The Bandit King (2 page)

I could have lost everything.
At least once a day, the cold consciousness of the almost-miss caused me to sweat. Another man might have soaked it in liquor or another form of oblivion. I kept it close. It sharpened me.

Muffled hoofbeats echoed against the shuttered houses on either side. This
Quartier
held the domiciles of merchants and some few petty officials and small nobles, pleasant villas of white stone snuggling against the lesser processional way to the Temple. Late-blooming nisteri showed blood-red in window boxes, their color faded under torch- and witchlight but still enough to warn of autumn’s approach.

Then would come winter, and with it snow, rain, uncertain roads. An army would find it most difficult to assail Arcenne once the season turned.

But before? That was another tale, and one we were faced with now.

I had found her in the bailey with di Cinfiliet earlier that afternoon, pale but composed, stunned by the arrival of ill news. She had afterward told my father and her Cabinet to prepare the city for siege, as di Cinfiliet had arrived bloody and missing half his men, bearing news of impending doom. I had heard the report of her commands from my father, and right annoyed with her action instead of docility he was, too.

Chivalieri en sieurs,
I will decide tomorrow morning if I am to risk open war or if I will surrender myself to the Duc and hope for peace. I am loath to risk even a single life… Until I decide, I leave the preparations for this city’s defense to you. I have another duty now.
Sieur
di Cinfiliet, I will ask you for a few more moments of your time, tonight, in the Temple. Until then, rest and look to your men and horses.

She was far too quiet. I have learned to mistrust such peace. When my
d’mselle
is so silent and grave, it means she is thinking on a riddle to which the answer is most likely dangerous. My
d’mselle
is of a quick mind, an understanding as surprising as it is deep; she had never been content to simply be an empty-headed Court dame. Studying Tiberian, hedgewitchery, playing riddlesharp, her influence at Court was used for scholarly pursuits and decorum. Which the Princesse, truth be told, had sorely needed. Henri’s daughter had been that most shallow of royal creatures, a spoiled pet I could not imagine ruling Arquitaine. The King had largely left Princesse Lisele to her own devices, perhaps thinking the Damarsene blood in the wench would make her cowlike and docile as her foreign mother. Henri had often contemplated another marriage while he was still fit enough to sire; Lisele had not known how slender her hold on the title of Heir truly was—nor had she known to be grateful to her mother’s kin for their heavy insistence that she be accorded every honor.

For all that, Vianne had loved her, and still grieved her death.

Something no conspiracy had taken into account, my
d’mselle
’s fierce loyalty to those she cares for. It was a small mercy, and one with thorns, that her loyalty had included me when it mattered.

She had been so laughably oblivious to my presence at Court. And yet, her wits had kept her free enough to traverse the passages of the Palais, slip past a drunken Guard, and appear at my cell like a
demiange
of mercy, freeing me from a net my own folly had led me blindly into, seeking a prize I should not have reached for.

The prize that had fallen, all unknowing, into my cupped beggar’s hands.

“A copper for your thinking,
m’chri
.” My voice, pitched low, surprised even me.

Her shoulders stiffened. She turned, pushing her hood back a trifle. Her eyes, dark blue as the sky in the last stages of twilight, met mine, and I ached for the pain in her gaze.

“I have much to think upon.” A soft noblewoman’s murmur, accented sharply as the Court women spoke. “An army draws nigh, invasion threatens, and the Duc has outplayed me in this hand.”

Was it bitterness in her tone? I would not blame her.

She must go north and east to the Spire di Chivalier while we hold this city against the approach of di Narborre. From there you may organize an army.
My father’s voice, as he stared into his winecup.
Above all, you must guard her with your life,
m’fils.
Or we shall all hang before this is finished.

My own answer barely needed to be spoken, it was so laughably evident. What else could he expect me to say?
There is no risk I have not already taken for her,
Père.
I shall try to convince her.

I did not think I could prevail upon her to leave Arcenne, though the need was dire. She did not wish war before winter. Yet if the Duc d’Orlaans had sent a collection of troops to lay siege to my father’s city and Keep, the situation was graver than even my pessimistic
Père
had dreamed. That Timrothe d’Orlaans, the false King, was forced to allow Damarsene troops on Arquitaine soil was both balm to my soul and a deadly grievance.

How he must be cursing me, for not having the courtesy to die to ease his plans. And he must be mad, to purchase Damarsene aid within our borders. The dogs of Damar and Hesse both wish to bite at the rich softness of Arquitaine’s vitals, and have since time immemorial.

Vianne’s eyes were darker than usual in the uncertain torchlight. Her lovely face—winged eyebrows, the mouth most often serious and made to be kissed, the high planes of her cheekbones, the glow of her gaze—was thoughtful, a vertical line between her eyebrows. She studied me as if I were a puzzle of Tiberian verbs.

For all her loyalty and her quick wit, Vianne did not understand me at
all
. Which was a gift of the Blessed, for had she understood she may well have recoiled in disgust.

“We should remove to the Spire di Chivalier.” I sought to sound thoughtful instead of persuasive. “Tis safer, and closer to the lowland provinces declared for you. I like not the thought of you trapped in Arcenne by d’Orlaans’s dogs and foreign troops.”

A shrug, under the cloak. “I will make no decision until the morrow.” She pushed the hood back further, as if irritated at its covering. The single movement forced my idiot heart to leap.

By the Blessed, Vianne, why?
“Tomorrow may be too late.”

“Tis in the hands of the gods, Tristan.” Quiet stubbornness lifted her chin slightly, sparked in her eyes, and fair threatened to rob me of breath. “I am
fully
acquainted with what your father thinks I should do. Do not press his suit.”

I knew enough of her quicksilver moods to let the matter lie, for the moment at least. Humor, then, the kind of banter indulged in at Court. She had a reputation for a sharp, quiet wit; well-earned, too. And a gentle rebuke from her could sting more than the most furious scolding from another, because she so rarely uttered reproof. When she did, twas delivered with such earnest softness that a man might well fling himself into battle to win her approval.

So I attempted humor. “May I press my own suit, then,
d’mselle
?” I strove for a light tone and failed. It had been easier at Court, when I could not dare to speak to her, lest an enemy or even a gossip remark upon it.

Such a question usually calls forth a disbelieving half-smile that lights her eyes and turns her into one of Alisaar’s maidens, those fair
demiange
who wait upon the goddess of love and comb her golden, scented hair. Now, however, she simply studied me, her hands on the reins and the line between her eyebrows deepening.

Before us rode my lieutenant Jierre, with a witchfire torch and his sword at the ready, behind us, Tinan di Rocham and Adersahl di Parmecy et Villeroche, both trustworthy men bearing torches glowing with crackling Court sorcery. With them, Adrien di Cinfiliet, the serpent in bandit’s clothing. I would find an account to settle with him sooner or later, if only to make certain he did not seek to advance himself at the expense of my Queen.

“Tristan?” Such uncertainty I had not heard from her since our marriage-night. I wondered, to hear it now. “I have a question I would ask you.”

I nodded, our horses matching pace if not stride. The thoroughbred’s size meant I had to look down at her hood unless she tilted her head back to regard me as she did now, handling the reins with that pretty, useless Court-trained grace. And yet, on her, it looked so natural. “Ask what you will, Vianne. Whence comes this solemnity?”

She has a perfect right to be solemn; that quick understanding and loyalty will make her old before her time. Give her some small merriment, even if tis only that small laugh that sounds like weeping.

The street was dim with twilight; we would turn onto the greater processional way and start up toward the Temple soon. We had not come this way on our marriage-day, but I felt the same sharp pang I had then. A lance through the heart would hurt less.

Vianne pushed her hood fully back with a quick impatient movement. It fell free, braids in the style of di Rocancheil framing her face. I knew what it was to tangle my fingers in that hair, to taste her mouth; I knew what it was to sleep beside her. Now that I knew, was it worth the price I’d paid?

“Tell me what happened. After you left me, in the Palais. Retrace your steps.”

My heart knocked against my ribs, settled back pounding. I tasted copper, but my face did not change, schooled to indifference. “I like not to think on it.”
Do not ask me. It will not do you any good.

“Please. For me.” Pleading, delicate, and careful, as if she expected sharp refusal.

By the Blessed, why inquire now?
But I sought to sound merely weary. “For you, then. I left you in the passage and reached the Rose Room in time to see Henri dying. His pettite-cakes had been poisoned. As his soul left, the Duc’s guard burst into the room. I killed six of them before I was taken to that charming cell, where they beat me until the Duc paid me the honor of a visit. Then, I was left to contemplate my eventual beheading at the Bastillion until I heard your sweet voice through the bars.”
There, does that satisfy you?
I heard my own harshness, bitter as the lie.

The sharpest sword
, di Halier once wrote after his Queen took him to task over some trifle,
is directed at one’s own soul. Yet what is murder, or worse, if it keeps Arquitaine safe?

And yet. So easily, she reminded me of the man I should have been, instead of the one I was. When di Halier spoke of “Arquitaine,” twas easy to see he sometimes merely meant the woman who embodied, for him, the country’s rule.

Had Jeliane embodied far more to him, as my own Queen did to me?

Vianne examined my face as if I were a scroll or a dispatch. My heart mimicked a cobblestone caught in my windpipe.
Do not ask more. Let the matter remain there.

“Nothing else?” Her eyes glittered, and she pulled her hood up with an expert movement of her fingers to settle the material just so over her beautiful bowed head. “Tis important, Tristan.”

You have no idea how important it is.
“Why? Is there a question of my movements? You are perhaps believing the Duc when he accuses me of regicide?” It fair threatened to choke me. The truth will do so, when one least expects it. Di Halier never warned of
that
.

She hesitated. “I simply… There is so much I do not understand of this, and I would understand all.”

What more do you need to understand,
m’chri?
The King is dead, you are the Queen, I am the traitor who will keep you safe. If I must lie, and kill, and do the worst a man can do, I will.

I already have.

She said nothing else, her head bowed and her shoulders moving slightly.

We turned onto the processional way, hooves clopping on paving stones. Arcenne rose around us, the white stone quarried from the mountains the province is famous for glowing eggshell-delicate. There is very little as beautiful as my native city at dusk, as she gathers the last rays of the Sun’s beneficence. Even the sinks and fleshpots of the
Quartier Gieron
are well-scrubbed, and the spires of the Keep above rival the peaks themselves for grace. Arcenne is cleaner than the Citté, more tantalizing than Orlaans, and smells far better than, say, Marrseize. In spring, the orchards are a froth of paleness on her white shoulders, and she is a lady of freshness and grace.

Another held my heart now, but a man never forgets his first. No matter how far he rides, his birthplace will always be at his shoulder.

“Vianne?” Her name, uttered so many times in the privacy of my room or the secret corridors of my brain. For so long I had kept it a secret pleasure, a fruit to be indulged in late at night.

She did not answer, but a slight movement told me she had tilted her head, the better to catch my words.

“I would have you know only this.” I paused as Arran’s ears flicked, noting some sound I could not. When they returned to pointing forward, I continued. “All I have done is for your safety. If you should find yourself in doubt—
any
doubt, for any reason—simply remember that.”

The declaration earned me a startled glance. More tears, glimmering on her cheeks? In the uncertain light I could not be sure. “You were the King’s Left Hand.” Softly.

As if she thought I needed reminding.

“Now I am yours.”
Even before Henri died choking on his own blood, I was yours.

I was left with a suspicion of my own to keep me company on the remainder of our short journey. There was no reason for her to ask unless she thought something amiss. Which was not comforting. Nor was the thought that followed in its wake.