The Instruments of Control (12 page)

Werner swayed tiredly on the driver’s perch as dawn broke, the horses clip-clopping along a path that followed a swift and cold river. They’d pulled off to the side of the road hours before, but the Terrai wilds were too dangerous to make camp in the dark. They’d just laid out their bedrolls in the back of the wagon and tried to sleep, shivering and empty-bellied.

Werner hadn’t gotten a minute of sleep, and he was fairly sure the women hadn’t either. They rode in the back, still mostly silent after their run-in at the roadblock. Every now and then, Nessa would say something to Mari in their native tongue—just a few words. Sometimes Mari would respond in kind. Sometimes she would almost smile.

He wished he understood.

The horses crested a hill. Far below, nestled against a small black lake fed by the river torrent, stood a sleepy village. Smoke from cooking fires drifted across a bleary sky, and the air rang out with the distant clang of a hammer meeting a blacksmith’s anvil.

“Lunegloire,” Nessa said. “Though I’m sure they’ve changed the name. We’re here.”

Mari sat bolt upright, her spine like a rod of iron. “They’re here? The Autumn Lance?”

“No. That’s still a day’s ride. But you’re in no condition to meet them, nor am I. The good news is my family owns a small cabin in the woods, not far from here. They marked it on my map. Let’s head into the village, stock up on supplies, and go to the cabin. A roof over our heads, a warm hearth, good food, and a night’s sleep.”

“I don’t like waiting. Not when we’re so close.”

“And I don’t like the idea of you keeling over from exhaustion when you try to bow to your new companions,” Nessa told her. “A thing worth doing is worth doing properly. They’ve waited twenty years for you, so one more day won’t hurt, now will it?”

Lunegloire teetered on the edge of abject poverty. Thatched roofs sported gaping holes, and gray clapboard walls showed signs of worms and rot. The village didn’t have streets, just muddy paths between ramshackle hovels, and stray mutts prowled with ribs showing under their mangy fur.

Faces peered from smashed-out windows, eyeing the cart and its riders with a mixture of confusion and fear.
Probably haven’t had any visitors in a dog’s age
, Werner thought,
and seeing my Murgardt face won’t make ’em any happier
.

Ordinarily he would have worried about watching for an ambush. As a terrified mother bundled up her son and dragged him inside their hut, slamming the door behind her, he realized he wasn’t in any danger here.

Broken
, he thought.
These people are broken
.

He wished he could remember if he’d been here during the war. He wished he could remember if he was the one who had broken them.

It all blurred together, though, and the edges of his memories had softened with time and distance. As the weeks behind the lines turned into months, the whole parade of horrors had just turned into a slog. One ambush was much like another, at least when his squad was on the delivering end. One more pitched battle, one more pile of Terrai corpses.

One more town caught harboring insurgents, singled out for collective punishment. One more night sitting alone in his tent, drinking himself blind while his men chose their favorite kind of prisoners from the pens—young and female—and spent long, moonless nights teaching them the consequences of rebellion. That kind of behavior was technically illegal. Worthy of a court-martial, on paper at least. So Werner would drink with plugs of wax in his ears. That way, if it ever came up, he could plead ignorance.

It never came up. After all, everyone did it.

But I helped Mari
, he thought, clinging desperately to anything that might calm his roiling stomach. Anything that might make him feel like a decent human being again.

I fixed Mari
.

“Up here,” Nessa said, leaning over Werner’s shoulder and pointing. “Looks like a grocer’s.”

He eased back on the reins, slowing the horses as they churned mud under their hooves.

“Your hands are shaking,” Nessa said.

“Low on sleep,” he told her.

She made a noncommittal
hmm
sound and climbed down from the wagon.

The store, if Werner could call it that, was more bare shelves and flies than anything he’d want to spend coin on. Sides of beef dangled from the ceiling, the meat already turning a shiny green in spots, and the bins of produce were half spoiled. The proprietor, an elderly Terrai woman, greeted Mari and Nessa with a wary smile but cringed when Werner walked in behind them.

Nessa spoke to her quickly and softly in Terrai. Whatever she said seemed to soothe her.

“Can’t speak that here though, not here,” she replied in broken Murgardt. “Is dangerous if hearing.”

“Of course,” Nessa said, turning to take stock of the shop. “I think we can make something of this. Mari, rummage through the produce bins. Gather up anything edible. Werner, go check those sacks of flour.”

Mari stayed close to Nessa, leaning in. “Aren’t we only staying for a night? We don’t need that much food.”

“Look at her,” Nessa murmured. “We’re the only customer with real coin she’s had in who knows how long, and we have the money to spare. Let’s give her something to smile about. Besides. It’s almost your big day. I think you deserve a feast tonight, hmm?”

They spread out, picking through the meager offerings. They weren’t alone for long. The door clattered open and five men tromped in, tracking foul-smelling mud across the dirty floorboards. Goose bumps prickled the back of Werner’s neck as he took in their outfits. Not quite soldiers, with their bits and pieces of Imperial armor, most of it mismatched and battle scarred. They wore scraggly beards and tangled hair he’d have taken shears to personally if they’d mustered into his squad looking like that.

Grave robbers
, Werner thought.
Or deserters. Either way, trouble
.

“Right, lads,” the presumed leader of the rabble barked, “load up on supplies. We’ve got a long day’s ride ahead.”

They hit the shelves like locusts, grabbing anything worth taking, a couple of the men walking out with armloads of spoiling food—and not bothering to pay for it. The storekeep sat in petrified silence. Werner kept his head down, focused on the sacks of flour. Across the store, it looked like Mari was doing the same, despite the grimace on her face.
Please
, he thought,
just let them take what they want and go. We don’t need this fight
.

Nessa acted like she hadn’t noticed the men at all. “So,” she asked the storekeep, “is this village still called Lunegloire, or did they change it?”

One of the men turned his head. “What’d you say, girl?”

“I was asking,” Nessa said politely, “about the name.”

“It’s Village Thirty-Seven,” their leader said, stepping toward her. “An’ that’s what it’s
always
been called.”

Nessa shrugged. “Shame. No poetry to it.”

“I don’t recognize you. Let’s see your papers.”

“Who are you to ask?”

He thumped his battered leather breastplate. “Captain o’ the road patrol, keeping this worthless stretch of nowhere safe for civilized people. Y’know what? Forget the papers. You’ve already got a beating coming for talking back to your betters—”

Mari was there in a heartbeat, standing between them. Even without weapons, her batons still held for safekeeping on Werner’s belt, nothing diminished the fire in her eyes.

“Lay one hand on her,” Mari said, “and I break every bone from the tip of your index finger to your shoulder.”

He stared down at her, momentarily caught off guard. He tried to smirk, but he couldn’t quite hide the nervous edge in his eyes.

“That’s a big boast for a little girl.”

“Not a boast. A statement of fact. So that when you force me to cripple you, you’ll understand exactly what’s happening to you and why. I wouldn’t want there to be any confusion.”

The captain’s men closed in, easing hands toward weapon belts. Some had short swords, another a mace, and one nothing but a half-rusted meat cleaver. All lethal. Werner sidled up behind them, slowly reaching for the quarterstaff slung across his back.

“You really wanna get yourself cut up on her account?” their leader asked Mari, nodding toward Nessa.

“I am a knight aspirant of the Autumn Lance,” Mari told him in a low, hard voice, “and this woman has put her safety in my hands. I will die to protect her.”

As the staff hissed from its bindings, sliding into Werner’s ready grip, his gaze was torn between the two women. Mari stood like an iron statue, resolute, ready to fight with fists and teeth if she had to.

And behind her Nessa stared up at the leader of the ruffians, utterly placid, as if they were in no danger at all. Wearing the faintest hint of a smile on her pale lips.

“Gentlemen,” Werner said. The two closest men spun to face him, eyeing the staff and his squared-off fighting stance. “You called yourself the road patrol. That an
official
outfit?”

Their captain curled his lip. “We, ah, outgrew our original commission a few years back. We’re freelance keepers o’ the peace, you might say.”

“Stay out of it,” another ruffian told Werner. “Don’t go stickin’ your neck out for the savages. It ain’t your business.”

“Oh, you’re making it my business. Sergeant Werner Holst, Twenty-Fourth Infantry, retired. You dogs are deserters and you’re dishonoring the uniform. That’s my business, all right. All I have to do is send word to Commander Beitel at Fort Blackwood, and his troops will scour this patch of woods until every last one of you is strung up from the trees like you rightly deserve.”

Their captain spread his grubby hands. “Well, then. Maybe that means we shut you up for good, right here and now.”

“Sure. And maybe you die trying. I
served
here, back when half the lads who wore the Imperial eagle on their shoulders never came home again. Think you’re tough? You wouldn’t have lasted twelve hours on the front lines. But I
did
last, and now I’m back for more. The five of you might take me down, sure, but I guarantee at least two of you get your skulls split. Who wants to be first? C’mon,
step up!
”

The closest deserters gave each other a nervous look. Neither one drew his weapon.

“Or,” Werner said, “you lot can get gone.
Now
. We all go our separate ways, and nobody has to die today.”

The captain held Werner’s gaze for a long, cold minute. Then he blinked.

“You’re lucky we have places to be,” he said, waving toward the door. “C’mon, we’re late as it is.”

The deserters shuffled out in a pack, slinking low, never taking their eyes off Werner until the last one slipped away.

“Well played,” Mari said. Werner just nodded and slung his staff. It took three tries to get it back in its sheath, his hands shaking as pent-up adrenaline ran riot through his veins.

Nessa touched Mari’s shoulder. She smiled brightly, a touch of wonder in her eyes.

“You,” Nessa said, “are going to make an
excellent
knight.”

Mari shook her head. “It’s what anyone would have done.”

“Let’s just get our supplies and get out of here,” Werner said. “Just in case they find their nerve and decide to double back. This cabin of yours, is it hard to find?”

“Not far at all, but quite secluded, according to the map,” Nessa said.

“Good. We’ll be safer there.”

Nessa nodded sharply. “My thoughts exactly.”

“What do you mean,
wait
?” Simon demanded, standing outside Lodovico’s office door. “I’m Vico’s
accountant
. I don’t wait to see him, and he doesn’t have meetings I’m not invited to,
ever
.”

The house guard, poised between Simon and the closed door, ducked his head apologetically.

“I’m sorry, sir, but as I’ve told you, Signore Marchetti gave very specific instructions. No one is to be admitted until the ladies depart.”

“Ladies?” Simon pointed to the door. “Does he have whores in there? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

The guard swallowed. Hard.

“I…wouldn’t call them that, sir. Not where you reckon they might hear.”

“Who are they, then?”

The guard glanced over his shoulder to the closed door and back again.

“I don’t know, sir. They’re…
wrong
.”

“I’ll just take a look then, shall I?”

Simon sidestepped the guard in one smooth motion, turned the handle, and let himself into Lodovico’s office.

The women, three of them, stood in a triangle before Lodovico’s desk. They wore heavy robes, and thick veils of netted black lace dangled from their wide-brimmed hats. Black silk gloves concealed their hands, but their fingers drew Simon’s sharp eye. Either the gloves were sewn to accommodate exceptionally long fingernails, or their actual fingers were far too long for their hands.

“Sir,” the guard said, bursting in behind him. “I’m sorry, I tried—”

Lodovico leaned back in his chair and waved his fingers toward the door. The burly man, his shock of auburn hair tangled as if he’d recently woken up, looked somewhere between irritated and exhausted.

“It’s fine. We’re finished here anyway. Dismissed.”

The guard made himself scarce as the women turned—each one pivoting in place in perfect synchronicity, keeping their triangle intact—to face Simon.

“Simon Koertig,” said the first. Her voice was a sibilant hiss, drawing out the
S
in his name.

“Surprised you’d show your face here,” said the second.

“Lo, how the mighty have fallen,” the third said, snickering.

“I don’t know what you”—Simon paused, rethinking his choice of words at the last second—“
ladies
are talking about.”

“Can’t kill a helpless morsel like Felix Rossini,” the first said, mock pouting.

“Not even when he’s unarmed and alone,” said the second.

The third put her gloved hands to her chest. “He can drown an old man in a bathtub like an expert, though.
Our hero
.”

Simon clenched one of his hands into a fist at his side.

“Costantini? That ‘old man’ had eight armed and alert guards. I killed
all
of them.”

“Exactly,” hissed the first woman. “And if
we
had taken that job, we wouldn’t have
had
to. His guards would have found Costantini dead in the morning, hours after we’d come and gone right under their noses.”

“And to think we used to see you as worthy competition,” the third said.

Behind his desk, Lodovico lifted a half-empty glass of wine. “Ladies? Please? I invited you to chat, not to antagonize my accountant. I think our business is concluded for now, yes?”

“You know our price,” the first told him. “When you are prepared to pay, come to
our
home.”

As one, they strode toward the door. Simon found himself standing off to one side, out of their path. He hadn’t consciously gotten out of their way so much as he’d been mentally
pushed
.

Alone, Simon turned to Lodovico with a look of sheer disgust on his face.

“The Sisterhood of the Noose?
Really?
”

“They’re a fallback,” Lodovico said, “in case things get too far out of control. So far so good—Basilio Grimaldi’s survival notwithstanding—but I’m hedging my bets. Speaking of Basilio…?”

“The last of the failed assassins is dead. Found him hiding in the slums in Lerautia. Does Weiss know we eliminated one of his own men?”

“If we didn’t, he would have. The Dustmen aren’t forgiving of failure.”

“So there was no need to send me to tie up loose ends,” Simon said. “Your pet mercenaries would have done it on their own. Was that the idea? Get me out of town while you cozy up with the Sisterhood?”

Lodovico slouched back in his chair and sipped his wine.

“Simon, how long have we known each other?”

“Since your father hired mine. We’ve known each other more years than we haven’t.”

“And in all that time,” Lodovico said, “have I ever betrayed you? Lied to you? Cut you out of the picture?”

“Not…that I am aware of.”

“To be honest, you’ve given me some reason for concern of late. But you know that. There’s no need to belabor the past.”

Lodovico’s gaze drifted down to the powder-blue carpet. Even now, a pair of dark splash stains, like the aftermath of spilled wine, muted the color near Simon’s feet. Blood was a stubborn thing.

“I sent you,” Lodovico said, “because I wanted to be certain this mess was cleaned up properly. At this point in the game, arousing Basilio Grimaldi’s wrath is a complication I do
not
need. As for the Sisterhood, they’re my avenue of last resort. If the next stages don’t go perfectly to plan, they’ll ensure that no one escapes justice—no matter what happens to me.”

“I could have done that for you.”

“And I am grateful, but I need you focused on Basilio. Before, he needed to be killed for principle’s sake. Now it’s a matter of self-defense. The longer he lives, the more likely he is to figure out who sent those assassins.”

“I have a question,” Simon replied.

He paced in front of the desk, formulating his request, while Lodovico watched with strained patience.

“I have a way,” Simon told him, “to guarantee Basilio’s death. Tomorrow, in fact.”

“At his daughter’s wedding? Appropriate. Go on.”

“During, or immediately after. The point is, there may be a tiny bit of additional damage. I know you said you wanted Felix Rossini left alone—”

Lodovico sighed. He contemplated his wineglass.

“The more I think about it…” he let his thought trail off. “Did I tell you I ran into him at a party? It was just a few days after he returned from Winter’s Reach.”

“The Feast of Saint Scarpa?”

“One and the same. Funny, that feast’s where I met him the first time, years ago. He may wear the same name and the same face, but he’s not the same man. There’s something inside of him, dark and squirming in his guts. I’m not sure if he even knows it.”

“Well, after what he’d been through—”

“That’s not it, though. It’s that place. Winter’s Reach
changes
people, Simon. It’s cursed.”

“I certainly don’t feel any different.”

Lodovico watched him over the rim of his wineglass, favoring Simon with an indulgent smile.

“What could it bring out of you?” he asked. “You made peace with your darkness years ago, no? You wear it like a tailored coat. Felix, though…a man like that, to a
place
like that, is raw clay.”

“So what are you saying, exactly?”

Lodovico set his glass down. “I’m saying I don’t want Felix coming after me. He knows you—by sight, if not by name. If he connects you with me…”

Silence.

“Vico?”

Lodovico snapped out of his thoughts. He rapped his knuckles on the desktop.

“Kill them all. Basilio, Felix, and Basilio’s daughter as well, just to be certain she doesn’t come back for revenge down the line. Clean house. I’m risking too much to suffer loose ends.”

Simon took a long, deep breath. As he let it out again, he shivered with pleasure.

*     *     *

The dockside dive was all smoke and sea salt, clamor and the endless reel of a lyre played wild and off-key. The crowd was just drunk enough to love it, tossing dirty coppers at the player’s feet as he danced on the beer-sticky floorboards like a headless chicken.

Simon wasn’t so easily distracted. He only had eyes for his new drinking companion, a man with white whiskers longer than a catfish’s. They’d had a serendipitous meeting in the gardens of the Cathedral of Flowering Grace. Well, serendipitous for the old man, anyway. It had taken careful planning on Simon’s part, playing the role of a drifter looking for local work. They talked under the shadow of looming stone gargoyles, and eventually adjourned to the warm comforts of the Satyr’s Thicket. The pub’s namesake, painted on the dusty clapboards behind the bar, leered in his goat-legged pursuit of a naked woodland nymph.

“I’ll tell you,” the old man said, swirling the ale in his tankard for emphasis and leaning against the bar, “they say we’re a free people, but that and two coppers’ll buy you another mug of swill. The governor gives a sharp look and everybody jumps like he’s the emperor himself. A damned Murgardt, lording it over us like he’s got any right to breathe Mirenzei air.”

Simon lifted his own tankard, touching it to his lips and pantomiming a swallow. Didn’t pay to get tipsy on a job. “I hear you.”

“Like tomorrow, this damned wedding that’s got us all working double hours—and without double pay, mind you. Damn Grimaldi family’s best pals with our
esteemed
governor, so they get the white-glove treatment. The whole cathedral, a triumphal procession, whatever they want. Who do they think they are, anyway?”

“Wealth opens doors.”

“Pah.” The old man tossed back a swig of cheap ale. “I been the cathedral groundskeeper for forty years. You think that’d be worth something. I coulda been a merchant, or a nobleman.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Simon murmured into his tankard.

“What’s that? Didn’t hear ya.”

“So, this wedding. It’s an all-day affair? Lots of guests coming?”

“Probably half the damn city. Ceremony’s at nine bells, then a big parade from the cathedral to the governor’s mansion for a feast. Not that I’m invited.”

Simon touched his finger to his chin, pretending to concentrate. “Hmm. From the cathedral to the mansion. So they’ll take…”

“The Triumphal Ribbon,” the groundskeeper helpfully finished his thought. “Street winds all the way from one end of the heights to the other. About halfway along the route, they’ve got the old Ducal Arch all decorated with vines and posies. Took a whole day of work, and it’ll all get torn down day after tomorrow, all for giving a couple of rich fops their moment of marital bliss. What a waste.”

It’ll all get torn down
, Simon thought, a smile playing on his lips.
Not the precise words I would have chosen, but close enough. Mirenze will remember Felix’s wedding day for decades to come.

All because of me.