The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 24: Under the Gallows, Part 7

 That was such a perfect distillation of his own thoughts on Varallo Thray that Ammas had to smirk. "Then, your highness, I will do you one better than the Grand Chancellor. I know exactly what must be done to cure Carala. I may not be able to lay hands on what I need, but it is neither impossible nor a mystery."

A strange expression, one not seen often on Silenio's face, began to form beneath the bruises and blood. It took Ammas a moment to recognize it as hope. "You know?"

Ammas nodded. "I need a werewolf's heart. Not any werewolf, but the first one to be infected with the strain that afflicts Carala. A werewolf born not of blood but of a vile ritual."

"Swiftfoot," Silenio whispered.

"Yes," Ammas replied. "And that brings me to my other request, your highness. I need to know why you came here, what you were seeking, and I need to see everything you found."

Silenio looked from Ammas to his sister. Again an expression foreign to that handsome, brutalized face surfaced for a moment: affection, even love, and pity for Carala's circumstances. "You believe him?" he asked, his voice still thick and indistinct with the abrupt changes Barthim had made to the landscape of his jaw.

"I do, Silenio," she murmured, kneeling at her brother's side and stroking his hair. "He has proved himself over and over again. He would not hurt me."

Silenio nodded slowly, seeming to absorb this, then twisted his head around to leer at Denisius. "And you, Gallis? You trust this man to cure my sister?"

Denisius half smiled, something vaguely sorrowful in it. "Ammas has saved my own life more than once. I don't think there's anyone alive who might take better care of Carala."

Ammas tried not to wince at that, wondering what Denisius himself might suspect of him, or why he would speak of it so carelessly. There was no time to think of it now, though, not with Prince Silenio's agreement hanging in the balance.

Silenio bowed his head, not saying anything for a long time. When he did speak, it was slowly, and as deliberately as he could manage to make himself understood through the marks of the beating he had taken. "We got Gallis's message not long ago. Thray was upset, my father even moreso. They had rounded up all the Swiftfoot they could find weeks ago, but now it looked like there were more -- that there was some conspiracy of these wolves. I don't know what they learned from the Swiftfoot we arrested. I was not allowed to question them. My father only allowed a very few to speak with them, and as far as I know they're still locked up in Talinara. Even Thray only questioned them briefly. But now I was told to come to Gallowsport with half a dozen of my men, see what was left of Swiftfoot. See if there were more wolves, what they knew of Carala, take them alive if I could. Thray said something about finding the knowledge needed to cure Carala here, but my father wouldn't like it, so I had to be careful."

Carala frowned. "Father wouldn't like it? What did he mean?"

Silenio shrugged, looking off to one side. Ammas had been on either side of enough interrogations, human and otherwise, to recognize a stalling tactic when he saw one, but he let it go for the time being. Silenio's words only strengthened the suspicion that had been growing in his mind ever since Vilais. "And what did you learn, Silenio?"

"Not much. Someone burnt out their office the day we arrived. We seized the warehouse, but there was no one here. We took what we could find. Ledgers, cargo, useless things they had left behind." He pointed his chin toward the wagon where Barthim had found the rope that now bound Silenio and his men. "It's all there, in those chests."

Ammas stood up. "That will do for now. Barthim, give me a hand with those."

Barthim, Ammas, and Vos wrestled two large ironbound trunks from beside the wagon and hauled them over to the soldiers' former gaming table. They set a chest at each end of it; the heavier one proved to be full of dozens of books, mostly business ledgers. Ammas took one out and began poring over it, while Vos and Barthim laid a blanket over the table and began setting out the objects they found in the lighter trunk. Most of them were simple tokens bearing the Swiftfoot mark, but they also found a few daggers, keys, and pieces of jewelry.