A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland

Author:Alexandra Rowland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saga Press

Over the next few days, I ran through a chunk of my repertoire that was impressive even to me. The guard never spoke, so I hadn’t the foggiest idea whether he or she was actually listening to me.

Vihra Kylliat came back on the fourth night. She opened the door and I shot up from my bunk—I’d wrapped my clothes around me for what little good they did me, but they’d dried crusty and stained. She staggered into the room, dragging a chair behind her, and placed it in the middle of the room. She didn’t bother closing the door, but I suppose if I’d tried to make a dash for it, she would have had me pinned dead against the wall as soon as I twitched in that direction. She fell, unsteadily, into the chair—her face was beet red and she smelled strongly of drink.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Why are you sitting around naked?”

“You dumped a bucket of filth on my clothes last week,” I said. “They’re ruined.” I held up one wooden-stiff arm of a tunic. “I’m afraid it might snap off if I try to put it on.”

“Private Vidar!” she bawled. “Vidar, send someone down to the debtors’ ward and get some clothes for whosits. This guy.” She squinted at me.

“Chant,” I said.

“Stupid name.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got these days.”

“Chant,” she said. “Chant. Chant. You know what, Chant?”

“What, Your Majesty?”

“I killed Anfisa Zofiyat today.” She slumped in her chair and waved one arm. “And I mean that. I killed her. Me. I mean, execution, yes, it was all official and everything, but I held the sword. Took her head right off.”

My blood ran cold. “Her trial went badly, then.”

“Trial, trial. Yes, badly. I probably would have had to let her out, but then her stupid puppets came and tried to break her out. Got her on conspiracy, then, and also conspiracy to commit murder—that was when they tried to kill you, of course—and trespassing on government property.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You killed her for trespassing?”

“No, I killed her for conspiracy. And attempted murder. And also trespassing.”

“She wasn’t the one who trespassed, though. The Weavers did.”

“Yeah, I know. Killed them, too. All of them. There were twelve of them that came to the prison. We killed seven in the fray the other night, including those two blackwitches. Arrested the other five, put ’em on trial, and executed them within six hours. Anyway, there won’t be a Ministry of Pattern anymore.”

“No?”

“No. I read the books on what I get to do, being the only active Prime and Zorya Miroslavat having already declared martial law for me. Convenient, really. Laws about it, you know. So I disbanded Pattern.” She threw one side of her cloak back and fumbled a silver flask from a pocket of her trousers. She pinched it awkwardly between her artificial hand and her chest and used her other hand to work open the cap. She took a long swig from it, then closed her eyes, dropped her head back, and offered it to me.

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