The Telastrian Song (24 page)

T
he fine detail
of how the plot was worked out was of little concern to Soren. So long as they put him in close proximity to Amero without too many potential interruptions, he was happy to leave Giura and Austorga to thrash out the specifics. As he walked back to his inn, he considered seeking out a fencing salon where he could spend a few days practising. It had been a long time since he had trained with any regularity and he knew that he would need to be at his best when he faced Amero. As confident as he was, there was a kernel of unease in his gut every time he thought of Amero. For most of Soren’s life, the man had been a giant. His hero. The person he most wanted to be like. Every spare moment in his childhood was spent practising Amero’s new moves, pretending he was him, dreaming of having that life for himself. Could he, someone who had spent most of his life living in the gutter really defeat someone like Amero? The Gift had let him down before. What would happen if that occurred again when he faced Amero? Did he have the skill to prevail without it?

He also knew that allowing himself to place Amero on too high a pedestal was foolish. He may have been great once, but he had spent several years now sitting on a throne, boozing and wenching, not to mention the time that had passed since he was in his prime. Even during his final few years in the arena, many posited that he was no longer as good as he had once been. Soren very much doubted he could be called Amero the Magnificent now, but despite this he was not willing to take any chances. There wouldn’t be time to do much to sharpen his reflexes, as he expected Giura and Austorga would want to move fast. Nevertheless, every little bit helped.

His inn was looming into view when he heard a vaguely familiar voice.

‘Banneret Massari, or should I say Soren. Fancy bumping into you here.’

Soren turned to the voice. It took him a moment to place the source—the obnoxious ambassador in Voorn. It took him a moment longer to remember his name, Pierfranco dal Lupard. He was struck in the back of the head, and the unpleasant image of dal Lupard’s smiling face was the last thing Soren saw before darkness swallowed him.

S
oren opened
his eyes and shut them again quickly, regretting having opened them at all. The sudden light hurt his eyes and triggered a headache as bad as any he had ever experienced. He opened them again, more slowly this time, allowing his eyes to adapt and aggravate his headache as little as possible. He looked around and tried to work out where he was.

There was nothing that immediately gave it away. Judging by the open space it was a warehouse, which most likely meant he was somewhere in Docks. Beyond that there was no way of knowing with any greater certainty. He was tied to a chair, and the bonds were tight; too tight to move at all.

He heard footsteps echo through the warehouse, coming toward him.

‘I see you’re awake. I was getting a little worried that you would not wake at all.’

Dal Lupard walked around in front of Soren.

‘What do you want?’ Soren said.

‘A great many things,’ dal Lupard said, ‘but chief among them at this point in time is the money you brought to Ostia to fund Balcio Kastor’s schemes. The money you never gave him.’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Soren didn’t know how or where Kastor fit in with dal Lupard. It could be that dal Lupard was one of the entities that Kastor was referring to when he’d threatened Soren, but it didn’t matter.

Dal Lupard sighed. ‘I rather expected you might play the hard man. That’s why I brought a friend along. You do know I was an Intelligencier, don’t you?’

‘I’d heard it mentioned. How nice of you to remind me,’ Soren said, with as much scorn as he could muster. He was far from being of nervous disposition, but there were few who had not heard of the talents some of the Intelligenciers had for inflicting and prolonging agony.

The second man who came into view did not look subtle. He was built like a prize bull, and had enormous hands with scarred knuckles. Soren hadn’t had a hard beating in a long time, but he had taken enough not to hold any great fear of them. The alternatives that his imagination could create were far worse than the punishment a bruiser could inflict on him.

‘Soften him up a little,’ dal Lupard said. ‘I’m sure I could make him talk now if I were of a mind to try, but I’d like him to learn the rewards of a smart tongue first.’

The slab of muscle nodded and walked over. He didn’t waste any time on formalities, launching a ferocious blow to the jaw that knocked both Soren and his chair over and tumbling across the floor. It felt as though his brain was bouncing around inside his head, and when he came to a halt he had no idea of which direction was which.

Soren was still firmly bound to the chair, which had survived that first blow, but when the bruiser kicked him it collapsed under the combination of his weight and the force of the kick. Were it not for the scrambling of his brains from the first blow, the breaking of the chair would have represented an opportunity. As it was, he was barely aware of the release of his bonds. It was all that he could do to try and suck air back into his lungs. He tried to sit up, but was kicked again and sent sprawling across the floor before he got far.

‘Enough,’ dal Lupard said. ‘Let’s set him up in another chair and see what he has to say for himself.’

G
ian-Cantaro Austorga
was a meticulous planner, and a powerful, wealthy man, but even he could not easily come up with a way to get Soren into close proximity with Amero, at least not without half a dozen of his bodyguards also present. Giura had not expected Austorga to be the magic pill that would solve all of their problems but he had been hopeful that a way forward would quickly present itself, even if it were to be challenging.

They all feared the danger Amero could pose on his own. With bodyguards also, even Soren was quick to acknowledge that it would likely be beyond him to successfully achieve their goal. It added to Giura’s growing frustration, and he was starting to wonder if they would have to find another way. Soren would not be happy about that, but if there was no alternative he would have to accept it—no matter how unpalatable it might be to him.

Unsurprisingly, there were few men that Austorga trusted to include in their plot, which made things more difficult. Any plan would necessitate the involvement of others for the tasks they could not attend to themselves, but they could not be told the reasoning for doing what they were ordered to, which led to the potential for them to misinterpret their instructions, and bring disaster down on them all.

Amero had still not left his palace since the attempt on his life, but that could not last much longer. It was already being questioned whether he was still alive, or if he had succumbed to wounds he received that day. When the voices asking those questions increased in volume and number—something that would not take long—he would have to show himself. Would that be their only opportunity to strike?

‘
N
ow then
, ready to tell me what I want to know?’ dal Lupard said.

Soren was tied to a new chair, the previous one lying in splinters across the rough gravel floor of the warehouse. Dal Lupard slapped him across the face as though to demonstrate that he was not above acts of violence himself, but it carried with it none of the brain rattling force that the other man imparted.

‘There’s no money,’ Soren said.

Dal Lupard struck him again, the blow stinging rather than stunning. Clarity of thought was difficult to come by during the barrage of fists the larger man had delivered, but with dal Lupard’s, Soren found that he was able to focus enough to think. If he could play for a little time, keep dal Lupard doing the dirty work rather than his ox of a colleague, he might be able to work out how he was going to get himself out of this bind.

It occurred to him that he was not in the Grey Tower. That meant dal Lupard was acting outside of the confines of his authority as an Intelligencier. So long as that was the case, Soren had a chance to escape. Once dal Lupard had his money, Soren had no idea what he would do next; he knew too little of the man and his ambitions to predict his behaviour. As it was, the safest course was to presume that once Soren handed over the money, dal Lupard would kill him.

Dal Lupard was speaking, but Soren wasn’t listening. The time he was being afforded was too valuable to squander. Once the ox recommenced his beating, any chance for coherent thought would be gone.

The ropes securing him to the chair were too tight to allow the slightest movement. There was no way he could escape or fight his way free while he was bound to it. If he was to have a chance, his circumstances would have to change. He allowed dal Lupard’s voice back in.

‘I’m in no hurry, but you really must believe that it’s in your own interests to reveal where you are keeping the money sooner rather than later. A hard beating is just the blunt end of my friend’s skill set. You’d never think it to look at him, but he’s a master with a knife. He can remove parts of the body that I can barely even see, without causing any harm to those around them. I’m told the pain is beyond belief. His reputation at the Grey Tower was such that it spread and he was able to establish himself as a private contractor. As I’m sure you’d expect, his services don’t come cheap.’

Soren had to balance his desire to put his plan in motion with making his capitulation seem realistic. Could he give in now and not arouse dal Lupard’s suspicion? It would probably be better to take another round of beating, but he didn’t want to lose any body parts to the torturer’s knife just to lend credence to his ruse. Perhaps the appearance of the knives would be enough to make most men crack.

Soren spat at dal Lupard, dismayed by the amount of blood it contained.

‘Very well,’ dal Lupard said, looking Soren up and down. ‘I wonder how much you’re willing to lose.’ He gestured to the other man in the warehouse, who walked forward, unrolling a cloth wrap as he did. He took two small knives from it and placed the wrap on a table before giving Soren an appraising look.

Soren bore the scrutiny for what he thought a reasonable length of time, and had to admit that he genuinely felt afraid. Once the torturer moved forward, he spoke.

‘Enough,’ Soren said. ‘If I bring you to the money, you’ll let me go?’

‘Of course,’ dal Lupard said. ‘I just want the money.’

Soren knew in that moment that he was lying. Whether it was just his death that dal Lupard had in mind or something else, Soren couldn’t be sure, but he was certainly lying.

‘I’ll have to take you to it,’ Soren said. ‘I’m the only one that can get to it.’

‘A bank?’ dal Lupard said.

‘Of course. Where the fuck else am I going to put that amount of money for safe keeping, you idiot?’

Dal Lupard’s face flushed with rage, but he swallowed, took a deep breath and continued. ‘Well then, I’m glad we can move forward with this. But I think my friend should give you another few minutes to see if he can put some manners into you.’

The torturer put his knives down on the table, then cracked his knuckles in a way that would have seemed comical to Soren, were it not for what he knew to be coming.

G
iura called
to Soren’s inn to give him an update on the plan with Austorga. It had not progressed far and Austorga was leaning heavily in favour of trying to have Amero poisoned. Giura had experience with poison, and knew it was not all it made itself out to be as a guaranteed method of assassination. Targets often had an inconvenient ability to recover, even from large doses. Delivery was difficult too, and often caused the poison to be diluted to a level where it was effective only in alerting the target that someone had tried to kill them. That was before taking into account the tasters that paranoid individuals placed between them and every meal they ate.

There were other poisons that could be used, but delivery was the difficulty. If they could get into the palace and close enough to apply it, they could just as easily put Soren there and be confident of the result.

He was surprised to discover that Soren was not at his inn. He had a somewhat irrational fear of being recognised in the city, and spent most of his time there. Giura thought it was unlikely anyone would spot him. Even discounting the fact that the city was huge, with hundreds of thousands of people living there, most of his old friends and associates were either dead or in exile, while his enemies at the Palace now rarely ventured far from it.

Giura thought little more of it. He had probably slunk off to buy some more books to keep himself entertained. Giura headed back toward Austorgas’, where he was due to meet with Gian-Cantaro to explore other possibilities for advancing their plot.

S
oren spat
a mouthful of blood onto the ground, glad to see that no teeth accompanied it. His face throbbed, and was so swollen he was barely able to see out of the slits that remained. It was amusing to think they had beaten him so far beyond recognition that the bank might be unwilling to allow him access to the deposit box he had placed the diamonds in. It wouldn’t matter in any event; if everything went to plan he wouldn’t have to lead dal Lupard and his thug that far. He would take the first opportunity he had to escape. If the chance to kill them both presented itself, all the better.

‘Which bank is the money in?’ dal Lupard said.

‘The only way you’re going to get the money is if I lead you to it. The bank’s under strict instruction only to allow me access to it. The clerk is familiar with me, knows what I look like, and will not let anyone else at it. Perhaps you’d like to have your thug knock me about a little more, just to completely destroy any chance that they’ll recognise me at the bank.’

Dal Lupard frowned, then smiled. ‘We’ll go this afternoon.’ He gestured to the ox and toward Soren. ‘Not the face, mind.’