Gabriella led Erak into Scarra's house, leaving the other three Knights in charge of the troops and prisoner. A faint scent of Dreamweed hung in the air. The largest room was a lounge filled with plush chairs and lined with bookcases. Small tapestries hung on the panelled walls. A small group of servants stood meekly, watching the pair with noticeable fear. Gabriella dismissed them with a wave.
"Right, what are we looking for?" Erak said as he scanned the room.
"Maps, letters, that kind of thing. Anything that ties Scarra in with the Brotherhood and the assassination attempt."
It didn't take long to check over the house and find Scarra's study. The room was small and strewn with parchments, maps, quills and so on. The maps were simply road maps and most of the parchments were either to do with the vineyard's business, or contained sermons Scarra had written for the Brotherhood.
"He been a busy man, our fat friend," Erak commented.
"Busy, but not very good at keeping useful records." Gabriella sighed. "The Brotherhood sermons are enough to condemn him, but not really what I wanted to find."
"Confessor Kamil will get more information out of him when she meets him at Andon," Erak promised.
"Yes, but how long might it take? Meanwhile, seeing as we have him here. Why don't we…" She arched an eyebrow in what she hoped was a conspiratorial look.
Erak rolled his eyes and turned away. "Oh, no. I know that look, Gabe."
"Just a quick friendly chat with our pal Scarra, that's all it will be, don't worry." She patted him on the shoulder.
They had Scarra brought into the lounge. A man-at-arms shoved him roughly into a seat, and remained standing next to him. Gabriella sat opposite.
"It's going to be a fast trip on to the Cathedral at Andon," Gabriella told Scarra. "Everyone who's heard of the events at Kalten will want to see justice done."
"If there is to be any justice, you would not be doing Makennon's dirty work."
"Ah, dirty work."
She smiled disarmingly and was rewarded to see his expression grow confused. Now that she had him indoors, she noticed that Scarra himself carried the odour of Dreamweed. He must have been smoking it to calm his nerves, knowing that he was hunted. She considered adding it to the list of charges, but thought better of it. If it relaxed him, perhaps she could exploit the effects, before they wore off.
"It's a great pity that the son of an Eminence has ended up doing the dirty work of the Brotherhood."
He shook his head. "The Brotherhood is nothing dirty, my child. I was as educated as… As yourself, probably, and perhaps that is how I came to see the light. You've found my study, so I can hardly deny being a traveller upon the Divine Path, but my work for the Brotherhood is not dirty work."
"And what about your work for Goran Kell, personally?"
"Bishop Kell is an… important man."
"And an absent one, I notice." She saw a faint flash of anger in his eyes, but it wasn't anger at her. "He didn't accompany you in your escape. Or, perhaps I should say, he didn't have you accompany him."
Scarra's voice came through gritted teeth. "Bishop Kell wisely felt that splitting up would increase the likelihood that at least one of us would escape."
"Bishop Kell? Interesting that you call him that."
Scarra looked uncertain. "It is his title — "
"And you don't deny it. You don't try to hide it. That's interesting." She leaned forward. "Let me speak plainly: I'd like to know where Kell is."
"I'm not going to tell you where he is. I know you and your Confessors think I will, but I won't." He looked annoyed with himself. "I can't."
"You'd be surprised what a man can do, that he thinks he can't."
Scarra laughed. "Oh, girlie, I don't mean I can't, like I can't bring myself to betray a fellow Brother, or anything like that. I mean I can't because I don't know where he is. And, believe me, if I did know, I might well tell you."
Gabriella hesitated, unsure that she'd heard correctly. "You would? In the hope of leniency?"
He laughed again. "Hell no! I know better than to think talking would save me!" His smile faded. "But to take him with me… That'd serve the smug bastard right for running out on me. Don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind that he did that deliberately. I suppose it would have depended on whether telling you or not telling you would hurt him or the Faith more. But since I don't know anyway, it's a moot point."
"Why would he do that? If he thinks of you as a loose end, why didn't he just kill you?"
Scarra shrugged. "All I know is he screwed up and ran out on me. Kell is a two-faced… Bishop. Yes, if you catch him, he deserves at least as much as will happen to me."
"Goran Kell left you hanging," Gabriella said. "If it was me, I'd take a measure of revenge. Do whatever I can to get back at him for this betrayal."
"You mean help you?" He laughed again. "Don't think that just because I don't think much of him that that means I don't hate the Faith more. I'm not going to help that narrow-hipped vixen back in Scholten, even to spite Goran Kell."
"You've already confirmed his rank in the Brotherhood."
"You knew that already." Scarra looked away, trying not to let her see the fear and dismay in his eyes. He felt sick. "And what good would it do me?"
"It would help you fly with the Lord in the clouds of Kerberos."
Scarra was silent for a while, then said. "I don't know where Kell went after our last meeting. But I know this much: he has Freedom."
"And I'm sure he enjoys that freedom, but — "
"No, child. Not freedom. Freedom. Not just the concept of being free, but the actual Freedom. It exists. That is its name."
For a moment, Gabriella thought he was playing word games with her, but his tone was straightforward. "Freedom? You mean, a ship? Or a place?" She said.
"Truth to tell, I don't know. It's a word I heard him use once or twice, and which seemed to have some special significance for him, beyond the ordinary meaning of the word."
Gabriella let the matter drop. It was probably the Dreamweed talking, putting an artificial emphasis on an everyday word. "Our Confessors — "
"Will no doubt cause me great pain and suffering in Makennon's name, and they may even get me to name some other place that they suspect as being worth destroying, but none of that will be true. What I've told you is all I know."
Gabriella knew better than to trust him, but she felt that what he said had the ring of truth. "I'll make sure the Confessor knows you were helpful."
"There's one other thing, a person he mentioned sometimes. A lover perhaps. I never took much notice."
"Being a woman, you mean you thought she wasn't worth taking any notice of?" She didn't even bother feeling disgusted with his attitude. She was used to it by now. "Who is she?"
"I don't know her name — "
"How convenient," Gabriella said, through gritted teeth.
"But I know he referred to her by a nickname. The Huntress, he called her."
"Huntress?" It was an odd name for a lover. A mercenary might have such a nickname, and there were female mercenaries, but Gabriella found it hard to believe that a Brotherhood leader would hire one. The Brotherhood tended not to view women as resources, at least not within their priesthood. Perhaps she was a mercenary elsewhere, but simply a mistress for Kell when she was with him.
"Usually he'd just call her that," Scarra said. "Sometimes he'd call her his 'Golden Huntress' — I imagine she turned a tidy profit for him — but normally just 'The Huntress.'"
"And where might I find her?"
"I don't know exactly. I've never met her."
"Then what about generally, if not exactly?"
"Down in Fayence, I think. Kell always travelled up to the Anclas by the western routes."
Gabriella rose and nodded to the man-at-arms. "So be it."
The road ahead breasted a ridge and, as they climbed, the smell of Turnitia — salt water, oil and fish — became stronger. The city was built on the side of a cliff, who's top was festooned with gallows-like cranes and taught ropes and cables. Below, the docks and the bay were held fast by huge black monoliths that kept the worst of the breakers from swamping the whole place. The living area of the city itself rose gradually up from the warehouses near the cliffs, through the markets and towering Citadel to the most desirable homes atop the hill.
Goran Kell could see how organically it was growing around that hill. It was solid at heart, but with new buildings spored outwards, like a moss thriving on the sunward side of a rock. It was spreading just the way that all of God's creations did when they prospered. It was beautiful.
Larger, more impressive, buildings flowered here and there nearer the cliffs. Kell hurried through the streets in search of a particular set of rooms, where pastries and small beer were sold cheaply to tired workers. He ducked under a low archway between two ship owners' offices and along into a dark tavern. The smells of hot food, spiced drinks and small beer drifted out.
Two rough-looking men with swords at their belts rose from a small table next to the door as he entered.
"It's raining blood out there," Kell said. "Sandor Feyn is expecting me."
The men fell in beside him and showed him through to a small dining room. Only one table was in it and a small window overlooked the shipyards. Cold air poured in through the window, meeting the heat from the fire in the grate.
There were two chairs at the table. A large man in a well-cut leather tabard was already sat at one of them, munching on a hunk of meat. He had a dark red beard, neatly trimmed with a longer plait on each side.
"Well, Goran Kell, as I live and breathe." He indicated the chair opposite. "Sit down and help yourself. I hear it's been a… well, not just a long journey but a necessarily careful one." He pushed a goblet across the table. "Drink this, it should clear the cobwebs."
Kell sat down, with thanks. "I had to come. Something very strange has happened." He sniffed at the wine. "Clear the cobwebs? Poison the spiders more like." He drank it anyway.
Feyn's expression darkened. "Strange? I don't like strange, Kell. Strange brings the Swords to my door."
Kell waved the concern away dismissively. "The Swords are busy up in Kalten and doubtless taking names and cracking heads as usual. There was a man I hired: Lukas Bertram. I hired him to make a… political statement up there."
"That name rings a bell," Sandor Feyn said. He shoved his plate aside and massaged his temples for a moment. "It was a couple of weeks ago… Someone reported — Ah! He's dead."
Kell smiled thinly. "I worked that one out already, thank you." He shrugged. "The man knew he was most likely on a one-way — "
Feyn shook his head. "That's not what I meant. A fisherman scooped his body out of the bay a fortnight ago."
Kell blinked, and looked for any sign of joking in Feyn's expression. "A fortnight? That's impossible!"
Feyn shrugged. "People get killed all the time. And, as if the big bad world isn't dangerous enough, the profession of an assassin is an inherently risky one, as I think you'll agree. Now, what was strange?"
"But the attack went ahead, if not exactly as planned!"
"Not exactly?" Feyn echoed. He shook his head. "Come on Goran, 'not exactly' doesn't cut it. What was so exact about it?"
Kell grimaced. "The shot at an Eminence was made early; at the presentation of the happy couple instead of at the afternoon feast."
"And yet the shot was made, the target hit."
Kell paced around the small room. "Yes, yes… But it wasn't exactly the plan. and at the time Lukas was already dead." Something clenched in Kell's guts and he shivered.
"An unpleasant thought," Feyn said.
"Unpleasant? It's… I don't even know what the word is! If our man died a week before the event, then who the hell took the shot?"
"You and Scarra recruited him, Goran. Did he have an associate whom he might have confided in, who might have fulfilled the contract in the event of — "
"Not that I know of, but we never actually met. Everything was arranged through intermediaries." Kell paled. "Which can only mean one of them has made some kind of arrangement of his own, with God knows who."
"It's a strange matter."
"You're telling me," Kell agreed.
"What do you think happened?"
"It seems to me that there are two basic possibilities. One: that fat fool Scarra got it wrong. Two: someone's playing us, and if that's the case it's better to keep our distance from Scarra. He's always been unstable and trying to bounce back and forth in somebody's game will send him off his head."
"And then he'll get caught?"
"Assuming he hasn't been already. And I'd rather he couldn't point the way to me when he does get caught."
"What about Freedom? How much does he know about that?"
Kell gave a short laugh. "Sod all, my friend, sod all. It's not that I don't trust Scarra, but… I know how his mouth hates to sit still. If the Confessors don't give him something to chew on every five minutes, he'd give them something."
"Wouldn't it have been more sensible to silence him? Just in case? Chaga has never been shy about doing what's necessary."
Kell's lips twisted, as if he'd tasted something bitter and unpleasant. "It would have made more sense to never have had anything to do with him in the first place," Kell sighed. "But without his money and business contacts, we might never had the wagons we needed, or made the payoffs to the guilds…"
"All right, let's assume someone knew your plan."
"Someone must have."
"Then who? Faith Confessors have spies everywhere, but…"
"But they would have stopped the attack." Kell paced around the room, shaking his head like a dog with a rat in his jaws. "Who would have hired another assassin? The one who actually carried out the attack."
Feyn closed his eyes for a moment. "There's a man I know, who might be able to find out a few answers for you. He's worked for me before."
"Who?"
"His name doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
Feyn gave an amused grunt. "It does to him too. He wouldn't be happy if I spread it around. I'll get in touch with him, and tell him you require his services. I'll let him know how to contact you."
"Tell him the matter is rather urgent."
Feyn nodded. "Of course. Now, I presume you're not staying long in these parts?"
"I'll be returning to Fayence soon and then on to Freedom."
"The Faith will be expecting you to make for Fayence."
"I imagine they'll consider the possibility, but logic suggests they'll expect me to make for Freiport."
Feyn laughed. "Run the gauntlet of the Anclas Territories with a price on your head and every unemployed mercenary band looking for a quick profit?"
"It wasn't what I had mind." Kell rose. "I'll you send a message through the Huntress when I reach Fayence. I shall expect some information by way of reply."
"I'm sure things will be in motion by then," Feyn promised.