The Misbegotten (An Assassin's Blade Book 1) (19 page)

Borgart was listening earnestly, his long fingers entangled in his muddy beard. “What kind of magic have you got yourself into, Astul?”

“No magic,” I said. “There is a forge above ground. A few amateur blacksmiths in our ranks tell me it’s quite nice.”

He stuck a thumb between his eyes and shook his head in disappointment. “I can’t just abandon my duties here, Astul. I live nicely here. I eat what I want, drink what I want, my wife isn’t bound to servitude like so many wives.”

I wanted to tell him none of that would matter when the conjurers soon swept across his comfy little world. But he would never believe that, so I had to borrow a remedy old as time itself.

“There is a vault in my hole,” I told him. “In the room before the ebon. A key sits under a helmet in that room. Take what you feel is necessary, but do not rob me. I am not a man you want to steal from.”

In truth, I had two vaults. The one with so much glittering gold you could submerge a catapult in it was tucked away safely in a corridor on the left side of the Hole. The one on the right held payments for various… debts.

Borgart stuffed his hands in his pockets and slowly turned, inspecting the forge wistfully. Indecision marked his face.

The air suddenly ruptured into a short but intense gust of bitterly cold wind. I hid my face in my shoulder of soft wool as a foot-high snowdrift fusilladed across Edenvaile. It stopped as abruptly as it began.

“You love your wife, no?” I asked him when the storm abated.

“Married twenty-five years now. She’s my…” He searched for the words.

“Everything,” I said helpfully. “Any children?”

“Two boys and a girl. My daughter beats the snot out of her brothers when it comes to blacksmithing. She’s got the magical touch of her father.”

I sidestepped onto the raised steel platform on which the forge sat and put myself as close to Borgart as possible. Personal space did not exist at this moment. He needed to feel nervous. Uncomfortable. Unhinged.

“If you truly love your children and your wife, you’ll take them all to Nane. You’ll make my ebon blades. You’ll take your gold and you’ll get the fuck out of here. There’s a cloud approaching this world, Borgart. And it’s going to pause right over this kingdom. You don’t want to be here for it. Trust me.”

“War?” he asked. “I haven’t heard of a war.”

“Do you have ears that hear whispers from the coast of Erior to the coast of Eaglesclaw? I don’t request a few hundred ebon blades because I want to parade them around the kingdoms of this world. There is a war coming, Borgart. Your boys will be made to wield a sword and shuffle around with leather scraps dangling off of them for armor. And your girl and wife… well, who knows.”

He lowered his head and pushed past me. “I’ll leave as soon as I gather them. Where will I deliver the weapons?”

“Stow them away in the Hole. Then find yourself a little village far away from Vereumene, far away from Watchmen’s Bay. Don’t even think of coming North again. If we lose this war, little villages will be the last place they come.”

He stopped. “Who?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I would.”

“Conjurers,” I said.

I could tell he was riffling through his mind, trying to reconcile the near-extinction of conjurers in Mizridahl with this new uprising.

Surprisingly, he asked nothing more. He simply nodded and ambled along, toward the gate. He must have lived in one of the villages on the outskirts of the walls.

I grabbed a straight-peen hammer lying on his workbench, looked it over and then slammed the heavy bastard as hard I could into the side of the forge. The resulting clink deafened my ears. My wrist recoiled behind my head, drawing the hammer inches past my temple.

All I could hear was a loud uninterrupted ringing. I dropped the hammer and threw my elbows on the tool table, burying my face in my nearly numb hands. Ever since I’d met Tylik and witnessed the atrocities done to that man, and the injustice… I… it changed me. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like feeling. I never used to feel. Just did what I had to do. And now, I displaced a man and his family so I could get a few hundred fancy swords to help for a war, and I felt like I’d committed an atrocity.

I needed to blunt my emotions. But how? How do you undo the changes that have altered your shape, that have reached in and obliterated the soul that made you who you were and molded it anew, for better or for worse? How do you return to the person that the world remembers you as and not the caricature you’ve become?

I had to remember who Astul was. He was a thief, a liar and a grand manipulator. He was an assassin, a man of gluttony and purveyor of sin. He was indifferent to injustice, inhospitable to the needy and insincere to every lover he’d ever fucked.

I considered this for some time, and then it dawned on me. A man like that wasn’t the type of person to help save the world. Of course, I wasn’t trying to save the world. I was simply trying to save myself and my Rots. That’s what I told myself, anyhow. I had to retain
some
pride.

Time to fetch Vayle and prepare for the grand wedding. We had a conjurer to outsmart.

V
ayle was still sitting
on the frozen fountain, but only after close inspection could I tell. The snowdrift that blew through had dumped a heaping of snow over her, and she didn’t so much as shake one flake of the white stuff off. Hopefully the cold hadn’t frozen the blood in her veins.

“Is my commander dead?” I asked.

A skin of wine rose from beneath the outcropping of snow like a paw of an animal trapped under an avalanche. That was a good sign.

“I will be soon,” she said, “if we stay in this kingdom much longer. It’s cold. Very cold. One of the many reasons I do not miss the North.”

I clapped my hands and rubbed them together diabolically. “I’ve got some news that’ll be sure to warm your bones. We get to hunt for an assassin.”

Vayle looked at me, and the snow perched upon her shoulder collapsed, cascading onto her thigh.

“You look ridiculous,” I told her. “You do realize that moving softens the cold, yes?”

“A paradox,” she remarked. “The cold makes it so that moving is a painful thought, but moving is the only way to stay warm.”

I blinked. “Right. About the hunt for the assassin…”

“Let’s get on with it,” she said, rising from her crudely made snow shelter.

“We’re assuming Mydia and possibly Chachant are going to keel over during or after the ceremony. Death requires an assassin. Unless he’s arriving on the wings of a phoenix, he’s already here. I say we start our hunt for him in the kitchen.”

She stared at me expectedly. “Explain.”

“The easiest way to make someone keel over is by adding a dash of poison to their drink or dinner. If we keep our eyes on the preparations of food and drink, particularly Chachant and Mydia’s plates, we can identify the assassin.”

“And what if the assassin is someone who wields a knife and isn’t afraid to plunge it into the belly of a king?”

“I’ve got that covered too,” I said, smiling as widely and annoyingly as I could. I pointed to the recently erected balcony curving across the center of the castle. “We’ll be up there with Sybil and Chachant.”

“I envision two problems. Wilhelm is bouncing around here like a demented bunny. He
will
pass us while we’re in the kitchen. I doubt he wants us there. Secondly, they will not let us on the balcony. Ceremonies are for the lords and ladies and those kind of people, not assassins.”

“Just wait,” I said.

“Wait? Wait for what?”

“Preferably a meteor to scorch the sky and suddenly plunge into the land of the conjurers. Failing that, we’re waiting for Wilhelm to come back around.”

Vayle pulled her undershirt up above her lips, protecting them from the cold. “Will you beg him to allow us entry to the wedding ceremony?”

I reeled back, quite offended at the suggestion that
I
would beg
anyone
for
anything
. She knew me better than that. “No begging necessary. He’ll find our presence up there quite comforting after I reveal some information to him. Oh, and look there, the man of the hour is passing through now.”

On second look, Wilhelm did resemble a demented rabbit looking for his next carrot fix. His head swiveled around as if the scent of orange, fibrous goodness surrounded him. He licked his lips in great anticipation and his eyes were narrow and focused. And he had quite the hop in his step.

“Commander Wilhelm,” I called out. He stopped before me. “I wasn’t entirely honest about the reason for our arrival. I’ve heard little chirps.” I put my arm around his armored shoulders. “Little warbles and a few trills. Some whispers, if you will, that an assassin lurks about in Edenvaile.”

Wilhelm’s shoulders rose with tension. “And where have you heard these whispers?” he asked, his voice muted.

“If I revealed my sources, then I wouldn’t have sources.”

He shrugged my arm off and faced me, with a scowl cutting down his chapped lips. “Twice now you have lied to me about your reason for being here. Why should I believe this?”

“My need to talk to Chachant wasn’t a lie, and we both knew I didn’t want to be here for a bloody wedding. That was hardly a lie, more a jest.”

Vayle stepped forward and rubbed her gloved hands together. “Hasn’t one assassination of a king already occurred on your watch?”

Wilhelm regarded her coolly. He said nothing.

“It would seem,” she suggested, “that it would reflect poorly on you if another assassin managed to fell another member of the court under your guard.”

“Remember the assassination of Enton Daniser’s son?” I asked. “I’d heard that the commander of the Watchmen’s Bay city guard was in turn brutally reprimanded. Eyes plucked out and fed to him, and then his tongue was riven from his mouth and he was thrown out to the sandy coast, left to dry by the sun like a fish.”

Wilhelm unfolded his arms and rested his palm on the balled hilt of his sword. “Is someone paying you to find this assassin, or has the Black Rot suddenly found the notion to play protectors of the world?”

“I want stability,” I said. “Not a world that’s plunged into chaos. What do you think the outcome of an assassination here tonight would be? Imagine if Mydia or Sybil get struck down. Chachant will lose his mind. He’ll march straight to the gates of Braddock Glannondil or Edmund Tath or wherever his crazed mind tells him to march. Do you want that?”

Wilhelm rubbed his mouth in contemplating fashion.

“I want access to this wedding,” I said. “Allow us to monitor the kitchen for any attempts at poisoning. Allow us access to the balcony where the wedding takes place. Notify your guards and tell them to keep watch.”

Wilhelm looked past me. He forced a heavy sigh through the corner of his creased mouth. “Fine. But understand me, Shepherd. If you fuck me over, I will do to you what Enton Daniser did to his city guard and worse. I don’t care what repercussions I face from the Black Rot. I’ll face them at the gate. I will make you suffer for making me a fool.”

I contained a smile that tried to consume my entire face. Wilhelm and his city guard wouldn’t face my Rots at the gate. No, my men would destroy them from the inside. But I had no intention of dishonor, so I simply shook the man’s hand and gave my thanks.

Vayle and I made way for the kitchen.

“If I may be entirely honest,” I told her, “I’m not sure where it is.”

“You’ve never been to the kitchen?”

“I’ve never set foot into any kitchen except the tiny hearths inside tiny homes in tiny villages.”

“I imagine this one is large.”

Once we finally discovered the location of the Edenvaile castle kitchen, I learned that large was not an apt description. The place was huge, massive, outright enormous. It featured several rooms, all of which specialized in a different mastery of cooking. They each had dirty stone walls and dusty stone floors, but that was where their similarities ended.

The front-facing wall of the first room had been converted into an immense hearth with iron hooks dangling from inside and menacing flames that licked at the iron bottom of one tremendously broad and deep-seated cauldron chained securely to two pairs of hooks.

There was a table upon which two cauldrons sat, servants pouring muddy broth inside both. It took two servants to heft each cauldron over to the hearth and chain it to the hooks. Once in place, they would add onions and celery and potatoes and various other vegetables, along with chunks of sliced beef, a large heaping of peppercorns, some spice that smelled similar to cinnamon, a dash of thyme and a host of other spices. There seemed to be one woman in particular who headed this fiasco of stew preparation.

She was angry. She stormed from the table, serrated knife in hand, and elbowed a young man out of the way. “Nononono,” she said, speaking so quickly each word came out joined to the other like twins that hadn’t separated from the womb. “Cinnamongoesinlater. Later!” she smacked him upside the head. “Dumb! Stupid! Howmanytimeshaveyoudonethis? Howmanytimesanswermenow!”

Visibly shaken, the boy, who couldn’t have been a day over thirteen, stumbled back and spat out, “So—sorry, Miss Loeora.”

“Ah!” the woman hissed. She spun around and her thin slits for eyes narrowed at Vayle and me.

“Whoareyou? Whyareyouinmykitchen?”

“Hmm,” I said. “And what language are we speaking here?”

“Excuseme?”

Vayle stepped forward. “Commander Wilhelm sent us to oversee the feast preparations for today’s sumptuous exchange of vowels between Lord Chachant and Lady Sybil.”

I wished I had an inkwell and parchment so I could take notes on how I was supposed to behave around these people. Vayle had it easy; she grew up around nobles with sticks up their asses. Granted, she was their slave thing, so maybe easy isn’t the most accurate description.

“Oversee what?” the woman asked, her speech slowing down considerably.

“We won’t interfere with your duties,” Vayle said, smiling graciously. “I assure you.”

“Mm,” the woman said, dropping her head and slicing a carrot like she was attempting to grind it into the chop board.

I began walking toward the open doorway of a second room connecting the first. “We’ll have to watch all four pots,” I told Vayle.

“Astul…”

“What have we here?” I said, smacking my lips together. In the second room, the front-facing wall featured three separate unlit hearths. On several long wooden tables were chunks and joints of bloody meat, bones jutting out. There were boar haunches being basted with butter and stuck onto imposing iron spits. There was a whole pig being rolled over, its belly sliced open and stuffed with seasoned apples and spices such as sage and basil and garlic. A couple of servants stuck a hefty spit through its mouth, rammed it through the other side and left it on the table for now.

I mentioned to Vayle about ensuring both Chachant and Sybil received the same meat.

Her reply was, “Astul…” but I ignored her and continued onto the third room, which was the spicery. A man expertly wielded a mortar and pestle, grinding herbs into fine dust.

The fourth room consisted of a servant preparing sauces, and the fifth a scullery where servants washed tongs and basters and chopping boards.

“Astul,” Vayle said again, after I suggested the scullery could probably survive on its own without our intrusion.

“What?” I finally asked.

“We can’t keep watch over four rooms simultaneou—”

She paused. The stew lady unleashed a flurry of words from a few rooms over.

“Nonono! Impossible! Impossible! Itisallimpossible!”

There was a jangle of armor and then the walls trembled as something stiff collided into them.

“Make it possible,” a low-growling voice told her.

A few moments went by. The saucierer went to check on the hateur and returned with a wry smirk on his face. He shook his head and began slicing the crusts from a loaf of rye bread.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he remarked scornfully. “The Lady Sybil has simply moved the wedding from this evening to noon today.”

“That’s only a few hours away,” I said.

“Indeed,” the saucierer said, pouring a small spoonful of vinegar into a bowl. “Indeed.”

I tugged Vayle’s hand and hurried out of the kitchen and through a door that led to the edge of the castle courtyard, where a thin strip of grass would typically lie in the summer months, along with bedazzling flowers and bulbous shrubs. Now, there were bunches of dead wood and snow. Not a desirable place to congregate, which meant it served well as a venue to exchange words you wanted no one else to hear.

“She moved the time because we’re here,” I told Vayle. “She doesn’t want us to find whatever it is she’s hiding.”

“An assassin, you mean?”

“Or worse. You’re right. Monitoring the kitchen for poison is a fruitless endeavor. It’s much too large.”

“Tasters,” Vayle said. “They could help.”

“Tasters aren’t good for shit unless they’re tasting wine. A good assassin buries the poison deep within the meal, where only his victim would eat from.”

The heavy sound of crashing steel resonated through my bones. I turned to see the double-leaf keep doors open and a very familiar man step out.

“My Lord,” Wilhelm said from a concealed position.

“Commander,” Chachant said. “How are the wedding preparations coming?”

“Behind schedule, sir. We didn’t anticipate Lady Sybil moving the time.”

“I understand she’s a handful sometimes,” Chachant said. “But try to accommodate her, will you?”

“Of course, my Lord. Will that be all?”

Chachant bowed his head. “Yes.”

There was a scurrying of feet from where Wilhelm stood. Chachant had a relaxing look around his kingdom, drawing the glacial air deep into his lungs. He sat on the icy steps leading up to the keep, his arms woven around his knees. An old heavy wool coat consumed him, and a pelt tinged with orange fox fur sat upon his shoulders.

He had the face of a stable boy. Cheeks full of freckles, wispy pale hairs curling out from his chin and neck. His hair was matted around his ears and his bangs glistened with grease.

“I’m told you don’t make many appearances to the common folk anymore,” I bellowed, slugging through the thick, lumpy snow over to the boy king.

Chachant flashed me a lopsided smile. “There’s a voice and a face that I very much have wanted to hear and see.”

“Consider yourself one of the few,” Vayle said dryly.

“Commander Vayle,” Chachant said with a nod of his terrifyingly perfect spherical head, “how are you?”

Vayle traded glances with me. It was a glance of steadfast aggravation, one that said, “Why do these buffoons continue to ask me how I am when it’s quite clear how I am?”

“Cold,” Vayle answered.

“Better than being ill and cold,” Chachant said. “Malaise has kept me under the covers and inside my room for the better part of the last week. It is fortunate the fever broke yesterday.”

I patted down the snow next to Chachant into a stiff seat of sparkling white crystals and sat my tired ass on it.

“From the stories I was told,” I said, “I thought perhaps you fell victim to the avaricious nature of the crown and were locking yourself away, convinced there were thieves afoot who wanted to steal it all away from you.”