Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows

The walls were high, lined with crushed glass and metal spikes that stood as pointed shadows in the dawn light. Bashers manned those walls, men who were both efficient and enjoyed their work. None of the locals tried to intrude anymore. The amateurs had either already tried and paid the price or knew of others who had. The professionals knew they could cross Vanden Bridge and find easier pickings.

His gardens were beautiful, if given to flowers and plants that kept low to the ground so that his archers didn’t have their killing angles obscured. The splashes of vermilion, green, yellow, and orange of his gardens were a stark contrast against the grays and dingy browns of the Warrens.

The servants brought the first course, halved blood oranges with a caramelized sugar crust. Roth opened with a comment on the weather. Not a particularly inspired choice, but Momma K didn’t expect more.

He moved on to commenting on his gardens as the servants brought hot sweetbread. He had the newly rich’s irritating propensity for revealing how much things had cost. He should have known that she would be able to tell from the quality of the service and the meal exactly how much he was spending on this estate of his. When would he get to the point?

“So there’s going to be an opening on the Nine,” Roth said. Abruptly done. He should have divulged an amusing anecdote from his work and used that to lead here. Momma K was starting to doubt this one.

“Yes,” she said. She let it sit. She wasn’t going to make this easy. The sun was just rising above the horizon and the sky was turning a glorious orange. It was going to be a scorching day; even at this hour she barely needed the shawl around her shoulders.

“I’ve been working with Phineas Seratsin for six years. I know the job better than anyone.”

“You’ve been working for the Trematir, not with him.”

His eyes flashed, but he said nothing. A dangerous temper, then. Master Grimson didn’t like to be corrected.

“I think your spies must not be smart enough to have seen the amount of work I do versus what that old man does.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Spies?”

“Everyone knows you have spies everywhere.”

“Well. Everyone knows. It must be so, then.”

“Oh, I see,” Roth said. “It’s one of those things everyone knows but I’m not supposed to mention because it’s rude.”

“There are people within this organization with whom it is dangerous to be rude, boy. If you’re asking for my vote, you’d do well to make a friend of me.”

He motioned to the servants, who took their plates and replaced them with cuts of spiced meats and a lightly broiled egg dish with cheese.

“I’m not asking,” he said quietly.

Momma K finished her eggs and began on the braised meat. Delightful. The man must have brought a chef from Gandu. She ate and looked at the lightening sky, the sun rising slowly over the great iron gate to Grimson’s estate. If he took that comment back, she’d let him live.

“I don’t know how you have such influence on the Nine, but I know I need your vote, and I will have it,” Roth said. “I will take your vote, or I will take your niece.”

The meat that a moment ago had seemed so delightfully spiced, that seemed to melt in Momma K’s mouth, suddenly tasted like a mouthful of sand.

“Pretty girl, isn’t she? Adorable little braids. It’s so sad about her mother dying, but wonderful that she had a rich aunt to find her a place to live, and in the castle itself, no less! Still, a rich old whore ought to have done better than have her niece raised by a serving woman.”

She was frozen. How did he find out?

The ledgers. Her ledgers were done all in code, but Phineas Seratsin was the Sa’kagé’s Master of Coin. He had access to more financial records than the next five people in the kingdom combined. Roth must have followed the records and found payments made to a serving woman in the castle. She was a frightened woman. A single threat from Roth and she’d have folded.

Roth stood, his plate already empty. “No, do sit. Finish your breakfast.”

She did, mechanically, using the time to think. Could she spirit the girl away? She couldn’t use Durzo for this, but he wasn’t the only wetboy she knew.

“I am a cruel man, Gwinvere. Taking a life is …” Roth shivered with remembered ecstasy. “Better. Better than any of the pleasures you sell. But I control my appetites. And that’s what makes us human rather than slaves, isn’t it?”

He was pulling on a thick leather glove. The portcullis of his gate was rising as he spoke. Outside, Momma K saw dozens of ragged peasants gathered. Obviously, this was a daily ritual.

Below, four servants were carrying a table laden with food into the garden. They set it down and walked back inside.

“These wretches are slaves to their appetites. Slaves, not men.”

The starving peasants behind pushed forward and those in front were pushed inside. They looked at the spiked portcullis above them and then at Roth and Momma K. But their eyes were mostly on the food. They looked like animals, hunger driving them wild.

A young woman made a break for it. She sprinted forward. After she had only taken a few steps, others followed her. There were old men and young, women, children, the only thing they seemed to have in common was desperation.

But Momma K couldn’t see the reason for their frenzy. They reached the food and tore into it, stuffing pockets full of sausages, stuffing their mouths full of delicacies so rich they’d probably be sick later.

A servant handed an arbalest to Roth. It was already drawn and loaded.

“What are you doing?” Momma K asked.

The peasants saw him and scattered.

“I kill by a very simple pattern,” Roth said, lifting the weapon. He pressed the trigger plate and a young man dropped with a bolt in his spine.

Roth set the point of the arbalest down, but instead of cranking the winch to draw back the string, he grabbed the string with his glove and drew it back by hand. For the barest moment, black tattoo-like markings rose up as if from beneath the surface of his skin and writhed with power. It was impossible.

He shot again and the young woman who had been the first to run for the table fell gracelessly.

“I feed my little herd every day. The first week of the month, I kill on the first day. The second week, the second day.” He paused as the arbalest drew level again. He shot and another woman dropped as a bolt blew through her head. “And so on. But I never kill more than four.”

Most of the peasants were gone now, except for one old man moving at a crawl toward the gate that was still thirty paces distant. The bolt clipped the old man’s knee. He fell with a scream and started crawling.

“The slaves never figure it out. They’re ruled by their bellies, not their brains.” Roth waited until the old man reached the gate, missed a shot, then tried again, killing him. “See that one?”

Momma K saw a peasant come in through the portcullis. All the others had scattered.

“He’s my favorite,” Roth said. “He figured out the pattern.” The man walked inside, unafraid, nodded to Roth, and then went to the table and started to eat without haste.

“Of course, he could tell the others and save a few lives. But then I might change the pattern, and he’d lose his edge. He’s a survivor, Gwinvere. Survivors are willing to make sacrifices.” Roth handed the arbalest and the glove to a servant and regarded Momma K. “So, the question is, are you a survivor?”

“I’ve survived more than you’ll ever know. You have your vote.” She’d kill him later. There was no showing weakness now. No matter how she felt. He was an animal, and he would sense her fear.