Competitions (43 page)

The other two weren’t happy about being put off, but Delin had made it all too obvious that he had no intention of saying anything else. A servant came then with the drinks they’d ordered, and Delin sipped carefully at his glass of light wine. He wanted to be clearheaded when
it
happened, so as not to miss a single moment.

They were brought a large plate of nibbles to keep them occupied until their food was ready, and Delin chuckled to himself when Bron immediately began to stuff them in his mouth. The fool had already forgotten what he’d said about losing his appetite, which showed again what a marvelous “leader” he made. Delin could hardly wait until the time came for him to announce that
he
was the real leader of the group. What a pity that that would not be happening until they’d won the Throne. Announcing it sooner would just be too risky, since there was always the possibility of someone finding out—

“What the—!” Bron exclaimed, pulling Delin out of reverie. He turned to see what Bron already had, which was the arrival of two important-looking men leading a small contingent of guardsmen. They ignored everyone as they strode to the table where Rigos and his friends sat, not really all that far from Delin’s table.

“Lord Rigos Baril, you’re to rise and come with us,” one of the important-looking men said, making no effort to keep his voice down. “Right now, if you please.”

“Are you insane?” Rigos demanded coldly with his usual frown. “I certainly don’t please anything of the sort. If you have some matter to take up with me, you may make an appointment with my secretary—during the day. Now you can get out of here.”

“Rigos Baril, we’re here to arrest you for the murder of Lady Elfini Weil,” the same man went on, drawing gasps from almost everyone in the room. “Either get out of that chair and surrender yourself to the guardsmen, or they’ll come over and pull you out of it!”

The outraged anger in the man’s voice was extremely obvious, and Delin was delighted to see that Rigos just sat there staring with his mouth open. Obviously he couldn’t believe what he’d heard, but his dark skin had still paled quite a bit. The man who’d spoken waited no more than a moment, and then he gestured to the group of guardsmen.

“No, what are you doing?” Rigos babbled as three big guardsmen began to circle the table toward him, his eyes widening even more. “I had nothing to do with the murder, so you can’t treat me like this. Go away, I say, go away!”

Rigos’s voice rose to a shrill scream with the last of his words, a delicious delight Delin hadn’t dared to hope for. The icy poise and superiority Rigos always showed was broken at last, shattered when the guardsmen combined their strength in Earth magic and forced him to his feet. The heavy chair was nearly knocked over as Rigos screamed and tried to struggle, and everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath. The other people at his table were as white as the lace cloth under their glasses and hands, and the beautiful woman Rigos had escorted in sat with her face turned away. She’d disassociated herself from him completely, and wanted everyone to know it.

It took another few moments before Rigos was dragged from the parlor, as his struggles would have done credit to a much larger—and more talented—man. He’d clearly lost all control of himself, and his terrified screams showed he hadn’t a scrap of dignity left. One of the guardsmen watching finally lost patience, and then Rigos was bent forward and gasping in pain. Delin had felt the guardsman use Earth magic to squeeze Rigos’s stomach from the inside, an action equivalent to a hard blow in the same place. After that they were able to force him out of the room, while another guardsman followed while readying chains.

“They’re going to chain him to the arrest wagon!” Bron exclaimed low as the last of the intruders disappeared outside. “But he’s a noble, just like the rest of us! How do they dare to treat him like that?”

“I’d say the Advisors decided to make an object lesson out of this,” Kambil offered, his soft voice almost lost amid the shocked exclamations of everyone in the room. “He may be a member of the nobility, but so was the woman he murdered. Rather than arrest him quietly they did it publicly, so that everyone will eventually get the message:
no
one kills one of us and gets away with it. I certainly don’t like the man, but now I pity him.”

“Well, I don’t,” Bron said, all but taking the words out of Delin’s mouth. “I agree with the Advisors, that no one can be allowed to attack one of us and get away with it. Just think: he could have come after one of
us
next.”

“That’s very true,” Delin agreed, silently ridiculing the fool. Rigos hadn’t a trace of talent beyond the basic level almost everyone was capable of, and they were all Highs. Only a moron would think for even a moment that Rigos could have a chance against any of them, but that was the whole point. Bron
was
a moron, if that didn’t insult the intelligence of morons in general.

“Is that what you brought us here to see, Delin?” Kambil asked, his voice now filled with curiosity. “If so, how much of it did you know about beforehand?”

“All I knew was that Rigos was in trouble and that it had something to do with the murder investigation,” Delin responded with the sort of smooth lies he’d always been capable of. “I thought he’d done something where Homin was concerned, and would be taken to task for it where we could witness his embarrassment. I never expected anything like this, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.”

Kambil grunted and sat back, showing clearly that he still didn’t agree with the way things had been handled. But Kambil was a fool in his own right, much too soft and forgiving. Delin, on the other hand, was precisely ruthless enough to achieve greatness, which his handling of the matter had proved conclusively. He’d buried the murder weapon with Rigos’s traces all over it, then he’d sent a note with common traces and badly constructed language to the chief investigator. The note had suggested more than ordinary bad blood between Rigos and that slut Elfini, and hadn’t said a word about searching the grounds of Rigos’s estate.

Which, of course, was one of the first things they did. Delin sipped his wine again as he remembered how he’d kept track of what was going on, using his long-standing acquaintance with the chief investigator’s wife. Her fear over what had happened to Elfini kept her after her husband to learn about any progress, and he’d kept her informed just to keep her from badgering him to death. She’d passed on everything she learned to Delin, which was how he’d known to be in the parlor tonight. They’d discovered Rigos’s plans for being at dinner publicly tonight, and so had waited until now to arrest him.

“I’ve just realized something,” Bron said suddenly, drawing Delin’s and Kambil’s attention. “Now that Rigos is under arrest, we don’t have to worry about him any longer. This calls for a celebration, and it’s just too bad that Selendi and Homin aren’t here as well.”

Delin saw a look of pain flash briefly across Kambil’s face, and he knew exactly how the larger man felt. Bron seemed to make a career of pointing out how stupid he was, and this time he’d done it in more ways than one.

“Don’t you think someone might have gotten the least bit suspicious if all five of us were here?” Kambil asked him gently, undoubtedly wasting his time in an effort to teach Bron how to think. “They’d know then that we’d been warned what to expect, and might even have our own reasons for wanting Rigos out of the way. We don’t need that sort of suspicion, but I’m still curious about Delin’s other reason for taking us to dinner.”

“Oh, yes, he did say he had another reason, didn’t he?” Bron remembered aloud, shrugging off the rest of what Kambil had said. “But if it has something to do with the group, the others should definitely be here.”

“It most certainly does have something to do with the group, but you’re the only one besides Kambil and myself whom I trust to handle it properly,” Delin told Bron smoothly. “I’ve gotten an idea about the reception at the palace we’ll be attending, the one where we’ll be studying the groups we’ll be going up against. I’d like to suggest something else we might do.”

“I hope you’re going to say miss the thing entirely,” Bron complained, sprawling back in his chair. “But I can’t possibly be that lucky, so go ahead and make your suggestion.”

“What I have in mind is this,” Delin said, easily ignoring Bron’s newest stupidity. “You and I will search out any attractive ladies involved and show them how wasteful it would be to harm us, and Homin and Selendi will just mix with the peasant groups, leading them to believe that we’ll be easy to overcome. Kambil here, though, ought to be doing something else entirely—like trying to find at least one member of each group who can be counted on to be … reasonable.”

“What do you mean by reasonable?” Kambil asked before Bron put the confusion in his eyes into words. “If you’re expecting some of them to take gold to ruin their group’s chances in the competition, I’m afraid you’re deluding yourself. Even an imbecile would understand that they’d be throwing away the chance to become the Seated Blending, something they have to be allowed to continue believing in.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that,” Delin said with a smile, having expected the protest. “If I’d been referring to bribery with gold, you’d be completely correct. But what I’m talking about is bribery of another kind, namely the chance to join
our
group. You’ll approach anyone in each group but the Spirit magic member, and engage them in conversation. Depending on what aspect they are, you’ll point to one of the rest of us as someone much too weak to do the group good. The rest of the group will be eager to replace that one with
anyone
strong enough, and if we’re told about the weaknesses of the others of
their
group, the place will be theirs.”

“And they can’t help but know that a noble group has a better chance of winning than any peasant group,” Bron chimed in, finally understanding the idea and obviously loving it. “They may all believe that they really do stand a chance, but on the inside they’ll know better. It’s a perfect arrangement, and ought to get us all the information we need. You won’t have any trouble doing it, will you, Kambil?”

“Well, no, I shouldn’t,” Kambil said with a frown, joining Delin in letting Bron continue to think that
he
was their leader. “What bothers me is the ethics of the plan, or I should say the lack of ethics. We all really are extremely strong, so there’s no reason to believe we can’t do this on our own. Why do we have to lie to and swindle a bunch of unsuspecting innocents just to steal ourselves a slightly greater edge?”

“That’s the whole point, man,” Bron told him with exasperation, letting Delin sit back and simply observe. “Whatever edge we can get will be worth any effort, considering what winning means. All the rest of us are willing to do whatever it takes, and this part of it is yours. If you refuse, you
could
be wrecking our chances to be the most powerful people in the empire.”

Kambil rubbed his face with one hand, obviously trying to make a decision. Delin sat quietly and sipped his wine, wondering if he ought to kill Kambil if the man refused to cooperate. That would leave them badly in the lurch, so first he would have to find a replacement practitioner of Spirit magic. Who that would be he couldn’t imagine, but there had to be
someone
among the nobility with the same strength and more ambition—

“All right, Bron, I have to admit that you’re right,” Kambil said suddenly after taking a deep breath. “If we mean to have the omelet, we can’t refuse to break a few eggs. I’ll do it, and get us what we need.”

“Good man,” Bron said in approval, reaching over to clap Kambil on the shoulder. “When we have what we deserve, you’ll be glad you weren’t unreasonable. Now let’s discuss what we might want to know about the peasants.”

Kambil began to list the things that anyone but Bron could have thought of by themselves, so Delin stopped listening and returned to his own thoughts. Kambil had saved his life by agreeing with the plan, and Delin meant to use every bit of the man’s talent to get them what they needed. But he still neither liked nor trusted the man, so he’d have to start thinking about when it would be best to get rid of him. The sooner the better, of course, but now he had the time to look around for a proper replacement.

And to indulge in some pleasure by picturing what Rigos must be going through. Delin chuckled to himself as he enjoyed another sip of wine, wondering if they intended to use torture to get a confession, as they sometimes did with peasants. Monitoring bodily reactions wasn’t always reliable, not with the way some people were able to control themselves, so torture was often used in cases where the judge involved thought it was appropriate. If they did torture Rigos, the man was really in for it. He would need to face men of no talent like himself—except for the enjoyment they found in their work. In order to stop the pain he would have to confess to doing something he was innocent of, a delicious turn of events to Delin’s way of thinking.

And maybe, Delin decided as their food began to arrive, just maybe he would find a way to observe some of the torture. It would be an experience of ecstatic delight, so he’d have to see if it might be safely arranged. Yes, he thought as he laughed to himself, he
would
have to find a way…

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Jovvi’s mind tried to jump around frantically with fear and panic, brought about by having been kidnapped by Allestine and her two henchmen. Allestine would take her back to the courtesan residence in Rincammon, and there she would stay until she was too old to attract patrons any longer. Then Allestine would probably have her killed…

Putting a hand to her head and sitting back on her heels where she knelt on the floor of the coach let Jovvi begin to exert control over herself again. Just a short while ago she probably
would
have been lost after being kidnapped, but now…

“Oh, do get up and take a proper seat, girl,” Allestine said, beginning to be annoyed. “Nothing will be done to you until we get back to Rincammon, and then your behavior on the trip will help to decide just how stern the punishment is to be. What a pity you now have to abandon all your personal possessions, which you would not have had to do if you’d been reasonable.”