if proof of his death can be produced, the reward is five hundred steel.”
Jaymes heard people muttering about the announcement, some hearing the news for the first time, others reacting as though the herald’s report was familiar. The emperor had intentionally left out any mention of the damage to the keep’s legendary towers, as well as the fate of Lord Kerrigan. But the sad truth was spreading.
“Did you hear that Old Sandy-that’s Lord Kerrigan the elder-was killed by the emperor when he came to his camp under a flag of truce?” whispered an old man, speaking to several young ruffians. He was a vendor of wine, who leaned on the counter of his tiny stall as he held the attention of a small group of onlookers. A hand-scratched sign hung crookedly on a post, announcing it as “Norgaard Eric’s Prime Wine Shop.” Though the fellow was speaking softly, his words carried to Jaymes’s ears as the emperor, still cloaked, mingled with the crowd.
“Not only that, but his guns knocked the whole keep down!” a woman hissed, looking up to make sure the herald wasn’t listening. She didn’t show any concern about the strangers clustered around her and kept speaking. “Next thing you know, he’ll be blasting down our own houses if he don’t like the way we looks at ’im!”
“They say his own troops was on the point o’ mutiny!” the old man interjected, trying to recapture his audience. “That he held a sword to his captain’s own throat, ere the men would follow orders.”
“How’d it come to this?” heatedly asked one of the young men. He was a furtive, swarthy type that Jaymes immediately pegged for a thief. There was the shape of a short blade under the hip of his tunic, though for the moment he seemed more interested in gossiping than in working his trade.
“We let ’im do it!” the woman replied tartly. “Just gave ’im the keys to the city, we did.”
“Eh, it’s the lord regent’s fault. Givin’ up his daughter like that to a hick warrior from the backcountry! Why, there’s them say that he really did kill old Lord Lorimar, and ’e threatened to do the same to the regent, less he gave up his daughter.”
“And the poor princess,” said the woman, shaking her head and clucking her tongue. “Locked up in that castle like a prisoner, she is.”
“Huh! Really? How d’you know that?” demanded the old man, obviously jealous of that fresh tidbit of information.
“Why, my son’s a sergeant in the palace guard, ’e is,” the woman insisted in a low voice. “Was him that looked in on her every day while the emperor was off makin’ war.”
Jaymes had been determined to listen in silence, but that remark upset him. Muffling his voice, he spoke from the edge of the group. “A sergeant, you say? Sure he ain’t just a reg’lar ranker?”
“Sergeant Withers!” she shot back, offended. “Maxim Withers. You can see his name on the roster, you don’t believe me!”
She suddenly squinted, trying to get a clean look at Jaymes, but he shifted slightly, using the shoulder of a burly dock worker so she couldn’t see him. “Yes,” she repeated firmly. “Our beloved princess wept and she wailed, I’m told! They were barely allowed to feed her-on the emperor’s orders it was!”
“No!” gasped one of the listeners.
“That tain’t the worst of it,” the old woman said, her voice dropping low again.
“What? Tell us!” demanded the listeners.
“She’s with child!” she proclaimed triumphantly. “The Princess of Palanthas is going to be giving the emperor an heir!”
“Ah, I ain’t heard that!” said Norgaard Eric skeptically, trying to take charge of the gossiping again. He switched the subject, grousing about the city patrols that had apparently required him to close his wine-vending stall at sundown. The new rule had been one of Jaymes’s innovations, and the emperor knew it had considerably reduced the drunkenness on the streets in the waterfront district.
Disgusted, the emperor moved on, though not without making a few mental notes.
He spent the rest of the day making his way through the city. In some neighborhoods the official heralds were actually jeered by people in the crowds, and everywhere the mood was touchy. The people were foolish cattle, he realized, who were distracted by any kind of gossip or provocation. By the time he approached the gates of his palace, throwing back his hood so he was immediately recognized, the emperor had made several decisions. Many of them would take a little more thought, but at least two of them he could act on at once.
“Find Sergeant Maxim Withers of the palace guard,” he ordered the captain on duty. “Have him report to me at once. Oh, and send a detail to the waterfront district. There’s a wine merchant there, calls himself Norgaard Eric.”
“Yes, my lord,” the captain replied, his eyebrows raised in mute question.
“I want his stock destroyed, and I think it would do him good to spend a few nights in the city gaol. See that it’s done.”
Knowing he would be obeyed-it was a good feeling, that knowledge-Jaymes stalked through the door of his palace. He was hungry but would have a meal delivered to his office.
He had a lot of work to do.
Dram couldn’t sleep. He didn’t want to disturb Sally with his tossing and turning, so he got out of bed, threw a fur robe over his stocky, muscular body, and went out to the front porch of the great house. The valley’s crystalline lake shimmered before him, bright with the reflected light of a million stars and the setting of the silver crescent moon in the west.