Page 20 of Court of Talons
“How does anyone know differently?” I interrupt, my words unintentionally brusque as my mind shies away from the images his chatter conjures up. “No one came to our aid.”
He echoes what Fortiss told me not two days ago. “There was a caravan, or so the story goes. High up on the pass, too far away to help. But they heard the roaring of the Divh, saw it from all that distance away. No one knows who first carried the tale to Trilion—Nazar already asked me. But once it reached the city’s borders, it spread like fire.”
I grunt. Therewasno caravan on the mountain pass. Nazar and I would’ve seen it. Which means members of the attackparty itself must have come slinking back to Trilion to report—or Fortiss reported for him. They or their minders planted the story of the marauders, no doubt worried I—well, Merritt, anyway—would come seeking retribution. No one would believe a house broke the most basic of laws of the Protectorate by taking up arms against another house, but someone is making doubly sure the suspicion doesn’t get raised.
Who would care if it did, though?
I lift my eyes toward the high castle stronghold, and Caleb follows my gaze. “Lord Rihad—he’s heard of it too, it’s said. Nazar said he deferred your audience with him with your face all…” He flaps his hand at my head, which needs no further explanation. It still feels like a crushed gourd. “He’s probably waiting until you enter the tournament.”
“I’m not entering the tournament.”
Caleb’s exasperated sigh tells me this isn’t news. Undoubtedly, Nazar has already walked this path with him. “Seriously? Did you not hear me when I told you that the winner of the tournament will get theirpickof the top-ranked banded soldiers? You wouldn’t even have to spend your own coin—just enter and win out. The pit fights will be done in a couple of days, then some contests between the banded soldiers who aren’t good enough to compete in the tournament proper—and then the real tournament will begin. All the houses who’ve committed will do battle until only one remains.”
I scowl at him. “I thought no house struck down another house.”
“Well, of course they don’t,” he says. “I mean that one will remain in a figurative sense. Warrior knights can die, sure, but—it’s rare. Very rare. And it’s never on purpose.”
Never. My lips twist. Yet while these honored men don’t strike to kill on the tournament field, some skilled archer from a noble househadpierced my brother’s heart with a featurelessgray arrow. Was the archer a warrior knight as well? A banded soldier?
Or merely a guard, a hired mercenary…
No.I discard this last idea as soon as it forms. Merritt’s murder was a delicate act, for all that it was ruthless and of seeming cowardice. Guards fail. Mercenaries can be bought—or they can talk out of spite. To assassinate a warrior knight—and by extension his Divh—would be an act of highest secrecy. It would not have been trusted to someone not in the inner circle.
Is Fortiss my brother’s murderer? Or someone Fortiss knows? Hehasto know him, which is crime enough—it’s far too much to believe he’s completely ignorant of what happened to my house.
But I can’t ask. I know I can’t ask—and it shouldn’t matter to me. I don’t have the luxury of seeking revenge. Not when I have a house to protect.
And yet…couldI seek that revenge? Could I find the low coward who loosed that arrow from the heart of the forest? Could I trick Fortiss into revealing him…somehow?
Or into betraying thathewas my brother’s murderer?
“We’ll be gone before the tournament starts,” I say sternly, to banish those thoughts before they can take root. “These…marauders were too bold. There’s no reason they won’t strike again.”
Caleb snorts. “No reason other than their guts turned to milk on seeing your Divh, maybe. That’s why they’re marauders. They can only bite and snap in the shadows; they don’t stand and fight when the odds are stacked against them.”
As we wind through Trilion, the Tenth House’s newest squire keeps up his relentless patter, in between useful observations about the best food carts and drinking houses, what corners to avoid and what warrior knights to recognize on sight. We passanother knot of men haggling in market stalls, and I ask the question uppermost in my mind. “Where are the women?”
He shoots me a startled look, and I know I’ve mis-stepped. I deliberately hold his gaze, daring him to challenge me. Was Caleb hired by some other house to unravel my story? Does someone out there know I’m not Merritt at all, but his untrained sister, desperately trying to protect her house?
Caleb’s expression clears almost immediately, but not fast enough to keep my stomach from rolling queasily. “I keep forgetting, you haven’t crept out of your mountain stronghold in so long, you might as well be from the Imperium itself. Girls,”—he flaps a dismissive hand—“women, whatever, they don’t take part in the trade leading up to the tournament. It’s not their place. You’ll see ’em in the stands, of course, with their husbands and fathers—or at least their guardians—but not out and about. They belong in their tents if they’re near the coliseum at all, I tell you plain.”
I burn with a flash of resentment at this but keep my voice neutral. “Has it always been that way?” I think of my father, the fights I overheard between him and my mother as she pleaded for him to spare my life whenever he found fault in me, which was often. She’d begged him for years to sell me into marriage with another noble house versus kill me outright until he finally, blessedly agreed. I’d never thought about the inherent injustice of her needing to beg so frantically for my life…I’d merely accepted it. But now that I’m being treated as a boy, a man, with respect simply being offered up to me as a matter of course, I’m staggered by the difference.
Caleb merely shrugs. “Long enough. Women are for houses and holdings and the merchant caravans. Trilion is a civilized city. I mean, Lord Rihad does have a woman among his advisors, I hear, though most of the men are priests of the Light. I’ve never seen her, but that’s what I’m told.”
“How exotic of him,” I say drily. It seems that—save for this lone councilor—a woman’s place is as entrenched in Trilion as it is in our household. I don’t know why I’m surprised.
Our conversation ends as we near the walls of the coliseum. Caleb slows, his body going straighter.
“These aren’t all the soldiers available, but they’re the best. They’re trying to get to you first.” He waggles his brows. “You want me to negotiate for you, in truth? I’m good at it.”
I look at him, struggling to keep the relief from my face. “You know these men?” I ask quietly as they notice us. They, too, are standing straighter…because of me, I realize. Or the person they think I am. Merritt, firstborn warrior knight of the Tenth House, banded to a now-notorious Divh.
A sudden, sickening thought riddles through me. What if someone asks me to produce Gent?
Fear stiffens my spine. We need to get these men under contract then get out of this city. As terrible as my father’s retribution might be, being caught in this city as a woman banded to a Divh would be far and away worse. The Tenth House would never get its soldiers then.
I square my shoulders. “I want ten men. Five to replace our fallen soldiers, plus the five we intended to purchase originally. And I want at least half of them young enough to still be trainable.”