The mood dropped faster than a cannonball at his appearance, and he shuffled his feet awkwardly at the myriad of bearded faces that looked his way. The low buzz of murmuring began.
“Lads, I’m sorry to interrupt,” Harold said, his face becoming grim now that he had their attention. “But I must ask you to leave at once.”
The murmuring turned to silence. Then:
“Ah, come off it,” one of the more inebriated dwarves groaned. “Come join us for a wee drinkie.”
Harold gave the dwarf a forced smile, but very few of the other dwarves chuckled. Dwarves knew Harold was a friend to their people, but his intrusion on their night was unwelcome. Fletcher could tell he had misjudged the situation. In the back of his mind, he wondered if they would obey at all if he ordered them. Had they meant that oath they had sworn but a few hours ago?
“Uhtred,” Harold called, “Fletcher, Othello. Might I have a word? Carry on for now, lads.”
The three of them shouldered their way through the dwarves and ducked beneath the pikes. The spell was already broken—the music had stopped, and disgruntled muttering had begun to pervade the room.
“It’s the Pinkertons,” Harold muttered under his breath. “They’re still outside the Dwarven Quarter. My father hasn’t ordered them away.”
“Why?” Othello asked, his brows furrowing. “They should be gone by now.”
“After what he saw today, he—he’s furious. When we arrived back at the palace, he said he might risk it anyway. Even without the people on his side, or the soldiers, he thinks sending the Pinkertons in to invade your homes might be enough to make your dwarves riot, especially if they rough up your women a bit. His words.”
“But if he ordered that now, he’d look like a monster,” Uhtred growled, looking over his shoulder to make sure the other dwarves couldn’t hear. “That’s why he didn’t make the speech today: The people would turn against him and he’d lose all his power.”
“Well, if the dwarves don’t resist and start fighting the Pinkertons, then of course that’s true, but if they do then he has a rebellion on his hands, one that he can put down with all the violence he can muster. I’ve convinced him it just won’t happen, so for now we’re holding back. But if he finds out that there’re a hundred drunken dwarves in a tavern down the road, he’ll roll the dice. We need to get them out of here. Now.”
Uhtred closed his eyes and clenched his fists.
“No matter what we do, there’s always something else, some new threat,” Uhtred said, his voice tight with emotion. “What happens if we’re unlucky next time. What then?”
“We’ll discuss that in a minute. Right now I need you to get these men out of here before something bad happens.”
Uhtred turned and ducked under the crossed pikes of the royal guards.
“Tavern’s closed. Everybody out. Take as much food as you like; leave the tankards. Athol, Atilla, Cress, Thaissa—make sure they go straight back to the barracks. No exceptions.”
CHAPTER
33
THERE WERE SIX OF THEM left in the tavern, seated around a table beside the flickering embers of the dying fire: Fletcher, Sylva and Harold sitting opposite Othello and his parents. Even the guards had been sent outside, forming a perimeter around the entrance.
“I have news for you,” Harold said, “and I’m sorry to say it’s bad.”
“Well, spit it out then,” Uhtred snapped, his big hands clenching on the table. He was clearly still angry about the Pinkertons. About how close they had come, even after everything.
“It’s Lord Forsyth and Inquisitor Rook. Their prison. It’s in Pelt.”
Uhtred let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes.
“I don’t understand,” Fletcher said. “Pelt’s become a hellhole; I should know.”
“Not for them,” Uhtred growled. “Right, Harold?”
Harold nodded in reluctant agreement.
“My father arranged it with Didric earlier today. They’re sitting pretty in that new castle of his, with penthouse rooms and servants at their beck and call. We’ve hurt them, taken away their freedom, but there won’t be an execution or a public trial. He’ll probably let them out in a year or two, once the anger has died down.”
Fletcher’s heart sank at the news. Even when caught red-handed, the pair had escaped punishment. Was there no justice for the rich and powerful?
“Don’t you have any say at all?” Briss demanded.
“Not nearly enough to go against my father,” Harold said, running a hand through his curls. “He still thinks we’re friends and doesn’t realize I know about his involvement in the bombings. Fortunately, he understands I’m angry with them, as are the commoners, so he didn’t push for me to pardon them. But he’d never let his two closest allies rot in a jail cell.”
Now it was Briss’s turn to sigh.
“Well, at least that’s something.”
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the crackle of flames in the hearth. Then Uhtred spoke.
“We cannot live on a knife’s edge, always one step away from extinction. Those two will be plotting in the shadows, waiting for their next chance. And as for your father…”
He hesitated.
“Have you ever considered … removing him?”
Harold gave a bitter laugh.
“You mean kill him? Much as it pains me to say it, the thought has crossed my mind. Unfortunately, my father has taken precautions against sudden attack. Are you familiar with the barrier spell?”
“Aye, you use it during the tournaments at Vocans, right?” Uhtred replied.
“That’s right.” Harold nodded. “Well, that very spell is my father’s constant companion, an invisible barrier that protects him at all times.”
He motioned outside, where Fletcher could see the outlines of Harold’s men’s pikes through the windows.
“While my own bodyguards are just well-trained men, Father’s are all battlemages of the Inquisition that keep the spell going night and day. Of course, a powerful enough attack might break through it and a demon is able to penetrate it with relative ease, just like a shield spell, but that alone would make it difficult for anyone but a summoner to kill him. No bullet or sword could come close.”
“But we could,” Fletcher said, the words slipping unbidden from his mouth. He felt a sudden twinge of guilt. They were discussing a cold-blooded assassination—of Harold’s father no less. It was the sort of thing their enemies would do.
“I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t believe that’s true,” Harold said, shaking his head. “Four young battlemages against ten trained Inquisitors and the most powerful summoner in all of Hominum? It would never work.”
“Forgive me, but why don’t you do it?” Sylva asked. “You both have similarly high summoning levels, if the rumors are true.”
“Can you imagine the turmoil the empire would be thrown into if they discovered I had committed patricide for no apparent reason?” Harold snapped, as if he were stating the obvious. “With the Inquisitors protecting him night and day … it would not be a quiet battle, even if I could win. I suspect the palace would be a smoldering ruin by the end of it.”
Then he took a breath and his eyes fell to his lap.
“And in truth, I do not think I could bring myself to do it.”
Silence fell once again, and Fletcher felt a sense of relief wash over him. Alfric was a monster, but somehow plotting his murder had made his skin crawl.
“This can’t go on.” Sylva broke the silence. “The dwarven people are not safe in Corcillum. All we have done is bought them a respite, until the next scheme.”
“If there was ever a time to make a bold move, it is now,” Thaissa said.
Harold nodded grimly. He stood suddenly and walked closer to the fire. For a moment he gazed into the flames, his brow furrowed with concentration.
“Yes…,” he said to himself. “It could work.”
He turned and looked at Fletcher, the edges
of his eyes crinkling with what Fletcher thought might be amusement.
“I believe I have an idea,” Harold said, striding back to the table and sitting down with speed borne of excitement. “One that has never been possible before. But with Fletcher here … It is not perfect, nor does it solve all of our problems. But it’s the only one I can think of.”
“What is it?” Fletcher asked, confused.
Harold leaned forward and steepled his fingers.
“Raleighshire. The dwarves can resettle there.”
Understanding dawned on Fletcher then. Of course. No noble would have allowed dwarves to live on their land, and Seraph’s patch of desert was made up of hot, shifting sands, near impossible to build livable dwarven homes in.
But Raleighshire belonged to him now, gifted by the king as his inheritance from his parents, and his to do with as he pleased. He was already resettling the people of Pelt there … why not the dwarves?
Even as he opened his mouth to agree, Uhtred shook his head and interrupted.
“Our businesses are here. Our workshops, our friends, our homes. Everything. You want us to leave it all behind to go and live in the wilderness?”
“No offense, Fletcher,” Briss said quickly, giving her husband’s arm a remonstrative squeeze.
Fletcher held up his hands and forced a smile.
“None taken.”
The fear of trying to relocate the citizens of Pelt to this unknown place bubbled at Uhtred’s words, but Fletcher forced it away. This discussion was too important.
“I don’t mean every dwarf,” Harold said. “But a colony. The young men and women, those who are yet to put down roots.”
“What good would that do?” Othello asked.
“Your entire species would no longer be confined to one place,” Harold explained. “It would spread the risk. Get some of them away from the Pinkertons and the army.”
“You say it like it’s a mathematic equation,” Uhtred said. “These are real people, Harold. Mothers, fathers, children.”
“There’s another reason,” Harold said, ignoring Uhtred’s condescension. “If anything like this ever happened again, you would have somewhere to go at the first sign of trouble. You could disappear through the tunnels without Alfric even knowing and follow the paths to Raleighshire. It’s only a day or so’s journey on foot, even faster with your boars and carts. You could be there before anyone even noticed you had gone.”
Uhtred stroked his beard, leaning back and closing his eyes as he did so.
“Would Fletcher even be open to such a suggestion?” Briss asked, her veiled face turning toward Fletcher. “He might not want us there at all; it’s his land. And the people of Pelt would not relish the idea of sharing their new home with a bunch of dwarves. Corcillum’s folk have accepted us, but humans from a rural village like Pelt may be more … stuck in their ways.”
“If they’re anything like Fletcher,” Othello said, smiling, “we shouldn’t have a problem.”
“And if they’re like Didric, Calista or Jakov?” Fletcher said, his heart sinking. The thought of conflict between the dwarves and the people of Pelt had not occurred to him until that moment. Dealing with the small group of refugees would be hard enough, without adding dwarves to the mix.
“Fletcher, you will need more than the impoverished remnants of Pelt’s population to bring Raleighshire back from the dead,” Harold said, waving away Briss’s concerns.
“Nobody has agreed to anything yet,” Uhtred said, his eyes still closed. Harold threw his hands up in frustration and stood once again, walking to the fireside to curb his impatience.
Finally, Uhtred sighed and leaned forward, before spreading his big hands on the table.
“If we do this, I won’t force anyone. Volunteers only,” he said, looking into Fletcher’s eyes. “And we do this fairly. Fletcher gets compensated for allowing us to move onto his land.”
“That’s between you and him,” Harold said, holding his hands up. Uhtred’s demeanor had changed. He was sitting up straight, and his voice took on a businesslike tone.
“You’re going to need supplies to rebuild Raleighshire,” he said. “Money, manpower, materials. Right now, you have little of all three. Knowing this, we can provide you with the latter—food, tools, livestock, transport, everything you could need to start a new life. But in exchange, we need more than the simple leasing of your land.”
“Father…,” Othello began.
Uhtred held up a hand, silencing his son.
“Seraph was the first to suggest it, back when you were in prison, Fletcher. Bringing in a third partner to our business. One with land, real land, not the barren dunes his father owns. Where there are resources that we dwarves and the Pashas don’t have access to, things like wood, iron, wool. At the moment we pay exorbitant prices for these raw materials. It’s killing our business.”
“But nobody would risk going against the Triumvirate,” Briss interjected. “Even Captain Lovett’s family refused us.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Fletcher asked, his mind reeling. Where had this come from? One moment they had been celebrating their success; the next he was negotiating a business deal.
“An equal partnership between the dwarves, the Pashas and you,” Uhtred said. “Our own Triumvirate, so to speak.”
Fletcher felt sweat break out on his forehead. This was not how he had thought the night would go.
“How would it work?” Fletcher asked. “How would it be equal if we are all putting in different things?”
“The details can be hammered out later,” Uhtred said. “But we will make sure that nobody is providing more than their fair share. You can trust us.”
It was all so abstract. Exploiting a land he had never seen, in a business he barely understood. But he needed all the help he could get. He pictured the hovels that the people of Pelt had been living in before. Would their settlement in Raleighshire be any better, without the dwarven help?
Fletcher turned to Othello.
“What do you think?” he asked. If anyone knew the ins and outs of what Uhtred was asking for, it was Othello.
But Othello looked panicked, caught between family and friendship.
“I think … it’s up to you,” he said carefully. “It’s a big decision. I can only promise you that we will be true to our word.”
Fletcher was scared. Somehow, the pressure of this decision was far greater than when he had risked his life in the ether. He wished Berdon was there, to advise him. But this was a burden he must bear alone.
“Fifty dwarves at the most,” Fletcher said, after a moment’s thought. “At least to begin with. So that they do not outnumber my own people.”
“Agreed,” Uhtred said.
“My people will need accommodation for when they arrive in Corcillum, before we make the journey to Raleighshire and you prepare the supplies for them. Can you arrange it?”
“Yes,” Uhtred said, waving at the stairs behind him. “This tavern has fifteen rooms, and the rest of them can use this bar area and the basement. I’ll have Athol arrange the extra bedding.”
“And they arrive tomorrow,” Harold said, turning away from the fire. “Sir Caulder sent word ahead. I took the liberty of telling them to meet us outside the tavern, since this is where you have been staying.”
Fletcher couldn’t help but smile at the news. The short time he and Berdon had spent together after his release had been fleeting. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed the gruff blacksmith until that moment. For a second Fletcher felt a lump in his throat, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. He forced them back and stood up.
“Okay, then,” he said, holding out his hand. “Equal partners.”
Uhtred’s bearded face broke into a grin. He ignored Fletcher’s hand and wrapped him in a bear hug. Fletcher patted him frantically on the back, the breath whooshing from him.
“You’re family now.” Thaissa smiled as Uhtred released him.
“As if he w
asn’t already,” Othello laughed. He took Fletcher’s hand, and this time Fletcher winced in pain at the dwarf’s powerful grip.
“Congratulations,” Sylva said, grinning. She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Well, that’s settled then,” Thaissa said. “Harold, do you have any more bad news, or can we relax now?”
“Good news actually,” Harold said, the hint of a smile suddenly playing on his lips. “For three of you, at least, and Cress when she returns. Believe it or not, I have brought a gift.”
The king had a leather satchel with him, left by one of the bodyguards before he had gone outside. Now Harold lifted it with a wince—the bag was heavier than it looked. It jingled as he placed it on the table.
“Your winnings from the mission. One thousand five hundred gold sovereigns, for destroying the goblin eggs and rescuing Lady Cav—or should I say, Lady Raleigh.”
“I had forgotten about that,” Sylva said, looking at the bag in awe. The top was open, and heavy golden coins sparkled within.
“Enough for each of you to hire a small army,” Harold said with a smile. “Speaking of which, that is another thing I have come here to discuss.”
He turned to Fletcher, the smile on his face fading somewhat.
“Fletcher, you are now a noble, with your own land. Legally, you have a responsibility to protect that land. Up until recently, Lord Forsyth owned Raleighshire and defended its borders from the orcs with his own men, a band of warriors camped at the old mountain pass. Soon, you will have to replace them.”
“How soon?” Fletcher asked, the weight of responsibility suddenly descending upon his shoulders.
“I do not know,” Harold said. “But it will be a few months at the most, before Lord Forsyth sends for them. You have the means now, at least. I sent word this morning to Corcillum’s central barracks that you will be needing men. There should be some volunteers there tomorrow. It is up to you to hire, train and outfit them.”
Fletcher tried not to think about the many tasks that faced him now. He didn’t even know where to begin.
Harold patted Fletcher on the shoulder and gave him an apologetic smile. Fletcher forced one in return. The king had a way of turning his life upside down whenever he showed up.