Kings and Assassins (37 page)

“He attempted to surprise me,” Janus said.

“Ended surprised himself,” Rue muttered. He stepped over Savne's body and reached for the arm Janus kept close to himself. “But he did strike you? Some of the blood is yours.”

Janus flinched at the man's white-gloved hands, pulled away before there was contact. Rue hesitated. “No?” Assessing him like a damn wild animal.

“Yes, damn it,” Janus said.

“You're white,” Rue said. “Come on then, lose some of the pride and lean on me.”

T
HE JOURNEY TO THE PHYSICIAN'S
offices, once the guards had run ahead to wake Sir Robert, saw the collapse of Janus's pride. He not only allowed Rue to aid him but listened to the man's encouraging murmurs, “Not so far. Just watch this stair. We'll have you put to rights,” with a disturbing gratitude.

Rue saw him settled, saw pressure put on the wound, before he rang for Sir Robert.

Savne must have gotten in a lucky stroke and pierced one of the arteries as he sawed downward; the blood still pulsed against the makeshift bandage. But the simple act of sitting still, arm raised high, restored some of Janus's equilibrium.

Sir Robert grumbled as he entered his offices, muttering vile imprecations against those inconsiderate enough to be wounded after dinner. Janus, watching the man weave much as he must have done, coming down the hall leaning on Rue, wondered briefly if he'd have been better off going to Delight for suturing. But Delight's fingers
were all too often covered with caustic substances, and Sir Robert's, while shaky, were pinkly clean.

Rue helped Janus out of his coat and shirt, hissing when the bleeding, which had slowed while being held, began to spill afresh. It had an equally sobering effect on Sir Robert.

“Haste is preferable to gentleness, Captain. At least in this situation.”

Rue nodded, and Janus laughed as the captain hesitated a moment longer, unwilling to cause hurt. He tore at the sleeve himself, wincing more at the ruined fabric—vanity or not, he had liked that coat—and spurred Rue into slicing the laces tying the shirtsleeves in place.

Sir Robert handed him a blood-thickening drink, gritty with iron. Janus sipped at it, doing his best to imbibe only the warmed wine and spices and none of the metal. He'd been in Delight's workshop often enough to know that metal could pierce soft tissue; he'd had one attempt on his life tonight. It would be unsettling if he were to die of the cure: of the iron filings having been ground incorrectly. Still, the alcohol flushed him with warmth, soothed jangled nerves that twitched every time Rue stepped behind him with his double brace of sword and pistol, twitched every time Sir Robert pushed the curved needle through his skin.

“I want the Duchess of Love arrested,” Janus said. “Hanged if we can manage it. But at the very least, arrested.”

Rue was silent, and Janus twisted, drawing a slap on the thigh from Sir Robert for moving as he was trying to draw the thread through.

Rue's eyes rose. “I'm sorry, my lord?” He hadn't been listening at all, instead gaping at Janus's skin.

“Question?” Janus asked.

“Who took the whip—”

“My father. The burns? My mother who dropped coals on my skin if she could. The rest? Life in the Relicts. Learning to duel with Ivor as a teacher. Maledicte in a temper. Arrest the duchess, Rue, or my future may be even more arduous than my past. Arrest her or I'll send a man with a blade to see her threat ended.”

“As you did with Gost?” Rue's eyes were sharp if not condemnatory Janus licked wine from his lip.

“The man had no vision beyond his place in history.” Janus winced as Sir Robert dug the needle in deep for the final stitch. Janus drank a larger gulp of the wine, the taste as metallic as if he were licking the goblet instead of drinking from it. “The duchess, Rue.”

“I'll need more cause than one of her favorite courtiers attempting to kill you.”

“Witchcraft,” Janus said. He jerked his arm away from the physician who had snapped the thread tight all at once, creasing his skin and yanking the last of the deep wound closed.

“Witchcraft's a way for women to lay claim to power they can't earn,” Sir Robert said. “Nothing more. An attempt to make men fear.”

“Witchcraft?” Rue said. There was nothing of contempt or dismissal in his voice, dropping instinctively to a whisper. But then Rue had attended the ball where Mirabile left debutantes dying like plucked flowers, had seen houses painted red with shed blood, seen seasoned guards fall before her. “Have you any proof?”

“Psyke will provide it.”

“Your wife is friend to the—”

“Psyke has too much integrity to lie when asked a question directly. And too much sense not to see the threat. The duchess runs mad, Rue, and whether she has power or not, she reaches for it. Send men to her house; I think evidence will not be hard to find.”

Sir Robert smeared an unguent over the wound, sealing out infectious vapors, and began to wrap gauze about the arm tightly, thickly.

Janus protested, “Leave it to the minimum. I would not flaunt an injury at this time.”

“Move your fingers,” Sir Robert said. He turned Janus's hand, let the palm face upward. “Push against my hand,” he commanded.

Janus attempted to, but found his last three fingers distressingly sluggish and weak, nearly unresponsive.

Sir Robert picked up the gauze again, and said, “No more nonsense.
I've heard more than my fill. I'll wrap it tight and dense and you won't bleed out if you rip a stitch or three.”

“When the swelling goes down, perhaps matters will improve,” Rue said. “And it's not your sword hand.”

He said that so easily
, Janus thought,
the man who held two weapons at all times
. Didn't he think others might do the same?

“Can we trust Psyke to make a cogent statement? I've seen her, Last, speaking to unseen listeners, seen her bend to smell a bouquet and have it wither.”

“I'm more concerned with Adiran than with Psyke. Ivor suggests we kill him, before Black-Winged Ani gets more than a toehold in his soul. Were it not that Adiran's death would benefit Itarus more than Antyre at the moment… were it not that I have an instinctive distrust of any of Ivor's suggestions, I would consider it.”

Sir Robert fastened the bandage down and left the room hastily.

Rue said, “Consider your audience also, Last, when you discuss murdering the heir to the throne.” His tone was mild, his eyes clouded; and Janus thought that Rue had also contemplated what might become necessary.

Janus said, “If Adiran becomes fully possessed, if he sheds blood, he will be bound to Ani's compact. Maledicte was deadly enough, and he possessed his own will to temper Ani's. Adiran is just a boy, with a boy's impetuousness. With Ani's power yoked to impulse, Adiran is the largest danger to our kingdom.”

Janus rose, tested his hand again, as if the mention of gods were enough to collect their healing gifts. The fingers stayed recalcitrant, and forcing them only sent a stab of pain through his wound.

Rue said, “You may have a point. Let us hope it doesn't come to that, and take up our tasks to ensure it.”

“Tasks,” Janus said. He was feeling slow, his head thick, and he wondered if Sir Robert had doctored the wine with more than simple iron.

“I have a corpse to deal with, a duchess to arrest, a child to watch; you—you have a bed to seek.”

“I want to see the duchess—”

“It's better done without you. If you come along, it'll be a fight;
she'll curse and scream. If it's only the Kingsguard—she'll be too on her dignity. I crave whatever peace I can find. Go to your bed.”

“Psyke's likely in it,” Janus muttered. Yes, Laudable in the wine, to loosen his tongue so.

“You trust Psyke.”

“I trust her, but she's not always herself.” Still, Janus allowed himself to be herded away, sent to bed like a sickly child, and found it… comforting.

T
HE DUCHESS WAS ESCORTED THROUGH
the great hall, black clad, her gloved hands tucked before her, dripping jetty crystals. The two guards beside her held their hands on the grips of their pistols, proof that whatever they had found in her home had been disturbing enough for them to fear her. From his position in the counselor's chair nearest the throne, Janus watched her come, chin held high. Her gaze held fury and ice.

Behind her came the gaggle of her personal servants, all black clad, many of them veiled. Cold fingers slipped into his, made him start, and he looked over at Psyke's pale face. She watched the procession without words, or at least, audible words; her lips moved as if she held a whispered conference.

Rumor had spread; the entire corridor leading toward the throne room was thronged with nobles, some showing signs of having risen early, before their valets could aid them; some showed signs of never having been to their beds and swayed where they stood, cup shot or afraid.

For once in the court's history, they were silent, watchful rather than concentrating on creating spectacle. Janus wondered whether it was for the duchess being brought before the throne to face charges of treason or whether it was for the fear attached to the word
witch
.

A stifled moan rose through the crowd, a frantic gasp and whisper, as the guards continued in, carrying on a litter the bones festooned with sea pearls and gemstones, crusted with tallow, soot, and ash.

“Mirabile,” Psyke breathed.

Janus found his own pulse a little unsteady. His hand tightened
around Psyke's. “You were a part of this? Even Maledicte never decorated corpses.”

The rustle of the duchess's skirts hissed through the room as she neared the throne, as if the stiff, black silk was releasing all the outrage she refused to voice. When she drew up at the throne, the guards halted her and she found her tongue and her focus.

“Scared to sit the throne you stole?” she asked Janus.

Admiral DeGuerre said, “Your grace, please. We've brought you here only so you might explain away these unfortunate circumstances that surround you.”

Bull and Rue, standing beside DeGuerre, traded a speaking glance. It was hardly surprising that DeGuerre would wish to grant the woman an escape—she had long been his ally.

The litter was laid down beside her, a bright glimmering like a bed of poisonous flowers against the shadow of her dark skirts. The duchess took a careful step away from it, ensuring it didn't touch her, and sealed her fate.

“Celeste, Duchess of Love, you stand accused—”

Psyke spoke up, her light voice carrying like a chill breeze. “Where is your aide, Celeste? I do not see her among your servants.”

Bull hesitated in his reading of the charges.

“Like you, she lacked dedication to the cause.” The duchess's voice was cracked, like a bell out of true; her aristocratic tones exaggerated until they approached stage art. “I suppose she crept away as she came. A shadow without a name.”

Janus leaned down to Psyke's ear, murmured, “Is this aide dangerous?”

“She understands the ways of gods and magic,” Psyke breathed back. “She wore a veil at all times, hiding either prestige or the lack of it; her voice was common enough, but her thoughts …”

“Wonderful,” Janus said. “An elusive and intelligent enemy.”

Psyke shivered; her lips took on a more mocking tilt. “Isn't it said that you will know the worth of a man by his enemies? But then men are rarely of any worth at all….”

Wonderful
, Janus thought again. Just what the occasion required—Mirabile's ghost spitting bile.

The duchess moved all at once, faster than Janus would have believed of a woman of her age and dignity. She leaped over the skeleton, her heavy skirts scattering gems and candles, and her hand came up.

Janus reached for his knife, his saber, but he managed to get only his forearm before his face to divert whatever weapon she clutched so close.

Liquid splashed over him, flung from the flask in the duchess's hand.

The guards shouted; pistols rang out, filling the room with acrid, choking smoke and explosions sharp enough to shatter tile. A whistling heat seared his cheek, sent him ducking, though his injured arm protested the sudden movement.

Psyke stood, Mirabile's vicious amusement on her mouth, as she watched the duchess bleed and die. Janus yanked her out of the way, though he rather thought shed be immune to pistol shot.

Psyke touched the liquid running down Janus's face, sweeping it away before it could reach that heated tenderness where the bullet had passed. She licked her fingers.

“Mmm,” she said—
Mirabile
said—“Precatorious syrup. Mal was fond of it, if I recall. Though the duchess should have known it was useless flung onto skin. It needs blood,” she said, watching a tiny lavender drop pearl on her finger. “But then so many things do. Lineage. Prestige. Life.”

Janus scrubbed his face hastily with his cravat. He didn't think the bullet had broken the skin, but he had a healthy respect for any poison Maledicte had deemed worthy of use—he preferred not to chance it. Psyke mused, “How Mal must have chafed beneath your leash. All his audacity yoked to common caution.”

Janus gripped her wrist, pinched tight. “Psyke,” he hissed, “this is not the time to let Mirabile speak.”

She yipped beneath his pinching fingers, and the sound, such a tiny hurt in a room full of shrieking and death, seemed to rouse Rue to fury.

“Stop shooting!” Rue snapped.

Too late of course; the duchess was dead, and Janus had new and unwelcome evidence that at least one of the guards, given the opportunity
and a likely excuse, would shoot him in the back. His seat wasn't in the path of the guards' bullets.

Bull reached down a hand, pulled Janus to his feet. “Your arm?” Bull asked. “Did the poison penetrate your shirt?”

Janus sighed. “Sir Robert will be so pleased.”

Bull raised a brow, but his hands, tightening on Janus's sleeve as if he had been about to rip it away, relaxed. “Will he?” The physician's reluctance to work was legendary.

“He bandaged me so thickly I doubt the Naga-blessed ocean wave that sank the
Redoubtable
could do more than dampen the wound. The duchess never had a chance. Inept to the last.”