Might as well start out by putting them off balance.
“Good, good,” Kip said. “I’m so glad to find you so amenable.”
“My lord Guile,” Lord Aodán Appleton said. “We would like to present you—”
“I don’t really enjoy ceremony,” Kip said, “so let’s skip all that. I see you’ve hanged that asshole, um, what’s his… Hill. Conn Hill, wasn’t he? Was that for me?”
They looked at each other, and some of the gazes were hateful. The hateful three of the wimpy herd were Lord Ghiolla Dhé Rathcore (nephew of Orea Pullawr), Lord Breck White Oak (third cousin of Karris White Oak), and Lord Cúan Spreading Oak (grandson of Prism Gracchos Spreading Oak and a kitchen maid). Kip guessed that they’d been allies of Conn Hill. With him dead, their majority on the Council had dissolved.
“We simply respect you so much that we wished to make your time here before you take your army to Green Haven as easy as possible, my lord,” Lord Culin Willow Bough said. He did an unconvincing job of looking mournful at the demise of his rival.
Orholam’s beard, I really am in a backwater. This is what passes for the nobility here?
“I appreciate that,” Kip said. “He was a bastard. I don’t know if I could have worked with him. I’d like to reward whoever’s idea it was. I imagine Conn Hill had some lands and titles one might redistribute to the worthy?”
“We don’t often punish a whole family for one man’s miscalc—” Lord Cúan Spreading Oak said.
“You don’t often do a lot of things. I think good work should be rewarded fairly. Don’t you agree?” Kip asked.
“We… we all agreed it should be done,” Cu Comán said, speaking for the first time. He was white haired and pale as the dead, a look accentuated by a figure as lean as a rapier.
“Well, I’m not going to split up lands that have a history and a people. Satrap Willow Bough will already be irritated with me for this redistribution without his consent. He and I have bigger things to discuss, but I needn’t rub it in his face. I know it wasn’t any of them,” Kip said, pointing to the huddled three. “They look angry and scared, friends of his, no doubt.”
“Not friends, per se,” Lord Breck said. The others glared at him.
“It was my idea,” Lord Cu Comán said.
“He’s not jumping on the credit where he oughtn’t, is he?” Kip asked Lord Willow Bough and Aodán, as if it were funny.
“We agreed readily,” Lord Aodán said.
Lord Cu Comán came from the smallest and weakest family on the Council of Divines. He had no doubt seen this as his big chance to move up.
“This wasn’t part of some internal politicking, was it?” Kip asked. “This was really for me?”
“Yes, my lord,” Lord Comán said. A flicker of doubt crossed his face, but it was too late. “A gift.”
“Hang him,” Kip said.
The words hit the rest like a grenado in the face, as the Mighty grabbed the man.
“Irritating me is not a hanging offense!” Kip bellowed. “But murder is!”
“What are you—you can’t do this!” Lord Cu Comán said. “What, do you think you’re Gavin Guile himself? You’re just a goddam child! You can’t do this!”
Kip tilted his head. “Funny,” he said, “this city must be special indeed, because I hear a dead man speaking.”
Big Leo and Ferkudi dragged the lord down the steps bodily.
“Stop!” Comán shouted. “Fine! It wasn’t for you! We had a feud with the Hills. Colm had ruined my sister ten years ago. They were engaged to be married and, and, and! He could have made peace, but instead he—”
“And you thought to use my coming as a cover for your vengeance,” Kip said.
“It was my only chance! The Hills were stronger than us. They were going to get away with it!”
“Like you almost did,” Kip said from the top of the steps. Everyone always has a good reason why the law shouldn’t apply to them. Quietly, he said, “Lords Appleton, Willow Bough.”
“Yes, my lord?” they said quietly.
“You lied to me.”
“We said nothing!” Lord Willow Bough said.
“Indeed,” Kip said. “You let him lie to me, and you stood by silent and hoped it would benefit you.”
“We—we weren’t really lying?” Lord Appleton said.
“Oh? Let me guess: you were just pulling my leg.”
They said nothing.
“Then now you can pull your friend’s leg. One on each side.”
They looked at each other like they didn’t understand.
“Go,” Kip said. “Pull his legs to help him strangle quickly. He almost made you richer and more powerful; it’s the least you can do in return.”
Less than a minute later, in utter silence, a noose was thrown over the gallows and tied to a saddle. With his hands bound behind his back, Lord Cu Comán was lifted from the ground by his neck. His legs kicked and flailed until Lord Willow Bough and Lord Appleton each grabbed one and hugged it to their chests.
Lord Comán tried to kick them free. The body wants to live. But they held on, throwing all their weight into it, and his neck cracked and elongated.
A dark stain blossomed at his groin and spread down to where the lords held him, eyes clenched shut as if they hadn’t felt all the fight go out of him. Nor did they feel the warm wetness for several long seconds.
They stepped back, revulsion and horror painting their faces, and then again as they took in Comán’s head bent too far to one side, his neck inhumanly long.
Kip beckoned them back, and they came, painfully aware of the massive presence of Big Leo and Ferkudi.
The crowd was still as a tomb.
Strangely, it hadn’t seemed to even occur to any of the nobles to try to call forth the city’s own fighters to defend them. Not that it would have done them much good, but these nobles were men who couldn’t even conceive of their privileges being abrogated, or on what those privileges rested, so they had no mental recourse when they were.
The lords rejoined the circle, holding their hands out, disgusted by the foulness they’d touched and done, but unwilling to wipe them on their clothes. Rich men, then, but not so rich as to defile their finest clothes.
Kip said, “I’m going to tell you how things are going to be, and you are going to surprise me with how quickly you make them happen. Do we understand each other?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Here’s what’s first.”
And on Kip’s orders, the family of each of the Seven brought forward its chief accountant or secretary. Kip had fourteen horses saddled and waiting. In front of him, so that the lords could send no secret message, each was ordered to go to his employer’s home or business and retrieve all his account books. He gave no more detail, and each was paired with a trained accountant from Kip’s camp.
With no idea exactly what Kip was looking for, and no time to forge accounts, it would at least minimize the ability to obfuscate. Before the accountants left, Kip said, “Oh, and if you’re not back in one hour, both you and your lord hang. No excuses.”
“This, this is preposterous!” Culin Willow Bough said. He was a distant cousin of the satrap’s.
“Yes, that I should need to do this is an outrage,” Kip said. He turned sharply to the accountants, who were frozen, wondering if his command would be called off. “One hour, minus one minute,” he said. “Shall I shave off another five minutes for impertinence?”
They galloped off in every direction.
“This is… most upsetting, Lord Guile,” Lord Golden Briar said. His moron son Dónal had set a trap for the Blood Robes at the Earthworks of Martis. The ambush had been turned back on them, and five thousand of his men were massacred in the muddy maze. He was new to the Council of Divines, brought in only hours ago to replace Conn Hill. Doubtless he was on the side of Willow Bough, Appleton, and Comán, but he hadn’t been around long enough for Kip to hold him responsible for anything.
“For that I apologize,” Kip s
aid. “But the problems here are significant, and you seem to be a people who appreciate the value of sharp action, are you not?”
“I… I suppose,” Lord Golden Briar said uncertainly.
“Your friends hanged a man within a couple of hours so you could be brought onto the Council to change the balance of power in a city. That’s sharp action,” Kip said.
“Yes,” Lord Golden Briar admitted. “It is, my lord.”
He didn’t look afraid, and Kip wondered for a moment if he’d hanged the wrong man. But then, Comán had confessed to murder, and you can’t hang men simply for being dangerous.
Or you can, but you have to give up any pretense of morality if you do.
“I want to know where all the food is,” Kip said.
“Food?” Lord Appleton asked, as if he hadn’t gotten it through his head yet that Kip wasn’t a moron.
Kip said, “I understand hoarding food to take care of your own family and household in uncertain times. At some point it gets venal and cruel to your neighbors, but I understand it. But when you’ve got so much set aside that you have no fear of starvation but instead you’re using that food to enslave your neighbors—making them trade their own children and their own bodies for a crust of bread—for that I have no patience.”
“There’s no law against being wise enough to buy food before a siege.”
“No,” Kip said, “but I daresay there are laws against hoarding it and then using your votes as councilors to buy it back from yourselves at ever-inflating prices. We call that corruption where I’m from.”
“We’ve done nothing illegal,” Lord Culin Willow Bough said.
“Considering that you’ve written the laws in this city and that Satrap Willow Bough is probably incapable of providing oversight on the lacing of his boots, that may actually be true,” Kip said. “Your ledger books will tell us that.”
“Those books are private,” Lord Willow Bough said.
It had been Tisis who’d given Kip the idea of inspecting their books originally—they’d planned to do that regardless. A marching army needs food and supplies, and the nobles they liberated would have every incentive to underreport what they had available. It was Ferkudi who’d been puzzled by the scouts’ reports that the city was desperate. This was a rich area that had had a long, long time to prepare for the Blood Robes’ arrival.
Kip had been shocked only at how bad things had gotten, how callous these rich men had become to the suffering of their own people. The plan had always been to spring these changes on the Divines as if Kip were coming up with them off the top of his head—that was the only way to make sure they got no word of it beforehand.
They wanted to see him as young and impulsive? He’d play that happily enough with one tiny twist—he was young and impulsive and therefore dangerous.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Kip said. “You’re going to give me all the food you’ve stockpiled, and half the coin.”
“Ha!” said Lord Golden Briar. “You’ll have to hang all of us before we agree to this outrage!”
“Oh, I’ll hang you if I must,” Kip said. “But first I’ll let it be known to the whole city that you’ve stockpiles of food and coin in hidden rooms in your houses, and that no soldiers or guards are present to protect them.”
“That’s not true,” Lord Appleton said tightly. He believed Kip now. “We would never put ourselves at such risk—”
“But thousands of starving, angry people won’t know that, will they? The mobs will tear apart your homes, steal everything they can lay their hands on, and then likely burn them down when they find no food. I should think your families and any servants on the premises won’t fare well, either. Heart trees will be cut down before your eyes. In the aftermath, new noble families may well have to be chosen.”
And finally, finally, true fear began to trickle into their piggish little eyes. “You wouldn’t,” Lord Willow Bough said. “You’re one of us. You wouldn’t turn your back on fellow lords.”
“One of you? I’m one of them,” Kip said, pointing to the starving hordes, “just in nicer clothes. The entire reason your class exists is so that when your city falls on hard times, you’re there to feed the starving and protect the vulnerable. In return for that, in peacetime and in plenty, you’re allowed to enjoy the fruits of excess. But you’ve not kept your bargain. You’ve not just failed your basic purpose, you’ve betrayed it. You’ve torn down this city and exploited its people when they needed you most. So this… this is my mercy. And it’s the last mercy I’m going to offer you.”
And like that, they were broken. Cúan Spreading Oak and Lord Ghiolla Dhé Rathcore actually looked ashamed of themselves. But it was Lord Golden Briar, the conniver, who hit his knees first.
Even connivers have their place.
The rest dropped to their knees in submission. And Kip pressed on, because Andross Guile had taught him something: a hard push does the most when a man is already stumbling backward.
“And here’s my first decree,” Kip said. “Don’t stand until you consent. Anyone enslaved in the last ninety days will be freed, immediately. In addition, we’re now enforcing the old Slave Code. Anyone caught taking a slave or snipping a child’s ear will face death. Families will not be split. Children born to slave parents will be born free and entitled to a freedom price when they reach majority. If you can’t produce papers for any slave currently owned, they’ll be manumitted. Period. Of those still in bondage after all this, their papers will be revised to show that on the seventh year, the Year of Jubilee, they’ll be granted freedom. That’s five years from now, in case you’ve forgotten. Plenty of time to adjust to the new reality. Copies of the new contracts will be signed and witnessed by a magistrate and a luxiat and be filed here and with the Chromeria.”
Lord Golden Briar, still looking at the ground, whispered, “Are you insane?”
“Idealistic. It’s a near cousin.”
“We could resist,” Lord Golden Briar said. “We might not win, but we could stain your image irreversibly. The Luíseach is supposed to be a uniter.”
“I’ve never claimed that title,” Kip said. “I’m just another man trying to protect his people… But others have claimed that name for me, and imagine their fury at you if you try to tarnish it.”
A silence stretched out. Then, like a weed too long in the pitiless sun, the man shriveled and wilted. “My lord,” Lord Golden Briar said, and he reached out his hand to touch Kip’s foot in submission.
And just like that, Kip had a city, and his army had food.
Chapter 73
“I had hoped to find you in better condition,” the man said.
“Grinwoody?” Gavin asked, incredulous. “Is that you? Did my father send you? Did something happen to him?”
That was the only thing Gavin could guess: that his father had had a change of heart, and sent the old slave to stop Gavin from eating the poison.
“You may stand, but don’t move forward.”
“Grinwoody, stop this nonsense.”
“I’ll kill you if you move toward me, and that would be terribly inconvenient for both of us.”
“What?” Gavin said.
Grinwoody slid a basket across the ground. There were thin-sliced ham and bread and olives and a wineskin inside. Gavin fell on it like a wild animal.
After a few minutes of paradise, as Gavin tried to fight the urge to gorge himself and mostly failed, Grinwoody said, “It turns out I need someone with your particular gifts, Gavin Guile. Or should I say Dazen?”
The shock of hearing his real name on the lips of one who shouldn’t know it should have worn off by now, but it still tightened Gavin’s chest. Some secrets sink their claws so deep that the shock of their revelation tears those claws out of flesh and leaves scars forever.
“I should like to talk to you someday,” Grinwoody said, “about pretending to be someone you’re not. For years and years, pretending. We are none of us who we pretend to be. But you and I…
we took it to an extreme that few people could even imagine, did we not? But the pretense changes you, doesn’t it? I wonder how it changed you, Dazen.”
“Who are you, then?” Gavin asked. Olives. Dear Orholam, he’d nearly forgotten how glorious an olive was. It was impossible to eat and think at the same time.
What in the hells was Grinwoody talking about?
“I come with a deal for you, Gavin Guile—I presume that’s how you’d like me to refer to you. So much easier that way, isn’t it? Unfortunately, if you don’t take the deal, I’ll have to kill you. I would much prefer to give you a real choice, but perhaps death was the road you were going to choose anyway, mm?” He gestured to Gavin’s hand and to the bread hollowed out on the floor.
“Death threats!” Gavin said. “How original.”
“Do you remember this?” Grinwoody asked. Careful not to let it touch his skin, Grinwoody held forth a small jewel of living black luxin, barely visible in the greater and lesser darknesses of the cell. It was attached to straps, somewhat different from the choker band it had sported when Gavin found it.
Another hammer blow of fear.
“That’s the black jewel I recovered from the blue bane, isn’t it?” Gavin said, voice even.
“Put it on.”
Gavin didn’t, of course. “What is this?”
“The White King has learned a little mastery of black luxin, Gavin. And we learned it from him. He says that he can control black luxin everywhere in the world. He may even believe it, but it’s a lie. He learned to will-cast simple commands into the black, and we learned from him. Thus, after you put it on, if you remove it, it will kill you. Or if you say my name or act while willing that I be exposed, or if I say the word, or trigger it in a number of other ways that I won’t bother to tell you, it will kill you. This is my guarantee of your obedience, your compliance with the deal I’m about to offer you.”