Jalia Prevails (Book 5) (35 page)

“You are right, Jak Venjer. I cannot. But Maximus Tallis will have no trouble doing it. This is your last chance to save your Queen’s life, because if you do not stay to listen, I can assure you that Maximus will take her head along with that of Gilan Dalk.”

Gally prepared a pot of tea while Jak stood in a state of indecision. All his instincts told him this was a trap and yet he could not risk his Queen’s survival based only on his feelings.

Gally turned to face him and placed the tea pot on the table. Seconds later, she put two cups down next to them. She sat at the table and looked up at Jak.

“Sit down or get out. My willingness to betray Maximus weakens as you stand there dithering. Maximus killed my lover Gil Toren last night, or rather one of his agents did. Maximus has always hated Gil because he knew I loved sex with him so much. I never thought he would go so far as to kill him.”

“The Captain is dead?” Jak asked with faked incredulity. He sat on the chair on the other side of the small table, having heard enough to risk staying.

“Yes, cut down in his prime by an ambitious man with less than half his ability to satisfy me. I shall have my revenge on Maximus by giving his precious swords to your Queen. I can think of nothing I could do that would hurt him more.”

Gally absently poured out two cups of tea. She put one of them in front of Jak and raised the other to her lips.

“To Queen Kalenda, long may she be a thorn in Maximus’s side.” Gally took a big gulp, downing half the cup before putting it back on its saucer.

She looked at Jak and noticed that he was not drinking with her.

“Is my toast not fitting? Or are you scared to drink with me?”

“You have a certain reputation, my lady. But I will happily drink the remainder of your own cup.”

“Take it then,” Gally said offhandedly, “Because I will not help a man unwilling to drink what I drink fearlessly.”

“To Queen Kalenda,” Jak said, drinking down the remainder of the tea in Gally’s cup.

“It is a strange fact that I loved Gil as much as I continue to love Maximus,” Gally said thoughtfully.

“But you would betray the one for the other.”

“Your precious Queen will die at Maximus’s hands,” Gally said as if she was talking about the weather.

“Not while a breath remains in my body,” Jak said, rising to his feet and drawing his sword. The sword fell out of his hand and he found himself sitting down again. Neither his arms nor his legs would obey his commands, though otherwise he remained fully conscious.

Gally smiled and Jak knew he was undone.

“My father is a determined and ruthless man. When my sister and I were little, he was told about a substance extracted from the sap of the retald tree. It renders those who take it weak of limb, though they remain fully awake and cognizant. He was told that if taken in controlled doses, a child could gain a degree of immunity from its effects. Of course, some children who were given it would die of it, that was the risk.”

Gally leaned over the table and patted Jak on the shoulder.

“My father obtained a supply of this poison and I and my sister spent many nights in bed unable to move a muscle. We would wet ourselves and worse while we lay there in a drugged state, fully awake but unable to move. Eventually we developed the immunity our father sought. Derren Sorn hones his weapons carefully and we are what he has made of us.”

“You won’t win,” Jak slurred through lips he could barely use.

“Oh, I think we will. I am now going to explain in detail how Maximus and I will take the swords from this ship without the slightest problem. Then, when you know your queen is going to die, I shall help you to my window and push you out of it. You killed my lovely Gil and will suffer the distress of failure before I allow you the release of death.”

Gally’s smile became a snarl. “They say that drowning is a horrible death. Perhaps you will get lucky and be hit by the Steam Dragon’s propeller before you drown.”

Gally picked up Jak’s cup of tea and took a sip.

“Retald actually improves the taste, in my humble opinion,” she said. “Now let me tell you exactly what my brilliant Maximus has planned.”

19.
      
Mistakes and Machinations

Seb Halder knocked on Dor’s cabin door. When Mal released the lock, Seb and four of his largest men barged into the room. Seb was carrying a sword while the other men carried loaded crossbows, which they pointed at Dor, Jant and Mal.

“What is the meaning of this?” Dor demanded. Jant and Mal put their hands on their weapons, willing to die to protect their Prince if there was no other option.

“Last night, just past the hour of seven, Captain Toren was found murdered in his room,” Seb stated grimly. “I have reason to believe the murderer is one of you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dor stated equally grimly. “My men were with me at that time and I certainly don’t remember killing Captain Toren or leaving this room until nearly eight. Then we left for our evening meal.”

“He threatened the Captain in my hearing!” Seb shouted, pointing at Jant.

“Did you threaten the Captain?” Dor asked.

“Yes, my lord,” Jant replied, ignoring Seb and his men. “I paid the Captain good money for information and had come to believe he was deceiving me.”

“What other evidence do you have to suggest it is Jant who murdered your Captain?” Mal asked Seb. “A threat is hardly the same as the deed.”

“You three are the only available suspects,” Seb confessed. “Everyone else is accounted for.”

“I doubt very much that you have interviewed Lady Sala Rotiln,” Mal said slyly. “I would be very much surprised if she was to be found at the evening meal during the time of your Captain’s death.”

“She was indisposed in her cabin,” Seb said unsurely. He knew he should have talked to her before coming to arrest Jant, but Halad had been insistent that she was incapacitated and needed bed rest.

Mal laughed in an insulting manner, which made Seb feel even more uncomfortable. From the look on the three faces in front of him, they knew something that he didn’t and they were mocking him.

“Jant is not going anywhere,” Dor said dismissively. “I suggest that before you barge into rooms accusing innocent men that you gather your facts a little more thoroughly. This can all be sorted out when we dock later this afternoon.”

“I want his weapons right now,” Seb demanded, determined not to lose face completely in the confrontation.

“Why not?” Jant said before Dor could refuse. “Take them. Check them for blood if you must. You will not find any of your Captain’s on them.”

Seb accepted Jant’s weapons and handed them to the closest of his men. They backed out of the room, watching the three men all the way. Once they were gone, Dor rounded on Jant.

“Damn it Jant. You threatened the Captain in the hearing of a member of his crew? The King will be furious if the Boat Company pursues Dalk through the courts for compensation.”

“I didn’t know the First Mate was within hearing when I said it, my lord. It was an empty threat in any case, and the Captain knew it. Dalk would not risk the enmity of the Boat Company by killing one of their senior officers.”

“Do you think that Halad
 
killed Toren?” Dor asked. “After all, we know he killed Lady Rotiln, even if we don’t know why.”

“Halad must be working for Jenver. Though all the Triums swore never to carry out assassinations after the murder of your brother,” Jant mused.

“There is another possibility,” Mal said quietly. The other men turned to him in surprise. “Maximus,” Mal told them, letting the word hang pregnant in the air.

The boat’s horn sounded for the third time and Jalia groaned as she struggled to wake up.

“Are we sinking?” Daniel’s asked in a half-awake manner from his bunk.

“We must be about to enter Slarn,” Hala told them. Of the three people in the room, she was by far and away the most awake.

“Wake me up if we sink,” Jalia murmured as she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

“It’s early afternoon,” Hala pointed out. They had gone to bed at dawn, exhausted from completing the theft of the swords. That had been over six hours ago and Hala was ready to start the day.

Daniel sighed and shook his head to try and get his brains to work. He had gone to sleep fully clothed and bent down to pull on his boots.

“Come on lazy,” he said, slapping Jalia none too gently across her buttocks. “We wouldn’t want to miss seeing the impregnable walls of Slarn.”

“I could live with missing it.”

 
Jalia rubbed her bottom absently. Nevertheless, she got to her feet, and they set off for the upper deck.

When they reached the guard rails, the city wall was clearly visible about half a mile ahead. At first, it was difficult to estimate the size of the wall, but as the boat steamed closer and it started to dwarf them they realized just how immense the wall was.

The wall dominated the horizon. It was all at the same height, as though someone had flattened the landscape before beginning its construction. The wall appeared to be constructed from a single piece of polished black granite and rose than a hundred feet from the ground. The side they could see was vertical and it looked as if it had been built the day before or perhaps earlier that morning.

Where the river and wall met, a smooth rounded arch had been cut through the wall. The opening was high enough for the Steam Dragon to pass underneath it without problem. It was not clear what, if anything, was on the top of the wall. Certainly, nothing could be seen from where they looked; the top of the wall appeared to be devoid of any features.

When they passed under the arch they could see the thickness of the wall, it was more than thirty feet thick. Daniel, ever the strategist, noticed that the bottom of the arch was embedded into the river. If you wanted to escape Slarn without climbing the wall, you would either need a boat or be prepared to get wet.

The inside of the wall turned out to be identical to the outside. It stretched out in what looked to be a straight line in both directions as far as the eye could see. Jalia’s eagle eyes noticed something as she looked to the horizon.

“The wall is curving inwards and I think I can see a black line on the horizon in both directions.”

“Captain Toren told us back in Boathaven that the wall was six miles in diameter,” Daniel replied.

You can see practically the whole wall from the observation platform,” Cara informed them as she and Don joined them. “We were just up there, before we saw you here and came to join you.”

“I want to go and look,” Hala said.

“It is a bit crowded up there. Nearly all of the passengers are there at the moment,” Don pointed out.

Hala pouted.

“Let’s go up anyway,” Jalia said, much to Hala’s delight. “We can always push someone off if they get in our way.”

“She was joking, wasn’t she?” Don asked Daniel as the men brought up the rear of the party.

“I’m never sure with Jalia,” Daniel said seriously. “But I shall be holding on to the rail while we are up there, just in case Jalia considers me in her way.”

The view from the observation platform was breathtaking. Slarn was laid out before them like a gigantic toy. It turned out to be true that you could see the top of the far side of the wall if you looked carefully.

Slarn was laid out inside three concentric rings and the land it sat on appeared to be almost perfectly flat. The wall they had just come through was the outer ring. About three miles away another, much lower wall separated the city from the farms that dotted the city’s outer zone. The second wall and the buildings inside it blocked much of the view of the center of the city. Nevertheless, it looked as though a third wall separated the central zone from the mansions and estates within the middle zone.

“It’s wonderful,” Hala said as she leaned over the safety rail up on her tiptoes. “It’s the prettiest city I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s the only city you’ve ever seen,” Jalia pointed out. “However, I have seen a few and it is certainly impressive.”

“Not the best?” Hala asked, more than a little disappointed at Jalia’s tone.

“You would need to see Ranwin, the city of glass, to have a comparison,” Jalia said softly.

“Ah Ranwin, city of the mad king and his hoards of murderous soldiers, I remember it well,” Daniel said.

“But the buildings were pretty, Daniel,” Jalia said smugly. “You have to admit that.”

“Have you noticed the banks of the river?” Don asked

“Artificial,” Daniel agreed. “They seem to be made of the same stone as the walls. It’s a much bigger version of the canal in Wegnar. Like a circular pipe sliced in half along its length. The amazing thing is how much higher the banks are than the surrounding land, they must be at least twenty feet higher, I would guess. They must have been designed to cope with enormous flows in the spring.”

“Men,” Jalia said. “A whole city to admire and you two are discussing how the banks of the river were made. Typical.”

“I, for one, was wondering what is causing that black smoke,” Cara said and pointed towards the south west. They could see that something significant was on fire within the central zone. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing towards them and they couldn’t see anything through the smoke.

“We were expecting to see a fire today,” Daniel reminded them quietly.

Nin was in the process of throwing a log into the boiler when Hal Pinder entered the room.

“I’m glad to see you men working so hard.”

“Is it true about the Captain?” Jerin asked. Rumors had spread through the ship like wildfire, but nothing had been confirmed.

“Aye it is, Captain Toren is dead, murdered in his cabin last night. Seb is acting Captain now.”

“Was it that woman, Sorn?” Nin asked. “She tried to kill us in the Greenhouse, or rather the men she set on us did.”

“You never mentioned that before,” Jerin accused.

“They asked me not to say anything,” Nin confessed. “I didn’t do anything wrong by not telling, did I Bosun?”

“The Captain already knew about it, Nin, so not to worry,” Hal said, seeing the alarm on the boy’s face. “It wasn’t Sorn. She found the body and was pretty cut up about it from all accounts.”

“I wouldn’t trust her an inch,” Nin said.

“Neither would I, boy,” Hal said approvingly. “Jerin, I want you to stand ready tonight. I’ll explain why privately, once I have had a similar word with Nin.”

Jerin took the hint and walked from the room.

“Are you any good at acting, Nin?” Hal asked.

“I’ve never tried, why?”

“Because there are some things I need you to say and later on you will have to make it sound as if it was your idea.”

Sila Klint knocked on the door to Dor’s cabin. Instead of the door opening as usual, Mal shouted to her.

“Who is it?”

“Sila Klint,” she replied impatiently, wondering what was going on.

“Are you alone?”

“What do you think?” Sila replied in annoyance. She heard the door being unbolted before it opened and Mal let her in.

“Are you expecting trouble?” She couldn’t help noticing that Mal was bolting the door closed behind her.

“We have already had it,” Dor confessed. “Have you made any progress?”

“Of a sort,” Sila replied sitting down. “I couldn’t get them to admit it, but I am sure that Tonas does not intend to sell the swords to Gally Sorn if he has a choice. My guess is that he plans to sell them to Queen Kalenda, through her representative Jak Venjer.”

“Venjer works for the Queen?” Jant asked.

“I believe so, though I have no evidence. In any event, Wilf and Tred are determined that this transaction will be cash on delivery and that means that any negotiations will not take place until we reach the dock. If Gally outbids Kalenda, then we are in with a chance.”

“The royal coffers will be empty if we have to go higher than twenty thousand,” Dor complained.

“Then a joint bid by Dalk and Jenver would look to be our best option,” Sila said dryly. “But if Gally Sorn puts up the asking price and the other families are nowhere to be seen, they will sell the swords to her. It’s very likely that under those circumstances Tonas will have no choice.”