The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,462

actually weren’t the target, oddly enough. You were my second failed attempt. I was trying to get purchased by Ulbear Rathcore. He seemed more likely to go far than you did.”

“In a kinder world,” Andross said. He sipped. “But . . . a slave?”

“Impossible to keep many secrets from your slaves.”

“And if I were terribly abusive, what? You had a magistrate standing by? Witnesses who would swear you’d been enslaved illegally? That sort of thing?”

“Naturally,” Grinwoody said. “I almost called on him a dozen times that first year. I did not like taking orders. Caused me quite some panic when he died a decade later. Then I realized I had assassins at my command. Getting a magistrate to authenticate papers wasn’t going to be any problem. Now, your turn. Who was your assassin? Everyone drank the bloodwine. I nearly drank it myself. I usually do. You almost got me—but I had too much to do in the morning, so for the first time in many years I abstained. But no one else did. I have spotters to watch for such things. The only thing I can figure is that your poisoner must have drunk the lacrimae sanguinis, too. Who was it?”

Andross shrugged.

“There are only five people it could be,” Grinwoody insisted. “And they’re all dead. It was one of my high priests, wasn’t it? Atevia Zelorn?”

“It actually wasn’t my doing,” Andross said.

Grinwoody almost dropped his zigarro. “You can’t be serious. All this time playing against you, and I’m undone . . . by some side player? Who?”

“Karris, I think,” Andross said.

“Little Karris? Karris killed four hundred and thirty people?” Grinwoody sat back. “And here I thought that Iron White business was a pretention to impress the small folk.”

“Then she became what she pretended,” Andross said.

“Perhaps so.” Grinwoody looked at his empty glass. He set down his zigarro, and glanced at the pistol. “But I did not.”

“I thought you were my friend,” Andross said suddenly. There was a ragged edge in his voice. In another man, it might have seemed close to tears.

“A mistake I never made of you,” Grinwoody said.

“So I see,” Andross said, all iron control once more. “Your papers are on the table. Take them as you go.”

“My papers? You’re letting me live?” Grinwoody asked. But he stood immediately. He was no fool.

“Good play should be rewarded, and you won. Far be it from me to snatch the fruits of twenty-three years of service from your lips. Far be it from me to deny your victory.”

Grinwoody picked up the papers, slowly. “Do I look victorious to you?”

“No, but the game that you lost was some other game, against someone else. Nothing to do with me. Me you outwitted, me you convinced to expose my back. I have no excuses. Spying is a well-known stratagem in the great game, and betrayal a time-honored tradition. How can I begrudge you those?”

“You surprise me,” Grinwoody said. “I hadn’t expected to find you equanimous in defeat.”

“You’ve never seen me lose.”

“Except your temper.”

“At setbacks. At delays in my game. But our game is finished. Now is the time for me to examine my loss, and to learn from it.”

Grinwoody pursed his lips. “After all these years, you still are able to surprise me, my lord.” His lips quirked to a frown. The ‘my lord’ had been reflexive, a mistake.

“ ‘Andross,’ please.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Andross said, “There’s an island off Tabes on the Ruthgari coast. Good little harbor, tricky approaches to dissuade raiders, and looks crude from without but is luxurious within. Comfortable for a household of fifteen or twenty. I meant to keep it secret even from you. Do you know of it?”

“Yes. Followed the money, of course.”

Andross inclined his head. “It’s yours. The deed’s among those papers. Sell it if you wish. Fair wages, I think, for twenty-three years of your labors.”

“But you purchased me.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. And the man who sold you to me now owes me a great debt.”

He said this without emotion, but the malice was clear. Grinwoody was a victor, but any others who had betrayed Andross were simply enemies. And his memory was long and long.

“Naturally,” Andross said, “should I see you again, or hear of your interference . . .”

“Naturally,” Grinwoody said.

He took his papers and walked to the door as if he expected Andross to shoot him in the back at every step. But he stopped when he got the door open. He looked back. He looked as if to experience this magnanimity from Andross