‘I did no such thing!’ the captain insisted.
The Baron smiled. ‘Do you know how many fools have tried to lie to the Duke’s agents?’ he asked. He waved his hand casually at the two burly guards and at several other men whom he knew waited outside. ‘Usually their next remark is something on the order of: Stop! Gods, please stop!’
‘I admit that my ship floated off-station,’ Leighton blustered. ‘Such things happen occasionally, there’s nothing deliberate in it. An anchor bolt rusted through and the tide caught our bow. It was merely misfortune that it happened at that particular moment. When I heard the commotion I rose from my bed, came topside and corrected the situation at once. At the very worst it was dereliction of duty, though even that would be coming it a bit high under the circumstances.’
Del Garza raised his brows and leant back in the commander’s chair with his hands clasped over his lean stomach. ‘Indeed?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ Leighton said, allowing a touch of his former haughtiness to creep into his tone. ‘I tell you these things happen, ‘tis no one’s fault, my good man. No one could have predicted that a ship would choose that particular moment to . . .’
‘We know the Upright Man bribed you.’ The acting governor waited for the explosion, but none came; the Captain merely stared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a gaffed fish. Not only guilty then, but the man had no spine. ‘What was it, the gold? Or some misplaced sense of loyalty to Prince Erland’s family?’
‘We have known them a long time . . .’ Leighton began.
Del Garza cut him off. ‘You may as well admit it, you know. We have proof.’
The Captain shook his head silently.
‘Oh, but we do,’ del Garza insisted. ‘We have our own sources inside the Mockers, you know.’
They didn’t, of course, have either—proof, or sources. But it was obvious to the secret policeman that the Mockers had an interest in freeing the Princess Anita. It was certainly Mockers he and his men had been fighting this morning. Besides, every instinct he had told him that it was beyond unlikely that a ship would just ‘happen’ to drift off-station at precisely the wrong moment.
The lie came easily though, because if del Garza was going to have to answer for Anita’s escape—and he was—then others would answer first and far more painfully.
Leighton licked his lips. ‘You could hardly call it treason,’ he said.
Del Garza leaned forward blinking rapidly, his brows raised incredulously. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Taking a bribe deliberately to disobey orders during wartime could never be anything else.’
‘We are hardly at war with the Mockers,’ the Captain argued.
‘We are always at war with the Mockers,’ del Garza corrected, his voice flat. ‘That it has never been formally declared makes it no less a war. For if we were not at war with them, I assure you these thieves and murderers-for-hire are and have always been at war with the decent citizens of Krondor.’
‘They are hardly worthy . . .’ Leighton began.
‘Opponents?’ Del Garza sneered. ‘If their money is good enough for you then why shouldn’t they be considered . . . worthy?’
The Captain pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, then he straightened. ‘I should like to see this “proof” you claim to have.’
Del Garza chuckled, an impulse he couldn’t control. ‘Are you now going to claim innocence, after all but admitting your guilt?’
‘I have not admitted any guilt,’ the Captain said. ‘Come, come, you shall have to produce the proof at my trial.’
With a sad shake of his head the Baron asked: ‘Would you really put your family through the shame of a trial when the conclusion is inevitable? Must we prove to them and all the world your villainy?’
The colour drained from Leighton’s face. ‘What are you suggesting?’ he demanded, clearly shaken.
‘You need do nothing radical,’ del Garza said, suddenly all generosity. ‘Naturally you cannot keep your commission.’ He drew a document from a small pile and pushed it toward the captain along with a quill pen already resting in an ink stand. ‘Herein you resign your commission; just sign at the bottom of the page, and the next page as well and then we’ll send you home.’ He lifted the pen from the inkwell and proffered it to Leighton with a slight smile. ‘Your older brother wouldn’t be the first nobleman who had to find a second career for a younger brother; much less a problem than shaming the family name.’
‘That is all?’ the Captain asked, taking the pen hesitantly.
Del Garza nodded. ‘We will take care of everything else. All the arrangements,’ he clarified. He pointed to the bottom of the page. ‘If you would,’ he invited.
As one hypnotized, Leighton signed. Del Garza lifted the corner of the page to expose the one beneath.