by Angela Boord
“We’ve been escorting Mikelo,” Arsenault says, then adds, bowing stiffly from the shoulders somewhat after the fact, “My lord.”
Geoffre snorts. “So you were. Fine lot of good it’s done. I had the rest of your detachment flogged. And Jon.” He shakes his head mournfully. “I did think we had an understanding.”
Jon shrugs. “Such as it was, my lord. I’ve gone beyond the terms of our agreement. I delivered the gavaro, and it was your guards that lost him. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want your nephew dead, so I came as escort when I was demanded to do so.”
“Demanded, were you? A stick of a boy like that demanded the both of you, and you went?” He squints at me. “I don’t even think it’s a boy. I think it’s a woman.” He pauses. “Well? Which is it?”
I remind myself that I am the one with the gun.
“I have your nephew. Since your sons are both impotent, may I also assume that he’s your heir?”
Devid makes a noise in his throat and steps forward, stopped only by Geoffre’s outflung arm. I smile at them. “I forgot. At least Devid is a girl-maker.”
Arsenault gives me that look again.
But Geoffre starts to laugh. “I believe you are a woman. Only women know how to deal in insults against themselves. Curious, a female gavaro.” He leans back in his chair and regards me from eyes which must twin the serpents’ on his sword—a glittering stormy blue. “I do wonder where Tonia dug you up.”
He cranes his neck over the back of his chair. “Devid, if you’ll make sure the corridor is secure.”
Devid jerks. “Father, we left a guard on the door.”
“I’d feel more secure if I knew my own son was guarding it.”
Devid’s fingers twist at his side. White-faced, he inclines his head. “As you wish, Father,” he says, then turns on his heel, motioning to the rest of the guards in the room and sparing a seething glace at Mikelo. The guards all follow him out, but the little whore remains. She comes to stand behind Geoffre’s chair and puts a hand on his shoulder.
Geoffre reaches up to clasp it. “You go, too, Lusinda. I don’t think I’ll be in danger.”
Lusinda shoots us a dagger glance as she leaves, and I wonder if a real knife hides beneath those thin layers of blue-green silk. How Devid must feel, spurned for a minor relation and a whore.
“Now, then,” Geoffre says, leaning forward, “we can get down to business.”
“Are you sure your son will protect you?” I say, like a tongue probing a sore tooth.
“My son is no concern of yours. Or at least not that one. I understand you’ve been hired to retrieve a certain Caprine from the care of my second son, and I have to say I wish you luck in that endeavor, though I don’t think I can allow you to kill him. He does have some use yet.” A brief frown passes over his face. “I’m not quite sure why my smuggler chose not to inform his guardsmen that they were to bring you to me, but I’ll have to seek that information another time. Perhaps tomorrow,” he says, turning to give Jon a wide smile that is nothing more than veneer on his intentions. Jon shifts beside me and stares at the wall.
Maybe Jon didn’t send that assassin to take care of me, but I think he might have meant to hang me.
A hollow spot inside begins to ache fiercely. I tighten my grip on the gun and press it harder against Mikelo’s fair hair. Mikelo flinches and sways aside, but I yank him up out of the chair so we can both stand. Geoffre’s eyes widen, a show of alarm from him.
“I’m not doing anything for the Prinze,” I say. “You can keep your gold, your spice, and your ill-gotten silk. But you’ll give me safe haven till we’re out of the city or else I’ll leave you heirless. And you can spend your time in the arms of your whore, knowing she’ll have your empire when you die…or the Caprine will.”
Geoffre’s expression goes flat. He takes a deep breath through his nose. “This is not an acceptable position,” he says.
“Do you think you can bully me into doing what you want? I’ll have what I want, and then we can deal for what you want.”
“I have fifteen guardsmen waiting in the hall. If you should—”
“And none of them will be able to pull their triggers before Mikelo is dead.”
Geoffre’s eyes narrow. “You’re just a girl. You won’t kill him.”
I pull my hidden dagger left-handed and drive it deep into the flesh of Mikelo’s neck where it meets his shoulder, just above his collarbone. Blood wells up and he cries out, his knees sagging. Geoffre, Jon, and Arsenault all jerk forward, but I pull Mikelo hard against me.
“Are you willing to test me?”
“I know who you are,” Geoffre says suddenly. “You’re Kyrra d’Aliente.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “So, all the rumors were wrong, were they? The guards were frightened by your new arm, they said. Now I know they were only trying to save themselves. That you could be a witch. You’re just an armless girl.”
But he gives me a look and I remember what Arsenault thought, a long time ago, that he knew about the magic passed down in my family and that he wanted me for it. Mikelo’s my strongest card, but he’s already on the table. If I were playing indij, I’d need another strong card in reserve, and I hope it’s my arm. Geoffre might think I can See, but he doesn’t know about Ires, and he doesn’t know about my arm.
But I’ve tensed up too much. A vibration shudders through the metal. This is a problem I have—the hate and energy of battle, the metal begins to sing all through me, and I start to shake. Sometimes, it’s impossible to stop. I can’t ease up on the trigger, but if I don’t stop shaking, I’ll blow Mikelo’s head off.
I take a deep breath and calm it down right before my finger twitches the trigger too far.
“Give me safe haven, and a way out when I’m finished with the Caprine girl. And then you’ll get your heir back.”
Jon says, “You can’t trust her. Wasn’t she the woman killed your son’s child?”
“Yes,” Geoffre says, his voice and face hard. “She was.”
Because you made me, I think. I would have married Cassis, settled down with him, raised a whole family of grandsons for you. But you didn’t want me. Whose fault is that?
“That heir is long gone, and this one’s in front of you. I can kill him now or you can give me a chance to let him live. Or perhaps…we could play kai dahn with the heirship.”
I point my gun straight down at Mikelo’s crotch.
“The dikkarro’s a hard aim; do you think he’d be able to make children or not?”
I put on my best grin.
Mikelo makes a soft sound of fear. Geoffre looks like a dog, ready to bite. He rises from his chair and takes a step toward me. I jam the gun into Mikelo’s groin and haul him backward, almost to the wall.
“Uncle,” Mikelo whispers, trembling as blood runs in a thin stream down his blue-and-gray tunic. “Uncle, she’s serious.”
“I know she is, you fool,” Geoffre says, his thin mouth pulled down in a long scowl, hand on his sword hilt. “Fine, then. You’re granted your safe haven as long as you keep my nephew alive and get that witch out of my son’s bed. But I don’t trust you. You’ll take the guard with you. Andris. I hear he was the one who caught you in the first place.” Geoffre leans forward to point at me. “If I hear that you have so much as blemished Mikelo’s skin, the loss of an arm will be but a passing twinge compared to the pain I’ll give you. It’s my forest between here and there, and its eyes report what they see to me.”
He straightens and adjusts his sword in its scabbard. “I have nothing more to say to you. All I want to hear now is that you’ve delivered my nephew safe to my doorstep, and Driese di Caprine’s arm wrapped up in a bag as proof that she’s dead.” His mouth twists. “Do you think you can accomplish that? Severing an arm?”
I don’t answer. I just stare at him, and he stares back at me.
He turns to Jon before I turn away. “You’ll have fifty lashes in the morning, smuggler, and wish you’d
never disobeyed me. Get out.”
Jon’s eyes spark. He turns once, to glance at me from the corner of his eye, and then he walks, straight-backed, to the door. Geoffre rises and follows him.
“My nephew will be safe,” he says once again as Lusinda puts her hand on his arm. Then the door slams and I’m left alone with a man I’m not sure I can trust anymore and the heir to the most powerful House in Eterea.
“Jon will make a bad enemy,” Arsenault says when all the guards are gone from the hallway.
I laugh shakily. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
Mikelo slumps in a chair, his head in his hands, still trembling. Blood drips down his shirt. Arsenault grabs a napkin and holds it against Mikelo’s collarbone.
I didn’t want to hurt Mikelo, but my other option was to shoot him and that would have been worse. I don’t think the wound is that bad, but it looks like it pains him.
I pace from the sideboard to the card table, a crystal glass of imya in my hand. The clear liquor slops against the side of the glass, and I pause to take a long drink that burns my throat. My eyes water, but I throw back the rest of the glass.
Arsenault holds out another napkin and I oblige him by soaking it in alcohol. When he puts this napkin against Mikelo’s skin, Mikelo hisses and jerks backward.
“Jon wanted me dead,” I say, going back to pour myself another glass and Mikelo one, too. “Shall I pour for all of us?” I look up, the bottle in my hand, to find both Arsenault and Mikelo staring at me. “Shall we celebrate our victory?”
“Victory?” Mikelo says, coming half out of his chair. “This is no—”
“You’re not on my side,” I remind him. The barrel of the gun left an impression in his hair that hasn’t come uncrimped yet. He runs his fingers through it as if he needs to shake it out, and then Arsenault bumps his arm and makes him hold the napkin against his wound himself.
“Do you really believe my uncle?”
I hand him a glass of imya instead of answering. His hands shake as he takes it, and he gasps after he drinks.
“What is this stuff?” he says, swiping his sleeve across his mouth.
“Imya. The Rojornicki drink it. They say it’s fortifying.”
Mikelo stares at the empty glass, then holds it out for more. Arsenault’s frown grows darker.
“Aren’t you going to drink?” I ask him. “I managed not to get Mikelo killed, and what did you expect about Jon? He was supposed to call in Geoffre, and instead, he called in your contingent of guards. Should I give him my scarf for his troubles? A dainty red rose, perhaps?”
Arsenault looks at me for a moment, then grabs the bottle I’ve left on the table between us. “I don’t know what Jon thought he was going to do. But you don’t understand.”
I try to arrange my face. Dear gods, but it feels strange and awful to play these games with him. “Then enlighten me, o wise one.”
“Say you kill Cassis and let Driese go. Then what happens?”
I swirl the imya in my glass. One can hardly see it in this crystal. Mikelo looks at the bottle like he wants another drink, but Arsenault doesn’t relinquish his grip on it. He begins fanning out cards instead. His long fingers play over the ornate illustrations of generals and ladies. It’s a habit he seems to have, ducking his head when others speak. Listening.
“The Prinze monopoly depends on its insularity. Now think what would happen if Cassis were to sire a son by a Caprine.”
I turn one of the chairs the wrong way and sit down, resting my arms on its back and my head on my arms. “Do you mean if the Caprine get hold of her or the Prinze?”
“Either case, I suppose.”
I take a deep breath. “In the case of the Prinze…Driese di Caprine would live long enough to have the child. Then Geoffre would have her killed, make Cassis his heir until another, better, more legitimate heir could be produced, and then kill the boy. If it’s a girl…Geoffre doesn’t need girls and he doesn’t need kin ties, so both Driese and the girl are killed in childbed.”
“You think that Geoffre would have Driese killed right away? Why wouldn’t he allow her to live to see if she could produce a boy? If she’s fertile?”
“Because he wants me to kill her now, before she’s pregnant in the first place. And anyway, that assumes that Cassis would be faithful. By any definition of faithfulness.”
“If she’s fertile.”
“Well, that didn’t matter with me, now, did it? They still sent me to the Council and took my arm. They didn’t want me for any reason.”
“But you cheated them.”
“You make it sound like playing cards.”
“Isn’t that how you Lierans treat it?’
I need more alcohol to keep this conversation going. But he still has the damn bottle.
“The Prinze and Jon, maybe,” I say angrily. “It’s a woman’s life we’re talking about, though. The life of her child.”
“But you,” Mikelo says shakily. “You’re Kyrra d’Aliente.”
I lift my head. There’s no avoiding that indictment, the fear that shows on faces when people learn that I took the life of my own child. The guilt remains inside me like a piece of shrapnel in a closed-up wound. Perhaps it doesn’t show on the outside, but every word makes it twist, drawing fresh blood.
Instead of answering, I turn back to Arsenault. “Now, say I rescue Driese and kill Cassis the way I’ve been paid to do. How does that not fit into Jon’s plans, if he wants Mikelo named as Prinze heir? Perhaps Driese is pregnant and perhaps she’s not, but with Cassis dead, at least he’s removed from your damn card game.”
Arsenault pours himself a hefty shot of imya and his gaze flickers over to Mikelo. The hot currant scent fills the room as he tosses it back, then sets the glass down hard again on the table, grimacing.
“What if Driese is pregnant,” he says, sitting down and pouring shots for all three of us. “And you kill Cassis. What then? What will the Caprine do?”
“Hard to say. Maybe they’ll send her and her child into exile. Maybe they’ll have them both killed to keep them from the Prinze. Maybe…”
I let my voice trail off, but we all know what I mean.
“Tonia wants you to take her out of Liera.”
“Women generally want to avoid my fate.”
Mikelo looks up from his cards. “If you kill Cassis, your life will be forfeit. My uncle will have you hunted and killed as soon as you put down the gun.”
“That’s why you’re the lord up my sleeve, Mikelo. You’d best be more afraid of your uncle.”
Mikelo fingers the ragged edge of one of Jon’s cards—the other general. The bastard had it all the time.
“I am more afraid of my uncle. I don’t mind telling you that, either of you. You can’t trust his guarantee of safe haven. You ought to just give me over and have done with it.”
“The voice of reason. I wonder why Geoffre himself came to bargain for you if you’re meaningless. Or why Arsenault stands for you.”
“Arsenault,” Mikelo says. “You keep calling him that. Wasn’t that the name of the Aliente captain?”
Arsenault goes still.
No, I don’t think he’s lying. Maybe the magic did eat all his memories.
But…every memory?
I thought it hurt before, thinking he might be dead. But in some ways, this hurts worse.
“It’s a trap,” Mikelo goes on. “My uncle doesn’t mind sacrificing me as long as I serve a purpose. He’s pinning his hopes on Cassis; that’s easy enough to see.”
I take a deep breath and twirl the glass in my hands. “Were you so afraid that you ignored everything that was said? Geoffre wants you as his heir. At least until someone better comes along. Before we go any farther, I want to know who you are.”
“He was bluffing.”
“He wouldn’t have walked out of here if he was bluffing. He would have let me shoot you.”
Mikelo thumbs the jester card hard enough to bend the corner, then slaps it down
on the table. “I’m his nephew, dammit, in his dead brother’s line. I’m in the succession but far enough down that it doesn’t really matter who I am, and there is really no reason to risk my life because you’re on some idiotic mission of vengeance!” He shoves himself back from the table. “If you are Kyrra d’Aliente, then you’re the woman who started this whole war! If you’d just birthed my cousin’s child—”
“I would have birthed that child,” I tell him, leaning toward him so that my face is in his face, “but I was a pawn, just like you.”
His jaw twitches. I can feel mine do the same.
“Is Geoffre playing you again, then?” Arsenault says.
Damn the man. He sits there with his flat gray eyes, watching me. Waiting to see how I will answer.
I feel like I’m full of knives, and they’re all cutting me up as slowly as they can. But until I know what’s going on, I’m going to have to play this game with Arsenault.
“Since Geoffre assigned you to me, I must assume that you’re spying for him,” I say.
He wraps his hand around the neck of the imya bottle, leans back in his chair, and puts his feet up on the table like he always did.
“It’s a fault,” he says. “Assuming.”
Chapter 20
After we’re sure Geoffre has left, Arsenault and I spend some time thinking about the best way to get out of the bathhouse, sketching maps on an extra sheet of writing paper he pulls from that scroll case he carries with him.
Half-full glasses of imya hold down the corners. Mikelo took the bottle over to the bed, where he is grimly drinking himself insensible. It was the only way I could keep him from fretting himself into a panic.
“The bathhouse is built on top of old Eterean ruins,” Arsenault says. “I suppose it’s not so different from any other bathhouse in that respect, so if you know the usual layout of a bathhouse…”
“Not from the men’s side,” I said. “Only the women’s.”
Arsenault nods. “The rooms on this side are built in a rectangular pattern inside the cavern. The Etereans must have used magic to scoop out some of that rock, but what it means for us is that the baths themselves use the natural cavern system but the Etereans made it more logical. Some of the pools are natural and some are fed by a central aqueduct. It brings hot water from deep in the back of the cavern to the front. Then side channels direct the water to different rooms.”
