“Aye, that’s it. No jurisdiction here. If anyone finds out he’s holding Vocho, especially if the prelate’s after us, er, him, all hell will break lose. So he’ll make it look official and take him straight to the Shrive.”
She shook her head. “No, they’ve been sneaky up till now. And I think they want him for something other than just execution, which is all he’ll get there. What do you think, Dom?”
“Who, me?” He tried his best at a bumble, but she’d seen through him now and only raised an eyebrow. “I think they used him to kill the priest, however they managed that. I also think you taking the papers, the threat that you might show them to the prelate, has forced their hands. They have to do something, and who better than the renowned Vocho the priest murderer as someone to pin the blame on?”
They wanted the papers back or destroyed, but Kacha had told Petri she was going to show them to the prelate. Now they had Vocho and would either force him to do something for them or offer to trade him for the papers, or both. They had her over a barrel.
Dom seemed much more, well, serious. He’d lost all his twitter, all his bumbling, seemed wound up and ready to spring. He looked about keenly. “Look, it’s not safe out here on the street. I can help. My father’s got a house here in Reyes, not far from the king’s. I didn’t want to chance it before, because, well, because my father’s pissed as hell at me for disappearing and he might have come here looking for me. But I went there after I got split up from Vocho, and he’s not in residence. We can use it to hole up until we do whatever it is we’re going to do.”
Who did she have left to trust? Dom and Cospel. She wanted to leave, leave all of them behind and just go and be herself somewhere. Maybe she would, but she had to see Vocho alive first, if only because what Dom had said last night made her feel guilty as hell, and perhaps Dom and his connections were all she had to do that with.
“All right.”
He gripped her arm and smiled, and she wondered if he’d been like this from the start whether she wouldn’t have minded Vocho trying to play at matchmaker so much. When he stopped all that stupid twittering and the fake manners that passed for fashionable in Reyes these days, he was quite attractive in a strange kind of way. Smart too, and she liked that in a man.
“Come on,” he said now. “Cospel? Why don’t you hook back to the inn, see if anyone’s still there or looking out for us? If not, perhaps bring our things. Meet us at the last house on King’s Row.”
King’s Row? Kacha shook herself. That was where all the old nobles used to live, and the last house had once belonged to Egimont’s father. He’d taken her there to show her once, and the echoing frustration and anger had been clear.
Dom mistook her shudder. “Not for long, I promise. We’ll get your brother back, alive and in one piece.”
Interlude
Eight months earlier
“Petri! Come in, come in.”
Bakar hadn’t changed much, Petri thought as he sat in the chair indicated in the prelate’s office. Still tall and rangy, his hair still blond and untouched by grey. Still as intense as ever, even if that intensity had been turning into oddity just lately.
It was Petri that had changed, perhaps. Not surprising, given he’d been no more than a boy when he first came into Bakar’s service. He’d fallen for the prelate’s ideology of equality as only a teenage boy can – with every fibre of his being. He still believed it, but doubts were starting to creep in. Maybe that was why Bakar had called for him today.
Bakar smiled expansively and poured out two cups of sweet apple tea, Petri’s favourite. They both took a few sips and sat in silence before Bakar got to the point.
“You’re unhappy in the office. No, don’t deny it. I see that you are. Not surprising for someone of your energy, but I’ve been saving something for you. Something that only you can do for me, perhaps. Something that it may please you to do.”
“I’m always pleased to serve the prelate,” Petri answered.