I grit my teeth. I suppose it is time to show my hand.
“The worst possible outcome: one of them confessed.”
He sighs at a scapegoat being preselected for us. “Who?”
“The cook. He was the second servant I interviewed. I asked if he knew who poisoned the senator, and he fell to his knees and confessed that he did it. Which means he didn’t.”
Julian’s lips slant. “Naturally. Who got to him?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Not under my threats to him or his family—the thing he claimed to care most about. I haven’t yet inflicted physical pain, although I was angry enough to try. Instead, after I took his full confession, I forced myself to walk away and seek out Julian. Only, I arrived at the throne room just in time to watch his grand political speech.
Jules strokes his clean-shaven jaw. “What was his reason for using romlock?”
I knit my eyebrows. “It’s fast acting, hard to trace, and has no cure. Why do you look like that?”
He stares at me and tips his head. “Romlock comes from Arthago originally. It’s grown here now, but it was the traditional means to put traitors to death in their kingdom.”
Of course Julian knows this. Along with regular instructors, he had tutors from the Kingdom of Arthago. He is fluent in both languages and has taught me some, but it is not the same as being bilingual from birth. When my father led the merchant council, my family could afford a tutor from Pryor, but that ended when I was thirteen. Everything else I’ve learned on my feet. I study constantly, far more than Julian, but his level of knowledge still eludes me.
Silence flows between Julian and me, steady as the waterfall.
“Do you now think Arthago is involved in this?” I ask.
I hold my breath. If the answer is yes, everything becomes far worse.
Julian runs his hands through his hair. “Not particularly, but I don’t think we can rule it out. It would be convenient to strike at the heart of the republic just as they break the peace treaty.”
“Why those two senators, though?” I ask. “Why the clerk? Especially when Verhardt was the one who insisted we cede land.”
“I’m not sure. Maybe there is something in Antinous’s papers? The Council will debate the war today. I can keep track of how they vote, and maybe that will provide us with a lead.”
A lead?
“You’re suggesting that one of the senators could be in league with Tyronne?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Ever since the annexations on the western coast, there has been a thought that at least one senator has been bought by Arthago—most thought it was Verhardt, but maybe it was one of the others. Foreau has also been mentioned.”
Julian breezily speaks about the deepest possible treachery to our republic—short of someone harboring an Elusian. I shake my head, but the suspicion sticks. The senators are not above taking bribes. Why wouldn’t they line their pockets from the richest treasure chest? It was exactly what they accused my father of. And Terrance has bottomless greed—enough to steal from our treasury.
“I have to go fetch them the snake Lucius Calais,” Jules says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Why is that?”
“They want him to vote for the second province.”
I remember finding Calais moving Antinous’s body, and now he stands to directly benefit from Eyo’s murder. The coincidence gnaws at me. If they approve him, there will be two unelected people voting on the Council. This all feels like a grand design, but for what purpose?
“What do I do about the cook?” I muse aloud.
Julian blinks at me. “You already know what to do. Lock him away somewhere for interrogation and use whatever means necessary to get to the bottom of this. Make him more afraid of you than he is of them.”
He’s right. Violence is often the answer in Pryor.
I nod, ready to do my duty. Although I begin to wonder what I am really protecting.
XXIX.
