The Jaguar Knights (9 page)

It was several days after his binding that he first set eyes on the King’s exotic mistress. Rookie guardsmen must be outfitted with livery before they could be seen around Court. They needed specific Guard training, not the least of which was just learning their way around whatever palace was currently the royal residence. They must endure lectures on the latest politics and court scandals—Baron This can be violent when drunk, Lord That spies for the Isilondians, and so on. They were offered certain initiation rites.

Celeste’s title of King’s Courtesan was unofficial but no secret. Her quarters were located directly below the Royal Suite, and Greymere Palace was riddled with secret passages and concealed stairways. Vicious was too tactful to post men outside her door, but any intruder breaking in during the night would have greatly brightened the lives of half a dozen Blades dying of boredom in her antechamber.

Her path and Wolf’s first converged one evening when he was on guard at the entrance to the West Hall and she was dancing with the King. Even at that distance, a naive country lad was impressed by her red-gold hair, her incredible body—invariably clad in a scandalously revealing gown—and the ripples of excitement that always marked her location in a crowd, but he was still gawking at every chandelier and cleavage in sight, and not as impressed as he should have been. A day or two later he stole a closer look at her and was very impressed indeed. She did not notice him.

The Marquesa de Sierra Crudeza was rumored to be an illegitimate daughter of King Diego of Distlain. Her husband, the Marqués, was by then in Clag Street debtors’ prison and destined to remain so until he died of jail fever, which he did with tactful dispatch. An uncanny air of danger and mystery hung about Celeste, adding to her attraction. She had been the belle of the court of Isilond until the queen poisoned the king in a fit of jealous fury, so Chivial was almost a letdown for her. Court gossips twittered that the White Sisters could smell conjuration on her and she had bespelled Athelgar. The Blades knew that this was not true; her hold over him was not spiritual at all. The Guard called her the Hag.

About two weeks after Wolf’s binding, a rumor swept through the Court that the Marquesa was with child. The news rolled on to echo in all the courts of Eurania, but in fact it was mere speculation, which passage of time disproved. She had experienced a mild dizzy spell, no more.

Bloodhand and Wolf were on ornamental duty outside the ballroom door, required to stand there like candelabra until the palace burned down or rabid Baels came foaming along the corridor, smiting bystanders with axes. The clotted cream of Chivian society swept through between them in jewels and finery without a glance. Except, for some fateful reason, Celeste, who arrived like an empress regnant, leading her train of ladies-in-waiting. Her overskirt was a wonder of scarlet-and-gold brocade, rich and weighty, as were her puffed and slashed sleeves. Those
were tasteful and respectable, but her lace bodice was fine as gossamer and virtually transparent. Athelgar encouraged her to flaunt what he could enjoy and other men could not.

As she swept past Wolf, he winked. She carried on into the hall as if nothing had happened, trailing attendants and a faint scent of lilac. The babble hushed for a moment, which was normal and predictable. Suddenly women screamed. The two Blades ran to investigate. The lady had fainted, that was all.

It had taken her a moment to make the connection. Boys change much more than girls do, and she had not seen him before in that context. Wolf was sorry he had startled her so badly, but that, he thought, was that.

Wrong.

How could the King’s mistress possibly snatch a private word with the most junior member of the Royal Guard? For Celeste this was no problem at all. She was at the height of her powers then, able to manipulate Athelgar like a silken glove on her subtle little hand. She began by persuading him to declare that the annual Apple Blossom Night festivities would include a masked ball, thus throwing the Court into panic and canceling sleeping time for every tailor and seam-stress in the city. The Guard detested nothing in the world more than a masked ball. Leader canceled all leave for that evening.

Celeste was more than a perfect body driven by a lust for power. She also had an incomparable sense of humor, and that evening she chose to dress in Guard livery. Needless to say, no Blade had ever revealed so much of his chest in public, nor had such a chest. Never had silken hose looked as good on their legs as it did on hers. At an appropriate moment, she excused herself and in the powder room concealed her costume under a white domino, which one of her maids had brought for her. With the hood raised to hide her resplendent hair and a white mask in place of her former blue one, she returned to the ball anonymous.

Wolf was on duty beside a table of comfits, although spirits know what good he was supposed to be doing. He caught a whiff of lilac and looked around to see familiar sea-green eyes peering out at him. He knew every gold fleck in them.

“Hello, Amy,” he said. “Congratulations.”

“I think you have made a mistake, Sir Blade.”

“Really? How are Tim and Sarah and Eli and all the other Sprats? How are things in Sheese anyway?”

She sighed. “Much duller after you left, Ed.” Amy Sprat was a realist. A
ghost of a smile played over the rose petal lips. “And what is the price of your silence?”

“That smile is ample reward, my lady.” He could smile too. “I didn’t talk then and I won’t talk now.”

“You swear?”

“I swear on my soul and on the happiest of memories. Your secret is safe with me. Take him for all you can get.”

She moved closer to the table to sample the sweetmeats. She reached for some treat; her breast touched his arm. The Guard’s orgying lessons had not yet expunged all his innocence, but he knew enough to see that she was searching for a solution, testing his susceptibility. Memories made his head swim and his flesh throb. Everything he knew about sex he had discovered with her.

“Don’t,” he murmured, edging away.

“I’d like to, you know? I never met a lover better than you, Ed.”

“Thanks, but I’ll wait until you retire, if you don’t mind.”

“What’s your name, Sir Blade?”

“Wolf, my lady.”

“Very fitting”—she raked him with a smile—“wild beast of the moors. What happened to Alf?”

“He’s still at Ironhall. Don’t worry about him, either. I’ll warn him to keep his mouth shut.”

Moorland green shone in her eyes again. “You’re a good friend, Ed Attewell. I have influence, you know. Anything I can do for you?”

Wolf chuckled, wondering if she could see how he was sweating. “You owe me nothing, Amy. I am always in your debt.”

She floated away, and a few moments later he saw her back in among the bluebloods, laughing at some jest of the King’s.

Amy Sprat had learned what she wanted, and she needed less than a week to get it out of Athelgar. She began by going riding with her ladies in Sycamore Market to be booed. The good people of Grandon were grudging in their support of a foreigner King and had no love at all for a foreigner mistress. There were scores of buxom Chivian girls willing to do anything a Marquesa could do. Booed she was.

Wolf learned of her success late one night when he was fencing in the gym, being coached in sabers by Martin. Having spent all day on an orientation tour
of the city, he had not heard the news. Bram put his head around the door and yelled over all the clattering, “Anyone seen Lyon?”

Willow, practicing in another corner, shouted back, “He led the Ironhall party—King’s orders.”

Blades went back and forth to Ironhall all the time. It was a welcome perk, a break from routine. But not the Deputy Leader. Wolf howled,
“What?”
and had the breath knocked out of him for his lack of attention. “Why?”

“The binding,” Willow said. The company groaned in disapproval.

“Who’s binding?” The King wasn’t, because Wolf had watched him retire.

“The Hag.”

Wolf was out the door before his foil hit the boards.

Being recently married, Vicious was spending much more time in his quarters than Blades normally did. He did not appreciate fists thundering on his door in the middle of the night. He was even less impressed when he opened it a crack and saw the most junior of his men stripped down to his hose and an unlaced, sweat-soaked shirt, unarmed, out of breath, hair all awry.

He stepped aside to let Wolf into his reception room. The bedchamber door was closed. He was heated and sweaty himself, wearing only a shirt wrapped around his loins. Wolf had probably arrived at the most inopportune time possible.

“Keep your voice down and be very convincing.” Vicious’s voice was soft and his stare hard.

“The Pirate’s Son’s assigning Blades to the Hag?”

“What business is that—” Vicious recalled who was Prime, and his eyes flashed like razors. “What if he is?”

“I knew her before the King did!”

Vicious stared at him for a long time. He was a dark-skinned man, showing surprising muscle when he had his shirt off, as he did then, and extreme menace when he had a naked sword in his hand, as he did then.

“When?”

“Before Ironhall. Her name is Amy Sprat. We were kids together in a hamlet called Sheese, in Westerth.”

“Guardsman, you are being misled by a chance likeness.”

Wolf shook his head. “We’ve spoken. She’s Amy. She has a birthmark on her thigh. About here. She claims it’s shaped like a heart, but that depends which way you’re looking at it.”

Leader’s eyes shone brighter in the candlelight. “Spirits, man! She’s only fifteen now! When was this?”

“Fifteen bullfeathers! She’s eighteen, ten months younger than me. I was fourteen then…I wasn’t the only one! Every boy on the moor was a close friend of Amy Sprat.”

“Death!” Vicious advanced a pace. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

Wolf retreated. “You told me…told Sir Terror to tell me…to keep my mouth shut.”

“Not to me, you idiot!” Vicious muttered a curse. “It’s too late to catch them. Have you told anyone else of this?”

“No, Leader.”

“Then don’t, as you value your neck. If His Majesty assigns Blades to a friend, that is absolutely none of your business, Sir Wolf, brother or not. Is that clear?”

Wolf could do nothing but mutter, “Yes, Leader.” Lynx was to be bound to a harlot.

“You are telling me that His Majesty’s concubine is an imposter, vulnerable to blackmail?”

“Er…I suppose so.”

“Which means you withheld information relevant to His Majesty’s safety?”

Gulp!
“Yes, Leader.”

Vicious looked him up and down. “And you ran all the way here from the gym looking like that?”

“Yes, Leader.”

“Present yourself after the morning muster with a written list of the regulations you have broken and a recommendation for punishment. Now get out.”

Wolf got out.

He had been thinking only of Lynx. Vicious could see not one but three men betrayed and must have been even angrier than Wolf was. Furthermore, Wolf had presented him with the ghastly problem of telling the King his paramour was a fraud and a potential traitor. If he didn’t, sooner or later the Dark Chamber certainly would, and even in those days Vicious hated inquisitors.

He dropped a hint of his feelings the next morning. It was Guard tradition to have a malefactor recommend his own punishment, which Leader would then either accept, halve, or double. Like any man in this predicament, Wolf consulted
experts and then set his penance unfairly high, as he thought, in the hope of having it halved.

Vicious tripled it and added two five-league runs.

I
nquisitor Hogwood slept the sleep of the innocent, no doubt, but Wolf must spend half the night in snail-pace reading, snug in Grand Master’s bed, working through reports by flickering candlelight. The other witnesses confirmed Lynx’s incredible story. One veteran man-at-arms had even witnessed his fight with the giant in the spotted helmet, if that is what the monster had been, and swore he’d never seen a man move so fast. Wolf read everything three times, wishing the other seniors had matched Tancred’s superb handwriting.

But none of it made any sense. Why attack Quondam? Why the attackers’ bizarre costumes and weapons? Why Celeste? If her Blade said she had no lover, then she had no lover. She was no missing heiress; her father and grandfather had been shepherds, her mother a sister of one of Wolf’s stepmothers. Any secrets she knew would be years old. Celeste had been a stunning woman, but she was not worth scores of lives.

She was not worth what she had done to Lynx, Fell, and Mandeville, either. Wolf had been sincere when he promised not to betray her, but how could a strumpet trust a man, any man? She had taken Lynx hostage for Wolf’s good behavior, turning up at the palace a few days later with three bewildered young Blades at heel.

A week or so after that, when Wolf was alone in the junior Blade dormitory, changing to go on duty, Lynx entered silently, having always had a creepy ability to move quietly. Wolf looked up from straightening his hose and was startled to see his brother’s familiar grin overhead. He was arrayed in a bizarre livery of purple and gold, with Celeste’s arms outlined in seed pearls all over his chest.