That confirmed something I’d suspected for some time, but still I said, ‘You’re a liar. You might be a God, but you aren’t Valour.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because Gods appear to us wearing the faces of those who most represent their aspect to us.’
‘And who best personifies Valour for you, First Cantor?’
‘You know the answer.’
He sighed. ‘I would show you her face, Falcio, but you won’t let me.’
That drew a hoarse chuckle from me. ‘Let you? Since when do mortals command the Gods?’
‘Since always – I thought you understood that.’ He reached out a hand towards me. ‘Give me leave, Falcio; let me show you her face. She was so valiant, so determined to live up to your example, to—’
‘No!’ I screamed, and the cat scratched me a second time before leaping from my lap.
‘Can you not set aside your anger for one instant? Just for one moment, to marvel at who she was? At what she did? This country you have fought so hard for sits on the precipice, Falcio. It needs valour now more than ever.’
‘Then maybe you should stop letting those who show it die all the time.’
‘It’s not the Gods who commit such acts. No God made Ossia plot to kill her own son, or make you try t—’
‘Get out,’ I shouted, and then less coherently, ‘Get out! Leave me alone, damn you! Or give me a damn sword so I can kill you myself!’
His expression showed no sadness nor anger as he stared back at me – I suppose neither emotion meant much to him. Instead, he walked to the cell door, opened it as though it were unlocked and walked out. He left it ajar.
I ran to it and slammed it shut, tripping as I did and hitting my head against the bars. I fell to my knees. ‘Stay away from me,’ I said, more to myself than anyone else, for both Valour and the cat were gone. ‘And don’t do me any damned favours. I wouldn’t need your help if I wanted to escape!’
‘Well, I suppose that’s good, because I’m not here to break you out.’
I looked up and saw Kest, standing outside the cell in the shadows. We stared at each other for a while, then I asked, ‘I don’t suppose you saw a God on your way here?’ I held out a hand, palm facing down just below the height of my chest. ‘Little fellow? Goes around with an alley cat?’
He shook his head.
Damn. I’d done exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do. I’d let myself be berated by my own insanity. I went back to sit on my cot. ‘Well, then, what is it you want?’
‘I meant what I said, Falcio. I’m not here to help you escape.’
‘Did I ask you to?’
‘You shouldn’t need to!’ He made the words sound like an indictment.
‘I imagine it took some convincing to get Brasti not to do something rash.’
‘Brasti saw reason.’ Kest paused, then added, ‘Once he regained consciousness.’
Despite everything that had happened, the thought of what had doubtless been a number of colourful exchanges between the two of them brought a smile to my face.
‘You should know that Valiana wanted to free you,’ Kest said.
‘You stopped her?’
‘I did.’
‘Thank you for that.’
‘It wasn’t easy,’ he said. ‘When I wouldn’t let her, she very nearly allowed the adoracia to take her over so that she could fight me. Still, that was nothing compared to Ethalia.’
I had wondered that she hadn’t come to see me, though I had no idea what we’d say to each other, not after what I’d almost done. ‘Did she threaten to use her Saint’s Awe on you?’
‘She threatened a great many things – I have to say, for a Saint of Mercy she’s developed a rather loose interpretation of the job.’
I leaned back on my cot, the rough-spun linen sheet cool through the thin fabric of my shirt. ‘You have to keep them from trying to free me, Kest – all of them. If they do something foolish—’
He slammed a fist against the bars, sending a clanging sound through the cell. ‘I don’t need you to explain the state of the world to me, Falcio! Do you think I’m unaware how precarious you’ve made things? They would have rounded up and hanged every Greatcoat in Aramor already, were it not for the dubious goodwill of a boy not yet sixteen who is utterly in love with Trin!’
‘Well,’ I said, allowing my own anger to slip through, ‘it probably helps that you fucking saved her.’
He gave no reply to that, and for a long while, all I could hear was the soft in-and-out of his breathing, so perfectly even, so controlled. There was something reassuring about that. It was only because I was listening so closely that I realised he’d begun to cry.
‘He made me promise, Falcio.’
Despite the tears, the words had been spoken without ire, with barely any emotion.
‘Who made you promise – promise what?’
‘The King.’
I got up from the cot and faced him. ‘King Paelis made you promise to stop me killing Trin?’
‘That night, before the Dukes came for him . . . He called me in before he saw you. He gave me my mission then.’
‘You said your mission was to help me,’ I said, acutely aware of the accusation in my voice. ‘To help me find his Charoites—’
‘No, you just assumed that my purpose was to protect you, and I allowed you to believe that because I . . .’ He hesitated. ‘Because that’s how it’s always been between us. But that’s not the command the King gave me.’
‘Then what—?’
‘“Stop him”,’ he said to me. ‘“If the time comes . . . If Falcio abandons the law, you have to be the one to stop him. That is the final command I give you, Kest Murrowson though it breaks both your heart and mine”.’
I felt something cold and thick in my throat that was making it hard to speak, to breathe. ‘The King thought I would—?’
‘He had more faith in you than in the all the rest of us combined, Falcio, but he knew there was a side to you . . . a part of you that loved him so much you would do anything to bring about the vision of the world you both shared. But a dream unchecked by conscience, unrestrained by the law? That’s the first step towards tyranny, Falcio.’
‘Then it’s too bad he didn’t have you follow Morn around, because he’s the one who—’
‘The King didn’t fear Morn, Falcio. He didn’t fear Patriana or the Dukes or anyone else. He believed in you so much that he trusted you to find a way to stop them. But if you went wrong? If you turned your back on what the Greatcoats stood for?’ Kest looked heartbroken. ‘I pleaded with him to pick someone else, Falcio. I begged him.’
The guilt and sorrow in Kest’s words became a poison in the back of my throat, mixing with my own shame and betrayal. Not only had Paelis so feared what I might one day become that he’d set my best friend against me, but in the end, I’d also proven him right. It took a long time before I could bring myself to ask, ‘What happens now? Does Paelis’ final mission compel you to . . . ? Have you come down here to kill me, Kest?’
For a moment the old Kest shone through: that laconic demeanour, the dry sense of humour, so subtle that most people mistook it for disinterest. ‘I’m fairly sure Trin has that covered.’
The jibe took me unawares and despite myself I laughed and added, ‘I almost feel sorry for her; she’s already used up the Greatcoat’s Lament on me. She must be poring through every book on punishment and torture ever written searching for something new to inflict me with.’
‘Ah, that’s your one piece of good fortune: Trin intends Filian’s first act as King to be your execution: “A show of strength,” she said. Her voice had a distinct note of glee in it at the time; I believe she was hoping to goad me into some reckless attempt to rescue you.’
‘I guess she’s in for a surprise.’ It was
hard to imagine Filian executing anyone – although he had killed that poor mad dog of his. ‘How’s our new King supposed to do the deed?’
‘With a greatsword. A single stroke, apparently.’
That made sense. Watching your new monarch chopping away at a dying man’s neck for half an hour would make for a tiresome end to a coronation. I had a thought then. ‘Maybe he could borrow that great big bugger of a sword Hadiermo lugs around with him.’
That drew an unexpected chortle from Kest, who looked both surprised and a little mortified by the slightly high-pitched sound. ‘Don’t make me laugh like that,’ he said, returning to his usual reserved expression. ‘It’s humiliating.’
‘Perhaps you should take a break from mastering fighting techniques one day and spend a little time practising a slightly less embarrassing laugh.’
He hesitated, then, looking a little sheepish, confessed, ‘I’ve tried, believe me. Turns out laughter isn’t an entirely voluntary reaction.’
Maybe it was all the days and nights I’d spent sitting alone in my cell recently, but I found Kest’s admission unimaginably funny. I started laughing so hard I had to work at getting enough of a breath to mock him further.
‘Oh, Saints, just give me enough time before my beheading to tell Brasti that after all these years of being able to master everything from the most esoteric schools of fencing to the most complicated foreign dances, the great Kest Murrowson, the finest fighter in the country, the man who somehow once defeated Caveil-whose-blade-cuts-water himself, who—’
‘Falcio?’ Kest asked.
Something that had started as a passing thought, a question, really, began to tickle the inside of my mind until finally I stared at him through the bars and swore, ‘Son of a bitch. Tell me it isn’t true.’
‘Tell you what isn’t true?’ he asked, but a moment later his normally serious expression broke into a wide grin and I knew I was right.
Brasti and I had always wondered why Kest refused to tell us how he’d managed to beat Caveil-whose-blade-cuts-water. Considering you usually can’t get Kest to shut up about the particular virtues of the various martial strategies he’s mastered, he was abnormally silent on the subject of his duel with the Saint of Swords. Privately, we’d begun to suspect that there had to have been some form of divine intervention – which Brasti insisted was preposterously unfair – but this . . .
‘How was it even possible?’ I asked.
Kest shrugged. ‘Right before I was to fight Caveil, when I asked you how you’d beaten me in the fencing match to become First Cantor, you told me you’d fooled me into using my own reflexes against myself. Of course, I didn’t exactly have time to trick Caveil into making his muscles memorise the necessary reactions.’ He shook his head. ‘He was so fast, Falcio. I could barely even see his blade moving. Every time I tried to thrust at him, he just batted away my sword before the tip had moved even an inch. There was no way I could win in a fair fight.’
‘So you . . . ?’
‘Even as he was cutting me to ribbons, Caveil was boasting about the price you and Brasti and the others would pay for my arrogance in challenging him. He was describing the things he’d do to you all – he started saying, “I’ll use their stiffened corpses as decorations in my home” – and then . . . just when he was going to deliver the final blow . . .’ Kest looked down and leaned his head against the bars. ‘Please don’t ever tell Brasti about this. You have to promise . . .’
‘Why not?’
‘Because at that exact moment I found myself remembering the punchline to that joke Brasti always tells – about three lonely nuns and a dead cleric? You know the one: “Be careful where you sit, sister, or you’ll be committing a mortal sin”—’
The snort that came out my nose nearly set the bars of my cell shaking. ‘And Caveil?’
Kest looked up and I could see tears in his eyes from trying to hold back the laughter. ‘He was so shocked – he tried not to laugh, and he just stood there frozen. It was only an instant – less than half a second – but in that time I got the point of my sword into line and—’
‘You killed the Saint of Swords, the greatest fencer alive, with a dirty joke.’
Kest was giggling so hard now he had to grip the bars just to stay on his feet. ‘You can’t tell Brasti. I beg you. If he knew—’
‘He’d go around claiming he was the one who really defeated Caveil?’
Gradually Kest got hold of himself and said, very seriously, ‘I can endure almost anything, Falcio, but not having to refer to the worst swordsman I know as Brasti-whose-naughty-jokes-slay-all-monsters.’
That sent the two of us into another fit of uncontrollable laughter that must have made the guard at the other end of the hall wonder if we’d both gone completely mad.
When exhaustion finally settled upon us, I reached a hand through the bars and touched Kest’s arm. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘For what?’
It was such a simple question, but the answer was far too small to encompass the magnitude of what he’d done for me. Kest had been there for me since we were children. He’d given up everything to stay by my side – and now, having traded every other happiness for what little my friendship had provided in return, he was about to lose that too.
Before I could answer, we were interrupted by the sounds of two sets of footsteps coming towards us, and a moment later, Dezerick appeared, escorting Valiana.
It occurred to me that I’d had entirely too many visitors in one night for a prisoner, so I asked, just to be sure, ‘Kest, is there an annoyingly well-groomed guard standing there with my daughter?’
He glanced at them. ‘It appears so.’
‘All right then.’ I let go of his arm. ‘I guess you’d better go.’
Valiana waited until after he’d left before gesturing to Dezerick.
He looked uncomfortable. ‘Realm’s Protector—’
‘Do it.’
He brought out his key and unlocked the door.
‘Valiana, whatever it is you think you’re doing—’
She cut me off. ‘Filian knows I’m here, and what I’m doing. Duke Jillard has asked to see you and the heir to the throne has given his consent.’
It made sense that he might not want to alienate the most powerful Duke in the country before he’d even been crowned, but I was sick and tired of political games and machinations. I went back to my cot. ‘Tell his Grace that I’m rather busy at the moment. Perhaps we could arrange a later meeting, sometime after the coronation ceremony.’
‘It has to be now.’
I sighed. ‘Fine. He can come down here then.’
She hesitated for a moment, then said softly, ‘Jillard is dying.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
The Duke of Rijou
The body is a strange thing. After all, what is the human vessel but an inelegant accumulation of blood and bone, skin and sinew? As a child, long before I learned that it was we who had shaped the Gods and not the other way around, I thought they must have marvelled at their strange creations: these ungainly amalgamations that somehow walked and talked and thought and loved. From nothing we become men and women who write poems and wage wars and conceive of futures both wondrous and terrifying.
When I’d taken up fencing, I came to see the human body differently: as a machine, with levers and gears: a clockwork contraption that could be carefully tuned and oiled to peak efficiency, its purpose to point and swing a blade smoothly and swiftly, to disassemble other machines within the circular confines of a duelling court. Eventually the day comes when the gears turn a fraction too slowly, when the lever sticks at the wrong moment and the contraption itself is dismantled.
‘He’s in here,’ Valiana said, motioning to the half-open door through which I could hear the strains of a guitar. Vibrations became sounds that turned into notes as a melody form
ed, then into a song I recognised: a lullaby, of all things, a favourite of mine as a child.
I laughed. After all this time, Jillard and I had found something in common.
Valiana’s fingers touched my arm and she looked into my eyes, as if measuring how far into madness I had already descended, how much further I might go.
I pushed the door aside and entered the infirmary. Nehra was perched on a wooden chair; it had lost one of its legs and she was keeping herself balanced with her feet while she played that much-travelled guitar of hers. Jillard, Duke of Rijou, lay in a bed, all the regal bearing of his person, the splendid clothes, the carefully coiffed and oiled hair, the fine features of his face, rendered absurd by the ashen colour of his skin. All that he was, all he had done, all he had aspired to, was grinding to a halt.
His eyes found mine as I approached him.
‘Did you kill them?’ he asked.
‘Them’ is rather non-specific when one is speaking of death, but I knew exactly who he meant. In this case, ‘them’ meant all of them: Trin, Filian, Ossia, her soldiers – not to mention the retainers who might have assisted in the plan, minor nobles who might have been consulted, contingencies in case of later complications, innocents who had nonetheless failed to prevent what had taken place.
‘Them’ meant everyone who had contributed to Aline’s death.
‘Not yet,’ I replied.
A long, slow breath slipped from between his lips and his eyes closed. I thought perhaps he had died, but he had only sighed. ‘That’s a shame.’
Nehra’s playing changed, the notes becoming harder, more precise. I no longer recognised the melody, but I understood the song’s purpose. She had been giving him what ease her music could provide to gentle his body and keep him alive as long as possible. Now she was telling us time was growing short.
‘I’m sorry I can’t shake your hand, Falcio,’ he said. He pulled his arm from under the blanket. The hand and forearm had been removed.
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