Chapter 62: The Question and Answer Game (Part 1)
Three Days Ago
"What happened? Give me an explanation, Symond."
In a cellar beneath the abandoned fishing village, Sir Arys, trussed up like a holiday roast, watched his brother approach and demanded answers.
They had been attacked the night before. Dozens of enemies, moving under the cover of darkness, had surrounded them before they even had time to react.
After a brief, futile resistance, Arys had chosen to surrender. He was then bound, thrown into this cellar, and had been locked away ever since.
"Speak! Symond! Answer me!" Sir Arys's expression was ferocious. He had been wracking his brain, trying to understand why Symond hadn't warned him that Sir Wylis and his men would be taking action. It wasn't until he saw Symond walk in alongside Sir Wylis himself that he finally understood.
He had been betrayed.
"Why?" Sir Arys roared at his brother with every ounce of strength he possessed. "Why did you betray me?"
The violent movement pulled at the wounds on his face. Traces of blood seeped from scabs that had not yet fully formed, but Arys ignored the stinging pain, his eyes fixed fiercely on Symond.
"I had no choice, brother," Sir Symond whispered, his head bowed, not daring to meet Arys's furious gaze. "They caught me."
"Wylis caught you?" Arys was stunned. He looked from his brother to the grim-faced knight standing beside him. "Damn it all! Didn't you say that old man trusted you completely? Where did you slip up?"
"I don't know," Symond shook his head, his voice trembling with fear. "I don't know! They discovered the truth. I had only just walked into the castle two days ago when they seized me. They beat me... they threatened me, Arys. They said they would cut me into three thousand six hundred pieces, alive, if I didn't cooperate."
"You discovered the truth?" Arys ignored Symond's panicked rambling and turned his glare on Sir Wylis. "It's one thing for that sellsword, Morgan the Black Falcon, to have figured it out. But how did you?"
"It was not me," Wylis shook his head, a weary note of old battles in his voice. "When I heard the truth, I was far more shocked than you are now. To be honest, I didn't believe his conclusion at first. Even after he explained it all in detail, I still couldn't believe it. It wasn't until Symond here confessed that I finally realized he was right."
"Then who is this man? Did Morgan the Black Falcon crawl back from the Seven Hells?" Arys was nearly hysterical. This entire affair felt stranger than the fairy tales his old nanny used to tell.
"It was me." A voice emerged from behind Sir Symond.
Arys forced his swollen eyes open, peering into the shadows behind Wylis where a young boy stood, a figure he had at first dismissed.
"Who are you?" Arys had assumed he was merely a new attendant for Sir Wylis.
"Who I am doesn't matter," Ian said with a faint smile. He took two steps forward and squatted down in front of Sir Arys. "Shall we talk?"
"What is there to talk about?"
"We can talk about the things your brother doesn't know, of course. There are still some questions that I have yet to solve," Ian said, glancing at Symond, who flinched and shrank back toward the corner.
"What doesn't Symond know?" Arys's gaze flickered. "Symond is my brother. I doubt there is anything I know that he does not."
"It seems we have too many people here for a frank conversation," Ian said, turning to look at Wylis. "Could you allow me to speak with him alone?"
Wylis frowned deeply. It was a remarkably impolite request. By rights, he should be the one leading the interrogation of Arys. To have given up the right of first questioning to Ian was already a significant concession. Now this boy was asking him to leave?
"The next caravan is the main event, Sir," Ian said with sincere earnestness. "They could arrive at any time. You need to design our trap yourself, so we can be certain to catch all the 'Ghosts of White Wall.' The fight is your domain. Just leave the other, more trivial matters to me. Agreed?"
It was… an argument that left little room for refusal.
"Very well," Sir Wylis finally agreed, glancing at Arys's empty right sleeve. "If you learn anything, inform me at once." He then grabbed the terrified Symond by the arm and led him from the cellar.
"Even with him gone, I won't tell you anything," Arys said, leaning his head back against the moss-covered stone wall. He wore the expression of a man with nothing left to lose. "The robberies on the Kingsroad... it was just a whim. Daeron and I wanted to make a small fortune. It has nothing to do with our family."
"Nothing to do with your family? Yet you used your family's fief to hide your entire band of outlaws? Taman Village—the very village that was most cooperative with Sir Wylis from the beginning. Who would have ever thought it was the true base of the 'Ghosts of White Wall'?"
"Symond and I are both bastards. Castle Darry will be inherited by our trueborn brother. Our father felt guilty, so he granted me a village of my own," Arys paused, as if crafting the story as he spoke. "But I was not satisfied with the meager income from one small village. So I did this. That's all."
"That's a rather perfunctory—" Ian began, but Arys cut him off.
"It's always you asking me questions," Arys said, a new, cunning light entering his eyes. "That's not 'talking'. Now, it is your turn to answer me."
"You are my prisoner now, Sir."
"But you cannot pry my mouth open if I do not wish it," Arys challenged. "Try me, if you don't believe it."
"You want to know how much we've figured out," Ian smiled, seeing through the ploy at once. "So you can invent a perfect story, one that doesn't involve your family, before the trial comes. Am I wrong?"
Arys's face darkened instantly.
"A fair deal," Ian agreed smoothly. "Go ahead and ask."
He watched the doubt flicker in the knight's eyes. "Don't look at me like that. I hold no hostility toward House Darry. If you can truly clear your family's name, that is your own affair. Well? Do you want to play this question and answer game with me?"
Arys didn't hesitate. "How did you find out it was related to us? Did Black Falcon tell you?"
"Those are two questions, my friend," Ian said, holding up a finger and wagging it gently. "I choose to answer the latter. When I first saw Black Falcon, he was already a corpse. And no, I don't believe he told anyone your secret—a secret he didn't even tell his own adopted son."
"Impossible!" Arys burst out. "'Mountain Weasel' swore before he died that he would only tell the secret to Black Falcon! If he didn't tell you, how could you possibly know the truth?"
"It is my turn to ask a question now, Sir," Ian said, his smile unwavering. "Those are the rules of the game you set."
Sir Arys let out a groan of frustration, but then gave a curt, reluctant nod.
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