The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V S Redick Read Free Book Online Page A

pressed the jagged stem of the bottle to his throat.
    All was still. Sandor Ott grinned hideously, one eye blind with blood from Zirfet's first blow. He pulled the other's head up by the hair.
    “You're a coward, are you not?”
    “No, sir.”
    “A coward, I say. A leech from a pigsty pool, like all the men of your line.”
    “I'll kill you, sir.”
    “What?”
    “I swear I'll see you dead if you insult me more. I'm no coward, sir!”
    A quiet sound reached the ears of the spies, and it was a moment before they recognized it as laughter. Ott's shoulders shook. He threw the bottle aside and leaped off Zirfet, who bucked himself unsteadily to his feet. Watching him, Ott laughed louder.
    “If you'd answered
yes
I'd have believed it, lad. You'd be dead on this floor with your throat slit.”
    “Well I know it, Master,” said Zirfet, wheezing.
    “This knife,” said Sandor Ott, tugging it from the table, “was placed in my hand by my first general, after I slew the Mzithrin Lord Tiamek on the Ega Bridge. Will you take it, Zirfet Salubrastin, as token of your honor defended?”
    For the second time, Zirfet froze. Then he staggered forward, eyes wide with astonishment, and took the knife from his master's hand. Eyes met around the room; there were nods of grim approval.
    The spymaster plucked the chart from the floor. Wine had ruined it: the western lands seemed to vanish in a sea of blood.
    “Now hear me once and forever,” said Ott. “There'll be no glancing at doors, for
there are no doors to escape by
. Not for you six, nor for me, nor even for His Supremacy. Rose will captain that ship, and we shall sail with her. The game's begun, lads. We'll play it to the last round.”

Carriage
     
    1 Vaqrin 941
    7:40 a.m .

     
    Captain Nilus Rotheby Rose felt the cat nuzzle his leg and repressed an urge to lash out. A good kick would remind the animal to keep its distance. He knew better, of course. The big red cat, Sniraga, was Lady Oggosk's darling. With luck the beast would remember his great aversion to being touched, without need of a blow that could cost him the hag's services. They had sailed together before, these three.
    The carriage lumped along uphill. He sat with his big arms folded against his beard, watching the hag smoke. A new pipe. Clenched in drier lips. Lost in deeper wrinkles. But the milk-blue eyes with their predatory gaze were unchanged, and he thought:
She'll be sizing me up the same. Best note these eyes, too, you deadly old crone
.
    “So,” he said, “they nabbed you in Besq.”
    “Fah.”
    “Beg your pardon,” said Rose. “They wooed you, perhaps? Called you
Duchess?
Handed you a card in silver writ?”
    The old woman rubbed her nose vigorously. Repulsed, the captain turned to the window.
    “Why are we going uphill?” he demanded. “Why aren't we making for the port?”
    “Because there's a crowd like a Ballytween Fair about your vessel,” muttered Oggosk. “And we've two more to pick up.”
    “Two? The mayor spoke of just one—that preening doctor.”
    Oggosk snorted. “The mayor of Sorrophran is the Emperor's bootshine-boy—nay, the rag itself. But His Supremacy doesn't own the
Chathrand
. If he hires the Great Ship, he does so at the pleasure of the Chathrand Trading Family. There will never be a crew aboard her but meets with the Family's blessing.”
    “Don't lecture me, Oggosk,” said Rose, his voice a warning rumble. “I've commanded her. Farther and better than any man alive.”
    “Then you'll recall Lady Lapadolma's most irritating habit.”
    “Reciting that foul verse?”
    “Stocking the crew!” snapped Oggosk. “Intruding on your rights as captain! Every voyage she afflicts us with one or two, her personal tattlers. No other Family presumes so much.”
    Rose grunted. Lady Lapadolma Yelig was the ruling grandmother of the Trading Family that had owned and outfitted the
Chathrand
for twelve generations. She was the Emperor's own cousin, but showed no better than a