The Bandit King (13 page)

Like a man witnessing a miracle.

Flags of charred fabric flapped, lifting away, the heavily resined tent-lines sparking and fizzing as they burned. Vianne stood, straight as a sword in the midst of the chaos, and my heart lodged itself in my throat. It forgot to beat, that senseless organ; it forgot everything but her name.

A final lick of silvery witchflame, and the map-table went up in a burst of orange and yellow. Smoke lifted, a cleaner reek than the Graecan fire. A hush descended outside, and I did not dare to glance away from my Queen, who gazed down on the cringing di Narborre. Her curls lifted, stirred by the hot, playful breeze.

The flagrant power was almost as terrifying as the precision of her control. The sensation of her using the Aryx was a velvet rasp against every inch of me, reaching down to bone and spilling out through my fingertips. How could the rest of them seem so unaffected? Perhaps terror robbed them of the ability to react.

“This is the gift,” she said clearly. “I allow you to live, Garonne di Narborre. Run back to your murdering master. Tell him
I am coming
.”

Her pale hands lifted; she settled the velvet hood over her hair and turned. Rich material fell forward, hiding her face, and her thin shoulders trembled.

Help her.

I dropped the sword, spun the knife to reverse it along my forearm, and reached her just as she swayed. The movement tipped her into my arms. I did my best to make it appear as if it were intentional, as if she had sought my presence, without making her appear weak. Still, di Narborre’s close-set, red-tinted eyes lit, hungry as ever, as I took her under my wing.

So to speak.

He came up in a stumbling rush, but Adersahl di Parmecy was there before I could even cry warning. His rapier point dipped, resting at the hollow of di Narborre’s throat.

“Do not,” the Queen’s Guard said, coolly. “Or another shall carry your message, and you shall dine with Death tonight.”

Vianne almost staggered. I held her upright, glanced through the ruins of the tent.

The vats of Graecan fire had exploded. The siege engines lay twisted and useless, moans and shrieks rising in a chorus of the mad, horses screaming with fear. The half-fan siege-shields before Arcenne’s Gate burned merrily, sending up plumes of black oily smoke.

Blessed save us. She did this?

“Tristan,” she whispered, and leaned in to me. For a few moments I almost thought she had forgotten.

But no. She stiffened, the Aryx’s melody receding, velvet turning to a scraping along my nerves. “Vianne,” I answered, stupidly, pointlessly.

The Pruzian Knife appeared, wreathed in smoke, his gloved fists holding the reins. His eyes were round, and he was ashen.

I did not blame him.

Whatever she thought, whatever she suspected, for that moment Vianne clung to me. And it was enough.

“Decamped. In an unseemly haste, as well.” My father sounded far more amused than the situation warranted. The decanter gurgled as he poured a measure of heavy red unwatered wine. He looked fair to bursting with satisfaction, and of a sudden, I longed to smash something.

Freshly bathed, freshly clothed as well, my sword returned by a blushing Tinan di Rocham, I stood at the casement, the window before me begging to have my fist put through it.

Vianne had retreated to the chambers we had shared—my own rooms, now hers. I did not grudge her the use of them, but I most certainly did grudge the way she freed herself of my hands with a decided moue of distaste once we had dismounted in the safety of the Keep, her eyes almost-closed and her mouth tight, as if one of the half-heads she was prone to had struck.

I had held her during one of the half-heads not so long ago, a bit of Court sorcery plunging the room into utter darkness while she wept with pain. I knew of the severe headaches, of course—twas gossip at Court that di Rocancheil suffered them and sometimes retreated to her bed for a day or so, blind with riven-skull agony.

Was she enduring one now? After single-handedly destroying every siege engine in di Narborre’s invading force, and causing the vats of Graecan fire to explode straight up in pillars of flame? Or was it brought on by the battle at the Gate, or by any of a hundred things that could trigger such a condition? A bright light, tension, exhaustion—the list was long.

“The Council will meet as soon as the work of reordering the city is well enough underway.” My father swept up the two goblets. “The signs are… well, they are not
bad
. Siguerre thinks it Timrothe d’Orlaans’s clumsy attempt to drive a wedge between you and her. Di Falterne and d’Anton reserve their judgment—it is they you will have to sway. Di Dienjuste is rattling his rapier, ready to sally forth and slay them all. Di Rivieri and di Markui think this all a load of nonsense, and the Queen’s attention better turned to other matters.” He glided across the room, offered me wine.

Crusty ancient di Siguerre was my father’s friend of old, and behind his craggy face lay a mind much sharper than a liege would find comfortable in a provincial lord. Di Falterne and d’Anton were normal enough noblemen except for their probity—always a quality in short supply among men. They were younger than di Siguerre by a good deal, though, and gave the Council forward momentum. Di Dienjuste was a young blood, and his attentions to Vianne approached the edge of the permissible. The remaining old men, di Rivieri and di Markui, were stolid weights to balance the young ones, and their provinces were necessary if we were to fight a war for Arquitaine’s heart. I passed their faces through my memory, arriving at the same answer I usually did when weighing a group of men: Some were more likely to be troublesome, some were less, but on the whole they would be easy enough to manage.

At least, with my position as Vianne’s Consort secure, they would have been. As matters now stood, one or two of them, di Dienjuste in particular, might be disposed to be… difficult.

A fire snapped in the grate; though the afternoon was warm, the evening would turn chill. The wind always rose to welcome evening here in Arcenne.

Like a woman rising to meet her lover.

She will not see me alone, and the damnable Pruzian is at her door.
“The Pruzian. How did she come to trust him?” I sounded harsher than I liked. The goblet’s metal was cool against my fingers, charmed to the proper temperature for a red.

“She may or may not trust him.” My father gave me a sharp, very blue glance. “She
relies
on you,
m’fils
. The Pruzian is a useful tool, no doubt. She has as good as forgiven our family—”

I turned back to the window. The urge to strike my own father had never been so marked. “He is dangerous. And he is at her very door, while I am sent away to cool my heels and be examined by a clutch of old men.”

“You are lucky. The papers could be your death, no matter that Henri sent you into the lion’s jaws. Not only that, but this clutch of
old men
is the power of—”

I surfaced from my thoughts with an unpleasant jolt. “Take care what you say next,
Père
.”

The words vibrated in the still air of my father’s study, leather-bound books frowning from their shelves, the tasseled sling over the fireplace with its crust of ancient Torkaic blood still sharp and restless.

Silence enfolded us.

I decided to break it first, for once. “You were quick to cast me aside when Vianne doubted me. Now you are quick to have the Council do…
what
? While she lies abed, possibly in agony, after sending an army away with its tail between its legs?” I stared down at the stones of the bailey, my back tightening with instinctive gooseflesh. He was behind me, and armed.

He is my father.

And yet. “Let me be absolutely clear. Since we are men, and may speak freely.” I set the goblet on the windowsill. “You are my father; I am your son. But I belong to the Queen of Arquitaine, and even if I am sentenced to the unthinkable at her pleasure,
I am loyal
.” The words burned my tongue.
Never too late, is that it? Or am I lying, as I lied to Henri?
“The Council may examine me, because
she
wishes it. Well and good. But no collection of old men will work against her will. She is the Queen, and as long as there is life granted me I will not hesitate to…
remind
… those who mistake her soft heart for weakness of the fact.”

More silence. The shaking in me was Vianne’s—the shudders as she stumbled for her horse, whispering my name as if twas a charm or a prayer, and my own soft replies. She had mounted with that same pretty, useless Court grace, and her horse had followed the lead of the Pruzian’s. The silent ride back to Arcenne’s Gate through the seething mass of confused, frightened, and wounded Damarsene had borne a distinct resemblance to a nightmare.

Adersahl had vanished to the barracks, and a great weariness swamped me. What would he tell the rest of the Guard? And how would they react? They were a fine defense for my darling, but I had not intended to be on the outside of that palisade.

“So,” the Baron di Arcenne said quietly. “At last we find your measure,
m’fils
.”

Oh, you have not seen the half of my steel yet.
“Do you remember when I was nine,
sieur
, and whipped for apples I did not steal?”

He was silent again, but I knew enough to abandon hope that it was from shame.

“I did not cry for mercy.”
And I dare you to reply to this sally with any honesty, though I know you will not.

A long pause. “So you did not.”

“Did you ever wonder why?”

“Perhaps because you knew there was none to be had. You are d’Arcenne. There must not even be the
appearance
of—”

“Be
silent
!” I rounded on him. Sick fury struggled for an outlet. “The
appearance
. You provincial old
fool
. Appearance is
nothing
! Truth lies below it, behind it, above it—had you even a month at Court you would be taught as much!”

“Oh,
Court
. That nest of vipers. You rose high in Henri di Tirecian-Trimestin’s service,
my son
, and what fueled that rise?”

I do not think even
he
quite believed he had said it. The old rumor, that I had been catamite for a King who preferred boyflesh—and who was I to dispel such a slur when it had proven so initially useful?

“That nest of vipers was where you sent me,
father mine
.” Each word a knife-cut, shallow but telling. “And I rose in Henri’s service by being willing to kill at his word. You wish the truth? There it is. I killed for the King. I whored for him. I poisoned and stole for him, I bore false witness for him, I did things no honorable man would stoop to. That is what you fathered. And I will do more, and worse; I will be as black as I must, for Vianne.”
It was for her all along. But I do not expect you to understand.

He was silent, examining me afresh. Now I felt the fool, showing my weakness so openly. That is the price of being an instrument of royalty; it means even your own flesh becomes suspect. There is no rest to be found, no safety, and even less softness.

And by the time you realize what you have cast aside, it is too late to seek a remedy. Had I not been such a sharpened instrument, my
d’mselle
, unshielded, might be dead.

Or worse.

Why am I even here?
Weariness threatened to swallow me whole.
Because Vianne wishes it.
I strode for the door. Did I stay longer, there was no telling what idiocy I would give voice to next. Or what weapon I would give him to strike me later with.

“Tristan.” For the first time, my father sounded old. “Tristan,
m’fils
, wait—”

I did not. I stalked into the hall, and Tinan di Rocham hurriedly scrambled to his feet from the padded bench across the hall. I dismissed him with a gesture, and such was his instinctive obedience that he froze long enough for me to disappear up a staircase and into the Keep’s depths.

*   *   *

The familiar hall was empty, but I did not show myself. Instead, I waited, breathing lightly and silently, tucked into a shallow alcove behind a tapestry. The passage leading here was thick with dust, tickling my nose as I waited, my gaze sliding from near to far, alert to any slight movement.

It still took longer than I liked.

When I was certain I knew, I stepped lightly back and followed the hidden passage for a long fifteen steps, then slid out from behind another tapestry and a wooden stand holding slowly-rusting pikes from the di Roncail’s time. Quietly, softly, I paced to the corner and peered down the hall once more.

There it was again, that same flicker of motion. I strolled around the corner as if I had not a care in the world, my hands aching for my rapier-hilt. But no—for this, twas knifework, and I could not draw yet.

I did not wish to be caught approaching her door blade-in-hand. Appearances lied, yes—and she did not need another reason to mistrust me.

I was almost past his hiding place when the Knife exploded into motion, a flash I almost did not catch. Even though I was prepared, the bastard was
quick
.