“Always,” Jarl said. He looked up, his brown eyes bright. “I want you to take it, Azo. As soon as we find out where Durzo Blint lives, we’re going get you out. All right?”
Azoth looked at the pile of coins. Four years. Dozens of beatings. Not only did he not know if he would give that much for Jarl, but he’d also thought of stealing it from him. He couldn’t hold back hot tears. He was so ashamed. He was so afraid. Afraid of Rat. Afraid of Durzo Blint. Always afraid. But if he got out, he could help Jarl. And Blint would teach him to kill.
Azoth looked up at Jarl, not daring to look at Doll Girl for fear of what might be in her big brown eyes. “I’ll take it.”
He knew who he’d kill first.
3
Durzo Blint pulled himself on top of the small estate’s wall and watched the guard pass. The perfect guard, Durzo thought: a bit slow, lacking imagination, and dutiful. He took his thirty-nine steps, stopped at the corner, planted his halberd, scratched his stomach under his gambeson, checked in all directions, then walked on.
Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Durzo slipped out of the man’s shadow and eased himself over the edge of the walkway. He held on by his fingertips.
Now. He dropped and hit the grass just as the guard thumped the butt of his halberd on the wood walkway. He doubted the guard would have heard him anyway, but paranoia begat perfection in the wetboy’s trade. The yard was small, and the house not much bigger. It was built on the Ceuran design, with translucent rice paper walls. Bald cypress and white cedar formed the doors and arches and cheaper local pine had been used for the frame and the floors. It was spartan like all Ceuran houses, and that fit General Agon’s military background and his ascetic personality. More than that, it fit his budget. Despite the general’s many successes, King Davin had not rewarded him well—which was part of why the wetboy had come.
Durzo found an unlocked window on the second floor. The general’s wife was asleep in the bed: they weren’t so Ceuran as to sleep on woven mats. They were, however, poor enough that the mattress was stuffed with straw rather than feathers. The general’s wife was a plain woman, snoring gently and sprawled more in the middle than to one side of the bed. The covers on the side she was facing had been disturbed.
The wetboy slid into the room, using his Talent to soften the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood floor.
Curious. A quick glance confirmed that the general hadn’t just come for a nocturnal conjugal visit. They actually shared the room. Perhaps he was even poorer than people thought.
Durzo’s brow furrowed under his mask. It was a detail he didn’t need to know. He drew the short poisoner’s knife and walked toward the bed. She’d never feel a thing.
He stopped. The woman was turned toward the disturbed covers. She’d been sleeping close to her husband before he got up. Not on the far side of the bed, the way a woman merely doing her marital duties would.
It was a love match. After her murder, Aleine Gunder had planned to offer the general a quick remarriage to a rich noblewoman. But this general, who’d married a lowborn woman for love, would react quite differently to his wife’s murder than a man who’d married for ambition.
The idiot. The prince was so consumed with ambition that he thought everyone else was, too. The wetboy sheathed the knife and stepped into the hall. He still had to know where the general stood. Immediately.
“Dammit, man! King Davin’s dying. I’d be surprised if he’s got a week left.”
Whoever had spoken was mostly right. The wetboy had given the king his final dose of poison tonight. By dawn, he would be dead, leaving a throne in contention between one man who was strong and just, and another who was weak and corrupt. The underworld Sa’kagé was not disinterested in the outcome.
The voice had come from the receiving room downstairs. The wetboy hurried to the end of the hall. The house was so small that the receiving room doubled as the study. He had a perfect view of the two men.
General Brant Agon had a graying beard, close-trimmed hair that he didn’t comb, and a jerky way of moving, keeping his eyes on everything. He was thin and sinewy, his legs slightly bowed from a life in the saddle.
The man across from him was Duke Regnus Gyre. The wing-backed chair creaked as he shifted his weight. He was a huge man, both tall and wide, and little of his bulk was fat. He folded ringed fingers on his belly.
By the Night Angels. I could kill them both and end the Nine’s worries right now.
“Are we deceiving ourselves, Brant?” Duke Gyre asked.
The general didn’t answer immediately. “My lord—”
“No, Brant. I need your opinion as a friend, not as a vassal.” Durzo crept closer. He drew the throwing knives slowly, careful with the poisoned edges.
“If we do nothing,” the general said, “Aleine Gunder will become king. He is a weak, foul, and faithless man. The Sa’kagé already owns the Warrens; the king’s patrols won’t even leave the main roads, and you know all the reasons that’s only bound to get worse. The Death Games entrenched the Sa’kagé. Aleine doesn’t have the will or the inclination to oppose the Sa’kagé now, while we can still root them out. So are we deceiving ourselves in thinking that you’d be a better king? Not at all. And the throne is yours by rights.”
Blint almost smiled. The underworld’s lords, the Sa’kagé Nine, agreed with every word—which was why Blint was making sure Regnus Gyre didn’t become king.
“And tactically? We could do it?”
“With minimal bloodshed. Duke Wesseros is out of the country. My own regiment is in the city. The men believe in you, my lord. We need a strong king. A good king. We need you, Regnus.”
Duke Gyre looked at his hands. “And Aleine’s family? They’ll be part of the ‘minimal bloodshed’?”
The general’s voice was quiet. “You want the truth? Yes. Even if we don’t order it, one of our men will kill them to protect you, even if it meant hanging. They believe in you that much.”
Duke Gyre breathed. “So the question is, does the good of many in the future outweigh the murder of a few now?”
How long has it been since I had such qualms? Durzo barely stifled an overpowering urge to throw the daggers.
The suddenness of his rage shook him. What was that about?
It was Regnus. The man reminded him of another king he’d once served. A king worthy of it.
“That’s for you to answer, my lord,” General Agon said. “But, if I may, is the question really so philosophical?”
“What do you mean?”
“You still love Nalia, don’t you?” Nalia was Aleine Gunder’s wife.
Regnus looked stricken. “I was betrothed to her for ten years, Brant. We were each other’s first lovers.”
“My lord, I’m sorry,” the general said. “It’s not my—”
“No, Brant. I never speak of it. As I decide whether to be a man or a king, let me.” He breathed deeply. “It’s been fifteen years since Nalia’s father broke our betrothal and married her to that dog Aleine. I should be over it. I am, except when I have to see her with her children and have to imagine her sharing a bed with Aleine Gunder. The only joy my marriage has given me is my son Logan, and I can scarce believe her own has been better.”
“My lord, given the involuntary nature of both of your weddings, could you not divorce Catrinna and marry—”
“No.” Regnus shook his head. “If the queen’s children live, they will always be a threat to my son, whether I exile them or adopt them. Nalia’s eldest boy is fourteen—too old to forget that he was destined for a throne.”
“The right is on your side, my lord, and who knows but that answers unforeseen may arise to these problems once you sit on the throne?”