By the time he’d finished with the roan, Ash had a job in the stables and a cozy room next to Bellamy’s. He’d hoped to be housed inside the keep, and he’d rather it wasn’t next to Bellamy’s, but he could hardly complain.
“It’s just a shame,” Ash said as he repacked his supplies. “This has been festering for a long while. If it had been caught early, it could have been handled and this horse spared a lot of pain. Now he’ll be out of commission for months. I intend to give the owner an earful about taking better care of his horse on the road.”
“Well,” Bellamy said, a peculiar expression on his face. “It’s up to you, but I wouldn’t do that.”
Ash stared at the marshall, surprised. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d shy away from a hard conversation. “Why not?”
“This horse belongs to His Majesty, the king of Arden.”
14
EXILED IN DELPHI
Destin Karn was tired of looking for Jenna Bandelow. After a month in this hellhole of Delphi, he was no closer to finding her than when he’d arrived. He understood the price of failure; he’d claimed it often enough on behalf of the crown. The worst of it was, there was no guarantee success was even possible. There was no way to know if the girl was still alive, or still in Delphi.
It occurred to him that the king had set him an impossible task on purpose, like in that old ballad where the elfin knight asks a maid to make him a shirt without thread or needle. Then Montaigne had sent him to do it in the most miserable place in the empire.
And if he found the girl, what then? What would it mean for his own future—for the hope he still carried in his heart?
Destin drained his tankard of ale and slammed it down on the table, the noise lost in the din of the room. The metal left a raw gash in the battered wood.
Marc Clermont, the captain of the King’s Guard, laughed and signaled to the server to bring another round. “This place grows on you, boy,” he said, “like a nasty boil. The only thing that helps is ale and stingo.” He shoved his chair back and rested his hand suggestively on the hilt of his sword. “When things get really bad, I just kill a few Delphian rats. That never fails to raise my spirits.”
An impossible task in a miserable place with despicable help.
The only thing that might raise Destin’s spirits was to find a way to get rid of Clermont. Delphi was a dangerous place, after all. The thought made him smile, drawing a wary look from the captain of the guard. Destin raised his refilled tankard and winked at him. His mood was so black that getting murdered was beginning to seem appealing.
He and Clermont were seated at a table in a corner of a crowded tavern, but there was a cushion of space about them, an invisible boundary no one cared to cross. The tavern was called the Mug and Mutton, and it drew a mixed crowd: miners and soldiers intent on heavy drinking, furnacemen and ironworkers having a night out. Plus, a sprinkling of travelers who, against all reason, had actually chosen to come to Delphi.
Destin’s father had been posted here a few years ago to put down yet another revolt. Destin had come along, unwilling then as now, to serve as the general’s squire and punching bag. It wasn’t long after he and his mother had been dragged back from their refuge in Carthis.
“It’s time we got to know each other, boy,” his father had growled. “Your mother’s done her best to ruin you, but I’ll make a man of you yet.”
His memories of Delphi were nightmarish. Aside from the absence of his father, it was even worse now than he remembered. Much of it had to do with the commander of the King’s Guard.
Clermont never reined in his blackbirds, who roamed the city like predators, picking off the vulnerable. They used the search for the rune-marked girl as an excuse to drag women into back alleys in order to “examine” them.
When Destin argued that this was counterproductive, Clermont just laughed. “It’s cold up here, Lieutenant. The men need to stay warm somehow.”
It would do no good to report it to the king. King Gerard was unlikely to buy Destin’s theory—that the city seethed with rebellion because Clermont was too cruel as opposed to not cruel enough. Meanwhile, Ardenine assets blew up and burned on a regular basis. Miners had ready access to explosives and they seemed to know how to use them.