Chương 75: Book 2: Chapter 11 - Saint Krispin's Day

In the business of building a nation there are no clean hands. We do not ask if a price will be paid, it will and it must, we ask only which price and who will bear it. A revolution that promises heaven is a lie told by cowards to children. - The Red Sash Manifesto, author unknown ISABELLA Brinewater Bridge had been decommissioned almost two years ago, the southern industrial canal left to neglect, filthy and stinking, black with mining slurry runoff and human waste.

The surrounding buildings positioned outside the city walls had devolved into a slum, scavengers and drug addicts making noises in the night like wild animals howling to their pack. That Morrigan had chosen this place for a meeting felt symbolic, though what message he was trying to send I wasn't quite sure. I stood waiting in the remains of a tollhouse on the nearside of the bridge, adjusting my heavy wool cloak and fiddling with the straps of my daggers.

"We should collapse the bridge and watch the fucker drown in shit," Kalia said three paces to my left, making no attempt to lower her voice. She had her own reasons for hating Krispin Morrigan that predated the Greycloaks, but tonight was not a night to settle scores.

"If the man's the pig they say, you'd just be giving him a good time." She huffed at that, but let it go.

"He's desperate, we should hear what he has to say."

"Whatever he says, I can guarantee he's lying. You can't make deals with a snake." Kalia checked the clasp on her newest pair of steel gauntlets, the stamped metal phoenix flashing in the moonlight. Even she had been seduced by the quality of William Marcell's impossibly cheap goods, not that I could blame her - there wasn't much money in revolution it turned out, and the purity of his steel would have been impressive at twice the price.

"Victor tore through his safehouses in the Narrows; killed half a dozen of his operatives and injured a dozen others, took a sizable chunk of his coin and left his operation on shaky footing." Marcell's intelligence had been impressive, handing my brother his first major win against the Greycloaks in months. Victor was so smug this morning I'd had to leave breakfast early to stop myself screaming in his face.

"With phase 2 almost here, we knew we'd have to deal with Morrigan sooner rather than later, and at least now we have the upper hand."

"That's what bothers me, why would he choose now to parlay? Morrigan is human scum, but he's not stupid, he would never negotiate from weakness." I stepped up to the rusted iron railing and peered out into the fog.

"You're right to worry, something about it feels off to me too, but he's clearly got eyes inside our operation and the Festival of the Tides is rapidly approaching." We had 18 months of preparation riding on one day, I couldn't let an unknown element derail everything, we'd worked too hard.

"Ren and Pike are watching the perimeter from the northern smokestacks," Kalia sighed, yielding reluctantly.

"Flash-powder charges on our side of the bridge, if anything feels off, send out an alert through the party link and we'll light up the night and blind his scouts. Fallback is the secondary safehouse through the sewer sluice." I nodded.

"I don't expect he will try anything, not tonight anyway." It was true, if he wanted to attack us openly he wouldn't do it this way, but I was still not taking any chances.

"All that's left to do now is wait." The damp cold seeped into the leather of my boots as the night fell into a heavy, expectant silence. It was a duality I'd become accustomed to, sipping imported tea from fine porcelain surrounded by servants one moment of the day, wet and dirty overlooking a sewage pit with a dagger in my fist the next.

A few minutes later, on the far side of the bridge, a series of shapes emerged from the fog, their grey cloaks swaying over dark leather armor in a synchronous gait like a choreographed dance. At the center of the formation was an average-looking man, large for a thief but otherwise unremarkable. Wispy blonde hair clung to his balding scalp, a patchy beard that he tried to style but fell on the wrong side of fashionable.

He was almost sixty now, his tailored overcoat, pristine leather gloves, and polished boots hiding the street rat underneath. Krispin Morrigan, a man with a formidable reputation for mischief and a body count several pages long. It was said he'd been a fearsome mage hunter in his youth but had turned to a life of thieving after realizing it was both less dangerous and more profitable.

As a girl, he'd done work for my father, but eventually the relationship soured and he'd been exiled to the capital where he'd found his footing working for Vargo. Eastwatch born and raised, he'd returned at the first opportunity, bringing his Greycloak infrastructure with him. I'd made the calculated decision not to intervene in his rise to local prominence, but he'd had more success than I'd expected, a fact that had earned him a lot of the wrong kind of attention.

Kalia and I moved to the center of the bridge and he stopped about ten paces away, his guards taking up position behind him, their hands hovering near weapons that hung at their hips. The full moon above slipped from behind a cloud, casting the scene in a silvery light that reflected off my porcelain mask. He smiled, gold canine teeth flashing, and waited for me to begin. I let him wait, activating [Aetheric Empathy] to read the subtle changes in his demeanor as the silence stretched into an uncomfortable tension.

Morrigan responded by resting his hands on the silver head of a cane that had materialized from his inventory, a wolf carved into its metal cap, teeth bared in a growl. The guards shifted but Morrigan showed no signs of uneasiness, just the still confidence of a man who'd been operating in these sorts of situations most of his life. If the sudden change in his fortune bothered him, he was very good at hiding it.

"The Queen of the Bandits," Morrigan intoned, his voice a soft, cultured tenor completely lacking the Eastwatch laborer accent he'd had in his youth.

"I am honored that your royal highness has deigned to speak with me. I do apologize for the stench, but my knees are not what they once were and the Narrows are such a long walk."

"I'm more than happy to accommodate," I said, tone modulated to an intimidating synthetic rumble.

"I can understand why you might not want to venture far from your hovel these days." He offered a strained smile, tilting his head an acknowledging nod.

"It is true that the Thorne whelp caused damage that will take some time to fully ameliorate, but it is of no concern in the larger scheme of things," he said with a clinical detachment that read in his aura as minor annoyance.

"The boy is a blunt instrument, easily tricked, but it seems he has a new master yanking his leash. I don't suppose you know who that is?" Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"I was going to ask you the same. I had some rather well-hidden documents nearly go missing recently, fortunately the crew bungled the job." Morrigan leaned on his cane, mouth tightening.

"It seems we both have leaks to plug, but that is not why we're here."

"If you've come to offer your surrender," I said, flicking a piece of ash from my sleeve, "I'm sure Alastair Thorne would be happy to accept it, though I doubt you will keep your head this time. For my part, I would prefer you simply return to whatever hole in Everton you crawled out of." I felt a sudden tightening in Kalia's stance as Morrigan twirled his cane theatrically in one hand.

"Oh no, my dear, you have the wrong idea entirely," he said, grey eyes twinkling.

"I have come to propose a merger, a hostile takeover, and, eventually, an amicable division of assets."

"An alliance with you strikes me as a perilous proposal given your recent setbacks. Victor Thorne has you in his crosshairs, your demise is more a when than an if, wouldn't you say?"

"I am losing the war with Alastair Thorne, I admit it," Morrigan agreed.

"But so are you, and I think you are smart enough to know it. You have been cautious, I admire that, but you lack the strength to see it through." He took a single step forward and I felt the surge of readiness through my System-link with Ren.

"I know you fashion yourselves revolutionaries, a Red Sash rebellion with a manifesto to rally the common man." He stepped back again, looking up to the smokestacks.

"Maybe you even believe it yourselves. But a rebellion, should it succeed, is only as good as its ability to control what comes after. The people cannot govern themselves, they will look to their new masters for guidance. You want to save them, but the darker side of our nature cannot be saved, it must be contained."

"And you believe you are this moderating force?" I asked, spinning the logic in my mind. Morrigan would turn on me if he could, that much I knew with certainty, but he wasn't entirely wrong. Transition to a new form of government would not be smooth, many would rise up to take advantage of the chaos - a man with the infrastructure and experience to control that chaos would be useful.

"I may be a devil, but I have a simple philosophy that makes me a devil you can trust." Morrigan smiled like an actor on the stage.

"You can have the gilded halls of the nobility, do with them what you wish, burn them down for all I care, but leave me the slums. Apart we will fail, together we may at least have a chance."

"Your organization is in tatters and yet you offer the spoils of a war as if it is already won," I let my voice dip lower, angry.

"You have betrayed everyone who ever put their trust in you, and you lack the strength to fight off even one man." Morrigan's smile didn't waver, but I could feel the disruption of his aura. I knew then that I could bend him to my will if it came to it, break him if I had to, but there was something else I couldn't quite place - a second will inside his own?

"A temporary embarrassment," he said as if the crippling of his operations were but a minor inconvenience.

"I look to split the spoils, but I have no illusions that the war is already won. Agreements must of course be made before plans can be pursued, that should be obvious."

"What makes you think I need you for my plans?" Morrigan took another step toward me and a ball of white-hot heat coated Kalia's hands, her Gold aura pushing against him. He stopped but didn't retreat.

"The Festival of the Tides," he said, low enough that only I could hear him.

"You think you have us all fooled, that you can take Thorne's city right out from under him without a drop of blood being spilled." My heart was beating faster now, the calming effects of my various Charisma skills losing their grip. How much did he know? How was it even possible? Kalia didn't even know all the details.

"The streets full of revelers, the sky full of fireworks, and the Duke busy with the Crown's auditors. It's a remarkably clever plan, I must admit, so many moving parts, so much preparation and discipline." He was bluffing, he had to be, but how had he landed so close to the mark?

"A year of planning? More? I want to see you succeed, I have immense respect for so audacious a stroke, but I will ensure you fail if I must. Weakened as I am, it would take only a whisper in the wrong ears to bring it all crashing down." Every aspect of the phase 2 operation had been meticulously compartmentalized, each team knowing only their part, not even the exact day would be communicated until a week before.

He could have guessed it, perhaps, it was a logical conclusion that the festival would provide a valuable distraction... but no, he wasn't speculating, [Aetheric Empathy] would see the signs. And yet, something was off, almost like he was a shell with nothing inside. Since the leak at Tilly's Refuge, I'd run every one of our operatives - from the guy who cleans the cellars to Kalia herself - through a barrage of Dark Arts examination and found not a single weak link. If it wasn't a leak, then what? Mind reading?

Renard insisted that was a myth, reading auras was hard enough, reading minds was impossible. Maybe a Diamond-Rank skill so rare even Renard had never seen it, but there was no chance Morrigan had access to something like that - if he did he wouldn't be engaging in petty squabbles in a border city.

"Nothing to say?" he asked, clearly pleased with himself.

"You see, we need each other. Believe me, I wish it were not the case." [Royal Bearing] kept my thoughts from spilling into my aura, though Morrigan was a Dexterity class anyway, his aura-reading would have had no chance of penetrating my mask's enchantments. But then, he probably didn't need it to know I was rattled.

"I can help you," he continued, voice barely more than a whisper, forcing me to lean in.

"Accept my terms and I will use my Greycloaks to ensure your plan succeeds... a riot at the East Gate, a distraction at the harbor, perhaps the right hostage or a threat placed in the right ear. You may detest my methods, but you know they're effective."

"If your information is as reliable as you think it is, you would have me accept terms with a sword to my throat. You know I am not foolish enough to do that. Plans fail all the time, we make new ones."

"If that is your position, so be it," he pulled a silver pocket watch from his jacket and examined it as if late for an important meeting elsewhere.

"I will give you one week to reconsider. When you realize you have no other choice, and I expect you will, leave a mark on the door at the Galloping Horse tavern." He tipped an imaginary hat and turned on his heels, the guards collapsing into formation behind him as the heavy fog enveloped their retreat into the night. When their footsteps had faded, Kalia hissed.

"I'm going to kill him," she said, her voice practically vibrating with anger.

"I will hunt down every runner, quartermaster, guard, scout, even the gods damned chef to find out who told him."

"Nobody told him anything, Kal," I said softly, sweat beading on my forehead under the mask which was feeling suddenly oppressive.

"He practically recited the plan, a plan that doesn't exist anywhere on paper - I assume he was right about the date? If nobody talked, then how the fuck?" I stared into the fog where his silhouette had vanished.

"He had information, obviously, but he didn't know what it meant. It was as if he was parroting someone - I could feel a presence, like someone pulling his strings."

"You think he's being controlled?" she asked, the implications darker than any leak.

"Is that even possible?"

"An hour ago I would have said no, but I can't explain what I just saw."

"Whatever is going on, we have to cancel the operation; however he's doing it, he knows enough to be a problem." Kalia was shaken. The phase 2 plan was always a risk, but she was right, if he knew...

"It's not a birthday party, if we cancel, it's over." I gripped the railing of the bridge, twisting the metal until flakes of rust fell off in my hands.

"Alastair Thorne wins, all our work would be for nothing, he'll solidify his position with the money from Marcell, pay off his creditors, lock the city back down. It's now or it's never."

"You intend to take Morrigan up on his offer then? Let him carve up the city into fiefdoms? What would it all have been for?"

"We may have one card yet to play," I said, unsure even as the words left my mouth. She couldn't see my face through the mask, but she didn't need to.

"You can't be serious, we don't know anything about him..."

"He's not from here, he wasn't even in the city when Morrigan made his move. He had a chance to really hurt us with that ledger and he didn't take it. At the very least he wants something from me, and his hatred for Duke Thorne was sincere."

"Even still, he could be playing an entirely different game we know nothing about," she insisted, but the resistance was weakening.

"When you have only bad options, sometimes you just have to play the odds..." I considered the angles, but I couldn't see a better option.

"The minute Caden Gray is back in Eastwatch, I want to know."