Oath Bound (Book 3) (15 page)

Try not to worry
about him.

I don’t help him very
much when he has the nightmares, but I feel like I should be there.

He’s having a good time.
They both miss you, My own, but I suppose that can’t be helped now that you’ve
been hurt.

Now that I can’t
visit, it’s all I want to do,
he brooded.
I don’t particularly care
about the cut—

I do.

He smiled.
All right.
And I told the Watch I wouldn’t leave town. Why did I do that?

Well—

“…here, Vandis!” Adeon
said. He must’ve been trying to get Vandis’s attention for some time, because
he leaned over with one hand on the back of the chair, snapping his fingers in
Vandis’s face.

Vandis cleared his throat
and pushed himself higher on the blue velvet seat. At least he could still put
his feet down flat. “Right.”

“So long as you’re still
with us.” Adeon circled quickly to stand behind in the bodyguard’s position
just as Crown Prince Emmerick swept in, filling the small bedroom with his
silk-clad entourage. Vandis levered himself up and took a knee; he didn’t have
to wait long before the Prince touched the crown of his head to signal him to
rise. He didn’t care for it, but it was better here, with Emmerick, than going
before Calphen’s throne as he’d have to in a few days.

“Your Royal Highness,” he
said, and straightened to offer the other chair.

“Thank you, Sir Vandis.
You know how the knees ache in this climate.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”
Vandis had this much, at least, for the Crown Prince of Dreamport: he wasn’t a
fat sack like some of the higher-ranking nobles. He wasn’t thin, but the chair
didn’t groan when he sat down, either. He smoothed his brocaded green doublet
over the aging paunch—he was older than Vandis by no more than five years—and
nodded toward the other chair to indicate that Vandis should sit, too.
In my
own home,
he thought sourly, trying not to let it show on his face. “Thank
you, Your Highness.”

“You missed the reception
last night, Sir Vandis. His Majesty, my father, remarked on it.”

“Your Highness, I regret
that I couldn’t be present. I was injured—”

“Of course.” The Crown
Prince waved away Jimmy, who’d come in with the coffee cart. “The messenger, of
course, arrived on time. However, it’s a pity, since the reception
was
in your honor. His Majesty accepts your regrets and wishes to know if you are
quite recovered.”

You can see it if you
want to,
he thought, and She snickered. “I’m healing tolerably well, Your
Highness.”

“Sir Vandis, His Majesty
wishes you to know that he is still willing to hear you on matters pertaining
to the Order of the Knights of the Air at the audience scheduled for one o’ the
clock three days hence, and prays that you take especial care in the meantime.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Ah—”
He paused. “I ought to warn His Majesty—”

“That he won’t like what
you have to say?” The Crown Prince chuckled. “Sir Vandis, no one at court finds
anything you have to say particularly comfortable, but you’re a necessary
little gadfly.” When he took his feet again, Vandis slid off the chair to
kneel, burning with indignation at being patronized. He’d meant to elaborate on
what, exactly, Calphen wasn’t going to like, but when the Crown Prince was done
with you, he was done with you. Emmerick would hear it all in three days
anyway—though if King and Prince didn’t already know more than Vandis planned
to tell them, he’d have serious doubts about the Crown’s intelligence service.
If he were sitting on Calphen’s throne,
he’d
want a close eye on the
homicidal, expansionist maniacs just down the Ennis.

“I’d best be going.
Farewell, now.”

“Farewell, Your
Highness.”

Vandis remained kneeling
until Emmerick had left the room—though with the entourage, it took longer than
he thought it should have. Dealing with royalty had always been his least
favorite part of the job. He knew his protocol, but wished he could talk
man-to-man with, say, Calphen, or a young guy like Angelo of Brightwater,
without kneeling on the floor like a good sycophant.

Titles bothered Vandis on
a fundamental level. He didn’t even like his own. Every time he had to remind a
Knight he was Head, he got a sting of guilt, but at least he’d earned his. It
hadn’t been stuck on him the instant he was born. Probably that was why he’d
resisted Marcus’s suggestion that he tell Dingus about his bloodline. He’d
earned “Sir Dingus” in spades, but by the time Vandis was through with him,
he’d damn well earn “Lord,” if such a thing could be earned. “His Grace” was
another story entirely.

He’ll be the best
damned Duke in all of history, if I have anything to say about it.

Well, you can’t say
I haven’t provided you with excellent material.

I wouldn’t dream of
saying that.

“Back in bed,” Adeon said
when he moved to sit down in the chair.

“I can sit for a while,”
he snapped. “Get a grip.”

“I’m sure Reed will agree
with you. I’ll just go and fetch him, shall I?”

Vandis scowled. “Why does
everyone keep playing the Reed card?”

Adeon beamed. “Because
he’s a match for you—and because he’ll murder me if I don’t ensure you’re
following his directives. Now will you please accept your own value to the
Order and attempt to rest?”

Growling, Vandis flopped
face-first on the bed. “Happy?” he demanded, but the pillow muffled the force
of it.

“Quite.” Adeon fell to
unlacing his boots.

“Well, bully for you,” he
muttered.

Fort Rule, Section Two
(Medical); the main ward

The newest candidate for
head physician was long and spindly all over. He had graying brown hair that
stuck up in a cowlick and the ugliest face Krakus had ever seen: a tiny chin
that receded behind a massive overbite full of big, uneven teeth, a projecting
broad triangle of a nose, and a hairline that had seen better days. But his
eyes, the color of a frog, held an expression of permanent, kind concern; and
his voice came gently from his bobbing, protuberant larynx.

Those muddy-green eyes
swept the ward, a long, low building filled wall to wall with beds, except for
a table and chairs at the back that served as a duty station for the medics and
nurses. It bustled, and that was about all Krakus could say for it. It smelled
sick: old blood and fresh; sweat; misery. There were only a few small windows
to let in the light, and torches spat fitfully, almost as if they struggled
against the dim. The back end was given over entirely to a massive hearth, and
even now, at the height of summer, it blazed, so that as Krakus and Doctor
Kuskov walked down one of the two aisles of beds, the heat grew more and more
stifling, bringing sweat to their brows.

Krakus wondered what the
doctor was seeing, his eyes darting from bed to bed, soldier to curious
soldier. Some of them greeted Krakus, pleased to see him, and he managed to fit
name to face at least a few times. He even managed to smile while his foot
landed in—something. At last the two reached the back of the ward, where a lone
nurse pushed bread and cheese into his mouth, looking hot, exhausted, and
forlorn.

Doctor Kuskov turned to
face Krakus. “I’m sorry, Father,” he said. “I simply don’t think I can take the
position.”

“Why the hell not?”
Krakus demanded. “I haven’t even interviewed you!”

“I can’t work here.” The
doctor condemned the whole ward in one sweep of a bony, lumpy arm that
terminated in an incongruously graceful hand. “The conditions are absolutely
deplorable.”

Krakus swallowed his
temper and looked around. “Well, it’s not exactly cheery, I’ve got to admit
that, but—”

“Cheery isn’t the half of
it, Father Krakus. These windows don’t open, do they?”

“Well, I’m not too sure.”

“They don’t,” said the
nurse, his mouth full of bread, as he stood. Kuskov recoiled slightly from the
spray of crumbs. Chewing, the nurse picked up a slate, left his plate on the
table, and went off down the far aisle, reading the instructions scrawled on the
slate.

“Do you not wash your
hands?” Kuskov cried after him, and he blinked over his shoulder for just a
moment before going on down the ward. The doctor turned to Krakus. “I’m sorry.
I can’t, I simply can’t. There’s no sink, no pump even. How many do you lose
every day to preventable festering?”

“We can get a sink,”
Krakus said, a little desperately. Nobody else had mentioned anything of the
kind. “Whatever you want. I don’t know how a sink would help—”

“Taint in the bodies of
patients is significantly reduced simply by the practitioner’s washing his
hands. I had the pleasure, a few years ago, of attending a conference in
Dreamport, and there I heard a Dr. Westinghouse speak on the benefits of
sanitation in medical practice. He has made a study, I believe, of the methods
used Before, and while of course not all of them are possible anymore, many of
the physical expedients are still available to us. I myself made copies of a
few manuscripts before I left the great city, and have found some of the particulars
highly beneficial in my own practice. Why—”

Krakus seized his
shoulders. “We need you!”

“Please, Father.” Kuskov
lifted a hand to try to nudge out of Krakus’s grip, but the Militant held firm.
“I simply can’t—”

“What do I have to do to
get you to stay?”

The doctor blinked his
frog-colored eyes, shaking his head. “No, Father.”

“What do I have to do?”
Krakus repeated. “Anything. I’ll suck your dick if I have to.”

“No, no, Father, that
won’t be necessary!”

“I want these people to
have the best care. You tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll see to it. You
have my oath as a Queen’s man.”

Slowly, Kuskov ran his
tongue over his crooked teeth, and he bobbed his head in thought. He cut his
eyes to Krakus’s. “Write this down.”

Krakus lunged for an
empty slate and a hunk of chalk, bending over the table. “Go.”

“Four large sinks along
that wall, each equipped with a pump,” the doctor said, pointing. “Soap. Clean
linens at all times, boiled after each patient uses them, no matter the length
of use. I want new windows installed, ones that open…”

And on and on. Krakus
filled both sides of the slate, squeezing smaller and smaller letters onto the
gray surface. He hoped he could read it later.

“That’ll be a start, in
any case. Are you certain you can do all this?”

“Damned if I won’t. It
might take a little time, though.”

“The more quickly you
have the improvements in place, the more lives we can save.”

“Right.” Krakus looked
over the list. “Seems I have a lot to do.”

“Thank you,” Kuskov said,
and looked around him. “I think.”

“There’s just one more
thing,” Krakus said, holding the slate carefully so he wouldn’t smudge the
list. “I have to show you… Well. It’s better if I just show you.”

He took Doctor Kuskov to
Section One. He needed the doctor’s expertise in Section Two. If he couldn’t
deal with the kids from Section One—Krakus would have to rethink. If he said
the wrong thing, he’d be out on his ass, expert or no. Krakus held his breath
nearly the whole way, not that it was far.
Please don’t make me throw you
out.

The doctor looked up, up
the towering expanse of gates; Krakus followed his eyes to the tiny figure at
the very top, Marta, with her pretty blond curls and her pale, pale skin. One
couldn’t see her strangeness outright; but she climbed so well, jumped so high,
and dodged so quickly that one couldn’t watch her long without realizing how
different she was.

“What—” Kuskov began, his
brows furrowing, and Krakus lifted his eyebrows at Marta, dramatizing the
expression so she couldn’t fail to see. She covered a smile with a tiny hand
and disappeared over the portal. At least Krakus didn’t need to knock; after
two heartbeats, no more, Bill Matuchek opened for him.

“And who is this?” Bill
demanded, on seeing Kuskov.

Krakus ushered the man
in, past Bill, to reveal Section One.

The Special Units—those
who could hear—turned toward the visitors. Some of them rose into the air; some
paused in their exercises, fire or lightning fizzling, shields melting away,
items lifted by the mind clattering to the ground, and eventually every one of
them looked at Kuskov. Krakus did, too.

Kuskov’s buck-toothed
mouth hung slightly open, and his gaze darted over all the Special Units,
stopping, resting on one or another. “They’re beautiful,” he breathed, just
barely loud enough for Krakus to hear, and took a slow step forward, then
another, and another, not even disturbing the yellow dust under his feet as he
drew ahead of Krakus. He turned his palms to heaven, as if to catch the Queen’s
warm light, and went in among the Special Units.

As Krakus watched,
itching with nerves, he lifted a hand—but stopped short of Danny’s arm. “May
I?” his mouth shaped, and only when Danny nodded did Kuskov reach out and
stroke the softly-sheening scales with reverence on his ugly face. Danny’s
mouth gaped in a silent smile.

Krakus took a long
breath, let it out as a sigh. Kuskov would do.

Knights HQ; the Head’s
apartments

“Where shall I put these,
Vandis?” Jimmy asked, struggling into the bedchamber with an armload of
gleaming metal.

Vandis rinsed stray suds
flecked with stubble from his cheeks and jaw. “On the bed’s fine.” He ran a
hand over his face, checking that he hadn’t missed any spots. Out of the corner
of his eye, he saw Jimmy pass back into the office, but his attention was on
the mirror in front of him. It didn’t ripple and waver like mirrors made
After—it had been manufactured with magical assistance—but the silver backing
had greened with age, so his reflection had something of an underwater look. He
patted his skin dry with a linen towel.

When did I get so much
gray in my hair?
He’d actually remembered to get someone in to trim it for
the audience this afternoon, but now that it was shorter, it looked grayer. The
hair on his chest and belly had grayed, too, but at least age didn’t weigh too
heavily on his skin. He hadn’t sagged much, if at all, and his muscles weren’t
old-man stringy—yet. He flexed his chest and arms, giving himself a thoughtful
appraisal.
Not bad.

Not so old, My own,
She said, and then… She didn’t do it to him often, years since the last time,
but it was as if a warm hand stroked from the base of his skull to his
tailbone, and the sensation glimmered out along every nerve. He swayed and
caught himself on the dressing table before his legs went to jam. She didn’t do
it often, but when She did, it knocked him sideways. So little had ever made
Vandis hard. All that was fine for other people, he was sure, but it seemed
like such a waste of time. Even when he was young, he hadn’t bothered with
touching himself.

When She did that, he
burned
.
Vandis stepped closer to the table, steadying himself.
I’m about to dress up
like a trained pig and—and—

“Oh.”

He bowed his head,
trembling in every limb. Little touches of heat dotted his spine, and each one
radiated warmth, pleasure. Lower, lower, and the breeze brushed in through the
open window, bringing musky incense to his nose, caressing the nape of his neck
and the bare skin of his back with cool fingers. The candles on his dressing
table guttered and leapt with the bonfire leaping in his chest.

Her power kissed the
small of his back. Pleasure spiked so high it edged into pain, and he slid a
bare foot back over the carpet to brace himself, groaning, head bent before
Her, down between his arms. She seared along his nerves now, enveloped him head
to toe, and his groin beat a hammering pulse.
My Lady,
he thought, maybe
said. “My Lady…”

My own…

As always when She took
him this way, he felt as if he’d die of it. And when She receded, leaving him
panting, all his flesh glowed like the heart of an ember.

He straightened and
massaged his neck. His hand slithered on sweaty skin.

“All right, Vandis?”
Jimmy asked.

“Yeah,” he said, blinking
hard. “Fine.” He returned to the table and shakily washed face and neck.

“Three more bits!” Jimmy
laid the formal Jackass Suit on the bed and bustled out again. While he was
gone, Vandis got down the front of his breeches with the wet washcloth,
shivering and wincing at the cold touch in an overheated, oversensitive area.
He folded the cloth carefully over the evidence, laid it in his laundry hamper,
and stripped to the skin.

He was pulling on fresh
smallclothes when Jimmy came back with the last of it. The clothing had been
airing since before the Crown Prince’s visit, but it still smelled faintly of
the camphor it’d been packed with. Vandis settled the puffy shirt on his
shoulders and buttoned it down the front. His legs looked like thick white
sausages in the silk stockings, and even worse when he added the blousy satin
breeches, loudly striped in blue and green. The arming doublet matched.
I
look like a fucking idiot,
he thought.

You look well in
it,
She said, and he flushed. He found the soft boots just as bad as
the rest of it, but sensible footwear was impossible to find in dark-brown
kidskin. He would’ve liked to wear his usual boots; they were tough enough to
withstand anything in his path, bar a caltrop, and broken to his feet, but they
didn’t fit under the shiny, superfluous armoring for his calves. He pulled on
the kidskin gloves and faced Jimmy.

“Ready?” Jimmy said
brightly, and Vandis suppressed a sigh.

It took an hour and a
half to get it all on straight: the silvered, enameled cuirass, plus the
pauldrons and vambraces on his shoulders and arms, the poleyns and greaves for
his legs, and the sabatons on his feet. He settled the pointless morion, with
its openwork comb and cheek guards, onto his head while Jimmy fetched the
ultimate indignity. The cape—fair fucking winds, the cape. It attached to the
cuirass at his neck and shoulders and spilled down around his ankles, a hideous
waterfall of weft-faced wool. As if it weren’t enough that the front face of
the cuirass had been richly decorated with the white oak and the Golden Road,
the cape carried a stylized image of the World Tree with the world spread out
beneath it.

“Hate” wasn’t a strong
enough word. Vandis put his back to the mirror. If he stepped onto a
battlefield in all this, he’d be dead in ten heartbeats flat. There weren’t
even any damned cuisses. It was ugly, unwieldy, and worse than useless, because
it hampered every move he needed to make while airborne.
It looks well,
She insisted.

Only for You.
He
swallowed his frustration, spread his arms, and asked Jimmy, “How am I doing?”

“You’re aces, Vandis.”
Jimmy beamed.

“Thanks for the help,”
Vandis managed not to grumble. He opened the cedar chest at the foot of the bed
and took out the Staff of Office, another awkward, heavy piece of metal
garbage, for all it was fashioned like an oak limb and set with fat sapphires. It
had had powers Before, Hieronymus had explained to him when he took the
Headship, powers of wind and lightning, but when Vandis handled it, he held a
staff of silvered bronze that gave his fingers a prickly pins-and-needles
feeling. He took a deep breath and shuffled his shoulders, reaching for the
comfort She’d given him. His back itched like crazy, and it’d be hours before
he could scratch.

Adeon and Pearl awaited
him at the bottom of the stairs, wearing their best. At least he wasn’t the
only one feeling awkward. Adeon never seemed to, but Pearl in a dress never did
look right, and scuffed boot toes peeked out from beneath her maroon skirts.
She wore her sword.

“Let’s get this over
with,” he said when he reached them.

“Let’s,” Pearl said fervently,
following him through the mess hall. Adeon strode after, laughing. Vandis
paused to scan the chapel and street before he stepped out the front door.
There were plenty of people passing by dressed in black, but more than one
church required black, and it was a popular color among the laity.

I look like a target.
Nothing for it, though. He doubted the Aurelians would put a crossbow bolt in
the back of his neck—not their style—but he didn’t know for certain, and his
hackles rose the moment he stepped into the aisle. He still felt watched, and
now he couldn’t see properly. The helm obstructed his peripheral vision, and
the cheek guards didn’t fold up like they would’ve on a piece of actual
equipment.

“Try to look collected
for whoever’s watching us,” Pearl said when they were a little way down the
street.

“Glad I’m not the only
one who noticed,” Vandis said.

On the right, Adeon shook
back his silvery hair. “It’s a good thing we came. Relax. You’re in excellent
hands, if I do say so myself.”

“Where is he, can you
tell?”

“It’s more than one,”
said the
tulon.
“There are a thousand eyes on you, for all I know.”

Vandis scowled. “Let’s
get to the lift, then.” He didn’t like the idea of being cornered halfway up
the falls, but it would limit the number of people in his immediate vicinity
who might want him dead, and they’d be just as easy to corner on the stairs.

When they left Temple Row
for the busier mercantile section of Old Town, greetings flew Vandis’s way,
which he liked, and requests for blessings, which he didn’t care for. More
people recognized the vestments than recognized Vandis himself, and, for
whatever reason, jumped at the chance to have a real, live pontiff kiss their
babies. When he was dolled up like this, he pecked three soft, slimy cheeks for
every block he walked, bare minimum; and since it was a nice day, he’d kissed a
hundred by the time they got to the river. He, Pearl, and Adeon bought chits
for the lift and entered the roped-off waiting area at the base of the falls.

The shell of the dead
volcano loomed above. Under the roaring of the Ennis, the crater’s lip had worn
away, but it still curved gently in all around, hugging crowded Old Town, with
its temples and markets and houses, like a loving mother. There were two
pedestrian lifts—four platforms—on this side of the river, and two freight
lifts, with four larger platforms, on the other. They worked on a massive
system of ox-drawn pulleys and heavy chains, and counterweighed each other. All
around the bustling river, bay, and falls, hundreds of roofs clogged the
crater, different styles, peaks and flat-tops, tiled in many colors of slate:
dark gray, yellow, red, mottled. The City Redwood cast a gigantic shadow over
the inlet at this time of day, and the ships moved in and out of the noontide
dim.

Vandis looked without
really seeing the wonder of it. Not today. His mind was in a thousand places at
once: on the audience to come, on Dingus and Kessa, on the stacks of papers, on
what the Lady had done to him. Now that he’d stopped trembling, his limbs felt
looser, more relaxed—even considering his nervous tension. He shuffled his
shoulders again, trying to scratch the long scab on his back.

As one lift clanked into
motion, an operator unlatched the gate on the other to let the passengers on the
bottom file off, and the same at the top. Plenty didn’t like the lifts, either
because of the height or because of the shaky dance the platforms did on their
way up and down, and chose the staircases cut into the sides of the crater:
free, quieter, and relatively dry. The spray from the falls dampened lift
passengers. In Dreamport, where the weather stayed chilly and damp almost
year-round, this deterred many. Still, the freight side alone generated a
profit for the lift company, and the pedestrian waiting areas were crowded even
late into the night.

At last, the platform on
the bottom emptied and the crowd swept Vandis forward. Only when he heard his
name did he realize his bodyguards hadn’t gotten on with him.

“
Vandis!
” Pearl
called, her mouth wide, voice small against the thunder of the falls. “Vandis,
get off!”

He’d just started pushing
his way toward the gate when it snapped shut.

“Stop!” she screamed at
the operators, or at least, he thought she did; the oxen began to walk, and he
couldn’t hear her over the noise of the chains. By the time he’d shoved to the
side of the platform, they were thirty feet high and rising. Pearl and Adeon
stood at the very edge of the waiting area, making frantic gestures for him to
jump.

The lift climbed higher.
Vandis struggled onto the railing, hampered by his court armor and the Staff of
Office. He cursed. His feet kept slipping in their casings of shiny steel and
kidskin. When the lift jerked to an unexpected stop halfway up, he nearly
toppled over the side, overcompensated, and fell on his ass on the platform. He
let another oath fly into the sudden quiet and levered to his feet with the
Staff—it might as well do him
some
good.

“Sir-Vail-the-man-behind-me-has-a-sword-at-my-back-please-do-as-he-says-or-he-will-kill-me-in-front-of-my-
daughter
…”

The blood drained from
his face. When he twisted to look behind him, a middle-aged woman filled his
eyes, tearful face, clinging to the hand of a soundlessly weeping little girl
about ten or eleven. Men in black hoods clustered behind them, close.

“Why, you motherless
sacks—”

The big man behind the
hostage, with his hand fisted in the collar of her dress, jerked his chin at
Vandis. “Drop the staff.”

Vandis dropped it. It hit
the platform with a crack and stayed where it was, too ornate to roll. He
wished for a sword at his side, in his hand. “I know your stories,” he said,
looking over the poor woman’s shoulder into the monk’s eyes. “I know your Rule.
Saint Aurelius was a man of honor. If he saw you hiding behind a woman and her
child, he’d spit in your eye.”

One of the others stepped
forward. Vandis raised his fists, blocked a blow, but the woman gave a little
scream, and he dropped his guard. The monk struck him in the face, knocking the
morion askew, and again. The helm skittered away. Once more and he fell to his
knees, tasting the blood that ran from his nose and mouth. He pushed up on his
hands, thinking at least to die with his pride intact.

A sword rang from the
scabbard, and a thin, cold edge rested on the nape of his neck. Vandis froze.
Blood dripped from his face and pattered onto the boards. “Hey!” he heard, as
if from far away. “That’s Vandis Vail, that is! You can’t do that!”

“You are all commanded to
bear witness! Here is the just judgment the Order of Aurelius renders to Vandis
Vail of Vick’s Hollow, no respecter of title, office, or authority! He consorts
with devils! He worships demons! He spreads discord and discontent wherever he
goes, defiling society, corrupting the youth! He urges treason! He foments
sedition!”

Not bad, eh?
he
thought to Her, dizzy.
See You in a minute.