‘Bloody Stones!’Forgard said, stepping around the table and reaching for his cutlass.‘Who let you in here?Where is the guard?’
At once every eye in the room fixed on Torin.Jon Kenn went as pale as an unripe aubergine.A storm cloud brewed behind the queen’s eyes and promised a rekindling of their duel, which had ended so abruptly with Fola’s escape and Torin’s flight to the toilet.The prince and his uncle, the Count of Cilbran, glared over the table, reaching for their own weapons of raw iron.Only Eurion of Afondir seemed not insulted by the intrusion.
‘Anakriarch, we did not know you had been summoned,’ Afondir said, his smile taunting Torin.His presence meant that nothing had yet come of Torin’s prior meeting with Prince Owyn, where he had laid bare Afondir’s plotting for the throne.No matter.Where the heated knife failed, the calipers might twist compliance from a stubborn subject.
‘He wasnotinvited,’ the queen said flatly.‘Uli, return this man to his rooms.If he resists, break his fingers.A method of persuasion he understands well, I am sure.’
The burly captain of the housecarls stepped forward.
‘Go on then, sir,’ Uli said, his voice like boulders rolling over gravel.‘You heard Her Majesty.’
The housecarl made no move towards his blade, only flexed one boar-bristled forearm, letting the mass of coiled muscle speak for itself.
‘I would converse with His Highness, and again offer him my services,’ Torin said, not budging beneath Uli’s stare.‘His need for them is immediate and dire.’
‘Parwys will see to its own affairs,’ Medrith said.‘You are a guest here, Anakriarch.Test the limits of our patience at your peril.’
She gestured with her staff.Its blossoms hung dry and limp, its leaves faded—a sign, perhaps, that she had overextended her powers?Torin little understood, nor cared to understand, the particulars of heathen magic.Why bother?He did not need to study something to destroy it.
‘You ignore my warning and my offer at your peril, Your Majesty,’ Torin said, looking past the hulking wall of Uli’s shoulder and stepping forward.The housecarl chuckled and reached for Torin’s arm, ready to drag him from the room.
‘I would hear him out,’ Prince Owyn said.
Uli’s hand drifted back to his side.Torin dipped his head to the prince and waited to see if this small act of defiance would further sunder mother from son—by custom the queen held the power of the throne, after all, until the prince was crowned.Yet her power was only ever temporary, her use of it always custodial on behalf of her fallen husband and her son soon to rule.If Owyn directly contradicted her, not only would her refusal to heed him strain their relationship, but represent a soft coup.She was queen in name, but steward in truth, with no true right to overrule the will of the crown prince.
And so she stepped aside, and Uli let Torin pass.
Torin dipped his head in gratitude to the prince, who gestured for him to get on with whatever his business was.With a flourish, Torin placed the sorceress’s staff on the table and drew away the cloth that wrapped it.Silver glinted in the column of light from the high window.
‘The staff of the sorceress Fola.’Torin kept his eye on the queen, whose stolid composure faltered at the sight of the staff.‘An interloper in your kingdom.One who openly intends to twist the horrors that plague you to her own untold ends.’
‘Yes, we know the woman,’ Owyn said.He glanced at his mother.‘And we know also that you and she duelled in this very castle, in violation of our hospitality.’
‘And that she slipped your grasp,’ the queen added.‘How came you by her staff?’
‘She attacked my Knight of Action, as her bodyman attacked my Knight of Stillness,’ Torin said.A small obfuscation.Hardly a lie.One justified by his role and greater purpose.‘Know, Your Majesty, Your Highness, My Lords, that I have felt the sting of this viper.To call it a “weapon” is to compare it too kindly to spears and swords.It is a bringer of pestilence and disease, whose blows I survived only by the grace of the Agion.A cruel device—’
‘The torturer speaks of cruelty,’ Cilbran said with a snort.
The others in the room either disregarded the jest or rolled their eyes at it.Torin pressed on.‘A cruel device of the First Folk’s make.Its purpose unknown, but its effects unquestionable, and terrible.Her willingness to not only use such a thing, but to carry it into the court of your kingdom, speaks to this Fola woman’s character.Her incaution.Her disrespect.Her arrogance and insatiable hunger for ancient, unwieldy magics—’
‘You dislike the sorceress,’ Forgard interjected, smoothing his moustache in annoyance.‘We understand.What is the point of this?’
Intemperate, Torin noted in his mental ledger of other people’s vices.
‘Let the inquisitor speak, Tomos,’ Afondir said.‘He knows more of such matters than anyone else here.’
‘Does he?’Medrith snapped.‘Or does he braid what little he knows with lies that suit his purpose?’
‘And what “purpose” is that, Your Majesty?’Afondir cut back.‘The salvation of our kingdom from this curse?You have little friendship for the Mortal Church, I understand, but you are inward-looking—you and your order—and do not see the good they have done in the wider world.’
‘Enough!’Owyn looked from his mother to Afondir and back.There was a hint of distrust, there, in both glances.‘I would hear the man without these constant interruptions.Go on, Anakriarch.’
Torin dipped his head, then opened his box, revealing nine discs of raw iron.Each was wide enough to rest comfortably in Torin’s palm, and engraved with the sacred portrait of one of the Agion framed with the nested triangles of the iron sigil.
The prince, the counts and his advisors watched with interest—Jon Kenn with a trembling reverence, clutching his own iron sigil—as Torin placed the medallions in an oval encircling the sorceress’s staff.
‘You believe, falsely, that we intend to make you weak.’Torin’s words were spoken to the queen, but intended for the prince’s ear.‘That our cleansing is only a means to strip you of your magic and place you under our power.Not so.’
