The Pirate of Fathoms Deep (14 page)

"There's no rush," Lesto replied. "Acclimating to palace life is hard enough. I'm sure you'll fall into something eventually. If nothing else, I can put you in charge of punching important people who need to have a lesson or six driven into them."

"I'm fairly certain I've escaped a death sentence twice now for punching important people, and my luck won't hold forever."

Laughing, Lesto turned and motioned for Shemal to follow him, threading back toward the main portions of the palace as he suggested things for Shemal to see and do, until someone eventually appeared to drag Lesto away.

Lesto didn't bother to look up when somebody knocked on his door. "I'm pretty damned certain I said I wasn't to be disturbed by anyone, up to and including Sarrica."

"Well, too damned bad," Sarrica drawled. "I'm High King, my orders overrule yours."

Lesto groaned. "Get the fuck out of my office. I'm trying to get work done. My estates do actually need me to pay attention to them upon occasion."

Sarrica snorted. "No, they're much happier when they don't have your over-controlling tendencies leaning over their shoulder snarling at them."

Lesto threw down the papers he'd been holding. "What do you want?"

Stepping into the office, Sarrica closed the door, then leaned against it. "When are you actually going to
tell
me what I've been hearing for the past four days?"

"You're bothering me while I'm trying to get work done because you're sulking I haven't explicitly said
I'm retiring?
It's not like I needed to tell
you
." Nobody knew Lesto better than Sarrica, which meant he'd probably known Lesto was ready to quit long before Lesto.

Sarrica sighed. "The courtesy would have been nice."

"Ha," Lesto retorted. "This from the man who did nothing but whine about how handsome I looked when I got my eye stabbed out of my face."

"Stop exaggerating. It was a slice, not a stab." Sarrica pushed away from the door and dropped into the chair next to it. "So are you going to return to Fathoms Deep?"

Lesto leaned back in his own chair. "For a little while, so Jader can take over without everyone trying to run to me every time he does something a little different. But never fear, for all I want to spend time at Fathoms Deep, I wouldn't know what to do with myself without the barely contained chaos of this place. And Allen would kill me if I wasn't around to occasionally distract you so he can work."

Sarrica gestured crudely. He stretched out his legs and draped his arms over the rests. "Should I be figuring out a suitable wedding gift?"

"We've only been lovers a matter of weeks, and Shemal is still acclimating to life here, so would people stop trying to rush us into vows?" Lesto rubbed at his temples. "On second thought, I think I will remove permanently to Fathoms Deep, and you can all go jump in the ocean for all I care."

"I know you think I'm stupid," Sarrica said idly, "but I know the look of an Arseni when their mind is made up. Give me
some
credit, Lesto."

Lesto wanted to throw something at him. "The point remains that barely any time has passed. A mind made up doesn't mean action should be taken. If you or anyone else even thinks about harassing Shemal, I will drag you—"

"I'm not going to do anything to your precious pirate," Sarrica cut in, lifting his hands and rolling his eyes. "I will do my level best to piss you off, but when don't I do that?" He smiled.

Lesto smiled briefly back. "I still don't see why you're bothering me about this now. It could have waited until I wasn't busy."

"I had another reason. The last of the Treya Mencee delegates scattered around the empire arrived today. I put them all in separate rooms, appointed guards to watch them, and came to harass you until I decided they'd been left to suffer long enough. Also to see if you wanted to interview them with me, or if you were too busy playing at Lord Lesto today."

"Those bastards tried to have me and Shemal killed. Of course I want to interview them," Lesto replied. "Why are you asking such a stupid question?"

Sarrica shrugged. "Thought you might be pulling away from such nonsense. Try to remember I need them alive for now."

"For now," Lesto muttered and began sorting the scattered stacks of papers on his desk, piling things at the edge for his secretaries to take away, the other stacks for him to resume working on whenever he was allowed near his desk again. Standing, he lifted his sword belt from where he'd hung it over the back of his chair. "Have they been left to stew long enough?"

"By the time we get to the meeting room they will have," Sarrica said. "Allen is already feeling out new sugar contracts since our arrangements with Treya Mencee are definitely not going to be intact by the end of this mess. He wanted to attend this meeting, but he's so pre-occupied with shifting the sugar contracts, and a few others, that he couldn't come. There's so much money involved even I wince thinking about it."

Lesto shrugged. "Trey Mencee shouldn't have slaughtered an entire ship and then tried to kidnap me. There are two other countries eager to sell us sugar. It's Treya Mencee that stands to lose from this, not us."

"Let's go see just how much they're willing to lose, then," Sarrica said and pulled open the office door.

Lesto's secretaries ducked back to their work, like they hadn't been trying to listen to what was going on in Lesto's office. Though his people were loyal, gossip was the currency of the imperial palace, and gossip about Sarrica and Lesto could practically fetch a king's ransom.

They strode through the halls, people hastening to get out of their way. "Why don't you have bodyguards with you?" Lesto asked. "How many times do we have to discuss this?"

Sarrica rolled his eyes. "I can't wait for you to retire because then you'll no longer be able to nag incessantly about my bodyguards."

"I can still remind you as any good friend would," Lesto replied, his smile all teeth as Sarrica groaned.

"I was just going down two small hallways," Sarrica groused. "I hardly needed bodyguards for that. Now I'm with you, so the point is moot. You know, once you're a civilian, you'll need bodyguards, too, given you're part of the imperial family and can no longer hide behind 'but I'm the High Commander.'"

Lesto scowled. "I do not—"

"Aha!" Sarrica said, giving him a shove. "Fucking hypocrite. See how annoying it is?"

Lesto shoved him right back. "Stuff it."

Sarrica laughed as he barely avoided slamming into a wall. The few remaining people in the hall made quick exits, leaving only Fathoms Deep, who were long used to the antics of their High King and High Commander. "Get as mad as you want, but if you expect me to drag around bodyguards, you're going to have to do the same."

"Shut up," Lesto muttered. "So we've gathered Treya Mencee. Where in the Realms is Lord Bestowen?"

"He should be here in another day or so, I think. He's been damnably hard to pin down. The bastard wasn't at home, even though by all accounts, he should have been. In a positively shocking twist of coincidence, he was in Gearth on unexpected business. From what I've read even the most apathetic halfwit could tell his reasons were contrived. Once we've beaten information out of Treya Mencee, we'll figure out what he was really doing and what he has to do with the whole mess. Speaking of things I still don't know but would really like to: how do you and your pirate come to know one another so well you want to marry the man mere weeks after reuniting?"

"I have yet to say anything about marriage; stop listening to palace gossip." Lesto cast him a warning look, for all the good it would do.

"I
don't
listen to palace gossip, and you damn well know it," Sarrica replied. "I told you, I'm not stupid. I know how you Arsenis look when your minds are made up, and you've been wearing that look from the moment I saw the two of you together at the garrison. Rene was gone on Tara days after they were together, and Nyle fought it, but he admitted later his mind had been made up from the start. You've always been three times more decisive than those two. So quit trying to play me for a halfwit and tell me the details about how you met because there was obviously a great deal more to the matter than him punching you."

"I intend to go to my pyre with the rest of the story, so you may as well quit asking."

Sarrica cast him a look, and Lesto could almost see his mind spinning, spinning. There were plenty of people who took Sarrica to be an actual fool because he was a soldier who had no patience for the finer points of court, because he had a short temper and a knack for saying the wrong thing at the worst time. Those people always learned too late how wrong they were; Sarrica was rude, impatient, and temperamental, but he wasn't stupid.

Lesto sighed in resignation as he saw the moment Sarrica figured it out.

"You fucked him, didn't you? He punched you, and you snuck off to fuck him." Sarrica looked like someone had just handed him the greatest treasure in the world. "You delinquent bastard, I didn't know you had it in you." His eyes took on a gleam, mouth curving into a smirk. "Although I bet you did, in fact, have it—"

Lest shoved him into the wall. "How about you shut your damned mouth before I kill you. I really don't need more rumors going about the palace, so keep your voice down. I don't know why I put up with you."

"Please, what the court doesn't know they are just as happy to make up, and usually that's worse. If you keep shoving me around, the rumors of us fucking are going to resurface."

"Do they ever vanish?" Lesto groused.

Sarrica made a face, and Lesto could follow his thoughts easily enough: all the trouble Sarrica and Allen had suffered at the beginning of their relationship would have been infinitely worse if Allen had arrived when the rumors of Sarrica and Lesto sleeping together had been on the rise instead of the ebb. As it was, Allen just found them amusing.

"We're not done with this conversation," Sarrica said.

"Oh, yes we are." Lesto paused as they reached the doors of the room where they were meeting the Treya Mencee delegation—both those assigned to Harkenesten, and those gathered from around the empire, where they'd been assigned to various palaces. Looking at the guards, he said, "Bring in the delegates, but one at a time. I don't want them to see each other until they're in this room. Save Ambassador Lace for last. I want him ready to piss himself."

"Yes, Commander," the guard said and, with a bow, departed.

Sarrica strode into the room and down the length of it to the chair at the head of the table. Sitting with all the idleness only a High King could possess in such a situation, he said, "I'm surprised Shemal wasn't in your office. I would have let him sit in on the meeting if he wanted. Should we have him summoned?"

"Don't bother. Lord Tara returned to Harkenesten last night and they met this morning," Lesto replied wryly. "When I left they already seemed to be fast friends."

"Uh-oh." Sarrica grinned.

Lesto nodded. "I expect we'll start hearing complaints before the day ends. The High Court is less than amused than Allen now counts his closest friends the court eccentric and a former pirate."

"You'll be lucky if those two don't go off pirating together," Sarrica replied. "I've no doubt Allen would be happy to fund the venture as long as they promised to send him gifts."

"I'm hoping they'll settle for wreaking havoc in court." Lesto gave him a look. "You'd better hope they keep it to a minimum or you'll be inundated in complaints about what your consort and his dubious friends are doing."

"They'll stop whining at me after I slap fines on them." Sarrica's grin widened as he enjoyed whatever images were filling his head. "My golden tongue, an eccentric, and a pirate. I wish I had time to simply sit and watch them turn the High Court upside down."

Lesto pinched his eyes closed. "I am definitely going to Fathoms Deep and never returning."

Sarrica laughed hard enough his body shook with it, startling the servant who'd just entered, pushing a cart laden with food and drink. When she'd set everything on the table and gone, he said, "You never should have let Tara and Shemal meet, but I'm not sorry they did."

The door opened again, bringing the conversation to a halt, and both men banished their levity and settled into their roles and the severity of the situation. They sat in stony silence as, one-by-one, the guards brought in all fifteen delegates. Counting their families and staff, the total number was significantly higher, but the problem more than likely lay in one of the fifteen people in that room.

As they all settled into place, pouring wine or tea, the door opened one last time, and a silver tongue came bustling in, murmuring apologies as she bowed and sat opposite Lesto.

"Let's begin, shall we?" Sarrica said. "You'll forgive me for not being in the mood for pleasantries. You are here because I want to know who is responsible for the slaughter of three hundred and twenty crewmen, fifty mercenaries, and thirty-three passengers, as well as the kidnapping and attempted murder of my High Commander."

Lord Lace, the Treya Mencee ambassador—and therefore the man responsible for the actions of every other person at the table—leaned forward in his seat, mouth pinched and eyes tight as he said, "You have no evidence that Treya Mencee had anything to do those matters. All my people are accounted for; not a one of them could have arranged such things anyway."

"Don't underestimate the resourcefulness of the desperate," Lesto said. "As to evidence, how about we let you be the judge? Everyone on board was murdered in the exact same way, save those who were capable of fighting back: throats slit with a serrated blade, and half of them also had their right hands cut off."

Lace's already pale skin went sickly, and everyone else at the table looked equally unhappy and ill at ease.

"I have it on good authority," Lesto continued, "that such a grisly practice is a long-standing tradition of the Hands of Death, who answer exclusively to the royal family of Treya Mencee. Am I wrong?"

Lace's lips were pressed so tightly together they'd gone white.