CHAPTER SIXTEEN
One of Marcus’ servants stitches the wound in my shoulder while others quickly clear the bodies away without question. They move with such efficiency that I find myself wondering if this is something they’ve had to do before. If they’re overwhelmed by the situation, they give no sign of it.
Marcus is sitting nearby, on one of the gilded couches of his villa, sipping a goblet of wine.
He would look calm, except that his hand is gripping the goblet tightly enough that his knuckles are white with the effort, and he’s shaking ever so slightly.
I can’t tell if that’s the normal aftermath of battle as the adrenaline leaves his body, or if he’s simply that angry.
"It's all right," I say as soon as the servant is done stitching the wound in my shoulder.
“It really isn’t,” Marcus says, his voice thick with emotion.
I move to sit beside him. I’ve seen him in fights before, against Alaric’s resistance and others, but I don’t think I’ve seen him in the aftermath of a fight like this. I put my hand on his shoulder and he tenses at the touch.
“You need to relax, Marcus,” I say. “It’s over.”
“How can I relax when killers came to my home?” he demands. “When they came looking for you.”
I shake my head. "Not for me. For you. As soon as they saw you, they were going to kill you. If I were the target, they would have tried to incapacitate you or go past you. And at the end, they ran rather than continue trying to kill me."
Marcus looks thoughtful. Strangely, he seems less angry that people were trying to kill him than with the possibility that they were trying to kill me. He sets down the wine goblet carefully.
“You’re right. They were coming for me,” he says. He looks momentarily worried. “Does that mean Selene knows I’m not on her side?”
If so, it will fundamentally change the dynamic of our fight against her. Until now, Marcus has been protected partly by his status, but mostly because Selene thinks he’s siding with her. If she learned he’s been working against her from the start, would she send killers like this?
“I don’t think this is her,” I say, after a moment’s thought.
Marcus frowns. “You don’t think Selene has access to killers? That she’d send them against her enemies?”
“Some enemies, maybe,” I say. “I can imagine her sending killers against someone unimportant who got in her way. But that isn’t the way she’s worked so far with other people.
She could try to have Rowan killed, but instead, she’s worked to sideline him.
She could have tried to have me killed, but she was happy enough to see me imprisoned and then given to you.
Selene always seems to have another scheme for people.
And if she did want us dead, I think she’d come and do it herself.
She’d want the satisfaction of knowing she could beat us. ”
“Even if she knew I betrayed her?” Marcus says.
“Even then,” I insist. “I think something like this wouldn’t be enough of a revenge for her. She’d want to destroy you politically, to take me from you, and then, if she killed you, she’d want to do it personally.”
“It’s terrifying to think that we know it isn’t Selene because things would be far worse if it were,” Marcus points out.
It is, but I also think it’s true. I’m convinced Selene Ravenscroft didn’t play a part in tonight’s events. Which means someone else sent the assassins.
“If not her, then who?” Marcus wonders aloud. “The resistance?”
I shake my head. “They’re allies now, not enemies.”
“Some faction within them might not have gotten the message. They might think they’re doing Alaric a favor by killing the man who holds you prisoner.”
"I don't think this was the resistance," I say. "If it were a single individual, maybe, but this was a well-coordinated strike by half a dozen trained killers. Alaric would have stopped something like this in the planning stage."
“Not least because of the possibility of you getting hurt,” Marcus agrees, sounding thoughtful.
“All right. Not them. And I don’t believe this is some random business rival.
The timing would be too much of a coincidence.
Why now, just as Selene’s building up to her Grand Tournament?
Why not months ago, or after it’s done? No, there must be a connection. ”
“Selene has plenty of people around her who might use assassins,” I point out. “Particularly if they thought removing you might give them some advantage.”
“That’s plausible,” Marcus says. “The question is which of them. Actually, no. The question is what happened to my guards. Exus!”
A servant comes running. He’s a young man of perhaps eighteen, with short dark hair and dark eyes. He looks worried by tonight’s events, but also determined, as if he’s making sure he doesn’t let Marcus down in the middle of this chaotic situation.
“The city guards have been alerted, Senator,” Exus says.
Marcus winces. “I guess it’s necessary, not that I suspect they’ll do anything.”
He’s right. If this is one of Selene’s followers, then they’ll only find themselves punished for what happened tonight if Selene wants it.
“Is there any sign of my bodyguards?” Marcus asks. “The ones who should be protecting the villa gates?”
The servant shakes his head. “No, Senator.”
“There’s no sign of their bodies hidden beyond the walls?” Marcus asks.
“I can check.”
“I’ll check,” Marcus says.
"If you're going out there, I'm coming with you," I say. There's always a chance the killers will be waiting beyond the walls of the villa, and I'm not letting Marcus go out to face that threat alone.
Marcus nods, and the two of us head out through the villa's gardens. Exus comes with us, tagging along without being asked. I have Marcus' dagger tucked away again, while he has his sword in his hand once more. The servant is unarmed, and that makes me worried about his safety if there are any more threats. But I don't have the authority to command him back inside as the three of us start to skirt the perimeter of Marcus’ villa. I don’t even know what he makes of Marcus’ supposed prisoner helping to fight the way I did.
There aren’t any bodyguards outside the property, and I can’t see any signs of a struggle anywhere. There are no bodies, and no tracks that might suggest any had been dragged away elsewhere.
“I don’t think your guards were killed,” I say.
Marcus nods. “I should take that as good news.”
“But?”
“But if they aren’t dead, it means they betrayed me by abandoning their posts. I want to know why.”
Exus, the servant, looks as though he doesn't quite understand what's going on. "The city guards will be here soon enough, Senator. Perhaps they-"
“When they get here, they’ll want to know what happened,” Marcus says. “Tell them that a group of ruffians and thieves attacked my home, looking to steal what they could. I drove them off, and now I’m searching with my bodyguards to make sure they aren’t planning to come back.”
“But-” the servant begins, but Marcus fixes him with a look. “As you say, Senator.”
I guess Marcus doesn't want the city guards to know the truth of what happened tonight. Perhaps he doesn't trust them when so many are in the pockets of Selene and her followers.
“One more thing,” Marcus says. “What’s the name of the tavern my guards always go to drink at after their shift?”
“I think that’s the Rutting Stag, Senator,” the servant says.
“Ah, yes,” Marcus replies. He looks over at me. “Well, Lyra, I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink after all this.”
*
The Rutting Stag turns out to be on the fringes of Aetheria's entertainment district.
It's still open, despite the late hour, and I get the feeling it never truly closes.
Like so much of the entertainment district, nightfall only means a shift in the tone of the entertainment on offer.
The establishment is large but poorly kept, the paint around its sign peeling somewhat, while a man staggers out into the street and vomits even as Marcus and I watch.
The sound of an out-of-tune fiddle drifts on the night air, followed by raucous merry-making.
"Be ready for anything in there," Marcus says as he leads me inside.
The interior of the tavern is lit by oil lanterns rather than magic, sending shadows flickering throughout. Despite being the middle of the night, there are plenty of people drinking and carousing there.
“There,” Marcus says, pointing to the spot where two guards in the silver and grey of his merchant house are steadily drinking wine, a small scattering of coins spread out on the bar in front of them.
Marcus is already striding over as I struggle to keep up.
“Vaxim, Beko, I should buy the next round!” he says with obviously false ebullience as he comes up to them. “But then, it looks as though you’ve come into some money. Shouldn’t the two of you still be guarding my villa?”
“Look, Marcus,” one of the bodyguards starts, but Marcus cuts him off.
“I think what irritates me most isn’t the betrayal,” Marcus says. “It’s the part where you’ve immediately gone to your usual haunt to spend whatever they bribed you with. It’s finding out the sheer stupidity of the men who were protecting my home.”
“It wasn’t like that,” the man doing the talking says.
“Then what was it like?” Marcus asks.
“Some noble comes up to us and says we can either fight all her men, or we can take the night off to go drinking with her money,” the second guard says. “What would you have done?”
Marcus nods thoughtfully. He puts a hand on the bodyguard’s shoulder, almost companionably. I wince as lightning suddenly shoots through him, sending him tumbling to the floor as the fiddle music stops.
“I would have picked the option that didn’t see my employer nearly assassinated,” Marcus snaps.
There’s a hard look on his face now as he turns to the first bodyguard.
“But since you’re a fan of that kind of choice, how about this?
You’re dismissed from my service either way, but that can happen with another pouch of coins to join the first, or it can involve the city guards dragging you off to a dungeon for being part of a plot to kill a senator. ”
The remaining bodyguard looks terrified. I try to give him a way out.
“Just tell us about the woman who paid you,” I say.
"It was some noblewoman. All golden-haired beauty and arrogance," the guard says. "I think… I think she's a senator."
That description might fit several nobles in Aetheria, but only one who might have a reason to want to hurt Marcus. I look over at him and see realization dawning on his face, too.
“Olivia is behind this,” Marcus breathes.