Page 77 of Seducing the Sorcerer
“I know.”
“Ain’t just me, then, is it? You’re using Jasper and all.”
Morgrim’s face hardened. “If you like. Yes.”
“He’s just a boy.”
“Yes.”
“You should let him go. He’s a boy. Ain’t right.” Fenn got to his feet again, as if standing up would somehow help matters.
“I’m not holding him here.” Morgrim shot him an impatient look. “Jasper’s the son of a Heregovian noble. Heregovia being now a vassal state of Lutia. His parents are dead. Tullivo’s friends are holding his younger sister hostage. Jasper has to pass information or his sister dies. If I dismiss him, what do you suppose will happen?”
Fenn felt as if he’d walked into a trap. He’d thought he had a pretty jaded view of humanity, but this was a new level of wickedness. Because it was obvious what would happen: Jasper’s sister would die.
But still, it was wrong. Fenn stepped closer to Morgrim again, as if proximity could help persuade him, and tried again, “But, it needn’t be Jasper’s fault. You could promote him somewhere else.”
“Fault?” Morgrim almost spat the word out. “They wouldn’t care whose fault it was. If Jasper’s useful, his sister lives. If Jasper’s not useful—” Morgrim shrugged. “Anyway, one day he’ll try to kill me. If I dismiss him, that day will come sooner.”
Jasper, not just a spy but an assassin? “Bollocks. You don’t know that.”
“No? It’s how I’d use him, if I were Tullivo’s spy-master. If Jasper’s no more use, make him take one last risk because it won’t matter if he fails. Why do you suppose I have my food prepared in the palace and delivered by soldiers? We put it about that someone had tried to poison me, but actually it’s more that Jasper might try.”
“But, it’s all wrong! Why not try to rescue Jasper’s sister? Why not—”
“If the spy isn’t Jasper, it’ll be someone else. It’s better that I know.”
“It’s...it’s...”
Fenn had been going to say “It’s horrible. It’s dangerous,” but even as he opened his mouth the horror and the weight of that danger seemed to fall on him like a tonne of bricks. War. Invasion. Murder. All held back by a tissue of lies. And Morgrim had been weaving his deception for two years. Two years of pretending. Two years of fear. Two years of expecting discovery every single day.
And the situation was awful, but Fenn looked at Morgrim’s tired, tense face and felt a rush of unexpected tenderness. Because Morgrim had lied to him, it was true. Morgrim had used him. But only because he was trying to avoid a war. And, Gods, what two years of all this fear and horror would do to a man! And bearing the secret alone, too, for the most part. Although—
“Aramella knows,” Fenn said. “About you.”
“Yes. It was her hiding behind the skeleton screen the morning after you arrived. Just in case you turned out to be an assassin after all. Gods! The night you flew in—I thought you’d come to kill me, with Jasper and that ridiculous sword to help you.”
The image of Morgrim as Fenn had first seen him was burned into his memory, clear as day: Morgrim the sorcerer, blazing with rage, staff thrust out before him.
“That night,” Fenn said slowly. “You weren’t angry. You were frightened.”
“Morgrim gave him a thin smile. “Terrified.”
“Why’d you come outside, then? If you thought I’d come to kill you?”
“Why? Because I’d been waiting in this tower for two years for someone to come and kill me and I couldn’t stand it a moment longer. I thought: I’m going out to meet him, I’m going to die in the open, fighting, not hiding in some bloody wardrobe.” Morgrim shivered, as if remembering, and added, “But then, of course, you didn’t attack.”
“And you thought, ‘I could use this bloke and his horse’. Just like that.”
“Pretty much. That’s why I told you you’d broken a boundary spell. To manipulate you into staying.”
Fenn thought back. “Ah, you did say that, too. Never was no boundary spell, was there?”
“No.”
“No. Changed your tune next morning. Said you’d been mistaken. Asked me to stay as your guest instead. Did you think I’d work out that boundary spell was all gammon?”
Morgrim shrugged. “No. It was more...” He stopped, sighed.
