‘I wish it didn’t have to be this way,’ the Magdan said.
Sure, I thought, only you pretty much engineered it to all happen just like this.
I heard the Magdan’s sigh carry along the corridor. ‘Despite everything you’ve done, I still have one gift to give you, Falcio.’
‘Is it a set of lockpicks?’ Brasti asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Something Falcio wants even more.’
Now I could see the two cells at the end weren’t empty; each held one prisoner. Both had their wrists bound with thick rope attached to chains above their shoulders, and a noose around each neck was connected to a pulley attached to the ceiling and then out into the hallway, where the ropes were wound around hooks – a handy contraption allowing you to pull on the ropes and choke them without exerting too much effort yourself. One of the prisoners, a young man, was so covered in filth and bruises I doubted his own mother would have recognised him.
The other had also been beaten, although not nearly as badly – but it was by her voice that I recognised her the instant she spoke.
‘Hello, my lovely tatter-cloak,’ Trin said. ‘Did you really come all this way to rescue me?’
The guards didn’t even bother to lock us in our cells. They just closed the iron gate behind us with a great clang that echoed down the hallway.
‘You see, Falcio?’ the Magdan said. ‘I told you I’d give you everything you ever wanted.’
Trin looked at me, and despite her playful words I saw that she was, for maybe the very first time, truly terrified.
So I suppose it wasn’t all bad news.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Familiar Smile
You would think that the sight of my worst enemy would have sent my heart pounding and my muscles clenching in anticipation as my mind started wrestling with my orders to bring Trin back to Aramor for trial and my deep-seated desire to kill her the moment I laid eyes on her.
Maybe I did feel all those sensations – but I can’t be quite sure, because it was around then that I finally passed out completely.
When I awoke the next day, someone had bandaged me extensively, and from the tingling sensation all over my body, I guessed the Magdan must have graciously allowed Kest a jar of black salve to patch me up. By the time I’d risen unsteadily to my feet, I’d half-convinced myself that I’d only imagined seeing Trin inside that little cell.
Nope, I thought, staring into the endless cold of those eyes. That’s definitely her.
Kest and Brasti joined me and the three of us stood in silence, looking at her. None of us wanted to speak our thoughts aloud – we could see the guards just beyond the gate and it was a safe bet that at least one of them spoke Tristian. After a few moments, Kest helped me into one of the cells midway down the hall. It was almost completely dark inside, but I hoped it was far enough away that the guards couldn’t hear us.
‘Morn wants us to kill her,’ Kest said.
‘Well, that works perfectly for us, doesn’t it?’ Brasti asked. ‘Because I’d rather like to get on with killing her myself.’
I peered out into the dimly lit hall. I could see the two ropes, each attached to a hook outside the cell door. I could almost feel the rough texture of the rope in my hands, the way the muscles in my fingers and palms and wrists would tense as I secured my grip. I’d taken a bit of a beating, true, but I was not so shattered that I wouldn’t be able to string her up and watch her twist and dance in the air. How much pain had her family brought into my life – into the lives of so many others, so many innocents?
I found myself trying to work out what I would say to her just before she died.
‘Falcio,’ Kest said softly, ‘Morn wants us to kill her.’
Brasti threw his hands in the air. ‘And again I ask: why is that a problem?’
‘Why doesn’t he do it himself?’ Kest asked. ‘Why is it so important that we do it?’
I thought about the village back in Orison, and the long march. I thought about old Clock and his running commentary about everything political. Those people didn’t hate Trin; they hated us. They’d been well served by Duchess Patriana, and it sounded like they’d supported her daughter’s efforts to win the North. ‘The Magdan wants the people of Orison and Hervor to support his plans,’ I said finally. ‘Killing her might create bad blood between him and the people he wants to rule.’
‘But if we do it—’ Brasti began.
‘—then he can lay the blame squarely at our feet.’ I thought about it for a moment longer. ‘In fact, he can drag us back to Orison and summarily execute us in front of the locals, which will make him a hero in their eyes. I imagine he’d like to be seen as a hero instead of a traitor.’
‘I was wondering how long it would take you to figure that out, my love.’ Trin was doing an excellent job of burying her fear beneath that sweet, melodic voice of hers, every syllable as clear as if it had come trickling from a silver flute. I staggered out of our cell, grabbed the rope hanging outside hers and gave it as hard a yank as my screaming body could manage. I watched her body stretch up towards the roof and it took every ounce of self-control I had in me to stop from lifting her off the ground by her neck.
‘Stop!’ a thin voice shouted from the cell next to hers. ‘Touch her and I’ll kill you, I swear I will!’
The raw innocence and determination in that voice lit a flicker of guilt in my chest, but it was Kest’s hand on my arm that brought me back to my senses. ‘You can strangle her any time you want,’ he said gently. ‘Just make sure you do it for your reasons and not Morn’s.’
Slowly, reluctantly, I eased my grip on the rope. Kest took it from me and tied it back round the hook.
‘Ah, I’ve missed you Falcio,’ Trin said, her voice scraping a little. ‘I’m so glad you finally arrived.’
‘You sound as if you have been expecting us,’ Kest said.
‘Well, of course. When that fool Kragven – that’s the first Warlord I tried to hire; I assume he’s dead now – failed to keep control of his own warband, I knew Morn would want me dead. But how to do it? The Avareans dislike executions; they prefer bloody combat to the death – but little old me? Why, there isn’t a man or woman in this whole damned camp who would find rokhan in fighting me – and more importantly, there are a great many people from Orison and Hervor here, and they like me. If Morn were to have me killed, he’d lose more than half of them. No, he went about killing all the birds clouding his sky with a single stone the right way, by revealing my presence here to Valiana. Now that you’ve given her that preposterous title, obviously the puffed-up little girl would send someone to bring me back to Tristia so she could put me on trial before the entire country and show her absolute commitment to justice. And who else would she send but you, my noble, beautiful Falcio. My oft-fated companion: my hero.’