Chapter 15: Lies
WITH the unheard of case of an assassin sneaking into the royal castle’s inner compound temporarily resolved with his capture, the king had summoned Unen and her friends to the main residence’s sunlit guest room.
King Klinack and Aide Harabal were already waiting for them inside. Yet, the man who had kicked back and boasted about the room’s lavishness as if it had belonged to him was absent.
Klinack invited them to sit before speaking formally to Unen. “Lady Unen, as the lord of Kujh Castle, and as the king who rules over all Cerná Kingdom, I accept full responsibility for the danger you faced. It was a direct result of my poor judgment. I offer you my sincerest and most heartfelt apologies for all you have been put through.” Fatigue stretched the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes.
Vrba’s chamberlain Jalt had loosed the arrows at Unen. He was renowned as the greatest archer in all of Schaehor, and had received orders from his lord to assassinate the mapmaker Sparrow Eyes.
Gold mines belonging to Cerná Kingdom were located within Vrba’s Schaehor Province. A former king once granted the mountain range to Vrba’s ancestors, but ownership had been reclaimed by another king upon the discovery of a gold vein.
That was three generations ago. A hundred years had passed without much change until last year, when a new vein of gold was rumored to have been found near the summit of one of the mountains. It was merely “rumored” because Vrba had bribed the magistrate overseeing the mountain range’s mines, so the new discovery was never officially been reported back to the king. In other words, Vrba had been trying to retain unlawful possession of the newfound gold.
If Klinack came to regard the mapmaker he had summoned highly, and thus asked Unen to map his entire kingdom, then the gold-laden mountain range would inevitably be surveyed in the very near future. They had heard that the new gold vein ran so close to the surface that Vrba was already conducting open-air mining. However, even if he could buy silence from the magistrates and miners, lying about the shape of the mountain was impossible. Were Unen to make a map that faithfully reproduced the curves of the land, his crimes were destined to be revealed. Therefore, Vrba had tried to put an end to Unen’s life before she could pose a threat to him.
After having explained these circumstances, Klinack covered his face with his hand and let out a loud, heavy sigh. He was clearly tormented. A close friend had attempted an assassination within his castle, and even more disturbing, he had been betrayed by a vassal he had trusted deeply as the king.
But Klinack dispelled his vulnerability with the sigh and now bore a commanding visage. Slowly running his steady gaze over each person present, he stopped on Mouru. “I’ve heard from Harabal that our success in apprehending the assassin owes most to you. In that regard, would you care to explain how you caught on to Vrba’s treacherous plan?”
Mouru nodded eagerly and suddenly directed his gaze at Unen and Irena. “Did you notice that the highwaymen who attacked us on our way here possessed no items, such as bags or rope, for securing and transporting their spoils?”
He must have been feigning his illness after all, because he spoke with enthusiasm. Unen really hated to admit it, but she had to shake her head no at his question.
“Maybe they were thinking of stealing their victim’s bag with the spoils inside, essentially removing the need for extra bags, but there’s always a chance that the victims will fight back and rip the bags in the process. For those who make a living off stealing, preparing to minimize unnecessary losses is a way of life. Besides, items and horses only get you so far. For highwaymen, women and children make for excellent spoils as well. If they’re lucky enough to score someone from a noble family, they could even charge a hefty ransom. Despite all that, our attackers didn’t even have a single strand of rope. There’s no other explanation, of course, other than that they were planning to kill and only kill, right from the start.”
Mouru paused and raked his gaze over the room. “That begs the question: Who was the target? Naturally, you can come up with all sorts of possible targets, but considering that they were prepared to kill at that place and time…”
He pointed at Unen. “You were the most likely candidate.” The corner of his mouth drew upward. “So, temporarily setting aside the other options, I hypothesized that the ‘Mapmaker summoned to the royal capital’ was their target. Acting on that premise, I sought assistance from Lord Harabal last night.”
Harabal took the cue to speak next. “Last night, Master Mouru came to me to inquire about whom else knew that His Majesty had summoned Lady Unen to the capital. Hence, I answered him so: His Majesty, myself, the emissaries Sir Sissel and Sir Turek, and Lord Vrba, who happened to be present when the messenger had arrived from Chelveny with a list of excuses from his lord for attacking Lady Unen.”
“Ahhh,” Klinack muttered. “I spoke with my queen about it as well, but certainly, I hadn’t informed anyone else of the details. I didn’t want to draw much attention, as it may have affected you adversely had your maps turned out to be a sham and word spread of a mapmaker being tossed out of the royal castle…”
Klinack abruptly gasped. Creases forming in his brow, he angrily placed his hands on his desk and turned to shoot daggers at Harabal standing beside him. “Did you lie to me last night? When you said that the Master Mage had asked if we were going to war?”
“No, that was not a lie. I simply left out what the rest of our conversation had been about, Your Majesty.”
Klinack brought his hand to his face and groaned, but didn’t press for further details.
Dismissing the king’s dejection, perhaps because he was confident, or perhaps because he knew they held a bond of strong trust between them, Harabal continued explaining. “You see, I also became convinced that the attack had not been the work of typical highwaymen after Master Mouru told me of the details. I found it strange that Lord Vrba, who had not once shown an inkling of interest in geography or mathematics, had become so invested in our talks about mapmaking—especially when it came to recording undulations in the ground. However, we did not have enough information to determine whether that was connected to the highwayman incident or not.” Harabal signaled for Mouru to take over the conversation again.