jeriendhal | Fic: Twenty Roads Cazaril Did Not Take (Reply)

"Not on the list? What do you mean I'm not on the list?" Cazaril demanded, feeling his heart twist in his chest. To fight and bleed and starve for nine months, to have his charge sold out from under him by Chancellor dy Jironal, the lives of his men betrayed by greed, and then to be faced with this. Beside him, Palli, looked as starved, stinking and half-crazed as Cazaril felt, was fairly quaking with rage.

"As I said, Castillar, you are not on the list of prisoners to be ransomed. Nor was any ransom provided for you," the Roknari general said, sitting at his neat little folding desk in his camp outside the walls of Gortoget. He did not, to his credit, smile as he passed over the open letter, the Chancellor's broken seal still upon it. Cazaril rapidly scanned down the list of names, written in a neat, precise hand. His name was not upon it.

"What? Why?" Palli asked, leaning over Cazaril's shoulder to get a look himself. "I don't believe it. It has to be a trick of some sort!"

"This was written in dy Jironal's own hand, Palli," Cazaril said, feeling himself go numb. "I recognize it."

Palli shook his head in disbelief. "Why would dy Jironal betray you like this, Caz? He has no vendetta against you. Five Gods, he gave you the keys to Gortoget himself!"

"I don't think it was anything personal," Cazaril said slowly, a horrible possibility rising in his mind. He glanced briefly at the Roknari general, who was watching the conversation with an admirable poker face. Small wonder if the man might enjoy his enemy's discomfort a bit, after spending nearly a year and hundreds of men's lives trying to take the fortress he'd so recently bought. "Not here, Palli," he said.

"If not here, when? I won't be able to talk to you if you're sold to the galleys, Caz." Palli turned to the general. "Sir, I am the son of the March dy Palliar. If Chalion will not pay for my commander's ransom, than I shall. I'll take his place even, until the funds can be secured."

"Palli, no!" Caz exclaimed, horrified.

"Be at ease, sirs, both of you," the general said, taking the Chancellor's letter back and tapping it on his desk. "So you are betrayed by your own commander, it seems."

"So it would," Cazaril could only agree.

"Gortoget has cost my prince a great deal in gold to secure, not to mention my men's lives. The ransom paid by your chancellor is hardly enough to offset that," the general said slowly. Then, finally, his face broke out into a smile. "However, I think I shall be merciful, and allow you to join the ransomed men, Castillar."

"Not that I'm ungrateful, sir, but why would you do such a thing for me?" Cazaril asked, his stomach singularly failing to unknot at this announcement of mercy.

"I think," the general said carefully, "that a man who has such an enemy that the Chancellor of Chalion himself might be persuaded to act against him, is a man who should not disappear into the slave markets. Better you should go home, to the discomfort of your rival, and the confusion of Chalion's royal court. That will serve my prince well, I believe."

I believe it would, Cazaril thought with despair.