The Bandit King (34 page)

I blinked, but not in surprise. No, it was merely to keep myself in readiness. Or so I told myself.

Jierre’s sardonic tone, well-known to me. “I hope you are correct. Arquitaine cannot stand to lose more royalty.”

“And there is
this
.” A touch of loathing in the bandit’s tone, now. “Cursed thing. What would
you
say to him, were he here?”

Jierre was silent for a long moment. I shut my eyes.

Yes, what would you say, Lieutenant? You played your part to perfection, and I can credit it was at her bidding. Would to the gods I had seen enough to know.

But a guilty conscience makes a man blinder than a clear one ever shall.

When Jierre spoke, it was softly, and for my ears alone, for all that the new King was the only man he could see. “I would tell him,” he said softly, “that I regret playing my part so well. And, should he ever wish to have a blade at his bidding, that we are too marvelous to die.”

My jaw set, hard enough to crack my teeth. Loyal to the end, Jierre. In his own fashion.

Adrien di Cinfiliet’s laugh was a bitter bark. “You are passing strange,
sieur
. Off with you. I am certain that Pruzian will be about as well; he is a tick upon a deer’s leg. Why she left him to nursemaid me, I have no—”

“She is thorough, our
d’mselle
. Safe dreaming, Adrien.”

A low bitter laugh. “Gods be praised, you have finally unbent. Safe dreaming yourself, Jierre. Tomorrow we begin our thankless task.”

“We? My only task is to keep your skin whole. To you lies the rest.” Jierre’s step, light and familiar, and the door swept creaking shut behind him.

I waited. The bed groaned as he settled upon it. The fire crackled.

“You may as well come out,” Adrien di Cinfiliet said quietly.

So I did, cautiously pushing the curtain aside, my poniard ready. My boots touched the floor, and I braced myself—but the newly-crowned King merely sat on the edge of the bed, still in his white finery, and regarded me with his storm-gray gaze.

I faced the bastard son of the man I had killed. Lifted the poniard slightly, firelight playing along its freshly honed blade. “I should kill you.” The truth was ash against my tongue. “Were I the man you think I am, I would.”

I was that man, but I wish not to be.

He nodded slowly, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “No doubt. But a certain dark-eyed
d’mselle
would not look kindly upon such a deed.”

The knife was too tempting. I sheathed it. “Are you satisfied?” I merely sounded curious. Perhaps twas the tightness in my chest that robbed my words of the weight I wished them to carry.

The Bandit King gave another sharp, bitter bark of a laugh. “You think I wished for this? I knew she was up to mischief, d’Arcenne. I did not expect to be snapped into traces and neatly put to plow. She laid her plans well, and outwitted us both.”

I could almost believe you.
“Where has she gone?”

“Were you not listening?
I do not know
. Amid the feasting and every man who can lay claim to being a soldier drunk and celebrating, who could find her?” He sagged, and I saw his exhaustion. “She said that had I need, I should send her this. But where to send it, she did not tell me. A riddle from
m’cousine
Riddlesharp, and one I cannot solve.” A green gleam in his hand, carefully lifted. Twas an ear-drop, and I finally recognized it as hers. She had been wearing them the day the conspiracy was loosed.

Much became clear to me at once.
I shall send the other half as proof.

If this was a message from my
d’mselle
, how could it be deciphered?

We regarded each other for a long while, the fire crackling and shifting. Sweat gathered on my back, dewed my brow.

Finally, some of the tension left me. I stalked across the Cell. He did not move, and when I took the ear-drop from his fingers I was surprised to find I did not wish to murder him.

At least, not at this moment. Perhaps not ever. Leaving him with a crown to wear and the Pruzian to nursemaid him was a far better revenge.

I backed up with a shuffle, a swordsman’s move. The scar on my chest ached. I had not put it to much of a test. Perhaps twas the heart underneath that pained me so. My face twitched, its scar plucking at itself. “Someday, you may think she is a threat to you.” Each word carefully enunciated, slow and quiet. “If that day should come to pass, remember only that I will be watching. As long as you do not seek to harm her, you are safe from me.”

“I would not harm
her
.” He cocked his head, and the mocking expression was Henri’s, down to the last line and quirk. “There is one thing, d’Arcenne. She left me a letter.”

I waited.

“Tis burned now. But in it, she warned me that I would need a Left Hand.”

Where in the Shirlstrienne could he have learned that delicate insinuation? The right note of velvet threat and dangling bait. A lure, perhaps, to make a hawk rise—and even in the forest, perhaps he had known something of hawking.

I swallowed dryly. “My thanks, Your Majesty. But I already serve.” I paused on my way out the door. “The Pruzian isn’t fit for it, and neither is Jierre. Try di Siguerre. His grandfather has already prepared him nicely.”

And with that, I slid into the corridor, turned away from the guard posted at the end of the hall—they were inattentive, conversing with each other in hushed whispers—and slipped into darkness. I passed Fridrich van Harkke, hidden in a pool of deep shadow behind a moldering cupboard that had perhaps once held rapiers for the dueling-hall just past the next archway. He did not breathe as I ghosted by, and I did not turn or speed my step, though my back roughened with gooseflesh.

The Knife did not strike. I left the Palais an hour later, and by dawn I was outside the Citté.

Twas time to find my Queen.

They gathered at their fires, bright-eyed and dark-haired, and the throbbing beat of their music rose as they finished their dinner. Bubbling, fragrant meat stew, different spices than an Arquitaine cook would use, woodsmoke, and the odor of difference and green hedgewitchery.

It had taken me weeks to track them.

After the feasting, the dishes were cleaned. Laughter rose among them, bright ribbons of their odd liquid language. Gold twinkled at ear and throat and wrist, thin golden rings and some of the dark women sporting thread-thin noserings. Splashing and jests, merriment and the cries of joyful younglings, then the central fire was carefully tended and the children soothed.

The instruments came forth. Gittern and tambour, pipes like wailing
demieri di sorce
, the rhythm driving and odd, burrowing into breath and bones and blood. Two lines of dancers, male and female like some of the maying dances, and the women’s voices lifted.

Their dancing is strange, too. Flicker of hips, stamping sandals working into the dusty earth, arms held stiffly and eyes mostly lowered. There is no word for the grace, but the sway of their hips and the hitched-up skirts showing their ankles, their bare brown arms gleaming with gold and effort… it makes a man think of other dances.

The men, straight and tall, took up the challenge and danced forward. Pairs were formed, older married women calling from the sidelines. The older women are held to be experts, and their judgments accepted without question. Pairs retired, breathing quickly and taking swigs of their fiery clear
rhuma
, joining the onlookers and adding their voices to the song. I touched the lump of my father’s signet under my doublet and watched.

When one pair is left the music intensifies, and they are called upon to perform. They must provide a spectacle, and should they be judged insipid or unworthy of the honor, the mockery, while good-natured, is intense.

She stood at the edges, a shawl wrapped about her shoulders. The headman’s wife, dark and lean, stood next to her, calling out advice and clapping her narrow brown hands. They conferred together like myrmyra birds, the way a Princesse and her lady-in-waiting might.

My chest ached, ached.

When next I peered out the tiny window, she was walking, head down and barefoot, her sandals swinging from one hand. She climbed the steps, lightly, and opened the wagon’s cunningly designed door. Painted in red and gold, the small house-on-wheels was neat, and trim, and pulled by a pair of good-natured roans who were at the pickets, munching contentedly.

She hummed, a wandering melody threading through the thumping beat outside. Opened a tiny cabinet, standing on tiptoe, feeling for something in the darkness. She cursed under her breath, not finding what she sought, and swung the cabinet closed.

Court sorcery flashed. A candle guttered into life, and she swallowed her scream, clapping a hand over her mouth and staring at me.

I was, perhaps, not a comforting sight.

We regarded each other, Vianne and I. My back was to the hedgewitch-armoire built into one whole wall of the wagon, the bed at the far end, the scarves and skirts hung on pegs on the other wall. She had traded the Palais for these cramped quarters, and there was a book tangled in her bedclothes. A treatise by a Tiberian philosopher, a man who had given up the rule of his city and retreated to a farm, only to be slain when the king following him grew suspicious.

Was she reading for her future, then?

Finally, she dropped her hand. Her sandals dropped as well. Her hair, braided in loops over her ears as the R’mini women do, had pulled free and framed her face with curling tendrils. She had gained some little weight, and there were no shadows under her eyes.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “Captain,” she whispered.

“Vianne.” I could not speak any louder.

She visibly gathered herself. I waited. “Is it… is it time?”

I realized what she was asking, and cursed myself for being lackwitted clear through. “Tis time, Vianne, but not for what you think. I would not harm you.”

She shook her head. “I…”

“How can you even
think
I would harm you?” Quietly, but with great force.

Her chin lifted a fraction. “I had… I must be sure. How did you…”

“I am a fool
for
you,
m’chri
. Not an idiot.” I spread my hands slowly, so she could see what I held.

The ear-drop glowed in my palm. She inhaled sharply, and her gaze fluttered to my face, seeking to read whatever it could.

I wished her luck. I wished to be an open book to her. But would she ever know what language to read upon my features? “He is well, Vianne. You would have heard by now, were he not. We have come to an agreement, your bandit cousin and I.”

“And I am unnecessary, now?” Her chin tilted up slightly, brave to the last.

“Not to me.” I searched for the right thing to say. “I am not his Left Hand.”

The breath left her in a rush. She had paled alarmingly. “Tristan…” A mere ghost of a word.

Finally. Not “Captain” or “
sieur.” I throttled the hope rising in me. “Do your R’mini pass near Arcenne, Vianne?”

“What?” She struggled to understand. Or perhaps to throttle the hope plainly visible on her features.

Finer than I deserved, as always. She hoped for my redemption, my Vianne. She had played her hand well, and freed us both. Except she could not unlock the chains of what I had been, and what I had done.

Not even the Blessed held that key. But if I could, if she let me, I would do my best to be the man I should have.

Unless it was too late. I cast my dice. “I would see my mother again. She would no doubt be glad to see your face as well. We may not stay in Arcenne. It could be… misconstrued. But over the mountains, to Navarrin… or, Tiberia. There is a house in
Citté Immortale
, ready to be filled with books.”

“And if I do not wish to?” A swift, abortive movement, as if she wished to flee.

I pointed to her left hand. The copper marriage-band glittered as the music throbbed outside, yells rising as the pair dancing performed some sorcery that earned the approval of their audience.

“It seems I cannot rid myself of…” She lifted her hand slightly, gazed ruefully at the band. “Tris.”

“You do not have to forgive me.” The consciousness of lying struck me, quick and hard as a mailed fist. My pulse pounded in my ears. “I will not ask it of you.”
That
was the truth. “If you tell me to go, I will. I will pass the remainder of the life the Blessed see fit to grant me in Arcenne, waiting for your call. I will even, do you require it of me, return to your
cousin
and safeguard his life with my own. I will trouble you no more. I am… sorry. It does not erase the ill, Vianne. I am worse than you can imagine. But I would be… better, if I could.”

She hesitated. Did she wish to, she could scream. They would come running, her traveling-companions.

Her shoulders lifted. She stepped back, her hand searching for the door. I forced myself to stand mute, frozen, every scar I had gained in my life a map of fire and failure, the blackness in me rising as my hope drew back from me. I closed my eyes. Why were my cheeks wet? The scar on my face gathered a tear, hot salt water tracing a runnel down its seam.