• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The longshoremen were indeed willing, and once Nevyn and Amyr had retrieved the prisoner’s belongings, they all set off to carry the sorcerer to justice. Since they collected curious children on the way, and a gaggle of adult loiterers too, it was in something of a festive parade that Merryc was marched into the gwerbret’s dun and dumped into a stout cell in the gaol out back of the broch. Nevyn paid off the longshoremen, sent the children on their way with them, then knelt down on the dirty straw beside their prize.

“I hope I didn’t hit him too hard,” Cullyn said.

“Oh, he’ll live to stand his trial. Fetch me a bucket of well water, will you?”

As soon as the water hit his face, the prisoner began to moan and flop from side to side, but when he opened his eyes to find Nevyn leaning over him, he went dead-still, staring at the old man like the proverbial rabbit at a ferret.

I think me you know who I am, Nevyn said with a grim little smile. “Good. You can bargain with me, lad. Everything you know for your life.”

Merryc smiled briefly and looked away to stare up at the ceiling.

“I keep my word, lad.”

“I know that, and no doubt you would spare me—to rot in the gwerbret’s gaol until my own guild came to kill me. Even if you let me go free, they’d hunt me down sooner or later. Always running, always waiting for the feel of the knife—what kind of a life is that? And it’s the only one you can offer me.”

“And what if we find ways to make you talk anyway?”

“Oh, and do you expect me to believe you’d lay one hot iron on me? You? The mincing milksop Master of the Aethyr? You don’t have the guts, old man, and you know it.”

Cullyn swore aloud at hearing Nevyn addressed so disrespectfully, but the old man merely smiled, a sad and rueful twist of his mouth.

“I don’t, at that.” Nevyn sat back on his heels and considered the bound man. “But it’s a true pity that you can’t understand why.”

“Guild, he said?” Cullyn broke in. “What’s he talking about?”

“Assassins. Come now, you must have heard a whisper or two about the Hawks of Bardek when you were a silver dagger.”

“Well, so I did. Then he’s right enough, my lord. He doesn’t have a candleflame’s chance in the three hells.”

“Oh, I agree. It just aches my heart, that’s all.” The old man got up, dusting off the knees of his brigga. “I need to go talk to the tieryn. Leave Praedd and Amyr here on guard, will you?”

“I will. Have you gotten a chance to look through his gear yet?”

“Just the merest peek—but that was enough to hang him.”

Before they left the cell, Cullyn untied the prisoner, and they left Merryc sitting slumped in one corner, his head on his knees like a naughty child. Nevyn wasn’t content with simply barring the door from the outside; he insisted that the gaoler bring out one of his rare and precious padlocks and chain the bar to the staples. Then the old man took Praedd and Amyr aside.

“Now whatever you do, don’t look him in the face, lads. He’ll try to make you do it. He’ll probably taunt you at first, then maybe pretend he’s sick or dying, but ignore him. If by some odd chance he does die, well, he’s spared us the time spent hanging him, so well and good, say I. When it comes time to give him food and water, fetch me before you open the cell. You’ll have to, actually—I purloined the key when the gaoler’s back was turned.”

“My lord?” Amyr said. “What’ll happen if we look at him?”

“He’ll try to ensorcel you, of course.”

Amyr’s lips parted in an “oh,” but no sound came.

While Nevyn went back to the broch to find the regent, Cullyn shooed the last of the loiterers out of the ward and sent the servants back about their business, too, but he did allow Glomer to wait in the kitchen hut with Nonna. It’s too bad, he thought, that Nonna doesn’t have half her friend’s common sense and a quarter of her wits—enough to leave a man like me alone, anyway. Since he wasn’t blind, he knew perfectly well that the lass was flirting with him for all she was worth. He decided to have a word with Cook later and ask