“I’m a popular man, always was.” He grinned.
Amara recognised many of the new faces from the village. Some were men, young and old, oarsmen who she’d seen coming and going from the island. Others were fishermen, shark-killers and seal-hunters. There were some women too, sail-stitchers and net-makers, and some of them had children with them, even babes still on the breast.
“What are they all doing here?” Amara asked. “Do they want to leave?”
“After all this? Aye. Some of them are old enough to remember the old wars out here, back when the Great One won his throne. They call it the War of the Lakeland Lords. Was a bloody business, so I’m told, though before my time. They fear a repeat, now that the Great One’s dead.” He paused, peering at her. “He is dead, isn’t he?”
She nodded. “He’s eaten his last herring, shall we say.”
Captain laughed. “The fish o’ the lake will sleep easy tonight.”
“So they expect the other pirate lords will make a claim for this sanctuary?”
“Aye. That’s the fear, same as last time. Soon as word of all this gets out, all them bloody pirates will be at each other’s throats. The Great One kept things stable, in a way. And there are some nasty men out there, m’lady. This lot here would rather take their chances somewhere else.”
That was a headache Amara could do without. “There will be no civil war for control of these islands,” she said. “I plan to send soldiers here to take control, but in the meantime, I hoped to put the seneschal in charge. You are quite aware of that, Captain. We have spoken of it already.”
“We have, aye, but not these.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the villagers. “They got no idea any of this would happen tonight, and are flocking to the new power, m’lady, as all serfs tend to do. That’s you.”
“No. I’m not staying. The new power will be the seneschal who will take temporary charge.” That was assuming he hadn’t already escaped. “I hope you didn’t see him fleeing on some boat, Captain?”
“I saw him try,” the Seaborn said.
“Try? What do you mean?”
“I mean he tried to scramble onto one o’ those longships, but Sir Montague managed to stop him before he could. Got him penned up in the butchering hut as we speak. That seneschal’s always been a little squeamish o’ blood, m’lady, so Monty thought it would be a good idea to keep him there, while he awaits you.”
That made Amara want to let him squirm a little longer, but she had a pressing urge to get all this business done. “I’ll go and talk to him now. Make sure you impress upon these people that they will be safer staying here. Tell them help will come, and they will be protected. But if they leave, they are on their own. I cannot offer them my protection.”
“Aye, m’lady, I’ll tell ‘em.”
She walked in the direction of the butcher’s hut, Sir Penrose at her side. “How’s it going out there, Pen?” she asked, knowing the knight would be keeping watch.
“It’s calming, my lady. I suspect it will be over soon.”
“Can you see Jovyn?”
“I can. He is with Ben and Sir Talmer. There is no sign of Sir Hockney. He may have been killed at the armoury.”
“Find out for me while I’m speaking with the seneschal. And lend your blade to finishing things off. Sir Montague will keep watch.”
They were soon at the butchering hut, where the former Suncoat stood defending the door. “My lady. I have the seneschal.”
“I heard. Thank you, Sir Montague.” The man was far too well-mannered and courtly to be in a place like this, serving that disgusting whale. There were many men like that here, Amara had come to see. Disillusionment had brought them here, and shame had kept them from leaving. But Amara Daecar was giving them a way out. And for that she had their loyalty. “I take it he is unarmed?”
“Unarmed, yes. Unharmed, no.” A smile graced the lips of Sir Montague Shaw. “He had a little dagger tucked up his right arm sleeve, and another on his leg. I took them both off him…with a little force, I confess.” He paused, glancing at the door behind him. “He claims he helped in the venture tonight, my lady. That he was himself a part of the plot.” A frown formed on his brow. “Is that true?”
“No. It is a bare-faced lie. I will get to the bottom of this, Sir Montague.”
“I am sure you will, Lady Daecar.” Sir Montague Shaw opened the door for her to pass, and she stepped inside. The door was left ajar behind her.
The interior was dim, the smell unpleasant. Dim torches burned on the plank wood walls to either side of a large, bloody table, scarred with cuts from the butcher’s blade and lacquered in long years of fish guts and gore. At the far end, hooks hung down from the ceiling on lengths of chain, swaying ominously. One bore a small shark, another a large seal, which Amara supposed was fitting. There were buckets filled with entrails and old mops propped up against one wall. Pails of chum for the shark-catchers sat near the door. Amara looked at those and smiled. “You’d make good chum, don’t you think, seneschal?”
The slimy little man was standing in one corner, half in shadow, a bruise already ripening on his cheek and about his left eye. There appeared to be some rips and tears on his clothing, though with that absurd, leafy garb he wore, it wasn’t so easy to tell. “I would…rather not find out,” he said, trying to raise that unctuous little smile of his. His eyes were hooded, shoulders tight. “You don’t mean to…”
“Kill you?”
He swallowed. “I have only ever been a servant, my lady. I follow who I must, to survive.”
“And you will follow me now? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
He nodded nervously. “I have been doing so for some time, my lady. I…I tried to tell Sir Montague, but he wouldn’t believe me. I have been helping you, whether you know it or not.”
She peered at him, curious. “How have you been helping me, pray tell?”
“The…the schedule, my lady. I set it...so that you would have your own allies posted at the…”
“Don’t lie to me, seneschal.”
“I am not lying, my lady. I tell you true, I set the schedule tonight to aid you. I had heard…whisperings of your plans. For days I have come to suspect something would happen, and for days I said nothing to the Great One. I allied myself to your cause…from the shadows, if you will. I had to protect myself as well, in case…”
“In case it all went wrong.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Then how do you explain Colossus?”
He shook his head at once. “That was not my doing. Wilcock fell ill at the last moment, and Colossus took his place without my knowledge. You must see, my lady. Everything was perfectly laid out for you tonight. You cannot think that to be a coincidence, or mere chance.”
