In which Keevan confesses his part in the scheme in exchange for Ian’s promise of a return to Eirya…
The saya inclined her head and opened the parchment. “Be it known on the date below my seal and before these witnesses, I, Ian Mac Roy, Duke of the White Isles and third son of King Cedric of Eirya, do hereby promise to pay the government of Tal’Amun, hereby represented by Tasmon J’iang Aqio, for any fines or expenses incurred by the crimes and misbehavior of one Keevan—” She paused. “There’s a blank space, my lord.”
“I don’t know Keevan’s last name,” Ian said, looking pointedly at the boy.
“Doyle,” he said.
Ian nodded. “I’ll fill that part in later. You can continue, saya.”
She nodded. “For any fines or expenses incurred by the crimes and misbehavior of one Keevan Doyle. In exchange for his freedom, the criminal in question—”
“Criminal?” Keevan said with an indignant tone.
Ian raised an eyebrow. “Are you denying it, then? If you want my assurances, you have to agree to everything.”
The boy grimaced, but nodded.
“The criminal in question will return to Eirya on the ship Blue Horizon IES, back to Maghara Harbor, where he will be indentured to serve in the king’s stables for three years as he repays me for the cost of his freedom. While aboard the Blue Horizon, he will be engaged in the work of a crew member under the supervision of Donal Murphy, first officer, or his duly authorized surrogate.” She looked up. “It’s signed by his highness.”
“Well?” Ian asked Keevan.
The boy took a deep breath and nodded. “All right. I’ll sign it.”
Ian looked at Aqio. “And you’ll tell me what I owe you for his freedom?”
Aqio inclined his head. “I will come up with an amount once I’ve evaluated everything he’s responsible for.”
Ian nodded. “Then it’s time for Keevan to tell us everything he knows.”
Keevan bit his lip, hesitating. “You’ll see to it that I’m housed in a safe place, aye? Not in the prison, and not on the ship—not yet.”
“What do you fear, lad?” Donal asked.
“My employer,” Keevan said. “He will not look lightly upon this betrayal.”
“You may remain here, under care of the order,” Hadi said, and the saya nodded. “You will be safe here.”
Keevan nodded. “I suppose it will do.” He paused and looked at each man in turn. “I did not set out to break the law. You should know that. I came here as a crew member on another Eiryan ship. When we arrived in port, some of the boys and I went ashore just to explore—the normal things young lads do, aye? We didn’t intend to stay here. But there was trouble.” He paused and frowned.
“What happened?” Ian asked.
Keevan sighed. “’Twas a bar fight, aye? Or so we thought. Some lads getting into a scuffle over dice. We won fair and square, but the lad we played against didn’t agree. He sent his boys after us, and before we knew it, we were tied up at his employer’s house.”
“And this was the man you now work for?” Aqio asked.
“Aye. He said the man we cheated was his employee, and he was tempted to turn us over to the guard for cheating and anything else he could think of. Of course, that put the fear of the gods into us, but he said he’d spare us if we’d do some jobs for him. He promised he’d not turn us over to the law if we’d just do a few things on the rough side of the law for him.”
Ian rubbed his chin. “And Merlin—was he in on this?”
Keevan shook his head. “No. We never met him till he followed us to the pub after—well, we’ll get to that.”
Donal folded his arms. “And what all were you doing for this man, then?”
Keevan closed his eyes. “Small jobs, mostly—cheating foreigners at games, picking pockets, that sort of thing. We ran a few operations of a slightly larger nature when he targeted someone for other things. We sometimes found men with high standing who didn’t want their wives to know about some of their actions here in the city.” He opened his eyes. “But then he called us to his house the day the stone arrived here in Xi’jan. He introduced us to the spy there—” he gestured to Amit “—and told us we needed to smuggle him onto an Eiryan ship. He said there was one heading to Dal’Imur shortly.”
Donal let out a long breath. “The cargo—Robbie was waiting for a load of fabrics he was to take to Dal’Imur.”
Keevan nodded. “Aye, he told us to smuggle the man onto the Blue Horizon. He said we’d not look out of place, given our Eiryan heritage. We had no trouble getting on board, and we just looked busy until Amit arrived.”
“But the city guard was there first?” Ian asked.
“Aye. We dinna know he was in the crew quarters. He must have waited for hours. When Amit arrived, we told him to go down the ladder, and then the guard jumped out and attacked him. We ran and watched the rest from the dock.” He rubbed his arm. “That’s how I hurt my shoulder. I fell at the top of the plank, and when I tried to hold onto the rope, it wrenched my shoulder out of the socket.”
“That explains the scream we heard,” Donal muttered.
“We saw Amit run away, but when we never saw the guard, we thought he was either captured or killed. When we saw him on the deck the next day, we knew the truth.”
Ian let out a long breath. “All right, but that doesn’t explain how Amit lost the stone.”
“We went back to our employer to tell him what happened, and Amit was there,” Keevan said. “He told us the guard took the stone from him during the altercation, and then you woke up, and he ran before he could recover the stone from his body. They sent us back to the ship to try to retrieve it. We wandered all around looking for the stone, and we finally thought perhaps it was still on the body. But by then, your repha was examining him. Well, we thought we’d wait to see if he found it. He didn’t search the man’s clothes—just looked at his wounds and around his torso. When he left the deck, we took the body.”
“But you couldn’t find the stone on the man, so you just left him in an alley?”
Keevan nodded. “’Twas a foolish thing, I suppose, but we wanted to get away from it before someone suspected us of killing the man.” He looked at Aqio. “We felt guilty, though, depriving the man of his rest that way. We went back later, after you captured Merlin, and took the body to the city guard.”
“You must have suspected we’d be looking for you,” Ian said. “Why did you come back to the pub today?”
“I was supposed to meet someone for another job—something other than this business.”
Aqio sighed and nodded. “Your story explains much, but we still need to know who your employer is.”
Keevan hesitated again. “I don’t know his name,” he finally said. “He operates out of a house in the venom district. We only refer to him as Cobra.”
Aqio sucked in a breath and shook his head.
“What is it?” Ian asked.
Aqio looked at Keevan. “You had better hope that your employer doesn’t know you’re here, lad. I’m not sure even the sanctity of the Order of Sai Malete can protect you from Cobra.”