Chapter 10: Not Here

"Erwan," I said. "Not here."

He didn't look at me.

He was looking at the River Lord's face, an inch from his own, and his knife hand was perfectly still.

"He just told me," Erwan said. "He told me himself, laughing."

"He told you in his own hall, with twelve swords and no witnesses but his own men," I said.

"Kill him here, and he wins. They hang you as a bandit who murdered a lord at breakfast."

"Then they hang me."

"And Katell's boy," I said. "And Katell. And me."

The sword at my neck moved closer.

I didn't step back from it.

"Give him to me in front of a judge," I said.

"At the assize, in five days, in front of the king's judge and the whole of Aven Ford."

"Let him say it there, where it costs him something," I said.

Erwan's jaw worked.

"Swear it," he said.

"I swear it," I said.

For a long moment, nobody in the room moved.

Then Erwan took the knife away from the River Lord's throat and stood up.

He put the knife back in his boot.

The River Lord lay on the floor and laughed up at the ceiling with blood on his collar.

"The assize," he said. "Give my regards to my old friend the judge."

His guards let us walk out.

We went down the tower stairs with Katell's son between us, and nobody said a word until we were on the quay in the cold.

Erwan kept walking.

He went down the quay and around the corner of a warehouse without looking back.

I let him go.

Katell stood with one arm around her son and looked at me.

"You could have had him free by saying yes," she said. "You didn't say it."

"No."

"And then you got him anyway," she said.

She rubbed her face with her free hand.