Chapter 3
Saint Orla’s priory had been abandoned for thirty-two years.
The roof over the western transept had fallen in.
Ivy strangled the bell tower.
Snow collected in the nave where monks once sang.
Gideon arrived before moonrise with Captain Rowan and four guards.
He did not bring the whole garrison.
Too visible.
He did not bring the silver whistle openly either.
It hung beneath his tunic on a cord.
The road to Saint Orla’s crossed Blackthorn’s lower forest and then climbed through bare ash trees toward the ridge.
No one spoke much.
Gideon kept thinking about Elodie.
He had left her in Maeve’s care inside the inner solar.
Two guards outside.
One inside the corridor.
Brother Caldus sleeping in the adjoining chamber.
Every entrance barred.
Still not enough.
Nothing felt enough anymore.
At the priory gate, Rowan raised a hand.
Fresh tracks.
One horse.
One walker.
No carriage.
No obvious ambush.
They entered.
A lantern glowed near the ruined altar.
A woman stood beside it.
Gray hair braided down her back.
Tall despite age.
A scar crossed one cheek from ear to jaw.
Gideon knew her face from paintings.
Not exactly.
Paintings lied kindly.
But enough.
“Aunt Maren.”
The woman smiled without warmth.
“You still look like your father when you are angry.”
Rowan’s hand stayed on sword.
Gideon did not move.
“You are supposed to be dead.”
“So are many useful people.”
“Isolde?”
Maren’s expression changed.
“My daughter is dead.”
There.
No trick.
No hidden Isolde.
Gideon felt disappointment he had no right to feel.
“Sabine said the family lied about heirs.”
“Sabine says many things when cornered.”
“Did she know you lived?”
“No.”
“Did Orren?”
“Yes.”
That name.
Maren looked at Rowan.
“You brought soldiers.”
“I brought witnesses.”
“Good.”
She gestured toward stone bench.
“Then hear something worth witnessing.”
Gideon remained standing.
Maren began.
“The black hounds were never cursed.”
He almost laughed.
“I learned that today.”
“No. You learned one hound obeys a whistle.”
She pointed toward his chest.
“There have been seven.”
Seven black hounds.
Across nearly a century.
Morcant was only latest.
Blackthorn bred large mastiff-wolfhound crosses in old lower kennels for border patrol.
Strong.
Silent.
Trainable.
The family legend came later.
A story encouraged by lords because frightened servants obey faster when they believe a beast supernatural.
The first silver whistles were made for kennelmasters.
Three-note command system.
Later expanded.
Then politics.
Maren said:
“Your grandfather used the hounds to break strikes in the silver galleries.”
Gideon stared.
“What?”
“Not attack workers. Mostly. Corner them. Block exits. Drag coats. Make men believe the beast could kill them.”
Mostly.
That word mattered.
“Mostly?”
“One miner died.”
“When?”
“Forty-four years ago.”
Official record:
rockfall.
Maren said no.
A hound named Varric cornered him in a side tunnel.
He fell from a ladder shaft.
No one intended death.
They covered.
The cover created precedent.
If a hound could turn an act of intimidation into an “accident,” then accidents became useful.
Gideon asked:
“My brothers?”
Maren shook head.
“Edric died of fever.”
Certain?
“As certain as physician records and three unrelated witnesses can make me.”
Leona?
“Horse threw her in a storm. No hound. No plot I ever found.”
Infant Tomas?
“Lung sickness. His mother died the same winter.”
Gideon breathed.
Not every tragedy murder.
Then Isolde.
Maren’s daughter.
Age fourteen, not twelve.
Officially fell down west stair after midnight.
Maren said:
“She found kennel records.”
What records?
Payments.
Commands.
Names of servants pressured by Gideon’s father, Lord Alaric.
Alaric used hounds to intimidate debtors, miners, rival household officers.
Isolde threatened to show Maren.
Before she could, Orren intercepted.
Orren was young then.
Assistant kennelmaster.
He used a hound named Shade to block Isolde on the stair landing.
Maren believed Orren intended to scare.
Isolde stepped backward.
Fell.
Died.
“Did my father order it?”
Maren looked at Gideon.
“I never proved he knew beforehand.”
Did he cover?
“Yes.”
There.
Alaric paid Orren.
Moved him to royal kennels for three years.
Then brought him back after scandal faded.
Maren confronted Alaric.
He threatened to have her declared unstable and confined.
She fled with help from Saint Orla’s last prior.
The family announced fever death.
Why not expose?
“To whom?”
Maren’s voice sharpened.
“Carrow? The same duke who purchased silver at below-market rates from your father? The Crown court that owed Alaric three campaigns of men?”
Power.
No neutral authority.
So Maren disappeared.
Collected records.
Waited.
Gideon felt anger.
“For fifteen years?”
“For a chance when Blackthorn could survive truth.”
“And Elodie nearly died while you waited.”
Maren flinched.
Good.
No saint.
“I did not know Sabine would use Morcant against a baby.”
“You knew Orren was still here.”
“Yes.”
“You knew the whistles.”
“Yes.”
“And you sent one message after she was thrown.”
“Yes.”
Gideon stepped closer.
“You do not get to call waiting wisdom.”
Maren looked at him.
“No.”
That answer stopped some rage.
Then second charter.
Maren pulled a sealed leather case from beneath altar stone.
Inside:
parchment.
Old.
Two seals.
One Blackthorn.
One Carrow.
The “Wardenship Compact.”
If Blackthorn heir under seven, Duke Carrow receives temporary guardianship over mines and garrison until heir’s seventh year, supposedly to protect border stability.
Gideon read.
His blood chilled.
Sabine had told truth.
Mostly.
Then Maren laid another parchment beside.
Same text.
Earlier draft.
No Carrow seal.
At bottom:
REJECTED.
In Alaric’s father’s hand.
Gideon looked.
“What?”
“The compact was never ratified.”
“But Sabine believes—”
“Orren showed her the sealed version.”
“Forgery?”
“Likely.”
Who forged?
Maren pointed to seal wax.
The Carrow seal was genuine.
Blackthorn seal?
Also looked genuine.
But seal could be applied later.
Maren said:
“Your grandfather’s signet disappeared for three days after his death.”
Who had custody?
The household chancellor.
Name:
Corven Dacre.
The C on whistle?
No.
Corven died twenty years ago.
His son?
Chancellor Lucan Dacre now served Duke Carrow.
There.
C.
Perhaps.
Then Maren produced letters.
Lucan to Orren.
Not explicit murder.
Payments for “kennel intelligence.”
Updates on succession.
Alden’s archive work.
Gideon’s proposed charter.
One letter:
If the infant remains the hinge, keep the hinge exposed.
Gideon stared.
“What does that mean?”
Maren said:
“I thought it meant leave old succession rules unchanged.”
Now maybe more.
Another:
S is useful when afraid.
Sabine.
Likely.
Another:
The dog frightens better than soldiers and leaves no banners behind.
There.
Carrow’s agent had encouraged hound use.
Maybe not Elodie murder.
Still.
Then Rowan asked:
“Why trust these?”
Good.
Maren nodded.
“You should not because I possess them.”
She explained sources.
Some original letters stolen from Orren’s saddlebag years ago by stable boy loyal to Maren.
Others copies.
Seal comparisons needed.
Handwriting.
Independent witness.
Test.
Good.
Then the silver whistle.
Maren asked to see.
Gideon handed.
She turned.
On bottom, tiny engraving:
S-3.
Sabine’s third whistle.
“How many?”
“Orren made six in last decade.”
“To whom?”
“Sabine. Himself. Two guards. One steward. One unknown. And one for Lucan Dacre.”
There.
C tag maybe Carrow/Dacre line.
Gideon asked:
“Which steward?”
Maren hesitated.
“Perrin.”
The steward attacked by Morcant?
Maeve said he left.
Maren shook head.
“He did not leave freely.”
Where?
Unknown.
Last seen with Orren.
Maybe dead.
Then footsteps outside priory.
Rowan drew sword.
Guards spread.
A rider entered arch.
Young.
Unarmed.
Gideon recognized Tomas Venn, one of Blackthorn’s stable hands.
“My lord.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Maeve sent me.”
Gideon’s heart stopped.
“Elodie?”
“Safe.”
He breathed.
Then:
“Castle trouble.”
Tomas handed note in Maeve’s left-handed scrawl because right arm injured.
MORCANT IS GONE.
Gideon looked.
“How?”
“Two guards found kennel door open. One unconscious.”
“Dead?”
“No.”
“Sabine?”
“Still locked.”
“Whistle?”
“Orren’s whistle disappeared from evidence room.”
Inside job.
Then second line:
DOG DID NOT ATTACK GUARD. GUARD WAS STRUCK FROM BEHIND.
Morcant had been released.
Not escaped.
Someone needed hound.
For what?
Gideon turned to Maren.
She was already packing letters.
“You’re coming.”
“No.”
“You called me here.”
“To give evidence.”
“And now the beast trained to drag infants out of cradles is loose in my castle.”
Maren’s eyes sharpened.
“Then Elodie is not target.”
Gideon froze.
“Why?”
“Because Sabine failed and is guarded. Whoever released Morcant knows everyone will protect the baby.”
“Then who?”
Maren looked at Rowan.
“Someone whose death can still be blamed on the hound.”
A witness.
Maeve.
Gideon ran before she finished.
Before leaving the priory, Gideon made Maren answer one more question.
“Why send for me now?”
She looked toward the broken bell tower.
“Because Elodie living changed the balance.”
He frowned.
“If she had died?”
“I would have assumed Sabine or Orren had won before I could prove anything.”
“That is not an answer.”
Maren nodded.
“No. The answer is that Maeve catching her created a witness Orren could not rewrite, and you taking the whistle instead of killing Morcant proved you were finally willing to question the old story.”
Gideon stared.
“So if I had ordered the hound killed?”
“I might have stayed hidden longer.”
He almost shouted.
Then stopped.
That truth disgusted him.
Not because Maren was wrong to fear.
Because everyone in Blackthorn had been waiting for someone else to become safe enough to trust.
Servants waited for nobles.
Maren waited for Gideon.
Gideon waited for proof.
Sabine waited until she was trapped.
The delays overlapped until danger became tradition.
He said:
“No more private tests.”
Maren looked at him.
“You think openness makes people safe?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Secrecy clearly did not.”
That was closer.
Then Gideon asked Rowan to copy every letter before they left the priory. One copy went to Blackthorn. One would go to Crown magistrate. One stayed with Maren.
Redundancy.
If one archive burned, truth did not vanish.
A small administrative decision.
May you like
Not heroic.
Possibly more useful than heroism.
