Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (19 page)

"Would I be insulted, you mean?" Quite without any hint of silk.

Strake nodded, once.

"So you are willing to suggest I might have reason to
consider Darest mine. But anyone would
tell you that. The true question is
whether I am willing to kill you for it."

Bald indeed. Lord
Aristide direct was rather worse than honey-coated calculation. But Strake simply said: "Can you answer
it?"

"Not yet."

Not yet? Could he
actually contemplate admitting a desire to kill Strake – to Strake's face? It was a move that spoke of extreme
confidence, and of a sudden Soren was reminded that she did not know how to use
the palace defences. They were not in
the Garden of the Rose, instead were in the part of the palace where Lord
Aristide had his apartments. She had no
idea of the loyalties of the guards who had escorted them here, but among those
who watched from the windows were the Diamond's personal servants. Not to mention Fisk and
Halcean
,
both looking anxious, and Aspen, hurrying to catch this much-anticipated
meeting. Word had spread like lightning
through the palace, and they would soon be standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the
windows. There came one of the Barons,
the Captain of the Guard, an ambassador. Strake had made this spectacularly public.

Lord Aristide did not betray his awareness of the audience
by so much as an eye-flicker. "As
to insults: do I understand that you would expect me to interest myself in
infractions against the laws governing mages? And have duties similar to the Tzel Aviar?"

"That is the primary role of the Councillor of
Mages. I am not fool enough to limit you
to it." Strake's tone was desert
dry. "Why waste a resource? The Councillor is also an adviser. Advise."

"While you make the decisions?" The smile, the courtier's manner, revived
into sudden, dagger-sharp vividness, and Soren held her breath. Challenge and challenge.

"Bar one. Tell
me when you've made it."

Strake did not get up and stalk away. He was not after all throwing down a gauntlet
to an enemy. An impatient man, he wanted
to get down to business, which meant having Aristide
Couerveur
decide whether or not he was going to kill him. Now.

It was the antithesis of courtier's games, the dance of debt
and consequence and double-spent loyalties which had been Tor Darest for
years. Lord Aristide shook his head,
eyeing his King's set face as if he could not quite believe him to be real. Then, seeing Strake was truly waiting, he
fell to introspection with effortless self-composure.

Impossible to negotiate what he truly wanted. Strake could not, would not give Lord
Aristide Darest's rule and he'd made it absolutely clear how firmly he planned
to grasp the reins. At best the Diamond
could hope to be allowed a position of influence, perhaps eventually trusted,
possibly forever held in suspicion. He
could never have the free hand he'd long worked towards, which his mother's
twisted hate had denied him. Although
Strake's energy would be a breath of fresh air after Lady Arista's interminable
blocks, to Lord Aristide the Whirlwind King must bring with him the taste of
ash, of bitter, permanent defeat.

Unless he chose to murder for the throne.

There was only one answer right now, of course. Strake had given Lord Aristide no
warning. Even if the Regent's son had
managed to suborn Strake's bodyguard, he had no way of knowing Soren couldn't
use the palace defences. Let alone what
measure of mage his King might be. So he
would say yes, take on the role of Councillor of Mages, and be free to choose
his time.

Strake was playing the role of the man too practical not to
use a good blade, for all he could be positioning a knife at his throat. What had changed his mind? He waited, mouth flat, as Lord Aristide
stopped gazing into the middle distance and shifted those brilliant blue and
crystal eyes to Strake's face. Then with
easy grace Aristide stood, looking down at the man who had taken the throne he
considered his own. Strake did not
move. Somewhere above Soren's throat,
the Rose coiled, shifted, and slid into nothing.

"My family has long known that Darest prefers a
Rathen," Lord Aristide said, murmur-soft.

He added a word in a language she did not know, but would
always recognise. A word of power. Then another, a distinct object in itself,
before raising one hand. Streamers of
brilliant light trailed into existence, and he continued to speak: low-voiced,
sibilant.

All around them faces echoed the reaction Soren's would
surely have been if she had not the advantage of seeing Strake's. Dozens of mouths gaped to black circles –
shock, anger, and in more than one case anticipation – but her Rathen, though
he looked faintly surprised, showed no unease. If this was an attack, Strake was meeting it with the sanguinity of a
god.

The two bodyguards had not been suborned. They made it halfway across the stretch of
green before Soren signalled them to keep their distance. Swords shimmering in the light from
Aristide's casting, the two women stuttered to a halt and gaped at the coiled
lace of power forming between the two men. Soren had no more idea what was going on than they did, could only take
her cue from her Rathen and keep her composure.

Mages of the Diamond's calibre rarely resorted to verbal
crafting, which meant this spell had a level of complexity or permanence
requiring more than will and gesture. Like yarn wound into a ball, the light was contracting into a solid
sphere, a moon where shadows which could be fern leaves or sea monsters roiled
beneath the surface. Lord Aristide
stopped speaking, but a susurrus of fugitive syllables whispered on, faded to
the edge of hearing, and were gone. What
remained was a perfect orb, twice the size of a man's head, trapping the world
in silence. Even the wind had died away.

"I would not have asked so much of you." Strake's words were tenuous and distant, as
if they could barely escape the pull of the orb.

The glitter came back, this time leavened with a
self-mocking edge. "Having found
myself without the stomach to pull Darest apart for the pleasure of calling it
mine alone, I have no mind to waste my energy continually proving that
decision."

Strake simply nodded, matter-of-fact to the end, and rose to
press a hand firmly against the white surface. Twining dragon shadows fled before ripples. "I'll leave the wording to you."

More ripples, as Lord Aristide matched Strake's position,
touching his right hand to the opposite side of the orb. Soren held her breath. This was obviously to be some sort of oath, a
very binding one, but it would take mental gymnastics of a high order to start
viewing the Regent's son as a trusted ally. Would he really go through with it? Or was it a trick?

"On my name, then," said Lord Aristide, voice
suddenly clarion clear. "I will not
seek to harm you or your heirs. I will
not attempt to gain the throne of Darest at your expense. I...will protect and support you."

"On your life," Strake responded, with calm
finality.

A tidal-wave of ripples swept the orb and it began to
contract. Lord Aristide's arm jerked,
and his eyes went wide with pain. Soren
looked hastily from his face to Strake's, but her Rathen remained quietly
intent. Both men kept their hand to the
swirling surface, or perhaps could not draw away, but Lord Aristide was the only
one in obvious difficulty. He stood it
well, setting his teeth and not flinching again as it shrank. Soren became convinced she could smell
burning flesh.

When they were both standing arms outstretched, with barely
an apple's worth of orb separating their palms, the light suddenly flared from
white to gold to a deep bruised red, and funnelled into Lord Aristide's
palm. Their fingers brushed.

Strake dropped his hand away. There was a hint of admiration in his eyes
when he said: "More than I would have done."

"Perhaps." Lord Aristide's focus was on his palm, touching the result of the spell
like paint not yet dry.

Keeping to her seat with arduous restraint, Soren could only
make out the details with palace-sight. A complex pattern of light lurked beneath the skin: almost filling a
palm which showed no sign of burns, it was not a rose as she'd first thought,
but a knot of lines woven into attractive symmetry. White shot through with threads of colour:
silver, blue, gold. And it moved. The sliding hints of fin or claw or vine had
transferred from the orb.

Half-remembered bedtime tales finally gave her an
explanation. The thing had to be a
saecstra
, an enchantment of the Fair
which featured in many of their great tragedies. More than an oath, it was judgment wound in
promise. Lord Aristide would wear the
mark for the rest of his life. And if he
broke the vow just made, it would kill him.

Soren had to remind herself to breathe around her disbelief
as Lord Aristide arranged himself neatly back onto his bench. He had just bound himself almost as
thoroughly as she was herself.
Why?
She did not doubt for one moment that he considered Darest his, that he
wanted its rule. How could she possibly
be expected to believe that he would bind himself away from any chance of
gaining his fondest wish?

Then she remembered – it had only been a few hours ago. Lord Aristide knew the meaning of the black
rose. He'd just put himself in a perfect
position to take control of Darest when the Rose's mysterious doom caught up
with this inconvenient Rathen King and left behind a politically incompetent
Champion ripe with child. All he had to
do was wait.

-
oOo
-

"What would you
like me to advise you on first?"

The glitter-smile was back, along with that air of private
enjoyment. Whatever the truth of this
profound, flamboyant gesture, he was still all sweet acid and darts.

Strake was again looking particularly saturnine as he
returned to his own seat, but like Lord Aristide he moved beyond spectacular
life-oaths as if they were everyday happenstance. "What should I expect from your
parent?"

The now-dozens who watched were far from as calm, mouths
flapping in excited speculation. The
King had aligned with the Diamond. Without palace-sight Soren would only see the three of them, alone in
the courtyard, with the two guardswomen retreating to the shelter of the
nearest entrance. The Court were just
shadows behind sky reflected in fine glass while King and Councillor conducted
their day's business and the ripple of Lord Aristide's gesture, of this
new-formed alliance, spread through the palace. The sheer unreality of it all made her head ache.

The delicate bow of Lord Aristide's lips had curled into
pure delight. "That would depend on
what circumstances offer her," he replied. "She will see little value in a direct move. Darest declined too greatly under
Couerveur
rule, and your appearance has provoked widespread
anticipation of a return to heady days of wine and roses. You need not fear open insurrection. Not enough
Dariens
would support it."

"Outside interests might."

"True." For
a moment star sapphire eyes again found the middle distance. "Quite possible that someone might make
her an offer, despite long coldness to our neighbours. But – no. That would mean ruling under the auspices of another. An intolerable thing. No, from my lady mother you will receive
surface support. By appointing me, you
lose any slim chance you may have had of more."

"And beneath the surface?"

"A mule in the traces." He seemed to find the image particularly
agreeable. "Whatever your
endeavour, she will attempt to lead it into disaster, for she is well-versed in
presiding over plans come to naught. That has been Darest for too long." Absently, Lord Aristide massaged his newly marked hand.

"If she should try and kill you, it would most
certainly be an incident which would either finish me as well, or have me up
for the deed. She could not risk my
gaining ascendancy in the aftermath."

"I'll keep that in mind," Strake said: blunt
acceptance of future treachery. "Do
you have a recommendation for Court Shaper?"

"Do you need one?" Lord Aristide dismissed his own question with a unhurried turn of the
hand. "There are two major Shaper
steadings. Goldenrod is in the
north-west, close to the
Cerian
border. A word-mage and true-mage at the heart of
it. Married, powerful, competent, their
focus entirely flora. A trifle obsessed,
as Shapers tend to be. I've had little
to do with them, but they report hopes of a strain of coloured flax. If that's true, I'd suggest leaving them to
it. Fletcher's Marsh Farm, the other
steading, works with both flora and fauna but recently fell into crisis. The classic story – someone, the stead holder
in this case, produced creatures too smart for their own good. Many adventures were had."

Lord Aristide curled his lips in apparent disgust. A Shaper operated on a deeper level than an
enchanter and the results were far more enduring. It was one thing to shape-change a man so he
could live beneath the water, another to make it possible for him to father
children with the same ability. And you
could not return those children to 'normal' like you could disenchant a cat
spelled to understand speech. Even the
Fair rarely Shaped intelligent creatures, simply because too many things went
wrong working magic 'beyond the blood'. Blame it on trial and error, or the Moon being jealous of her realm of
birth and death. The result of Shaping
sentients was too often something you could not control.

Could Strake want a Shaper to help him with the Rose?

If this was the case, Strake was not admitting it to Lord
Aristide. "The Court Shaper advises
as an expert, and inspects steading projects," he said, terse as
ever. "Subordinate to the
Councillor. Appoint whoever you think
most appropriate. It's not of immediate
concern, but I prefer not to have Shaping unsupervised. Which leaves what is of immediate
concern."