Chapter 37: Ellis Cavel
Before Rodric could properly greet him, Ellis continued speaking, offering the young lord not even the briefest opportunity to gather his thoughts or decide which version of events he intended to present.
"I apologize for the rudeness, Young Lord Rodric, but we received rather an interesting letter from Young Master Encrid, and after reading what he had written, I had very little choice but to come running here myself."
He said it with an almost apologetic smile, displaying mild courtesy that somehow made Rodric feel even more uncomfortable.
"And, I swear upon Lord Vessa, I was quite shocked when I arrived and saw just how much of the story had already been laid out before us."
Ellis lowered his eyes to the ledger resting in his hands and slowly turned a few pages, taking his time as though he were simply checking an account rather than preparing to put a noble house under scrutiny.
"Three of these manifests concern shipments belonging to House Cavel. Cold Iron consignments, bearing the Grey Heron seal."
His eyes rose from the page, and the calmness in them made Rodric’s stomach tighten.
"My family has developed a rather keen interest in discovering how those shipments came to rest inside a bandit fortress on lands belonging to House Maren."
Rodric felt something cold settle in his stomach as the implications of Ellis’s presence finally began to sink in.
The second son of House Cavel.
The family whose mines supplied iron to more than half the North.
The house whose wealth had bought its influence far beyond the borders of its own territory, and whose close relationship with the Duke made it one of the last families a young lord like Rodric could afford to have standing among his accusers.
And now Ellis Cavel was here.
Standing in the middle of the fortress, surrounded by merchants and village heads, with House Cavel’s own stolen property sitting behind him.
Rodric’s gaze immediately swept across the courtyard, searching for the man responsible for bringing all of this together.
Then he found him.
Encrid Gannon sat behind a plain wooden table covered in manifests, ledgers, and carefully arranged documents, his posture almost absurdly relaxed for a man who had just placed a noble house in such an exposed position.
One elbow rested against the tabletop, his chin supported lazily by his hand, while his eyes remained fixed upon Rodric with a patience that felt almost insulting.
He wasn’t smiling or gloating.
There was no triumphant expression on his face, nor even the satisfaction Rodric had expected from someone who had supposedly spent days preparing for this confrontation.
He was simply watching.
And somehow that was worse.
He looked like a man watching a play whose ending he had already read, waiting patiently for the actors to finish pretending.
"This..." Rodric began, but the first word came out higher than he intended, forcing him to stop and clear his throat before continuing.
He straightened himself in the saddle, desperately trying to recover the authority he had possessed when he first entered the courtyard.
"This is Maren territory. These goods were recovered upon lands belonging to my family, and whatever lies this disgraced wastrel has spread among you, House Maren will assume custody of the evidence and conduct its own investigation."
He heard the weakness in his own argument even as he spoke it, but there was nothing else left to say without admitting that he had already lost control of the situation.
A voice came from somewhere within the crowd before Ellis could answer.
"The ledger."
The speaker was a rescued guild clerk, and there was nothing particularly threatening in his tone, which somehow made the words carry farther across the courtyard.
"Tell us about the ledger, my lord."
The clerk stepped forward and raised a neatly copied volume, holding it high enough for the surrounding merchants to see.
It was not the original.
Rodric recognized that immediately.
His stomach sank further when he realized what it meant.
A copy.
Encrid had spent the last two days making copies, distributing them among the merchants and clerks so that destroying the original would no longer be enough to erase what had been written inside it.
The clerk opened the book and ran one finger down the carefully written entries.
"There are eleven payments recorded here, each one initialled ’R.M.’, and each dated three days before a caravan subsequently disappeared along the Serpentine road."
He lifted his eyes from the page and looked directly at Rodric.
"Would my lord care to explain that coincidence?"
Rodric’s face hardened as panic began turning into anger.
"They’re forgeries."
His voice carried across the courtyard, striking the old stone walls and returning in a faint echo.
"Bandit lies. You would take the word of criminals over that of a noble house?"
Ellis, however, seemed entirely unmoved by the accusation and calmly turned another page in his ledger, studying the contents with the same detached interest he might have shown while reviewing an ordinary trade account.
"So the bandits forged detailed financial records."
He turned another page.
"They forged caravan manifests."
Another page.
"They forged merchant inventories and shipment records belonging to House Cavel."
His finger rested upon the parchment.
"And, somehow, these supposedly illiterate road thieves also managed to predict the exact dates upon which those caravans would disappear, sometimes months before the attacks themselves took place."
Ellis finally looked up, and the faintest trace of amusement entered his expression.
"Remarkable men, these bandits."
A ripple of restrained laughter moved through several of the merchants, quickly swallowed when Rodric’s soldiers shifted uneasily in their saddles.
Ellis paid the reaction no attention.
"My father has already written to His Grace regarding the matter, and I believe every guild represented here has sufficient reason to do the same."
He closed the ledger with deliberate care and tucked it beneath his arm.
"So, if I were in your position, Lord Maren, I would concern myself rather less with recovering these documents and considerably more with explaining why they exist in the first place."
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