The Subtle Knife

by Matthew James Lee

at the prospect, and try as he might he couldn't conceal from Zoe that his mood had darkened.

  “But you like Timon,” she said.

  “Indeed,” said the rider. “He's a fine young man.”

  “Then what is it?” said Zoe. “This is supposed to be the happiest time of my life, and if my own father isn't ready to share that happiness...”

  She stopped, and flushed.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “Playing the simpering bride already. I'm really sorry.”

  “You don't have to apologise, dear heart,” said the rider.

  “Still,” said Zoe. “It worries me to see you upset. You're my father, and I love you and – what?”

  “I'm not your father,” said the rider. “Remember?”

  But Zoe only rolled her eyes.

  “Of course you are,” she said. “Whoever was expecting me in that house before you arrived in Lys, they've been dead for nearly twenty years. Who took care of me in all that time? Not to mention Timon told me what you suggested to Cleon, and yes, I would sooner convert than try and pretend I didn't owe you my life.”

  “I'm sorry,” said the rider quietly. “I just... this isn't at all what I expected when I arrived in Lys. I am happy for you, I swear. Incredibly happy. Yet I still can't help but think what with the storm on the horizon and everything you don't know about me it's somewhat remiss of me to pretend to a joy I don't completely feel.”

  “Then what did you expect when you arrived in Lys?” said Zoe slowly.

  But the rider would not answer her.

  A month later Cleon Argyris passed away in his sleep, and the city mourned, for though the old soldier's ideas of turning the name of Lys into a byword for tolerance and understanding had fallen out of favour, his legacy was still spoken of in hushed tones by nigh on anyone in a position of power. His son's impending betrothal ceremony went from a quiet ceremony to an event every Nyzaen was anticipating. Yet much to Timon's dismay, his mother insisted on one condition the young man hadn't foreseen.

  After so many years spent fretting her husband was in constant danger of being struck down by Aumejid assassins, Thais had convinced herself Cleon's death had to be the result of foul play. She vacillated between different theories about who was responsible, but given the rider was the only one close to Cleon who fit her preferred criteria, it seemed obvious everything was leading towards a truly unpleasant confrontation, and Timon lacked the confidence to head his mother off in another direction.

  When the confrontation arrived it was an ugly scene, as Thais vented her grief in a string of hurtful slurs that stopped just short of painting the rider as some swarthy, olive-skinned troglodyte who'd spent most of his time hiding behind the curtains ready to stab Cleon in the back. And whether or not Thais meant the things she said, she refused to change her mind over the ceremony, as if to do otherwise would be to admit all those years of worrying had been a waste of time. Zoe's adoptive father, she said, was not to attend.

  The rider walked slowly back down the hill from Cleon's house, lost in thought, while Timon and Zoe hurried after him.

  “I am so sorry,” said Timon. “I can talk to her again tomorrow, when she's –”

  “No,” said the rider. “I will not challenge her. Not over this.”

  “We could postpone the ceremony,” said Zoe. “Give her time to come around.”

  “I don't want to hurt her!” said the rider. “I've already caused her more than enough pain!”

  Quietly Zoe gestured back towards the house, and Timon nodded, then left the young woman and the rider alone.

  “I don't understand how she could do this,” said Zoe.

  “But it's easy,” said the rider, “once you've convinced yourself what seemed like an emotional reaction was actually the logical thing to do. And you know how most of Lys currently feels about the Aumejid. For all the effort Cleon put in he still couldn't change that. Not to mention there's an army of soldiers who look like me poised to sweep down on the city. If everyone on this side of the walls assumes the worst, can you really blame them?”

  “I don't assume the worst,” said Zoe.

  “Oh?” said the rider. “Can you honestly tell me you've never doubted me? Not even for a moment?”

  “Of course not,” Zoe began to say and then, just for a moment, she fell silent. She remembered the night of the party, and the sight of the rider alone in Cleon's study, with the bottle the old soldier had finished after giving his speech. The way he'd spoken about his wife and child, and how they'd vanished after Nyzaen soldiers stormed Hamassus. How he wouldn't tell her what had originally brought him to Lys.

  I will not challenge her, he'd just said. I've already caused her enough pain.

  It was only a moment, but that was enough.

  “You see?” said the rider. “Even you. Even you.”

  “Then tell me you didn't do it,” whispered Zoe.

  “Why should I?” said the rider. “If you feel the need to ask?”

  “Tell me you didn't do it!” Zoe screamed.

  But the rider made no reply, and Zoe could only stand there and watch him walk away.

  It's nothing, Zoe told herself. Just a moment's indiscretion. An emotional reaction. It'll pass.

  She went back to help Timon minister to his mother, and with a vacant smile on her face helped Thais finalise the last few details of the betrothal ceremony. Though all the while Zoe wept, inwardly, at every piece of casual bigotry the woman dropped unthinking into the conversation like tarnished pearls of wisdom. Perhaps I should have converted, Zoe thought.

  She simply couldn't face the idea of returning to face the rider, however. Not after what it seemed their last exchange had implied. So she stayed with Timon. The prospective bride and groom were not supposed to cohabit before the ceremony, but it wasn't unheard of, and Thais proved perfectly understanding – indeed, the woman seemed a little too enthusiastic about the possibility relations between Zoe and her adoptive father might not work out.

  Yet when the day of the ceremony finally came, Zoe couldn't stop looking for him.

  As the crowds packed into the cathedral prayed for blessings on the young couple, as the priests' chanting rose in pitch and the smoke from the burning incense climbed towards the apex of the dome, she thought she saw the rider in the crowd, or behind a pillar, or at the far end of the aisle. Whenever she looked a second time, it was never him, and soon it was all Zoe could do to stop herself running out of the building in a panic.

  “I have to see him,” said Zoe to Timon when the two of them finally had a moment to themselves. “Just to make sure he's all right.”

  “Of course,” said Timon. “If there's anything I can do...”

  “Perhaps later,” said Zoe, and she kissed him. “But right now I should go alone.”

  No-one in the artisans' district had seen the rider in days. His door was unlocked, and when Zoe called up the stairs, she heard nothing but echoes. The air was still, and slightly stale. When she came to the inner courtyard, no birds sang there, and she saw dead palm fronds afloat in the pool.

  But what drew her eye was a little table by the water, on which rested a tiny vial, a crystal ampoule bound in silver. The vial lay open, the last of the contents spilt across the table in a watery puddle of duck-egg blue.

  Zoe, of course, had never seen the vial, but it only took her a moment to guess what it might be. She sniffed at the liquid, cautiously, then recoiled. The chair nearby had been knocked over, and it was no great effort to imagine someone staggering away from the table, lurching through the house...

  Suddenly dreadfully frightened, she began to search room after room, struggling not to burst into tears at the way every piece of furniture out of place seemed like further proof disaster had struck.

  But the house was empty. The rider had disappeared.

  He'd left no message, no sign of where he might have gone. All Zoe found, in her room, laid out on her pillow, was a knife. It took her a while to recognise it as the same
one she'd been wearing when he'd found her, hiding under a ruined wagon in the desert, more than fifteen years ago.

  Zoe remembered very little of the next few days, as if a curtain had fallen about her, hiding the rest of the world from view for a time. People spoke to her, but she felt she had no more connection with them than she would with actors in a play, and so she smiled at them as best she could but paid no real attention to anything they were saying, for fear that if she actually took any of it in the tragedy of it all would reduce her to hysterics that no-one would be able to stop. Is this how Thais felt? she wondered at one point.

  But it passed, or at least the worst of it did, and in the end she cried herself to sleep in Timon's arms, while the young man stayed quiet and simply held her as long as she needed him to. Even Thais said nothing, though the old soldier's widow gave no indication whether this was out of some sense of solidarity or just grim satisfaction at what the rider turned out to have done.

  Three months passed. The elderly Genevine pontiff finally expired, and with him died his dream of raising an army that could drive off the Aumejid still waiting patiently to move on Lys. The council sent out fresh requests for aid but the new pontiff, tired of this ageing lion pestering the Genevine for assistance, rejected them all. None of the western powers wanted to step in to delay the inevitable, and rumours began to spread that outside the walls, the Aumejid had finally mobilised.

  Thais proved fairly open to the