‘We needed a meeting,’ the Tailor said, ‘one that wouldn’t arouse suspicion or bring too many ears.’
I looked at Valiana. ‘So you goaded me into threatening the Dukes as a pretext for having me arrested just so you could bring me down here.’
‘I didn’t have to push very hard,’ she pointed out, and I could see she was still hurt by my behaviour. Hells, how was it she had me sitting in a cell and I got to feel guilty for it?
I looked at Morn. ‘What was the King’s last command to you? Was it something to do with Orison?’
‘A little further west,’ he replied.
‘There is nothing west of Orison,’ Brasti said, ‘just mountains and . . . Oh . . . fuck me.’
‘Avares,’ Morn confirmed. ‘Land of piss-drinking barbarians and not a single decent beer for three hundred miles.’
I stood up from the bed. ‘King Paelis sent you to Avares? To do what?’
Morn leaned on his glaive. ‘Oh, you know how the King was. Brought me into the library on his last day, took a drink from his glass and said, “Need you do to a little ranging for me, Morn.” Then he pointed on a map and said, “Keep an eye on this for me, will you?”’
‘“Ranging”?’ Kest asked.
It was an odd word to use, since normally it meant sighting distance in preparation for launching an attack. It also sounded a lot like . . . Ah. ‘The King told you to join the Rangieri?’ The word sounded odd on my tongue.
Morn pulled at the fur collar of his coat. ‘Join them? When’s the last time you saw any Rangieri running around? I doubt there are ten left in the whole Western Mountains. I spent the first year just trying to find one to get him to teach me how to survive in all that damned freezing wilderness. I swear the King picked me for this mission because I used to complain about having to go on those damned long journeys up the trade routes.’
‘And you’re sure he was pointing to Avares on that map?’ Brasti asked.
Morn stopped for a moment, then his eyes went wide and he stood up. ‘Hells! You know, I think he might have been pointing at Hervor – Saint Gan-who-laughs-with-dice, have I just spent six years in the wrong damned country?’
‘All right,’ the Tailor said, ‘if you’re done having your fun, we need to get down to business.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said, ‘I still don’t understand. Why would the King send you to spy on Avares?’
‘Because no one else would,’ Valiana said. ‘The Dukes recalled all of their diplomats and spies after the King was deposed.’
‘Why in hells—?’
‘They needed them here, close to home, so they could keep track of their enemies within Tristia.’
Here we were in a castle infested with spies, but we had none in the country that might actually decide to invade us one day soon. As if I needed another reason to be annoyed with the Dukes . . .
‘The King had some of his own spies in Avares, of course,’ Morn said, ‘but the Dukes ratted them out so they all died.’
‘And yet you survived?’
He smiled and made a show of inspecting his fingernails. ‘They don’t call me the King’s Magic for nothing, Falcio.’
‘Nobody ever called you that,’ Brasti said. ‘He named you for that stupid stick with the knife on the end of it – and anyway, with all that fur on you we ought to change that to the King’s Rug.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Are you telling me that for all these years we’ve had one man keeping an eye on the country that’s gone to war with us seven times in the last hundred years?’ I looked at Morn. ‘Okay, so what’s going on in Avares?’
For a moment he didn’t speak, then he sighed. ‘I’m not exactly sure.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘It’s a big country, Falcio, and not an easy place to blend in.’ He rubbed his jaw through the beard. ‘But I’ll tell you this: it isn’t the country it was.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Over the last five years their warbands have become better organised, and more dangerous. They’re actually forging their own steel now.’
The Tailor stood up and leaned close to the bars. ‘There’s no way in any hell they should be working in steel, Falcio, not for at least another ten years. They lack the organisation to mine properly, to work forges, to . . . well, I won’t waste my time explaining it all, but it’s enough to say that moving this quickly isn’t natural.’
‘Falcio,’ Morn said quietly, ‘I’m fairly certain I saw cannons.’
That hit me like a blow. We had cannons, of course, but not good ones, not the kind you hear about from across the sea in Darome.
‘And that’s not the worst of it.’
‘Fantastic,’ Brasti said, throwing his arms up in the air. ‘Let me guess, whatever Gods are still living have taken a vote and decided to side with the barbarians?’
‘Not quite,’ Morn replied, ‘but there is a new Warlord in Avares, a man they call the Magdan – which means “King of Battle”, by the way – and he’s started uniting the tribes.’
‘Have you seen him?’ the Tailor asked.
‘No, he’s too clever. His men know how to run a camp. You’d never get within a mile of him without being caught.’
I stood up and pushed at the door, only then realising the guards hadn’t locked it. ‘So you came back to warn us. Have you told the Ducal Council? They should send troops to the borders.’
Morn looked at the Tailor.
‘Go ahead,’ she said.
‘That’s not why I came back. I’ve been crossing the border back and forth every few months for years to keep up with what’s happening here in Tristia as well. The last time I snuck into Avares, I got captured by another of these Avarean Warlords: a big brute of a man with the sense of a donkey but with an army of two thousand warriors. I managed to convince him that I was just a travelling merchant, someone willing to risk the dangers of trading across the border for the profits that such trips can bring. When I was in his camp, a woman visited him: an impossibly beautiful woman with a smile that made my blood go cold. She offered him a great deal of money, payment to bring his army on as mercenaries. Falcio, her name was—’
‘Trin,’ I said with a shudder. ‘Trin is hiring mercenaries from Avares.’ I looked at Valiana and the Tailor. ‘You want me to go to Orison. You want me to pretend to go and settle the villages down for the Ducal Council when in reality I’ll be tracking down Trin.’
‘You’ll also be looking into this new Warlord Morn’s been telling us about,’ Valiana said.
Hells. If Trin really was hiring Avareans as mercenaries, they could wreak untold damage on the country. We couldn’t stand another civil war, not this soon after the last one. As much as I hated the thought of leaving Aline alone, this was a threat we couldn’t ignore. There was another reason I would go, though: for the chance to kill Trin, to rid the world of her and Patriana’s vile line once and for all.
‘Falcio, there’s something else,’ Valiana said, catching the look on my face. ‘I need you to bring her back alive.’