Page 89 of The Summer Pass

“I think Barda’s right,” Firuduna said. “Let it play out. See what happens.”

What Lill discovered when he debriefed Padunu was that the shaman had made a creditable attempt at information-gathering. He had sought out the right kinds of people and asked the right kinds of questions. The problem was just that he’d been Padunu while doing it.

“It’s usually best to focus on the mission and leave your other, uh, opinions behind,” Lill offered. “Like you’re pretending to be somebody else, somebody who doesn’t care about people eating out of ritual vessels or … ”

It wasn’t something he’d ever had any difficulty with, but he remembered Master Hadda having to teach this lesson to some of the other boys.

“You’re suggesting I compromise my integrity in order to gather information,” said Padunu.

He said it the way you might say, “You’re suggesting I cut off my own head.”

“Yeah,” said Lill. “I guess that’s not something you would do.”

There was that word again: integrity. Or however Vanu had pronounced it. Padunu had inadvertently put his finger on why it was absurd to think that Lill had any.

He went back to Vanu to report. “He says everyone he spoke to favours you over Darma and would support you taking back Tagra Degra. But he didn’t get to talk to many people before they noticed that he’s very annoying and chased him away.”

“Poor Padunu,” Vanu signed wryly.

“He said he knows where Darma is, though,” said Lill. “For what that’s worth. He’s out by the gate, trying to organize his men to put up an effective defence.”

Vanu nodded. “As you’d expect.”

A plan popped into Lill’s head then, almost fully formed. Padunu had a loud voice, and was stubborn in an argument. If you didn’t ask him to tell a lie, but to insist on something that was actually true …

“What if we used Padunu against him?” he said abruptly.

Vanu raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Chapter 30

A Marriage Alliance

Lill crouched on the roof of the granary behind the great house, looking down on the stairwell leading to the dungeon. He touched the knives that he had laid out beside him, reminding himself of their various sizes and weights. It was a collection they had assembled in the wine cellar from the things looted from upstairs, and not all of them were ideal for throwing, but he could make do.

“I can’t use a bow with my arm like this,” he’d said when he described his plan to Vanu.

“We don’t have a bow, anyway,” said Vanu.

“Right, but I can still throw. And if you just want to threaten someone, I can miss.”

Now Vanu was lounging by the head of the dungeon stairs, leaning casually against the wall with his arms folded, as if he were fully at home, just waiting for a friend. Lill felt a ridiculous desire to wave, but of course Vanu wouldn’t wave back; he knew better than to do anything that could betray Lill’s position, even if they didn’t think anyone was watching yet.

The question was whether Darma would come in person or not. Lill hoped he would, but Vanu thought there was a good chance he would just send his men.

“He’s not a coward in general,” Vanu had said, matter-of-factly, “but he is afraid of me.”

They had been concerned to get into position as quickly as possible, but then the wait seemed interminable. Lill had time to worry that he had overestimated Padunu’s capacity to be annoying—surely not?—or that the shaman hadn’t understood his part of the plan.

But then he heard voices approaching, sounding angry. Below, Vanu tensed subtly and dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword.

In another moment, Lill could see the crowd coming past the angle of the granary roof. He had a view of them before Vanu did.

Padunu had done his job all too well, it seemed. In the forefront of the approaching crowd was a group of Darma’s loyal guards—Lill recognized a couple of them—half-running ahead of a rabble of men and women loudly shouting at them. Lill caught snippets of what they were shouting. Darma had sent his men to capture Vanu, sure enough, but they were being followed by residents of Tagra Degra who supported Vanu, apparently intent on turning this into a public standoff.

That wasn’t what Lill had planned for. He’d imagined Darma acting according to the rules he was used to: hearing where his enemy was, through Padunu’s “unguarded” raving, and coming alone to take him out, or sending a small number of men. He’d imagined Darma would want to be discreet. He’d imagined—he’d known—that between them, he and Vanu could handle whoever came. That was probably still true, but this was going to be much messier than he had anticipated.

His gaze flicked down to Vanu, standing by the top of the dungeon stairs. They’d picked this spot on purpose so he’d have somewhere to fall back to if necessary, and more importantly somewhere to take prisoners. He didn’t want to shed blood unnecessarily. These were the residents of his fortress, his people; he wanted them on his side.