Bendain spoke up. ‘He’s lying, sir. I heard his soldiers saying that Valiana tried to kill the Ducal Protector. They’ve got her locked in a room. They said they’re going to—’
‘Be quiet, boy,’ Captain Lendale said. ‘No one’s going to do anything until I’ve properly secured the prisoner and investigated the assault.’
‘Actually,’ Kest said, ‘if the alleged assault has taken place within the castle, jurisdiction would fall under the purview of the highest magisterial authority in Aramor.’
‘That’s us, by the way,’ Brasti said, no doubt pleased with himself for knowing that much about the law.
The Captain shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, no; without a monarch on the throne we’re within our rights to—’
I cut him off with a gesture, then considered my next words. Despite my history, I really don’t go around trying to get into fights with Ducal guardsmen on a regular basis. ‘I understand your desire to protect your Lord, but there are three things you need to consider.’
‘What would those be?’ he asked, visibly determined not to give ground.
‘First, Valiana is Ducal Protector of Tristia. She’s not subject to arrest by anyone without an edict from the Ducal Council.’
‘That’s debatable,’ the Captain said.
I sighed. I sometimes think it’s like they want to be beaten senseless. ‘Second, as First Cantor of the Greatcoats, I have no intention of leaving this in the hands of a bunch of thick-witted grunts from a backwater Duchy whose sole distinction in the judicial arts has thus far been its occasional efforts to exceed Rijou in the practice of torturing suspects.’
‘Falcio . . .’ Kest began.
‘Does he do this all the time?’ Chalmers asked. ‘He just hauled me off for threatening a guard and now he’s ready to start a war?’
I kept my eyes on the Captain. ‘Third, and of vastly more consequence to your current predicament, Valiana val Mond is my daughter.’
‘Guess that explains it,’ Chalmers muttered.
‘You have no idea,’ Brasti said.
Captain Lendale seemed a reasonable enough man, and from the expression on his face, I suspected he might have a daughter of his own. ‘Look, Trattari, I mean no disrespect to you, or to the Realm’s Protector, but my orders are—’
A woman’s voice boomed from behind me, ‘Who the fuck do I kill first?’ and Darriana came striding down the hall towards us, that long, thin blade of hers in hand and a fire in her eyes more black than red.
‘Oh, hello, dear,’ Brasti said. ‘I promise I was coming to visit you first, but circumstances—’
‘Shut up.’ Darri turned to me. ‘Valiana’s in there?’
‘I believe so.’
She looked at Captain Lendale and his soldiers, who probably outnumbered us three to one. ‘Why haven’t you killed them yet?’
‘I was getting around to it.’
Kest came to stand next to me, examining the assembled guardsmen and doubtless assessing the best lines of attack.
When I looked at the Captain, I saw that he too had a keen eye for the logistics of violence. ‘Soldiers of Luth, form up,’ he said grimly.
‘You’ll lose,’ Kest warned.
‘Not before I take you lot down with me.’
Kest raised his shield and Brasti took up position behind it, resting an arrow just above the circular rim.
‘Captain,’ I said, ‘in about five seconds I’m going to give the order and Brasti will begin to fire. Several of your men will be injured trying to get to him, but I promise they won’t get past Kest. In the meantime, I’m going to do my best not to kill you while Darriana takes out two of your—’
‘Three,’ she said.
‘Sorry, three of your soldiers.’
‘You forgot about me,’ Chalmers said, her cutlass in hand. ‘Again.’
‘None of us want to spill blood tonight, Captain, but this hall is crowded and with these narrow angles, several of you will be sleeping six feet below ground when we’re done.’
To his credit, Captain Lendale looked fully prepared to test my calculations – but fortunately for all of us, Pastien, Ducal Protector of Luth, finally managed to rouse himself.
‘Let them through, Lendale,’ he murmured, and the Captain instantly stood down, his soldiers following suit a beat after.
‘What happened here, Pastien?’ I asked, stepping past them, ‘and more importantly, where is Valiana?’
The handsome young Lord managed to look both ashamed and defiant as he pointed to the barred door a few feet away. ‘She’s in there, but I can’t allow you to—’
I pushed past him and confronted the two men determinedly guarding the door. ‘I’m told good soldiers are hard to find, Pastien. It would be a shame for you to lose two of yours.’
‘You don’t understand, Falcio. Something’s happened to her. She . . .’ He paused, giving his best impression of a man torn in two. ‘Very well. I would have preferred to keep this matter quiet, but—’
‘You’ve done a fine job of that so far,’ Brasti said, waving airily at the assembled mob of nobles, servants and guardsmen who formed Pastien’s entourage. From their faces I could see that they had already formed their own opinions: some looked horrified, some offended – and the rest were smirking.
‘Talk, my Lord,’ I said.
‘Valiana and I were . . . That is to say, we have grown close of late and . . . although I respected her modesty without question, we were . . .’
‘The word you’re looking for is “fucking”,’ Brasti offered helpfully.
‘Not helping,’ I told him.
Pastien swallowed and located the balls he’d apparently not had any trouble finding earlier. ‘We were sharing an intimate moment when she . . .’ He looked at me and swallowed again, then turned his back to me. I could see thin tracks of blood beginning to stick to the inside of his shirt. ‘I’m sorry, First Cantor, but she went insane. I believe the adoracia has taken hold of her again.’
I felt something tearing at my guts. No, she overcame the Adoracia fidelis. She proved she could withstand it.
‘Valiana attacked you?’ Kest asked.
Pastien nodded. ‘I barely managed to get out – I had my men bar the door from the outside so she could do no further harm to anyone.’
Several of the nobles snickered and someone remarked, ‘A bitch in heat is often hard to contain.’ I thought about killing him, but that would have to wait; I had bigger problems to deal with right then.
‘Tell your men to move aside and unbar the door, my Lord. I will see to Valiana.’
He stepped in front of me and put a hand on my shoulder, which would have been brave, had I not been able to feel him shaking. ‘You cannot, First Cantor. The madness has taken her. She is like a mad dog now. We must wait until morning and hope it passes.’
That was the second time someone had referred to her as a dog.
I can’t have been doing a very good job of hiding my reaction, because a moment later Pastien stepped aside and motioned for his men to do the same.
As I reached up to lift off the bar they’d wedged between two brackets that normally held lanterns, I felt a hand on my arm.
‘Falcio . . .’
‘Don’t start with me, Kest.’
‘I know, but just tell me you’ve got a plan in case things go badly in there.’
I lifted the bar and leaned it against the wall. ‘When do I ever have a plan in these situations?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Madwoman
I entered into near darkness, the only light coming from a candle that had been knocked to the floor and was now threatening to set the rug aflame.
‘Stay away,’ Valiana said. Her voice was growly, rough, as if she’d been screaming. ‘I don’t want you to see me like this.’
‘Aline’s already inheriting a rather shabby castle, sweetheart,’ I said, kneeling by the candle on the rug. ‘I really can’t have you going around setting what’s left of it on fire.’
‘Leave it,’ she said. ‘Let me burn. Let the flames drive away the madness inside me. If you come closer, you may have to kill me yourself.’
Wax dripped on my hand as I picked up the candle, but I ignored it. ‘If Kest were here, he’d tell you that burning is considered to be the most painful way of dying.’
‘I told you, stay away.’
The tiny wick didn’t do much to light the room, but I could see Valiana sitting up in the bed, her back against the headboard, cloaked in shadow.
‘Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Well, if fire is the most painful way to die, then what’s the least painful?” Luckily for you, I’ve given this a great deal of thought and I believe the answer is: in your sleep, at a ripe old age, surrounded by those who love you best.’ I walked to the bed. ‘And that, Valiana val Mond, is the only death I will grant you.’
Strands of sweat-dampened hair were sticking to her face and tears tracked misery down her cheeks. She was naked, which made me uncomfortable, and filled with sorrow and self-hatred, which was infinitely worse. She pulled the sheet up as I approached. ‘I went mad, Falcio – I thought I could control it, but the adoracia was too strong for me.’
‘Nothing is too strong for you,’ I said, too quickly.
Sometimes I say these things, and I swear that in my own head they make perfect sense and should, if the world functioned in any sort of logical way, make the people I care about feel better. Only they don’t; somehow, I just make things worse. In Valiana’s case, that manifested as her covering her eyes, her fingers curling into her dark hair, and sobbing.
I set the candle down on the flat corner-post of the bed and sat down, not too close, for fear of . . . well, making things worse again. Despite my general ineptitude in all matters pertaining to women, I was about to try consoling her again when the sound of a commotion outside reached us. My hand went to my rapier: at least if we were being attacked I’d be of some use.
The noise went away, and a moment later we heard a quiet knock at the door.
It’s odd to say that you can recognise a knock when most people do it pretty much the same way, but I knew this one instantly.
‘Make them go away, whoever it is,’ Valiana sobbed.
‘It’s Ethalia.’
Valiana looked at me. I knew she didn’t want anyone to see her this way, but she needed help. ‘She’s the Saint of Mercy,’ I reminded her. ‘She was able to reduce the effects of the adoracia before – perhaps she can do so again.’
It took a while, but eventually Valiana nodded and I opened the door to reveal Ethalia, surrounded by a pale white glow. Behind her, the hall was filled with people on their knees, including Kest and Brasti.
‘Could you please tell her to stop doing that?’ Brasti asked.
Ethalia entered the room and I closed the door behind her. ‘It’s the adoracia,’ I warned. ‘Valiana attacked Pastien.’
‘So he tells everyone who will listen,’ she said.
Ethalia is, most days, the most peaceful and gentle person you will ever meet. I suppose that goes with being a Sister of Merciful Light – and now she’s the actual Saint of Mercy, so it goes double. Right now, though, she wasn’t striking me as all that merciful.
‘I didn’t know you were in the castle,’ I said.
‘I returned a few days ago.’ She briefly put a hand on my arm and squeezed it, recognition that there was no time for us now but we would talk later. ‘Wait outside, Falcio.’
‘But what if—?’
She left me standing there as she went to Valiana’s bedside, the glow around her lighting up the room.
*
‘Well?’ Brasti asked as I left the room. ‘Is Valiana a complete lunatic now, or just a mostly crazy person?’
I glanced around the hall. Pastien and his retainers were gone, though several of his guards remained, along with some of the nobles housed in this wing. They were all staring at me, awaiting an answer.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. That was the truth.
Whatever goes to make up raw courage, Valiana had more of it than any person I’d ever met. Two months ago she’d done the impossible: she’d overcome the effects of Adoracia fidelis, a poison that would drive anyone – well, anyone except a Saint – to utter madness. Except, of course, she hadn’t actually overcome it; the adoracia still raged in her veins, which meant that she had to continually push the madness aside, every second of every minute of every hour of every day, a feat I could barely imagine. When my wife Aline died, I’d embraced insanity with both arms rather than face the world. I doubt I’d have lasted five minutes with Adoracia fidelis in my blood.
Kest came and stood next to me. ‘Her strength has surprised us before.’
‘Ethalia is with her; with any luck she’ll help her regain full control of herself again.’ I noticed Darriana was nowhere to be seen. ‘Where’s—?’
‘Who knows?’ Brasti said, sounding annoyed. ‘Once she heard Valiana wasn’t in danger she just took off.’
A noblewoman in her nightclothes whose name I’d forgotten approached me, her husband, similarly attired, close behind. ‘That creature should be locked up in a cell, not running around attacking the Ducal Protector of Luth!’
‘I take it you’re fond of Pastien, then?’
The husband gave one of those noises nobles make that’s supposed to make you realise you’ve overstepped the bounds of propriety. It sounds a lot like harrumph, only with more phlegm. ‘We are loyal and patriotic citizens of Luth,’ he announced portentously.
‘That’s odd,’ I said. ‘I seem to recall the Ducal Protector being in rather dire need of loyal citizens a couple of months ago – I can’t say I remember any of you stepping up to defend him when the Prelate and his Church Knights came to call.’
I felt a sharp sting on my left cheek: the man had slapped me. I mean, he’d really slapped me! This crook-backed, pot-bellied nobleman had brought his arm back, opened his hand and cuffed me as if I were an errant child.
‘You dare to laugh at the Viscount of Destre?’ his wife demanded.
Truth be told, I hadn’t even noticed I was laughing. ‘Your pardon, my Lady.’ I looked at the Viscount. ‘My Lord. I regret my hasty and thoughtless words.’
There followed a bit more harrumphing and a few choice insults about the Greatcoats’ lack of manners and courage, but at last they retired back to their chambers.
I leaned back against the door of Pastien’s room and noticed Chalmers was staring at me with one eyebrow raised. ‘Since when do the Greatcoats take shit from petty noblemen in their nightshirts?’
I took in a breath and let it whistle out through my teeth. ‘Do you suppose you could resist the urge to remind me what a disappointment I am just long enough for me to find out what’s happened to my daughter?’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ Brasti told her. ‘Ever since Falcio figured out the country’s going down the toilet he’s convinced it’s all his fault.’
‘We have to make peace with the nobles,’ I said, ‘at least until Aline is crowned and gets the economy working again.’
That didn’t appear to satisfy Chalmers, so Kest added, ‘Luth is a major agricultural provider and one of the few Duchies whose support we may be able to secure for Aline.’
Brasti snorted. ‘So is that why these arseholes get to sleep in the nice rooms with proper beds and I’m supposed to sleep outside in tents?’
‘Yes, Brasti,’ I replied, ‘that’s exactly why you’ll be sleeping on the cold, hard ground tonight and why I’m letting venal old men slap me in the face and call me names.’ It was also the reason why I hadn’t already gone to find Pas
tien to beat him senseless for having abandoned Valiana in the midst of an adoracia attack.
I suddenly stumbled forward as the door behind me opened and Ethalia stepped out.
The glow was gone, but her eyes burned white.
‘Ethalia?’
She ignored me and turned to the few remaining stragglers in the hall. ‘Go back to bed. Now.’ To the soldiers she said, ‘You can fulfil your duties just as easily at the end of the hallway.’
A couple of them didn’t look pleased to be addressed in such a fashion, but she said, ‘Now!’ and whatever they saw in her eyes was enough to make them reconsider any potential obstinacy.
‘What is it?’ I asked her urgently. ‘Is Valiana—?’
‘Bide,’ she said.
To anyone else, Ethalia would have looked calm, fully in control of herself. To me, she might as well have been on fire.
Once the guards had made their way to the end of the hall, she said, ‘Valiana is fine.’
‘Fine?’ Brasti asked. ‘She attacked the bloody Ducal Protector of Luth. Not that I mind, given what a twat he is, but still, it can’t be good for business to go about—’
‘You should be silent now.’
He shut his mouth. For about a second. Then the essential nature of Brasti Goodbow reasserted itself. ‘Listen, Ethalia, since I haven’t had the pleasure of your company in bed, I’d as soon you not play the shrewish wife with me—’
It’s true, he’s rude and offensive, but you really have to admire someone who can stand in the presence of a Saint and still be an arrogant twit.
‘Let’s focus on Valiana,’ I said. ‘How can she be fine if—?’
‘It’s not the adoracia poisoning,’ Ethalia said.
‘Then what?’
‘I prefer not to say.’
That threw me for a moment. ‘Ethalia, if there’s some danger to Valiana or to those—?’
‘There is no danger. I told you, it’s not the adoracia.’
‘Then—’
‘Aha!’ Brasti said, his mouth breaking into a wide grin. ‘I figured it out.’ He looked from me to Kest as if to ascertain that we didn’t know what was going on. ‘It appears our little Valiana has something of the vixen in her. Who would’ve thought she—?’
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