A Dance of Cloaks (2 page)

Thren shook his head. “You don’t understand. One too many, Randith. One fatal mistake too many.”

Then he waited. And hoped.

Aaron stepped toward his older brother. His blue eyes were calm, unworried. In a single smooth motion, he yanked Randith’s dagger from his belt, flipped it around, and thrust it to the hilt in his brother’s chest. Senke stepped back but wisely held his tongue. Aaron withdrew the dagger, spun around, and presented it as a gift to his father.

Thren’s eyes twinkled as he rose from his seat and placed a hand on Aaron’s shoulder.

“You did well, my son,” he said. “My heir.”

Aaron only smiled and bowed as the body of his brother bled out on the floor.

1

M
aynard Gemcroft paced the halls, his bare feet cushioned by the thick carpet. He paced far from the windows. Even though he had paid handsomely for thick glass, he did not trust it. A thick stone followed by a single arrow was all it’d take to lay him out on the carpet, bleeding red on the blue weave. A thin, wiry man, he lived within his castle-mansion protected by over a hundred guards. Only the king was as well protected.

Yet two days prior, he had nearly died.

A guard opened a door and stepped inside. He wore chain armor with a dark sash wrapped around his waist signifying his allegiance to the Gemcroft family line. His teeth were crooked, and when he talked the sight of them disgusted Maynard.

“Your daughter is here to see you.”

“Send her in,” Maynard said as he checked his robes and smoothed his hair. He always prided himself on his appearance, but lately he found less and less time to primp and preen. It seemed like every other night he’d awake to alarms and cries of trespassers. Come the morning, yet another guard would lie dead somewhere on the grounds.

The guard stepped out, and then in came his daughter.

“Alyssa,” said Maynard as he approached with open arms. “You’ve returned early. Were the men in Kinamn too boring for you?”

She was short for a lady, but her slender body was supple and strong. Maynard had never seen a man best his Alyssa in any feats of dexterity, and he knew many she could out-drink as well. Her mother had been a wild one, he remembered. A shame she had slept with another man. Connington’s gentle touchers had never been given a woman so fine.

Alyssa brushed a hand over her red hair cropped around her neck and interwoven with tight braids. Her fingers pulled aside her bangs and tucked them behind an ear. Her green eyes twinkled with mild amusement.

“Very much so,” she said in a husky voice. “Their women preen and prattle like they’ve never heard of a cock, and so the men oblige by never pulling it out to teach them otherwise.”

She snickered at her father’s blush. In truth, she had found many men eager for her bed, but he didn’t need to know that. She wanted him feeling awkward, not mortified.

“Must you use such…such…
common
language?” Maynard asked.

“You sent me to live with common women. Fosters and sitters whose entire wealth couldn’t buy the privilege to clean the…filth from my bottom.”

She winked at her father.

“I did so for your own safety,” Maynard said. He caught her nearing the windows and put himself in the way. When he opened his mouth to explain she pressed a finger against his lips and kissed his forehead.

Servants arrived informing them that the evening meal was ready. Maynard took his daughter’s hand and led her through the mansion to the extravagant dining room. Suits of armor lined the walls, holding erect lances decorated with silken flags of kings, nobles, and ancient members of the family. Over a hundred chairs waited at the giant table, their dark wood upholstered in purple. Decorating the top were twelve roses in ruby-encrusted vases.

Twenty servants stood ready although only the two Gemcrofts would eat first. Maynard took a seat at the head of the table as Alyssa sat to his left.

“Don’t worry about the food,” the older man said. “I have everything tasted.”

“You’re the worrier, not me,” Alyssa said.

Maynard thought she might have held her tongue if she had known four tasters had died over the past three years, including one only two days ago.

The first course was steamed mushrooms smothered with gravy. Servants flitted in and out of sight, always bustling, always hurrying. Alyssa closed her eyes and sighed as she bit into one of the mushrooms.

“You have your quirks, but at least you ensure quality meals,” she said. “The Pensley’s servants seemed to think a skinned cat a delicacy. Every other meal I spent the evening pulling hair out of my teeth.”

Maynard shuddered.

“They have always been fair when dealing with me, so I felt them a safe home for you. Besides, they had a daughter your age. Please, don’t jest about such crude things while we eat.”

“Their daughter spent too much time with her ankles around her neck to be of much entertainment for me,” Alyssa said. “But you’re right. We should talk business.”

The next course arrived, an unknown meat smothered with so much gravy, sauce, and seasonings that she could barely see it underneath. The smell made her mouth water.

“Business is exhausting,” Maynard said. “And in more ways than one. I would prefer we not discuss it while we relax.”

“You would prefer we not discuss it at all. You may have sent me away as a fool, but I’ve had plenty of time to learn. How many years has this embarrassing war with the thief guilds lasted?”

“Five years,” Maynard said, frowning. “Five long years. Don’t be bitter with me for sending you away. I just wanted you safe.”

“Safe?” Alyssa said. She put down her fork, her appetite lost. “Is that what you think? You wanted me out of your way, you always have. Easier to plot murder and money when your little girl isn’t underfoot.”

“I have missed you dearly,” Maynard insisted.

“You showed it poorly,” Alyssa said. She stood and pushed her plate away. “But enough of this. I am a Gemcroft, same as you, and this pathetic conflict shames both our names. Gutter vermin and lowborn cutthroats defeating the entire wealth and power of the Trifect?”

“I would hardly say we are being defeated.”

She laughed in his face.

“We control every gold and gem mine north of the Kingstrip. They have bastards and whoresons robbing caravans and peasant workers. Connington keeps Lord Sully and the rest of the Hillock in his pocket. They have lice and fleas in theirs. And what about Keenan? Half the boats on the Thulon Ocean are his, yet I worry his sea dogs will start thinking the boats under better protection in their hands instead of his.”

“You forget your place!” Maynard said. “It is true we have much more than they, but therein lies our danger. We pay a fortune for mercenaries and guards while they bring in men off the street. We have our mansions and they have their hovels, and you tell me which is easier to hide? They are like worms. We cut off a head only to have two more grow from the parts.”

“They don’t fear you,” Alyssa said. “None of you. Spineless men, you will lose everything but what you hold in your hands, hands that shrink with each passing day. Do you know how many of your own mercenaries give a portion of their coin to the guilds?”

“And how would you know?” Maynard asked. He leaned back in his chair. His shoulders felt heavy and his arms made of stone. So many times he had heard this same argument from reckless fools. It saddened him to realize his daughter was now one of them. A bit of anger kindled in his heart. If Alyssa had such thoughts, he doubted they were originally her own. She had been out of the city for far too long to be so aware. Someone had fed her information twisted to fit their scheme.

“How I know doesn’t matter,” Alyssa said a bit too quickly.

“It is all that matters,” Maynard said. He rose from his chair and clapped for his servants. “Yoren Kull has been whispering in your ear, hasn’t he? I forbid Lord Pensley from allowing him contact with you, but where there’s walls there’s rats, isn’t that right?”

“I’ve had many fosters.” Her voice was losing a bit of her certainty. She did fine when on the offensive. Now that his eye was on her, she faltered. “And what does it matter? I stayed with Lord Kull during the winter months. His castle is closer to the ocean where it’s warm.”

“
Lord
Kull?” Maynard laughed. “He collects taxes from Riverrun. My servants live in a better home. Tell me, did he seduce you with whispers of power and a glass of wine?”

“You’re avoiding my…”

“No,” Maynard said, his voice growing stern. “You’ve been tainted with lies. We are still feared, but the guilds are feared even more. They are desperate. They kill without abandon. They have someone whispering in the ear of King Vaelor to convince him of our blame in all these matters. I have had as many men executed by the royal noose as killed by daggers in the night. Those who side with us gag on their food or have their children vanish from their bedchambers. Besides, we may have our wealth, but they have Thren Felhorn.”

He clapped again. Servants crowded around all of them. Alyssa felt uncomfortable by their presence, and then the guards arrived.

“Take her,” Maynard said.

“You can’t!” she shouted as rough hands grabbed her arms and pulled her flailing from the table.

He forced himself to watch her dragged away but refused to say a thing. There was too much chance he’d reveal his pain.

“What do you want us to do with her?” asked his keeper of the guard, a simple-minded man made useful by his muscles and sheer devotion to his work.

“Put her in one of the cells,” Maynard said as he sat at the table and picked up a fork.

“The gentle touchers would make her talk sooner,” said the guardkeeper. Maynard looked up, appalled.

“Under no circumstances,” he said. “She is my daughter. Give her time to cool underneath the stone. Once she’s ready, I can show her just how bloody this war has gotten. I should have brought her back to me, I see that now. She says she is a woman grown, and of that I have no doubt. Let us hope her cunning surpasses even my own. I will not have my wealth stolen from me by a pathetic
tax collector.
”

A
aron sat alone. The walls were bare wood. The floor had no carpet. There were no windows and only a single door, locked and barred from the outside. The silence was heavy, broken only by his occasional cough. In the far corner was a pail full of his waste. Thankfully, he had stopped smelling it after the first day.

His new teacher had given him only one instruction: wait. He had been given a waterskin, but no food, no timetable, and worst of all, nothing to read. The boredom was far worse than his previous instructor’s constant beatings and shouts. Gus the Gruff he had called himself. The other members of the guild whispered that Thren had lashed Gus twenty times after his son’s training was finished. Aaron hoped his new teacher would be outright killed. Out of all his teachers over the past five years, he was starting to think he was the cruelest.

So far he didn’t even know his name. He looked like a wiry old man with a gray beard curled around his neck and tied behind his head. When he led Aaron to the room, he had walked with a cane. Aaron had never minded isolation, so at first the idea of a few hours in the dark sounded rather enjoyable. He had always stayed in corners and shadows, greatly preferring to watch people talk than take part in their conversation.

Suddenly Aaron realized what was going on. He walked to the door and sat down. For a little while light had crept in underneath the frame, but then someone had stuffed a rag across it, completing the darkness. Using his slender fingers he pushed the rag back, letting in a bit of light. He had not done so earlier for fear of angering his new master. Now he couldn’t care less. They wanted him to speak. They wanted him to crave conversation with others. Whoever the old man was, his father had surely hired him for that purpose.

“Let me out!” he tried to shout. The words came out as a raspy whisper, yet the volume startled him. He had meant to boom the command at the top of his lungs. Was he really so timid?

“I said let me out,” he shouted, raising the volume tremendously.