Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (35 page)

Without another word, the Tzel Aviar left. Soren flicked her attention after him, out
into a palace still buzzing with the morning's gossip, and stirring at new
interests. She felt her face go stiff.

"I don't think I'll even speculate," Strake
said. "Tell me whether you think it
possible for us to track the killer as the Rose does."

But Aristide didn't answer, was studying Soren's face. "Are you all right, Champion?" he
asked, but mockery was blunted by his frown.

Soren knew her expression had gone awry and corrected it,
all the while wishing that these things would not come at once. And said: "I didn't know Lady Arista had
returned to Tor Darest."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Aristide hadn't known. Or, at least, his star sapphire eyes were briefly veiled, then the
corners of his mouth drew up in that smile of pointed appreciation.

"I am remiss in paying my respects," he said. "If Your Majesty will excuse me?"

Strake's expression revealed faint exasperation as he
watched his Councillor go. "Like a
compulsion," he said. "Can't
help but run to sting and dart."

Surprised, Soren turned her attention away from Lady
Arista's entourage. "She has been
his major opponent for – well, for his whole life. And might well be ours."

"Might be. Has
been. She's not the one who set that boy
on me, whatever else. And I don't see
what reason you have to act like an army was at the gate, just because one of
my Barons comes to the palace."

Her Rathen was feeling very uneasy, was annoyed out of
concern. Soren touched his shoulder,
enjoying the freedom to do so, and he gripped her hand briefly.

She told him of her conversation about possible
thieves. "Would it really be as
hard as he says? To take the
knife?"

"Oh, yes. I've
been puzzling it over and it seems to me that what you'd have to do is get into
the structure of the spell's trigger and modify it so that it obeys you and not
him. You could have the knife delivered
into your own hand. To do that without
alerting the owner is challenge enough, but to access the trigger you'd need to
convince the casting that you were the one who set it up in the first place."

"You'd need to pretend to be Aristide?"

Strake's suddenly sharpened attention told Soren she hadn't
kept her voice under control. "What
is it?"

"I–" She
pulled a face at herself. "Nothing. The rate I'm going
I'll suspect the whole world. Aristide
already said he wasn't capable of the casting." The look Strake gave her told Soren she
couldn't leave it at that, so she went on reluctantly. "Aspen
Choraide
. I know he's a true-mage, and a strong one,
but he's not worked at it. Aristide
discounted him as a suspect."

"For all he apes the man in dress and manner, and
probably knows him as well as – as anyone is able to. And you'd rather not consider him a
suspect."

"It's just not the sort of thing he'd do. He's no reason for it. Besides, Aspen's more interested in you both
alive, not dead."

"You know him so well? Strake managed derision and jealousy in the same five words.

"He's a friend," Soren said, helplessly. "And–" She thought of Aspen, glorying in the games
of Court, chasing pleasure, gossiping and teasing her. What did she know of him, beyond his
deliberate cultivation of the Rathen Champion, and the fact that he had a
finger in every pie in Tor Darest? "Aristide discounted him," she repeated, falling back on her
belief in the Diamond for want of better argument.

"If you say so." Strake was hardly mollified. "It's knowledge of Aristide which is the critical factor. It's no real challenge for a mage to look
like someone else – but what you'd need to do is taste like someone else. You'd need to know how a person acts, thinks,
is. And–" He leaned back. "And better still if you've blood to
work through.
Choraide
might be a possibility – if he'd hold of a piece of Aristide – but Lady Arista
is the prime and probably only person I think could pull off such a
theft."

And Lady Arista was now back in the palace.

"Could the Rose detect when someone's casting? If the knife was taken since your return,
would it have known?"

Strake shrugged. "There's a limit to the amount of divinations
Domina
Rathen could practicably establish. It
might be capable of knowing something magical was being cast within the palace,
but it simply doesn't have the facility to pinpoint who was casting or what was
being cast. I'd have a better chance,
especially when you – when the Rose's focus is not a mage. If it were sigil casting, blood magic,
something the Rose could visually identify–"

"How did
Rathens
protect
against magical attack, then?"

"
Rathens
are
mages." He said it quietly, looking
toward her stomach. Tiny creases pulled
at the corners of his mouth, and he went on with deliberate focus. "The palace's enchantments do make it
hard to detect casting, though. Something like this theft – the modification of that trigger – I'm less
than likely to have caught that. The
challenge would be keeping it from Aristide, since the pocket where the knife
was kept would follow him around. It
would help to be close, it would help if he was asleep. If you have enough time, and enough strength,
you can do a lot to hide any trace of casting." He paused. "What's Lady Arista doing?"

"The Chamberlain mustn't have known she was
coming," Soren remarked. "He's
hastily evicted someone and given her apartments in the residences. Aristide's just reached her and they're being
polite to each other."

"Very useful."

The exchange proved a short one. "They're heading toward the Hall of the
Crown now."

Strake grunted. "You'd better tell Fisk to cancel what's left of my morning. And the afternoon as well, given our midday
excursion. I'll see her in here."

There was just enough time before the two
Couerveurs
arrived to dismay Fisk, and for it to occur to
Soren to wonder whether they would be expected to host the Court of the Fair
for more than a meeting on
Vostal
Hill. The palace was already close to capacity.

Aristide came in ahead, that faint appreciative smile
playing about his lips as he said: "I believe my mother wishes to present
an opposing view."

"About?" Strake said, but didn't wait for an
answer, gesturing impatiently for Aristide to bring her in.

It was odd to see them standing side by side, both so pale
and shining, one all in white, the other splashed sapphire and emerald. Their relationship was visible in colouring,
build, the shape of their faces, the small, exquisitely shaped mouths. They shared most of all that extreme
self-composure; in Lady Arista's case it became an imperiousness which was a
tangible echo of thrones and power. Decades of rule.

"Please be seated," Strake said neutrally, when
she stopped at the far end of the table to subject him to a highly critical
survey. Aristide moved to a chair
opposite, but Lady Arista remained standing, pale eyes coldly shifting to Soren
then returning to Strake.

"You are being taken for a fool," she said.

"Very likely." Directness didn't trouble Strake. "I hope you have something more useful to say to me than that,
Baroness."

Lady Arista inclined her head, looking perfectly equal to
facing down the Sun, let alone a Rathen king. "You have invited the Tzel Aviar into Darest." She made no attempt to keep condemnation from
her pale blue eyes. "The situation
with The Deeping has always been caught on lack of proof. The Tongue appears an obvious encroachment,
but no-one has been able to discover any form of enchantment. There has been for centuries talk of a curse,
but if it exists, it is so amorphous it cannot be divined. Opinion varies wildly over whether the Rathen
line was directly attacked."

"Are you leading somewhere?"

Strake's tone had chilled, but Lady Arista did not so much
as flicker. Reaching into the folds of
her robe, she withdrew a thick sheathe of paper and placed it on the table in
front of her. "The Fae would take
back Darest. Don't aid them in
that."

She turned and left. It was quite five breaths after the door had shut before any of them
moved. The roll of paper was more
eloquent than any argument.

Face exceedingly blank, Aristide stood and collected the
folded sheets. He passed them on to
Strake, "No sign of enchantment," his only comment. His eyes seemed darker than usual, but he sat
back down and managed to look entirely unconcerned. Strake turned the first few pages, paused,
then divided the bundle into three and handed Soren and Aristide each a share. It was impossible to interpret the expression
this provoked in his Councillor, but Soren thought it possibly the most
diplomatic thing her Rathen had ever done.

Looking down at the top of her pile, she saw that it had
been written over sixty years ago. A
report to Lord Everett, Lady Arista's father, little more than an outline of
suspicion gone nowhere. The failure of
Shaping experiments with perfume trees was, according to the writer, related
more to the delicacy of the species than any interference from outside Darest.

The next document was only ten years old, and just as
unhelpful. Weather patterns had been
disrupted all over
Sumica
. Darest had suffered most of all because it
had comparatively few mages to shift the situation in its favour. There was no indication of any other factor.

It was all like that. Reports of deaths and accidents, failure and misfortune. Even the plague had been investigated, more
than two centuries ago when
Rathens
still ruled. And there was nothing at all; just suspicion
and frustration. After her initial
surprise, Soren felt cheated. That
shifted to a bruised kind of anger, though she wasn't sure whether at the Fair
or Lady Arista.

Having exhausted his papers, Strake shuffled them neatly
into a pile, face neutral. "A
clever woman, your mother."

It was acknowledgement of the force of the
presentation. Basing an argument on such
an extensive lack of proof would have been fatal. But in the same way Aspen had powerfully
brought home Lady Arista's relationship with her son, simply handing over this
history of investigation had given weight to suspicion even as it repeatedly
went nowhere. There was just so much.

"Has she convinced you, then?" Aristide sounded merely curious, turning over
another sheet.

Strake's mouth twisted. "What need? I was already
well served with doubts about the Fair. She's given me nothing I can fling in their faces."

Pragmatic restraint was perhaps not what Aristide expected
from his whirlwind king. He wore a very
thoughtful expression as he handed back the papers.

"And what of you?" Strake asked. "Has all this nothing shifted your
views?"

"No." Fine
lips curved into a curiously peaceful smile. "I have never been a great believer in coincidence."

It took a moment to register what he meant. The papers had not convinced him because he
too was already converted to their argument. They both stared at him. But
Strake didn't fire up, just blinked, then looked supremely sour. "So glad to have earned your
trust."

Aristide inclined his head, every bit as imperious as his
mother, no glimmer of irony in the gesture. He believed the Fair in some way responsible for Darest's decline, and
had judged his King due that dangerous honesty.

"But why court them?" Soren asked, and was
immediately made to feel the outsider as Aristide turned mocking eyes on
her. He would not soon forgive her
probing.

"We are in no condition to fight any kind of war,
Champion," he replied, ever so courteous. "Outnumbered, outclassed on every side, dying by inches. Our neighbours are all very anxious we don't
reforge alliances with the Fair, because they are in truth Darest's greatest
strength, the reason none of the West has quite dared invade. With Fae help we may be able to recover,
become the power we once were, while moving into direct conflict with The
Deeping would only hasten Darest's end. As all this paper suggests, we have been caught in a trap, suffering
from something we cannot prove. Ten
thousand intangibilities. In theory
Darest is protected by the former Fae Queen's edict that
Dariens
be left alone, but her successor has made a practice of not questioning events
which seem to us so suspicious. 'Courting' the Fair, as you say, may give us the opportunity of obliging
her to do so."

He looked at Strake. "Perhaps more quickly than anyone could have anticipated. The Tzel Aviar was perfectly placed to
witness what can hardly be termed anything but Fae interference in Darest. The result is an unprecedented audience with
their Queen. It is –" He paused. "– far more than I hoped."

It seemed Strake was not the first bitter pill Aristide had
forced himself to swallow. Believing his
home under attack by The Deeping, the man had not followed his mother and
grandfather's route of hostility. He had
sought their teaching, made overtures, then lined up his Rathen king as a
demonstration. Played to win.

"Do you have an approach in mind?" There was displeasure in Strake's tone, but
no boil-over of anger. Today he was, she
realised, more like the person he had been before the Rose's assault. Still irritable, but far more in command.

Aristide's steady gaze acknowledged the shift, though he did
not give any appearance of being relieved his king had accepted being made
unwitting part of a complex stratagem. "Listen to them," he said. "This is not an opportunity we can force."

-
oOo
-

Vostal
Hill at midday was bronzed
by the sun and tossed by a wind carrying wood-smoke and brine but mainly
chill. Autumn was shifting.