The Black Star (Book 3) (14 page)

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. "That 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.

"Tea while you travel," Blays said, halfway to himself; he wanted to inquire what this summons was about, but knew better than to ask, and so he filled the time with idle chatter instead. "I need this in my carriage. Or what about a tea delivery service? Do you think people would go for that?"

"I couldn't say, my lord," the king's man said.

"Con: it's pretty easy to make tea for yourself. Pro: who wants to make their own damn tea?" Blays stared at the dark liquid in his cup. In order to help sustain the illusion that he was a wealthy merchant, he'd gotten in the habit of musing about hypothetical business ventures, and had found, to his great surprise, that he enjoyed it. Commerce was like a philosopher's stone that turned ideas into gold. It was fascinating.

On reflection, a tea delivery service was probably not a viable enterprise. If someone were to run out to order tea delivered, they may as well just pick it up. Perhaps it would be useful at large meetings and the like, but anyone scheduling such an event would be wealthy enough to have servants to take care of their tea for them. The concept was intriguing, but the logistics rendered it a nonstarter. However, if people had the means to order tea without leaving their homes—if they all had loons, say—his brain might be sitting on a fortune.

The cart slowed, climbing an arched bridge over a minor tributary of the river that split the capital. Now that he thought about it, loons were easily among the most valuable items in the world. Yet so far as he knew, they were completely uncommercialized. The only people who owned them were norren tribes and Dante's people. If Blays could get his hands on a source...

...then they'd soon wind up appropriated by King Moddegan, who would use them to solidify the very empire Blays was attempting to crumble.

Still, fun to think about. Really, many parts of business were fun. He got to travel, see strange places, plot and scheme and brainstorm. If he had his life to do over, he'd spend part of it as a merchant. He'd be damn good at it, too. Become disgustingly rich while seeing the world and having a blast. Sounded pretty good. Especially if he got to challenge people to duels when they tried to gouge him.

But he didn't have that option. His life was committed. To a much different course.

The carriage swung onto the swarming Street of Kings. Blays swilled his tea, which had gone lukewarm. He didn't bother to glance at the lake as they crossed the causeway to the palace. The wheels crunched to a stop in the red gravel. A servant materialized to open Blays' door. He forgot to thank the man. He tilted back his head and pretended to appreciate the layered palace while he adjusted his attitude. No time for surliness. Not in front of the king.

The man who'd summoned him waited until Blays was ready, then guided him up the steps. Two armed guards fell in beside them, accompanying them onto the lift. The bell jangled three times. The platform clunked and raised.

"Has this thing ever collapsed?" Blays said.

The servant glanced at him sidelong. "I can assure you it's safe."

"If it's the same as the king's, I'm sure it is. I'm just curious. Would be a heck of a ride down, eh?"

The man nodded indulgently. Blays made no further efforts to engage him. After a slow ascent, the platform rocked to a stop at the top floor. More guards waited on the landing, inspecting the platform's occupants. The servant gestured the way forward and Blays stepped off.

Ceilings hung twenty feet above them. Patterns of bright red stone zagged through the white marble walls. Silver artifacts rested on pedestals around the walls of the vast circular foyer. The servant's shoes whispered over lush carpets. He brought Blays to a cherrywood door and led him through a quick series of wood-paneled passages. Typically when the weather was fine, as it was this morning, the nobles preferred to sit around their terraces, but the room Blays was deposited in was windowless and small.

The walls featured paintings and end tables, but the middle of the room was empty except for two chairs. One was high-backed and red plush, elevated on a sandalwood plinth. The other was a plain but comfortable-looking white seat. It didn't take a genius to deduce which one was his. Five minutes later, the back door opened.

He stood quickly. For the first time, Blays met the man he'd been fighting for the last ten years.

He had seen Moddegan from a distance on a few occasions, however, so he wasn't surprised by the king's limp, or the fact he refused the use of a cane. Like most nobles, he was tall, and though he was on the wrong side of sixty, he'd succumbed to neither paunchiness nor the rickety thinness that greeted so many men on their approach to old age. He had the broad, flat nose common to Gaskan aristocracy and his stare was like the glare of sunlight from polished silver.

The door closed behind him. He moved to his throne and stood before it, facing Blays. "You are Pendelles."

Blays knelt and bowed his head until it touched the king's outstretched hand. "My liege."

"You may sit," the king said. Blays obeyed. The king was silent for a moment. "I have heard of you."

That had the ring of significance. Blays cocked a brow. "Should I be honored, or worried I've done something that warrants spying?"

"I would be yourself."

"In any event, your invitation is as humbling as it is mysterious."

The king squinted. "Are you a man of words?"

"I've been known to wield them."

"Most men of your trade are. Occupational hazard. It's your job to convince people to give you money."

"Whereas kings are men of action. Always rolling up their scepters and wading into the front lines."

Moddegan chuckled without smiling. "I said nothing about dividing the world between men of words and men of action."

Blays tapped the arm of his chair. "You'd add a third type to the list?"

The king nodded gravely. "Men of decision."

"Not the man who cooks the breakfast. But the man who decides it's time for the fast to be broken."

"An apt summary, although constructed to hold as little rhetorical weight as possible. Rather, the distinction should be drawn at the level of a general and his soldiers. Does a general
act
? Does he dive into battle with drawn sword? Only if he is a fool, or if the battle is going very poorly. Instead, he
decides
."

"Sounds a lot like acting to me," Blays said.

Moddegan made the smallest gesture with his fingertip. "Only a man of words would argue that point."

With difficulty, Blays stopped his eyes from rolling. "You're the ultimate decider, aren't you? You didn't invite me here to play games with words. So the question is, have you made your decision already? Or am I being judged right now?"

Moddegan smiled with the detached amusement of those elevated beyond all mortal concerns. "I will buy your bossen."

"You will?"

The king nodded.

Blays shifted in his chair. "You'll have to excuse me. I've never done business with a regent before. When you say you'll buy it, do you mean if I wish to sell it to you? Or do you mean that the same way you'd say 'I will conquer Mallon'?"

Moddegan tipped his head five degrees. The man's gestures were all small, forcing you to pay constant attention to his every mood. "If it were an offer instead of an order, would you refuse me?"

"If it were an offer, I'd ask to hear your terms, then ride straight to your rivals and see if they want to up the bidding." But he knew these were words. The king had
decided
. Blays' task was to play along. "May I ask your proposal?"

"The whole shipment. Same terms you've offered the others."

"My instincts scream at me to haggle. But my brains tell me that if I attempt to take advantage of your lofty finances, I'll find my body dragged through the streets by a fancy horse."

"Something like that," Moddegan said. "Do you have the goods here?"

"Close enough."

"Then I shall send for you in three days to conclude affairs." He leaned back. Blays began to rise, but the king twitched his fingers, stilling him. "I have heard your concerns about the safety of the king's roads."

Blays laughed with as much self-deprecation as he could muster. "In my defense, if we could saddle complaints, our feet would never have to touch the ground."

"I will deal with the roads," Moddegan said. "You will speak of it no more."

"Is that what this is about?" Blays made a quick calculation, then pressed on. "This isn't the strongest of bribes. I had another buyer."

"This was about business. The roads are a secondary matter—but they are the veins of my empire. If circulation is blocked, the limbs wither."

Blays bowed low enough to show the crown of his head. "I will say no more, my lord."

The servant opened the door and escorted Blays to the lift, then the carriage outside. As Blays returned home, he sensed the city but absorbed none of its impressions, like a sponge too saturated to take on any more water.

As usual, Taya intercepted him in the foyer of the manor. Blays had been working with his servants for months, and trusted them to a man, yet he refused to speak until he and Taya were alone in the library, doors and windows shut from prying eyes and ears.

"Forget about the duke," he said. "We're taking down the king."

7

They were three hours into the journey and twenty miles west of the city before Dante realized he was missing a vital piece of information. "Where exactly are we headed?"

Cee gave no indication she'd heard. For a moment, he thought his words had been lost beneath the tromp of the horses' hooves and the coo of the birds in the trees. It was black as sin except for a small pool of light he was maintaining in front of Cee's mount to watch for any bad spots in the road that might cripple a horse.

"To find your friend," she said at last.

"Useful information. While I have you here, can you tell me more about this 'ground' we're walking on?"

"You'll find out where we're going once we're there."

"That's just it," Dante said. "I
will
see. So why not tell me now?"

"To encourage you to see the deal to the end."

"You've already got my coin and my word. Do you realize I could rescind both with one flick of nether? If I were going to kill you, what difference does it make whether it's now or when we reach our destination?"

Cee clopped along. Without turning, she said, "Setteven."

"
Setteven?
" Dante said. "What's he doing there?"

"Last I saw? Getting rich."

"Is a widowed dowager involved?"

Cee turned, but her expression was silhouetted by the light at the front of the horses. "I wouldn't be surprised. He's doing business with every nobleman and woman in the court."

A misstep from the horse jostled Dante's spine, but his brain was reeling before that. "You must be mistaken. We fought a war against those people."

"I followed him for weeks. Except when I couldn't. Like when he went to stay at one of their chateaus."

"There has to be more to it."