Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (29 page)

It was a dismissal, abrupt after such a short-lived
audience, and a profound relief. The
Tzel Aviar bowed, Aristide and
Vereck
closed around
him. A gesture sent Fisk and the rest of
Strake's satellites into belated retreat, until only Soren remained to watch
the King control his disappointment.

Wondering what she'd do about standing stalwartly at her
Rathen's
side when she was heavily pregnant, Soren shifted
unobtrusively from foot to foot. Strake's face had become angular, full of planes, and he stared straight
ahead at nothing, cold death in his eyes.

Eventually he turned to look at her, resplendent in black
and silver. "In the histories
there's a great deal made of the idea of a Deeping curse."

"One of the explanations for why everyone died,"
Soren acknowledged, resisting an impulse to stand up straighter. At least he had his own voice back. "A lot of things in Darest are blamed on
Fae curses."

"The Fair don't talk of Darest's distant past, even if
you ask them – why it was left empty so long, what happened to its
inhabitants." He was staring
straight at her stomach, hidden as it was by her uniform. As if she and everything around him were some
strange nightmare, and he couldn't credit the evidence of his eyes. "Do you believe in this curse?"

Tricky. Soren waved a
hand equivocally. "I think that
Darest has had more than its share of ill luck since
Torluce
died. It's too soon to know whether your
return will change the cast of its fortunes. But before – more than
Rathens
died in the
plague that took the majority of your family. More than Darest suffered. Some
of the other major deaths happened after Queen...your aunt died, and they were
ascribed to a power play among the family itself. The accidents were not inexplicable, and
seemed mainly due to a Rathen tendency to fling off after things with a lack of
due caution. Do I think that someone
assisted the decline? It's
possible. How would we prove it? If you're asking me whether I think the Tzel
Aviar will be more interested in concealing some truth, or ensuring your death,
than tracking down this killer – I don't have an answer for you. I find myself giving no-one the benefit of
the doubt
any more
."

He shifted that stare out over the Hall of the Crown. "What is he doing now?"

"Listening to Aristide." Who was evidently being his most exactly
polite, with the malicious glitter restrained. Tzel Damaris gave him precisely the same amount of focus as he'd awarded
Strake and, though Captain
Vereck
had left them in
the empty guest apartments, there was still no sign of conspiracy between the
pair.

As she watched, the Tzel Aviar slowly turned his head,
looked across the room and then up, until he was facing the very angle Soren
used to observe him. His face didn't
change, became neither annoyed nor interested, and after a moment he returned
his attention to Aristide.

Warden of the Borders. Even among the Fair it was a role few could aspire to. The Deeping was an empire: ancient, enduring
and vast. Its people were singularly
gifted with magic and that power was woven through forest and farmland, stone
and river. The individual charged with
resolving the disputes and troubles of such a land's borders could be nothing
less than a consummate mage, steeped in centuries of lore. And, with the tiniest amount of effort, he'd
just pointed out to her what that meant.

Disconcerted, Soren had drawn her focus away. Now she returned it. While he was in the palace, he would be part
of the parade through her head, whether she willed it or not. She assured herself that it was hardly likely
that the Tzel Aviar could observe her in return.

"What do you want to do with the rest of the day?"
she asked Strake. She wanted to remind
him that he'd that morning promised not to take out his anger on her, or
perhaps just to hold him while he so obviously bled, but was half certain he'd
throw her across the room. "Go
through the rest of the Treasury?"

"No." Strake rose, but only to stand unmoving, still staring across the
room. "Have
Vereck
give you more detail on the death. About
the – this carter. Find out precisely
why they could find nothing."

After a pause, Soren obediently headed for the
garrison. But her attention stayed on
her Rathen as he stood alone in his throne room. And she was not altogether surprised when he
headed out through the palace and, for the first time since their return,
visited the Temple of the Moon.

Chapter Twenty

Well past midnight and Soren watched incredulously as a
cloaked figure crossed Fleeting Hall, skirting the very edge of the Garden of
the Rose to avoid the attention of the guards at the opposite end of the
room.
Jansette
. Again.

This time, using every shadow available, she flitted past
the Royal Mage's apartments and paused to fit a key to the Champion's
door. Fuming, Soren slid out from the
warmth of her blankets, and snatched up a mageglow on the way to her receiving
room. With conspiracies and killers to
worry about, bed-climbers were beyond tolerance. She would not be waiting till morning to
speak to the Captain of the Guard.

When
Jansette
slipped into the receiving
room, Soren was standing in its centre, arms folded and expression leagues from
welcoming.

"Can I help you, Lady
Denmore
?"

After a frozen moment,
Jansette
surprised Soren by laughing, an appreciative chuckle. "Should I clutch at my chest and cry 'Undone!'?"
she asked, lowering the hood of her cloak. Her hair glimmered in the light of the mageglow, but it did not seem
Soren was to be treated to the shrug and tumble, or that there was only a
tantalising wisp to reveal beneath the cloak.

Soren suddenly wished she'd brought her sword. The tone of voice, the words, the dry twist
to the beautiful lips, the assessing gaze all belonged to a different person to
the one she'd expected. And this time
Halcean
was safely sleeping, not ready to rush to the rescue.

"What can I do for you?" she managed.

"I know my response here – 'It's what I can do for you,
Champion.' With a sultry purr, don't you
think, and perhaps a hint of lowered eyelashes?" When Soren didn't respond, busy trying not to
gape,
Jansette's
smile widened and she moved forward
so they were standing chest to chest. Light perfume tickled senses. "I'm being shockingly unprofessional,"
Jansette
added, and laughed again, soft and full of excitement. "Don't worry, you're quite safe –
assassinations were never my taste."

"You're–" The conclusion was obvious. A
professional, an agent. A spy. And a consummate actress, for Soren still
could not quite credit that this was the same person. "What is it you want?"

"Well–"
Jansette
had somehow moved forward again, her presence
quite overwhelming. "Now that I'm
not in the bed of someone worth my wages, and failed so miserably last night,
my posting's been recalled. And there's
only one thing it'll really burn me to leave Darest without doing. I don't like regrets."

Amazed at how much not being a ninny improved the former
favourite, Soren moved abruptly away. "Do you have other keys the Captain of the Guard missed?" she
asked, trying to erase all hint of temptation from her voice.

"Not many."
Jansette's
smile was challenging, but she
didn't immediately press her attack. "I'll offer you a trade, Champion. Some information I'm sure you'll be interested in."

"For?"

"Do you want me to be crude?" The toss of the head was a nice mix of
invitation and teasing mockery. "Nothing this past month has suggested you'd regret paying."

"You won't get anywhere trying to blackmail me,"
Soren said, and immediately recognised an echo of Strake in her stiff tone.

"Oh, rot."
Jansette's
retort was derisive, her eyes still sparkling
with obvious pleasure. She was
thoroughly enjoying this. "Take the
poker out, Champion. Soren. Ever since you arrived in Tor Darest you've
been looking at me like I was the wettest of your dreams, fatally flawed. Believe me, if circumstances allowed I'd have
been quick to oblige. That sober,
statuesque dignity thing you've got going – I've been wanting to test that
since I first saw you. Women like you
shouldn't be allowed to put on uniforms."

Somehow,
Jansette
had neatly
closed the distance between them, and backing away again only brought Soren to
a wall. "Who do you work for?"
Soren snapped, trying to delay. She
wasn't the least surprised when the woman just shook her head.

"Don't you want to know what I saw?"
Jansette
asked, leaning in so the words were a thread of
sound in Soren's ear, so that breast pressed breast and thigh slid against
thigh. "I'll bargain low – a kiss,
that's all. One kiss and I'll tell you
just the thing you want."

And, for the moment at least, Soren didn't care about
bargains or spies, but the discovery that
Jansette's
skin was just as soft as it looked and her hair spider-silk tangling fingers as
Soren clasped the nape of her neck and did as she was asked.
Jansette
had no
intention of just one kiss, though, and her hands were everywhere. But, for all the woman's beauty, for all that
her exquisite form had been the subject of fantasy, Soren found she didn't want
to go where this was taking them.

It wasn't a fear of consequences, or even the thought that
Strake would be hurt if he knew. It was
a realisation that a spy sleeping her way to secrets, calculating and
intelligent, was rather worse than a pretty fool trading on her looks. And Soren liked that woman even less.

A shaky halt, but she held
Jansette
back, shook her head and said in quite a firm voice: "No."

"In love with your King?"
Jansette
, blue eyes
displeased, possessed more acuity than Soren had ever dreamed. "Who's to know?"

"I will."

"Forget that,"
Jansette
said, shortly. She pressed forward, but
Soren would not respond.

"I'm happy to let him join in,"
Jansette
added. "Sun, I'd ride that one raw any day."

"I don't think I'd enjoy that."

Jansette
drew back, frowning at
the tone. "I could wear you down if
I had time," she said. "But
that's the one thing I can't spare."

"Leaving on the dawn tide?" Soren asked, almost
normally. Her skin was flushed, breath
fast, but she was glad to have said no.

"Oh, well before, Champion. I've no taste for earning myself a cloak of
feathers. I must say that for the
Diamond: these salutary lessons are always so memorable there's none in the
Court who don't think twice in their misdeeds. At least for a while."
Jansette
reassembled herself, then sat primly on a
chair. Her bright, assessing gaze swept
the room before settling back on Soren re-tying her robe.
Jansette
the ninny,
bed-toy of the Regent. Naïve, ingenuous
and blatantly ambitious and – nothing like.

Kicking her thoughts firmly away from half-fulfilled
fantasy, Soren crossed her arms as a shield. "Tell me."

With a small nod,
Jansette
gestured toward the eastern portion of the palace. "Some nights ago I was returning from an
assignation with a very talented little man." She paused, felt in her pocket, then dropped
a key on the floor. "Married, sadly
enough, and pretending to be faithful. But there's a useful window, and those blockish sills dotting the New
Palace are wide enough for my purposes. I was working my way around over the stable yard when I heard–"

She paused, for dramatic effect or out of uncertainty, her
fine brows drawing together. Soren, who
had been expecting some secret of Lady Arista's, clenched her hands into fists,
desire forgotten. Vixen.
Jansette
had been
there when Vixen was killed.

"A nightingale, I think. Or a lark of some sort. One of those birds that sing, anyway. I don't waste my energy knowing animals. The moon was high and waning, not too long
past full. A scatter of clouds kept
blocking and unblocking the light. It
made for uncertain shadows, and then sharp ones, and though I could see the
yard clearly enough, the stable was in darkness.

"The song was coming from there. Just a bird I thought, but still I stopped
and waited and stared. Because it –
pierced. And it was moving, coming out
into the yard. And there was –
nothing."
Jansette
lifted one hand to wind a finger through one of her tendril-curls, twisting it
tight and then pulling free. "It
– I'm not telling this at all well, am
I? But I was frightened, and I'm not
very often. Hardly ever. And this was for so little reason; a bird, a
sound. No threat at all. I told myself that it's easy to mistake where
noise comes from, that a little bird would be easy to miss, down there in the
night. And then–"

This time she tugged the curl, jerked it and stopped
herself, smoothing it into place. "The light changed, the clouds moving across the moon, so
everything became less sharp, less perfectly clear. And there he was – sunlight on dust."

"What?"

"You know – when sunlight at just the right angle picks
out all the dust in the air? It's there
all the time, but usually you don't see it? Well, he was there all the time, standing in the middle of the yard. Whistling. He moved away, and – it was very fragmentary, the image, as if he was
walking between the moonbeams. I don't
think I saw all of him, all at once, but I saw enough."

She fell silent again, then shook her head and stood
up. "Dark hair and dark clothes, a
pale face and little more to see from that height. But his hands, Champion. They glittered like they were sheathed in
glass. Like they could cut."