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“Is she in Attar?”
A small cloud of annoyance passes over Atticul’s face. “What does it matter to you where she is?”
“Is she in Attar?” Damon says again.
“She is in Swen, with her family.”
“Has her father agreed to this match?”
“You think her father would deny me? I am heir to the Great Empire.”
“So you have not yet asked,” Damon says wryly. “Interesting.” And he holds tight in his heart the hope that Inez’s father will respect her wishes and obstruct this match.
“I have proposed to Selim that he gift her Sanglora Manor. I am sure that will make her father see the benefit of keeping her close ties with the Darek line.“
Damon’s mind reels. He has abandoned her. Inez. He has been frolicking on Sanvicta with Lyr and left Inez to be used as a tool in another round of Rose Court scheming. But what can he do? What power does he have? Why is he even being told of this? “And what does this have to do with me? I am no longer her husband.”
“Chancellor Vindar and the Rose Court have required that if you live you must give your agreement. I have a document for you to sign. It would be easier if I had found you dead. As you live, I will have to persuade you. Or change that.”
Chancellor Vindar, Damon thinks. He remembers what Lyr had said the night before. Vindar wants him out of the way because he plots to put his son on the throne. He has sent Atticul here with this news. He is once again pitting him and Atticul against each other. Perhaps he hoped that if Damon lived he would refuse this and Atticul would kill him, or even that there would be a fight in which Damon killed Atticul.
Powerless as he is, Damon at least has the power to deny that.
He says, “Don’t trouble your men. I’ll sign it as you wish.”
“Shall we go into your keep? Father asked me that, if I did find you alive, I let him know how you are living.”
“Very well,” Damon says, standing, taking care to hide the weakness in his shoulders. He leads Atticul into the bare single room of the keep’s lower floors. The four bodymen are upstairs. Damon can hear them moving around. He hopes Lyr was thorough. That he had made the bed look like it was for one man and removed the oil bottle beside it.
Atticul looks into the pots on the stove.
“I thought the enforcers were instructed to dig up the gardens and salt the earth.”
“They were. They did.”
Atticul looks at the food on the table. The bowls of barley and jars of lentils. “Has someone sent you supplies?”
“There was some stock remaining in the cellar.”
Atticul sniffs. Damon waits, wondering if he will insist on removing the food. It would be his right within the law. Damon should have nothing but the bread and water he was left with.
The bodymen come back down the stairs. “There’s no one here,” says the tallest of the four.
“There is a cellar. Did you check that?”
“Yes, Your Grace. We can scout the island.”
“Go on. Three of you go. One of you, stay here.”
Damon watches the three bodymen leave. Then he looks at the stout one who remains, standing behind Atticul. His brother, he thinks, still fears him.
Atticul produces a parchment and a piece of charcoal. Damon reads it over. It is simply a document asserting that he gives permission for Atticul to marry Inez as his own claim to her is nullified because he committed sins of the body during his marriage. He writes his name with the charcoal at the bottom. He hopes Inez never sees it.
“Thank you,” Atticul says, taking the parchment and tucking it back inside his jacket. “Did your whore really not come here?”
“No. If he escaped the dungeons somehow he would have run. He would have saved himself. Got as far away from Azuria as he could.”
“And after you gave your life and dignity to save him. I expect he has gone back to his old Mistress. He belonged to the Hevelikar bitch, not Ramel, did you know?”
