The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (19 page)

“You have worked in the cause of Seth Yarra,” the duke accused.

“Never!”

“Then you are a fool.”

Hermandis opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. He was in a position where he had to be careful what he admitted and what he denied. If it was a choice between traitor and fool, then fool it must be.

“I have always acted in the best interests of the people of Bas Erinor, the people of Avilian, and the king.” He said.

“And this nonsense with the disease and the dogs?”

“Nonsense? We have clear evidence. The illness retreated when the dogs were killed. The merchants approved…” He stopped talking and for a moment looked quite blank. Narak could not stop himself from smiling. “It was a lie?”

“So it seems,” the duke said. “There never was an illness in Telas Alt.”

Now Hermandis knew his course, and seized on it with extraordinary enthusiasm.

“Pelas Simal,” he said. “That is the man’s name. The name he goes by. He came to us from Telas,” he said. “I have indeed been a fool, my lord. He was most plausible, a clever man. Seth Yarra you say?”

“My son saw him with a Seth Yarra blade.”

Hermandis glanced across at Quinnial, and for a moment his eyes flicked further, touching Narak. The Wolf had not spoken a word.

“Send for him,” the high priest suggested. “He will be in temple. He has a cell in the east wing, above the chapel of the stillborn.”

The duke gestured to the guards, and the same two that had brought Hermandis left at the run. The spy was named. He would be brought before them. Narak wondered if it would be so easy. The city of gods would be awash with tales of his return, and he did not doubt that news had reached the temple of Ashmaren. The spy, the one that called himself Pelas Simal, would have had every chance to run if he suspected himself unmasked.

The high priest continued to try to improve his position, inventing quite the most impressive array of excuses and reasons for his failure to see through the spy, but it was clear from the duke’s dry comments that Hermandis had lost the trust of his lord. He would no longer be accepted as a councillor to the duke, and that in turn called for a new high priest. Hermandis had provided the perfect pretext for his own removal. It did not trouble Narak, even though he did not think another would have done better in the circumstances.

The guards came back. There was no sign of the priest Simal in the temple of Ashmaren. They had found priestly robes, the amulet that declared his status, all cast upon the bed. Nothing else was in the room.

“He has run,” Narak said.

“We will hunt him down, Deus,” the duke assured him.

“There is no need,” Narak replied. “I thought that he might flee, and I have made provision. In a few minutes there will be wolves at the gates. I have called them. They will follow the man wherever he has gone.”

They left the duke’s chambers and went to the gates of the castle. Several uneasy guardsmen were facing off against a pair of wolves. Swords had not been drawn, but hands were close to hilts. There was no way that a guardsman would kill a wolf, not with Wolf Narak in the castle, but they were sworn to keep the gate. They relaxed when they saw him approach.

“First we must go to the temple,” Narak said. “His robes are left there, and these trackers need a scent to follow. I hope there will not be a problem?” He looked at the high priest. He expected some protest at wolves entering Ashmaren’s holy place, and even more when he did, but he had the high priest where he wanted him. If the man did anything to impede the pursuit he would look like a traitor.

Hermandis nodded his reluctant consent, managing to turn his face to Narak without looking directly at him.

The priests at the temple gates were shocked, but Hermandis waved them aside and silenced them with a look. He had authority here. Every priest and acolyte was bound to his word by oath. They gathered a wake of red and white robes as they mounted the stairs and made their way to the spy’s cell. The duke followed closely behind the high priest and Narak followed them, walking beside Quinnial. The wolves followed his heels like obedient dogs, all their wildness banished by his presence.

The cell was clean and empty apart from the robe and the amulet. Narak studied the room carefully, and he sensed that all was not as it should be. Why leave the robe here? He must have known that it would be useful to his pursuers. Clearly there was a simple logic. The robe and amulet were all that could mark him as a priest of Ashmaren, and nobody would look twice at a man in breeches, boots and tunic walking down the stair from the city of gods. He would be one among many. But to leave it here was almost an invitation to follow. How much better to have discarded these things in a place where they might not be found or identified for days?

“You are sure that this is his robe, and not another’s?” Narak asked.

Hermandis shrugged, but one of the priests that had followed them from the door stepped forwards and examined the robe, passing in through his hands. He stopped and pointed to a tear on the hem.

“It is his,” the priest said. “This tear he made moving wood to the fires below. It was caught on a splinter on the door frame.

So it was his. Narak picked it up and showed it to the wolves.

This scent. Find the man. Walk.

The wolves breathed the spy’s scent and cast about the doorway, almost immediately stepping through. It was strong. They did not even bend their muzzles to the ground, but walked head up down the corridor.

“They will keep an easy pace,” Narak said as he stepped out after them. Now the last were first. The wolves led, Narak followed with Quinnial and the duke after them. Hermandis brought up the rear.

They left the temple, and the red and white robes were left behind. They would have followed, but Hermandis shook his head and they reluctantly fell back. The wolves led them directly to the high city gates, and the guards there sprang to attention. The duke attached two of them to the company and they went down the great stair. People pressed to the sides to allow them to pass. Narak saw fear, amazement, even worship in the eyes of the pilgrims. They knew him and they knew the duke. How they knew him he could only guess; the swords perhaps, but more likely the wolves that led them, or perhaps a combination of the two. He heard his name spoken. From the corner of his eye he saw fingers pointing. He had learned to block it out once before, but the skill had deserted him, and the attention distracted him. He did not like it.

At the foot of the great stair they plunged into the city, taking alleys and small lanes, turning and twisting through the poorer parts of the low city. It did not bother Narak, but he could see the Duke was troubled. He had only two guardsmen with him, and this was a place without law.

They turned down another alley, similar to a dozen others they had threaded, and Narak heard the brief hum of a bow string. He saw the arrow and stepped easily out of its path.

Go. Hold him. Do not kill.

The wolves raced ahead. One of the guards behind him swore. He turned to see that the man had not been as quick. The arrow had embedded itself in his upper arm, but it was not a serious injury. He turned back to the road and ran after the wolves. He saw that they were heading for a house not very distant, for an open window that was a good vantage point for a bowman.

A second arrow flew from the window. The spy was not shooting at the wolves, but at Narak himself. It was what Narak expected. Mindful of the important people behind him he reached up a hand and snatched the arrow out of the air. Its impetus threw him slightly off balance, but at the same moment he saw the wolves fly through the window into the threatening darkness beyond. He cast the arrow aside and in a dozen long paces he reached the window himself, and dived through it with swords drawn.

When he rolled back to his feet he saw that his blades were unnecessary. The spy lay in a corner of the room well away from the broken remains of the bow. The wolves bared their teeth mere inches from his face, and he was pinned against the wall by his fear.

He was a small man, a nondescript figure. He had short dark hair and unremarkable rounded features. He was dressed in the simplest, most common style of clothing. He looked up as Narak sheathed his twin swords.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked.

Narak laughed. The others were at the window, forcing their way through the door. He turned to the duke. “Have him taken up to the castle,” he said. “I want to question him.”

*              *              *              *

It was an hour before Narak saw the spy again. He’d taken his time, insisted that they all eat a generous lunch, take a couple of glasses of wine. The Duke was impatient, but Quinnial ate, drank, and watched him. Quinnial was learning his game.

He insisted again on seeing their prisoner alone. He banished the guards to a distance, closed a door behind them to make sure that the two of them would be unobserved, and then he undid the chains and offered the spy a glass of wine.

“Not poisoned,” he said. “Why would I poison you?”

The small man sipped the wine. He looked scared, huddled against the cold stone walls of his cell. There were grazes on his knees where the guards had dragged him, cuts on his fingers, a purple bruise blooming on the side of his face and neck.

“You’re a clever man,” Narak said. “A master of the rule.” The comment found its mark. The man’s eyes snapped up.

“No,” he said.

“But you would have been.” It had to be so. They needed someone who could learn; someone who could adapt and yet still remain loyal.

The prisoner nodded. “I would have been,” he confirmed.

“Your name?”

“I am Keb, son of Jarl.”

“You know who I am, Keb.”

“Yes.”

“You have a message for me?”

Keb looked surprised and uncomfortable, but Narak knew that it must be true. The man had set out to be caught; not easily. Each step had been intentionally
difficult to follow, yet possible. He had not attempted to throw off the scent. He would have known that he would be hunted down.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I will tell you how it goes,” Narak said. He sat down opposite Keb. “You are a loyal servant of Seth Yarra. You have been caught by the evil wolf god, Fenris God Killer. You will be tortured, and given enough time, probably about an hour, you will break and reveal the secret that you hold.”

“I will tell you nothing.”

“Everybody talks,” Narak assured him. “Heroes and cowards alike. If they had not meant me to have the information that you know you would not know it. The men that I captured at Bel Arac knew nothing. The men that Havil took in Berash knew nothing. You do. You are their gift to me.”

He could see the sense of it cutting through to Keb’s mind, the horror that he was abandoned, that he had been used. Yet it was their right to use him. If it was done in the name of their one god, then anything was excusable.

“Now,” Narak said. “I have given you an hour. That is how long you might have resisted, but your body would be broken, your mind destroyed, and I would have your secret. I will confess to you that I do not enjoy torture, but if you insist I will send for a brazier, a set of irons and a blade and we shall see how long you really would hold out. Otherwise you can tell me what you know and you can avoid all that pain. I will allow you to live because it will save me considerable unpleasant labour.”

“But if you are meant to know what I know, then it cannot be true.”

“As I said: you are a clever man.”

“So if I tell you something else – a lie – then it may be the truth, but you will believe it a lie.”

“You want to be tortured?”