You owe me one

"You have ruined us. You have ruined us all," Lady Carla sobbed and collapsed on the floor beside Raina.

It was the first time Raina was seeing her mother this terrified. Or terrified at all. "The man has eight brothers. And a thousand cousins for all we know. They don't need an army to crush us. The family alone is enough. Do you know how serious Karkbhurgs are about their blood feuds?"

Raina had heard the tales. A century prior, Garnim II, King of Vaechia, captured and boiled alive a certain Ronnar the Vaechianbane, the grandfather of Willy's grandfather. The king had then fed the corpse to his hounds.

The Vaechianbane's sons and nephews spent a decade sending infiltrators into King Garnim's household.

At a gathering of the royal family, these sons and nephews and their confederates locked the palace doors and set the building on fire. The entire dynasty burned. Only Garnim II was spared. The Karkbhurgs wanted him to watch.

The Karkbhurgs then castrated King Garnim, ripped out his tongue, broke half his fingers, and brought him to their stronghold at Karkia as a slave. The deposed king committed suicide by banging his head against a wall while his kingdom descended into twenty years of civil war.

The Karkbhurgs took advantage of the civil war to expand their domains by encroaching on Vaechian territory. They also fed Garnim II's body to stray dogs just as he had done with their kinsman.

The only part they spared was the head. They coated the Vaechian king's head in bronze and turned it into a chamber pot. A chamber pot that was still in use to this very day.

Raina didn't want to be turned into a chamberpot. "He's not dead," she said, hoping against hope that Willy's condition didn't worsen.

Lady Carla looked at all the blood on the floor and Raina followed her gaze. The blood that had pooled wherever Willy stood, the blood that had dripped from his soaked robe, and the blood that his feet had smeared as he walked.

"How?" Raina's mother asked. "There has to be a gallon of blood here, at least. How could he still be alive?"

"I don't know," Raina whispered.

"Why did you do it? What were you thinking?"

"He goaded me."

"Yes, yes, he goaded you," Lady Carla said. "What a comforting thought that will be when they all come down here to kill us."

Raina said nothing. She couldn't say anything. She didn't know why Willy had done what he had. "You need to find him," her mother said.

"Why?" Raina asked.

"Make sure he doesn't bleed to death. What's wrong with you?"

But before Raina could leave a knock came on the door. "My lady," Melilla called.

"What?" Raina yelled.

"Can I come in?" the handmaiden asked.

"Why not?" Raina asked.

The door opened and Melilla stepped in. Her mouth flew open when she saw all the blood on the floor and Raina and her mother splayed out against a wall. Melilla closed her mouth just as quickly and performed a perfect curtsy. "My father has returned, my ladies. With the assassin."

Raina and Carla were up and running before Melilla could finish. They found Hyrman out in the yard by the dovecote, dusty and disheveled. A young woman of twenty-something years lay twitching in a crude cart, a bloody wooden splinter poking into her throat.

"I am deeply sorry, my ladies," Hyrman apologized. "She just impaled her neck on the splinter. I should have been more careful."

The other men who had accompanied Hyrman on his hunt were just as disappointed. They had hunted the assassin for three days and dragged her back to Glory Point only for their captive to kill herself minutes before she could be questioned. The small crowd that had gathered was abuzz with murmurs.

"Did she tell you anything before she died?" Lady Carla asked.

"No, my lady," Big Roror said. Raina had never seen the giant guardsman so distraught. She had always thought of him as a solid emotionless statue that moved and killed on her father's command. "We tried. She wouldn't talk."

"She looks familiar," Raina's aunt, Mariana, said.

She was familiar. Raina knew the woman. Not her name but certainly her face. She knew all the peasants who lived around Glory Point by sight. And she knew this one too. "She's from three villages over, my lady," Big Roror said.

"Why did she kill Nylarn?" Lady Carla asked.

"She was seeing Ervin, my lady. The guardsman his lordship executed last year. They were to be wed a few days before Ervin was executed. Cora birthed a bastard four months ago. The boy caught the whooping cough and died days after birth. The villagers believe he was Ervin's son. He was born eight months after the execution. Cora vanished from the village shortly after her son's passing. She wasn't seen again until she killed his lordship."

"She vanished for four months?" Raina asked.

"Yes, my lady," Hyrman said, eyeing her with a hostile expression but it was hard to tell with all those wrinkles. Raina couldn't blame him. If only she hadn't kept quiet about the poisoned dog…

"Where was she?"

"Nobody knows, my lady," Big Roror said. "Some men came and took her away."

"Do we know anything about these men?" Lady Carla asked.

"No, my lady," Big Roror said. "Only that some of them were Reendeni."

"So the Reendeni did it?"

"I don't know, my lady," Big Roror said. "It's possible that someone used her grief and anger to talk her into killing His Lordship. It has happened before."

"Happened before?" Aunt Mariana asked.

Roror nodded. "Yes, my lady. A couple of years ago, after Lord Nylarn banished my brother, a man approached me in a tavern, bought me a couple of drinks, and asked if I wanted vengeance. He didn't clarify but I knew what he was talking about."

"And you kept quiet until now?" Lady Carla asked.

"No, my lady. I told his lordship. He told me to go to him if the man ever returned. He did return. I strung him along and set up another meeting but he must have suspected a trap. He never showed."

"And what do you know about this man?" Lady Carla asked.

"Only that his name is Talistarnes. That's the name he gave me. Rhexian mother, Reendeni father. He spoke Rhexi with a Reendeni accent. Streaked black and yellow hair and a scar across his left cheek. I have never seen him again."

"Was he the one who turned Cora?" Raina asked.

"I don't know, my lady. He doesn't match any of the descriptions given by the villagers."

"And this Talistarnes. Could you try finding him?" Aunt Mariana asked.

Big Roror shook his head. "We tried a few years ago, my lady. Nobody has ever heard of the name. It's probably a false one."

"So we know nothing about the man behind my husband's assassination?" Lady Carla asked.

"That is so, my lady," Big Roror answered.

Hyrman looked at Raina. " You have to tell them, my lady."

"Tell us what?" Lady Carla asked.

Raina had no option. She sucked in a breath and told her mother how Kojor had been poisoned on the day of her wedding. "You told me the dog ran away," Carla Lamanbhurg accused.

"I didn't want to worry you, mother."

Lady Carla shook her head. "Of course not. Why should I ever worry about you, Raina? I have 300 other children constantly demanding my attention. When would I ever find the time to worry about you?"

Raina hung her head in shame. When she raised it her eyes met Melilla's. The handmaiden gave her another prompting look and a nod. The girl was just as exacting as her father.

So Raina told of the attempt on her life at camp during the siege of First Fork. All the men were protesting as soon as she was done. "We were angry at you, my lady, yes. But we wouldn't murder you," Big Roror asserted. "Honorable men don't kill with poison."

Lady Carla pointed at Cora, the assassin in the cart. "Was she there?"

Raina shook her head. "No."

The buzz of murmurs broke out again as everyone speculated on Raina's poisoner. The chatter was only interrupted by Aunt Mariana's son Leytyrn galloping into the yard with another group of disheveled Lamanbhurg men. Carla was on him in a heartbeat. "Tell me you have good news Leytyrn."

"I wish I could, aunt."

"You didn't find the smith?"

"We did," Cousin Leytyrn said.

"And?"

"He wanted safety. He was to come with us but someone burned his house in the night. With him inside."

How many? Raina wondered. How many have died because of my silence? A chill seized her. How long before whoever is behind this comes after me? She didn't have to worry about the Karkbhurgs anymore. Whoever killed her father would get her first.

"Did he at least tell you who hired him?" Lady Carla asked.

"Nothing useful," Leytyrn said. "A man with streaked black and yellow hair and a scar on his left cheek. He never gave a name. The smith said he spoke Reendeni with a Rhexian accent. The smith promised to tell us more but only if we could protect him. We couldn't."

Lady Carla turned to Big Roror. "You said the man who approached you spoke Rhexi with a Reendeni accent?"

"Yes, my lady."

Carla's head swiveled from Big Roror to Leytyrn, comparing their descriptions. Big Roror and the smith Leytyrn had talked to clearly described the same man. "But how can a man have two accents?" Lady Carla asked. "That cannot be possible."

"The smith is a Reendeni. He moved to Cardinum from Rendeia only two years ago. He doesn't speak a word of Rhexi. It could be that," Leytyrn explained. "Or this man could be faking accents."

Raina felt her head swirling. She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky in prayer. Above her, a messenger pigeon with a leather letter canister strapped to its back circled the dovecote.

Raina only had a moment to react when she realized the pigeon had shat. But her reaction was too slow. The pigeon's droppings fell into her mouth and Raina spat a thousand times trying to get rid of the foul-tasting viscous paste while everyone around her looked on with a mixture of horror and sympathy.

After relieving itself in Raina's mouth, the nonchalant pigeon landed atop a coop and cooed, as bold as you please. A hundred pairs of angry eyes turned on it but the bird puffed its chest and cooed in defiance, a challenge to anyone who dared.

"Kuri, bad pigeon," Little Roror, Big Roror's shorter cousin and Glory Point's pigeon keeper, scolded as he approached the bird and unstrapped the letter canister from its back. "Do you want it dead, my lady?" he asked.

All the eyes turned on Raina. "N… No," she stammered.

"It should die," her cousin Leytyrn contradicted her. "That was unacceptable." The crowd muttered its agreement.

"It's a bird," Raina argued. "Killing it won't deter the other pigeons. They're not intelligent enough to learn the lesson."

"That doesn't matter," somebody else argued. "You're a bloody lady. The bird dies."

While they argued, Kuri fluttered back into the sky where a flock of the castle's pigeons were flying around in what resembled an army formation. The muttering got even angrier. "Who's the letter for?" Lady Carla's voice cut through the muttering.

Little Roror glanced at the roll of parchment in his hand. "It's for S— Lord Willarn, my lady. From the chancellor."

Lady Carla stretched out her hand. "Give it here."

"The letter is marked for his lordship, my lady," Little Roror protested weakly. "It bears the royal seal."

"Give it!" Carla Lamanbhurg barked.

A reluctant Little Roror handed over the letter. Lady Carla broke the seal, unrolled it, and read. Then she passed it to Raina.

My Dearest Willarn,

Congratulations on your adoption. I have known Nylarn Lamanbhurg since we were boys. An overproud fool if I ever met one. I never dreamed that he could be cursed with such an overabundance of commonsense on his deathbed but the gods work in mysterious ways. 

Only a man like you can bring those treasonous southerners to heel. Your new father was wise to recognize it even if he was stupid enough to be killed by a woman. But his shame is not yours, luckily for all of us. I will be rooting for you, son. But you have a few problems.

My spies report that a secret muster has been ordered by the lords of Lamania and Cardinum. Warriors and warships gather every day. The Reendeni are on the warpath. They plan to march once they have 10,000 men. There could only be one target: you. 

My men are still tied up. You and the Lamanbhurgs have to deal with the Reendeni on your own for now. I want the head of any traitor who sides with those pig worshippers or makes up excuses to avoid fighting.

In related news, the Lady Demanda Lamanbhurg, your wife's cousin and Sir Laman's sister, is set to wed Count Calistarnes of Lamania in four days' time. I believe this is the glue that will seal the alliance. 

King Amynthas has also set sail from Deltopolis. I believe he's heading to Lamania for the wedding. He is traveling with a small party. Three ships and 300 men, only a third of whom are soldiers. If you could find a way to seize him and dispatch him to Confluencia in chains, I would be very grateful.

Varamyr Malbhurg has also been spotted sneaking into Lamania. Did you send him or has he turned traitor?

I also have it on good authority that the Reendeni know you have men secreted within the walls of Lamania. What they don't know is who those men are. Yet. Order them out.

Say hello to Caedmyr for me and tell him to reply to his mother's letters.

You owe me one,

Yohram Rymanus Luchebhurg,

Lord Chancellor and Regent of Rhexia.