A Dance of Shadows

CHAPTER 35

Would you like me to come with you, my lord?” asked Sef as Victor stepped out the door of his tavern and into the street. Victor fought down his initial denial. His pride had put friends and allies at risk already, and despite the crushing of the Sun Guild, the rest of the city was still filled with men who wished him harm.

“If you wouldn’t mind the walk,” Victor said instead, forcing a smile. Sef nodded, motioned two other men over. They took up positions, following Victor as he led them along.

“Where is it we go?” Sef asked.

“We go where I lead,” Victor said, having no desire for conversation. Thankfully Sef took the hint, and together the four marched toward the center of town.

Bitterness dwelt in Victor’s heart as tired and cautious eyes watched him walk the worn dirt roads. It burned him deep inside to require Deathmask’s help, and the help of his Ash Guild. No matter how hard he tried to justify it, the fire remained. Was it his own weakness that allowed it? His own inadequacies? But of course, Victor wasn’t like them. He didn’t hold the power of death in his skilled hands. He was a man. They were the monsters.

But he’d deal with the monsters, if it saved his city. Memories had haunted him over the week, of his past, his family, of times both good and bad. He wanted to relive them, to view them again. He had to remind himself that every sacrifice he made, every ounce of effort he gave, went toward something good. Something pure. The safety of the people of Veldaren. What could be purer than that?

Without need to think, with hardly more than glances at the markings for the street names, he found his way. As they approached he heard Sef shuffle nervously alongside him, clearing his throat to signify his desire to speak.

“Is this…” he asked, then fell silent when Victor glared his way.

“Yes,” Victor said, swallowing heavily. “It is.”

They stopped before the ruins of the mansion. The upper floor had collapsed completely, but chunks remained of the lower floor, the fire that had gutted the old Kane mansion having not fully consumed the place. The ash was long gone, blown away on the winds of many years. Victor’s eyes scanned the wreckage of his old home. Here he saw a window, one of many he’d breathed against in winter, using the frost to draw shapes with his fingers. There was the stump of what had once been a tree on which his father had hung for him a swing. His room on the upper floor he saw no remnant of, knew it foolish to search for. Every toy, every possession of his, had been in either the mansion or the carriage they’d taken in their doomed escape. Everything that had been his, taken.

“The land is still yours,” Sef said as the day marched along, and Victor stood lost in memories. “You could rebuild.”

“I could,” Victor said. “But I won’t. Not until the city I would build it in is worthy enough to be called home.”

A tired laugh escaped his lips.

“Besides, they would just burn it all down the moment I placed the last brick.”

“They?”

Victor waved about him, to the many homes beyond. “The people, the rioters, the thieves, the Trifect… pick one.”

He put his back to his old home, hurried on. His next destination was the market, always a place of excitement in his youth. Whenever allowed, he went with his mother and her servants, eager for the smells, the sights, the promise of things he’d not yet seen or heard. On the busiest of days there might even be jugglers, singers, men with fiddles and horns who would play for whatever charity might be thrown into a pot or hat placed at their feet. Victor had always insisted he be allowed to throw the coins in with the others.

There were no singers, no jugglers, just tired men and women. Victor walked among them, and at first the feel was the same. He closed his eyes, let it sink into him. Fresh bread, meat pies, and treats made of crushed apples and cherries. He felt the fire burning in the pit of his stomach start to fade, just a little. Walking among them Victor smiled, tried to let the people see that despite the chaos of the night before, he was still in charge, still to be trusted. They knew who he was now, recognized the symbol on his chest. He’d hoped for smiles. Instead he got sideways glances, if he was not ignored completely.

“Care for something to eat?” Victor asked Sef.

“It depends on what I’m to eat,” Sef said. “And if I’m paying.”

Victor grinned at his friend. “I’m buying, and you eat what you’d like.”

“In that case,” Sef said, “I think me and my men here would be very much interested.”

As the soldiers bought themselves honey-soaked bread, Victor leaned against a wall erected to help prevent the market from spilling out to the homes beyond. Casually he let his sight roam, let himself take in the people. These people, these desperate merchants, these tired wives, these worried fathers… they were whom he protected.

And then he saw the cloaks among them.

A gray armband here, a green cloak there. Children running through the crowds, with but the thinnest of thread about their wrists to show their allegiances. Even as he watched, one of them attempted, and failed, to steal coin from the pocket of a fat merchant busy haggling over the price of his furs. Victor’s hand fell for his sword, but then Sef returned, licking his lips, and Victor pulled it away.

“Come on,” he told them, earning confused looks for his gruff tone but not caring to explain.

Next was a park he’d played in often, one of the few places he’d been allowed to go with only a single escort. Who was it who’d gone with him… Burson? Barson? Some old man, graying hair, he’d always looked at Victor as if he were a troublesome pest, and would always be a pest. But that was hardly fair now, Victor thought as he traveled deeper into the rich north of Veldaren. Whatever the man’s name, he’d been responsible for the safety of his master’s son. Of course he’d been dour. Of course he’d taken things seriously. That was the price of responsibility.

The park, a large area full of bushes, trees, and pathways to hide in, he instead found to be nothing but some grass and a few lone oaks scattered about. There’d always been kids there, he remembered, but he only saw two out despite its being midday. They were dirty, their clothes tattered, and upon seeing Victor arrive with his men they quickly bolted. Victor slowly let out a sigh.

“I know how you feel,” Sef said, glancing about the park. “It’s always sad to see things change.”

“Change,” Victor mumbled. “Perhaps. But what if the past was never what you thought it to be?”

Sef shrugged. “That’s why it’s dangerous to live in the past, my lord.”

“Indeed. Take me home, Sef.”

Before his inn, with several of the king’s guards standing around him in a diamond formation, was the adviser, Gerand. The man looked bored, though at Victor’s arrival his eyes flickered with a bit of life.

“Greetings, Victor,” said the adviser. “Your soldiers would not tell me when you might return, nor where you went. I’m glad you were not long.”

“They could tell you neither for they knew neither,” Victor said, nodding curtly. “Might I ask what you’re here for?”

From one of the inner pockets of his shirt Gerand pulled a thin scrap of paper rolled tightly and bound with wax. “For you,” he said. “I would risk it with no other.”

Victor accepted the paper, making sure none of his confusion showed on his face.

“I pray it is good news,” he said.

Gerand motioned to his guards to leave. “Then you might need to be praying for a long time,” he said as they marched toward the castle. Frowning, Victor broke the wax, unrolled the paper, and read.

Victor,

Given the destruction over the past few weeks, the infighting between the guilds, and Stephen Connington’s death, the city’s safety does not feel improved by your presence. But even if those do not lay at your feet, I now hear one of the guilds fights alongside you. You are compromised, Victor, and the crown will not pay you to play your games anymore.

Gerand.

Victor crumpled the paper in his hands, tore it, crumpled it again, and dropped it to his feet.

“Burn it,” he told one of his soldiers as he stormed inside. He went to his room, hoping for a moment of privacy, but was given none. Before he could even settle into the chair beside his fireplace there came a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

The door opened, and in stepped Henris Weeks. The old man was clearly excited, his scrunched face looking even more pinched. In his hand he held several withered documents.

“My lord,” he said, “the payment did not arrive this morning as it was supposed to. Do you know…”

“Gerand’s thrown us to the wolves,” Victor said. “There will be no payment.”

Henris looked taken aback. “My lord… then what are we to do? I can only pay a third of our men with what we have left.”

Victor leaned back in his chair, put a hand on his chin. “How many men of mine are loyal?” he asked. “Men who would die for me, who believe in what I do?”

Henris shrugged. “I cannot judge the hearts of men, my lord. But there are three hundred who have served you since you were but a child, and whose fathers served your father. Beyond that…”

“Then pay them,” Victor said. “Tell the rest to be patient. I will find a way to pay them in time.”

“They will not be pleased.”

Despite his mood, Victor let out a laugh. “Do you think I care? If they cause problems, then I will deal with them in my own way. You need not worry away the last gray hairs you have, Henris.”

“Of course, of course,” Henris said, bowing. Victor rubbed his eyes, then realized the old man was not leaving.

“Is there something else?” he asked.

“Indeed,” Henris said. “I have here documents given to me by Terrance Gemling, adviser to Lady Alyssa Gemcroft. They’re shipping manifests, recording their transactions with John Gandrem in regards to their mines farther north. If you’d look at the logs, particularly the third row…”

“Spare me,” Victor said. “What are you trying to tell me, Henris? In plain words, preferably.”

The old man licked his lips. “Plain words? Alyssa has been cheating the king out of taxes for the past four years, perhaps even longer.”

Victor stood, feeling his jaw tighten. “You are certain?” he asked.

“As I could ever be,” Henris said, offering him the documents. “It is all here, hidden of course, and cleverly so.”

Victor paced before his fireplace, flicking through the sheets. They were just numbers to him, pages of names, places, costs.

“Is this everything?” he asked. “If I’m to go to the king, I’ll need every bit of proof I can get to convict a lady of the Trifect. Is there anything else?”

“You hold in your hands the only proof I could obtain,” Henris said. “The rest they themselves will surely have destroyed.”

“Good,” Victor said. “Good.”

He turned and threw the papers onto the fireplace. Henris let out a cry, took a step forward, and then stopped when he looked into Victor’s glare.

“Get out,” he ordered, and the old man quickly obeyed.

As the door slammed shut, Victor plopped back into his chair and stared at the paper curling and blackening in the fire.

The king was a puppet, and his puppet master had turned on Victor. His men were fiends addicted to gold and nothing more. The guilds stabbed and bickered with one another, finding peace only when they could turn on a mutual enemy such as the Trifect. He was tiring of the games, and even worse, he was failing at them. But all was not lost. Both Deathmask and the Watcher had taught him something, a lesson he would use in the coming days. His stroll about the city that morning had only confirmed it.

The city itself was infected, rotting away to the core. In all of its dark corners were monsters. And to defeat the monsters, he needed monsters.

He thought of Alyssa’s beauty, her storied reputation, and, most important of all, her vast wealth.

Monsters… and allies.

Victor poured himself a drink, toasted the burning evidence.

“To a whirlwind courtship,” he said, laughed, and drank.