The Black Star (Book 3) Read online

  "Lady Carraday."

  "When she thinks you've got a deal in place? Why?"

  "Because she's sly enough to know that makes her least suspicious," Blays said. "Also, her family was here before Gask and I bet they'll still be here after the empire crumbles. They're survivors. They know how to scramble."

  Taya considered this, then nodded once. "A fair argument."

  "Then there's the third candidate: everyone else in Gask who likes money."

  "Shadowy sedition can be so inconvenient," she grumbled. "I'll turn over all the stones I can, but I doubt we'll get far."

  "Then how do you suggest we proceed?"

  "Boast about the attack. Offer a reward for any information relating to the bandits—you wish to pursue those who got away. With any luck, someone on the inside will have a score to settle with the perpetrator and seize the opportunity to bring them down. They dispose of an enemy while scoring points with you."

  "I'll make one last offer to Duke Dilliger, too," he said. "But I can't let Carraday dangle for too long."

  He wasn't terribly happy with these resolutions. They were passive. Unlikely to yield results. Perhaps he ought to petition the king—concern for the safety of the roads, the prosperity of Gask, and so on and so forth—but that too was unlikely to gain him anything besides a small amount of political credit. Well, like they said, the longest journey begins with a single step. Maybe he could, in time, parlay this incident into real pull with the king. That would be something. Mentally, he started composing his missive.

  The man with the lung wound died that night. They buried him by the road. Blays lingered beside the freshly dug mound for a few minutes longer than the others. He meant to honor the man, he supposed, but they'd hardly known each other. He sighed and jogged to catch up.

  The remainder of the trip was as quiet as the portion before the ambush. They led the caravan off the main road through low green hills, stashing it at an isolated farm some six miles from Setteven.

  "I expect we'll need you here another couple weeks," Blays told the troops. "The larder is well-stocked and you'll be pleased to hear that I've installed a beer basement. Right, and I expect to be selling the shipment soon. Consider your salaries doubled."

  Considerable cheers erupted from the guards and teamsters. Some went to investigate the basement while others tended to the horses and secured the barns where the wagons had been housed. Taya waited for their people to disperse, then moved beside Blays.

  "Beer basement?" she said. "Doubled salaries?"

  "I thought we'd better get on their good side before the sale," Blays said. "Since their chief duty after that will be hauling our purses around."

  "This isn't our money. It's earmarked for the glorious cause of driving our boot into the empire's testicles."

  "Whatever the cause, these guys are risking their lives for it. They deserve a bonus."

  "And if some die, their families are supposed to be consoled by the jingle of silver?"

  "It's better than nothing," Blays frowned. "Especially if they have kids."

  Given that he intended to make a hullabaloo about being assaulted on the road, he thought it appropriate that "Lord Pendelles" would return to Setteven in the company of bodyguards. He enlisted two of the men to come with him on the carriage ride into the city.

  Bunches of letters awaited him at the house, primarily missives from merchants and minor lords looking for a piece of the action. These didn't particularly interest him, except as proof the bossen market was still primed to explode, but he set about answering them anyway, including a lengthy, impassioned recap of the bandit attack, downplaying his role in the battle significantly—in this version, he killed but a single outlaw, and certainly hadn't led the charge into the woods that likely saved everyone's lives. He dispatched the responses via courier early that evening.

  There was nothing from Duke Dilliger. Lady Carraday had written, but it was a brief note letting him know she looked forward to concluding their deal at his convenience.

  He considered delaying his response a few days to work on the duke, but he'd already sent letters to a legion of Setteven's lesser stars. If he'd been dealing with normal people, they'd think nothing of the fact that, following a long trip from the city, he might take a couple days to respond to them. But Carraday was a person of importance. Pendelles, while carrying a certain influence of his own, was well short of her stature. If he dawdled with her—especially after having already replied to numerous people who couldn't match Carraday's power and influence if you threw them all together—well, a gaffe like that could lay waste to the entire relationship. In short, it was one of those things you Just Don't Do.

  He penned a note thanking her for her letter and informing her that he expected to be able to move forward shortly. That timeline was vague enough that he wouldn't have to finalize the deal with her until he'd had the chance to do some public grousing about the safety of the roads and to take one last run at the duke.

  This turned out blessedly simple. During Blays' travels for the goods, Dilliger had relocated from his chateau to the palace in Setteven. Blays sent the duke a request in the morning. By afternoon, Dilliger replied with an invitation to the palace for the next day. Blays considered informing the duke he couldn't make it on such short notice—the implication being he was close to a major deal, and the duke had better act fast—but he couldn't let Carraday dangle that long. He accepted the invitation.

  He had been to the palace more than once, and as he dressed for the event, he felt no particular nerves. If anything, he was excited. It was always a pleasure to stroll the halls of the heart of Gask's power knowing that he would soon burn them down.

  He hopped in his carriage and took off. As a foreigner in Setteven, he had been educated by multiple nobles looking to bring him up to speed and impress him with their knowledge of local history. So he knew the current palace wasn't the first. And that it hadn't always been this grand.

  But as the carriage swung down the boulevard, you could sure believe it had been around since the dawn of time: built not by common laborers, but by the gods.

  Tall, elegant homes lined the thoroughfare. After a quarter mile, this fed to a white stone gate. This was clearly a ceremonial feature, as beyond it lay a broad blue lake. The road continued across it on a causeway to the palace, which was abutted on its back side by stark white cliffs. Protected by the lake on one side and the cliffs on the other, it was all but impregnable.

  But Blays thought it had been placed in this engineered landscape as much for its grandeur as for the defensive advantages. The bisected waters shimmered silver-blue. At the far end, they reflected the palace, which resembled a layer cake as seen by an approaching beetle: terraced, white, enormous, and simultaneously intimidating and intoxicating. Its round layers sported arched doorways and windows, and the terraces made for excellent viewing for visiting lords and ladies, who frequently took the sunshine on the upper floors.

  The central tier stood twelve stories high. While it was a general rule of cities that in any tall building, the poor were forced to live at the top and deal with all the stairs, the palace was an exception. For one thing, a cunning, donkey-powered platform had been rigged up to lift visitors and residents from one floor to the next (the king had a private platform for himself). And for the second thing, those on the upper floors simply summoned everyone else up to see them.

  As a result, the king lived in the narrowest, highest tier, with the following floors populated in rough correlation to the power, wealth, and status of their residents. Duke Dilliger was a handful of links removed from the throne and was occasionally very rich. That put him on the terrace just below the king's.

  Blays' carriage wobbled across the strip of land connecting the palace to the city. It reached the rolling lawn that surrounded the palace and came to a stop in the red gravel outside the front steps. He left his driver and bodyguards, taking one footman to maintain appearances. At the top of the marble steps, they
were greeted by two guards with crimson doublets and tall steel lances. One recognized Blays, nodded deeply, and allowed him through.

  Inside, his steps were muted by the lush rugs that provided pathways across the airy marble entries. He and his footman crossed to the center of the palace, a wide, hollow pillar, and stepped onto a circular wooden platform. Blays informed a waiting servant of the desired floor. The servant tugged a thin rope. Somewhere below them, a bell jangled. Donkeys brayed. The platform shuddered, then began to climb.

  It rotated slowly up a thick central pole cut like a screw, carrying them past intervals of blank walls and landings. A couple minutes later, it rocked to a stop. A female servant unhooked a red rope barring the doorway, then ushered them into an airy, circular room with doors spoking its outer walls. Blays informed the woman of their destination and she took them to one of the doors and announced them to the duke.

  They were led inside a cool room floored with bamboo that must have been imported from the slopes of Gallador. One of the duke's servants spirited Blays' servant away and directed Blays outside to a flat marble deck that served as the roof of the lower floor and the terrace of this one.

  The duke sat beside an iron railing overlooking the lake. "Greetings and such. You've just been on a trip, so I expect you'll want to tell me about it."

  Blays smiled and moved to the railing. "You sound thrilled to hear it. Should we cut to the chase and let you hang yourself from boredom?"

  "Why would I do that when I can order you hanged instead?"

  "Then I shall endeavor to entertain. How's this? We were attacked by bandits. On the king's own road!"

  Dilliger turned from the lake to eye him up and down. "You look like you came through it all right."

  "Came damn close to fertilizing Willen Forest," Blays said. "Most of the blackguards escaped us. I've already placed a bounty on them. Mighty keen to learn who hired them."

  The duke raised an eyebrow. "You think someone set them upon you? They're thieves. You were carrying thievables. I've never been much for math, but it's a straightforward equation."

  "There's always room for coincidence in the House of Greed." Blays tapped the railing, which was hot with absorbed sunlight. "You're probably right, though. Why stretch to make it a conspiracy when everyday bandits would have attacked anyone with a wagon?" He furrowed his brow. "However, if it was a targeted attack, I doubt I'll be allowed to survive a second effort. Therefore, I'll continue my hunt for the odious toad behind the first—hypothetical though he might be."

  All his life he'd been careless with words, slinging them around the way old men slung bread crumbs to the ducks at the edge of the lake. The hardest part of adopting the Pendelles persona had been learning to mind his tongue. Judging by the duke's reaction—frozen expression, one hand slipping from the rails—Blays had broken character. Spoken Words that Must Not Be Uttered.

  Had he pushed too far? If so, how would Dilliger react? Blays supposed that depended on two things: the duke's perception of Pendelles, and the duke himself. It would help that Pendelles was on the naive side. Keen enough on business matters, but when it came to true intrigue, the kind worth killing over, Blays had presented his alter ego as hopelessly ignorant. He believed the duke would consider him completely incapable of exposing whoever was behind the attack. But there was a chance Dilliger was spooked enough to make a mistake.

  "I assume," Dilliger said, "you came here to talk about more than your plans for revenge."

  "Oh yes," Blays said, happy to move ahead. "I'm back, and so are the goods. Thought I'd drop in and see if your circumstances had changed."

  "Unfortunately, no. But I appreciate the offer."

  Blays bowed his head. "Anything for the man who introduced me to Run."

  Dilliger turned toward the lake and laughed. Normally, protocol would insist they spend some formalized time together, sharing drinks, a meal, or gossip, but the duke was less concerned with protocol than most and knew Blays would prefer to get on with business elsewhere. Blays collected his footman and returned to the lift, which was ascending from below. It stopped on their floor a minute later.

  An older man whose eyes couldn't decide if they were brown or green exited. He saw Blays and his face lit up. "Lord Pendelles? What brings you to the palace?"

  Blays smiled at the man, a Galladese trader who'd become a minor lord in Setteven two decades ago, but who'd bitterly supported his former homeland during the war.

  "First a team of horses, then my feet," Blays said. "Today, it's business. Tomorrow, I hope it's to lodge a complaint with the king regarding the infestation on his roads."

  The merchant lifted his eyebrows. "Infestation? Are the giant ants back?"

  "Bandits. Thieves." Blays leaned in theatrically. "And if they aren't exterminated, the tree of Gaskan trade will topple, devoured from the inside."

  "My stars. I'll be doubling my sacrifice to Carvahal tonight."

  Blays smiled slightly in case the man was joking. The palace servant cleared his throat. Blays stepped onto the lift, headed to the ground floor, called for his carriage, and headed back to his manor.

  Taya was out. He tried to stay up until she returned, but found himself awakened by the click of the door. He wriggled from his stuffed chair and intercepted her in the hallway.

  "The duke turned me down," he said.

  She closed and latched the door. "Maybe you should have worn a sluttier dress."

  "He didn't try to bargain. Didn't even try to stall me. I think he's out of the picture. Have you turned up any leads on the attackers?"

  "Nothing yet. It takes time for information to percolate through a city. Like a bead of blood dropped in a glass of water."

  "That's an unnecessarily gruesome image," Blays said. "If the duke's done, I'll write Carraday to schedule a meeting. Keep hunting for whoever hired the attackers, but it's time to move forward."

  "Agreed," Taya said. "The bubble market for bossen is about to burst."

  "How can you tell?"

  "I'm from Gallador. We're born with a nose for these things."

  Blays rolled his eyes but said nothing. He intended to spend the next couple days circulating in the salons bordering the Street of Kings. Relate the bandit story a few times, ask other merchants about their experience on the roads, perhaps make some noise about organizing petitions and proposals. If he were feeling really ambitious, he might discreetly hire some bandits of his own to start harassing the woods.

  However, the issue of the roads presented him with a conundrum. Rather than being a waste of money and effort, spurring the king to clean up the roads might lead to increased commerce. And thus taxes. And thus Gaskan power. The exact opposite of Blays' goals.

  It felt like he ran into this situation a lot. He thought he was pretty good at improvising short-term tactics—escapes, robberies, gambits of all types—but this skill rarely translated into a successful long-term strategy. That pissed him off, not least because it didn't make any sense. Say the goal was to cross the road. That crossing would involve a discrete number of individual steps. If you improvised each step as it came, sooner or later, you found yourself on the other side of the road.

  That was how it should work. In practice, if you kept both eyes on what your feet were doing, and gave no care to what was coming down the road, you were liable to end up trampled halfway across it.

  Even so, it would be fun to hire a gang of (threatening but ultimately nonviolent) highwaymen and wreak havoc on the Gaskan interior. He thought he would give it a shot.

  He never got the chance. As he ate the next morning's breakfast, a knock sounded at the door. A man wearing a red doublet and a sword stood on the other side.

  On seeing Blays, he stiffened his back. "Lord Pendelles?"

  "That would be me," Blays said.

  "The king wishes your presence."

  "He does?" Blays said. Behind the messenger, a carriage waited in the street. "What, now?"

  The man inclined his head. "T
hat is his desire."

  "I haven't even had my tea."

  "Tea will be provided in your conveyance."

  "Look," Blays said, mustering his best aristocratic hauteur. "I understand he's regent of all Gask. His time is worth more than the Pearl of Aldressar ground up and served atop the meat of the Tireless Pegasus. But I also know our great monarch is magnanimous, generous, and understanding. Surely he is kind enough to grant me ten minutes to prepare myself to be worthy of his presence."

  The king's man took a small step back, regarded Blays, and inclined his head again. "Agreed. Take the time you deem necessary."

  Blays attempted to wrest the exasperation from his face. "Thank you, good sir."

  He closed the door, walked away from the entry, then sprinted upstairs. Taya sat in the library, bent over a desk overflowing with correspondence.

  "Guess who's just been summoned to the king?" he said.

  She glanced up. "Was it me? I've always wanted to meet a man of such high honor."

  "His man's waiting outside. I should probably get dressed, shouldn't I?"

  "What's the bastard want?"

  "I don't know." Blays ticked his nails against the doorframe. "Maybe I went overboard besmirching his roads."

  Taya straightened her papers. "Are you nervous?"

  "I've been dreaming about killing him for years. Why would I be nervous?"

  "Better hurry. Your most bitter enemy awaits you."

  He grinned and jogged to his room. He'd established the character of Pendelles as a man who dressed cleanly but not fussily, but this was the king. He changed into a fresh doublet and swapped his boots for ones he only wore to parties and meetings of the highest order. He gave thought to trimming his beard, but there wasn't time. Anyway, a summons like this, with no advance notice, was highly unusual. Moddegan would know Pendelles wouldn't have time to kit himself out with the proper respect. Hell, the king would probably be pissed off to see Blays had wasted so much time smoothing every last hair and thread in place.

  In the street, the king's man showed him to his carriage, a sleek vessel of buffed red lacquer. The horses clopped confidently down the streets, scattering pedestrians like mackerel before a shark. The servant sat across from Blays. Despite the rattling of the vehicle, he retrieved a tea tray from beneath the seat and poured Blays a steaming mug without spilling a drop.