clockwork had planned for them. Each of their frustrations was nearly the same as the other’s.
“You’re highly skilled, or so you claim, and yet you ended up with no clothes. I need that chest back.” Licio blew out his cheeks and relented as quickly as he’d exploded, as usual, his temper like a brief summer storm that’s soon spent. “That chest is vital, do you see? Contracts, agreements, negotiations. Not to mention a lot of gold. A lot. The whole treaty with Ikaras depends on those papers. They were our guarantee that Ikaras would help with armed might when the time came, in return for a few concessions about the mines on the border. Without that treaty and their army we’ve no chance of toppling the prelate; without the gold, no chance of getting a few councillors on side before we strike. Without that chest, I have nothing to offer anyone, and a new treaty might take months – those Ikaran weasels will take every opportunity to get more from us in return for their help. And if that chest falls into the wrong hands…”
Egimont kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t much of a man of words to start with, but the presence of the magician, Sabates, over the last weeks had kept him even quieter. Months ago now Egimont had sworn to Licio he would help restore him to the throne in return for his father’s old duchy and revenge on the guild that had given him up so easily. Also, there had been plans for true justice. Plans to rid the kingdom of wastrels while helping the deserving find work. Many plans to undo what had been done in the prelate’s name and under his supposed ideals of democracy, which had ended up more a brawl for power, more corrupt than any of the worst brutalities the previous kings and nobles had managed.
When Petri had joined him a few months ago, it had been Licio’s high ideals that Egimont had supported, especially the plan about reinstating all the nobles, giving them back their land, titles, and most particularly the part where he was made guild master. No more scribbling away in that dank little box in the prelate’s office for Egimont, drafting increasingly ludicrous edicts. No more believing all the prelate’s lies of a new and brighter future at Egimont’s expense. No more being tied to the predetermined fate that the prelate, or rather the clockwork, had outlined for him.
Licio’s loose ideals had changed with Sabates, had become firm plans. The magician sat there now, though the Clockwork God alone knew how he’d survived the stab in the throat. Magic, Petri supposed. Even before the magicians were massacred or run off after the revolution they’d been secretive so no one knew much of what they were capable of, or how they did it, bar a few gruesome details and stories that had twisted in the telling over time.
Yet Sabates had survived, and had been there in the shadows with his sneer and his scarred face as Egimont and the rest had staggered out of the carriage, numb from being tied up for hours, and stinking from being too close to Berie and his stained underwear. Egimont had been livid too, but one look at the crawling bloody patterns across the man’s hands, and he’d kept quiet and done as he was told. It was all he did since the magician came. And when Sabates had come to Reyes, that’s when Licio had changed from a young man of even temper and high ideals, wanting only the best for the country, into a man possessed by the need to right the wrongs he’d been dealt before he was old enough to walk.
Sabates smiled at Egimont now, cold and impersonal, like he was inspecting an insect before he squashed it.
Licio put an arm around Egimont’s shoulder. “So, how are we going to get that chest back? I’m sure you’ll think of something, Petri. Won’t you?” A squeeze of the shoulder, a glance to Sabates and back. An implied “or else”. Oh, he looked like a king, all right, but it was only now that he was starting to act all too much like the last king. That hadn’t ended well for both the king and many of his nobles, whose blood now haunted the square outside the Shrive.
“Of course, your highness. Upon my honour.” Egimont risked a look at Sabates and got a smirk in return.