Gabriel stroked his aethereal beard. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so.
“You will if you must,” she said quietly.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I have the sinking feeling that I should have made love to you before we started this conversation.”
Then he froze. He gritted his teeth, looked elsewhere, and swore. She watched him a moment, then surrendered to impulse and kissed him.
Her left wrist was a ring of fire that burned and burned and...
The irk was rolling his tools in the moonlight, his fanged smile as terrifying as ever.
Blanche was herself, even as she looked at her own left hand and found it whole, and was surprised that she’d expected something else.
He was lying on the bed, peacefully asleep, and he had two hands, although one of them had a silvery sheen to it.
“But there is...no blood?” Blanche asked.
The irk smiled again and licked his lips. “I never leave a drop,” he agreed. And slipped through the door.
Blanche put a hand on Gabriel’s chest, but it rose and fell evenly, and his skin was warm—deliciously so.
He sighed.
Blanche leaned down, put her lips on his, and his eyes fluttered open.
“Ahh,” he said, and pulled at her insistently. She had no interest in struggling. But she made him wait while she removed and folded her kirtle. And when he touched her...
“Your hand is warm!” she said.
* * *
He rose when Toby knocked, his bare feet on the little rug he always carried in his camp gear. He pulled the bed-hanging closed behind him, for Blanche’s modesty and because she got cold.
Still half asleep, he yet had a moment to think that the real-life intimacy of Blanche was very different from his love-longing for Amicia. He wondered what that meant about him, as a person.
Toby looked wrecked. “My lord,” he said. “There are messages. The queen is rising and has ordered the council.” He leaned forward. “And begs the return of her lady.”
Gabriel closed his eyes for a moment and his heart beat very fast. “Dress me in two minutes,” he said. He shut the door.
Blanche was not a heavy sleeper. It was a piece with his earlier thought...the things he was learning about her, a whole realm of lovely and unlovely detail that went with constant intimacy. She was a delightful weight on him when she slept, curled against him...and she would suddenly talk in her sleep, which was less delightful.
She was awake, already off the bed. Her clothes, neatly stacked on a chest, went on.
“Lace me, please?” she said.
Gabriel still found her body fascinating, but this was not the time. He laced her up under her arm, resisted the temptation to either lechery or simple tickling, and helped her get her gown over her kirtle.
“Now the queen knows,” she said. It wasn’t bitter or accusatory. It was a flat statement.
“I think she already knew,” Gabriel said. “Do you know that you have some hermetical talent?”
She looked at him for a moment by the light of the single night candle. “Is this a compliment?”
He shook his head. “No. Simple truth. Interesting, nonetheless.”
“If you spend more time with Master Smythe, you’ll end up sounding just like him,” she said. She flashed a smile. “I’m afraid to face the queen,” she said.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
“No, you won’t,” she said. She put her hair up in three motions, put a veil over it, and nodded to herself. “Aren’t you supposed to start buying me jewels and so on?” she asked.
“Only after you demand offices and money for all your relatives,” he said.
She smiled. It was her real smile, and it was beautiful. “Sometimes, I’m still amazed I’m even talking to you. Or the queen. Or Becca.” She shrugged. She leaned over and kissed him, catching his top lip between hers, softly, so that his whole body surged toward her, but she was out of his arms and out the door with all her long practice. He heard her exchange comments with Toby in the antechamber, and then Toby came in with his clothes. Anne Woodstock, in nothing but a shift, came behind with a flagon of something hot and a tart on a wooden board. She laid them on a chest.
Despite his near-panic at whatever kind of message got the queen out of her bed while it was still dark, despite the flush still on his body from Blanche’s kiss, he had time to note that Anne Woodstock was not at all built like a boy. In livery, she merely seemed muscular. In a shift, she was heavily breasted, lithe and serious—and unconscious of her body as only a good dancer or a good swordsperson can be. She’d come to the company from one of the Brogat’s noblest families. She was a hard worker, and Gabriel had some notion he’d called her Nell the night before. So he cut through all the piled lumber in his own head and nodded to her and smiled.
“Good morning Anne,” he said.
She met his eye. “Good morning, my lord.” She brightened up considerably. She was very young—perhaps sixteen or seventeen, dark haired, and she did look like Nell.
He took the steaming flagon from her hand, poured it into the silver cup she held, and smiled again. “Duke of Thrake as I may be, Anne, I like my morning cup to be horn, not silver. It saves on burnt fingers, and I’ve not always lived so well. Horn is fine.”
She didn’t simper or apologize. She merely slipped out the door, returned with a small horn cup, and poured the steaming hypocras into it before handing him the result. He raised it in a toast to her efficiency. Michael had chosen her in the days after the battle, and as usual, Michael knew what he was about.
While the little drama of cups played out, Toby was dressing him with efficiency. He kept lacing when Francis Atcourt, now an officer, bowed his way in. Gabriel had kept him as his aide while he recuperated. Atcourt’s own wounds were all healed, almost scarlessly.
He nodded to Toby and received a nod from his captain.
“My lord,” he said formally. Gabriel was now “Captain” or “my lord” the first time he met anyone. After that, he permitted more intimacy.
He blinked as he realized that he’d made this rule since Blanche came into his life, and he thought...
“Shall I read them?” Atcourt asked. “Sorry, copies of the messages.” He waved a scroll.
“Go ahead,” Gabriel said. Toby was lacing his inner doublet to his hose.
Atcourt sipped Gabriel’s hypocras with the ease of long familiarity and began.
Riots in Liviapolis and plague. Demand immediate assistance. Irene.
Gabriel swore.
Venikan Duke has interviewed survivor of Battle of Gars. King of Galle dead. Lord D’Albemarle dead. Lord of Arles dead. Army shattered and nearly destroyed. Wild led by dragon. Citadel of Arles still in human hands as of last communication.
“What date?” Gabriel said. An icy fist clenched his heart.
“The report came in this hour, the date is yesterday.” Atcourt whistled. “Someone got a messenger bird across the sea.”
“Who is it?” Gabriel asked.
“E.23,” Atcourt said, after staring at the parchment. “Christ, I need spectacles.”
“Get them,” Gabriel said. “I’m off my game. E.23 is in the Logothete’s network?”
Atcourt made a face. “Must be. I’ll summon Alcaeus.”
“Immediately. He needs to know both messages. And probably get ready to ride. You have more?”
“Plague in Harndon,” Atcourt said. “Random’s doing what he can with confining families. Begs immediate sorcerous help.”
Gabriel clenched and unclenched his fists. “Fuck,” he spat. “I thought we were going to have a tournament.”
Toby put his head in. “Master Smythe,” he said, and then the dragon entered.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
Gabriel felt the slow wits of early morning, and it took him several beats to realize that Master Smythe meant the silver hand. He held it out, limp but warm, and the dragon took it with a sh
arp click.
“A few hours,” he said. He smiled and swept from the room.
“He frightens me,” Atcourt said.
Gabriel smiled. “He’s beginning to seem like family,” he said.
Atcourt looked up in surprise.
Gabriel’s smile was thin. “It’s a Muriens joke,” he said. “He frightens me, too.”
* * *
Torches spat and gave off resinous smells. It was an hour until dawn.
“Well?” asked the queen.
She looked at Gabriel and Harmodius, who were sitting together. Gabriel was looking at Master Smythe.
Master Smythe was staring at the fire on the hearth and combing his beard with his fingers. As usual, his fingers were too flexible.
“We have underestimated Ash,” he said.
Gabriel’s heart sank.
Master Smythe rose, as if he and not the queen were the ranking person present. Mogon’s crest rustled in annoyance, and Lord Kerak laughed aloud. Flint yawned.
The bear looked grey and old.
Smythe shrugged and looked at the queen. “But Ash has underestimated you, too,” he said. “Harmodius’s diagnostic working is superb. Mortirmir’s concoction can only buy time, but...” He looked back at Gabriel. “There should have been ten thousand dead already. Instead...you have a chance.”
“Will you help?” the queen asked.
“Yes,” Master Smythe said without hesitation. “Will you, in exchange, help me?”
“Is that not what allies do?” the queen asked. She didn’t smile. She didn’t look as if she had a smile in her.
He bowed. “Lady, I would ask that you, all your court, anyone infected or merely present on the battlefield in the last two weeks move immediately through the woods to the Inn of Dorling.” He looked at Gabriel. “Within the limits of my power I can prevent the spread of the thing, and influence its effect. Here, I am not powerless, but I am much less powerful.”
Harmodius stared at him, and then he, too, looked to Gabriel.
“What do you wish of us, dragon?” he asked. “I too would seek your aid, but we can defeat this by ourselves if your price is too high.”
Master Smythe looked around the table. “There are too many here for me to discuss freely what I wish. But I will say simply that what I will request is well within your means.”
“You don’t trust us?” Harmodius asked.
Master Smythe looked at Gabriel with a little desperation.
Gabriel shrugged. “Can we discuss yesterday’s adventure?” he asked. He thought he had it—the whole thread that led the master to look so desperate.
Master Smythe looked around the room pointedly.
Gabriel caught the queen’s eye and she nodded, and he stood.
“Master Smythe, this is the queen’s Small Council, with the additions of some of the greatest lords of the Wild. We are allies, and we have chosen to be open with each other. If you wish to join our alliance, you will have to share with us.”
Even the Golden Bear, Flint, nodded. Lord Kerak rose and bowed to indicate, in his fluid Irkish way, his complete agreement with the Red Duke.
The queen nodded. She had become less girlish and more regal, and her nod was that of the being in command.
Master Smythe went back to the fireplace and stared into it. Then he turned, very suddenly. And spoke.
“Very well, I agree,” he said evenly. “Yesterday, on the moor only six leagues from this tower, an Odine attempted to seize the soul of an unborn babe.” He put his hands behind his back. “I have known for some time that the Odine were stirring. But until yesterday I had no proof.” He met Gabriel’s eye. “And now...” He paused.
The pause lengthened.
“And now you know that the horde that crushed the Galles was led by a dragon,” the Red Knight prompted.
Master Smythe’s head shot round. But he made no denial. His nod was decisive. “Yes. Yes, Gabriel. You are very clever. That was it. The tipping point.”
The queen leaned back. “I confess I have no idea what you are discussing.”
Flint leaned back so that his heavy oak chair creaked in protest. “The Odine!” he said. He coughed the name, and Lord Kerak was seen to shade his eyes with his hand.
The rest of the council looked puzzled. The Grand Squire coughed into his hand. “Surely we need to concentrate on the plague,” he said.
Gabriel frowned. “We must attack the plague with every resource to hand,” he said. “But that is a matter of writs and scholars working until their fingers burn. We are going to take losses now.” His voice was bitter. “I should have seen this coming,” he admitted.
The Grand Squire nodded at him. “I am not sure that we could have done better than we did.”
“And thanks to God,” said Prior Wishart, “that we kept the army together and the hospital for the wounded down by Gilson’s Hole.” He looked around. “I have come from there. The cough is very bad...and many workers have already fled, carrying it south.”
Gabriel nodded. “The camp was Amicia’s inspiration, and may, in the last accounting, prove the most vital decision of the war. And we need her—as soon as possible.”
Harmodius nodded sharply. “Except,” he said quietly, and looked at Master Smythe, who nodded.
“Except that you will not have her much longer,” he said quietly.
“Is this prophecy?” the queen asked. “She is one of my kingdom’s most potent resources.”
Harmodius and Gabriel and Kerak and Smythe all shook their heads in unison. “Not prophecy,” Harmodius said.
“Apotheosis,” Master Smythe said.
Becca Almspend, who was acting chancellor, sighed. “Your Grace, I am not usually the slowest or least-informed person in any room, but I do not understand half of what I’m hearing. May we suspend general discussion and force the interested parties to tell us what they’re talking about.” She favoured them all with a thin smile. Ser Ranald grinned.
Master Smythe nodded. “First, in the matter of the Odine. The Odine are an ancient race here. Perhaps even the first. Eons ago, they fought...us. We, whom you call dragons. For possession of this world.”
“Men were the slave soldiers of the dragons,” Gabriel put in, helpfully.
“Irks were the same for the Kraal,” Kerak said. “Until our masters found another way. And fled to the oceans.”
Mogon rumbled. “I know too much about this,” she said.
“These are dark waters,” Kerak said. “And best left untroubled. The Odine were...not like us. Even dragons,” he said. “Yet you defeated them.”
Master Smythe played with his beard. “Yes,” he said. “We did. As they defeated the Kraal, and drove them into the sea. But did not destroy them.” He shrugged. “I have two theories, equally viable, and I will share them. One is that Ash has awakened the Odine to use them against the rest of us. I can tell you that at some point, his sole objective became, and remains, the complete destruction of humans. I suspect he may be adding the irks and wardens to this by now.” He looked around. “My second theory is that Ash has taken the actions he has taken in response to discovering that the Odine are awakening.” He shrugged. “If this is the case, he has elected perhaps to act against men before they become pawns and slaves of the Odine, rendering the Odine more powerful than they have ever been.”
He looked at Becca Almspend. “Madame,” he said, “I am surprised that a person of your knowledge does not know that the use of power has an effect on any creature. It is not quantifiable, and it is different from individual to individual, but the eventual end is the same. The person fades. Or...becomes...”
“Becomes what?” Almspend asked.
The dragon shook his head. “No one knows. Some of them seem to linger and exert great power, and some simply vanish.” He laughed. “It doesn’t seem to happen to dragons.”
“The saints,” said Prior Wishart.
“Perhaps,” the dragon said, in a voice that suggested the opposite.
The queen looked around. “That was fascinating, and perhaps terrifying. Now let us get down to the business of the realm. I cannot affect the Odine. But by God, gentles, I can fight the plague. Are we in favour of Master Smythe’s offer?”
Gabriel looked around. “Yes,” he said. “I confess it falls in with my other plans, but yes. We must preserve this council and our court against the plague so that we can continue to rule and direct the war.” He shrugged. “I know how that sounded. But if we advertise the fair and the tournament, we’ll bring many, many people into the circle.”
The queen nodded. “Draconian,” she said. She even smiled.
There was no dissent, and Lord Shawn, who had just coughed black flecks onto his hand, was distracted. But his courage was of a different order. Calmly enough, he said, “I want to hear the cost, first.”
Harmodius nodded to Lord Shawn and escorted him out of the room and placed him in isolation. When he returned, as soon as he entered, he recast his working of the night before.
“No one else,” he said. “Yet. What have we decided?”
Almspend held up a stack of parchments. “Six acts for isolation and comfort of the inflicted,” she said.
Gabriel was writing on a wax tablet. “We’re off to Dorling as soon as we can arrange it. I’m not—I have another errand, but I’ll meet up with you and the queen. You and Master Smythe and Amicia and Mortirmir will try to crack the plague there...then we act.” He paused. “You realize that we will lose many of our soldiers and knights, and that this will impact the harvest and the urban economy. There may be no taxes this autumn, Your Grace.”
The queen nodded. “Better no taxes than no people,” she said.
But Prior Wishart looked at the queen. “No taxes, and no army,” he said. “That is when Ash will attack. In the fall.”
As the councilors hurried out to pack and move, and as Ser Ranald began discussing the evacuation in detail with Lady Almspend, Gabriel knelt by the queen’s chair. Master Smythe came up behind him.
“What of the Etruscans and the Galles?” the queen asked.
“What of them?” Gabriel replied.
She met his eye. “Will you be emperor?” she asked. “If you are, it is very much your problem.” She raised an eyebrow. “And where is Ser Alcaeus?”
The Plague of Swords Page 9
