Королева Элсетш ликвидировала узника и обсудила с монархом последствия убийства короля в храме

(Part Seven, Chapter 3, of The Leaking World) Varra, the king, was slumped in his chair, his usual posture when there was no need to maintain an outward show of regality. His voice was a bit weary as he addressed Elseth. “I’m glad you’re in town. I’m wondering if you could get me out of a fix here.” Elseth nodded. “No guarantees, of course. But I’ll do my best.” “I need someone outside the usual power structures, and high enough rank that they’re protected from petty spite. It’s about Dotaren’s… unfortunate event.” She nodded, but said nothing. “You’ll know the details already. Four members of the Dennara Oratory – the Temple thinks the only four members of the Oratory that survived – set on him in the Temple of Unity, right at the altar, and gutted him like a fish. I presume you’ve heard. The witnesses said he screamed loud enough to wake the dead.” Elseth nodded. “It’s very much not a secret, even though it only occurred yesterday and there have been no official announcements so far.” She paused. “I was to have a meeting with him the day after tomorrow, to discuss the decline in the beneficial effects of prayer and managing the influence of Irileth among the commoners. I suppose that’s off now.” The king laughed. “I think you’re safe in assuming that. He’s a long way past praying for. And there have been no announcements because it’s damned embarrassing. The chief cleric of the Temple of Unity eviscerated right at the altar in his own temple. Of course, it’s not all that hard to kill an unarmed man if you don’t plan on surviving the experience yourself. Several members of the Royal Guard who happened to be in the foyer of the Temple went in at the run, and took the assassins down, but it was much too late for their target.” “I’d heard that, too,” Elseth replied. “There has been some curiosity about how the killers got as far as they did, though. Were they impersonating confidential messengers as a way of making sure the area was clear and Dotaren didn’t have any Temple guards close to him at the time?” “Well, the gods alone know that. But here’s the sticky part. One of the assassins survived. The Temple wants us to turn him over so that they can deal with him, which for them will undoubtedly involve cutting him into very small pieces very slowly. I doubt if that will suit, on this occasion.” “Why not leave it in their hands?” Elseth asked. She was a little surprised. An extremely unpleasant last act was more or less par for the course when it came to an assassination at this level, and the Court, even its most powerful member, usually didn’t meddle in Temple internal affairs. “We have the prisoner in my dungeons because it was my guard that made the capture. And I didn’t hand him over at once because I don’t trust them to get the rest of the job done properly,” the king said. “In this case, ‘properly’ doesn’t mean ‘with as much screaming as possible’. I don’t give a damn about whether or not this fellow suffers for his crimes, though of course he’s going to end up dead no matter what happens. I want to know what he knows, and he’s our last chance to find out certain things.” “Such as where your brother’s body was taken after he was killed?” “That, yes. For the honour of the royal house, we can’t have a former heir-apparent’s corpse rattling around in parts unknown. There’s the prestige angle, and also, as you well know, very unpleasant magical possibilities open up to anyone who came to possess the carcass of one of my close relatives. I don’t want the Temple’s lust for revenge to spoil the only chance we have of finding out where his mortal remains ended up. And of course, he was my brother. I’d rather he were resting easy in the tomb where he’s supposed to be parked for the rest of eternity. It would be neater all around.” Elseth waited for a moment, and then asked “Is there anything else that you’d like me to look for?” The king shifted a bit uneasily. “Well, that’s why I needed someone of your rank to take care of this. I’m more than a little suspicious of how the whole affair happened. I know the Oratory were expert at this sort of thing, but it still seems strange that Dotaren let them walk right up to him with the Temple guards well out of hearing range. Something smells there. I want to know if the aroma is just one of my own brain farts, or whether there was some funny business going on. And if there was, I can’t afford to have anyone I don’t trust learning of it. So do you think you can do it?” “Frankly, the chances are against us,” Elseth replied. “But you’re right in thinking that mere pain or pressure will be useless. I’ll have to see if there is a way around his defences, not try to smash my way through them.” “You’ve got two days. I can’t put the Temple’s revenge off for longer than that.” “Two days, then.” She rose and bowed. “I’ll try to find a solution that preserves the honour and dignity of the Court, but obtains the information you need. And I’ll take care of any other details personally.” “Good. After you’re finished, the Temple can tear this fellow to bits if they still want to. It’ll help them get past their embarrassment at their own incompetence.” – – – – – “Two of the dead assassins were carrying copies of this,” the sergeant said. “We can’t identify it, but it looks like a map. Someone from the Temple went off with one of the copies to try to identify it.” He opened a desk drawer and produced a sheet of parchment, folded several times, with the floor plan of what might have been a small tomb on one side, and a sketch of mountain geography on the other, showing several roads and a red dot near one of the crossroads. The drawing of the tomb had two words written at the bottom. The script was a common commercial form in the Southern Lands, but Elseth could not identify the language or make any sense of the words. Elseth nodded. She looked around her. It had been quite a while since she had last visited the palace dungeons, and there seemed to have been changes there. “You’ve been doing some renovation,” she said to the sergeant escorting her. “It’s lighter down here than it used to be. Cleaner. Less dungeon-y.” The sergeant nodded as he searched for a key in a huge rack against his office wall. “The king felt that the former arrangements, while good theatre, were defeating themselves. The all-hope-abandon-ye-who-enter-here effect worked against us. We want the prisoners to hope, hope that if they cooperate and cause no trouble, they’ll have some return for it. It makes it a lot easier for us, too, the ones who have to do the night shift here.” He fished a large iron key out from a lower shelf and clipped it to his belt. “You’ve got a problem with this one, though. The fellow you’ll be talking to might as well be dead right now. Not much you can offer him.” Elseth replied, “You do know what the Temple wants to do with him, don’t you?” Her face was carefully expressionless. “Death is an end. But how you reach it makes a difference.” The sergeant paused and nodded. “I see your point.” He came out of the office and turned toward a narrow flight of stairs leading steeply downward. “Follow me, please. It’s a long way down.” – – – – – The prisoner was in a small cell, fastened to the wall by a chain just long enough to reach a wooden sleeping bench on one side, and a constant stream of water falling into a basin on the other. He did not look up as Elseth appeared at the door. She turned and told the sergeant, “I’ll speak to him from here.” The sergeant told her that he needed to remain near, and she indicated her agreement. She and the prisoner talked in low voices, and the sergeant was unable to hear what was said. After less than an hour, Elseth stepped back and pulled the door closed again. “That’s enough for today,” she said. “We may have an… arrangement. I’ll be back tomorrow at the same time.” The sergeant asked, “Did he say anything about that map?” Elseth nodded. “Yes, it’s their hideout in southern Otatara. I’ll check it out later. That’s where the corpse of the king’s brother was taken.” “Was that what you wanted?” She replied, “Some of it. He needs something from me before he’ll give up the rest.” The sergeant was curious as what that could be, but he knew better than to question superiors too closely, and said nothing. The next day, Elseth arrived carrying a substantial leather case, flat and roughly triangular, but not very thick. The sergeant had no idea what it could be. When Elseth reached the door of the cell, she opened the case and revealed a light hunting crossbow. Selecting a broad-headed bolt, she dipped the tip into a small pot of something that she was careful not to get on her fingers, loaded it, and motioned for the sergeant to stand back a little bit. Then she opened the cell door. This time, only a few dozen words were exchanged. Then, Elseth levelled the crossbow, pointed it into the cell and pulled the trigger. There was a cry, half gasp and half exclamation of pain, followed by the clatter of the prisoner’s chains as he fell to the floor. She knelt to put the crossbow back into its case, and then looked at the sergeant. “Shot while trying to escape,” she said. “Of course, no one above the age of five will really believe that old excuse, but it’s good to respect tradition. Some people will come by to pick up the corpse later today. Tell them to be careful with the crossbow bolt. I have what I wanted and…” She stood up and glanced back through the cell door, “…he has what he wanted, too. A fair trade.” The sergeant nodded. He was not a new recruit, far from it, but the businesslike way that Elseth had gone about her task had left him feeling cold inside. Elseth saw his hesitation. “He was going to die. It can take an instant, or it can take days. Very long days. Which would you rather have?” She picked up the crossbow in its case and walked to the stairs that led back to the world of light. Then she paused and turned again. “Mercy can wear a grim mask, sergeant. Don’t lose any sleep over this. And don’t go running to the booksellers to buy one of those lurid accounts that gives all the gory details about what happens in a Temple interrogation. You’ll have restless nights if you do, believe me. Good day, and may the Lady of Mercy be with you always, in all her many guises.” – – – – – “I’m happy to report complete success with the task you set me,” Elseth began. “We have the location of your brother’s remains, and it seems, some interesting relics as well. And the prisoner, before he departed, gave me some information that helped me understand the events he had been a part of.” The king sat up a bit straighter. “So was Dotaren a bit dirty? Or was he filleted for some other reason?” Elseth paused briefly, and then said “He was… smudged, you might say. Not part of any plot against your majesty, certainly. But he had contacts with the Oratory all along. He probably flattered himself that he was keeping track of them and by so doing, making the realm a safer place for all. They had other ideas, of course.” “So why kill him in this spectacularly suicidal way? What was the point?” “They’d lost hope. The Temple had arrested the last of their contact people and it appears that they had access to some very obscure prophetic writings that predicted the advent of a ruler that the gods would refuse to kill. They took your escape from death at the coronation as the fulfillment of that prophecy. “They wanted Dotaren to approach you for a pardon for them, if they returned your brother’s body. He refused, and threatened to turn them in if they didn’t return it without any favours. He told them that he’d left details of where they could be found in a place they couldn’t reach. So they knew they were dead, one way or another, and they killed him just to make sure he went down with them.” The king laughed and shook his head. “Another victim of the Temple’s secret societies and their endless, entangled conspiracies. I guessed as much. But it is comforting to know that he wasn’t a traitor and in his own way, he was trying to do me a service, even though he messed it up and got himself chopped as a result. At least I can attend his funeral with a straight face.” He thought for a moment and added, “And of course, no one from the Temple has come to me to report the information left for me by the dead Dotaren. Sitting on it, I suppose. They do love their little secrets. Can’t do without them.” “This one may blow up in their faces,” Elseth remarked. “I’ve seen the map they have to that hideout in southern Otatara, and it has a trick to it. There are two nonsense words at the bottom, which appear to be passwords to the tomb. In exchange for a quick and painless death, the last surviving assassin told me that both are fake. One will burn you alive; the other will get you sprayed with acid. I asked him what would happen if you said them both, and his reply was ‘Don’t ask. You don’t want to know.’ “So if the Temple is thinking of retrieving anything on the sly from that hiding place, they may have a surprise ahead. There’s really no need for a password at all. It’s just an ordinary keyed lock that can easily be picked or opened by magic, there to make sure that some wandering shepherd or prospector doesn’t find the door and clean the place out.” It took several minutes for the king to stop laughing. Finally, he sputtered, “It would serve them bloody well right,” and sat catching his breath. Then he took a deep breath and continued, “Dotaren’s death means a new High Priest.” Elseth nodded. “Yes. I understand Gera, Bishop of Alalta, is the favoured candidate.” The king nodded. “Your friend Inota’s partner. That’s interesting too. It looks as if the New Temple has finally won without winning, after all these years. All they needed to do was to lay off the fighting and plotting, always making things worse for themselves.” Elseth wasn’t surprised by the king’s knowledge. “The New Temple has merged back into the Old, and the whole structure is stronger as a result. Less secrets, more society.” “I hope they become more like the College, and simply slander and abuse each other in public,” the king said, laughing again. “The Temple is still a snake’s nest of plots, but thanks to you and your friends, there’s fewer snakes than before. I suppose that’s the best we can expect from them.” Elseth rose to bow and take her leave. “And a lesson too, that a peaceful solution is usually best. I’m not surprised that you knew. Thank you for holding your hand and not trying to make everything right by force.” The king replied, “Relying on force means it’s always easier to break than to make. That’s a fatal habit. Well, until I see you again!” When Elseth reached the door, he called out. “And send someone down to that tomb to put up a ‘Do not disturb’ sign or something! We can’t afford to lose any more priests!” “I’ll see to it,” she replied, and departed, laughing softly all the way to the palace gate.