Tracing the Shadow (30 page)

“Thank you. Are you with the Smarnan Embassy?” Celestine moistened her lips with the red wine, then set the glass down, determined to keep a clear head.

“Lord, no! I’m from a colder clime. Can’t you guess from my fair complexion, and my accent?”

Was he teasing her? “I’m sorry, Count, you have me at a disadvantage…”

“Our countries have not always been on the best of terms in recent years,” he said, smiling. “I’m with the Tielen Embassy.”

“You speak our language very well for a Tielen,” she said, then winced inwardly as she realized how rude that must sound.

“And you blush very prettily.” He moved a little closer. “Perhaps you and your accompanist would like to perform before Prince Karl and his court? Although from the sullen looks your accompanist is giving me at the moment, perhaps not. He looks the jealous type.”

“So Prince Karl likes music?” Celestine asked.

“He’s a great patron of all the arts and sciences. He’s a very cultured man and likes to invite the most distinguished academics and musicians to Tielborg.”

“Sciences?” she echoed.

“I’m sure we could come to an understanding.” He moved closer still and as she took another step backward, her elbow grazed against the wall. Too late she realized that he had cleverly maneuvered her into a little alcove. “One that would be mutually beneficial.”

“I don’t quite follow—”

“Has anyone ever told you how bewitching your eyes are?” He placed one hand on the wall above her head, leaning over her, so close that she could smell the wine on his breath. “Such a celestial shade of blue. Whoever named you chose well…”

Celestine had never found herself in such an intimate situation before. She mustered all her courage and stared challengingly up at him. “If you’ll excuse me, Count—”

“And how provocative when you’re roused.” His smile widened and she saw from the glint in his eyes that he was enjoying her discomfort. “I swear, Demoiselle, that I just can’t resist such a blatant challenge.”

Was he about to touch her? To kiss her here, among all these illustrious guests? All her plans to secure her first invitation to sing abroad vanished in a single, all-consuming urge to flee.

“And how prettily you blush,” murmured her admirer, hand sliding down the wall to catch her by the shoulder. “Where are you going, Demoiselle? We had only just begun our conversation.”

“Let go of me,” she said in a fierce whisper. Her whole body was burning with embarrassment; she was sure that she must have turned bright crimson. The hand that rested on her shoulder strayed onto bare skin, fingers wandering along the line of her bodice to touch her breasts.

Before she knew what she was doing, she had slapped him. But he just caught her by the wrist and pulled her close. “You’re a spirited little tease, aren’t you?”

“Let her go!”

Celestine felt his grip relax. Turning around, she saw Jagu advancing on them, his fists clenched, his pale face a mask of fury.

“Keep out of this, boy. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Let her go,” repeated Jagu. Celestine twisted her hand free and ran to Jagu’s side. The raised voices had attracted attention and she could see the ambassador whispering to a servant.

“What gives you the right to interrupt our tête-à-tête?” The charming, attentive expression had vanished, to be replaced by a vicious sneer. The count took a step toward Jagu, who stood his ground. “Do you know who I am?” The conversation died as the salon fell silent. All the guests were staring. “I am Count Gunnar Alvborg.”

“I represent the demoiselle’s guardian, Maistre de Joyeuse,” said Jagu with calm dignity. “He placed her in my care tonight. I cannot allow anyone to molest her.”

“Why, you—” Count Alvborg lurched forward, taking a swing at Jagu. Several female guests shrieked. Celestine saw Jagu move with lightning swiftness. His hand caught the man’s thrusting fist and, with a sudden twist, pulled the assailant’s arm up behind his back. As the ambassador’s servants came running through the guests, he slammed the count’s face against the wall.

“Damn you,” shouted Alvborg, through puckered lips. “You’ll pay for this, you impudent little nobody. I demand satisfaction. You’ll—” The servants caught hold of him and removed him, still shouting abuse, from the salon.

The ambassador came over to Celestine. “I must apologize for the count. His behavior was unpardonable.”

Shaken, she nodded. She wanted only to retreat, to vanish from all the staring, curious eyes. She turned to Jagu and saw a thin gash of scarlet marring his pale face.

“Is that blood on your cheek? Did he hurt you?”

His hand flew to touch his cheek; he looked at the fingertips as they came away smeared with blood. “It’s nothing. His signet ring must have grazed the skin.”

She pulled out her handkerchief to dab at the cut but he shook his head, turning abruptly away. “It’s time we left,” he said curtly.

Celestine’s head was spinning by the time they were ushered down to their waiting carriage. The ambassador had kissed her hand, with many flattering compliments, but she had hardly heard a word. As the carriage rattled away from the torchlit courtyard, she leaned back against the leather seat and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the carriage was moving along the wide avenue and the light from the street lanterns they passed illuminated Jagu, sitting silently watching her.

“Thank you,” she said. “You rescued me.”

“I was only following the Maistre’s instructions.”

“But Alvborg is a big, well-built man. And you disabled him so swiftly. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

A shrug. “I train with the Commanderie cadets once a week.”

Now that the initial shock was wearing off, she began to feel angry with herself that she had wasted such a valuable opportunity. She had genuinely believed that Count Alvborg had approached her to invite her to perform. She must not allow herself to be so easily gulled again. “If only I could train with the cadets too. I don’t suppose they accept women?”

He was staring at her as if she were mad.

A woman alone must devise strategies to defend herself. If I’m to go out into the world, I must become stronger.

Rehearsals continued—this time for the princess’s soiree—and the frustration that had been building all week suddenly exploded. Jagu brought both fists crashing down on the fortepiano keys, and Henri de Joyeuse flinched.

“Why did you pair us together, Maistre? She’s impossible! Nothing I do is right. You told me that she was a convent girl, sweet-natured, a little shy and retiring, yet she does nothing but complain that I don’t play the way you do.”

The Maistre said nothing for a while. He appeared to be studying the music, his head bent, his long strands of fair hair obscuring his face.

“Is that so?” he said eventually. To Jagu’s annoyance, there seemed to be a little smile playing about the Maistre’s lips. “I wondered if sparks might fly…”

That throwaway comment made Jagu even more angry. What exactly was the Maistre implying?

“I can’t do it. You’ll have to find another pianist. I’ve made up my mind.”

“This is a
royal
recital.” The Maistre shut the score and came over to the keyboard. “Do you want me to be frank, Jagu?”

“Yes.” Jagu’s chin went up defensively, ready for whatever blow the Maistre was about to deliver.

“Celestine is right. These last weeks you’ve been playing as if your heart isn’t in the music anymore.” The Maistre leaned on the fortepiano case, looking at him keenly. “So, what’s changed?”

Jagu turned away, not wanting to meet his eyes. He had been dreading this question for some time. “It—it’ll be my eighteenth birthday next week.”

“Surely a cause for celebration?”

“Have you forgotten, Maistre?” he blurted out. “It’s the age at which a man can enter the Guerriers.”

“Ah. Your promise to Captain de Lanvaux. No, I hadn’t forgotten. I’d just hoped that, with reflection, you might have changed your mind.” The Maistre’s gaze, usually so mild and encouraging, had become uncomfortably penetrating.

“Changed my mind? I owe him my life!” Jagu was indignant that the Maistre might have thought him so shallow that he would go back on his word.

The Maistre turned away from the fortepiano. “It’s your decision, Jagu.”

Jagu scowled down at the wet cobbles beneath his feet as he walked away through the rain.

I don’t want you to be understanding, Maistre. If only you’d shouted at me, told me I was making the worst mistake of my whole life, it would have made it so much easier for me to walk away.

“Jagu.
Jagu
.” Jagu heard someone calling his name.

“What is it?” he mumbled. His eyelids were sticky with sleep. “Who’s there?”

A wan face appears, hovering above his in the darkness
.

“
Paol?
”
Jagu whispers
.

“
I can’t sleep, Jagu.
”
Paol’s fair hair has faded to wisps of dusty spidersilk and the fine skin over his delicate features is discolored, like ancient parchment. “Stay with me. Don’t leave me alone in the dark.
”

“
It’s all right, Paol. I’m here
.”
Jagu reaches out to catch hold of Paol’s hand, but the frail fingers crumble to dust in his grasp
.

Jagu sat up suddenly. He was shivering. His heart was pounding and his nightshirt was soaked with cold sweat.

“Paol.”

His attic room was dull with the half-light before the sun rose. Shadows clustered in the far corners. He had not dreamed of Paol for some months now. He looked down at his right hand, feeling again the skeletal fingers disintegrating in his grip.

The magus’s mark gleamed faintly in the dawnlight.

He’s still alive, the one who did this to you. I don’t know his name, I don’t know how to begin to track him down, but I have to make sure that no other child suffers such a horrible death.

Jagu pushed back the crumpled sheet and went over to the desk, where his precious books of music were stacked. He drew out the document that he had placed for safekeeping in the Maistre’s book of chorale preludes.

Enrollment in the Commanderie Cadets.

I, Ruaud de Lanvaux, recommend Jagu de Rustéphan as a suitable candidate for cadetship.

As the applause rippled around the salon, Celestine saw her patron smiling warmly at her. She curtsied, smiling back at Adèle. The program had been planned to include several of the princess’s favorite songs, concluding with Henri de Joyeuse’s achingly beautiful “Spring Moon.” To Celestine’s surprise, Jagu had played with sensitivity and expression. But in the anteroom after the performance, he seemed even more distant than usual.

“I won’t be accompanying you again after tonight, Demoiselle,” he said stiffly. “I’m about to enroll in the Guerriers.”

This revelation shocked Celestine. “You’re abandoning your musical career? When you have so much talent? Why throw away all these years of hard work?”

“Because I made a promise. A promise to a friend.”

“You vowed to join up together?”

“I vowed to avenge his death.”

“How did he die?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. There was something about his eyes that told her he must have been through some terrible ordeal. He must still be nursing scars from that experience. She found herself wanting to know what had happened to damage him so deeply.

“Besides,” he said, avoiding her question, “I also owe Captain de Lanvaux. He saved my life.”

“The captain saved you?” She became aware that she was looking at Jagu differently, wondering what had happened to him, how deep the scars ran. “What happened? Was it overseas? He fought in Enhirre, didn’t he?”

“It wasn’t overseas.” He began to pack away his music, sliding the scores into his music case. So he didn’t want to talk about that either. She felt hurt that he didn’t want to confide in her. “I promised him I’d join up when I was eighteen.” There was that determined, resolute tone in his voice again. And it infuriated her that he could be so sure of himself, so certain that he was doing the right thing.

“But what about the Maistre? What did he say when you told him?”

She saw him swallow and knew that she’d touched a raw place.

“He tried to dissuade me,” he said stiltedly.

“It must be difficult for him to see one of his best students throw everything away. It must feel like a—a rejection.” The words came out before she could stop them. But when it came to the Maistre, her feelings were so strong, so unpredictable that she could not always guard her tongue.

“He said it was my decision!”

“But he’s given you so much. Is this how you repay his generosity?”

“How can you know what’s right for me? You, with your sheltered convent upbringing? How can you know
anything
?” He seized his case and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

CHAPTER 22

The greenhouse was hot and humid, and the fronds of trailing plants brushed Rieuk’s face as he made his way to Magus Aqil’s laboratory. The moist air was heavy with strange scents, some peppery and vivid that tickled his nostrils, others musky, tinged with a fetid odor of decay.

Aqil’s gift lay in the culture and uses of plants. Rieuk supposed that he should have guessed that such a talent would make the secretive magus a master of poisons as well.

“Ah, there you are, Rieuk.” Aqil looked up from his work; earthy tubers lay sliced open on a marble board beside a pestle and mortar. “Oranir, bring me the elixir we prepared for Emissary Mordiern.”

A dark-eyed youth appeared from the inner room, carrying a phial, which he presented to Rieuk, bowing his head. As he looked up, Rieuk felt a sudden jolt of recognition. The boy was regarding him gravely with a gaze that reminded him painfully of Imri, although the mage-glitter in his black eyes was not warm amber but the scarlet and gold of burning magma.

“Oranir?” Rieuk said dazedly. “An earth mage?” Oranir vanished swiftly into the inner room before Rieuk could thank him.

“My new apprentice. He somehow found his way to Ondhessar from Djihan-Djihar. He doesn’t say much. I’d guess from the scars on his body that he was treated very harshly when his mage blood first asserted itself.”

Aqil’s words stirred bitter memories in Rieuk. The thought that anyone could have been cruel enough to damage the boy’s flawless olive skin sent a stab of bright anger through him.

“So in spite of the Inquisition’s purges, there are still children being born with the gift?”

“Oranir is the first since you came to us, Rieuk. We are a dying breed,” said Aqil, lightly enough. “Now, this elixir works in two ways. It will give Gobain of Francia the illusion that the cancer eating away at his bowel has been cured.”

“Isn’t that more cruel than poison?” Rieuk held up the phial, examining the viscous liquid within. It had a purplish tinge, reminding him of the dusty bloom on the skin of fresh-picked grapes. “To give him false hope?”

“If you really want to be arrested and executed as a poisoner and regicide, then I can give you a far swifter poison to administer,” Aqil said mildly, taking back the phial. “But to allow you time to ‘disappear,’ you need your remedy to be seen to work.”

“And the second stage?”

“The elixir will accelerate the growth of the cancer, making it much more aggressive. By the time you’ve left Francia, the king will suffer a sudden relapse and die. So your challenge is to find a way to administer the elixir. Have you worked out a strategy?”

Rieuk did not answer. He was trying to master a growing feeling of disgust. This deadly elixir seemed an underhanded and cowardly way to carry out the Arkhan’s vendetta.

Rieuk took lodgings close to the Jardin des Plantes, the physic gardens renowned throughout the quadrant for their collection of medicinal plants from many countries. The most notable Francian physicians came to exchange ideas in the library and it was here that Rieuk went to present the specimens he had brought from Aqil’s greenhouse.

“I doubt any of the Francians will have seen a scarlet-speckled fritillary or a white balsam poppy before; they only bloom in the hidden valley,” Aqil had told him. “The poppy will pique the physicians’ interest, especially when you tell them of its cancer-healing properties…”

“I’ve been listening to you with great interest, Doctor Suriel. This elixir that you claim can stop the growth of cancer…”

Rieuk looked up and saw a smartly dressed man addressing him. “And you are?” he asked levelly.

“Vallot, personal physician to his majesty the king.”

“Emeric Suriel,” Rieuk said, bowing. Aqil had helped Rieuk construct a convincing identity for his role, even down to inventing a Djihari physician father and a Francian mother.

“What proof do you have that this elixir of yours works where other remedies have failed?” Doctor Vallot said, regarding him intensely through his monocle, as if he were scrutinizing one of his patients. “And why should we trust your methods more than our own?”

Rieuk shrugged. “Indeed, why should you? I’ve studied in Enhirre and Djihan-Djihar for several years; the Djihari physicians use many remedies unknown to us in Francia.” He could sense from his silence that Doctor Vallot was interested in his proposal. “But since you don’t trust my methods…” He picked up his bag, turned, and made for the door, hoping that the ruse had worked.

“Wait.”

Rieuk stopped but did not turn around.

“I’m sure you’ll understand my reticence in this matter.” Doctor Vallot’s tone was almost placating. “It’s the king’s health we’re dealing with here, after all.”

“Of course.” Rieuk still did not turn around.

“We’ll need to check your papers.”

“I’m sure you’ll find that everything is in order,” Rieuk said quietly. The Arkhan’s secretaries had supplied “Emeric Suriel” with Enhirran passports and testimonials, confirming his status as a qualified physician. “But please don’t take too long in making your decision. My visa only lasts for a few more days.”

“Where can we find you?”

Rieuk turned away to hide a smile of bitter triumph. “I have lodgings at the rue de l’Arbalète.”