What the hell have you done?” Momma K asked, looking up as Durzo crashed through the door.
“Good work,” Durzo said. “And with time left for a night out.” He grinned sloppily. He reeked of alcohol and garlic.
“I don’t care about your binges. What have you done to Azoth?” She looked at the still form lying on the bed in her home’s guest room.
“Nothin’,” Durzo said, grinning foolishly. “Check. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with him.”
“What do you mean? He’s unconscious! I came back here and the servants were all in a flutter because you’d appeared here with—they said it was a corpse. I came up and Azoth was here. I can’t wake him. He’s dead to the world.”
For some reason, that set Durzo off. He started laughing.
Momma K slapped him, hard.
“Tell me what you’ve done. Have you poisoned him?”
That brought Durzo back. He shook his head, trying to clear it. “He’s dead. Has to be dead.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Gwinvere gorgeous,” Durzo said. “I can’t say. Someone threatened me. Someone who can do what they said. Said they’d come after Azo first, then you—and they knew about Vonda!”
Momma K drew back. Who had the power to threaten Durzo? Who or what could scare Durzo Blint?
Durzo sank onto a chair and put his face in his hands. “They have to think he’s dead. ’Specially after tonight.”
“You faked killing Azoth?”
Durzo nodded. “To show I didn’t care. To show they couldn’t push me.”
But you do, Momma K thought, and they can. She knew Durzo was thinking it, too. The wetboy had never been as invincible as he seemed. And when his control cracked, it burst wide open. The best Momma K could do was make sure that Durzo went to one of her brothels and have someone keep an eye on him. He might be there for two or three days straight, but she could make sure he was safe. Relatively.
“I’ll take care of the boy,” Momma K heard herself saying. “Do you have any idea what to do with him once he wakes up?”
“He’ll stay with the Drakes like we were planning. He’s dead to this world.”
“What did you use?”
Durzo looked at her, confused.
“What poison—never mind, just tell me, how long will he be unconscious?”
“I dunno.”
Momma K’s eyes narrowed. She wanted to slap him again. The man was insane. Even for a poisoner as gifted as Durzo, it was too easy to misjudge with a child. A child wasn’t simply a scaled-down adult. Durzo could have killed him. Durzo might have killed him. Azoth might never recover. Or he might wake and be an idiot, or not have the function of his limbs.
“You knew he might die,” she said.
“Sometimes you have to gamble.” Durzo patted his pockets, looking for garlic.
“You’re starting to love that boy, and it scares the hell out of you. Part of you wants him dead, doesn’t it, Durzo?”
“If I have to listen to your chitchat, can’t you at least give me a drink?”
“Tell me.”
“Life’s empty. Love is failure. Better he dies now than gets us both killed later.” With that, Blint seemed to deflate. Momma K knew he would say no more.
“How long will you be whoring?” she asked.
“I dunno,” Blint said, barely stirring.
“Damn you! Longer or shorter than usual?”
“Longer,” Durzo said after a minute. “Definitely longer.”
The stream of curses preceded the king into the throne room by a good ten seconds. Lord General Agon could hear servants scurrying out of the way, see the guards at the entrances of the throne room shifting uncomfortably, and note that whatever staff members didn’t absolutely need to be there were fleeing.
King Aleine IX barged in. “Brant! You pile of—” the lord general mentally erased the long list of repulsive things he resembled and refocused his attention when Niner got to the point. “What happened last night?”
“Your Majesty,” the lord general said, “we don’t know.”
Another stream of curses, some of them more creative than usual, but Niner wasn’t terribly creative, and no one dared to swear in his presence, so his arsenal was limited to variations on the word shit.
“What we do know is this,” Brant Agon said. “Someone broke into the castle. I suppose we can assume it was the man we’ve spoken about.” No need for listening spies to learn everything.
“Durzo Blint,” the king said, nodding.
The lord general sighed. “Yes, Your Majesty. He apparently rendered unconscious one guard in the castle itself, and Fergund Sa’fasti, and your stable master in the stables.”
More curses, then “What do you mean, ‘rendered unconscious’?” The king paced back and forth.
“They didn’t have any marks on them, and they couldn’t remember anything, though the guard had a small puncture wound on his neck, as if from a needle.”
The king cursed more and then cursed the abashed mage. As usual, Agon found himself getting more bored than offended. The king’s curses didn’t mean anything except “Look at me, I’m a spoiled child.” Niner finally stumbled across another point: “There was nothing else?”
“We haven’t found anything yet, sire. None of the guards outside your rooms, your wife’s, your daughters’, or your son’s reported seeing anything unusual.”
“It isn’t fair,” the king said, stomping over to his throne. “What have I done to deserve this?” he threw himself down in his throne—and squealed.
He practically flew out of the throne. He clutched Lord General Agon. “Oh gods! I’m feeling faint. I’m dying! Damn you all! I’m dying! Guards! Help! Guards!” The king’s voice pitched higher and higher and he started crying as the guards blew whistles and rang bells and the throne room roared to life.
General Agon plucked the king’s hands free and put the weak-kneed man in the arms of his sycophant, Fergund Sa’fasti, who didn’t know enough to hold on. The king collapsed to the ground and wept like a child. General Agon ignored him and strode to the throne.
In a moment, he saw what he was looking for: a fat, long needle, pointing up from a well-worn cushion on the throne. He tried to pull it out with his fingers, but the needle stuck. It was supported so that it wouldn’t just fold over if the king sat on it wrong.
General Agon drew his knife and slit the cushion open. He pulled out the needle, ignoring the bells, ignoring the guards pouring into the room, surrounding the king and herding everyone else into a side room where they could be held and questioned.
Lord General Agon pulled out the needle. A note tied to it said, “I could have been poisoned.”
“Move aside!” a little man from the back was calling out, pushing soldiers out of his way. It was the king’s physician.
“Let him through,” the lord general ordered. The soldiers moved back from the king, who was whimpering on the floor.
Brant motioned to the physician, showed him the note, and whispered, “The king will need some poppy wine, maybe a lot. But he isn’t poisoned.”
“Thank you,” the man said. Behind him, the king had pulled down his pants and was arching his neck trying to see the wound on his buttock. “But believe me, I know how to deal with him.”
The general suppressed a smile. “Escort the king to his apartments,” he told the guards. “Set a watch on the door, with two captains inside the room. The rest of you return to your duties.”
“Brant!” the king yelled as the guards picked him up. “Brant! I want him dead! Dammit, I want him dead!”
Brant Agon didn’t move until the throne room was empty once more. The king wanted to wage war against a shadow, a shadow with no corporeal parts except the steel of its blades. That was what it would be to assassinate a wetboy. Or worse. How many men would die before the king’s pride was salved?
“Milord?” a woman asked tentatively. It was one of the housekeepers. She had a wrapped bundle in her hands. “I was …chosen to report for the housekeepers, sir. But with the king gone and all …Could I …?”
The general looked at her closely. She was an old woman, obviously afraid for her life. He bet she was “chosen” by having pulled a short straw. “What is it?”
“Us housekeepers found these. Someone left them in each of the royal bedchambers, sir.”
The housekeeper handed him the bundle. Six black daggers were inside it.
“Where?” Brant asked, choking the word out.
“Under—under the royal family’s pillows, sir.”