The Telastrian Song (18 page)

T
here were
individuals who dal Lupard would rather not have to reacquaint himself with, but he was rapidly running out of avenues to investigate. His old networks of informants were gone, and everyone at the Grey Tower was at best obstructive.

There was one man who might be of use, however. He had fallen even farther than dal Lupard, and dangling the prospect of some form of restitution before him might be all it took to secure his help.

Tracking down his old comrade-in-conspiracy was harder than he expected. Dal Lupard’s own fall had been swift and painful, but Balcio Kastor’s was swifter, deeper and far more painful; for him at least. From General to Marshal of Ostia to nobleman to bitter old man living in a rat-infested apartment in a poor neighbourhood. His name was so sullied people would not have believed him if he told them the sky was blue. Ironically it was probably the only thing that had kept him alive.

Kastor had plenty of information that Amero would rather never saw the light of day, but his disgrace was so severe there was nothing he could say that would harm anyone. It would be viewed as the spiteful vitriol of a national embarrassment. The man who had led fifteen thousand Ostians to their death. The man who had enjoyed a silver service lunch in the safety of his campaign tent while all those sons of Ostia were slaughtered in the Ruripathian mud, even though dal Lupard knew that particular tale to be untrue.

The tales vilified Kastor to such a degree that they barely stopped short of him having killed all those men himself. A shame for such an illustrious career to end in a mire. He would have been better off staying loyal to the old duke. Perhaps there was a higher force exacting a natural justice on poor old Kastor. Perhaps the same could be said for himself, although even Venter was preferable to what had become of Kastor.

Dal Lupard knocked on the door, and looked around while he waited. It was the type of neighbourhood where one’s purse wouldn’t stay on one’s belt for very long without vigilance.

The door opened and Kastor looked at dal Lupard in silence, with no trace of emotion on his face. The misfortune of recent times weighed heavily on him. He had lost weight and seemed to have aged a decade since dal Lupard had last seen him.

‘Come to gloat?’ Kastor said.

‘Far from it. May I come in?’

Kastor stepped to the side and gestured into the apartment. Dal Lupard took the invitation and entered.

‘What brings you to my palatial abode?’ Kastor said, his voice dripping with bitterness.

‘I need your help.’

Kastor laughed as he followed dal Lupard into the sparsely furnished living room. ‘What? Need someone to take the blame for something? I’ve shouldered as much as I can, so you’ve come to the wrong place.’

‘I need to find someone in the city. My old resources are no longer available. I understand you still have some connections among the old soldiers.’

‘Why would I bother my arse helping you?’

Dal Lupard menacingly raised an eyebrow, more from old habits than out of any intention to threaten.

Kastor picked up on it straight away. ‘Hah!’ The laugh came out like a bark; harsh and humourless. ‘Waking up every day in this dump is worse torture than anything you and your chums in the Grey Tower could come up with.’

‘That’s not what I meant, Balcio. I can’t promise you all the things that you’ve lost, but if my plan works you’ll have enough to start again somewhere else in luxury.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I followed someone back to the city. I need to know who he really is, and where he is.’

Kastor shrugged his shoulders. ‘That shouldn’t be so hard. Plenty of my old lads are still loyal, pass information back to me when I need it. How’s that going to help me?’

‘I think this one’s special. If he’s who I hope he is, the reward will be more than anything you could hope for. Even if it isn’t him, the man I’m following is a traitor, and that will mean a decent payoff.’

‘Who?’

‘He’s been calling himself “Massari”. I don’t think that’s his real name though. Something tells me his real name is Soren, and I understand you used to know him.’

Kastor’s face broke into a wide smile and he nodded. ‘If it’s the same Soren. A bounty on him, you say? Why are you bringing this to me?’

‘No one will work with me. I have no contacts. No way to get the information I need. I reckoned you still have some pull in the city. Plenty of old soldiers around that are still loyal to you.’

‘Like I said, I’ve a few all right. What’s the deal?’

‘Twenty per cent of the bounty.’

‘Hah.’ That same barking laugh. ‘Fifty. And I’ll let you in on a little secret, something
you
can help
me
with.’

Dal Lupard nodded. He wanted his position back as much as the money and he needed whatever help he could get.

A
mero’s mistress
was installed in an apartment on the street that led down the steep part of the hill from Highgarden into Oldtown. A lane ran through the terrace of buildings, giving access to the yards at the back. Soren secreted himself there to lie in wait for the Duke and his entourage.

Giura had taken position in a building on the other side of the street, by a window on the top floor where he had a clear view of the mistress’s apartment and up the hill in the direction of Highgarden. The Pepper Canister Lane Bravos, six of them in all, had gathered farther up the street, disguised as workmen about to start the renovation of a storefront. The disguise was Soren’s idea, and he hoped that it was adequate. He never had any difficulty in identifying fighting men, and if Amero’s guards were any good they wouldn’t either. Still, nobody could fight forever and labouring was a common occupation for those who had put their weapons down.

Soren had to remain out of sight until the bravos began their part, and was thus frustratingly blind to anything but the signals Giura made from his window. He stood waiting like a penny-paid assassin lurking in an alleyway—which he conceded was not far from the truth—trying to maintain his calm. It was difficult not to dwell on the fact that he would have a reckoning with Amero before the day was out. It had been such a long time coming, and there had been so many obstacles in the way that he had never had the opportunity to give much thought to what it would actually be like.

Amero had been the greatest influence on Soren’s life. He had spent countless hours watching him duel from the awning beams high above the Amphitheatre floor. He was Soren’s childhood hero, his idol. He had made him and he had tried to break him. In many regards Amero had succeeded in that. He had spent the last few years like a spectre in the back of Soren’s mind, sending trained killers after him. Soren never knew when the next assassin would come, or if Amero had finally tired of the chase and given up. In the next few moments all of that could be over. It would be like a weight lifted from his shoulders, and the thought alone was enough to make him feel completely different.

He pressed his back against the brick wall and took long, slow breaths. He was overcome with doubt. Could he defeat Amero? He was once hailed as the greatest swordsman ever to have lived. Soren was very good, very fast. He had the Gift. Was it enough?

Time was his enemy, and the waiting eroded his resolve. He woke that morning feeling strong, confident and of a single mind. Now he had time to think, to question everything, and it wasn’t good for him. He would have closed his eyes and forced his thoughts to something else were it not for his need to keep them on Giura’s window.

Each second seemed like a minute, each minute an hour. He tried everything he could think of to ignore the passage of time, but as pressure built in his bladder he came to realise that the passage of time had not been drawn out as a result of his anxiety—a good deal of it had passed.

Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, he peered around the corner and out into the street. He could see some movement outside the shop where the bravos were pretending to be workmen, and the regular traffic that was passing up and down. Of the Duke and his entourage, there was no sign at all. Soren looked up at Giura’s window but there was no movement, no signal.

The door to the building that Giura was in opened and he stepped out. He stared up the street for a moment before looking to Soren and shrugging. Did that mean they were quitting for the day? Would they try again?

Deciding that their attempt was most likely over for that day, Soren walked across the street to Giura. ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

‘No idea. I’ve been watching him come here for months. I’ve watched him visit all his mistresses, but this is the only one he calls on every week at the same time. Something else must have happened. Maybe he has a headache.’ He laughed, but it did nothing for the deflation and disappointment Soren was feeling.

‘Send the bravos home and go back to your inn. I’ll find out what’s going on and let you know,’ Giura said. ‘There’s no point in hanging around here any longer. We can try again next week.

K
astor waited
by the window of his little apartment with the impatient need of an addict awaiting his next fix. Even without the money Soren was supposed to bring him, Kastor was not without resources. Indeed, he was a resourceful man. A dozen campaigns, hundreds of battles, and in his youth, dozens of personal combats, had taught him many things. They had also taught the men still loyal to him many things. They were the best of men—good, loyal lads.

He might not be able to tear Amero from his palace at the head of a triumphant army, restored to his position of honour as a liberator from tyranny, but that did not mean he couldn’t have the bastard cut down on the street to die like a common pauper. Kastor’s only regret was that he wouldn’t be there to witness it himself. The dream of an old soldier, of glory at the head of an army and of blood splattered banners flapping on the breeze, would not be his, but when the deed was done he would be sure that everyone knew that it was he, General Balcio Kastor who had freed the people from the Duke’s abuses.

His impatience increased as the men did not return, long after the appointed hour. Like as not some of them had fallen—the Duke’s men were good—but death was one of the costs of war as Amero had declared on the day he cast Kastor out into the cold. With luck, Amero was bleeding out on the street, and there was no cause for concern. He had absolute confidence in the men he had sent. Or he did, when he sent them out.

K
astor had fallen
asleep at some point in the afternoon, because he was woken by knocking at the door. Despite the nap, he was emotionally exhausted and felt drained. It took him a moment to compose his thoughts enough to receive a visitor. His occasional servant, an old adjutant, answered the door and led the visitor through to Kastor. Dal Lupard.

As ever, it was impossible to read dal Lupard’s face. He had mastered keeping his thoughts and emotions entirely to himself. He was not the type of man Kastor enjoyed dealing with.

‘What can I do for you, Pierfranco? I didn’t think we were due to meet for another few days.’

‘We weren’t. Not until your men had located Soren. Have they done it yet?’

‘Not quite yet. They’ve had other things occupying their attention, but they’re on it now,’ Kastor said. ‘We know where he was, so it shouldn’t take much longer.’

‘You understand what it is we’re trying to do here?’ dal Lupard said.

Kastor did, but beyond the recovery of the funds Soren had brought to Ostenheim their objectives were entirely different. Dal Lupard wanted to be restored to his former position. Kastor wanted Amero dead. Getting rich in the process was an attractive bonus worth pursuing, but he would rather die in poverty knowing Amero had met a violent end than see out his days in luxury while Amero still lived. He was also keen to see Soren, arrogant little shit that he was, get his comeuppance.

‘I do,’ Kastor said.

‘Then why the fuck did you try to have Amero killed today?’ dal Lupard screamed, his face betraying emotion for the first time.

Kastor had been shouted at many times, often by men who were attempting to kill him. A few harsh words did little to stir him. ‘Those plans were in place before we met. I wasn’t in a position to call a halt to them at this late stage.’ A lie, but it would do for dal Lupard.

‘My patience has limits, Kastor. And for drunken old has-beens, it’s even more limited.’

They both looked at the empty bottle on the table. Kastor couldn’t remember finishing it. He must have drained it before he fell asleep.

Kastor had never thought of dal Lupard as a man of action, more of a poisonous back-room plotter. As an Officer of Intelligenciers, he must have been a banneret—he wore a rapier sometimes—but in all their time of acquaintance, Kastor had never seen him draw his blade. To find dal Lupard had drawn and skewered him before he had even noticed him move was something of a surprise.

‘The Duke was right to cast you to the wolves,’ dal Lupard said. ‘You outlived your usefulness years ago. If you had any pride at all you’d have fallen on your sword at Hohnbach. Better that than… this.’

Dal Lupard pulled his sword free and Kastor fell to the ground. He saw dal Lupard watching him as he lay there, bleeding onto the dirty, threadbare rug that covered the floor. It was only the second time he had seen emotion on dal Lupard’s face. Contempt this time. It was a sad final sight for a hero of Ostenheim.