Page 155 of Swordheart
“It’s all right. I’d rather have my hand go to sleep than marry Alver.”
“He does seem very determined, doesn’t he?” The rogue hair flopped into their eyes again and they blew it out of the way on an aggravated breath.
“Or his mother is. I don’t know why they care,” said Halla tiredly. “Silas wasn’t worth that much. They can’t possibly think it’s worth all the trouble of kidnapping meanda priest of the Rat. Even if they can lock me up somewhere and no one will care, your Temple will come looking for you.”
Zale nodded. “It’s odd, isn’t it? Presumably they’ll have to kill me.”
Halla blinked at them. They seemed very calm about it.
“I wonder if it has to do with the mortgages.”
“Mortgages?”
“Yes. It’s hard to find in the records and I suspect it was quite a shady operation, but I managed to turn it up in the clerk’s office when I was digging around to find Silas’s total worth. Your outlying properties are mortgaged to the hilt.”
“Theywhat? But Silas didn’t have any mortgages. He always used to brag that he owned everything free and clear.”
“Indeed. And they weren’t taken out in his name, either. The only way to find them was to go through the land records themselves. Which I did as a matter of course, since the property was in dispute.”
Halla stared at them with her mouth open. “Whose name are they in?”
“Your cousin’s. If I were to venture a guess—” They got another loop free and Halla grimaced as the hemp scraped across her wrists. “—your cousin used the fact that he expected to inherit as collateral for a loan from someone with more money than ethics.”
“That ra—I mean, that bastard!”
Zale smiled gently at her correction. “So now he is in a bind. He must lay claim to that property, or suddenly find that he has no collateral for the loan.”
“Himandhis mother. I’ll bet she’s in this up to her neck.”
“That would fit with what I have witnessed of them, yes. Such situations can be resolved, of course, if the various parties are acting in good faith, but I would wager a small sum that the sort of person who would make such a loan is not acting in good faith.” They chuckled. “Ironically, your cousin could easily have found himself petitioning the Rat for mediation in such a case.”
“And they’d take the case?”
“Well, never say never. Let us say instead that imprisoning one of their priests would not incline the Temple favorably to his case. I was holding this information in reserve in case the bailiff did not decide in our favor, but now… well. Can you get this loop past your fingers?”
Halla contorted her hand until the loop slipped over her knuckles.
“Excellent! Give me a minute, my nails aren’t very happy with me.”
“I don’t care about Alver,” Halla said after a moment, wiggling her fingers. “I mean, I care, but we can worry about him later.”
“Well, given that we have to escape, we’ll have to worry about him quite soon.”
“Right, right.” Halla waved her bound hands. “But it’s SarkisI’m worried about. Bartholomew could take him anywhere. Or sell him. What if we never found him again?”
“The Rat has many eyes. But yes, it would be much easier to catch Bartholomew now rather than later.”
“What if he won’t give the sword up, though?” asked Halla. “Sarkis can’t force him, if he’s the wielder.”
“Then I fear that you and I will have to kill him,” said Zale.
Halla looked at Zale. The silence stretched out until it was intolerably loud.
“Do you remember what happenedlasttime?” said Halla. “When we had to hide the bodies?”
“Yes, but we’re bound to get better with practice.”
“I’ve never killed anyone!You’venever killed anyone! Sarkis and Brindle did all the killing bits! We stood around and wrung our hands!”
