Page 27 of Crucible of Chaos

Never before had he been so bedevilled with doubts over his own abilities. The King’s Crucible had crossed swords with dozens of men and women who’d considered themselves his superiors, who’d mocked his girth, convinced a body such as his could never produce the speed to best them. What had changed? A single lost duel in some backwoods courtroom in Domaris? Every Greatcoat had suffered defeat at one time or another. Why was he so filled with trepidation now?

‘Say you understand,’ he whispered, so quietly he doubted Strigan had even heard him. Better if he hadn’t–otherwise Estevar would have revealed himself as nothing but a reckless gambler who’d wagered all he possessed on a single hand and only now remembered to look at the cards he’d drawn.

Then it happened: his hand began to shake again, and this time, he failed to halt it before he heard–and knew instantly that Strigan had heard as well–the clack of his blade’s steel ricasso on the bronze lip of the rapier’s scabbard.

Too late, he thought.

The sharp intake of Strigan’s breath preceded his blade shifting against his opponent’s back. Cursing himself for having waited too long, Estevar began to draw his own weapon, knowing he’d already given away the initiative to his enemy. Imperious was going to be killed and eaten, Caeda captured and abused, Venia’s murder unavenged, and all of it–allof it–would be his fault.

I’m sorry my friends, he had time to think just as his blade began to slip free from the scabbard.

‘I. . . I understand!’ the Wolf-King cried out.

CHAPTER 18

THE HOUND’S TESTIMONY

‘Were you really going to kill me?’ Strigan asked plaintively. The tall, tattooed figure trudged up the stone steps spiralling around the inner wall of the Venerance Tower. ‘And do you bring that donkey everywhere you go? It’s a tad eccentric, if you ask me– even for a Greatcoat who goes around threatening to slice open people’s innards.’

‘Imperious is a mule,’ Estevar corrected.

Truth be told, he would have preferred to have left his befuddled mount in some warm, snug stable rather than forcing the poor beast up this awkward climb. The ‘Cressi Manoeuvre’ gambit might have transformed the Wolf-King from snarling predator to affronted lamb, but there remained the danger of his followers. Admittedly, Strigan had put on an impressive performance, granting his captive the rank of court jester and promising to hear in private his questions before deciding whether to cut off his head and sew it to the body of the donkey or vice versa. Estevar wasn’t about to leave his mule to the dubious self-restraint of a pack of lapsed monks already grown accustomed to satisfying their every cruel and lustful appetite. Besides, Imperious appeared to be unwilling to be parted from him, so for now, Estevar would do whatever he must to calm his faithful companion’s nerves.

‘Mule, right.’ Strigan leaped up the last two steps to the second-floor landing, pivoted on his bare heel and disappeared through an arched doorway. A moment later, he poked his head back out and beckoned them with a curled finger and a lecherous grin.

‘Why, Caeda, there you are! Always meant to bed you when the chance availed itself. No time like the present, eh?’

‘He was less annoying when he was threatening to kill us,’ the young woman muttered through gritted teeth as she followed him inside.

Estevar wasn’t so sure. He would need to be careful now, his every word and facial expression designed to maintain Strigan’s fear of his skill with a blade. The moment those abilities came into doubt, the Wolf-King would no doubt seek to impose his authority over his ‘guests’ once more.

Then again, the way the drugged, drunken fool keeps forgetting Caeda’s here, perhaps he won’t recall that we’re enemies.

The second floor of the Venerance Tower was taken up by another large circular room, this one a magnificent bedchamber. Curved divans upholstered in rose-coloured velvet lined the outer wall, set beneath tall glass windows that overlooked the abbey’s cloister on one side and the still raging sea on the other. The subtle curvature of the ceiling created a shallow dome at the centre, beneath which the gold curtains of a large canopied bed opened to reveal pillows of white and silver silk resting atop a lushly embroidered crimson coverlet. The mosaic floor was softened with thick fur rugs in front of a generous hearth. Twelve gold-framed portraits were, alternately, past abbots and abbesses and erstwhile Dukes and Duchesses of Baern.

There were other luxuries, too: a huge mahogany armoire on one side, a rosewood writing desk with bone inlay on the other. The grandest feature of the bedchamber, however, was the cast-iron tube set into the floor next to the bed pouring water into a large brass wash-tub. Estevar noted steam rising from the water, and rose petals floating on the surface.

‘Delightful, isn’t it?’ Strigan asked, sauntering towards the tub like the lord of the manor returning home from the hunt. ‘Even with the abbot dead, the Bone-Rattlers assigned to service this room keep coming, day after day. It’s all I can do to persuade my hounds not to kill them. He dangled his fingertips in the rose-scented water. ‘I do enjoy a hot bath, though. As a matter of fact, I’d been planning on a nice soak when the two of you showed up.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘I suppose that’s why I was so cheeky with you.’

‘Cheeky?’ Caeda repeated.

Estevar gave her a subtle shake of his head, trying to convey that this was the wrong time to press the point. This opportunity to interrogate Strigan over the death of the abbot was a brief interlude before his capricious temperament took over once more.

‘Have you ever spent the night in an abbot’s bedchamber, little Caeda?’ the apostate asked, his disdainful tone suggesting these opulent surroundings were evidence of Venia’s hypocrisy and thus proof that he deserved whatever fate had befallen him.

A poor ruse,Estevar thought. ‘This is no abbot’s bedchamber,’ he said as he led Imperious to the rugs by the fire so the mule could warm himself.Would that you were in finer form, my friend. I wouldn’t be nearly so fretful.

‘You sound awfully sure of yourself, for an outsider,’ Strigan observed. ‘Maybe you were as easily fooled by Venia’s false piety as everyone else.’

‘My assertion was not based on any intimate knowledge of the abbot’s humility or frugality. All that required was a pair of eyes and a modicum of intellect.’ He turned to Caeda. ‘Would you care to enlighten him?’

‘Ah, there’s my red-furred pussycat,’ Strigan cooed. ‘You know, I’ve always wanted t—’

‘A moment, if you please,’ Estevar said, cutting him off. ‘Proceed, Piccolo.’

The sharp-featured young woman looked pleased to be offered so simple a test–as well as the opportunity to make it clear to Strigan that she was a participant in his interrogation, not some plaything for him to taunt. ‘Anyone with half a brain who met Abbot Venia would know within two minutes that he–unlike the dissolute weasels he inherited from his avaricious predecessor’– she cast a scathing glance at Strigan, who was now sitting on the edge of the tub, picking at his toenails– ‘would have drenched himself in lantern oil and set himself on fire before spending a single night indulging in all this gaudy excess.’

Estevar held back a sigh of disappointment. She’d seemed so quick and perceptive during their first meeting. ‘Yes, Piccolo, but more importantly, th—’

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