The Hedgewitch Queen (42 page)

Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Vancouver, Washington. Find her on the web at
www.lilithsaintcrow.com
.

If you enjoyed THE HEDGEWITCH QUEEN,
look out for

I
struck to kill.

The flesh, fat-rich and fed on luxury, parted under my blade. And I rammed my sword—sworn to the service of Arquitaine’s King—through the heart of that same king.

The alarums were still ringing, but a great silence had descended on me. Running feet and shouts resounded in the corridor. Henri gasped, the death-gurgle I have heard on many another’s lips.

I had killed for him too many times to count. Did he feel surprise, that the tool he sharpened had thus turned in his hand?

My throat was dry as sand in the Navarrin wastes. My heart pounded, running like a hare before hounds. Up to this moment it had been a conspiracy, one I had played at catching out. Now, with one decisive lunge, I had committed my soul entire to the enterprise

I gave the blade one last twist, freeing it from the suction of muscle. The thrust had been true, years of daily practice on the drillfield honed and distilled into murder. Henri’s elaborately-curled hair fell in disarray, and his lips shaped a question. He fell before he could give it voice, a bubble of bright blood bursting on his lips, so recently touching a dainty teacake.

He hit the floor in a sodden, shapeless lump of velvet and silk. I crouched easily, a duelist’s move once the duel was done, to watch an enemy’s last gasping moments. The sucking sound of a breath caught in a bloody throat, echoed by so many victims, now visited the man who had made me a weapon.

“You should have let me have her,” I whispered. “You are responsible for this.”

He made no reply, merely thrashed and choked his last. And as they burst into the room, d’Orlaans’s Guard, I came up from my crouch and met the first few in a clash of steel and confusion. Everything now depended on secrecy, and speed, and how willing I was to kill.

I suffered no qualms. But they took me anyway—d’Orlaans, the king’s brother, had suspected me, and sent his dogs to yap at my heels. He had not sent them unarmed, either. Pieces of the puzzle fell into place when they unleashed the first jolt of Court sorcery, a spell meant to wound and disable an opponent.

So the King’s brother was a far better sorcerer than even I had guessed. It was hardly the first of my mistakes.

I could have screamed, the cheated howl of a wolf when the lamb is snatched from its teeth. Yet I did not, for the howl would have turned into her name, and that I could not allow.

I would not sully her name by speaking it here.

But I thought it. One word, encapsulating the bait for this trap, the lure I had taken unknowing, like any stupid caged falcon at the mercy of its instinct.

Vianne
.

I fell into darkness, holding her name behind my lips. The beating they meted out to me was only kisses, after the tearing pain of knowing I had failed, the prize snatched from my grasp at the very last moment.

I was doomed.

Thief, liar, assassin, and whore. Tale-bearer, spy, extortionist, confidante, scandal-smoother. A knife in the dark, poison in a cup, a shield and a defense on the battlefield as well as in the glittering whirl of Court. Puppetmaster, spymaster, whoremaster, brutal thug, protocol handler, catspaw, pawn, troublemaker, cutthroat, fiend, pickpocket, swindler, brigand, pirate, kidnapper, alter ego, usurer, false witness…

This, then, is the Left Hand.

The Left Hand does what must be done to cement the hold of the monarch on the realm, to protect the king or queen we swear fealty to—even at the cost of our own lives. Even at the cost of our honor. There is only one word never applied to the Left Hand, only one thing a Left Hand has never been.

Traitor
.

To be the Left Hand is to be the most trusted of a monarch’s subjects, a position of high honor though none will know your face or name. Most of a Hand’s work is done in shadow, and well it should be. The Hand does those things which are necessary, by blood or by leverage, the things a monarch cannot do. According to the secret archives in the Palais d’Arquitaine, the first of us was Anton di Halier, who created the office in the time of Jeliane de Courcy-Trimestin, the Widow Queen of Arquitaine who depended on Halier for her very life during the great wars, both internecine and domestic, of the Blood Years.

I find it amusing the first Left Hand spent his service under a Queen. Sometimes.

Copyright © 2011 by Lilith Saintcrow
Excerpt from
The Bandit King
copyright ©2012 by Lilith Saintcrow

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Orbit
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at
www.orbitbooks.net

Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group. The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

Printed in the United States of America

First e-book edition: December 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-18778-7