The Bandit King (8 page)

My magic was only of the sort that would kill a man, or conceal a death. The rest of Court sorcery is illusion made of light and air, beautiful and useless. Spectacles are wrought at Festivals and fêtes, and during a duel the birthright of nobles is used to dizzy, distract, steal the breath, cut as steel. But to heal requires peasant hedgewitchery or Tiberian physicker’s training.

“Captain?” It was not like Adersahl to sound so uncertain.

Is it treason to name me thus?
I decided against waving a languid hand and making the chains clash. Instead, I watched him through slitted eyelids, my jaw aching ever so slightly under the itch.

“I bethought myself that you would wish to know.” The slight hissing of witchlight underscored his words. “The army has arrived. Damarsene troops, and Arquitaine units as well. Some thousands, all flying d’Orlaans’s colors. With siege engines.”

My helplessness caught in my throat.

“The
d’mselle
is well, though she is working herself to the bone and spending every night in the Temple praying. Your father has prepared a defense for the city.”

I did not move. If he saw my face now, he might well regret carrying the tale.

“Di Narborre is at the gates. He is sending an emissary in the morning under a parlay flag.” Adersahl paused. “The Queen intends something, but just what I cannot tell. She closeted herself with your father this morning, and even now rides to the Temple with Jierre and some few of the Guard. The city is in a ferment.”

With an army at the walls? I should think so.
I almost opened my mouth to ask questions, decided not to, again.
You are best served by muteness here, Left Hand. Silence unnerves.

“I came to see if you needed aught.” Adersahl paused. “Or if you wished me to take a message…”

What message could I send to her? She has not even come to my cell to spit upon me.
I bit at the inside of my cheek to keep the words from spilling free.
No, I thank you, my loyal Guard, but it is best for you to hear no word of mine.

I still had my stiletto. And there was the knife in my boot. Did I wish to kill the man who would bring me my supper?

Was it time yet?

“D’Arcenne.” Adersahl hissed out the sibilant in the middle of my surname.
“Tristan.”

Here in the bowels of the Keep, there were none to hear a scream or a struggle. I knew this pile of stone well; I’d spent my boyhood hiding in its passages before I was sent to Court and learned the terrain of the Palais D’Arquitaine and the Citté’s broad tangle.

Yet what would I do
after
I eased myself free of the cell?

You need a plan.

Had not all plans brought me here, no matter how well constructed?

Why had she not come? Did she think me so faithless? Was she afraid?

Adersahl sighed, the sound of a man with a heavy burden. He turned, the scrape of his heel punctuating the movement.

“Adersahl.” My throat was so dry it turned the word into a harsh croak.

“Captain?” Damn the man; he sounded so hopeful.

“Tell her I long to see her.” I sounded raw, unhappy.
No wonder.
I closed my eyes fully, the darkness spilling unkind into my brain.

“Is that all?” Softly, cajoling. Had he been sent to receive a confession? There was no confession I would give secondhand. If she wanted much else from me, she could come herself.

I did not reply. Let him make of it what he would. Let
her
.

“I shall, then.” A slight creak—was he bowing? To me, as I took my ease on a prison cot? Wonders did not cease in the wide world.

He left me, his steps receding down the long hall under the hissing of witchlight torches, and I touched the stiletto’s thin hilt. Escape was possible while I still had the strength.

I settled myself more comfortably. Or at least, I moved my arms so the chains did not weigh so heavily. The bracelets of raw flesh slid under the iron, and I was surprised into a quiet, humorless laugh. Not so long ago I ordered a Pruzian Knife beaten and tossed into an
oublietta
. She had taken me to task for it, sweet Vianne with the tender heart. And here I was, enchained and trusting that same tender heart for mercy.

If I am to get free of this, I must do so soon.

After the morning meal—or what I assumed was the morning meal—was brought, I fell into another uneasy sleep. An imprisoned man begins to slumber more and more, seeking to make the time pass quickly. There is also a manner of sleep where the mind slides the pieces of a conspiracy or plan together, then presents it whole to its owner when he awakens.

The wheels were turning and I slipped deeper, the borderland between waking and dreaming receding. Unfortunately, I was not left to find a solution to my predicament, for I heard the squeal of metal on metal and woke in a lunge, breathing in bergaime and spice as well as the peculiar greenness of hedgewitchery.

Perhaps my mother had found a perfumier. It was one of the little things a man would never think on, and twould perhaps soothe another woman’s nerves.

The rustle of silk filled the cell. Chains clashed as I struggled to rise, and Vianne paused just inside the barred door.

She regarded me. The dress was dark green silk, holding her lovingly, her skirts whispering as she moved. Pearl ear-drops, pearls woven into her long dark hair, the complex braiding in the style of di Rocancheil carried with a particular tilt of her head on its slender neck. One of my mother’s necklaces, an interweaving of thin strands of small freshwater pearls, dropped down to hold a large teardrop emerald just over her cleavage. Under it lay the silver chain holding the Aryx, its three serpents frozen in the act of writhing about one another, their gem-bright eyes winking. A ball of silvery witchlight hovered over her shoulder, casting her features into strange flat shadow.

The door stood open behind her, and I saw the edge of someone’s shoulder—it seemed to be Jierre, but I could not be certain.

I moved slowly, curling up to sit on the bed, dropping my booted feet off the side. I filled my eyes with her, hungrily.

We regarded each other, my
d’mselle
and I, across stone flags and empty air. The witchlight at her shoulder, tinted with green threads of hedgewitchery, sizzled. I breathed in the same air she was breathing, I watched her face, and I discovered I still wanted her as much as ever.

It was little surprise. I did not think irons would cure me.

Was she waiting for me to speak? Her face changed, but it could have been the witchlight’s treacherous shadows. She had saved my life with a witchlight once, one bright enough to tear the roof off a Shirlstrienne inn.

She folded her arms defensively, cupping her elbows in her palms. The copper marriage-ring glittered.

So she still wore it. She had not repudiated me yet.

“They should not have left you chained so long.” A trifle defensively.

Still the same tender heart.
I spread my hands loosely, listened to the metal rattle and clash, dropped my arms.

Did she wince? Perhaps slightly.

She looked away, and I caught a flash of expression. There were shadows under her eyes the witchlight did not disguise. And another shadow lay upon her—sleeplessness, and worry.

Had I been unchained, I could have shared the weight. I
ached
to share it.

She half-turned, as if leaving me.

“No!” The cry burst free. “Do not go,
m’chri
.”

As soon as it was out I cursed myself. I should have held my peace to force her on the defensive. But I could not be so cold, so calculating. Not with her.

Not when she was about to leave me alone again in the dark.

She swung back to face me. And now I could see she had not meant to leave. An advantage, thrown away so needlessly. I did not begrudge it.

She regarded me again. Her hands dropped to her sides, curled into fists.

Will she fly at me? Strike me?
The thought of it sent an oblique pang through me—her flesh against mine again, in whatever fashion.

“Why?” One short syllable, the word I dreaded. “Why, Tristan?”

When have I not told you why with every glance I gave you? Every time you allowed me to touch you I gave you my reasons.
I swallowed, my heart a stone in my throat. And yet I could not let her take the field completely. A defeat at her hands I could stomach, but on my own terms. “Why
what
, Vianne?”

“I shall tell you a tale, Left Hand. Of a man who killed a king.” Her chin up, no quarter asked or given.

I would grant her the quarter nonetheless. So I answered. “Perhaps I should tell you a tale in return, of a falcon at the wrist.”

Her silence was grave, her face settling against itself. It only made her lovelier. “I am far more interested in your tale than you would be in mine.”

No doubt, my love.
“Then I shall sing you a harsh one.” I gained my feet fully, the chains making their cruel music. “Do you know much of falconry? You train the bird with a lure, and you must reward it or it will cease to rise for you.”

She made a restless movement. “I would have truth, Tristan. Not pretty Court-talk.”

Ease yourself,
m’chri.
There is a moral to this song.
“There was once a young boy sent to Court, and he fell in love.” I could not help myself. It was like the lancing of a wound. “He beheld a girl dancing, and she stole his heart. And so he set himself to become
more
, so she would notice—but there was a barrier. She, a noblewoman of the first order, a noble of the sword, was not free to wed without a king’s leave.”

Did she start at that? No, she only became graver.

There was no retreat now. I pressed on. “The boy possessed ambition, and ambition is noted at Court. The boy was brought to wrist so easily, and with the lure sweet in front of him, he became something…”

I remembered, of a sudden, the first man I had killed at Henri’s bidding, a troublesome minor noble knifed in a dark alley. How
easy
it had been, and the feeling of accomplishment afterward, as if I had proved something. And how that feeling had faded, because now I was set apart from my fellows. Now I was the keeper of secrets, and not merely that—now I was as far away from my father as it was possible to be.

“You have no idea, Vianne.” Now I only sounded weary. “I became a thief, a murderer, the lowest of the low—and it was for
you
. You were the lure that kept the falcon hooded at the wrist, stooping only to the King’s prey. Then Henri told me he intended to barter you, wed you to a petty Damarsene to stop the tribute payments. I could not brook that.” The scalding flush went through me again at the thought of her under some filthy Damarsene, far from home and sold like a thoroughbred racer broken to a peasant’s plow. My hands ached, and I could not stop their knotting into fists.

“You could not…” She ran out of breath halfway through, staring at me as if I were a new creature, neither fish nor fowl, found crawling in her chambers.

“I
could not
, Vianne. The King meant to sell you. Do not mourn his passage; the underworld has enough and to spare for
him
.”

She wet her lips, and the flush that raced through me was of a different sort. “Lisele,” she whispered.

Of course. Her Princesse, Henri’s daughter. “I did not know they meant to kill her. Why would I have sent you to her chambers otherwise? You were my prize, my lure. Why would I have sent you into danger? I thought Lisele safe; I thought
you
safe at her side. Then, d’Orlaans—”

“There was no poison on the pettites, Tristan.” Color rose high in her cheeks. “I would have smelled it. I am a passing-fair hedgewitch.”

And so much more.
“Oh, aye, passing fair.” And then I cast my dice. “What was I to do, describe every moment of blood and bowel-cut to you? You were near to fainting with shock and grief, and carrying a burden far greater than mine. I misled you about the poison, yes. To ease your mind, and I would do it again.”

“The papers. They involve you swearing yourself to the conspiracy.” She did not look so certain now, my Queen. If I were to fan the flame of her suspicion, I could—and I could also, if luck let me, direct that suspicion’s course away from my threshold.

“Of course I was involved with the conspiracy. I was
hunting
it. They thought me a prize too, and knew exactly the lure to cast. If you think I killed Henri, Vianne, you are correct. I killed him by being too late.”

I almost expected the cell walls to shake with the enormity of the falsehood. Yet if you aim to cast your dice, to regain the only thing that matters, there is no use doing it by halves. It was salted with truth. Had I not stayed to gloat I would have been one leap ahead of pursuit.

Believe me
, I prayed. And I had burned the only copy. Whatever paper she had seen, with a hand upon it similar to mine and its quality not enough to catch a nobleman’s blood, it was not
mine
. D’Orlaans’s lie would help me give an even greater falsehood the ring of truth.