Van where it is, that’ll please him, let him know I’m on the level. Just tell him Fishhook Lane, he’ll know where to come.”
“You can tell him, once I’ve made sure it is hers.”
A quick movement on the deck caught Holden’s eye. One of the crew, shinning up a mast, to relieve the lookout, he supposed. A lookout, even in port, and the crewman one he recognized. This was Josie’s ship all right.
Holden turned back to Tallia with a smile, but all he turned to was shadows and empty space.
* * *
Rillen headed back to the palace, cursing his men, himself and, most of all, the slippery bastard Van Gast. His men were still chasing him but Rillen knew the rack was lost, for now. He allowed himself a small, tight smile. Other plans, there were always other plans, better ones. He just had to work out what they might be.
The night breeze ruffled his hair as he entered the palace, the heels of his boots clicking on the tile floors, loud in the silence.
Too silent.
The door to his father’s audience chamber lay open ahead of him, lamplight spilling through. One of the mages’ slaves came out, eerily silent on bare feet, his copper-bronze face oddly featureless in his numbness. Rillen’s lip curled against it, against the horror of the man’s emotionless eyes, the way they turned blindly to follow him as he moved. The man’s hand came up, limp as a dead fish, and beckoned him into the chamber. He considered carrying on, pretending he’d never seen the thing, just walking past and on to his room to wait for news.
“Your father commands you,” it said, the voice worse than the eyes. A flat monotone, a dead voice with the chill of tombstones on it.
“Commands me what?” Rillen couldn’t suppress the shiver that trickled across his shoulders, or the sharp edge of fear that crept into his voice.
The man waved him toward the chamber again.
He had nothing to fear. Bissan wouldn’t bond him. Not him but maybe fat Old Toady, should their plans work out, if he could ever catch Van Gast. Nothing to fear from this pitiful thing.
Rillen swallowed back fear-sharp bile in his throat, made wide berth around the slave and entered the chamber. All his fear melted away at the sight of Old Toady on his dais. Fool, stupid old fool.
His father smiled, a rare true one, no hint of slyness or artifice about it. “News?”
“Not yet, sir.” Hold your tongue. Bite it if you have to.
“So, no Van Gast in our cells. Well, Rillen, I think I may be able to help.” The smile twisted, became pregnant with condescension. “An informant.”
“Do you think I need one?”
“Oh yes. He’s not in the cells yet, is he? And disgruntled women make the very best informants.”
“They can be treacherous too. Do you trust this one?” Rillen let his glance encompass the mages, and one in particular.
“Absolutely” was all Bissan said.
Urgaut took over, saving the mage from having to move any more. “As he says, we trust this source absolutely. She has the very best of reasons for giving us the information. There’s nothing like revenge from a betrayed woman.”
“So what are your orders?”
“You’ve proved yourself incapable of catching the man in the past, so it appears that you could use this woman’s service. But this time, use this woman and her information to draw him out.”
Van Gast wasn’t that stupid and neither was Rillen. He said nothing, only waited for his father to go on. Rillen could tell by the way his face was wobbling he was holding on to something, stringing it out, hoping to impress. Rillen bit back a grin as one of the mages stole the wind from his father’s sails.
“I see you’re skeptical, and I see why. The mages tried to use his enemy against him last time. We shan’t make that mistake. This time, we shall use those closest to him. Those he loves. Bait for a trap.”
Rillen watched the mage carefully as he considered. “You know who these people are? No matter how we try, we’ve never got close enough to him to tell who’s his friend and who are just people he knows. And we’ve tried very hard.”
The mage managed a smile without cracking too many crystals. “We know. We hear the screams of the dungeons from our rooms. Very thorough, but a rack will never give up information about another. Unless they want to, unless there is something in it