Blood in the Water (Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution) by Juliet E. McKenna

Author:Juliet E. McKenna [McKenna, Juliet E.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Solaris Books
Published: 2011-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Karn

Tyrle, in the Lescari Dukedom of Carluse,

20th of Aft-Autumn

As he came up the stairs to the anteroom, a few men glanced his way. They lost interest when they saw his Triolle livery. These lounging mercenaries weren't interested in servants. It was the other men seated along the walls that they watched with veiled suspicion. If they were confident no enemy could scale Tyrle's formidable walls, they still didn't trust their allies.

Karn raised the lidded flagons of wine he carried as excuse for his presence.

"We'll take one of those." The commander of Duke Garnot's retinue snapped his fingers.

"Captain." Karn obediently handed a pewter jug to the closest man in Carluse black and white.

"We'll wet our throats too." Duke Iruvain's captain gestured and one of his men took a flagon, stony-faced.

"Is one of those for us?" a balding man with a red surcoat over his hauberk asked from his seat by the door.

Karn knew him by the fetterlock blazon on his breast. Captain Jophen of the Locksmiths. He'd informed Duke Garnot that his promises no longer retained the company's services after the retreat from Carluse and offered his men's swords to Triolle. Now he sat with the hired captains who'd come up from Relshaz by sea and river, impervious to the contemptuous glances from Duke Garnot's militia commander.

"Of course." Karn had brought four flagons, enough for a sup or two for each waiting man, not enough to provoke the simmering ill will into conflict. That wouldn't serve his purposes. As long as all three contingents watched each other with baleful suspicion, no one paid any heed to him.

He handed the third flagon to a man wearing a Moonraker's badge before knocking on the inner door.

"Enter," Duke Garnot barked.

As he obeyed, Karn saw Duke Iruvain's jaw was taut with irritation. The younger man had had his fill of Duke Garnot's overbearing manner on the forced march north from Triolle.

"Wine, Your Grace, Your Grace." Karn bowed like a well-trained lackey.

"Thank you." Iruvain's expression lightened with recognition.

On Litasse's instruction, Karn had taken pains to ingratiate himself with the duke, once he'd persuaded the former under-steward to flee Triolle Castle with a purse of Tormalin gold and assurances that no one else would ever learn the man had pilfered ducal liquor to supply his brother's inn.

"Who sent us wine?" Duke Garnot growled.

Karn ducked his head, feigning nervousness. "Your reeve, Your Grace."

As soon as the two dukes had entered Tyrle, the man had turned over these fine offices above the town's main gate, as well as his own luxuriously furnished house. The pennies the man pocketed from every toll taken in the duke's name plainly added up to a tidy sum. That was hardly surprising. Tyrle commanded the road coming south from Ashgil: the main route carrying goods from the Great West Road to Triolle and to those towns in Marlier and Parnilesse too far from the rivers for merchants to take advantage of barges.

Duke Garnot stalked to the window overlooking the high road, where the

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